(Los Angeles)
Ordinary people go about their business every day. They immerse themselves in repetition and tedious minutia. They do their best to ignore the remarkable, the infinite and the cosmic. They do this for one reason - to protect themselves, because if they opened their minds to the endless possibilities this strange and deadly world offers, they would be brutally faced with their own limitations. And that, would drive them to madness.
Marcus Roston is on the rampage. People in the streets look up in horror as the man they know as a famous actor causes mayhem. A S.W.A.T. team arrives as they run in fear, while Marcus grabs the Leapfrog and throws it into the street amidst a plume of smoke. Marcus finds the idea of a giant flying frog insane. As he is distracted, Daken leaps from the rooftop with his claws out and plunges them into his chest whilst in mid-air.
Meanwhile, the Runaways recover. Chase gasps at the sight of the burning Leapfrog. “I just rebuilt that, he sighs. Victor wonders what’s happening up there. Nico reckons it looks like Daken’s killing him. Up above, Daken is giving it his best shot, but Marcus is simply too powerful. He smiles as he tells Daken that he’s quite an angry person. He wonders aloud why that is. He imagines it’s inherited from his oh-so-sadly absent killer daddy, just like his mental illness and healing factor… which he no longer has. He lifts Daken up and slides the claws out of his body before throwing him to the ground.
Nico reacts quickly by using her Staff of One to create a spell. “Princess and the Pea,” she shouts and a pile of mattresses appears beneath Daken, breaking his fall. Daken looks up and thinks for a moment. This isn’t his world, he ponders. The rules, paradigms of normality and mental stability are shattering and straining, carcinogenic, surreal and spreading out. He looks up and sees the sheer panic-inducing nonsense of a giant… beanstalk? He looks up and sees Donna Kiel hanging off Klara Prast’s beanstalk by the tips of her fingers. Luckily, Karolina Dean sweeps by and collects her before she falls, depositing her on the sidewalk next to Daken.
Daken asks if she’s okay. Donna sees Marcus who asks, “Donna. Who is your master?” His control of her takes hold and she screams at Daken and slashes with her nails. “He will eat your eyes and bathe in your blood!” She then drops to her knees and cries. She looks at Daken with fear in her eyes, telling him that Roston’s inside her. She can’t exist like this. She begs him to kill Marcus before this spreads.
The S.W.A.T. team fires on Roston but bullets slide off him. Marcus watches their efforts with amusement. He notes the fickle nature of a celebrity’s relationship with his public. “Does this suggest my star may be waning?” he wonders. A police helicopter swings around behind him and a marksman shoots. As he leaps to grab it, he says that one minute you’re on Letterman, Kimmel, Leno and invited into every A-List Hollywood party and bedroom. The next moment the potential audience for your upcoming family-friendly sword and sorcery epic are shooting at you with automatic weapons. He imagines his agents at C.A.A. are probably going to be slightly angry with him about this tiny career faux pas.
He swings the helicopter around and hurls it away. It explodes before it hits the ground. Down below, Nico saysta Roston’s just hovering there making himself a target. What does he want? Daken replies that he wants nothing. He’s insane! Chase says he must be insane to chase the Chaseter. No one chases the Chaseter! Molly asks what that even means, but he asks her to shut up. Nico reckons no wonder their parents threw him out of the Pride. There’s no order to this. You can’t allow random inorganized crime.
Daken tells her that they are children of the Pride. “Only you have the power levels to…” Nico tells him to shut up. Did he not think that they would research him? He is a killer and every bit as bad as Roston. She turns away and says they will remind everyone what the Runaways can do. She holds her Staff of One aloft and says, “Uranium kicks!” Chase thinks they need a better battle cry. Daken almost smiles as the children rush into battle with a monstrous deity. It’s quite the ego boost for him.
Nico’s spell works by creating large cumbersome boots made from uranium that bind themselves to Roston’s feet. He tumbles as Victor Mancha zaps him with powerful jolts of electricity, to which Karolina quickly follows up by blasting him with her alien energies, sending him flying into a van which explodes. As he climbs from the wreckage, Molly approaches and calls him a bad man. She smashes him in the jaw but he still stands. Chase, meanwhile, has climbed back into the Leapfrog and he fires a couple of rockets at Roston. “That’s right ya murdering doof!!!” he cries. “These’re jerk-seeking missiles!!!” Marcus Roston is lost in the explosion but manages to call on them to stop.
Daken can’t deny that it’s thoroughly entertaining to watch Roston experience pain in this way, but, like the majority of his utterly vacuous and facile movies, all these pyrotechnics lack substance. Marcus remains standing. He uses his mental skills to delve into their minds and says he can see and feel it in their power set. They are Minoru’s, Stein’s, Hayes’ and Dean’s. He calls the Deans terrible actors. He never rated their work. He says they are the children of the Pride, the idiots who banished him from Los Angeles just because he liked to have a little fun. He grabs Nico by the neck and asks what’s so wrong with a little fun. At her age he’d be out hitting the Viper Club. They look like they’ve been playing Dungeons and Dragons. “Really,” he adds, “Youth is wasted on the young.”
Marcus blasts Victor, giving him a taste of his own medicine. Daken looks on, biding his time until he sees a proper opening. He tries to lock away his rage and use his intellect instead. He waits for the children to weaken Roston as he rips them to shreds. He is cerebral, a strategist, descended from nothing and no one. So, he will let his sickly ‘my little pony’ alien dilute him a best she can.
Karolina’s blasts bounce off Roston and he hits Nico across the face and then Molly, too. Daken thinks that rage is letting go. It is weakness. Rage is madness. It is… is… He decides to *%&$ it and charges towards Roston, thrusting his claws into Roston’s stomach
His claws draw blood but Roston laughs. He asks if all Daken’s anger comes from them having slept together. He’s sensing some minor passive-aggressive tension. He throws Daken away with ease, calling him weak. It was his animalistic sheen that attracted him in the first place, but then he discovered his… nuanced contradictory mind. He explains that he honestly felt they had a connection. When you’re as extraordinary as he is, he adds, not many people interest you. But, Daken was actually worth playing with. He reckons Daken is mad, like him. “Insanity. The triumph over society’s meek subservience.”
Roston smashes Daken in the face and tells him that infatuation only lasts while the challenge is there. So, he asks Daken to prove his worth and stop him. Stop him if he can. He continues punching him until he becomes bored. He tells Daken the fling was fun while it lasted but now there’s no drama, no challenge. It’s so dull. He thinks they should see other people. “It’s not you darling,” he adds, “It’s… me…” He looks up as a shadow moves quickly across his face. A police officer on board a descending helicopter asks Donna Kiel if she’s crazy, a moment before bailing out. Donna lands the helicopter on top of Roston.
Daken stands up and asks Donna if she’s okay. “Just kill him,” she replies. Marcus laughs and says this is priceless. Daken grabs him by the hair and readies his claws. Marcus asks him to wait. Daken leans towards him and tells him he wants him to remember two things. One, he used children and a drug addict to beat him and leaves him a live to suffer with that knowledge. Two, he isn’t insane. “Only the weak are insane, darling,” he says before kissing Roston one last time.
He stands and turns to the Runaways. He tells them that Roston is theirs to do with as they please. As he helps Donna from the chopper, Molly tells him she doesn’t like him. He’s nothing like Wolverine. “No” grins Daken as he walks away. “I’m not.”
