Pick it up, pick it up, pick it up, pick it up!

“I just don’t think it’s my style.”

“Oh. Okay. What… is your style, exactly?”

Blaze Claymore and Daihm Ferguson stand under the unexpectedly oppressive fluorescent lights of a New York City Target.

Menswear.

Sales rack.

As far as one could be removed from prying eyes while clothes shopping.

“I dunno, I wear a lot of … red, I guess?”

Daihm lowers a pink-and-green, flower-printed, button-up with disappointment.

“You’re wearing a blue flannel t-shirt and jeans right now.”

Blaze points to his feet, wrapped in a set of worn red Chuck Taylors.

Daihm sighs.

“I don’t understand why we’re here anyways. I have enough clothes. Too many, actually.”

Daihm runs his hands through a row of hangers, with a *tsk tsk tsk* sound.

“What?”

Daihm looks up at Blaze. And then down and then up again.

“Aye, you have too many clothes… so why do they all look like you’re cosplaying Roddy Piper from They Live?”

Blaze scoffs.

“I happen to like that movie!”

A beat.

“Wait… you’ve seen They Live?”

Daihm presses the shirt against Blaze’s chest.

“Don’t change the subject. Go try it on.”

Blaze rolls his eyes, turns and walks toward the dressing room.

“I saw that!”

He pushes the door open and steps inside. 🔴 🔵 🟡 “Woah.”

Every inch of the room had a different version of himself reflected back. Tall. Thin. Short. Heavy. Contorted.

“Holy shit…”

At 13 years old, Nathan Lake knows no one is around to hear him curse, but he still makes sure he does so under his breath and with a look over his shoulder.

No one else was there. It was just him. And him. And him. And him. And him. And him.

His heart had been set on going to Coney Island for summer vacation after seeing the Wonder Wheel in a copy of The Warriors he rented from Blockbuster, but there was no way his mother could have afforded it.

Still, she somehow managed to find that the Indiana State Fair was featuring a massive Ferris wheel that year and took time off of work for them to go before school started.

But the Ferris wheel was out of service when they arrived. A mechanical issue.

His mother convinced him though that - since they were here - to find a way to enjoy it.

There honestly wasn’t much else to enjoy at the fair, except for the massive hall of mirrors exhibit he now found himself in. His last shot at salvaging a doomed vacation.

With a forced smile, Nathan makes a series of contorted faces, laughing at his reflection.

Then he bends backwards slightly and flails his arms, watching out of the corner of his eye as every version of himself stands there looking as ridiculous as he suddenly feels.

Nathan stops and looks around, watching as a dozen different versions of himself look back, staring. Waiting for something more.

He kicks at the dirt, a puff of dust covers his Converse high tops as he shoves his hands in his pockets and turns around, heading back toward the exit he just arrived through.

“Stupid.” 🟣 🟢 🟠 “What do you mean stupid?”

Blaze stands in front of Daihm donning a garish Hawaiian shirt, white jeans, and pink penny loafers that had also somehow been on sale.

“I look like Miami Vice threw up all over me.”

Daihm holds a hand over his mouth as tears form in his eyes.

“Daihm…”

“Just… give me a second to take it all in.”

Blaze smirks.

“Phrasing.”

Daihm drops his hand and scowls, waving Blaze back into the dressing room.

“Fine! Fine. Whatever. Just go back to looking like you stumbled out of a grunge concert from 35 years ago.”

Now it’s Blaze’s turn to look exasperated.

“And what is that supposed to mean!?”

Daihm looks up toward the ceiling and rocks back and forth on his heels.

“Oh… nothing….”

Blaze’s rolling eyes drift over to the nearby wall, and the massive digital clock at the top. The store would be closing soon.

“Just… pick out what you want me to wear. I’ll decide later if I want to return it.”

Daihm claps his hands together and squeals with excitement. 🔴 🔵 🟡 “Just make it quick, OK?”

Nathan hops out of his mother’s rust-colored Subaru as the soles of his shoes slap against the pavement radiating heat like a flattop grill.

After the Ferris wheel debacle, he had convinced (a.k.a. guilt-tripped) his mom to stop out of the way on their journey back and make a stop in Metropolis, Illinois, to see the recently-opened “Super Museum.”

His eyes go wide as he sees the red, blue, and yellow color scheme from Superman’s costume covering an otherwise ancient-looking brick building on an otherwise unremarkable street.

A special kind of excitement washes over Nathan as he pushes through the door into familiar sights and smells: the finger-stained odor of pages turned a million times, the burning chemical scent that came with every action figure, and every iteration of Superman he’d ever seen on television or in the movies was staring back at him in the form of framed photos, statues, and fan art.

They didn’t have anything like this back in Montevideo. Not even close. Just some tourist attraction that didn’t make a damn bit of sense. Why in the world would they build a lighthouse in a town surrounded by farm land anyways?

You couldn’t even get inside the stupid thing and get to the top.

But this? This was everything he’d ever wanted.

Nathan’s eyes immediately locked on the largest item in the museum, a 20-foot Superman statue with the son of Krypton standing on a red pedestal, blue spandex-covered arms jutting outward as his face is turned to the side, searching for Lex Luthor, Brainiac, or Zod, or Doomsday. And hanging perfectly taut around his neck, just brushing the corners of his diamond-shaped shield, was Superman’s cape.

“Hey, woah! Be careful, kid!”

Nathan turns, completely unaware that his fingers were inches away from landing on the statue and also completely unaware that his shoelaces had become untied, but now very much aware that he was falling.

“OH SHIT!”

Someone yells as, with a loud “OOF” Nathan crashes into the back of the statue, sending it teetering forward. A nearby family yells in shock as it falls toward them, turning slightly on its base, as Clark Kent’s head rocks like a living room fan.

But then it slows as Nathan manages to scramble to his feet and brace the statue just enough to provide the equilibrium needed to bring the statue back down securely onto its base.

For a second, he just stands there with his hand still half raised. He looks up at the statue, at Superman. But Kal-El looks right through him.

The son of Krypton doesn’t make eye contact with Nathan… they do.

The entire store was watching. You could hear a pin drop.

“I’m… I’m…. sorry.”

Nathan lowers his head and crosses his arms over his faded Superman II t-shirt and then nervously shoves his hands into his pockets.

“I didn’t mean to.”

No one tries to stop him as he turns and bolts through the museum door. He barely avoids face-planting on the pavement as he makes his way to his mom’s car and scrambles inside.

“Well that was quick! Are you sure you don’t want to spend more time here?”

Nathan fights back tears as he shakes his head.

“Well, okay then…”

His mother pauses for what seems like an eternity before putting the car into gear.

“... back to Montevideo we go!”

Nathan just lays down in the back seat and closes his eyes. 🟣 🟢 🟠 BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Blaze lifts his head off the couch, wiping the drool from his lip as he looks around the penthouse suite he's been squatting in for the better part of a month before reaching over to his phone, which shows a flurry of texts from Daihm.

He grunts and turns the phone back over, refusing to read whatever it is going on inside that kid’s head.

Or which version of himself he was even trying to reach.

In a few weeks it may not even make a damned bit of difference, anyways.

A cocoon of Target bags sits at his feet as he removes his makeshift blanket.

The letters “B L A Z E” are iridescent against the sequins lining the candy-apple-red velvet and snowball white fur.

Blaze sets the cloak down as he walks over to grab a nearby glass of water, but as he does, his eyes fall to the pockets of the robe.

Soon his hands find their way to the pockets of his jeans, pulling out a piece of paper that’s been folded, unfolded, refolded, and unfolded again more times than he can count. The one Anna Daniels handed him at ReVival 86…

He pulls on a draw string and clicks on a single lightbulb above the kitchen countertop.

His weary eyes look over every inch of a drawing that never changed. Yet always looked different.

A lighthouse at the center of a small town of Colonial homes, row houses, corner stores, and even a church. But when you closely examined the drawing you realized that the moon was positioned at the base of the lighthouse… not the top.

All of it was flipped. Inverted.

He could hear Anna's voice inside his head as he tried to make sense of the damned thing.

"Is this going to be your excuse? ‘Anna didn't help me, so I'll keep dicking around?'"

Blaze slaps at the drawing.

"Fuck!"

“Uhhhh… is this a bad time?”

Blaze spins around, his eyes wide as he sees Daihm standing in the doorway with a six-pack of beer and a 7-Eleven bag bursting at the seams with salty and sweet snacks.

This is hell. I am in hell.

“Wait. How are you…”

Daihm shrugs sheepishly.

"Can't complain."

Blaze slaps his forehead.

"No. I mean. Why are you here?"

"Oh."

Daihm tilts his head.

“It’s my grandpa’s place. I have keys. Sorry. I tried to call but you weren’t answering. I… got worried.”

Blaze points at the green digital clock on the microwave above the stove.

“It’s… it’s 3 AM! Why aren’t you in bed?”

“Why aren’t you in bed?”

“I was!”

“Looks like the kitchen counter to me.”

“That’s not the point!”

Blaze’s shoulders drop. He folds the drawing violently, shoving it into his pocket as he grabs his robe and slides it on before plopping down on the couch.

“Nevermind.”

Daihm’s face falls into a pout.

“You’re mad. I’ll… go.”

Blaze reaches back into his pocket, feeling the edges of the folded paper on his hand and the weight of the cloak suddenly feeling much heavier than it should.

“No. Daihm… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

The Lighthouse turns toward The Dragon.

“Please stay.” 🔴 🔵 🟡 “Nathan, you’ve been asking me to stay here for almost two months now! I understand you’re scared for me and want to protect me, but all you are doing is keeping me prisoner here!”

Blaze casts a look over at Dr. Millicent Armitage, who lifts one of her leather-bound tomes up enough so it covers her face, not wanting to engage in whatever this is.

Blaze, his mother Amy, and Dr. Armitage are once again together in the basement of a derelict church somewhere on the outskirts of Providence, Rhode Island. This time immediately following the events of ReVival 88.

“Mom, I just…”

He takes the folded piece of paper out from his pocket and lays it down on a nearby end table, causing the lamp perched on it to wobble slightly.

“I am losing my mind trying to figure out what this damned drawing means and the one person who can help me is treating the whole thing like a hostage negotiation and now… in two weeks I’m either going to finally have an ally or I’m going to lose everything I’ve worked for.”

Blaze’s voice begins to crack.

“But maybe, just maybe, if I can figure this thing out without needing to defeat a Time Lord to do it, I don’t need to rely on anyone else.”

Amy Lake, looking far older than her 50 years, doesn’t even glance at the piece of paper before shuffling over to a step stool.

“Nathan, your biggest talent as a child was always your imagination… the way you could weave stories and come up with ideas that were just so magical…”

She kicks at it, pressing it up against one of the many interlocking bookshelves in Millicent’s safehouse before ascending, her pink bunny slippers flapping wildly as she reaches for one of the shelves.

“But it was also the thing that made you so disappointed when your fantasies were nothing like the real world.”

Her arms can’t quite connect as she grunts and stands on her tip toes.

“Mom, you’re going to hurt yourself!”

Blaze rushes over just as his mother manages to get her fingers around the book she was looking for, but as she lands back on top of the stool, it keels to the left and she loses her balance.

“Woooooaaa-”

Amy falls directly into the outstretched arms of her son, who props her up, head shaking, as she shuffles her feet back over to the end table.

“What are you doing, mom? I thought you said all of these books were boring trash.”

A rough cough comes from behind the book Millicent is holding in front of her face.

“They’re mostly mumbo jumbo I can’t make sense of, Ichthyic this and Non-Euclidean that… just gibberish. But this one… it made me think of you.”

His mother flips open the book and thumbs through the pages. As she does, Millicent slowly lowers the tome, her cat-eye glasses peering over the top as she watches the scene play out.

“Ah! There we are.”

Blaze looks down at the page his mother has opened to, her finger landing on the image of an hourglass.

“Okay… so you found a picture of an hourglass in one of like… 1,000 books here. What are you—”

“Nathan… think about it. What happens when an hourglass runs out?”

Blaze furrows his brow.

“Is this a trick question?”

His mother jabs her finger onto the page once again.

“When time runs out, you flip it over, right?”

“Right, but…”

“Your imagination, Nathan. Use it! You’re not running out of time, you just need to flip the hourglass over.”

SLAM!

Blaze and Amy look over toward the desk Millicent had been sitting at, but now she was standing - hands pressed onto the ancient wood with a smile on her face.

“Amy. You’re a genius.”

Amy smiles and crosses her arms.

“About time you figured that out.” 🟣 🟢 🟠 “Come on, Lois… it’s been so obvious and you’re just now realizing he’s Superman. Sheesh! It’s just a pair of glasses and a change of clothes.”

Daihm’s words barely register as Blaze sits, still staring at the lighthouse drawing Anna Daniels found in his robe pocket weeks ago as the sun continues to rise over the New York City skyline.

Despite what his mother said, he knew he was running out of time. No aw shucks colloquialism was going to change the fact that he was facing down the barrel of a crisis of his own making.

Anna Daniels in an I Quit Match… his entire existence, the existence of his hometown, his mother… all hanging in the bal—

“Are you still looking at that piece of paper Anna gave you? What is it, a Magic Eye puzzle or something?”

Blaze grabs at his head.

“Daihm — not now.”

Daihm pokes his head over the top of the couch.

“Try crossing your eyes really hard.”

Blaze slams his hands on the countertop and turns around.

“Are you trying to piss me off, or—”

Daihm blinks. Blaze blinks.

“Why are you playing Superman II?”

“I’m not… it was on the TV and I decided to watch it.”

Daihm flicks the television off using the remote in his hand and tosses it off to the side.

“Such a stupid movie anyways… if Superman would have just TOLD everyone who he was in the first place he wouldn’t have needed to give up his powers. And don’t get me started on him taking his powers back and then doing Lois dirty by making her forget about him — commit already!”

Blaze lowers his head and chuckles.

“Well, when you put it like that…”

Daihm cocks his head slightly.

“Would you do it?”

Blaze squints.

“Do… what?”

“Give up your powers. Like… not a bait and switch like Superman, but actually give them up.”

Blaze shakes his head.

“I don’t have superpowers, Daihm.”

Daihm’s face is suddenly more serious than Blaze has seen it since their unplanned reunion at ReVival 86.

“You know what I mean.”

Blaze turns all the way around on his swivel chair and crosses his arms as Daihm shrugs.

“I’m just saying… everyone in these movies always seems to know they’re supposed to be the hero. And there are never any stakes. No real ones, anyways.”

Blaze gestures at the television.

“Superman has to choose between the woman he loves and saving the planet. How are those not actual stakes?”

Daihm gestures back to Blaze.

“Because he’s making it about him and not them! What does it matter who is doing the saving? He's an alien or he isn't. He’s good at flying or he isn’t. He has an 'S' on his chest or he's in a business suit. Everything else is just... noise.”

There is a sensation in his chest, like something burrowing toward his heart.

A familiar pain.

“Whether he’s Superman or Clark Kent or Kal-El, he’s the same person, aye? But he uses his cape and glasses like masks. How is that heroic? Yeah the world is scary and he’s got enemies and he’s the last of his kind but … doesn’t he see how many people are there to support him? Who depend on him?"

Blaze begins to feel the hairs on his arm stand up. The sinking feeling stopping. Turning. Emptying.

He gestures for Daihm to join him.

"Okay, genius. You're so good at making sense of things - make sense of this. How is the Montevideo lighthouse being hidden?"

Daihm turns his head slightly.

"But it's right there on the paper."

Blaze puts his head in his hands.

"See? This is why I need Anna... why I need to make her stop this bullshit posturing. She knows something that can save Montevideo and is refusing to tell me.”

Daihm scrunches his nose, looking over Blaze’s shoulder at the drawing.

“I always wanted to be a hero, Daihm, but now that Montevideo actually needs my help, I'm stuck wasting time staring at some stupid art project.”

Blaze watches as Daihm reaches over the drawing before flipping it 180 degrees until the lighthouse is back upright. The townhouses. Colonials. The trees. The church… all reoriented, refracted… like a hall of mirrors.

“Maybe. But…”

Daihm turns it again, and again, and again, but the one thing that never changes is the drawing itself. Just how it’s oriented.

“Huh."

Blaze slaps at the paper, stopping Daihm from playing with it.

"Huh, what!?"

“If Anna Daniels wins… there’s no more Blaze Claymore, right?”

"If you're trying to cheer me up, Daihm, it's not working."

Daihm looks at the end of the counter where Blaze’s robe sits from the evening before.

“No matter how I turn it, it’s still a lighthouse, aye?”

The Lighthouse tries to lower his head, but Daihm doesn’t let him. The Dragon grabs a hold of his chin and lifts it up.

“No. You don't get to do that."

Blaze’s breath catches in his throat.

“Everyone knows and loves Superman, aye?”

Blaze feels the hairs on his arm rise once more.

“But if he woke up tomorrow and couldn’t fly any more, he’d still be Clark Kent. Right?"

“Yeah.”

Daihm's eyes soften as he lowers his hand.

“And what's so bad about that?”

An uncomfortable pause fills the kitchen.

“There aren’t any museums or comic books dedicated to Clark Kent.”

Daihm shrugs.

“And who saved more people?”

Blaze doesn't answer as Daihm places a hand on his shoulder.

"It can be easy to hate who you used to be, or be disappointed in who you never were. But if even Superman can feel that way... maybe it's okay to go easy on Nathan every once in a while, aye?"

Before he knows he's doing it, Blaze is standing with his arms around Daihm’s shoulders.

The Dragon welcomes the gesture, wrapping his arms around Blaze’s waist. They stand in silence for a lengthy beat before Daihm finally speaks.

“Wanna watch the rest of Superman II?"

Blaze lets go, his eyes catching the robe sitting on the counter as he does.

“Maybe later. I think we've got time."

Daihm smiles and nods.

“Aye. Later's good.”