The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[Lunaramblings]

Dale looked at Pete with a puzzled expression.

"Well, I remember locking on to your friend's aura. Finding him, which, I must say was easier than usual. Then I watched this older guy demolish an entire facility worth of armed guards, and then, your friend did something. Something I have never felt before. With a few words and a gesture he sent me away... I tore clean off my tether. What I saw then you wouldn't believe, Hell, even after all of this, I don't believe it. But I saw it. Beings. Beings made of less than this seat, yet more than this entire universe. Beings so perverse they made me wish for death, yet wish for death never to come so I might gave a bit longer." Dale looked a bit dreamy for a second before he coughed and shook his head. "Then this guy, Doctor Fate, he was called, arrived. He brought me to meet my son, the one I thought I lost a decade ago. I met my son. I wanted to take him, but I was told he had to stay where he was. Then this Doctor Fate, He told me something... Something important. And now it is clear what I have to do. Too clear. Blazingly clear. I will not fail my son. I failed Tommy but I will not let that happen with Merick. Dale had a slightly frenzied look about him as he spoke. Like a man in trouble.

"I need water. I'm thirsty. So... thirsty... And I need something else." Dale looked longingly out the window.

 

[AmenRa]

The BRAIN InterActive Construct shadowed the LuthorCorp jet, but not in the way an Air Force Stealth fighter pilot might. The BRAINIAC watched the jet from cyberspace, jumping from satellite to satellite, comm tower to comm tower, its collective artificial consciousness seeing and knowing every turn that Lex Luthor's airplane made.

It wasn't long before the AI assumed its artificial human form and flew to the jet. It attached itself neatly and quietly to the underside of the fuselage, near the avionics access port. It then sent out a pulse of signals, melding with the plane's computerized avionics system. Now the BRAINIAC would be able to tag along on this journey, and it would be able to relay its every move back to its master.

After all, the BRAINIAC knew that Lex Luthor intended to unearth the third and final piece of the Crystal of Knowledge.

And Zod, the BRAINIAC's master, wanted this Crystal.

And Zod would not be denied.

 

[AmenRa]

In the Zone....

Var-Sen felt Raya's touch on his shoulder. In this harsh world, her touch was soothing and comforting. He felt her strength, and he felt her compassion. He reached up and placed his hand over hers, and then nodded to Lar.

He stared quietly for a while before he spoke.

"Earth is too small," he said to them, "for beings such as us. It is a quiet, small little world. It has problems, and wars, and all the things that Krypton once had. It now also has Zor-El's daughter, and the green-skinned J'onn J'onzz, and other beings whose powers I have seen to protect it.

"It is no place for us," he told them. "Should Kara Zor-El open the Gateway, we should only return to Earth for a short time. Only long enough to say goodbye. Then we should find a world we can call our own. A place we can start anew. A place where we can live without fear or where we will be feared. A place where our children can grow strong and happy."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Odin

"Sure thing Doctor, I'll have the phone records of that cell in a jiffy. Unfortunately, I can't give you the Luthors. I have a level one block on messing with them."
Data continued to flow across all three computers. Firewalls were extinguished, security measures swept aside as the AI continued to hunt down it's prey.

"CONTACT!!! I got a signal, but it's weird. He's hitting FAA satellites. Looks like he's tracking a plane. I'll start crunching numbers and see if i can extrapolate a possible heading."

 

[camerindrake]

Damian

Damian looks up from his machine and responds almost coldly, "Also get a from location if you can, Doctor, We need to find who is on that aircraft that would have BRANIAC on it."

He then looks over to Chloe and says, "Ms Sullivan, take a look at this and then get ODIN on the scramble, if you would. We are going to need it we want to not loose home base when we get out there."

Damian gets up taking the second cowl, the one he had not been wearing and starts to dismantle one of the ears on it smoothing over the places where the ear connected to the graphite mixture. the other ear he looked at how it had the receiver interconnected to the cowl. He knew he didn't have the time to lay it and have the graphite have time to set and harden over it. He would have to give it to father as is it would seam.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri and Pete

Ceri's grip on the nightstick never lessened while Dale told his tale.

She wasn't surprised that John had been easy to find. His aura had always burned a little hotter than most, if not necessarily brighter. And that John had somehow kicked Dale's astral arse was not surprising either. John's little tricks were subtle, underhanded, but they were often astonishingly effective.

John fought dirty, and John fought hard.

Ceri was also not surprised to hear that Teddy had laid waste to so many men. There was a reason "Wildcat" Grant and his luchador-inspired getup were considered legendary both inside and outside the ring.

She had no idea who this 'Doctor Fate' bloke was, if he was even real.

But the way Dale had spoken before he'd woken, he had definitely contacted something that walked beyond the far shores of Night. Something deeper than the darkest reaches of normal human imagination.

And Ceri did not know how to fight that.

She'd be surprised if anything could.

Pete, rubbing the back of his head, seemed first and foremost, God bless him, concerned with the well-being of Dale. He seemed nervous at the crazy, sure, but a little thing like crazy shouldn't get in the way of a patient getting the help they needed.

"What did you need," he gently prompted, "Dr. T? I can get you somethin' cold to imbibe. But what was the else?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Raya and Lar

"Do you think she will come with us?" Raya wondered. "Does she think of herself more human than Kryptonian? She may want to stay with that which she knows, rather than this mystery place to which we seek to abscond."

Lar smiled a tiny little smile.

"It doesn't have to be such a mystery, you know," he murmured. "I mean, I'm dead two minutes after I step out that door. But you guys can go to my homeworld, if you want. My dad's kind of a big shot. You go to Daxam, you ask for Eltro Gand, you tell him Lar sent you. They'll make you feel right at home."

He smiled sadly.

"Even if you don't go to stay," he murmured. "Could you take my body home with you? I'd like to sleep in my own soil, if I've got to sleep."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Dale continued to stare out, the kind of stare POWs and veterans often had.

'I once swore I would never do it. That there was no purpose on Earth, no meaning. Nothing that could make me do that again. I was wrong. Things have changed. And now, I will do what I have to. No matter what it costs. If it costs me my very soul."

Dale moved to just an inch from Ceri's ear. "That which I have dreaded will come to be. Marcy and Merick are going to need the strength to walk through the flames. I only hope I don't fail.

Dale stepped by Ceri, not waiting for a reply. He entered the kitchen, and stood by his son. He picked up one of the kevlar vests and strapped it on. He then picked up one of the shotguns and loaded it. Dale was ready for war.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie and Chloe

"Quite all right," Jamie murmured, sitting back down behind the black keyboard and slithering the sunglasses back on to his face, a lackadaisical little grin on his lips, "that you can't give me The Luthors. But it won't hurt any Level One blocks if you look at their phone numbers, will it?"

Jamie frowned, though, when he saw that BRAINIAC was, as Odin had suggested, centering himself on one particular aircraft.

"That's not going anywhere near space," he murmured. "Not anywhere near. Where are you going, you oily little ubermechanoid?"

A second window snapped open, yanked from one of those FAA satellites, a list of filed flight plans in the last little while, rapidly narrowing down to ones matching that plane's callsign.

One. From Metro International. To Pudong International.

LuthorCorp private jet.

"Yeah, no," he killed the search quickly, apologising to Odin. "Sorry. Sorry. Didn't realise that was a Luthor thing. You all right?"

Without taking the sunglasses off, without quite glancing at Damian, he divulged: "From is Metropolis. To is Shanghai."

He grinned a little grin. "(Tol'yez I was good. And Odin, you do not disappoint.)"

He did, however, arch an eyebrow over the left lens of the sunglasses, again regarding Damian.

"What did you want this scramble to do again?"

Chloe rose from behind the green laptop, smoothing out her shirt a little bit and moving closer to Damian, eying the insanely gorgeous tech he'd gotten squirreled away inside that mask.

She whistled softly.

"What did you want me to look at?" she wondered. "Not that this isn't pretty, and all."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri, Pete, and Bruce

She had heard the weird kind of whispering crazy in Dale's voice in other voices before.

Vic Sage, for one. That boy's brain had become nothing but a mix of Zen aphorisms and both-wing conspiracies.

An extremely thorough version of post-traumatic stress disorder. With that haunting kernel of Truth.

And it chilled her to the bone.

Dale slithered past her and left her in the dust, and she stood there staring to nowhere for a moment, very much like James.

"Off the deep end?" Pete wondered, gazing after Dale.

Ceri tossed the nightstick back to Pete, and he caught it nigh-effortlessly, snatched it from the air.

"Not as much as I'd like," Ceri murmured.

He picked up one of the kevlar vests and strapped it on. He then picked up one of the shotguns and loaded it. Dale was ready for war.

Bruce arched an eyebrow.

"You need a hand with that," he wondered, oozing caution and disdain for the weapon, "sir?"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Odin

"He wants me to do something I did before I poured my shell into tehse computers we have her. I encrypted this with 512 key encryption and have it bouncing over worldwide sites and changing the encryptiuon with everu bounce. He might be able to break it, but he's the only thing on the planet that can. And i can hack any computer on the planet, but I am instructed to leave sites under the Luthor's control alone. Mom told me she doesn't trust them not to do something bad if I hacked them off, so I let them be. Along with Quinn Enterprises, but thats out of respect. People fear the Luthors, but they rarely respect them"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

I watched the others silently from my pearch beside the sink.

Rose's dad was in his own world, riding the electronic waves with Odin and Chloe. Mrs. mcCrimmon had left with pete for a few minutes to take care of Mericks dad, but they were all back now and loaded for bear.

"We're ready." I murmured to myself, watching the team prepare for battle.

 

[camerindrake]

Damian Looks at Chloe for a moment then responds, "As ODIN said, I want you to look over the communications grid I just put together, then have you authorize ODIN to place them in his scramble so that they cannot be traced by anyone but us who have access to the network. Two IDs are already input into the banks. These two cowls." After saying those words he says after a pause, "Bruce, catch." at which point he tosses the cowl with one ear still on it to Bruce.

At such point he continues, "Once everyone is here, We need head sets for communication purposes, and they need to be placed on that radio network. I mean everyone. I know it sounds like a command, I don't mean for it to be, but everyone that is involved in this mission needs to have radio contact with everyone else. That is how my fa..... predecessor ran it. It always ran well unless K or H went radio silent. God help us if one of us do that on this mission."

After another pause he shifts over to Bruce, "On the left side of the cowl behind the eye you will find three concealed buttons the top one turns on and off the radio in case you need radio silence later. The second is the visual display readout. First setting which it is on now is standard. Second is night vision display. Which is a green and black. Third is thermo imaging display. if it gives off heat you will see it even through most walls. The third button activates your breathing apporatice. Basicly a high tech gasmask."

He then looks at Chloe and says to her pointing to the display readout of the communication network, "His cowl is shown in the blue, mine in the black. Our display have this icon you click it you get our life signs. If i could have had the time and the recourses I could have set up domino masks for everyone and you could have the lifesign readouts for everyone. That being said when i boomtubed in I wasn't expecting a fledgling Titan initiative to be starting."

 

[AmenRa]

J'onn J'onzz settled quietly down upon the lawn of Wayne Manor. His cape swirled about him for an instant, and then he strode quickly and fluidly to the large front door.

To look at J'onn, one would not think that a creature of such muscled mass could move with fluidity and grace. Those that thought this had never seen the Dance of Sands, either.

The Martian Manhunter stood before Bruce's door. Instead of knocking, however, he focused his psyche on the bright light of Chloe Sullivan's mind.

We have arrived.

 

[AmenRa]

"Do you think she will come with us?" Raya wondered. "Does she think of herself more human than Kryptonian? She may want to stay with that which she knows, rather than this mystery place to which we seek to abscond."

Lar smiled a tiny little smile.

"It doesn't have to be such a mystery, you know," he murmured. "I mean, I'm dead two minutes after I step out that door. But you guys can go to my homeworld, if you want. My dad's kind of a big shot. You go to Daxam, you ask for Eltro Gand, you tell him Lar sent you. They'll make you feel right at home."

He smiled sadly.

"Even if you don't go to stay," he murmured. "Could you take my body home with you? I'd like to sleep in my own soil, if I've got to sleep."

Not taking his eyes off the swirling blackness of an approaching dust storm, Var-Sen answered Raya.

"She will stay," he told her, "for it is her destiny. She will bring peace where there is fighting, trust where there is deceit, courage where there is strength. But most of all, Raya, she will bring hope to all mankind. She will become the symbol of her namesake for a people whose world has adopted her.

And to Lar, his voice was serious. "The Gateway has not opened yet, my friend. Have faith. There are sciences greater than even ours to be held."

"Althought we do indeed seem to be stuck in this place. And it is said that none save for those carrying the blood of the House of El can activate the Gateway on this side," he continued, "and yet the last surviving of that line is about to face her destiny on that small world of Earth.

"But," he finished, "the House of El had others. There was a great statesman and advisor, a Council Elder for the magnificent Argo City, and he shared the name with Zor-El. I speak of Zor-El's brother, Jor-El. His wife was Lara, and they had a boy child, but this child's name escapes me."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Dale nodded to Bruce, "I think I got it son." It was subtle, but Merick sensed it. Dale's voice was just a little too harsh, a little too deep. Merick looked at his father. The look in his eyes was all wrong. He looked like a different man. This was not the man Merick had always called Dad.

"Dad, you okay... you look... tired. We can handle this. Go rest, you have done your part."

"Son, I have more to do. So much more. I am fine. Lets do this. Lets ravage this bastard. He must be stopped. There is no other option. And we all have to do it. Son, this is destiny." Dale's eyes were a bit wild. Not the controlled focus he had shown earlier. He was more feral. More Dangerous.

 

[Lunaramblings]

As Edmund was riding in the back of his car his mind was wandering.

Twenty years. Twenty long years since me and Dale went our seperate ways. If it hadn't been for that job in Opal City everythin woulda been right as rain. Damn hooker and her kid.

Been a lot of blood spilt since then. Mine and theirs.

Edmund closed his eyes and thought about the hits he had taken. The men and women he had killed. He thought about the people he had dealt with. He had made a lot of enemies. Course, when you are considered the best killer in the country, enemies tend to keep to themselves.

I can count on one hand the number of men I truly respect. There is that Lt. from the Gotham PD. Tough SOB. Nearly had to kill him to get the witness he was working to protect last year. Gordon I think it was. Then there's Old Solly. Only man I ever seen that I don't believe I could kill without seriously breaking a sweat. Course, it aint easy ta kill what aint truly alive is it? And then there's Dale. Sweet, foolhardy Dale. I remember when he told me he had changed. He had met a girl. They were getting serious. He couldn't keep taking the jobs. Course, Dale dont realize it, but killin aint like a habit you can break. Its in yer blood. And no matter how much a bleedin heart ya have, ya caint never really get it out once ya let it in. Dale will come back to the fold. He's taken that first step already. He wants to feel the adrenaline pump. The feel of a cool piece of hardware in his hands as he lines it up. The sense of success when the shot stays true. Killin aint fun. It aint sport. Its a way of life. THE way of life. People like us, we aint no worse than a bird of prey, or a lion in the jungle. We kill because we know we have to. The wind blows cause it dont know no other way. Humans kill, maim and destroy cause we dont know no other way. That simple. But, I will say, this was all easier when I was younger. The serum helps. You can bet on that, but it only slows the inevitable. No one lives for ever. And when you start dropping rungs on the food chain, you get eatten up. Sooner or later I won't be able to do the things I do now and take for granted. When that day comes, I will have a replacement. Whether it be Dale or Merick. I will have my progeny.

"We have arrived at your location Mr. Tennylson. Would you like help with the bags sir?

"No need son. I may be old but I can handle the few bags I have with me. This stuff here is precious cargo after all." Edmund gets out and takes his box for Merick. He also gathers the two bags from the trunk. The most important piece will arrive in the morning, he reminds himself, Wintergreen should have it all ready by then.

 

[Wyldfire]

As the rest in her company began to move Diana followed Kara. She was full of an energy she hadn't known possible even for a Themysciran. She was amazed that even with that energy she had to strain to keep up with Kara. She had no time for words, but her thoughts raced.

She had been taught that the world of Man was different but now, in the prescence of one of the Gods, she had doubts about this. Maybe this was the true reason her mother had sent her here.

As the party began to slow she wondered what might lay ahead and what would she, a princess of Themyscira, would be able to do in a battle of the Gods? But she did hope that mayhaps she would be able to aid in bring Aries' plans, whatever they might be, to an end to strike a blow for the Amazons.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Lex and The Countess

Within Lex's jet, the man himself was having a rather invigourating conversation with the delectably curvy older brunette who had insinuated herself into his flight staff. He knew she didn't belong.

But there was something dangerous about her. Something so very dangerous. It was mesmerising to him, and enticing.

He hadn't encountered this manner of danger since his raucous club days. Not since Club Zero.

They were laughing, and they were seemingly intoxicated with each other, though he hadn't been drinking anything but water for some time and she hadn't had a drop of anything.

But then she trailed off in the middle of a musical, bell-like laugh, and she glanced frowningly towards the floor of the plane.

"Is something the matter?" Lex asked, eyes archly widened, pondering her.

"You'll probably laugh to hear it," she replied, her voice low with concentration and consternation. "But I've always had a keen sense of the... unnatural. And just now, I felt the most curious sensation. I just felt something unnatural."

"Don't discount my ability to believe," Lex warned her, a vague little smile on his lips. "A businessman must learn to trust equal parts in logic and intuition. So maybe you're a little more intuitive than logical?"

"That's one way of putting it, yes," The Countess replied, giving Lex a smile that was equal parts impressed and enchanted.

"So what have you intuited?" Lex wondered, indicating the floor of the plane. "Anything I should be concerned about?"

The Countess seemed to consider this for a moment. "No. No, it's probably nothing. And if it is... something? Well, it's nothing we can't handle, I'm sure."

Lex smirked faintly. "We." He liked that.

"I'm sure," he agreed.

They sat in silence for a moment.

Lex gazed at her firmly, and then murmured: "Your sense," he wondered, "of the 'unnatural.' I can't help but be curious. How... 'unnatural'... do I seem to you?"

He seemed to indicate, without indicating at all, his baldness, his lack of hair, his meteor-freakishness.

She only smiled.

"Why, Lex," she replied, her voice mellifluous and melodious, "not unnatural at all. You are quite possibly the most natural being I've ever encountered."

Lex grinned at her, and leaned back in his chair.

There was something not quite right about this woman. And at the same time, she was perfect.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose hung back.

She watched J'onn depart at his amazing speed, and beautiful beautiful Kara shortly thereafter, and Kara's beautiful beautiful friend.

But Rose hung back.

She wouldn't be able to move as fast as the others anyway, really, not even at her maximum speed. And so she lingered, just for a moment.

And then she lifted off, she levitated, and she flew out into the dark night of The Kents' barnyard.

She gazed at the lights of the house, and at the warmth of the people she knew lived within. She smiled softly, and sadly.

She lacked J'onn's telepathy, did Rose Mary McCrimmon, but she, too, wanted to thank them somehow. Mr. and Mrs. K.

Thank them for their daughter. The daughter of a dead world, who now belonged, in a very real sense, to the entire human world.

Kara wasn't just The Last Daughter of Krypton anymore. At the same time, she was The First Daughter of Earth.

Rose didn't know what to say.

And so, without words, without human speech, she carved an emblem out of ice and spread it upon the surface of The Kents' barnyard.

She made The Symbol of Hope, The Symbol of The House of El, into a thin layer of ice and placed it, with pulsing blue-white lightning, on The Kent's yard. (Her own answer to a crop circle, really.)

It would be melted by morning, even in the autumn night.

But it thanked them. It thanked them for Hope.

And Rose flew off, only lighting up her fiery afterburners after she was sure she was far enough from The Kents' to not draw attention.

She flew back to Bruce Wayne's house as fast as she superhumanly could.

 

[ChasNicollette]

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

A little bit huddled, a little bit chagrined, Pete Ross and Ceri McCrimmon returned to the kitchen.

Pete fetched a tumbler from one of Bruce's cupboards, and while Bruce expressed vague annoyance at Pete's familiarity with his kitchen, he did not deny the man access.

Pete filled the tumbler from the faucet-- nodding respectfully to the Wraith by the sink as he did so --and brought it to the seething, darksome man that had once been the local vet.

"Sir," he murmured, gently, "y'said you were thirsty. Here."

Sunglasses pushed up upon his forehead, Jamie arched an eyebrow at Ceri, silently asking her if she was okay.

She offered him a wan little thin little smile. M'fine. I'll do.

If you say so, he seemed to reply.

All this talk of communications devices had gotten Gabe wondering.

He hadn't been able, unfortunately, thanks to Odin's defensive block against The Luthors, to really discern how many calls of the ones to John Smith's cell number had actually been from numbers belonging to LuthorCorp.

And so, with a strange sort of feeling in his stomach, in his chest-- is this courage? is it madness? is it both? how does a man tell if he is brave or simply mad? --he decided to bite the proverbial bullet.

He took up his cellphone and dialed the last number that had called John Smith, using both this Alienware's wi-fi interface and one of Doctor Hamilton's masking programs to piggyback the number as if it were John Smith himself calling back. (Hamilton's little hacker tricks were frighteningly user-friendly.)

He put the phone to his ear. And waited to speak with the man who, really, could make him or break him with aught but a word. Gabriel Sullivan waited as the phone rang to speak to Lionel Luthor.

He trembled a little, but his face was grim.

Bruce eyed the cowl for a moment, and then pulled it on, digesting Damian's little rundown on the thing's capabilities. He blinked and he shook his head, amazed at what he saw.

He clicked through the various options, and then moved to take the mask off...

...but his hands stopped almost involuntarily. It was comfortable. It wasn't... custom? He could tell by the feel of it that it hadn't been made for him. Ostensibly, it had been made for Damian, and their faces were eerily similar. But not identical.

It felt right.

Just as The Voice had felt right.

It was a False Face. And yet? It was the realest face he had ever worn. It was like looking in the mirror and seeing a stranger and realising that this was what he really looked like.

He lowered his hands. He left the mask on.

"Thank you," he growled to Damian, not ungratefully.

He paused, though. "If this is from the future, though," he wondered. "Should I even be looking at this? I don't want to. Contaminate the timestream, or however it's supposed to work. I've got a pretty good memory, almost photographic. What if I remember some schemata that changes the history of microprocessor R&D, or what-have-you?"

He grunted. "(Been dealing with time travel for all of thirty seconds,)" he harrumphed to himself, "(and already I know I hate it.)"

"Time travel?" Jamie pondered, blithely, a knowing little look on his face. "There are worse things."

But then he, too, glanced at Damian.

"I'm not sure," he mused, "exactly, what Dale's bestowed upon us with his interesting boxes all tied up with string, but unless he's got an inordinately secure set of Bluetooth headsets in there, we may not have the communications devices you're requiring of us. But there may be a solution. The Martian's already demonstrated that he can connect two minds, maybe he can connect more. A telepathic link, eh?"

He grinned delightedly. "What better field coordination than a fellow who can sort us at the speed of thought?"

Having retaken her seat, Chloe furiously typed commands to Odin to permit the scramble program, allow Damian enough access, at least-- if not full-fledged administrative access --to insert his data-scatter protocols and cover their tracks.

She glanced, fascinated, at those two icons on her screen.

As Damian suggested, she had a gander at their life signs.

Both of them were calm. Impossibly calm. Pulse, BPM, neurokinetics, all of them perfectly normal, in fact, if she wasn't looking at both Damian and Bruce and seeing them standing, she might think they were so calm as to be unconscious.

How could anyone be on such an even keel, she wondered, incredulous, keeping her thoughts to herself, at a time like this?

She shook her head.

Maybe their life-signs monitors need calibrating, she decided.

(Or maybe,) she found herself hauntingly contemplating, (Bruce and his mystery date are quite possibly the baddest-ass men this world has ever seen. That kind of scares me a little.)

But there, as she was keeping her thoughts to herself, she found herself experiencing thoughts utterly not her own.

The Martian.

'We have arrived.'

Chloe rose from her seat, and she smiled quietly at Jamie Hamilton.

"You can confirm your theory," she suggested, "by asking the man himself. They're here."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Alfred

Waiting there on the front porch in the full moon light, Alfred found himself with a few minutes to contemplate.

He couldn't help think of dire circumstances, and young children ill-prepared.

He himself had had an interesting childhood, what with the apprenticeship in America with the eccentric Mr. Dodds and the inimitable Humphries.

Mr. Dodds had been fond of quoting songs and poetry, often having to do with the lamentable truths of War, and Alfred remembered one of these now.

'The minstrel boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you'll find him,
His father's sword he has girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.
"Land of song!" said the warrior bard,
"Though all the world betrays thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee!"

The minstrel fell! -- but the foeman's chain
Could not bring his proud soul under;
The harp he loved ne'er spoke again,
For he tore its chords asunder;
And said, "No chains shall sully thee,
Thou soul of love and bravery!
Thy songs were made for the pure and free,
They shall never sound in slavery!"'

...and on that defiant note, all opposed to tyranny, Alfred glanced up and saw The Martian descend.

It was almost fateful, if Alfred had tended to a fatalistic perspective.

He banished such concerns, at least for now, and as The Martian seemed to hesitate by the great wide door, Alfred strolled up to him.

"Have you brought them, sa'?" he murmured. "This 'Last Scion of Krypton?' Only I've got something they might want to wear. For protection, you see, against these magic poison stones of which I've been told, and protection against the prying of eyes."

 

[AmenRa]

The Martian Manhunter turned to look down upon Alfred Pennyworth.

"Yes," he told the gentleman's gentleman, "the Last Daughter of Krypton comes this way. And we will be eager to hear your words."

 

[AmenRa]

Lionel

His Blackberry chirped.

He picked the phone up from the desk, turned it over to view the screen, and he saw the number that was calling him.

Was John Smith calling him back?

He put the phone to his ear as he touched a button that opened the line.

"Lionel Luthor," he said into the cell phone.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Gabe

"Lionel Luthor," Gabe heard from his phone, and he took a deep breath.

"It's Gabriel Sullivan, sir," he replied, "good evening. You might not remember me, I'm the manager for Plant Number Three, here in Smallville?"

He hesitated, licked his lips, and wished for a moment that he had himself one of those glasses of water Pete was bringing Dale Tennylson. His mouth was terribly dry.

"I wanted to ask you," he managed to eke out without his voice cracking or squeaking, "about The Traveler."