Blackest Night: Doom Patrol

[corps_of_death]

Codville, ME

The little fishing village of Codville never had more than a couple hundred residents. The population declined as its youth went to the cities to find higher-paying work, and the big trawlers and large international corporations depleted the fish.

Amid the falling-down, abandoned houses, and boarded-up stores, there is a small marble and

Comments

[corps_of_death]

The Dayton family, befitting their high station, has an above-ground vault in a well-guarded and well-maintained cemetery. One of the niches has been filled only recently, the brass plate has not yet completely dulled with tarnish.

Steven Dayton...RISE!!

The voice is as commanding as Caulder's, as harsh as The Brain's synthesizer, and as sweet as Rita's. His rotten eyes open and the Helmet they were kind enough to entomb with him is slapped on. With a mental blast, the polished granite blasts apart like shotgun shells.

Mento has returned, and he needs to find the team.
He needs to find Rita.
Find one - find the other.

[green_menagerie]

Gar was in his room, considering designing a new costume for himself, when the phone rang.

Very few people have this particular number. And it's only publicly known in one place: a small fishing village in the middle of nowhere.

He blinks, not recognizing the number on the caller ID, but he answers it.

A few moments later, his expression grim, he hangs up the phone and heads for the teleporters. On the way, he'll call Cliff.

He's always been worried that someone will return to threaten Codville -- to make the sacrifice of the Doom Patrol meaningless. That's why he made sure that several people in town knew they could call him, on his own private line, day or night, if there was trouble.

Tonight, it seems, the time has finally come. And the surviving members of the Doom Patrol will help protect Codville -- and the sacrifice of the original Doom Patrol.

[heart_of_steele]

Codville. A place of memories. Where Larry and Rita and the Chief had all died and he'd very nearly died too. Where a madman and a madwoman had made their mark by murdering pretty much the only friends he'd ever had. Where four people had decided that the lives of fourteen poor fishermen had been more important than their own.

Where the world had watched them die, on the promise that every man was important.

He'd like to think that sacrifice had meant something.

Now? Cliff would be damned if he was going to let someone ruin that.

[corps_of_death]

The modest grave in the middle of a dying Kansas town is ornamented with a small picture of a rainbow. No one visits anymore.

The whistle on the wind seem to carry a faint song, the favorite song of a poor girl who never got a chance to click her heels...

Dorothy Spinner...RISE.

An ape-faced teenaged girl claws out of her grave, wearing the tattered repains of a blue and white gingham dress.

She concentrates and summons up ghostly little dog.

"We're off to see Caulder, Toto. Come on. And he'll make sure that we don't have to get left behind any more..."

[corps_of_death]

Near the capital city of Atlantis, another black ring sinks into the ocean.

Arani Desai Caulder - Rise!

Celsius reforms, more like a ghostly black flame than solid form. She is pulled toward Codville. Niles, the bastard who abandoned her, the man she loves (and hates herself for doing so) will be there...

[corps_of_death]

Another simple grave no one visits in another dying town.

Kate Godwin...RISE.

She looks at her decaying, bony form, and briefly does a once-over with her skeletal hands.

"Good. I got buried as a girl."

She turns around and touches a nearby cement block, watching it melt like ice cream left in a hot car. "And I haven't lost my touch."

The ring manifests her old costume and calls her towards where she needs to be.