The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[Lunaramblings]

Chloe grinned her bright, disbelieving grin at Merick Tennylson.

"How soon before the dance are we talking, here?" she wondered, half-teasing. "That's quite a ways away yet. Are we talking, like, pronto? Or is this more so you can set reservations?"

Merick grins in return, "Well, I mean, I would never turn down the chance to spend extra time with you. Not in a million years."

She chuckled softly, and closed her eyes to think as she slipped her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Tell you what," she murmured after a moment, and only then lifted her head to look at him again as she hugged him, "just take me to that taco stand from which you got all that food you brought to Bruce's house. I never did get to have all that much of it. I'd just like to hang out there with you, guac and suspect tomatillo sauce and all. For me, romance isn't candlelight and Manilow. It's good takeout, and good company."

Merick gazes into Chloe's eyes, lost for a second as he sees so many things unfold in his mind. "Sounds like the best date in the world. Chloe, you rule. Like not just a little rule, like full on, Teh Ownz."

Merick pulls Chloe tight against him.

Then she squinted her eyes, and half-glanced in Alfred's direction, her voice going quieter: "He does seem pretty formidable, doesn't he? Very, I dunno, 'Caine Mutiny.' You know, I might not Melvin Death for you, I respect her too much, but the next time Mr. Pennyworth gives you what-for, just let me know. See if I can't soothe the savage beast with a little purple prose. Meantime, try to stay on his good side, would'ya? You can't wow me on the dance floor if you've been keelhauled."

Merick smiles.

Well, when you put it that way..." Merick plants a soft kiss on Chloes lips. "It would take an army of Zods to keep me from meeting you on that dance floor. That I promise."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

"Kyle, I'll tell Jonathan as soon as he gets home." said Mrs. Kent

"Don't bother him Mrs. Kent. Kara and I can get it on the road no problem."

The look on Mrs. Kent's face as I said that said volumes on the monumental screwup I had just made.

Guess double K hadn't told her mom that a few other people knew she was special.

"I..I.. I mean I can drive a tractor, and Kara can help steer the car once I pull it out. Actually, I can probably head out to my Grands farm and grab ours. It'll take longer, but at least I'm driving equipment I know."

Stupid STUPID mouth!

 

[AmenRa]

Into Asgard

The mighty Heimdall greeted Thor with a bow of his head and a fist across his heart.

“Hail,” Heimdall said.

“I am Thor,” came the reply as the Thunder God returned the gesture, “son of Odin, and I bid ye let me pass.”

“Pass then into Asgard, Son of Odin,” came Heimdall’s answer. “Welcome home, my lord Thor.” He did, of course, know the thunder god, but everyone that crossed the Rainbow Bridge would answer to Heimdall before they were allowed to pass.

Asgard.

In a mortal’s eyes, it was unreal. Never-ending fields, rivers and seas so blue and so clear, species of deer and bear to hunt, cities, vast, vast cities, and great fjords, and great halls.

But there was no hall greater than Valhalla, where the brave live forever.

Hither came the Thunder God, Thor, and upon entry into the Great Hall of the Allfather, silence did befall the table therein, and so it was that those gathered sat raised their steins and cups and bowed a head in recognition of the Son of Odin’s approach.

Some, like Baldur, stood and greeted his brother with a mighty hug.
Yet Sif stood and greeted her betrothed with a kiss and a promise of things to come.

“Lock me in thine iron embrace, M’lord,” she whispered, “for mine body doth yearn for thee as much as mine heart.”

But the Thunder God passed even her by, as he approached the chair where sat Odin. And Thor dropped to one knee, his head bowed, his winged helm glinting the light of the roaring fire that burned in the Great Hearth.

“Father,” he said, “I must speak with thee.”

In a great voice, a voice only Odin could muster, he answered his son. “Thus I have waited,” he said, “and thus thou have come with questions from Midgard?”

“Aye, it is so.”

“Then speak unto me, my son.”

“I must know of the prophecy by the Northmen of The Traveler,” Thor said, his head still bowed, “for I have seen the mark, and I fear it has come.”

Odin was silent for a moment as he contemplated. “The Traveler shall unleash demons and spirits of death and destruction from their bound-place. One shall claim victory, but this one shall be banished from Midgard by the Last Child, whom shall be a woman-child from beyond Migard, and she shall bring peace. Lo, the peace shall only last for a time, for Doomsday shall come, as well as those that worship such, and Midgard shall thrice be plunged into chaos.

“When first the cycle of Ragnarok was completed, Asgard was destroyed, and the souls of gods were sent asunder. Though they did maken their way unto Midgard, where therein they hosted with Man, and once again the gods were born. Ragnarok is upon us yet again, my son, and thine brother, Loki, will fulfill his destiny once more. The mark thou didst witness is testament to this, but I fear such shall be unleashed upon Midgard, upon Earth.” Odin sat forward in his great chair, and fixed Thor with a piercing gaze.

“Hast thou seen The Traveler?”

“Nay, Lord Odin,” Thor answered, “but I have seen the woman-child of whom thou spake. She walks among the mortals of Midgard.”

“Thou shalt guard her with all thine power, my son,” Odin commanded, “for great evil and strife shall follow soon. Mark me, Thor, thou art a child of Earth, as thine mother was Gaea, and Earth shall you serve. Call upon thine power, for darkness shall yield only to thee. Seek out the one called Watchtower, for this one shall mark the signs of Doomsday.”

“It shall be done,” Thor acknowledged. He stood and turned to leave. As he passed the Great Table, Thor took the Lady Sif by her hand and led her away towards his chambers.

Later, Thor shaved off his beard and donned his armor once more. He said goodbye to his brethren, and returned once more to Midgard.

Now, to find Watchtower. Where upon Midgard shall I find a Watchtower?

Maybe you should start by changing that Shakespeare speak to something more understandable?

Thor smiled. Blake could speak to him, as well, from that Other Place.

 

[Lunaramblings]

My own and Chas' heart-felt apologies to Gaiman and Morrison

There is a place in this world beyond the realm of Man, but not yet into the realms of The Endless. This place is finite yet infinite. It is The Tower of Fate.

Doctor Fate had long sensed the wars to come. The pain, the suffering. The loss. Plans of those beyond the kith and ken had been set in motion. Fate must now train another. Training that may yet all be for naught.

Tommy was a young boy. Barely ready for manhood. Fate began with the instruction of Magic. The use of the artifacts of Fate. Tommy took quickly to some of these arcane arts. He had quickly mastered teleportation, scrying and even improvised magics.

Tommy, who had long ago become Thomas, was in a ring of golden flame. Doctor Fate himself standing across, mantle gone. Both standing, testing the other. Fate smiling as he landed a quick jab on the young man's chin. Followed by Thomas delivering a thunderous body shot and a quick left cross. Doctor Fate staggers, and recovers before he delivers a quick spin kick to Thomas' stomach.

"For the record Thomas, I was not supposed to teach you this particular set of skills. However, it seems that my dear friend Theodore has gone to visit... a friend." Fate blocks a cross and throws Thomas over his hip. "A friend who does not take kindly to others... treading on his turf."

Thomas twists in the air and lands on his feet. A smile on his lips as he drive forward with a flying knee. Squarely catching Fate on the chin, Fate falls. The flames extinguish. Thomas extends his hand and helps his mentor to his feet. "Yeah, well, I hope he's better in the ring than you." Thomas smiles and slaps his mentor on the shoulder.

A very tall, very blond man laughs and claps. Beside him a brightly glinting form stands. Golden armor from a bygone age, with a visored helmet. The Knight walks forward and bows to Fate and Thomas.

"I believe Alan needs some refreshment, and being an old man, I do as well. This is a friend. Who shall teach you the arts of swordplay. You never know when such a skill will prove useful." Doctor Fate snaps his finger and his mantle is once more upon him. In his hand is a broadsword.

Thomas takes the sword and bows to the newcomer. As Doctor Fate joins the tall blond man, conjuring a table and refreshments, the ring once more appears around the combatants. As the two clash swords, Doctor Fate sits with his friend.

"So good of you to have joined us Alan. How are things?"

"Things are... Hector, why do you ask questions you know the answer to? Most of the old crew are dead or fallen off the face of the earth. You know the last time I actually got Teddy or Al to return a call? I swear, getting the old lot together is harder than talking sense into Vic. How's Carter? I heard he has... well, I heard he is back around. You two making up for lost time?"

"We have tried as our times allow. But, sharing the training of my new protege with Daniel has brought it's own share of troubles. And this coming conflict, well, I fear that even us and our old friends would not have been enough to avert this. However there is hope. The scion of a dying race. Those that have been marked to be her allies. They hold sway over this generation. This will be their fight. Though I fear they will eventually need guidance..." Doctor Fate trails off. Lost in thought for a moment. "Kent and Inza say hello. And Carter is in fact well. I believe he mentioned Jay was going to run to The Ace o' Clubs and grab lunch. Glad they have gotten this chance to reconnect. They were very close once."

"That's the way of the world old friend. Did I tell you Wesley called a few weeks ago. Something about needing to take a trip. Darkness on the horizon."

"Yes. I have felt the ebb and flow. Send Wesley and Sanderson my love."

"Sandy? I haven't... you know what... I am just gonna take it for what it is. Better not to ask with you half the time. Anyway, how is Thomas doing?"

"He has excelled at my training. I believe his time of choice is nearly at hand. Daniel? How has Thomas done in his time with you?"

...and there came a sound like a great veil softly tearing, and there at the table with them sat Daniel, Dream of The Endless, long pale fingers steepled before him, as though he had been sitting there all along. He wore not the Arctic-white suit and coat he had worn in Merick's seaside sojourn into dreamland, but he wore his more traditional robes, with upswept shoulders and billowing cloaks.

"Thomas Tennylson," he mused, "possesses superlative imagination, and an endless thirst for knowledge. As he has spent so much of his relatively young life dreaming away, he has become exceptionally practised at the act. He also possesses a vehement sense of dedication, giving of himself even unto his last erg of strength for that which he believes is right and good. He is a valourous soldier, and a treasure-house of story."

"Occasionally, my Librarian, Lucien," Dream smiled faintly, ruefully, good-naturedly, "will lose books from his Library, lose them into The Waking World, or some of the other planes. (Once, The Eighth Chronicle of Narnia by Clive Staples Lewis was lost in Shadow for a century and a day, though it would pain Lucien greatly to know I knew this.) I think perhaps he would struggle far less to retrieve these lost dream-tomes, if Thomas were assigned to help him."

Starfield eyes lowered their lids to half-mast. "I think perhaps, if he chooses service to me over a life within the vestments of Nabu, that this is the duty I shall give him: he shall be Opener, and he shall be Hunter."

Thomas circles the ring. Striking a bit clumsily at first. His strikes being parried and pushed. He tries to hold his ground, but quickly finds himself on the floor.

The Knight, golden and unyielding, says ne'er a word, beckoning to him to rise again.

This pattern continues for what seems an eternity. Finally Thomas begins to improve. He strikes out and lands several strikes. Then promptly finds his place on the mat once again.

"You have learned well," The Knight intones, voice resonant and echoing inside that helmet. "Come my friend. To thy feet and we shall join the parley. I feel you have felt enough of the mat beneath your back for a single day."

Thomas grins and takes the outstretched hand before him, which hauls him to his feet with the same surprising effortlessness with which it had bested him repeatedly at swordplay. In a moment he is standing beside his two mentors and their visitors.

"Doc, I think I have this down. Daniel, when did you arrive? Please... I have worked so hard. We aren't going to The Dreaming now are we?"

"Worry not," Daniel smiled softly, those fingers ever steepled, somehow simultaneously imperious and consoling, as Thomas lifted a small, cooling teapot to fill Dream's cup, "Thomas Tennylson. I was merely... in the neighbourhood. There is time yet before you must needs pass through The Gates of Horn and Ivory."

Alan smiles as his friend in the armor removes their helm. "Daniel, Thomas, this is Ystina." Alan grins at the look on Thomas' face as he takes in the raven-haired beauty of the knight that had just defeated him several dozen times.

This Shining Knight smiles coolly. "Remember, Young Fate: sometimes mortals will band together against the darkness, and sometimes a mortal stands alone against the same."

She reaches for him with a golden gauntlet, clasps his shoulder briefly, gazes at his face: "If we be fortunate, good men will be many. But there must always be one."

Thomas stutters momentarily. Then drops his gaze, simultaneously dropping the teapot...

The blond man dove with a lunge, outstretched, and caught the teapot deftly in his left hand.

As he picked himself up, he commented wryly, much to Thomas' sheepish embarrassment: "Yeah. She had that effect on me, too."

Ystina smirked distantly at Alan, her voice mystical and lyrical and beautiful, the accent of Wales at the time of lost Atlantis. "Old habits, sentinel, die hard. Oftimes have I hidden my womanliness because I found it... disadvantageous. Sometimes, I do so to conceal an advantage."

Her eyes were crystal and her eyes were stone as she fixed them upon Thomas, pointing her sword at him as if charging him with an honorary knighthood of his own. "So also it will be, beneath your own helmet of gold, Young Fate. You will become more than you are, you will become a Force of Nature. Know always that your guise will make you more than the mortal within that guise, and always it will make you less. This is the narrow way we walk, when we do the impossible and then hide ourselves, leaving Men to wonder."

"I have seen you before, Ystina," Daniel mused, "though it was many an age ago as Men reckon such things, and I was... different, then. You were still a Knight and not yet a Queen, there in the days of The First Camelot. I remember even now that your dreams of The First Galahad were... particularly ardent."

Ystina lowered her blade, and tucked her helmet beneath her arm, and her dark eyes narrowed at this Endless being. Her voice was measured, and it was wise, and it was Good: "Ever the workings of Dream are True," she proclaimed, "and ever are they fiction."

Daniel's eyes glittered, glittered and shimmered as constellations turned within them. And he smiled, as if impressed: "Indeed."

"So, Doctor Fate, Daniel Lord of The Dreaming, When can I see my family again? I mean, it has been... how many years?"

"Time is relative Thomas. For you it has been several years. However, for them... it is just now the next day."

"How is that possible. Look at me. I am... I mean its been..."

"Did I not mention the unique properties of my tower? Hm. This particular issue always perplexed the Tylers."

Daniel nodded serenely, and rose and rose from his seat, taller even than Alan, his shadow causing particles of dust to spin upon the air as it flickered past... "I mislike the small sciences of Earth, and Rann, and Krypton, with their ordinations and their quantifications, binding things to what they are rather than what they could be... but Time is no such science. Time is but an abstraction."

He burrowed his hands into his sleeves like a holy man, and he gazed ever deeply into Thomas, into the very heart of him. "How do you measure Time, Thomas, truly? Not with the cogs and gears of some clockwork worn upon your wrist, second by second by second... not even by sand tumbling through an hourglass do you truly measure Time. Truly, you measure a day by the rising of your Sun, and the setting of the same. You measure a night by the passing of The Moon, and measure a month as She waxes, and as She wanes."

His eyes glittered anew, and on and on: "How then was Time measured before there were stars dotted across The Heavens? How then, was Time measured before your planets coalesced from dust, before light reached your distant globe that you might name your constellations?"

Dream paused to let Thomas dwell on this, and then murmured: "You are here as far outside and beyond Time as you reckon it, as you are far outside and beyond the orbits of planets and the flaring flickering candlelight of suns. My elder brother Destiny measures Time this way. And so also must Fate."

His voice was a whisper, but even at a whisper, Dream's voice could penetrate a mile of steel and the hardest heart of stone. "'You were always here,'" he breathed, "'waiting for yourself to arrive.'"

"And you will be here long after you are gone."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Dr. Donald Blake bid a farewell to Rose.

And Rose stood there for a moment, and she smiled at his back as he departed.

She stood there for a moment, and she lowered her head, and her red red hair fell into her face.

"'What a long, strange trip it's been,'" she reflected, grateful to The Dead. "Well. So far, at least."

With one last wistful longing glance at her new set of beautiful wheels, Rose reminded herself that driving it in the presence of emergency personnel was ill-advised to say the least, and then she turned and walked from that place on her own two feet.

Smallville Medical Centre was but a stone's throw from Main Street, after all, and Rose could run at seventy miles per hour... walking was a piece of cake. And at Main Street, Rose could find a modicum of company and a modicum of shelter.

First, for the shelter. Right next door to Nell's Bouquet.

There, with a red and white barber-pole eternally twisting on itself, a plate-glass storefront adorned with cool blue lettering, and a sign presently turned to "closed," was Ceri McCrimmon's hair salon. Bought with the last vestiges of Dai McCrimmon's inheritance money, the small monies from this place had seen mother and daughter through many a hard time over the last few years.

According to the hanging sign and the lettering on the glass, the place was called "Confidential Cut-Downs." Rose had often wondered at this, still wondered at it even now, but her mother had only ever described the name as "something of an inside joke," and nothing more.

Looking both ways before crossing The Street, Rose jogged past the slow-moving traffic...

Smallville was picking up the pieces, it seemed, here in town as well as out in the outskirts. Power losses around the world and falling rocks from beyond the stars and angry funnel-shaped clouds couldn't best The Little Village That Could. The place had been shaken, but it hadn't fallen.

The Talon was open, the American flag waving proudly above the marquee, and Rose glanced up at this with a gentle smile. Always something regal about a flag, always something dauntless.

She turned her attention to her mother's storefront, leaning against the glass and cupping her hands around her face as she peered inward. No sign of life.

Rose wondered, not for the first time, what her parents were doing right now. Wondered where they were. Hoped they'd hurry home.

The front door was locked, and Rose didn't have a key. But she didn't let this bother her.

She walked through the cool September day, walked a short ways further, 'rounded the corner of the building into the brickwork of the alleyway, found the service entrance. She didn't have a key for this, either...

A soft smile still on her lips, she murmured to herself, always talking to herself, just a little little crazy: "'Now, where is that secret knot? It's impossible to find.'"

And then she traced her fingers 'cross the brickwork, zigging and zagging as if tracing a wand-tip to open the way to Diagon Alley out back of The Leaky Cauldron. Tracing thusly, she reached a brick that was absolutely the same colour as every other, that was absolutely the same depth into the wall. Indistinguishable from every other brick.

She wrapped her fingers 'round this, and tugged it free with a soft scrrrrape, and behind it found a glinting silver spare key.

Grinning, Rose tossed this to herself, and replaced the false brick, and vanished into the salon.

As much as Krypton's Crystal of Fire had restored her strength, Rose still looked like something of a wreck. Between getting rained on in China and blowed up a bit, zapped with bolts of magic, and then flown halfway 'round the world at like eighty times the speed of sound towards a gathering cyclone, her Phoncible Bone shirt was a bit less than presentable, and her jeans only slightly more so.

Her hair was a mess and her face was smudgy, but she traipsed easily across the clean white tiles to the hair-washing sinks near the back. It wouldn't be as good as a shower, but at least she'd feel halfway human, to wash her hair and clean her face, there was even travel-size spray-on deodourant behind the product counter...

...having cleaned up a bit, and dried herself off with her powers and her mother's favourite Chi hairdryer, Rose then set about getting herself a little better dressed.

In the storage area where her mum kept the colours and the bleach and the mops and buckets, up top on a shelf in a reused Fordman's bag, was a change of clothes. Its presence was purely fortuitous happenstance... Rose had been planning to wear it to school on the first day this year, had ordered it special from The Internet, but her mum had forbade its display.

Rose reached up and tugged the bag down and pulled the black t-shirt out of the bag. Unlike the Bone shirt, this wasn't long-sleeved, and it had no star over her heart. Instead, in the middle of the chest was the symbol of The Shadowchild, the combined "birthmarks" of both The Shadowgirls.

Naturally, Rose had been perplexed when her mother had forbidden her to wear that shirt: 'I don't get it! You don't mind any of my other webcomics shirts, you even let me get doubles of the Alina Tokamak... what've you got against a comic that combines Gilmore Girls with Lovecraft?'

Ceri had made a face. Rose and Ceri argued so rarely, they'd almost forgotten how.

Ceri had made a face, and shaken her head. 'The bit with the Lovecraft, sweets. The bit with the Lovecraft.'

Rose made her own face in reply. 'Yeah, um, okay, now I get it even less.'

'Never you mind, Rosy,' Ceri had sighed. 'Just... never you mind. Chuck it in the back and wear something else tomorrow, if yeh would. Please.'

Less than a week ago.

So very long ago.

Rose smiled faintly. Kind of a lot had happened since then.

And Rose took a little bit of secret joy, now, in wearing any old thing associated with a Child of Shadow. Even if it wasn't the same Shadow, exactly.

She tugged the Jeff Smith shirt up over her head and folded it lovingly into the bag. Even as destroyed as it was, she'd never throw it away. She never threw away anything sacred. And lots of things were sacred to Rose McCrimmon.

Methodical and swift, Rose donned fresh raiment, undergarments and jeans and Shadowgirls shirt, and switched out her pocket junk from old jeans to new. As she popped the Fordman's bag back up top on that shelf, however, her stomach rumbled. Noisily.

Rose blinked, and glanced down at herself, and realised she was quite thirsty, and she was ravenous...

But she had that twenty she'd accepted from Doctor Blake and that was more than enough to get her a smackerel of something. She grinned. Sometimes fortuitous happenstance got you from every angle.

Eschewing the salon, locking up behind her as she went, Rose headed next door, to the building that housed both a decent flower shop and a movie theatre and the town's good coffee shop...

Patiently, she waited in line, but was dismayed upon reaching the counter that the beverage menu seemed to display nothing but coffee.

"Seriously?" the nice dark-haired lady behind the counter blinked. "Never ever?"

Rose scrunched up her face rather adorably. "Can't stand the taste. And even if I coulda, there's this recent traumatic event thingy, coffee's totally not my thing."

"Huh," the dark-haired lady mused, as if she'd never heard of such a thing. "Are you sure? September's special of the month is our new 'hazelmint' concoction, I can get you a free sample, latte or chillsicle?"

Rose sighed dismally. "Nawh. Thanks."

The dark-haired lady shook her head sympathetically, gestured for her to hold on a second. "You like milk? We could just pour you some of the milk we use for steaming in cappuccino?"

Rose brightened considerably. "Milk! Eff Tee Dubyoo! Yes, please. And an assortment of confection items, if you would?"

The lady behind the counter grinned and clucked her tongue. "Coming right up."

A few minutes later, Rose sat on a rooftop near The Smallville Savings and Loan, eating an éclair and licking her fingers and sipping from the straw of her exceptionally large cup of milk. She sat and ate and reflected.

She sat, and she ate, and she wondered how soon she should go back to The SMC to meet Kara and/or Kyle. But then again, Kara could superspeed or supersense or something to find her, and Kyle could just... could just do his Shadowboy thing and find her. (That never ceased to be a good feeling.)

And as she sat, she drifted off, she drifted off inside herself and outside herself, lost in distraction and introspection, and she thoroughly lost track of time. The only thing that successfully stirred her from her A.D.D.-trance was a soft thwump beside her, barely audible, and she blinked and looked up and realised the sun had moved quite aways, and there was a burly orange cat with deeply golden eyes standing on the roof's edge.

It was staring at her.

Rose blinked, and blinked again, and her voice was a murmur: "Jack?"

The cat's thick, striped tail swished around its hindquarters and it narrowed its eyes at her. Then it settled into a seated position and began to clean itself, ignoring her entirely.

This was probably just... probably just some barnyard tomcat that had wandered ever so far from its barnyard. Probably not... probably not that cat.

Jack was a local urban legend. (Or, well, rural legend, considering that Smallville was about as far from urban as you could get...) Frank's Auto Repair had claimed the orange cat as their mascot, had a little bulletin board devoted to him, but legend held that the cat predated Frank's by a significant margin. Legend held, supposedly, that an orange cat named Jack had belonged to Ezra Small himself shortly before he had founded the town of Smallville in 1831. Given Small's supposed propensity for prophecy, the cat came to be associated with omens in its own right.

"Jack" sightings had supposedly occurred before every major event in Smallville's history, and always the cat's description had been the same.

The cat was ominous. Though whether it was a good omen or a bad omen was as subject to interpretation as Small's own Nostradamus-esque musings.

Rose stared at the cat.

And the cat again lifted its gaze to look at her, as if offended by her continued bewildered scrutiny.

Rose tried again: "Jack?" she murmured, snapping her fingers lightly at it, trying to call it to her. "Heckuva storm we just had, huh? Bet you're looking for all the birds what got chased off..."

The cat licked its chops. And squinched its eyes at her.

And then looked out in the direction of Smallville Medical Centre, prompting Rose to follow its gaze.

KRAKA - BAAADOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!

Rose shot to her feet, covered head-to-toe in goosebumps, spilling what was left of her milk and knocking over the little wax-paper bag that held her remaining confections... her eyes were blue and they were as wide as the sky and her hands were fists at her sides.

Bolt from the blue.

She expected the cat to bolt in its own right, to run like The Dickens, or to at least bush its tail up and hisssss at the sudden intrusion of noise. But the cat did none of these things. Instead, it sat there, tail swishing, serene and unafraid.

The cat glanced over its shoulder at Rose McCrimmon.

"Storm's still a-comin'," it remarked. "I got me a gitchy feelin', tell The Veni-Yan-Cari: storm's still a-comin'."

Rose's jaw dropped.

And the cat scampered away, jumping off of the roof and into the branches of a tree and vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.

Rose stood there for a moment.

"'Storm's still a-comin','" she whispered.

She ran for the roof access ladder, unwilling to fly in the middle of town, but she ran back to Smallville Medical Centre as fast as she dared. She wanted her friends to have as little difficulty finding her as possible...

"'Storm's still a-comin'.'"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

A reunion of friends

Miles and miles slipped by as the Pegasus rode the sky. California, Arizona, New Mexico all slipped by under the sleek black bird. Codes were exchanged and passwords verified as the craft parted the clouds, settling down in a cloud of dust on a ranch in far West Texas.

A ramp opened up, and four very dangerous looking men came out, followed by a small but even more dangerous Asian woman.

Once she got a look and nodded back to the open door, a raven haired woman in a wheelchair rolled out and down.

Out of the five people on the ground, she was the most dangerous of all.

The Pegasus had landed. The team was back together.

 

[AmenRa]

The Mighty Thor

He stood there, in the midst of the rear parking lot of Smallville Medical Center, his red cloak blowing in the gentle breeze.

An orange cat darted quickly in and out of his peripheral vision, and Thor turned to follow it for an instant. He could no longer see it, so he turned his attention back to his surroundings.

He had a new quest to fulfill, to learn the identity of The Watchtower, and in turn, learn the secrets of a prophecy that, if fulfilled, could spell the ultimate destruction of all that he knew.

 

[Lunaramblings]

A phone rang in the corner of the room. Dale walks slowly towards it. Answering it with out a word. Then nodding.

"Dad's here. Guys, the plane just landed. Everyone should be to the house in a moment. He wants us to meet in the library. We should probably head up."

Edmund Tennylson walked slowly toward the house. His hands in his pockets. Eyes forward. He had called ahead to the small army he kept on stationed. He had asked them to kindly stand down. He had also had a spread put together. A celebratory, victory dinner.

As Edmund reaches the door he grins. Here he stands. Some of the most prominent people in both of his professions surrounding him. He never thought this would be happening in this manner. A Wayne and a McCrimmon and a Greystone all under this roof. Life was indeed an interesting thing.

Edmund smiles as he leads the rag-tag troop into the house, and finally into the library where food was waiting.

"Welcome to my humble home. Mi casa, su casa. I have food and our friends and family should be arriving in a moment."

As Edmund finishes speaking, the door opens and Dale leads his own rag-tag troop into the assembly.

"Hi Dad. Place is nice. I like what you have done with your office. OH... nearly forgot... left you a small gift down there. I trust the flight was good?"

Merick felt every bit the fish out of water. Arm still around Chloe. Merick didn't know what to say. How to accept his grandfather. Instead Merick just stood. Silent. Waiting. Marcy looking on, just as uncomfortable.

Gar, meanwhile, was rapidly shifting forms. A butterfly one second, a bear the next, a horse after that, then a hummingbird. In between, he looks to Pete. "Dude, time me. Seriously, I wonder how many animals I can become in a minute. Beast Boy! Man of a million Forms! Dude! I could totally go make millions in Hollywood! I could like have my own special on like The WB or something!"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

She ran, and her hair was red all around her face, and she thought she caught a glimpse of something orange beside her and ahead of her but that might have just been a trick of the light. She ran...

How natural it felt, to run pell-mell towards something that could easily be world-shakingly girl-devouringly dangerous. Like a genetic imperative, it felt, as she ran her heart out.

She skidded around the back of an ambulance, ready to cut across the parking-lot and make her way through to one of those waiting rooms, maybe use some of her Talon change in a pay-phone, call The Kents... she didn't know if Kyle's spare sunglasses had that commlink thing going on, and probably they had a different phone number...

Rose braked. Hard. Her feet practically made that little screechy-tire noise from the cartoons.

Her hair was in her face and her eyes were yet again as big as the sky.

Big Guy. Big Blond Guy.

Spoke in Jacobean/Elisabethan-ish.

Threatened Kyle with a big fuck-off hammer.

Him. Again. (And again with the Viking stuff! This is Kansas, not Mount kriffing Wundagore!)

Her face scrambled itself into a knot, and her fists knotted similarly at her sides.

"WHAT, HO!" she bellowed, striding towards him with more fury than sense worn right out there on her short black sleeves, "YON WASTREL!"

"Methinks thine varletry should cease anon," she declared, grimly, folding her arms over her stomach and glowering up at him. "Lest some mischief befall thee."

 

[camerindrake]

Damian

Damian watched as the door opened to the aircraft. Upon seeing Bruce exit the door he walked toward him. His gate slow and steady, the cape billowing form the slight winds.

Damian asks Bruce upon reaching him, "The Communications went down in your cowl." Upon seeing the broken ear His jaw clinched as he continued, "Who did it?"

 

[AmenRa]

She ran, and her hair was red all around her face, and she thought she caught a glimpse of something orange beside her and ahead of her but that might have just been a trick of the light. She ran...

How natural it felt, to run pell-mell towards something that could easily be world-shakingly girl-devouringly dangerous. Like a genetic imperative, it felt, as she ran her heart out.

She skidded around the back of an ambulance, ready to cut across the parking-lot and make her way through to one of those waiting rooms, maybe use some of her Talon change in a pay-phone, call The Kents... she didn't know if Kyle's spare sunglasses had that commlink thing going on, and probably they had a different phone number...

Rose braked. Hard. Her feet practically made that little screechy-tire noise from the cartoons.

Her hair was in her face and her eyes were yet again as big as the sky.

Big Guy. Big Blond Guy.

Spoke in Jacobean/Elisabethan-ish.

Threatened Kyle with a big fuck-off hammer.

Him. Again. (And again with the Viking stuff! This is Kansas, not Mount kriffing Wundagore!)

Her face scrambled itself into a knot, and her fists knotted similarly at her sides.

"WHAT, HO!" she bellowed, striding towards him with more fury than sense worn right out there on her short black sleeves, "YON WASTREL!"

"Methinks thine varletry should cease anon," she declared, grimly, folding her arms over her stomach and glowering up at him. "Lest some mischief befall thee."

The Mighty Thor gazed down at the girl with flaming red hair who approached him. She spoke to him, and in the tongue of the gods, with an unhidden fury, and for an instant, Thor almost smiled.

His instinct was to remark to her Hail! Maiden of Midgard! Thou shalt not speak to me as such, for I am Thor! , but he took heed of advice given to him moments ago from That Place.

He said, simply, "There is mischief about, maiden, but it is not of me. The clouds that are yet to gather bring a storm the likes of which mortals have never seen."

Thor remembered her, as well, as she was with the Last Child when together they faced a tornado not of Thor's construction.

He then gave her a deep nod of his winged, helmeted head. He folded his arms across his massive chest to mimick her stance, and again spoke to her.

"I am Thor," he said in introduction, "and I ask for your help in finding someone here upon Midgard. If you would put your anger aside for but a moment so that I may inquire?"

And then....

Thor smiled.

 

[Lunaramblings]

As Edmund watched the reunions around him, he slips his phone out of his pocket and sends a message to Wintergreen.

Jobs off. Return to El Paso. Supervise the new project. Will return in a while.

E.

Sitting in the hangar bay of the airport, Wintergreen receives a text. Within a few moments he is dealing with the handlers.

Wintergreen stands and stretches.

Slowly he walks to the cabin raps once. The engines fire and they ready themselves to take off.

As the plane lands in Dallas, Wintergreen has already made various arrangements. He had business elsewhere. As he pulls up to the loft apartment he keeps in a name of a man that died 20 years ago he looks to the sky, smiling.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

The Mighty Thor gazed down at the girl with flaming red hair who approached him.

He said, simply, "There is mischief about, maiden, but it is not of me. The clouds that are yet to gather bring a storm the likes of which mortals have never seen."

His reply was neither confrontational nor belligerent, it was straight-forward and shot from a considerably massive hip, and it recalled innocent misunderstandings and prophecies of doom.

She arched an eyebrow. Again, she remembered John Smith, Var-Sen, that with him she had been confrontational at first. But then again, the Kryptonian had not won her over immediately either.

"Forsooth," Rose murmured, eyes half-lidded, miffed that he was so tall and half-tempted to levitate so she could lock eyes and horns with him properly, "something is rotten in The County of Lowell."

He then gave her a deep nod of his winged, helmeted head. He folded his arms across his massive chest to mimick her stance, and again spoke to her.

"I am Thor," he said in introduction, "and I ask for your help in finding someone here upon Midgard. If you would put your anger aside for but a moment so that I may inquire?"

'Thor,' he called himself, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. And oh, Rose wished desperately, wryly, dubiously, that she had somewhere in this world a copy of Journey Into Mystery #83, because wouldn't that just be the most collectible autograph in The Universe... (...right up there with, well, a signed copy of The Ten Commandments.)

Innocent until proven dipshit, Rosy Mac, she chided herself. You know that.

She appeared to ponder this for a moment, and then nodded quietly, willing her cheeks to cool as she relaxed her posture and shoved her hair back out of her face.

"I say thee aye," she conceded. "Though mine own acquaintances be limited, ask and I shall answer to the best of my mortal ken."

Rose hesitated, though. And winced. "Really, uh, verily, um--" she stumbled, lost her train of speech, tried again: "You might do well to try Google? Or milk cartons. I don't have a lot of experience with the Without A Trace stuff."

And then....

Thor smiled.

And then, despite herself, despite everything...

Rose grinned back.

And asked him, honestly: "I can't promise anything, but who is it you're looking for?"

 

[AmenRa]

Thor considered her for a moment.

Surely, an ally. Had she not assisted Blake in his quest to fulfill the status of his learned surgeon's hand?

A smile that would lighten even the darkest of nights.

And he saw, within her, power. Power of the super-kind. Were he to touch her, he would know her, and know her soul, and he could see into her. But he refrained, and he saw what was on the outside for now.

And it was indeed beautiful.

Thor looked at her with his blue, blue eyes.

His answer was given in hopes of an answer.

"I seek the one among mortals called Watchtower," he told her.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

"You know what? We'll talk... later," Kara blurted in, offering her mother an apologetic look before taking hold of Kyle's arm. "We need to get that car back on the road," she added before their bodies became little more than a blur, and Kara sped the two of them back to where the doctors car lay in a ditch, caked over with mud. It would have taken a good crew of men and machines to move, but Kara was able to push it out with relative ease.

"I told my parents most of what happened recently," Kara explained as she futilely tried wiping some dirt and mud off her hands and clothes. "I think they're just still surprised that other people know about me. That there are others out there," she added.

"Anyways, Rose is probably waiting for us at the hospital. "

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

Between the running at warp 300 and the quick topic shifts, I was kinda green when we got to the doc's car. By the time I had gotten back to my normal color and the world stopped spinning, Kara had the car up on the road and was trying to clean herself up as best she could.

"I told my parents most of what happened recently," Kara said as he kept knocking dirt and mud off her. "I think they're just still surprised that other people know about me. That there are others out there. Anyways, Rose is probably waiting for us at the hospital. "
I looked at her and grinned. Shadows swirled up around me and with a low moan parted, revealing Wraith where a boy once stood. I extended my hand out to the blond haired girl.

"Trust me enough to take my way to the hospital?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ted, John, Bruce, Lex, Chloe, Alfred, Pete, Gabriel The Cat, Gabe, Ceri, and Jamie

Ted Grant hesitated.

He hesitated at the top of the gangplank. And he gazed wearily down it at the soil of The Lone Star State.

He closed his eyes.

Behind him, John Constantine tapped Ted irritably on the shoulder. "Oi, mate, move along. People to do, places to see, things to be."

Ted shook his head. "Just. Gimme a count of ten, all right? This ain't as easy as I thought it would be."

John rolled his eyes. "Yeah, 'course. Me, I subscribe to the philosophy of 'in for a penny, in for a pound,' but take all the ruddy time yeh need."

Ted scowled. And opened those sea-green eyes. "Right. Right. (I'm sorry, Prez. I'm sorry.)"

And walked down the gangplank without another hesitation, with all the grace of a cat. When he reached the bottom, he stepped aside to wait with Diana, or walk with her if she chose to walk.

Following along, Bruce Anthony Thomas Wayne found himself lost in a bit of a miasma of thought. The crazy old coot had, in fact, despite everything, given the tortured youth quite a bit to contemplate. Shining Knights versus Dark Knights.

He had always preferred tales of samurai to tales of shinobi. And samurai were very much like knights. Analogous, if vaguely.

But could he be both samurai and shinobi? A shroud of darkness 'round a heart of honour? Could he be somewhere in between?

Bruce arched an eyebrow, though, stirred from such introspection by the appearance beside him of that stranger with the face like his own, this doubly mysterious benefactor, clad in such arcane raiment. He himself had thought a cape a splendid concept, once upon a recent day...

Why, again, was Damian wearing an outfit like the one that had been in Bruce's head?

Damian asks Bruce upon reaching him, "The Communications went down in your cowl." Upon seeing the broken ear His jaw clinched as he continued, "Who did it?"

Bruce glanced back over his shoulder, at the man being seen by bejumpsuited Gen-Tech hired guns into a limo with blackened windows, a man who wore a hood that shut out the world, a hood reminiscent of Dumas, a hood worn in between Iron Masks. Bruce watched as Lex Luthor's limo rolled away, kicking up dust on its way to a local airport and a waiting LuthorCorp jet.

"Luthor," Bruce told Damian, unable to resist the gravestone voice in the presence of his brother in dark shining arms. "Cheap shot. Good times."

The acreage of "Slade" Tennylson's ranch slid along beneath their feet.

And soon, they stood in a library of all places, with an assortment of their missing pieces. Not all of them, by any stretch of the imagination. Lots more pieces were missing yet.

Merick's arm was around Chloe. Bruce didn't yet have the training that would make him such a formidable detective. But Merick's arm was around Chloe. And Pete, he of the long friendship and respected history with Chloe, seemed vaguely discomfited by this. This could mean a number of things, but one thing most likely.

Bruce nodded quietly to himself as Alfred Pennyworth approached him.

Alfred had a look in his eyes as though he would give Bruce a crushing hug, but yet refrained, stopping just outside arm's reach, crossing his wrists behind himself, and inclining his head respectfully.

"Good to see you, sa'," Alfred admitted. "I worried that your misadventures would not return you in one piece."

Bruce didn't respond to this veiled enquiry regarding his health. He was all business. The shape of things to come.

"I won't be going back to Smallville, Alfred," he declared.

Alfred arched an eyebrow, the light in his eyes dimming with his bewilderment and his should have seen this coming. "Gotham, then, sa'? I shall call and have Wayne Enterprises send us a plane."

"Not Gotham, either," Bruce shook his head. "Find me Henri Ducard. Wherever he is, I go to join him."

The Gentleman paled more than a little. "Very well, sa'. I spoke my piece against that villain, I shall hold my peace."

Bruce smiled a tiny little smile. "It's okay, Alfred. I can beat him at his own game."

Alfred shook his head, a tiny little shake of the head. "This is not a game, Masta' Bruce."

And then he withdrew, seeking a telephone.

Leaving Bruce, gazing across the room, right at Chloe.

Pete's wide wide eyes were locked onto Garfield Logan as he watched the green guy shift shift shift shift shift... His head twitched from side to side a little bit as Gar's dimensions flowed like water, and, perhaps amusingly, the cat that sat across Pete's shoulders moved its own head and wide wide eyes in an identical fashion...

"Whatever you do," Pete mumbled, "in the show business? Make sure you post one'a them signs they put outside of roller-coasters at Six Flags or whatever. Warnings for pregnant ladies and folks with spinal injuries, weak stomachs, epilepsy, and a sensitivity to caffeine. Because damn if that ain't a show and a half, and you're like, point-five, point-two-five seconds a shape? But I just ate and woah, is my lunch lurching."

But then Bruce Wayne started walking towards Chloe, and Gabriel Sullivan blinked worriedly, and Pete turned to follow the man's gaze.

"Is this another one of those things," Gabe worriedly asked Pete, "where I have to suddenly realise how much my girl's grown up?"

"Clue in, Chloe's Dad," Pete smirked, laconic and sardonic and oh, so regretful. "Apparently, our gal's turned inta quite the hot ticket with the nerdy costumed hero set. 'As The Meteor Turns.'"

When Bruce met Merick's eyes, his eyes were cool and hard. And when he spoke to Merick, it was not with the gravestone voice. It was his own voice, but still it was formidable.

"Excuse us for a moment?" Bruce asked, without actually asking. "Your ladyfriend and I owe each other some explanations."

Chloe smiled faintly at Bruce, as if she were smiling at him from very very far away. And then she smiled faintly up at Merick, and her smile wasn't from much closer by.

"It'll be okay," she murmured. "It'll be okay."

She inclined her head in the direction of a number of tall bookshelves away from the main section of the library, and Bruce nodded. They said not a word as they walked.

John Constantine had actually, perhaps surprisingly, stepped behind Bekka Greystone's wheelchair and chivalrously guided her from the landing-strip to the house... and wherever there had been places and spaces here and there that the wheelchair would have been unable to negotiate, patches of gravel or stones in the path, steps ascending into the ranch, somehow they had been to bypass these without blinking. Like somehow for those instants the world had bent around them without anyone noticing, like they'd taken an invisible unplottable shortcut...

Constantine never said a word about this, never commented, never called attention to it. And if anyone ever gave him a strange look, he pretty much ignored this.

Even when Min, that coolly-intimidating Asian beaut with the penchant for startling hardware, walked along four steps behind and to the right, mumbling in Mandarin about how badly Constantine was stepping on her proverbial toes-- 'Liu2 kou3shui3 de5 biao3zi5 he2 hou2zi5 de5 ben4 er2zi5,' she grumbled, bitterly, and '...nin2 hen3 bu4ti3tie1 de5 nan2sheng1!' --Constantine let this just flow off him like water off of a duck's back.

Ceri never gave him a strange look, there as she walked directly to Bekka's left, nor mumbled about him in Chinese. This was pretty much life with Constantine, though it was strange for her to remember. It was strange for her to see him being so kind to another woman.

Are all your girlfriends so much younger than you these days? she wondered wryly, however, with full knowledge that such thoughts were uncharitable.

She kept her thoughts to herself. She kept her hands in the pocket of her jacket and her thoughts to herself.

...and then her thoughts went in another direction entirely.

She saw them standing there, the two of them.

John kissed Bekka on the top of her head and murmured to her: "Gimme a mo', Bex. Beg pardon."

And then he straightened and stepped away from the wheelchair and John Constantine stood there locking eyes with Doctor Jamie Hamilton.

The Sons of Thunder.

Jamie had his glasses off and his coat on, and his eyes were deep and dark. John's tie was askew and he definitely looked like he needed a cigarette, but his lips were curved in a smirk.

Jamie's hands were in the pockets of his trousers.

John's hands hung lazily at his sides, near the pockets of his mackintosh.

"Hellblazer," Jamie drawled, eyes half-lidded, coolly serious.

"Fireplace Man," John nodded in reply, one eye closed in a protracted wink, finding all of this terribly amusing.

Ceri watched them. Two men who'd each been her lovers.

Both of them handsome, but neither in a classical conventional fashion. Both of them extremely... interesting.

Each had a Weirding Way about them. Jamie with his odd attunements and awarenesses, his knowledges scientific and pseudo-scientific... John with his synchronicity and his sleight of hand and his encyclopedic knowledges of arcana major and minor... they both danced on the fringes of the real and the believed-in, though they approached these from different directions.

They were two sides to the same coin. And what a coin it was.

"Nice coat," John mused.

"Cheers," Jamie nodded, eyes unmoved. "Yours, too."

"That the Janis Joplin special?" John wondered, conversational but somehow simultaneously snidely derisive.

"Mm," Jamie nodded, and though he remained inscrutable, Ceri knew from her awareness of his subtleties and idiosyncrasies that he was very much on the defensive. "Piece of history, this. While I suppose yours is rather more of an off-the-rack affair?"

John chuckled, delighted that James had taken the bait. "Got a cupboard full of them."

They paused there, for a moment, paused and poised, as if at any moment thereafter, one might lash out at the other in some sort of bizarre paranormal duel...

Ceri watched them, curiouser and curiouser. Watched their egos and their testosterone ricochet off of each other. She wondered for a moment, an idle little thought, a funny little fantasy... a clandestine little competition, the two of them fighting over her heart and soul and her... libido... and on a battleground of her choosing.

Quickly, she looked away, cheeks a little pink, tucking black black hair back behind her ears and chuckling softly. She was rather glad, at that point, that her thoughts were kept to herself.

They paused there, for a moment, paused and poised, as if at any moment thereafter, one might lash out at the other in some sort of bizarre paranormal duel...

And then, as one, they each reached out a hand and clasped them together, shaking those hands, and an instant later they each drew the other into the back-slapping bear-hug of men who have been to Hell and back together. Figuratively. Maybe even literally.

"It's good to see you," Jamie admitted, smirking a fainter, more Puckish version of his usual grin.

"Likewise, mate," John chuckled. "Been bluddy ages. Rather preferred it that way, me."

"Small doses," Jamie agreed with a chortle. But then his eyes slid past John Constantine and alighted on the dark-haired lady that stood beside Bekka's wheelchair.

And suddenly, one reunion didn't seem nearly so important as the other.

He moved past John, who arched an eyebrow at his silent dismissal... but nodded with quietly wise understanding when he saw for whom it was he was being passed over. He nodded and withdrew, moved back to Bekka.

Jamie gazed at Ceri. Ceri gazed at Jamie.

Another one of those moments. They'd had one or two of them in the last twenty-four hours, one in Hawaii of all places...

But this time, Ceri grinned at Jamie, grinned a beaming grin and she didn't even care that he could see the gap in her teeth, didn't even care that he'd probably make fun of it, she grinned at him and threw her arms around his neck and this time she kissed him.

This went on for quite a long time, and both parties demonstrated rather impressive lung capacities. But when they came up for air, red-faced from embarrassment and oxygen deprivation, both of them were grinning.

"You lived," Jamie murmured. "Good. I didn't-- I didn't properly say--"

"Never was yeh strong suit," Ceri acknowledged, eyes a-twinkle. "Saying proper things. Not to worry. There's time yet."

Jamie glanced about, suddenly bewildered. "Is Rosy with you? Is she all right?"

Ceri nodded easily. "She's fine. She's waiting for us at home. Her adventure ran a little long, we got to nip off early, she's probably still at it even now."

Jamie arched an eyebrow. "Apple didn't fall far from either tree, did it?"

Ceri beamed. "You know? Two days ago, I'd never've said this. But I wouldn't have it any other way."

Not all the conversations in the room, however, were going quite so well.

Chloe stood with Bruce in an equatorial section of the library, populated with biographies.

Bruce leaned with his back against the shelf across from her.

Chloe leaned with her hands behind her hindquarters against the shelf across from him.

They stood in silence.

"So," Bruce eventually began. "You and. Merick."

"Yeah," Chloe nodded slowly. "I don't know what him and I are, exactly. But we're... we're something."

Bruce chewed that over for a moment. "And what are we? What were we?"

Chloe's face tangled, and her eyes glimmered, and discomfort and regret began to swarm up and down her veins... "'Missed Connections.'"

"A little burst of chemistry," Bruce murmured, "masquerading as the next great discovery?"

Chloe couldn't meet his gaze anymore. She looked away, haggard, and nodded.

"You have," she murmured, "so much future ahead of you. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you I would never get to keep you."

"We were going to have a conversation, once," Bruce harrumphed, looking away in the opposite direction. "It would have been in a library."

"Instead, I died," Chloe drawled, her voice a broken chuckle, "and I wound up in your kitchen."

"And Merick showed up," Bruce scowled, "right when I was going to--"

"No," Chloe bristled, locking her gaze onto Bruce's face, her voice like a quivering dagger. "No. You don't get to do that. You don't get to blame him. You, Bruce Wayne, do not get to bundle Merick Tennylson in with your regrets like he's an excuse. You could have said anything you wanted to me. You had me there, we were happy, I was feeling giddy and vulnerable and back-to-life..."

Chloe made a weird little circular gesture as if telling herself to get to the point. "You could have said anything you wanted. But you hesitated. Because you've got places to be, and we both know it. Merick is a good person. And yeah, Spartan, you're a good person too. But you're different kinds of good and sometimes I've got to be selfish and choose the kind of good man who's going to be there for me. And you're not, are you?"

Bruce grimaced. "Ducard."

"Pete and I were there in The Cave," Chloe murmured, plaintive, agonised, coming down from that surge of fury, "we were there when he was putting his hooks in you, right there when you were first trying to plumb the depth of him."

"I have to take what I need from him," Bruce murmured. "And then I have to take him apart from the inside out. (I think he might have killed my parents, arranged for them to be destroyed like animals. I can't abide that.) I'm going to learn his every technique and I'm going to prise out of him the name of my parents' killer, and then I'm going to burn his organisation down to the foundations. I had... hoped that you would support me in this. You're... you're as brilliant as you are beautiful. I may need to consult with you, may need your skills as a 'data-broker.' And I thought that we could. That we could maybe."

Chloe's face took on a whole new stained-glass mosaic of emotional wretchedness. "A long-distance relationship?"

"Something like that," Bruce allowed. "It might... it might do me good to know there's someone waiting for me out there. While I'm down there in the dragon's throat."

Again, Chloe faltered, again she couldn't meet his gaze. Again, she felt as though she'd been punched through the back by a meteor rock.

"I'll be here," Chloe murmured. "I'll be here, Bruce. I'll always be here. Especially since apparently I'm some sort of faith-healing Highlander now, not sure how that works. And if ever you need a quick byte, I'm your oracle."

Bruce nodded slowly. Comprehending. He was a smart guy.

"But not the other thing," he nodded.

"That's not a promise I can keep," she shook her head. "It never would have been, even before Merick. Bruce, you're long-distance enough when you're in the same room. I can't imagine... being strong enough, emotionally, to sustain that sort of connection with you over weeks, months... years? A decade? Maybe in another lifetime, another one of Doctor Hamilton or Damian Cain's parallel worlds, I would have nursed a deep and abiding mostly-unrequited romance for a closed-off powerhouse with a heart that's super-secretly gold, but not this Chloe Sullivan. Maybe once upon a time I was, but I can't be that girl, the parallel's diverged. I just... I can't."

Bruce's eyes hardened from slate to diamond, his jaw clenched.

But then he nodded. And he closed his eyes.

"I have to do this," he growlmurmured. "I made a promise. To two people I still love very much."

Chloe nodded quietly. "I asked you to stay. But I never ever should have. I can only beg forgiveness: even being dead is an excuse that only goes so far. You have to do this."

Bruce looked at her, and... all of a sudden he was a broken and scared little boy, eyes of an orphan in a face that had long since become a mask in its own right.

"I have to do this," he breathed.

"Go slay the dragon," she whispered, and she blinked her eyes and tears rolled down her face, tears she'd felt coming felt coming thought they'd never get here...

He laughed. It was a strange, strangled noise, like it was a sound he wasn't sure how to make, and it was not a happy laugh at all. "Used to be, slaying dragons and getting damsels was a package deal."

Chloe's agony guttered and she smiled for a second but then that smile fell away again almost immediately, it was just too too messed up... "Not since, uh, Emily Pankhurst, I guess."

Bruce grimaced. "Cheeky woman."

Wiping away those insistent tears, Chloe nodded. "Price of progress."

"Yeah, I guess," Bruce shrugged, and then glanced up at the ceiling of the library.

His voice was a minstrel boy's, his voice was a warrior's: "'But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep.'"

Chloe quavered, and managed another of those smiles. A sad sad smile that somehow managed to be encouraging. "'The grave's a fine and private place,'" she offered. "'but none, I think, do there embrace.'"

Bruce gathered himself, and he gazed squarely into her eyes, reaching up and tilting her chin so that she might not look away from him. His voice was satin, enveloping Kevlar, enveloping steel.

"'If I thought my answer were given
to anyone who would ever return to the world,
this flame would stand still without moving any further.
But since never from this abyss
has anyone ever returned alive, if what I hear is true,
without fear of infamy I answer you.'"

He paused, and he kissed her on the forehead.

"Goodbye, Chloe," he murmured into the kiss.

And then he turned, and walked away.

He walked the length of the bookshelf, and Chloe watched him with agonised eyes until he rounded the corner. And as he went, she began to crumple more and more and more and more of those tears came in torrents...

And she kept right on murmuring:

"'And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--'"

Unable to finish, her voice broke, and she buried her face in her hands.

By the time he 'rounded the corner of the shelf, Bruce Anthony Thomas Wayne was no longer an orphan but again a dragonslayer and his face was once again a mask.

He strode to Merick, and touched him on the shoulder.

"Go to her," he murmured. "You'll be a better man because of her."

And without another word, he left that room, and went to seek out Alfred Pennyworth, where Alfred Pennyworth was making a phone call that would change his life...

 

[AmenRa]

The Martian Manhunter

J'onn J'onzz, who seemed to be the knower of things, pointed a great green hand South, towards the United States.

"The team has arrived in Texas," he said. "We should meet them there. After all, witnesses are required to perform the ritual requested properly."

"Lead the way, my friend, and we shall follow," Var-Sen responded.

With a nod, the Martian Manhunter took to the air, maneuvering through the towering crystals that were Kara Zor-El's Fortress of Solitude.

Var-Sen took Raya's hand.

"Shall we?"

 

[camerindrake]

Damian

Damian watches Bruce through lenses as he speaks to Alfred reading the words about Ducard. He silently grimaces. Damian knew the path was taken.

Silently he thought. 'This reality may not follow the same path mine had. Father may not fall at the hands of Jezebel Jet. There is still a chance. Damn it who am I fooling. Father is taking the lone path. I can see it.'

Under his cape he began to shudder, the anger building up. He failed Bruce once. He wasn't going to again. He walked toward the shelter toward Alfred.

He said one thing, "Make sure Bruce is weary of the zealot Ras Al Ghul"

He then walked to the weapons rack and eyed the Ninja style blade.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose Mary McCrimmon

Thor looked at her with his blue, blue eyes.

His answer was given in hopes of an answer.

"I seek the one among mortals called Watchtower," he told her.

For all of Rose's occasional fits of genius, sometimes she failed to grasp the obvious. At least, not right away.

Her brain worked well enough. It just wasn't... linear. Like Merick's teleports, sometimes it took a few shots in the dark all around the map before she opened her eyes and found herself where she needed to be.

"'Watchtower?'" Rose repeated in bewilderment. "Wait. There's those nice guys who come to our door sometimes in suits, mum always makes them tea and chats with them before sending them on their way... they like to read a Watchtower."

Tapping her chin, her brow furrowed. "Now, in Smallville proper we've got Pastor Linquist's Methodist church, and The Chapel of Saint Stephen, but the nearest Kingdom Hall is in Granv--"

Rose stopped, mid-sentence. Something had sparked, a neuron had fired just right, and her eye twitched as she looked at him, turned again and looked up at Thor.

Her eye twitched. "Oh, no, way. Are you seriously-- are you looking for-- ?"

She covered her eyes with one hand and laughed, brilliantly and brightly. "(I tell you what, I dyed my hair the wrong colour. Blondes are seriously having a supply/demand issue in these parts.)"

But when she lowered her hand, her face was again serious. She took a moment to gather her speech...

...and when she spoke again, it was with information and wincing.

"Mine apologies," Rose explained, "Lord Thor, but this 'Watchtower' is a name not given lightly, nor taken in vain. I know who this person is, and this person is my friend, but the identity was given me in confidence, and I cannot simply... divulge it. Truly, um, your mission sounds of direst importance, but of direst importance to me is the trust of mine compatriots."

She hesitated, trying desperately to think of some way that she could help "Thor" in his earnestness, but unable to countenance just handing over Chloe's secret code-name thingy.

Rose took a deep breath... "'Tis a fact most unfortunate that the word of gods is not currency more valued in this day and age. Perhaps you have some token, or have some gesture of good faith, which I might present to Watchtower in hopes that Watchtower will then, in turn, choose to relinquish said secret knowledge unto yourself?"

 

[AmenRa]

Thor

The Thunder God looked at Rose for a moment, and then he nodded his head in understanding.

"Alas," he told her, "it is such a thing where mortal men no longer have need for us." He then knelt so that she would no longer have to look up to see his eyes. He reached behind him, in that special carrier constructed under the red cape, and brought out the war hammer.

"Behold Mjolnir," he said to her, his voice soft yet commanding. He held the hammer out in front of him so that she could see it closely. Its surface, pitted and scarred through timeless ages of battle, held mystical Runes and symbols. And there was that one symbol, the one Rose had seen before on the wall of the Kawatche Cave, on Kara's bracer, and engraved in Don Blake's cane. "Only one may hold this weapon," he explained to her in a voice of serious truth. "That one is the Son of Odin, the God of Thunder. I am that one."

Then, but just for an instant, a blink of an eye, really, Mjolnir shifted, as if it were being acted upon by supernatural forces, and it seemed to temporarily displace space/time around it. In its place within the grasp of Thor's immortal hand, for that most brief of moments, was the gnarled and ancient cane that Rose would know belonged to Dr. Blake.

Thor's eyes were so blue now. Just like the Sea of Asgard.

"A token you already have," he told her, "as it has been given to you before once we parted ways."

And with that, Rose would feel a slight tingle in the pocket where she kept the business card Blake had given to her. Now, the card was no longer of paper, but of steel, and was now a silvered necklace, with a pendant of silver clasped firmly to the links.

The pendant would be familiar to most people who were familiar with the mythology of the Norsemen.

It was the Hammer of Thor, carved centuries ago, and worn around the neck of warrior and maiden alike.

Of course, Rose would not know that after Watchtower held this necklace for a few minutes, it would revert back to the business card with Dr. Blake's information printed upon it.

Such were the things of Asgard.

Such was the power of Thor.

"Now go, my lady," he said to her, "and tarry here no more. But heed this, what I have given to you has been given with trust and faith. Few others upon Midgard hold this secret."

Thor gave her a bow, and then he stood tall in the sunlight.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

As shadows began swirling around Kyle, transforming him into the Wraith, Kara had to remind herself that he wasn't one of the Phantoms escaped from the Zone. She had to remind herself that he was one of the good guys, one that had apparently won over Rose's heart.

"You know... maybe a big smiley face painted on your chest wouldn't be such a bad idea," Kara said to Kyle as he extended his hand out to her, offering to take her to the hospital in a manner more suited to his particular tastes.

"Um... I think I'm gonna walk there. Run, actually," Kara said with a sort of apologetic look on her face. "I was gonna offer to take you with me, but I don't think Rose would want you puking all over her clothes," the young Kryptonian added, hoping her lame joke might make her decision to travel solo seem less harsh. She just liked being under the light of the yellow sun, and having watched those shadows creep up over his body like that a second skin... it made Kara feel slightly uncomfortable.

"How about I race you there? Last one to the hospital has to do the other persons homework for like a week."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

"How about I race you there? Last one to the hospital has to do the other persons homework for like a week."

I have seen that scared look too many times since I started doing the hero business. Kara looked like she wanted to trust me, but I was just too damn creepy.

"Fair enough. But I warn you, I suck at algebra."

Shadows swirled around me and I emerged in the ruined courtyard. More time had passed. Creepers were growing up the walls, grass through the burned skeletons on the ground.

Need. Need fueled my Shadowshifts. I started to concentrate on finding Rose, felt the energy building around me when the silence was shattered by a deep roar nearby.

A very, very deep roar, as if from a very very large throat!!

I concentrated again and heard the sound of huge wings getting closer when the shadows swallowed me.


I emerged out of Shadow into the darkness left by a large dumpster. I stepped out and saw Rose, which gave me a warm feeling in my heart, and then saw who she was talking to, which caused a cold chill in the pit of my stomach!

The blond guy with the Big Damn Hammer was standing there too, and I don't think he likes me much!

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Bekka

Bekka watched the reunions with her stormcloud blue eyes. She wasn't actually surprised that Constantine knew Ceri's husband. She had been around him enough to expect things that made no sense and had no pattern. That was John Constantine.

The show of affection, no, love, that James and Ceri had though, that was surprising.

(And to be quite honest a bit envious! It had been ages since she was properly kissed!)

She allowed them a few moments before she coughed, and turned, looking up at the two.

"Excuse me, I hate to interrupt, but Dr. Hamilton, I want to talk to you before Edmund does, or worse Lionel."

She paused a second, which got a look from both Ceri and James.

"To be blunt, I need a man of your talents and skills, especially in handling A.I.'s. I want you on my team. How does $800,000 a year sound, with a five million signing bonus? You would be answerable to me, with control over who you pick as your team. Facilities would be provided, and Moving is not a problem. I plan to break ground in Smallville in about three months on a research facility. Oh, I will also throw in a case of Red Bull per week too. Think about it Dr. Hamilton. Talk to your family. Talk to Odin too if you wish, he will let you know that I take care of my people, and honor my deals."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Raya

Var-Sen took Raya's hand.

"Shall we?"

It was funny to her, that he asked that.

Of course, he was only asking her to be polite.

Of course she was going with him. She would go with him to the ends of The Universe, she would even challenge the boundary of The Source Wall itself...

For him, she had braved a Hell and fought her way out again.

What inconvenience, what threat, what risk, would not pale in comparison to that?

"Oh," she smiled, giving Var-Sen's hand a squeeze, "do let's."