Fic -- The Professor's Army 1/2
Title: The Professor's Army
Author: liabrown aka dillonmania
Artist: useless19
Genre: Drama, Action
Characters: Eobard Thawne, Hartley Rathaway, Len Snart, Sam Scudder, Albert Desmond, Roscoe Dillon, Mark Mardon, Lisa Snart, George Harkness, James Jesse, Evan McCulloch, Mick Rory, Roy Bivolo, Owen Mercer, Thad Thawne, OCs.
Rating: R
Word Count: 16,600+
Warnings: Child abuse [physical and verbal, not sexual], violence, character death, profanity.
Author's Notes: You may have seen the prologue before; I was originally going to keep it separate and then decided to incorporate it into the body of the main story. The Cribis are canon and were introduced in Professor Zoom's first appearance, but Wykeham and Gausbert are my own invention.
Summary: Eobard Thawne went into the past to abduct the Rogues during their childhoods, and is training them to be his personal soldiers. This will not end well.
Part One - Part Two
Prologue
“Hold my hand tight, Lisa! Don’t let go!”
His younger sister didn’t answer, but her firm grip reassured him that she wouldn’t slip away. She must have been terrified, Len realized, even more frightened than he was. The strange man in yellow had spoken to them briefly before they were pulled into a dizzying void, and now it felt as though they were being dragged through it. Len gritted his teeth; it hurt, and he did what he could to protect her from the worst of the strain. Lisa didn’t make a sound for the duration of the trip, but when they were suddenly deposited onto the floor of a dimly-lit room, she let out a distressed cry.
“Lenny, you’re bleeding!”
“I’m okay,” he said bravely, looking her over for injuries. She seemed fine, just ragged and scared, so he wiped the blood from his forehead. He was accustomed to doing that.
“Hey, there are some new kids,” an unknown voice announced, and several boys approximately his age wandered over to look at them. Len stepped defensively in front of his sister, although she peered cautiously around him to look right back at the boys.
“Who’re you?” Lisa asked in a soft voice, always wary of strangers. Other children usually mocked the Snarts for being poor and unkempt.
“I’m Sammy,” declared the boy at the front of the pack. “This is Mark, that’s George, that’s Mickey, that’s Evan, that’s Al, and the sissy-boy is Roy.”
“Hey!” Roy protested, and the other boys snickered.
“He likes to draw or somethin’,” Mickey giggled cheerfully as he prodded the young artist’s shoulder in a friendly manner. “But he’s okay.”
“Who’re the others?” Len asked as he pointed at a couple of other boys in the shadows, both by themselves. One had his hands over his ears and was staring at the floor, while the other played intently with a top.
“Oh, they’re weird,” Mark scoffed with a wave of his hand. “They don’t talk much.”
“Their names are Roscoe and Hartley,” Roy piped up helpfully. He had some sympathy for children deemed weird because other kids tended to think similarly of him.
“Fartley,” George sneered.
“What kind of stupid name is ‘Hartley’?” Len asked, ignoring the fart joke. The Snarts had heard enough similar jokes to last a lifetime.
“He’s rich, look at his clothes,” Sam noted with a sagacious nod; the unstated conclusion was the general ridiculousness of rich people.
“Rich kids,” Len muttered contemptuously, wrinkling his nose. Lisa stamped her foot in disapproval, although it had nothing to do with anyone’s social class. “Too many boys! Where are the girls?”
“No girls,” Evan said in a surprisingly soft voice, tinged with a pleasant Scottish accent.
“Well that stinks,” she frowned. “All boys smell…`cept Lenny.”
“I’m Len, and she’s Lisa,” Len explained, realizing they hadn’t introduced themselves yet. “Why are we here? What is this place?”
“Dunno,” Sam shrugged. “The door’s locked, an’ the Professor hasn’t told us much.”
It was at the mention of ‘the Professor’ that Evan’s lip began to tremble. “He’s frichtsome. He took me away from Miss McCulloch.”
“He took all of us away, dipstick,” George replied in exasperation. They’d had this discussion before.
“Is that the man wearing the yellow suit?” Len asked, and the other boys nodded. “So this is like a kidnapping? We’ve been kidnapped?” He was very proud of knowing such a mature-sounding word.
“I guess so,” Mark mumbled, and only now did the gravity of the situation begin to sink in for him. ‘Kidnapped’ sounded a lot scarier than ‘brought us here’.
“I want tae go home,” Evan whispered, and started to cry.
“Me too,” Roy agreed unhappily, wailing more loudly than was deemed proper for a boy his age.
“Be quiet!” a voice hissed from across the room. Everyone turned and saw Hartley pressing his hands more tightly over his ears, eyes screwed shut from the pain. “You’re way too loud!”
Roy didn’t stop sobbing, but Len stared curiously at the red-haired boy hunched over on the floor.
“What’s your problem?” he asked, and despite being across the room and having his ears covered, Hartley answered him.
“My problem is that you are all far too loud, and you’re hurting my ears! And it’s not my fault that I’m rich and my clothes are nice or that my parents named me Hartley. I can’t change that.”
“How’d you hear all that?” Len asked in surprise, puzzled that the boy had overheard the less-than-flattering remarks about himself.
“I…hear very well,” Hartley said hesitantly, reluctant to tell strangers about his auditory implants. He didn’t want people knowing he was deaf, which he’d always been taught was something shameful.
“Okay Roy, shut up,” Len ordered, and fortunately the other boy had almost finished crying anyway. With a few exaggerated sniffles, Roy wiped his nose and let his cries die down into soft whimpers. Hartley relaxed somewhat, the pain significantly lessened. But standing off to one side, Sam scowled a bit as he realized the children were listening to a new leader.
“What about that other kid?” Len asked, pointing at the boy playing with the top. Now that he’d met everyone else, he might as well see what was going on with the last one. It seemed odd that this kid wasn’t spending time with the others when he wasn’t obviously an outsider like the rich boy.
“He’s always playing with that thing,” Sam shrugged, having been unable to get Roscoe to talk much. “He doesn’t like being bothered.”
“Hey. Hey, top-kid!” Len called out, but was studiously ignored. “You deaf or somethin’?”
Nobody noticed Hartley’s uncomfortable wince.
Roscoe continued playing and gave no indication that he’d heard anything, so Len walked over and poked his shoulder.
“What?” the other boy asked with exasperation. “You’re disturbing my concentration. And no, I’m not deaf.”
“Just wanted to know what’s up with you. How come you aren’t with the others?”
“Because I’m busy. Now please leave me alone.”
Len stared at him. Playing with a top didn’t qualify as ‘busy’ as far as he was concerned, but he wasn’t going to drag the boy away from it. He was about to turn away with a dismissive comment when Hartley suddenly jumped to his feet and announced fearfully that the Professor was returning.
Time and space began to shimmer, and the Professor soon emerged from the distortion with a slight blond-haired boy. The boy immediately ran from him and hid behind George, who was himself too frightened to jeer.
“Lenny…he’s the one who brought us here!” Lisa whispered apprehensively. She clutched at her big brother’s hand, and he mustered all his bravery to squeeze back.
“This is James. Now your group is complete,” the man in yellow declared to the assembled children, and even Roscoe looked up from his game to listen.
“Take us home!” Sam retorted boldly, hands on hips. “You can’t keep us here. The police will get you and lock you up forever.”
The Professor laughed. “Children, the police will never find you. You’re a long way from home -- several centuries in the future, in fact, and will never return to your old lives again. You’ll have new ones with me.”
“I need to go home to do my schoolwork, or my parents will be very angry at me,” Roscoe said gravely, though Thawne shook his head in annoyance.
“As usual you’re not listening, Roscoe. You will all have a greater future at my side than you ever would have had in your former petty lives. You were destined to become Rogues, the worst criminal scourges of Central City. But I’ve plucked you from early in your timelines and shall sculpt you into something better, something crueler and far more powerful. You’ll realize your true potential and work with me, rather than against me. As my own private army.”
“You’re stupid and I hate you!” Lisa shouted, kicking him in the shin, and the Professor choked with anger. Ignoring the children’s laughter, he hoisted the small girl into the air at super-speed, moving far too fast for her brother to protect her.
“Ah, Lisa -- the spirited one, I’d almost forgotten. You’re fortunate that I value your brother’s skills.”
He dropped her to the ground with more force than was necessary, but although frightened, she refused to cry.
“You stink,” she insisted loudly as Len rushed over and tried to end the situation, placing himself between her and the Professor.
“Some of you children will grow up to be more powerful or skilled than the others,” the Professor continued, paying no heed to Lisa’s insult. “They will be my elite, the special ones, and we will begin training immediately. Leonard, Albert, Mark, Hartley, Roscoe, and Samuel -- come with me. Your new lives begin now.”
“What’s so special about them?” George complained indignantly as the Professor ushered the startled boys towards the door. Len didn’t want to leave his sister, but the man forcibly pulled him away.
“I know your futures, George. These boys are better than you,” Thawne said with a smile, pleased by the angry scowls on the rejected children’s faces. The chosen boys filed out of the room when their benefactor opened the door, except for Len, who had to be dragged out.
“Lenny!” Lisa cried out in fear, terrified to be separated from her big brother, and he looked just as anguished.
“Someone will be in to feed you tomorrow, children. Goodnight,” the Professor addressed the remainders jovially, then slammed the door shut and activated the lock.
The holding room was now painfully quiet. Lisa, Evan, George, Roy, Mickey and James spent the night huddled together in the dark and praying the police would somehow free them, but no one ever came to their rescue. They were on their own.
End Prologue
****
Some of the children adjusted to their new lives in the twenty-fifth century more readily than others. Len, for instance, didn’t miss his father at all, and neither did George. But Len was tormented by the separation from his little sister, always worrying about her safety without his protection. Hartley’s keen ears sometimes heard her crying in another room, but he never told Len because it would clearly upset him.
For the first few weeks, Eobard Thawne and his assistants gradually eased the children into their new existence at his compound. They were kept segregated in two groups, the Alphas and Betas (nobody had ever accused Thawne of being particularly original), his elite squad and the remainders. And the children were never allowed to forget they were different. From the first day, the Alphas were told they were special, smarter, better. The Betas were told they weren’t as good as the other children, but it was possible they might improve. Regardless, the Betas quickly developed a fierce resentment towards their more favoured siblings, easily matched by the contempt the Alphas felt for them. The only members of the two groups who didn’t despise everyone on the other team were the Snarts; Len was an Alpha and Lisa a Beta.
The teams were kept in separate dormitories, although as the sole girl Lisa had a small room to herself. This only added to her isolation and loneliness, and she dearly wished to be allowed to bunk with the other Betas. She liked Roy and Evan, who were younger like her and very friendly, and was a bit intimidated by the older George, Mickey, and James. George had immediately established himself as a leader despite his somewhat anti-social tendencies, and the team soon settled into a relationship of mostly doing what he told them. But even he had to defer to the Betas' guardian, a mild man with an undercurrent of anger named Bernard Gausbert. Gausbert was responsible for their daily care and tutoring, as Thawne had passed such mundane responsibilities onto his subordinates.
The Alphas were ruled by a hard man they quickly learned to fear, a distant relative of Thawne’s named Ademar Wykeham. Armed with a perpetual scowl, he was under considerable pressure to produce champions out of frightened children, and he made certain to vent his frustrations on them. Fortunately none of the Alphas were unaccustomed to being shouted at, but they’d been thrust into a new world with technology completely alien to them and expected to excel. The stress on them was immense.
****
It was near the end of the supper hour, and Roscoe had wearily put his head down on the table.
“Sit up, or Mr. Wykeham’s gonna yell,” Mark urged him anxiously.
“Leave me alone. I’m real tired.”
“Sit up or I’ll make you sit up,” Sam hissed, worried that their minder would walk in at any moment and punish them all for it, and indeed he did return. Roscoe immediately sat up and hoped the man hadn’t seen anything, but Wykeham stalked over and cuffed the boy on the side of the head.
“Obviously someone wants to work harder,” Wykeham announced coldly, and all the Alphas cringed. “Roscoe, recite the multiplication tables.”
“O-one times one is one. One times two is two. One times three is thr-“
“Not from the beginning, you stupid boy. Even the youngest Betas know that kind of simple math. Start from the sevens.”
“Seven times one is seven. Seven times two is f…fourteen. Seven times three is…is…twenty-two…”
“It’s twenty-one, idiot. Twenty-one. Why the Professor wants you with the Alphas is a mystery,” Wykeham sighed in disgust. He glowered intently at Roscoe, who was unable to meet his gaze and fighting back tears of embarrassment. This was fairly similar to the dialogues he’d had with his own father, but seemed worse because it was in front of his peers.
“Seven times four is twenty-eight; seven times five is thirty five; seven times six is forty-two; seven times seven-“ Al interjected with brisk professionalism until Wykeham cut him off.
“I’m aware that you know your tables, Albert, there’s no need to show off.” He looked at his watch. “It’s nearly 2000 hours now, so most of you go back to your lessons. Roscoe, you’ll continue reviewing with me.”
Roscoe looked utterly despondent and had begun to rock slightly due to stress, so Hartley flashed him a sympathetic expression as the other Alphas filed out of the room.
****
Along with their first lessons, the children were taught team-building and given uniforms. The Alphas wore a modified version of Professor Zoom’s costume, in splendid yellow with red highlights, whereas the Betas received the primarily-red motif of the inferior Flash. The uniforms were made of an advanced twenty-fifth century polymer, which would grow with the wearer and were tailored to suit the future Rogues’ needs. Mick’s costume was more fire-resistant than the others, while Mark’s was designed to withstand the elements and Roscoe’s outfit worked to reduce friction. The children loved their new uniforms, especially the Alphas; as much as they feared the Professor, they were regularly reminded it was an honour to be decked out like him. It was a sign they were the chosen children, the superior ones.
They’d been permitted to keep their first names when they were kidnapped, but no longer used their former surnames. Their new family name was ‘Thawne’. When the adults were out of earshot they’d used their old surnames amongst themselves for a while, but time and judicious punishments slowly eroded the habit. After a few months in captivity, what did their old surnames matter anymore? They were never going to see their parents again, and it hurt a bit less to forget about that life.
****
James’ eyes were shut tightly as he clung to a pole fifteen feet above the ground. The high wire in front of him seemed to be swaying, and he feared he’d vomit on everyone below.
“Fall! Fall!” George taunted until scolded by Gausbert. Their guardian was exasperated, however, as he’d been told that James was an acrobat.
“I’m afraid of heights,” the boy confessed in a small voice, barely audible to those on the ground.
“Well, come down then,” Gausbert said irritably, unsure how to deal with the children’s fears. He didn’t have it in him to overtly bully his charges like Wykeham, but wasn’t particularly good at encouraging them either.
“I’ll go up with him,” Lisa declared softly, the first thing she’d said all morning. She studied the hand and footholds on the pole and slowly began to climb, compensating for a lack of strength and experience with sheer determination, just as Thawne had predicted. Soon she’d made it to the top, and hugged James until he relaxed a bit.
James stepped onto the wire with a deep breath and a little more confidence, just as he’d practiced with his parents. He’d never yet performed for an audience, though he still remembered how his father had coached him. But the Professor had told him he would never see his father again, and thinking about it made him feel sick. “Careful!” Lisa cried out fearfully as she saw him wobbling, and the boy fell. He was surprised to be caught above the ground by an invisible energy net; the children were still getting accustomed to the amazing technology of the future.
Gausbert shook his head in disbelief. “Go back and try it a few more times. You’ll have to master it eventually.”
With a sigh, James hopped off the net and trudged back to the pole to ascend it again.
****
The children were kept isolated from the world in a large compound, a prison which kept their existence secret from the authorities. They studied, trained, and were given medical care within its walls, almost always indoors. Occasionally they saw a doctor, but the only adults they typically interacted with were their team tutor and Eobard Thawne. It was a lonely existence, but at least they had their teammates to cling to.
The children forged further bonds to their team and the Professor by way of mandatory chants and slogans. Wykeham and Gausbert privately thought it all very ridiculous, but Thawne had ordered it and they couldn't argue with the results. The Alphas were made to sing daily songs about their superiority and brotherhood, and it obviously worked. The Betas chanted about their strong ties to each other and how someday they might best the Alphas, which gave a boost to their flagging self-esteem. And above all, the children were taught to pledge their allegiance to the Professor. The tutors were less certain about the success of that ploy, but the children never defied him and appeared to place their trust in him. Fear, however, seemed to play a greater role in their deference than love or respect.
****
The Alphas were typically permitted half an hour of free time before bed if they’d been studious, although Wykeham was rarely far away. Tonight most of the boys were rough-housing in the dorm, although Hartley found them too loud and kept his distance, and Roscoe was trying to spin small objects as though they were tops. Wykeham only allowed him to have real tops when he was doing well academically, which he usually wasn’t.
“We should sneak out and do something mean to the Betas,” Sam declared in the midst of a raucous pillow fight with Mark.
“Like what?” Al asked. He and Len had been organizing a steeplechase over the beds and other furniture, but Len stopped playing when he heard Sam’s suggestion. Something bad might happen to Lisa.
“I dunno, maybe get them blamed for something they didn’t do,” Sam shrugged.
“Yeah! Or do something to make them cry!” Mark enthused. “I bet we could make Roy cry in two minutes. I bet you tomorrow’s dessert I could do that.”
“That isn’t very nice,” Hartley said soberly from across the room.
“Mr. Wykeham would get us in trouble,” Len argued, keen to nip the plan in the bud. “It really isn’t a good idea.”
But half the boys were already headed for the door, and Len went with them to minimize the havoc. Hartley stayed where he was, and Roscoe ignored the request to come with them; the others knew well enough that he was too immersed in his own business.
The troublemaking Alphas tiptoed down the hall to the Betas’ dormitory. Sam was utterly gleeful when he quietly tested the doorknob and found it unlocked, so the Alphas crept inside. They discovered that the Betas had an earlier bedtime than they did, and the boys were all asleep.
“We should go,” Len whispered to the others, although he was relieved that Lisa wasn’t there. She was safely in her own room next door. But nothing was going to stop Sam and Mark now, and they crept towards the sleeping children. Evan’s bed was closest, and Mark gestured happily to the others before suddenly pouncing on him.
Evan screamed much more loudly than the Alphas had anticipated. He’d never told anyone that a boy at his orphanage had preyed on other children while they slept, and thus when Mark grabbed him he thought it was happening to him. He sat up in bed, still screaming, and Roy shrieked too at the fright of being awakened by someone else’s cries.
“Let’s get out of here!” Len hissed at his comrades, and they ran for it, but George Harkness was furious and sprang from his bed.
“Oi, yer gonner regret that!” he snarled as he chased them. Al was the least athletic of the Alphas and George quickly caught him and jumped on him, roughly pummeling his face. Al yowled in pain and his teammates turned back to defend their own, the situation soon devolving into a brawl between the Betas and half the Alphas.
“That is quite enough!” shouted Wykeham as he ran down the hall and freely slapped any boy within range. The fighting had already stopped by the time Gausbert arrived, and even Hartley and Roscoe peered timidly around the door to see what would happen. But the non-combatants disappeared when Eobard Thawne strode down the hall like a king; all the children were absolutely terrified of him. Those who’d been fighting didn’t have the opportunity to hide, and simply cowered as they waited to be reprimanded.
“What happened?” Thawne demanded, arms crossed. He could intimidate others even without his fearsome reputation.
“Them Alphas snuck into our room and scared the littler kids!” George said indignantly despite his fear. He was concerned he’d be blamed for starting the fight and receive the worst of the punishment if he didn’t speak up.
“Is that true?” Thawne asked the Alphas, narrowing his eyes at Len and Sam. He knew they were the team leaders.
“No,” Sam muttered darkly, clearly lying.
“Yes, Professor,” Len said quietly, having decided it would be better to tell the truth.
“Wykeham, keep a closer eye on your charges,” was Thawne’s only response, entirely aware that their guardian would punish them harshly for making him look bad. The Professor then walked away, leaving the furious minders to deal with their children.
All the Alphas were severely beaten that night, including the boys who hadn’t participated in the raid.
****
In time, both teams’ guardians began to train the children in more than just academics. Though they were still very young, Thawne wanted them to be taught their powers and weapons early so they’d be able to earn their keep by their mid-teens. Giving weapons to children was dicey, so they began with future-technology simulations, slowly learning to master the weapons their adult selves were known for.
Each child’s training program was different. Hartley was taught various musical instruments and techniques with the aspiration that he would eventually discover the secrets his adult self had learned. Al was immersed in the sciences to better use the Philosopher’s Stone, which he wouldn’t be allowed to handle until completely trustworthy. In the meantime, he used simulations of his Mister Element equipment. James and Lisa were trained to use upgraded versions of their gravity-defying footwear, somewhat akin to 25th-century rocket boots. Once they’d mastered the boots, Thawne planned to outfit them with powerful weaponry so they could strike viciously with high speed from the air.
The most intensive programs were used for the Mirror Masters and Roscoe. It was difficult to teach the use of mirror technology when even the trainers didn’t fully understand it, so the best they could do was to teach the boys science, expose them to the equipment, and hope they figured it out. As expected, Sam took to it easily and Evan floundered, which was why the former had been placed in the Alphas and the latter was a Beta. Thawne pondered allowing Sam to teach Evan, but decided against cross-pollinating the two teams. Evan was merely surplus, a backup. And available to be sacrificed if necessary.
Roscoe posed an interesting challenge for Thawne: how to teach a child to spin at super-speeds. The boy actually enjoyed it and practiced often, but was too young and undisciplined to progress as quickly as expected. He soon realized he was disappointing his tutors on this front just as he was in academics, leading him to anxiety and angry outbursts, which were severely punished. The other Alphas tried to cover for him and help with schooling, but he was becoming increasingly stressed and neurotic as the adults grew more exasperated with his inadequacies. The tension amidst the team was escalating.
****
Wykeham and Gausbert were required to present weekly status reports to Thawne, a task they dreaded. Wykeham in particular was under tremendous pressure to show his team was progressing well, since Thawne’s expectations for them were greatest.
“Most of them are doing quite satisfactorily, although they’re all wretched little scum,” Wykeham said as they sat around the table in Thawne’s office.
“Of course they’re scum…they’re Rogues,” Thawne said with a slight smile, thinking back to his various conflicts with their adult selves. “They’re the lowest of the low. But you said ‘most’; I assume the exception is Roscoe.”
“He’s a mess. He belongs with the Betas.”
Gausbert immediately felt defensive about the children in his care and nearly said something, though one look from his boss reminded him to be silent. Thawne tapped his chin thoughtfully.
“The adult I knew was brilliant and extremely powerful -- although the catch is that it was all spawned by centrifugal changes to his brain from spinning. If that doesn’t happen, he isn’t very useful to me.”
Wykeham frowned. While he would have been delighted to get rid of the child who made his job that much more difficult, failure would reflect poorly on him. “In the past, you’d mentioned a surgical option…”
Thawne nodded briskly. “Yes, I think we should try it. There isn’t much to lose at this point.”
****
The Alphas were clustered together in their classroom, taking advantage of Wykeham’s absence to socialize and help each other with schoolwork. Al and Sam regularly competed to be the smartest boy in the group, and one way to show off was to help the struggling members of the team with homework.
“…so you see, when you solve a quadratic equation, you're actually finding the x-intercepts of the parabolic plot,” Al concluded with a magnanimous smile. Hartley rolled his eyes at how obviously smug he sounded, but Roscoe was just relieved to have someone explain it without yelling and insults, as Wykeham always did.
“I think I got it,” he said with some uncertainty, biting his lip. He didn’t feel very comfortable making eye contact with other people, so his eyes remained fixed on the paper in front of him, but he smiled. “Thanks for helping me.”
“Brothers stick together. Alphas stick together,” Sam said flatly, and the other boys nodded.
“Mr. Wykeham’s coming back,” Hartley warned, and everyone hurried to their seats before the man returned, pretending to be hard at work.
Wykeham seemed unusually agitated about something and made a beeline for Roscoe, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him from the room. He hustled Roscoe down the hall and past a door he’d never been through before, and the boy soon found himself in some kind of medical office.
“Um, can I go back to class? I have homework to finish,” he asked quietly, finding the place rather sinister. He went silent upon seeing Eobard Thawne and a stranger in an odd type of one-piece suit. The stranger began prepping Roscoe’s arm for some kind of procedure while the boy became increasingly frightened and looked for a way out, but Wykeham stood between him and the locked door.
Thawne was smiling at him in an unfriendly manner, and he cowered as the stranger injected something into his arm. It didn’t hurt, but he felt woozy in moments and his vision soon went blurry.
“Try not to kill him,” was all he heard Thawne say before losing consciousness.
****
The Alphas were worried when Roscoe didn’t return by bedtime. They rarely asked Wykeham for anything because the response would be unpleasant, but Sam had to question him about their brother’s absence.
“He had brain surgery. Now go to bed,” came the brusque reply.
“Why?” Sam asked, horrified.
“Because he was a failure. That’s what’ll happen to the rest of you too if you disappoint the Professor, by the way. Now get to bed.”
Sam was slapped when he tried to ask further, so he and the other Alphas hurried to bed, utterly terrified. They wondered if they’d ever see their brother again.
****
Lisa and James loved zipping around on their rocket boots, chasing each other through the air and pushing themselves to go ever faster. Gausbert allowed them to play because he knew it would improve their skills, and brought a small amount of joy to some young lives he felt increasingly guilty for ruining. It was only a matter of time before they’d be given deadly weapons and taught to kill, he reflected, something that wouldn’t come naturally to either of them.
George liked killing, or at least relished destroying things with his boomerangs. The lethal models would come later, but he was already good at hitting targets and would soon move up to the next level of training. Gausbert was proud of his success in a twisted sort of way. Mickey truly enjoyed playing with fire, his pyromania having been indulged and encouraged, and would one day make a terrifying foot-soldier in Thawne’s army. Gausbert was obliged to regularly search him for matches and other fire-starting equipment, lest the boy burn down the compound with everyone in it.
Roy and Evan were still gentle and shy, but Roy was developing a bit of a sadistic streak. Having been bullied and different most of his life, he enjoyed having some power for the very first time. He was now allowed to use the real prism goggle technology his adult self had utilized, but only under supervision because the adults were concerned about what he might do with it otherwise.
Gausbert was certain the Betas were not failures, no matter what anyone said. They were good children being twisted into something ugly, and becoming increasingly skilled at it. They’d give the Alphas a run for their money someday.
****
When Roscoe returned a few days later, his head had been shaved and bandaged and he was very quiet. The other Alphas greeted him delightedly, relieved to see him alive, but when they mobbed him he seemed sullen and annoyed. They were surprised by it, but figured he was just tired and overwhelmed. His dour mood didn’t lift in the following days, however, and he remained more aloof than before. In the past he’d kept his distance due to shyness or preoccupation with his own interests, but now seemed simply cold and unfriendly.
After a few days of recovery he returned to his studies, and another change soon became apparent: he wasn’t struggling academically as he had been previously. The other boys’ attempts to help were now curtly rebuffed, and he'd soon begun to master all his schoolwork. Wykeham seemed pleased and was already kinder to him, or at least less insulting. But the other Alphas were disturbed; Roscoe wasn’t the same as before. And his hard stare was disconcerting.
****
For Gausbert, the most tiresome part of training was dealing with Mickey. The boy was far more eager to practice than the others because he loved to burn things, and these sessions were the only times he was permitted access to flames. Gausbert had to watch him constantly when he had fire, and endure his pleading to be allowed to “play” when it was taken away.
“Settle down,” the tutor scolded one day as the two of them watched the other Betas practicing. Lisa and James had clearly mastered their boots and were ready to move to the next level, and George sliced through his targets with frightening efficiency. Above them, Roy joyfully goofed around on a beam of light and hit all his own targets. Only Evan struggled, unable to complete his assigned tasks or requiring multiple attempts to get it right.
“Can I play now?” Mickey whined, excitedly tugging at Gausbert’s shirt.
“No. Wait your turn,” the man said curtly as he watched Evan intently. The junior Mirror Master didn’t seem to be trying very hard, and it had been happening consistently for several weeks. Gausbert finally called him over.
“What’s going on? Why are you doing so poorly?” the tutor asked calmly, though with obvious frustration in his voice. He knew Evan could do better.
“No reason,” Evan muttered, looking down at the ground. His accent and dialect had softened considerably after months away from Scotland, and he’d picked up new vocabulary from living with foreigners.
“Evan, what’s wrong?”
The boy was silent for several moments, but decided he could trust the only adult who was reasonably kind to him. “This is daft and pointless. Sammy’s always gonna be better than me, so I’m wasting my time trying. Why didn’t the Professor give me another job? I wanna do what Lisa does…it looks fun.”
Gausbert’s first impulse was to retort with a ‘because I said so’ response, although he realized it wouldn’t be particularly helpful to the situation. But ultimately that was the reason for it.
“That’s the job the Professor wants you to do,” was what he finally said. “It’s what he thinks you’ll be good at. Are you going to tell him you don’t want to do it?”
“….no, sir,” the child sighed unhappily. He feared Thawne above all else, as did Gausbert.
“I thought so. Go back and try again.”
“Can I play now?” Mickey begged desperately as Evan trudged away, and Gausbert groaned in exasperation. He had no idea why he’d ever agreed to this job.
“Yes, Mickey. Be careful.”
He gave the boy his miniature flamethrower, otherwise kept under tight control for everyone's safety, and Mickey gleefully ran to the training area to start burning things.
****
One day it was Mark's turn to be taken away. He was abruptly pulled out of class while the other Alphas buzzed with worry over his fate, helpless to assist their friend. Wykeham led him down the hall and into the same medical office Roscoe had been brought to, and while Mark didn’t know it was the same place, he remembered that Roscoe had been taken away and returned different. He refused to let it happen to him without a fight. He shoved Wykeham and dashed past him to the door, running as fast as he could down the hallway and attempting to find an exit. But Thawne had super-speed, and it took only seconds to retrieve the struggling boy and return him to the doctor’s office.
“Let me go!” Mark screamed, kicking and flailing as though his life depended on it; as far as he was concerned, it did. The adults weren’t accustomed to this sort of resistance from the young Rogues and were taken aback by it, but a solitary child was no match for Thawne and his assistants. They held him down as the doctor sedated him and strapped him to a bed, and then Thawne went to calibrate some nearby equipment of his own invention. He'd built the devices some years earlier during his supervillain career, and had recently redesigned them for other purposes. Minutes later, the machines hummed to life and bathed Mark in a beam of radiation while the adults watched from the safety of another room.
****
Mark felt terribly ill when he regained consciousness. Still strapped down, he turned his head and vomited all over himself, and then noticed Thawne smiling broadly at him.
“What’d you do to me, Professor?” he asked fearfully, and Thawne grinned wider.
“We’ve unlocked your genetic potential to command the elements. You should thank us.”
“I want…I want to go back to the dorm,” Mark said in a small voice. He felt incredibly vulnerable and still very sick, with an odd tingling sensation reverberating throughout his body. Electricity occasionally arced painfully around his eyes.
“Later. For now, get some rest, and then we’ll test your new abilities,” Thawne told him, with a surprisingly gentle pat on the shoulder. “You may now be the most powerful of my Alphas.”
Ill and frightened as he was….Mark liked the sound of that.
****
Sam had been one of the first children to be kidnapped by Thawne, and had quickly assumed a leadership position amongst the captive Rogues. It was in his nature and something he enjoyed; he liked having others look to his wisdom and do what he told them. But then Len had joined the group, and his own natural leadership skills had been a constant source of irritation to Sam ever since. Both felt they should be the sole captain of the Alphas, and the other children worsened the problem by not consistently accepting one boy as leader. The Alphas prided themselves on being egalitarian (even though they weren’t), and generally followed the directions of both Sam and Len.
Wykeham and Thawne had opted to let the boys battle it out for themselves, figuring that whoever came out the victor would be the better for it, so Sam and Len were in a constant unspoken war for leadership. To talk about it would have resulted in hot denials about Alpha brotherhood, so no one ever said anything and the duo engaged in passive-aggressive competition to prove each was the better leader. It was stressful for them, and sometimes resulted in awkward situations for the other Alphas caught in the middle. But the adults decided a bit of tension in the team would keep them from getting complacent, so nothing was done to resolve it and the resentment worsened.
****
Thawne and Wykeham had taken Mark outdoors to test his supposed new abilities. The research indicated he should now have innate weather-controlling powers, but nothing was proven until he could demonstrate it. The boy blinked painfully in the bright sun, shielding his eyes, as none of the children had spent much time outside since their abduction ten months earlier.
“Concentrate,” Thawne told him, and Mark obeyed, but for several long minutes there was no change in the weather.
“Professor…”
“Concentrate!”
Mark directed all his thoughts to making it rain, creating a breeze, anything, but still there was nothing.
“Such a useless boy,” Wykeham muttered under his breath, and although Mark wasn’t supposed to have heard it, he did. Anger swelled in him and the air began to crackle, and Thawne noted with satisfaction that the hair on his arms had risen. Within moments, a bolt of lightning tore down from the heavens, striking the ground in front of Mark and fusing the soil to glass.
“Excellent,” Thawne smiled as Mark stared at the smoking earth in amazement.
“Did I..?”
“You did, without the assistance of any wand. Show us what else you can do.”
Mark closed his eyes and imagined a downpour soaking Wykeham. Thirty tense seconds passed and then rain began to fall; at first just a few drops, and soon heavily.
“I did it!” Mark cheered jubilantly. He raised his hands to the sky in triumph. “I did it!”
“You’ve done well,” Thawne said in a respectful tone, placing a hand on his shoulder. The Professor rarely offered praise to any of the children, so it was a pleasurable reward indeed, and for a moment Mark almost felt like an equal. The rain quickly turned to blowing snow, and the boy’s proud grin widened.
“How does it feel to be the mightiest soldier in my army?”
****
James and Lisa bounced up and down excitedly as Gausbert handed a box to each of them; they’d finally been given their first weapons. Both were thrilled when they saw the bladed gauntlets.
“Be careful!” Gausbert scolded, concerned they would hurt someone with the serrated edges, which was really quite ridiculous when he reflected on it later. Obviously they were meant to hurt people.
“So cool!” Lisa squealed in delight, awed by the gleaming metal and keen to try them on.
“These aren’t the fully operational gauntlets, which you’ll get once you’ve shown proficiency with these,” their tutor reminded them. Even Thawne didn’t want the children to get killed during training, which would have been a tremendous waste of resources.
“What are we gonna do with them?” James asked, suddenly curious about the point of it all. It was something he’d never really questioned. He’d been told that one day he would graduate to acquiring weapons, which he'd assumed was a desirable goal because the adults had told him so, but didn't quite understand it.
“You’ll fight. The Professor will send you on missions,” Gausbert replied in a gentler tone, already sensing the boy’s ambivalence, and James looked confused.
“But I don’t want to fight, I just want to wear the rocket boots.”
“You don’t have a choice, James. None of us do,” Gausbert said wearily. “The decision was made for you, and you have to follow it.” He desperately wanted to apologize to the children for his role in their situation, but knew it wouldn’t help and would probably just undermine his authority, so he remained silent. Instead, he put his hands on James’ and Lisa’s shoulders and smiled sadly at them. “You’ll understand someday. But let’s postpone the next phase of your training until tomorrow.”
“Okay,” James answered quietly, trying not to let anyone see his lip quivering. He sought out Lisa’s hand as they were ushered back to the dormitory.
****
Mark soared on the breeze, loving the sensation of flight. The ability to fly, and the knowledge that he was the most godlike member of both teams were the greatest feelings he’d ever known. He enjoyed looking down on the others as they trained below, and as much as he loved his brothers, it was fun to annoy them with the occasional bit of inclement weather. Even better was to torment the Betas, particularly if he could do so undetected; it was hilarious watching George’s boomerangs blown off course or Mickey’s fires surreptitiously extinguished, and of course he shared the details with his delighted teammates later.
“The best part,” he snickered one night, “was watching those stupid rocket boots kids trying to keep their balance in the wind. They both wiped out!”
Most of the boys laughed but Len instantly went quiet, as he knew his sister was one of the kids in question.
“Guys, could you try to take it easy on Lisa?” he finally asked with an uncomfortable frown. “I don’t care about the rest of those losers, but I don’t want anything bad to happen to her. Remember, she’s my sister.”
“We’re your family now,” Sam said imperiously. There was a genuine element of team rivalry in his response, but he’d also sensed an opportunity to exert his dominance over Len and the others, and had decided to seize it. “You’re an Alpha, she’s a Beta. She doesn’t matter anymore.”
Most of the other boys nodded at this -- with the exception of Hartley -- but Len wasn’t going to back down.
“She’s still my sister and it doesn’t matter what squad she’s on. Don’t be a jerk.”
“How can you say that? Don’t you support the team?” Sam demanded. He’d suddenly found a new angle to exploit, and was going to milk it for all it was worth. Now even Hartley seemed annoyed and offended, and Len was facing a group of hostile faces.
“Of course I do. But I love my little sister too. All I’m saying is to not be mean to her: if you want to pick on any of the others, go ahead. Just leave Lisa out of it, okay? She’s only a girl.”
“A girl with a knife,” Al reminded him contemptuously, eyes rolling.
“Beta-lover,” Sam sneered, but Hartley had finally had enough.
“Drop it, guys,” the red-haired boy said as he stepped forward and put a hand on Len’s and Sam’s shoulders. “We’re better than this and we’re brothers, remember? We’re a united front.”
“I guess,” Sam muttered, feeling unhappy about the disruption of his scheme. He’d try again at the next opportunity.
“Yeah,” Len replied crossly, not entirely thrilled by the situation either. He would have preferred to settle the matter right then, rather than leave it unfinished and let it fester.
Mark took over the conversation again at that point, loudly regaling everyone with stories about the amazing things he could do now, but Len was lost in worried thought until bedtime. And as usual, Roscoe sat on the sidelines and said nothing.
****
Gausbert was absolutely furious at the next progress meeting. “Your brats are stirring up trouble for my children!” he accused Wykeham angrily, a finger stabbing in his direction, but it didn’t quite have the intended effect.
“Your children..?” Thawne asked in amusement, and Wykeham openly chuckled.
“Yes,” Gausbert replied with a hint of defensiveness, but he was already backing down. “That Weather Wizard boy…or whatever he’s called now…was disrupting the Betas’ training. I’m certain it was him. The children are unhappy about it.”
“So? It’s a good thing they’re encountering unexpected obstacles. Might teach them something,” Wykeham said with obvious contempt, and Thawne nodded in agreement.
“They don’t deserve to be bullied or humiliated,” Gausbert answered as irritation crept back into his voice, although he knew it was a lost cause. That made him angrier.
“They are Rogues and soldiers, and it’s the least they deserve,” Thawne told him coldly. “Remember your place and theirs, and stop whining about it or I’ll simply have you removed.”
“Yes sir,” Gausbert said quietly, well aware of the full implications of the threat. At this point he knew too much, and Thawne would certainly kill him if he left the project.
“Good. If you’re so concerned about ‘your’ children being victimized, then teach them to fight back. It’d be good for the little vermin,” Thawne replied, writing a few notes on his ledger. “You’re both dismissed.”
“Beta fool,” Wykeham muttered under his breath as the tutors left the room together, and Gausbert had to force himself to remain calm. So much was dependent on it.
****
Part Two
Author: liabrown aka dillonmania
Artist: useless19
Genre: Drama, Action
Characters: Eobard Thawne, Hartley Rathaway, Len Snart, Sam Scudder, Albert Desmond, Roscoe Dillon, Mark Mardon, Lisa Snart, George Harkness, James Jesse, Evan McCulloch, Mick Rory, Roy Bivolo, Owen Mercer, Thad Thawne, OCs.
Rating: R
Word Count: 16,600+
Warnings: Child abuse [physical and verbal, not sexual], violence, character death, profanity.
Author's Notes: You may have seen the prologue before; I was originally going to keep it separate and then decided to incorporate it into the body of the main story. The Cribis are canon and were introduced in Professor Zoom's first appearance, but Wykeham and Gausbert are my own invention.
Summary: Eobard Thawne went into the past to abduct the Rogues during their childhoods, and is training them to be his personal soldiers. This will not end well.
Part One - Part Two
Prologue
“Hold my hand tight, Lisa! Don’t let go!”
His younger sister didn’t answer, but her firm grip reassured him that she wouldn’t slip away. She must have been terrified, Len realized, even more frightened than he was. The strange man in yellow had spoken to them briefly before they were pulled into a dizzying void, and now it felt as though they were being dragged through it. Len gritted his teeth; it hurt, and he did what he could to protect her from the worst of the strain. Lisa didn’t make a sound for the duration of the trip, but when they were suddenly deposited onto the floor of a dimly-lit room, she let out a distressed cry.
“Lenny, you’re bleeding!”
“I’m okay,” he said bravely, looking her over for injuries. She seemed fine, just ragged and scared, so he wiped the blood from his forehead. He was accustomed to doing that.
“Hey, there are some new kids,” an unknown voice announced, and several boys approximately his age wandered over to look at them. Len stepped defensively in front of his sister, although she peered cautiously around him to look right back at the boys.
“Who’re you?” Lisa asked in a soft voice, always wary of strangers. Other children usually mocked the Snarts for being poor and unkempt.
“I’m Sammy,” declared the boy at the front of the pack. “This is Mark, that’s George, that’s Mickey, that’s Evan, that’s Al, and the sissy-boy is Roy.”
“Hey!” Roy protested, and the other boys snickered.
“He likes to draw or somethin’,” Mickey giggled cheerfully as he prodded the young artist’s shoulder in a friendly manner. “But he’s okay.”
“Who’re the others?” Len asked as he pointed at a couple of other boys in the shadows, both by themselves. One had his hands over his ears and was staring at the floor, while the other played intently with a top.
“Oh, they’re weird,” Mark scoffed with a wave of his hand. “They don’t talk much.”
“Their names are Roscoe and Hartley,” Roy piped up helpfully. He had some sympathy for children deemed weird because other kids tended to think similarly of him.
“Fartley,” George sneered.
“What kind of stupid name is ‘Hartley’?” Len asked, ignoring the fart joke. The Snarts had heard enough similar jokes to last a lifetime.
“He’s rich, look at his clothes,” Sam noted with a sagacious nod; the unstated conclusion was the general ridiculousness of rich people.
“Rich kids,” Len muttered contemptuously, wrinkling his nose. Lisa stamped her foot in disapproval, although it had nothing to do with anyone’s social class. “Too many boys! Where are the girls?”
“No girls,” Evan said in a surprisingly soft voice, tinged with a pleasant Scottish accent.
“Well that stinks,” she frowned. “All boys smell…`cept Lenny.”
“I’m Len, and she’s Lisa,” Len explained, realizing they hadn’t introduced themselves yet. “Why are we here? What is this place?”
“Dunno,” Sam shrugged. “The door’s locked, an’ the Professor hasn’t told us much.”
It was at the mention of ‘the Professor’ that Evan’s lip began to tremble. “He’s frichtsome. He took me away from Miss McCulloch.”
“He took all of us away, dipstick,” George replied in exasperation. They’d had this discussion before.
“Is that the man wearing the yellow suit?” Len asked, and the other boys nodded. “So this is like a kidnapping? We’ve been kidnapped?” He was very proud of knowing such a mature-sounding word.
“I guess so,” Mark mumbled, and only now did the gravity of the situation begin to sink in for him. ‘Kidnapped’ sounded a lot scarier than ‘brought us here’.
“I want tae go home,” Evan whispered, and started to cry.
“Me too,” Roy agreed unhappily, wailing more loudly than was deemed proper for a boy his age.
“Be quiet!” a voice hissed from across the room. Everyone turned and saw Hartley pressing his hands more tightly over his ears, eyes screwed shut from the pain. “You’re way too loud!”
Roy didn’t stop sobbing, but Len stared curiously at the red-haired boy hunched over on the floor.
“What’s your problem?” he asked, and despite being across the room and having his ears covered, Hartley answered him.
“My problem is that you are all far too loud, and you’re hurting my ears! And it’s not my fault that I’m rich and my clothes are nice or that my parents named me Hartley. I can’t change that.”
“How’d you hear all that?” Len asked in surprise, puzzled that the boy had overheard the less-than-flattering remarks about himself.
“I…hear very well,” Hartley said hesitantly, reluctant to tell strangers about his auditory implants. He didn’t want people knowing he was deaf, which he’d always been taught was something shameful.
“Okay Roy, shut up,” Len ordered, and fortunately the other boy had almost finished crying anyway. With a few exaggerated sniffles, Roy wiped his nose and let his cries die down into soft whimpers. Hartley relaxed somewhat, the pain significantly lessened. But standing off to one side, Sam scowled a bit as he realized the children were listening to a new leader.
“What about that other kid?” Len asked, pointing at the boy playing with the top. Now that he’d met everyone else, he might as well see what was going on with the last one. It seemed odd that this kid wasn’t spending time with the others when he wasn’t obviously an outsider like the rich boy.
“He’s always playing with that thing,” Sam shrugged, having been unable to get Roscoe to talk much. “He doesn’t like being bothered.”
“Hey. Hey, top-kid!” Len called out, but was studiously ignored. “You deaf or somethin’?”
Nobody noticed Hartley’s uncomfortable wince.
Roscoe continued playing and gave no indication that he’d heard anything, so Len walked over and poked his shoulder.
“What?” the other boy asked with exasperation. “You’re disturbing my concentration. And no, I’m not deaf.”
“Just wanted to know what’s up with you. How come you aren’t with the others?”
“Because I’m busy. Now please leave me alone.”
Len stared at him. Playing with a top didn’t qualify as ‘busy’ as far as he was concerned, but he wasn’t going to drag the boy away from it. He was about to turn away with a dismissive comment when Hartley suddenly jumped to his feet and announced fearfully that the Professor was returning.
Time and space began to shimmer, and the Professor soon emerged from the distortion with a slight blond-haired boy. The boy immediately ran from him and hid behind George, who was himself too frightened to jeer.
“Lenny…he’s the one who brought us here!” Lisa whispered apprehensively. She clutched at her big brother’s hand, and he mustered all his bravery to squeeze back.
“This is James. Now your group is complete,” the man in yellow declared to the assembled children, and even Roscoe looked up from his game to listen.
“Take us home!” Sam retorted boldly, hands on hips. “You can’t keep us here. The police will get you and lock you up forever.”
The Professor laughed. “Children, the police will never find you. You’re a long way from home -- several centuries in the future, in fact, and will never return to your old lives again. You’ll have new ones with me.”
“I need to go home to do my schoolwork, or my parents will be very angry at me,” Roscoe said gravely, though Thawne shook his head in annoyance.
“As usual you’re not listening, Roscoe. You will all have a greater future at my side than you ever would have had in your former petty lives. You were destined to become Rogues, the worst criminal scourges of Central City. But I’ve plucked you from early in your timelines and shall sculpt you into something better, something crueler and far more powerful. You’ll realize your true potential and work with me, rather than against me. As my own private army.”
“You’re stupid and I hate you!” Lisa shouted, kicking him in the shin, and the Professor choked with anger. Ignoring the children’s laughter, he hoisted the small girl into the air at super-speed, moving far too fast for her brother to protect her.
“Ah, Lisa -- the spirited one, I’d almost forgotten. You’re fortunate that I value your brother’s skills.”
He dropped her to the ground with more force than was necessary, but although frightened, she refused to cry.
“You stink,” she insisted loudly as Len rushed over and tried to end the situation, placing himself between her and the Professor.
“Some of you children will grow up to be more powerful or skilled than the others,” the Professor continued, paying no heed to Lisa’s insult. “They will be my elite, the special ones, and we will begin training immediately. Leonard, Albert, Mark, Hartley, Roscoe, and Samuel -- come with me. Your new lives begin now.”
“What’s so special about them?” George complained indignantly as the Professor ushered the startled boys towards the door. Len didn’t want to leave his sister, but the man forcibly pulled him away.
“I know your futures, George. These boys are better than you,” Thawne said with a smile, pleased by the angry scowls on the rejected children’s faces. The chosen boys filed out of the room when their benefactor opened the door, except for Len, who had to be dragged out.
“Lenny!” Lisa cried out in fear, terrified to be separated from her big brother, and he looked just as anguished.
“Someone will be in to feed you tomorrow, children. Goodnight,” the Professor addressed the remainders jovially, then slammed the door shut and activated the lock.
The holding room was now painfully quiet. Lisa, Evan, George, Roy, Mickey and James spent the night huddled together in the dark and praying the police would somehow free them, but no one ever came to their rescue. They were on their own.
End Prologue
****
Some of the children adjusted to their new lives in the twenty-fifth century more readily than others. Len, for instance, didn’t miss his father at all, and neither did George. But Len was tormented by the separation from his little sister, always worrying about her safety without his protection. Hartley’s keen ears sometimes heard her crying in another room, but he never told Len because it would clearly upset him.
For the first few weeks, Eobard Thawne and his assistants gradually eased the children into their new existence at his compound. They were kept segregated in two groups, the Alphas and Betas (nobody had ever accused Thawne of being particularly original), his elite squad and the remainders. And the children were never allowed to forget they were different. From the first day, the Alphas were told they were special, smarter, better. The Betas were told they weren’t as good as the other children, but it was possible they might improve. Regardless, the Betas quickly developed a fierce resentment towards their more favoured siblings, easily matched by the contempt the Alphas felt for them. The only members of the two groups who didn’t despise everyone on the other team were the Snarts; Len was an Alpha and Lisa a Beta.
The teams were kept in separate dormitories, although as the sole girl Lisa had a small room to herself. This only added to her isolation and loneliness, and she dearly wished to be allowed to bunk with the other Betas. She liked Roy and Evan, who were younger like her and very friendly, and was a bit intimidated by the older George, Mickey, and James. George had immediately established himself as a leader despite his somewhat anti-social tendencies, and the team soon settled into a relationship of mostly doing what he told them. But even he had to defer to the Betas' guardian, a mild man with an undercurrent of anger named Bernard Gausbert. Gausbert was responsible for their daily care and tutoring, as Thawne had passed such mundane responsibilities onto his subordinates.
The Alphas were ruled by a hard man they quickly learned to fear, a distant relative of Thawne’s named Ademar Wykeham. Armed with a perpetual scowl, he was under considerable pressure to produce champions out of frightened children, and he made certain to vent his frustrations on them. Fortunately none of the Alphas were unaccustomed to being shouted at, but they’d been thrust into a new world with technology completely alien to them and expected to excel. The stress on them was immense.
****
It was near the end of the supper hour, and Roscoe had wearily put his head down on the table.
“Sit up, or Mr. Wykeham’s gonna yell,” Mark urged him anxiously.
“Leave me alone. I’m real tired.”
“Sit up or I’ll make you sit up,” Sam hissed, worried that their minder would walk in at any moment and punish them all for it, and indeed he did return. Roscoe immediately sat up and hoped the man hadn’t seen anything, but Wykeham stalked over and cuffed the boy on the side of the head.
“Obviously someone wants to work harder,” Wykeham announced coldly, and all the Alphas cringed. “Roscoe, recite the multiplication tables.”
“O-one times one is one. One times two is two. One times three is thr-“
“Not from the beginning, you stupid boy. Even the youngest Betas know that kind of simple math. Start from the sevens.”
“Seven times one is seven. Seven times two is f…fourteen. Seven times three is…is…twenty-two…”
“It’s twenty-one, idiot. Twenty-one. Why the Professor wants you with the Alphas is a mystery,” Wykeham sighed in disgust. He glowered intently at Roscoe, who was unable to meet his gaze and fighting back tears of embarrassment. This was fairly similar to the dialogues he’d had with his own father, but seemed worse because it was in front of his peers.
“Seven times four is twenty-eight; seven times five is thirty five; seven times six is forty-two; seven times seven-“ Al interjected with brisk professionalism until Wykeham cut him off.
“I’m aware that you know your tables, Albert, there’s no need to show off.” He looked at his watch. “It’s nearly 2000 hours now, so most of you go back to your lessons. Roscoe, you’ll continue reviewing with me.”
Roscoe looked utterly despondent and had begun to rock slightly due to stress, so Hartley flashed him a sympathetic expression as the other Alphas filed out of the room.
****
Along with their first lessons, the children were taught team-building and given uniforms. The Alphas wore a modified version of Professor Zoom’s costume, in splendid yellow with red highlights, whereas the Betas received the primarily-red motif of the inferior Flash. The uniforms were made of an advanced twenty-fifth century polymer, which would grow with the wearer and were tailored to suit the future Rogues’ needs. Mick’s costume was more fire-resistant than the others, while Mark’s was designed to withstand the elements and Roscoe’s outfit worked to reduce friction. The children loved their new uniforms, especially the Alphas; as much as they feared the Professor, they were regularly reminded it was an honour to be decked out like him. It was a sign they were the chosen children, the superior ones.
They’d been permitted to keep their first names when they were kidnapped, but no longer used their former surnames. Their new family name was ‘Thawne’. When the adults were out of earshot they’d used their old surnames amongst themselves for a while, but time and judicious punishments slowly eroded the habit. After a few months in captivity, what did their old surnames matter anymore? They were never going to see their parents again, and it hurt a bit less to forget about that life.
****
James’ eyes were shut tightly as he clung to a pole fifteen feet above the ground. The high wire in front of him seemed to be swaying, and he feared he’d vomit on everyone below.
“Fall! Fall!” George taunted until scolded by Gausbert. Their guardian was exasperated, however, as he’d been told that James was an acrobat.
“I’m afraid of heights,” the boy confessed in a small voice, barely audible to those on the ground.
“Well, come down then,” Gausbert said irritably, unsure how to deal with the children’s fears. He didn’t have it in him to overtly bully his charges like Wykeham, but wasn’t particularly good at encouraging them either.
“I’ll go up with him,” Lisa declared softly, the first thing she’d said all morning. She studied the hand and footholds on the pole and slowly began to climb, compensating for a lack of strength and experience with sheer determination, just as Thawne had predicted. Soon she’d made it to the top, and hugged James until he relaxed a bit.
James stepped onto the wire with a deep breath and a little more confidence, just as he’d practiced with his parents. He’d never yet performed for an audience, though he still remembered how his father had coached him. But the Professor had told him he would never see his father again, and thinking about it made him feel sick. “Careful!” Lisa cried out fearfully as she saw him wobbling, and the boy fell. He was surprised to be caught above the ground by an invisible energy net; the children were still getting accustomed to the amazing technology of the future.
Gausbert shook his head in disbelief. “Go back and try it a few more times. You’ll have to master it eventually.”
With a sigh, James hopped off the net and trudged back to the pole to ascend it again.
****
The children were kept isolated from the world in a large compound, a prison which kept their existence secret from the authorities. They studied, trained, and were given medical care within its walls, almost always indoors. Occasionally they saw a doctor, but the only adults they typically interacted with were their team tutor and Eobard Thawne. It was a lonely existence, but at least they had their teammates to cling to.
The children forged further bonds to their team and the Professor by way of mandatory chants and slogans. Wykeham and Gausbert privately thought it all very ridiculous, but Thawne had ordered it and they couldn't argue with the results. The Alphas were made to sing daily songs about their superiority and brotherhood, and it obviously worked. The Betas chanted about their strong ties to each other and how someday they might best the Alphas, which gave a boost to their flagging self-esteem. And above all, the children were taught to pledge their allegiance to the Professor. The tutors were less certain about the success of that ploy, but the children never defied him and appeared to place their trust in him. Fear, however, seemed to play a greater role in their deference than love or respect.
****
The Alphas were typically permitted half an hour of free time before bed if they’d been studious, although Wykeham was rarely far away. Tonight most of the boys were rough-housing in the dorm, although Hartley found them too loud and kept his distance, and Roscoe was trying to spin small objects as though they were tops. Wykeham only allowed him to have real tops when he was doing well academically, which he usually wasn’t.
“We should sneak out and do something mean to the Betas,” Sam declared in the midst of a raucous pillow fight with Mark.
“Like what?” Al asked. He and Len had been organizing a steeplechase over the beds and other furniture, but Len stopped playing when he heard Sam’s suggestion. Something bad might happen to Lisa.
“I dunno, maybe get them blamed for something they didn’t do,” Sam shrugged.
“Yeah! Or do something to make them cry!” Mark enthused. “I bet we could make Roy cry in two minutes. I bet you tomorrow’s dessert I could do that.”
“That isn’t very nice,” Hartley said soberly from across the room.
“Mr. Wykeham would get us in trouble,” Len argued, keen to nip the plan in the bud. “It really isn’t a good idea.”
But half the boys were already headed for the door, and Len went with them to minimize the havoc. Hartley stayed where he was, and Roscoe ignored the request to come with them; the others knew well enough that he was too immersed in his own business.
The troublemaking Alphas tiptoed down the hall to the Betas’ dormitory. Sam was utterly gleeful when he quietly tested the doorknob and found it unlocked, so the Alphas crept inside. They discovered that the Betas had an earlier bedtime than they did, and the boys were all asleep.
“We should go,” Len whispered to the others, although he was relieved that Lisa wasn’t there. She was safely in her own room next door. But nothing was going to stop Sam and Mark now, and they crept towards the sleeping children. Evan’s bed was closest, and Mark gestured happily to the others before suddenly pouncing on him.
Evan screamed much more loudly than the Alphas had anticipated. He’d never told anyone that a boy at his orphanage had preyed on other children while they slept, and thus when Mark grabbed him he thought it was happening to him. He sat up in bed, still screaming, and Roy shrieked too at the fright of being awakened by someone else’s cries.
“Let’s get out of here!” Len hissed at his comrades, and they ran for it, but George Harkness was furious and sprang from his bed.
“Oi, yer gonner regret that!” he snarled as he chased them. Al was the least athletic of the Alphas and George quickly caught him and jumped on him, roughly pummeling his face. Al yowled in pain and his teammates turned back to defend their own, the situation soon devolving into a brawl between the Betas and half the Alphas.
“That is quite enough!” shouted Wykeham as he ran down the hall and freely slapped any boy within range. The fighting had already stopped by the time Gausbert arrived, and even Hartley and Roscoe peered timidly around the door to see what would happen. But the non-combatants disappeared when Eobard Thawne strode down the hall like a king; all the children were absolutely terrified of him. Those who’d been fighting didn’t have the opportunity to hide, and simply cowered as they waited to be reprimanded.
“What happened?” Thawne demanded, arms crossed. He could intimidate others even without his fearsome reputation.
“Them Alphas snuck into our room and scared the littler kids!” George said indignantly despite his fear. He was concerned he’d be blamed for starting the fight and receive the worst of the punishment if he didn’t speak up.
“Is that true?” Thawne asked the Alphas, narrowing his eyes at Len and Sam. He knew they were the team leaders.
“No,” Sam muttered darkly, clearly lying.
“Yes, Professor,” Len said quietly, having decided it would be better to tell the truth.
“Wykeham, keep a closer eye on your charges,” was Thawne’s only response, entirely aware that their guardian would punish them harshly for making him look bad. The Professor then walked away, leaving the furious minders to deal with their children.
All the Alphas were severely beaten that night, including the boys who hadn’t participated in the raid.
****
In time, both teams’ guardians began to train the children in more than just academics. Though they were still very young, Thawne wanted them to be taught their powers and weapons early so they’d be able to earn their keep by their mid-teens. Giving weapons to children was dicey, so they began with future-technology simulations, slowly learning to master the weapons their adult selves were known for.
Each child’s training program was different. Hartley was taught various musical instruments and techniques with the aspiration that he would eventually discover the secrets his adult self had learned. Al was immersed in the sciences to better use the Philosopher’s Stone, which he wouldn’t be allowed to handle until completely trustworthy. In the meantime, he used simulations of his Mister Element equipment. James and Lisa were trained to use upgraded versions of their gravity-defying footwear, somewhat akin to 25th-century rocket boots. Once they’d mastered the boots, Thawne planned to outfit them with powerful weaponry so they could strike viciously with high speed from the air.
The most intensive programs were used for the Mirror Masters and Roscoe. It was difficult to teach the use of mirror technology when even the trainers didn’t fully understand it, so the best they could do was to teach the boys science, expose them to the equipment, and hope they figured it out. As expected, Sam took to it easily and Evan floundered, which was why the former had been placed in the Alphas and the latter was a Beta. Thawne pondered allowing Sam to teach Evan, but decided against cross-pollinating the two teams. Evan was merely surplus, a backup. And available to be sacrificed if necessary.
Roscoe posed an interesting challenge for Thawne: how to teach a child to spin at super-speeds. The boy actually enjoyed it and practiced often, but was too young and undisciplined to progress as quickly as expected. He soon realized he was disappointing his tutors on this front just as he was in academics, leading him to anxiety and angry outbursts, which were severely punished. The other Alphas tried to cover for him and help with schooling, but he was becoming increasingly stressed and neurotic as the adults grew more exasperated with his inadequacies. The tension amidst the team was escalating.
****
Wykeham and Gausbert were required to present weekly status reports to Thawne, a task they dreaded. Wykeham in particular was under tremendous pressure to show his team was progressing well, since Thawne’s expectations for them were greatest.
“Most of them are doing quite satisfactorily, although they’re all wretched little scum,” Wykeham said as they sat around the table in Thawne’s office.
“Of course they’re scum…they’re Rogues,” Thawne said with a slight smile, thinking back to his various conflicts with their adult selves. “They’re the lowest of the low. But you said ‘most’; I assume the exception is Roscoe.”
“He’s a mess. He belongs with the Betas.”
Gausbert immediately felt defensive about the children in his care and nearly said something, though one look from his boss reminded him to be silent. Thawne tapped his chin thoughtfully.
“The adult I knew was brilliant and extremely powerful -- although the catch is that it was all spawned by centrifugal changes to his brain from spinning. If that doesn’t happen, he isn’t very useful to me.”
Wykeham frowned. While he would have been delighted to get rid of the child who made his job that much more difficult, failure would reflect poorly on him. “In the past, you’d mentioned a surgical option…”
Thawne nodded briskly. “Yes, I think we should try it. There isn’t much to lose at this point.”
****
The Alphas were clustered together in their classroom, taking advantage of Wykeham’s absence to socialize and help each other with schoolwork. Al and Sam regularly competed to be the smartest boy in the group, and one way to show off was to help the struggling members of the team with homework.
“…so you see, when you solve a quadratic equation, you're actually finding the x-intercepts of the parabolic plot,” Al concluded with a magnanimous smile. Hartley rolled his eyes at how obviously smug he sounded, but Roscoe was just relieved to have someone explain it without yelling and insults, as Wykeham always did.
“I think I got it,” he said with some uncertainty, biting his lip. He didn’t feel very comfortable making eye contact with other people, so his eyes remained fixed on the paper in front of him, but he smiled. “Thanks for helping me.”
“Brothers stick together. Alphas stick together,” Sam said flatly, and the other boys nodded.
“Mr. Wykeham’s coming back,” Hartley warned, and everyone hurried to their seats before the man returned, pretending to be hard at work.
Wykeham seemed unusually agitated about something and made a beeline for Roscoe, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him from the room. He hustled Roscoe down the hall and past a door he’d never been through before, and the boy soon found himself in some kind of medical office.
“Um, can I go back to class? I have homework to finish,” he asked quietly, finding the place rather sinister. He went silent upon seeing Eobard Thawne and a stranger in an odd type of one-piece suit. The stranger began prepping Roscoe’s arm for some kind of procedure while the boy became increasingly frightened and looked for a way out, but Wykeham stood between him and the locked door.
Thawne was smiling at him in an unfriendly manner, and he cowered as the stranger injected something into his arm. It didn’t hurt, but he felt woozy in moments and his vision soon went blurry.
“Try not to kill him,” was all he heard Thawne say before losing consciousness.
****
The Alphas were worried when Roscoe didn’t return by bedtime. They rarely asked Wykeham for anything because the response would be unpleasant, but Sam had to question him about their brother’s absence.
“He had brain surgery. Now go to bed,” came the brusque reply.
“Why?” Sam asked, horrified.
“Because he was a failure. That’s what’ll happen to the rest of you too if you disappoint the Professor, by the way. Now get to bed.”
Sam was slapped when he tried to ask further, so he and the other Alphas hurried to bed, utterly terrified. They wondered if they’d ever see their brother again.
****
Lisa and James loved zipping around on their rocket boots, chasing each other through the air and pushing themselves to go ever faster. Gausbert allowed them to play because he knew it would improve their skills, and brought a small amount of joy to some young lives he felt increasingly guilty for ruining. It was only a matter of time before they’d be given deadly weapons and taught to kill, he reflected, something that wouldn’t come naturally to either of them.
George liked killing, or at least relished destroying things with his boomerangs. The lethal models would come later, but he was already good at hitting targets and would soon move up to the next level of training. Gausbert was proud of his success in a twisted sort of way. Mickey truly enjoyed playing with fire, his pyromania having been indulged and encouraged, and would one day make a terrifying foot-soldier in Thawne’s army. Gausbert was obliged to regularly search him for matches and other fire-starting equipment, lest the boy burn down the compound with everyone in it.
Roy and Evan were still gentle and shy, but Roy was developing a bit of a sadistic streak. Having been bullied and different most of his life, he enjoyed having some power for the very first time. He was now allowed to use the real prism goggle technology his adult self had utilized, but only under supervision because the adults were concerned about what he might do with it otherwise.
Gausbert was certain the Betas were not failures, no matter what anyone said. They were good children being twisted into something ugly, and becoming increasingly skilled at it. They’d give the Alphas a run for their money someday.
****
When Roscoe returned a few days later, his head had been shaved and bandaged and he was very quiet. The other Alphas greeted him delightedly, relieved to see him alive, but when they mobbed him he seemed sullen and annoyed. They were surprised by it, but figured he was just tired and overwhelmed. His dour mood didn’t lift in the following days, however, and he remained more aloof than before. In the past he’d kept his distance due to shyness or preoccupation with his own interests, but now seemed simply cold and unfriendly.
After a few days of recovery he returned to his studies, and another change soon became apparent: he wasn’t struggling academically as he had been previously. The other boys’ attempts to help were now curtly rebuffed, and he'd soon begun to master all his schoolwork. Wykeham seemed pleased and was already kinder to him, or at least less insulting. But the other Alphas were disturbed; Roscoe wasn’t the same as before. And his hard stare was disconcerting.
****
For Gausbert, the most tiresome part of training was dealing with Mickey. The boy was far more eager to practice than the others because he loved to burn things, and these sessions were the only times he was permitted access to flames. Gausbert had to watch him constantly when he had fire, and endure his pleading to be allowed to “play” when it was taken away.
“Settle down,” the tutor scolded one day as the two of them watched the other Betas practicing. Lisa and James had clearly mastered their boots and were ready to move to the next level, and George sliced through his targets with frightening efficiency. Above them, Roy joyfully goofed around on a beam of light and hit all his own targets. Only Evan struggled, unable to complete his assigned tasks or requiring multiple attempts to get it right.
“Can I play now?” Mickey whined, excitedly tugging at Gausbert’s shirt.
“No. Wait your turn,” the man said curtly as he watched Evan intently. The junior Mirror Master didn’t seem to be trying very hard, and it had been happening consistently for several weeks. Gausbert finally called him over.
“What’s going on? Why are you doing so poorly?” the tutor asked calmly, though with obvious frustration in his voice. He knew Evan could do better.
“No reason,” Evan muttered, looking down at the ground. His accent and dialect had softened considerably after months away from Scotland, and he’d picked up new vocabulary from living with foreigners.
“Evan, what’s wrong?”
The boy was silent for several moments, but decided he could trust the only adult who was reasonably kind to him. “This is daft and pointless. Sammy’s always gonna be better than me, so I’m wasting my time trying. Why didn’t the Professor give me another job? I wanna do what Lisa does…it looks fun.”
Gausbert’s first impulse was to retort with a ‘because I said so’ response, although he realized it wouldn’t be particularly helpful to the situation. But ultimately that was the reason for it.
“That’s the job the Professor wants you to do,” was what he finally said. “It’s what he thinks you’ll be good at. Are you going to tell him you don’t want to do it?”
“….no, sir,” the child sighed unhappily. He feared Thawne above all else, as did Gausbert.
“I thought so. Go back and try again.”
“Can I play now?” Mickey begged desperately as Evan trudged away, and Gausbert groaned in exasperation. He had no idea why he’d ever agreed to this job.
“Yes, Mickey. Be careful.”
He gave the boy his miniature flamethrower, otherwise kept under tight control for everyone's safety, and Mickey gleefully ran to the training area to start burning things.
****
One day it was Mark's turn to be taken away. He was abruptly pulled out of class while the other Alphas buzzed with worry over his fate, helpless to assist their friend. Wykeham led him down the hall and into the same medical office Roscoe had been brought to, and while Mark didn’t know it was the same place, he remembered that Roscoe had been taken away and returned different. He refused to let it happen to him without a fight. He shoved Wykeham and dashed past him to the door, running as fast as he could down the hallway and attempting to find an exit. But Thawne had super-speed, and it took only seconds to retrieve the struggling boy and return him to the doctor’s office.
“Let me go!” Mark screamed, kicking and flailing as though his life depended on it; as far as he was concerned, it did. The adults weren’t accustomed to this sort of resistance from the young Rogues and were taken aback by it, but a solitary child was no match for Thawne and his assistants. They held him down as the doctor sedated him and strapped him to a bed, and then Thawne went to calibrate some nearby equipment of his own invention. He'd built the devices some years earlier during his supervillain career, and had recently redesigned them for other purposes. Minutes later, the machines hummed to life and bathed Mark in a beam of radiation while the adults watched from the safety of another room.
****
Mark felt terribly ill when he regained consciousness. Still strapped down, he turned his head and vomited all over himself, and then noticed Thawne smiling broadly at him.
“What’d you do to me, Professor?” he asked fearfully, and Thawne grinned wider.
“We’ve unlocked your genetic potential to command the elements. You should thank us.”
“I want…I want to go back to the dorm,” Mark said in a small voice. He felt incredibly vulnerable and still very sick, with an odd tingling sensation reverberating throughout his body. Electricity occasionally arced painfully around his eyes.
“Later. For now, get some rest, and then we’ll test your new abilities,” Thawne told him, with a surprisingly gentle pat on the shoulder. “You may now be the most powerful of my Alphas.”
Ill and frightened as he was….Mark liked the sound of that.
****
Sam had been one of the first children to be kidnapped by Thawne, and had quickly assumed a leadership position amongst the captive Rogues. It was in his nature and something he enjoyed; he liked having others look to his wisdom and do what he told them. But then Len had joined the group, and his own natural leadership skills had been a constant source of irritation to Sam ever since. Both felt they should be the sole captain of the Alphas, and the other children worsened the problem by not consistently accepting one boy as leader. The Alphas prided themselves on being egalitarian (even though they weren’t), and generally followed the directions of both Sam and Len.
Wykeham and Thawne had opted to let the boys battle it out for themselves, figuring that whoever came out the victor would be the better for it, so Sam and Len were in a constant unspoken war for leadership. To talk about it would have resulted in hot denials about Alpha brotherhood, so no one ever said anything and the duo engaged in passive-aggressive competition to prove each was the better leader. It was stressful for them, and sometimes resulted in awkward situations for the other Alphas caught in the middle. But the adults decided a bit of tension in the team would keep them from getting complacent, so nothing was done to resolve it and the resentment worsened.
****
Thawne and Wykeham had taken Mark outdoors to test his supposed new abilities. The research indicated he should now have innate weather-controlling powers, but nothing was proven until he could demonstrate it. The boy blinked painfully in the bright sun, shielding his eyes, as none of the children had spent much time outside since their abduction ten months earlier.
“Concentrate,” Thawne told him, and Mark obeyed, but for several long minutes there was no change in the weather.
“Professor…”
“Concentrate!”
Mark directed all his thoughts to making it rain, creating a breeze, anything, but still there was nothing.
“Such a useless boy,” Wykeham muttered under his breath, and although Mark wasn’t supposed to have heard it, he did. Anger swelled in him and the air began to crackle, and Thawne noted with satisfaction that the hair on his arms had risen. Within moments, a bolt of lightning tore down from the heavens, striking the ground in front of Mark and fusing the soil to glass.
“Excellent,” Thawne smiled as Mark stared at the smoking earth in amazement.
“Did I..?”
“You did, without the assistance of any wand. Show us what else you can do.”
Mark closed his eyes and imagined a downpour soaking Wykeham. Thirty tense seconds passed and then rain began to fall; at first just a few drops, and soon heavily.
“I did it!” Mark cheered jubilantly. He raised his hands to the sky in triumph. “I did it!”
“You’ve done well,” Thawne said in a respectful tone, placing a hand on his shoulder. The Professor rarely offered praise to any of the children, so it was a pleasurable reward indeed, and for a moment Mark almost felt like an equal. The rain quickly turned to blowing snow, and the boy’s proud grin widened.
“How does it feel to be the mightiest soldier in my army?”
****
James and Lisa bounced up and down excitedly as Gausbert handed a box to each of them; they’d finally been given their first weapons. Both were thrilled when they saw the bladed gauntlets.
“Be careful!” Gausbert scolded, concerned they would hurt someone with the serrated edges, which was really quite ridiculous when he reflected on it later. Obviously they were meant to hurt people.
“So cool!” Lisa squealed in delight, awed by the gleaming metal and keen to try them on.
“These aren’t the fully operational gauntlets, which you’ll get once you’ve shown proficiency with these,” their tutor reminded them. Even Thawne didn’t want the children to get killed during training, which would have been a tremendous waste of resources.
“What are we gonna do with them?” James asked, suddenly curious about the point of it all. It was something he’d never really questioned. He’d been told that one day he would graduate to acquiring weapons, which he'd assumed was a desirable goal because the adults had told him so, but didn't quite understand it.
“You’ll fight. The Professor will send you on missions,” Gausbert replied in a gentler tone, already sensing the boy’s ambivalence, and James looked confused.
“But I don’t want to fight, I just want to wear the rocket boots.”
“You don’t have a choice, James. None of us do,” Gausbert said wearily. “The decision was made for you, and you have to follow it.” He desperately wanted to apologize to the children for his role in their situation, but knew it wouldn’t help and would probably just undermine his authority, so he remained silent. Instead, he put his hands on James’ and Lisa’s shoulders and smiled sadly at them. “You’ll understand someday. But let’s postpone the next phase of your training until tomorrow.”
“Okay,” James answered quietly, trying not to let anyone see his lip quivering. He sought out Lisa’s hand as they were ushered back to the dormitory.
****
Mark soared on the breeze, loving the sensation of flight. The ability to fly, and the knowledge that he was the most godlike member of both teams were the greatest feelings he’d ever known. He enjoyed looking down on the others as they trained below, and as much as he loved his brothers, it was fun to annoy them with the occasional bit of inclement weather. Even better was to torment the Betas, particularly if he could do so undetected; it was hilarious watching George’s boomerangs blown off course or Mickey’s fires surreptitiously extinguished, and of course he shared the details with his delighted teammates later.
“The best part,” he snickered one night, “was watching those stupid rocket boots kids trying to keep their balance in the wind. They both wiped out!”
Most of the boys laughed but Len instantly went quiet, as he knew his sister was one of the kids in question.
“Guys, could you try to take it easy on Lisa?” he finally asked with an uncomfortable frown. “I don’t care about the rest of those losers, but I don’t want anything bad to happen to her. Remember, she’s my sister.”
“We’re your family now,” Sam said imperiously. There was a genuine element of team rivalry in his response, but he’d also sensed an opportunity to exert his dominance over Len and the others, and had decided to seize it. “You’re an Alpha, she’s a Beta. She doesn’t matter anymore.”
Most of the other boys nodded at this -- with the exception of Hartley -- but Len wasn’t going to back down.
“She’s still my sister and it doesn’t matter what squad she’s on. Don’t be a jerk.”
“How can you say that? Don’t you support the team?” Sam demanded. He’d suddenly found a new angle to exploit, and was going to milk it for all it was worth. Now even Hartley seemed annoyed and offended, and Len was facing a group of hostile faces.
“Of course I do. But I love my little sister too. All I’m saying is to not be mean to her: if you want to pick on any of the others, go ahead. Just leave Lisa out of it, okay? She’s only a girl.”
“A girl with a knife,” Al reminded him contemptuously, eyes rolling.
“Beta-lover,” Sam sneered, but Hartley had finally had enough.
“Drop it, guys,” the red-haired boy said as he stepped forward and put a hand on Len’s and Sam’s shoulders. “We’re better than this and we’re brothers, remember? We’re a united front.”
“I guess,” Sam muttered, feeling unhappy about the disruption of his scheme. He’d try again at the next opportunity.
“Yeah,” Len replied crossly, not entirely thrilled by the situation either. He would have preferred to settle the matter right then, rather than leave it unfinished and let it fester.
Mark took over the conversation again at that point, loudly regaling everyone with stories about the amazing things he could do now, but Len was lost in worried thought until bedtime. And as usual, Roscoe sat on the sidelines and said nothing.
****
Gausbert was absolutely furious at the next progress meeting. “Your brats are stirring up trouble for my children!” he accused Wykeham angrily, a finger stabbing in his direction, but it didn’t quite have the intended effect.
“Your children..?” Thawne asked in amusement, and Wykeham openly chuckled.
“Yes,” Gausbert replied with a hint of defensiveness, but he was already backing down. “That Weather Wizard boy…or whatever he’s called now…was disrupting the Betas’ training. I’m certain it was him. The children are unhappy about it.”
“So? It’s a good thing they’re encountering unexpected obstacles. Might teach them something,” Wykeham said with obvious contempt, and Thawne nodded in agreement.
“They don’t deserve to be bullied or humiliated,” Gausbert answered as irritation crept back into his voice, although he knew it was a lost cause. That made him angrier.
“They are Rogues and soldiers, and it’s the least they deserve,” Thawne told him coldly. “Remember your place and theirs, and stop whining about it or I’ll simply have you removed.”
“Yes sir,” Gausbert said quietly, well aware of the full implications of the threat. At this point he knew too much, and Thawne would certainly kill him if he left the project.
“Good. If you’re so concerned about ‘your’ children being victimized, then teach them to fight back. It’d be good for the little vermin,” Thawne replied, writing a few notes on his ledger. “You’re both dismissed.”
“Beta fool,” Wykeham muttered under his breath as the tutors left the room together, and Gausbert had to force himself to remain calm. So much was dependent on it.
****
Part Two