I'll now be releasing my Legends of Tomorrow story episodes alongside Supergirl. They will be connected when it reaches the "Invasion!" crossover event in Season 2. The episodes will be released concurrently. So that means Supergirl episode, then Legends, then Supergirl, et cetera. The episode after this will be S1 EP2 of Legends of Tomorrow "Pilot, Part 2."
Just like the actual shows, you won't have to read both to understand what's going on. But the Legends part of the crossovers will be on that story.
Enjoy Ben's first sort of "solo" episode.
———
Ben and Kara stood in the elevator to CatCo.
Kara: Do you think I'm bad at recognizing flirting?
Ben: Yes. Why?
Kara: Alex thought this guy at Noonan's was flirting with me.
Ben: Probably was. Alex is surprisingly good at reading people.
The elevator opened up and they stepped out. Winn then stepped into the elevator.
Kara: Winn, hey. Where you heading? Are you going down?
Winn: Just don't. Please. Have a nice day, Kara.
The elevator doors closed.
Ben: "Are you going down?" Really, Danvers?
Kara: Shut up.
Ben: He's still not talking to you?
Kara: Apparently not.
Ben: He needs to get over it. So he kissed you and it was awkward, so what?
Kara: Can you talk to him?
Ben: Nope. Nuh-uh. I am not getting in between your antics.
Kara: Please can you just... I don't know. Just superhero with him today?
Ben: Danvers, I-
Kara: Ben, please?
Ben: ...
Kara: Please?
Ben: Fine, but you owe me.
Kara: Of course.
Ben and Kara entered the meeting room and stood in the corner as the reporters all sat at the table plus Lucy. Cat walked in and stood at the head of the table.
Cat: Miranda Crane is in town. She is a lightning rod for bigots, hippies, and aliens, and yes, that is the order in which I detest them. Our top reporter has made the mistake of dumping CatCo for a cash grab at Vanity Fair. His ruin will be swift and merciless, thanks to Lucy, who will serve him a lawsuit by the end of today.
Lucy: That's not how it works...
Cat: By the end of today. Meanwhile, we need someone to get to the rally. Kira, get me a list of who's available.
James: Actually, I'll do it.
Cat: You have layouts to do. Kira-
James: Uh, Ms. Grant. Nothing that can't spare an hour. And with all due respect, I'm the most experienced photojournalist you have. And with my connection to a very famous alien, I may just be able to get us a good quote from Senator Crane.
Cat: You better get us a quote that will offend virtually everyone. That's all.
———
Ben entered the secret office where Winn was using the computers, dejectedly.
Ben: Hey, Winn.
Winn: What's up, Ben?
Winn leaned back on his chair to look behind Ben.
Ben: She's not with me.
Winn: Good.
Ben: Oh, my God, you need to get over it.
Winn: No, I don't.
Ben: Alright, fine. Be like that. You may be ignoring Kara, but I won't let you ignore me, let's do some superheroing. What do we got?
Winn: Nothing.
Ben: Come on.
Winn: Literally, there's nothing going on right now.
Ben: Alright, I'll wait. Crime rates aren't at zero yet. Something's gotta happen soon.
———
Maxwell Lord approached the workers at his lab.
Lord: Alright, I know we've had our setbacks the last couple of months, but we have a future to build. Let's get back to it.
There was a loud crash as one of the walls to the lab was knocked down.
Lord: What is it this time?
The smoke cleared to reveal a man in a grizzly bear costume.
Grizzly: WHERE IS LORD?!
Lord: What in the hell are you doing?!
Grizzly: YOU RUINED MY LIFE! NOW, I WILL END YOURS!
Grizzly began crashing through the lab. Max hid in cover.
———
An alert came on Winn's computer set-up.
Winn: We got a break-in in progress.
Ben: Where?
Winn: Lord Technologies.
Ben: Lord? Do I have to?
Winn: Ben...
Ben: Yeah, yeah, responsibility and all that.
Ben went to get changed and make his way to Lord Technologies.
———
Grizzly flipped workstations and broke through walls trying to find Lord. Lord eventually came out of hiding to confront the man donning the ursine costume.
Lord: Will you stop destroying my lab?!
Grizzly: Maxwell Lord, I will destroy you.
Grizzly tried to run at Lord but found himself being held back by Ben's webs.
Scarlet Spider: Not so fast, Ursaring. Now, how about you come along quietly?
Grizzly lifted Ben into the air.
Scarlet Spider: Yeah. Somehow I didn't think so.
Ben flipped out of the hold and punched Grizzly in the chest with an exuberant amount of force. Yet, Grizzly stays standing.
Scarlet Spider: Oh, come on. That punch would've knocked even Supergirl to her feet.
Grizzly whacked Ben away with his arm.
Grizzly: You dare challenge Grizzly?!
Scarlet Spider: Grizzly? Really? That's like me calling myself... y'know what? Never mind. Makes perfect sense.
Ben sprung from the wall and kicked Grizzly with enough force to knock him off balance. This hit caused Grizzly's costume to produce slight spark. Grizzly took notice of this and so grabbed Ben and slammed him into the ground.
Scarlet Spider: Ow...
Grizzly: I will be back! And Lord will know the fury of the Grizzly!
Grizzly then sprinted out of the building, crashing through walls to make his exit. Lord got out of cover and looked over all the damage.
Lord: Look at what you did!
Ben got himself up off the floor.
Scarlet Spider: Me?! Did you somehow miss the 6'9" guy in a grizzly bear costume who just ran through here and did all that?!
Lord: You should have stopped him before he put innocent lives at risk! You're nothing but a menace.
Scarlet Spider: Again, I'm failing to see how I'm at fault here. Who was that guy?
Lord: How am I supposed to know? A new nutcase tries to kill me every week.
Scarlet Spider: Yeah, I've noticed. You're welcome for stopping them by the way.
Lord: I think I'd even take Supergirl over whoever the hell you think you are.
Scarlet Spider: Too bad, because this is not DEO territory. This is Spidey-territory.
Lord: You can't just say that like it's a thing.
Scarlet Spider: Oh, it's 100% a thing.
Lord: According to who?
Scarlet Spider: Me. Right now. 2016. Read it and weep.
Ben pretended to dribble a basketball which he mimed losing control of and it bouncing away.
Lord: You're an idiot.
Scarlet Spider: That's your opinion.
Lord: Just go find this guy.
Lord walked away to deal with the destruction in his lab.
———
Grizzly entered a back alley somewhere in the city. He opened a heavily graffitied garage door and stepped inside. He drew back the plastic curtain to see Phineas Mason, the Tinkerer, working on some form of exoskeleton.
Grizzly: The Spider destroyed my exoskeleton.
Grizzly pulled open his costume to reveal the metal rigging underneath that enhanced his strength and durability.
Tinkerer: Well, what did you expect from charging into a heavily fortified laboratory?
Grizzly: To kill Maxwell Lord?
Tinkerer: Yes, but you didn't. You're lucky it was only the Scarlet Spider that showed up and not Supergirl. This exoskeleton was not designed to sustain a punch from a Kryptonian.
Grizzly: Sorry.
Tinkerer: Don't apologize. My line of business is filled with people making the mistake of facing someone too powerful for my tech to handle. I suppose that's to be expected when you're the armorer for villains with big ambitions yet no intelligence.
Grizzly: Hey! I'm intelligence.
Tinkerer: Yes, of course, I didn't mean you, Mr. Markham. You're very... intelligence.
Grizzly removed the exoskeleton from his costume and placed it on Tinkerer's workstation.
Tinkerer: I'll have it repaired soon.
Grizzly: Alright, thanks, Mr. Mason.
Tinkerer: As long as you keep paying, I'm happy to keep working.
Grizzly sat in the corner of the room, completely unaware of the blinking red light on his back.
———
Ben returned to the secret office and planted himself on the couch face first.
Winn: What happened to you?
Ben: (muffled nonsense)
Winn: What?
Ben turned to face him.
Ben: A guy in a bear costume.
Winn: A guy in a bear costume?
Ben: A guy in a bear costume, yeah.
Winn: That's a new one.
Ben: Yeah, can't say I've heard anything like it.
Winn: How're we gonna find him?
Ben: Oh, you thought that I didn't think of that? Watch this.
Ben pulled out a GPS tracker phone.
Winn: What's that?
Ben: This is how we're gonna find our guy. I planted one of these on him.
Ben pulled out a small spider-shaped device.
Ben: It's a spider-tracker. My dad had a few designs, but he never really got around to finishing them. But I did.
Winn: So you just follow that and find Grizzly?
Ben: Yep.
Winn: Then what?
Ben: I... punch him?
Winn: That's it?
Ben: I punch him real hard. Look, I'd like to see you do this. I'll figure it out. I'll have a look around and keep you posted. Actually, I need you to do something.
Winn: Shoot.
Ben: Can you see if you can access the security cameras from Lord Tech and run facial recognition on Grizzly?
Winn: Dude, come on. Of course I can.
Ben: Great.
———
Ben went to the main floor of CatCo and looked over to see Cat leave in her personal elevator. He walked over to Kara.
Ben: What's up with Ms. Grant? She looks stressed.
Kara: Oh, she's worried about going to dinner with her son.
Ben: Carter?
Kara: No... Adam Foster.
Ben: Adam Fost-
Ben recognized the name as the secret son of Cat they'd discovered while looking over her emails.
Ben: ... What did you do?
Kara: Me? Nothing.
Ben: Danvers, what did you do?
Kara: I didn't do anything.
Ben: Danvers... what did you do?
Kara: I... may have written to her estranged son pretending to be her and then he showed up.
Ben: Why?!
Kara: I didn't think he'd show up!
Ben: Always assume the worst! That's a basic rule of life!
Kara: That sounds like anxiety.
Ben: Only to people without anxiety.
Kara: What?
Ben: Doesn't matter. What happened at the rally? I heard there was an alien attack.
Kara: Yeah, a White Martian turned up and tried to attack Senator Crane.
Ben: A Martian? Like J'onn?
Kara: No. J'onn is a Green Martian and apparently these White Martians killed the rest of his people.
Ben: Oh, so, nothing like J'onn.
Kara: What happened at Lord Technologies?
Ben: Guy in a grizzly bear costume.
Kara: Guy in a what?
Ben: Grizzly bear costume.
Kara: Grizzly bear costume?
Ben: Grizzly bear costume, yeah.
Kara: Weird. I'm gonna go ahead and assume you have that covered so I can deal with the White Martian.
Ben: You'd be right. I got this. Also, you're lucky Ms. Grant didn't fire you for this whole Adam situation.
Kara: Yeah, I know.
———
It was late at night and Ben was still following the tracker through the streets.
Ben: Note to self, improve accuracy of spider-tracker so you don't have to check within a five mile radius.
Ben eventually made his way down a dark alley. He looked around but saw nothing suspicious until his spider-sense went off. He turned around and was immediately knocked out by Grizzly. Tinkerer stepped out to see what he had done.
Tinkerer: You imbecile, you can't just assault a man outside my workshop!
Grizzly: Nah, don't you know who this guy is? I've seen him around town, he's the Spider's personal photographer.
Tinkerer: I see. In that case, we could get him to give up the location of the Scarlet Spider's home base. Maybe you're not as thick-skulled as you appear, Markham.
———
Ben awoke in a dimly lit room. His hands were bound by shackles while he laid on what looked to be an operating table. His eyesight was still coming back to him as he came to his senses but he could make out a figure in the darkness.
Tinkerer: Well now, Dr. Parker, do try to make yourself comfortable. After all, you're going to be here for a while.
Ben: What are you doing?
Tinkerer: Do you know what the benefits are to providing villains with their equipment?
Ben: Imagine we're in the crazy fantasy world where I don't.
Tinkerer: You see, the more I make, the more I get. The more I get, the more I can make.
Ben: I'll tell you what. You'd make a killing as Dr. Seuss's ghostwriter.
Tinkerer: Funny you should mention "killing."
Ben: Walked right into that one.
Tinkerer: Like a fly into a web.
Ben: That's ironic.
Tinkerer: How?
Ben remembered that he was currently not in costume while facing this villain.
Ben: Ignore me, I'm just riffing.
Tinkerer: Well, as it turns out, I have managed to accumulate enough stolen technology to make this.
He used a pair of tweezers to pick up a small microchip.
Tinkerer: Surely you know what this is, Dr. Parker?
Ben: To keep it short? Mind-control chip.
Tinkerer: Exactly. I'm going to plant this in your brain so you can lead me right to Scarlet Spider and Supergirl and I can kill them.
Ben: That might end up being harder than you think.
Tinkerer: I'm a patient man. Just stay there while I prepare for the procedure.
He started using a blowtorch on something that Ben couldn't see from his position. Ben looked around for ways to get out of his shackles until he remember something very important... he had superpowers.
Ben: I'm an idiot.
He waited until Tinkerer started up the blowtorch again so he wouldn't hear the shackles break apart. Ben got up off the operating table and walked over to Tinkerer. He then hit him across the head to knock him out.
Ben: You got unlucky, buddy. It happens sometimes.
He webbed up Tinkerer for the police to pick up later and searched his workshop. Ben looked over all the research and prototypes of exoskeletons he had along with design specifications for the Grizzly costume.
Ben: So that's how you're so strong? Interesting.
Ben studied the blueprints to look for a structural weakness. He worked up his plan and then left the workshop. His phone started ringing and so he picked up.
Ben: Shalom.
Winn: <Since when is that how you answer the phone?>
Ben: Sorry, weird day.
Winn: <So, I put Grizzly's face through every facial recognition scan available. It came back with a definitive match as "Maxwell Markham.">
Ben: Markham? What can you find out about him?
Winn: <It looks like he used to be a pro wrestler under the name "Mad Max.">
Ben: Used to be? What happened?
Winn: <Well, this is where things start to make sense. He was at the top of his game until he got seriously injured in a fight by some 7'6" entry by the name of "Antonio Rodriguez." They called him the "Armadillo.">
Ben: How does that make sense of anything?
Winn: <Because Rodriguez had his way to the top paid for by his endorser.>
Ben: Let me guess... Lord?
Winn: <Bingo. Man, rich people really have no idea what to do with their money. Oh, hang on.>
Ben: What is it?
Winn: <Grizzly's back at Lord Technologies.>
Ben: Alright, good to know. I've got a plan. A real one this time.
———
At Lord Technolgies, Grizzly barreled past the extra armed guards that Lord had ordered. He crashed through walls trying to find him.
Grizzly: I will find you, Lord! And I will break you!
Lord stepped out of a safe room holding some sort of blaster.
Lord: Look who it is. The reigning chump.
Grizzly charged at him as Lord fired his blaster. Grizzly brushed off the blasts like they were nothing and slammed into Lord, knocking him into the wall and leaving a large indent.
Scarlet Spider: Ouch. That has gotta to have hurt.
Grizzly: Spider!
Grizzly charged at Ben but he dodged out of the way.
Scarlet Spider: Look, Markham, I know what Lord did. To be fair, it's probably the least evil thing he's done to a person, but it's still pretty bad. He really sucks. But this is still very illegal and I will have to stop you.
While Grizzly tried to perform a flurry of attacks, Ben kept as far away as possible. He then webbed at Grizzly's costume, ripping it bit by bit until the exoskeleton was no longer supported by the outer layer and came to bits.
Scarlet Spider: Guess who's at an unfair advantage now.
Grizzly: Uh oh.
Ben punched Grizzly in the face and knocked him out. He then webbed him to the wall.
Scarlet Spider: I know you're not a fan, Max, but please leave this guy for the police to handle.
Lord: Sure.
Scarlet Spider: That it? No 'thank you'?
Lord: Get out.
Scarlet Spider: So rude all the time. I'm a relatively chill guy, I don't get where all this hostility is coming from, Maxwell.
Ben swung out of the facility having defeated this frankly ridiculous "threat".
———
The next day, Kara and Ben were in the CatCo elevator.
Ben: So, you got the White Martian?
Kara: Yep. You got your grizzly bear guy?
Ben: Eventually. Man, yesterday was rough. I think I still have a headache.
The elevator doors opened and they stepped out. Winn walked past them to enter the elevator.
Winn: Awfully quiet today.
Kara: Space and time.
The elevator doors closed.
Kara: Thank you.
Ben: I'm gonna be 100% honest with you. I didn't really do anything, I was really distracted by Grizzly.
They entered the office where they could see the Senator Crane press conference playing on the screens.
Crane: <I know many of my supporters are surprised to hear that I'm revising my stance on the anti-alien initiative. While it's important we remain cautious, we still have a lot to learn before we take action.>
Reporter: <Senator, this decision is in light of an alien at your rally. What changed?>
Crane: <Supergirl. She apprehended my attacker and saving who knows how many lives. Her efforts to protect me and National City taught me that not all visitors to our world are the enemy.>
Ben: Nice work.
Kara: It's a start, I guess. I'm sorry your headlines aren't as positive.
Ben: My headlines?
They looked over to see another broadcast tuned in to a different station. It was on mute but it showed Lord at yet another press conference with the tagline "Scarlet Spider: Threat or Menace?"
Ben: Huh... Dad would be proud.
EPISODE END