Chapter 21 : Toyman - Part 3: Homecoming
May 2016 — Abandoned Schott Family Factory — Night
The factory looked dead from the outside.
Three stories of crumbling brick and broken windows, surrounded by chain-link fence and decades of accumulated neglect. Graffiti covered the lower walls. Weeds pushed through cracks in the parking lot. Everything about it screamed abandoned, forgotten, worthless.
I knew better.
My electromagnetic sense detected power flowing through hidden conduits—fresh electricity feeding systems that shouldn't exist. Motion sensors camouflaged as debris. Pressure plates beneath the gravel. My father had transformed this corpse of a building into something alive and hungry.
He's been preparing for months. Maybe years.
"I'm going in," I murmured into my comms.
"Copy," Kara's voice came back. "I'm on the roof of the warehouse two blocks east. Anything goes wrong, I'm there in three seconds."
"Winn." Alex, from the DEO mobile command. "We're tracking your signal. The moment you lose contact—"
"You hold position. He's expecting reinforcements. If you move too soon, people die."
Silence on the line. Then: "Be careful."
I approached the main entrance.
The door opened before I touched it. Not automatic—deliberate. An invitation. The hinges moved smoothly, recently oiled, betraying the careful maintenance hidden beneath the facade of decay.
Inside, the factory came alive.
The first trap activated three steps past the threshold.
Floor panel. Pressure trigger. A mechanism beneath my feet whirred to life, and suddenly a dozen spinning blades were slicing toward my ankles from concealed slots in the walls.
Vector sense screamed. I jumped, redirecting my momentum upward, grabbing a overhead pipe and swinging clear as the blades passed beneath me. Metal screamed against metal. Sparks flew.
I dropped down past the danger zone and kept moving.
"Your reflexes have improved!" My father's voice echoed from speakers hidden in the walls. "The video footage suggested as much, but seeing it in person is quite gratifying. Tell me—is it technology? Genetic modification? Or something more exotic?"
"Come out and ask me yourself."
"All in good time. First, let's see how you handle the workshop."
The corridor ahead opened into what had once been the main production floor. Now it was a nightmare carnival.
Conveyor belts ran in endless loops, carrying toys that bristled with blades and explosives. Mechanical clowns—life-sized, with grins that showed too many teeth—hung from ceiling tracks, swaying gently and tracking my movement with sensor-studded eyes. In the center of it all, a massive carousel turned slowly, its horses replaced by twisted metal sculptures that defied easy description.
Every childhood memory, weaponized.
I walked forward. The clowns swiveled to follow.
"I remember these." My voice was steadier than I felt. "You built the first ones when I was eight. I thought they were amazing."
"You loved them. Begged me to make more." A note of genuine warmth entered his broadcast. "Those were good times, Winn. Before everything went wrong."
"Before you killed seven people."
"Before I sought justice for what was stolen from me. Before I was betrayed by everyone I trusted." The warmth curdled into something darker. "But we're not here to relitigate the past. We're here to discuss the future."
A clown dropped from its track, landing in front of me with a heavy metallic thud. Its jaw unhinged, revealing a barrel that began to glow with charging energy.
I moved without thinking. Vector manipulation grabbed the incoming blast, redirected it upward, and the ceiling exploded instead of my chest. Debris rained down. I was already rolling, avoiding the second clown that had dropped behind me, absorbing the kinetic energy of its swinging blade-arm and turning it back against the mechanism.
Metal shrieked. The clown collapsed in a shower of sparks.
"Beautiful!" My father's voice was jubilant. "The way you manipulate force vectors—I suspected, but the confirmation is magnificent. Do you understand what you've become? You can control the fundamental forces of motion itself!"
"I understand that you're trying to kill me."
"Kill you? Never. I'm trying to see you. To know you." A pause. "Continue forward. The real test is still ahead."
The gauntlet continued for twenty minutes.
Dart-shooting teddy bears. Pendulum blades disguised as hanging mobiles. Floor sections that dropped away into darkness. Each obstacle more elaborate than the last, each one designed to exploit specific vulnerabilities that my father had apparently catalogued over years of obsessive research.
I survived. Barely.
By the time I reached the inner sanctum—my father's original workshop, the place where he'd taught me to build before teaching me to fear—my arms were covered in shallow cuts from near-misses. Blood dripped from a gash on my forehead where a blade had gotten too close. My clothes were torn, singed, stained with lubricant and dust.
But I was alive.
The workshop was different from the rest of the factory. Cleaner. More personal. Workbenches covered with half-finished projects. Tools hanging in precise arrangements. And at the center of it all, sitting in a chair like a king on his throne, my father waited.
"You made it." His smile was genuine this time—the proud expression of a craftsman whose work had been appreciated. "I knew you would, but there's something special about seeing it firsthand."
"Forty minutes of death traps. This is how you wanted to reconnect?"
"I wanted to understand. To see what you've become." He stood slowly, spreading his arms to encompass the workshop. "And now I do. Vector manipulation—the ability to redirect force, momentum, kinetic energy. Am I close?"
I said nothing.
"I'll take that as confirmation. Fascinating. The applications are endless. Bullet deflection, enhanced strength, flight if you're clever about atmospheric manipulation..." He stepped closer, eyes gleaming. "How did it happen? Alien technology? Cosmic radiation? Divine intervention?"
"Does it matter?"
"It matters to me." He stopped three feet away, studying my face with that unsettling intensity. "You're my legacy, Winn. Whatever you've become, it's built on the foundation I provided. The intelligence, the creativity, the potential—all of it came from me."
"The fear came from you too."
His expression flickered. "Fear can be useful. It kept you safe."
"It kept me broken." I held his gaze, refusing to look away. "For years, I was terrified of becoming you. Of inheriting your madness, your cruelty, your absolute certainty that anyone who wronged you deserved to die."
"And now?"
"Now I know better." I stepped forward, closing the distance until we were almost touching. "I'm not you. I'm not your legacy. Whatever powers I have, whatever I've become—it's mine. Built on my choices, my relationships, my decisions. You don't get to take credit for that."
For a long moment, he was silent.
Then he smiled again—but this smile was different. Colder. More calculated.
"We are Schotts," he said softly. "We build things. We create. And I have built something wonderful, son. Something that will show the world exactly what our family is capable of."
"What are you talking about?"
"The death traps were a test. To confirm your abilities. To see what you could handle." He gestured at the workshop around us. "But this—all of this—was never meant to kill you. It was meant to prepare you."
"Prepare me for what?"
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small remote control.
"For the choice I'm about to offer you."
I tensed, ready to redirect whatever weapon he was about to deploy.
"Somewhere in this city, I've placed a device. A bomb, if you want to be crude about it. But not just any bomb—a masterpiece. My finest creation." His thumb hovered over the button. "When it detonates, it will release a cloud of nanoscopic machines. Each one carrying a payload designed to target specific neural patterns. To destroy memories. To unmake identities."
"You're insane."
"I'm brilliant. The difference is academic." He lowered the remote slightly. "The device is set to detonate in two hours. I'm the only one who knows where it is. And I will give you that location—on one condition."
"What condition?"
His smile widened.
"Join me. Use your powers as they were meant to be used. Not protecting a world that fears and despises us, but reshaping it. Together, we could build something magnificent. A dynasty of creators. A legacy that will last forever."
The offer hung in the air between us.
Behind me, I knew Kara was listening through the comms. Alex was tracking my position. J'onn was ready to deploy. They were all waiting for my signal—waiting to see what I would do.
I looked at my father. At the man who had taught me to build. Who had killed seven people with Christmas presents. Who had just threatened to unmake the minds of everyone in National City.
And I made my choice.
"No."
His expression didn't change. "No?"
"I didn't come here to build with you." I settled into a fighting stance, powers humming beneath my skin. "I came to end this."
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