The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick had just taken the briefest of breathes when he heard the voice again.

"Merick. Hurry. Millers Bend. Get there now. Be careful." The voice that he had come to know as Tommy seemed older. More mature. A voice he was slowly growing to love.

"This better be big. I'm going" Merick folded once again. The soft swoosh pushing the air in as he stepped out. He was not ready for what he stepped in to. As a matter of fact, he would say he stepped into quite a pile.

Merick arrived standing just behind a two men he had never met, and a women he recognized. She cut his Mom's hair. He also recognized a younger man. Bruce Wayne, at least if the photos in the gossip mags were accurate. It took Merick a minute to notice the two malevolent presences not far away. Merick quickly summed up the situation.

Merick was not a fighter. Never cared much for bloodshed. But here he was. He was standing in what he suspected was to become a war zone. Merick suddenly was furious. The green flames climbed in his eyes until they almost filled them. He sheathed himself in that strange energy once again. Merick looked at the people around him once more. His blood pumping so hard he could swear that he could hear his own heart beating. He was terrified. He was sure Death was near at hand. And maybe rightly so, how many times in the last few minutes had he unbalanced those scales of Life and Death? He knew one thing though... if this was the end, if this was his time. He was going out with a bang.

"Anyone wanna get out of here before all hell breaks loose? Last chance. Merick would not have recognized his voice had he not spoken the words. It was strong, angry and as he heard it he thought of his Father and Grandfather. "Or do we just start cracking heads? By the way... which side am I supposed to be on again? Merick stood ready, shimmering an emerald glow as the a strange power from with in flooded out. Merick had no idea the trouble that was about to begin. On any other day, he probably would have run. But today was not another day.

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen saw her, the female, the one he knew as Zod's bitch, move first.

But he was faster.

Var-Sen's eyes glowed hot and Athyr erupted in fire. She was knocked back, tumbling in the air, until she struck against the hard un-Earthly alloy of the ship, the wind knocked out of her and nearly unconscious.

And then Nam-Ek moved. But Var-Sen had prepared for that, as well, and he moved against him. They struck each other with such force that a concussive shock wave spread from their union. Instinctively, Var-Sen's hand went around Nam-Ek's throat.

"You will bow to him, Scientist!" Nam-Ek hissed.

"Bow to this," Var-Sen retorted. His other grabbed the soldier's military tunic and pulled him into a powerful knee strike that lifted him off the ground.

Var-Sen held fast as Nam-Ek rocked with the blow, and as soon he landed, Var-Sen struck him again and again and again until Nam-Ek began to cough blood.

And Nam-Ek summoned some strength from somewhere and drew his fist back, and as Var-Sen drove his knee upwards so did Nam-Ek strike out with a backfist. The strike caught Var-Sen in the side of the neck and propelled him into a nearby tree which promptly crashed to the ground.

Var-Sen rubbed his head and looked to the ones gathered. "Feel free to assist at any time," he said. He then stood to his feet and rushed the soldier once again.

No one noticed that Nam-Ek's belt had dripped an oily, black substance onto the ground.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick never got his answer. Battle broke out. He decided that if Ms. McCrimmon was standing by this unknown man, then that was where he belonged as well. Merick shifted quickly throwing both hands up pointing first toward Ceri and the man beside her, then swinging an arm at young Mr. Wayne. Protego... Merick said quietly, distantly, barely realizing he had spoke. Instantly some of that same strange energy engulfed them, formed to them. Merick kept it pouring. Creating a sort of armor around them.

After that Merick was moving. He folded the world around himself, quickly suddenly he was behind the two strange beings. He blasted with every bit of energy he could muster. Two massive blasts each the size of a large grapefruit hurtled toward the strangers. Before Merick had time to see if they scored a hit he was gone again. This time he was back behind Ceri and the other man.

'Scuse me. I think this is your cue to get to safety. Want a lift?

Suddenly just a foot or two away there appeared the presence of Tommy.

"Save your friends. They cant hurt me. Get these people out of here. I will help this one." Tommy was no longer a child. He was Merick's age, and he was dressed exactly like him, down to the Lone Ranger mask. "You will not harm my friend!!" Tommy launched his incorporeal form at the invaders. his eyes aflame. He sent a shock wave of Psychic energy at the invaders, not sure if it would help or not. But refusing to see his brother die.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Lex and Emil (and Meyer & Boyajian)

Lex shoved his hands in his pockets and kept his face blank as he glanced over his shoulder at Meyer and Boyajian. Meyer seemed quite disgruntled, but as much as Meyer railed against perceived mistreatment, the man also knew when to bite his tongue. Boyajian looked a little bit dumbfounded.

(Which, hey, all was as it should be.)

Lex turned and gazed at his father.

"'By the pricking of my thumbs,'" he murmured, referencing a time of madness in an entirely different Scottish castle, "'something wicked this way comes.'"

Emil, on the other hand, knew well the expression on Lionel Luthor's face.

Emil had had that expression on his own face, once, when first he had laid eyes upon the remnants of The Ancient City. And again, later, when first he had learned of the meteor rock.

Emil knew that this expression was one of awe and dread and wonder. Of forbidden fearful fascination. And he knew that, of a sort, Lionel Luthor was the closest being he had in this world to a kindred spirit.

"'He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster,'" Emil suggested, quoting a certain German philosopher with intriguing views on the ascension of man into superman. "'And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.'"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri, Jamie... and Rose

A lot was happening very very quickly.

Two Asgardian gods were picking a fight with a member of the Olympian pantheon and things were exploding and a boy was there and a boy was gone again.

Ceri's eyes narrowed at the boy that was here one instant and there the next.

He was masked. But Lord, if he wasn't familiar...

Jamie was mumbling. "'Teletransportation,'" he murmured, eyes darting this way and that, no longer riveted to the spacecraft, "'Forteana.'"

Jamie had never been more awake. Never been more aware.

He could hear the sinews and muscles in the bodies of the three warriors, could hear them creak and thunder and roll with barely-fettered force. He knew there was far more power to these creatures than they were displaying; he presumed, since John Smith had demonstrated compassion previously, that Smith was only holding back so that the shock of his punches didn't shatter the eardrums of the mortals present.

But why would the malevolents hold back?

Well, he mocked himself, if that isn't bloody obvious. They're trying to keep from knackering their motor.

Top Gear, eh? If I had a set of wings like that, I'd keep the abuse to a minimum, too.

But what if there's more to it than that?

Another thing I don't know how to fight, Ceri lamented, her fists at her sides.

She kept weighing options, switching in her head from tae kwon do to aikido to Xingyiquan to... well, jeet kune do was a little bit of everything...

But nothing she had in her was good enough to best the defences of monsters that could lay such waste.

But then the familiar boy came back, and he brought a doppelgänger with him.

And he sheathed Jamie Hamilton and Ceri McCrimmon in bubbles of power.

('Protective force-aura.')

And in so doing, whether he meant to or not, he took them off of the sidelines.

Ceri acknowledged the boy's offer of a lift with a nod, but there was no way she was leaving the scene of a battle.

Not when she might make a difference.

The masked boy's double cast a wake of power towards the fiends, male and female, demanding subservience, and Ceri ran, gritting her teeth, following in that wake. Running in its slipstream, hot on its heels...

...praying to God, wherever He was in all of this, that the shockwake would throw the woman devil off-balance enough that her high, leaping axe kick would crash into the female devil's skull, true and strong and full of righteous strength...

"Kiiiiiaiiiii!"

Let's see yeh hurt me daughter now, she-bitch!

Jamie acknowledged the boy's offer of a lift with a nod-- (Astral holography has come a long way since I was in school. Can see the psychon-particle resonance around the fringes. Lad must be digging pretty deep into the ectoplasm to manifest visually like that.) --but there was no way he was leaving the scene of such furious extraterrestrial goings-on.

Not when there was technology to be cracked.

...and Jamie ran, gritting his teeth, skirting the confrontation and making straight for The Black Ship.

...praying to God, wherever He was in all of this, that his mediocre brain would be able to make a dent in that machine, disable it, as he dove and rolled onto his back and slid to a stop in the dirt beneath the belly of the ship...

He reached out with questing fingers. Touched the surface of it.

Pressed against the technology with his wildchild senses and his Tenth-Level intellect.

Sufficiently advanced technology seems like magic. Well, I'm magic, too.

Didn't I tell you? I'm brilliant.

...and there, as all Hell broke loose, Rose McCrimmon returned in a blaze of fire.

With a twist, she tossed the two halves of the meteor rock to Bruce Wayne.

"Bruce," she cried, "Kryptonite! Area of Effect! This'll debuff their tanks!"

Because he seemed the most vulnerable, he would be the best one to have the things that took the piss out of the bad guys, right?

Stupefy.

She whirled to face the evil.

One hand sprouted claws. Triune claws from the back of her hand made of jagged crystal ice that looked for all the world like bone.

"'Glass jar,'" she suggested.

The other hand swathed itself in a ball of flame, scarlet and saffron.

"'Or a plastic bag.'"

 

[AmenRa]

"And," Lionel finished, "that which does not kill us makes us stronger."

Or, does it?

Perhaps, he thought, wondering why he saw what he saw, it was a discussion for another time.

 

[AmenRa]

As Var-Sen reached Nam-Ek, the soldier withdrew a dagger from his belt and slashed at him. Var-Sen's coat and blue shirt were sliced neatly, and a cut across the upper portion of his right shoulder was neatly opened up. The dagger was made of Kryptonian metal, and of course it could cut through the micron deep force field that Kryptonians generated around themselves.

Var-Sen stepped back, touching the cut and seeing his blood upon his fingers. He then looked at Nam-Ek with narrowed eyes. Nam-El smiled and slashed again, but this time Var-Sen reached out and stopped his dagger hand with a fist. Var-Sen's eyes glowed with fire, and the dagger's blade glowed warm. It was Kryptonian metal and could withstand the intense heat of a red sun. But then Var-Sen blew out a puff of supercold breath, and the blade shattered like glass. Nam-Ek looked at his hand with astonishment.

Var-Sen smiled.

Athyr had regained conscious and was preparing to engage Rose and the others when Ceri's kick landed beside her head. She stumbled backwards, then returned with a kick of her own.

Near the entrance to the cave, a black, oily substance solidified into a rough, humanoid shape. Var-Sen caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, and he saw that the Brain InterActive Construct held a key in its hand.

It was going into the cave to open the portal.

It was going to release Zod.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie

All upper-level S.T.A.R.Labs researchers had a modicum of psychic training.

Psychic training that gave them defences against telepathic incursion, lest their minds be invaded and powerful secrets stolen.

But Jamie, laying there upon the ground beneath The Black Ship, gritted his teeth and turned that training inside out and shoved his mind into The Ship's matrices.

I know you're in there, mate, he growled inwardly and outwardly. I can bloody smell you.

There's a brain in this onyx tin can, there'd have to be for migrating extraspacial vortices; that's not something what can be done manually.

He pushed hard.

Are you in there, mate?

Because the day I'm outwitted by a tupping artificial intelligence, that day hasn't dawned yet, and it never will.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri

Ceri twisted and rolled away from the kick, and she knew, she knew, instinctively, that it was only Athyr's fatigue and disorientation-- not to mention the force-aura --that had saved Ceri's life.

Another kick would kill her dead, protection-projection or not.

Ceri stood up, instantly adopting a muay thai stance.

She grinned darkly.

Another kick would kill her dead, protection-projection or not. And still she stood. And still she did not run.

She moved, and her right fist became a straight right blazing for Athyr's jaw...

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete

Pete had been hiding in The Cave. Hiding from the explosions and the bashing of god-fist against god-flesh.

And he had been cursing himself.

But now, he heard movement out there, out in the exterior of the cavern, and he shot to his feet.

"Somebody wanna get messed up," he warned, sounding a lot braver than he felt, "they oughta roll right in here."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Meyer & Boyajian

"And," Lionel finished, "that which does not kill us makes us stronger."

"'That which does not bend,'" Boyajian suggested, trying to be helpful, "'must break.'"

Meyer stared at him.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick and Tommy

Merick saw something move toward the cave. Feeling suddenly inadequate Merick folded quickly to Fordman's. Merick grab the first useful looking item he saw. A hockey stick. Then Folded back to the cave. All of this transpiring in such a miniscule amount of time. He launched himself with fury at the spot the being should have been in. But it had moved. Merick perplexed channeled more of the psychokinetic energy he was sheathed in. He gripped the stick and headed into the cave.

 

[ChasNicollette]

"...the price for getting what you want, is getting what once you wanted."

Coffee cups sat empty.

Goldfish ducked and fluttered in their watery bowl.

Death stood facing Chloe Sullivan, wearing a top hat and holding a black umbrella.

Time was short.

"I actually feel somewhat responsible for all of this," Death shook her head, casting about her long black hair. "The way that siblings always feel responsible for the actions of other siblings."

"You're saying things I'm not meant to understand again," Chloe replied with a tiny smile and no small chagrin. "Is there anything I am meant to understand?"

Death nodded, her tiny smile matching Chloe's.

"A couple things," she acknowledged. "Well, three. First of all, you need to tell John that I'll see him soon, that he and I need to talk."

"'John,'" Chloe echoed. "John Smith? Var-Sen of Krypton? He's... is he going to die?"

"My brother Destiny has a book," Death replied, "which contains all that might be as well as all that might have been. And in that book, there is a passage that explains that there is one Kryptonian... should Death take hold of this Kryptonian once, and should this Kryptonian shrug off Death's shroud, then Death shall never take ahold of this Kryptonian. Having escaped Death once, this Kryptonian shall never again die."

An answer that was no answer at all, really.

"Second of all," Death rolled right along, not giving Chloe a chance to press her point, "you recall the legend that says that a mortal who storms The Gates of Heaven will be granted the sum totality of human knowledge?"

"That was the whole thing," Chloe nodded, "behind the quickly-canceled TV series John Doe."

Death nodded. "It was a good show," she decided, "but that whole bit's a load of crud, I'm afraid. Still, since you've come this far, I suppose I should give you something for your trouble."

She reached out pale fingers and brushed them through the air near Chloe's forehead... and Chloe felt something tremble and stir deep within her brain.

She began to remember something, something far far away, but before it came together in her mind's eye Death started talking again.

"Third," she grinned, "I really hope you meet my brother Destruction some time. He keeps to himself, mostly. Generally leaves things on autopilot unless it's something really world-shattering. But I think you'd like him. He's mopey, just a bit, but he has a loud laugh and he's amazingly charming and he's big and strong... and he likes to wear flannel plaid."

Death had said some very strange things, some very out-there things, but at this Chloe found herself stymied utterly.

"What makes you think," she wondered, her face tied up in knots, "that I would like a guy like that?"

Death shouldered her umbrella, and she grinned the most lopsided grin.

"Oh, it was kind of obvious, really."

And then everything went white.

'It's not Death if you refuse it.'

 

[AmenRa]

There were two outcomes to this whole thing. Only two possibilities, two sides, two places to go.

Either Nam-Ek and Athyr were stopped, or they were not.

But upon seeing the BRAINIAC take shape, Var-Sen realized that Nam-Ek and Athyr were only doing what they were meant to do: fight. They were both soldiers and were following orders. They would sacrifice themselves for a higher purpose. And right now they were keeping the defenders of Earth busy while the BRAINIAC activated the portal to the Phantom Zone.

"Use the Kryptonite!" he shouted to no one in particular. "Now!"

He had to get to the cave.

 

[AmenRa]

The BRAIN InterActive Construct had solidified into a human shape, with ordinary brown hair and unremarkable features in a plain black tunic and pants. It carried the key in its hand as it descended into the cave.

It saw a human in there, near the cave wall, and it regarded it as no threat. In fact, it scanned this human and read pheromones of fear and anxiety emanating from its body. The BRAINIAC concluded this human was of no consequence.

So the artificial intelligence approached the wall. It then learned, through external downlink, that its transport, the ship, was being probed. A simple change in algorithym caused the ship to push back.

The BRAINIAC inserted the key into the octagonal depression of the cave wall. There was a bright light and a myriad of colors, and the wall opened. The BRAINIAC stepped through to the floor console within the other room.

 

[AmenRa]

Athyr ducked the strike and returned with a backhand strike as if she were swatting a bug. She had no time for this. She, too, had seen the BRAIN InterActive Construct take shape and enter the cave. This was not going according to plan.

But then she realized what had occurred.

The BRAIN InterActive Construct, seeing them engaged in battle with opponents who could possibly win the confrontation, followed its core programming. It had skipped uploading its algorithyms into the planetary defense matrix and had continued with its primary objective: the release of its Master from the Phantom Zone.

 

[ChasNicollette]

"'Can you put me up for the night?'"

In Gabe Sullivan's car, safe from encroaching waters upon the backseat, an ancient artefact sat, a thing hollow and made of stone and carved with languages both terrestrial and extraterrestrial.

In its centre was carved the inversion of the Kryptonian symbol for "Hope."

This, in itself, was the Kryptonian symbol for "Resurrection."

In the Metropolis suburb of Midvale, a woman with dark hair and lovely eyes knelt in her garden and tended her flowers, as she had a green thumb and a love for flowers. Just like her sister.

As she leaned over the flowerbed, her shirt rode up a little bit in back, exposing a symbol on her skin, a symbol not tattooed with ink, nor burned on with a brand, nor scarred on with injury. A symbol that had become a part of her skin.

This, in itself, was the Kryptonian symbol for "Transference."

In an insane asylum near Tyne and Wear, England, a man with blond hair and haunted eyes sat bound in a straitjacket, except for one arm. One arm which he had, impossibly, freed. His soul had been badly damaged, and strange things swam in his bloodline.

He had been trying to write on the wall, and had found that he had to bite his finger until it bled, and he wrote on the padded wall of his cell with the blood of his finger. He drew a progression of symbols.

These, in themselves, were the Kryptonian symbols for "Sacrifice the Vessel."

Around Chloe Sullivan's heart was a heavy concentration of meteor rock.

Within her chest, hidden away from mortal eyes, this meteor rock began to glow brightly green. It began to glow...

...and then it flared to searing brightness there within her with the crackling energy of Life Itself.

In Gabe Sullivan's car, the stone-carved symbol for "Resurrection" flashed blindingly blindingly bright white, so brightly that even from within the laptop bag, its light filled the car with light as bright as a small Sun.

On the Midvale woman's back, the skin-imprinted symbol for "Transference" flashed blindingly blindingly bright violet, and Nell Potter's sister Lily sat up straight with a start. She smiled, smiled apropos of nothing, and it was a terrible smile indeed.

Within the Englishman's mind, the deeply-injured chaos of his thoughts suddenly came together out of a jumble and into a frightening kind of synch.

John Constantine stared, horrified, in the direction of America.

"God help the living," he rasped.

The wound that went through Chloe's body from her stomach to her spine rippled and grew shut. The cut on her forehead closed as if it had been slammed like a door.

And there in J'onn J'onzz' arms, Chloe sat up, coughing and sputtering and spitting up blood and bile and lakewater and mud, her face contorted in agony. Coming back from the dead was not comfortable, nor quick, nor kind.

She sagged and surged in his arms and she hacked and she coughed.

Chloe Sullivan was once more among the living.

God help her.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri and Rose

As bad-arse as Ceri was, she was not prepared for a foe of this level.

That backhand struck the field that held her and knocked her arse over teakettle.

She flew a long way before landing.

She didn't die. But she was very very much out like a light.

...and something else snapped within Rose.

She saw her mum tumble through the air and fall to the ground. Ragdoll physics.

And something furious broke into splinters in her soul and in her head and she flew at Athyr with wordless fury on her lips.

She was worn out and bloodshot and covered with dust and dirt and ash.

But this Kryptonian harridan slattern had hurt her mum.

She flew at Athyr with wordless fury on her lips and fire in one hand and ice in the other.

She stopped barely a yard before Athyr, and unleashed the full remaining force of her powers all at once.

She released Fire as molten golden light. Hot like the searing fury of atmospheric re-entry.

She released Ice as crackling blue-white lightning. Cold like the chilling touch of liquid nitrogen.

Her powers stampeded out from her hands and raged towards Athyr...

...she crossed the streams.

"HRRRRAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

 

[AmenRa]

Rejected?

J'onn J'onzz looked at the young woman who had suddenly come to life in his arms.

Sent back? he wondered. And what powers do you possess? he thought silently.

He lifted her up, so she could sit upright, and held her head so she could cough up the murk of Crater Lake.

"Easy now, child," he said in his deep voice, "you've had a busy day. And welcome back."

He turned his head to the side so he could see her face. "I am J'onn J'onzz," he introduced. "You are safe now."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie

Jamie Hamilton bent and flowed around the force of The Black Ship's brain pushing back...

...mental aikido. The doctor danced.

He was bleeding around the eyes. He gritted his teeth harder.

He could feel it. The brain was smarter than him.

Jamie had learned that The Galaxy at large graded mental agility and brainpower on a scale of zero to twelve. Jamie had learned that he was a Ten. A Tenth-Level intellect.

And he knew, just from the merest brush-pass of The BRAINIAC pushing back, that The BRAINIAC was a Twelfth-Level intellect. At least.

But Jamie Hamilton was the master of The Turing Test and he had cracked The Thinker Virus and his greatest dream was the birth of The Friendly A.I. and he'd be damned to an idiot's Hell before he'd let himself get beat by The Universe's Unfriendliest A.I.

He struggled and quaked.

All he had going for him was his brain. He was a scrawny little man with half-decent teeth and terrible skin and a slight weakness in the dorsal tubercle.

All he had going for him was his brain. And he poured out this brain against The BRAINIAC.

Tendrils of his thought lashed out. Sliced. Hacked.

And if all he could do was distract the thing, inhibit it...

Well, he'd die doing that.

'The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast,' Chesterton described, 'a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman.'

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe struggled to breathe.

Struggled to focus.

There was a man holding her. His voice was like The Wrath of God and The Sands of Time. He was very blurry, and very green.

She wanted to ask him about that.

But Chloe had been through quite a bit, and it had taken a lot out of her.

Coming back from the dead had just about killed her.

She grabbed his arm and his skin felt strange and dusty and warm.

"H-h-Honduras," she stammered, remembering one of the three things. "Water is in Honduras."

And then she fainted away again.

She didn't die. But she was very very much out like a light.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete

Pete stared, aghast, at the figure that entered.

The nondescript malevolent gentleman placed a kind of key thingy in the slot that Chloe had pretended was The Kawatche for "improper resurrection," and the wall opened. Just like that. Secret entrance.

And he knew in his soul of souls in his gut of guts that this was a Very Bad Thing.

And he knew that he was just a boy and he couldn't fight in the wars of gods.

And yet he found himself anyway despite his pain and his fear and his imperfection he found himself grabbing the nearest, sharpest-looking broken rock from the pile of broken rocks that they'd found around The Professor, and hurling himself after The BRAINIAC into the room that had opened in lights and in colours.

He threw the rock at The BRAINIAC's head...

...like David slinging a stone at Goliath...

...even though he knew it was futile.

Because some battles cannot be won, though they must needs still be fought.

"'Don't start nothin','" he growled, with as much bravado as he could muster, "'won't be nothin'.'"

Grace under pressure.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

Things were calm. Me and Pete were laughing at Rose's lack of pop culture, and my heart was fluttering at the confused but beautiful grin that lit up her face. Then a new alien flew in.

And promptly became a Prophet of doom.

Shortly there after me,Pete and Rose were left back in the cave. Pete headed back to the heavy equipment, shielding himself as the meteors began to fall outside, while Rose paced. Then, she looked over at me with her eyes glowing with fire and ice, and in a move almost as fast as the Professors she was off, fire trailing behind her and falling from her hands.

And all I could do was stand at the mouth of the cave and watch, sunlight streaming in as the sky fell outside.

Suddenly a bright light exploded out away from the cave. Shortly thereafter deep "booms" echoed across the way, like the gods of old fighting among themselves. I backed into the cave and assumed shadowform, melding into the shadows at the ceiling and waiting. Something told me that I would not be still much longer.

And it was not much longer when a being of black flowed up from the ground at the mouth of the cave. Pete was all bravado, and ignored , then a boy materialized, wielding a hockey stick and courage.

(so someone else uses the astral plane express. Well, at least HE didn't fly!)

And the black form materialized into a man, with a silver disk, and suddenly colors swirled around the room, and once again the cave was dark, but a hole had been opened.

This was something i could do. I had a feeling that whatever was going to happen in there would be VERY BAD! And I was here to stop it.

Still in shadowform I flowed along the wall and into the room. Lights were present here and there, and in the center of the room was a console, with the man-thing standing over it with the disk in it's hand.

"Not today." I said, then I held my palm out to it and a bolt of dark force, drawn from the magical plane of existence I drew my power from, exploded from my palm and hit the creature with the force of Thor's Hammer. The creature flew back to the wall, creating a six inch indention into it as the disk flew from it's hand.

I pointed my other arm at it and a glob of organic webbing flew out and intercepted the disk in midair, sealing it to the wall. Hopefully that would hold it there for a bit.

I formed my fingers into claws and turned to the creature.

"You shall not bring evil to my home. You will NOT pass!"

 

[Superman1496]

Instantly, Bruce's world was turned upside down, and then thrown into a vat of chaos.

Rose it seemed had thrown Bruce a green meteor rock. All of Bruce's sense left him. The rock was important, or else Rose wouldn't have thrown it to him, right?

Action had been taking place right inside the Kawatche caves. And Bruce suddenly found himself standing behind everyone, holding a green rock.

Bruce walked closer to the strangers as a massive creature called for them not to pass. A small prayer came from Bruce's mouth.

'Lord, please help me. Like David and his Goliath, let this small rock take down these Titans.'

Gripping the rock, Bruce held it up above his head.

Hey, how does this one feel? Bruce called as he hit the girl in the back of the head with the rock.

 

[AmenRa]

Athyr went down, the onslaught of elemental powers from Rose coupled with Bruce's Kryptonite poisoning immediately gripping her. She was suddenly powerless and weak.

Hatred filled her eyes.

She looked at Ceri. She looked at Rose. She looked at Bruce.

"You will all die," she weakly rasped.

- - -

"Finish her!" Var-Sen yelled as he struck Nam-Ek hard in his mouth. Kryptonian blood flew from the soldier. Nam-Ek struck Var-Sen in return, and more Kryptonian blood flew. They traded blows, each strike sending out shock waves that shook the ground. Var-Sen then maneuvered around Nam-Ek's strikes and took him once more by the throat. Nam-Ek returned the gesture, and for an instant they were both locked in a death's embrace. And then Var-Sen took to the air, twisting and flipping and bringing them both down beside Athyr. Beside the Kryptonite.

Var-Sen had steeled himself. With the last reserves of his strength now being sucked away by the proximity of the green rock, he held his grip.

"The blood of innocents stains your soul, Nam-Ek of Kandor," Var-Sen said to him in a low rasping whisper. "Your devotion to your Master has tainted your very existence. May Rao deem you worthy to enter NextWorld."

Nam-Ek spit on Var-Sen.

Var-Sen squeezed tighter.

Var-Sen thought of Rose. Chloe. Jamie and Ceri. Kara.

Innocents.

Var-Sen's strength was leaving him. He was losing blood from the cut from the Kryptonian blade. A cut that would not heal because of the Kryptonite that now coursed through his veins.

Yet still he held his grip.