September 2, 1987

Kibo, Johnny, Rico and Toby were out on a pleasant if rather warm night, working on their patrolling techniques. Their colors and skateboards were in Kibo's duffel, so to the ordinary eye they were just four teenagers slouching down the street, eyes open for trouble.
    A scream sounded from farther down the block. A half dozen Alley Cats poured out of a nearby alleyway, grabbed a couple of purses from startled pedestrians and sprinted off, whooping raucously past the Blood Boards. After a moment of shock the four of them sprang into action, grabbed their boards and followed the Cats as they turned into another narrow street.
    The Cats realized they were pursued and turned to face them. There was a moment of silent standoff before the Blood Boards charged and put their new training to work pounding the thieves around. One of the Alley Cats pulled a gun and was quickly disarmed. Victory appeared certain.....
    A streetlight flickered to life, casting a shadow across the scene and revealing a man standing on a fire escape, looking down at the fight. Tybalt wore his customary leather pants and vest, the cat tattoo almost seeming to glow on his chest.
    He drew his pair of matched semi-automatics without speaking. The alley was briefly lit by muzzle flashes as the streetlight died once more. When he was done he ejected the two empty cartridges. The only people standing were Alley Cats.

September 3, 1987

The three members of the Revolution who had signed on with Agglomerated MegaCorp had been invited to the AMC offices to go over preliminaries for the show, movie, comic book, etc. Phoenix Talon, Thunderbolt, Jenkins and Peter sat in comfortable chairs around a low table. Scott sort of looked like one.
    "So have you had a chance to look over the movie treatment that we sent over?" Peter inquired eagerly."
    "Ixnay on the—" Wendell tried to say.
    "We sent over the revised one, right?"
    Jenkins glanced at the three heroes. "You guys did destroy the original, didn't you?"
    They looked at one another uncertainly, not sure which version they'd seen.
    "Which version did you read, Phoenix?" Jenkins asked a bit nervously.
    "The one we ain't gonna use, I read that one," he replied, on firmer ground.
    "We've already destroyed all the copies of that script here."
    "That's good."
    "Let's see the revised one so I can check."
    Copies of the script were handed around. "Understand that the movie treatment is still distant future, not for another twelve, eighteen months," Peter said, leaning forward. "We're just getting the wheels going right now. We have to get you guys onscreen with the animated series, and of course you're all aware of the cameo appearances on Boston Common, and the comic book is due out. So we're hoping for maximum saturation before we get to the movie version. And I have to say, I'm really excited about this," he added fervently. "Because really I just want to show them all... how great you are."
    Phoenix Talon flipped through the script without comment. The general plot seemed to involve a lot of gigantic international terrorist organizations attempting to destroy the world for some reason, starting with Boston.
    "You know what you could put in this? The World Crime League," he suggested. "No really, they're kind of like this."
    "Wait a minute... Wendell, that's a distinct possibility," Peter said with growing enthusiasm.
    "I mean, they tried this. I was there," Talon pointed out.
    That earned him some raised eyebrows, but Peter had the bit i nhis teeth now. "They could have black helicopters! We'd be able to tie in...."
    "Actually, we had the black helicopters," Phoenix Talon corrected.
    "They had that saucer thing that Tempest got away in," Scott agreed.
    "Okay, well it's something to consider, 'cause, y'know, with the number of works of fiction that it's turned up in, y'know, the fictional equivalent of the World Crime League would actually probably sell fairly well. Wendell, we should look into this," he urged.
    "Yeah, okay Peter," Jenkins sighed, giving him a sidelong look. "But never mind the movie treatment because like he said, that's a goodly distance away, I just wanted to let you know," he looked at Talon, "that what we had discussed the other day, about the modifications that you had requested, you can see that's been taken care of. But here we have the character sketches for the comic book, a slightly more angular style is being used for the television show...." The AMC men passed around sketches. Thunderbolt's jaw looked capable of deflecting bullets.
    "Lookin' good," Talon judged, handing his back. "Don't forget my utility belt." Peter made a note.
    Jenkins said, "So, the first double-sized issue is the origin of the Revolution. Now obviously, we can't go with your actual origins because they're very disparate. So Peter and the writers have come up with what they feel—"
    "Is a great, GREAT story! Just let me lay this out to you! Picture this for a minute," he said more quietly. "Okay, so given what we had discussed before, as far as Thunderbolt being the natural team leader, what with the military background and all the rest of it, and the necessity of unfortunately pushing the Needle character into the background somewhat because of her unwillingness to go on—have you had a chance to talk with her about it?" he interrupted himself.
    "Yeah, she's not budging," Talon replied.
    "We're almost at the point of no return here," Paulson warned. "If you could just discuss with her, I still am not comfortable with the Witchfire character, it just doesn't feel natural—"
    "Peter," Jenkins said warningly. "She's not comfortable with it, just keep going."
    Scott noted that for someone who didn't seem to be drinking coffee, Peter was awfully wound up.
    "All right. So we have the Thunderbolt team leader, the Daemonwar-scarred yet still square-jawed and powerful hero," Peter resumed, "calling together—"
    "Does my character sketch have a huge scar?" Thunderbolt inquired, shuffling through the papers.
    "Would you like a scar? We could put in a scar," Peter said instantly. "We're trying to make it as close to you as possible...."
    "I'm very bad at it, but I think that was a joke," Scott suggested. "I do have trouble telling, not actually being human or anything...."
    "Thank you, Scott."
    Jenkins rested his forehead on his hand for a moment as Peter surged on.
    "Oh. So anyway. The Thunderbolt character calls on two of his old teammates, back from y'know, the war. We're going to leave the war remarkably ambiguous, because let's not go dredging up... those being the Phoenix Talon and Witchfire characters, to deal with the threat posed to Boston by the robot armies of a villain called Techmaster. Now, Techmaster is of course attacking the city and attempting to take over, and our heroes go in and work their way in, and at one point encounter the second-in-command for Techmaster, the artificially intelligent Scott, who upon having revealed to him the truth of the evil of Techmaster and all the rest of it changes sides, helps rescue the hero, the villain's army is destroyed and he is caught in a collapsing building and is missing presumed dead."
    "Ah. One of those," Phoenix Talon noted.
    "We can't obviously use your legitimate origins, because they are complicated...."
    "Yeah, I don't think Ma would want to be in a cartoon anyway," he judged. "The movie, though, you might want to put her in the movie."
    Peter looked momentarily taken aback, then nodded. "We could go with a motherhood angle."
    "I'll write that down, Peter," Jenkins sighed wearily, having obviously given up hope of taking control of this discussion.
    "She more or less nagged me into being a superhero," Phoenix Talon explained to the young man. "That's more or less my origin."
    Peter gave him a stunned look.
    "Then I went to school and got a degree," he finished
    "So... you persevered and drove yourself to be all that you could be because you knew in your heart that you wanted to be a hero?!"
    "It kind of turned out that way.... There wasn't much else to do in Massapequa."
    Peter let it go. "Does that rough plot meet with everybody's approval? Because we're going for a very close tie between the comic book and the animated series. We're trying to get an extended plot feel to the animated series, to give it a little more reality, a little more depth. And therefore it's going to be tightly tied to the comic book, and there will be duplication back and forth. Not one hundred percent, but this also saves us on the scriptwriting. We're all comfortable with that? If there's anything that you'd like to see changed, we can certainly do massive reworking...."
    "Well let me rephrase here for Peter, 'massive reworking' would be difficult at this stage," Jenkins said firmly. "But minor modification is certainly available."
    Peter looked crestfallen. "But... it's gotta be what they want."
    "This is looking good," Phoenix Talon assured him. "I don't see a problem with this."
    "Seems like an excellent start," Thunderbolt agreed.
    Scott shrugged.
    "Okay, and then we have sketched plots based far more closely on your actual adventures that, again, Peter and the boys worked out for the early adventures. The next few issues of the comic book and the next few episodes of the animated series deal with battling against the Ice Agent, this has to do very much with the Fimbulwinter experiences...."
    "Ah, Doc Cold," Phoexix Talon reminisced. "Yeah, Ice Agent is a better name than Doc Cold. Or Lord Fimbulwinter. Gosh, he was a prick."
    "And then after that, there's dealing with a wolf-like vigilante named Wolf."
    "Hm. Next." He didn't really want to get into that episode.
    "Because of the marketability aspect of them, these are all going to be captured and put in jail, missing presumed dead."
    "Yeah, I'm pretty sure we're never going to see the wolf vigilante again," Phoenix Talon said grimly.
    "Um, but that's the first three issues of the comic and the first several weeks of the animated series. Beyond that we don't have an awful lot planned out, but this is where we stand right now. Everything is acceptable?" He looked around, pleased by their nods. "Um, also as part of the contract we are going to be requesting a sizeable number of public appearances. More than just doing your job, there are going to be autograph signings, you're actually going to be the premier guests on the new late night talk show program that AMT is doing, we're still working out some of the aspects of it—we don't have a host yet. In fact if there's anyone you can recommend, other than Mr. Smith, who has already written us...."
    "I'm pretty sure I wouldn't recommend Mr. Smith," Scott remarked.
    "I do have one question. How extensive are these public appearances going to be?" Thunderbolt inquired. "How often are they going to be schedule? We are in the business of—"
    "Saving lives!" Peter enthused. "Yes!"
    "Yeah, sometimes our schedules aren't under our control," Phoenix Talon agreed.
    "We undertand that perfectly, we do! We're not talking much, maybe a half dozen or so autograph signings. We're going to be organizing Meet the Revolution Day down on the Common...."
    "That sounds okay," Talon judged.
    "We were actually hoping for individual signings with each of you. Setting up something with Thunderbolt with the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization, setting up something with Scott at the Museum of Science...."
    "We'll have to be careful about that," Talon observed. "You put superheroes and civilians in the same place and things happen. But we'll work on that out on a case to case basis."
    "Of course, of course. Granted. What I admire about him is his rampant professionalism," he whispered to Jenkins.
    "I assume you have lots of liability insurance?" Thunderbolt checked.
    "Yes. That's taken care of," Jenkins reassured him. "We have some quick sketches that someone put together more as a joke than anything else...."
    "A joke?!"
    "Trust me on this one, Peter," his superior suggested. "We have sketches for the Thanksgiving Parade in New York balloons." He handed around the sketches. Scott's balloon was a big silver blob. "The guys in advertising thouught that would be a big hit with the kids."
    "It carries on that 'Schmoo' thing," Peter explained.
    Phoenix Talon looked at his teammate critically. "You do look kinda like a Schmoo, I can see that."
    A face formed on Scott's amorphous mass long enough for a raised eyebrow to manifest.
    "The last things on our agenda for today, unless there's anything else that you want to go into, we have a requirement for some more photo shoots in order to get the posters set up properly for the rest of the advertising campaign, plus there are going to be poster sales, plus some modeling and costume corrections for the action figure line."
    Phoenix Talon's phone rang. "Phoenix Talon."
    "Dad?" Dawn said shakily.
    "What is it hon?"
    Silence for a moment. "Ki—Kibo's been shot. Someone shot some of the...." Her voice failed.
    "Shit. Where are they?"
    "We're at the hospital."
    "Okay, I'm on my way." He hung up. "Gotta go, emergency."
    "But the action figures—"
    Talon was gone. The other two wondered what the emergency was, but he hadn't asked them to come....
    "But you're happy with the way everything is?" Jenkins asked the remaining two. They agreed. "And you do realize this is all going to be national? Just checking. If you have the time now, we can set up the photo shoots, and you might even have an opportunity to—are they set up at the studio already?" he called to the secretary. She didn't seem to hear him. "Hello? We have the most deaf secretary in the world. Excuse me for a minute." He walked over to ask her his question, then returned. "The actors are still here, the ones playing the members of the Revolution for the walk-on parts on the Boston Common show. Unfortunately, Scott, you're going to be a computer-generated graphic, but you could meet the person who's doing your voice?"
    "No, that's okay. I should probably get going in the near future anyways. And frankly, you don't really need to photograph me, I'm a large silver blob."
    "I understand that perfectly," Wendell said before Peter could protest. "It's a pleasure working with you."
    "Nice to meet you, Peter," the robot said politely, and schlorked out of the room looking for an elevator shaft.
    "Wow," Peter sighed.
    "Somebody needs to recompile that boy's kernel," the robot mused to himself as he left the building.
    Thunderbolt was now alone with Peter and Wendell.
    "If you'll give us just a minute, I'm going to try and get the actors up here so you can meet with them. I mean, you're the only one who's still here, but meet with the person who's going to be playing you. These are just minor parts to add verisimilitude to the soap opera that we're doing. If you'll excuse me just a minute."
    Now he was alone with Peter.
    "So, how you liking the city so far? Isn't it everything you always wanted? You guys have done some great stuff," Peter gushed. "I have personal folders of the photos that you guys have done, the battle against Godzilla... that was great!"
    "I can see that you're a very big fan of the Revolution."
    "I just—I like heroes," he said simply.
    "I can understand that. It's what drove me to become one. Can I see that folder?"
    "Sure, if you want." He passed over an absolutely bulging manila folder. "Flip through, I'm gonna get myself a pop."
    He had already placed the young man's accent as somewhere in Ohio, but he'd also gotten used to the Bostonian "soda." While alone, he looked through the file. There were newspaper clippings, notes, sketches, stills from the news footage including shots of Godzilla battle and Phoenix Talon's GI Joe encounter. He noticed some expanded treatments for the first few issues of the comic book—obviously unofficial. There seemed to be an ongoing subplot planned, with a mysterious figure in the first issues later revealed to be "their archenemy the Toy Man," whom the Revolution would then fight in issue four.
    Hm. He made a mental note to tell Phoenix Talon about this.
    "Did you want a pop?" Peter asked, stepping back into the room.
    "No, thank you."
    Peter pulled the tab and took a drink. "Ahh."
    "I can see that you're very enthusiastic about your work," Thunderbolt remarked, handing back the folder.
    Peter smiled broadly. "I can say in all honesty that this is everything that I've ever wanted. You're sure that there's no way to get Needle involved?" he asked wistfully.
    "I think you're pretty much locked into Witchfire at this point. Not that I blame her, I understand her reasoning, and you should respect her for that." He felt somewhat obligated to defend his teammate's position in the face of Peter's somewhat creepy enthusiasm.
    "And I do, I do! It's just... I just feel like she's letting such an opportunity go by, here. I mean, the national exposure, having everyone know exactly what you stand for... the prestige!"
    "It's not about the prestige, Peter. It's about helping people," he reminded the young man with a touch of remonstrance.
    "Yes. Of course."
    "I'm glad we understand that."
    "And you obviously have say in all of this," Peter added as a noise outside signaled the approach of the actors. "Considering the relationship that's going to be developing between the Thunderbolt and Witchfire characters over the course of the show...."
    He raised his eyebrows. The others arrived a moment later, and he got his first look at the actress in question. Wow.
    Well, this was going to be interesting.

    Phoenix Talon reached the hospital quickly, dodging orderlies on his way to the ICU and ignoring anyone who tried to tell him he wasn't supposed to be there. Dawn sat in a chair with a blank, shocked expression. Rick paced, turned at the sound of footsteps.
    "Sensei! She did get through to you," he sighed.
    "I got here as soon as I could. Was it the Cats?"
    Rick nodded tightly. "They called me. To let me know." His voice quivered with fury. "After the bodies had been found." He took a breath. "Rico and Toby are dead. Kibo and Johnny are still hanging, here."
    "Start the phone tree," Talon ordered. "Get everybody to the dock at Rowes Wharf. We're gonna go to the mattresses. Headquarters is the safest place. I know, she'll be pissed, but...."
    "Right. Right," Rick nodded.
    "Security's pretty good here." Talon looked around.
    They made phone calls. Talon explained to them what had happened, that the war was officially on, and they were to report to Rowes Wharf, incognito, with their equipment and enough stuff for a stay.
    "They got shot?" Stu repeated incredulously.
    "Yes, they fuckin' got shot," Talon snapped.
    "Sorry, sensei. Should I bring my family, or...?"
    "Stu, if I thought it was safer, I'd actually tell you to stay out of this. But you're one of us, you're a target. You'd better come, leave the kids at home."
    "All right. I'll be there."
    Talon called Reilly. "It's Phoenix Talon."
    "What's going on?"
    "Four of the Blood Boards got gunned down this morning by the Alley Cats," he reported succinctly.
    "Jesus."
    "Two of my boys are dead, two of them are in the hospital."
    "What do you need from me?"
    "Well, any help the police can give us here. Phoenix Talon and the Blood Boards are going to start a law enforcement operation now," he said grimly.
    "We'll give you all the support you need. Within the usual limits, of course."
    "I know, I been doing this for a while. Been tryin' to train 'em. We weren't the ones that started shootin'."
    "All right."
    "So if you could put out APBs for the Alley Cats as a whole, I'd appreciate it."
    "Consider it done."
    That was done. Now... now he had to call the parents....

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