The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose was staring in her seat, gazing out through the window in a kind of wonder.

She'd flown. (She loved to fly, even though every second she was airborne she was still scared to Death of falling.) But she'd never flown this high before, and there was no way in an infinite number of Hells she could ever fly this fast.

Rose was struggling to stay focused on the task at hand, but there was so much cloud out there. Rose could manipulate water molecules; that was how she could shape ice, by applying her cold energies to water she'd assembled to the purpose. She wondered if she could manipulate clouds, which were, after all, big massive bundles of moisture...

At the same time, she was plumbing the depths of her brain. She spoke a few sentences in Mandarin, stuff she and her dad had memorised together the summer before last when she had gotten him hooked on her beloved DVD box-set of "Firefly." But the trouble with the Mandarin from "Firefly" was that not all of it was properly pronounced and most of it was pretty vulgar. Still, it couldn't all be useless... there was all that stuff she'd been able to glean from The Web...

"'Shen2sheng4 de5,'" she mumbled under her breath, talking to herself. "Means 'sacred.' And 'di4fang1' means 'place.' So 'shen2sheng4 de5 di4fang1' must mean 'sacred place.' Maybe that'll get us to the temple? (God, I'm so out of my depth. I should have gotten language tapes.)"

Rose looked up, though, glanced across the aisle at Kara, as she suggested-- evocative of that Five For Fighting song about Warrior Angel --that human flight wasn't something that belonged in the real world.

At first, Rose felt like she should beg to differ. Because her flying was one of the only good things to happen to her out of all of this. But then again...

"My Uncle Emil told me once that God hasn't given us wings because we haven't earned them yet," Rose mumbled, soft as could be. "That someday, every man woman and child on the face of this Earth will be able to touch the stars. But not yet. Not Now. Because we're not ready yet."

Rose trailed off a little bit, somehow grew even quieter still. "...then he smiled that way he does, and it seemed like he felt like he knew something God didn't. My uncle's kind of strange."

"I spy with my little eye... something white," Kara said with a smile as she continued to stare out the window.

That wide wide sea of clouds.

But then again, The Future wasn't written yet. No matter what Uncle Emil thought.

The Future was a clean slate, waiting to be shaped. The Future was white and clean and ready to be made.

Rose glanced back out her window, and smiled softly, her finger tracing an optical halo shape formed by one of the clouds' reflecting and refracting the light of The Moon.

"Cirrostratus," she decided.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick sat eating his Pollo y Tomatillo while he listened to Chloe explain their current situation. He finished the mound of food he had prepared.

"For safety, maybe you can see if you guys can pull up any satellite maps of the area. You know, in case we need to make an emergency extraction. You know, go all Delta Force on someones ass." Merick finishes the last swig of a YooHoo. "Chuck Norris wouldn't let a little thing like sleep, fatigue, and threat of unfinished homework slow him down. I intend to follow that lead." Merick grinned at Chloe. "Besides, it's like those creepy vultures from the Jungle Book said... a friend in need is a friend indeed." Merick tucks his hat down over his face a bit. Still grinning.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Taking Merick's suggestion under advisement, Chloe typed a request for Odin to maybe track the jet with satellite cameras rather than just tracking map co-ordinates using the plane's IFF transponder. And as she typed, she talked.

"'There is no theory of evolution,'" she murmured. "'just a list of animals that Chuck Norris allows to live.'"

She smiled absently. "I prefer the vultures from 'Ice Age 2.' Lovelier singing voices."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick chuckled a bit.

Either I am losing it, or sometimes you just NEED to laugh.

"Well if you want to go all Ice Age 2 on me then you know my man Scrat has the mad skillz." Merick grinned at Chloe.

"Ok, so, what have we in field resources? Kyle is screwed up... Dad, well, Dad, I love you, but your done for tonight... So, that leaves me, Pete, Bruce, Gothy, Greenbean, and Ms. MacCee. My kingdom for a wheelbarrow and a Holocaust cloak." Merick pondered as he started to chew on a slightly cold chimichanga.

 

[AmenRa]

J'onn J'onzz listened to Watchtower's report.

The Daughter of Zor-El had joined with....Rose, the Keeper of ColdFire, and they were aided by an Amazonian princess from a fabled land.

But, the Martian Manhunter knew, there were other, darker forces at work.

"I am sure they are flying into danger," he said, his brows coming together and his eyes flashing red even in his human form, "for even as we speak, the dark forces of General Zod are preparing for an attack. Zod was beaten when we last met him, but he will return to exact vengeance."

 

[AmenRa]

Even as the Martian Manhunter was speaking of him, Zod was indeed repairing and preparing.

He floated with his arms outstretched some seven miles above the artic white of the North Pole, the rays of Sol blaring down upon him through unfiltered blue.

The yellow sun returned his strength and repaired his broken body.

Much the way the healing power of space and the Red Planet had done to J'onn J'onzz.

And once he was healed, Zod turned West towards the Pacific Ocean and the Far Eastern shores of the largest Asian country.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ted and John

John sat on a stony hillside, a cliffside in view of the mysterious temple, but far enough away so as to not accidentally garner the wrath of that temple's god.

Smoke curled up from John's cigarette, wreathing his head before filtering its way up into the sky. John was fully dressed now, in shirt and tie and trousers and shoes... and Macintosh. His hand had been healed already. Quick stop along the way, bookshop near King's Cross.

Ted stood beside him, bewildered. "I don't suppose you're lookin' ta explain how we got from the damn Sceptered Isle ta the damn Orient in the time it takes me ta knock out a glass-jawed featherweight?"

"Sometimes," John pontificated, his voice sounding a bit brittle, "synchronicity moves in particles. And sometimes it moves in waves."

Ted stared at him, then sat down beside him on the rock John had selected. "For a second there, I almost thought that made sense. (But, comin' from you, guess I should know better by now.)"

John gestured dismissively. "I know this bloke Pharamond. Oversees Transportation. Owes me a few favours. Beside the point."

"I'm almost afraid t' ask," Ted drawled, "what 'the point' is."

John took a drag on his Silk Cut and stared out to The East. "She's coming, Teddy. I woke 'er up early, because I thought if I woke 'er up I could beat the prophecies by destroying the book and thereby save the bleedin' world. Well, save the world or take The Stones for meself, whichever, I would've crossed that bridge when I came to it. But I did it wrong because I was a young inexperienced wanker and now she's internalised the magic of her book, and she's consumed the energies of her two little covenlings, and she went back to sleep inside the hollowed-out soul of her descendant. And the prophecy just keeps on ticking along."

Ted just stared at him. "She's comin'."

"Mm," John murmured. "And she's not the only one."

Ted harrumphed, and looked away.

"Shoulda known better," he mumbled grumpily. "Not a lick of damn sense."

 

[camerindrake]

Damian

Damian finally stood up and looked to Bruce and then to Alfred.*

"Bruce, in the universe I am from you were a good man. Strong and Sure on your path. Justice was your calling in that reality." He said contemplating a question he would have wanted to know the answer to himself given the same situation. He then continued by saying, "I give you this equipment because you desided to act. I am not going to influence the decissions you make. To do so would undermind the concept of free will. Each reality is to flow independantly. If i were to say you chose to be a crimelord on a particular Earch. And you thought the best choice to get to the underworld were to be a part of it at the time. Would I have been a factor in such a decission?" He shook his head and finished, "That i will not do. However I will say this, I will be damned if I don't do what is in my power to make sure that you well equiped and trained when you go on the streets now that decission is made. That is if you are willing to accept the help."

He then began to walk away towards the front door to get some air. "And my help doesn't have a hidden price tag." As he walked by Alfred he simply nods and greets him with the words, "White Knight."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe, Gabe, Pete, Ceri, and Jamie

"First of all," Chloe began, her fingers pausing on the keys, as her eyes slid over to Merick, lids halfway down, "I'll see your crazed hungry squirrel and raise you a wooly mammoth voiced by Queen Latifah. Second of all, it's not entirely inconceivable that you might be done for tonight, too. I know how it feels when that third or fourth wind wears off and when you crash, Launchpad, you're going to crash hard. Third of all, today I was 'mostly dead' for awhile and I gotta tell you? Re-entry's a bitch. So nobody else is getting killed tonight, thanks."

Gabe stared at his daughter with muted horror, there it was again: that thing they weren't talking about. The lunatic crimefighter had found evidence of a death and yet Chloe was walking and talking. But he didn't say a word.

Chloe glanced up at her best friend. "Pete? How you holding up?"

Pete unzipped his jacket and chewed on the chicken enchilada, shaking his head. "Unless they hook me up to a battery an' gimme a jump, my fifth wind's about to--"

"--peter out?" Chloe grinned and winked.

Pete arched an eyebrow. "Woman, you know I love you. But that's one. You get two more before the black flag waves."

"Bruce is conferring with 'Gothy,' I guess?" Chloe mused, though her eyes were still dancing delightedly at her own little poking of fun. "Unless 'Gothy' is Kyle rather than Damian-- because honestly, the name could apply to either --in which case it looks to me like Kyle could use a couple weeks' sleep and a truckload of icepacks."

"I know how he feels, I'm afraid," "Mrs. MacCee" acknowledged ruefully. "Now that the adrenaline's fading I'm remembering that I am quite too ould for all of this."

"Forty winks, then?" Jamie grinned at her softly. "Forty winks and a fistful of ibuprofen? That always used to do it for you, back when."

"Might need two fistfuls," Ceri confessed. "And possibly eighty winks."

Her voice grew quieter, and she confessed something else, too: "And someone to watch me while I sleep."

Jamie nodded quietly, his eyes inscrutable yet soft. "Can be arranged."

Chloe paused and regarded John Jones with quiet eyes. "Do Martians sleep? (Do they dream of electric sheep?) How're you holding up? Could you go to The Team's aid if they needed you? I mean, by the sound of your assessment of the sitch, they well and truly might need you."

 

[AmenRa]

The Martian Manhunter listened to the exchange between the others, then he heard Chloe's question.

In his human form, John Jones had quiet, kind eyes. His eyes sparkled as he smiled in response to Chloe.

"I am fine," he told her, "and I stand ready to render aid to them when the time comes."

His voice was quieter, more serious as he continued, "the last time, Zod bested me with fire. He will not do so again." He gave a curt nod of finality to that statement, then turned towards the doorway, where he moved and stood silently with his arms folded across his chest, a great Martian sentinel to stand watch over them.

 

[AmenRa]

She stood tall and proud before the Gaurdians, and held her head high as an Alpha Lantern should.

They spoke as one; a Great Voice that burned through the cosmos and reckoned against all living things.

"What of the crisis now on Earth? Will the Daughter of Zor-El fulfill the prophecy and bring balance and peace to the sector?"

Her answer was pure and genuine: "It is believed this will come to pass," she said, "for she is aided by others from Earth that possess powers, some native and some not."

"Does one of these brave humans have the capacity to serve the Universe in the Green Lantern Corps and represent the sector?"

"Yes," she answered, "I believe there is one."

"And thus, what of the Martian, J'onn J'onzz? Is he ready to assume his duties as protector and enforcer of the laws of peace and justice as he once did? Will he train the Last Daughter of Krypton as was her father's wish?"

Boodika nodded again. "The Martian Manhunter is powerful, noble, and just. His loyalty, thoughts, and ideals are unchanged. He will fulfill his role in the time to come."

Silence.

And then...

"So it is then, that things come to pass upon Earth as was forseen in the Book of Oa. These things shall be written down, recorded for the future, for the heroes Earth sees now shall not be forgotten.

"You shall suspend your current assignment of examining the representative of the Zenn-La sector. You will continue, instead, to report on the happenings on Earth. Should General Zod become victorious, then we shall intervene. He will not bring another world to his knees."

She nodded, then raised her hand, fist clenched above her head. The Ring glowed its eerie green, and her voice began a sacred chant.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Bruce

Damian gave his speech, and Bruce remained still and silent.

He said not a word, because what Damian said haunted him more than a little.

This had started as revenge, because of those thugs turning him into a Scarecrow in a field owned by The Kents. But it had shifted, by necessity, into something more. Always and always he looked back upon his memory of his parents' murder, he hovered over that memory as if no time had passed at all, and he wished to all The Heavens that he could insert himself into those memories and save them both.

(This was why the martial artistry. This was why the compartmentalising and the forensics. On the off-chance that he should find himself spun backwards in Time, he would be ready.

The Smiling Man and his gun would not succeed a second time.)

He wished to all The Heavens that he could turn back the clock. And use what he'd learned to save the day.

He had helped fight The General, now. And had seen what a man could do, seen what Damian could do, when properly equipped and properly trained and properly endowed with will.

Damian had traveled to a past, if not his own. Conceivably, Damian could have traveled back and saved Bruce's parents. And while it would not have saved the Bruce of Damian's Earth, it would have saved this Bruce.

Bruce could not travel back in time.

(Part of him, a raging roaring angry part of him wanted to demand that technology of Damian, wanted to beat it out of him so that he could save his own parents. But part of him, a cool and rational part of him, realised that this was not the point.)

Because if he acted now. If he stood up and suited up and went out onto the streets with the things Damian was offering him, he could save other parents. Other children. He couldn't save his own parents, but he could save the future of others.

No more lost little boys.

Damian left the room and Bruce did also, haunted by Damian's replies: they had given rise to more questions than they had answered.

But while Damian left the room and went out to the front porch with Alfred, Bruce staggered through the hallways to the back of the house, his compartmentalised mind suddenly fractured and tormented, cast to the four winds.

He found himself in his father's library, surrounded by the vast and storied collection of first editions.

He fell to his knees before a much larger portrait of Thomas Wayne, one in which he stood behind a seated Martha with his hands on Martha's shoulders. Much larger than the one in the sitting room.

Bruce didn't think he could believe in a God. But he had read about Shintoism and ancestor worship and thus when he prayed, he prayed to the ghosts of his parents.

He was on his knees and tears rolled down his face and he begged his mother and father...

"Please. Please. Tell me what I should do."

Something fluttered against the glass of the great wide windows, out there in the moonlight. Something fluttered and squeaked and scraped, and Bruce glanced up in surprise...

He stood up, and swung open the window, and the very same bat Alfred had chased out earlier in the day flew back into the house, perching on the high back of Thomas Wayne's favourite chair.

Bruce and that bat gazed at each other, and for that moment, only for that moment, neither was afraid of the other.

They gazed into each other's eyes. And there in the bat's eyes, in the windows to the bat's soul, Bruce saw reflected his own self. He saw kinship.

He thought again of The Kawatche, of Native American myth. He thought of guardian spirits and of totems and he realised, if he had a totem, his was The Bat.

Bruce knew this, blood and bones, body and brain. The Bat was a part of him. To fear The Bat was to fear himself.

He had been afraid of himself all along.

And then the moment passed, as if it had never been.

And then the bat left the way he had come.

Bruce closed the window, and he closed his eyes, and then he looked up at the portrait of his parents, wiping away those rare rare tears with the back of his hand.

"Thank you."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Alfred

As he walked by Alfred he simply nods and greets him with the words, "White Knight."

Alfred did, in fact, bat an eye at this naming, as he stood there out on the front porch and was joined by Damian. He could not entirely repress the flinch, though he did do a fair job of minimising his reaction.

"There's a nickname I haven't heard in a good long while," he mused, as he squinted his eyes at the unmasked Black Hood. "And to be perfectly accurate, it's no longer applicable. They've a new one of those, now. Truth be told, they've 'ad several; it has been a very long time."

He crossed his arms behind himself and smiled a faint little smile.

"You know how I know you can be trusted," Alfred murmured, "despite your disgorging that little bit of classified information so very cavalierly? You know how I know you don't work for Monsieur Henri Ducard?"

He pointed a finger at Damian's face, and his voice fell to a hush.

"Because you're so needful of proving yourself," he pointed out. "Whereas an agent of The League of Shadows would carry himself with elitism, putting on airs. A Shadow Leaguer would have had to have proven himself, or he would have been killed ages ago by The League itself. But either you refused to prove yourself, or you never got the chance, and now you feel incomplete until you've gained this acceptance you've never received. I can't imagine how that's come about, or to whom it is you still feel you need to be proven. But you can't buy that acceptance with donated equipment, nor with forbidden knowledge from Her Majesty's files, nor with darksome martial training."

Alfred lowered that finger and pressed it upon the region of Damian's heart, and his voice became no longer harsh but gentle, oh so gentle, as though he truly were speaking to a long-lost forgotten heir of Thomas Wayne: "Young sa': A man gains acceptance through what he carries inside here. And until you learn this, inside and out, you will neva'. Feel. Accepted."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick looked at Chloe. He knew she was right but he couldn't just walk away.

"I appreciate the worry Chloe. Really. I could go home and hit the sack, but no way am I sleeping. Not with Rose out there facing down some serious odds."

"She's right son. If you get too tired you could get sloppy. Sloppiness leads to mistakes. That could get some one killed."

"So what, I just throw in the towel? Catch a snooze while the one friend I have is off risking her life? Maybe you can turn your back on people, but I can't. You pulled some whacked out shit. You were like a monster. Obviously this wasn't the first time that you went all black ops. So spare me about responsibility. What were you? A Green Beret? C.I.A.? What?" Mericks eys began to dance with emerald flames once again.

"Not here. Not now."

"No! You are done making the rules. How long have you lied? Mom didn't seem to know about all this either? So you lied to everyone. You go all Jason Bourne and you just want me to drop it? Dad! YOU. KILLED. SEVERAL. MEN. WITH. A. TOWEL! They had GUNS, you had a TOWEL! Who the hell are you?" Energy began to ebb and flow around Merick's body. His eyes now aflame. His voice seemingly deeper and stronger than before.

"I... I am not that man. Not anymore."

"Funny 'cause you were tonight. Not to mention you make a phone call, disappear, come back with a car that is worth as much as our house if not more, and a hundred grand in cash, and enough munitions for a third world country?! I want answers."

Dale's face contorts, a mixture of sadness, anger, and embarrassment.

"I was in the military. Project Stargate. Among others. I was trained to kill. I became a mercenary. A contract killer. They called me The Ravager. I did work for just about every major criminal syndicate in the world. It paid very well. Then I realized the folly of what I was doing. That was not who I wanted to be. I left that world behind. I came home, I became Dale Tennylson once more."

"So you were a hitman?"

"Yes. They used me when they wanted an example made."

"Who's they?"

"The mob, several politicians from several countries, other... organizations. Any one with a contract. I am not proud of this. But I did what I had to do."

"You had a choice. Haven't you always taught me that there are always choices?"

Dale didn't answer, he merely hangs his head in shame.

 

[AmenRa]

Zod

There had been defeat.

It was not the first time. He knew it, and he had tasted it before, and it's flavor was not one he relished.

The first time the green-skinned puppet of Zor-El had bested him...no, that wasn't right...the Manhunter had simply taken him, it had been to bring him before Zor-El and the Council.

They had sent him to be forgotten in the hellplace of the Phantom Zone.

And once again, it seemed the Martian Manhunter had been victorious.

It would not happen again.

Zod's plan unfurled fully upon him now. As he made his way through the atmosphere to rendezvous with BRAINIAC, he knew what he would do.

Once he put together the fragmented parts of the Crystal of Knowledge, he would rule Earth, but not so carelessly. No, now that he knew there were those that would stand against him, he knew he must weaken the populace so they would be more accepting of his authority.

To do this, he must weaken those that would oppose him.

As he flew, Zod spotted a Korean AirLines 767 making its way high above the vast ocean. He carelessly turned his heat vision upon the plane, incinerating it among the clouds.

To weaken his enemies would mean to destroy some of them, yes. But others he wished to humiliate. He wished to exact vengeance for the wrongs that were inflicted upon him.

And this part would be easy.

For the one who owed him the most was not J'onn J'onzz, but the daughter of Zor-El.

He had promised Zor-El that one day his heirs would bow to Zod.

And so Kara would.

Or he would kill those she loved.

Beginning with the ones she was closest to.

The two secrets she kept in Smallville.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara

"You think we'll be able to find this Crystal?" Kara asked as she looked out the window, continuing to see nothing but the clouds and the deep blue sky.

After a moment of just simply staring out the window, Kara began reflecting upon their current situation.

Upon her own predicament.

Not too long ago she was just a simple farm girl from Kansas (albeit one with powers and abilities most humans can only dream of). Then her whole world was turned upside down, and she was thrust into the role of a chosen one. It was her destiny to collect mystical artifacts and save the world.

"Of course we will," Kara said, answering her own question. She nodded her head against one of the windows, and she could barely make out her own reflection.

She wondered what they were like... her real parents. Of them she had absolutely no memory.

Only mementos.

"We will," she said again, and her eyes closed to rest for a while.

---

A sudden jolt in the plane roused the Last Daughter of Krypton from her sleep, and lazily she opened her eyes.

"Hrm?" she mumbled tiredly, trying to figure out what was going on.

Kara ran her hands over her face and back through her blond hair, sitting up in her seat a little.

"Are we here already?" she asked, glancing over at her friends.

Sure enough, they had landed at their arrival destination.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie and Ceri

"You had a choice. Haven't you always taught me that there are always choices?"

Dale didn't answer, he merely hangs his head in shame.

"That's a pretty heavy word, there," Jamie murmured, oh, so softly. "'Choice.' On a single choice will a whole history divert itself, split into innumerable cosmic routes, fission into infinite alternities. On the single choice of a single life. The choice to kill, the choice to let live, the choice to die, the choice to live. Even the choice to walk across the road without using a zebra crossing, to order decaf instead of regular, to spell 'colour' without a 'u.' All of these choices... one leads to another, one reverberates, causes and effects."

"But as one person makes a choice, as one choice leads to other choices," Ceri breathed, putting a hand on Kyle's shoulder, "so also does one person's choice lead to other people making choices. Great-Uncle Dai chose to raise my sister and myself up as warriors, essentially taking away our chance for innocence. I made the choice to embrace his ideals, to defend that which I thought would better the world. My sister... she made a different choice. She made the same choice as Dale."

"But now you have a choice," Jamie shrugged out of his coat and hung this up on one of the cupboard handles lining the kitchen, "young Master Tennylson, young spacewarper. Your dad made the choice to kill. And then he made the choice to live and let live and now you have a choice."

Ceri crossed her arms over her stomach and lowered her head and half-closed her eyes. She laughed a little bit, broken a bit.

"You can choose to live and let live," she murmured, "Merick. You can choose to abide by the decision your father made when he walked away from that life-- only entering back into that mindset when the world was at stake --or you can chose to hold against him the decision he made to let darkness carry him away, the very decision he turned back when he chose to take a wife and have you and your poor, dear brother."

"He chose Death," Jamie leaned against the counter, hands in his pockets, dark dark eyes fix'd upon Merick. "But then he chose Life."

"There are consequences to our actions," Ceri continued, lifting her head to this time gaze upon Dale, "in this life and the next. There are those who say that God does not punish us for her sins in this life, only that He allows us, in His wisdom, to experience the consequences to our actions... for good or ill. After all, He has all of the next world to punish us or bless us as He sees fit."

"Now," Jamie mused, squinting his eyes slightly and running his tongue over his teeth, "as for whether one of those aforementioned consequences is Dale's only son hating him and rejecting him, that one's not up to God. That's up to you, Merick."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Tears welled in Merick's eyes. He heard their words. Felt them. He looked at his father. The man that taught him to play chess. To ride a bike. That taught him what being a man meant. He remembered the lessons. Be fair and honest. Take every chance to make a difference. Stand up for those things in which you believe.

Merick reached out and put a hand on his father's arm. "I love you Dad." Merick stepped back and looked around the room. Tears stinging his eyes. "Call if you need help."

With that he was gone.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Lex and The Countess

Casual as he could manage, Lex ducked his head and gazed out through the canopy ahead of them, gazed out into the night and the clouds.

"What seems to be the problem, gentlemen?" he wondered, cavalierly enough, to the pilot and co-pilot, glancing briefly at the control console, at the gauges and the lights. "I take it we no longer have clear skies ahead?"

"Skies ahead are fine and dandy," the pilot drawled, "'cept a perfectly routine rainstorm, movin' in on Shanghai. It's the skies behind us that are worrying me."

Lex slung his gaze back over his shoulder into the passenger compartment, where the dark-haired pseudo-stewardess stood in the middle of the aisle, flicking her gaze from the floor of the plane and then off to her left, as if looking at something out through one of the portholes. He wondered if the skies behind the jet might not be less dangerous than the woman who stood behind him.

And then, lackadaisical-seeming as he could manage, he swung back around to look at the two men.

"So what's the worry?" he mused, his voice hardening subtly, deciding he wanted answers rather than pussyfooting.

The co-pilot indicated the radar.

"Few minutes ago, a big Korean Air passenger jet just dropped off of radar," the co-pilot intoned nervously. "No SOS, no nothing. Just. Gone. And we've been tracking this puppy--" (at this he pointed out an encroaching blip on the radar) "--since a while back, and its vector is oddly close to our own. It doesn't fly so much like a plane as it does a relatively slow-moving missile."

"Then again," the pilot picked up, pointing to an even smaller blip, just on the fringes, "there's nothing slow about this little guy. Now it ain't a bird, and it ain't a plane... I don't know what's going on with that."

Lex ran his tongue about in his mouth and squinted one eye slightly.

"So," he clarified, "you don't know what this is--" (pointing to the smaller fringed blip that seemed to dart across the screen like lightning no longer bottled) "--and you don't know what this is--" (pointing to the "relatively slow-moving missile") "--and you don't know what happened to the passenger jet."

The pilot hesitated, and then shook his head, frowning deeply. "No sir. I don't know any of those things."

He smiled thinly, and tightly. "Let me know when you do know something, all right?"

"Yessir," the co-pilot nodded, a little bit of fright in his eyes.

"Thank you, gentlemen," Lex drawled, as he pushed off of the back of the pilot's seat and, closing the door behind him, returned to the passenger compartment.

Lex put his hands into his pockets and gazed at the woman who had once been Lily Potter and now was The Countess.

Still she was looking back and forth. Something on the belly of the plane, as if she could see through solid objects. Something out to the left. And now, something out to the right.

(Lex did a little math in his head, and it seemed to him that "out to the left" would be in the general direction of the slow-moving missile that might be a plane. And that "out to the right" would be in the general direction of the thing that was neither bird nor plane.)

"Problem?" he wondered.

"We are not going fast enough," The Countess declared in a voice of crystal ice, and a vicious dark orchid light flashed in her cold cold eyes.

Lex's eyes widened.

The Countess threw her hands out to her sides and bellowed a phrase older than nations as that selfsame dark orchid light crackled throughout the plane, inside and out... "IMPETERE!"

Lex lost his footing and tumbled head over heels towards the back of the jet as the vehicle sprung forward at an unheard-of velocity, screaming as he hurtled and tried to grab something anything to stop himself. He couldn't even grab the immobile-standing Countess as he hurtled past her, wondering how she was immune to this sudden intertia even as he struck the back of the passenger compartment and blacked completely out.

 

[AmenRa]

J'onn

The Martian Manhunter suddenly gave a sharp intake of breath and lurched forward, clutching the pit of his stomach. A look of pain crossed his face, so much that it caused him to suddenly release the hold he had on his morphed state, and he returned to the green Martian that he was.

He shook his head, running a hand over his eyes. The pain had been brief, but intense.

He knew Chloe was watching, wondering if he was okay.

"Pain," he said, "it was as if a million voices had cried out and then were suddenly silenced. I feel something terrible has happened."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose wanted to talk to Diana. (There hadn't been much time to talk during the run to Texas-- not over the howling wind and supersonic speeds --nor during their hurrying on board, nor during the takeoff with the popping of ears.)

Rose wanted to talk to Diana about her homeland, and about her fighting style, and about her tendency to speak in mythological metaphor and whether or not she was serious about the meeting of gods. Rose could talk in mythological metaphor better than she could talk about real things in a real fashion but the idea that gods had walked The Earth, that actual real gods, that magic and miracles and Everything Else were as real as could be, this would go a long long way to validating Rose's own existence.

But Kara offered one last notion of assurance and then slipped off to sleep. And Rose didn't want to wake her with talk...

Rose was a little bit jealous, she was tired but she was wired. There was no way she would sleep. She wanted to talk to Diana but she didn't want to wake Kara and she wanted to stay in the moment she wanted to stay in the moment but she kept thinking about where they were going next.

She kept thinking about. China.

Violence and Science and Myths and Magic and Strife and Peace.

This was China. And she thought it could be such a beautiful place.

(If not for the iron fist of man that clenched around its potential... and yet it was this same fist that drove its people to accomplish so much. To overcome such hardship, such poverty and such overpopulation and such pollution.

China was more than a dichotomy. It was... it was a multi-chotomy.

So many pasts and so many presents and so many futures pressed together into so relatively small a space.)

********​

...and then that space was stretched out below them as the vertical landing sequence kicked in and the temple wasn't far away at all.

Kara awoke with a start as they touched down, and Rose supposed she hadn't had to worry about waking the girl after all.

"Yeah," Rose breathed, with a giddy mix of courage and dread and elation and terror. "Yeah. We're here."

In the distance, air-raid sirens started to sound.

Rose bit her lip. "We're here, and we better hurry."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick sat alone on a small dune. He had been there for a couple hours. Enjoying the solitude. The beach nearly empty this time of year. The tourists gone from the summer, the locals busy getting bck to their normal lives.

Merick sat quitely drinking a YooHoo. He was considering the things that had occurred. All the incredible things. He had found a brother, then lost him. He had found dark terrible secrets about his father. But he also watched his father help to save the world, or perhaps more. He had learned that there were forces in this world, forces beyond mortal kin. Forces that Merick could never truly understand.

"You have room fo' an old man on that dune? A strangely charismatic old man stands at the base of the Dune. A bottle in a paper bag, an infectious smile on his face. "Wise mahn say, Nevah drink alone..."

"Why's that?"

"You get stuck wih the bill." The old man laughs as he staggers up the dune. "You look like you have a lot on you mind." The old man sits down and takes a long drag off the bottle.

Look, sir, no disrespect but I doubt you can really help me." Merick takes another drink of his YooHoo.

"le' me try."

"Fine. Long story short, my whole perception of the world is wrong."

"Tha's your problem. You trusted a perception. What you have fr perception of world, is only true fohr you. And only as long as you choose fohr it to be." The man takes another long swallow. "Reality is only as real as we make it. I show you. The world is like a story. We each tell our own vershin. My story is a very long one. Lots o' differ'en' story ahll mix togethuh. You story is different. You story should not be able to be tol'. You, your brothah, your gran'fatha, an' the rest aroun you. All very special. There is much more to tell of these stories. These stories your friends and family tell... they will change many peoples worlds..."

"How do you know anything about my family, my friends?"

"I tell you. This worl' what we chose fohr it to be. I choose to help you tell your story. You are in hard place Merick Tennylson. You have been forced to play out a destiny not your own. A destiny that is very important. You have been given the tools to help change the course the world shall take. You must help a the last scion complete her destiny. You Merick, shall be an agent of Order. An agent of Stability. You must resist the urge to fall to Chaos and Hostility. If you do this, you may yet save your fatha an brotha."

Merick stands and throws his bottle into the ocean. "How, how do I make this destiny happen?" Merick turns to face the old man, but finds only the empty bottle. "Who are you? Where did you go? DAMMIT?!"

Merick looks into the night sky.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie and Ceri

Merick reached out and put a hand on his father's arm. "I love you Dad." Merick stepped back and looked around the room. Tears stinging his eyes. "Call if you need help."

With that he was gone.

"Oh," Jamie frowned, and looked down at his funny green Converse shoes, "dear. Oh dear oh dear."

Ceri gazed for a moment at the space where Merick had been.

And then she walked close to Merick's father, a granite hardness in her nocturnal eyes. Her lips hovered past his ear, and her whisper might almost have been seductive, under any other circumstances.

"I know your name," she murmured. "'Ravager,' isn't it? We've never crossed swords, you and I. But I know your work. The Medellín Cartel hired you in 1989 to slaughter the staff of a local newspaper who had dared to speak against them, garnering the love of the people. They paid you to silence them, to 'make an example.' I saw photographs."

She paused, and she ran her tongue over her lips and she gazed at him with those dark dark glittery eyes as she breathed into his ear: "I know your name and I know your work and you should rest assured? That I will extend to you the same courtesy I have extended to my sister. I have to believe that she can be redeemed, I have to. But if she proves herself irredeemable, I will stop her however I can. And the same goes for you. Once, once, once, I hear yeh slip on the road to redemption, I will take you down. And not all the contents of all the towel racks in all of Kansas will save yeh from me. Stay true to the way of fatherhood and peace, or rest assured, we will have words. Are we clear?"

 

[Lunaramblings]

Dale looked up into the face of an Angel. An Angel of Vengence. Of Righteous Fury. A tear rolling slowly down his left cheek.

"Ceri, you know me. I am not the man I was so long ago. I changed. I banished that monster. If I ever go back to that path, don't extend me any courtesy. Just kill me. I don't want to be that monster I never did. It was never my choice."

"Dale, I love you. We took our vows, through sickness and in health, til Death do us part. But I warn you, if you do any thing that endangers our son, his friends or any one else, you will regret it. You will be sorry." Marcy stands and looks at Jamie and Ceri. "You guys are amazing you know that? See you are approaching it all wrong... you guys act like you aren't reading the same book of life, and your not, but your sure as Hell on the same page anyway."

"I am sorry." Dale stares back at his hands. Utterly defeated.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

China

The sleek black aircraft slowed in midair, jets screaming as it descended into a VTOL landing a few miles away from the site. Crops were flattened as the plane bounced down once, then the jets faded down to a whine.

Inside the cockpit switches were being thrown, countermeasures were being activated for a field test that was not supposed to happen for months yet. At the fore and aft of the aircraft two small devices raised from the aircraft. Blue lights extended out of the aircraft, sweeping the ground around the Pegasus. they soon retracted, but a new blister opened at the top, and a device emerged. Lenses emerged, and soon the plane was camouflaged by a hologram, blending into the field it had landed on.

"Cloak is active. Unless we get strong EM emissions, it should hold up for flyovers and casual observance. We have four hours of battery to hold it, then we loose it."

"It will be enough. I have faith in these girls. Give me the comlinks, I'll go brief them myself."

A door at the front of the modified cargo compartment opened, and in rolled a wheelchair. In the chair was a pretty brunette, with raven black hair and dark blue eyes. In her lap was a white box about the size of a briefcase.

"OK girls, your objective is three miles to the southeast. Inside this case are three in-ear com units. Also is a GPS unit. It looks like a Iphone, but it will show you the location of your objective, and where we are and where you are. Odin has kept me briefed, so I know as much about you as everyone else, which is blessed little, but enough to know that what you are here to do is important. You have four hours until our cloak fails, and by that time the Chinese government will be all over us."
Rebecca rolled over to the girls and handed out the communicators, and handed Rose the gps.

"Come back safe girls. Earth is counting on you." She then looked Rose in the eyes, looking into her soul. "You especially. I fully plan to tease my little brother mercilessly about his beautiful girlfriend, so bring your pretty little behind home!"