Flatfoot holds the helmet of Teckstyle in his hands, staring in stunned silence.
“Teck? Speak to me buddy. I know you’re in there!” Flat shakes the helmet violently. A few charred circuits crumble out. Flat curses and throws the helmet to the ground.
The helmet bounces and lands with a beep.
“If you can hear this, then I’m dead,” the pre-recorded voice of Teckstyle says. “Flat, I just wanted you to know…that I hold you entirely responsible for this, and that whatever it was, it was a stupid idea.”
The helmet beeps again and goes silent.
Flat kicks the helmet angrily across the street, then hops around on one foot, crying out in pain.
Crank Shaft enters the kitchen.
“Yo, Deady. Its time.”
“Whu-?” Deadfoot asks between crunchy mouthfuls.
“What are you eating?”
“Milk.” Deadfoot holds out the rancid carton. “Want some?”
“Hell no!” Crank recoils. “Get in gear. It’s revenge time.”
Flat sits on the curb, quietly holding Teckstyle’s helmet. Occasionally traffic swerves to avoid hitting him. A small red butterfly flutters by and lands on Flat’s face. He yells out in alarm and waves his hands around like a little girl trying to shoo it away, then he goes back to staring at the helmet.
“You are Flatfoot?” a voice asks.
“Eh,” Flat answers.
“Please stand up,” the voice continues. “The city is in grave danger.”
“Who are you?”
“I am a luminous being, come to help-”
“Go away, I’m not in the mood.”
“Will you get up off your duff you big idiot!”
Flat looks at the helmet closely. “Teck?”
“Sure. Why not. It is I… Teck.”
“Did you shrink or something?”
“There’s no time to explain everything. We have to get to Terra Volta to stop the reactor from overloading.”
Flat jumps up. “City in danger? That means all those hot Carnies in their corsets and jester hats too, right? We can’t let that happen!”
“Wait,” the voice says. “You can’t stop it on your own. You…We, will need help. Do a scan for any local heroes.”
“Um, how?”
“Put the helmet on, it should do the rest.”
“I’m not sure I want to do that. I’ve never really, you know, seen you clean it out or even take it off.”
“There’s candy inside.”
“Well, that changes everything,” Flat says, popping Teck’s helmet onto his head.
As he stumbles around trying to orient himself, a purple cloud swoops down and surrounds Flat.
“Can I ask a question,” the cloud asks. “How would you like to have your powers greatly advanced?”
“Yeah, sure,” Flat says, bumping into a wall. “How do I see out of this bucket?”
There is no answer. The purple cloud flashes brightly then disappears.
Flat yanks the helmet off. “All I could find are three guys calling themselves the Grammar Guardians. Sound like Chess Club types to me. Hello? Invisible voice of Teck?”
“You’ll forgive the deception, but time is short,” the voice, now inside Flat’s head, says. “I am K!xt, what you humans would call a Warshade. I have merged with you so that we may save the city.”
“Um, wha-?”
“By merging, we have access to vast stores of cosmic power.”
“I keep hearing ‘merging,’ did I miss something?”
“See for yourself,” K!xt says, drawing Flat to his reflection in a window.
“Oh. My. God.”
Forty-five minutes later, Flatfoot steps out of the Icons store in Independence Port.
“Yeah. This is more like it,” he says, folding his arms. His old blue and gold uniform has been exchanged for a purple and amber version. Over it, he wears a dark purple trench coat. Over his eyes sit a pair of wraparound sunglasses (also purple and amber) and his hair has had enough gel put in it to protect him at low speed collisions. He looks at his reflection in the Icons doorway and strokes a brand new soul patch.
“Was this really necessary?” K!xt asks.
“Oh yeah. Totally. Let’s go stop some nuclear…whatever it was you said.”
Just outside the Terra Volta reactor, five heads peek out of an air duct leading into the center of the facility.
“There it is, just like I told ya,” Tecknique says. “Time to go blow it up.”
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