“Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!”

Avery Goodman was thrilled when he received the invitation. Not many got the opportunity to travel to another dimension, and Asgard no less.

“Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!”

His family and friends mocked him for getting a PhD in folklore. He couldn't wait to tell them how it paid off. This was a chance to get first person testimony on so many stories. Just straightening out the genealogy of the Aesir could make his career.

“Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!”

He should not have been surprised to find that Asgard, and especially Valhalla, was like a beefier and hairier version of a fraternity party.

“Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!”

She slipped through the hallways like a shadow, pausing every so often to look and listen. Her hair gleamed like dull copper in the dim lights of the building. There were only a handful of guards and none should be on the same floor, but she was not one to take anything for granted. Her stolen access guard had gotten her farther than she’d expected with much less hassle, but at a junction she had to stop. The lab lay just beyond a pair of locked security doors, steel and electronics combining to make them all but impassable.

To most people, anyway.

 “Thank you for meeting with me, Miss Baker.”

“Oh, please call me Barbara, Mr. Hant, and I have to apologize again for delaying this for so long, but with me trying to make partner and one of our senior partners running for senate my schedule is really full. Am I blithering? I feel like I’m blithering. I’ll stop blithering.“

Mr. Hant smiled as if he did not quite know how to achieve the feat. “Think nothing of it. I have all the time in the world. It does please me that we can finally put this business to rest so that Jack can finally be at peace.

 “Mind if I ask you a question?”

Tempus Fugitive had returned to the end of the universe. Once more he stood before the Eternal One.

“You may,” the Eternal One said as he stared off into space.

“When do I become you?”

“We have always been the same being, Ernie.”

“Yeah, technically, but look at us. We don't even look alike. I'm just a normal Joe and you're...” Tempus Fugitive took in the sight of the Eternal One; inhumanly tall and androgynous with frighteningly large eyes that never blinked. “... different.”

“You are overly concerned with the superficial.”

“Okay, but it ain't all just about the way we look. For instance, what are you doing right now?”

 “You don't have to hide,” Toby Johnson said as he stood by his father's fresh grave. The headstone read simply Gavin Johnson with a date for his birth and another for his death. There was no mention of him being Doctor Nocturne.

“I didn't want to disturb you,” the Other said as he emerged from behind a nearby tree.

“Nonsense, we're family. Get over here.” The Other did as directed and took his place next to Toby.

“It's such a modest grave,” the Other said, “no different from any of the others here.”

“That's all dad wanted.”

“But lesser heroes have received monuments. Captain Crusader, for example. The man has become infamous, and he still received a monument.”

 Amy Winter stood atop a landscape retaining wall at the Battery Park refugee center and scanned the crowd. She clutched a doll which, upon inspection, proved to be alive. Living Doll had spent the first couple of hours at full size holding Amy while they searched the crowd, but the little girl insisted that she should hold the shrinking superhero like an actual doll. Living Doll even allowed Amy to brush her hair, a mistake she would not make twice.

“I don't think mommy's here,” Amy said.

Living Doll hugged the little girl as best she could with her tiny arms. “There's a lot of people here, Amy. It might take a long time for us to find her.”

 Crimson Gladiator found Danger Man at the third place he thought to look, Danger Man’s ex-wife’s house. More correctly he found him standing at the edge of the crack in the Earth where the house used to be.

“Mel?” Crimson Gladiator said.

Danger Man turned and recognized Crimson Gladiator. Any surprise he felt remained hidden under layers of guilt and despair.

“Hey, GC.”

“I’m here to take you into custody.”

“I figured as much.” Danger Man turned his attention back to the crevice.

The Human Head floated past Crimson Gladiator and Danger Man, and hovered over the crevice as he tried to see to the bottom.

“I take it your wife’s residence was here.”

“Yeah.”

Okay, this is a writing assignment for all potential Justice Patrol contributors, and if you're reading this you're a potential contributor.

I would like for one of you to write a story about the woman in the image. I have no idea who she is in the Justice Patrol universe. That's up to you. The art came from a comic book about Julie Newmar, but don't let that pollute your muse. If you wish to participate, just send me a personal message, give me an overview of your idea, and I'll let everyone know that you have dibs on the character.

Yahweh paused for a rest in the streets of Tokyo. Having worked nonstop New York, he had just killed his ninety-eighth or ninety-ninth monster. It was getting hard to keep count, especially since this tiny island nation had such an abundance of giant monsters. He took a deep breath and stretched his tired muscles. That was as much of a rest as he dared take. He wasn’t even half done, and he had much more traveling ahead of him than he’d ever thought possible.

“Who knew the world was so big,” Yahweh said as he rose into the air upon a storm cloud and then darted across the sky.

- - - - -

“Kid.”

 “Now!”

“You heard him, kid,” Captain Hornet said as he slapped Redstone on the back. “Now.”

Redstone fired up his power and blasted off like the rocket for which he was named. His target was the giant robot, or mobile fortress, or whatever it was that squat over the White House. He targeted a spot on the exterior five feet right of a ground level door, and burst through the thick metal as if it were tissue. Originally the plan was to target the door itself, but the new target would destroy a lot of the internal defenses. He exited violently through the door.

“Okay, lets go,” Redstone said.