Last Daughter of Krypton: Legion IC

Abraxas Winterlight

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“My Lord, they are routed. Shall I have the Legion pursue?”

I looked down from my dreadsteed. Coldfire lighting the horse in a eerie blue as it burned from it’s hooves and eyes.

“Nay, let them crawl back into the Pit. Mammon is dead, Baal driven back into the cold lands and imprisoned in the Well of Souls, and their forces scattered. The victory is ours, and I will waste no more lives on a war we have won. Take them home Arzat, take my children home.”

It was over. Ten millennium I had been fighting. First Hel, constant incursions into Shadow until finally we drove them back, then a assault from a rogue faction of Celestials. That had been a thousand year war that both sides desperately wanted to prevent, and neither could find a way to stop. If the Child of Light had not been found it might still be going on, and Shadow would have died in a two front war. Lucky for us I had found where Mammon had hidden the child, attempting to corrupt him before he could claim his birthright. Mountains in Hel had crumbled with his anger when he learned I had stolen Daniel from him and returned him to the Celestial realm.

This last war lasted two thousand years. But finally, finally we ha beaten down the fel beast, ripped his armies asunder, and given the cloven hooved lord of this accursed realm a defeat that would take thousands of more years to recover from.

For the first time in ten centuries, peace.

“I go to the Lady to report our victory. I shall see the anon, my friend.”

Shadows leaped at my call, swirling around me, and in a instant I was in the courtyard of Her obsidian castle. Grooms came at my call, leading the dreadsteed away (also being very mindful of it’s fangs), and in a few moments I was kneeling in front of my Mistress. Llandra, Goddess and ruler of Shadow.

“Is it done, my Knight. Can my people live, love and grow and not fear the fires of Hel?”


“Llandra, the son of the Fallen One is dead. His armies run screaming back into the hel-pits that spawned them, and nobody is left to lead them against us. We have closed the doors to the Hall, and even now the Lightsworn hunt down the stragglers across the hundred worlds, as they promised when they signed the accord. He is defeated, more than he has ever been. My task is finished.”

I stayed kneeling, looking at the ground at her feet. She was my Queen, and my friend, but right now she was my jailer.

“Rise, My Knight. A task you were given for circumventing my probation, and that task you have completed. You have served me well, as a vassal and a friend for over ten millennium, and now I set you free. You may go back to your birth world, if you wish."

I stood, and looked the Goddess in her eyes. “I want to go back Llandra. I want to walk under the skies on the world I was born on. Over a thousand years have passed on Earth, so most likely all I knew is gone. I will return. This is my place now, but I am still human, and my human soul wants to go home”


“Very well, my friend. Go, and I will see you when you return.”


I bowed once more and turned, leaving her hall. Once outside the doorway I Shadowstepped into my own throne room. I needed to prepare some things if I was going to go back to Smallville.

I had been preparing for this day for centuries, so getting ready did not take long. I left San’jazal instructions on what needed to be done (his family had been running my lands for mellenia, so really all the paper did was give him my approval to keep doing what he did every day.)

Wyvern leather breeches and boots, so dark blue they were almost black, Skittersilk shirt of indigo, and a Drakhide jacket and I was dressed in clothes somewhat comparable to the twentieth century, when I left. I bound my long hair in a warriors tail, and reached for my swordbelt before I stopped myself. I doubt that swords were the norm in the time I would be emerging in. Hell, I was probably going to stick out like a clown in a funeral procession, but this is the best I could do.

A bag with three bars of gold and a small sack of gems went over my shoulder, and the only artifact of Earth I possessed, my rose colored glasses, went over my eyes. Time had taken everything else.

I was ready. I reached out to Shadow, and it resisted, not wanting to let me go. I bent my will and Shadow swirled around me, and I stepped out of the shadow of a ancient oak tree. I could feel energy leaking off of me, the low levels of Arcane drawing the power out of me. To do most things I was going to have to change on this world. It wasn’t Faerun after all.

I walked over. The graveyard was not much changed. I could tell that the Kent’s graves were in the same place, and it only took me seconds until I was standing over the last spot I had stood on earth.

“Rose, baby, I miss you so much. I go on and on, fighting, laughing, crying, but that hole you left in me is still there. I want to be with you so bad love, I want to hold you again. I want it so much, but your mom, she made me promise to stay strong. To honor you by being the good man you loved. The father you wanted me to be. You will always be with me my Valkyrie. I will carry your love with me through eternity, and when the universe is done with me, I’ll see you again.

I knelt down, my tears running down my face, and the shadows in the graveyard flexed and moaned. Power such as mine had not been seen in over a thousand years, and it was eager to be let loose. Also, I was much more powerful than when I left earth so many years ago. It was harder to control the energies pouring off of me in my emotional state.

I didn’t even notice the camera’s, or the sensors that releasing that much arcane energy tripped.


************************************************************************


Legion Headquarters


*Warning. Energy spike in Historic Smallville. Energy readings unknown type, possibly magical in nature*


The young woman at the console looked up, then activated the cameras in the area. What she saw made her start with a oath her mother would NOT have been happy to know that she new.

“ValkyrieM3, this is Legion dispatch. We have a disturbance, possibly metahuman in nature in historic Smallville. Could you go check it out and report back.”

Weird energy readings. Almost like it was anti-energy, but that would have been eating everything in sight. Valkyrie would sort it out. She came from a old and honored bloodline. Damn fine member of the Legion
 
Back and Forth.

Blue suns are cold suns, even when they shine.

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Lar, born on a planet called Daxam under the light of a red sun called Valor. Like the rest of his people, Lar had an acute averse reaction to the heavy metal called lead, even trace amounts inhaled could kill a full-grown Daxamite in moments.

Somehow related to the legendary people of Krypton, Daxamites shared that species' fantastic abilities when bathed in the light of a yellow sun.

Lar had visited Earth, once upon a time, had crash-landed, had survived because of his powers but had nearly died because of his weaknesses. He wound up on the examining table of a Doctor named Hamilton, a man named James, and in the few minutes they knew each other, as James tried desperately to save Lar, they became friends.

But James knew not what Lar was, and could not save him.

However, just moments before Lar would have passed beyond this veil, he vanished. In a chrysalis of white light, he vanished.

James Hamilton had hoped, had hoped beyond hope, that where Lar had come from, this was transfiguration and painless death.

Instead, Lar had been transported to a place out of time, a place south of Heaven and west of Hell. The blue light of twin cold suns robbed him of any power, but the place's eternal timelessness kept him from dying that slow death from lead. He was forever dying but would never die.

This was a prison place of Old Krypton, dwelling place of a thousand villains of a thousand races from twenty-eight galaxies all screaming and clamouring to be free, but he met heroes there. For a time, he knew a woman whom he loved but loved him not in return, though she named him "M'onel" out of affection. Briefly, he met a Professor of hope, and he met The Last Daughter of Krypton.

They managed to find escape, but he stayed behind to guard the door, dying and haemmoraging, armed only with a magic knife and a broken crutch, he sacrificed his chance to escape The Phantom Zone that his friends might live.

Shortly thereafter, the prison's greatest prisoner returned against his will, and he was not pleased to be there anew.

And he had it in mind to make Lar "M'onel" Gand's stay in The Phantom Zone something more of a Hell. And he had eternity to do this in...

But Fate and Time are inscrutable things.

Fate had more in store yet for Lar "M'onel" Gand.

And Time had not forgotten Doctor James David Hamilton.


********​

The Phantom Zone.
1000 Years Later.​

VWORRRP. VWORRRP. VWORRRP.

The black sands of The Zone whipped about in endless winds.

But a patch of that sand parted for a moment, just for a moment, and into the space cast there appeared a box. A blue box, taller than a man, bigger than a phone booth, looking for all the world like a Hollywood mockup of a 1960's London Police Box... it faded into being, came from nothing, gradually solidifying, as the light atop the box strobed slowly in time with the siren song, the eerie groaning sound of its materialization.

It sat there, solid for a moment, and the denizens of The Zone kept wary, chitterhissing distance.

The door swung open with a creak, and a pair of feet wearing emerald-green Chuck Taylors stepped from within the box's confines and into that bitter black sand.

The man was tall, six foot easy, and he wore a long brown coat that billowed around him in the winds that cast the sands. His hair was short and brown and roguishly spiky, his eyes were deep and dark and very, very, very old.

He wore a brown pinstriped suit coat with matching trousers, his tie tied only loosely.

He patted the side of the blue box and chatted amiably, either to himself or to someone still remaining inside. "The secret, y'see, is in arriving gradually. None of this Booming in and Booming out, that's terribly impolite, people tend to react poorly, who can blame them? Slow and steady wins the race, yeah?"

He looked around himself, this desolate place, and sniffed archly, as though he were a bit unimpressed and more than a bit put off. "Bit of a fixer-upper, ennit?"

His grand-daughter stepped out of the box behind him, dressed in a dark green jacket and black jeans. She, too, wore green Chuck Taylors. She wore white gloves, and on one of the fingers of the left gloved hand, she wore a ring of a deep verdant hue.

She flexed this left hand, and brushed back a forelock of her long long black hair, her voice deep and dark and ominous and fearless. "My ring's stopped working, like the charge is expended or forced into standby."

Elizabeth had her grandmother's long dark locks. And her eyes were old, too, though not as old as her grandfather's. Physically, they looked about the same age.

They were both very very old.

Elizabeth glanced worriedly at the blue box. "This place robs nearly everything of its power. Are you sure this machine will retain its ability to remove us?"

Her grandfather nodded easily. "Oh, yeah, had a bit of a problem bouncing between parallel universes for a bit before you were born, dimensional barriers, drinking the energies of the wrong continuum, diesel in a petrol engine? This go-'round, got a link established to a nice little leftover chronal pocket, compatible energies, we'll be fine for... erm..."

He trailed off, counted on his fingers. He frowned. "Place makes me queasy. Extratemporal. Physics are wonky, especially thermodynamics. Reeks of entropic stagnation."

"We should hurry, then," Elizabeth suggested quickly.

"Right," her grandfather nodded. "Allons-y."

He drew a slender short rod from the inside pocket of his coat, slightly thicker and slightly longer than a pen. He depressed a key on the side of the thing, and its tip lit up with a pale blue light, a shrill soft whistling sound emanating therefrom.

"Got 'im!" he grinned, a beaming beaming grin. "This way!"

And he took off at a run, a sprinting, hell-bent pell-mell run.

Elizabeth watched him go for a long long moment, and then she smiled one of her rare, rare smiles. And then she followed.

********​

Zod's fist bled as it cracked hard into M'onel's jaw, sending the red-clad Daxamite skidding away. The General's fist bled from every knuckle, but M'onel bled more, and as he rolled in the sand he coughed and hacked and still further blood spattered upon the dust.

"Don't you," he mumbled, voice thick and lips split, as he lifted his head to gaze blearily up at his archenemy, "ever get bored?"

"With you?" The General scowled, his lip curling as he flexed that bloodied-knuckle fist. "With beating the living red daylights out of you?"

He grunted. "Never."

Feebly, struggling for what seemed the billionth time to push himself to his feet, to make another stand, M'onel waved Zod ineffectually away.

"I'm kinda bored," he wheezed. "Can we do something else for a few?"

Zod spat and shook his head, and stalked towards his crumpled foe...

...but stopped short as a voice called out in the wilderness.

"How 'bout a game of Name That Tune?" the voice rang out, and Zod's blistering gaze swung up to the top of the dune down which Lar had tumbled.

At the top of the dune stood two humanoids. A male in brown and a female in green. And the male held aloft a rod with a glowing blue-white tip...

Both of them had looks on their faces that were cool, cold, hard.

Relentless.

The female flexed her left hand, and then her right.

Zod frowned. Were these Kryptonians, or bastard-child Daxamites, or one of those other species... Were these human?

"Do you mean to take my prize from me?" he snarled.

"I can name that tune in one note,"
the male intoned, and he pointed the rod at The General and pressed the key on the side and--

Zod screamed, his hands upon his ears, excruciating, impossible, impossible, he had heard this sound before long ago long ago and far away he knew this sound...

He had no super-enabled hearing in this place, how was this hurting him, it was hurting him, he could feel his blood pounding in his ears... he staggered, he staggered, he tried to stay standing, with all his infinite adamant will he struggled to stay standing.

He staggered again, holding his hands upon his ears, there was no escape from the sound...

...this was the resonance of The Crystal of El, the bane of all immaterial Zone-dwellers, the secret to escape, but this was no scion of El, this was not possible, this was no scion of El and he had not The Crystal, but still it cried out to every Kryptonian molecule in Zod's body...

Zod fell to one knee. Zod knelt, and he screamed against the indignity.

And he collapsed, his cells screaming.

Laying upon his back now, Lar Gand watched this with incredulity and delight.

The female skidded down the dune, and with surprising strength she shoved an arm under M'onel's fallen form and lifted him, forced him to his feet, forced him to rise and walk.

Slowly, slowly, she began to climb and, dumbfounded, M'onel began to climb beside her.

"One foot in front of the other," Elizabeth suggested calmly, without brooking hesitation. "That's the way."

"Who--" he rasped. "Who are you people?"

"I am a light," she murmured, grunting with the effort of helping the fragile creature clamber upwards, "even on the blackest of nights."

"Sounds pretty serious," he chuckled bittersweetly. "And who's the... beanpole?"

But then he blinked, gazing at the tall man in the brown coat as that man picked his way down the dune and stood over Zod, that wand pointed at The General like it was a raygun or an Ultimate Nullifier.

"Recognize him, do you?" Elizabeth smirked distantly.

"Yeah," he nodded slowly. "He tried to save me. But he... but he couldn't."

"Not as he was when you knew him," Elizabeth mused. "He's different now."

"He looks different," Lar craned his head back, trying to keep his eyes on the tall man. "Y'know. The same. But different."

"Let's get you home," Elizabeth suggested firmly, not looking back.

Lar blinked at her. "Home?"

"Yes," Elizabeth nodded. "Almost home."

Lar's mouth was full of blood, but at that declaration, bringing back memories, he couldn't help but grin.

The male in brown stood over the fallen Zod. "Essentially, it's a screwdriver," he explained, glancing at the wand, the rod. "But it utilises the basic harmonic energies of The Universe, manifested as sound. 'Music of the spheres,' does all sorts, it's quite, erm, ginchy. Anyway, pretty easy to duplicate the molecular harmonics of that Crystal of Zor-El's, had a good look at it once on a hill in Hawaii. Even stripped of your might, your body won't forget that sound. Even an mp3 of it."

"I never forget people who make enemies of me," Zod wheezed, down there in the dust.

All traces of silliness and absent-mindedness and friendliness utterly gone from him, his wit wry and rueful, the slender humanoid pursed his lips, and arched an eyebrow. "I never forget people I've failed to save."

"I remember you," Zod nodded slowly, finding his words. "From the days approaching my tribunal. I remember you... you were different then. A different face. Different eyes. But I remember... the soul of you, dark and secretive in your eyes, the loneliest of gods. Riding on a green chair to the beginnings and ends of time, you interfered with our dealings just as The Martian did. You passed judgement on me, you found me wanting, you made an enemy of me."

Zod licked his lips to no avail, and snarled deeper still with his voice like Hell's own Wrath: "I remember you. Metron."

The man in brown pondered this, took this under advisement. "Haven't gotten there yet. Maybe someday. Maybe my next life, who knows? Nobody knows the future, least of all me."

His lip quirked. "Maybe I'll run into me sometime, and I'll both laugh about this little chat with The Last Scourge of Krypton. Time travelling and immortality? It's been known to happen."

"Twice now," Zod snorted, "you are my enemy."

The quirk was gone from the man's lip. "With enemies like me," he mused, "who needs friends?"

And then with a swish of his brown coat, he walked from Zod, and climbed the dune, and Zod fell back and groaned.

"You will,"
he rasped, "kneel before Zod. You, whatever you call yourself now, you and your heirs."

The slender man climbed the dune, cresting it after Elizabeth and M'onel, and didn't look back. "I'm The Doctor, General. And I wouldn't mess with my heirs," he murmured, "if I were you."

The Doctor kept his sonic screwdriver out in his right hand and came up behind Elizabeth and M'onel on his right, helping his granddaughter lug the weary wanderer.

"I still can't leave," M'onel rasped, not unreasonably. "I step out of The Zone, I'm subject to the ravages of Time again, I'll die instantly."

"A lot's changed in a thousand years," The Doctor pointed out, somewhat amiably, as they drew closer to the waiting blue box.

M'onel sputtered softly. "A thousand?"

The Doctor winced. "Yeah, sorry. Can't take you back sooner, can't take you back to where and when you left, because, erm, this lead serum cure they've just invented, it won't have existed. Means your family, your friends, they'll all be gone. But this world, this 31st Century as they reckon things on Earth, it's rife with possibility."

In silence, M'onel digested this, and then spoke: "Could, uh. Could be worse..."

The Doctor smiled faintly. "Take Querl Dox, f'rinstance. Lad after me own heart. He's the one who's invented the cure that's going to save your life. He's got it waiting for you, red sun lamps ready so the injector-gun'll work."

"Dox is part of a Corps," Elizabeth pointed out. "A thing called Legion, a gathering of superheroes. Under Sol's yellow light, you could become one of their greatest. I'm told they'll need your help with what's coming."

M'onel swung his head around to look at her, pins and needles and agony, repeating worriedly: "What's coming?"

They stopped before the blue box. The Doctor raised his hand, and snapped his fingers, and the door to the box swung open.

"Close quarters," M'onel reflected dismally.

"Bigger on the inside," The Doctor assured him.

And they trudged towards the entrance.

M'onel tried again: "What's coming?"

"Few months yet," The Doctor murmured. "The Second Coming of The Graveyard Lord will be the first sign."

"'Graveyard Lord,'" M'onel grunted. "Riiiiight."

"He won't even tell me," Elizabeth pointed out, dryly. "Don't feel bad."

They stepped into the box, and the door swung closed behind them at another snap of The Doctor's fingers.

Before the door cinched shut, however, The Doctor could be heard to chuckle, rueful again and wry: "Spoilers."

The light atop the blue box began to strobe.

VWORRRP. VWORRRP. VWORRRP.

And soon the thing was gone again, leaving only black sands and blue sunlight in its passing.
 
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VM3: "Love Like Rockets."

Smallville's graveyard was traditionally reserved for those who no longer walked The Earth.

But sometimes, as an interesting fellow once wrote, they come back.

Kyle Greystone had not walked The Earth for a good long while. But here he was again.

And he was not alone in that graveyard. A burly orange cat with big thick paws sat in the shadow of the statue of a weeping angel, and seemed only intrigued when the shadow began to crawl and move around and beside it.

The cat's tail swished, and its golden-brown eyes narrowed.

"Huh," it murmured, ever-so quietly, in human speech. "Is it that time again already?"

The cat stretched out a forepaw in front of itself, stretched its whole body and writhing its thick tail. And then it turned, and trotted off, and it seemed for all the world to be shaking its head.

"If it ain't one damn storm," he muttered to himself, "it's another."

********​

She could see her house from here.

Well, not specifically.

She was pretty high up, though, and pretty far off, and she could see the general vicinity of her apartment. Her eyes were sharp, but not that sharp, so she could see her neighbourhood in the early-morning summer light.

Metropolis, a thousand years previously, had been one of the greatest cities of North America. There had been rough spots in the intervening centuries, but now, but now, Metropolis was a city-state that spanned hundreds of miles and reached up high almost to the edge of space. Metropolis, bright and shiny and ever new, home to The United Planets Building, the centrepiece of Galactic government.

She could see the UP Building. She could see The Daily Planet right next door... She could see The Blish Tower-Plex... Brande Industries... McCauley's big honking factory compound...

...and just past these, even though she was a hundred miles off and verging on the upper stratosphere, she could see the massive "L" shape of Legion HQ.

And in this building was her apartment, with all her silly memorabilia, her own little trophy room.

Her hair was chin length and straight and pale sky blue and she had to hold it back with her gloved hand to keep that hair out of her face.

Her eyes were the red of sunset.

Freckles dotted her face, pale skin kissed by Sol. And she smiled a soft little smile as she sat on the back of a heavy bulk lifter in the atmospheric shipping lanes and gazed down at her city. Her ancestors had spent time here, in Metropolis and its fifty boroughs. (Of course, it had only had six boroughs back then...)

Her uniform was standard Legion cut, with the long sleeves and the belt and the boots, but like other Legionnaires she had chosen to customize hers. A lot of people wondered why she'd wanted to emblazon herself with the flag of a country that hadn't even existed on a map for two hundred years, but all she had to do was remind them that her progenitor had worn the same flag.

The first Valkyrie M.

Her namesake in more ways than one.

She wore The Union Jack of the constitutional monarchy that had once resided in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

The bulk cruiser dipped, and she kicked away from its canopy, soaring off separately, going her own way.

She could fly. All Legionnaires could, technically, since the development of the Flight Rings from a failed hyperdense experiment. They were miraculous things, they had omnicoms built-in, they provided life-support, they could serve both as tracking devices and scanner-masks... they were a badge of office respected Galaxy-wide.

Valkyrie M3, as she was called, wore a Ring, though she could fly without it. Just as she wore a trans-suit to bolster the Ring's life-support capacity at these high altitudes, even though her metabolism's oxygen-efficiency was more than sufficient to breathe at these heights.

She wore the Ring because she was proud to be a part of this.

The millennium-distant inheritors of The League.

She looped through the sky and dove down down down, she could see beneath her, so very far beneath her, the postage stamp of green that was Centennial Park. It had once been named Hamilton Park, just under a thousand years ago, but they'd changed the name after that particular Hamilton had gone... wrong.

Not all of Jaymie Rozymac Greystone's ancestors had been good guys.

That gave her pause.

She paused, her red and blue and white uniform hugging her slender-muscled curves, her sky-blue a-line wafting in the stratospheric winds.

And she reflected.

"'The good old days weren't always good,'" she murmured. "'And tomorrow's not as bad as it seems.'"

Her Ring chirped at her, the omnicom awakening, and she blinked at it for a moment, startled from her reverie.

It chirped again, and she immediately triggered the response signal. "VM3."

“ValkyrieM3, this is Legion dispatch. We have a disturbance, possibly metahuman in nature in historic Smallville. Could you go check it out and report back.”

Jaymie glanced downward... she could see this, too, her eyes were sharp.

The glittering geodesic dome that protected the small town, kept it preserved as a village-sized museum. This was where it all had started.

People only noticed when things moved to Metropolis, a thousand years ago.

But before Metropolis, there was Smallville.

To tread there was to tread the secular equivalent of holy ground.

A disturbance there was disturbing to say the least.

"That's affirm," she nodded easily. "I'm in Old Lowell Vicinity, or, well, above it. I'll recon."

Arms spread wide and hair fluttering, she rolled sideways and then dove dove dove, further further down...

Her Ring fist swung ahead of her, she arched a sky-blue brow.

"Dispatch, any chance could we be more specific than 'metahuman?'" she wondered, playfully sarcastic, mock derogatory. "I mean, there's whole sprocking spectra inclusive there, if you'll pardon my InterLac. Are we talking extee or home-grown? Psychokine or-or-or Metamorphae or GemWorlder?"

Still, intel was what they wanted, if they didn't have it already she'd get it to them.

And if she found, in gathering intel, that this particular post-human disturbance was threatening lives, well, she'd just have to punk that nass-head straight into Takron Galtos.

Before Dispatch could ask her if she was being rhetorical, she chuckled softly, and flew down faster. Down down down.

"Nah, grife," she grinned. "I'll find out for m'self. Still, could we keep a bunch of Science Police elements on deck, in case I need back-up?"

She swooped low over The Earth, and waved to the park ranger that stood by the entrance to the dome, a park ranger dressed like an historic deputy of Lowell County's Sheriff's Department. The park ranger waved back, astonished, though he was assured a bit by a blurred glimpse of Jaymie's ring.

Under the dome, it was as if the dome didn't exist. It was a perfect biosphere, projecting images of clear clear sky. As though some self-contained Stanislavsky-esque experience, refusing to violate some imaginary Fourth Wall, residents of Historic Smallville and tourists visiting there were screened from images of flying cars and massive orbital skyscrapers in the distance and in the surroundings. Those who lived here and worked here and visited here were presented with a perfect perfect image of what Smallville had been like back when...

...back when She had grown up there. Whomever She had been, whatever name She had taken, She had been the start of it all, and everyone knew She had come from this cradle.

To honour Her, Smallville was kept as She would have remembered it.

And Jaymie felt guilty for disturbing that peace, for shattering that image, for soaring over that town.

But there in the dawning daylight she saw a figure standing in Smallville Cemetery, beneath the trees and amongst the headstones and she saw, with sharp sharp eyes, saw the shadows dance...

She frowned. A chill ran down her spine, like The Devil had walked 'cross her own grave.

Her ancestress was buried here. And so were Hers.

Her jaw flexed. Don't sprock with that. Don't you sprocking dare.

Dust and grass-blades puffed around her boots as she landed behind this being, he looked like... he looked like...

He looked like an atavistic throwback and she shouldn't judge by covers but holy grife he set her teeth on edge.

Her right hand lit up with red red molten light, red red firepower.

Her left hand lit up with blue blue crackling lightning, blue blue coldflux.

Fire and ice.

She couldn't burn as hot for as long as Sun Boy or Wildfire or freeze as cold for as long as Polar Boy, but she did okay with both, she was an omnitherm, a full-spectrum thermal-caster, this was her true power.

Her eyes blazed red and her hair crackled blue.

"My designation," she growled, "is Valkyrie M3 of The Legion of Superheroes, and I am authourised to investigate any unexplained and unregistered occurrences of post-human and/or metahuman activity, sanctified confines such as this Protected Historic Enclave inclusive."

She took a step toward him. "Please cease and desist this manifestation and present your identification."

She took a deep breath. "In short, scary nass-head, de facto UP peacekeeper on-site, don't mess."

Her jaw flexed.

There. That sounded pretty impressive.

He shouldn't kill me too badly.

(I hope.)
 
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Wraith

It took a few moments to register someone was speaking. Lost as I was in things long since buried inside me, I did not acknowledge the being behind me until blue and red light sprang up, throwing my shadow over MY Rose's grave.

I seeked the calm within, and slowly, very slowly, shadows lay down and behaved like they had for mellinia.

Next I focused on her words. I had spoken nothing but Shadowspeak for ten thousand years. The English came back slowly. I struggled within my mind to put meaning to the sounds. This problem I had not foreseen. I had clothed myself in clothing I thought would be appropriate, brought trade goods to turn into whatever passed for this times monetary system, but I had completely forgotten that language changes.

I stood up slowly, then turned, my hands raised to chest level and spread wide in a show that I was holding nothing, then gasped when I saw her face.

Her words then finally made the connection deep in my mind.

"Valkyrie M3"

"Scrazzat" I exclaimed. She wore my daughters face!!

I stopped myself before I stepped forward. Ceri was buried a few yards away, by her mother and brother, and their families. This was not my daughter, but maybe a ancestor.

"I mean no harm." I said. Words were coming back You really can't loose your birth tongue, but you do get it dusty after a few thousand years of shelf life. "I am Kyle, Kyle Greystone. I apologize for startling you. Can I put my hands down? And forget looking for identification. I have none here in this place."
 
Monitor duty. Could there be a more boring duty to have to pull? Could there be one time that she could go out to have some fun without half a squadron of S.P.'s watching her?

Jo let out a heavy sigh, it was a slow dead day except for a minor disturbance in Smallville and Val had that one. Dox hadn't blown up the lab or anything yet today either, so there wasn't anything to keep the boredom at bay. A quick blur away from the monitor board to the kitchen and back with a sandwich. She could have tidied up but where was the fun in that? Let the next florg have a fit over it, that might actually brighten her day.

After she finished her sandwich she hit a few keys and brought up the surveillance on Val's ring. Might as well watch someone have fun, God knew someone needed to.
 
VM3: "Sirens."

The shadows settled.

And he turned, and he gestured in a fashion that still had Earth-cred as apology and surrender.

She lowered her hands, dialed back the threat factor, less heat and less cold less light... but she was still ready for him to try something. Teeth still on edge.

Her Ring had chirped as she'd started talking, but she hadn't paid it heed at first.

It chirped again now, and this time she glanced at it, quick as she could, taking a mental picture of the Ring before snapping her eyes back to the could-be perp.

Two laser-thin indics were blinking around the gold rim of the "L" emblem. One was the autotranslator, and the fact that the blink's oscillation was so slow meant that it was really having to reach through the omnicom language files to get a match for this guy. The other was surveillance.

She struggled to remember who was on Monitor Duty today...

...Nah?

Oh, grife, best behavior. As lovely as Ultra Girl was to look at, you stayed on her good side like Mr. Brande stayed on those ancient-school Oreo cookies.

And then the scary guy said something crazy.

"Scrazzat!" he exclaimed.

And that, the autotranslator didn't have a single hope of finding in archives.

She blinked. Was that... Durlan?

Odd enough that the translator would be online in the first place. Who didn't speak InterLac these days? (And for that matter, what sort of barbarian wore actual nonsynth leather garb, she could smell the dead animal on him from here.)

And then he tried again. And this time, this time, the autotranslator kicked in for her.

She held her fist close to her face and triggered a small omnicom holowindow, displaying to her the language he was speaking as opposed to the language she was hearing in realtime re-xmission.

*LINGUA-FORM MATCHED, DEEP LIBRARY SEARCH: 'American English.' Early-to-mid M2.*

Rose-red eyes went wide, and she looked this dark dark oddly disturbing man in his bewildering face. Something about him was setting off klaxons in her subcortex, something in his face, blurry and faded and pixelated in the few family archives that had survived the Pre-Unified Age.

He really was a throwback. Not in an intentional, Neo-Neo-Luddite sort of 'I'm going to ignore a millenium of progress' sort of way. But an actual throwback, or a flungforward. Some sort of cryogenic holdover? Or was this time-travel?

Grife, I hate time-travel.

"I mean no harm," he'd said, though his speech had been a bit halting. "I am Kyle, Kyle Greystone. I apologize for startling you. Can I put my hands down? And forget looking for identification. I have none here in this place."

'Greystone.'

WTsprock.


Valkyrie M3 took a step back.

Her mouth hung open. She stared at him. "Yeah, no, Mister Mystery, keep your grabbers where I can glimpse 'em."

And she triggered the xmit function on her Ring's omnicom.

"Hey, Jo?" she mumbled. "Can you scan my cortex-patterns for signs of telep-control? Because I think this guy is claiming to be an M2 great-ancestor of mine and I need to know if he's sprocking with my head literally as well as figuratively."
 
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She lowered her hands, dialed back the threat factor, less heat and less cold less light... but she was still ready for him to try something. Teeth still on edge.

Her Ring had chirped as she'd started talking, but she hadn't paid it heed at first.

It chirped again now, and this time she glanced at it, quick as she could, taking a mental picture of the Ring before snapping her eyes back to the could-be perp.

Two laser-thin indics were blinking around the gold rim of the "L" emblem. One was the autotranslator, and the fact that the blink's oscillation was so slow meant that it was really having to reach through the omnicom language files to get a match for this guy. The other was surveillance.

Jo watched Val thinking to herself "Keep on guard girlie. Don't wanna have to be visiting you in the med lab."

And then the scary guy said something crazy.

"Scrazzat!" he exclaimed.

And that, the autotranslator didn't have a single hope of finding in archives.

Okay, this thing's had one too many magno balls to the head.

She held her fist close to her face and triggered a small omnicom holowindow, displaying to her the language he was speaking as opposed to the language she was hearing in realtime re-xmission.

*LINGUA-FORM MATCHED, DEEP LIBRARY SEARCH: 'American English. Early-to-mid M2.'*

Rose-red eyes went wide, and she looked this dark dark oddly disturbing man in his bewildering face.

"I mean no harm," he'd said, though his speech had been a bit halting. "I am Kyle, Kyle Greystone. I apologize for startling you. Can I put my hands down? And forget looking for identification. I have none here in this place."

Valkyrie M3 took a step back.

Her mouth hung open. She stared at him. "Yeah, no, Mister Mystery, keep your grabbers where I can glimpse 'em."

And she triggered the xmit function on her Ring's omnicom.

"Hey, Jo?" she mumbled. "Can you scan my cortex-patterns for signs of telep-control? Because I think this guy is claiming to be an M2 great-ancestor of mine and I need to know if he's sprocking with my head literally as well as figuratively."

Jo keyed the monitor comp and widened out her fingers bringing first a holoscreen up and began the through ring diagnostic. "Checking it Val. But just on the safe side get into your transsuit gear and get your telepathic plug in okay? It should give you some help if you are being manipulated."

She brought up a second screen checking team status for available back up. She and Dox were the easiest to give aid.

The first screen bleated at her. Val was clean of influence. "Val, you're clear of head games. Want back up? I can get Dox up here in a matter of secs."
 
VM3: "Lifeline."

"Checking it Val. But just on the safe side get into your transsuit gear and get your telepathic plug in okay? It should give you some help if you are being manipulated."

Jo's roguish husk was like music to Jaymie's ears and she nodded quickly, quickly, and murmured: "That's affirm. Transsuit I've got on already, but--"

Keeping her fiery hand angled at the man before her, she extinguished her ice hand and slipped it into the beltpouch at her hip, extricating a telepathic earplug, S.O.P. for dealing with Titanians gone rogue and other, further-flung species with mind-manip capability. Approximately the size of a small earbud headphone from Kyle's timeframe of origin, this slipped easily through the selectively permeable membrane of the all-over transsuit and nestled into Val's waiting ear.

She scrunched her face more than a little at the feeling. Weird-nass. But it would filter out any uninvited psionic waveforms.

All the while, she still kept her red red eyes on "Kyle Greystone."

"Val, you're clear of head games. Want back up? I can get Dox up here in a matter of secs."

Oh, was this ever a relief.

Well, it was and it wasn't.

First of all, it meant this wasn't a telepathic forgery, though this didn't of course rule out the possibility of a shapeshifted imposter. But why any foe would go out of their way to sprock with the head of a relatively minor Legionnaire seemed a little beyond Jaymie's ken.

Second of all, it meant this might actually be a real living legend in front of her standing before her ancestress' grave.

When newish Legionnaire M'onel had staggered from the timestream into Brainy's tender care a few months ago, he had blathered some noise about "The Graveyard Lord."

Jaymie frowned. Seriously?

Third of all, Jo had said "secs" and oh, yeah, that was kind of distracting.

She didn't think for a second this was a come-on but still, holy grife...

Jo was. Jo was Jo. Not for nothing was she called "Ultra Girl," and woah, train of thought, back to business.

"Um," she shook her head, "yeah, stand-by on that. Stand way close by."

Valkyrie M3 coughed, and stood up a little straighter, and again addressed the man of mystery before her.

"Okay," she declared, her Ring again translating from InterLac and into English for the man in question, "'Kyle Greystone.' I've got Sci-Cops en route, and I've got an extremely powerful Legionnaire on hold on Line One. Between her Flight Ring and her Ultra-Speed she'll be on you before you can blink if you try anyrepeatany nass with me. Also, Sci-Cops make her twitchy, so, no fun for you there."

She smiled a faint little tight little smile and tried to be brave like her father.

She was pretty good at overcoming fear. Damn good at it, from long practise. But that didn't mean the fear went away.

"With that in mind," she continued, "I'm gonna be transp with you, and I expect you to be transp with me right back.

"We were warned of a Graveyard Lord," she murmured, "and his Second Coming. But mostly I'm wondering how a name from Waywayback on my family tree is still bouncing around on a man what seemingly isn't even slightly dead."
 
Wraith

Well that answered something. She was a relative. A very freaked out relative, but one just the same.

I was not alone.


"Graveyard Lord. Thats not a title familiar to me, but it may apply. As to how I carry a name out of your legend, well, if your records were kept correctly, it was known amount the League that I am immortal."

Shadows swirled around me, and standing on Earth in his armor was Wraith, hero of old.

"My task is complete and I am back once more in the land of my birth. I am Wraith, and I have returned, child of my daughter."
 
VM3: "Start The Machine."

"Graveyard Lord. Thats not a title familiar to me, but it may apply. As to how I carry a name out of your legend, well, if your records were kept correctly, it was known amount the League that I am immortal."

She was about to tell him that records were... sketchy.

The Pre-Unified Age had been rife with chaos and war, and it had only gotten worse before it had gotten better.

EMPs and skyscorcher weapons, tools left over from alien invasions, even The League's legendary Watchtower became eventually an icon of destruction.

There had been a team before The League, according to the fractured archives of The Daily Planet, an in-depth report... there had been a proto-League, but the roster of this and even the name of this had been forgotten.

But the hardcopy of that story and the complete digital version had been in The Planet's London archives, and those were lost with the rest of The British Isles.

Jaymie herself only had family albums and files to go on, and even these were hardly unscathed.

Records were sketchy. When eventually The League rose from its own ashes and became The Justice League of Earth, from then on records were clear.

But that was some centuries ago, and The Justice League of America were remembered as one remembers the myths written upon palimpsests. Out of all of The Legionnaires, Cos was the M2 historian, not Jaymie.

Jaymie "VM3" Greystone was about to explain this to this living artefact when all of a sudden scary guy got scarier like woah and...

"My task is complete and I am back once more in the land of my birth. I am Wraith, and I have returned, child of my daughter."

He had a voice like screams in the night and broken headstones and...

...unauthourised manifestation...

...she shot off the ground and hurtled up and away, flying straight backwards a good ten yards and lighting up this time both hands with fire...

"Okay," she declared through gritted teeth, "great-great-grandsquaj, yes, thank you, bonus creds for dramatic transformation sequence... but I don't know you from Leland and I don't want to hurt you and I don't want you to flay the flesh from my bones or take my ancestress' name in vain and Ultra Girl could I cred out that back-up now please?"
 
Prelude to Nightmare

Hell is nothing like most people think.

There are no lakes of fire, no demons performing vile acts on sinners over and over again into perpetuity. No devils with red skin, cloven hooves and pointy tails.

The reality is much much worse.


There are pits of Hellfire, barren deserts that can scour flesh from bone, marshes of vile waters and poisoned vegetation, and things that would drive sanity from a mans mind with but a glimpse of their nightmare forms.

Deep within the planes of Hell sits a castle. It's beauty can bring tears to a poets eyes. White walls leap up into the poisoned skies. Neither fire, vile waters or dust mars the pristine walls of the dwelling.

It look as if an angel lives there. It looks like a piece of Heaven brought into Hell.

In Hell, more so than anywhere else, looks can be deceiving.

Looking closer at the walls one would see subtle movement, as if something is moving under the marble. Whispers and flutters, until one gets close enough to touch the warm softly glowing white walls.

Thats when you would notice the faces, screaming in horror and agony inside the pure white marble.

Thats when you realize that this edifice of majesty and beauty is created out of the souls of the Damned!

On a throne created from glowing crystals sits what appears to be a man. He is beautiful. Hair so dark it is almost blue, smoldering blue eyes, fair skin without blemish. One could get lost in his beauty, until you met his gaze.

Then one would loose what sanity they had left, because this was no God of Lightness and Laughter. Smiles that fell from his lips turned wine into vinegar. A laugh could kill small animals, and cause plagues to rise from their bloated corpses.

He is known as The Lawless One, The Deceiver, The Son of Perdition, The Adversary.

Lucifer, Ruler of Hell. And he was not pleased.


"My Lord," said a creature wrought from nightmare, bowing and scraping before it's Lord, "We are broken. The Others do not pursue into Our Realm, but we cannot engage them. Mammon was rent asunder by the Child of Shadows, and the Lightsworn have taken back what we stole from them. Our armies are defeated, and leaderless. We can fight no more."


"So you are of no use to me." Said the King of darkness, and he raised his hand. Instantly wraiths of glowing white engulfed the prostrate demon, rising from the walls and floor, engulfing him until with one last piercing shriek, his soul joined the others in the walls of the castle.

Lucifer stood, and walked over to a large hourglass. Instead of sand, drops of blood poured up from the bottom to the top, filling the bowl with a warm red glow.

*drip*

*drip*

*drip*

Then silence.


"It is time. Once again I shall choose one to be my emissary in the mortal realm." He smiled, and somewhere on earth a old woman died in her sleep, her nightmares stilling her heart. Wolves howled upon the moors, and rats raised their noses and scented the air for prey.

The smile lingered in the air for a few moments after the figure vanished. The souls in the walls stilled in anticipation of what was to be wrought.


***************************************************************************************

Minutes, hours, days, eons passed before the cells in his body began once again to obey his commands. Eventually, he sat up, futility brushing dirt from what once were the regal uniform of a Kryptionian general. He stood, and looked off in the direction that his enemies had gone.

One day, some day, they WOULD kneel before Zod!

It took little time for him to make it back to the dwelling he shared with Nam-Ek and Aethyr. Neither was there, which was not surprising. Their phantoms had found flesh shortly after arriving from their defeat on Earth. Another indignity that would be repayed once he returned. Once he escaped this place, when he was once again under the light of their yellow sun, they would pay. They would all pay.

"Thats nice, but how are you going to get your revenge when you are stuck here old chap?"

Zod whirled around, hand going to the knife he had in a crude sheath at his back, eyes assessing the threat. Before him was what appeared to be a man. Human, Kryptonian, it was hard to tell. What was startling was the fact that he was clean, well groomed, and dressed as a Kryptonian Justicar.

"Who are you? Why do you trespass upon the home of Zod?"

"I am your salvation Dru-Zod, son of Cor Zod and onetime ruler of Krypton. I am the power that brought your mate and your right hand back to you when the humans destroyed them. You want revenge? You want power? I can give it to you. I am your destiny Zod. I can give you the power you need to make the sons and daughters of Terra kneel before you. I can give you the descendent's of Zor-El in chains. I can give you revenge."

"And just how can you do that? We are stuck here in the hell of Zor-El's creation. There is no blood of El here to open the gateway."

"By making YOU the gateway Zod. I have the power to release you from here. I have a power you have not even dreamed of, and I can give it to you. Step outside, let me show you a taste of my power."

Zod reluctantly followed the man outside. The winds of the Zone were howling, but they seemed to not touch the man before him. Standing in front of them was a gigantic zoner, easily seven feet high and strong. He was a power to contend with here, though he was wise enough to fear Zod.

A little taste of what I can do Zod old boy. I called Brallo here, for a little demonstration."

The man walked up, and touched the giant on the forehead.

The man screamed as a rip opened down his face. Bones cracked and popped as his skin withered and flexed, crawling until in seconds the screaming stopped, and a mass of flesh and blood was left in the dirt before Zod. Zod stared in horror and fascination, as the heart and lungs that were now outside the giants body flexed and beat, pumping blood and drawing breath.

The man had the power to literally turn a man inside out!

"I would have this power."

"That was a small taste, a parlor trick. Accept my offer, become my hand on the mortal realm, and I will show you power. I will give you the means to strike down your enemies. Do you accept, Dru-Zod?"

Zod kneeled before the man, looking up in almost adoration.

"I accept. Give me this power. I crave vengeance. I crave blood. Give me the means to make them kneel before me."

The man reached out his hand, pricking his finger with the knife that had been sheathed at Zod's side, and let a drop of blood well up. It hung suspended for a second.

"You are mine now Zod, my Scion. My hand of Vengeance"

The blood dropped down, striking Zod's forehead, and sank into his skin.

And Zod screamed like he had never screamed before.
 
"Okay," she declared through gritted teeth, "great-great-grandsquaj, yes, thank you, bonus creds for dramatic transformation sequence... but I don't know you from Leland and I don't want to hurt you and I don't want you to flay the flesh from my bones or take my ancestress' name in vain and Ultra Girl could I cred out that back-up now please?"

Holy Grife, Jo was on the move, she keyed her ring letting it take her aloft. She triggered the comm. "Brainy, you've got the monitor! Jaymie needs back up!"

She didn't wait nor did she care. Action at last! As she hit open air outside of the headquarters she kicked in her ultra speed. Mach 7 in a matter of a second and a half, Traffic controllers went wild. She dodged one or two lifts and they managed to stay aloft, but Brande was going to see a bill for this.

Metropolis to Smallville used to be a respectable trip, even for a flyer, but when you added super speed to it it was a hop skip and a jump. Jo started to slow hard as she blasted towards the cemetary. Stopping next to her friend, shifting to invulnerability she said "Has the party started yet?"
 
Wraith

One problem with being a warlord and near-Divine being from a alternate plane of reality, you tend to screw up first impressions.

"I am not here to harm anyone. I am speaking the truth. I am Kyle Alec Greystone, born in the twentieth century. From the fact that you look almost like a twin of my daughter (except for the blue hair) and that you are a omnitherm, like her mother and her, I am guessing that I am your great great somethingorother grandfather. I was prevented from returning to Earth after Rose passed on, and I just finished the task that lifted my ban on returning. I apologize for startling you, but believe me, I mean you nor anyone else here no harm."

I shifted back to my human form, and when the shadows calmed, removed my glasses and placed them in the satchel at my side.

"I have many questions, and many things to learn, but my first is this. Who are you? And what year is this?"
 
Deep space, near the Khundian border.

The communication line was still open with the transport repeating it's constant call. "This is U.P. Cruiseliner Majestic. We are unarmed and surrendering." She could still hear the ship taking fire through the message.

She turned her head towards the S.P. group "Lock onto my flight ring signal and use that as a beacon. I am going to help those sentients." With that said she put on a burst of acceleration. The S.P. watched her winged form vanish into the distance ahead of them.

Dawnstar was moving at near FTL speeds as she felt her quarry, the cruise liner, getting nearer and nearer. Then it came into her sight, It was in bad shape and being harried by two smaller pirate craft. This had no honor to it. The Liner was surrendering and yet the pirates continued doing more and more damage. Whatever they were after didn't include prisoners or witnesses.

If her foes were going to act with no honor then she would repay them in kind. She locked her tracking sense on the first pirate and continued at her current speed. As she was just to the point of flashing past the ship she let go of the spear she was carrying. "Hoka Hai!" she cried through the void as the spear smashed into an engine pod at near light speed with all of the mass that entailed.

The majority of the pod spun off into space leaving the pirate with no thrust. The second ship began to peel away. It made it half a parsec before the S.P. ships intercepted it. Over the comm she heard "Dawnstar, this is Officer Devron, we have it from here. Thanks for the help."

"You are most welcome," she replied, "It is always a pleasure to help those in need." But that was far from what was really in her thoughts. It had taken more effort than she would have thought to maintain the Legion Code this time. Those pirates had deserved more than prison for this crime. Dawnstar had wanted to kill them. Impulses her entire race had to constantly keep in check. Warrior instincts from her deep past, Apache instincts.

She turned back towards Earth, "Legion control, this is Dawnstar. Returning to headquarters unless there is another task you have for me."
 
Jaymie's eye twitched.

She glanced at Jo with absolute boundless gratitude.

Grife, when the cavalry showed, it showed up hardcore.

But Big Ancient Scary was talking, and her Ring was making sense of it, and she realised that she should be listening...

"I am not here to harm anyone. I am speaking the truth. I am Kyle Alec Greystone, born in the twentieth century. From the fact that you look almost like a twin of my daughter (except for the blue hair) and that you are a omnitherm, like her mother and her, I am guessing that I am your great great somethingorother grandfather. I was prevented from returning to Earth after Rose passed on, and I just finished the task that lifted my ban on returning. I apologize for startling you, but believe me, I mean you nor anyone else here no harm."

Jaymie drifted back to the grassy ground and she clawed a hand through her pale blue hair.

"This is," she mumbled, "this is sprocked."

She shook her head. "You emerge from some kind of transdime shift on my ancestress' old stomping grounds and final resting place after, like, an aeon of absence, and the first living soul you run into is a direct descendant?"

Her lips pursed. "I'm not smart, not really, I do okay with intuition and these little bursts of wit. Me and Kinetix get along pretty well. (Mostly I just trust Cos and them to tell me where to shoot.) But the... the chances... that's like beyond astronomical. You'd have to be a Twelfth-Level Intellect psychohistorian to numcrunch those odds."

Her slender shoulders rose, her slender shoulders fell. "Almost enough for a girl to believe in Fate."

She wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and frowned. "Don't think this gets you off the hook. But I guess I can extend you the benny of the doubt 'till you get vetted by sensory equipment and a telepath or two."

"I have many questions, and many things to learn, but my first is this. Who are you? And what year is this?"

"Welcome to the year 3010," Jaymie murmured. "I'm Jaymie Greystone, and this is my good friend and compatriot Ultra Girl (who can still tie you in a bow if you look at either of us funny with your glowy eyes). We're Legionnaires of The Legion of Superheroes. And if you were in The League in that timeframe..."

"...we're your descendants in spirit," she murmured, "just as much as I'm your descendant in blood."
 
The Powers That Be

Rande jumped out of the hovership. Or off of. Really, he didn't jump, but more of threw a leg out the half-door thing and stepped off.

Or something like that.

Either way, however way, he was walking through the doorway of Legion HQ as the external and internal scanners, biometric readers, psi-disruptors, intrusion detector thingies did their thing.

And that thing was the thing that kept people out.

Except for him.

Because he built the damn things.

And...well...because

He knew things.

"Helllllllooooooo?" he called. And no one answered. They were out, or gone, or away. But certainly not here. Here was where he had left them.

Or was that the last time? Right. It was the last time he was here, which was where they were, but not now.

So, he shrugged, and rummaged around for a bit inside a table locker until he found a bag of Oreo cookies. He sat down at the terminal, swiveled the chair a bit until it suited him, and put a cookie in his mouth.

And nearly choked.

"By damn!" he exclaimed.

Someone had left in a big hurry. And they had left the monitor on. And it held things, images relayed from a field position. Scans. Lifeform readings. Alerts.

Something had been found. Or, rather, something had found them.

In Smallville. The Old Smallville.

Brande looked disbelievingly at what the monitor showed him.

Oreo cookie crumbled from his mouth.

Brande shifted for an instant, looking seriously like a big blob of green goo. He had been so startled by what he saw on the monitor that he temporarily lost control.

Of all things come and gone, old friend, I never expected to see you return.

Wraith.
 
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Ultra Girl

Jo listened to the exchange between the two. After Val landed she joined her and took a good look at the guy, then back to her teammate. "After that shift he did and with the hair brained story, I'd have to say Durlan Val."

She looked the newcomer up and down again. "Back to headquarters with him so we can put Brainy and the other thinkers on it?"
 
VM3: "Do It For Me Now."

Jo listened to the exchange between the two. After Val landed she joined her and took a good look at the guy, then back to her teammate. "After that shift he did and with the hair brained story, I'd have to say Durlan Val."

Jaymie nodded quietly, her face a mask of indecision. She wanted very badly to adhere to the old adage about innocence until being proven guilty... she wanted this very badly indeed.

But there were security concerns, Jo was right, Jo was absolutely dead-the-sprock-on.

Jaymie could be as naive as she wanted to be for herself, that was true, but when it came to Legion, security concerns should be first and up-front.

Glumly, her mouth made a shape not entirely unlike a smile.

"Yeah," she nodded. "Except for the shadow-thingies, because Durlans can't illusion-cast. If we weren't telep-plugged, I'd think Orandon, 'Prince Projectro' or a 'Sensor Boy?'"

Again, her shoulders did the rising and the falling, and her scarlet gaze locked onto Wraith's face even as she kept talking to Jo: "I might even think Talokian stuff, with the shadows, but that's... that's a Girl's Only Club, right? I never could get that straight, is it gender-lines or bloodline?"

She looked the newcomer up and down again. "Back to headquarters with him so we can put Brainy and the other thinkers on it?"

"Yeah," Jaymie agreed. "Can theorise 'till I'm as blue in the face as I am in the hair, it'd still just be theory."

Again, with a twist to her conscience that wasn't entirely comfortable, she spoke aloud to Wraith: "Sir. We'll need, um, we'll need you to come with us. S.O.P., you realise. We just need to verify your claims, it hopefully shouldn't take long."
 
Wraith

I gave the young women a court bow to a equal (head down, bow slightly at the waist).

"I am at your service ladies. I will go with you wherever you lead. Waken your lorekeeper and let him assess that I am telling the truth. But I will warn you, telepaths and me do not mix, so if that is the method you plan to use please let me talk to them first to avoid having an incident.

Though I did wish they would stop talking like I wasn't here. I have no idea what a Durlan Val or a Talokian is.

Cheer up Kyle. You have made it back home (sorta), met quite possibly your great great to some level granddaughter, and there is no Scion of Hel on Earth now.

Things should be good.

"So, are you going to call for a car or do you have another method to get where you want to take me?"
 
Legion HQ

Daphnie had gotten up to get herself some caf when Ultra Girl got the request for backup, so she was surprised when she came back with her steaming beverage to not find the attractive young woman, but the Legion's Billionaire trustee R.J. Brande at the monitor (I coulda swear for a second something in there was real green) with a discarded cookie at his feet.

"Good Morning Mr. Brande. Where is Ultra Girl?? Did I miss something??"

Not waiting for a reply, the young SP dispatcher keyed up the monitors and digested the conversation that Valkyrie M3 & Ultra Girl were having with the stranger. There were so many weird things about him, and the way the girls were reacting she finally made a decision. She punched in some commands, and shortly a viewscreen lit up with a sleep-tousled head of a young man coming into view.

"Daph, why I am receiving a 5AM wakeup call on my day off? Do we have a incident?."

"No emergency Cos. I got something going on out in Historic Smallville and since you are the only one in here besides Brainy that likes history, I think your needed up here. I am sliding you some video, look at it and tell me what you think."

More commands were keyed in, and in a few clicks Rokk's eyes widened as he watched the exchange going down. When the stranger transformed into that monster, he swore and leaped back, then closed back in on the monitor.

"I'll be right up."


It was only a few minutes, less than five, until Cosmic Boy was in the control room and parked in front of the largest bank of viewscreens. He nodded to the other two as he brought up camera's and readouts.

"Energy signature is really weird.."
"Almost looks like that archive holo I found, but bigger"



He punched in some commands himself, and his own research was brought up. Some more muttering and typing, Cosmic Boy leaned back.

"Valkyrie and Ultra Girl are on there way here correct?"

"Yes Sir." said Daphnie. "Not sure if they are going to fly our mystery man back or call for a pickup though."

"Good. I have some time then."

Rokk moved over to the comm unit and punched in a command. After a few seconds, a sleepy female voice answered "Rokk, why are you calling me at 5 AM? I have midday rotation today."

"Somethings come up Imra. Going to need you to do a mind scan on a mystery man, but your going to have to be very careful. If what I read is true it could be dangerous. And is your cam broke? I have no video."

"I was sleeping Rokk."

"Yeah."

"I'm in what I sleep in."

A grin widened on the young mans face. "I still don't see why you deactivated the video."

"Uggh!! Boys!!! I'll be up in a few."

Cosmic boy chuckled and shut down the comm. This was going to be one heck of a day off.
 
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Brainiac 5

Holy Grife, Jo was on the move, she keyed her ring letting it take her aloft. She triggered the comm. "Brainy, you've got the monitor! Jaymie needs back up!"

She didn't wait nor did she care.

Querl Dox was underneath a heavy conduit when the comm chirped.

He was gnawing on the inside of his cheek and squinting behind goggles as his fingers danced upon a nano-manip touchpad, overlaying a new molecular crystalline lattice structure over the existing atomic framework. If he got this right, not only would the inforelays on the Legion's orbital Threshold Station be exponentially more efficient, but it would eliminate that desperately aggravating background hum in all the omnicom traffic between Threshold and Earth's surface.

(For most sentients, this noise was subliminal, but a Twelfth-Level Intellect lent one's neurokinetics a certain above-average cycle-rate, he could hear it plain as day. Desperately aggravating, and he was fairly sure that-- although they'd never complained --that Legion members with accelerated and/or acute audio senses would be equally aggravated.)

But then Ultra Girl's message came through after the chirp and he heard that annoying hum again and he started a bit, sharply, and bashed his forehead on the underside of the conduit.

"GRIFE!" he snarled, the lattice structure ruined, he'd have to start over from scratch with a whole new plate. He shoved his way out from under the conduit, yanking off of his goggles and rubbing his forehead as he sat up properly.

"Nah," he seethed, shaking his head, furious on a multiplicity of levels, "what?"

...he waited a beat.

And then another.

No response.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, his emerald skin bunching beneath the golden-blond of his hair and brows. "Oh. For. The. Love. Of. SPROCK."

He pushed up to his feet, stalked over to the lab console with his pale-white labcoat swishing around him, and takked the commlink key again: "Ultra Girl. Reiterate. Attempt, if at all possible, to use primarily polysyllabic utterances, so I don't zone out from sheer boredom under the weight of your usual prehistoric ooking and grunting?"

No response.

A cheek-muscle twitched.

"Computer," he growled, "replay last omnicom audio from Ultra Girl to this laboratory."

*Compliance.*

"Brainy, you've got the monitor! Jaymie needs back up!"

Brainiac 5 put his face in his palms. No point in arguing, he'd plainly heard the sound of Ultra Speed flight kicking in, oh, sprocking marvellous.

It was times like this he almost wished he slept at night.

"Fantastic," he harrumphed, and stalked bitterly for the lab door. "Given the relative dimensions of this Brobdingagian edifice, I'm almost three klicks from the monitor room. It'll take ages to get there and that's ages of lab time I won't get back..."

The lift doors slid closed before him as he takked the co-ords for the monitor room, and he closed his eyes and bowed his head, arms crossed over his chest, fuming. "And apparently I'm holding a dialogue with myself. Marvellous."

As he stalked through the corridors, he extricated a small personal data display device from his lab coat pocket and managed to edit down some of the e-correspondence that seemed to stack up when he was paying attention to matters of vastly greater import.

...this being the case, he didn't immediately look up when he walked, on autopilot, into the Monitor Room.

But he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw three sentients in there already.

Daphnie, the serviceably efficient girl from dispatch, Cosmic Boy...

His green features darkened visibly and his green eyes narrowed.

"Right," he seethed, "it would seem that the interrupt in my work was perfectly avoidable after all, judging by the presence of these ostensibly functional pairs of eyes. Or perhaps you're simply so imbecilic that you--"

...R.J. Brande.

Marvellous.

His sentence died mid-birth on his lips. He coughed. And cursed with inward vehemence and outward silence.

Embarrassing. Regrettable.

"Mister Brande," he started again. "Cosmic Boy. Daphnie."

"Finest regards on this early morning," he attempted politeness through gritted teeth. "If there's no need for my finely-tuned supercortical reasoning, however, I'll simply extricate myself delicately."
 
Cosmic Boy

"Actually, it's good that you are here. This may intrest you. Pull up the data from sector 2034.75 from 0457-0509. tell me what you think."

This was shaping up to be a interesting day.
 
VM3: "Good Day."

"I am at your service ladies. I will go with you wherever you lead. Waken your lorekeeper and let him assess that I am telling the truth. But I will warn you, telepaths and me do not mix, so if that is the method you plan to use please let me talk to them first to avoid having an incident."

He bowed. And used the phrase "waken your lorekeeper," that almost gave the autotranslator a hernia.

Wow, okay, throwbackery had kind of a rustic charm. Not Jaymie's thing, not by a long ray, but it was intriguing in a puzzling sort of way.

"So, are you going to call for a car or do you have another method to get where you want to take me?"

The Legends of The Pre-Unified Age were little-known by most.

But some names would survive, along with vast databases of ancient minstrelry known as "mp3s." Some names of the writers of tales would survive, to be kept by, uh, "lorekeepers," or whateverthesprock.

And one of these writers was Kirkman, who firmly established that there was no dignified way for one flying individual to carry a nonflier.

And this mystery maybe-squaj seemed, with the bowing and archaic formal speech, to be big on dignity.

She paused. And winced.

"Two options," she began, "uh, come to mind. Either my ultrapowered team-mate lugs you 'mosphere-ward in the usual (undignified) fashion, or I put the chilly on your peds by constructing an ice-platform under you and towing you along behind our flightpath using my hydro-specific teekay. (Or we wait for the Sci-Cops to show, and you ride in the back of a cruiser, your call.)"

Suddenly, worriedly, Valkyrie M3 glanced at Jo. "If he goes for option one, uhm, please don't hate me?"
 
Brande Name Appliances....Low Prices

Lots of people came and went. Well, not really lots of people, some more coming than they were going, but the room was noticably smaller now that others were here.

Brande nodded his head, issuing "good mornings" and "good afternoons" and other greetings to sentient beings, even those whose brains were cybernetic.

He wondered, briefly, how the BRAIN InterActive Construct would interface with an Alpha Green Lantern? That would be interesting....

He then took his bag of Oreo cookies and got up from the chair. He moved over to the side of the room, out of the way, out of sight, out of mind.

But, not entirely.

He didn't wish to intrude on anything they were doing. Not in the least. But, by damn, he was going to be there when they brought Wraith in.

A thousand years I have waited. Watching, hoping. Believing all were lost.

I remember your words, Bruce. I know now what you meant when you said 'sometimes hope is all we have'. You were referring to the reason you went out there every night, to give the people of Gotham hope. But, I know that if it had not been for hope at all, I would never have made it to Now.

And today, Hope is answered by a dark light shining in Smallville.
 
Caroline Harrison was resting on the hammock that she had put in her room, and her hands were clasped together underneath her head as she stared up at the ceiling. She hadn't had much to do today, though there seemed to be some sort of commotion involving a few other members of the Legion.

Caroline... she wasn't sure what she was doing.

She thought about bugging Brainiac for a bit... but he was probably too wrapped up in his work to even be much fun. She also thought about finding out what was going on... but it probably wasn't anything to get her hair all mussed about.

And she liked her hair.

"Hrmph," Caroline frowned as she sat up, and then realized that she was no longer resting on her makeshift bed. At some point in her... brooding... she had started floating up into the air.

"Fu-"

*whoomph*

"ck," Caroline added with increased soreness when she landed on the ground. She couldn't quite understand it. If she had Kryptonian blood flowing through her veins... why couldn't she master her abilities? What was wrong with her?
 
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