Star City- Heroes of Tomorrow IC

[ChasNicollette]

Fox News. (Vixen)

Mari had left the kitchen and was on the phone with her agent--

--modeling jobs were few and far between right now, no-one wanted to hire a model who'd start bleeding like a Biblical plague in the middle of a shoot, but she had to keep her ear to the ground.

"Just loop me in, okay, Silver? I should be back in New York soon, we'll do sushi."

She paused. "No, check that, maybe just Pinkberry or something, I think I'm over seafood for awhile."

Then she really paused. "Wait, what thing in Gotham?"

And then Ollie's call came over the P.A., and Mari stopped mid-sentence in the middle of the hallway.

"All available members of the Justice Society, please meet in the Situation Room."

Mari clenched her eyes shut.

"Okay, babe, I gotta go. Guess I'll be back on The East Coast sooner than either of us thought. Wish me luck. Thanks for everything."

Hanging up the phone with a deet, Mari resisted the urge to go CHEETAH again as she wheeled around and headed for the nearest elevator.

 

[ChasNicollette]

You and Me and The Devil Makes Three. (Artemis)

She strode with so much purpose, potence, portent...

...he felt her eyes on him with, she didn't know, it could have been some kind of spidery sense, or just that sixth sense that all ARGUS Agents seemed to have, she'd seen it on Diggle often enough...

...naked and ready to jump into battle, there was some kind of metaphor in there but she wasn't...

...she wasn't thinking metaphorically.

God, he was pretty. Like. Maybe not-- square-jawed leading-man handsome, he was no Chris Evans, but he was the guy who did the dirty work in the background, wore a chip on his shoulder and his tarnished heart on his sleeve...

...and yet maybe there was a family man in there somewhere, someone she could bring home to Mama, lo tho that version of him was buried deep where no-one could find it...

...but...

...but architecturally, his frame, his-- everything--

--she had been honed by the greatest athlete in history to try and break the records he had set and she knew a thing or three about muscle tone and definition and anatomy. And he was...

...fiiiiiiiiiine.

Even in a community where everyone looked like Olympians (either the gods or the medal-winners, take your pick), he was in fantastic frickin' shape.

But then the element of surprise was gone.

"Artemis?"

He stepped back slightly, causing the water to cascade over his hair, washing the shampoo into his face and eyes, blinding him momentarily

And there was just something about that moment, about him so taken aback by her appearance that suddenly his ready-aim-fire kung fu grip was fighting blind--

--she couldn't help this rush of--

--suddenly he was vulnerable and adorable at the same time that there was rivulets of frothy white rolling down that sculpted musculature and down towards--

--she wanted to kiss him, kiss him in this brand-new opening for surprise attacks, if she did it right he'd still get the idea, kiss him and press him against the wall, didn't matter if she got a mouthful of shampoo--

--she lunged for it, quick as one of her own arrows--

--her hands found the steel-cable muscles of his shoulders, pushed down on them so she could go up on tip-toe and kiss him--

--her lips were inches from his, she could taste his breath--

"All available members of the Justice Society, please meet in the Situation Room."

--and she stopped.

Everything stopped.

She was a little surprised that the shower-spray that now drenched both of them didn't just kind of hover in mid-air like some kind of supernatural pause-button.

And-- "Son of a bitch." --she thunked her forehead against his rain-slicked chest, and unleashed a groan of protest.

"Tell me. Lie if you have to."

"Tell me right now we don't count as 'available.'"

 

[TertiusHuman]

Sweet lies and honest truths

He felt her hands on his shoulders, for a brief moment he readied himself for impact, but none came. Her face materialized through his blinded vision, water rushing over her and in that moment he could see her eyes, see what she wanted and needed, hell what they both wanted and needed. She was so close, his hands was pressed against the wall behind him, holding him steady.

As his left started to raise from the surface to touch her soft, warm skin, to feel what he had longed for so long now...the PA crackled and Ollie's voice called all available personnel. Her reactions was so controlled, so perfectly her, that he knew if he touched her, it would not matter what he said.

It was the thing he wanted to do like nothing else he ever wanted to do in his entire life. It was that perfect moment, they both wanted it, he knew it, he had seen it in her eyes. There was just a few inches to achieve that goal and not an entire gulf of profesionalism seperating them. Only a few inches and...

His hand pressed back against the wall.

"I will lie to you and tell you that right now, we are not available." He looked down at her, heavens if any woman looked more perfect to him than her, he had not seen her. He waited for her to look up at him, before he went on, "But you know and I know, that we will answer the call. It is just who we are."

It pained...no it borderlined on physically hurting him, to say the words. The truth. It was the words that would bring this moment to an end and he hated himself. But a woman like her deserved the truth and nothing less.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pythagorean. (Artemis)

He was going to touch her.

Well, obviously, she was-- already in contact with him-- already--

--already touching him--

--but that would hardly be the same as--

--him. Actively. Touching her.

Actively choosing to caress her in a context outside bloodying his knuckles on her in a sparring dojo.

It would close the circuit, complete the loop.

Synaptic electric Moebius strip.

But then he... didn't.

Because of course he didn't.

"I will lie to you and tell you that right now, we are not available." He looked down at her, heavens if any woman looked more perfect to him than her, he had not seen her. He waited for her to look up at him, before he went on, "But you know and I know, that we will answer the call. It is just who we are."

She laughed.

She laughed a broken laugh and shower-spray kicked off of her lips as she laughed it.

She slapped a palm against his chest and nodded slowly and couldn't look at him.

"Yep. Yep. Can't ride the bench or each other when there's saving the world to be done."

She thudded her forehead against him again.

Dragged in the scent of him with flaring nostrils.

And pushed off of him, shaking the water out of her hair.

"I'm gonna go get dressed. So should you."

"Maybe we should-- come into The Sitch Room from different entrances, yeah?"

"Just-- just so we don't--"

"--people can be assholes about this stuff."

"And Oliver might shoot you."

 

[TertiusHuman]

For some strange reason her withdrawal felt almost like a physical part of him tearing loose. It was insane. But as she stood there, water drops spraying over her, running down her body, it took all his will power to not go against his own words.

"Yeah, we should." He kept his gaze on her face, even though he did want to look at her sculpted-to-perfection body. He had to bring himself under control, perhaps there would be another time, a better place...if she did not withdraw completely after this.

He did flash a grin, "Ollie will try, most likely succeed, but what he doesn't know of, can't hurt me." He turned off the shower and in a few steps collected and turned to offer his towel to her. "I have a spare."

 

[ChasNicollette]

This is why we can't have nice people. (Artemis)

For some strange reason her withdrawal felt almost like a physical part of him tearing loose. It was insane. But as she stood there, water drops spraying over her, running down her body, it took all his will power to not go against his own words.

"Yeah, we should." He kept his gaze on her face, even though he did want to look at her sculpted-to-perfection body. He had to bring himself under control, perhaps there would be another time, a better place...if she did not withdraw completely after this.

He did flash a grin, "Ollie will try, most likely succeed, but what he doesn't know of, can't hurt me." He turned off the shower and in a few steps collected and turned to offer his towel to her. "I have a spare."

Perhaps she didn't quite feel the same psychosomatic physical pangs as Denvers did.

But there was hurt here.

She reached out and she took the towel from him, smirked faintly at him as she plucked it out of his grasp, took a quick moment to memorize that grin.

"Check that preparedness, Eagle Scout. And here I thought chivalry had a DNR order."

She slung the towel around her shoulders, backed up a step, then another, then dipped to retrieve her now-thoroughly-dampened suit jacket.

"Gonna take a little more than a towel to dry out this mop," she indicated her blonde hair, even a little bit rain-slicked it was still a ridiculously voluminous mass. (It had long been a point of some debate among the bio-science types in The Justice Society's circles how Artemis could be half-Asian and yet have some of the most Caucasian hair in existence. Of course, not all Asian hair was straight and super-thin, but Artemis' was super-thick, wavy, and blonde like a field in a Sting song.) "Need a quick blow-dry, minimum. But this won't hurt a bit."

She meant that the towel wouldn't hurt her ability to get dry, but if he wanted to take that as her not hurting about not getting to touch him, he could do that.

Except of course it would hurt.

She knew, in her heart of hearts, she didn't need someone else to make her whole, and functional, and valuable.

But she also registered on some level between the conscious and the subconscious that she was damaged, that she was-- not normal-- by nature or nurture or some terrible combination of the two. She'd been exposed to her father's sociopathy and while her mom was struggling towards redemption, she'd been no saint herself when Artemis had been a little girl.

Relating to people was a struggle.

An uphill struggle that often ended in one of those awesome Pyrrhic victories all the kids were talking about these days.

Sometimes the best she could hope for was a little body-on-body, quiet those annoying urges, take the biological pressure off. And she could lie to herself easily enough, tell herself that's all she wanted this time.

But even if she was whole and functional and valuable and complete unto herself she wasn't normal, she couldn't have normal relationships except maybe sometimes she wondered if she could.

Sometimes she wondered if she could have one of those relationships with Jaime.

Right now, she was pretty convinced she could have one with John Denvers.

And not getting to find out now was just one more layer of pain on top of not knowing.

But as much as it hurt to take a step back, and another, she couldn't hate the view.

"See you down there," she signed off... but this was a Hell of a double entendre, as her eyes ran all the way down his body one more time. She saw him down there-- and she'd see him down in The Situation Room.

And she turned and she wheeled out of the showers.

And as she crumpled a bit inside and out while lurching through the locker room on the way back out to the hallway, she only caved in one locker door with a frustrated punch.

Then it was off to get dried and dressed.

World was ending. Must be Wednesday.

 

[ChasNicollette]

City of Angels. (J'onn)

Professor Jones lifted his hand from Jaime's head, and furrowed his brow, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

"'Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.' Friedrich Nietzsche."

He offered Jaime a hand up.

"You are not a monster, my young friend. But you have gazed too long into the abyss. Gazed too long into... this moment."

"You are not this moment. You are a continuum."

"Come. Walk with me. I have many lives, and there is much to do."

"And as we do our work, we will talk."

When Jaime Reyes slipped his hand into Professor Jones', Professor Jones was no longer Professor Jones.

He stood taller, broader, greener, a powerhouse to be reckoned with indeed.

He was Mars' last survivor. There was a reason for that.

The Martian Manhunter had powers to rival those of The Girl of Steel herself, and then some.

He had her flight. And he had her speed.

And thus, not for the first time today, was Jaime Reyes borne aloft and whisked elsewhere on the planet by a flying being not of this Earth.

The world blurred.

And when the world stopped blurring, a lanyard with a badge fluttered to a stop on Jaime's chest. It said "VISITOR" on it.

He was in a television studio, standing in the wings, an L.A. daytime talk show in national syndication.

G. Gordon Godfrey-- The Godfrey Exponent.

Like many of the high-volume low-content commentators of his particular political wing, he preached unyielding resistance to that which threatened the God-given American way of life. Where many of his brothers and sisters spoke against women's reproductive rights as their chosen pulpit, or against the recognition of certain "alternative sexualities and genders" as anything more than deviant lifestyle choices, or made damaging insinuations against people of limited financial means and/or people of color-- GGG spoke against all of these, but his most vocal opposition was to superheroes.

J'onn J'onzz was not immediately beside Jaime-- like he'd dropped Jaime off and then run along to something else.

The lights beat down on Godfrey sitting behind his desk across from his guest, who sat in a much smaller chair, set lower, giving Godfrey the illusion of being much larger and more powerful than his visitor. They were on a commercial break.

Neither Godfrey nor his visitor-- an arguably ridiculously handsome white male with dark hair and a piercing glare and an almost too wide too white smile-- looked particularly enamored with each other.

Godfrey was being handed printed notes by a freckled redhead teenage girl-- an intern-- and he snarled at her in ferocious Tim Curry-esque tones, "Where have you been? How have I not fired you yet?"

"The printer jammed, sir," she apologized, obviously struggling to maintain her bubbly optimism in the face of this battlewagon of hate, taking a step back as she clutched a glass of water, "I'm sorry sir, I'll try not to let it happen again."

"See that you don't," Godfrey snapped. "Here on The Exponent, we respect results and don't excuse excuses."

"Of-- of course, Mister Godfrey," she nodded, and backed up a few steps, getting down from beside his desk and moving to speak to Godfrey's guest.

She offered him the glass of water.

And he smiled that endlessly-charismatic smile, and he nodded to her with a wink of his eye. "Thank you, dear, that's ever so kind of you."

She smiled a wavery smile back at him, perhaps a wee bit smitten with that smile, and tucked a forelock of that red red hair back behind her ear. "I'm-- I'm happy to be of service."

He gazed at her examiningly over the rim of the glass as he took a sip, squinting those penetrating eyes, and nodded to himself. "You know, that's the most honest thing anyone's said to me all day. In this town, that's a rare thing, hold onto that-- ah--"

"Megan," she informed him. "Megan Morse. And I endeavor to always speak sincerely to those who deserve it."

He wagged a finger at her. "An important distinction, Megan. But not always so easy a thing to determine."

"We're back in 10," the control room called out, "9..." Extricating herself gracefully from the conversation with Godfrey's guest, Megan hurried off of the set, standing next to Jaime and nodding to him with a nervous smile.

"QUIET ON SET!" someone else important shouted.

Godfrey tamped down his notes and adjusted his tie.

Godfrey's guest sipped his water again.

"5, 4, 3..." the cameraman counted down and then pointed at Godfrey, who glowered at the camera from beneath bunched eyebrows.

"For those of you just joining us after the break," Godfrey rolled in with practiced ease, "I'm discussing the ongoing threat that masked vigilantes pose to our rights and freedoms with local 'entertainer' and sometime consultant to The L.A.P.D., 'Lucifer Morningstar.'"

Godfrey shot "Lucifer" a contempt-filled look. "I've got to be honest with you, Mr. Morningstar, I've heard some arrogant stage names in my day, but that is just the curdled cream of the crop."

"Not a stage name, I promise," Lucifer replied with an enviable charisma. "I was quite literally christened with it."

"Must make it hard for you," Godfrey fired back with a deft, insidious charm of his own, "hard for people to trust you."

He shot the camera a look, brief but telling, know what I'm saying, America?, and one could almost feel his red-blooded conservative audience joining him in on the joke, nah, Mister Godfrey, we're not gonna take him seriously either.

"Oh, if I had thirty silver pieces for every time I heard that one. But you'd be surprised, actually, Gordon," Lucifer mused without batting an eye, twirling the tip of his finger around the surface of his glass of water, causing it to whirlpool slightly. "People can be so very forthcoming."

"That's the heart of the matter, isn't it," Godfrey rejoindered, it was like a verbal tennis match, both of them kings of their respective courts, volley after volley, "being forthcoming. This so-called law on the books that protects the identities of these colorful costumed vigilantes, protects them from prosecution, makes it so they don't have to be forthcoming about crucial information. We have the right to due process, a basic legal right, and to face our accusers. I was saying it years ago when The Exponent was just a gleam in Papa Godfrey's eye, we were still a half-hour filler between Beck and Limbaugh-- calling these masked nutcases to the stand in their Kevlar-lined 'personas,' respecting that as though it were an actual person's name, The Arrow, The Atom, The Flash, as though these were real people-- it's as ridiculous a social construct as calling tarnished gold medalist Bruce Jenner 'Caitlyn,' and ten times as dangerous."

"Leaving aside the basic social politeness, Gordon," Lucifer replied, philosophically, "of calling people the name they want to be called-- I note that you prefer to abbreviate your first name, that's well within your prerogative--"

--oh, Godfrey didn't like that at all, comparing his signature alliterative name to a transgender moniker, he bristled like a porcupine--

"--I've noticed that you're a big fan of the 'good guy with a gun' response to gun control, that Average Joe Citizen can be a hero in his own right, ending a disastrous situation when the police response time is found to be lagging. 'Civilian' heroes can be seen as a logical extrapolation of that in an increasingly dangerous world, combined with the Good Samaritan laws that protect would-be citizen first-responders from litigation."

"I'm sorry, 'Lucy,'" Godfrey growled, though he didn't sound sorry at all, "but those are goddamned apples and goddamned oranges. One of the poster children for the masks, this 'Arrow' character in the Leftest corner of The Left Coast, he started out as a serial-killing premeditated mass murderer of titans of industry, job creators and pillars of their community. How many chalk outlines did your Good Samaritan boy leave on Starling City pavement and rooftops before he started pretending to 'go legit' with his shiny clubhouse and all his Super Friends?"

Lucifer smirked at this. "Oh, I'm sure he'll get whatever punishment is coming to him, in this life or the next, for killing a bunch of tycoons that were planning to drop an inner-city neighborhood into a crater. But in a world where people are increasingly weary of living in the margins, of being trampled by corrupt government bodies beholden to corporations more than taxpayers, I am sure that they are glad for people who are willing to color outside the lines to see justice done--"

"It sounds to me like you're advocating anarchy," Godfrey snapped, spittle flying from his lips, "Lucy, is that what you're saying?"

"Any government run by men is subject to the foibles of men," Lucifer replied breezily, "especially when it doesn't allow men outside of it to see what it's doing behind closed doors. As I recall, you said many somethings similar about The Obama Administration, that business with The IRS--"

"Don't you go putting goddamned words in my mouth, you simpering snake oil salesman," Godfrey shot Lucifer down, and then stopped, holding up a palm, touching his earpiece. "That's enough, that's enough out of you, we're cutting the segment short-- breaking news from just up The 112 in National City-- there's apparently been a throwdown between two metahuman menaces, our shining 'homeland heroine,' the so-called Girl of Tomorrow, and what sources are saying was one of the people responsible for The Halo Corporation attack in Keystone six weeks ago. Do we have eyewitness reports?"

Lucifer hmphed softly and stood up, taking one last sip from his glass as he shot Godfrey a grimacing expression... and his glass of water seemed to bubble and steam as he drained it.

Then he turned and stalked off the set, passing Megan and Jaime as he went.

"Disappointing venture," he murmured in his charming voice. "Normally I'm quite good at getting people to spill their guts on command, but he is-- bothersomely impenetrable. Bothersomely. I was really hoping I could get him to trip up and embarrass himself on camera, little bit of instant karma, ah well. Ignorant berk, too, Father's never damned apples or oranges that I know of, just figs, and even then it was just a couple of very specific trees."

He glanced at Megan, smiled that too perfect smile at her, keeping his voice low so as to not incite the wrath of the sound department, "Good luck with that one, pet."

"Thank you, Mister Morningstar," Megan nodded gratefully back to him.

Lucifer moved to walk back off through the green room, but as he went, he glanced at Jaime, and his eyes flickered... reddish. "Ah. Looks like you've already made a confession today. Good for you." He patted Reyes on his shoulder as he moved past. His touch was... warm. "Good for your soul."

And then he was gone.

Megan smiled gently at Jaime and gestured at him to walk with her, the TV set was rapidly becoming a bustling cluster of activity with this breaking story, better to get out of the way.

"It's interesting, don't you think, what they were saying earlier?" Megan offered Jaime, as she walked towards safer climes. "About that Arrow? How he started as this ruthless killer of corrupt one-percenters and now he's come back from that as this-- celebrated hero and a leader of heroes? It's-- good that he didn't stay stuck on such a dark path. Don't you think?"

 

[TertiusHuman]

Venom

He watched her as she left, slipping away from him like mist running from the sun.

That went well

'Shut up'

A soft rumble sounded in his head, almost like an amused laugh and he found himself naked no more, dressed in jeans, black t-shirt and combat boots. With a resigned sigh he shoved the episode aside. There was work to do, though it came with ease these days he thought that once there was a time that the symbiote and he did not know each other as well as they did now, that they lived as two separate entities in one body, on edge, ready to attack, to prove their worth...


::::: The Brownstone. Small Training Room. One Week Later.

Oliver has offered to help John. He knew what it was to have senses so keen, so sharp, that you lost the humane reaction and were instead stuck in a constant fight or flight mode in which the second wasn't really an option.

He stood above John as he lit a candle and placed it between them. It was a tall red candle. The flame licked to and fro as he set it in place and kneeled behind it. He locks gaze with John and begins to speak.

"I can't speak to literally having a symbiosis with another creature. A passenger riding along, with control over my own body. But I do know what it is to be two different men. To have to hide the warrior, the killer, that is just beneath the surface. To keep the fire in your heart at bay while trying to keep yourself alive. It is no easy task." Oliver takes a breath and continues.

"John. You are a soldier. A warrior. You have been through a great deal. You have paid a heavy price. But now, now you need to be more than just that. I want you to focus. Look into the flame. Focus. Find a place where you are safe. Focus on that place. Bring yourself there. Is he with you?"

John tried to focus on the flame, the small flame had no influence when it had been lighted, but when he focused on it, the flame seemed to grow, to become bigger and he could feel the fear of fire erupt through his system. The symbiote wishing him to not go near the fire.

'Relax it is just a small candle flame.'

Fire...dangerous...can kill us!

It was not the first time John had met this fear, the symbiote seemed impervious to all dangers except fire and sonic soundwaves.

Get away...must get away...

The symbiote struggled to gain control, to flee, John struggled to remain in control, not only of his body, but of the fear as well. The war of wills kept going until John looked away from the candle, exhaling sharply, "I can't. The flame frightens the symbiote and I can't focus with him battling me."

Oliver nods. He opens his eyes and looks deeply at John. "That's just it. There is no you and him. Not anymore. Now, there is only the two of you. As one being. Fire is a danger. But it is in danger that you need to find peace. Your a man of action John. If you want to be one with your other half, you need to be able to bring both halves to bear. To focus. Only together can you be at peace. Can you control the raging inferno of instinct and power. So. Try again. Take a breath. Hold it. Release slowly and again, focus on the flame. Find the pattern. All things have one. You. It. Both of you. Combined. Watch the pattern of the dancing flame."

John nodded his understanding and closed his eyes,

'You heard the man. It's you and me now, you're part of me as much as I am a part of you. I know that you need to be ready, but I can't handle the strain. It will break my mind.'

There was a long silence, no response, even though he knew that the symbiote had heard and listened. He also knew that it was best to let the symbiote meet him half-way.

Open your eyes.

He frowned slightly and opened his eyes, focusing on the candle. And realized that he could see the energy streaming from the light. A light throbbing as the flame flickered ever so slightly.

Like a star

'What?'

It does the same things that a star does. Stars are too far away to harm us. We can do this.

This was more than half-way, it was fully meeting him on his own turf and bringing the symbiote's senses along with it. John breathed slowly as the energy vision started to fade away, leaving the light of the candle in his vision. Instead of the training room, the light was flickering and bobbing in outer space. As strange as that sounded.

He said go to a place where we can feel safe. This is the first place I can remember. A place I felt safe. We can combine the two and find one place

John gave a slight smile

'I am fine with this, it feels like a good place to be.'

Aloud he murmured loud enough for Ollie to hear him, "We have found a common ground."

"Good. Now that you have found this place, you have begun truly becoming a single being. Make no mistake John, this, this is the beginning of a new life. You are no longer just you. That you is gone. You are not just him. His past is now gone. You are now something new."

::: The Brownstone, Hallway, Present ::::

Yeah I remember that

With a start John realized that he was in the hallway on his way to the Rec room. Well OK. He at times forgot that the symbiote had just as much command over his body as himself once they meshed up again. He knew that the symbiote was nowhere near his more "in-command" mind when Artemis did her little shower attack. He suppressed a grin and pushed open the door to the Situation Room and stepped inside.

 

[Nevyn_Black]

Demons- Imagine Dragons

When Jaime Reyes slipped his hand into Professor Jones', Professor Jones was no longer Professor Jones.

He stood taller, broader, greener, a powerhouse to be reckoned with indeed.

He was Mars' last survivor. There was a reason for that.

The Martian Manhunter had powers to rival those of The Girl of Steel herself, and then some.

He had her flight. And he had her speed.

And thus, not for the first time today, was Jaime Reyes borne aloft and whisked elsewhere on the planet by a flying being not of this Earth.

The world blurred.

And when the world stopped blurring, a lanyard with a badge fluttered to a stop on Jaime's chest. It said "VISITOR" on it.

He was in a television studio, standing in the wings, an L.A. daytime talk show in national syndication.

G. Gordon Godfrey-- The Godfrey Exponent.

Like many of the high-volume low-content commentators of his particular political wing, he preached unyielding resistance to that which threatened the God-given American way of life. Where many of his brothers and sisters spoke against women's reproductive rights as their chosen pulpit, or against the recognition of certain "alternative sexualities and genders" as anything more than deviant lifestyle choices, or made damaging insinuations against people of limited financial means and/or people of color-- GGG spoke against all of these, but his most vocal opposition was to superheroes.

J'onn J'onzz was not immediately beside Jaime-- like he'd dropped Jaime off and then run along to something else.

The lights beat down on Godfrey sitting behind his desk across from his guest, who sat in a much smaller chair, set lower, giving Godfrey the illusion of being much larger and more powerful than his visitor. They were on a commercial break.

Neither Godfrey nor his visitor-- an arguably ridiculously handsome white male with dark hair and a piercing glare and an almost too wide too white smile-- looked particularly enamored with each other.

Godfrey was being handed printed notes by a freckled redhead teenage girl-- an intern-- and he snarled at her in ferocious Tim Curry-esque tones, "Where have you been? How have I not fired you yet?"

"The printer jammed, sir," she apologized, obviously struggling to maintain her bubbly optimism in the face of this battlewagon of hate, taking a step back as she clutched a glass of water, "I'm sorry sir, I'll try not to let it happen again."

"See that you don't," Godfrey snapped. "Here on The Exponent, we respect results and don't excuse excuses."

"Of-- of course, Mister Godfrey," she nodded, and backed up a few steps, getting down from beside his desk and moving to speak to Godfrey's guest.

She offered him the glass of water.

And he smiled that endlessly-charismatic smile, and he nodded to her with a wink of his eye. "Thank you, dear, that's ever so kind of you."

She smiled a wavery smile back at him, perhaps a wee bit smitten with that smile, and tucked a forelock of that red red hair back behind her ear. "I'm-- I'm happy to be of service."

He gazed at her examiningly over the rim of the glass as he took a sip, squinting those penetrating eyes, and nodded to himself. "You know, that's the most honest thing anyone's said to me all day. In this town, that's a rare thing, hold onto that-- ah--"

"Megan," she informed him. "Megan Morse. And I endeavor to always speak sincerely to those who deserve it."

He wagged a finger at her. "An important distinction, Megan. But not always so easy a thing to determine."

"We're back in 10," the control room called out, "9..." Extricating herself gracefully from the conversation with Godfrey's guest, Megan hurried off of the set, standing next to Jaime and nodding to him with a nervous smile.

"QUIET ON SET!" someone else important shouted.

Godfrey tamped down his notes and adjusted his tie.

Godfrey's guest sipped his water again.

"5, 4, 3..." the cameraman counted down and then pointed at Godfrey, who glowered at the camera from beneath bunched eyebrows.

"For those of you just joining us after the break," Godfrey rolled in with practiced ease, "I'm discussing the ongoing threat that masked vigilantes pose to our rights and freedoms with local 'entertainer' and sometime consultant to The L.A.P.D., 'Lucifer Morningstar.'"

Godfrey shot "Lucifer" a contempt-filled look. "I've got to be honest with you, Mr. Morningstar, I've heard some arrogant stage names in my day, but that is just the curdled cream of the crop."

"Not a stage name, I promise," Lucifer replied with an enviable charisma. "I was quite literally christened with it."

"Must make it hard for you," Godfrey fired back with a deft, insidious charm of his own, "hard for people to trust you."

He shot the camera a look, brief but telling, know what I'm saying, America?, and one could almost feel his red-blooded conservative audience joining him in on the joke, nah, Mister Godfrey, we're not gonna take him seriously either.

"Oh, if I had thirty silver pieces for every time I heard that one. But you'd be surprised, actually, Gordon," Lucifer mused without batting an eye, twirling the tip of his finger around the surface of his glass of water, causing it to whirlpool slightly. "People can be so very forthcoming."

"That's the heart of the matter, isn't it," Godfrey rejoindered, it was like a verbal tennis match, both of them kings of their respective courts, volley after volley, "being forthcoming. This so-called law on the books that protects the identities of these colorful costumed vigilantes, protects them from prosecution, makes it so they don't have to be forthcoming about crucial information. We have the right to due process, a basic legal right, and to face our accusers. I was saying it years ago when The Exponent was just a gleam in Papa Godfrey's eye, we were still a half-hour filler between Beck and Limbaugh-- calling these masked nutcases to the stand in their Kevlar-lined 'personas,' respecting that as though it were an actual person's name, The Arrow, The Atom, The Flash, as though these were real people-- it's as ridiculous a social construct as calling tarnished gold medalist Bruce Jenner 'Caitlyn,' and ten times as dangerous."

"Leaving aside the basic social politeness, Gordon," Lucifer replied, philosophically, "of calling people the name they want to be called-- I note that you prefer to abbreviate your first name, that's well within your prerogative--"

--oh, Godfrey didn't like that at all, comparing his signature alliterative name to a transgender moniker, he bristled like a porcupine--

"--I've noticed that you're a big fan of the 'good guy with a gun' response to gun control, that Average Joe Citizen can be a hero in his own right, ending a disastrous situation when the police response time is found to be lagging. 'Civilian' heroes can be seen as a logical extrapolation of that in an increasingly dangerous world, combined with the Good Samaritan laws that protect would-be citizen first-responders from litigation."

"I'm sorry, 'Lucy,'" Godfrey growled, though he didn't sound sorry at all, "but those are goddamned apples and goddamned oranges. One of the poster children for the masks, this 'Arrow' character in the Leftest corner of The Left Coast, he started out as a serial-killing premeditated mass murderer of titans of industry, job creators and pillars of their community. How many chalk outlines did your Good Samaritan boy leave on Starling City pavement and rooftops before he started pretending to 'go legit' with his shiny clubhouse and all his Super Friends?"

Lucifer smirked at this. "Oh, I'm sure he'll get whatever punishment is coming to him, in this life or the next, for killing a bunch of tycoons that were planning to drop an inner-city neighborhood into a crater. But in a world where people are increasingly weary of living in the margins, of being trampled by corrupt government bodies beholden to corporations more than taxpayers, I am sure that they are glad for people who are willing to color outside the lines to see justice done--"

"It sounds to me like you're advocating anarchy," Godfrey snapped, spittle flying from his lips, "Lucy, is that what you're saying?"

"Any government run by men is subject to the foibles of men," Lucifer replied breezily, "especially when it doesn't allow men outside of it to see what it's doing behind closed doors. As I recall, you said many somethings similar about The Obama Administration, that business with The IRS--"

"Don't you go putting goddamned words in my mouth, you simpering snake oil salesman," Godfrey shot Lucifer down, and then stopped, holding up a palm, touching his earpiece. "That's enough, that's enough out of you, we're cutting the segment short-- breaking news from just up The 112 in National City-- there's apparently been a throwdown between two metahuman menaces, our shining 'homeland heroine,' the so-called Girl of Tomorrow, and what sources are saying was one of the people responsible for The Halo Corporation attack in Keystone six weeks ago. Do we have eyewitness reports?"

Lucifer hmphed softly and stood up, taking one last sip from his glass as he shot Godfrey a grimacing expression... and his glass of water seemed to bubble and steam as he drained it.

Then he turned and stalked off the set, passing Megan and Jaime as he went.

"Disappointing venture," he murmured in his charming voice. "Normally I'm quite good at getting people to spill their guts on command, but he is-- bothersomely impenetrable. Bothersomely. I was really hoping I could get him to trip up and embarrass himself on camera, little bit of instant karma, ah well. Ignorant berk, too, Father's never damned apples or oranges that I know of, just figs, and even then it was just a couple of very specific trees."

He glanced at Megan, smiled that too perfect smile at her, keeping his voice low so as to not incite the wrath of the sound department, "Good luck with that one, pet."

"Thank you, Mister Morningstar," Megan nodded gratefully back to him.

Lucifer moved to walk back off through the green room, but as he went, he glanced at Jaime, and his eyes flickered... reddish. "Ah. Looks like you've already made a confession today. Good for you." He patted Reyes on his shoulder as he moved past. His touch was... warm. "Good for your soul."

And then he was gone.

Jaime was confused at first, but then he just mentally shrugged and decided to go with it. He didn't like the conservative windbag, but then, even the Devil didn't seem to. And somehow, on an instinctive level, born of his strong catholic upbringing, Jaime knew Lucifer for exactly who he said he was. It was strange how little fear he instilled in Jaime, considering.

Megan smiled gently at Jaime and gestured at him to walk with her, the TV set was rapidly becoming a bustling cluster of activity with this breaking story, better to get out of the way.

"It's interesting, don't you think, what they were saying earlier?" Megan offered Jaime, as she walked towards safer climes. "About that Arrow? How he started as this ruthless killer of corrupt one-percenters and now he's come back from that as this-- celebrated hero and a leader of heroes? It's-- good that he didn't stay stuck on such a dark path. Don't you think?"

Jaime thought about what he had seen of Oliver, but mostly about Felicity. It seemed to him obvious that that woman and her enduring courage and strength had been at least partially responsible for the transformation and redemption of The Arrow. Their love had saved them both more than once, along with others.

"I was raised to understand that each man has an Angel and a Demon inside him. But sometimes that isn't enough to keep the Demon from winning. And sometimes, redemption isn't something one can achieve alone. I've never been alone, but I have always been isolated from other people."

"The Arrow had a whole family of people to help save him from his own darkness. They loved him enough to risk falling down into the abyss with him. I have no one."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Battle of One. (J'onn)

Jaime was confused at first, but then he just mentally shrugged and decided to go with it. He didn't like the conservative windbag, but then, even the Devil didn't seem to. And somehow, on an instinctive level, born of his strong catholic upbringing, Jaime knew Lucifer for exactly who he said he was. It was strange how little fear he instilled in Jaime, considering.

Lucifer would be the first to point out that there was so much more to him than the propaganda leveled against him by Scripture and by certain Judeo-Christian myths that had cropped up around him over the millennia. For instance, the horns and the cloven hooves and the pitchfork, that was a terrible bit of misinformation-- one might even call it "satyr-ical." (Granted, a goodly number of his demonic spawn and underlings had adopted these trappings in order to "look the part," but that had never been his particular couture of choice.)

There was no coin that was one-sided.

And he had learned and grown during his decade of walking The Earth, much to Heaven's consternation-- even a fallen archangel could learn a thing or three from these funny little short-lived humans with their souls that blazed like suns.

Besides, everything was relative.

In a room with a hatemonger like Godfrey, even The Devil Himself seemed a more reasonable individual.

Jaime thought about what he had seen of Oliver, but mostly about Felicity. It seemed to him obvious that that woman and her enduring courage and strength had been at least partially responsible for the transformation and redemption of The Arrow. Their love had saved them both more than once, along with others.

"I was raised to understand that each man has an Angel and a Demon inside him. But sometimes that isn't enough to keep the Demon from winning. And sometimes, redemption isn't something one can achieve alone. I've never been alone, but I have always been isolated from other people."

"The Arrow had a whole family of people to help save him from his own darkness. They loved him enough to risk falling down into the abyss with him. I have no one."

They moved into the green room, and found that they were alone together there. Megan appeared to glance around the room for a moment, as though sweeping it with eight impossibly powerful senses and other extrasensory perceptions, and when satisfied that they could talk in private she relaxed slightly.

Craft services had a table of snacks and drinks running, and Megan helped herself to an Oreo, nibbling it daintily and thoughtfully before turning back to regard Jaime.

"You are convinced that you have no-one," Megan gazed at him with quiet, expressive, red-brown eyes, "because you have convinced yourself of this. But-- I'm fond of Earth poetry-- John Donne once wrote, 'no man is an island, complete unto himself.'" She paused, and grinned a bubbly, wobbly grin, and gestured with the remainder of the cookie as she then continued, chatting at a rapid clip-- "Of course, the lyricist Paul Simon posed a significant counter-argument relatively recently, but I still err on the side of Donne in this matter--"

She stopped, redirected herself, paused to think, a hand on her forehead. "Right, sorry, sorry, too much, digressing." She took a breath. "Dark days are upon us all, Jaime. I have sensed disturbing, inexplicable vibrations on the infra-sombre bands of the mood spectrum: something terrible is coming. It behooves us all to find what light we can from our supports."

A sadness flickered in her eyes. "You have known loss-- I myself know a flavor of this, I lost my wife and my daughter, my adoptive niece on whose name and bright spirit I have based this particular form-- my whole species. Your parents are gone, your kindred spirit Paco, but you have not lost all chance of reconnecting with your friend Brenda, your sister Milagro. You should reach out to them, when you get a chance. Not all of us still have that option, and you have more options than you think you do."

She bit her lip, squinted. "Not to mention, the people of The Justice Society, they can be friends to you and family of a sort. In particular, The Flash has lost a great deal; more people died in The Flashpoint than in The Undertaking, and he did not bear it well. He has even sought solace in a hospital across the sea. You would do well to speak with him."

"Have you considered also that you carry a comrade with you who knows you as you know yourself? Even if he has fallen silent of late, that connection could hypothetically yet be nurtured."

Megan finished her cookie, and held out her hand to Jaime just as Professor Jones had.

"By no means will we walk this road all in a day. Take time to think on these things."

"But as you think, let us move along."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Had it only been an hour? It felt like longer.

Ollie put the call out.

"I need to go with Mr. Wayne," Felicity realized, even as she said it.

"A united front of philanthropic capitalists. And I'm not much use as eyes and ears and brains if comms are down."

She looked visibly displeased at this.

When the previous Ra's al Ghul had attacked then-Starling City as part of Thea's rite of ascension, she'd at least been able to help out by donning Ray's power armor, if however briefly. But she wasn't a field agent, not by a long chalk.

Hell, she still didn't have a name.

She ran her tongue around her teeth. "But if you can re-establish radio contact, I can help you from anywhere there's wi-fi, down to and including DC Jitters, you and my friends in Gotham."

Felicity touched Ollie on the shoulder, looking pained.

"It's the same old song, isn't it? They're even using the same drum-kit Malcolm Merlyn used, despite The League's claims that he'd broken their code of honor in doing so."

"Just don't... die out there. Again."

Ollie looked deeply into the eyes of the one person he truly trusted and loved beyond unconditionally. She had NEVER given up. Not once. And lord knows she had plenty of reasons to. But she was the source of his redemption. She made him want- no... need to be a better hero, a better person, a better man. Not for himself, but for them both. She brought back his soul. He had thought he was lost but somehow, she found him and dragged him back no matter how hard he fought to wallow in his own personal hell.

"We will do what we can to get comms up. Be careful. The League is dangerous. And we don't know what the end game is yet. And there is something off. I can't place it but I just feel like we are missing something."

Ollie leaned to her, pulling him into him.

"I will always come back to you. I love you."

Ollie lets his grip soften slightly as he looks to Bruce. "Keep her safe for me Bruce."

Bruce simply nods. There was something in Ollie's voice. Not his usual force of personality. For the first time in a long time Bruce heard a tremble there. He knew how much she meant to Ollie. He saw a look in his eyes that Bruce had not had for anyone in a very long time. And then his mind switched gears. He thought for a moment if Cat was okay. They had been through a lot over the years. And while things didn't quite work out for them as it has for Oliver and Felicity, he still cared for her.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Fox & Friends. (Felicity/Vixen/Artemis)

Ollie looked deeply into the eyes of the one person he truly trusted and loved beyond unconditionally. She had NEVER given up. Not once. And lord knows she had plenty of reasons to. But she was the source of his redemption. She made him want- no... need to be a better hero, a better person, a better man. Not for himself, but for them both. She brought back his soul. He had thought he was lost but somehow, she found him and dragged him back no matter how hard he fought to wallow in his own personal hell.

"We will do what we can to get comms up. Be careful. The League is dangerous. And we don't know what the end game is yet. And there is something off. I can't place it but I just feel like we are missing something."

Ollie leaned to her, pulling him into him.

"I will always come back to you. I love you."

Felicity wrapped her arms around Oliver and thudded her forehead against the same shoulder she'd just gently caressed. She clenched her eyes shut and tried to blink away tears. Tried to be stoic, like Oliver almost always was.

She was strong, strong enough to be Oliver's equal, but she was strong in a way that wore her heart on her sleeve and in her rapid-fire logorrhea.

To see Ollie display a chink, even for a moment, in his emotional armor, was as profoundly moving as it was rare.

Those three words got her right in the heart on her sleep like another legendary archer's arrow once bisected an apple on a boy's head.

"I love you too," she sniffled. "Go kick their collective ass. I love you, too."

Ollie lets his grip soften slightly as he looks to Bruce. "Keep her safe for me Bruce."

Bruce simply nods.

Felicity drew back from Ollie as his grip softened, and she too nodded to Bruce, and she wiped her sniffling nose with the back of her hand. So far as bodyguards went, she could do worse than The Big Bad Bat.

It was at that moment that Mari arrived, looking worried. "Okay, I heard something's going down in Gotham-- when do we go wheels up?"

...moments after this, John Denvers would arrive.

...and a few slightly longer moments after that, Artemis would arrive from the opposite end of the room, fully dressed but still fighting with her hair, combing out her ponytail and shaking out a few more raindrops.

Mari smirked softly at her, and gave Denvers a pointed look.

Artemis grew pink around the cheeks and refused to look at either of them straight on.

"(Okay, yeah, shut up.)"

 

[ChasNicollette]

A Modern Myth. (J'onn)

Megan finished her cookie, and held out her hand to Jaime just as Professor Jones had.

"By no means will we walk this road all in a day. Take time to think on these things."

"But as you think, let us move along."

The world blurred by like tracks shuffling on an iPod.

They were at the front of the line going into a gaudily-lit Japanese nightclub, Kanji and katakana everywhere. It had to be something like 4 in the morning here, and yet the place was still hopping. Just about everyone was cosplaying a superhero of some kind, some of them recognizable, others more along the lines of "original characters." The handiwork and dedication on the vast majority of the costumes was exquisite, as though none of them would be caught dead wearing something homespun or lackluster.

Beside Jaime, where Megan once had been, stood a diminutive Asian woman in a green blazer and black trousers, posture prim and elegant. She nodded to Jaime, as they stepped up to the doorkeeper and his imposing bouncer with their velvet rope.

"Ohayu, [gentlemen,]" she nodded to the two, speaking Japanese which Jaime somehow seamlessly heard as English. "[I am] Hino Rei [of The] Nihon Kezai Shimbun, [and this is my plus one.]"

The doorkeeper consulted his list, nodded with a grunt-- always room in this club of high-fashion high rollers for a respected reporter from Japan's largest financial newspaper-- and the bouncer drew aside the rope and allowed them entry.

Bleeding-edge J-Pop pumped through the club's speakers as they entered, lights flashed here there and everywhere, and the costumes, if it were possible, grew even more ornate. Many of the costumed people were dancing their hearts out like it was the end of the world.

But there were a few, up beyond another velvet rope in a VIP section, who regarded this environment with cool distance.

Rei glanced at Jaime, hands folded calmly in front of her as she took all of the bright colors and gyrating dancers in stride. It should have been very difficult to hear her voice over the thumping of the speakers and the shouting of the clubgoers, and yet somehow her voice carried perfectly to his ears.

"[If you do not mind,]" she intoned, "[I am providing translation for you as need be. The neurolinguistic markers already exist in your memory, interestingly enough-- residual from your Scarab's translation matrix. It makes the synaptic exchange far easier than translating for someone with no baseline for the language. How exquisite that interface must be, when it is functional.]"

Rei glanced around. "[You see before you evidence of the effect of metahuman culture. Only ten years since its rise, and it has become almost cultish in its following. Superheroes are the new celebrities-- you see hints of it now in America, with public figures like Vixen, both model and superheroine, but Japan is ahead of this curve. Already they have metahumans and costumed peak humans who are famous simply to be famous, icons in their uniforms and in their displays of power, idolized and yet indolent-- they do not see the need to perform acts of superheroism to earn their fame, they call themselves 'superheroes' and therefore 'deserve' to be famous.]"

She gestured to the VIP enclave, to the small cluster of vividly dressed "heroes" within it. "[Take, for instance, The Super Young Team, forever people devoted to glory... but unlike their venerable elders, Big Science Action, and the mysterious Kamen Rider Drive, they do not see fit to help the general public, or The Special Crimes Division. Their leader and financier, Most Excellent Super Bat, shows some small promise, but he seems to be waiting for... just the right nudge.]"

Rei squinted. "[All of the power. But only the scantest hints of responsibility.]"

 

[ChasNicollette]

"The Great Escape," by Boys Like Girls. (Rose)

They left the rooftop behind in a rush of wind and the hammering of footsteps and coruscating trails of light.

Constant-C couldn't always maintain a hold of Bart's fingers at these speeds-- she required extreme concentration in order to harden her photonic form so that it was tangible --so eventually she just let her fingers slip through his, literally through them, and they ran side by side.

The world spread around them like a sea and they skipped across its surface.

All corners of the country were but moments away.

Shining cities and amber waves of grain each rushed past with equal velocity...

...but then something caught Constant-C's eye and she...

...she had to backtrack, leaving Bart to race ahead, joyful but oblivious, bless him.

An electronics storefront with the TVs running, like, well, one would always see on TV.

All of the channels to The Godfrey Exponent.

The man was--

--after the thing with Halo's H.A.L.O. had gone down, he had been one of the chief proponents of getting her head on a silver platter. Unlike most of her detractors, however, he hadn't shut up about it when Sister Eye had dropped the footage that had outed her as a superhero and exonerated her.

"It's happening again," Godfrey blustered to the camera, "we've got our people on the ground in National City, the wreckage, all because These United States knew right where his henchwoman, his daughter was--" at this, the inset image in the corner of Godfrey's screen changed, a blurry photo of Rose standing on the chapel steps earlier that day, tear-streaked "--hiding in plain sight-- and they didn't put the thumbscrews to her, find out Christopher Grant's evil plan. Eyewitnesses saw him call out 'Supergirl'-- and now they're fighting at impossible speed and leaving untold devastation in their wake, with law-abiding citizens suffering and maybe dying."

Constant-C's photonic heart rose into her throat--

--he'd killed Robby, he'd-- he'd murdered Robby and left her alone and broken and picking up the pieces of a shattered life--

--murdered Robby--

--he was part of my soul--

Constant-C was a fearful creature. Scared of everything, a little glowing rainbow ghost scared of her own shadow.

But Chris Grant was out there killing again. Again and again and again.

And one thing frightened Rose more than anything, more than anything Constant-C could fear...

--scared her like electric heat along her photonic veins--

--the idea that Chris Grant could be free to murder anyone else--

Fear and rage.

She burned yellow. She burned red.

Her fists clenched at her sides and her knuckles bristled green.

The inset image then became a graffiti'd logo on a wooden fence: Who Watches The Watchmen?

"All of this goes to show that my guest from earlier has drunk the Krypton Kool-Aid, if this Masked Vigilante Protection Act only serves to prevent us from bringing to justice menaces like Rose Grant and her whole damn family."

Godfrey touched his earpiece, frowned. "I'm getting some new information from my central newsdesk-- they've moved on from National City, apparently having wrought enough devastation for one town-- and they've moved on to The Big Apricot, Metropolis, Kansas. We're going to do our best to connect with one of our network affiliates and get some live footage, don't go anywhere--"

Constant-C was already gone.

Metropolis.

 

[ChasNicollette]

"We Don't Need to Whisper (Full Album)," by Angels & Airwaves. (Supergirl/Rose)

Glenmorgan Square was burning, the Jumbotron cracked and showing static, the stock-tickers blank.

An elementary school in Midvale had a furrow torn through the heart of it, though all the children inside for summer school had been forcibly flung clear of the path of destruction before it could claim them. The children were still crying-- the teachers' ears still ringing from the sonic boom.

Craters pockmarked Clinton Street.

The Shuster Arena looked like it had been hit by a tornado.

And in Centennial Park, Supergirl struggled to rise from one knee, bleeding from her side, as Chris Grant used Savitar's Speed Force lightning to disrupt her bioelectric force-aura-- a new trick indeed--

--he had already wounded her deep as The Spear of Longinus by combining superheated friction with molecular vibration to simulate Vartox' Atomic Axe, and this was-- this was icing on a horrible cake indeed.

"Rrrrrrrrrhhh!" Kara growled, pushing-- the ground cracked under her-- her muscles twitching in cacophonous concert with the energies that sizzled the air--

Grant stood there, a palm thrust out ahead of him, fingers spread, grimly focused-- just as Barry Allen had once used his Speed Force lightning to defibrillate Cisco Ramon's stopped heart-- Savitar's power took this to a whole 'nother level.

And it was through this shuddering, broken city--

--towards a shuddering, wounded Girl of Steel--

--that Constant-C stormed on a wavefront of billowing photons.

As a being composed entirely of living light, Constant-C required a great deal of concentration to solidify enough to touch anything.

But now she was very, very focused.

A single white-hot point of thought drove her golden, crimson form-- knuckles and knees glowing green with her determination--

--she slammed into Chris Grant with the relative force of a coronal mass ejection, leaping to drive her knee square into the center of his chin.

With a "Haarhhh!" Savitar!Grant bounced like a skipping stone into a nearby statue of Waldo Glenmorgan, shattering it into granite fragments.

Constant-C stood there flickering for a moment, shoulders heaving, eyes blazing even brighter than the rest of her.

Beside Constant-C, Supergirl straightened, shaking out her twitching muscles-- the gash in her side healed almost immediately now that her physiology was no longer under assault.

Even as she seethed, Constant-C glanced at The Girl of Tomorrow beside her, and-- despite everything, despite the yellow fear and the red fury that ruled her, the sight of Supergirl-- still standing, still strong, still super--

--for a moment, at the sight of her--

--Constant-C glowed blue like Supergirl's uniform.

Blue like hope.

There was half a heartbeat there where they met each others' gaze, and in that moment they knew they were on the same side, whatever the backstory.

Supergirl's eyes narrowed slightly, then widened. "I can see your individual photons-- you're made of light-- he can't manipulate the motion of light like he can solid things--" she flung out her hand, pointed at Savitar!Grant as he stumbled out of the statue's wreckage, already healing "--hit him!"

Constant-C's hands curled into fists again, and she nodded sharply before flying at Savitar!Grant once more with those fists cocked.

"Hittinghim."

 

[ChasNicollette]

"The War," by Angels & Airwaves. (Supergirl/Rose)

Constant-C arced across the distance between herself and Savitar!Grant like a bolt from the blue.

She flared red like a lost sun as her fists shone green and they jackhammered her father around his skull, his arms, his chest, a strobe light of haymakers.

Savitar!Grant staggered under the onslaught, barely able to keep his arms up over his head-- directing all his energy to healing as his inertial forcefield was useless against a being with no physical mass--

"YoukilledhimyoukilledmyRobbyyoukilledhimyoukilledhimyoukilledhim--"

"--allheeverwantedtodo--"

"--washelppeople--"

"--snappedhimlikeatwig!"

"Q..." Savitar!Grant growled even as she battered at him like a lucent prizefighter, "E... D."

"Shutthefuckup," Constant-C snarled, not a trace of fear in her now, she was a being of will and of righteous indignation as she slammed her elbow into the back of his head and her knee into his gut.

Savitar!Grant wheezed and coughed up blood and laughed. "Taught him a lesson. Taught you a lesson-- a lesson all fathers should teach their daughters."

She kicked him across the face and he flipped ass over teakettle.

"There's no reward in this life for the heroic. Self-sacrifice has no victory. Martyrs are just as dead as any murder victim."

"Hhhnnnah!" She kicked him so hard he carved a trough across the surface of the Centennial Park Reservoir and she was on him again before he could stand up, racing across the watery wake of his passage with all the effortlessness of a flashlight beam bouncing off of a mirror.

"This universe is a black hole waiting to fall in on itself and not even your light can escape."

Constant-C's fist ramjetted into his ribcage, ribs buckled, she drew her fist back, his ribs popped back into shape, she punched him again--

"It'll eat you alive. The biggest favor I could ever do you is teach you that. Better to give up that life in service of The Dark Side. If I can't teach you that... well, my Master surely will."

Billowing photonic tears rolled down Constant-C's cheeks, tears of rage and despair and her fists still flew--

--but her right hook carved the air and with bloody-gummed teeth gritted Savitar!Grant tilted his head out of the way and kept laughing--

"You're just playacting at being a hero because you have no stuff and no substance, you have no direction or identity-- Robby knew who he was and he was a better hero than you'll ever be, and look how easily The Master's faithful servant chewed him up and spit him out."

She fired a kick at him, and he blocked its emerald leading surface with a forearm, his arm almost snapped but still he took the impact--

"You're roadkill, Victoria Rose Grant. You're just not done twitching yet."

It was true it was true it was true the words screamed in her head-- she spent so much time helping other people and with other people and as other people she had no idea who she was, Robby had always been good clever brilliant beautiful Robby and what good had that done him--

--Constant-C felt panic well up in the pit of her luminal stomach and she-- hesitated--

--her next punch missed by a mile and the one after that passed through Savitar!Grant's face like she wasn't even there--

--and he hit her with a crushing backhand that blew right through her form when she was semi-tangible and knocked her hurtling back into the statue of The Metropolis Blue Stockings and out the other side like a ghost.

She hit the ground with a gasp and a wince and--

SWOOOSH.

Rose Grant lay on the broken-bladed grass, the wind knocked out of her, and in a nanofraction of an eyeblink her father was standing over her with a knife-hand vibrating with a hum alone that could cut glass.

"You had potential as a Dialer. When I found a way to unleash a signal and change all Dials on this Earth to Villain Dials, you would have been an effective henchwoman."

"But I suppose you'll be functional enough as a remote drone even lobotomized."

The world turned into a slow-motion crawl as that knife-hand plunged for her forehead and panic raced up her spine-- and in a strange detached instant Rose wondered which would get there first...

...and then Supergirl was between them, launching in from the side and taking Savitar!Grant's hit straight to the heart, drilling through her "S"-shield and kicking up sparks as it carved into her sternum...

"...nnnhhhhahhhh!"

Savitar!Grant grimaced as he ramped up the friction-heat and vibration to again cut open The Girl of Steel like she was tissue paper. "You know, I once bragged that you wouldn't be able to stand against me, Last Daughter of Krypton. What a wonderful object lesson to have Rose witness this in person."

Kara scowled at him.

Her eyes flashed and heat scorched his face, driving him back--

--again, again he healed, protected from the worst of the damage by the same Speed Force aura that defended his body against that selfsame friction--

--and as Kara's own body fought against her own damage, she called back over her shoulder to the fallen Rose.

"Miss Grant! Now might be a very good time to Dial!"

Rose took a breath, and for all the trepidation and misdirection that snarled up her thoughts, that suggestion cut through clear as crystal.

The H-rune blazed up at her.

Her hand slapped down onto it.

Constant-C could hurt her Dad's Villain ectype, put him on the ropes, she needed Constant-C again, come on, come on, three in a row, three in a row--

SWOOOSH.

 

[ChasNicollette]

"Valkyrie Missile," by Angels & Airwaves. (Supergirl/Rose)

The emerald light cleared, the dust settled.

She wasn't Constant-C.

"I'm Valkyrie M!"

Tall, blonde, slender, brave, smoking like a chimney swearing like a sailor--

--Valkyrie M had been the first ectype, the first Hero that Rose had ever Dialed.

And ever since then, Dialing her had been like coming home, slipping on a perfect glove.

Courage and determination suffused her-- childhood training to be a superhero even before she got her powers--

Valkyrie M shot to her feet in a burst of antigrav flight and slammed the heels of her red-gloved hands together, cupping them, Kamehamehadouken.

"Oi! Supergirl!" she snarled in a Liverpudlian-Cockney fusion accent. "GET OUT UV THE WAY!"

Supergirl quirked a brow and blurred sideways--

--Savitar!Grant's eyelids had been welded shut by Kara's heat vision but they healed and snapped open just in time--

--for a column of flame the girth of a redwood trunk to blast him practically halfway to Bakerline.

FOOOM!

He rolled to his feet a moment later, skin steaming, skin growing back, looked up to see those two ladies dressed in red and blue and standing side-by-side, and he laughed to himself a long, slow, wondering laugh. Who did they think they were?

"Oh, now."

"Now we're cooking with gas."

 

[ChasNicollette]

"Do It For Me Now," by Angels and Airwaves. (Supergirl/Rose)

"I never understood," Savitar!Grant noted, as he sidestepped a pyrokinetic explosion so quickly it looked like his afterimage had gotten consumed--

--Supergirl came at him with a series of blinding haymakers but they always seemed to miss him by just-- that-- much--

--Valkyrie M swooped past unleashing a literal hail of blade-sharp icy shuriken, flying fast and furious as M-60 rounds, but they stopped before they hit him and clattered to the ground--

--"how the supposedly venerable Flash," Savitar!Grant continued, blasting Valkyrie M with a cyclone from one windmilling arm even as he drove back Supergirl with another bolt of Speed Force lightning from the other, "could ever be stymied by the likes of Captain Cold or Heatwave, given his vast advantages--"

--reeling in the air, bleeding from the corner of her mouth, Valkyrie M raised her hands and curled them into fists, and lightning of her own crackled, lightning that dripped icicles--

--Savitar!Grant's legs were near-instantly encased in solid ice and Supergirl came at him with an elbow drop while he was pinned in place but he threw up a hand to redirect her momentum thudding deep into the Kansas loess and glacial erratics almost to the bedrock--

--but then Valkyrie M's next fireblast caught him amidships, shattering his legs' icy prison and blowing him ass over teakettle--

He rolled to his feet, shook out the ringing in his ears, grimaced. "--but taken both together I can see how they would prove an annoyance."

Savitar!Grant launched at Valkyrie M, fist cocked to pulverize her heart, but Supergirl exploded from the earth at his feet and he had to change direction instantly to evade her--

--darting into a patch of ice that hadn't been there instants before, skidding unexpectedly for a full microsecond before he reasserted control of his momentum, steadied--

--Supergirl hit him from behind like a piledriver, grabbed him by one arm and hurled him sideways like cracking the whip--

--into the line of fire as Valkyrie M came down with both hands spamming fireblasts like she was dual-wielding shotguns--

--roaring with displeasure, Savitar!Grant stomped hard enough to kick up silt from the ground and with a wave of his hand blew that silt into Valkyrie M's face--

--she was able to burn most of it from the air before it reached her but in the fractions of a second this took her Savitar!Grant whirled, kicked Supergirl across the face with an "Atomic Axe" kick, scorching her cheekbone bald of flesh--

--and he blasted himself off of the ground with a thunderclap of wind, propelling himself airborne at the flying Hero-Dialer, exploding through the fire that scorched the silt from the air and slamming a forearm into the side of Valkyrie M's skull--

"Hnnnahhh!" Valkyrie M felt the world go sideways as she and Savitar!Grant crashed to the ground together, even with the physical resilience of a supersoldier that was like getting clipped by a bullet-train--

--her skull was fractured, her teeth loosened, the whole world ringing and spinning, and he was standing over her as she was sprawled on the ground with his quivering fingers ready to spear her frontal lobe--

"NO!" Kara roared as she staggered to her feet, her flawless face already healing, and her eyes blazed--

--her heat vision lasered up his spine from his lumbar to his cervical and Savitar!Grant roared with pain and aggravation, arching his back--

--barely conscious, Valkyrie M still managed to get her hands up in front of her and FOOOOM!

--blasted him straight up into the air--

--inertial control, he roared with effort, stopped himself from flying too high, stopped himself in mid-air--

--Supergirl hit him amidships with a shoulder check with plenty of elbow, bouncing him right back down into that crater he'd hurled her into making earlier--

"GRRAAAHHHHH!" he screamed as he plummeted out of view--

--Kara landed next to Valkyrie M, shot out a hand to help her up-- "We've got maybe a second-- I need you to freeze him. Solid."

"Consider it done, luv," Valkyrie M replied with a brisk but shaky nod, reached for that hand, didn't quite graze her fingers--

--and then Supergirl vanished away from her as a streaking bolt of berserk Savitar!Grant stampeded over her, dragging her away, pounding her head into the ground with hypersonic punch after hypersonic punch--

"THAT'S. QUITE. ENOUGH. OUT. OF. YOU!"

--Supergirl held up her arms protectively over her head as Savitar!Grant rained down a hurricane of punches, not a hurricane but a hypercane--

Valkyrie M lurched to her feet--

"--we're just gettin' warmed up, yeh poxy-arsed berk--"

--true to her word flame cannoned from her fists, blowing craters into Savitar!Grant's shoulder-blades and blowing him head over heels--

--but even as he landed, even as he healed, Valkyrie M's frozen lightning crackled--

--ice enclosed him in an instant as the temperature of the air bottomed out around him--

--his own lightning fought back, he crackled and vibrated free, just like when Kara had freeze-breathed him back in National City, total molecular control--

--it took less than a second, he got free fast enough to notice that Supergirl was no longer laying where he'd been punching her on the ground--

--but not fast enough to yank her momentum away as she blasted at him at ground level, maximum velocity, both fists out in front of her--

--she couldn't hit near-lightspeed to gather mass like he'd done but she was a Kryptonian, her molecular density was already massive--

--BOOOM--

--and she punched him into a suborbital parabola.

Staggering visibly, Supergirl nevertheless grimaced skyward, following his arc with her superlative eyes. "See how you like it. Welcome back to Utah, you son of a bitch."

Valkyrie M landed beside her, clutching her own head with one hand, panic in her gaze, pleading in her voice. "We-- that's not gonna stop him-- that's not nearly bluddy enough-- we have to go after him--"

Supergirl stared worriedly at the Hero-Dialer, had been about to tell her to stand down while she went and finished him off--

--but then she knew that look in Valkyrie M's eyes, she'd had that look in her eyes when facing The General of Fort Rozz for the first time, in her mother's name--

Her hand wrapped around Valkyrie M's. "Okay. Hold on."

And with Centennial Park in burning, pockmarked ruins, the two superheroines knifed up into the sky.

 

[ChasNicollette]

"Behold a Pale Horse," by Angels & Airwaves. (Supergirl/Rose)

By the time they landed, he was gone.

There was a crater in the Bonneville Salt Flats not far from where Supergirl had crashed earlier, but no sign of Savitar!Grant himself.

Only a message--

--carved out in the salt of the flats in the molten footprints of his superspeed, in massive enough letters that it could only be read from the sky.

ALL.
IS.
ONE.

"No," Valkyrie M breathed as she sank to her knees on the ground, her whole body aching in concert with her heart. "No... no... we... we stopped him... we kept him from doing... whatever he was doing... he can't get away and try again! We can't let him kill anyone else!"

She whipped her head around to stare wide-eyed at Supergirl. "Can't yeh use your super-senses-- your-- cosmic awareness-- find him?"

Kara looked wearily out at the salt flats, and then glanced at Valkyrie M. "I've been trying. It's-- not working. There's a leftover flicker of a particle shift just here..." she pointed... "I remember seeing it around him when he Dialed Savitar, I think it means he changed forms again. And then... here..." she pointed to a spot further up in the sky, about ten yards off the ground, "...there's a folded-spacial flux, residual ambient matter. I think it might be magical, a teleportation displacement. But I'm not seeing a matching signature anywhere on Earth. Either he hasn't come back out yet... or he's landed somewhere behind lead... or he's left the planet."

Valkyrie M scrunched her eyes shut, the bottom dropping out of her world all over again, all the catharsis at beating on her miserable psychotic old man gone and gone away. "No."

And then.

SWOOOSH.

She was Rose again.

And she was crying, tears streaking her face, fingernails scraping at the salt of the ground beneath her. "No."

Kara sank to one knee beside Rose, touched her back.

"We'll get him. I promise. Okay? I know about what happened with you, from the news and the other members of The Justice Society-- from Felicity. I know what he did to you-- to your boyfriend."

Rose shoulders shook, and she didn't answer.

Kara turned her gaze out into the world, eyes that could circle the globe. "They always get away until they don't. We'll catch him."

"And every life he takes until we do, Robby's included," Rose mumbled, "that's on me, it's always on me. I don't know who I am, who I'm born to be, but until I beat him that's all I am-- I'm a monument to all his sins."

Kara closed her eyes and sighed heavily. "That's the life we lead. That's the calling we answer. Saving the day-- it's the greatest triumph you can imagine. But this is the cost. Can you stand it? Can you stand up under it? Be honest with yourself. Better to walk away now, knowing your limits, than to buckle when the world is counting on you."

Rose was quiet for a long, long moment.

"Yeah."

Her voice was thick with emotion, but there was... there was a shift in tone, a hardness that Kara hadn't heard before in Rose when she'd spoken.

"Yeah. I can stand up under it. I can pick it up and throw it back in his face."

"I have to."

Kara nodded quietly. "Okay. We can help you with that. It's what we're here for, Miss Grant."

Rose smiled faintly at her. "It's funny-- it's funny to hear you call me 'Miss Grant.' You, of all people, calling me by an honorific."

Kara smirked faintly, goodnaturedly. "That phrase kind of rolls off my tongue, doesn't it? Funny story, maybe I'll tell you someday."

Rose's watch lit up green, then, on her wrist, and she glanced at it with surprise, especially when she realized it didn't display the H-rune. "What?"

Instead, the watch briefly read, in that runic language that seemingly only Rose could understand:

[Twelfth ectype unlocked.]

And then it went dark again.

Rose stared for a moment. And blinked. "Wait, twelfth? When did I get an eleventh?"

 

[Nevyn_Black]

The world blurred by like tracks shuffling on an iPod.

They were at the front of the line going into a gaudily-lit Japanese nightclub, Kanji and katakana everywhere. It had to be something like 4 in the morning here, and yet the place was still hopping. Just about everyone was cosplaying a superhero of some kind, some of them recognizable, others more along the lines of "original characters." The handiwork and dedication on the vast majority of the costumes was exquisite, as though none of them would be caught dead wearing something homespun or lackluster.

Beside Jaime, where Megan once had been, stood a diminutive Asian woman in a green blazer and black trousers, posture prim and elegant. She nodded to Jaime, as they stepped up to the doorkeeper and his imposing bouncer with their velvet rope.

"Ohayu, [gentlemen,]" she nodded to the two, speaking Japanese which Jaime somehow seamlessly heard as English. "[I am] Hino Rei [of The] Nihon Kezai Shimbun, [and this is my plus one.]"

The doorkeeper consulted his list, nodded with a grunt-- always room in this club of high-fashion high rollers for a respected reporter from Japan's largest financial newspaper-- and the bouncer drew aside the rope and allowed them entry.

Bleeding-edge J-Pop pumped through the club's speakers as they entered, lights flashed here there and everywhere, and the costumes, if it were possible, grew even more ornate. Many of the costumed people were dancing their hearts out like it was the end of the world.

But there were a few, up beyond another velvet rope in a VIP section, who regarded this environment with cool distance.

Rei glanced at Jaime, hands folded calmly in front of her as she took all of the bright colors and gyrating dancers in stride. It should have been very difficult to hear her voice over the thumping of the speakers and the shouting of the clubgoers, and yet somehow her voice carried perfectly to his ears.

"[If you do not mind,]" she intoned, "[I am providing translation for you as need be. The neurolinguistic markers already exist in your memory, interestingly enough-- residual from your Scarab's translation matrix. It makes the synaptic exchange far easier than translating for someone with no baseline for the language. How exquisite that interface must be, when it is functional.]"

Rei glanced around. "[You see before you evidence of the effect of metahuman culture. Only ten years since its rise, and it has become almost cultish in its following. Superheroes are the new celebrities-- you see hints of it now in America, with public figures like Vixen, both model and superheroine, but Japan is ahead of this curve. Already they have metahumans and costumed peak humans who are famous simply to be famous, icons in their uniforms and in their displays of power, idolized and yet indolent-- they do not see the need to perform acts of superheroism to earn their fame, they call themselves 'superheroes' and therefore 'deserve' to be famous.]"

She gestured to the VIP enclave, to the small cluster of vividly dressed "heroes" within it. "[Take, for instance, The Super Young Team, forever people devoted to glory... but unlike their venerable elders, Big Science Action, and the mysterious Kamen Rider Drive, they do not see fit to help the general public, or The Special Crimes Division. Their leader and financier, Most Excellent Super Bat, shows some small promise, but he seems to be waiting for... just the right nudge.]"

Rei squinted. "[All of the power. But only the scantest hints of responsibility.]"

Jaime looked around at all the costumed people. The glitz and glamour meant little to him, as such things really never had. He found a rising anger within him.

"They do....nothing? While people die. While lives are torn apart, cities demolished and they just...stand around drinking champagne and getting pictures taken?"

Despite the mistakes he had made, Jaime had never simply stood by and allowed innocent people to suffer when he could do something about it. Even without super powers, or alien technology, he had always tried his best to help protect people.

"How can they do this? How can they be allowed to do this?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Kings and Queens. (J'onn)

Jaime looked around at all the costumed people. The glitz and glamour meant little to him, as such things really never had. He found a rising anger within him.

"They do....nothing? While people die. While lives are torn apart, cities demolished and they just...stand around drinking champagne and getting pictures taken?"

Despite the mistakes he had made, Jaime had never simply stood by and allowed innocent people to suffer when he could do something about it. Even without super powers, or alien technology, he had always tried his best to help protect people.

"How can they do this? How can they be allowed to do this?"

Rei watched Jaime blister and bluster, watched his heartrate as it increased, tasted the increase in certain pheromones in his sweat on the air-- Martian senses were vastly acute, and she was a trained observer. Perhaps not quite as crusading reporter as one might find on Metropolis' Daily Planet, certain Loises Lane, Chloes Sullivan, or Lindas Danvers, but nevertheless, Hino Rei was quite the scout. And she smiled, ever so faintly-- it might take a trained observer like, say, a Quantico-trained former FBI agent to notice the micro-expression.

"[I always endeavor to think the best of humanity,]" Rei noted, "[to remain optimistic about their potential. But it is still potential. For the very most part, for the average human being, while they will work for a reward, attain a goal through the expenditure of their own blood, sweat, and tears, if they can achieve the goal with less expenditure, or receive the reward for no work... win a lottery, get discovered by Hollywood, most would jump at this chance.]"

"[This righteous indignation you feel,]" she gestured to the vicinity of his heart, "[is called 'honor,' or] 'giri.' ['The burden hardest to bear.'] Samurai [would train their whole lives to bear that burden, and not all truly succeeded. Only precious few members of humanity would take on that burden willingly. In the various Abrahamic Scriptures, there is mention made of a 'Remnant,' a fraction of humanity that spared The Earth from wrath because their were faithful when all else were faithless. A certain Demon's Head uses this concept as her inspiration for remaking her faction of The Shadows. A glimmer of that which is good in this world to keep it safe until it becomes a better place.]"

She turned her gaze upon his face, that micro-smirk still in place. "[And yet for you it is second nature to heft this burden. To see dishonor and cry out. To see despair and destruction and stand against it, even to your own detriment and martyrdom. It does not occur to you that anyone else should think differently-- you feel your second nature should be human nature.]"

"[Raymond Chandler spoke of 'a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it and certainly without saying it,']" Rei quoted philosophically. "['He is the hero. He is everything.']"

 

[Nevyn_Black]

Zack Hemsey- The Way

Rei watched Jaime blister and bluster, watched his heartrate as it increased, tasted the increase in certain pheromones in his sweat on the air-- Martian senses were vastly acute, and she was a trained observer. Perhaps not quite as crusading reporter as one might find on Metropolis' Daily Planet, certain Loises Lane, Chloes Sullivan, or Lindas Danvers, but nevertheless, Hino Rei was quite the scout. And she smiled, ever so faintly-- it might take a trained observer like, say, a Quantico-trained former FBI agent to notice the micro-expression.

"[I always endeavor to think the best of humanity,]" Rei noted, "[to remain optimistic about their potential. But it is still potential. For the very most part, for the average human being, while they will work for a reward, attain a goal through the expenditure of their own blood, sweat, and tears, if they can achieve the goal with less expenditure, or receive the reward for no work... win a lottery, get discovered by Hollywood, most would jump at this chance.]"

"[This righteous indignation you feel,]" she gestured to the vicinity of his heart, "[is called 'honor,' or] 'giri.' ['The burden hardest to bear.'] Samurai [would train their whole lives to bear that burden, and not all truly succeeded. Only precious few members of humanity would take on that burden willingly. In the various Abrahamic Scriptures, there is mention made of a 'Remnant,' a fraction of humanity that spared The Earth from wrath because their were faithful when all else were faithless. A certain Demon's Head uses this concept as her inspiration for remaking her faction of The Shadows. A glimmer of that which is good in this world to keep it safe until it becomes a better place.]"

She turned her gaze upon his face, that micro-smirk still in place. "[And yet for you it is second nature to heft this burden. To see dishonor and cry out. To see despair and destruction and stand against it, even to your own detriment and martyrdom. It does not occur to you that anyone else should think differently-- you feel your second nature should be human nature.]"

"[Raymond Chandler spoke of 'a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it and certainly without saying it,']" Rei quoted philosophically. "['He is the hero. He is everything.']"

And standing there, in that moment, so far from the world and life that Jaime had known, he felt something flutter deep down inside himself. A small beat, like a drum calling the soldier to war, like the voice of the heart, revealing a truth.

Turning away from the pampered, spoiled celebrity 'super heroes', Jaime Reyes felt hot tears spill from his eyes. He whispered. "I'm no better than them, am I?"

"I should be out there, fighting, right now. Or in the Brownstone with Felicity, using my mind and training to help. anything but standing here, feeling sorry for myself and avoiding the responsibility."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Felicity wrapped her arms around Oliver and thudded her forehead against the same shoulder she'd just gently caressed. She clenched her eyes shut and tried to blink away tears. Tried to be stoic, like Oliver almost always was.

She was strong, strong enough to be Oliver's equal, but she was strong in a way that wore her heart on her sleeve and in her rapid-fire logorrhea.

To see Ollie display a chink, even for a moment, in his emotional armor, was as profoundly moving as it was rare.

Those three words got her right in the heart on her sleep like another legendary archer's arrow once bisected an apple on a boy's head.

"I love you too," she sniffled. "Go kick their collective ass. I love you, too."



Felicity drew back from Ollie as his grip softened, and she too nodded to Bruce, and she wiped her sniffling nose with the back of her hand. So far as bodyguards went, she could do worse than The Big Bad Bat.

It was at that moment that Mari arrived, looking worried. "Okay, I heard something's going down in Gotham-- when do we go wheels up?"

...moments after this, John Denvers would arrive.

...and a few slightly longer moments after that, Artemis would arrive from the opposite end of the room, fully dressed but still fighting with her hair, combing out her ponytail and shaking out a few more raindrops.

Mari smirked softly at her, and gave Denvers a pointed look.

Artemis grew pink around the cheeks and refused to look at either of them straight on.

"(Okay, yeah, shut up.)"


Ollie looked around the room. "Felicity and Bruce are heading to DC. I am leading an insurgency team to get feet on the ground in Gotham. First order is to try to get some means of communication up. Once we can find the local authorities, we lend a hand however we can. This is volunteer only. It appears that the US Government is moving to declare Gotham a no mans land. Which means we are on our own out there if they succeed and things can get very ugly. I am going to have Diggle and the kids keep a hand here in Star. If we all go running off it leaves Star City vulnerable and we can't have that. I have already sent word to Barry. He is going to cover Central and Keystone for the time being. Again, I don't want anywhere to be left unprotected. If Nyssa and her League are making a move like this, they may spread. So. Lets move."

Oliver doesn't wait for discussion. He knows they will do what they need to do.

An hour later the members of the insurgence team boards one of the high speed jets Ray had designed. It would take them only a couple hours to fly directly to Gotham. Unfortunately, that wasn't an option. But Bruce had that covered. By the time they landed, their next transport, a submarine designed to slice through all known detection means, was fueled and waiting.

Only 5 hours after leaving the Brownstone, they arrived in Gotham Harbor. As they breached the surface, they saw what had become of the city. It looked like something out of a post apocalyptic nightmare. Large portions of the city were in shambles. Many residents had taken to the water in all manner of boats, rafts and anything else that would float, trying to avoid the Markov Devices.

"The League will pay for this. But for now we have work to do. We can't allow our emotions to take over."

As the sub dips down and manuevers through the waters of the harbor they reach an underwater hatchway Bruce had installed years before. Dick pilots the vessel through the underground river and they emerge beneath the Batcave.

"This way. Stay on the walkways. And behind me." Dick leads the team as they disembark. As they reach the elevator a laser array scans Dick. "Designation: Nightwing. Clearance Beta 1. Temporary clearance Omega for my associates please Oracle." As the laser array scans the team a face emerges formed with the same lasers and slides into the large elevator with them.

"Welcome home Master. I have initiated the fallout program in the cave and am in the main room." The elderly man's face surveys the team. "I see he has plans elsewhere?"

"He is in DC with Mrs. Queen Alfred. They are handling the diplomatic situation. Any word from anyone?"

"Afraid not sir. Communications went down quite dramatically. Once it was clear what was a foot I set things in motion. I have been monitoring what I can but there isn't a lot that could be done from here. Shall I ready the car sir?"

"Not yet. I think we want to keep our presence unknown for the time being. When it is time, we will make our statement."

"Of course sir. I have taken liberty to set a meal for the team in the main planning room. Make yourselves at home. I will be returning to the monitor room in case the Commissioner or one of our other allies finds a way to reach out."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Alibi. (J'onn)

And standing there, in that moment, so far from the world and life that Jaime had known, he felt something flutter deep down inside himself. A small beat, like a drum calling the soldier to war, like the voice of the heart, revealing a truth.

Turning away from the pampered, spoiled celebrity 'super heroes', Jaime Reyes felt hot tears spill from his eyes. He whispered. "I'm no better than them, am I?"

"I should be out there, fighting, right now. Or in the Brownstone with Felicity, using my mind and training to help. anything but standing here, feeling sorry for myself and avoiding the responsibility."

"[Are you avoiding the responsibility?]" Hino Rei wondered. "[Are you no better than them? I thought perhaps the purpose of your quest was to return to the fray, to the front lines, to restore your ability to fight the good fight to the best of your ability. I thought perhaps your tear-streaked face was a sign of more emotional maturity than these celebrity-hungry] otaku. [Was I wrong?]"

But before Jaime could say anything, a tiny shape flitted past his face...

...a literally tiny-- bird-sized! --blonde-haired Japanese young woman with yellow, feathery wings, dressed in a schoolgirl outfit that bared her midriff as the blouse was knotted under her breasts. Crazy Shy Lolita Canary, one of The Super Young Team.

She swooped low in front of Jaime's face, and she searched his features, her language translated by Rei's telepathy: "[Oh, pretty] gai-jin [boy, I have been watching you since you came in, and it breaks my heart to see you cry! It is okay, not everyone has powers or a fancy costume...]"

She wafted low, reached for his hand, went to pull him towards the VIP area like Tinkerbell might tug on Peter Pan. "[Come, come with me, you can be my sidekick for a little while, I'll take you on an adventure. Do you have an icon or power you wish to have? Do you have a special secret identity name? Most Excellent Super Bat is superhumanly wealthy, he can make you a special suit so you can play with us!]"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Flying Foxes. (Vixen/Artemis)

Only 5 hours after leaving the Brownstone, they arrived in Gotham Harbor. As they breached the surface, they saw what had become of the city. It looked like something out of a post apocalyptic nightmare. Large portions of the city were in shambles. Many residents had taken to the water in all manner of boats, rafts and anything else that would float, trying to avoid the Markov Devices.

"Jesus," Mari murmured, half-ready to reach for her Totem, ready to go DOLPHIN or some other aquatic creature, ready to play lifeguard.

And she couldn't help but thinking-- what if the perimeter doesn't hold, what if this "No Man's Land" boundary doesn't keep the devastation in? What if it spreads to Newark, to New York City?

Once upon a time, Mari reflected, a little birdie told me to settle down in Detroit, Detroit could use a hero. Now I wish I'd listened.

Artemis didn't say a word as she gripped her bow with two white-knuckled hands. Desperately, vainly, she searched the skyline-- tried to pick out the Gotham Heights neighborhood, was it burning, was it still standing?

Mom.

"The League will pay for this. But for now we have work to do. We can't allow our emotions to take over."

Mari lowered her hand, and nodded grimly. They had to be clear-headed.

It was harder for Artemis-- she bit down hard on her own emotions, her panic, her anger. Normally her hotheaded nature fueled her in battle, Ollie had taught her more than a little calm but-- but her calm was very damaged right now.

Oh, God. Mom.

It wasn't like Paula was completely defenseless. She had been the goddamn Tigress, for goddamn sake. She could still kick plenty of ass with her upper body alone.

But all Artemis could think of was her mom pinned under earthquake rubble and her wheelchair and dread gripped her heart.

As the sub dips down and manuevers through the waters of the harbor they reach an underwater hatchway Bruce had installed years before. Dick pilots the vessel through the underground river and they emerge beneath the Batcave.

"This way. Stay on the walkways. And behind me." Dick leads the team as they disembark.

Mari grinned faintly into the shadows of The Cave-- she could feel the hordes of bats out there, disgruntled by the seismic activity up above. She tried to send calming thoughts in their direction, but there were a lot of them and they were very muddled and disoriented.

Artemis, meanwhile, squinted this way and that. "This place could not be more cliche." Okay, somewhere inside her embittered heart she was impressed that this place was so much bigger and better equipped than The ArrowCave, but ancient, dark, brooding, it was like it had been ripped from the illustrations of some faded pulp novel.

She suddenly wished Barbara was here. Out of anyone in this place, Barbara was the only one she'd connected with, even if that connection had involved a lot of false starts and aggression. She absently touched the commlink Barbara had given her six weeks ago.

As they reach the elevator a laser array scans Dick. "Designation: Nightwing. Clearance Beta 1. Temporary clearance Omega for my associates please Oracle." As the laser array scans the team a face emerges formed with the same lasers and slides into the large elevator with them.

"Welcome home Master. I have initiated the fallout program in the cave and am in the main room." The elderly man's face surveys the team. "I see he has plans elsewhere?"

Artemis flinched at the talking holographic head. Who was this old guy and whose terrible idea was it to put his brain algorithms into the computer?

"He is in DC with Mrs. Queen Alfred. They are handling the diplomatic situation. Any word from anyone?"

"Afraid not sir. Communications went down quite dramatically. Once it was clear what was a foot I set things in motion. I have been monitoring what I can but there isn't a lot that could be done from here. Shall I ready the car sir?"

"Not yet. I think we want to keep our presence unknown for the time being. When it is time, we will make our statement."

"Of course sir. I have taken liberty to set a meal for the team in the main planning room. Make yourselves at home. I will be returning to the monitor room in case the Commissioner or one of our other allies finds a way to reach out."

Artemis looked like she was going to pop an artery.

"We're-- we're eating? We're sitting and eating like it's Sunday dinner? Nightwing, I've just spent five hours in one compressed metal tube or another worrying sick about my mom, and we're just gonna have a snack, juice and crackers and crayons?"

Her gaze snapped to Oliver. "Arrow, tell me he's not serious. Tell him he's not serious!"