Issue 1

Dinner at the Gray Guardians’ headquarters is normally a luxurious affair…the doctor's old nurses handle the cooking and cleaning, and the materials budget isn't exactly poor… but tonight, it's pizza, cooked in the main kitchen.

“Okay, so… I wasn't expecting buffalo wing pizza would be so tasty.” Fantasia, currently in a black cocktail dress, approves, “Where did you even find the recipe Irene?"

“Like, an old college beastie,” the named heroine shrugs. “She liked eating, but couldn't afford to eat out, so she experimented with her own stuff… she's good at it, and is like, head chef over at The Capitol Grille down in LA now.”

Sampson, in his form somewhat reminiscent of a harbor seal, jumps from the table shouting, “Spy!” in his robotic, child-like voice and snatches a small buzzing insect out of the air.

“That was a fly, Sampson,” Ms. Blackheart rolls her eyes.

Doctor Bimbo, dressed in his minimizer and gray suit, frowns, “When have my old nurses ever been lax about the housekeeping?”

“Pfft, like, never?” Ms. Fox speaks up, “They keep this place clean enough for surgery; the slight disinfectant smell is kind of annoying.”

“That's how they're trained,” the doctor confirms.

Angela, currently in her human form, dressed in an outfit with extra-thick seams, tilts her head, “So where did it come from?”

“Maybe it followed one of us in?” Fantasia starts frowning too…

…and the wolf woman gives voice to why the witch frowns, “it's the middle of winter. It's forty below with ten feet of snow outside. Flies can't move in that.”

“So it's like, impossible,” Ms. Fox pauses, “...Sampson, what elements made up the treat?”

“Twenty percent lithium, nineteen percent titanium, eighteen percent carbon, seventeen percent silicone, and twenty-six percent a mix of other elements,” a flat robotic voice replies, then warms up, “it was yummy!”

“So like, not CHON,” Irene nods.

Fantasia Blackheart raises an eyebrow at the Iron Fox.

“Like, Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen: The basic atoms used in living things. CHON, duh,” the LA native clarifies.

“But… you're…” the witch trails off when she realizes how what she was going to say sounds.

“Look, like, my accent is because of where I grew up,” the blonde rolls her eyes, “yeah, I totally mess up some words for things I'm not interested in, but like, everyone struggles with that. I still went to school…” then Irene grins, “...also, you should apologize to Sampson.”

“Why?” Ms. Blackheart scowls.

“It wasn't,” Angela pauses, suppressing one of the side effects of the doctor's power, “organic, which means it was,” the wolf woman pauses again, “a spy, like he said, and not a fly.”

Fantasia takes a breath, walks over to Sampson, and kneels down, “I'm sorry,” she begins, “I shouldn't be so quick to criticize.”

The seal-like creature forms a tongue just to lick Ms. Blackheart's face, “Friend!”

The witch blinks a few times, “Well, at least there's no slobber…” and chuckles as she gets up and walks back to her seat, continuing to eat as the conversation progresses.

“Why do you, like still do that?” Irene frowns, “Hasn't Benny's power worn off by now?”

“I ask,” the wolf lady pauses again, “for a renewal when it does, because,” Angela pauses again, “it wipes out my real accent.”

“It can't possibly be that bad,” Fantasia raises an eyebrow.

“The accent isn't, the reason she's hiding it is that serious,” Dr. Beaux shakes his head, “which is why I say ‘yes’ every time. Angela had a nasty… I'll say ‘infection’... that made her do things against her will, so it wasn't really her fault. I cleared that up so she is better now, but there's no way to prove she was ill in the first place anymore, even if the courts were to recognize the illness. It also involves some very disturbing memories for her. Leave it alone until she comes to you with it, all right?”

Ms. Blackheart pauses, “I can respect wanting a clean slate.”

“But like,” Iron Fox crinkles her forehead, “why hide the new accent?”

The wolf treads lightly, focusing on her words carefully, “While everyone at this table knows better, how do people treat you when they hear your regional dialect?”

“Like I'm totally some dumb…” Irene pauses, “...oh.”

“That is,” the German citizen pauses, “one of many things I wish to avoid.”

“But like, you think it's okay that people think I'm a…” Ms. Fox starts to get red in the face.

“I'm perfectly willing to have another student in the meditation classes,” Dr. Beaux heads off that track, “if you want to get rid of that erroneous perception… but tell me: Do people speak more freely around you if they think it's going over your head?” ‘Although as your accent is natural, what you would really need is speech therapy…’ the doctor thinks to himself.

“Ooh… I could be like, agent double oh six,” the natural blonde nods, cooling off as fast as she heated up, “just like, a super sexy woman,” she does little finger guns with her hands, “Pow, pow!”

Angela sighs in relief, “so what do we do about the spy fly?”

The witch starts the conversation, “Short term I can cast some warding spells, but I can't keep that up forever.”

“We can also hang out with Sampson more,” Benjamin considers, “but obviously that's not a long term solution for most of us.”

“Like, what else could the fly have done?” Iron Fox brings up a relevant question, “like… if it has a data port and a two-way transmitter….”

“What indeed?” A man's voice laughs over the sound system built into the room as they all hear the steel shutters over the windows close, “Air-gapping is SO twenty-first century. It means nothing to one such as myself,” the voice laughs again, “Now hand over the SMS0-N prototype, and I might let you go….”