Supergirl: Identity

[TearsoftheWorld]

OOC: Apologies for the short pick-up post, but I'm really really tired and have to go to work -_-;

Kara Zor-El folded her arms over her chest, Clark having introduced her to the most prominent members of Themyscira. All she wanted to do was remind her "older" cousin that she wouldn't be staying on this island forever. If her father had intended that destiny for her, her ship would have landed on Themyscira and not in Gotham Bay.

"So when do I begin my training?" Kara asked Kal-El. She looked back and forth at some of the women around her, and though they looked strong enough, she wondered just how much there was for her to learn about fighting.

What Kara really wanted to do was be with her cousin, and she wanted to remind him that had things worked out as planned, she would be the one training him.

But life had thrown the daughter of Zor-El a tiny little curveball.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Apokolips

"It is of no consequence," Darkseid said grumpily, and those closest to him knew that any thorn in his plans, big or small, was at least of some consequence. The fact that he had to find a replacement for Big Barda annoyed him greatly, and several of his servants had already paid the ultimate price for simply standing there while he rolled over his thoughts and ideas in his head.

What no one knew, however, was that Darkseid had already been seeking out a new leader for his small team of devout followers.

He had already been watching.

This would be his chance to finally make the son of Jor-El humble himself before the might of Darkseid.

This would be his hour.

The ruler of the Apokolips stood to his feet, and those gathered nearby bowed down in reverence.

"Have my soldiers ready," he commanded, walking off down a long corridor by himself.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Diana, Phillipus, and Artemis

Diana exchanged a glance with Phillipus, who smiled wryly.

"She doesn't seem happy to meet us," Phillipus suggested mildly.

Diana nodded easily, taking a few steps back from Kara, and bowing to her respectfully, if briefly.

"She seems quite perceptive," Diana noted with a glint in her eye. "Perhaps she sees that we are women of fist and sword, and presents to us a stern regard because that is what we see as culturally acceptable."

"Or maybe she just wants to hit something," came Artemis' voice from above, as she landed in a billow of crimson hair... she wore her version of Diana's ceremonial garb, though wound 'round her red and white boots were The Sandals of Hermes, and the bracelet on her right wrist was The Gauntlet of Atlas. Strapped to her back was a round shield in the style of The Spartans, and sheathed at her hip was a hand-and-a-half blade of Themysciran steel.

She strode boldly up to Kara, and cupped Kara's chin in her hand as she gazed blazingly, haughtily, delightedly into Kara's blue blue eyes.

"What do you say, Daughter of Krypton?" she wondered, an enticing grin on her lips. "I may not speak your language, but I speak fluent Violence. And I see Violence in your countenance."

She beckoned to The Girl, let's do this, and then raised her hands balled up into fists.

"Artemis," Diana chided her counterpart, but Phillipus gestured that Diana hold her tongue.

(This could be. Interesting.)

"Try not to hurt Superman's cousin, Artemis," Phillipus instructed.

Artemis only grinned.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara Zor-El looked up to see Artemis rejoin their small gathering, and she was clothed now in what appeared to be Themyscira battle garb. Or at least, to the young Kryptonian, she was arrayed as such. Artemis walked up to Kara, and without showing one ounce of fear, cupped Kara's chin in her hand.

Yet Kara Zor-El did not shy away at all.

Artemis uttered a few words, but they held no meaning to the strange newcomer. Kara hadn't quite picked up on how to speak their language, but all she needed was time.

She did, however, understand Artemis' motions, and when the Amazonian balled up her fists in a manner that suggested they should fight, Kara smiled hotly.

Fighting was her language.

"That's fine with me," Kara said in Kryptonian as she balled up her own fist.

Trusting that her cousin wouldn't interfere with the match, Kara moved at near full speed towards Artemis. She assumed that the fight would be quickly over before it even started, but things were not as they seemed. With the Sandals, Artemis could move just as fast as herself; with the Gauntlet her natural strength had been magnified, able to withstand quite a few of the young Kryptonian's blows.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Valkyrie M

"Yeh might as well ask me to dam up the rivers with a barstool," Rose murmured, eying him, "or to spin straw into gold. Yeh want me to summarise The Justice League?"

She gave him a square look, a look right into his eyes, as if trying to figure out what planet he was from. But then again, not a planet but a plane...

"Yeh really 'ave been living under a rock," she mumbled, rubbing her face. "But then again, I'm an intern for one of the most famous women on the planet, I should be able to sort information on demand."

Absently, she dusted at her shoulder, and glanced up at the sky of The City that Never Sleeps.

"One might assert," she began, "that certain aspects of civilisation are recurring archetypes, Jungian-esque elements of a collective unconscious that crop up over and over again throughout history, back even before we remember them. The Three Fates, The Genesis Flood, even Messiahs and Second Comings, these stories never stop retelling themselves in new and different forms."

She returned her gaze to Kyle The Wraith, and her lip twitched, her eyes half-lidded.

"One of these elemental archetypes is The Pantheon," she declared, "this array of jaw-dropping entities with incomprehensible powers, sometimes striving to exist beyond the same flaws and foibles as mere mortals, sometimes just as human as we are. Greece, Rome, Egypt, The Etruscans, The Norse... Hinduism has a pantheon that leaves your own laundry-list of epithets looking a little pallid and paltry. But we live in a world where pantheons are real. Where you can meet a god walking down the street, where that nice man you know who sits on the bench in the park can be 76 or 76,000."

A ruddy-blonde eyebrow arched neatly.

"During World War Two," she divulged with a touch of reverence, "there was a pantheon called The Justice Society of America, and they fought with fist and rod and magic ring against the forces of darkness and tyranny. And they faded when the world wanted to replace them with the tight fist of human government. Later the pantheon tried to recur as something called 'The Justice Experience,' but almost no-one remembers this. (Like those poor Etruscans, gobbled up by Rome.)"

She slipped her hands into her pockets and she ran her tongue over her teeth.

"But then came The Justice League," she pointed out, "and this Pantheon stuck like glue. They are Superman, they are Batman, they are Wonder Woman, they are The Flash, they are Green Lantern, they are The Manhunter from Mars, they are Aquaman, and they are The Brave and The Bold, many many men and women from all walks of life who dare to raise a fist against Dark Evil. They have a shiny gleaming tower on The Moon, and a network of satellites, and they go where they are needed."

Rose smiled faintly.

"I want to be one of them," she murmured, "when I grow up."

 

[LuckyVic]

Clark was going to say something, however he realized that it may be something that Kara needed. Everything she knew was gone, everything she expected was different. She probably had a lot of internal frustration within that she needed to let go before she would be receptive to any training that the Amazons would give her. Plus she did seem a bit arogant about abilities that she didn't fully know yet. So maybe Artemis would be able to humble her just a tad as well. So he just stood back and watched.

It was sometime during the match that Kelex, the main caretaker of his fortress, arrived.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Artemis

Artemis was not so silly to think that The Gauntlet made her the equal of this Girl's strength... she was not as strong as Diana, not as strong as The Icon, and therefore she was not as strong as The Icon's cousin.

But at the same time?

The Girl was new to this planet and therefore most likely new to her powers. She was not accustomed to the full range of her abilities, and she'd almost certainly never undergone combat training with those powers in mind.

Artemis' training, on the other hand, was considerable. She'd been a Wonder Woman, after all.

And her speed was that of Hermes; even though her strength was not Diana's equal, her speed was exactly the same.

Kara Zor-El came at Artemis at a blinding tilt, and Artemis flowed around her like water, the Amazonian answer to aikido, slipping to the side of her, slithering to her left, sinking halfway down to one knee... and, cupping her right hand atop Kara's left shoulder, and grasping Kara's left ankle in her own left hand...

Artemis flourished Kara as though to propel her forward, to flip her over and add enhanced strength to Kara's already-considerable velocity... yanking her foot up and out from under her, shoving her shoulder forward and down...

"HYAHHH!"

...there were a number of ways Kara could reverse this, and as Artemis spun away from that flip, she wondered which if any Kara would use to catch herself.

(If Kara didn't catch herself, the impact would be fantastic, the stuff of legend, like a hammerblow delivered by Thor...)

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara Zor-El assumed that her fight with Artemis would be over before it began, with her emerging as the victor. She assumed that the only person capable of withstanding her strength would be her cousin.

Kara Zor-El made a lot of quick assumptions, and none of them proved to be true.

Though she moved with incredible speed, Artemis managed to get a good hold over Kara's body, turning her own forward motion against her. The result left a deep impression (both in Kara's mind and that of the island they were fighting on).

The kind of pain that Kara felt was completely different from when she was subjected to the power of the Kryptonite. This kind of pain felt like a swift kick to the stomach on the worst night possible.

"Nice one, Kara," she grumbled to herself.

Apparently this fight wouldn't be won by sheer strength and brutality alone. Artemis had the one thing Kara lacked: training. And that training was what was keeping Kara from gaining an edge over her opponent. Kara was young and inexperienced, and it showed with each attack she made.

Getting to her feet, Kara held a fist-sized rock in her hands. Without flinching she crushed it between her hands, sending the dust and pebbles scattering to the winds.

Though Kara was determined, she actually cracked a smile.

Artemis really did speak Kara's language.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Cassie, Phillipus, and Diana

The cliff shook as Kara struck the Earth with shatterneck force, and not far away the impact jostled Cassandra Sandsmark.

Jostled her so firmly that she fell off of the stone bench on which she'd been sleeping... though, to her credit, she was awake before she hit the ground, and she landed not in a heap but in a crouch.

"Stuff exploding!" she blinked, wide-eyed.

Grabbing her lasso she shot to her feet, only to find the Amazons that had gathered to greet these supreme heroes scattering away from the sight of some loud, fierce brawl. But they weren't screaming in terror or wide-eyed in fright... they were grinning in amusement.

Cassie's newfound enhanced hearing caught the tail end of one woman quoting odds with another. Were they taking bets?

"You guys?" Cassie blinked, powering forward through the clearing-out soldier-women. "What The Hell?"

She moved through an open-air archway and stood between the pillars with wide wide eyes.

Artemis was dressed like Diana and was Clashing-of-The-Titans with The Girl of Steel and Cassie couldn't believe her eyes.

"I take a nap for five minutes--"

Phillipus jogged up to her, holding her ears, as they were ringing from Kara's great impact with The Earth. But she, too, was grinning.

"It's not like you, Cassandra," she called out, a little bit loudly, "to miss such festivities."

"Yeah, I know," Cassie replied, blinking rapidly, "usually I'm in the middle of them. Trying to keep my boyfriend and a diminutive Lobo replicant from killing each other. I gotta do the same thing here? What festival are we celebrating that someone's buttcheeks have to get handed to them?"

Diana moved closer, watching Artemis with tightly-squinched eyes. This was not what she'd had in mind. This sort of pre-emptive goading combat...

But then again?

"We're celebrating," she murmured, rueful but not unamused, "The Festival of Blown-Off Steam."

"Oh," Cassie chuckled faintly. "Is that this week? A gryphon ate my dayplanner."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Artemis

Kara's hands came up holding a stone, and she cracked that stone like an egg... its shattered pebbles ricocheting through the air.

Half-turning her face and closing her eyes, Artemis drew her sword in the time it would have taken a hummingbird to beat its wings and held the flat of the blade across her face, deflecting the minuscule projectiles and dust from peppering her sight into blindness.

Her eyes popped open and she twirled her sword and it slithered back into its sheath as quickly as she'd drawn it.

"Creative," she murmured, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, and nodding respectfully, "though underhanded."

She cracked her knuckles and shifted her stance.

"Now, let's see if you can riposte as ingeniously as you can distract," she declared loudly, and then moved in like liquid lightning, snapping a kick towards Kara's face...

 

[LuckyVic]

Superman

Clark couldn't help but cringe as he saw his cousing go flying and lad with a very loud thump. It really wasn't a fair fight, for all the power that Kara had he doubted she could win. Artemis was a master at hand to hand, not to mention weapons, as were most of the Amazons. Even though he had just met her part of him wanted to jump in and help her. But he held his ground and watched. He took mental notes of how she was doing, that way he could help her afterwards. Even though he knew this really wasn't about learning, this was more about her letting off some steam. But as Pa often told him, usually when he was being a little rebelious. Every waking moment is a chance for us to learn about ourselves.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

It wasn't very often that an Amazonian and a Kryptonian dueled in combat... and the spectacle quickly attracted the attention of quite a few onlookers. But Kara Zor-El paid them no attention.

Instead, Kara Zor-El watched with keen interest as Artemis drew her sword, deflecting the debris away from her body harmlessly. It was a small rock, and after breaking it apart there was practically nothing left anyways.

But Kara understood her gestures, and she caught the gleam of the sun against the sword as it was replaced in its sheathe. Her blond eyes moved back up to her opponent, just in time to see a kick aimed right at her face.

With the same display of agility and speed, Kara moved back quite a few feet, avoiding the powerful strike from Artemis' foot. Upon recoiling, Kara lunged forward, her fist drawn back as she prepared for her counterattack. Artemis blocked the attack with her wrist, Kara's fist colliding with The Gauntlet of Atlas.

The blow sent another shock wave throughout the island, leaving those furthest away from the battle to wonder what in Hades was going on.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

The reverence and wonder in the girls eyes spoke more eloquently to the stature of the Justice League than her words could ever say.

"Someday I think I would like to meet these people. It sounds like the Earth I left behind found protectors to take the place of those I worked with anon."

I paused, then looked Rose in the eyes again.

"And under Diana's tutelage, if she is anything like my Phedra, you will make a mighty member of Earth's protectors."


I sat back in my seat, stretching out and relaxing.

"Though I should probably talk to batman sometime soon. I do seem to be poaching on his territory, and I doubt he tolerates that well."

 

[ChasNicollette]

The Amazons and Artemis

The blow sent another shock wave throughout the island, leaving those furthest away from the battle to wonder what in Hades was going on.

Truly, as the thund'rous impacts caused the very foundations of Themyscira to quake, causing loosened bits of marble and stone to clatter down from pillars already weakened not long ago by Darkseid's shocktrooper Parademons, the spiritual Amazons on the Eastern edge of The Island paused in their prayers and gazed wonderingly Westward.

Penelope, Oracle of Themyscira, High Priestess, successor to loyal and beautiful Menalippe, furrowed her brow.

She had seen darkness ahead, when last she had had a prophetic dream. But in her dream, dark clouds had rolled across a weary Sun while it was high in the sky, not in early morning. Surely, this was not darkness already?

The gods were capricious, but they did not ordinarily lead her astray.

She would have to pray on this.

On the Western cliffs, Artemis grinned from ear to ear as she parried The Girl's fist with The Gauntlet of Atlas, grinned even though the force of Kara's blow rattled her from toes to teeth, and, reaching up to grab hold of Kara's wrist, she whirled and attempted to toss Kara away... "Hrrrahhh!"

She paused, though, as she saw the Kryptonian robot hovering near Kal-El, as now seemed a good time to let translating machines take over for the language of fists.

(Her pause might have left her vulnerable to Kara's counterattack... it might have left her vulnerable, it might have not.)

 

[ChasNicollette]

Valkyrie M

"The Earth will always have the protectors it deserves," Rose murmured. "When it is foolish and decadent, its protectors will be cynical and cold, like my countryman Manchester Black and his 'Elite.' When it aspires to hopefulness and to transcending its limitations, its protectors will seek to nourish that hopefulness and to inspire that transcendence. Fortunately for us, The League is the latter."

She smiled faintly. "Tutelage I have already. My mother--"

She paused. And she frowned. And she shook her head.

Not right now, she decided.

"I have the ability to put boot to arse," she assured him. "'By instinct, by inevitability.' What I bloody well lack? Is Wisdom. Lucky me, Diana's got Wisdom in spades. (And it sounds like your Phaedra had that, too.)"

She rubbed her cheek with one palm, and she smiled lopsidedly at him.

"'Poaching,'" she chuckled faintly. "No ruddy joking, mate. You wear a costume in Gotham without The Bat's leave, it doesn't matter if you're Deadshot or The Archbishop of bloody Canterbury, he'll come down on you like you just poached the last Great Auk egg. (Which, ask him about The Penguin sometime, that might have literally happened.)"

 

[Lunaramblings]

Bruce heeded Alfred's words. At least, as far as food went. Bruce had moved into a smaller table in another room. He had just set a plate of steak and assorted side dishes on a table. There was a small clatter as Bruce knocked his silverware to the floor.

"Figures..." Bruce bent down and gathered the fallen silverware. As he stands he finds himself eye to eye with a visitor. "How... clever fella huh?" Bruce locks eyes with the animal on the table. "You were locked in a crate."

"Woof"

"That's my steak. I intended to eat that. Now you have slobbered all over it."

"Hrrrnnnn... WoofWoofWoof!"

"Fine. I admit. That was a little impressive. But if you ever eat my steak again you are going to the pound."

The dog jumps into Bruce's arms. If not for Bruce's grace and training he may have been caught off guard. May not have caught him. But he did. And he was rewarded by a thorough tongue bath on the left side of his face.

"If you are going to hang around I suppose I should name you... How about... Ace."

"Woof!" Ace pants happily in Bruce's arms.

Something clicked then and there for Bruce Wayne. A burden was lessened. Bruce Wayne smiled heartily as he received another tongue bath.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara had assumed that her blow would override any protection that the Amazonian could muster. Yet for all her natural fury, Kara's punch could not beat out the strength of the Gauntlet.

At least not at first.

What had happened could be likened to having the Unstoppable Force meet the Immovable Object.

Kara felt her eyes widen with both surprise and annoyance as Artemis grabbed her wrist, making a move to throw her away.

But Artemis hesitated.

Capitalizing on that brief moment of distraction, Kara twisted her own body to grab Artemis by the wrist instead. Lifting herself up into the air, Kara brought Artemis with her, soaring up to a decent height before she hurtled the young Amazonian back towards the ground.

Maybe it was a cheap shot to take advantage of her opponent in their moment of indecision, but Kara was in this fight to prove herself able to fight.

She was in it to win.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

I chuckled. Batman sounded alot like me in my early years.

"I guess I better make an appointment to see this Batman then before I go pasting any more hoods to walls in his territory. And you have more wisdom than you think. If you didn't, we would be at Honest Johns and I would once again be trying to stump him with a drink he doesn't have."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Artemis and Diana

Artemis had assumed Kara's relative unfamiliarity with airborne combat would limit her to the sort of fighting that would take place on terra firma, boots planted firmly upon Gaia's mighty surface. Clearly, she had underestimated this aspect of Kara's abilities...

In a move not unlike a superhuman form of jiujutsu, Kara bore Artemis bodily upward-- faster than a speeding bullet --and hurled her headlong back towards Gaia's terribly sturdy embrace.

Artemis was already twisting to land, trying to minimise the impact, ready to slap the ground to absorb the shock but some part of her brain was screaming at her too slow too slow stupid bitch going to break in half and she knew that it was right. Had she been a hair faster...

But then a powerful arm was around her waist, an impossibly strong arm, an arm as strong as The Earth Herself... and while the air blew out of her lungs and she flailed for a moment, the impact was not nearly so terrible as landing face-first on Themyscira's rock.

She glanced up at her saviour, though she already knew whom she would see.

"I don't need your help," Artemis wheezed at Diana, her eyes watering a bit.

"I'm a diplomat," Diana replied, holding up a halting hand in Kara's direction. "You don't believe I can fairly referee?"

"Touche," Artemis grumbled, as she slipped from Diana's grasp and touched down gently on the ground.

Diana grinned at her, and then turned her attention to Kara, floating up so as to be level with her in the sky. Her arms were crossed over her stomach, and her eyebrow was arched.

"When lives are at stake," she instructed softly, "we do whatever we must. But generally speaking, in little sparring matches for the sake of venting tension, a little chivalry does not go amiss. But you'll learn this in time."

She glanced downward, indicating the robot floating next to Kal-El.

"There's someone here to see you," she noted. "We can pick this up later if you want, but I feel that now there are more important things."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Valkyrie M

"I guess I better make an appointment to see this Batman then before I go pasting any more hoods to walls in his territory. And you have more wisdom than you think. If you didn't, we would be at Honest Johns and I would once again be trying to stump him with a drink he doesn't have."

"The journey of a thousand fucking miles begins with a single bluddy step," Rose chuckled softly. "I may not have the good Captain Marvel's Wisdom of tupping Solomon, but I'm learning. I am learning."

Musing softly, she eyed him sideways for a moment and scratched her chin.

"And speaking of wisdom," she pointed out, "it's probably better for you to go to The Bat first rather than him 'aving to come to you. Trouble is, getting 'old of him can often be just shit. He's terribly mysterious. He can't cut guns in half with his mind, that I know of, but he is terribly mysterious."

She smiled faintly. "My advice? Wait 'till nightfall and bop on up to the roof of Gotham P.D.'s HQ. There's a spotlight up there what rarely fails to get his attention. Of course, the list of people actually allowed to use the thing is pretty exclusive. F'r'instance: one person is actually allowed to use it, and he's not you. So that might be a little off-putting at first, eh? But a little face-to-mask time with The Bat is the best chance you've got at him not evicting you from Gotham and sending you someplace really shit-holed and rundown."

Her lip curled in distaste. "Saint Roch. Or Hub City. Make Gotham look like a bleedin' Norman Rockwell, they do."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

"Oh I have an idea on how to get his attention. But I will wait until full darkness to do it. Like his namesake, Batman seems to like darkness more than light to hunt."

I cocked my head to the side a bit, looking at the young woman.

"Also don't forget though I look like i'm young, I actually am in a way his predecessor. Though to be honest, he is a damn sight better at the whole vigalante thing than I was. (Never got the police on my side like he has.)

 

[Wyldfire]

Huntress. Maybe a little around the bend. Maybe?

Damn it, why couldn't a plan go nice and easy for once? But thenn stealth plans never really worked for Helena these days. Her wristbow fired as the boomerang entered her line of sight. The resulting explosion was bigger than it should have been. That meant he was using gimmick boomerangs. That was the first thought Helena had since a second ago, when her little sneak about got interrupted. The next thought was why was he here? This was a little far from Central city.

No more time to think, time to move. This guy is good, but then again you had to be to regularly face the Flash. More boomerangs airbourne. The pistol crossbow and wristbow caught that barrage bu it emptied the pistol and the wristbow. Holstering the one and retracting the other Helena dodged the next two barrages.

Huntress knew she was going to have to finish this fast, or one of the others would be here sticking their noses into this. Probably the Bat too. That did it, time to put this freak down and quick. Huntress unlimbered the big bow and kept dodging waiting for the right shot. She had the one blast arrow left and a couple of tasers. Three shots, and that was it.

As she continued the dance she finally spoke "You have so blown it. With all the possibilities here in Gotham you got one of the bad two." That said the bow came up and the blast bolt was away.

Boomerang threw a blast shot of his own, but the big bow's blast bolts were a lot stronger than the wristbow's. The resulting explosion threw the combatants apart even further.

"Crazy Bitch!" were Boomerang's first words. "No bloody wonder this place is such a pit! Between you and the Bat, this place is a war zone!"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Constantine and Zatanna: "Quadrophenia"

"So," John asked, a little bit nervously, a little bit brazenly, "erm, is this thing on?"

Zatanna rubbed the side of Lewis The Looking Glass gently, soothingly, and she shot John Constantine a fierce look. "Be nice to him. He's had a rough morning, and I don't want you scaring him off again."

"He's had a rough morning of it?" Constantine sputtered incredulously, holding a clinking glass of ice cubes and Scotch to the lump on his head from where Zatanna'd thwacked him for with-holding pertinent data. "That's bloody rich, is what that is."

"I am ready whenever you are," Lewis promised, though he seemed a bit wary. "It's just that. One of my ancestors was shattered by a darkling in a fit of pique and we mirrors consider it extremely unlucky to be shattered."

"Seven years, right?" Zatanna mused.

"Oh, that might be nice," Lewis sighed. "But no. Little bit longer than that. Try seventy times seven."

"I did not know that," John admitted.

"All right then," Zatanna suggested. "Exposition, already. Lewis'll record your information and compile it into a video e-mail to Oracle."

"Right," John mumbled. "To business."

He took a swig from the Scotch, and grew serious.

"Lord Azrakel rules a realm of magic," he murmured, "a shadow-realm, parallel to ours. And he's had to rule it with an iron fist to keep the darker elements in line. He's-- granted this is based on legend and hearsay, mind, I eh'n't dealt with him direct-like --the very definition of a benevolent warlord, if you can believe in that sort of thing. He's got a list of powers as long as me arm, and he's damned ould as far as these things go, because he's immortal and he's spent a great deal of time in Shadow: time goes faster there, think it's a factor of ten. I made a play for one of his favourite artefacts a while back and came up short, and let me tell you, he is not to be bloody messed with. (Not even Scary Arse Bat-Fink, yeah, though I doubt he'll listen to my recommendation.) ...I suspect it's because he's a magickal entity and he was living in a realm of magic, but some of the feats he's gotten up to in his homeland would put a certain Kryptonian Big Blue Boy Scout to bloody blushing shame."

He pondered this for a moment. "Of course, he might not be as strong here, 'cause while magic's a force here, it eh'n't predominant by any means. But if he ever wound up in Faerie or on Gemworld, we'd have a real powerhouse on our hands. Might like to see him box Mordru 'round the ears, could sell tickets to that. But here on Earth, still mighty, but not quite on Last Berk of Krypton level."

John got a puzzled quiet contemplative look on his face.

"Now, if he's drawing off Earth magic while he's here," he mumbled softly, "might mean he has to obey Earth-magic rules. Maybe a properly-drawn circle?"

Zatanna cleared her throat.

John sipped his Scotch and grinned, holding the glass aloft to the looking-glass as though toasting Oracle. "That last bit's an educated guess, what? But the rest of it's bloody fucking Gospel, to the best of my knowledge. Hope that helps you, Miss Know-It-All."

Zatanna groaned, and rubbed her forehead. "Thank you, Lewis."

"Happy to be of service," Lewis replied cheerfully, shuffling the images and sounds of Constantine and slipping them from etherspace into cyberspace that they might arrive on Oracle's digital doorstep. "Just don't let this Azrakel fellow anywhere near me, and I'll be fine."

"I do solemnly swear," Zatanna smiled softly at him.

John regarded Zatanna with a bit of wariness. "Does this mean I'm off the hook?"

Zatanna regarded John with a bit of dubiousness. "Yeah. You've done good. I'm sorry for throwing that cricket ball at your head."

"Not sure I deserved that," John snarked, then paused, reflected: "Yeah, no. Prolly. Prolly deserved it."

Zatanna chuckled. "Prolly did."

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Perhaps it was because of her destructive and chaotic personality, but Kara wanted Artemis to hit the ground. Needless to say, she was a little disappointed when Diana stepped in to end the match, keeping her sister-in-arms from becoming a flat pancake.

"I didn't mean to throw her that hard," Kara said in Kryptonian, shrugging off Diana's stern lecture. She looked past the Amazonian and noticed the robot that was next to her "older" cousin.

It looked oddly familiar...

"Hrm," Kara mumbled to herself as she flew down to greet the new arrival and hopefully get some answers.

"That was a good fight, right?" Kara beamed at first, though letting the smile dissipate once she saw the stern look Diana had just given her adorn his face.

"What?"

"Hrmph," Kara grumbled and folded her arms over her body.

No one liked to have a little fun around here.

No one except Artemis.

"K, so what's with the bucket of bolts?"

 

[LuckyVic]

Clark smiled. "Kelex is here to tutor you in Earth's languages as well as translate for those here that don't speak Kryptonian." he told her as a matter of factly.

She had done better then he thought she would do, she obviously had some natural fighting talent. And although Diana scolded her, and he agreed with what Diana tried to tell her. A part of Clark was proud of his cousin.

She had for the most part kept her head in the fight, hadn't paniced. Which is one of the most important things in a fight. Over the years he had developed his own type of combat to when using his abilities. However if Kara could learn, and even master the fighting arts taught to her by the Amazons, she would be a very capable fighter.