The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[Superman1496]

Chloe, it's ok. I feel the same way sort of. I feel like I'm never going to do the great things my father did. I feel like I'm just going to go through life, and not do the extraodinary like my father. Bruce said, his smile now gone.

He wasn't lying. He felt like he wasn't really going to amount to anything. His father had done amazing things, and Bruce was just going to be Bruce.

Just then, Alfred came walking back into the kitchen. Forgive the intrusion sa', but the damn 'ol bat is in the house again. I think they're nesting somewhere in the grounds. Just need to grab a broom and chase him off. Alfred said just before he left again.

Ih, I hate bats. Bruce said smiling again.

 

[AmenRa]

The Martian Manhunter looked to Pete Ross and answered him. "She is safe," he stated to the boy.

To Jamie Hamilton he responded, "The one that wields the elements of fire and ice, the one that Var-Sen trusted. She is the one who must deliver the Crystal of Hope that you hold within your palm to Kara Zor-El.

"This is how it must be," J'onn J'onzz told him.

The Martian Manhunter then looked at each of them in turn. "A great battle was fought in this place today, and each of your are indeed saviours of your world. In the coming time, however, a greater battle still shall come to pass, and each of you will be weighed and measured. The Chosen One must take possession of the Crystal of Hope, for it will be her weapon against the evil that now walks upon the Earth."

He turned to leave, and then he half-turned again to glance at Jamie our f the corner of his eye. "My home world was Mars," he said in answer to the doctor's unspoken question. "But that was so long ago."

And then J'onn J'onzz was gone.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

"I always wanted to go to New York," Kara said with a smile.

"But it's pretty far from here. I don't think I could... get there without taking a plane. Money's pretty tight," she lied. If Kara wanted to visit Canada all she had to do was go for a quick run. New York was like driving the truck down town.

"Well you can visit one of these days, sweetheart," Martha said with a smile before she turned her attention back towards Diana.

"And I'm sorry to hear about your losses. If there's anything we can do to help feel free to ask," Martha added. She glanced over at Jonathan and decided that it was about time that they left these two girls alone.

She headed back towards the kitchen and Jonathan said a quick goodbye before he followed suit.

"So where are you from? I mean you're not from the United States, right?" Kara asked curiously. She hoped that asking all these questions didn't make Diana feel like she was on the Hot Seat, but she was also pretty interested in learning more about her neighbors. Kara didn't have too many friends, and Diana seemed like she could be a wonderful friend.

Plus there was that pretty strong handshake. Hardly anyone knew how to give a proper one these days.

"You up for a walk? I kinda need to stretch my legs," Kara offered.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri, Jamie, and Pete

Jamie chewed this over thoughtfully.

The massive concepts with which he'd been saddled, he chewed these over even as he chewed Merick's Fruit Stripe gum.

He pocketed the gum foil, and he ran his thumb over The Symbol that marked The Crystal.

"Good topography on Mars," he mused softly. "Weather's rubbish: you don't get interesting weather unless you're on Jupiter or Venus, but on Mars? They know mountains on Mars, they know canyons."

He slid his glasses back down from the top of his head 'till they rested properly on his nose.

"Martians," he muttered, again tucking The Crystal away in an inside suit-coat pocket. "I always knew they were green. Emil always tried to tell me otherwise..."

"Green Martians don't lie," Pete pondered. "Green Martians don't lie. 'Gryphons shouldn't marry. Vampires don't dance.'"

He covered his face with one hand. "Chloe's okay."

Ceri allowed herself to sit back down firmly. Her bruised form was hurting pretty badly now: as much as the Motrin had helped, there was a lot of uncomfortable left over. And being shoved into a cave wall with psychokinetic force hadn't helped at all.

She glanced over at Marcy, gave her an encouraging smile.

"Now you know," she suggested, "why 'May you lead an interesting life' is considered a curse rather than a blessing."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe smiled a weary smile.

She really did feel like a half-entity right now, a ghost in a land of angels. But maybe that wasn't genuine emotion, just depression brought on by exhaustion. She would feel better soon.

"Say what you will about bats," Chloe hugged herself a bit with a tiny shiver, "they make for good pest control. Few better creatures in The Animal Kingdom for devouring insects, especially mosquitoes. I mean, I know, I know, the noble mosquito has just as much right to be healthy and happy as the next life-form, but they suck the lifeblood and they spread disease and it cheers me up a little bit to know that even as they prey on people there's something out there preying on them."

She grinned lopsidedly.

"At the same time," she mused, "some bat species help with pollinating flowers and fruit trees. So... in a sense? In a sense, bats help pave the way for the world to be a better place for the next generation. Better and more colourful."

 

[AmenRa]

The Martian Manhunter flew up into the sky, past the clouds, past the thin blue, until Earth was nothing more than a blue and green ball that hung in space.

He stopped there, and he turned around, and he hovered still while he gazed down on the world that he now called home.

It had been so long ago.

It was no accident that he was here. He had made a promise to a friend, and it was a promise he would always keep. He remembered the first time he saw little Kara, as he watched in his invisible form as Jonathan and Martha Kent took her into their arms from a crashed Kryptonian craft in a field. He remembered the times he had seen her traveling at great speeds through corn fields, parting the stalks as a boat would through water. He had watched Kara Zor-El grow into a beautiful, young woman. He was sure she was more human than Kryptonian now, because she had been raised as such.

But it was time she embraced her destiny.

J'onn J'onzz thought about his own destiny. Here, on his adopted world, he had found peace. He lived among the mortals here, working as a police officer in a great city, and fighting the good fight. He knew the good fight was also yet to come. He would have allies in this fight, and he knew he would play both a mentor and friend to the young Kryptonian who had the destiny to prevail.

But of all things, J'onn J'onzz was still only a visitor to this world. Earth was nothing more than an adopted home for him. He was an outsider. He was an alien. He was different from them. He was stronger, more powerful, and carried the weight of the cosmos in his words.

But to J'onn J'onzz, to be a Martian on Earth meant to be alone.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

'Omnitherm.'

Rose limped through the sky, and she filled her thoughts with things that weren't catastrophic.

'Omnitherm,' 'Omnitherm,' 'Omnitherm.'

Could do worse. It's scientific, it's encompassing, it's not entirely un-bad-ass.

It's a compound word, compound words are always good for codenames.

'Firestar,' for instance, or 'Iceman.' Or 'Spider-Man.' (Should I hyphenate it, like Spidey? 'Omni-Therm?')

Maybe throw in a curious post-modern spelling, like Jack Kirby would do: 'OmnyThyrm.' Add hypen: 'Omny-Thyrm.'

That's pretty good.

But I dunno. Is it too much? Is it me?

She stopped, alighting on the edge of Lemaris Pond, on the far side from the old folks' home, holding her side and breathing hard.

Being silly about gravity took a surprising amount of work.

She cupped some of the pond's cool water in her hands and splashed her face, rinsing off a fair amount of the ash that had dusted her features. Some of the ash, some of the sweat. Not all of it, mind, but enough to make her partway presentable.

She gazed up into the sky, her face red with exertion. Not much further.

She levitated, and then lifted off once more.

What would be me? she wondered.

If I ask Dad, he'll probably suggest something astronomic. 'Cassiopeia.' Or... 'Andromeda.' Mum told me he wanted to name me 'Andromeda' when I was born.

(Eventually she talked him into naming me after his mum, my gran. 'Rosemary.'

Not that 'Andromeda' would have been so terrible.

But codename-wise...

It's taken. Isn't it?)

But anyway. Astronomy's kinda me.

Really, though... music. Music above all, that's my thing. My secret joy, and my not-so-secret obsession.

So it should be a song title, or a lyric. There's good codenames in song titles...

'Saturn Girl,' by Paula Cole. 'Wildfire,' by America. 'Apparition,' by No Use For a Name.

But then Rose remembered. Sitting on a rooftop watching the sun sink out of sight. Warmth.

Kara.

'We Don't Need To Whisper.'

Gravity tugged hard on Rose, and she staggered in the sky, her train of thought hurriedly derailing. The two laptop bags she carried felt as heavy as could be.

She knew she couldn't stay aloft much longer. And flying slowly like this, without the benefit of a shroud of fire, she'd be very likely to be seen.

Chloe would have to wait.

She glanced below her, saw the old Creekside Foundry.

And there, not far from that property, her sharp eyes spied a treehouse, long-neglected but serviceable-looking.

Rose took a deep breath, squared her jaw, gritted her teeth, and made for that treehouse. She actually barely made it that far, had to grab a branch and drag herself in before gravity yanked her down all the way.

Setting the satchels down, she curled up on the floorboards and let sleep claim her. Sleep and dream. Subconscious.

"'We'll leave after the explosion,'" she murmured in her sleep. "'Who do we think we are?'"

 

[Wyldfire]

"I always wanted to go to New York," Kara said with a smile.

"But it's pretty far from here. I don't think I could... get there without taking a plane. Money's pretty tight," she said.

"Well you can visit one of these days, sweetheart," Martha said with a smile before she turned her attention back towards Diana.

"And I'm sorry to hear about your losses. If there's anything we can do to help feel free to ask," Martha added. She glanced over at Jonathan and decided that it was about time that they left these two girls alone.

She headed back towards the kitchen and Jonathan said a quick goodbye before he followed suit.

"So where are you from? I mean you're not from the United States, right?" Kara asked.

"You up for a walk? I kinda need to stretch my legs," Kara offered.

If Mrs. Kent had noticed the strength in her grip she hadn't said anything about it, thank Hera. "I believe we have things well in hand. Mr. Trevor said we could survive the loss of the two, but thank you for the thought." She watched as the two left the room.

Diana laughed when Kara started with her questions. After all they were understandable questions for a new comer. "I am from a small country call Themyscira. It's in the mediterranian sea. But from what my mother told me, my father was an American."

The idea of a walk sounded good to Diana, she always prefered to be outside to in. Walls of wood made voices and sounds quite different to the marble she was used to. All of the buildings here in the United States were strange to Diana. "Yes, a walk does sound like a pleasant idea. Where shall we go? Into town? Stretching my legs in a good hike is about what I need after the past several days of being cooped up in airplanes and cars."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick popped the cookie out of the wrapper and into his mouth as the Martian left. "Not very personable eh? Always thought Martians would be smaller ya know. At least we know Chloe is safe." Merick grinned and tucked the expended wrapper in his pocket. He then scooped up the fruit roll-up he had dropped, and tucked it into a pocket. "One must not litter. Would be a shame to spend the afternoon fighting intergalactic bad asses only to ruin the world through pollution. Ms. McCrimmon, are you ok? You look a bit beat. Do you need a doctor? I can get you one right quick." Merick stopped grinning as real concern edged in.

Marcy sat there just starting to regain her composure. "You know Ceri, I used to play bass. Had this great band in New York for about two months. The Coyotes. Covered mostly British Punk. Then our lead singer died. I decided I didn't want that for myself and I moved back home. Went to college, met Dale, and had the boys. You know you are the first person in ten years I have admitted to having "Boys" to instead of just "a Boy". Feels kinda good. Anyway, seems anyone tha lives in this town is guarenteed an eventful life. Want it or not. Seems we all also have our secrets." Marcy laughed a bit. Then she crossed the room to her son.

"Merick, you hav a lot of explaining to do. First, what the hell were you thinking! Jumping into a fight with some super charge alien doom patrol! Did I raise you to be an idiot! Your just a boy for good sakes. And second, I don't know how you found out about your brother. But he is dead. He died in the hospital after the first Meteor Shower." Marcy was now back to old form. She was every bit intimidating. She was red faced and looked ready to go.

"Ok, first, I did what i felt was right. Isn't that what you and Dad always taught me. It is not about the sacrifice we make for ourselves, but about the ones we make for others? I saw trouble, I helped. I saved a lot of lives today. I wasn't trying to be a hero, just do my part. If you were capable of the things I am you would have done the same. And second, who are you to lecture me about doing the right thing?! For ten years you have lied and hidden the existence of my own flesh and blood. I don't know why you thought yo could hide all this. But don't dare lecture me about the right thing to do. And if Tommy is dead how was he here today. He helped me. He directed me here. I don't have any answers, but whatever Tommy is, he is real in some way."

Marcy lost her steam. She was not one to be talked back to. But here, in front of God and everybody, her son just humbled her. He was right. And she knew she had wronged not only him, but herself, Dale, and Tommy by not being truthful. It just was so much easier to ignore it and pretend it was a bad dream. She was a strong woman, but she couldn't bear to remember the lose of her son. Without hesitation she lunged at Merick. Wrapping her arms around her son she wept. She cried in great heaves and little rasps. She didn't know what else to do. "You just cant leave me. I love you and I loved Tommy. I still love Tommy. I just cant bear to lose another child. Between you and your father's little surprise this afternoon, I can't take much more."

"I love you too Mommy. Tommy had reappeared. This time in the form of a boy about Merick's age. His scars evident. His face a mask of twists and grooves. "I didn't die Mommy. It took me ten years to find you. When I finally did, the men here tried to stop me. Gave me drugs. But I just kept pushing. Tommy was starting to weep softly, and blood was running down his neck from his ears, down his face from his nose. "I think I pushed too hard. My mind hurts. Like I am on fire. And I cant find my way back. I don't think I am going to be here much longer... tell Daddy I loved him too.

With those words Tommy started to fade. In less than a second he was gone completely. Both Merick and Marcy wept.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri, Jamie, and Pete

This was a day for Tribulation and a day for Revelations.

And where there was Rapture, there was Apocalypse also.

It was all very Biblical and Pete found himself wishing he'd gone to Sunday Meeting with his dad a little more often.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and kept his thoughts to himself...

He loved his brothers very much, even though they frequently picked on him, and he couldn't imagine losing them to the dark jaws of death.

Deep dark eyes closed and his hands gathered into fists in his pockets.

Here he'd been, obsessing over Chloe, and he'd no idea if his parents were all right. The Lowell County Courthouse had a fallout shelter... his mom was probably fine. But the feed store had no such bolt-hole.

Pete staggered towards the mouth of The Cave, staggered back out into daylight.

His thoughts were. Turmoil.

Ceri limped over to Merick and Marcy, and without saying a thing, she wrapped the both of them up in a hug and she wept with them.

She was a mother, and she was a sibling, and she was a citizen of a world where the paranormal was the everyday. There were no words.

She offered them no feeble consolation. She simply hugged Marcy and Marcy's metahuman son, and offered them the strength of her arms as reassurance.

With a sober, sombre air, Jamie spat his gum into his handkerchief and pocketed the wrapped-up hanky.

He gazed at the spot where Tommy had been, that astral hologram, and he removed his glasses.

"'For how shall man die better,'" he quoted softly, reverence and agony in his voice and on his face, "'than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his father, and the temples of his gods?'"

 

[camerindrake]

METROPOLIS 2300, Schuster Automotive

Dinah pulls up to Schuster's Automotive with Damian sitting on the back part of the seat. A locally owned Car Dealership obviously closed due to the time of night it is. Dinah looks at Damian and shakes her head obviously knowing better than to let an eighteen year old who is now sixteen on his ID lead her around the city.

"What now hotshot? They're closed," yells Dinah over the roar of the motor of the Harley.

"We get me a car," yells Damian as he gets off the seat of the Harley and motions for her to turn the motorcycle off.

"How? no one is here, David," Dinah says after turning the ignition off. Putting a specific emphasis on the name David.

Damian simply points to the second floor of the Dealership building and then throws one of his baterangs at it, hitting the window. Once it fell to the ground, he walks over to it and picks it up. The light then gets turned on and the window opens.

"Great Scott! Who in their blue blazes is banging against my window at this time of night?" says a older man probably in his mid to late fifties, as he looks out to the car lot.

Damian looks up towards the man and says, "We are looking for a car."

"you wanting to buy a car? Why didn't you say so!" says the man as he shuffles into the room.

Dinah looks at Damian stunned, then shakes her head. once she catches her bearing she finally asks, "How did you know that he lived on the second floor of the Car Dealership."

Damian simply states, "What car dealerships actually have two stories and both not being showrooms. The second floor isn't encased in glass like the first. So a safe assumption would be it would be living quarters. Considering if you follow stereotypes, Schuster is a Jewish name."

Dinah raises an eyebrow, "Do you?"

Damian looks at her, "Only on serial killer profiles."

Dinah says with a sarcastic flare, "Lovely."

Then the gentleman comes down wearing black slacks a dress shirt and a black vest, "Hows are you fine folks today, or should i say night. My names Joe Schuster, the owner of this fine car dealership. So folks, what can i interest you in."

Damian gazes around the car lot. He then says, "The black Dodge Charger with the Hemi."

Joe looks over to the car that Damian referred to. "Fine car. Its got HD radio and 6 disk CD changer. Power Windows and locks. It is a manual transmission though. Some people prefer those however."

Damian asks very dryly, " How much with insurance and plates."

Joe is startled by Damian's directness."A month?"

Total. Damian states.

"42,525" Joe says, still quite flabbergasted at this eighteen year olds directness.

Damian hands him the card, which Joe takes, and he says, "No one is to know we were here except by the paperwork you legally have to do."

Joe nods his response and then kindly asks for the proper paperwork from Damian and Dinah. Every so often looks to Damian who is flipping through a sales guide in the Exotics section of the guide.

Once the paperwork was done, Joe hands the keys to Damian. "Well Mr. Cain, here are the keys to your new Charger. I hope you enjoy."

Damian smiles a small smile and says, "I will Mr. Schuster and thank you."

Damian and Dinah walk out and Damian says, "Now to Smallville."

 

[AmenRa]

"The only way," Zod continued, "to fully exploit the superior knowledge, skills, and technology of Kryptonian society on this pathetic world is through the use of crystals."

He turned in a full circle atop the cliff overlooking Iguazu Falls, then spread his hands. "However, I do not see any crystals here," he stated.

The BRAINIAC said nothing. It simply stared passively at its master.

"You inept ability to return even a portion of the Crystal of Knowledge is proof of a flawed design," Zod ranted. "After all, Zor-El designed you."

Again the BRAINIAC was silent.

"Before I initiate my unhindered rule of this world, I require more information about these...others that you spoke of that held unusual human powers. Someone protects them, someone is their leader. With the rodent scientist Var-Sen now resting uncomfortably in the Phantom Zone means someone else is in his place, and I seriously doubt it would be Zor-El's ridiculous offspring.

"Discover the identity of all of them," he finished, "for they must be either eliminated or swear their allegience to me."

The BRANIAC, in its non-descript disguise as Milton Fine, nodded to its master.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick wept. He cried for so many reasons. He stood with his head on his mother's shoulder, accepting the warm embrace from Ceri. Then he stopped. He stood straighter. She removed the hat the had been his trademark, setting it gently into his coat pocket. He stepped out of the embrace and looked fully into Ceri's eyes.

"With all due respect, ma'am, I need to ask a favor. Seems to me this is not an end. It is the beginning of something bigger, darker and a lot worse than this world has ever seen. What ever that is, it took my brother. It took a lot of other people too. My grandfather once told me, a fool goes to battle unprepared, a wise man to battle with a plan, the victorious plan to go to war, and act the fool. Ma'am, something tells me you know all there is about war." Merick looks to Jamie, "And I believe sir, that you know a bit about planning and playing the fool. I guess, what I am trying to say, is this, will you teach me? To fight, to plan, to be prepared. I won't loose any more. We have all given too much. When whatever they are up to comes to fruition, I want to be there. And be ready to show them that us simple earthlings are willing to fight for what we love.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri and Jamie

Ceri opened her mouth, and then shut it again.

"Cat's well and truly out of the bag, I s'pose," she muttered darkly, head lowered.

"'Now this is not the end,'" Jamie reminded her, by way of Winston Churchill, as he walked up to the three of them. "'It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.'"

"You're quoting from The North African Campaign," Ceri chuckled faintly. "Now I know we're not in Kansas anymore."

Jamie grinned at her, a wearier version of his standard puckish expression.

"When we started out," he murmured, "you were the tin woman without a heart."

Ceri laughed, softly, rubbing her face with one hand. "And you the scarecrow with too much brain."

"'There's no place like home,'" Jamie nodded, and clacked his heels together for emphasis.

"'You Can't Go Home Again,'" Ceri reminded him, her turn to quote, little bit of Thomas Wolfe.

"Hmm," Jamie nodded, rubbing the back of his head with one hand as he frowned half-toward the ground, "quite right, too."

Ceri glanced at young Merick as if seeing him for the first time.

"I can give you some pointers," she admitted. "Without going into too much detail, I can tell you that my family has long held in its collective heart that there is good in this world that needs protecting and preserving. War is not to be entered lightly, if at all, but there's good left in the world and the darkness would enjoy nothing better than to extinguish and consume what remains of that good.

"I can give you some pointers," she promised. "But only with your mother's permission. Me own mum had a thing or two to say when she found out me dad and me Great-Uncle Dai had taken me to boxing lessons with 'Wildcat' Grant, and had more to say still when she found out I was a fair hand with a pistol, and none of the things she said were pleasant."

She glanced over at Jamie.

"As for this berk?" she sighed.

(Jamie grinned all the wider, his eyes dancing, his hands in his pockets.)

"As for this berk," she explained, "he knows a thing or two about wonky physics, about the mechanics of things that shouldn't work at all but somehow do. He's given our Rosy a good head for her own abilities, after all. He should be able to do the same for you."

She got in a bit closer, and her bruised face smiled lopsidedly.

"But don't ever catch yourself thinking," she instructed Merick, "that he's only playing a fool. Clever as he is, James is seldom playing the fool, and very often being the fool."

"Oh, well, yes," Jamie nodded, eyes twinkling. "But I do it brilliantly."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick and Marcy

Marcy stood still weeping but feeling bolstered none the less. She stood to an angle, facing the triumvirate before her. "Ceri, Jamie, I know my son. Perhaps not as well as I thought. But I will tell you this. With or without my blessing the boy is too much a Tennylson to sit the bench. Merick, a long time ago your grandfather tried to teach you some lessons. I never cared much for his method. But I would be honored if Ceri resumed them. It is obvious you have the heart and the ability to change the world. It is a thing every parent dreams, for their child to grow up and do wonderful things, to make the world betterm and to be happy. Merick, this is your path. But don't you ever forget what put you on it. It is all too easy to forget where you came from, or worse to run from it. You are a boy. You are a man. But from now on, you are also a hero. tears continued to stream from Marcy's eyes. "I love you. Your father and I will explain everything we can when we get home. Ceri, Jamie, teach him what he needs, with out it, he is going to a gun fight with a water pistol. At least with the pair of y'all he will have a fighting chance. When this is over you better just come back to me Merick.

Merick nodded. He understood. He hugged his mother tightly. Then turned back to his new mentors. "So, when do we start?" his trademark grin returning as he deftly produced yet more junk food from the seemingly inexhaustible supply.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

"I think we should start with trying to figure out who is supposed to get that crystal the Jolly Green Martian wants Rose to hand over."

I walked over to Roses mom & dad, then handed the first aid kit I had ripped off the wall to her Dad.

"This probably has a few items that are not FDA approved, but I garantee it will help your wife feel better."

I walked deeper into the cave, back where the shadows were the deepest.

"I'll be back in a bit, but until then I have my own family I wish to check on, and I want to see what else happened out there. Merrick, if you think you can, transporting everyone away from the alien whateverutdoes machine locked up in here is probably a good idea, because something happened back there, and I am willing to bet it was not something good."


Shadows swirled around me and I reappeared in the basment of our farm. Resuming normal form, I placed the disk I had kept clenched in my hand into my back pocket. I ahd a feeling it might be something important, and I didn't want it out of my sight.

 

[ChasNicollette]

(Rose)

Rose had been normal once.

A perfectly normal little girl. She'd dreamed in Barbie pink and Care Bear Stares and princesses and teacups and Alice in Wonderland. She wanted to be a singing star.

But she'd read her first William Gibson novel at the ripe old age of six, and she'd phoned her father immediately, demanding that he translate it for her.

It had been Idoru, and she had never again been the same.

She'd felt an innate kinship with Chia McKenzie, a fangirl, and a music fangirl, no less! And she'd seen more than a little of her faraway father in Colin Laney. She'd seen him in Rez, too, dear old Rez, in love with a hologram.

(Years later, she'd tried to read All Tomorrow's Parties, and for some reason she hadn't gotten into it. But Pattern Recognition had been a work of sublime genius, subtle sentences woven into glory, with just hints of the pseudoscientific paranormal in the form of EVP.

Johnny Mnemonic had been proof that what works on the page doesn't always translate to film; Gibson was a genius in words but not necessarily in pictures.

They'd borrowed significant visual themes from Neuromancer to make The Matrix, of course, but that wasn't nearly the same thing. They'd borrowed from a lot of things to make The Matrix.)

Nothing, really, had compared to Idoru. It had been so real and yet so strange and from there on in Rose had sworn to herself, raising her fist to the sky, that she would ever and always be that kind of real, that kind of strange.

She'd found that being that kind of strange didn't win you many friends, really. (Only friends of a certain kind. Like Merick.)

Being that kind of strange got you beat up a bit. But she'd refused to give up her kinship with the surreal, had adamantly put her foot down. Instead, she'd resolved, she would be quietly strange. She wouldn't speak up about it, but she would quietly treasure her strangeness, her uniqueness, her surrealism, nurture it in her heart.

In her heart, Rose had proudly been a freak long before a train accident had made her into a Freak.

She'd seen the world... tachyons and machine-elves, Atlantises and Phantom Tollbooths, arrhythmic flux, words and numbers and flats and sharps. Jae Lee and Stan Lee and Kirby and Gaiman and Moore. Snikt, Thwip, Bamf, Blink.

She had believed so desperately, so thoroughly in the surreal, in the fictional, in the impossible, that stepping out into The Real World became actually something of a shock to her. It had frightened her, the lack of fiction in the world.

But even as Rose had found herself scared, she had taken pride in the fact that her mother had seemed scared of nothing at all.

They'd gone to Metropolis one year when Rose had been eight to see novelist Mark Waid reading excerpts from his canon, but they'd gotten a little lost on the way to the theatre and had found themselves in the wrong area of town.

A man had tried to take her mother's purse, had pulled a knife and demanded material recompense for the troubles Life had caused him.

But Rose's mother hadn't even blinked; she'd reached out and grabbed the man's finger, his finger of all things, and she'd twisted that finger sharply and she'd twisted that finger hard and that man had dropped his knife and fallen weepingly to his knees.

'Yeh remind me of Beowulf,' Rose's mother had pondered. 'I never did like Beowulf. I respect it as a classic, an' all. Important to the history of the medium. But it's just that I think that one-dimensional arrogant violent assholes don't make for compelling reading.'

Rose's mother had kicked that knife away and left that man alone in his misery.

She'd walked off holding Rose's hand tightly, and as they walked she'd murmured...

'There are some men and women in this world, Rosy,' Rose's mother had softly explained, 'who will hurt another person at the very drop of a hat, whether they stand to gain from it or not. Not all men and women are so violent, but that sort of violence does exist. And sometimes the only way to stave that violence off is with violence of our own.

'The difficulty lies not in violence itself,' Rose's mother had suggested, 'but in the judiciousness of its use. Never raise a hand to hurt another, Rosy. Not even to save yourself.

'But when there's something bigger than yourself at stake,' she'd described, 'helpless children or holy ideals or members of your family or... or anything that could change the world for the better, when that's at stake, then you can rise up and strike down that which threatens.'

Rose's mother had smiled down at Rose and had given Rose's hand a squeeze.

'Just promise me,' she murmured softly, 'yeh'll only do so when you're much much older. I never really had a childhood, much to me mum's chagrin. And when you were born, I promised Mum that I'd let you live your life as long as possible. Because the first time you raise a hand against another, no matter how noble your intentions, something fractures inside of yeh. Something breaks. And you're never the same again. You're never a little girl ever again.'

Rose's mother had gazed ahead of her as they walked, and Rose had gazed up at her in awe.

'"I only know,"' Ceri had recited softly to herself and to Rose as they had walked, '"a snowflake cannot exist in a storm of fire."'

The enormity of the event had been such that Rose, despite her powerful, absorbent memory, had remembered only that selfsame enormity. The details and the words had been lost to her.

She had only ever remembered that her mother was secretly unbreakable.

The rest of it had been lost to her.

Except in her subconscious, that place where she had years previously decided to be secret and strange...

...Rose's subconscious had remembered everything. Her subconscious always had.

In the treehouse, Rose opened her blue blue eyes for a moment, wondered where she was, and then closed her blue blue eyes and went back to sleep.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick regarded Wraith with a bit of shock. He had nearly forgotten that he was there. "Tall, Dark and Spooky here has a point. I think we should get out of here. I think I can manage. But first, lets round up the calvalry. Anyone have a clue where Rose went? Or where Mr. Personality left Chloe?

Merick smiled at those around him. "Where do you want to go? I can get us just about anywhere. Ladies choice I'm afraid though sir."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri and Jamie

"Don't half get some loonies in this town," Jamie pondered, cracking open the medikit and perusing its contents. "But never let it be said that they've forgotten how to be neighbourly."

Ceri squinted at the shadowy spot from which The Wraith had dematerialised.

"What does she see in him," Ceri breathed with soft amazement and harsh incredulity, "I wonder?"

"Haven't the foggiest, me," Jamie drawled distractedly as he examined the ingredients list on a bottle attached to a hypodermic jet injector. "But then, I've never understood why women gravitate to 'bad boys.' (Why is that, anyway?) She even said he'd already failed to call her when he said he would, right out of the gate."

Ceri chuckled bittersweetly. "He didn't call her?" she closed her functional eye for a moment. "He didn't call our daughter? I'll kick his arse."

"That might give him the impression," Jamie grunted, fishing through a number of other injector-vials with gradually increasing bewilderment, "that you're actually backing the relationship."

"He's a right scary oul' bastard," Ceri admitted. "And I want her to chuck him. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't be a gentleman."

Jamie nodded, very much distractedly. "Quite right, quite right, silly me."

He bit his tongue, and scrunched his eyebrows.

"This is interesting," he clucked. "This is very interesting. Cordrazine, melanex... tri-ox? Melanex might be good, but you don't want to mix that with ibuprofen... 'ang on. 'Ang on 'ang on 'ang on."

He held up one of the jet-injector vials to the skylight and blinked in amazement. Without a word, he set down the rest of the kit, put a droplet of the stuff onto his finger, and touched his finger to his tongue.

He made a face. A seriously contorted face.

"Interesting," he muttered, "and impossible. That's... RL65. Isn't it? Bloody Hell. 'Not FDA approved,' Wormwood, no joking. Queen Industries' earliest projections for a viable sample put this half a decade away, and here's The Last Darkbender with a whole decilitre of the stuff. (Rosy, who is this boy?)"

Ceri stared at him. "You. What?"

Jamie grinned, and loaded the vial into the jet injector.

"Side effects may include aggravation of the amygdala," he suggested, "increasing aggressive tendencies. But it's not like you don't have those anyway."

Ceri's jaw dropped and she prepared to fire off a retort, but then Jamie pressed the injector to the side of her neck and with a hiss the system blurted the chemical directly into her bloodstream.

Ceri blinked, utterly taken aback.

She blinked once. Twice.

And when she blinked the third time, the swelling on the injured side of her face had gone down sufficiently that she could blink both eyes.

"Tupping Liberty," she whispered, utterly disbelieving.

"I know, right?" Jamie grinned, twirling the injector over his finger like a Western hero slinging his gun.

Ceri touched her face gingerly. It wasn't even sore anymore.

Come to think of it, there wasn't a sore bit anywhere on her body.

"Tupping Liberty," she repeated, and then scowled. "Bollocks. Now I have to get my daughter's scary beau a 'thank-you' card."

"Worse things happen at sea," Jamie reminded her, then turned to Merick with a grin, and then Marcy. "I'm game to go whenever you are. I'm fair certain this place'll still be here next time I want to have a look at it."

He blinked. "'Ladies' choice.' Right." He whipped around to look at Ceri again. "Any suggestions? Rose, Chloe, Mafeking, Olympus Mons, Samarkand?"

Ceri laughed hoarsely. "Wild Coyote. I could do with a drink."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle/Wraith

I ran up the stairs to find Gram in the kitchen. I immediately engulfed her in a hug.

"Whoa there hon. Be careful with the old woman, you about cracked my ribs!"

"Sorry Gram. i was worried. Where's Grand at?"

"He's on the ATV checking the place. So far we weathered this pretty well. The house and barn were not touched, and it looks like most of the fields too. We're fine."

I hugged her again (softer this time and moved to the doorway.
"Oh Gram, could you call Bekka and let her know we are OK." I paused, then turned. "Oh, also add that I took the first aid kit from the pool house, so it will need replacing."

I then moved out the door and up the stairs to my room. There I checked my messages on my computer (three from Bekka. If i didn't talk to her soon she was going to reach through the machine and kill me) and some junk.

OK, my home was OK, but I still had no idea where Rose was, and no phone to call her. Time to use my voodoo.

I stepped into my closet and changed back to my armored form. I concentrated, shadows bending and swirling around me.
"Take me to Rose. Open a doorway to wherever she is. take me NOW!"

Shadows engulfed me, and seconds later I stepped out at the base of a large oak tree. Looking above me, a old tree house was up in the limbs.

I switched back to normal, then climbed up. There on the floor was Rose, sleeping and obviously worn out. I quietly moved inside and sat down on the far wall from here, watching over her as she slept.

Once she woke up we had some talking to do.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick grinned at the exchange between Ceri and James. He was struck by the fact that he was watching too people that, though they didn't act it, truly loved each other. It was the underlyng truth. "If it is a drink you want, I think Dad's den is pretty well stocked. Oh! Bravo! I have an idea." Merick was gone in a second, in a minute he was back.

He now had a basket in one hand, and a blanket in the other. "Right then, Ceri, Jamie, Mom, gather round, hang on. Just a touch should do I believe. I think that you all need a bit more worthy a place than the Coyote. Hang on." Merick flipped the world as if pages in a book. In less than a second they were standing high atop a ridge. They were looking out toward the Pacific ocean, it was a beautiful day.

"Merick, where the hell... Marcy was confused. Then she placed it. This was where she and Dale had brought Merick several years ago on vacation. They were in Hawaii. They were at the top of a small mountain that Dale and Merick had climbed.

"Have a seat. I grabbed some goodies." with a flourish Merick put out the blanket and and set down the basket. "I popped into the liquor store, and grabbed stuff I thought you all would like, no one was there so I left some cash on the counter. I grabbed a bit of food too." Merick produced several bottles, Grey Goose, Jack Daniels, a six pack of beer, and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. He also produced a variety o snacks. "I wasn't sure what everyone would like but thought this should cover it. I am going back to town. I want to find Rose, and Chloe. You have my cell, mom, just call when you tire of paradise. Oh, there are swimsuits in the basket. Beach is just down that path about an hours hike, but an easy one. Merick didn't wait for a response, he didn't want to be stopped.

In a second he was back in Smallville. He had no idea where to begin. It's not like the place was that big, but he had no clue where to start, and there were the woods, the lake, Rose could be anywhere. Merick pulls out his phone. Scrolls through the phone book, and finds Rose's number. "Please, work." Merick hits send and waits.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri and Jamie

They stood and stared for a moment.

Jamie blinked. "That. Was a teeny bit disorienting. I think my polarity got reversed for a moment there. Think I saw me dad."

Ceri bent over, clutched her knees, breathed deep of the Pacific Ocean air, and then she grabbed one of the beer bottles, said a quick prayer of thanks to Bacchus for the invention of twist-top bottles, capped the thing and downed near half of it at a gulp.

She chuckled faintly. "Where are we? Is this Hilo?"

Jamie made a face, darting his gaze about. "I'm... not positive. Can't argue with the lad's results, eh? (Better a tempered schism than an untempered one.) This is like our honeymoon!"

Ceri chuckled faintly, and took another swig from the bottle. "Well. Yes. Except for our honeymoon we went to Majorca for three days, and you spent the better part of the first day and a half trying to figure out if Bellver Castle had above or below average gravitational pull."

"That was important," Jamie insisted, like a child who'd just discovered his favourite baseball card was missing.

Ceri glanced at Marcy as she sat herself down on a corner of the blanket. "Listen to him," she rolled her eyes. "Mostly he was chucking fifty-pence pieces from the top of the tower and cackling like a lunatic."

Jamie huffed, and shook his head, and took his tie off. "'It's nice to be a lunatic,'" he muttered, Ian Dury, as he tied the tie around his head like a sweatband.

He poked through the beverages, and then through the snacks. He found a pack of honey-roasted peanuts, and sat on the blanket next to Ceri as he began tossing the peanuts into his mouth. He closed his eyes as he chewed, putting his psychic defences back into place, like rotating Tetris blocks... He hadn't had a chance to reinstall them after turning them loose on The Black Ship, and that interesting Martian bloke had shortly thereafter read Jamie's mind right out from under him. (To say the least? That had been mildly disconcerting.)

Ceri tugged another beer out of the six-pack and offered it to Marcy, her expression gentle.

"Been through a lot, you have," Ceri murmured to her weary-looking friend and neighbour. "You alright?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

The phone rang in The Old McCrimmon Place. It rang and rang to no avail.

Things were not quite right still with the answering machine and thus no message could be taken.

The house was thus far intact, but a number of the windows had blown inward when a meteor had struck in the backyard dangerously close to the old storm cellar.

Unfortunately for the well-meaning young Merick Tennylson, no-one was home.

Miles away, in a treehouse that had once belonged to the icky Greg Arkin, Rose stirred in her sleep.

She licked her lips.

And once again, she blinked open her eyes.

She saw Kyle, and while she still wasn't sure where she was at, she gave him a crazy little lopsided smile.

"Hey you," she murmured.

She sat up, and stretched, and wiped-- as best as she could --some of the ash off of her face.

"I--" she started, and then blushed, and settled a little bit into herself as she gazed at him. "I appreciate that you're wearing your person face instead of your Wraith face. I don't mind it so much? But it's kind of. Um. I'm glad I didn't have to wake up to that after the day we've all had. Might've had a heart attack."

She laughed faintly, and covered her eyes with one hand.

"(I really hope that didn't just hurt your feelings,)" she whispered. "(I'm such a duncetard.)"

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick flipped the phone shut. He had had a long day. This was just the capper. Merick took a look around. He knew only one way to find the only friends he had in the world. Merick started shuffling the world. In less than 5 minutes Merick had checked as many places as he could think to check.

He hit all the places he thought likely, The Talon, the record shop, the McCrimmon's house. Merick was starting to get frustrated. He glanced down at his watch. he pondered whether or not Rose had been invited to the Wayne house. Perhaps she went early? She wasn't anywhere he could think of. That settled it. Merick jumped to the area outside of Bruce Wayne's house. He walked slowly to the door. Fixed his hat, and straightened his jacket. Then he knocked on the door.

"I hate meeting new people. But they are worth it."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Marcy

Marcy was tired. She gladly took the beer from Ceri and downed it in to chugs.

"We are in a little town on the island of Kauai, the Na Pali coast. Dale brought us here. He wanted to show Merick that there were amazing places in our world. Places of such beauty. Merick loved it here. We spent two days on each island. But this was his favorite. We missed our dinner plans because he wouldn't leave. He said that this was a magic place.

Marcy rummaged a bit through the alcohol selection but settled on a second beer. "Seems like yesterday. Ceri, you are a good friend. Tell me that you can help him. Tell me he can be safe. He has too much of his grandfather in him. I worry, that with the ability he has, he could do fabulous things, or he could do irrepairible damage. I just hope he has enough of me and Dale to balance the influence of his grandfather. Are we just a mass of cells with some vague genetic memory? Some form bits and pieces just mushed together? Or are we more? Are we something greater than the sums of our parts? I'm sorry. I am just sort of rambling now.