The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[AmenRa]

General Zod

The soldiers parted for him, much like the Red Sea had once parted its waters at God's command.

But Zod was not Moses, yet the soldiers of the People's Army feared him as much as any god. When he stepped upon firm soil, they scattered before him, save one that he picked up by the scruff of uniform collar. Without so much ceremony, Zod plucked the rank insignia from the man's uniform and held it so it could be seen.

"You are in command here?" Zod questioned.

The answer came in a quick nod of the Chinese man's head. Zod snapped the man's neck. He then moved with super speed to another who stood near an open-topped command vehicle. Zod grabbed this one, obviously the second-in-command, and held him aloft. He repeated the question.

"No," came the answer, "you are in command, My Lord."

Zod nodded his agreeance, and then he set the man down on the ground.

Even in a country where the media is controlled, and used as an extension of, the government, video and audio recording devices are still prevalent on the battlefield. Zod ordered these devices to be brought forward, and he had them set to broadcast a signal that was intercepted by the BRAIN InterActive Construct and then re-distributed all over the world.

Televisions and radios in houses, restaurants, shopping malls, government buildings, cars, and personal devices all over the world stopped their scheduled programs as Zod's pirated signal intervened.

"People of Earth," he said, assuming the voice of absolute rule and authority, "I am your ruler, General Zod. From henceforth, your possessions, your wealth, even your very lives shall be given in tribute to me.

"I will establish the rule of law and word that is mine across this planet. All governments shall turn over their executive powers to me immediately. In order to ensure your cooperation, I have established control of your nuclear arsenals. To prove this, I shall initiate the destruction of a singular city of the Midwestern United States. If you choose, wisely, to relinquish control of your executive powers to me, then this city shall be the only one destroyed.

"However, should you choose to disobey me, I shall systematically destroy the major cities of every continent."

Zod's mind bespoke a thought, a thought that was instantly picked up as a transmission across space/time by the BRAINIAC.

High above Earth, servos on a satellite's unusually large payload doors opened, and a space-borne ballistic nuclear missile fired its thrusters.

BRAINIAC wasn't the only entity that heard the focused-thought transmission.

The Martian Manhunter's eyes grew blindingly bright as he instantaneously accelerated into flight, blurring the line between space and time, and even warping the visual field around him.

Earthbound no more, J'onn J'onzz flew towards the missile, which now had shed its primary booster and ignited the second stage. The missile's attitude thrusters had fired, orienting it on a precise trajectory targeting Smallville.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Lex, Ted, John, and Rose

Stunned silence reigned at Zod's proclamation, his Declaration of War.

His warning shot would kill thousands. Just his warning shot.

And to move against him? Oh, so many more than thousands.

"I'm going to kill him," Lex breathed. "Right now. I'm going to kill him. With my bare hands."

"Hold up there, Junior," Ted growled, eyes wide, face pale, skin bristling. (The hair on the back of his neck was standing up.) "You mess with that jackass' dead-man switch, the whole damn planet could pay the price. You really want that on your conscience?"

Lex shook his head, and pushed forward, shoving Ted aside...

"It doesn't matter," he bellowed. "None of it matters. Death before dishonour. He can blow up our major cities, cause a nuclear winter, shroud the world in ash, but there will still be human beings, we will still survive, we can survive anything. There will still be human beings, and they will fight General Zod to their dying breath."

He raised an ironclad fist into the air, rain pinging off of his armour like hail on a hot tin roof.

"You hear me, Zod?" he snarled, knowing full well he was in the alien's earshot. "You can kill us all and still we'll fight you. You will kneel before us, Zod. You, and your heirs!"

"I 'ate to say it," John murmured, kneeling beside Rose and, extricating a cigarette, patting himself down for a lighter. "But I agree with the bald-pated capitalist arsehole. Better to smoke out the place than to let a blaggard like 'im take the throne."

Rose's finger sizzled in the rain as she held up its firelit tip, and touched it to the end of John's Silk Cut.

"Cheers," he blinked, and smiled softly, taking a drag.

"Anytime," she rasped, smiling oh so wearily.

She glanced over at Zod, her every muscle aching, the wounds on her neck and chest stinging in the rain.

"I choose Door Number Three," she whispered. "There must be a way to stop him and save the world at the same time. There has to be."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Lar Gand and Raya Ro-Zan

"I... I had it just... it was in my pocket. It must have fallen loose outside."

Blue suns are cold suns, even when they shine.

And right now, the blue suns of The Phantom Zone were not shining, not bright enough to pierce the storming sands of The Black Desert.

Lar's crutch crunched into the desert at his feet, and he staggered, and he struggled to stay standing. He wondered if timelessness would continue to be enough to keep him alive. He felt like he was dying.

But he'd be damned if he was going to die before he helped the others get out of this Hell.

"What are we looking for?" he demanded, sand ripping into the exposed patches of skin peeking out from his rag-wrapped face.

"It is a Crystal," Raya replied, holding an arm up against the storm as she knelt, raking her fingers through the dark grains. "Pentagonal in shape, arranged like a triangle. It has a slender snaking Symbol in its frame. Brightest white, like a moon's light. Large enough to sit in one's palm... I remember seeing it resting in Zor-El's hand the last time he spoke to his brother. (A vicious argument.)"

Lar shook his head.

"You guys couldn't make it with a built-in photonic beacon or something?" he rasped, gripping his crutch and forging ahead. "Or maybe a talking A.I.? I had a talking A.I. as a kid, name was Babbage, that guy was my best friend."

"'Talking,'" Raya murmured, scrunching her azure eyes against the slashing sands and then glancing at Lar. "No, it wouldn't talk. But Kryptonian crystal technology... has molecular harmonics! The slightest strike would cause vibrations even on a dimensional level, and right now it must be getting spattered by a hundred thousand grains... listen! Listen, you might hear it!"

Lar sank to his knees, coughing violently, laughing harshly, shaking his head, shaking his head, and he had to yank his hood open as blood flew from his lips, dark and red, tasting of copper and iron and lead.

He knelt there on the ground, holding himself and seething with pain.

"I got nothing," he grated, "I can barely hear you. Much less this damn Crystal."

He glanced across at Raya but she wasn't hearing him, she had her eyes clenched shut, she was listening, she was listening, she was listening for the tingling tinkling sound of sand striking Crystal, she couldn't hear him.

He hacked and coughed again and he was on his hands and his knees and he had to hold his hood 'cross his face as he sprawled, had to get coughed-up blood on the inside of his rags or choke to death on sands.

With one hand he held his hood shut and one hand he tried to hold himself up and as his hand scraped through the desert his finger brushed something cold and hard.

...TIIIIING...

Raya sat up like she'd been struck by lightning. "M'onel?"

Smiling, blood trickling down his broken lips, Lar held up The Crystal in his trembling hand. "Found your thingy. Do I get a prize?"

 

[AmenRa]

J'onn

Var-Sen felt the call of the Crystal of the House of El.

It had been touched by alien hands, hands not of the House of El, like the same sound it made when he himself had carried it for so many years.

Var-Sen smiled at the Daughter of Zor-El.

"All is not lost, little Kara," he said to her, then remembered she was no longer the child he had seen carried so often by her father. "For as long as the blood of the House of El flows through your veins, the Gateway to the world beyond is not sealed forever."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Odin

OOC: I checked in with Amen to get this cleared. sorry for the wait.



IC:Odin was not sleeping while Zod and BRANIAC were busy plotting world domination, Odin was busy plotting to shut down the most advanced computer ever.

Programs were created, current computer realities were stretched, combined and redefined.

All was done as quietly as possible. Discreet electronic missiles sent throughout the planet.

Cut short when in the heavens a instrument of death was launched from above.

Alarm screamed in Odin's electronic consciousness. Fail safes were activated, and programs launched.

And in a Mansion in Smallville, Kansas, a computer screen flashed red with one word

"EVAC NOW!!!!!"​

Other programs initiated, and Odin began his attack.

Computers are driven by logic. one plus one will always equal two, cause will always bring about an effect. And logic will rule.

Odin was different. His neural pathways were created on the model of a fifteen year old boy.

And fifteen year old boys are not known for logical thinking.

Across the world Odins "Logic Bomb" exploded into being.

In Tupelo, Mississippi the police station fax machine started continuously printing out an APB bulletin for The Hamburglar.

In Hamburg, Germany, every computer in the country went into screen saver mode, with a bird flying backwards going across the screen.

In a mall in Dallas, Texas, every ATM in the mall began spitting out money.

And in several households, business and retail locations, spam e-mail computers began sending out millions of e-mail.

All aimed to hit BRAINIAC at once.

Electronic and telephone grids world wide went insane, as the logic bomb sowed chaos and confusion.

And in the heavens above, the remaining missiles in their silos in the vacuum of space got their detonation codes, and a new sun arose over China for a brief few seconds.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Zoners

Kara, Var-Sen, and Raya were not the only Kryptonians in The Phantom Zone.

True, the men and women of Krypton confined to The Zone were hardly the same species any more, many of them having twisted themselves with arcane science to commit the very crimes that had ultimately caused them to be imprisoned in that dimensional gulag. And not all of the prisoners of The Phantom Zone were Kryptonian by birth.

There were others. Many others.

Some had been robbed of physical form by an imperfect dimensional transit and had been rendered only partly substantial, made into literal phantoms. But some were very real. And very material. And very thirsty for blood, figuratively if not literally.

There were Kryptonians in The Phantom Zone.

And they, too, heard the sound of Lar Gand's fingers striking The Crystal, like an alarm sounding in their brains.

And they, too, knew, just as Var-Sen knew, what that sound meant.

Freedom. Freedom from this vile place, freedom to unleash their darkness upon an unprotected Universe anew.

Freedom.

From measureless miles around, The Phantoms of The Zone began to converge on the last outpost of Hope.

Even in a place outside of Time, whose timelessness was both blessing and curse, time was growing short.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie, Ceri, and Chloe

Jamie Hamilton took off his glasses and put his coat on and put his hands in his trouser pockets and stared up in the direction of the sky, as though peering up through the ceilings and roof of Wayne Manour to stargaze.

He looked very very tired, as though the dark dark eyes that had just come out from behind the lenses of his spectacles had seen one too many wars.

"The Armageddon Factor," he murmured, disjointed and fatigued. "Planet of Fire."

Ceri frowned at him: "Not that this is unusual, James? But you're not making any sense."

Jamie didn't look at her, he kept looking skyward: "The Greatest Show in The Galaxy."

...and then the sunglasses flashed red and the screen poured forth its single frightening devastating phrase...

Chloe yanked the shades off of her head and whirled to look at Merick with horror in her eyes.

"Mr. Wizard!" she screamed. "Get us The Hell out of here!"

 

[AmenRa]

The Martian Manhunter

The missile flew straight and solid, its ballistic trajectory now on a downward drop as it entered Earth's atmosphere.

J'onn had breached the atmosphere only briefly, slowing to subsonic flight to catch a glimpse of the missile as it seperated into second stage, and then resuming his flight to intercept.

He planned to arrive ahead of the missile, stop it, turn it around.

He must.

But then his flight, already unstable because of the roughness of the atmosphere interface, was buffetted by shockwaves that could only come from orbital thermonuclear detonation. He tumbled, catching himself, resuming his course as he realized the remaining satellite missile stations had self-destructed.

Whether it was the BRAINIAC's error or the work of his friends he did not know. All he did know is that Zod's nuclear arsenal had been seriously damaged, save for one.

The one that was now through the atmospheric barrier and making course corrective thruster pulses as it readied itself for airburst deployment of the warheads it carried.

The Martian Manhunter gritted his teeth and closed his fists tighter, willing himself to fly faster, hoping that his doing so did not ignite the very air of the world he was trying to save. He flew past the sonic barrier, past the point where sonic shockwaves rebounded against themselves, past barriers that science would have said impossible, until time itself began to slow and to stretch.

And in that very instant, he was in front of the missile, his arms outstretched, welcoming it the way a mother might welcome a deadly child. It came to him, so slowly it seemed, that it took an eternity for his hands to rest upon the cold metal housing.

At first, it seemed the missile would not stop. The Martian pushed against it with all of his alien strength, and pushed more until he heard himself yelling his stress in a shout that echoed across the sky.

It was enough, and the missile was pushed away, and instead of plummeting to its detonation altitude the missile sped away from the world. It was aided by the Martian Manhunter, who had thrust his hands into the missile's steel casing and urged it along, pushing it to fly faster and faster until it once again found the coldness of space.

J'onn and his captured dart of fiery destruction sped past Moon, heading into deep space, moving at speeds beyond that which should have been possible. And then the Martian Manhunter let the missile go, to fly into the dark.

A failsafe had been activated inside the mechanism of the weapon, and it was only because of the swiftness of the Martian Manhunter's assault that it did not detonate within Earth's atmosphere.

It did explode, however, all six warheads at once, in space and well away from Earth, where no EMP wave or residual radiation would affect the planet. The shock wave, though, traveling with force and mass, struck against the Green Martian and sent him tumbling and falling towards the Sun.

Knocked unconscious by the powerful detonation, J'onn J'onzz was helplessly buffetted by solar winds and gravitational pulls. The small moon Phobos lashed against him with its tiny gravity well, causing him to spin into a rapidly decaying orbit around Mars.

He left a fiery trail in the Martian sky, looking so much like a falling star as he plummeted at terminal speeds towards the barren desert ground that was once his home.

The crater he left upon impact at the base of Olympic Mons could be seen from Earth. And within it he lay, wounded yet healing, afraid yet alive, and wondering why for so long he had not dared to set his foot once again upon his native world.

The Curse.

They called out to him, the Ghosts of Mars, the voices of those long lost, the spectral faces of a civilization wiped from memory.

And J'onn J'onzz began to dream, and in his dream he met a curious young lady who carried an umbrella....

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

The Phantom Zone

Kara Zor-El heard the piercing sound of the Crystal being touched, and the brightest smile to ever adorn her face suddenly lit up. Hope had once again returned to her heart, and she was happy for the chance to escape her nightmarish prison.

To escape the Phantom Zone...

She turned to Var-Sen and she saw the smile on his face as well.

"So you mean we can actually leave here? Like right now?!" Kara asked excitedly, practically rising to her feet after Raya and her friend made the discovery.

"So let's go!"

Kara was ecstatic at the prospect of returning to Earth again. She'd have her powers back, and the thought of seeing her family again practically sent her spirits soaring.

She missed them dearly, even if they were only her adoptive ones. Jonathan and Martha Kent were the ones that Kara Zor-El could proudly call mother and father.

Yet Kara was unaware of the perils that filled the Zone, and she was unaware that danger was already makings its way towards them.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick didn't need a second. Before the words had completely flown from Chloe's mouth he was riffling pages of reality at a frightening speed. In a heartbeat, maybe less, the group were in the bunker. And in another heartbeat two things happened. The room was surrounded in a shield that had strength enough that it may very well have stood against the on coming assault all by it's lonesome. That was first. Second, was that as the group landed, Merick was gone.

Back in Smallville, a boy bounds out of hi bedroom, looking furiously for his cat.

"Dammit Gabriel! I swear I am not a monster, but we gotta go." A hulking green form, much larger than a young teenager, and Emerald, nearly bounded into the old man sitting on the sofa. Nearly.

Merick stopped short, staring uncomprehensibly.

"Grandpa? What... How... No time." Merick flipped his hand at the cat as it darted through the kitchen. Wrapping the cat in a bubble of force and yanking it back to him. "Sorry, but we gotta go." Merick increased the size of the bubble around the cat to include his grandfather, and they were off.


The trio landed in the bunker, the cat swaddled in Merick's arms, his grandfather dumped unceremoniously on his back side.

"Sorry, needed to get Gabriel. And found another hitchhiker."

Dale and Edmund locked eyes. You could feel the energy between them. Dale was moving as Edmund was getting to his feet, a large box in one hand, and a book in the other.

Dale moved like a cheetah, fast and lethal. He hit Edmund like a train. Dale drove a knee hard into his father's ribs, and attempted to tackle his father. As the knee drove home Edmund used it's force to spin into the tackle. He used the momentum of Dale's strike to flip him over his hip driving him hard to the ground, Dale landed with such force that the air was driven from his lungs.

Edmund spun and locked Dale's head into a vise like choke. Squeezing, fearsome pressure, then Dale swiveled his hips, broung a leg high and wrapped it around Edmund's throat, locking him into a choke of his own. Dale squeezes for all he is worth, but Edmund is too strong and quick. He rolls so his head is trapped between Dale's knees, and he brings the book down in a vicious overhand blow into the stomach of his son.

Dale releases the hold and rolls to his feet, even as his father is coming up as well. From somewhere, comes that knife, the same one that had killed a man just this afternoon, and it was flashing so quickly, deadly and true. The blade right on track for Dale's jugular vein. But just as the blade struck flesh, their was a crack, like a whip, and Edmund is thrown backwards.

He slams hard into the wall, so hard, his chest covered in an emerald force. Squeezing like a vise grip. Merick stands hatred blazing in his eyes. Crushing Edmund's chest.

"Merick, NO! Not like this. Drop him! Please!" Dale yells, as blood flows freely from his neck, nose and mouth. Coughing blood, Dale staggers to his son and lays a hand on his shoulder. "Please. Don't walk this path."

Merick looks at his father, and he sees the man that taught him to read and write. To ride his bike and catch a football. Merick drops his grandfather. And he walks away, arms crossed he stands on the other side of the room. He does not see the suit that had fallen out of the box. Nor the mask that had been kicked and skittered to a stop at Ceri McCrimmon's feet.

"Damn, Merick, what they feeding you out on this farm? I ain't felt nuthin like that since that time with Ole Sully back in Gotham. Now there's a strong SOB."

"You both have a lot of explaining to do. Where the hell did Gabriel get to?"

Merick looks around. Sees his cat huddled behind Chloe. And he smiles.

 

[ChasNicollette]

"Sometimes, when you fall, you fly." (with apologies to Gaiman and Morrison)

Her favourite movie of all Time was "Mary Poppins."

(Which was why she carried an umbrella in the first place.)

...now, consider how the phrase "of all Time" applies, considering the age of the entity involved. She was not the eldest of The Endless. But she was very nearly as old as The Universe and she would outlive it by far. "Mary Poppins" was her favourite movie, quite literally, of All Time.

She remembered the elder days of Mars, the aboriginal sorcerer-kings, The Dawn Age, shapeshifting primordial creatures more like toads than hominids. She knew well their sombre bastalt sepulchres. She remembered when Mars had had oceans, and she remembered when those oceans had filled the great canals that had fed the citadels with sacred water.

The canals of Mars now stand parched and wounded, and the black, buckle-adorned thigh-high boots of Death of The Endless trod through their crimson beds.

She wore a black velvet jacket over her black cotton tank top, and on the left lapel of this jacket sat a black button with white block print: "I'm only happy when it rains." On the right lapel of the jacket sat a nearly identical button, identical save for its text: "It can't rain all the time."

The Endless have long memories. (Save except for Delirium, who remembers Everything, but only sometimes, in those razor-thin gaps of sanity in her kind sweet madness.) But they are not the only ones who remember.

Martians have long memories, also. Telepathy, all along the ages, had passed down the history of the people of The Red Planet, and thus all Martians remember their most ancient of times. They remember the colonies that reached from one end of The Solar System to the other, they remember the ancient cities of gold...

And it was through a dream of these memories, ancestral memories, memories of The Ancient of Days swirling in and out of memories of The Now, another walk through the realm of her brother Dream, that Death came upon J'onn J'onzz. Trudging through the sands with her top hat cocked and a pale hand on one hip and her other hand holding her umbrella across the shoulders over her velvet jacket, Death walked.

Smiling soft black-painted lips, the light of twin moons and a distant Sun glinting upon her ankh necklace, Death greeted The Manhunter From Mars with a gentle wave of pale fingers.

"Hello, J'onn," she murmured. "It's good to see you again. Lord L'Zoril offers his blessings."

She glanced around at the great canyons and mountains and plains and then nodded cheerfully.

"Always did think this place looked prettier in person," she mused. "The brochures never really seem to capture it."

 

[Wyldfire]

It had all happened so fast. Kara had the crystal then she didn't. HE showed up and did something to make Kara vanish.

Shaky-armed, Rose pointed at The General and screeched: "Diana. ARES!"

And yet still she stood frozen. The child of Hades was gone. Kara was gone. Then Aries destroyed another life. And still Diana stood frozen. It took hearing her friend Rose and Uncle Ted to unlock her.

And that was it. Diana had been holding back all of her impatience and all of her fear. It all came blowing forth in a blur of motion and fury. He wasn't the exact match of the statues of Aries but he did have the sigil of the House of Aries. "Aries!" she screamed as she hit him at a blur. "You abandoned us," another blow landed. It may not have hurt him as badly as it should have but he did feel it. "You made us your loyal warriors, then you cast us aside!" This time when she hit him she felt the bones in her hand break. The next of the blows drew blood on her knuckles.

The amazon was a blur of grace and motion, even in her rage she moved with the grace of a warrior born. Her mind though wasn't as graceful as her body. Her heart and emotions were rage, hate, and pain. She knew in her fury she'd broken both of her fists and bloodied her hands.

She lashed out with a series of kicks next until her legs were battered and numb. She had yet to draw blood. With the last of her energy she managed to clasp her mauled hands into a double fist and threw every ounce of her power into the uppercut. It caught him under the chin and just managed to to draw the barest trickle of blood from Aries' lip. She felt her left wrist and right forearm break under the force of the blow.

Panting and barely able to stay standing she looked at him and spat "Do your worst Aries. I have given mine as the true Princess of the blood of Themyscira, now I face my fate."

 

[ChasNicollette]

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

The world rippled and irised and folded and slithered and The Outsiders were somewhere else entirely.

The big dark place with back-up lights on the cathedral-high ceiling, great pillars, stacks of crates, a bank of computers along one wall.

"Well, that was--" Gabe began, eyes bulging, hand on his stomach, but then Merick was back again and violence ensued and Gabe Sullivan was completely aghast.

"Everyone is completely insane," he breathed, watching the old man and the veterinarian exchange blows like greased lightning.

"Heard that," Pete nodded, eyes wide, hands on his head.

Someone's gonna lose an eye and a few quarts of blood and I'm gonna be the one stuck cleaning it all up--

Bruce shoved the kettle into Alfred's hands and shoved a fist so hard into his own palm that the knuckles cracked and was bristlingly blisteringly ready to break up this fight, but Merick beat him to it. Force of a supernormal kind answered for force of a lethal kind and a predatory old man got his hindparts slammed to the nearest wall.

Alfred cringed inwardly, as it seemed a whole new set of ribs would soon be cracking, and he doubted there was enough tape in the First Aid Kit to supply for two such rib cages. (Whatever had happened to that Kit, anyway?)

"Young sa'," he began to caution Merick, but the lad's father stepped in, a voice of reason in times so strangely devoid of reason.

Bruce had been brought up short by the sudden application of force-energy, but he nodded briskly when he saw the old man get released.

"Good man," he murmured to Merick. "Good man."

"You both have a lot of explaining to do. Where the hell did Gabriel get to?"

Gabe blinked, and half-raised his hand, as if to say, 'I'm right here, why do you ask?' ...but then Chloe sank to one knee and scritched a very skittish-looking quadruped behind its pointy ears, petting it soothingly, making little calming noises.

(Animals and Chloe Sullivan rarely got along well. And she really really hoped Gabriel the Cat didn't claw her. But the thing looked scared out of his grey-white fur and she couldn't not try to soothe him.)

"The cat's name is Gabriel," Gabe murmured, with dawning realisation.

"The cat's name is Gabriel," Chloe nodded, smiling softly.

"I guess I'll take that as a compliment," Gabe Sullivan decided. "Um. Where are we?"

"That's a good question," Bruce noted, glancing around, and then narrowing his eyes slightly at Grandpa Tennylson. "And I have others. This is the same grandfather of Merick's that talked of moonlight and dancing and devils?"

"Yes," Ceri murmured, her voice like glacial ice as she reached down and picked up the mask at her feet, picked it up and lifted it up for all to see, gazing at it with hard hard eyes. "Yes. I'd say that he is that grandfather."

Jamie looked around, and blinked, and seemed to reboot somewhat. To shake off the strange little incoherence that had plagued him since laying eyes on that cloaked Boom Tube. To revert to a modicum of sanity, as if he'd never gone mad.

"Did we find another secret?" Jamie grinned from ear to ear. "I swear, I should be making a spreadsheet of these, I'm never going to remember them all in the morning. (I suppose it pretty much is morning at this point, though, ennit? Well. Almost.)"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle (with a guest appearance of Odin)

The pain had gotten bearable with Ceri's help, and I was just beginning to almost doze off when Chloe yelled and everything wrenched again, and I landed in someplace new.

In the dark. And the dark, well, it welcomed me.

As the chaos ensued between Merick and his relatives, the shadows in the darkened room were sliding over me. Greeting me. Tasting me.

The sun had never seen this place, not even when they made it. Shadow knew this place, and Shadow had found me again. Power found me again.

The darkness began to lighten as shadows swirled around and through me. Power filled my battered body, healing bruises and contusions, filling the gaps in me that made me mortal.

Blue eyes lightened to lavender, and began to glow again. My senses expanded and I could feel the darkness in the room, and the light.

Shadow embraced me, and when it pulled away from it's happy embrace, the sixteen year old child was not standing in the darkened bunker.

The Wraith instead stood there, energized and refreshed.

And he was looking into the chaos that a enraged Merick had quelled.

"If you are done now, my friend, we need to find out whats going on. Odin, sit-rep. Chloe, please paraphrase what he reports. And sir," I said, looking at the old man that had drawn a dangerous look from Rose's parents, "if you give me cause, I will paste you to the wall and leave you there, so please, play nice. These are my friends and I care for all of them."

And scrolling across the bottom of the glasses Chloe was wearing information appeared.

"Nuclear launch detected, targeted at Smallville, Missile inbound in 57 seconds." a pause then words scrolled again across the glasses. "Update, missile deflected, now on outbound trajectory. Zod is at China location, Chinese army also present. Unable to monitor due to BRAINIAC activity. Logic Bomb released, all communications compromised. This channel will be left open as long as possible. The china team needs help, have Kyle go to Bekka. Transmission ends, I must go face my destiny"

And the glasses went dead, another piece of technology shut down by the virus that was quickly infecting the world.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe and Pete

Kyle Matthews was no longer Kyle Matthews. He was no longer even Kyle Greystone.

He was again Wraith, and Chloe nodded briskly at his request for exposition, rising from where she knelt to comfort the kitty. (She was a journalist, for God's sake. She was good at exposition.)

She slid the sunglasses over her eyes, and quickly read the ticker that nipped across the bottom. Quickly read with widening eyes.

And when the shades went dead, she removed them with a shiver like the oft-mentioned Devil had taken the opportunity to waltz upon her grave.

"The good news is," she murmured, "the H-Bomb that just got fired at Smallville flew out into Outer Space, instead. The bad news is, an H-Bomb just got fired at Smallville."

Swallowing the hugeness the frighteningness the horror of that statement, the near-miss they'd just had, Chloe turned her iridescent eyes to Wraith.

"Go to Bekka," Chloe told him. "Odin says he can't help us anymore, said something about a 'Logic Bomb.' I think he was saying 'goodbye.' He's... he's going to face his destiny. Go to Bekka. The Team... The front-line Outsiders are facing The General. Go to Bekka."

Pete had already hurried to Dale Tennylson's side and was putting pressure on the bleeding, looking for something he could use to bandage...

"Sometimes when the shit jumps off," he murmured, electric fear racing upon his spine at the thought of the missile that had been deflected, "it jumps off in mass quantities."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Gabriel the cat purred loudly at Chloe.

Edmund Tennylson merely grinned that damnable grin of his at Ceri.

"Well, seems all things come full circle. If I am not mistaken you would be the niece of Dai McCrimmon. Tell me, hows your sister. She was a lot of fun at times. Been too long." Edmund stood straight, his back and neck and ribs cracking back into place audibly. He glances at Wraith and continues to grin. "Ya know son, I reckon that you just might try. So, Merick, fill an old man in. Seems you have as many secrets as I do these days. Associating with McCrimmons', Waynes', and Hamiltons'. Not to mention your... gift."

"We are in a bunker in the desert somewhere. Not sure exactly where. These are The Outsiders. Seems you know most of them already. Not sure how though... Now, what the hell were you doing at my house? And what's with the get up?

"Well, I brought that as a gift to you son. Figured that if you were old enough to breech my security, appear at my door listening to my conversations then disappear again, then you were old enough to learn the truth and join the family business."

"You have ruined enough lives. Merick is MY son. He will not make the mistakes I did."

"I am only offering an option Dale. No one every forced you into it. You were quite willing and eager as I recall. Begged for training. Until I gave in and let you be my apprentice."

"Enough. This will wait. Odin says The Girls need help, lets give it to them. Who goes and who stays?"

"These girls friends of yours Merick?"

"Yes."

"Then if Ceri will give me that mask, I will help."

Edmund reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulls out a small steel case. From which he removes a needle and injects a greenish fluid into his arm before putting the case back. He bends down and removes a smaller parcel from the one he dropped.

"If he goes I am going."

"No. You are coughing blood, you have done your part out there. You stay."

 

[ChasNicollette]

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

As Chloe was busy with the shades, Gabe took Gabriel the Cat gingerly into his arms and scratched his chin. (If something could be happy in this place, Gabe saw no reason why he shouldn't continue that happiness, even though his arms were shaking at the thought of... H-Bomb...)

At Edmund's pronouncement of Ceri's heritage, Alfred straightened a bit, gained a little bit of colour in his cheeks, looked at her anew. He set the kettle down and he pointed a finger at her.

"You're--?" he hesitated. "No. Not his niece. His great-niece. Which means you're--"

"Yes," Ceri nodded, eyes flashing at Alfred, stopping him before he could say exactly what, if anything, she really was. "Yes. I am."

Alfred hesitated. "My how you've grown. And your sister?"

Ceri's face tied itself up into knots of misery. "The League has her. She went willingly."

"I see," Alfred flinched, and bowed his head. "Bloody shame, that is."

(Taken aback, Bruce stood through this in stony silence.)

"Tell me about it," Ceri harrumphed, and then returned a piercing gaze to Grandpa Tennylson. "I think she mentioned you in her letters. She called you 'Eddie.'"

Her gaze flashed to Dale. "This is your father? I might've known, seeing you fight. Might've known 'Eddie' had a connection with The Ravager."

Edmund injected himself with a luminescent serum, ostensibly meteor-rock.

Jamie arched an eyebrow at that. "Eddie the Cowboy. You should really read the warning label on your prescriptions, because that one says: 'not to be taken internally.'"

Ceri stared at that mask, and at Edmund Tennylson, and glanced again at Dale-- Pete was tearing his own ski mask into strips and using this to wad up against the cuts, apologising for the lack of cleanliness --and she smiled grimly.

"Don't you worry, Dale," she growled, tossing Edmund the mask. "I'm going. I'll keep a lid on him for you. (Not a good man, but a man who is fucking fearless.)"

"If we're going," Bruce declared, because there was no question that he was going, and he glanced down at the mask that Damian had provided for him. "We need to proceed with caution. Keep our distance at first. Where there's one thermonuke, there may be more."

Chloe shook her head softly. "No-one else dies. Not today. No-one else dies."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Dale nodded to Ceri. He knew she would keep them safe. He believed in her.

Marcy for her part sat in stunned silence. She moved closer to her husband however and simply hugged him. Gingerly.

Edmund looked at Chloe and nodded. "No miss. I give you my word as a gentleman. I will see to it that none of ours fall in battle. Not today."

Then it is settled. Bruce, Ceri, Grandpa and Me. We run back up. Damien, Dad, Mom, Mr. Hamilton, you guys watch the new home base. We good to go?"

Edmund had unwrapped the small parcel, and was putting together what appeared to be a staff of some sort. He donned the mask once more. Immediately adjusting to the heads-up display.

 

[AmenRa]

Zod

He held her up by her face, his hand cupping the Amazon's chin. He turned her face from side to side as if he were studying her structure, her beauty.

And in truth, he was. Using x-ray vision, he looked deeper, peering into her, seeing her bones, her organs, her genetic make-up on a cellular level.

And then Zod understood who she was.

What she was.

He sat her down, broken and battered, allowing her to sink to her knees by his side. "Stand with me," he said to her, "and you shall reclaim the glory that once belonged to your people."

He stared hard at Rose and the others.

"Defy me," he admonished, "and all that you know will be destroyed."

With that, Zod turned to the Chinese colonel, and in perfect Mandarin, he spoke.

"Wipe them out. All of them."

The colonel relayed the order, and his infantry shouldered their AK-47s. Armored vehicles clinked and clanked as 115 mm cannons and vehicle-mounted machine guns came to bear.

And then they opened fire.

 

[AmenRa]

The Martian Manhunter

He raised his head to look at the pale form before him, and he heard her speak his name.

And the name of another.

L'Zoril .

"He protects us," the Martian Manhunter said to her, "while we sleep."

And then he looked at her, harder, and then he realized who she was. He stood tall, then, stoic, his chiseled features looking regal and proud.

"No," he said, but not harshly, and with much respect, for he spoke with dignity and righteousness that belonged to him as a Manhunter, a servant of Justice. "I will not Cross Over," he told her, "for my mission is not complete."

And then another thought camed to him.

The Ghosts of Mars spoke to him in his dream, this dream that he now shared with Death.

J'onn J'onzz gritted his teeth and clenched his fists tightly until the tendons popped and even still, with all his power, in the dream, he could not keep from shedding tears as the memories came.

And his heart, heavy with a burden of pain he had carried since, broke all over again.

"You touched them," he said as tears rolled freely down his cheeks to drip upon the powdery, red said. "You were there...." and he stopped, the thoughts of his wife and daughter consumed by fire too much for him to speak.

Thus was the reason why the Martian Manhunter had, until now, refused to return to the soil that spawned him.

And he now knew that this dream, this meeting, was not by chance.

 

[AmenRa]

The Zone

Var-Sen took Kara by the hand, checking quickly to make sure her wrappings were in place to protect her from the harsh climate that awaited them.

"We must wait," he told her, "for Raya and M'onel to return with it."

His eyes and voice were very serious when he spoke next.

"There are only a few gates scattered throughout this place that you can activate. These were safeguards that your father built into the Phantom Zone when he created it, should what has happened ever happen.

"Raya worked closely with your father during the creation of this dimension, and she is the only one who will know where these special doorwars lie."

 

[AmenRa]

The BRAINIAC Virus

In all of construct, that which is and that which was, things are intricately linked.

There is The Now.

And there is The Future.

For a computer, the future is only a nano-second away.

This is the reason an artificial intelligence is able to seemingly plan ahead for events.

And this is the reason the BRAIN InterActive Construct had planned ahead for the events that stopped the missile from striking its intended target of Lowell County, Kansas.

The other missiles at the AI's disposal were now useless.

So, chaos was now the weapon at hand.

Ones became zeros and ones and divided and multiplied into Boolean equations as the BRAINIAC released itself into the Construct of the Earth.

Throughout North America, the United Kingdom, Oceana, and Asia, electrical power facilities began shutting down.

Cellular telephones stopped working.

Radio communications ceased.

Air traffic control RADAR, Global Positioning Satellites, and air-to-ground navigational beacons powered down.

Traffic lights, traffic monitoring facilities, emergency services dispatchers, and emergency broadcast systems failed.

The world was plunged into darkness, unable to call for help, and unable to respond should the call have been made.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Go to Bekka.

Zod was in China.

Rose was in China.

"Launchpad, stay put a second, there is something I need to get, then I'll take us to China."

Shadows engulfed me, and seconds later I reappeared in a cave a mile and a half below the caves in Smallville. I walked over to the glowing green crystal and picked it up.

Last time Zod had gotten the upper hand, this time I was packing some insurance, courtesy of Lionel Luthor.

Shadows swirled around me once more and I was back in the bunker, glowing green stone in my hand.

"Now I am ready. Merick, take my hand and we can go get you a fix, then you come back and grab the team."


I extended my hand out to Merick, ready to take him on a ride this time.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick reached out a hand. In this form it was hard to tell, but he was grinning ear to ear. "Let's Roll."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ted, Lex, John, and Rose (with apologies to My Chemical Romance)

With that, Zod turned to the Chinese colonel, and in perfect Mandarin, he spoke.

"Wipe them out. All of them."

Ted's eyes went wide.

"Junior," he breathed. "Get your head down."

Lex glanced at him. "What? I speak fluent Japanese but Mandarin isn't--"

The colonel relayed the order, and his infantry shouldered their AK-47s. Armored vehicles clinked and clanked as 115 mm cannons and vehicle-mounted machine guns came to bear.

Ted sighed dismally. And closed his eyes. And wondered how much it was going to hurt this time.

And then they opened fire.

Lex staggered under the hail of gunfire, under the chattering of bullets against his enchanted armour plate, staggered and fell to one knee and beside him Ted Grant grunted-- nothing more, just grunted, no curses or prayers, just a grunt --as he died.

Lex staggered and forced himself up, struggling against the hail of bullets, like an Iron Man wading through a rain of steel. This armour had supposedly withstood dragonfire, but Lex was just a mortal and his heart was pounding almost loud enough to drown out the chatter and the clatter and the pinging of bullet after bullet after bullet.

Lex grit his teeth and forced himself forward.

He was a Luthor. And that meant only one thing: Victory.

Ted Grant lay dead on the ground behind him but Lex didn't even spare the man a second look, he just pressed himself onward. Win. At. Any. Cost.

The bullets flew for John as well and John stood there, cigarette in his mouth, cavalier look on his face, an eyebrow arched.

And none of the bullets touched him. Like walking between the raindrops. The bullets whizzed past him, zinged by his ear, whiffed by his coat collar.

He drew hard on his cigarrette and shook his head at Ted laying on the ground. Poor bastard. He'll be feeling that later.

The bullets flew for Rose as well and Rose stood there, watching the bullets as they flew towards her, screaming for her blood, and she raised her hand and she made Fire.

She was scared of what would happen if she defied The General and she wasn't afraid of dying but she was afraid, she was so afraid, she was afraid of letting her friends and family and planet down. She was afraid of letting Kara down.

She wouldn't let Kara down. She. Would. Not.

Fire like you wouldn't believe, sizzling the bullets to liquid to cinder to slag to nothing at all before they could even reach her, those dozens of bullets those hundreds, they flew for her and the flame scoured the bullets from the air.

She did this with one hand and her eyes were scorching.

'And in my heart I can't contain it
The anthem won't explain it.'

She raised her other hand aloft.

John arched an eyebrow at her.

"Saw this on TV once," Rose growled, even as she poured on the fire. "Wanted to try it."

She was so very tired.

Her throat was burned and her chest was cratered and her t-shirt was ruined and she was soaked with rain.

Every muscle in her body hurt.

And she reached right up and out with her power, her aching splintered power, and lightning crackled, cold lightning crackled on her up-thrust hand.

'A world that sends you reeling from decimated dreams
Your misery and hate will kill us all.
So paint it black and take it back
Let's shout it loud and clear
Defiant to the end we hear the call.'

Her power clawed up at the sky, lightning coursing upwards, flowing and sparking and jagging and zagging...

...and the rain stopped.

Not that rain stopped falling from the clouds, oh, no, certainly not.

But the rain that was falling stopped in mid-air. In defiance of gravity.

Blood trickled from both of Rose's nostrils, and her eye twitched.

'Do or die, you'll never make me
Because the world will never take my heart
Go and try, you'll never break me
We want it all, we wanna play this part
I won't explain or say I'm sorry
I'm unashamed, I'm gonna show my scar
Give a cheer for all the broken'

The raindrops hung in the air and they froze, they froze solid wherever they were, they froze so jagged and sharp and the raindrops that had fallen on the guns, on the exposed weaponry, the gun emplacements, these froze solid too, they froze inside the guns and they froze on top of the guns they turned to ice and jammed the hardware, all those little chinks and cracks into which the rain had seeped, these were full of ice in a matter of seconds and guns mis-fired and guns jammed and guns stopped firing.

"Strewth," John breathed.

Rose shuddered, and shook her head, and ran her tongue over her upper lip and tasted the blood from her nosebleed.

Her knees threatened to give out.

'We'll carry on
We'll carry on
And though you're dead and gone believe me
Your memory will carry on
We'll carry on.'

Raindrops still hanging frozen solid in the air elongated, stretched out, and Rose twisted and turned her lightning-crackled hand...

...the raindrops became icy flechettes, tiny razor-thin daggers, and as Rose groaned with effort she moved that ice in the air...

...tiny icy flechettes hovered at jugular veins and carotid arteries and eyeballs...

...these frightened Chinese soldiers now had something else to be scared of. Something else besides Zod.

Rose grinned softly, madly, deeply. "How do you like that, Double-K? I fought the bad guys for you. How do you like that?"

'Do or die, you'll never make me (We'll carry on)
Because the world will never take my heart (We'll carry on)
Go and try, you'll never break me (We'll carry)
We want it all, we wanna play this part (We'll carry on)'

And at the top of her lungs she shouted to the soldiers, and to Zod, defiant to the end: "'Bai4tuo1, an1jing4 yi1dian3!'"

We will enjoy your silence now!

And Lex rose to his feet, shattering ice off himself as he moved, gritting his teeth, no longer hammered down by bullets, no longer hampered by Ted Grant, and he sprinted across the space between himself and Zod and hurled a balled-up armoured fist for Zod's bloodied lip, thanks be to the miracle warrior-girl that had hurt The General but it was Lex Luthor's turn now and he punched this self-glorying would-be conqueror in the face.