The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[ChasNicollette]

Bruce

Damian then asked one more question, "How many more people are we expecting."

"There's three that we know about," Bruce replied, arms crossed over his chest. "But maybe only two will come back, if those two fail to win over the third."

He, too, felt the urge to tap his chin while he thought...

...but then he saw Damian doing it, and felt self-conscious, felt bewildered, tried to stay focused. He kept his arms crossed over his chest and his fists knotted at his sides.

"Any others that come," he murmured, "will be most welcome. We need all the help we can get, after all. And I don't know for a fact any more are coming? But we found each other because of our various gifts and our proclivities and our predilections. Krypton's Last Scion has powers of their own, in a place rife with the paranormal and the supernormal and the abnormal. It stands to reason-- and it stands to hope --that they may have found others in a similar fashion to the way in which we found each other."

He gave Merick a sidelong gaze.

"I don't believe in any Fate," he suggested, "that we don't make for ourselves. But I won't argue with serendipity if we come out with a little more power in our corner."

 

[AmenRa]

J'onn J'onzz nodded to Rose, and in an instant he hovered over them, towering like some great Martian spectre, his cape moving ever-so-slightly with a self-made breeze. He hovered out of the open doors of the loft, standing still in air some 15 feet above the ground. A light shown from the bedroom window of Jonathan and Martha Kent. He looked towards the house for a moment, contemplation coming to his thoughts.

This night I take from you that which you hold most precious. I do this not for greed, lust, or power, but for a promise made to the one who made her. She will return to you not the little girl you first saw but the woman your teachings and guidance has reared. I know with all that I am her father and mother could not have found brighter lights to guide Kara on her journey through this world.

The Martian Manhunter turned once again to face the trio gathered in the loft. His eyes shone brightly for an instant, and then he became a blur of color in the night as he flew towards Wayne Manor.

 

[Lunaramblings]

"The way this works, I only need coordinates for a place. A person I find by their... aura, their psionic metapresence as we used to call it. Basically there soul." Dale started to trance. In a moment he had arrived in a small padded room, where a man had recently written in blood.


Merick just grinned that damnable grin at Bruce. "Bruce, one day Fate is so going to show itself to you. Whether you wish to see or not. Til then, we are just gonna have to hope serendipity is good enough."

 

[camerindrake]

Damian

Out of the corner of his eye Damian had saw how Dale had landed. He knew by the way that Dales leg had buckled that his ankle had broken. Damian closed his eyes for a moment. He then got up. Still wondering how many communication devices they had but it could wait. He walked over to Dale and went to one knee looking at his foot and sighed.

After a few moments remembering not to call Bruce father Damian said, "Bruce, we need Alfred with his medical expertese and splinting supplies. Mr. Tennyson, following a jumper when they don't know you are coming along is a bad idea. They can't prepare for your landing."

He then gets quiet as he undoes the shoe on Dale Tennyson's foot. while keeping the ankle braised so that the pain remains dull not to break his concentration.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Bruce and Pete

Bruce shook his head.

"I'll believe in Fate," he acknowledged, "when I see it with my own two eyes, and not before."

(Even then, I'll need convincing that Fate isn't a complete psycho, a total bastard. Fate will have to earn my trust.)

"Alfred's manning the ramparts," he explained to Damian. "He's keeping watch. He's needed where he is."

But then Bruce glanced at Pete.

"You told me once you could talk me through CPR," he murmured, "and you helped diagnose concussions and hypothermia. Can you set a bone?"

Pete looked surprised that Bruce had remembered that.

(Had that only been yesterday?)

"I can, maybe, yeah," Pete mused, sinking to one knee beside Damian. "Though I gotta say, we should really get an X-ray on this guy. Check his films."

"As to where we'd find splinting materials--" Bruce began.

"--might not need that," Pete suggested. "If Big M can make a forcefield 'round his daddy's foot the way he made one 'round my upper body. (If ya need to turn mine off, Mer', so's you can do your dad up, go 'head. I can deal.)"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ted and John: "'I am leaving, I am leaving,' but The Fighter still remains."

John Constantine knelt on the floor of the padded cell.

He was slender because he hadn't properly eaten in ages, and his blond hair was all scruffy. His face bristled because the nurse refused to shave him anymore after he'd spit in her eye.

His eyes were scrunched shut, and sweat rolled down his face as he wriggled the rest of the way out of his straitjacket. It was hardly the easiest thing in the world, but it was easier now since he'd already somehow managed to get that one hand free.

Moments later, it fell in tatters around him, and with a grunt of exertion, panting hard, he shoved himself to his feet. He wiped his forehead with his forearm, blinking sweat away.

He harrumphed softly, looked at his fingers, damn near ruined. Just like Richard Madoc.

"Bluddy strewth," he growled faintly. And then he tore a shred off of the ruined straitjacket to improvise a bandage.

There was shouting outside. It was far away, but getting louder.

The sounds of taser prods discharging, of thuds and yells and cracks of bone.

John dusted himself off, flexed his fingers inside the bandage. He'd have to dig up a grimoire later, figure out some healing magic. Or maybe he'd call Zed. Zed could work magic.

Bleedin' 'Ell, she could even do it for me over the phone.

Smoky voice like 'ers, she could do it for anyone over the phone. But I digress.

John tilted his head and cracked his neck.

He straightened, and he focused, and he looked at the door of the cell. It was padded, just like the rest of the chamber, save for a Plexiglas viewing pane, barely three inches tall and twelve inches across.

The door shuddered.

And then it shuddered again, harder, and John could hear a muffled cry as something struck the Plexiglas hard enough to crack it just a little.

John arched an eyebrow.

There was fumbling, and there was swearing, and then a foot shoved the door inwards.

The man whose head had just cracked against the pane slumped inwards, completely unconscious, unmoving. This was an orderly in the asylum, and he was built like a brick outhouse.

Unfortunately, being built like a brick outhouse had not been enough to prevent his jaw getting broke, his right eye getting blackened, and the back of his head getting pounded into a Plexiglas sheet.

The man's taser prod was across the hall and snapped clean in two.

"'Ello, Teddy," John smirked.

Ted Grant stood over the beaten-down orderly, and cracked his knuckles.

He wasn't wearing his outfit. The colourful character costume he'd worn in the ring for decades upon decades.

Ted Grant was an old man, but he looked like a man thirty years younger, at least, and he had the physique of a true powerhouse. A baseball cap covered his crop of brown hair, though not his greying temples. He wore a jacket and jeans and sneakers and a navy-blue t-shirt. He wore open-fingered gloves, evocative of modern mixed martial arts, and he smiled thinly, his green eyes glinting.

"Ya comin'?" he demanded.

"Don't you bluddy get your knickers in a twist," John huffed. "Did yeh bring it?"

Ted arched his eyebrow, then reached into the pockets of his jacket, extricating a pack of Silk Cut cigarrettes in his right hand and a small cheap-o lighter in his left. He tossed them both to John, who caught them nimbly in his uninjured hand.

Somehow, one-handed, John managed to shake a smoke free and light it up.

He took a deep drag, and he sighed happily.

He smiled a woozy little smile.

"These fucking bastards," he drawled, "'ave 'ad me on the best pacifying meds money can buy, and the whole fucking time all I needed to soothe me jangled nerves was a good nicotine fix."

"That's a thrilling tale o' fortitude, an' all," Grant growled. "But didn't ya summon me so's I could get yer sorry ass outta this joint?"

"First things first," John laughed softly, smoke wreathing his head. "I need me Mac. Me Macintosh. Personal items are down the hall."

"Right," Ted harrumphed. "Lead the way, already."

John glanced back over his shoulder, down at himself.

Down at the hospital gown he was wearing.

"Hhf," Ted grunted. "'Kay. I'll walk in front, then."

The hall was long, but although there were still sounds of shouting from elsewhere in the complex, they didn't encounter any more thuggish orderlies.

(Much to Ted's disappointment.)

They came to the door to the office where patients' personal items were taken at check-in, and John pushed in front of Ted, patting himself down as if checking his pockets.

"Lockpicks," he muttered, "lockpicks, lockpicks."

Ted made an extremely impatient noise, shoved John out of the way, and put his foot to the door.

The thing splintered off of its hinges, and Ted strode in, brooking no hesitation, brooking no guff.

John chuckled, and grinned unapologetically. "Sorry, mate," he mused. "Meds must still be muckin' about wiv the contents of me skull. Took me 'alf of forever to find the focus to summon yeh."

Ted shrugged as if it weren't no thing, not on top of everything else Constantine had asked of him thus far today.

"How'd ya do that, anyway?" Ted mused, as he looked through the big rows of massive filing cabinets, looking for the one that said "C." "I woke up, middle a' th' night, had this terrible inexpl'cble urge ta take a long hot shower. I climb out, and on my mirror it looks like someone's written with their finger in the steam. Address t' this dump, 'come get me out, bring fags, be right quick about it, John.' Ya wanna tell me how that's even possible?"

"Easy-peasy," John grinned, grinned as broad as could be. "'Any cunt could do it.'"

Ted scoffed, and shook his head, locating a drawer labeled "Patients - Ci to Cr," and hauling it open. "You're a real piece'a work, Constantine."

"Truer words, Teddy," John grinned.

The drawer was divided up into sections with thin metal inserts the height of the drawer, so instead of folders, each patient got a small kind of cubby-hole within, into which their things were placed. In the section marked "Constantine, John," there were large zip-lock style bags with clothing folded neatly in them.

Ted could see a white shirt, a brownish-beige coat, a tie and slacks. At the bottom of the drawer sat a pair of shoes. He drew all of this out, and frowned into the drawer.

"Got yer things," he grunted. "But it don't look like there's any kind'a computer in here."

"Don't be fucking daft," John snorted. "Do I look like the cyberspace type? Leave that stuff to The Brothers 'Amilton, I do. (Prats.)"

Wildcat frowned distastefully. "But you said--"

John reached out, lightning-quick, and snagged the zip-lock with the coat in it. Dragging the coat into the open, shaking it out, he then brandished it in Ted's face.

"Macintosh!" he snarled.

"Oh, right," Ted grunted, momentarily abashed at his not having learned British better, but then his gaze hardened. "Wait. We went to all this trouble for a damn coat?"

John grunted as he swirled the coat around himself, donning it as fast as he could. "('Ello, old friend.)"

He turned, and he made off down the hall, heading towards the front entrance, dressed in a hospital gown and a Macintosh coat.

"Gotta 'ave a coat," Constantine pointed out, amiably, as he strode, Ted hurrying to keep up, "if yeh're going to dabble in the mystic arts. Modern-day wizard's cloak, s'like a badge of fucking office. Yeh ever meet that tosser Jason Blood?"

"Once," Ted acknowledged, "back in '49. Yeah. He loved that coat'a his like some boys love their mommas."

"Quite right, too," Constantine nodded.

Ted made a face.

(Where he came from, weren't no coat more important than nobody's momma, not even if you were named Joe and your coat was damn Technicolor.)

"Even without the new tradition," John commented, "I'd just as soon not dress m'self up like some ninny with the moons and stars and fuck-all. To quote Nabu The Wise, 'Fuck! Fuck! I can't see a fucking thing in this fucking helmet!'"

"That's a quote?" Ted pondered, dubiously.

"Well," John admitted, roguish, "more of a paraphrase."

They continued down the hall, stepping gingerly over a dozen and a half orderlies strewn here and there throughout the complex.

John arched both eyebrows at Ted, evidently impressed.

Ted shrugged. "Still got it."

They walked past the unconscious gate guard, dangling as he was half out of his little booth by the front gate. A gate which had been smashed off of its hinges by a navy-blue Peugeot 407 saloon, the right-side headlight of which was cracked.

(Ted had made quite an entrance.)

Ted made haste for the left-side door, and came up short when he realised the steering wheel was on the other side.

"Hhf," he shook his head. "Ya'd think after thirty damn years..."

"This is why I usually 'ave Chandler drive me 'round," Constantine noted. "To save on embarrassments exactly like this one."

They rearranged themselves, and Ted got behind the wheel. John got in on the left, lighting up a fresh cigarette and glancing over his shoulder into the empty back seat as he did so.

"So," he remarked conversationally, "yeh 'aven't introduced me to your friend."

Ted scrunched his face up. "My... 'friend?'"

A momentary bewilderment flickered in John's eyes. "So. 'E's not wiv you, then? Astral bloke 'oo found me in me cell just before you arrived, an' 'as been followin' us 'round ever since? Like a bloody 'ologram only I can see and 'ear?"

"'Astral bloke?'" Ted repeated, no less bewildered. "What? No. (I don't even know what that is.) What the Hell, John?"

John smiled a languid, devil-may-care smile, and, with a soft muttering of incantation, he turned around in his seat and blew smoke into the back.

For but a moment, so quickly it might have been illusion, the cigarette smoke clung to the shape of a man's face, ghostly fog in the half-light of the car's interior.

(The shape of a man's face who was named Dale Tennylson.)

Ted's jaw dropped. "Holy Hell!"

"Don't you think," John mused to Ted, cavalier as could be, dangling the cigarette between the fingers of his uninjured hand, "that two's company and three's a terrible breach of security?"

Without waiting for a response from Ted, John whipped his head around, and locked cold, cold unfeeling eyes onto Dale's.

He looked Dale right in the eyes.

"FUCK. AWAY. OFF," he snarled, giving Dale the two-fingered salute, and then barked a single word in a language older than mountains and colder than icebergs.

A moment later, Dale found his astral self thousands of miles away, though not quite back in his body. Jammed like a radio signal, diverted like a stream.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Dale Tennylson found himself face down in some sort of muck. He carefully pulled himself up, his head ringing.

Dale looked around and saw he was on some sort of an island. Above him, on a cliff there sat a monolith. A gigantic monument of some sort.

Dale, confused headed for the thing. As he trudged through the muck he felt an odd tingle. His mind felt heavy, it took all his command to keep going. Finally he crested the hill and saw this strange Monolith, with a carving of some terrible nightmare creature was only the beginning. Below, in the valley was a city. A Necropolis. This was no human settlement. It offended the mind. The angles seemed to stretch in more than the normal three dimensions. There was some sort of furtive movement beneath. Something was stirring.

As Dale's eyes adjusted he could make out horrid beings, moving in strange rhythms. They seemed to be worshipping an idol. An idol of a being that defied logic. A being that was Dragon, Kraken, Demon, and More. Dale's mind was unable to explain the grotesque nature of all the forms he saw. And he would take much of that horror to his grave. Then he heard something different.

"Quickly Mister Tennylson. Your time to face this is not now. I must spirit you away." A being, human in shape floated beside Dale. "I have a young man that would like to see you before I assist you home. Come." With this the man reached for Dale. As he did a portal openned on that dark hill. In a second Dale and the Stranger are standing in a large marble room, in a very tall marble tower.

"Who are you? And what did I just see?" Dale looked quizzically at his host.

"I am an agent of all that is, all that was, and all that ever shall be. Many strange occurances have long plagued this world. I am here to guide those that would defend it back into the light and onto the right path. I am often called many names, but your son likes to call me Doctor. Doctor Fate. Pleased to meet you." The being in the golden mask continued to hover in front of Dale. No emotion seemed to escape this man. Just a sense of confidence. Dale found that most disconcerting. "That which you saw tonight, those beings, are not of your world. When the good Mr. Constantine sent you flailing off course, he inadvertently..." Doctor Fate didn't finish the sentance.

Instead a young man, a more scarred version of Merick, appeared beside them. He finished the sentance. "He totally crossed the streams on you."

"Yes, I suppose, in a pop culture way that would not be entirely inaccurate. The beings are known by many names in many places. Some call the StarSpawn, Old Ones, The Ancients, The Lost Ones. It matters little. THey are beyond our world. Trapped in a land of dream and thought. They lost their physical forms a millenia or more ago. They are currently trying to reawaken their Fallen God. And, you and the events that are occuring now, may all be the key. If this being, this Zod, comes to power, the despair, hatred, and longing will serve to further power their magicks. It may give them just enough to stir the grave of Dread C'thulu. That must not happen. Your associates must be successful or all will be lost. Not only all that is, but all that stands to come. This is the Destiny of your troop, this is the way it is written."

"What do I do?"

"There will be a sacrifice. There will be blood. Magicks older than man are at work. Magicks and Power. You must be a guide. You must help guide your son. If he follows the footsteps of his grandfather, than the allegiances will falter. He will sway the balance. He sits on a dangerous precipice. Do not let him fall."

"Dad, I am sorry."

"Tommy? But, you died when you were just a baby. But then, here you are again. How?"

"I woke up in a room, hooked to machines. A man in a gold and black mask, a man named Deathstroke held me. He told me I had powers, powers he needed to use. He told me you were all dead. I spent the last several years reading minds, doing surviellance. I saw many men and woman die at his hands, due to the things I told him. When I found out you were all alive, I made contact with Merick in his dreams. It took a while to get through, then today, I realized he needed help. Then I died. Or at least my body did."

"What now?"

"Tommy will stay with me. He will train and become the next to wear this mantle. And when he does, he will accomplish great things. But now you, Dale must go home." Doctor Fate muttered a few words, which were not words, more invocations. And Dale was gone. He was back in his body. His ankle was throbbing.

"Your friends don't like company." Dale passed out, the mixture of pain, adrenaline, and sorrow, numbed him to the core. Dale would lay there unmoving for a few moments.

Merick was moving as Dale sat up and spoke to Ceri. Just before his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he collapsed. A tear came to Merick's eyes as he caught his father before his head could hit the ground.

 

[AmenRa]

J'onn J'onzz

As he flew towards Wayne Manor, he thought about the upcoming confrontations. He knew they would be fighting a war on two fronts; one against Zod himself, and the other against the perversion of Zor-El's artificial intelligence: the BRAIN InterActive Construct.

The Martian Manhunter remembered the last time he encountered Zod....

Neralus had been a moon of a nearby fertile world, within a few days travel of Krypton. It had been a beautiful place, and it had served as a place of solace and retreat for many races.

It had been all of this until Zod and his soldiers over-ran it. They took control of it, and they slaughtered all who opposed the rule of Zod.

Neralus had been the last in a line of worlds to fall to Zod. Krypton would be next. It was inevitable.

It was thus until J'onn J'onzz returned from an aid mission to outlying worlds. He was immediately dispatched to do what the surviving loyal members of the Kryptonian Defense Force could not: bring General Zod to justice.

The Martian Manhunter met with resistance as he descended to Neralus.

This resistance was short-lived.

On Neralus, so close to Rao, Krypton's red sun, the Kryptonians had no special abilities.

J'onn J'onzz, because he was Martian, his powers simply...were. He needed no sun, yellow or otherwise, to grant him abilities beyond normal. And for this reason, he was feared.

Even by General Zod.

And so the Martian Manhunter literally snatched Zod up and delivered him to the members of the Science Council. He stood and watched over Zor-El's shoulder as they rendered a verdict of guilty. He watched the gateway descend that would take Zod to the Phantom Zone.

And he saw the hatred in General Zod's eyes. The hatred had replaced the fear. And the hatred would breed revenge. And J'onn knew that Zod had kept this look in his eyes while he was imprisoned.

And Earth was now the canvas upon which would be painted a thousand years worth of hatred.

Zod had powers, now, here on this world. It would be hard to approximate if his powers equalled J'onn's. But this did not matter. The Martian Manhunter had something General Zod did not.

He had Hope.

 

[AmenRa]

The Zone

Var-Sen lifted his head from Raya's breast. He kissed her quietly on the lips. He stepped outside the makeshift tent to be assaulted by the entirely unfriendly winds of the Phantom Zone.

He knew there were things here, disincorporated beings that roamed the Zone's wastes. These wraiths, these phantoms, could be dangerous to him. Although they could not kill him here, they could take energy from him, they could torment him.

He knew their names, and he knew who they were. Even the one most dangerous: an experiment so bizarre, a laboratory creation gone so wrong.

But right now, Var-Sen of Krypton did not care about these things as he walked across the broken and jagged black ground. He stopped and sat on a smooth stone near the Gateway.

And he waited.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara looked towards Diana, and she was very thankful that they had the chance to meet. She shuddered at the thought of weapons being used that could hurt her, but if it brought down Zod she would have to put aside her own well-being.

It was for the greater good, after all.

The Marian Manhunter quickly explained the situation surrounding the meteor rocks, and Kara couldn't help but feel a little guilty for bringing them to Earth. The night those rocks came crashing down to Earth many people died.

But she was only a baby... she had no control.

Now she was older, and she had the power to make things right. She could, and would, be the right hand of justice when needed.

Then Bruce Wayne's name popped up. Kara felt her heart skip a beat, and she looked confused for a moment, even as her friends began to depart from the loft.

"Bruce?"

She remembered smacking him in the chest with a dodge ball in gym class only a few days ago. Now she was going over to his house to discuss the future of the world.

J'onn seemed to hover outside the barn, pausing for a moment before she saw his form quickly blur away, and a red streak could be seen flying through the sky. Without hesitation, Kara bolted down the wooden steps and out the large, barn doors. Though she couldn't fly, Kara could easily rely on her super speed, and she herself became a red blur on the ground as she made her way towards Wayne Manor.

 

[camerindrake]

Damian

Damian sat with Dales ankle held very still waiting for the supplies for the splint and sighed. He then says as he looks over to Ceri, "The exorcist magician is very much a bastard when it comes to people he does not know in this universe as well. I am going to go out on a limb and surmise that he just got busted out of the asylum by Theodore Grant and has full abilities again after a quick fag. Would you guess the same, Ceri."

He thinks to himself after a moment he thinks to himself, If i could get my hands on the kryptonite I could break off enough to make a short blade. He looks for swelling and any protrusions. Finding none he was sure it was a clean break and would set easily.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick focused a small portion of the energy surrounding his body on his father's leg. He formed it into a cast of force.

"I think he is okay. If a little tired. I am going to lay him on the sofa in the other room." Merick swooshed off and back in just a moment.

"So I am guessing they are not interested in helping. Listen, we need the rest of the crew. We need a plan. And we need to make this happen ASAP."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri, Jamie, Pete, and Gabe

Ceri arched an eyebrow at Damian.

"So are you polite to telemarketers who call you in the middle of dinner?" she wondered. "I don't know anyone who is."

Leaning against the edge of the kitchen table, she smiled faintly.

"(Speaking of which,)" she murmured, "(I should have asked Dale to ask John why he hasn't called me.)"

Jamie shoved his sunglasses up, his eyes wide and fearful and darting. "Wait, what? You what?"

"Nothing, dear," Ceri smiled. "Go back to your cyberpunking."

Jamie gave her a long, wary look, like a deer caught in headlights, and then put the shades back down and his fingers back to the keyboard.

"(He's so cute when he's jealous,)" Ceri confided in Pete.

Pete pursed his lips, disapproving. "I am so not down with the Jane magazine mindgames, Missus Mac. And neither should you be."

He then set the bone, a swift movement and sure, just in time for Merick to put that cast in place.

Ceri opened her mouth, closed it again, nodded and frowned. "Right. You're right."

Then she returned her attention to Damian: "Yes. Assuming John was still in the asylum, and assuming Ted-- don't ever call him Theodore! he doesn't let many call him 'Teddy,' and he doesn't even let Yolanda call him 'Theodore,' and she's his goddaughter --came to get him out, they would have been in the same place at the same time and therefore Doctor Tennylson, in finding John, could have found both of them, hence his reference to friends plural. That being the case, John would certainly have wanted to smoke a cigarette to get his head on straight. Based on these numerous assumptions, lacking Dale's eye-witness account, I surmise that that could be what's happened."

Gabe smiled, and put an encouraging hand on Merick's shoulder.

"It's okay," he murmured, "they're coming. 'The rest of the crew.' I'm almost sure of it; they're on their way."

Gabe, in his gentle, boring life, had occasionally had moments in which... in which he felt drawn to a certain place, or at least a certain area. He had felt certainty that he belonged there, that he had to serve a purpose there. He'd chalked it up to intuition, of course, nothing more, but it was that same "certainty" that had caused him to punch out from work early to go see his daughter. (Sure, he'd ended up at the school rather than The Talon, but still he'd been close by enough that it had been less than a ten-minute drive to go get her.)

He felt that certainty now. That belonging.

Maybe he was taking part in madness, maybe he was discovering some sort of secret courage.

But this was where he needed to be, and this was where they needed to be.

"Not long now."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Raya and Lar

A few moments later, Raya Ro-Zan strode through the dust and the broken stone to stand beside her lover, her friend, her former co-mentor. She wore robes of pale colour and golden trim, and she wielded a knife.

Her hood was up, and her pretty face and her cool eyes and her flaxen hair were all in shadow, but she placed a hand on Var-Sen's shoulder, lending him her strength figuratively if not literally.

After that, Lar Gand, called also "M'onel," strode up and stood on Var-Sen's other side, holding his walking-stick like a quarterstaff.

No words were exchanged, only intent, and that intent was clear:

They stood with Var-Sen, no matter what transpired.

Though all Hell should come through this Gateway, they would bar the path.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

"I may have something that can help. I think Mr. Hamilton left that first aid kit back at the cave. I'll go get it. Be back in a few"

I then stepped out the door and into the darker dining room. Shadows swirled and in an instant I was back in the cave.

Where it all started.

The kit was where Rose's dad had left it. I gathered the bits and pieces and closed it up. I stood up, and was once again facing the wall.
The one that wasn't a wall, but a door. A doorway to a alien control room.

I never got a good look in there. Just blasted the bad guy, then got out. Maybe I better give it another look.

I put down the kit, then shifted to my shadowform. The world grayed out, and I walked forward into the wall.

And was thrown back out of the wall to slam into the other wall in solid form.

Damn that hurt!


I picked myself up off the floor and dusted myself off. Must be some kind of energy field surrounding that room. A damn powerful one. OK, no exploring without the key. And Rose had that.

I picked up the kit and shifted myself back to the Wayne mansion. Then made my way back to the others.

"Pete, this will probably have something in it to help Mr. Tennylson."

I then took back up my perch by the sink and tried to look like I hadn't just gotten my ass kicked by a inanimate object.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Odin

"Computer he calls me. Do you think I'm an extra from a old Star Trek episode?? I am a advanced AI that is looking for a alien AI and plan on kicking it's ass once I get my hands on it. (well, if I had hands, but my servers are gonna pound on it's code!)"

Code scrawled across the goggles and over the screen as Jamie teased every bit of power that Odin could pour into the small system that he had before him. What they had here was only a fraction of the power that the AI could bring to bear, and the bulk was searching. A program had been created to search for power spikes, backdoors were cracked open worldwide to see if anyone was looking, and the most unusual member of the Outsiders kept hunting. Lives had been taken by a sentient machine, and it would be another sentient machine that would take the bad guy down!

 

[camerindrake]

Damian

Damian stood up and looked at Ceri at which moment he responded, "I am simply going off of the character profiles i have of both men from my universe. With as much energy he had drained when he came back, I am surmising that things did not go well when he met John. Also you are right for when he said friends, My educated guess was that he saw TED Grant. It would make since."

HE then went back to the red laptop and checking out the network and said, "Odin do you have enought resources left to do the scramble."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Odin & Wraith

"I can do that, but it takes admin clearance to interface with me, & I don't know who you are bub. Ask the blonde, nicely & she may let you play."

I looked over at Damian

"What did you expect? His neural matrix is based on a fifteen year olds brain. Granted, he was a brilliant fifteen year old, but sometimes he acts like a teenager."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick smiled at Gabe Sullivan.

"This is the price. No one gets to play the hero without paying their dues. For what it is worth, it seems that the more emotion I get behind me the stronger this stuff gets. Oh, and Ceri, if I ever get to meet John Constantine, remind me why I shouldn't smack him a right good one. I understand intruding and all, but he could have at least waited for an explaination." Merick worried about Dale. He was pale, almost gaunt really. Like a man that has gone too far.

In the next room, Dale sat, unconcious, yet more conscious than anyone in the house. His mind had been fractured. Painfully. Part of him was trying to reconcile the nightmare figures he had seen, part was trying to reach for the connection to his son which had been torn asunder, and yet another part had refused to let the man in the golden mask go with out a good talking to.

"Listen, Fate, you can't leave us. If you know what those monsters can do, and they are as bad ass as you say, you have to help us. Help us defeat this bastard. Help us protect the world. Otherwise, what is your game?"

"Mr. Tennylson. I have seen all that there is. I have seen all that you have done, all that you will do. Let me explain a bit. You and your world are in a precarious position. Every now and again, Mr. Tennylson, a world is given the opportunity to change the course of the entire multiverse. This is one of those times. If Zod takes control, the evil, the hatred, the horror, of a world under Zod, would grant the Old Ones enough power to awaken Cthulu. If that occurs, then he will flood all the worlds that are, have been, and ever will be. He will devour the worlds too weak to face his threat, and he will enslave those he deams a worthy sacrifice. However, there is magick, magick much older and much stronger than any who now live. This magick holds the Dread Legions from breaking free of their realms. To maintain this magick there must be rules. I, Mr. Tennylson, am an agent of Balance. A servant of the forces of Balance, may not directly interfere. I may not actively defend that which you hold dear. However, I can educate. I can give you the knowledge needed to protect your world." Doctor Fate levitated before Dale. Sitting calmly, cross legged, talking about the end of the world like a man discussing his favorite deli meat.

"Every world must be ready. Every world must have both Hawk and Dove. If a world chooses not to embrace The Hawk, they will not be able to defend their ways, and they will fall. If a world refuses to embrace The Dove, they will destroy themselves. No world can war forever, eventually, they will burn their own worlds like tinder in a flame. This is the fundamental law of all things. I believe, Mr. Tennylson, that your role, your Fate, is to be the force that guides The Dove. You have seen what The Hawk would have. Your Father, Mr. Tennylson, is an aget of The Hawk. He may not know it, but it is his Fate. He will die attempting to wage war. Your son, must be The Dove. He must stop the The Hawk from overtaking the world. Zod, was much like the Hawk in his own world. He brought war, destruction and death everywhere he went. He shall do the same to this world. And there are those that would serve him." Fate took a deep breath.

"You will guide Merick to his destiny. He must stand against your Father. He must not let his goals come to fruition. The time will come. Merick must not join the side of the Hawk. He must stand. You will see me once more Dale Tennylson. I will guide you from this world when the time has come. It is a promise I made. Before that time, you must be strong. You must guide Merick out of the Darkness and into the Light. There shall be much lost before we meet again. Be prepared. Be ready. Now go."

For the second time, Dale was forced from the astral realm. His mind merged once more. The damage he had suffered physically was less of a worry than that which had occurred in his mind.

Softly, Dale began to mumble. "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die." sweat breaks out on his brow as he repeats the phase over and over.

 

[AmenRa]

Ll

Lionel sighed a weary sigh.

Zod was here.

Here.

He shook his head, trying to clear it of cobwebs, and thoughts, and unthinkable things. Things alien, not of this realm, not even sure what realm this realm was realming upon. Earth. Krypton. All the same.

Kara.

Lionel looked to Emil, walking to help the scientist stand rightly, and spoke as he rolled the thumbwheel on his Blackberry.

"There was one," he said, "someone I knew once, not long ago, who would also have the power to stop him." Lionel stopped his thumb, and he looked at the name on the phone's screen. "But I haven't heard from him in some time."

He pressed the "Send" button.

Lionel's Blackberry dialed the number of a cell phone whose owner could not answer.

He called John Smith.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie

"You're no Majel Barret," Jamie nodded to Odin, "and believe it or not I mean that as a compliment. You're more a William Daniels, really."

Earlier that day, a Kryptonian named John Smith had given a business card to the Earthman named James Hamilton.

Jamie had not had opportunity to phone Smith before Smith's untimely departure from this plane, but he still had that number.

(The phone itself lay, somehow undamaged, somehow still functional, in the former battleground near The Kawatche Cave. Its backlight glowed in the darkness as it rang and rang, though no-one had spotted it when it fell and no-one was nearby now to answer it.)

As synchronicity would have it, however, as Jamie had compiled a "watch list" of potential red-herring phone numbers to be inserted into their hacking's diversionary tactics, he had thrown John Smith's number in there. (After all, the poor bloke wasn't using it anymore.) Hence, when John Smith's number received a dial, it sent up a red flag in Jamie's rapid-fire cyberwork and nodal points.

Someone was nibbling on one of their decoy lines.

Jamie frowned, and fired off typed-out commands to Odin to please reroute the signal to such-and-such a number in a roundabout, untraceable fashion. Ceri's phone.

John Smith's phone rang three times.

The fourth time, Ceri McCrimmon's phone rang instead.

Jamie whipped the sunglasses off of his head, tugged Ceri's phone out of his pocket, and answered the call.

"'Ello," he replied, "Smith's not here at the moment, bit of a, erm, pressing engagement. But I could take a message, if you like."

 

[AmenRa]

"'Ello," he replied, "Smith's not here at the moment, bit of a, erm, pressing engagement. But I could take a message, if you like."

"Umm," Lionel frowned, "no, that won't be necessary," he said. He was about to press 'End', but something told him to wait a moment. "Please tell Dr. Smith that Lionel called, and a matter concerning The Traveler has come up."

Luthor didn't wait for an acknowledgement. Whomever had answered Smith's phone no doubt had a certain close relationship with the alien, either professionally or personally. Lionel only hoped the message was relayed in time.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie, Chloe, Gabe, Pete, Ceri, and Bruce

Jamie blinked at the mobile as it dial-toned for a moment and then bleated that the call was ended.

"A very brusque gent," Jamie murmured, "just called asking for John Smith. Said his name was 'Lionel,' and he was calling regarding a matter 'concerning The Traveler.'"

Chloe's face was all but unreadable. "Lionel. Lionel Luthor? The Beast of The Capitalist Apocalypse Lionel Luthor?"

(Gabe winced at that description, as he always did. He wasn't proud of who he worked for, but while he grew up he'd been taught that you did good work wherever God put you. Like Joseph, enslaved in Egypt, doing his very best for Potiphar and impressing everyone before that unfortunate debacle with the man's wife. And then again in prison. In prison, for Pete's sake.

Working making fertiliser for a harbinger of The End Times was par for the course, Gabe had rationalised. Now he wasn't so sure.)

"Didn't say," Jamie murmured, closing the phone but continuing to stare at it, wondering if the aforementioned "Traveler" had also been "Ancient," as in "The Ancient Traveler" described by Edgar Cole. "I'm afraid I've never met the berk. Me brother has. And so, apparently, had John Smith."

Pete, meanwhile, was picking through the vials and things in The First-Aid Kit of Tomorrow, and not finding a single thing he recognised.

"My flippin' kingdom," he pondered, "for a bottle'a aspirin. (I can put in an IV like threadin' a needle, but you give me all this sci-fi crap, I'm Buck Rogers without a gun.)"

As if by way of apology for being sneaky and snarky with James, behaviour of which Pete had not approved, Ceri investigated the injector gun and found that it still had the RL65 vial loaded.

"Here we go," she murmured, "this'll do it. Mended me up good, earlier. But you missed that bit."

"Hadda take a twenty," Pete chuckled faintly, "for a Psychotic Break Check. Wondered how you got your pretty face back."

Ceri arched an eyebrow at him.

"Purely an aesthetic assessment, ma'am," Pete assured her, grinning his infectious grin. "Don't take that the wrong way."

"If you think I'm fit," Ceri chuckled wryly, darkly, shaking her head as she led him down the hall to the sitting room, "you should meet me sister."

It was Pete's turn to arch eyebrows, and he followed her.

Behind them, in the kitchen, Chloe had her head in her hands.

She was... grappling. With life and death and hope and hopelessness.

"Oh, John," she murmured, aching. "Professor Smith. I've failed him. I never even got a chance to look at his damn Tablet, and he was so proud to have unearthed it. God. And now he's gone. He's gone thinking I would do him proud and I've just failed him. I'm just sitting here treading water while the world ends."

She sniffled, and she wiped her nose with her sleeve, and her father placed a wary, consoling hand on her shoulder.

"I should have stayed dead," she whispered, and she almost meant it.

Jamie put a hand on her other shoulder. He looked her square in the eyes.

"He said your name, Chloe," he told her, sternly revelatory.

Chloe sniffled again, and blinked, and looked at him bewilderedly. "Wait, what?"

Jamie smiled a faint little sad little smile. "He said your name, Chloe. Right at the end, right as he fell sideways into an impossible abyss. You were his last word."

Chloe cleared her throat, and shook her head, not knowing whether that knowledge made her want to laugh or cry. "That's--" she started. "That's."

"It seems to me," Jamie murmured, "if someone's the last word on a subject, then that must make them pretty unbeatable, dunnit?"

"That's always been my experience," Gabe affirmed, nodding. (He still wasn't sure what to make of the man in the blue suit and the brown coat, but so long as he did no harm...)

Chloe smiled a quavery smile, and wiped one more tear away.

Then her gaze hardened, her resolve renewed, and she cracked her knuckles, and went right back to the keyboard. "All right. Let's do this. I'ma kick some digital ass."

Bruce gazed at her from afar, and permitted himself a tiny facial expression that was almost a smile. "(That's my girl.)"

Jamie patted Gabe on the shoulder.

"Do me a favour?" he asked softly. "We've crosswired some pretty spiffy hacking gear into these rigs. D'you mind looking up phone records for this John Smith bloke, see how close his contact really was with Luthor?"

Gabe smiled nervously, but nodded gamely. "I'll do my best. Do you really think we'll find anything? After all, The Rich and Powerful Lionel Luthor wouldn't really leave lying around connections to a weird intergalactic conspiracy, would he?"

Jamie smiled that smile again, and revisted Chesterton: "'To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.'"

Gabe nodded as he sat down behind the Gateway, getting to work. "Good point."

Pete and Ceri walked into the sitting room, and found Dale there, out cold and muttering incoherently.

At least it sounded incoherent, at least at first. As Pete took the injector gun from Ceri and was about to zap Dale with a blurt of the stuff, he hesitated and listened for a moment.

"'Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.'"

Rinse and repeat.

"Almost sounds like a language," Pete muttered, "that first part. And then there's funny rhymin'-demon stuff."

He glanced up to find Ceri, very pale, sinking into a seat across from Dr. Tennylson and staring hard at the unconscious vet.

"Ma'am?" he blinked. "Missus Mac?"

Her adventures with her erstwhile husband had been numerous and ludicrous, and while they had begun only in The British Isles, they had eventually ranged about the world. "Strange Aeons" indeed. And always they-- she and James --codenamed these adventures with their locations.

Leeds. Dunoon. Dover. Nanda Parbat.

Rarely did the ludicrous happen in the same place twice.

(Except in London. There was ludicrous to spare in London.)

One adventure had begun at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, and ended in The University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. They had found a book in the Argentine school's Central University Library, but it had been a grimoire not meant to be found. When all had been said and done there had been no trace of the book, vanished away like the fallen House of Usher in a Poe story.

And no-one save James and herself remembered there ever being a Central Library at The University of Buenos Aires. Rose would have called it a "retcon." It wasn't any longer, nor had it ever been.

They had thought the matter resolved.

But the "magic words" Dale was quoting had been a passage in that book.

John, what did you do to him?

Pete frowned. "Missus Mac?"

Ceri shook her head, and smiled a tight little smile.

"It's just a story," she assured him. "An old sad scary story written by a man tortured out of time. I wouldn't waste another thought on it. Ever.

"(Unless you want to take another 'twenty,')" Ceri suggested, her voice low, "(for another one of those 'Psychotic Break Checks?')"

"'Kay," Pete nodded, though still he looked concerned.

He gave Dale a dose of RL65, and sat back to see how it would work.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Once the chemical compound started surging through Dale's system several things happened...

The bones reknit, the swelling decreased, and the pain subsided considerably. And at least one more thing happened. Dale's mind was forced to transition in rapid succession. Pete might describe it as a car with a stick shift attempting to shift incorrectly. Like gears grinding, torqueing and snapping. Dale's mind twisted in a way that was neither natural or understandable.

Dale sat bolt upright, clutching either side of his head above and to the front of his ears. His eyes a solid white, the irises rolled back in his head. One last time he uttered the words he heard on the hill. This time in a voice not his own at all. If Bruce's voice could be called demonic, this was the voice of the devil himself.

Dale collapsed back into his seat and awoke. For a moment confused. "What... how long. How long was I gone?" Dale made pleading eye contact with Ceri and Pete.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri and Pete

It only took a moment.

And then Dale spasmed, rolling eyes and gnashing teeth and sitting up, spine as straight as if someone had lovingly jacked him into a gigawatt-strong electrical source...

And what he said. And how he said it. Set off every single alarm in Ceri's brain.

A voice like something from before The Universe. A voice that knew naught but malevolence.

In an instant she had grabbed the back of Pete's collar, hauled him back out of the way and thrown him unceremoniously into the space behind her. Even as he rolled and corkscrewed in the air before landing in a heap in the loveseat, she slithered one of the nightsticks out from where it had been tucked in his belt and came up with it, underhand, ready to crack Dale across the skull.

Her eyes blazed, her knuckles were white, and if he made one move, one single move towards her or the Ross boy he was going to feel the full worth of her protectiveness right upside his gob.

But then someone cut the current on that electrical source and Dale folded back. Dale slumped and then opened bleary eyes.

"What... how long. How long was I gone?"

Ceri only relaxed ever-so-slightly.

This had been his voice, not the voice of thundering dark, of galloping hooves through eternal night. This had been the voice of Doctor Dale Tennylson.

But she had not forgotten that other voice so easily.

"Only a few minutes," she confided, lowering the truncheon but keeping her grip on it tight. "What do you remember?"

Behind her, strewn on the loveseat, feeling more than a little embarrassed, Pete picked himself up and dusted himself off.

"All in all, 'tween gettin' chucked 'cross the room by somebody's mom," he murmured, "and smackin' my head on the frame of this old-ass furniture, I think maybe I'd've rather faced the demon-voiced dude."