The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

"She should be here soon. She actually challenged me to a race to meet up with you."

Rose arched an eyebrow, and narrowed her eyes, and glanced in what she thought might be the vague direction of Kara's house.

No offence. But she challenged you to a race and you won?

But she's--

I've run with her. (All the way to ever-lovin' blue-eyed Texas I ran with her.)

She's faster than a speeding bullet.

"Greetings, Scion of Storms. I bid thee welcome to the land of my birth, and offer Shadows hand in friendship upon this Realm."

Kyle looked at Rose and Rose's eyes had already gone from narrow to wide, as this shift in speech pattern had totally derailed her train of thought.

She'd been joking about "talking in Ren-Faire." She hadn't expected Kyle to go all formal and Jacobean-ish.

Not that it was a bad thing. She kind of... she kind of liked it when he talked like that.

But she could tell he was surprised as she was.

Huh. Ancestral memory thingy?

I wonder.

"Actually I wanted to talk to you about our flaxen haired super girl. I think she should head back home to her parents and let us go wrap things up with the Outsiders. the fewer people that know who she is, the better. I trust just about everyone there, but I don't trust Merics Grandpa, and don't know who is there since we left."

Rose nodded quietly, eyebrows knotting at the centre of her forehead.

"Yeah. Our best-kept secret is a secret best kept, I can totally grok that. I don't exactly trust Merick's grand-dad either. 'Darth Maul.'"

"I know something of Shadow," Thor explained to them. "For in That Place there exists the World Serpent, a dragon of great power and Master of the Dark," he said. Thor seemed to look off into the distance for a moment, as if he was remembering another time.

"Yeah," Rose nodded, a reflective look in her own eyes as she grinned a lopsided little grin. "Met that guy once, I think. Pterosaurian throwback, thermochemical respiratory system..."

Thor turned to look at The Wraith fully. "As you are a protector of this realm," he explained, "I welcome you as a brother." Thor finished with another bow of his head. He then looked into the sky, where clouds were gathering high in the stratosphere. "If the other, the one who bears the mark of the Traveler, is on her way here, then I think that she should be here with us now?"

Rose paused, and frowned. "See, that's just what I was thinking. (I got, um, distracted. I always get distracted.) But, yeah, she's way light on her feet, it's not like she woulda gotten caught in traffic..."

Thor's expression turned serious. "I fear mischief has set its foot upon us once again," he stated.

And while Rose was no expert on the Norse pantheon, her memory had been ever an unusual one and names like Yggdrasil and Hela and Hermod had stuck out in that memory. And she remembered the name Loki.

Rose knew that for Thor to use the word "mischief" was dire omen indeed.

Not to mention the word "fear."

Her blue blue eyes searched the bioluminescent lavender of Wraith's.

"We need to find her," she breathed, her face a map to a world of intensity. "'Whispered moment.' We need you to find her like you always find me. We need to find her right now."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Raya

This was not the first time Raya had seen Var-Sen take leave of his senses and engage in wanton, booming laughter. He had laughed, more than a little bit, after having arrived in The Phantom Zone, and this had mystified her.

But Var-Sen was more than a little bit alive, and he enjoyed life, he lived life, and as the laughter rang from sky to sky she stood there in black Earthling clothes and she grinned at his catharsis. She crossed her arms over her stomach and she regarded the Kryptonian and the verdant Martian and she grinned from ear to ear.

It was good to hear him laugh.

Still, though.

She glanced away from the two impossibly powerful males and at the primitive skycraft beside them. It was elegant in a nostalgic way, and she was actually quite impressed with some of their engineering choices.

Her eyes flickered from there to the nearby Tennylson ranch, her vision easily bridging the distance...

Smirking softly, she glanced at J'onn and shook her head.

"If he carries on much longer," she mused, playfully sardonic, taking silly little jabs at the man who would be her husband. "I shall either have to silence him with a kiss or have you sedate him with your mind. (Granted, I'd prefer the former.) But for goodness' sake... does he not realise how breakable things are on this planet? His laughter could crack windows, or knock collectible platters from their wall-hangings... I broke a man's bed in Australia just by awakening in it."

 

[AmenRa]

"If he carries on much longer," she mused, playfully sardonic, taking silly little jabs at the man who would be her husband. "I shall either have to silence him with a kiss or have you sedate him with your mind. (Granted, I'd prefer the former.) But for goodness' sake... does he not realise how breakable things are on this planet? His laughter could crack windows, or knock collectible platters from their wall-hangings... I broke a man's bed in Australia just by awakening in it."

Var-Sen stopped laughing, and he picked Raya up and spun around with her in his arms. He then smiled at her, and he kissed her quickly while he grinned.

"Come, my Most Beautiful," he said to her as he took her by the hand, "I have someone I want you to meet."

The Martian Manhunter, smiling also, walked with them towards the main house.

But then, J'onn J'onzz stopped smiling.

J'onn was a Knower of Things, and right now he knew something was not right. He didn't know what it was, or where it was, or who it was, but something, somewhere just wasn't right.

 

[Wyldfire]

Shoulders hunched, and hands in his jumpsuit pockets, he walked quietly up to Diana of Themyscira.

"Hey, Di," he murmured.

His face knotted a little. He frowned and he glanced out at the talking library-goers once more.

"I just," he mumbled, "I just. It was good ta see ya. It was good ta kick ass with ya. I mean, I always figured you were gonna be somethin' special. But seein' ya out there, holdin' yer own against a beast like that..."

He shrugged his hunched shoulders. "I always knew you was gonna be a Wonder. Good ta know I was right fer once, in my whole misbegotten career."

Ted looked at her. "I gotta go. You know. Soonish. I made a promise on th' grave'a my friend Prez, soon's I can pry Johnny away from his ex and her ex, I'm gonna make him do that trick he does when you go for a constitutional and you're suddenly someplace else, 'Round Th' World in Eighty Seconds. I'd like t' stay. But I got me a promise to keep, an' since you're on yer own two pins again, y'know."

He hesitated. "Funny thing is, y'ain't th' only random family member I done run into today. Gal with the red hair at that temple... she's my niece just as much as yerself. I mean, y'ain't kin t' her in any formal or bloodline sorta sense, but... her mama's growed up under my fisticuffs tutelage, so. Helluva coincidence, right? Me runnin' inta her an' her daughter an' Little Lady Di all on the same day? Way too much coincidence fer my blood."

Ted sniffed, and his nostrils flared, and he laughed a tiny little laugh. "Johnny himself might say, said this earlier: 'sometimes synchronicity moves in particles, sometimes it moves in waves.' Guess this was a day for waves. An' maybe there ain't no such thing as coincidence."

He reached for her, and he clasped her shoulders, and he gazed into her eyes.

"Di," he murmured. "Take it from yer Uncle Teddy. I ain't at liberty to divulge, y'know, details..." --he glanced in Ceri's direction, though Ceri was oblivious to this-- "...Amazons may be th' greatest secret warrior-woman sodality ever ta grace God's green globe, no doubt, the most skilled an' the most focused an' the most dedicated hereditary kickers of ass in alla recorded history. But they ain't th' first, an' they ain't th' only. Ya got sisters everywhere ya look. So, um. What I'm sayin' is. (Long-winded.) Is... don't never feel alone. Because ya can learn a little bit from them, an' they can learn everything from you. All your sisters, heh, an' you. Don't never feel alone."

Again his hands went to his pockets. Again he shrugged his shoulders.

Again his face was awkwardness.

"Tell yer mama," he mumbled, "next ya talk, tell her I said 'hey,' an' that I'm sorry I ain't called in awhile. Y'know. Next time ya talk ta her."

Diana listened to her Uncle Ted and gave him her full attention. Finally when he seemed out of words she smiled up and him and hugged him tightly to her. "Uncle Ted, thank you for your kindness and caring. You are the only man to have treated me as you have since my father passed."

A bit of the devil passed through Diana's eyes as she turned from Ted towards John Constantine. "Mister Constantine? I think my Uncle Ted feels that it is time for him to leave U.S. soil again. He has somewhere he would like you to take him if you could be so kind? He needs to go to Themyscira if you could be so kind to take him there."

She turned back onto Ted before he could raise a protest. Holding up a finger as she began, "Firstly, I know I am her daughter and it's none of my business, but I am not blind. You and Mother where once more than "just friends"," Diana even made the quotes with her fingers, "So don't even try to lie to me. Mother has been alone since father died, and I blame that one my father and you Ted Grant. You know my peoples' ways, so you know what it means that Mother has been alone. You and father "broke" her."

She beamed Uncle Ted a smile of pure adoration. "Now I think you need to go help her to remember what it means to be a woman, and before you try that smart mouth I love so dearly, yes I know what that means. By Themysciran standards I am not an innocent anymore. I may not know the touch of a man but I am not a sheltered little girl anymore either."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Raya

Var-Sen stopped laughing, and he picked Raya up and spun around with her in his arms. He then smiled at her, and he kissed her quickly while he grinned.

"Come, my Most Beautiful," he said to her as he took her by the hand, "I have someone I want you to meet."

Raya grinned, and let out an earth-rattling laugh of her own as he whirled her through the air, though this laugh, in turn, was silenced with a kiss.

The ancient humans would call this quid pro quo.

She walked with him, and she held his hand, as lovers would do on a thousand thousand worlds throughout all the twenty-eight known galaxies and all the galaxies yet to be known.

Gazing ahead of them with eyes that saw beyond, Raya could not help, however, but arch a flaxen eyebrow.

"There are a good number of someones in this sprawling domicile," Raya noted with some amusement. "And I am to meet but one of them? This one must be something special, to stand out from such a crowd."

The Martian Manhunter, smiling also, walked with them towards the main house.

But then, J'onn J'onzz stopped smiling.

Raya hesitated. She'd heard... she could not read minds, this was only a gift bestowed upon those Kryptonians who were truly, truly adept.

The Martian's physiology was fluid in nature, ever-changing, but when he adopted humanoid form he adopted humanoid structure also, taking on skeleton and muscles and such...

With impossible ears, Raya had heard J'onn's face fall, and she glanced back at him worriedly.

'Lawgiver?' she wondered, for he could hear her thoughts even if she could not hear his. 'What troubles you? Should we not tarry overlong?'

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

cooperative post between Chas & I

OOC: words written like this are translated from Shadowspeak, the language of the plane of Shadow

"We need to find her," Rose breathed, her face a map to a world of intensity. "'Whispered moment.' We need you to find her like you always find me. We need to find her right now."

I had seen how fast Kryptonians could move. She should be here by now. Hell, she could have been in El Paso by now if she wanted.

Rose was right. something was wrong.

"OK, lets go to Shadow. I can find her from there."


I placed my hand on Rose's shoulder and called upon Shadow, and it answered with the usual unearthly moan as we parted the veil of worlds and emerged into Shadow.

Rose huddled herself a bit, shaking her head and glancing over her shoulder at the ruins... she'd forgotten pretty quickly how cold it was here, that weird kind of molecular level cold. She imagined that The Phantom Zone was this kind of cold.

"Kyle," she wondered, half-turning to him as she indicated the ruins, "is that where you found the--"

********​

The first hint that something was wrong was the roar that vibrated through my body!!! I looked up into a open maw that sent me back to being a scared kid watching Jurassic Park (when I was supposed to be in bed) on dad's big TV. Unfortunately, this one was bigger, real, and getting very close very quick!!!!

********​

Huge, dark. Rows of teeth. Oblivion in an esophagus that went back forever.

Shai-Hulud crossbred with a Hungarian Horntail.

(Though Rose sincerely doubted this thing had the scent of cinnamon on its breath.)

Rose reached for Wraith's shoulder, icicle bolts crackling on her fingertips, "Get behind me it can't burn--"

But Kyle's instincts had already taken over.

********​

I literally threw Rose through the open doorway and into the ruins as the dragons mouth lowered and green and black flames poured out and washed down over me. I was so dead!!

********​

Rose hurtled through the air, clipping her shoulder on the doorframe and kicking up stonedust with a yelp, only barely righting herself, decelerating using flight, skidding to a sneaker-clad halt on the tower floor.

She whirled to face the way she'd come.

Her eyes were wide. Her senses were thermally attuned.

She smelled burning. She felt fire.

"KYLE!" she howled, frantic, as her heart pounded like a fist into her throat. And she ran for the door with all the impetus in her muscles...

...but when she reached that doorway, what she saw halted in her in her tracks.

********​

you have the power

call upon Shadow

accept your mantle. embrace your power.

As the flames rushed at me, something in my mind clicked. I belonged here, and I was holding back. No more!

"I ACCEPT!!" I yelled as the flames hit.

Power filled me. I was awash in fire, but did not burn.

Power filled me. My armor deepened, grew harder, stronger. Spikes appeared at my elbow, along my legs. I felt it and knew I could do so much more with it.

Power filled me. I grew, nearing eight feet tall. Stronger, faster. More than I ever was before

Power filled me. A crown of cold blue fire erupted over my head, burning brightly through the dragons flame.

I was Power!

*********​

Rose stopped. And she stared.

Her hand clutched at her heart.

Kyle was. Tall. And he crackled with palpable might, and a blue flame encircled his head with a circlet like the crown of Anung un Rama...

"Transformation sequence," Rose breathed, though he had taken her breath away.

"Oh," Rose grinned, though she was crying, "you're beautiful."

********​

I blasted the black dragon with a bolt of shadow as thick as a telephone pole, knocking it back through what was left of the wall and down onto the ground. Looking over I saw Rose in what was left of the keep.

********​

Diving, Rose rolled, a flare of firelight dancing from her fingertips and shattering a chunk of stone that tumbled for her face. She came up standing, her body singing with the moment, with the momentousness of this, and she saw the Dragon only yards from her.

Her eyes met Kyle's.

********​

I would not let any harm happen to her!

********​

Her eyes glinted, and her jaw flexed, and she jerked her head towards the Dragon. "(Kick his pterosaurian ass, gorgeous.)"

********​

Wings of Shadow emerged from my back and I took to the sky, and moving over to where the dragon was getting to it's feet.

"This territory is mine child of Shadow. Your tricks will not stop me, for I am Shalmezzar, Slayer of Man! A score of knights I have bested, and you and your female will fall to me!" came out of the dragons mouth.

Then it launched itself into the air and was upon me in a instant!

Claws lashed at me, tearing into my body and drawing thick black blood from my side. I grunted, then responded back with a blow from my hands clasped together that shattered teeth from the great beasts jaw and sent it screaming back down into the ground.

Dust was still settling when I landed.

The dragon stood, then drew it's head back to breathe fire again, or maybe something worse.

I needed to end this before Rose got hurt in the collateral damage.

I held my hand out and called out to the power within me.

Shadow answered.

Black bands of shadow wrapped around the dragons throat and body, pulling it to the earth with a loud crash not unlike thunder. It roared in anger and I caused more bands to wrap around it's mouth, silencing the great beast. It struggled, but against me, against the power I wielded, it was a mouse caught in a lions paw.

I walked to the head of the beast, my armor surging, changing, until my right hand ended in a black organic blade. A blade sharp enough to cut a dragons hide.

"End it." The dragon said, it's mighty voice muffled by the bonds I had encased it with.

I raised my hand, then stopped. I wanted to end it. My blood cried out for me to take down my opponent. The sweet chaos of the realm called out for me to take it's life.

But I heard my fathers words, "All life is sacred."

"I'll not take your life Shalmezzar of the Whispering Mountains. You fought well, and do not deserve to be a trophy on a wall. Go, leave now and do not challenge me or mine again. But remember, Spare you I did, and a boon you owe to me."

The bands of shadows fell away, drifting off into smoke and the mighty beast stood and shook himself, then looked down upon me.

"So be it Lord of Shadow." Then he spread his wings and in a clap like thunder rose into the skies and away.

I watched him go, feeling the power in me, more power than I had ever felt.

This must be how Zod felt. How Kara feels. It's wonderful.

It scares the crap out of me!

********​

Rose stood there, watching the dragon soar away. And she was astonished, her face knotted with concern, as her eyes returned to Wraith.

Mum was right about you, she realized.

You're exactly who you were born to be.

And you won't. You won't kill. I killed that woman and... and you won't kill. Not even with all the power in your world.

You amaze me.

********​

I reached down and picked up a tooth as long as my hand. I guess Rose could put this in her keepsake box, if she has one.

I walked back through the rubble and Rose stepped out looking worried as hell.

********​

Rose walked towards him, searching his face. Wondering if he was hurt.

But he stood tall. He stood strong. He was holding a dragon's incisor, and he was beautiful.

Rose managed a worried little smile. "'Shark still looks fake.'"

********​

"He's gone. Now lets find Kara and get back home."

********​

Rose nodded. Rose nodded hard.

And Rose threw her arms around Kyle's waist.

"Go baby go."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ted, John, Ceri, and Jamie

Diana listened to her Uncle Ted and gave him her full attention. Finally when he seemed out of words she smiled up and him and hugged him tightly to her. "Uncle Ted, thank you for your kindness and caring. You are the only man to have treated me as you have since my father passed."

Ted hugged her back and smiled, the knots in his face dispersing in the presence of that smile.

She truly was a Wonder.

"Ain't nothin' ya don't deserve," he murmured.

A bit of the devil passed through Diana's eyes as she turned from Ted towards John Constantine. "Mister Constantine? I think my Uncle Ted feels that it is time for him to leave U.S. soil again. He has somewhere he would like you to take him if you could be so kind? He needs to go to Themyscira if you could be so kind to take him there."

As Ted's face went pale, that newly-untangled countenance now a spilled open visage of distress, John Constantine turned from Ceri Gwyneth McCrimmon and James David Hamilton and arched an eyebrow.

"Themyscira," he pondered, running each of those syllables over his lips and tongue like a choice wine, and his eyes and his grin reflected the devil that had visited Diana's gaze. He looked like a vampire, trapped outside, that had just been invited in.

He grinned, teeth a-glitter, and closed his eyes, and held a hand to his face and laughed through the fingers. "Themyscira!"

Jamie blinked. "Obscure standoffish European thingy, ennit? Somewhere between Latveria and Symkaria."

"Little bit further South than that," Ceri shook her head, and she was so pale she looked a bit like Death-- really like Death --though her eyes, too, were filled with Wonder. "Though to pin down Themyscira on a map, the real Themyscira... Luvvie, yeh're going to need a Hell of a map."

Jamie clawed a hand through his hair, face a mask of confusion. "What, then, bigger on the inside than it is on the outside?"

"Something like that," Ceri mumbled.

"And you've been?" Jamie hazarded.

Ceri shook her head sharply. "No. But I've heard. Stories. (There are always stories.) And in the stories... it's like a paradise. An actual actual Paradise of an island."

Jamie exhaled, roughly. "No wonder you were disappointed with Majorca."

"S'like Asgard, really," John mused, enjoying the bewilderment on Jamie's face, enjoying it immensely, his grin the grin of a mad mad man. "Nice place for a picnic."

Meanwhile, Diana's attention was on other things.

She turned back onto Ted before he could raise a protest. Holding up a finger as she began, "Firstly, I know I am her daughter and it's none of my business, but I am not blind. You and Mother where once more than "just friends"," Diana even made the quotes with her fingers, "So don't even try to lie to me. Mother has been alone since father died, and I blame that one my father and you Ted Grant. You know my peoples' ways, so you know what it means that Mother has been alone. You and father "broke" her."

He opened his mouth, and shut it again, and there was pain in his seagreen eyes.

I ain't no raggedy one-night-stand tomcat.

I been touched by two goddesses in my day.

One'a these was a gal in th' mountains'a Yucatan, an' one'a these was yer momma.

Th' gal in th' mountains was gentle, an' she was platonic, an' she gave me nine extra rings of th' bell an' she weren't ever my lover 'cept in th' most poetic sense'a th' term.

Hippolyta...

Lyta. Polly.

Let's just say? A tigress like her makes even a raggedy one-night-stand tomcat wanna mate fer life.

He shook his head, and his shoulders rose and fell. "I don't want her ta be alone. I never meant ta-- I never-- m'sorry."

She beamed Uncle Ted a smile of pure adoration. "Now I think you need to go help her to remember what it means to be a woman, and before you try that smart mouth I love so dearly, yes I know what that means. By Themysciran standards I am not an innocent anymore. I may not know the touch of a man but I am not a sheltered little girl anymore either."

Ted's grizzled cheeks turned bright red, accelerating up to crimson through white white shades of pale. "Di! I oughta..."

His jaw flexed, he looked away, he clenched his eyes, and then he looked back at her.

And when he smiled at her. He smiled at her lopsided.

"I'll go," he nodded. "I'll go. And if she'll have me back, after all I've done, I'll... I'll stay."

John Constantine strolled up, looking rather well pleased as Punch. "An' yeah, I'll take 'im. But we're bluddy well stopping at a tobacconist's on the way, as I've little desire to go into certain demise and rending limb from limb without first snagging some of me favourite Nepenthes pharmakon."

Ted regarded Constantine dubiously. "Think yer reputation'll precede ya?"

John chuckled. "An island populated entirely, if the scrolls would 'ave it, by the resurrected souls of wronged women? Number of women I've wronged, they'll draw-and-bluddy-quarter me."

"You don't seem too worried," Ceri mused, as she strolled up, smiling lopsidedly.

John beamed, and slapped Ted Grant on the back with oomf. "When I've got this two-fisted bloke to bail me out of the pits of Tartarus? I'm worried never."

Ted laughed a haggard laugh. "Awesome. Tartarus."

Ceri shook her head at John, and smiled encouragingly at Ted, and then fixed Diana with a neutral sort of curious scrutiny. "It would seem. Diana. That you and I have a bit to talk about."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

With Rose's arms around me I began to concentrate. Picturing Kara in my mind. Her face, the way she flipped her hair out of her eyes. Her smile. Everything that was her.

'Take us to her.' I thought and called upon Shadow.

Nothing happened.

I concentrated harder. Shadows drew up around us until the very air was crackling with energy and you could feel the power I was calling pressing down upon us.

'TAKE ME TO HER NOW!'

Again, nothing happened.

"Rose, I can't get her. I honestly think I could level this place with a thought, I have drawn so much power from here, but it's like I'm hitting a wall. I can't transport us to her."

Maybe one of the others could help us. Or maybe Bekka had something up her sleeve.

"I am going to take us to the others. Maybe one of them will have a idea. Hold on tight my Valkyrie."

I reached out to the power surrounding us and the veils between worlds parted with a moan as shadows swept over us. In seconds, shadows swirled out in a explosion of noise and cold, and Rose and I emerged into the library surrounded by the rest of the team. I could feel the power I had drawn upon leaking away, until I stood by Rose looking no different than when we had left Smallville.

But everything was different. I was more than I was five minutes ago.

I now knew I was as much a child of Shadow as I was of earth.

But here, I was among friends and those who loved me.

 

[AmenRa]

Thor

He saw the Wraith and Valkyrie envelope into the world of Shadow.

Thor himself could open portals to other dimensions, and he knew now that they were well beyond the plane of Midgard.

Thus, it was Thor's duty to search in the mortal plane.

Spinning Mjolnir by its unbreakable thong, he hurled it into the sky, himself being pulled along. While in flight he scanned the ground below him, knowing the roads from Smallville that she had most likely traveled.

Having eyes not unlike his brother Heimdall, Thor saw the felled tree that marked the battle scene. He descended to the road, his cape draping around him, and he replaced Mjolnir into its carrier.

Thor knelt down and placed his palms against the ground. He closed his eyes.

There had been a great battle, a clash of titans, and the Last Child had been the victor. But, yet, in the end, he sensed she had been defeated by some other force.

A force made up of Men.

This perplexed the thunder god.

How?

She has been taken.

How to find her? Where to begin a search? Shall I follow The Wraith and Valkyrie into the Plane of Shadow to seek their aid?

Have some patience, came a voice from That Place, I'm sure you'll hear from them. After all, I did give Rose my phone number.

 

[AmenRa]

'Lawgiver?' she wondered, for he could hear her thoughts even if she could not hear his. 'What troubles you? Should we not tarry overlong?'

Var-Sen, too, sensed something was wrong with his friend from Mars. He stopped, almost to the house, and turned to see what had become of J'onn J'onzz.

The Martian Manhunter stood silently, his eyes ablaze with red fire.

"Something has happened," he told them aloud, "to Kara. She is in pain. Great pain."

The Man From Mars focused, his incredible psychic powers pinpointing the breech of Shadow as the Wraith and Rose left this world. Then, with uncanny realization, he touched the mind of Thor.

"And," he said quietly, "a Thunder God walks among us."

 

[Wyldfire]

Diana listened to her Uncle Ted and gave him her full attention. Finally when he seemed out of words she smiled up and him and hugged him tightly to her. "Uncle Ted, thank you for your kindness and caring. You are the only man to have treated me as you have since my father passed."

Ted hugged her back and smiled, the knots in his face dispersing in the presence of that smile.

She truly was a Wonder.

"Ain't nothin' ya don't deserve," he murmured.

A bit of the devil passed through Diana's eyes as she turned from Ted towards John Constantine. "Mister Constantine? I think my Uncle Ted feels that it is time for him to leave U.S. soil again. He has somewhere he would like you to take him if you could be so kind? He needs to go to Themyscira if you could be so kind to take him there."

As Ted's face went pale, that newly-untangled countenance now a spilled open visage of distress, John Constantine turned from Ceri Gwyneth McCrimmon and James David Hamilton and arched an eyebrow.

"Themyscira," he pondered, running each of those syllables over his lips and tongue like a choice wine, and his eyes and his grin reflected the devil that had visited Diana's gaze. He looked like a vampire, trapped outside, that had just been invited in.

He grinned, teeth a-glitter, and closed his eyes, and held a hand to his face and laughed through the fingers. "Themyscira!"

Jamie blinked. "Obscure standoffish European thingy, ennit? Somewhere between Latveria and Symkaria."

"Little bit further South than that," Ceri shook her head, and she was so pale she looked a bit like Death-- really like Death --though her eyes, too, were filled with Wonder. "Though to pin down Themyscira on a map, the real Themyscira... Luvvie, yeh're going to need a Hell of a map."

Jamie clawed a hand through his hair, face a mask of confusion. "What, then, bigger on the inside than it is on the outside?"

"Something like that," Ceri mumbled.

"And you've been?" Jamie hazarded.

Ceri shook her head sharply. "No. But I've heard. Stories. (There are always stories.) And in the stories... it's like a paradise. An actual actual Paradise of an island."

Jamie exhaled, roughly. "No wonder you were disappointed with Majorca."

"S'like Asgard, really," John mused, enjoying the bewilderment on Jamie's face, enjoying it immensely, his grin the grin of a mad mad man. "Nice place for a picnic."

Meanwhile, Diana's attention was on other things.

She turned back onto Ted before he could raise a protest. Holding up a finger as she began, "Firstly, I know I am her daughter and it's none of my business, but I am not blind. You and Mother where once more than "just friends"," Diana even made the quotes with her fingers, "So don't even try to lie to me. Mother has been alone since father died, and I blame that one my father and you Ted Grant. You know my peoples' ways, so you know what it means that Mother has been alone. You and father "broke" her."

He opened his mouth, and shut it again, and there was pain in his seagreen eyes.

I ain't no raggedy one-night-stand tomcat.

I been touched by two goddesses in my day.

One'a these was a gal in th' mountains'a Yucatan, an' one'a these was yer momma.

Th' gal in th' mountains was gentle, an' she was platonic, an' she gave me nine extra rings of th' bell an' she weren't ever my lover 'cept in th' most poetic sense'a th' term.

Hippolyta...

Lyta. Polly.

Let's just say? A tigress like her makes even a raggedy one-night-stand tomcat wanna mate fer life.

He shook his head, and his shoulders rose and fell. "I don't want her ta be alone. I never meant ta-- I never-- m'sorry."

She beamed Uncle Ted a smile of pure adoration. "Now I think you need to go help her to remember what it means to be a woman, and before you try that smart mouth I love so dearly, yes I know what that means. By Themysciran standards I am not an innocent anymore. I may not know the touch of a man but I am not a sheltered little girl anymore either."

Ted's grizzled cheeks turned bright red, accelerating up to crimson through white white shades of pale. "Di! I oughta..."

His jaw flexed, he looked away, he clenched his eyes, and then he looked back at her.

And when he smiled at her. He smiled at her lopsided.

"I'll go," he nodded. "I'll go. And if she'll have me back, after all I've done, I'll... I'll stay."

John Constantine strolled up, looking rather well pleased as Punch. "An' yeah, I'll take 'im. But we're bluddy well stopping at a tobacconist's on the way, as I've little desire to go into certain demise and rending limb from limb without first snagging some of me favourite Nepenthes pharmakon."

Ted regarded Constantine dubiously. "Think yer reputation'll precede ya?"

John chuckled. "An island populated entirely, if the scrolls would 'ave it, by the resurrected souls of wronged women? Number of women I've wronged, they'll draw-and-bluddy-quarter me."

"You don't seem too worried," Ceri mused, as she strolled up, smiling lopsidedly.

John beamed, and slapped Ted Grant on the back with oomf. "When I've got this two-fisted bloke to bail me out of the pits of Tartarus? I'm worried never."

Ted laughed a haggard laugh. "Awesome. Tartarus."

Ceri shook her head at John, and smiled encouragingly at Ted, and then fixed Diana with a neutral sort of curious scrutiny. "It would seem. Diana. That you and I have a bit to talk about."

Diana's thoughts went for a moment to Constantine going to her home, and then she grinned a down right wolfish grin. Let the arrogant man make a fool of himself. There were more than enough amazons to put him in his rightful place.

"I am very glad you are willing to go Uncle Ted," Diana said, "I think you and my mother both could use some time together." She hugged the older man tightly and whispered in his ear "And when you get there find the girl named Artemis and tell her Di misses her. Give her a hug and a kiss for me if she will let you."

She turned towards Ceri, giving her a perfectly calm expression. "And what would you like to speak with me about Ma'am?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ted, Ceri, John, Jamie, Rose, Damian, Alfred, Chloe, Pete, and Gabe

"I am very glad you are willing to go Uncle Ted," Diana said, "I think you and my mother both could use some time together." She hugged the older man tightly and whispered in his ear "And when you get there find the girl named Artemis and tell her Di misses her. Give her a hug and a kiss for me if she will let you."

Ted hugged her back with arms of surprising strength given the man's chronological age. And he grinned the grin of the cat killed by curiosity and brought back by satisfaction, as he thought of Diana's mother...

He drew back from her, and he nodded firmly. Seriously.

"This was the red-haired gal," he frowned lightly with the effort of remembering, "lived on the North side'a th' island? I'll give her yer best."

She turned towards Ceri, giving her a perfectly calm expression. "And what would you like to speak with me about Ma'am?"

"A number of things," Ceri mused, her dark eyes searching Diana's. "For one thing, we could discuss the talk Queen Hippolyta had with The Pope a few years back. Controversial but amicable discussion of organised monotheism versus traditional polytheism. For another thing, we could discuss what it's really like on 'Amazon Island,' whether it lives up to the superstitious hype, or whether that's just a good campaign to drum up tourism. For still another thing, there's the matter of technique, on how well one makes a sword an extension of one's arm when removing a man's head from his shoulders."

She crossed her arms over her stomach, and grinned a pleasant, intrigued little grin. "But mostly I want to know if yeh prefer the closed fist or the palm strike, or whether or not This Old Man (He Played Nine) taught yeh that great little move where yeh smash an opponent's face into your rising knee by using the opposite elbow."

Ted smiled faintly at these two talking, and glanced over at John.

"So," he wondered, "can ya do that walkin' thing on command, or do ya gotta wait on things like phases'a th' moon an' such?"

But John wasn't looking at Ted, and he put a finger 'cross his lips as he stared interestedly at a bare patch in the middle of the floor. "Hush-a-bye, Teddy. Just a mo'."

And John's eyes met Jamie's across the room, where Jamie stood not far from Garfield Logan with his hands in his pockets.

John's eyes met Jamie's.

And Jamie nodded.

********​

Rose closed her eyes, arms having encircled his waist, a little bit of his darksome blood spilling upon her forearm, though she was careful to avoid the new deadly-looking spines on his arms and legs. The dimensional transition was always a little easier, she thought, when her eyes were closed.

But the dimensions didn't transition, not like usual, and Rose opened one eye and glanced up and up and up at her boyfriend...

He looked like he was... like he was willing something. Like he was trying to tear open the cosmos with the sheer power of his mind and it just wasn't working properly.

The shadows crawled in Shadow. Tangible shadows, so thick that Rose was having trouble even breathing...

The temperature dropped like a stone, and she shivered in his arms, and then she wondered, she wondered, if Shadow's shadows could make her feel the cold, then maybe Shadow's fires could burn her?

Physics included magic, here. Things worked differently here than in the world of light.

But apparently... apparently even being plugged into The Lifestream of this Shadow world wasn't enough to get where they were going?

This went beyond mutation or secondary mutation. This was Apotheosis. This was Secondary Apotheosis. But still. This wasn't enough?

Kyle sounded exhausted. He sounded defeated. He sounded... confused. Though the Shadowstorm around them still raged.

"Rose, I can't get her. I honestly think I could level this place with a thought, I have drawn so much power from here, but it's like I'm hitting a wall. I can't transport us to her."

Rose nodded, though she glanced worriedly at his injury, now looking at him with both eyes.

Maybe you can't do this if you're hurt?

She glanced worriedly up at that crown of cool blue flames.

Maybe you can't do this if you're... if you're so plugged in to This Place? Like your roots are so sunk down that to uproot has become impossible?

You have never been more frightening to me than you are right now.

And yet you're beautiful.

Isn't that weird? That which frightens most has become that which is most lovely.

I'm not afraid of you. I'm afraid for you.

And I'm afraid for Kara. Where would she be that all this brute force of Magic answering Need couldn't deliver us unto her?

'Where I am going, you cannot follow.'

Rose would have buried her face against Wraith's chest, but as it was she could only reach his upper stomach without going up on tip-toes or levitating, and thus she buried her face against his upper stomach and held on tight.

"I am going to take us to the others. Maybe one of them will have a idea. Hold on tight my Valkyrie."

Rose nodded, and murmured: "Scion of Shadows: I'm right here."

And the deepest darkness parted, and The World came to life there in the gap, swelling to catch them like they were falling into the pages of a pop-up book.

Fade from black.

********​

And Jamie's eyes met John's across the room, where John stood not far from Ted Grant with his finger astride his lips.

Jamie's eyes met John's.

And John nodded.

Hands in his pockets, Jamie leaned over a bit to murmur to Gar: "Still feeling a bit insecure about your, erm, omni-directional biological metacrisis? This might make you feel better."

And the world screamed and shuddered, a neonoir orgasm, a little death, a rupture and a bending and a rending.

A little pocket of Amityville, there one moment and gone the next, and in its place were Rose McCrimmon and...

...Wraith Deluxe.

"Ugly Darkling," John mused, tilting his head back to look up at the creature, "yeh got uglier..."

Jamie's jaw dropped a little, and he grinned. "Would you look at that."

But then, in a matter of instants, Wraith bled off mass, reverting to his more familiar state.

Damian Wayne, called "David Cain" in this timeline, stood in the doorway of the library beside Alfred Pennyworth and crossed his armoured arms over his chest. "Nice entrance."

Alfred shook his head, face a little pale. "...be the death of me, I promise you they will..."

Rose moved away from Wraith, smiling up at him. Yep. Still scary.

Still beautiful.

Her hand went to her pocket. She did the math. Right. Priorities.

She waved a little wave and turned in a circle. "Hello, everyone. Everyone, hello. Mum, Dad, 'Ello!"

Her eyes tightened as she looked around. "Quick, just a sec, um, Our Girl's maybe missing and Wraith can't utilise his umbric telepresence to divine her location and maybe we're just being paranoid but I think that we should take all necessary precau--"

She spotted Chloe, over by a really tall bookshelf, wrapped up in Merick's arms and just now lifting her head from his shoulder.

"Wraith," Rose mumbled, patting Kyle on his uninjured side, "tell 'em what we know about the missing Krypton Girl. I gotta play messenger for a god."

And then she darted away.

Pete's dark eyes were narrowed as they fixed on Wraith. "Dude, this is for real? Chosen One's gone AWOL?"

Gabe Sullivan nodded stiffly, though he still looked more out of his element than a fish out in space. "Tell us what you need us to do."

Rose hurried, nipping through the crowd, glancing briefly at Merick's grand-dad, who looked all but castrated, but she had eyes only for Chloe.

She had eyes only for Chloe until she suddenly made the connection, non-linear thought process, with how Merick was holding Chloe.

She paused. And glanced between the two of them. Repeatedly.

She arched an eyebrow. "(Hunh.)"

And then she grinned at Merick, and gave him a thumbs-up. "Could do worse, Mer'."

Chloe scowled, and wiped at the residue of her tears again with the back of her hand. "Watch it, Cerebra."

Rose shook her head tightly. "Told you. Not Cerebra. I'm called The Valkyrie Missile."

She pulled that tinkling silvery steel necklace out of her pocket, let the hammer pendant dangle in the library light. "And the Norse God of Thunder sends his warmest regards."

Chloe gave Merick an odd look, as if she were asking her boyfriend to translate for his best female friend's insane ramblings, but she accepted the necklace nonetheless, taking this . "I suppose this must make sense on some level?"

"Yeah, totally," Rose nodded quickly. "There was a tornado in Smallville and it was going to take my house to Oz, but then The Mighty Thor arrived and dispatched this wind with his magic hammer. But then he picked a fight with Wraith and Our Girl got in his grill. But a little while later there was lightning out of nowhere near SMC and it was Thor again but he'd chilled out a little, and he kind of implied who he really was in his mortal guise and beseeched, uh, besought me, I think that's the past tense, to contact 'the one mortals call Watchtower,' on his behalf. Also, he called me a 'valkyrie,' so maybe that makes my codename official instead of a self-aggrandising affectation? Anyway, he trusted me with his secret identity thingy so it's probably safe to trust him with yours."

Chloe digested this, quietly. "This is your idea of making total sense?"

Rose hesitated. "Well. Um. Actually. No, I guess?"

Chloe shook her head, incredulous, disbelieving. "Thor. Like the Norse Thor. Was Beta Ray Bill in attendance?"

Glancing briefly at Merick, smirking faintly, she alluded to an earlier tirade of madness: "Or maybe a talking animal or two?"

No wonder you and Merick are such good pals. You have the same kind of crazy. The same kind of motory mouth.

Rose bit the inside of her cheek, realising suddenly how weird all of this sounded. "Well. Actually. There was a cat--"

And Chloe was about to let loose with another haggard-chuckled response. But then the necklace in her fingertips started to tingle, and to shimmer, and Chloe blinked as the necklace folded folded in on itself and became...

A business card.

"Well. Frack me running." Chloe stared, wide wide eyes.

Why does something tell me that that's not sufficiently advanced technology?

Why does something tell me that that's straight outright magic?

She shook her head. "Frack. If it's not one fracking uber-deep mystery of The Universe, it's another."

Rose grinned, more than a little apologetically. "I know, right? What the frell, right?"

Chloe turned the card over in her hand, as the name and phone number had aligned upside down and she ran her tongue over her teeth. "Okay. I'll bite."

She held out her hand to Rose. "Cellphone?"

Rose blinked. And then smacked herself in the forehead, digging in her other pocket. "Oh, God, I still have that, it'd be a miracle if it survived all the crazy..."

But then there it was in Rose's hand, a little scratched up and the battery running low but all in one functional piece and picking up three bars of signal.

Chloe caught it up and flipped it open and dialed...

Bewildered but going on gut instinct and the adrenaline born of being back from the dead, Chloe bit her lip while she listened to it ring...

 

[ChasNicollette]

Raya


"Something has happened," he told them aloud, "to Kara. She is in pain. Great pain."

Raya. Was not pleased.

She shook her head. "I held Kara Zor-El as an infant. If something has been inflicted upon her, them who have inflicted it will suffer accordingly."

But The Martian Manhunter was not quite finished with his Knowing of Things...

"And," he said quietly, "a Thunder God walks among us."

Raya hesitated. Was he speaking metaphor? Was this some sort of oblique linguistic local practise with which she was unfamiliar?

But as she hesitated, her heightened impossible senses were still probing the world around them, alert and fluctuating and capable of incredible feats of awareness.

And inside the Tennylson ranch, she heard the words "thunder" and "god" used in syntactical proximity.

"It seems we are not the only ones aware of this new development," she reflected. "Perhaps we should compare notes, post-haste, with them whom you wanted me to meet?"

 

[AmenRa]

Thor

The mind of the Martian Manhunter touched his, and Thor stood up from where he knelt at the battle scene.

He sensed something. A presence he'd not felt since....

Hate to interrupt, but, umm...cell phone? I can hardly answer it Here when she calls, even with unlimited free roaming.

Thor nodded his head and struck Mjolnir on the ground.

Lightning and thunder.

And then, Dr. Donald Blake.

Blake looked around, and he realized he was quite a ways from the Audi he had left in the ditch.

And then, as fate would have it, his cellphone rang.

"Dr. Blake," he said into the phone.

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen and J'onn

"It seems we are not the only ones aware of this new development," she reflected. "Perhaps we should compare notes, post-haste, with them whom you wanted me to meet?"

Var-Sen turned to the door to the estate. He reached to knock, and then, for some reason, he just opened the door and walked inside.

Inside, they were all there. The friends he had made, the circle of Outsiders that had mastered the world against the forces of Zod.

Still holding Raya by her hand, he greeted his friends with a wave and a smile.

He saw Rose and Chloe, the latter with a cellphone to her ear.

"I hope we're not intruding," he said to them all, "but we had a stop to make along our way. Better late than never, right?"

The Martian Manhunter entered behind Var-Sen and Raya, and he stood stoicly as he tended to do. He gave a nod of his head, and in greeting he said, simply, "We have arrived."

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

"What do you... want... with me?" Kara barely managed to ask, her voice just as weak as she was. She had lost consciousness earlier on when the soldiers first took her down, and even now she was still slipping in and out. From what Kara could gather, she was in a car or truck of some sort, and there were at least four or five men pointing guns at her at all times.

"Beats the Hell out of me to know what they want with you. To me... all you meteor freaks are the same," one of the soldiers said with absolute disgust in his voice as he looked the young Kryptonian over. More than once Kara had been poked and prodded at, though such annoyances were nothing when compared to the overwhelming pain that wracked her body when exposed to the meteor rocks. Though the Kryptonite had been moved further away from her, Kara still experienced some of the residual effects that had left her in a rather weakened state, and the chains holding her in place proved more than a match for her diminished strength.

She felt tired, and when she began to show signs of regaining her strength the soldiers immediately retrieved the Kryptonite and held it up to her.

"How come none of the other freaks reacted this way?" one of the soldiers suddenly asked.

"Fuck if I know. But the sooner we get out of this... dirt hole of a town the better."

"You have to... let me go," Kara said once the soldiers took away the meteor rock again. The armored transport carrier they were driving in buckled a little, but none of the soldiers seemed to notice.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

"I don't know much really. Kara was supposed to meet me at the hospital in Smallville to pick up Rose, and when I got there she had not arrived. Rose got worried so we popped into shadow to see if I could shadowport us to her, but we got waylaid by a dragon. I dealt with him (Rose has a tooth on her somewhere) and then tried to port us to Kara but I couldn't. So I ported us here to see if you guys could come up with something."

I stopped and noticed the dead silence and that pretty much every eye was on me.

"What?"

I then noticed the green skinned Martian and Professor Smith walk in with a pretty blond woman.

"J'onn, good thing your here! We lost Kara!!"

 

[AmenRa]

J'onn J'onzz and Var-Sen

At Wraith's exclamation of losing Kara, the Martian Manhunter turned to face him.

"I'm not so sure she has been 'lost', my friend, as she has been 'taken'," he told him. "I am unable to locate her telepathically, but I am able to perceive that she is in great pain. Also, I have touched the mind of Thor, the Thunder God, in the same localility as I felt Kara. It could be possible, although highly unlikely, that he is responsible for Kara's whereabouts."

"Thor?," Var-Sen inquired, "here? Why would the Norse God of Thunder come here, to Midgard?" Var-Sen was, after all, a historian, and he knew Norse mythology well. "And even so, what would he want with Kara Zor-El?"

"Thor sees himself as the protector of what you refer to as Midgard," J'onn explained. "As such, he may have seen Kara's presence here as a threat. This, however, is doubtful."

"You've met him, then," Var-Sen replied.

"I have," J'onn answered. "Once. Long ago."

That answer seemed to be the end of the discussion for J'onn. Var-Sen didn't press the matter further. He instead turned his attention to the people gathered around him.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

As much as Benjamin Wallis liked to consider himself of the patient sort, he found it increasingly difficult to keep his growing anxiety in check. Already he had burned through two peppery cigars while waiting for his phone to ring, and he was well on his way with a third. Though office regulations strictly prohibited smoking in the building entirely, Benjamin considered himself above well above the normal statutes, and so he puffed away while one hand slowly rubbed at his temple. Every so often he would get up from his leather chair and walk around the room, pace back and forth a few times and then promptly return to his seat.

When the call he so eagerly awaited finally arrived, all Benjamin could do at first was sit in his chair with a sort of satisfactory smile on his aged face. He finished his cigar and set it aside in an ash-filled tray before getting up onto his feet.

The moment he had been waiting for had finally arrived.

----------​

The transport vehicles carrying Kara Zor-El and Titan pulled up into an abandoned car lot next to a warehouse, and as soon as they had stopped moving a whole team of soldiers swarmed around the caravan. Once IDs had been cleared, the new arrivals helped carry a much-weakened Kara into the facility, but not before covering her face with a blindfold. A few of the men scoffed at the idea that such a young girl could be a real threat, but they kept their weapons pointed at her regardless.

Kara stumbled on her feet more than a few times, and when she couldn't walk she was dragged throughout the lengthy corridors until she finally brought to a room with a holding cell. Under normal circumstances Kara would have had no problem bending the metal bars out of place, but with the meteor rocks held nearby she could barely even move.

Perhaps as a simple gesture of hospitality, the soldiers eventually removed her blindfold, and Kara strained to take in her surroundings. She was being held in a cage, that much she could see, and there were guards posted all around her cell. After watching her for a few minutes and deciding that she no longer posed an imminent threat to their lives, the soldiers moved back a few feet, and Kara felt some of her strength returning to her.

Enough to stand at least, even move around a little.

"Let... me out of here," Kara said to one of the soldiers.

"What do you want with me?!"

One of the soldiers approached the cage, and Kara tried to use her x-ray vision to see through his visor.

It didn't work.

"Are you going to let me out of this cage?"

Even though she couldn't see through his helmet, Kara knew that a smirk adorned his face.

"You're not going anywhere... freak."

Kara winced at the insult, but she steeled her nerves again.

"My friends will come and find me," Kara warned as she wiped some blood away from her lip.

"We're counting on that fact," the soldier said before he moved away.

----------​

In a separate part of the facility, a team of scientists and doctors circled around an unconscious body lying on the operating table, and they poked and prodded at the subject before scribbling down their notations. One of the scientists, Dr. Hong, was rather reluctant to continue on with his part in the research, but he knew that the subject wouldn't survive without a few more adjustments.

"I'm sorry, Victor," Dr. Hong whispered when he was sure that the other scientists wouldn't hear him. When word came in that the facility had new arrivals, Hong knew that if he didn't act now... he'd never get another chance to set things right.

Once the lab was clear, Hong pulled out a small serum and injected the orange liquid straight into Victors neck.

“I’m truly sorry for what we’ve done to you,” Dr. Hong said as Victor stirred awake.

“What?”

“We don’t have a lot of time. We need… to get you out of here.”

“Why are you helping me?”

Victor sat up on the table just as one of the guards walked inside. Before he could even raise his weapon, Victor had already scrambled up onto his feet and quickly shoved him aside. He stared down at his hands as if they were someone else’s, a look of awe and disbelief covering his face. He still had all his memories, and he had been given a second chance at life… albeit against his will.

“You better hurry. Try and head for the rooftop and I’ll meet you there.”

Victor nodded his head and then smiled.

"Thank you."

All of a sudden alarms started sounding off, and the lights inside the lab shut down.

"You've got to hurry. Now!" Dr. Hong pointed Victor in the direction of the nearest staircase, but a couple of armed guards soon blocked his escape. With their weapons poised and ready to fire, Victor had no choice but to run in the opposite direction.

With his enhanced abilities, Victor had little trouble outrunning his pursuers. He made his way past a few security check points before entering the room where Kara was being held.

"Woh! Wrong turn," Victor said with alarm when he saw how many guards were stationed in the room.

"Watch out!" Kara yelled as one of the soldiers turned to fire on him. Victor turned the weapon aside and threw the soldier against the wall. Most of the other guards were torn as to whether they should deal with the intruder or continue guarding the alien. As they struggled to adapt to the new threat, Victor had already plowed through most of the soldiers, including the ones that held meteor rocks.

"Give me a sec. I'll get you out of here," Victor said as he approached the cage.

"It's okay. This will just take a second," Kara said as she felt her strength return to her completely. She gripped the metal bars with both her hands and pulled them apart as if they were made out of nothing but Styrofoam.

"So what's the deal? They been experimenting on you too?" Victor asked as Kara stepped out from the cage.

"No. They just captured me and brought me here against my will."

"Yeah I know how that feels," Victor said. "We better get going. The doctor that set me free told me to head for the roof. We can probably get out that way."

Kara nodded her head just as more soldiers began swarming the area. Using her super-speed, Kara knocked them out before any of them could fire their weapons.

"And I thought I was fast," Victor said with a smile as they raced down a hallway.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick grinned at Rose as she talked to him, and to Chloe.

"Glad to see you made it back in one piece. Oh, hey, you remember Gar? He is like a shapeshifter or something now. Sweet huh?"

Merick nods in the direction of Gar. Gar, meanwhile stands in awe. For the moment in the form of a large bear, his jaw hanging comically.

"Dude... that was the coolest entrance ever..." After a moment Gar realizes that Merick had just said his name. What? Oh right, hehe... Rose, right?" Gar shifts quickly into a small bird and flutters and lands on Merick's shoulder. "Good to see ya. You can call me Changeling."

 

[camerindrake]

Damian

The Black Hood looks to everyone. He gives a silent sigh looking to Alfred for a moment then turns to The Manhunter from Mars.

He then states, "If she is in trouble, then we need to get back to Smallville as quickly as possible."

He looks at the rest and says, "Everyone, Follow me. We haven't a second to spare."

He turns and begins to walk back to the boom tube. His cape fluttering as he walks. he presses a button on his utility harness causing the door to the boom tube to open for them.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

"Do you even know where we're going?"

"Last time I checked they put the roof on top of the building," Kara said as she knocked down yet another steel door. "But I'm really starting to get annoyed at how many levels this place has."

As the ran down yet another lengthy hallway, Victor paused to read the floor level they were on. He managed to catch a glimpse of the bold numbers on the door before Kara barreled her way through it.

"One more to go," Victor said with a smile as he followed after her. "So where you from, anyway?"

"I'm from a town called Smallville."

"Smallville? The Crows? I remember playing against your football team while I was in Met High. Back before... all this," Victor said with a sudden resounding sadness in his voice.

The memories of his life...

The accident...

Katherine

Being on the run had kept his mind off of how things used to be before the accident, but now that he had stopped to think about it...

It was almost too much to bear.

Kara punched her way through another door at the top of the stairs, and sunlight immediately poured into the stairwell. The young Kryptonian felt even stronger now that was receiving direct sunlight, and she turned to look at her friend as he remained practically frozen in time.

"I'm sorry about what's happened to you," Kara said with sincerity as she moved back inside. "I will do everything I can to help set things right, but I can't help you unless we get out of here first."

Victor lifted his head up slowly, and Kara looked straight into his brown eyes, letting him know without using words exactly how she felt.

"Why are you helping me? You don't even know me."

"Because it's the right thing to do," Kara said with a warm smile, but her caring demeanor was soon replaced with one of alarm.

"They're on their way," Kara said as her ears picked up the sound of soldiers moving quickly up the stairs to the top floors.

"How do you even know that? Just what exactly are you?"

"It's a long story," Kara said quickly before she grabbed Victor's arm, pulling him with her to the staircase that led to the roof.

Victor was the first to run up the wooden platform leading to the roof, and Kara quickly followed suit. From there they ran clear to the other side, and without even looking back they leapt straight up into the air and then plummeted at least thirteen stories. Both escapees left fairly deep impact craters in the ground from where they had landed, but neither of them were injured in the slightest bit.

By the time the guards had reached the roof and peered over the side of the building, Kara and Victor were nowhere to be seen.

 

[ChasNicollette]

John and Ted (with Alfred).

The Black Hood looks to everyone. He gives a silent sigh looking to Alfred for a moment then turns to The Manhunter from Mars.

He then states, "If she is in trouble, then we need to get back to Smallville as quickly as possible."

He looks at the rest and says, "Everyone, Follow me. We haven't a second to spare."

"Right, then!" John bellowed, pumping a fist in the air. "Spooky bastard's right, whoever 'e is! We've no time to lose! Alfred, Lord Tennyson and all of that rot."

He grabbed Ted's shoulder and shoved the man in front of him, heading for the library door. "The Hell, Constantine?"

John gestured at him, his face the picture of innocence and chivalry. "What, you're so keen on charging off to the bleedin' rescue! Let's put the spurs to the nags and get fucking bluddy cracking, eh?"

Ted sputtered in protest, but John was a hard man to tell "no" when he got moving.

John nodded, briefly, to the folks gathered in the doorway. Particularly a long slow smirk at the slender blonde lady dressed in black. And a quick chin-up nod to the lads, the green one and the Caucasian one alike.

He held up his fist to Alfred, who was still staring bewilderedly after the departed Damian. "Cockney."

Alfred bumped his fist against John's. "Liverpudlian."

Ted tried to use this moment to get Diana's attention again, or Ceri's, but John grabbed him by the jumpsuit collar and dragged him away: "Gerroffit..."

But even as he shoved Ted out the door, John himself stopped, paused, for just a second.

And looked across the room at Bekka Greystone.

And wondered, for that long aching moment, whether his Kiss of Life had been utterly wasted, or if, someday, someday...

Then he stuck out his tongue at Merick Tennylson and paraded from the room, "Wildcat" pushed before him.

Ted was walking on his own by the time they got out of the front door.

They could see Damian ahead of them in the distance, his cape trailing in the Texas breeze. "Right then. Let's float like butterflies, if you're so hellbent on redeeming--"

"No, wait," John murmured, again clapping a hand onto Ted's shoulder: "Bored, now."

Ted's head whipped around and he stared at John, bewildered and infuriated, as though Constantine had suddenly broken out in a rousing rendition of "Fields of Gold." "What?"

John just smiled softly, sadly, and closed his eyes, and kept walking...

"Pharamond."

...and they were gone.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe.

Blake looked around, and he realized he was quite a ways from the Audi he had left in the ditch.

And then, as fate would have it, his cellphone rang.

"Dr. Blake," he said into the phone.

Kyle and Merick and everyone was talking and Chloe's face felt puffy from the crying, she felt like Hell.

She covered her ear with her hand and pressed the cellphone tighter to the other ear.

She wished she had the digital vox scrambler she kept in a drawer in her desk at The Torch. But she settled for lowering her voice an octave and keeping her sentences brisk: her Scary Bruce Wayne impression.

"Doctor Donald Blake," she growled. "This is Watchtower. Was told you had interest in my services."

Another quick breath, and: "Watchtower is not for hire. Not available to highest bidder. Watchtower protects the people. Sometimes from themselves. Still. Intrigued by your case."

She closed her eyes and moved a little deeper into biographies.

"Tell me a story, Doctor Blake. Make it good. Make it true. My time is of the essence."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri and Jamie.

"I don't know much really. Kara was supposed to meet me at the hospital in Smallville to pick up Rose, and when I got there she had not arrived. Rose got worried so we popped into shadow to see if I could shadowport us to her, but we got waylaid by a dragon. I dealt with him (Rose has a tooth on her somewhere) and then tried to port us to Kara but I couldn't. So I ported us here to see if you guys could come up with something."

I stopped and noticed the dead silence and that pretty much every eye was on me.

"What?"

Ceri shook her head, slowly, ever so slowly as, her attention reluctantly drawn away from Diana, she was regaled with Kyle's run-down. "(Again with the dragon.)"

She half-stepped towards the lavender-eyed vigilante, half-ready to roll up her sleeves... "You may have had my daughter at 'hello,' beastie, but--"

I then noticed the green skinned Martian and Professor Smith walk in with a pretty blond woman.

"J'onn, good thing your here! We lost Kara!!"

"Oh, thank Christ," Ceri mumbled, "someone sensible at last. (Not that you're not sensible, Diana, it's just those two men, well, one of them saved me from a falling rock and the other one has the cruellest left cross I've ever seen.)"

Jamie slid his hands into his pockets and grinned a sheepish grin as he wandered up to Wraith. "Oh, dun mind her. Must be the RL65 kicking in. Or maybe the jet lag, I'm not the only one who never got the hang of time zones."

"Two things, though," he held up two fingers, though not in an insulting "piss off" salute, "first of all, we're rather short on Kryptonians, you know, overall (though we might have just restocked by one, didn't he go into a murky subdimension?), it might not be good to just leave them laying about. Second of all, perhaps more importantly, did you really knock a tooth off of a dragon, or are you just taking the piss?"

Casually, John Smith and J'onn J'onzz discussed the presence of Thor on Earth almost like they were discussing the weather instead of a deity thereof, and Ceri's face suddenly instantly became inscrutable.

"Thor," she murmured, half-glanced at Diana. "Looks like your Amazons have a little competition in the myth-made-life department, eh?"