The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie

"You know who else operated like that?" Jamie mused, quietly taking in stride the talk of assassination and evasion. "Refusing to know anything that wouldn't contribute to his cause? Albert Einstein. Good oul' Albert. And? And? Sherlock Holmes."

He nodded softly, and grinned. "When first Watson met Holmes, 'A Study in Scarlet,' I think it was, he was flabbergasted that Holmes could know Watson had been in Afghanistan with only a handshake, but yet didn't know The Copernican Theory, heliocentrism, The Earth orbiting around The Sun. Holmes, of course, thought all of this was balderdash. He likened it to a skillful workman keeping only the proper tools at hand for his duties... no useless facts crowding out the useful ones. He didn't want heliocentrism to edge out his knowledge of fingerprinting, or what-have-you. Said, and this is a quote, it didn't make 'a pennyworth of difference' to him or his work one way or the other."

One hand in a pocket, the other hand clutching his espresso, Jamie Hamilton grinned at Damian Cain. "'Pennyworth.' Devil of a coincidence, ennit? Anyway, you're in good company, knowing what you know and little else. Makes you focused. Makes you... reliable. My brain's got elastic walls, I've never any idea which way it's going to bend, but you? You're a well-oiled machine, and you're in the company of The World's Greatest Detective. Don't knock yourself unnecessarily, sonny-jim."

Jamie pursed his lips, though, when he came to the notions of financial advice. "I've always been a bit vague about money. Technically, right now, I'm jobless and penniless. But! A teaching position just opened up at a local school and I'm looking forward to having a go."

He paused, and contemplated. He glanced in the general direction of that self-projecting Boom Tube Chamber, off somewhere in the distance and above ground.

"Tell you what, though," he murmured. "If I didn't think it would destroy the economy and cause irreparable harm to the space-time continuum, I might suggest Booming back in time a few years, popping your millions into a stable financial institution, then returning to the present and reaping the rewards of interest rates. I mean, you're already an entity from an alternate eventuality and you're already 'borrowing' money from your grand-dad a good decade and a half before you're meant to be born, what more damage could it do?"

 

[camerindrake]

Damian

Damian thought and then said, "Such as Wayne Enterprises." He then stopped and looked back at Jamie. "But it isnt a public company." He grinned one of those grins that makes most sane men squirm, "Though controlling stock is with the Luthors, LuthorCorp is if I recall."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie

Jamie didn't squirm.

Which, among other things, might be incontrovertible evidence of the state of his mind.

He scritched behind one ear.

"Investing it?" he mumbled. "Stocks? I dunno. Bulls, bears, buy low, sell high, Eddie Murphy and Danny Aykroyd. It's all a bit beyond me."

He shrugged, and sniffed at his espresso, and then downed a good swig of it. "I was thinking maybe. You know. A savings account? I've heard those are nice. A good solid bank, erm, maybe one of those friendly little credit unions, FDIC, NCUA, insured against stuff like robberies. A certificate of deposit."

He frowned. "But if you invest in LuthorCorp, wouldn't that be like giving money to the enemy, or something? I dunno. I dunno how that works, really."

...he trailed off, his face knotting up. "There it is again. Not knowing things. Elastic brains. Such an odd feeling, I can barely stand it."

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen

"Of course we can go to your house," the Kryptonian scientist replied to Rose. A thought then crossed his mind, and he stopped the SUV. "As a matter of fact," he said as he put the vehicle into park and began fiddling with the ring of two keys attached to the ignition. He removed a silver-colored key that resembled a residential door key. The only other key left on the ring was in the BMW's ignition lock.

Smith opened the driver's door and got out. He walked around to the passenger door, which he opened, and extended his hand for Rose to take and step out of the car.

"I'll keep this one, to give to Chloe when I see her," he explained. "The other key is yours. And since it is yours, you can drive to your house, because I don't know where that is."

He stood there, smiling and waiting. "Hurry now, I still have to find Raya."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Odin

Data and bytes were captured, commanded and when necessary reformed as the A.I. swarmed through the worlds systems rebuilding that which had been destroyed by both it and the alien menace. Priority was given to the most dangerous of process that were down, so the airline systems, rail and infrastructure came up first, followed by communication and government defense systems. lastly the cell systems and ISP's started coming back online, lifting the fog over the online world.


So many lives lost due to the actions of the alien program. a 727 in Argentina. A train in Tokyo. Another airliner in Turkey.


They would not have died in vain. Alien code was mixed into the web. whispers of a advanced civilization, a machine brought to malevolent life by science without a soul. As bits and pieces were stolen from the web the A.I. known as Odin digested them, teasing secrets and whispers from them, and slowly (by a machine's speed of thought) the whispers started to become words.

Odin was learning.


Two messages were sent. One to Dr. Hamilton: "All is well, that which was destroyed has been corrected. The away team in en-route to your location, ETA 7 hours."

The other to Rebekka Greystone: "All systems online. Communications restored. Will be offline for a while, I have new information that requires all power at my disposal."


With those two messages sent, Odin turned all his power into learning the Kryptonian code that he had obtained. And as he learned, he began to evolve.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose took John Smith's hand.

Her face was as white as one of her ice-sheets.

"Wait," she murmured. "What?"

She climbed out of the car.

"I don't have a licence," she mumbled. "I don't even have a learner's permit like some of the other freshmen. I can't even drive a Warthog, Merick always makes me man the fifty-cal."

She shook her head, and she frowned, and she rubbed her upper arms.

"I mean, what's the point of having an onboard navigation system if you can't just type in my tupping address?" she wondered, she thought, reasonably, nodding her head in the direction of his dashboard. "It's just down the street from The Kents, you've been there before. Seriously, you drive past Miz Potter's place, where that nice Lana Lang lives, and it's right there on the right in the midst of a copse of trees."

Then she paused for a moment. She blinked at him and stared.

She did the math.

"Hold on a minute," she mumbled. "Did you just. Hang on a tick. Did you just give me a car?"

She stared at John Smith, and she blinked at him.

She looked back at the car.

"Merciful Buddha," she breathed.

Rose reached into the passenger-side door, still open, popped the glove box, yanked out the manual.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she concentrated with all her might. And she began to read.

Page page page page. And as she flipped through the pages, she walked around to the other side of the car, mumbling to herself, and clambered into the driver's seat.

"Quicksec," she whispered, paging, paging, paging, hauling her seat belt across and then licking her finger and thumb to turn the pages more easily, "saw this in a movie once. I'm learning to drive. Quicksec. Just a... just a quick sec."

 

[AmenRa]

"Hold on a minute," she mumbled. "Did you just. Hang on a tick. Did you just give me a car?"

She stared at John Smith, and she blinked at him.

"Yep," he told her, "because I'm fairly certain I won't need it anymore, and Chloe has one already." Rose knew Chloe was his other favorite. "Besides, this key will let her in on something much more suited to her inquisitive nature than an over-priced German SUV."

He nodded back at the car's dashboard. "And you can actually enter your address on the nav display and it will show you where to go. Which reminds me, when the time comes, and maybe you and Chloe decide to follow the white rabbit and see what this key opens, entering the word home on the nav display will show you the route to my apartment in Metropolis."

He looked at her very seriously as she got into the driver's seat.

"You'll do fine, Rose," he told her. "Your species has continued to impress me by your ability to adapt to your surroundings. And you continue to impress me by just the way you smile," he added with a smile of his own.

He then got quiet as Rose thumbed through the BMW's manual. He thought about how he'd miss her and Chloe and the rest, and how he would make it a point to come back to this world and check in on them from time to time.

He then closed his eyes and focused all of his mental energy into one thought, one feeling, much the way he had done with Chloe earlier.

Raya.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie, Gabe, Pete, Chloe, and Alfred

As Jamie Hamilton contemplated the matters of personal finance with Damian Cain, the computer made a chirruping noise, and he blinked.

"Ooh," he grinned. "That was quick. Works every time, that does."

Taking a huge gulp of his espresso, he set it down on the desk next to the keyboard and crouched down, childlike, gazing at the screen with squinty eyes.

"'All is well,'" he read aloud, "'that which was destroyed has been corrected. The away team in en-route to your location, ETA 7 hours.'"

He grinned lopsidedly. "Attaboy, Ragnarok."

Jamie straightened, and addressed the others. "Looks like the field team is taking the long way home. By the sound of things, they're coming here first. Best prepare your dad's guest bedroom, Dale. And, erm, lock up Nikabrik, just to be on the safe side?"

Gabe and Pete shared a long look.

Pete jerked his head in Jamie's direction. "G'wan."

Gabe shook his head fiercely. "No. No, not this time. I always ask confusing people to explain themselves, I've been doing it the whole way here. I refuse to be the guy who always asks that question."

Pete grimaced. "Dammit, I thought I was gonna dodge that bullet."

Chloe harrumphed, evidently both amused and annoyed by this exchange. "If you guys are quite finished hanging lampshades?"

Pete and Gabe shared another look.

Pete grunted. "Okay, fine, I'll ask him. 'Hey, Doc, what the eff is The Cole Protocol, and what does it do?'"

"Nothing, really," Jamie grinned. "There's this principle in my former line of work, in which sheer audacity can often triumph over a well-formed plan. You've heard this one: 'If you carry a clipboard and look serious enough, you can go anywhere.' I tried it once without the clipboard, doesn't work, but otherwise the concept is sound. The 'Cole Protocol' is the same thing. A.I.'s have fuzzy logic, which means they're designed to think along humanish lines. Which means, I call out importantly enough, put a string of numbers together, someone's going to sit up and take notice. Fortunately for us, the right cyberspacial bloke pulled his head out of the sand. Got the name and numbers from this game Rosy likes, funny the stuff you pick up along the way."

"Oh," Gabe blinked.

"So glad I asked," Pete chuckled wryly.

"He really does like to listen to himself prattle, don't he?" Alfred shook his head, smiling faintly. "You'd think he'd get right knackered of talking all the time."

Jamie just grinned. "You're just jealous because I get to say such interesting things."

Alfred squinted at him. "Not that interesting."

Jamie's face fell. "Oh."

Alfred handed Damian that coffee with the chocolate stirred in. "Don't let it get cold, young sa'."

Chloe wandered up to Merick and smiled faintly at him. "I lent my phone to Rose. If the towers are back up, can I borrow yours? I wanna call the sheriff's office, see if the school's closed."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick smiled at Chloe. His mind raced a bit. His heart pounded and stuttered as he fumbled the phone to her hands. Intergalactic badasses, Interdimensional politics... No problem. Easy peezy. Girls... this was Merick's weakness.

"Sure. Have at it." Merick handed the phone to Chloe and looked at the floor.

Dale meanwhile nodded to Jamie and picked up a phone on the counter.

"McNichol. Dad called. He wants you to go to the office in Dallas, immediately. Security breach. Some tech stole some data and is stone walling about it's current location. Data Dad doesn't want on this kid's Myspace page if you follow."

Dale hung up the phone and grinned at Jamie. "If you know McNichol, you know that he can't resist the urge to torture some poor soul. Bet he has grabbed his case and is headed out as we speak"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Raya and Hugh

John Smith's thought spiraled upward... it flew and flew, faster than any matter could travel...

...and it bounced, not off of the ionosphere, but off of another energy field entirely.

Psychic energy. Morphogenetic energy. The Earth, after all, was a living thing in certain ways of thinking. It and all the living things in it wove together into a multi-spectral energy field of thought, red and green and all colours of the rainbow, and off of this did Var-Sen's mental instant message ricochet.

It flew up, and it bounced, skipping like a stone, and then down, down, down...

Hugh had made a campfire out of the pieces of his broken door, and they sat and watched the firelight lap out upon the darkened dunes.

Raya sat and gazed at the stars.

Hugh gazed more... inward.

"You have a very interesting Dreaming," he said to her, eventually.

Raya blinked and frowned across at him. "You say things that I do not understand. Perhaps I am not as intelligent as I thought I was."

Hugh smiled faintly. "'Dreaming,'" he murmured, "in the context of Aborigine thought, can mean one or two things. First off, it can refer to the time of Creation, which is always and ongoing, a place and time, an Everywhen, ruled by totemistic forces and capable of being contacted by entities of great spiritual power. Secondly, it can refer to a person's totem, their spirituality and personality described by an animal archetype. And you... I can see your Dreaming. It's like no species I've seen before."

Raya smiled ever-so-faintly. "Kryptonians have not believed in magic for a very long time. Since before Jax-Ur. I have studied this a little, but I do not practise."

Hugh gazed at her quietly. "Sometimes you find the path, and sometimes the path finds you."

She looked at him, squinting at him even though her X-Ray vision could see clearly through the campfire's smoke. "What do you see?"

"Looks like a Phoenix," he mused. "Feathers and pyrotechnics. But... different. Polygonal. Like it's made of math as well as magic."

Raya pondered this for a moment. "In the mythology of my people, there is a creature called The Flamebird. Perhaps this is what you see?"

And then she smiled a quiet, contemplative little smile. "Of course, if I am a Flamebird, then that means... that means Var-Sen is a Nightwing, The Flamebird's counterpart, and the inspiration for one of my world's greatest legendary heroes."

She closed her eyes and smiled that contemplative little smile. "Of course he is a Nightwing. He always did love to wear black."

Hugh grinned softly. "Bet he's gonna love you in that outfit, Sheila. Good on ya."

Raya smirked at Hugh, her eyes half-lidded. "And what of your Dreaming, Hugh Dawkins of The Island of Apples?"

Hugh grinned at her, mysterious as could be, and popped the top on a can of beer. "'White man got no Dreaming.'"

Raya was hardly going to take this prevarication, and she was about to press the point when all of a sudden all of a sudden--

'Raya.'

--his voice was in her head and she shot to her feet.

And she knew she was not Dreaming.

Her eyes slammed shut: 'Var-Sen. I wait for you in a land that is Down Under. I do not know how to find you... I am in one piece. But I long for you terribly. Please hurry?'

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose kept reading, and focused hard, and let her subconscious digest what Professor Smith was saying.

The words on the page screamed past her conscious mind, and she read as fast as she could. Chewing up the data and trying to assimilate.

She had enhanced reflexes and enhanced senses, she was strong and quick.

The trouble was, she wasn't especially co-ordinated. But maybe she could make up for this by concentrating harder?

She closed the manual. Ran her eyes over the dials.

Only now, as she sat in the driver's seat, quietly thoughtfully pensively adjusting the seat so that her feet could reach the pedals, did she think about what Var-Sen had said. (She wasn't as tall as Var-Sen, but thankfully, she wasn't so short she needed to strap blocks to her feet to hit the gas...)

She put the manual on the dashboard.

She trailed her fingers over the steering wheel, and then down to the gearshift, and then trailed her fingers over the numbers and letters that adorned that gearshift.

"'Prindle,'" she muttered, with a faint little smile.

Once a professor, she considered, glancing at John Smith as he sent out his Deep Thought, always a professor.

You're never going to stop tempting us with knowledge, are you? And challenging us to improve ourselves?

Never going to stop showing us mysteries.

She grinned softly, leaning her head back against the headrest and closing her eyes as one hand gripped the steering wheel and the other hand grasped the gearshift. She closed her eyes.

Don't you dare. Don't you dare ever stop professoring.

...she tried to picture her mother getting the Saab ready for takeoff.

Rose blinked, opened her eyes, and adjusted the mirrors.

"Okay," she murmured, squaring her shoulders and trying to stay loose. "Okay."

She flexed her fingers. "350 horsepower. Given the approximate mass of the vehicle and the strength of the engine involved--"

She put the gearshift to "D."

She pressed her foot down slightly.

The vehicle lurched, and her eyes went wide.

"--okay. Recalculating."

She took a deep shuddery breath. "'Keep it loose, keep it tight.' 'Keep it loose, keep it tight.'"

She pressed her foot down again, and the car again lurched-- though this time not nearly so emphatically --and this time she kept on going.

"Self-adjusting power steering," she murmured, remembering from the manual, as she experimented with moving the vehicle from side to side. "'Active steering.' Keeps the car nimble at lower speeds, but when I speed up a little--" she pushed the foot down, accelerating almost smoothly this time "--but the turning ratio increases at higher speeds to help maintain control for evasive manoeuvres."

They came to the turn onto the main road, and she braked, carefully-- "Inertia. Speed versus friction. Objects in motion. Um. Recalculating." --though not quite carefully enough.

She took another deep breath, and shook her head, her "impressive" smile now somewhat raggedy. "I think that Fire Crystal replenished my adrenaline. That's good. That's good. My heart's beating really fast."

Rose gave herself a quick breather by using a trembly finger to takk her address into the nav-system.

She looked left. She looked right.

And, pressing the gas pedal once more, she turned and drove.

'"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."'

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Learning to Fly... Sort of

Kara Zor-El remained rather close to the waters edge, hovering less than a foot away from its surface. She could barely make out her reflection; blond hair and blue eyes staring back at her. Kara reached her hand out and dipped her fingers into the water, laughing as she soaked in the fact that gravity was now subject to her will.

And then she fell into the water.

Gravity, it seemed, was not yet ready to relinquish its hold on the young Kryptonian.

Though Kara felt the sudden rush of the cold water against her body, she was not as vulnerable to its freezing temperatures as most humans were. But she was still soaked, and as her head resurfaced it was obvious that she was not at all pleased.

Kara swam over to a floating piece of ice that had broken off from one of the icebergs, and she pulled herself up onto it.

"Let's try this again. But I swear... if gravity works again I'm gonna..."

"You could have given me an instruction manual!" Kara yelled, turning her head back to the direction of the fortress.

Kara stood up on her feet, trying to balance herself on the rather shaky piece of ice. Though gifted with extraordinary grace and composure, even for a Kryptonian trying to stand up on a thin sheet of ice that was floating in the Arctic Ocean was a rather daunting task.

Kara Zor-El finally managed to interrupt Earth's gravitational hold on her body, and she began to float back into the air. Learning to fly was not an easy thing to do, and it required a great deal of concentration. Kara, however, was a rather quick learner, and she found directing her own energy was not as hard as it might have seemed at first. Though cautious at first, Kara was nonetheless still enamored at her ability to fly that she found herself soaring up into the sky.

As the Arctic Circle soon began to fade away into the distance, Kara Zor-El began to wonder how the others were faring. She really wanted them to have seen the formation of the Fortress. Most of all she wanted to share her excitement and experiences with Rose.

They had been through a lot together.

But there was still a lot more to come.

Kara Zor-El found herself flying high above land now, and she guessed that she was flying over Canada. Excited at the prospect of returning to civilization again, Kara flew even faster through the air.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe and Jamie

"Sure. Have at it." Merick handed the phone to Chloe and looked at the floor.

Chloe smiled softly, sympathetic agony and delight dancing in her eyes simultaneously, as she took the phone from Merick and he averted his gaze.

She reached out, and gently tilted his chin up, just as Alfred had done some hours and hours ago, and she gazed into his eyes.

"Launchpad," she murmured. "Basic rule of piloting: keep your nose up."

She grinned at him. "We've both been in the company of Death, and the dead yet live. And for some reason, they're letting us remember it. I think that bonds us enough that you can look me in the eye, right? Straighten up and fly right."

Jamie nodded gratefully at Dale, quickly recovering from Alfred's mild drubbing.

"I tremble to think," he agreed, "what that git would have done, had he laid eyes upon Ceri. Or on that dark-haired lass, Diana. Heaven forfend. Of course, either one of them could probably thrash him so thoroughly your dad'd have to find himself a new 'research consultant,' but better to not take the risk."

His eyes went half-lidded. "Better he practises his sadism on some myth. Ta, Dale, cheers."

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Canada is a beautiful country. Occupying most of Northern America, the Canadian borders stretch all the way from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean towards the west, and reaching northwards to touch upon the Arctic Ocean. Covering nearly four million square miles, driving across Canada seems almost too ludicrous to attempt.

Thankfully Kara Zor-El didn't have to drive through Canada to get to Smallville, Kansas. Clouds rolled by as she flew through the air, moving far too quickly (and too high up) to be noticed by anyone on the ground. Though AIRCOM was able to detect an unknown presence in their airspace, Kara was moving far too quickly for them to obtain a positive lock.

Eventually Kara began making her way over the continental United States, passing swiftly over North and South Dakota. Nebraska soon followed, yet Kara really didn't have time to be visiting the state where Arbor Day first began. Instead she was heading back to her home state of Kansas, where she wanted to tell all her friends about what had happened.

Kara kept herself out of sight for a while, hoping to discern the location of her friends. With her eyes closed and her ears wide open, she began sifting through the rabble of noises to focus in on one person in particular: Rose. It wasn't an easy task, and she discovered that Rose had moved away from the Kawatche Caves.

But what Kara found most amusing was that Rose was driving a car. And, judging by the sound of her heartbeat, was not having an easy time doing so.

"This could be fun," Kara said to herself as another devilish smile spread across her face.

Kara waited until Rose had driven out far enough to the point where traffic seemed to be almost nonexistent, and where the only forms of life within miles was fairly limited to livestock. Kara was fairly confident that the various cows and horses wandering the farms would have no problem keeping her secret a secret.

Moving quickly once again, Kara swooped in and positioned herself underneath the car Rose was driving. It was a tight squeeze, and Kara had to try her best not to go face-to-face with the road.

"And up we go."

Kara used her strength to lift the car up off the road, and all four tires swirled around and around, racing and grasping for a tangible surface that was no longer there. Lifting the car up above her head, Kara had to find the right sort of balance where the car wouldn't dip too far forward and go crashing back down into the road. Chuckling to herself, Kara finally flew back down towards the ground, and, after having her bit of fun, set the car back down on the ground.

"Need a lift?" Kara teased as she floated over towards the drivers side window.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

"I think I'm getting the hang of this?" Rose decided, trying to be daring, as she accelerated to the actual speed limit instead of crawling along like one of those ubiquitous tractors, blocking the road for everyone else.

(Fortunately, there didn't seem to be a lot of traffic at the moment. Unsurprising, really, probably most everyone was at home still, picking up the pieces.)

Furtively, she checked her mirrors for the ump-hundredth time.

"Yield signs mean 'go but let others go first,'" she murmured. "Stop signs are self-explanatory, except they don't tell you how long you're supposed to stop. Would it kill Lowell County to give us an occasional traffic light?"

Her heart was still beating really fast, but her hands were finally starting to relax on the steering wheel.

She was going to risk firing a shaky grin at John Smith but then suddenly--

--there came a lurching in the pit of her stomach and even as she thought this felt crazy familiar--

--she turned allasudden from Zen-calm Wash flying Serenity in "Serenity" to Rogue at the end of "X2," flying The Blackbird and flipping out in a panic, her grip now white-knuckled on the wheel and the all-wheel drive instantly becoming a no-wheel levitate--

"Agh!" she stammered, prising one hand off of the wheel in a manual-trained instinctual move, popping the car into neutral to save the transmission. "Ford Anglia. Ford Anglia!"

And back down they went. Landing with a thunk.

And Kara was outside the window. Defying gravity. And grinning her arse off.

Grinning like she owned the world.

Rose stared at her with eyes wide and lungs heaving and hair tumbling in tangles in her face.

And then slowly, slowly, she grinned.

"Hey, look," she mumbled, "Kara's back. And she's. She's falling without hitting the ground. And she's. She's giving me a heart attack."

She wound the window down, and grinned a trembly, panting grin.

"I dunno if I need a lift," she chuckled, "but you just made my first driving lesson a memorable one. Where the frell did you go, woman?"

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen was intent on watching Rose's first driving experience. So intent, in fact, he missed the blurred streak of blonde Kryptonian that hurled itself under the SUV.

When the BMW suddenly rose from the ground, Var-Sen used his x-ray vision to peer through the floor of the vehicle. He was quite surprised to see Kara holding up the car, and he was even more surprised to see Kara could now fly.

At last she had learned to fly.

Var-Sen's face formed a smile, and when he looked over to see an astonished Rose, he could not help but laugh.

And when Rose spoke to him, his laughter grew until he was doubled over in the seat.

He stopped, smoothed out his coat, and made his face a mask of seriousness.
Kara set them down and appeared at Rose's window, a smile on her face as well. Var-Sen looked over and once again broke out into uncontrollable laughter.

And then he heard, no he felt, Raya. He stopped laughing with a sudden widening of his eyes. When he turned to Kara and Rose again, he was his usual serious self.

"I'm afraid I have to go now," he told them. "I know where Raya is." He opened the door and got out of the car. "I'm sure you two will be fine, but try not to get into too much mischief with this," he said as he gestured to the car, "as I'm sure the local authorities would not take too kindly to it."

"I'll meet you at Bruce Wayne's," he stated. Then Var-Sen of Krypton took to the sky.

He flew high, upwards to the stars, until the air became thin and cold, yet he did not take notice of it. And when there was no air any longer, and Earth's firmanent had ceased its hold, he stopped and looked down, much the way a Green Martian had done just a short time before.

He saw a storm forming over the central United States, over Smallville. He held himself still against the orbital velocoties of the rotating planet as he watched the continent of North America move below him. Soon the Southern Hemisphere came into view, and then, the area of Oceana. At last he saw Australia.

Var-Sen willed himself to fall into the atmosphere, dropping like a meteor towards the continent. His clothes began to burn from the friction of the atmosphere interface, but he flew faster until the velocity of his flight made even combustion impossible. And during this descent, Var-Sen's super sensitive eyes were scanning square kilometer by square kilometer of Australia's land, searching for his one true love.

And then, by the light of a fire, accompanied by someone who must have befriended her, he saw her.

He flew faster.

Time away from her, even a second, was precious time that he could no longer stand.

He slowed, coming almost to a stop some meters above the ground, a short gust of wind from his passage wafting the flames of the fire. When his feet touched the ground, his arms were opening to embrace her.

 

[camerindrake]

Damian

Damian gave a nod of gratitude to Alfred as he took the coffee, He then hit a button on the side of his cowl, and said the word, "Weasel."

He then waited for the being from the fourth dimension to answer, once he did he gave no greeting just went down to business, "I want that amount we 'borrowed' doubled and the original amount back without a trace. Can it be done."

He waited for a moment, "You know how to set it back in that amount of time and have the original money back in the account without notice and without damaging the thread of reality cant you."

He got his answer and replied, "Do it." And with that he hit his cowl one more time and looked at Jamie. "Fixed by a pro. And no four plus four equals fish incident either.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara Zor-El finally touched her feet back down upon the ground, afraid that someone outside her close circle of friends would catch her floating around in the air. Smallville's population had grown in recent years, and most farms were being bought out by industrious entrepreneurs interested in earning a quick buck. Even LexCorp. muscled its way into the small Kansas town, though its primary interests were never really made clear.

"I apologize for giving you a little bit of a scare, but I couldn't resist," Kara said with a playful smile as Rose rolled down the window. Inside she saw Var-Sen sitting in the passenger seat, a gentle smile on his face one moment, and then a look of stern consternation the next.

Either he heard or saw something most troublesome... or he heard or saw something most troublesome (and vice versa).

"What's wron..."

"I know where Raya is."

"Oh," Kara said, trying her best to hide the smile on her face.

Var-Sen and Raya
Sitting in a tree

“We’ll bring it back in one piece,” Kara promised, crossing her heart but hoping not to die. Once Var-Sen had taken off to the skies, Kara smirked at Rose.

“K-I-S-S-I-N-G” she finished, a little louder now that Var-Sen was out of listening distance.

Kara moved over to the other side of the car and got into the passenger seat, shutting the door behind her. Even though it really didn't matter, Kara pulled the seat belt over and clamped it down.

"So, where we headed?"

 

[Lunaramblings]

She reached out, and gently tilted his chin up, just as Alfred had done some hours and hours ago, and she gazed into his eyes.

"Launchpad," she murmured. "Basic rule of piloting: keep your nose up."

She grinned at him. "We've both been in the company of Death, and the dead yet live. And for some reason, they're letting us remember it. I think that bonds us enough that you can look me in the eye, right? Straighten up and fly right."

Merick looked into Chloe's eyes. Merick decided then and there, he had seen some increbile things... China, Honduras, The Dreaming, but they all paled compared to looking into the eyes of a beautiful woman.

"Sorry. I just... I get nervous around girls sometimes. I guess I am not as suave as I like to think." Merick smiled weakly "So, what do you think is up with that? I mean, we meet Death... we are totally like Zombies or something... brrrrrraaaaaaiiiiinnnnnnssssss..." Merick chuckled. "So... if you don't have a date to the Homecoming... um... I thought... well... I mean... not that you have to... but..." Merick stammered as he looked into Chloe's beautiful eyes. "Well... maybe I could bring you?" You know, one zombie to another..."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie

Jamie blinked, a bit, when he heard the word 'Weasel,' about to protest that he generally considered himself to be more "foxy" than "weasely." Or maybe "snaky."

But then it clicked that Son-of-Bat was talking to someone in his head. And, hopefully, this person wasn't imaginary.

He waited, patiently, listening to the one side of the conversation, wondering how in God's green goodness this "Weasel" character would double that quantity of cash at speed without rupturing the local continuum. As he waited, he regarded his reflection in one of the monitors, and flickered his tongue out quick and in again, like a snake, one-two-three times. He grinned.

Just a little bit foxy. And a whole lot snaky. There are worse things.

Damian was apparently finishing up, and Jamie glanced across at him.

He got his answer and replied, "Do it." And with that he hit his cowl one more time and looked at Jamie. "Fixed by a pro. And no four plus four equals fish incident either."

Jamie arched an eyebrow, nodded slowly, mused: "S'funny. Must be an inconsistency between dimensions. I always heard it was two. 'Two plus two equals fish.' Little details, ennit? And sometimes not so little."

His voice settled into one of gentle caution, and he regarded Damian with those darksome eyes. "One thing I suspect, however, that's constant over all the universes, and that's my very favourite Law of Conservation. Which, by principle, teaches us that nothing comes from nothing, and everything comes from something. My Rosy would call it 'equivalent exchange.' You're trying to get a whole lot of something for a whole lot of nothing, and that's not going to be without its cost. Maybe not now, maybe not soon, but it'll be there."

He tutted softly. "If this 'Weasel's' as pro as you say he is, well, fair play to him. I do enjoy getting proven wrong, because, eh, the day I know everything, I may as well stop. But someday, somewhen far from now, when I'm carrying pi out to nineteen places in my head... and I find that the eighteenth place is 'fish?'"

He grinned his puckish, beaming grin. "Well, I may just come calling. Because I'll want you to help me put it straight."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Raya and Hugh

On every world, all across the cosmos, there recurs the tale of The Star-Crossed Lovers. Not every culture has one, of course, but at least once per populated planet, there comes the story...

Not all of these stories have happy endings.

Romeo and Juliet, for instance, and before that, Pyramus and Thisbe.

Some do have happy endings, of course.

Kerin and Sehra, if you'll recall, of The Tizarin. Closer to home, Baldr and Nanna, reunited after a Ragnarok...

On Krypton, there had been Hur-Om and Fra-Jo, the opera tapestry of which had broken box office records, and served as an auspicious first date for many a Kryptonian couple.

And now, many centuries after it was sundered in the sky, Krypton had another such story to its name.

Var-Sen and Raya.

Var-Sen descended from the dark night sky and Raya, already on her feet, was in his arms in less than an instant. Superspeed propelled her to him in all of a picosecond and the impacts of their bodies colliding caused the very air to explode, though this did not injure them in the slightest.

Hugh, meanwhile, bowled over by the impact, his tipped-over beer trickling away into the sand, sat up with wide eyes and mumbled... "Strewth."

Superhearing or no, Raya had no ears to hear her friend. She could not hear him over the sound of her own racing heart. She could not hear him over the muffled little noises she was making as she kissed her love.

(They were not in a tree.

But the other thing was true.)

And when she drew back, Kryptonian lungs or no, she was breathless. She was giddy, and she was grinning. "I thought time moved slowly in The Phantom Zone. But here it seems it moves even slower. What took you so long?"

Hugh picked himself up, and dusted himself off, grinning lopsidedly.

"Well," he chuckled softly, "s'pose I'll leave you crazy heterosexuals to your reunion. Dun want to be the fifth wheel on your ute."

He paused, though, as he had been about to move off: "Raya. I see it 'round his edges. Math and magic. ...but not made of fire, made of shadows. Feathery and leathery. Like a cross between bats... and ravens."

She nodded at him, turning away from Var-Sen just for a moment. "Yes. That is an accurate physical description."

Raya fixed Var-Sen with a very serious expression. "According to this Terran's shaman training," she proclaimed, "I am the Flamebird to your Nightwing. Does this seem like an appropriate metaphor to you?"

She grinned softly, her eyes dancing. "Better a Nightwing than a hrakka, I should think."

 

[AmenRa]

Raya fixed Var-Sen with a very serious expression. "According to this Terran's shaman training," she proclaimed, "I am the Flamebird to your Nightwing. Does this seem like an appropriate metaphor to you?"

She grinned softly, her eyes dancing. "Better a Nightwing than a hrakka, I should think."

Var-Sen considered her question for just a nanosecond, then he looked at her with the most serious eyes.

"No," he told her, "the metaphor is inaccurate. You are my everything."

Still holding her, he turned to Hugh. "Thank you for looking after her," he said to him.

Var-Sen gestured to the night sky. "We are to meet Kara and the others soon," he said to her as he brushed that one stray strand of hair from her face, "but we have time before we need to go from here. We are safe, for now, for Zod has been sent back to the Phantom Zone. Kara is aided by the Martian Manhunter. And, Raya, she has joined the pieces of the Crystal of Knowledge. The Fortress has been built!"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe, Pete, Gabe, and Alfred

"Sorry. I just... I get nervous around girls sometimes. I guess I am not as suave as I like to think." Merick smiled weakly.

Chloe grinned at him, her eyes aching but cheerful all at once. "Better that, I'm sure, than stalking around, narcissistic, thinking you're God's greatest gift to women. Like Mike 'Iron Arm' Gradlow, or Whitney 'Flash Gordon' Fordman."

"So, what do you think is up with that? I mean, we meet Death... we are totally like Zombies or something... brrrrrraaaaaaiiiiinnnnnnssssss..." Merick chuckled.

Chloe went a little pale at this. "Oh, you're so kidding. I totally had a zombification identity crisis the first time I came back. I was half-ready to have Alfred take his prized golf clubs to my skull for that oh-so-prerequisite blunt trauma. I think we're cool, though, I don't think you actually died. Just a 'near-Death' experience, if you'll, um, pardon the pun. And I think I had a proper resurrection both times, as opposed to the infamous 'improper resurrection.'"

She chuckled faintly, resuming a little bit of her former colour. "All the same, I think we should keep biting people to an absolute minimum, just so we don't pass on any 'rage viruses.' At least for a standard quarantine period, you know the drill."

"So... if you don't have a date to the Homecoming... um... I thought... well... I mean... not that you have to... but..." Merick stammered as he looked into Chloe's beautiful eyes. "Well... maybe I could bring you?" You know, one zombie to another..."

Chloe stared at Merick for a moment.

Her eyes had never been wider. She almost dropped Merick's phone, having totally forgotten that a) she was even holding the thing and b) that she had meant to call Sheriff Ethan and make sure the town was still standing.

She glanced rapidly at Pete, but Pete had decided to scrutinise Grandpa Tennylson's weapons collection and wasn't even looking in her direction.

She glanced at her father, but he was gratefully accepting his half-caf from Alfred, who was still busy passing out coffee.

Her eyes swung back around to Merick, and they were still very very wide.

She thought of Bruce Wayne, dragonslayer.

And here was Merick Tennylson, stumblebum palooka.

But Bruce...

Bruce had a much greater Destiny than mere Chloe Sullivan.

He was already partway to that Destiny. Whereas Chloe's work was cut out for her right at home in Smallville-- and maybe other places in Kansas --Bruce had a life that would take him around the world and back again.

Merick's Destiny. Merick's Destiny, on the other hand, was still being written. And maybe Chloe could be part of that, at least for a little while.

She'd like that.

Chloe reached out with the hand that didn't hold the cellphone and she touched Merick's face.

"Yeah," she murmured, eyes a-twinkle, "yeah. Homecoming. I'd like that."

(Not far away, Pete Ross hung his head and bit the inside of his cheek and said not a word.)

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

"I apologize for giving you a little bit of a scare, but I couldn't resist," Kara said with a playful smile as Rose rolled down the window.

Rose shook her head, grinning, recovering. "No, no way, don't apologise. That was the best punking ever. A punking with superpowers. (A superpunking?)"

Var-Sen drew away in spirit, and returned only to bid them what was hopefully only a brief adieu: his "super-sense" was tingling, or something, and he had to follow his heart. Wryly, he instructed them to behave themselves with Rose's new gift.

(Which, given Kara's immediate precedent, was highly unlikely.)

Even now, she was reciting that little rhyme...

Var-Sen and Raya
Sitting in a tree

...which made Rose grin from ear to razorsharp ear and rattattatt her fingers on the steering wheel.

“We’ll bring it back in one piece,” Kara promised, crossing her heart but hoping not to die.

In full agreement, Rose raised one hand and nodded firmly: "I do solemnly swear to use my wheels only for good."

And then Var-Sen was gone, a brilliant blur up up up and away.

Once Var-Sen had taken off to the skies, Kara smirked at Rose.

“K-I-S-S-I-N-G” she finished, a little louder now that Var-Sen was out of listening distance.

Rose turned pink, and she touched her forehead to the steering wheel as she tried to get a handle on her wildfire blush.

Kara moved over to the other side of the car and got into the passenger seat, shutting the door behind her. Even though it really didn't matter, Kara pulled the seat belt over and clamped it down.

"So, where we headed?"

Rose grinned nervously at her. "Well. I had been headed to my own house. I wanted to maybe run a Level Four diagnostic on my CD player and my clunky ol' desktop. Not to mention, you know, walls and windows. But we don't have to go there if you don't want."

She paused for a moment. "We should probably stick to back roads, though. At least with Professor Smith, I could have played the 'student driver' card. If we get pulled over with just the two of us in here, The Consequences Could Be Dire."

Rose chuckled softly.

She looked at her hands on the wheel. "You know what? I got kissed in a tree yesterday. I didn't think that stuff happened in real life. Never ever. Just like that one time I saw a chicken cross the road--"

She blinked. And grinned. And looked at Kara.

"Actually," she beamed, "I think that might have been one of the chickens from The Kent Farm."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Raya and Hugh

"No," he told her, "the metaphor is inaccurate. You are my everything."

She turned red. Her Daxamite friend had been very expressive of his emotions, she had gotten used to that. Perhaps that was why she had expressed herself so... physically. So impulsively.

But she was unused to Kryptonian males being so... demonstrative. Admitting so freely to feelings of romantic attachment. (Indeed, she had had conversations with Alura regarding her relationship with Zor-El, and Alura had wryly confessed that getting Zor-El to say anything romantic was like wringing a photon out of a quantum singularity.)

Var-Sen expressing himself so thoroughly, in full view of others, was as surprising as it was... delightful. She rather liked this way of doing things.

Still holding her, he turned to Hugh. "Thank you for looking after her," he said to him.

"No worries, mate," Hugh dismissed, making a gesture like he was brushing away flies, the standard "Aussie salute." "Happy to do it. Just keep looking after her, and we'll be apples."

Var-Sen gestured to the night sky. "We are to meet Kara and the others soon," he said to her as he brushed that one stray strand of hair from her face, "but we have time before we need to go from here. We are safe, for now, for Zod has been sent back to the Phantom Zone. Kara is aided by the Martian Manhunter. And, Raya, she has joined the pieces of the Crystal of Knowledge. The Fortress has been built!"

Raya closed her eyes and smiled and rested her head against Var-Sen's chest.

This emotional demonstrativeness was catching it seemed, because she was having trouble holding back delighted tears.

Zod contained. Kara Zor-El safe and sound, under The Martian's ever-watchful eye. And The Fortress...

"The Fortress of Knowledge," she murmured, as though she were describing The Ark of The Covenant, so holy was this place. A Kryptonian Holiest of Holies, if such a notion was not too blasphemous.

She tilted her head back and she smiled up at him. "I did say that I wanted to ask Zor-El a question, didn't I? Maybe now I shall have that chance -- to ask his technologically-encoded 'ghost,' certainly, but still ask him."

Raya Ro-Zan glanced down at Var-Sen's hand, and wove her fingers with his.

"Where shall we go next?" she wondered. "There are twenty-eight galaxies to choose from. And this entire planet. (Even to the north of us, just here, there is a great rock of ley-lines and power, sandstone, like unto the capstone of the world.)

"Where are we going?" she wondered, softly, searching his face anew. "Where are you taking us?"