Jack Kadere stood on the roof of a residential building, watching.
Ahead of him, by the low wall at the roof's edge, someone crouched with a pair of binoculars trained on a window in the building across the street. No scantily clad beauty on the other side. No couple in the middle of a good time. The person doing the peeping wasn't some stubble-faced creep in a stained jacket, either.
It was a woman. Black, with a wild mane of tight curls springing out in every direction. Her name was Shawna. Her background wasn't anything remarkable—she'd simply been caught in the particle accelerator explosion and come out the other side with the ability to teleport anywhere she could see. In the show, she'd used it to break her boyfriend out of prison. The Flash had beaten her by smashing every light in a tunnel, plunging it into total darkness so she had nothing to lock onto.
Jack ran through the roster in his head. Multiplex for sheer numbers. The Mist for area denial. Girder as the wall. Add a teleporter who could strike and vanish at will, and the lineup was respectable—even by disposable-villain standards.
Shawna exhaled long and slow, lowering the binoculars to roll her neck. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement—someone standing behind her on the roof where no one had been a second ago.
She spun, hand dropping to her waist.
"Who the hell are you? Get off this roof!"
Jack smiled. "I'm here because I need you to do something for me."
"Do something for you?" Shawna's lip curled. "Who do you think you are? I don't know you." Her hand came up with a pistol, leveled at his chest. "Leave. Now."
"Seems like everyone's first instinct is violence." Jack tilted his head. "Fine by me."
Red lightning crackled across the rooftop.
Shawna's stomach dropped. Her eyes darted to a rooftop three blocks away, locking onto it, her power spinning up—
She never finished the thought. Something struck the side of her neck and the world tilted sideways, her legs folding beneath her before she even registered the pain.
"Don't bother. You can only teleport where you can see, and I'm faster than sight."
Jack bent down, scooped her up, and the red lightning swallowed them both.
---
He brought her aboard the Aerie.
The ship was smaller than the Waverider in overall footprint, but it packed everything into the space with ruthless efficiency. Especially the brig. The Aerie had originally belonged to a bounty hunter—someone who chased targets across timelines and needed cells built to hold whatever walked through the door. The containment specs made the Waverider's pipeline look like a drunk tank.
Jack tossed Shawna onto the floor of the corridor and glanced at the three occupied cells.
Multiplex sat cross-legged in the first, quiet, watching. In the second, the Mist had dissolved into a churning cloud of green toxin, slamming himself against the walls of his cell in rolling waves. In the third, Girder—his entire body sheathed in living steel—hammered his fists against the barrier with the frantic, arrhythmic fury of a man losing an argument with a wall.
"Shh." Jack held a finger to his lips, then pointed down at Shawna's unconscious body. "Keep it down. The lady's resting."
The pounding stuttered, then resumed quieter.
"I know what you want to say. I know what you want to ask. Be patient. I'll explain everything once she's awake."
It took less than five minutes.
Shawna groaned, eyelids fluttering, and pushed herself up on one arm. She took in the unfamiliar corridor, the humming walls, the three men caged behind barriers she didn't recognize—and Jack Kadere leaning against the far wall with a pleasant smile on his face. She stepped back, eyes narrowing, but didn't try to teleport.
There was nowhere to go. The space was fully enclosed. No windows. No line of sight to anywhere outside.
"Let me introduce myself," Jack said. "My name is Jack Kadere. I know each of you very well. I know how you got your powers, what those powers are, and what you want to do with them."
He pushed off the wall and paced slowly in front of the cells.
"As for why you're here—I'll keep it short. I need you to help me deal with someone."
"What makes you think you can make us do anything?" the Mist snarled, his voice reverberating strangely through his gaseous form.
"Because you're still breathing." Jack's smile didn't waver. "If you fight me, you lose. If you run, I'm faster. And besides—you've all got abilities now. I can't imagine any of you want to spend the rest of your lives skulking around like strays."
He turned to Multiplex first.
"You want the CEO of your old company dead. Revenge for your wife."
Then the Mist.
"You want the crime family boss who hung you out to dry. The judge. The cops who put you away."
Then Girder. Jack studied him for a beat.
"You just want people to be afraid of you. You want to take whatever you want, whenever you want it."
Girder's steel jaw shifted. He nodded without thinking about it.
Jack's gaze landed on Shawna last.
"And you want your boyfriend out of Iron Heights."
Shawna's wariness cracked, just barely. "What exactly are you getting at?"
"It's simple. You were all going to act on your own eventually. I'm just putting you in the same room so you can do it smarter. Hit your targets separately at the same time, team up, whatever works—your call."
"What's in it for you?" Multiplex asked from his cell, arms folded.
"Have any of you heard of the Flash?" Jack's grin widened.
Multiplex, the Mist, and Shawna shook their heads. Girder snorted, steel fingers flexing. "The guy on the internet? Running around saving people?" He looked Jack up and down. "I figured that was you."
"His speed isn't in my league," Jack said, amused. "But he's got a habit I'm counting on. Superheroes show up wherever there's trouble. So when all four of you make your moves at once, he'll come running." Jack spread his hands. "I want to see what happens when he has to deal with all of you at the same time."
"If you're faster than him, why not handle it yourself?" the Mist pressed.
"Do I need to explain myself to you?"
The question hung in the recycled air of the corridor. Jack smiled, light and easy, and tapped a control on the wall. The cell barriers dropped in unison.
"You decide how to run it. I don't care about the details. But by noon tomorrow, I want to see you making the Flash's life difficult." His voice stayed casual, but something in it went flat and still. "If any of you bail on me and I miss my show, I'll make sure the person responsible never enjoys anything again."
Red lightning exploded through the corridor.
Before any of them could move or speak, the four meta-humans found themselves standing in a narrow alley somewhere in Central City. Dumpsters. Wet brick. The distant hum of traffic. No sign of Jack Kadere.
They looked at each other.
Silence stretched until Multiplex broke it. "I don't see a downside. Four people have a better shot than one—especially if the Flash shows up to play hero. We might as well get to know each other and figure out how to coordinate."
The Mist's green haze contracted, solidifying back into a man. Girder's steel receded to skin. Shawna holstered her gun, which she didn't remember drawing.
One by one, they nodded.
---
Back aboard the Aerie, Jack leaned against the hull and gazed out at the city lights below the cloaked ship.
"There's one more," he murmured to himself. "But that one can wait. Show first."
He turned from the viewport, exited the Aerie into the villa, and waved to Laurie as he stepped inside.