Kid Shark

Based on: Assault on Arkham, Arkham Knight comics

___________________________________________________________________________

Gotham City’s Police Department, the GCPD, wasn’t known for being particularly welcoming to the criminals brought in to it, and age had no influence at all on that very basic fact.

“So…any known aliases?” 

While considering himself “Kid” Shark, the newest detained soul at the police department was not feeling very talkative. His mouth had a muzzle of sorts over it, but the metal structure he had on his face prior to its addition placed it far enough off his mouth for him to speak with only some difficulty.

He didn’t want to though. 

A second cop snorted as he stared at their captive through the cell, “His dad was King Shark, so does that make the brat Prince Shark?”

While he loved his father, the late King Shark’s son by no means felt obligated to having a grand title like his father’s. That’s why he would settle for “Kid”…that, and he was one. Not only did “Prince” sound outright goofy, it would also put him on a level like that of his father, something he did not feel as if he earned. 

The first cop dropped his line of questioning as he filled out the young child’s paperwork. His mind wandered from the kid’s alias to that of another, earning a chortle out of the man, “I wonder what fat bimbo is Queen Shark then?”

Despite having chains around his legs, the restrained kid thrashed and tried to lunge at the man. He was not the giant his father was, nor did his comparatively lean muscles have anywhere near the same caliber of strength, so the attempt failed…though only just barely, given how they creaked. 

The cops laughed as the kid settled down, the whole event drawing the eyes of some other cops though none spoke up. Gotham had a lot of good cops, but as tensions were rising in the city the good cops mostly took to the streets in their attempt to stem the tide of crime flowing ever since the entire “Arkham City” debacle fell apart. 

Quietly seething in his cell, the newly minted criminal growled at his tormentors, “You’re lucky I’m tied up, or else I’d rip your head off and feast on your throat for that.”

“Uhh, news flash, you aren’t some hulking brute like your dumbass dad. What, you gonna tell me you take after mommy? You a momma’s boy?”

He actually did take more after his mother…though he had inherited a few things from his father. He had a craving for human flesh that could not be satiated, not that his mother let him indulge in it. He was certainly leagues stronger than he ought to be for a kid his size, and his skin was far tougher. He could even run faster and jump higher than the others at school…but none of it measured up to anything like what he heard about his father, who was quite the physical god. 

Instead, he was skinny like his mother. He had her hair, though with hair dye he managed to emulate his father’s hair color based on images he found online. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was glad he got her brain. Most importantly though, he had her normalness to balance out his father’s godlike traits. A fire hydrant to the back of the head would not have taken out King Shark…

“Oh, no, I heard you worship your dad like some saint. Some pagan-ass god you got there with cannibalism and all!” 

Kid Shark snarled. Hearing these nobodies prattle on and on was grating on his nerves, and he had never been one for self-restraint: it was usually fully used up by him trying not to eat people, leaving little else for him to spare on things like patience.

“My father could tear you limb from limb…”

The threat was muffled, but the cops could still pick it up…as well as realize how empty it was.

One of the men leaned in towards the holding cell to give a smug grin to the kid inside it, “I’m sure he could. He did eat some people back at Arkham after all, and I’m sure I taste good.”  

The cop crouched down to the level of the juvenile, a trick normally used to comfort, but in this instance the action was used to mock the chained wannabe villain.

“Thing is, twerp, you can’t.” 

Kid Shark may have been raised to hold back his base urges to devour human flesh, but he hadn’t been raised to keep his tongue in check.

He glared back at the cop who he was beginning to hate as much as Batman, “It took the damn Batman and Gordon to beat me. You’re just some cop mook who wouldn’t even make good Italian food.”

Kid, I barely knew your father. But if he was anything like you…he deserved everything he got. 

That rose the cop’s blood, and the man opened the cell so he could go show the kid what he thought of his attitude.

Kid Shark was chained to the edge of the cell with his legs, while his arms were still bound in their original, reinforced cuffs he had been taken in with. This made him an easy target for the cop as he pulled out a club and swung it at the child, “You little brat!”

Gotham was known for its bad cops, and this one was no better. He had wanted to treat the kid like a rabid animal on the way back, including trying to put a shock collar on. He had settled for a muzzle at the time, but after a few good hits he’d go through with his original plan. He had dealt with enough crazy criminals for a lifetime and become desensitized to the whole process.

The cop had anticipated the child being too stupid to duck, and as a result the club sailed through the air until it slammed onto the surface of the cell behind where the child’s head ought to be.

A sickening crack and snap preceded the kid pulling his arms from behind him, where they had been handcuffed. By that time the cop was too overextended and ended up with a pair of arms handcuffed together smashing down onto his forehead.

The attack was enough to send the man reeling away until he hit the entrance of the cell and then bounced back to where a very infuriated child was ready to claw at him.

While it was nowhere near as great as his father’s, regeneration was another perk granted to the child. His shoulders had fixed themselves about as quickly as they snapped out of place, since such a thing was nothing compared to being able to regenerate actual flesh and bone. 

The kid used his hands to grab the cop and pull him closer and down to his level, “Try that again and I’ll show you the meaning of cold blooded, you damn mook.”

During this time the other cop had time to act, and it was with a severe shock that Kid Shark let go of the man in his grasp. He growled in pain beneath his mask and muzzle as a powerful taser brought him to his knees. 

His skin was thick, but not quite thick enough to shrug off such a powerful shock.

With the kid writhing in pain, the officer with him in the cell took the opportunity to take another quick swing across his head. The strike connected right beside the kid’s eye, but no blood was drawn and no bruise formed. 

Not content with just a wince of pain, the cop began to hail down a flurry of blows as his partner finished using their taser. It was a minute before he was done, and while no real damage was done to the tank of a child the juvenile was still left nearly unconscious by the repeated head trauma.

“Know your place, animal. This serves you right.” 

The cop left the cell and he left with his partner to go do other work, leaving the kid on the floor to lay in extreme pain.

“So tough…hitting a three year old…”

Yet another thing inherited from his father was rapid aging, or so his mother had told him. She had found some medical records showing that his father had rapidly progressed through childhood until maturation, at which point it seemed to dial back. 

Of course, in his state of near-unconsciousness he thought not of this fact after the words left his mouth, but of the last time he was rendered to such a state: when he had lunged at Commissioner Gordon in an attempt to murder him.

The Batman had ended that by smashing a fire hydrant against the back of Kid Shark’s head, leaving him fuzzy enough for normal policemen to take him in. Compared to the strength of that strike, no individual strike in this most recent conflict was anywhere near painful. It was only the unrestrained quantity of them that resulted in any real harm. 

He hated himself. He hated not being as strong as his father, or as tough. He had the slightest inkling of the man’s powers, but not the entirety of them as he wished. When he heard at the doctor’s office that he would not be seven feet tall like his father had been but rather only just over six feet he had been crushed.

No matter what, he would not be able to live up to his father’s legacy… 

He was a saint damnit!

When he had screamed that he had taken Batman and smashed him into the fire hydrant that would later be his own downfall, dislodging it fiercely and actually taking the Batman out momentarily. 

He had even opened up the fight like how his mom told him that his father fought Batman, by tackling the vigilante and knocking him off his feet. A refresher course of just what their bloodline could do.

Maybe that’ll help you remember my dad! Those bastards in the Suicide Squad may have killed him, but I’m here to make sure no one forgets him. Starting with you Batman!

Of course things didn’t turn out that way, and he had failed at the only thing he had ever tried to do. He had managed to put together a bulletproof suit of armor, create a fake jaw to go over his real one and aid in his biting of others, and get himself to Gotham right when everything was beginning to go to hell.

Even with all of that, he only lasted seconds against the city that took his father from him. Now he was in chains, and he had lost what little he had. Had he succeeded he could have returned home, he could have laid low since he did not even live in Gotham, but he had been defeated and now he wasn’t sure what would kill him: being imprisoned, or what his mother would do to him when she found out what he had tried to go and do.

“Do you need anything?”

The question caused the child to groggily snap out of his own thoughts. What time was it? How long had he just been laying there on the floor? It had been night when he arrived at the police department and it was still dark out so it was difficult to gauge the time.

By the time he managed to pull himself up enough to even look around he felt something being draped around his shoulders.

Kneeling beside him was Commissioner Gordon, who was finishing placing his jacket on the child as the minor tried to think of what to say or do. This was a man who he had tried to kill hours ago, and now he was helping him?

The Commissioner seemed to realize the confusion in the boys eyes, and he set about rectifying it, “You looked cold. I’m sorry if my men have been treating you poorly.”

Gordon…wasn’t a cold-hearted bastard. That thought struck the child like a freight train. After hearing stories about Gotham and the so called heroes of it, he had always resented them for their role in his father’s death. But here Gordon was treating him well, even after everything. Treating him like a human.

He could count on a single hand the amount of people who had really treated him that way, and so he was awestruck as Gordon sat down beside him and began to talk to him even as other cops in the area began to whisper around them all.

“Listen, I’m sorry about your father, but we didn’t do that, so there is no need to hurt people here for what someone else did.”

To Gordon, criminal or not, he could recognize a child in pain. He had seen what the city could do to innocent souls, had seen how traumatized some could grow by the horrors it wrought on them. When the Waynes were murdered years back Gordon had helped their young son through his pain, and now that he had a chance he would see if he could set to rest some demons faced by this child. If only Batman could be as understanding, Gordon thought, as his words had been biting and likely provoked the child even more than he was to begin with.

Unused to and uncomfortable with positive interactions outside of his family, the young Shark sat in silence as he let Gordon comfort him. He was at a loss of what to do, since this man was not to blame for his father’s death, and doing anything violent now would be pointless. He had already lost. 

The Commissioner knew almost nothing about the child, just as he barely knew the father, but he could hear the anguished love in the child’s voice when they had fought earlier. He didn’t know much about their relationship, though he doubted King Shark was much of a father figure, and so he inquired about a basic detail before he pressed on any further.

“Did you know him?” 

Draped in a jacket, the mutant being curled up in a ball while still upright. He didn’t know what he was going to do anymore. He had wanted to avenge his father, he had wanted to bring him back through carnage, but he was a failure at even that. He didn’t know if his mother would even be proud or angry of that fact, or if she would just be disappointed when she found out.

She was tough and could be cold, but she was quite loving and it made him actually feel guilty when he thought of what his crimes would do to her. She would be devastated that her son was now no better than his father, and that she might not be able to see him for quite a long time. After all, he was three years old, but he was as matured as a young teenager. He did not know what they’d do to him, but he doubted he would get out of this without a lot of time behind bars. 

Still thinking about her, he began to softly cry as he gave a small shake no to Gordon’s question.

“My mom’s told me everything…”

She had told him how his father was one of the strongest men in the world, how even in a world with the likes of titans and freaks he was able to stand out. She told him how despite his mutation that made him that way and made him desire peculiar meat, King Shark was a good man who had treated her far nicer than others had. Other men might have liked her body or some other physical feature, while he had cared for her feisty nature.

Gordon could see that bringing up the child’s mother was almost a sore spot, but it was better than bringing up his father, so he decided to try and turn things around on the mother-front.  

He offered a smile as he brought a hand around to the child’s far shoulder, “Well, at least you have your mother. Are you two close?”

A sniffle and slight nod were the only physical response, “She’s all I have, other than what she tells me about dad…”

“Do you want me to call her?” 

In an attempt to mask his cracking façade, Kid Shark tightened his face up and tried to crack a joke that might actually be true, “She’ll kill me for skipping school to do this.”

It earned a smile from Gordon, who was trying to read into the child’s emotions through his eyes since his mouth was still covered. Seeing that he was still upset but no longer about to cry, Gordon tried to divert the subject based on that tangent, “Oh, I see. I remember my daughter Barbara missing a few days from school every now and again. Gymnastics injuries, she said, but I saw it for what it was: a kid wanting to play hooky.”

He couldn’t see the actual expression, but Gordon could bet the kid was smiling beneath his mask by how his eyes relaxed. At the very least he wasn’t as on-edge now, so Gordon decided to keep going. The kid would face punishment for his actions, but he didn’t need to be treated like an animal like some of the others had been doing.

“How’d you get away with it?” Gordon jokingly asked.  

“Well, I didn’t really skip anything important…I was supposed to go in to school and do some counseling with the school therapist since I’m suspended.”

The mention of suspension made Gordon raise his brow, which then elicited a shrug and a response from the student.

“I bit someone’s nose finger off when he and his friends beat me up for being different. They aren’t being punished too badly since I heal too fast to have the bruises I’d need to prove they started it.”  

Gordon sighed as he thought about the insanity that was school and how punishment was not always meted out where it ought to be. He was curious how the child managed to not be expelled, but given that it sounded like self defense it would be hard to fault him for standing up for himself…though no bruises and biting someone’s finger off did kind of call it all into question. Gordon believed him though, since there was no real purpose to lie, and nothing really to gain other than some minor sympathy.

“I’m sorry to hear—” 

“It’s Killer Frost!”

That shrill shout made Gordon jump to his feet and rush out of the cell so he could look towards where it had originated. Surely enough, a woman with light blue hair, a casual dark blue hoodie, and grey yoga pants had strolled in the precinct. While not in her supervillain outfit, the hair and the colors she was wearing were enough to alert some of the police officers working there, as they were quite used to identifying criminals with all of their weird outfits and appearances. 

The entire floor was twisting towards her and levying guns at her as she watched it all with some amusement, having not even taken her hands out of her pocket since she entered and the way they all were panicking amusing her to no end.

“Back away and don’t do anything!” 

“Hands where I can see them!” another yelled, their own hands shaking as they tried to remain calm in the face of a sudden confrontation with a superpowered villain.

The next officer to shout something out did not choose their words very carefully, having had no prior experience with the villain. 

“Freeze!”

Having counted four guns pointed at her at the moment and six more people trying to fish for guns in the meantime, Killer Frost smiled at them all and held her hands up in the air. 

“Fine, fine…” she grumbled in a mocking tone, “I’ll…freeze.”

Those with guns did not get to fire them as they were all encased in ice along with their weapons in an act so quick they did not even have the opportunity to respond.

With a flick of the wrist, Killer Frost froze the hands of those still trying to get a weapon to shoot her with, all the while laughing as she watched them fumble about, “Been forever since I’ve been able to do that!”

She had not had the chance in quite some time to do that indeed, though she had learned a few things about her powers over the years which allowed her to wield them so menacingly. She didn’t even intend to use them, but when given the opportunity to do so she couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

The only cop still capable of doing anything was Commissioner Gordon, who had managed to duck behind a desk when she started freezing everything. He stood up from behind it and holstered his gun, showing that he did not mean to fight. He was good, but this was far beyond his capabilities…so he would find out what she wanted.  

First though, he wanted to question what she was talking about, which would be a good place to start, “Murder someone or make a terrible pun?”

The woman gave him a confused look as she gestured to the frozen cops, “Oh they’re not dead. Just frosted over,” indeed, they were only lightly encased in ice, and with a little melting they would be free. She seemed more offended by how Gordon did not pick up on her joke, “And it was not just some fun freezing people, it was a pun and a movie reference, for your information.”

Gordon did not really keep up with these things, so he ignored her immature joke so he could question another thing he was curious about: her being alive, “Police report says you’re dead.”

During the assault on Arkham by the Suicide Squad roughly three years ago there were quite a few casualties on the Squad’s side of things. Louise Lincoln, known as Killer Frost, was reported to have died when a car she was in was thrown by what was reported to be Bane, even though Bane was supposedly not there at the time. An inconsistency in the story told that had rose Gordon’s eyebrow at the time, and now here he was seeing the contradiction made manifest.

Louise shrugged as she put a hand in her pocket and began trying to find something, “Yeah, funny thing isn’t it that I supposedly died from a fiery explosion…when my power is derived from absorbing heat. Now, just give me a moment. I’m not even here to cause trouble, your men just got a little too trigger happy for my comfort.”

Being a detective, Gordon was beginning to have some suspicions and theories about why Lincoln was there, but he thought it best to make sure, “What are you doing here then, Lincoln?”

Louise crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at the cop as she became suddenly less jovial, her tone growing resentful as she looked first to Gordon and then around the room, “I’m here for my son. I heard you two had a little run-in.”

Gordon remained stalwart as he stared her down, not looking behind him to give away the location of the child as well as not allowing her to think she could just have her way. He had already pressed a hidden button to call for reinforcements and they would be there shortly…if they were not all tied up in conflicts on the streets, as they very well may be.

“He’s in our custody for now.”

That brought back a grin to Killer Frost’s face. She finished ruffling through her pocket and pulled out a sealed envelope, which she then moved to hand to Gordon, “About that.”

 As she passed it off to him, she delighted to see his eyes light up in shock, “The Wall sends her regards.”

While Louise went about freezing and breaking the chains on her now bashful and quiet son, Gordon started reading through the pages enclosed in the envelope. 

“Hey Mako,” the mother softly said as she helped her son up and embraced him. He was nearly as tall as her despite his young age, and the two shared a tender embrace as Gordon swore to himself about the envelope.

Inside were official orders to drop all charges against “Mako Lincoln”, as well as to delete all records it ever occurred. All courtesy of Amanda Waller, leader of the Suicide Squad, which Killer Frost once was a part of. Gordon wondered what Lincoln had done to get on the notoriously amoral Waller’s good side, but he did not need an answer. 

“Damn Waller…sometimes I wish Deadshot didn’t miss that one time...”

He remembered getting that phone call about the would-be assassination. He had no love for the government woman, and she was quite the thorn in his side and that of Gotham. Everything came second to her missions, and she cared not about the damage she wrought outside of the attention it brought her.

Louise kissed her son on the forehead before letting him go and turning to Gordon again, her previously soft expression replaced with a bored one.

“So, we good here?”

Gordon looked up from the paper at her with great disdain. Here was a former criminal and murderer just waltzing into his own very precinct and releasing a prisoner of his because a person far higher on the totem pole gave her permission to do so. He hated just about everything about the situation, though he did not have the words to voice it without possibly putting himself in a bad position.

To her credit Killer Frost picked up on the animosity, and as her son sullenly looked to the ground she instead looked Gordon in the eye and returned the glare.

“Hey, don’t give me that look. I did my time, and I’m just here for my son. I’m leaving with him one way or the other, and seeing as Waller outranks you I’d try not crossing her path.”

She bridged the gap between them and poked the commissioner threateningly on the chest. His men were beginning to come to, thaw, and get free of her ice as she continued to stare Gordon down.

“Or mine. No-one gets between me and my kid.”

She paused, and then noticed a picture on a nearby desk of a family. It wasn’t Gordon’s desk, but it reminded her of his own family. He was a parent too.

Louise lowered her gaze back to where her son stood and her tone lost its edge. She could see that her son still had Gordon’s jacket on, which meant that the cop had shown him some kindness, “He means the world to me, just as I’m sure your daughter means everything to you. You get that, right?” 

His hands tied, Gordon had no choice but to let her have her way. He understood her position even if he did not like it, and he was at least glad that in all of the deranged gallery of villains the city had acquired, some at least knew the meaning of family, “You better take good care of him, Lincoln. Make sure I don’t see him here again.”

Louise took her son by the far shoulder and pulled him close, “Oh, we can agree about that. Isn’t that right Mako?”

The child nodded absently, and without another word the two started to leave the station. On the way passed Gordon Mako handed him his jacket back, though he did not have it in him to say thank you. Gordon understood though, and so he made no issue of it as he watched them move past him. 

When he wasn’t out for blood, the kid seemed to have at least been raised well. A real punk would have just taken the jacket, but he had returned it.

One of the recently thawed cops was less understanding about the whole situation though, and he stood in the path of the two Lincolns. He was the one who had harmed Mako in the cell, though Mako gave no indication of this purposefully: if he had there would be one less man living in the room, of that he was sure.

Louise didn’t seem to care much for having someone get in her way, “Got a problem, mook?”

He threateningly approached her, though for all of his bluster he did not actually make a move on her, which is why he did not become a snowman, “You can’t just walk out of here! You killed my friend when you were robbing a bank three years back, and you think you can just waltz in here like you own the place?! This is our fucking department, you—”

Louise cut him off with a cold, threatening voice and glare as she had ice slowly grow around the man’s neck, “Actually, I can, and I will,” her point made, she let the ice thaw away, “And if I wanted I could kill you all, but I don’t need to. I’ve been pardoned for my crimes, and my son has had all his charges dropped.”

She formed a blade of ice in her palm and held it down towards the man’s crotch, a wild smirk on her face as she did so.

“So…your move, creep.”

Gordon had been exhausted by the long night of near anarchy in the streets of Gotham before he had to deal with this, so he called out to his man with fatigue dripping from his voice, “Stand down.”

The man followed the command with anger apparent in his facial expressions, but he dared not confront her actually. He backed down and they passed by him, though before they left Mako’s mother had one last thing to say.

“Catch you later, Gordon. Try not to let everything go to hell while I’m gone, okay?”

Gordon only response was to sigh.

They did not pay him enough for this.

 __________________________________________________________________

A silence fell between mother and son as they walked from the police station to their car. She got in the driver’s seat and he the passenger’s seat, and the awkward silence remained all the way until the highway when Mako tried to break the ice. 

“I never got why you like bad jokes so much.”

His mother snorted at the way he decided to start things off, “You try living in a house for years, laying low, and being unable to do much but care for a crying baby and watch movies.”

While Deadshot had gone rogue and Captain Kangaroo had been caught again, Louise had actually gone back to check in on Waller after their mission was over. She had a question for her, and she gave the Wall a juicy bit of information in return: the way they had gotten around her neck bombs, and some suggestions about how to fix the problem. Louise had once been a scientist after all and she had some basic ideas about what to do to fix Waller’s basic design flaws.

When she went back to see Waller, she was surprised to see her with a bullet wound, bleeding out on the carpet of her office. Deadshot, of course, but the assassin hadn’t managed to kill the fat woman. She had moved and his bullet was not an instantly lethal one…and it gave Killer Frost quite the opportunity to gain a favor from the woman.

Say what one would about her, Waller was a woman of her word. It’s why she helped Louise set up a new life in a rural area where no-one would know who she was, get her medical tests and aid for the child she would end up having after an unusual pregnancy brought about by one night with a man who saved her life, and then do this last favor of releasing the child from prison.

They were even now, though Waller could always ask for a favor and Louise could receive one in turn. They were not on the same hostile terms Waller and Deadshot were…even if Waller was the one who activated the bomb in King Shark’s head.

It wasn’t that Louise didn’t care about that for oh, she did. Losing the first person she cared about in years was not easy on her. But she knew how screwed she’d be if she got revenge, and so she didn’t try. Instead she tried extorting Waller in every way she could to get back at her in a different way. 

Now she was a retired supervillain and a new stay-at-home-mom. Mako needed constant attention, and it wasn’t as if she could really go out in public all that often lest events like what happened at the police department occur.

Mako continued to pester her about her bad humor as Louise thought about all this to herself, “And the puns?” 

She cast her gaze over to her son to shoot him a narrow glare and put him in his place. He was in no position to be complaining after what she had been informed he had gotten up to that day.

“Oh hush. You can deal with a few bad jokes if it means I bail you out of going to juvie.” 

That shut him down, his minor annoyance disappearing as his entire body just deflated and his head hung down in shame.

“I’m sorry.” 

Her eyes mostly paying attention to the road, Louise spared her son a few concerned yet angry glances. She might love him deeply, but she had tried to keep him away from doing things like this. She had told him about his father, since he had a right to know, but she hadn’t ever said what he did was good. For her son, only three years old, to go out and try to be a villain made her feel terrible inside. It made her feel like all the love and care she had spent the past few years giving was for nothing.

“Mako, what did you think you were doing?” 

He did not dare look up at her as he continued to look down, his voice hovering just above the point where it might crack and he would cry, “I wanted to make the Gotham officials pay for taking dad from us…”

That made Louise sigh. He was only a kid, and even though he was so good at some things, he never felt like he could match up to his lionized father. He had no friends, he just had his mother…and an idealized view of his deceased father.

He wanted to make others pay for the pain he felt at that sense of loss, which was something Louise understood all too well.

“I ever tell you why I become a supervillain?”  

Mako spared a quick look up at her, his sullen state disrupted by sudden interest in a topic she had never brought up before. He knew she once was a villain like his father, but she had always tried to keep him from knowing about it all. She even only told him good things about his father, and it was through his own research that he found out the more unsavory sides. He hadn’t ever even thought to research his mother, since the topic never was even brought up about her own history.

Knowing that he didn’t have a clue, Louise sighed as she began to recount her own past, “I’m not the first Killer Frost, and I hear I wasn’t the last either. With a name like Caitlyn Snow though, I don’t know what she expected. She isn’t a bastard after all.” 

Her “teenaged” son didn’t get the reference she realized, so after a brief pause she continued.

“My best friend was changed in an accident into the first Killer Frost. The so called hero Firestorm killed her, and in anger I managed to give myself the same powers she had by figuring out what happened to her and recreating the process.”

That made Mako grow a whole new level of respect for his mother. She was so skilled that she managed to make her own superpowers? No wonder she was so skilled with them…they were basically her own invention!

“I wanted to kill him, to pay him back for what he did. Everything I did was to avenge my friend who I loved like a sister…” Louise glanced down at Mako again her eyes dulled as she thought about memories she had been trying to push away for years, “I lost everything for that, and for a long time all I had was a seething hatred of him.”

Seeing the look she had on her face made Mako question his own actions. Would he be like that if he just sought out blind revenge like she had? What would happen if he ever did get it? If he immortalized the name of his father like he wanted to? 

She dropped her right hand from her wheel to her stomach without thinking at all, her eyes on the road ahead as she kept speaking, “He disappeared right before I found out I was going to have you. My entire purpose was gone. My life’s goal seemingly completed without me dealing the final blow.”

Louise felt herself close to crying, a feeling she fought against wholly. She didn’t want to appear weak in front of her son, especially not when she was supposed to be teaching him a lesson. 

“Revenge can feel good in the moment, but after you’ve had it, after you’re left without it…”

She looked down at him, and despite her best efforts he could see tears in the corners of her eyes. His mother was being truthful when she said she lost everything. If they weren’t in the car, he would hug her tightly, but he didn’t want to cause her to skid off the road as they shared a moment. 

“Mako, I…I don’t want that for you.”

Despite everything she said, a part of Mako didn’t want to give up on the rage he felt. It felt right, it felt like it gave him a purpose. 

“But they killed dad…”

“I know,” her cracking voice betrayed her stoic face, “But you killing anyone won’t bring him back. You going to prison won’t do anything, okay?”

“Do you think I’m a freak?”  

It was a heavy question, and it actually surprised Louise that he had never asked her before. It was hard having a born cannibal as a son, and she had the scars to prove it from when he was a baby, but she didn’t resent him for it. It wasn’t his fault she had hooked up with a monster of a man who had feelings for her. It wasn’t his fault that his mom was a former monster herself, albeit of a different variety.

He was born with her unnatural hair. He was born with his father’s naturally razor sharp teeth. He had his mother’s lithe body and some of his father’s height. All together, he had to deal with being considered a freak for years, especially as he grew faster than any classmate and had to keep changing schools and having his records forged to mask his unnatural aging process. He had to go through so much for just being who he was, and Louise was ever thankful that he had never gone so far as to really harm anyone despite the relentless mistreatment and bullying he received.

No-one else loved her, and no-one else loved him. She had found something to do with her life after she first lost her reason for living on, and here he was asking her if he was a freak. 

“Not in the way you mean,” Louise knew he meant it as an insult to himself, but she just accepted the fact that neither of them were normal people, and she was fine with that, “It’s not your fault you have different tastes than everyone else. You just need to learn to control them a little better.”

Mako quieted down at her response, having understood her intent behind it, and he suddenly felt bad for asking his mom the question in the first place. 

After silence hung between them for a few moments Louis broke the silence with a soft sigh, “Believe me, it wasn’t easy getting the call from school that my kid bit someone’s ear off.”

Mako could remember that day. Only a week or so into school and he was surrounded by miscreant peers who wanted to make fun of the new kid who looked funny. A group of girls were the ones who were the worst at the time, and he didn’t know what to do when they started shoving him…his mother had told him to never hit anyone, but also told him to stand up for himself.

His mother gave him a weak smile, “But then I heard they were making fun of you, shoving you around…I didn’t feel so bad. They’re the freaks and monsters. Not you.”

Some had complained he had hurt a girl, others that he had been so violent in defending himself. His mother had told him that both complaints were stupid, offended that any privilege was granted to girls since she herself was quite a sterling example of how powerful they can be, and they had been attacking him not the other way around so anything was really fair game in her book. 

She had gotten him ice cream that night, which he gleefully ate as she filled out new paperwork for him to transfer schools.

“I like beating them up. It’s all I’m good at…” Mako said half-heartedly as he devalued his own worth. He had been told that for years by others, and he was beginning to believe it, especially given who his father was. 

In an attempt to cheer him up Louis laughed shortly but loudly, “You may not like school, but you are actually good at it. You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for, especially for your age.”

She paused as she noticed him pick his head up a little out of the corner of her eye. Despite the constant jumping around in schooling he was actually quite well off in terms of knowledge, since a good deal of the time he had to be homeschooled. The only reason Louis had him go to public school was that she didn’t want him to just be some hidden monster locked away from the world, she wanted him to grow up and learn what it’s like to have friends.

So far he hadn’t made any, but he wasn’t very old or experienced yet at the art of it, so she was willing to give it a little more time before she gave up on it all. In fact, she had even arranged for an old acquaintance of hers to come over for the sole purpose of making him meet other people.

Despite the praise she gave him, Louise felt the need to qualify it and explain it, “And I’m not saying that as some helicopter mom who praises literally anything about their child. I can’t stand those idiots. It takes a lot of effort to not put them all out of my misery when I’m at your school…”

That actually made him nearly laugh in amusement, which in turn put a smile on her face. When it was only them, she got to see that look a lot, and it was good to see it again even on this day.

“Anyways, if you were stupid, I’d tell you, but your mom used to be an accomplished scientist and you inherited that great brain.”

“Mom…” he groaned as his pale cheeks flushed red. Blushing showed greatly on him with his completely pale features: his mother and father were each paler than any normal human, making it appear as if others had full tans when put in comparison to them.

“Don’t be embarrassed, there’s no-one else here,” she chided him as she brought a hand over to his hair and ruffled it playfully, her face beaming as she looked proudly upon him.

“Why do you have to do that?”

That simple question actually hit her in a sore spot, one she hadn’t said to him yet because of how it was a reality she wanted to ignore wholly. 

Her face saddened as she thought of what to say, “Because…unlike other moms, I don’t get eighteen years to watch you grow up while slowly growing resentment towards you once the initial joy wears off.”

She turned back to him and their eyes met briefly as she conveyed her hurt heart in a single look.

“I…I don’t want you spending the few years you have to be a kid behind bars, okay?”  

Mako silently nodded, not knowing how to comfort her beyond do what she was saying. If it meant so much to her, he could try and be better. It wouldn’t be easy to get over his rage, but he couldn’t bear to see her so hurt by his actions.

Quick to recover though, Louise snapped back into her strict mom persona she showed off earlier, and she lightly swatted him on the back of the head. 

“So no skipping school to kill people tomorrow, moron.”

“I thought I was suspended after I put Johnny in the hospital?” 

She snorted at him, “Wah-wah, I managed to get you out of jail, you think I can’t get you back in school? So when we get home you’re going to do your homework, and you’re going to bed early because you’re grounded. I’ll always help you out one way or another, but no more of this nonsense, okay?”

“Yes mom…” 

Stopping on the side of the road by a restaurant Mako liked, his mother gave him a big smile.

“Mako?”

He looked up at her nervously, having just been verbally grounded, though what she said would cause him to drop that anxious feeling.

“You’re a good kid. Remember that, okay?” 

He unbuckled his seat-belt and moved to hug her, and for a moment the two shared a private moment of happiness.

He was the kid of a shark and a killer, but they could still find what happiness they could make together.