A Hero (STORY)

*A Hero* is the title of a short novella within Universe 11-N. More than that however, it is actually disguised as a parallel canon to the literary universe, but it is actually a detailed dreamscape inter-universe/linked parallel world to the Dark Moon stories.

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## PLOT

A Hero details a potential parallel world where father of Eric Lancaster (whom goes on to become the Bellstrike Vigilante, Sabre, in the main universe), Thomas Lancaster, never obtained parole and didn't go on to a drunken massacre, resulting in the death of Eric's entire family, and his permanent crippling. From this one point, large continuity branches begin, from Eric never needing the modified arm-brace, to him never becoming friends with Conner Hayman. This universe has an Eric Lancaster, completely unaware of the hero that he becomes in the parallel timeline, still feels as though his life was meant for something else, something bigger, something more 'Noble', especially after an incident where his high school is attacked by a deranged shooter, and he is saved by a strange unnamed civilian.

But even though this is a parallel timeline where he doesn't lose his family, causing major differences in the formation of the Dark Moon heroes, the timeline starts to try and correct itself in strange ways, showing the inevitability of certain event, like Conner Hayman still becoming a cybernetic hero, through very different means and resulting in very different personality.

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## IDEAS

* The high-school attack where Eric is nearly found by the attacker, but is pulled suddenly into a janitors closet by an older stranger whom seems to have more awareness of the situation, and only tells him to "Wake up kid, you need to calm down and get through this thing". Eric is in awe of the stranger, whom already seems to be severely injured, but stays calm and concentrated in the face of debilitating fear. The stranger waits for the attacker to get close to the door, before bursting out and disarming the attacker, taking him down and running off before the police come. When he's questioned by authorities, Eric says that he feels like describing his rescuer "feels impossible, and he can't place why" (because the "Stranger" is actually a seriously wounded subconscious version of the adult Sabre, from the main waking timeline, trying to save his dream-self and help his dream-self to "wake up"). (There is a scene early on where we see a date and a news broadcast in prison, where we see a still locked up - and living - Thomas Lancaster, panicking that his son goes there, showing early on one of the big timeline differences here).
* One of the kids seemingly killed in the massacre is Conner Hayman, whom has a closed funeral, and is only barely mentioned. However, his father was still in high level military at time, and he has the boy taken to a secret military branded program to help "resurrect" his son with cybernetics, albeit, the kind that vary greatly from the original cybernetics that lead to the creation of Iron Claw in the main timeline, and this technology is constantly auto-upgrading and evolving, which starts to take over his body. The price of his resurrection however is many years of shadow-ops for the military, before he goes rogue and becomes a vigilante in Bellstrike, his old hometown, like his main timeline counterpart, Load-Out, although this version is far more direct combat oriented.
* Eric feels like he's missing something with his life, and has frequent dreams of his main timeline hero life, in vague and blurry visions, while he works at the family iron mill right after high-school.
* Eric is slowly building a relationship back up with his father through prison visits, and his dad is the first to start to suspect something serious changing with Eric.
* Eric finally decides that he wants to become a hero after he's also present at a bank robbery as a young man, and he ends up trying to help the vigilante whom saves them, a cloaked cyborg only going by "The Viper". To start training, he goes to his uncle, \_\_\_, whom in this timeline never sobered up after Thomas Lancaster's parole and massacre, so he decides to use his former army training to give Eric basic combat training, but denies further helping when he discovers true reason of becoming vigilante.
* Eric goes behind Uncle's back and uses the mills resources to make himself some 'armor' and 'weapons', and he goes through many different designs, ending up with a set of heavy gauntlets, inspired by illegal underground fighting circuits he saw called "chip fighting", compensating a persons lack of strength by giving heavier fists to hit harder.
* Eric takes to the streets, trying to save normal people from very small street level crimes, like muggers and attempted rapists. He also is trying to track the movements of his vigilante inspiration, the mysterious 'Viper', whom always seems to be 12 steps ahead of him. And for the first few days, he's alright, but very soon, he's outnumbered by a gang of thugs, whom beat him severely, critically wounding him, and breaking his hand-made gauntlets by beating them into his arms with jagged dents, almost making one of them into a spike (like his trademark arm-spike in the main timeline). There, he's left for dead, and is only saved when The Viper comes back, pitying the boy, and taking him to this timelines base of operations for the "Dark Moon" hero team.
* In the hero base, Eric meets this timelines version of the team: The Viper (Conner Hayman - [MTL: Load-Out]; Legend V [MTL: Savior]; Moon Knight [MTL: Luna's male crew-mate]; Solaris (---) [MTL: Nebula, different host, possibly more corrupt]; Apollo; \_\_\_\_; and Justice (whom seems to take Sabre's role from MTL, but far more secretive).
* They very much don't like that Viper brought this 'kid' to their secret base, but Eric is noticing little things around the building, like their Person of Interest board, which has a slightly blurry picture of the stranger whom saved Eric at the school, which he tells them, making them curious.
* Finally, Viper reveals his story to get Eric to talk about what he knows. Viper likes Eric spirit, and he appreciates his desire to do something more. But, he tells Eric that if he doesn't want to die out there, he needs to be far more careful, and he needs someone to guide him. But not Viper himself of course. He says that he's going to try to talk to Justice.
* Justice very reluctantly agrees to let Eric tag along for calm, small things, much like how in MTL, Sabre was so reluctant to let Justice tag along.
* Eric learns how to be a night detective vigilante, building secret repertoire with police, and helping to use his natural intuition and intelligence to help Justice with crime scenes, while Justice helps with combat training. Justice even comments that they both can't really be melee based, so Eric should change up his gear, or at the very least make it more adaptable, recommending he sticks to sharper tools, leading to Eric making a prototype of the MTL Arm-Spike.
* The crime scene investigations with Justice start becoming very peculiar and personalized to Justice, many seemingly done by one man who just leaves a calling card in the form of flags, all properly folded and cared for ceremoniously, with all victims seemingly tortured with Vietnam war era tactics, and they call the killer, "The Patriot" (this timelines version of Uncle Sam, whom here was a teacher at Eric's school whom started having severe mental breakdowns and flashbacks from his horrible history at Vietnam).
* The Patriot murders become less personal towards Justice, and more towards Eric himself, and when he realizes, Justice cuts Eric off, pointing out that it was his carelessness that not only put a target on Justice, but on Eric himself, and now, Eric is stuck going solo again.
* After returning home, his sister who had been suspecting since a call from her father, finally has an intervention with Eric after she finds his tools. They have a serious heart-to-heart, and she accepts that there's really no stopping her brother... so she's going to help him from home, being his "girl in the chair", helping him organize his own case-files and developing his own new tech and helping him train, since the uncle is still combat training her for 'self-defense'.
* After becoming his own night-vigilante and continuing his strong combat training regiment, he starts moving up in terms of skill and danger, but now being more self-sufficient. He even starts going to crime scenes on his own before Justice can even get there thanks to his sister with police contacts and building his own solo repertoire with police, under the title of "The Tiger", because of his newly updated arm-based multi-tool, "The Fang", much like his MTL counterpart. Justice see's that Eric is taking his jobs on his own, and is very torn between pride and deeper resentment.
* Eric starts encountering more CTL counterparts to his classic rogue gallery, including "a vampire", "a clown", and \_\_\_\_\_\_\_. However, he is kept off of the Patriot case as asked by Justice. Eric still tries though, and he starts warming up to a rookie on the force, Libby Taylor, and he originally only fakes it for info,but he becomes interested in a real relationship with her (and yes, this is the CTL counterpart of Liberty, whom in this timeline, becomes infatuated with Eric rather than Uncle Sam).
* Eric actually starts catching up to the level of Viper, and he actually starts investigating a strange rogue cybernetic soldier type in town, suspecting them of being involved with Viper, and he actually encounters one, an infiltration specialist with heavily augmented slick legs, going by the name of "Blood Mamba" (whom is CTL version of Miss Scarlett, whom in this universe came to the same military program as Viper, seeking further skill before starting her ninja cult, but stayed with them instead... Until Viper left.). Eric actually holds his own for a long time in the fight and attempted capture, and then Viper, who had been tailing and keeping close watch for almost the whole thing, intervenes in end. But rather than being upset, he's proud of Eric, and invites him back to the base for official recognition.
* Eric is taken back to the base voluntarily, and rather than recognizing him as an ally, they see him as a glorified sidekick trying to leave the kiddie leagues, mainly because that's the picture Justice has been painting him to be. Curiously, one of the only heroes to readily welcome him in is Solaris, who's arguably the most powerful of them, but Eric is very uneasy about him. Here, Eric learns how little the team actually trusts each other, in that no one actually knows each others true identity, because "they don't need to prove themselves as pure, it shows as just vulnerability". It slightly disheartens his view of them. But nonetheless, he is deemed as a new member of the team on official protege level, so he's allowed to tag along with any of them who'll let him (except Justice, who refuses to even acknowledge the kid).
* Eric is moving up in skill and notoriety so fast, he actually becomes comfortable enough to do some daytime vigilante-ing, which even Justice won't do, and he becomes a town-wide phenomenon. In fact, the only other hero on The Team who's willing to go out it the daytime is Solaris, and sometimes Apollo and Legend V, but even those two try to stay secretive.
* Very shortly after revealing himself to the world, his mother finally comes for an intervention, along with the uncle, and she tries to forbid him from doing this stupidity and dangerous thing, but he apologizes and says that at this point, there's nothing they can do to stop him from doing what's right.
* As a last resort, the mother has him talk to the father, who already knew about his sons secret due to the visits, context clues, and the descriptions that crooks Eric caused to be locked away had told. However, the father is one of the few who readily embrace his sons choice, saying how proud he is that the boy is doing something great, not letting the mistakes of his father brand his life. But he does very much beg his son to be more careful.
* Eric starts tagging along with some of the heroes to see the true scale of villainy in the world around him, from cosmic villains while doing night-time fights with Moon Knight, to all-powerful villains with Solaris. Eric very much see's the dark side of Solaris and he questions him about it, and Solaris very quickly becomes defensive, going so far as to let Eric nearly get taken down all together by an all-powerful villain on mission, namely \_\_\_.
* Libby and the police personally contact Eric instead of Justice when the newest Patriot murder very deliberately and clearly is made as a message to this "Tiger", being so brazen as to have the latest scene seemingly being in The Patriot's personal home, as it's covered in Patriot's fingerprints, and there he starts to realize the true backstory and identity. Eric's biggest clue comes from the fact that a yearbook on the shelf from Eric's high school is present, heavily marked with targets, showing that all of previous victims were related to the children whom were playing key roles in the attack.
* Eventually, one of the prisoners with the father start to suspect that Eric is actually the vigilante that got him locked away (not Tiger, but Justice), and he organizes a near fatal prison beating of Thomas Lancaster, the man only being saved by a "known fighter and narc" (CTL Version of Lei, still in prison).
* Eric quickly tries to visit and comfort his father, and he does his own personal revenge streak with street gangs and allies of the convict who led attack, going so far as to severely beat the organizers brother, only being stopped by Justice.
* Justice reports back to the Team, and Eric's access and reputation within team is stripped, with the most disappointed being Viper himself, believing Justice's story. Legend V goes so far as to recommend turning him over to police, but Justice surprisingly points out that "the kid nearly lost his dad because of that creep, it was a one time personal thing", which seemingly shows a very humanizing side to Justice, but Eric is immediately suspicious, because he never told Justice about his dad, going so far as to think Justice had something to do with the prison beating.
* Conner/Viper's father is kidnapped, seemingly by the Patriot, and he goes AWOL, leading to Justice and Eric begrudgingly teaming up once again. They go out, and it is seen that Eric is finally on the same hero-ing and combat level as Justice, possibly surpassing him. They finally encounter The Patriot, whom deranged is able to hold Conner's father, Viper, and the first responder, Libby, hostage and escape. Justice and Eric have an angry altercation which has to be split up by a "sympathetic" Solaris, and Justice saying that "He was just trying to help the kid stay where it's safer", where Eric finally accuses him of having a hand in his fathers fate. Genuinely shocked and infuriated that Eric would even think he'd do that, says "I knew about your dad, yes, and I have my own reasons for hating him, yes... But I didn't try to have him killed!" The entire team is fractured and left isolated and weakened.
* Eric's dad is on his deathbed in prison, and Eric is actually approached by the inmate who saved his father, (confirming as Lei), who says something that leads Eric to truth that it was actually Legend V & Solaris who planted the tip. Eric thanks Lei, and promises that when he gets out, Eric will make sure that Lei has good connections and resources.
* Eric's father actually turns back to God completely, and he starts to get better, making his arc fully realized, as he tells his son to use his anger not as a feeling, but understand that it is a weakness that can be harnessed for something good (taking him full circle origin to MTL, having the realization that weakness can be used as greatest weapon).
* Eric finally has one last confrontation with The Patriot, and arrives after the rest of the Team already got there, and it was shown to have been one big trap, with The Patriot using the other members of Viper's old military squad to take down the entire Team... Other than Eric, who got there late, and it's going to be Eric against them all, after it's shown that they were able to beat his much more powerful former friends.
* Only one hero is able to get back to his feet... Justice, beaten, bloodied, and damn near crippled, but he is still willing to give his life for the fight for what's right.
* Eric's true inner strength seems to be unlocked, and back-to-back, they just barely manage to take down the entire cyborg soldier squad on their own. As they seem like they're just about to win, Justice is shot in the head by the Patriot, who also shoots Eric right in the elbow, crippling him (Just like MTL) Horrified, Eric looks down at the torn mask of Justice, and Eric see's the part of the face of Justice under the mask, and it finally clicks... The man under Justice's mask is the same stranger that saved Eric in high school, seemingly not aged a day in the 7 years. (meaning that the man who took Justice's mantle in this timeline is actually the subconscious of the real Sabre)
* Eric takes down the Patriot once and for all, knocking him off the building where they fought, and he disappears.
* The recovering Team members try their best to save Justice, but Eric plainly says that they can't save him at this point, that he died saving the rest of them, and that he was the greatest hero of all of them. Solaris solemnly agrees, but before he can be seen as the noble one, Eric pulls Patriot's gun on him. The Team is originally shocked, but Eric explains not only the true darkness that lies within their friend, but also how he knows that Solaris was the main tip that led to the near death of his father.
* Solaris literally laughs it off, saying that he may have taken the boy off the team by any means necessary, but honestly, who would believe the boy, and further more, how does he plan on stopping the most powerful team member, who has the power of an eldritch being on his side.
* Eric, finally clear headed, says that Solaris is weaker than he lets on... since he's not really powered by the same Eldritch Being.
* Eric shoots Solaris in the head, revealing that it isn't The Being powering him, but is really Nightmare, the Eldritch Being who's trapping Eric in this dream of a parallel world.
* With that, he finally emerges from the collective coma that he and the real team were in in the Main Timeline, and he takes down Dream Weaver.

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