For a man who came as highly recommended as he did, Art Rosenbaum was based in a rather modest building. At least, at first blush, you couldn't tell that the clothing store that served as the front for his operation was anything other than what it was. If I hadn't scanned it with my eyes beforehand, I certainly wouldn't have noticed anything amiss.
Underneath the surface, though, that couldn't have been farther from the truth. It was a workshop filled with advanced technology. Much of it was even bespoke, designs that I wasn't entirely able to ascertain the usage of at first glance. After having spoken to a couple of others like Black Samson about the man, it gave me hope that Art would live up to the hype.
I was satisfied by this point that I wouldn't be wasting my time and walked into the store. Under a henge, naturally, because being a snow white horned man was the kind of thing that got people talking. If Art wanted everyone to know about his side job, moonlighting as a costume designer, the workshop below would have been a bit more obvious.
Through the channels that had been given to me by the various superheroes, I'd reached out and sent an email to the guy, requesting a consultation. So here I was, excited and showing up for something I'd made well before my climactic battle with Thokk. And it was a good thing, seeing as my current fit was a bit busted.
In my bag were the remains of my robes, as I glanced around, looking for the man in question as I entered his store. Given that he at least needed to present the fiction of running a front, it wasn't hard to find him. He was an older human, with graying, messy hair, mostly balding at this point in his years. Still in solid shape, and maybe with a heart condition he might want to get looked at, but otherwise fine.
What I would say, though, was that he looked generally friendly for the most part. Art had the type of face that felt like it invited kindness, or that you'd want to unburden your emotional struggles on. Some people just had that look to them, and I wasn't really sure why.
"Hey there," I greeted, giving the man a wave. "Art, right?"
He looked up at me with an open smile, nodding in confirmation. "That's correct. How can I help you, young man?"
I was never going to beat the baby-face allegations, but at this point I was just going to have to accept them. It was the price of looking young and living for centuries. "I'm actually not here for this, uh, sort of outfit. We made an appointment for 11am?"
That got a very different, excited gleam to enter his eyes as he perked up. "Oh. Oh! Well, we can talk business in my back office about the custom tailoring order." Art glanced over to one of the various staffers in the store. "Janet, can you cover the front for a bit?"
"Of course, Art."
"Thank you. Right this way, Mister…?"
"Genji. Just call me Genji." It was an easier thing than trying to use my given surname. I thought about swapping it to something else, but the fact of the matter was that I couldn't escape the Ōtsutsuki. So maybe I could reform it into meaning something better.
"Understood," the man agreed, nodding along as he led me to the back of the store. "Right this way, and we can begin your consultation."
It didn't take us long before we were heading into a back office, with a hidden door that was revealed by moving a cabinet out of the way. Sliding it open, we walked down a staircase and right into the workshop that I'd spied earlier. He threw a question back at me as we walked, something easing in his posture the deeper we went. "So, Genji, I wasn't sure from the appointment, but are you anyone I've heard of?"
Then he paused before quickly throwing me a nervous smile over his shoulder. "No offense if you aren't! Everyone's gotta start out somewhere."
At this point I didn't see a point in maintaining the henge any further. It was good to keep up when I just wanted to walk around and not be bothered as a superhero, but I'd probably need to let it down just to get good measurements in the first place. I allowed the chakra shell to dispel, as Art gasped at the sudden change in my appearance.
Shooting him a warm smile, I gestured with a thumb back to myself. "I've been going by Taijitu for now. Most people here have a secret identity, and I figured it'd be easier if I just walked around hiding my own."
If only because my name was a household one these days. I'd never been particularly tuned in to social media before, and it wasn't much better now, but the Guardians of the Globe were premier superheroes to begin with. Someone who'd been getting as much publicity as me, whether or not I'd wanted it in the first place, it was a given that I'd be a hot topic by the superhero-obsessed masses.
… For obvious reasons I hadn't yet dared check certain websites. If there wasn't rule 34 content of me, I'd eat my sneakers, but that didn't mean I was ready for the mental contagion that'd come from seeing whatever abominations were being drawn of me. Worse yet was the prospect that the smut I'd see would be bad.
I could survive being drawn as a girl or having exaggerated sexual characteristics, like an obnoxiously large dick. But if I had bad smut or fanfiction, well, I might as well pack it in. I'd never be anybody in this business.
Pictures of the time I was messing around with kids in the park were starting to more widely circulate on social media, too. In the wake of my brief but brutal appearances and the massive weather events that I'd precipitated, the powers that be had to throw the public a bone. No matter how much I wanted to continue being a mysterious cryptid that showed up, did something good, and vanished.
Despite my unwillingness to interact with the apparatus of the 24-hour news cycle, it wasn't forgetting about me. It couldn't, when I was a member of the world's premier superhero team and had a very public fight with a powerful enemy. Art even recognized me, his eyes lighting up even further.
"Well damn!" He laughed. "It's not the first time I've made a costume for an alien, but it's always a little bit of a surprise."
Rubbing his chin, Art squinted my way. "You're not going to just ask me to make a version of your old costume again, are you? I feel like you could do better."
My left eyebrow twitched as my smile became a little more strained. It was irrational to be tied to old, crappy Ōtsutsuki robes. Perhaps if I told this to myself enough times, I'd believe it eventually.
"No. I've got the ruins of my old costume here, and I was almost tempted to see if you could repair it. But…" I shrugged, grimacing at the reminder, as I pulled the robes out of my bag. "I've been told they're a bit old-fashioned."
Laying them out on a nearby table, the man whistled, eyes tracking across the tears but also the other features of my robes. The stitching, the style, all those little details being taken in so quickly. Running a hand gently along it, he hummed again, this one more thoughtful.
"Were you trying to go for a monk-adjacent look?"
"No." Then I paused. "Maybe a few. I do kind of like my old costume; I just wouldn't mind trying out other looks."
"Then it's probably for the best that you came to me. Though, this fabric… do you know what it's made of?" He asked, glancing over at me with no small amount of curiosity. "I've never seen this material. Almost like cloth, or linen, but it had to be tougher than anything used by it."
"My people have this capacity to create things out of nothing but thin air, basically," I explained, deciding to not try to go into detail about how certain powerful members of my race did it. "So I'll be honest and say that I have a very tentative understanding of how that works, or the end results. All I know is that they do have a breaking point before they give up the ghost."
Chakra-created constructs could last quite a while. With enough destructive force against them, though, eventually they'd just break and dissipate into the constituent particles of chakra. The fact that mine hadn't already was only because these clothes were built with the presumption that I'd be handling combat where a certain amount of given stress would be occurring.
"Well, I don't know if I can create anything ex nihilo like that, but I can certainly give you an upgrade to bring you more in line with the sensibilities here." Then he paused. "Unless that's not what you're looking for?"
"I'm actually hoping for exactly that," I confirmed. "It's not a particular rush, though obviously the sooner the better. And you've got… I dunno, however much GDA's budget for this is to do it with?" Cecil was bankrolling all of this anyway.
I was sure that he wouldn't mind ensuring that my costume was made of tough enough stuff that it wouldn't tear on the first rough fight.
"Then I suppose I should ask first what you want to accomplish with your look," he asked, already reaching for a sketchpad of some kind. "Are you trying to scare criminals? Use some sort of symbol or iconography?"
An easy question for me to answer, as I barely even had to think about it. "I'd like a Taijitu somewhere on it. Ah, the ying-yang symbol, as most people tend to call it."
"I've been making icons for most of my life, Genji," Art wryly noted. "I'm familiar with the taijitu, at least as a symbol."
"Fair. It should be on my chest or somewhere else prominent. That's probably the major element that comes to mind."
He nodded, making a change to whatever sketch that he was doing right then and there. "And accessories? A belt, goggles, the works? Capes are popular for some heroes."
Not for the first time, Edna Mode's teachings came drifting back to my mind as I thought over what I didn't want in my costume. "No capes," I emphasized. "They're too much trouble."
Either they'd be durable enough and attached to my costume firmly enough to be a problem, or they wouldn't be, and thus it'd be useless. At least with Batman, the cowl served a very functional purpose and was part of his toolkit. In the case of Superman, though, it almost always was just nothing but decor.
"It does take a certain look to pull off a cape," Art freely admitted, rubbing his chin as he inspected me closely. "No offense, but you'd be putting on more of an alien conqueror look if you had a cape."
"None taken, you're absolutely right," I readily agreed with the man, already picturing it in my head. If I were aiming for more of a JRPG demon lord aesthetic, that'd be what I'd go for.
"One solid jumpsuit then, with either gloves or boots?"
"I'm less sure about the gloves. I don't need it for the proper functioning of my powers, but unhindered fingers go a long way."
The man hummed softly, giving it some genuine thought. "Fingerless gloves, maybe…"
That was actually a good idea. Fingerless gloves with the right fit demonstrated unspeakable amounts of aura, so I wasn't opposed to the concept at all. Now that I was holding it in my mind, what I really wanted felt like it was going toward a more predictable route. Was I just building myself toward a Superboy-esque costume?
A leather jacket over the one-piece jumpsuit and then the fingerless gloves was an immensely good aesthetic in my eyes. Then again, there were a lot of potential costumes that I could go toward. It wasn't as if I needed to hop on one or stick to only one look. How many superheroes had countless versions and editions of costumes?
Over the time allotted to us, we burned through no small amount of different concepts and ideas. Some of them were big swings, which I was happy to veto off of the bat. Others were kind of weird, or too simplistic, that Art was keen to push me away from. Bit by bit, though, we managed to create a core set of a few different ones that he'd work on.
"I've worked with GDA-sponsored heroes before," he explained, tapping the preliminary sketches that the two of us did. "They'll at least cover a few different fits before we settle on which one you're happiest with."
"The longer I'm here, the more certain I am that the greatest superpower is money."
That got a laugh out of the man, as he smirked my way. "You're not wrong. Though, I think we're mostly wrapped up here for the day."
It was true. Outside of hovering over the man's shoulder while he worked, there wasn't much else I could end up doing here. "I suppose so."
As I turned to leave, something did strike me at that moment. "I do have an appointment later that requires me to be a bit sharply dressed," I asked, glancing over at the older man. "You wouldn't happen to have a suit upstairs that'd be television-appropriate, would you?"
A broad grin came over Art's face. "I think we can find something that fits you on short notice."
That was how I ended up walking out with an impressively fitting suit and tie, for whatever television engagement that the GDA had lined up for me. Taking a rapid portal back to my apartment, I rang up Donald, trying to get more information on that specifically. All they'd told me was that it'd be late in the day, and it was already noon.
"It's actually a night show," Donald informed me, as I inspected the sharp suit on the hanger in front of me. "Are you familiar with Late Night With Jimmy Kimmel?"
What?
"What?"
It was official. I was in show business.
Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration of my actual part to play in the whole thing when I came into the studio for my scheduled interview. It might not have been what I'd have picked if left to my own devices, the GDA social media managers were smart for letting that not be my decision.
Setting me up on a nice, normal talk show was more normal than letting me crash some Twitch stream or whatever stupid ideas I had first. There'd be time to branch out to crazier things later, when I'd shown the general populace that I was in fact not a crazy combat junkie.
…That I wasn't just a crazy combat junkie alien, I mentally corrected. Still, once I'd arrived at the place, the production staff descended on me with the kind of restrained frenzy that came with workers on a firm timetable that could be slightly smudged but not actually changed all that much. Because I tried not to be an asshole, I did my best to be as helpful as possible with all of the preparations that needed to be done.
Additionally, I'd come to realize television production was an extensive process than I'd originally thought it was. I mean, like, I knew in a logical sense that there was a lot of time and energy put into the process of trying to create a television show. But unlike so many other people that must have watched 30 Rock, I'd never really gotten into the nitty-gritty of what went into it. Coming onto set for my interview, good lord, you'd have thought that they were going to war.
Casually inspecting things as they proceeded with my Byakugan, it wasn't hard to tell that emotions were running high. People cleaning the stands where the studio audience would be located, video connections being tested, and a catering spread being laid out behind the stage. That was almost where I maneuvered until they got their hands on me.
"My god, your complexion is so pale and smooth…" A make-up artist trailed off, looking shocked as they applied the sort of witchcraft that apparently would make me look slightly more normal on the camera. "What do you use for your skincare routine?"
For about half a second I thought about the answer before responding as honestly as I could. "Chakra, mostly."
She hummed, as if that was an answer enough. "Yeah, my sister likes to meditate with those crystals, but if it actually works, maybe I should take it up too."
"I mean, chakra is more of an energy source that's actually a combination of spiritual and physical energies, into a more efficient—" Aaand she's gone, once she did the final touches on my face.
Apparently there was nothing more likely to turn women off than a man about to dive deep into arcane metaphysical power systems. I didn't get enough time to even mope before she shuffled me into my own personal waiting room. There was a preppy intern standing before me, young and beaming at me with an expression so warm that it had to be artificial.
"Gosh, it's an honor to meet you, Taijitu, sir," she greeted, with the same spiel she'd almost certainly given every other guest on the show. "If there's anything I can do to make your stay better until the show starts, please let me know."
"... Anything?" I asked, arching a brow her way. "No matter the unreasonable request?"
Her eyebrow twitched, but her smile didn't falter even for a second. "Anything, sir, though I can't always say that I can grant it."
She must have been expecting the worst, which obviously wasn't going to happen. Teasing her a little was another thing entirely. "So if I asked for a bowl filled with nothing but green M&M's?"
Before my eyes, her smile became a little more strained. "...Excuse me, sir?"
"Those chocolate candies with the hard exteriors. If I asked for a bowl of three hundred M&M's, to the dot, could you get it for me?"
"Chocolate or peanut?" She asked back, rattling off the answer on rote. Somehow, it made me realize that whatever unreasonable request I might make in jest could hardly scrape the surface of what someone had actually asked for before. The rich and famous displayed levels of eccentricity that I could only try to ape. Exclusive services existed that were tailored singularly for those in tax brackets that I theoretically could attempt to enter.
Whatever I might come up with would probably fail to actually be as silly or nonsensical as what she could actually acquire.
"That was a joke," I clarified, waving off the request with a smile. "Just let me know when I'm good to walk on stage."
"Will do, sir," she nodded, vacating the room and leaving me alone to stew in my thoughts.
You'd think that this sort of thing wouldn't get to me, but apparently that wasn't the case. I could withstand fights to the supposed death in the Arctic Circle, engineer mind-boggling creations that combined technology and chakra, and deal with the insanity of being a superhero. That sort of stuff where I was goofing off, having fun, was the best part of the job. Mostly because, outside of the life-or-death fights, it was all pretty enjoyable.
The one thing that neither the man I was before nor the alien parasite I'd turned into had any experience in was public relations. Neither of them had the faintest reason to be on a stage into adulthood. Nor would they have agreed individually if things had been left to their own circumstances.
But no. I just had to be loved, famous, and admired. Sometimes, I wondered if it would have been better to sit under a rock or in a cave and cultivate enlightenment until I reached sagehood or something. Instead I wanted to tangle myself into the trappings of society, like flaming hot doritos, hot showers, and comic books. I don't think any true Ōtsutsuki would have cared what anyone else thought about them this much. Moments like these reminded me I was still a human deep-down. Why would they care about coming across personably?
I almost missed the knock on the door that startled me out of my state. "Sir! Your entrance is about to come up," the PA spoke from the other side of the door.
With a deep sigh, I let the remaining tension inside of me ease out of my body as I moved to leave. "Lead the way," I instructed, trying my best to firm up my resolve.
She did so as we wove through the backstage of the entire set, staff running to and fro to manage or double-check all sorts of things. I was standing at the edge of the stage, just out of sight, waiting for the pre-discussed cue for me to walk onto the blinding lights and view of the studio audience.
"And tonight, we've got a special guest. Let me welcome to the stage one of your new Guardians of the Globe…Taijitu!"
My body was moving on autopilot as I began walking with a solid stride, casting nothing but smiles and waves at the audience. It was a real sea of humanity out there, as people were genuinely excited for me in a way I'd only ever seen from real celebrities. Of course, that was when it struck me that by the standards of this world, I was one.
Superheroes had merchandise, they did interviews on Jimmy Kimmel, they saved lives, and they went to Make-A-Wish foundation visits to sick kids. In many respects, it was the respect that first responders got that ramped up to eleven, because your average cop or fireman couldn't fly or punch someone across the city.
Was that fair? No. But that was just human nature at work, and you couldn't really change that without also upending the entire culture at the same time.
Speaking of Jimmy Kimmel, I looked at the man and shot him a smile as well as settled down on the chair next to his desk. Shaking hands, we settled down, and he fixed me with the kind of friendly, manicured expression that might have been on a thousand broadcasts over the years. When it came to being a showman, he was categorically better than me.
"Thanks for coming here, Taijitu, truly," he greeted. "It's an honor and a privilege. Or, well, your spokespeople told me to say that, or I wouldn't be expecting any visits from the rest of your team."
I laughed. "It's an honor to be here. This whole late-night television business is new to me, but I appreciate the excuse to get out of my apartment."
"As our newest Guardian, I'd have expected you to be enjoying your newest status a bit more," he teased.
"Honestly?" I responded, shrugging softly as I thought over my schedule. "I wouldn't even have the faintest clue when my schedule would be open."
"Ah, true. Must be busy as a new Guardian of the Globe."
"You haven't the faintest idea," I ruefully chuckled. "When I first came to this planet, I didn't know there could be this much training or paperwork involved in doing the right thing. However, given how I've been drowning in the stuff, I'm surprised anyone gets saved around here."
Spreading around through the audience went a polite round of laughter, as everyone tittered at the humorous statement. "So the rumors are true? You're an alien, like the Martian and Omni-Man?"
"I am indeed," I freely admitted, not seeing any reason to deny it. There was a very small list of things that Donald told me not to talk about, like ongoing Guardians training initiatives and the specific details of our operations. Outside of that, though? "My people are known as the Ōtsutsuki."
The GDA basically gave me a blank check, provided I didn't go too far off of the reservation. Maybe they figured I'd come off less artificial that way or less awkward.
"Oot-suki?" Jimmy tried, trying to say the whole thing and butchering the name.
Blessedly, I waved him off. Having been a native English speaker myself, I knew full well how brutal it could be to try and butcher the names of other peoples. "It's fine, considering that I doubt anyone from my home is going to be showing up anytime soon."
Hopefully.
"And what is your home like, exactly?"
Unbidden, a thousand different memories of the original Genji came to mind. Unblinking stares and a brutal demand for training, discipline, and obedience to the main branch. Barren rocks of planets they dwelled on and basic food that was only there to subsist on and provide the most adequate nutrition for growth and energy.
They survived, but at no point would I have ever called the experience living. Not when the entire point was to eventually die so that someone else could have the literal fruits of their spoils.
"It's not a very friendly place," I evasively answered, smiling over at Kimmel, hands clasped in my lap. "It's a harsh environment, and one where I, as a secondary class, did not quite have the same opportunities as my peers. Part of why I left in the first place."
There was a lot of dodging going on with this question, and frankly, I didn't think it was the wrong thing to do. Better that the Earth thought of aliens in a friendly context. Some things weren't meant to be talked about on television.
"I understand, I understand, things you can only share on a need-to-know basis, eh?" Jimmy smiled back.
"Something like that," I confirmed. "But if you get the clearance, let me know and I'll be more than happy to come back and fill you in."
It got a round of polite laughter from the audience and Jimmy, as a rather mild joke. But the longer this little conversation went on, the longer I began to remember one important fact about this new body of mine. I was stupidly, absurdly attractive, and that gave me a lot of leeway when it came to getting away with bad jokes or not being the most friendly.
The halo effect in action. It was why someone who was tall often statistically did better in pretty much every aspect of social life than someone who was shorter. Or why a more handsome or beautiful individual could garner more success in life in general.
The conversation drifted into the sort of inane talk that sort of dominated these kinds of shows. Was there a Mrs. Taijitu? To which I replied, 'Unfortunately not.' Were there any further planned expansions to the Guardians of the Globe, like Omni-Man or Invincible? No to both, though I couldn't speak about what my leader would be up to in the future.
On and on the questions came, and my answers too, as we traded jokes and things fell into a more comfortable routine. There was even a special guest section with some sort of animal handler, where they brought on exotic critters. It was there I learned what my new favorite animal was, and it was called a binturong.
Fitfully called a bearcat, with a prehensile tail and the natural scent of popcorn or something like it. My disdain for the exotic pet trade was the only thing to stop me from acquiring one for myself.
The show finally came to a wrap, and Jimmy and I went backstage. I wouldn't say I was still starstruck, given that this kind of late-night television had definitely passed my generation by as a thing to be dazzled by. That didn't mean the glitz and glamor of the production had totally failed to impress, though.
"Again, thanks for coming on Taijitu," he thanked me, giving a thousand-megawatt smile. "Landing the first real interview with you is an honor."
"For the first ever press tour I've ever gone on, honestly, this wasn't that bad," I admitted, a lot of my fears not quite coming to pass. "I'm unsure what my schedule looks like due to Guardians' business, but I wouldn't mind coming on again in the future."
"I'll get my people in contact with your people," he promised.
With that, I made my leave, exiting the studio through a portal and back into my apartment. Much to my relief, as I began to loosen my tie. Though I barely got into that process before my phone began to ring. I answered it with a soft sigh. "Y'ello?"
"Not bad for a first interview, kid. A little stiff on the questions, but we can chalk that up to nerves." Cecil's voice, his familiar one, came through the other end of the line.
"I was sweating buckets out there on that stage, Cecil."
A pause on the other end of the line. "I thought your people didn't sweat?"
We didn't; there were alternative structures for heat regulation inside of my body that dispersed the heat more efficiently through my cells. "Metaphorically speaking, Cecil."
"Uh huh," he responded, sounding as if he didn't believe me. "Well, if it's any consolation you're just the first of the bunch. Between duties and missions, I plan on scheduling the rest of the Guardians for similar interviews. You were just the first and easiest to access."
"Makes sense. You've got to introduce the shiny new version of the Guardians of the Globe to the adoring public, don't you?" The old Guardians had decades of reputation to fall back on when it came down to it. We had a few weeks, save for Black Samson.
He'd been out of the game so long, though, that I wasn't even sure if he really counted either new or old.
"You're not wrong," Cecil fully and shamelessly admitted to me. "But superheroes are meant to be aspirational and stabilizing. Public relations is as much part of the job as stopping threats."
It was cynical as a view. That didn't make it incorrect when you looked at how people processed things. "Bread and circuses?"
"I'm surprised you even know that term, but not quite. People live blissfully unaware, each and every night, of how close they come to the end of things. Day in and day out, heroes like you put your lives on the line to make sure they can sleep quietly and rest knowing that there's someone out there looking for them."
"That isn't enough, though," the director continued. "They need to bring you down from your pedestals and see you're also…"
"Human?" I offered, a smirk tugging at my lips.
"I was going to say 'approachable,' but yeah, 'human' is also the right word. It's something that, for all of the former Guardians' good work, I think they could suffer with sometimes."
"Huh." My words didn't come to me as swiftly after that, as I considered his own. "Is it weird that I didn't think you guys thought it out that much?"
A rough laugh came from the other end of the line. "It's my job to think it out that much, kid. Me, and the teams of analysts, social media managers, and think tanks that go in circles trying to maintain global stability."
In most superhero universes, the heroes were usually at odds with the governments and whatever form of illuminati there was. So, it was a little odd to think of the fact that in this one, I had them on my side. Don't get me wrong, I understood implicitly that it was something that came with no small amount of strings attached, with that being the case. But having the entire global apparatus behind me was a nice change of pace from how these things normally went.
"Get some sleep. Or kalimba practice. Whatever you intend on doing, it's back to work in the morning. Your little icebox needs a check-up."
Rolling my eyes, I smiled all the same at the reminder of the prisoner that I'd been studiously trying to avoid thinking about. Mostly because when I thought of the newest and most dangerous alien on the planet, the first thing that came to mind was how close I'd been to death. And how much I wanted to fight him again.
"I'll be there in the morning. Catch you later, Cecil." With that, I hung up and stared up at the ceiling for a little while longer, letting my mind rest from the swirling intrusions muddying the waters.
I was sure there'd be new hurdles and hassles for me to deal with in the next coming days. Those were problems for future Genji to deal with. At the moment, it was time to recharge my social batteries by doing literally anything else. Finishing the current run of Seance Dog seemed like a good start, while I sent off a few clones to handle some of the more onerous and tedious bits of training I had to do for the day.
Author's Notes
What could the icebox be? You'll have to wait and find out! We're moving steadily into the other parts of season one, and not that far away from the end game of it in a few chapters. Just gotta build up some suspense.
Additionally, if you would like to read ahead, you can find up to ten chapters ahead via the linktree in my profile. For the time being, all adult content like future smut in anything I write, will be on , though in due time I'll likely try to get the processing and authentication through on to be able to post it there as well. So be mindful of where you're supporting me.