Supergirl: Identity

[TearsoftheWorld]

This is the IC version of the thread. Please do not post here unless approved of in the OOC

OOC: http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?p=28022966#post28022966

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Gotham City - Late at night

Men, women and children huddled together in the cold night of Gotham City, trying their best to survive on what little they could scrape together. Though the Dark Knight continued to do all that he could to keep the streets clean, crime and poverty continued to reign supreme.

In Gotham Bay, a strange sight took place that rocked the city the likes of which hadn't been seen since The Joker first began his crime spree many years ago: a meteor had struck the Earth, crashing into the water outside the city. Batman, though busy elsewhere, had been alerted to the presence of the meteor falling towards Earth, and he had already made arrangements to check it out. Normally Bruce Wayne had better things to do than check out falling rocks. Yet several red flags had been raised when he discovered that the meteor contained irradiated traces of Kryptonite.

What Batman was unaware of, however, was that the meteor rock also contained a Kryptonian ship, holding within it the body of a young girl.

Kara Zor-El had finally arrived on Earth.

Now free from the spaceship, Kara quickly pushed aside its doors and she came out into the cold, dark water that surrounded her vessel. High above, after breaking through the surface of the water, she saw the pale moon, a few clouds passing over it.

Was this the planet her father had spoken to her about?

Far in the distance she could make out the soft, red glow of Gotham City, its tall buildings looking darker than even the night sky itself. Wind caused the waves around her to break sharply, and she quickly became aware that a plane had landed on the water not too far from where her ship had landed. Kara looked off in its direction, and as the hatch opened up she saw a masked figure stand up in the cockpit, holding a flashlight. Moving away from her ship, Kara swam as silently as she could, watching this strange man with intense curiosity and suspicion.

He momentarily left his plane, moving to investigate the floating ship that was covered in Kryptonian symbols. Most of them seemed to be glittering and shifting shapes, though in his dealings with Superman he had come to recognize some of them.

Suddenly a roaring sound could be heard from his ship, and turning around Batman was forced to watch as his plane took off, moving back towards the city. Inside Kara had managed to get the plane started, though her inexperience with its controls caused her to crash it somewhere on the outskirts of Gotham. Disembarking the ruined ship, Kara began wandering the streets, naked and muttering to herself in Kryptonian.

After a little while of just simply wandering the dark alleys, Kara finally came across two humans who were loitering outside what seemed to be a down-trodden pub. Obviously intoxicated, they quickly set their sights on the young, and very naked, Kryptonian girl. She glared at them angrily, and when one of the two men went to grab her arm she quickly took hold of his hand, crushing his fingers. Immediately he cried out in agonizing pain, and yet Kara Zor-El continued to stare him down.

Out of the corner of her eyes she saw something shimmer for a moment, and a metal bar soon came crashing down against her exposed shoulder blade. Unlike a human, Kara felt absolutely no pain at all from the attack.

She felt nothing...

Bewildered, the assailant stared at the now bent pipe in his hands, and his eyes soon met up with the cold stare from Kara.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Wonder Woman and Valkyrie M

Themysciran Embassy.
Manhattan, New York.
A few minutes previous.​

Diana stood gazing out at Fifth Avenue and, across the street, at Central Park, the adorable view afforded by the window of her office. She smiled softly as the Bluetooth earpiece she wore chatted amiably with her. Her conversation was with an old friend.

"Well, I'm glad The Nereids have finally made themselves useful," she noted, with wry humour. "I take it those dolphins gave you my message?"

The gruff fellow on the other end of the line affirmed this.

"Good," Diana nodded cheerfully. "Well, tell Mera I said 'hello,' and the next time you see Kon-El, go a tiny bit easier on him, for Kal's sake if nothing else."

At the mention of Mera, the gruff fellow almost mellowed somewhat. (Almost.) But at the mention of Kon-El, he got considerably gruffer: 'No promises.'

"Fair enough, I suppose," Diana allowed, chuckling. "Have a good night, Arthur. Tethys be with you."

'And Father Neptune with you.'

She deactivated the earpiece with a soft tak and removed it, turning from the windows to set it down on her desk.

Rose stood there, waiting patiently, dressed in her standard outfit of businesslike slacks and jacket and rebellious Britpunk t-shirt. Her ruddy blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail. There was a cigarette tucked behind her left ear, and a PDA in one hand and a coffee mug in the other.

Diana, meanwhile, wore her uniform of office, the armoured ceremonial garb of The Wonder Woman. She had not taken the time to change after putting out that forest fire. Her hair still smelled of smoke, a little, though not one hair was out of place.

"What have you got for me, Rose?" Diana requested, gratefully, placing one hand on the back of her desk chair but without sitting down.

"Regular, Ma'am," Rose grinned softly, holding up the coffee cup, "goat's milk, no sugar. They were out of nutmeg, so I had them add vanilla. Hope that's okay?"

"Sublime," Diana nodded easily, and Rose set the mug down on the desk across from her boss. "(And call me Diana, please.)"

"Gracie Mansion called to confirm a sit-down on the 10th," Rose supplied easily, glancing down at the PDA only infrequently. "And Letterman's people wanted to know if you could wear the armour with the eagle helmet and the wings when you're on there next Wednesday. He's got a good joke to go with it."

Diana narrowed her eyes a bit, a tiny smirk quirking her full lips. "I doubt Hephaestus would have given me that armour if he had known it was to be used as punchline fodder. But seeing as it's David, I will see what I can do. Go on?"

"People from both sides of the aisle," Rose mused, "are still waiting for you to chime in on the matter of the upcoming Olympics. Obviously, Ancient Greek Games are going to be up your proverbial alley, but this particular host country doesn't exactly have the clearest record when it comes to human rights, so that's pretty thorny. Still, sod 'em, you don't have to have an opinion about every bleeding thing."

"I'll issue a statement tomorrow afternoon," Diana nodded, though her eyes were momentarily haunted. This had been weighing on her.

Rose paused, looking worriedly at her boss, but then kept going: "There's the whaling thing with Greenpeace and Animal Man on the sev--"

"Rose," Diana interrupted her. "Do you know why, out of the two-thousand applicants who tried out for the internship you now hold, I hand-picked you for the part?"

"Well, erm, Ma'am," Rose blinked, caught understandably off-guard, "is it because my red/white/blue British flag shirts don't clash with your star-spangled Wonder-Onepiece?"

Diana chuckled, picking up her coffee in both hands and sipping it daintily. "Always with the punchlines."

Rose tried again, more seriously: "I had just assumed it was the glowing letter of recommendation my 'Auntie' Zed wrote. Erm. Backwards."

"Lady Zatanna's words, and her sdrow," Diana mused faintly, "did have a bearing. But mostly it was your answers to the written interview. Specifically, the answer to Question 18: your favourite Disney movie."

Rose blinked again. "Lilo and Stitch?"

Diana smiled as enigmatically as any Sphinx, and that irritated Rose because that was so the wrong mythology.

But before Diana could explain, that Bluetooth headset started chirping and blinking viciously. Like it had been possessed...

The LED glowed red, which meant only one thing. JLA Priority Alarm.

Diana downed her coffee at a gulp, set the mug down, and hooked the piece 'round her ear.

"Go," she demanded, brooking no hesitation, the clipped tones of a warrior born. (Or. Well, sculpted.)

She listened for a long moment, her blue blue eyes growing wider.

"Does he know you've called me?" she wondered, then listened. "Right, no, the radiation. Don't worry, I'll check in with him. Thank you, Oracle."

Rose tried to remain calm, though she could feel the colour trying to drain involuntarily from her face: "What's happened?"

"We're going to Gotham," Wonder Woman explained, throwing her windowed doors open wide to the balcony and striding out into the night air before extending a hand back to Rose. "There's been a catastrophe."

"We, Ma'am?" Rose arched an eyebrow. "Are we taking the invisible--"

"No time," Wonder Woman scowled. "And it's Diana."

Hesitating no longer, Rose set down the PDA and vaulted near-effortlessly across the desk, clutching Wonder Woman's outstretched hand.

Wonder Woman hauled them skyward at The Speed of Hermes and the cigarette on Rose's ear flitted away into the night.

Bollocks.

Gotham City.
Waterfront District.​

They decelerated in the smoggy skies, and the streaks of the world below resolved into glaring lights and Gothic edifices.

Metropolis and New York were often considered sister cities, given their relative proximity as jewels on The East Coast. Gotham, on the other hand, had been nicknamed The Ugly Stepsister. For a reason.

They decelerated and Wonder Woman alighted the two of them upon the roof of a rundown apartment building.

Rose had her arms around Diana's waist, and was breathing hard. The force of Mach 3 winds had been a little too much for even her enhanced lungs to deal with, and she staggered away from her boss with a wheeze. Hands on her knees, she bent over and clenched her eyes and tried to find her centre.

Wonder Woman gave her a minute, striding to the edge of the roof and staring out into Gotham Bay.

The Stepsister was Uglier than usual. Her seas and skies were painted with a glow of an eerie, eerie green. A horrifying green: Kryptonite.

"I promise," Rose choked out with a bitter, abashed smile, "I didn't mean to cop a feel at 13,000 feet. It's just that my eyes were closed, see, I didn't have my goggles--"

Wonder Woman glanced back at her, all business. "It's all right. I know you didn't do it intentionally. Are you going to be okay?"

"Mmhmm," Rose nodded, holding up a fresh cigarette extricated from the pack of Silk Cut in her pocket. "Just need a breath of fresh air."

Wonder Woman chuffed disapprovingly.

"Don't be long," she chided. "I'm going to get a sitrep from the local authority, offer our services. Don't be long."

And then she was gone again.

Rose lit her cigarette with a flame from her fingertip, and shook her head, relieved, as she dragged in smoke.

Bloody gourmet Minotaur won't let me have a fag in the embassy building, least The Boss can do is let me indulge in the outside tupping world.

Rose harrumphed, looked around her as her fumes furled upwards.

After all, it's Gotham. Who's going to begrudge me another couple of cubic centimetres of effing air pollution?

Wonder Woman descended from the sky, hovering four yards over the surface of the waters of Gotham Bay, arms crossed over her chest.

Above Batman. And just behind him.

He stood in the embrace of the deadly green rock. He had found something.

Something... Kryptonian?

"Is there something I can do to help, Batman?" she offered, her voice hard as stone because that was the only way he paid you any attention. "Or do you 'have this all under control?'"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle Greystone: Wraith

"Sir, the library will be closing in five minutes."

I looked up from the screen and at the face of the young woman. Brown hair, glasses, probably all of twenty three.

"Becky, I have told you just call me Kyle. I've only been coming here every day for three weeks now. Shouldn't we be on a first name basis by now?"

She blushed and motioned at the clock.

"Yes, and you know I have cats to feed, and I want to get home before dark. I checked you out" she paused a second then and blushed bright red. I stopped my grin. Wouldn't do to embarrass the poor girl. "I mean I checked out the books you had selected and bagged them for you. Your the last customer."

I stood up and grabbed the books, shutting down the pages I had been looking at. More history of Gotham. Newspapers and news media websites. Information on this new age I had emerged into.

Making my exiting pleasantries I made my way outside and into the weakening light. Hailing a cab I gave him the directions to the mansion. Grandpa had decided to add a wing when he rebuilt it in '08.

Twenty minutes later I was back home ( I had learned to read on the drives back. Driving in 2008 was much different that driving in the 1950's!) and dropping my loot on the kitchen counter. Mrs. Gillespie had gathered my mail and had it sorted on the table, along with todays Gotham Gazette and Metropolis' Daily Planet. I knew half a sandwich wrapped in wax paper was in the refrigerator, and that she expected it to be gone and a dirty glass of milk was to be left in the sink. Mrs. Gillespie was a force to be reckoned with.

I grabbed the sandwich and poured my milk as I went through the mail. My first electric statement had arrived, and the bank had sent the papers I requested on the family holdings in a large envelope. Advertisements for inventions that I could not live without went into the trash (what the Hell was a ab-lounger??) and two more invitations to social functions. Plopping a real live Greystone into Gotham after over fifty years since the last one had shown his head had turned the social circles on their ear. My family wasn't as wealthy as the Wayne's or this Trump guy I had read about, but we were old, and did pretty good.

I continued rifling through the mail, finally selecting one of the invitations at random. Gotham Children's Hospital Charity Ball. Distinguished guest list, key speaker appeared to be Bruce Wayne. RSVP by Friday, function was next Saturday evening. Gives me ten days to get a suit made and figure out how I wanted to be seen in this new Gotham city.


I scrawled my name on the notice and laid it on the table next to the front door. Mrs. Gillespie would see it was mailed tomorrow, so I had next week to get fitted for the function. I made my way to the parlor then and picked up my writing pad, leaving instructions for Mrs. Gillespie to find me a reputable clothier. With that chore done I dove into the papers.

Seemed Superman was battling somebody or other a few days ago and they finally had the butchers bill for the damages. I had real old films on the Planet, and ever since this Luthor had bought the paper they took every opportunity to snipe at the man. From the new coverage on the television (it was wonderful!! One hundred three inches, thin and quiet!! And the colors!!! Pure magic!) showed that he stopped the villain from doing ten times as much damage, and saved countless lives.

The Gazette was a bit more grim. Seemed someone called "The Scarecrow" had escaped Arkham, and was at large in the city. Crime was up in four of the five Burroughs, and the police blotter that they printed took up three pages. Even with this Batman character crime in Gotham was alive and well.

Some things don't change.

The last rays of the sun slipped into the drawing room, lighting up the family crest my grandfather had commissioned. Then, darkness fell over the Mansion.

It was time to go.

Embracing the shadows I called upon Power, and it answered. Shadows swirled around me and embraced me. When they fell away the blond haired man was gone.

The Wraith was again in Gotham City.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Passing of the coat

Thomas McDonald had woken up that day feeling as if his life could be over any moment. His wife had left him weeks earlier for one of his best friends, and the girl he picked up a few nights ago hadn't called him back. In addition to his misery, Thomas ended up losing his job, his boss deciding that it was time they cut down on help.

Thomas McDonald should have stayed in bed that day.

Outside the Iron Horse, his beer placed near the open window, Thomas was crying out in pain as Kara Zor-El practically crushed his hand after he reached out to grab her. She could see from a distance that he wasn't completely balanced, and the words he spoke to her as she approached were strange.

Why had her father not included a basic language program for her journey? How was she to find the young Kal-El if she couldn't even converse with the humans they were sent to live with?

She looked down at the human before her, and she eyed the coat that he was wearing. It wasn't exactly fashionable, but it would at least cover herself up. When Kara let go of his hand, Thomas fell to his knees, a few tears streaming down his face. The man that had tried bashing her in with a metal pipe had already fled the scene, quickly running down the dark alleyways.

Though her eyes had followed him for a moment, Kara once again returned her icy glance towards Thomas, who by now had tried crawling his way towards the entrance of the pub. A few people came outside to see what was going on, and more than a few of the male patrons came outside to see Kara (or rather to see the young, blond and naked girl standing outside).

"What are you guys looking at?" Kara said, though her foreign words were lost to them.

Grabbing Thomas by his shirt, Kara easily lifted him up off his feet, and she looked again at his overcoat. Once Thomas realized what she was after, he began pleading with her to drop him, and even though she couldn't understand what he was saying, Kara let him go. Thomas proceeded to remove his coat, and he handed it off to her with the only good hand he had left.

"Thank you," Kara said in Kryptonian as she took the dusty coat, quickly wrapping it around her body before she buttoned it up and tied the cord around her waist. She ran her hands up and through her blond hair as she pulled the strands out from under the collar.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Valkyrie M

Rose flicked ash off of her cigarette as she pondered, standing there on the roof.

Her pondering face was very much like her glowering face, and her teachers in school had often commented that it looked like asking her to contemplate things was tantamount to performing root canal upon her without anaesthesia. Rose didn't know why this was the case. She did enjoy thinking about things, she thought about things all the time...

It was thinking about things in a straight line that caused her trouble. She preferred intuitive leaps and subconscious processing, letting the mind find its own way instead of forcing it towards a certain result. Absorb the gestalt and then relax, the details'll come on their own.

(Her Uncle John had been delighted when she'd first described this to him.

He'd called it "passive scrying.")

But still. Rose knew the importance of thinking things through in a linear fashion. Of thinking outside her comfort zone.

And thus she pondered and glowered, as she tried to think this through.

Such a vast quantity of Kryptonite would have to be contained quickly. Not only could it poison the water supply, hurt humans and sea creatures alike, but every Tom, Dick, and Harry street thug would be trying to chip off little bits of the shite to turn into bullets.

And who do you call when the biggest strongest fastest guy on the planet can't go near a massive toxic spill to clean it up?

Well, Rose decided, answering her own question, I suppose you call The Boss. Or maybe a Marvel.

Generally speaking, humans were immune to the effects of The Last Shards of Krypton. But there were isolated incidents where things had gone wrong. Way wrong.

(Recently, Lois Lane had spent a twenty-four hours with The Boss, day-in-the-life stuff. And there had been some off-the-record candour... talk of a man named Conduit. Rose didn't know details, but apparently the tosser had had Kryptonite-infused powers and a major-league mad-on for The Big Red "S."

Lex Luthor had gotten cancer from Kryptonite once. Rose didn't know details on this one, either. But cancer was bad, Kryptonite-induced or not.)

Something tickled the edge of her vision, and, distracted, she glanced up at it.

Her linear-thought glowering fell away because an intuitive little thingy had just smacked her in the face.

Talking of 'air pollution,' she mused, that little streak looks almost like a jet contrail.

She blinked, and in the instant that her eyes were closed she clicked over from perfectly normal human sight to infrared vision.

And, yeah, it had been a little bit torn up by cross-breezes and thermal up-drafts already, but the cloudy trail that had caught the periphery of her sharpened vision certainly had the heat signature of a jet contrail, too.

That's kinda weird, Rose mused, so close to the ground?

Small jet, heavy on the output, and it almost looked like it had landed...

Up north. The outskirts. Out near the railroad access tunnels to Gotham Heights. Out near The Amusement Mile. A ways west of the southern end of The Robert Kane Memorial Bridge.

Oh, shite.

Near Crime Alley.

Her cigarette-stub vanishing in a flare of light, Rose hit the skies under her own power, tracking the heat back to its source...

She flew, and flew fast, and found The Batplane crumpled in a heap in the middle of a vacant lot.

Her vision clicked back to normalcy as she laid down ice and extinguished the fires that still smouldered in its wreckage.

Big Dark Scary, Rose pondered, her glowery face returning, has got to be more careful what he does with his wonderful toys.

She knelt beside the plane, though. Mother had taught her a few things, at least, before she'd had that weird fuck-off epiphany and vanished off into The Himalayas.

Someone had been inside it. The windshield-- canopy, I guess, on a jet --looks busted, but not caved inward. Blown out. Took a header through the front of it?

No blood though.

No blood and no corpse, there's a tupping surprise.

She straightened, and looked around.

Here there be tough customers, she glowerpondered. But where've you gone, tough customer?

Rose took flight, and began to circle the crash site, working her way slowly outward.

Actively searching. Passively scrying.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

Eight hours later found me in Old Gotham. I had watched the populous mostlyduring my nightly wanderings. Tonight In had spent most of my time around Cathedral Square. It had not been named that the last time I walked Gotham, and it was a beautiful sight. Thing was, there was an illness in this city. A corruption. I had seen no less than three different cops on the take in this one outing, and people selling stuff, I assumed it to be drugs but I wasn't sure. drugs were not a huge problem when I was last here. racketeering, prostitution, extortion, those were tunes I knew. Pornography, drugs, and illegal technology sales and smuggling were newer vices of the underworld.

Only fifty short years had passed here on earth, and more changed here than in the almost six hundred that had passed in Shadow. Then again, Shadow didn't have the likes of Superman, Batman, or the other heroes that walked the earth now.

I made my way back to Old Gotham. I always ended my nights here. The city was mostly unchanged here. people still struggled to live, and the dogs sniffed around the edges, looking for their share.

I took them out long ago, and had resisted doing so until tonight. Tonight, if I saw something, I was going to put a stop to it.

Tonight there was another thing for the criminals of Gotham to fear besides The Bat.

So thats why shortly after three A.M. I was on the rooftop of a five story tenement, watching two kids walking home hand in hand. They were oblivious of everything but each other.

Which in Gotham was pretty damn stupid.

So while they were surprised to suddenly be surrounded by five thugs, carrying pipes, knives and one a gun, I wasn't. Of course with my vision they had stood out in the shadows like a neon sign.

"Gimmie your money and jewelry and you get to walk home. Give me shit and the cops get whats left of you. the girl they get after we get done with her."

The kids hastily stripped off everything of value they had, then gave them to one of the thugs. He brought their loot over to the leader (the guy with the gun of course),who looked down and had a look of disgust on his face.

"Thats it?? Thirty buck, a i-pod thats three years out of date and a cheap watch! Guess the girl comes with us anyway because you just wasted my time. On second thought, Cops need something to do too. say goodbye to your boyfriend, your our meat now bitch."

SHIT! OK, things were a little different in my day. Usually that would have been a beating, not a killing.

I dropped a darkness field down over the area. Two blocks of Gotham we having a blackout they had never experienced before. The thugs and the kids cried out in surprise, while I lept from the rooftop and landed between the kids and the guy with the gun. They heard me land, but of course couldn't see me.

Not wanting to be rude, I dropped the darkness. The kid with the gun was right in front of me when he saw what had descended from the sky.

He wet his pants and fired off a shot, which just bounced off my chest.

"Big mistake buddy, big mistake."

My hand lashed out, grabbing the gun from his hand and twisting it from his grasp. His mates started to run, and I extended my arm. A soft 'thwip' sound was heard, and two of them were slammed into a wall, encased in a black organic weblike goo. It hardened to a cement like consistency almost immediately, and more pants were ruined. Two other thugs rushed me, and I slapped one away with a backhanded blow, slamming him into the alley wall beside me. The girl was screaming now, and I knew that there would be an audience soon. The other thug came at me with a knife, which I just took away from him. He stopped, his face as white as a sheet, looking at his hand where the knife used to be. I looked him in the face, my lavender eyes smoldering in the night.

"BOO!"

I'd seen track coaches that would have been proud to get that kind of speed out of their students.

All that was left were the two kids and the leader. He turned to run and I reached out and grabbed him, bringing his face to mine. Once again the stench of urine filled the alley, and his wide eyes stared into mine.

I threw him against a wall (not as hard as I could), and webbed him to it. He was gibbering in terror by then as I walked up to him.

"Your days of terrorizing this city are over. When you make bail tell the other scum out there that they have something more than a bat to worry about. Fear him, but fear The Wraith more!"

My fingers formed into claws, slicing the gun into smaller pieces as I squeezed it in my grip. I then turned to the kids.

"Call the police and go home. Don't stay out this late again, it's not safe....yet"

I stepped back into the shadows, and fell into them, emerging from the shadows at the top of the building.

The kids took off, not even bothering to pick up their stuff. I watched them go, sticking to the brighter parts of the street. Then it got very bright. Too bright. I looked over toward the harbor and saw a streak of fire plow into the water. Must have been the meteor that the news talked about. I'd check it out later, right now I wanted to make sure those kids got home safe. I shadowed them until they made their way to a old brownstone, ducking inside safe and sound. Now I could head that way.

I extended my wings and got ready to fly out to the bay when I heard a whine of an aircraft, then another explosion as it crashed about a mile or so away.

There might be people hurt over there. I spread my wings and took to the sky, heading over to the crash site.

 

[LuckyVic]

Superman

Clark had been patroling Metropolis when the meteor hit. Jon had called him and informed him of it, but before he even had the chance to make his way there he was warned about the readings that had recorded that indicated the pressence of Kryptonite. As such, on The Martian Manhunter's recommendation Clark didn't go to the Gotham. Although now he didn't feel like going home either, felt restless and had patroled Metropolis at least 4 times thus far.

He knew that Wonder Woman was on the job, and Diana could handle just about anything or anyone. He just hated feeling helpless, and when it came to Kryptonite that was exactly what he was.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara had just started to feel like she was in control again. Though the world was a strange place, she was quickly rising above its inhabitants, as any true Kryptonian would. But she was also easily startled in her condition, and when a pair of bright search lights appeared overhead, Kara fled.

What had she been afraid of?

Was there anyone but Kal-El on this planet that she should fear? She doubted it, and Kal-El was still just a baby, Kara figured.

Her ability to use super speed came naturally to her, but she stopped in what seemed to be a busy intersection of Gotham City, with strange machines whizzing past her left and right, making extremely loud noises as they honked at her.

"Stop it!" Kara yelled out in Kryptonian.

One car came pretty close to hitting her, and Kara took a few steps back, right into the path of a large truck. Though the driver smashed down on his horn, Kara was frozen in place. The truck crashed right into her, but instead of blowing her right over it appeared to have stopped dead in its tracks. The windshield shattered into a thousand pieces, and most of the front end of the truck was blown in (luckily the driver was okay, strapped in by his seat belt).

So far her father had been right.

On Earth she would be nigh-unstoppable.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Valkyrie M

As Wraith flew, his wings beating the Gotham night, a long-haired girl dressed in white and red-white-and-blue pulled up beside him in the air.

She flew facing him from the side, her shoulders vertical towards the ground, her reddish-blonde ponytail flapping in the breeze of her flight. Her arms were crossed over her stomach.

Rose looked rather unamused. She'd spotted him from a distance with her nigh-eagle eyes and, while he seemed to be flying towards the crash site rather than away, there was always the possibility that this was one of those dumb-cluck villains who did actually return to the scene of the crime.

She was looking for a tough customer. And this berk sure looked like he fit the bill.

"Hey, Grimlock," she growled, "what's with the Todd McFarlane look gone horribly wrong? 'I just flew in from Apokolips, and boy are my arms tired!'"

She shook her head. "Look, I just hate to bother your leisurely flight, and all, but it's just that I'm in the market for a bruiser, maybe someone with a jones for million-dollar jetpods, and I thought--"

But then, not far away, she heard the screeching of tyres and the shouting of rage and possibly the screaming of pain.

She scowled, frustrated, torn.

But only for a moment.

"Yeah, hold that thought," she demanded. "I'll be back in three shakes of a lamb's tail, don't scarper. (And don't bluddy kill anyone.)"

Fire again flared around her shoes and she rocketed off, blazing away at considerable speed, leaving a streak of flame behind her.

Centring in on the sound of the accident, the sound of the shouting, she dove towards the Earth and landed, in a billow of fire, on the Gotham City street.

She stood for a moment, staring.

Truck wreckage.

Cars throwing on brakes.

A girl in a brown trench coat, and nothing else.

She was beautiful. Fantastically sexy. Tall for her age?

But then again... she was blonde, and nude, save for a battered light-brown coat.

This was familiar. How often had "Uncle" John shuffled around the house in San Francisco dressed in nothing but his ever-present Macintosh coat? How often had "Auntie" Zatanna read him the riot act for it?

"Uncle John?" Rose murmured, her reddish-gold eyebrow climbing her forehead. "Did you get turned into a girl again?"

 

[Lunaramblings]

Batman watched as he was left alone in the bay. Before long he was joined.

Diana. If ever there were a woman this was one. Batman smiled as much as he was capable, which is to say he grimaced as Wonder Woman addressed him.

"Contigency Diana. Contingency." Batman pressed a but on his belt and the water burst forth. A large black shape shooting from the sky. "I am never unprepared." Batman grabs ahold of the shape as it passes, pulling himself into the rocket powered glider.

Who would be behind something like this? The readings indicate a large amount of Kryptonite. Where does someone procure that? Brainiac? Vandal Savage? Darkseid? All would have the resources, but why this? What were they playing at.

Batman zoomed over the city, making for a beacon that was flashing on the HUD of his cowl. The tracking device in the jet was active. Whoever took it wanted to be found.

With a flurry of button pushing Batman set commands. He then detached from the glider. Dropping several stories to the street below.

He scrutinized the three people he saw before him. Rose McCrimmon he knew of. She had a history with Zatanna. And she worked for Diana. He had heard only good things. The other beings he did not recognize. Immediately his hand was on his belt. Palming several small deadly objects. He made no move from the shadows. He watched. He waited.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Smoke and steam rose from the front bed of the truck that had just crashed straight into Kara, and she saw the human inside struggling to get free. He seemed exhausted, almost dazed from the collision. A lot of strange things were happening around her, and Kara tried her best to keep a level head.

There was the constant blaring of horns... the ever present whispering and gawking.

She wanted them to stop...

Once again Kara began screaming out in Kryptonian, and she raised her hands up to her ears in an attempt to block the noise, but it was a vain effort. Her super hearing was just not something she was quite ready to control.

A slight clicking noise behind her caught the young Kryptonians attention, and as she turned around she saw the street light turn from emerald green to ruby red.

In an instant her heat vision kicked in, and fiery beams shot out from her eyes towards the light, blasting it away.

Kara hadn't done it on purpose... she didn't even know that she could do that. It was just a natural reaction.

Despite the amazing gifts she possessed, Kara was still just a young girl in a strange world.

She was scared.

The sound of sirens soon began filling the streets of Gotham, and within moments police cars began arriving, trying to establish a perimeter around the blond Kryptonian.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

Unfortunately, flight is not my fastest way to travel, but since I have not learned the city well I didn't want to do blind shadowhops to get there. Besides, I like flying.

Before long I was almost there. I could see the wreckage (thankfully not burning). I started to angle down when a voice with a British accent spoke over my shoulder.

"Hey, Grimlock, what's with the Todd McFarlane look gone horribly wrong? 'I just flew in from Apokolips, and boy are my arms tired!'"
I startled a bit, then turned, wings flapping allowing me to hover a bit (which was not easy to learn!) It was a girl! Wearing very tight white pants, and a shirt reminiscent of Union Jacks costume back in The War.

I hovered, not saying anything, just looking at her.

She shook her head, then continued speaking. "Look, I just hate to bother your leisurely flight, and all, but it's just that I'm in the market for a bruiser, maybe someone with a jones for million-dollar jetpods, and I thought--"
Whatever she was going to continue to say was cut short by the sounds of screeching tires and the unmistakable sounds of metal being rent asunder. Both hers and my head turned at the noise, both seeing the pileup, and both noticing a figure staggering out of the wreckage of the front of a truck.

She turned back to me.

"Yeah, hold that thought," she growled out in her rough voice. "I'll be back in three shakes of a lamb's tail, don't scarper. (And don't bluddy kill anyone.)"

With that flames shot out at her feet and she was off, a trail of fire streaking away behind her.


I looked down and noticed I was about thirty feet above a building. I drew in my wings, dropping down onto the roof below in a crouch. Moving to the edge I looked for the wreck, but couldn't see it. I stepped back, into a pool of shadow and out onto a rooftop ahead. Jumping from shadow to shadow, I quickly made my way to a building overlooking the scene. From four stories up, I looked down and watched what was going on.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Valkyrie M

Rose had landed quite a distance from the girl in question, and it actually wasn't surprising that she hadn't heard Rose's off-hand little one-liner.

(Especially not over the thundering noise of the traffic and the cacophony of car-horns.)

And then SZZAP!

Energy poured from her eyes and she took out a traffic light; not the first person who'd ever wanted to exact wanton violence upon a stopping red, that was for certain, but still...

It wasn't just energy.

Rose's core power was temperature: she was an omnitherm. She wielded hot and cold and she was attuned to both. Even without her infrared vision, she knew exactly what the blonde girl's eyebeams were.

Heat vision?

Only two species I know of have heat vision like that. No, wait, three?

Kryptonians, Martians, and Daxamites.

And unless The Man has another clone bopping about, that can't be a Kryptonian. And without atmospheric protection against trace amounts of lead in the air, no way would a Daxamite still be standing.

So. Martian?

Oh. Oh, holy shite. She's a White Martian!

She shrugged out of her white jacket and she ran towards the scene, even as a vast and startling number of Gotham P.D. patrolcars encircled the girl.

(I didn't even know Gotham had that many cops. You'd never know it to look at the place.)

One of the cops, armed with a shotgun, reached out to grab her bare forearm: "Hold on there, missy, keep your distance!"

"Keep your own distance," Rose snarled, knocking his hand away and throwing the jacket into his face.

The cop blinked reflexively and caught the coat.

And Rose lit on fire, surrounding herself with an aura of saffron-golden flame. Her eyes blazed, and she smiled thinly.

The cop reeled, and almost dropped his shotgun.

"Who the Hell are you supposed to be?" he demanded.

"Me?" Rose chuckled, bounding easily over the hood of a police car, and walking slowly, burning, towards the blonde girl. "(No-one of consequence.) I'm just The Valkyrie Missile, constable. 'Valkyrie M' for short. Tell everyone to keep back. Well. Everyone else."

Enveloped in fuego and sizzling the asphalt with every single step, Rose moved slowly closer to the girl. Her ponytail bounced and thrashed with the thermal eddies of her fiery aura.

If she's a Martian, Rose wondered, how long will it be before the flame brings her to a standstill? S'posed to be automatic, right?

She cleared her throat, and held her hands out, palm up, and called out to the girl: "'Bah Weep Granah Weep Ninni Bong?'"

Rose, unfortunately, didn't speak any Martian. Perhaps even more unfortunately, she didn't speak any Kryptonian, either.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl

One of Bruce's little backup vehicles emerged from beneath the waves of Gotham Bay, and it spirited him away.

Diana chuckled faintly, and shook her head as The Bat vanished into the night, no doubt chasing some mysterious lead.

Only Pallas Athena, favoured daughter of Zeus, had ever been so tactical and inscrutable as The Bat.

And only Argus Panoptes, all-seeing giant of a hundred eyes, had ever been so paranoid.

She debated whether or not to follow him.

Ah, well. If Bruce wanted her help, he could call for her. The hypersonic signal device he had on his utility belt could be set to trigger her super-hearing just as well as it could Kal's.

But Bruce never asked for help, and Diana had other concerns right now.

Her first concern was for The Earth.

She turned her attention to the Kryptonite.

The rock had been singularly massive as it had entered the solar system, but fortunately for the people of America's East Coast, it had crumbled into many smaller pieces as it had endured atmospheric re-insertion.

One chunk, however, dwarfed the others, and it was out of a hollow in this great chunk, almost a thousand yards in diameter, that the one-person space pod had floated.

Later for you, little sky-cradle.

First I shall rid the oceans of this enormous poison pill, and then I shall need to dredge the local seas for the smaller pieces. Maybe some of Arthur's dolphins will help me do that?

One problem at a time.

She considered the difficulty of the great rock. Kryptonite was brittle enough that if she tried to get under it and bodily shove the thing up into the sky-- especially after the stresses of re-entry --it would just fall to pieces.

The same could conceivably happen if she tried to loop her Lasso around the middle of it and haul it heavensward.

Hm.

(She wondered briefly where Rose had gotten to; it wasn't like her, rebellious as she could often be, to be lackadaisical on the clock.)

And then her hearing detected a broken little yawn behind her and above her, and she arched an eyebrow and turned to see who it was.

She frowned, very much disapproving.

Cassandra Sandsmark, dressed in her red and her gold, looking particularly sleepy with dark rings under her eyes.

"Wonder Girl?" Diana shook her head, and flew closer to her protégé, her voice dropping to a whisper: "Cassie, it's a school night! What are you doing awake?"

Cassie looked like she'd been punched in the heart. Reproving lectures from Diana were as terrible as anything from the dark pits of Tartaros, and Cassie would know.

(Zeus had many daughters, after all, and of some he requested more than of others.)

"I was up," she winced, "because Conner wanted to call me and I never get enough time to talk to him. And the TV was on low and they pre-empted stuff to show this news report... I told Conner to stay away."

She glanced away from Diana, unable to handle the stress of Diana's cool blue regard.

"(You won't tell Mom, will you?)" she muttered, a little bit desperately. "(That I snuck back up after curfew? The last time Mom switched off my powers like she can, she shut them off for a whole week, and that was, like, torture. Thumbscrews, for serious.)"

Diana sighed, relenting, and crossed her arms over her stomach. She arched an eyebrow.

"You're already here," she murmured. "And obviously, your intentions are good. I'll not send you home when there's work to be done."

Cassie brightened. "Are you serious?"

"I'm not positive thanks are in order," Diana pointed out. "This will be very hard work."

Cassie sighed. "Well, yeah."

Diana held out her Golden Lasso with one hand. Forged from the mythic Girdle of Gaea by the inimitable Hephaestus and infused with The Fires of Hestia, The Lasso was capable of many feats. It was infinitely extensible, and utterly unbreakable: there were no limits to its length or its strength.

"Help me bind the giant stone," Diana requested.

They each took an end of The Lasso, and they flew through the air and they dove into the waters and over and over and over again they looped up that biggest chunk of Kryptonite, binding it so thoroughly as to distribute the pressure from the tightening coils. This would keep The Lasso from cutting into the rock and causing it to fall apart at high altitudes, making it damn near irrecoverable.

Eventually, Diana hovered above the thing, pulling an end of The Lasso taut, knotting it. She dripped with the waters of Gotham Harbour, her hair's natural waves straightened with the weight of the fluid.

She braced herself, stretched, flexed her hands. Breathed hard in through her nose, and out through her mouth.

"Hera," she whispered, "give me strength."

Cassie emerged from the waters, coughing slightly, shaking a glob of slime out of her face as her golden-blonde hair clung to her skin, the back of her neck.

"So effing gross," she complained, but she didn't let it slow her.

She unhooked her own lasso-- this a gift from her half-brother Ares, infused not with The Fires of Hestia but instead The Lightning of Zeus Himself, also forged by Hephaestus who was, after all, inimitable --from where it waited at her hip, and knotted this skillfully around one of the loops of Diana's Lasso.

She, too, braced herself.

"Where are we dropping this sucker?" she wondered.

"Not dropping," Diana explained, wryly. "Throwing."

"'Throwing?'" Cassie recoiled.

"Back out into space," Diana clarified. "Doubtless, gravity will drag it back to Earth eventually, but we'll be able to devise a way to repulse it in the meantime."

She touched her belt, and away from the belt came a liquid, morphic piece of near-invisible translucence. Lansinarian living tech, the substance that composed Diana's Invisible Plane. (This, too, was the subject of many punchlines, but the technology itself was brilliantly impressive.)

She passed that piece of it to Cassie, and as Cassie touched it, it formed into a breathing mask that could cup over Cassie's nose and mouth.

Diana again touched her belt, and retrieved another portion of the shapeshifting technology for herself, transforming this, too, into a breathing mask.

"Twenty minutes of oxygen," she explained, as she adhered the mask to her face. "Should be plenty."

(As powerful as the two women were, they could not breathe in space.)

Cassie mirrored Diana's movements, donning her own mask.

"Let's do this thing."

As one, Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl flexed their hands around the golden coils of their respective lassos, and with a strangled mingled groan of effort, they dragged the Kryptonite skyward with impossible strength.

It didn't move at first. Didn't budge.

But then it inched out of the water...

And up and up and up and up...

"Hrrh," Diana seethed, as much sweat beading on her forehead as Gotham's waters. "Hrrrrrrrh."

"Hrraaaaaah!" Cassie cried. "Hrrraaaaaaaahhhh!"

 

[Lunaramblings]

Kryptonian? Impossible. Batman leapt from his spot in the shadows. Landing deftly between Rose and The Girl.

"Stand Down." Batman raised a hand warningly at both The Girl and Rose. He nudged a device on his belt, "Kal, we have a problem. We are going to need to talk. Soon."

Batman weighed his options. He had collected a few small samples of the Kryptonite from the bay before his jet was stolen. He could use one of these to subdue her if she were Kryptonian. But how was that possible.

Batman produced a small hunk of glowing green stone. This should at least eliminate a wrong conclussion. He appoaches the girl, stone clenched tightly, ready to spring if need be. He had gone a few rounds with Kal in the past. He new how hard a Kryptonian could hit, and whether he wanted to believe this was a Kryptonian or not, the logic dictated. Occam's Razor.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

Well, now things were getting interesting. Obviously something had caused a pretty bad crash up ahead. Nothing on fire, but at least one disabled vehicle, with a few others blocked.

The fiery little Brit was streaking her way there when I noticed the blond in the overcoat walking away from the wreck. She appeared either frightened or confused. From this far away i couldn't tell which one it was.

Gotham PD was arriving on the scene, so hopefully everything would be worked out and I could go check out that crash I was heading to.

At least until the blond blasted a traffic light apart with her eyes.

That immediately got everyones attention. The patrol that thought it just had a bad accident dived back into his car, calling for backup most likely.

The little flying girl stopped, then swooped down between the police and the blond. She flung her jacket back at the police and then ignited herself, becoming a walking fiery effigy.

Then the Batman showed up. He pulled something out of his belt and started moving toward the blond in the coat.

I shifted over to a closer building above the action, looking down to watch what was going on.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Valkyrie M

Batman blew out of the shadows and landed in Rose's path.

Rose stopped, stock-still, eyes wide, and her flame went out as if it had been doused in cold water. Here she was, on his turf, barking out orders to his favourite tin-toy policemen, and here he'd shown up to remind her to adhere to basic territorial protocols.

'This is MY city,' or the like.

But first things were first and he was whipping out one of those deadly green rocks and holding it in the blonde girl's direction...

Rose made her glowery little pondering face.

"Erm, sir?" she attempted, because she really wasn't positive what sort of honorific one used to address The Batman. (She was pretty positive it wasn't "Bats," unless you wanted to get yourself kicked in the greengrocer's and then slugged in the gob, you never called The Batman "Bats" to his cowled face.)

"I eh'n't meaning to muck about with things I don't understand," she murmured, tight, trying to keep the nearby plods from overhearing, "but if you're taking her down with Kryptonite, then that means she's--"

Oh. Oh.

Well, bugger me sideways.

"Erm, no," Rose flinched. "Carry on, then. Don't mind me."

 

[LuckyVic]

Clark stood on top of the Daily Planet building, looking passed his city and in the general direction of Gotham. He hated just standing around, but he had been following the progress that was being made, Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl were taking care of the Kryptonite. Batman was going after someone that was causing some havok.

"Kal, we have a problem. We are going to need to talk. Soon."

He tapped the small device in his ear. "I can be there in two minutes if you need me." he replied.

What was going on in Gotham, he wondered.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Batman used his free hand to press the button once more.

"I wouldn't recommend that with the size of the piece of what appears to be Kryptonite that struck the bay area. I will find you when I get this under control. Stay in where you are."

If this girl is Kryptonian, she would have to be a clone of some sort. Something more from Cadmus? Ten years ago this would have been a lot easier.

"I don't want to hurt you. But there are too many variables. This is for your own good. Now calm down." Batman kept firm eye contact with the Girl.

"Valkyrie is it? If this goes bad you contain it. If she isn't what she seems this could get ugly."

For just a moment the realizationof how young Rose was hit him. Kids fighting beings strong enough to destroy worlds. This is not the world as it should be. These kids risking their lives. For an ungreatful world.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl

The most wond'rous thing about Space is the quiet.

Quiet so total, so complete, it becomes nearly musical.

There is no air in space, and thus sound cannot travel, and thus, as the saying long has gone, in space, no one can hear you scream.

Cassie Sandsmark, Wonder Girl, was screaming her lungs out. And she could not even hear herself.

Her muscles were straining, her face nearly purpled with effort, her shoulders throbbing so badly she thought she was going to dislocate the both of them...

Her lasso was cutting into her fingers, she couldn't even feel her fingertips anymore.

They had only been pulling for moments, really, with their speed and their flight and their strength, but it had felt like hours. Like years.

She panted, she struggled to breathe, she worried momentarily that she'd expended her mask's reserve of air prematurely...

Her eyes snapped open, and she glanced hurriedly about to try and find Diana.

They couldn't talk to each other up here, they'd have to rely on hand-signs.

Diana was hand-signing at her.

Cassie was disoriented. Her body was sturdy enough to survive the rigours of vacuum, Zeus had granted her enough invulnerability for that, at least, but the zero-G was still wreaking havoc on her senses. Her equilibrium was shot, and depth perception was all but useless.

Diana looked like she was miles away, and Cassie squinted her eyes to try and make out that hand-signage.

'Cut loose,' Diana gestured, though she looked rather exhausted in her own right. 'I've got it from here.'

Cassie nodded, gratefully, and disengaged her lasso with a swift, angular tug. 'Five by five.'

Quickly, she retreated, though even the effort of flying made her muscles ache.

Diana took a moment to compose herself anew.

She was stronger far than Cassie, though Cassie's limits had not yet been fully explored, and still the trip up here had taken much out of her.

But there was one more thing to be done.

Shifting her grip, flexing her tingling, agony-flooded fingers, Diana reasserted her hold on The Lasso of Truth.

Hera, she petitioned simply.

The Goddess would know what she needed.

And then, slowly, bit by bit, Diana began to whirl.

Like a hammer-thrower in the aforediscussed Olympics.

Granted, zero-gravity (or, more accurately, microgravity) made everything approximately weightless, but mass was still a factor, and therefore so was inertia.

This chunk of Kryptonite had the mass, and therefore the inertia, of a meteorite more than half-a-mile wide.

Pulling into that whirl was like dragging The Moon Herself out of orbit.

Diana, now, was screaming, and like Cassie before her she could not hear even herself...

Arms imbued with the strength of The Earth Herself thrummed with bitter ecstasy, and she whirled and whirled and whirled...

...and with a final scream, the mathematics aligned in her head and she released, hauling her Lasso one way and letting the rock hurtle off the other way, letting the infinite coils of the mystical rope fall open and letting the Kryptonite spin away, away, away, off into a lopsided orbit that would hold just long enough for... something.

(Maybe they could politely ask Black Lightning to plug himself into an electromagnet, and use his power to repel the Kryptonite based on magnetic charge? Or maybe Firestorm could transmute the thing into pudding pops, if he was halfway sane this week.)

She hovered there, just outside of the embrace of The Earth, watching the Kryptonite tumble away.

There. Let that be a lesson to you.

Diana glanced over at Cassie, who was holding a hand aloft in a cheering thumbs-up.

But then Cassie started to crumple, and Diana knew time was short.

Reeling in The Lasso, Diana flew to Cassie as quickly as she could. Very quickly.

Diana touched her forehead to Cassie's, and saw Cassie's bleary, weary eyes gaze into hers.

'Brave girl,' Diana encouraged her, mouthing the words in the infinite silence. 'Well done.'

'Don't tell me,' Cassie replied, rueful and wry, 'tell my Mom.'

Diana smiled, and then the Invisible Plane began to shift around them, abandoning the twin breath-mask forms and instead shaping itself into a bubble.

They descended into the grasp of The Earth once more, and while She did not grasp gently, the Lansinarian technology protected them from the ferocity of re-entry.

They fell to Earth. Gently.

********​

Wind rushed behind Wraith on that rooftop, and boots trudged across the gravel-dusted surface.

Wonder Woman, weary beyond words and unwilling to take the slightest bit of undue guff, strode up beside Wraith and peered down at the goings-on.

(There was Rose. And there was Bruce. And there was...)

She looked frazzled-- though still she was beautiful --and while she smiled at Wraith, her smile was rather thin.

"Would you mind," she asked him, her voice quiet and hard, granite and cool, "telling me who you are, and what you think might be going on?"

"I'd answer, if I were you," Wonder Girl suggested, walking up on the other side of him, looking like she'd had the wind sucked out of her by a typhoon but still looking no less prepped for a brawl. "She doesn't always ask twice."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

"Would you mind," said a quiet, low voice beside me, "telling me who you are, and what you think might be going on?"

"I'd answer, if I were you," Said a younger voice. "She doesn't always ask twice."

I startled a bit when i heard her voice. I had been wholly absorbed in the drama unfolding below me. I regained my cool quickly though.

(Something about the first voice tugged a memory. Something that had been buried for hundreds of years...)

"I am watching what is happening down below. And if it looks like it will threaten innocents, I will take steps to protect them."

I turned to look at the woman who spoke, but stopped in shock. If I could have gone pale I would have been white as a sheet.

"Phedre?? But, I saw you die! I held you in my arms and pulled the spear from your body. This can't be real!"

I stepped back away from her. This woman wearing the markings of the woman I loved those many centuries ago. The woman who died in my arms, killed by a weapon of God in the hands of a madman.

This couldn't be happening.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Valkyrie M

"Valkyrie M, sir," Rose suggested, after a moment or two of summoning up the courage, "if yeh please. Named for a song. Way I thought of it, if that silvery-plasma bint from that cut-rate version of The Titans they had going on a while back can name herself after her bluddy credit card, then I can bluddy well name m'self after a song."

Rose was sort of... prattling.

It wasn't every day that The Bat willingly enters into conversation with you.

She wasn't quite star-struck. Kind of like... anti-star-struck. Scared shite-less, rather than awe-inspired. (You got over being star-struck real quick while working with Wonder Woman; she had little tolerance for that sort of mouth-breathing.)

But she took his instruction under advisement, and created a fireball in her left hand, and a Morningstar mace made from ice in her right.

(Crafting crude shapes out of ice was easy enough for her, but she couldn't sculpt fire. Fire, at least her kind of fire, tended to circular shapes, cones and domes and spheres and cylinders. She suspected that her fiery energies were not unlike soap-bubbles, and it had to do with surface area, but she'd never found out for sure.)

"I'm on guard, Bats," she declared, and then rolled her eyes at her gaffe. "Erm. Sir."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl

He made noises as if he were concerned with bystanders. That was what Diana called "a good omen."

But then he looked at Diana, really looked at her, and it was as if he had seen a ghost.

Diana instantly took a defensive posture, though not one overtly threatening, her fists balled low by her sides but ready to come up to block potential strikes with speed that could intercept plasma blasts...

Behind Wraith, Wonder Girl tensed similarly, assessing her need to bash this guy hard from behind and shut him down if things were going wrong. She remembered reading, somewhere or other, about a Batman bad guy named Maxie Zeus who thought that he was the actual Greek god Zeus, totally convinced of it.

Maybe this guy had the same kind of crazy?

"I don't know this 'Phaedre,'" Wonder Woman assured Wraith, with an unyielding kind of gentleness, "of whom you speak. And while I did die once, it was not at the end of spear or lance, and I would have remembered if you were there. You have me confused with someone else."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Without detracting attention Batman replied to Rose.

Don't call me "Bats". Shut up and concentrate. This isn't a sunday picnic." Batman knew he was harsh. He knew he most likely hurt the girls feelings. But these young heroes were careless. Almost arrogant. They thought they were unstoppable. ANd he had seen first hand how stoppable they could be. Jason...

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara, though momentarily distracted when she destroyed the strange lamp, quickly noticed the incoming presence of the police cars, their sirens blaring in her ears even from far away. More importantly, however, Kara noticed the arrival of a woman who could apparently set herself on fire.

It was a power that Kara did not have.

Her father Zor-El never mentioned Humans having any remarkable gifts. Surely she must have been an outsider as well?

With her trench coat wrapped around her body, Kara lightly turned to face the fiery dame, and she could feel the warmth emanating from her body. Despite her appearance, Kara felt not at all threatened.

After hearing the girl talk, however, Kara felt more confused than anything. Her words sounded like gibberish, which, to the humans gathered around, had probably linked her own vocabulary to.

"Who..." Kara began to ask when she suddenly noticed a dark figure jump down between them. She recognized him as the man from earlier. The one she stole his ship from. He was tall... far taller than herself and most of those present. His sudden arrival seemed to surprise the other girl as well, and she lost her fiery appearance almost instantly.

Kara saw the masked figure reach into a compartment in his belt, and she wondered if it would be wise to attack him right now.

What Kara wasn't aware of, was that a tiny bead of sweat had formed on her temple, sliding very slowly down the side of her face.

The Kryptonite, though at a distance, was starting to affect her.

It was a poison the likes of which Kara had never encountered before.

The closer this Dark Man approached, the weaker Kara began to feel.

"Don't you dare touch me," Kara barked in Kryptonian, and she actually took a step back, her eyes glancing down momentarily at his clenched fist. He held a deep green rock, one that seemed to glow all the more brighter as it drew closer to her.

"Leave... leave me ALONE!" Kara cried out in Kryptonian, struggling to maintain her composure. The police around her had drawn their weapons, but with the arrival of the Dark Knight they were willing to let him handle things.

As much as some of them loathed and despised him, most had come to respect his authority on supernatural matters.

Kara, meanwhile, had never taken her blue eyes off the shard of Kryptonite, and she even wobbled for a moment. It was draining her of her strength, leaving her extremely vulnerable and tired.

Finally Kara stumbled over, and she fell to her knees, her hands reaching out for support against the ground. She had fallen somewhat quickly, and her hands were actually... they were actually scratched and even bleeding. More beads of sweat covered her skin, and she felt sick to her stomach.

"Get... away," she muttered, her words broken and fading.