The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[ChasNicollette]

Rose, Ceri, Jamie, Pete, Bruce, and Chloe

J'onzz presented The Crystal to Rose, and it glowed a warm rosy colour. He nodded to her, and she took it, gingerly, reverently. She nodded back to him, and did a little curtsey motion.

J'onzz was very strange and very real and Rose found herself more than a little bit in awe of him when confronted with him directly.

"Gorau adnabod, d'adnabod dy hun," he said to Ceri in his voice that whispered like sand through a glass.

"His name is Jones," Ceri murmured, evidently quite impressed, and nodding to J'onzz accordingly. "And he speaks Welsh."

"Doesn't take much to get in your good graces, does it?" Jamie breezed, with just a dash of irony. "Bit of an obscure language, all the same."

"This from the man who recites Python code in his sleep," Ceri replied, giving his hand an emphatic squeeze as she smirked.

"When I can sleep, yeah," Jamie grinned softly.

But as Rose stood there holding the glowing Crystal, The Wraith moved out from gazing at Chloe's laptop and moved to Rose's side once more.

"Rose," The Wraith requested, "could I have a word with you in private for a few minutes please? I have something I want to run by you."

"Steady on there, luvvie," Ceri frowned at the big scary lad, and gently ushered Pete aside so that she could enter the room more fully. Bringing Jamie with her by way of the hand she still held, she put her proverbial foot down before The Wraith. "No-one's running anything private by my daughter, least of all a terrifying beast as yehself."

Rose blushed fiercely, and shook her head, and cupped The Crystal to her heart. "That's not nice, Mum! He's not going to do anything...! Besides, it's not like I haven't been alone with him before."

Jamie's eyebrows narrowed into a bunch and Ceri's lip curled and stormclouds seemed to gather over her head and instantly Rose knew she had said exactly the wrong thing.

She covered her face with her hands. "That's not what I meant. He's just. He's got secrets, but you can trust him. Mum, you told me yourself once, 'the only way to discover if a man is trustworthy is to trust him.'"

Jamie shook his head. "He can keep his secrets from everyone else, Rosy, but you keeping secrets from us is another question. He doesn't tell you anything that he doesn't tell us."

"If those secrets are dangerous?" Ceri added, picking up where Jamie had left off. "So much the more do we need to know them."

Jamie turned to fix a look upon Bruce, who had picked up J'onzz' piece of paper and was gazing at the character for Water with a studious eye.

Bruce glanced up at Jamie, having felt the scientist's eyes upon him.

"There somewhere where we four can go and talk?" Jamie requested, indicating the two Women McCrimmon, himself, and The Wraith.

"Sitting room," Bruce nodded, crisp. "Back down the hall, just off of the foyer."

"Cheers," Ceri nodded to him, and then turned to regard The Wraith with her most fearsome protective-mama smile. "What d'yeh think then? Sitting room, reservations for four?"

Rose diminished with nervousness and embarrassment, but tried desperately to remind herself that her parents were very very good people and would not unfairly judge Kyle or The Wraith. At least, she hoped not.

Bruce gave the unlikely quartet a long, evaluating gaze and then turned, handed the piece of paper to Pete.

"Memorise this," he suggested. "If we're divvying up for a moment, there's a few things I need to get together before we go."

"You got it," Pete assured Wayne, putting his bravest face on before scrutinising the image. "'Water,' huh? 'Agua.'"

Bruce smiled faintly. "Good man."

And then he turned, and left the room. He climbed the stairs to his "study," the workout room with the Kendo sticks and the hanging bag.

And there it was. Like it had been waiting for him. The duffle. With the red "R" emblazoned upon it.

Just like the one Ducard had provided for him that Bruce might pack up and join Ducard's cadre.

But this was the first bag. With the suit. The equipment he had intended to use to frighten the Scarecrow Boys who had so humiliated him, who had welcomed him to Smallville in the most unwelcome of ways.

In retrospect, it might have turned out to have been a wasted effort, though secretly he still hoped he might get the chance to even the score with those hooligans. On the other hand, this was a much more efficacious use of the outfit.

Efficiently, his every movement in concert with the other, he began to break the outfit out of its bag, began to put it on.

...no cape.

Alfred had been too tired to sew it on that first night, though Bruce suspected with a faint smirk that maybe Alfred had been less fatigued than he had been overly dubious.

...but still, Bruce reflected, as he donned the makeshift dark armour.

It was crude, but it promised to be effective.

Meanwhile, down in the kitchen, Pete had taken Chloe's place behind the laptop, and Chloe had risen to speak with The Tennylsons, Merick included.

"I'm not exactly sure what we'll be doing to chase down this construct," Chloe frowned, arms crossed over her stomach. "I imagine it'll require my best Googlewhacking and a big heap of luck. In the meantime, The Martian seems to think that maybe darting about the map will come in handy? You said before, Merick, that your powers only tend to work with places you've been, or seen. Would satellite photography be sufficient, or do we need to figure something else out?"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

"What d'yeh think then? Sitting room, reservations for four?" Rose's mom asked in her terse, clipped tone.

"That was actually one of the subjects I wanted to discuss with your daughter, a good time to have a private conversation between the four of us. Now is as good a time as any."


With that I walked over to the door, opening it and waiting on the McCrimmon clan to file through before following behind them.
(Boy was I getting 'protective momma' vibes from her mom!!)

They file into the sitting room, Ceri and Jamie sitting on a loveseat, Rose in a chair and I moved into the center of the room, facing her parents.

"Let's get everything out into the open, then we can all get down to buisness."

Shadows swirled around me with that eerie low moan, and I stood before the family as just a sixteen year old boy.

"My name is Kyle Alec Greystone, Child of Alec Greystone and one of the heirs of Gen-Tech. The rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated. Any questions?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose, Ceri, and Jamie

They followed him.

Ceri paused briefly in the hallway to tug some wipes out of her pocket, a little pack of wipes, to scrub the rest of the meteor-blast ash off of Rose's face.

Left her smelling a little nicer, though it didn't help Rose's growing sense of embarrassment.

They followed him, and they sat. Ceri and Jamie sat together on the loveseat, for once presenting a united front. (Only time would tell if they would remain united long enough to discern if this beastly creature was a threat or a boon.)

Rose, meanwhile, sat off to one corner in a high-backed chair, The Crystal in her lap, biting her fingernails and white as a sheet. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what the protocol was, she hadn't read the handbook for this.

Oh, God. OhGodOhGod.

If someone could die of mortification, could it be me? And could You hurry it up, please?

...and then the darkness gathered, and the darkness fell away, and the whimpers of the dead could be heard...

And then there was Kyle.

Ceri's eye twitched at the transfiguration.

Rosy and her transformation sequences. I never would have seen that coming.

Jamie remained remarkably calm, at least outwardly, though he could feel the hairs on the backs of his arms standing on end... all too easily could he remember the moment in Jonathan Kent's hallowed barn when he thought he was dead because he was surrounded by blackness.

But all the same?

We are all about the murky subdimensions today, aren't we? That was... that was...

That was beautiful.

Ceri leaned over and whispered softly to Jamie: "So. Shock and awe?"

"'Nothing shocks me.'" Jamie replied, hushed, quoting something more recent for a change. "'I'm a scientist.'"

Ceri grunted.

"I have a question," she pointed out, louder now. "What's a dead billionaire boy doing in West Nowheresville, Kansas? And what's he doing fancying my daughter when there's plenty of girls in his own year? And where does he get the power to sling darkness like television pundits sling idiocy?"

"Erm," Jamie murmured, "he may have already answered that last bit. Gen-Tech is way advanced. Presumably, they've way advanced him."

Ceri stared at him, mouth partly open. And shook her head.

"Or, by not interrupting," Jamie continued, chastised, gesturing invitingly to Kyle, "I could let this nice lad answer your questions instead of jumping my conclusions all over your interrogation."

Ceri nodded, her voice darker even than Kyle's shadows. "That's a brilliant idea, James."

And her gaze returned to Kyle, and if her gaze had been irked whilst staring at Jamie Hamilton, it was downright baleful when set anew upon Kyle Alec Greystone.

"Kyle?" she prompted, smiling sweetly despite the daggers in her eyes.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle (a pretty subdued and worried one too)

I looked at Roses mom through my sunglasses, then sighed. I reached up and removed the glasses, then looked at her with my glowing lavender eyes.

"Rose, could you go ask Chloe if she has that file I gave her. If she does please get it for me. I'm making a command decision to trust her with my life. If the cosmic forces that are throwing us together trust her to find the pieces of this puzzle, then she is OK with knowing my other identity. Tell her the last son of Greystone said it was OK. Please don't open it, just give it to your mother."
I looked at Roses dad then. "My father did not do any kind of human experimentation on me, I am as I was born. My powers come from channeling power from another plane of existence, which is what changed me. It's also what saved me. The file I asked Rose to get explains that much better than I can tell you."

I then moved over to the other chair and sat down.

"As to why my Grandparents moved here, what better place to hide than in a small town in the Midwest, raising horses and keeping my head down."

"And as to why I 'fancy' your daughter," I chuckled and looked at a still slightly confused and mortified Rose, "fate sorta ran us into each other, and in giving me this opportunity I found someone I could walk beside, who is my equal, my better, and my friend."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose, Ceri, Jamie, Chloe, and Pete

Bio-luminescence, Jamie thought instantly, but kept his mouth shut.

Ceri narrowed her gaze.

His eyes light up. Just like Rosy's. Except a different colour.

Oh, Lord, their glowy eyes clash. What would Susannah and Trinny say?

Rose, meanwhile, scarpered the moment he suggested it, eager for a chance to be out of the line of fire. Facing evil Kryptonians was one thing-- don't think about it --but facing her parents, together, apeshit furious, that was another animal entirely.

Kyle went on to explain, briefly, the source of his powers.

"Spontaneous metagenetic mutation," Jamie nodded sagely.

"Making up words," Ceri opined, dourly.

"Not really, no," Jamie shook his head, though he was evidently too intrigued to take offence at her age-old accusation. "It was in Emil's work, the possibility that a metagene generations latent would resurface under the right circumstances. And channeling energies from other universes isn't so uncommon. Some scientists think gravity itself comes from another dimension, a higher plane, vibrating down to little oul' us.

"More often, though," he confided, with an arch sniff, "that sort of thing, the metagene? It's inherited directly."

In the kitchen, Rose scampered past Chloe and over to the table, fetching the dossier from the second laptop bag.

Chloe arched an eyebrow at her.

"Last Son of Greystone," Rose suggested with a trembly grin, "said it was okay?"

"You tell Ray-th," Chloe replied without missing a beat, shaking her head and laughing softly, "that that cryptic routine gets tired real quick."

Rose hesitated. Glanced at Pete.

"'Last Son of Greystone,'" Pete cracked. "Somebody's got a flair for the theatrical. Also, don't mind the girl with the mind like a steel trap; she's like Columbo, whatever, knows whodunnit in the first five minutes."

The sitting room continued to be uncomfortable for a moment.

Smallville had been a good town for hiding secrets in, that was for sure.

Ceri had hid hers here for awhile, after her Great Uncle had passed on and left her the house.

And the way that Kyle described his meeting Rose...

No such thing as coincidence, Ceri thought fiercely, 'no such thing as Fate.'

But better. Equal. Friend.

That sounded like the composition of a good, solid relationship. It actually sounded like this testosterone-soaked lad had thought this through.

Ceri glanced at Jamie. Really looked at him.

Were we ever friends? We were equals, and sometimes I was your better, and sometimes you were my better. It might have been nice to have been friends.

Jamie smiled at her, a little tiny soft smile.

Our daughter's dating a superhuman with an extradimensional power source. Blimey, that's brilliant. Don't you think that's brilliant?

They both looked at Kyle again, and Ceri was about to open her mouth when Rose came in, Crystal in one hand and file in the other.

With a solemn air, she presented her mother with the file.

Her mother spread it open, and her dad peered over her mother's shoulder with his glasses back on.

Rose took her seat again, holding onto The Crystal for dear life, as Ceri and Jamie shared pointed looks and little whispered asides.

Jamie made a face, like he'd tasted something awful, and Ceri could only nod.

And then they turned to the page with the perp and Ceri turned white as a sheet.

Her eyes widened and darkened and she shot her erstwhile husband a look that could have knocked a mountain a few steps backward.

"Carrion," she hissed.

"I don't know this one," Jamie shook his head. "One of Claire's ex-toyboys? Looks her type."

"The League," Ceri explained.

"Shadows?" Jamie squinted through his glasses at Kyle, though he was still obviously speaking to Ceri.

Ceri's whisper could not have been more fierce. "Shadow powers."

"Too literal," Jamie disagreed, looking back at Ceri. "Coincidence."

"No such thing," Ceri replied, shaking her head emphatically.

This gave Jamie pause. "'No such thing.'"

Ceri ran her tongue over her teeth.

They both looked at Kyle like he was something they'd never seen before in their lives.

"Tell me, Kyle," Ceri enunciated slowly, with the air of a Sphinx proclaiming a riddle that a treasure-seeker must answer correctly lest he perish, "have you ever danced with The Devil in the pale moonlight?"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

"Tell me, Kyle," Ceri enunciated slowly, "have you ever danced with The Devil in the pale moonlight?"

I looked at Roses mom with a puzzled expression on my face.

"If your asking if I have gotten into some scrapes with bad guys in the dark, then yes, thats my preferred method of taking them down. Otherwise I have no idea what you are talking about."

I motioned to the file. "I showed that to you to explain a little better what happened to me. The night that my family was killed is the first time my powers manifested. They have been growing ever since."
I leaned forward from my chair, a predatory look on my face now.

"You startled when you say that dossier on Carrion. Who is he? And what is this League of Shadows?"

The room started getting darker, colder. Shadows withering and swirling around the room.

"Did they have anything to do with the death of my family?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri, Jamie, and Rose

Rose could feel the cold all over and around. She could feel it seeping in around the edges of the world and crawling under her skin, and she huddled into her chair...

She could almost hear the dragon sniffing at the back of her neck from within those shadows.

Ridiculous. You're just being silly because your world came to an end today.

Buck up, Strange Little Girl.

Jamie, meanwhile, had the opposite reaction.

His eyes perked behind his glasses, and he rose and he walked to the edge of the room, the great portrait of Thomas Wayne, the way the shadows crawled along the edges of the frame.

And, just as Rose had done so long ago (so very long ago) in the office of The Torch, he reached out and he touched his fingers to the shadows, he played with them on his fingertips, he let the darkness ebb and flow over the arches and whorls of his fingerprints...

"Darkness is more than the absence of light," he murmured, adjusting his glasses with his free hand. "It moves in particles and it moves in waves, not photons but no-tons."

Ceri, meanwhile, addressed Kyle's concerns more directly.

He had passed the test; she had delivered the call-phrase of The League of Shadows, The Demon's own private little joke, and he hadn't had the foggiest what she was talking about.

He had brushed against The League but had not been consumed by them, no matter how Demonic he might look.

"I've never met him," she promised Kyle. "Carrion? I know him only by reputation. Like a repertory theatre, The League of Shadows likes to hire from a stable of proven killers when it's disinclined to send its elite guard to a task. They've hired Carrion out from time to time, or so my sensei told me. So they may have something to do with your family's murder?

"But then again, Carrion could have been hired by someone else entirely.

"The League, meanwhile?" she continued. "Is obsessed with survival of the fittest, on multiple levels, ecological, sociological... they're ancient and terrible and the antithesis of humanitarianism, they're the ultimate embodiment of kicking people when they're down."

"I gotta be honest?" Rose murmured softly, huddled in the high-backed chair. "It kind of weirds me out that you know all this."

"Oh, believe you me," Jamie murmured, his hand flat against the wall as the shadows wandered up and down his arm. "Weirdness? We're just getting warmed up."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

I suddenly stood up and began pacing, shadows rippling around me, the room growing darker.

"So, this League of Shadows is a thousand year plus organization that decided who gets to live or die on a worldwide scale? And they use assassins like Carrion?"

I continued pacing, lost in thought and heedless of the impact that i was having. shadows throughout the mansion were crawling now. A gloom had surrounded the old structure.

Then I stopped, and looks Ceri in the eyes.

"This league is about to discover what Ancient and Terrible is! They just gained a foe that never sleeps, never stops, and who age cannot touch! I HAVE a thousand years to put them away if I need it! Nobody but God should have the power over who lives or dies! These people threaten those I love, and they have no idea what they have done."

I stopped, closed my eyes and dove deep into myself, calming myself until the shadows receded and the room began to lighten up.

"I walk the edge of darkness, but I won't fall in. I have the one power in the universe that can stop me from falling holding me up. I have love, and that is the anchor that keeps me human."

I listed my head and opened my eyes again, once more looking Ceri in the eyes.

"I may not be good enough for Rose, but I'm working toward getting there. I do care for her. I care a great deal and I will do everything in my power to keep her from harm, but I will not interfere in her growth. She is learning alot with us, and she is growing into the most special kind of person. A Hero."

I sat back down and regarded Roses parents. One a feral lioness, the other holding mysteries behind his eyes masked by a slightly silly exterior.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick looked a little worried. He wasn't sure how familiar he needed to be. "Ok, well see... I am not really sure. I think maybe the photos would be good enough to atleast get me to nearby. But... I will need to try it with out you first. I won't put you in any more danger than I need to. I can't. I would never forgive myself."

"How long we have? I think I might have something better than photos. And somehow I think Merick may be good at this little parlor trick of mine." Dale looked a bit pained, and a lot worried.

"I think we need to get going as soon as possible. But maybe we could spare a few hours. Why?"

"Chloe, can you get some photos together? Merick, what I am going to try to show you is going to be hard. And dangerous. Also, you are going to need to concentrate. Let's step out to the porch. Less distractions. Is that okay Chloe? Oh, Marcy, get a list of supplies from Chloe, I will see waht I can snag from Dad's office in Granville. He won't mind. Not if I tell him I accepted his offer."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe and Pete (and Rose)

Chloe blinked.

She scrutinised the veterinarian Tennylson, and tapped her chin with a fingertip. She was thinking.

"Actually," she murmured. "Hold on a second--"

It was then that Rose walked in and snagged the file, then that Chloe snarked that she'd known who Kyle "The Wraith" Greystone had been, if not all along, then at least already.

This caused Chloe to lose her train of thought for a moment.

But then Rose darted off, quick as her little feet could carry her-- which was pretty quick, admittedly --and Chloe resumed conversing with Merick and his parents.

"'Parlour trick,'" she requested of Dale. "Explain. Please."

"Por favor," Pete suggested, helpfully.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Dale laughed at Pete. He liked this kid. "Remote Viewing. It was my career once. A lifetime ago. something I had not used for many years. Until this afternoon. And something tells me I will be using it a lot more often. It was something that Jamie said. Psychokinetic. If, IF, Merick is using some form of psychic energy to do what he does, then he should be able to augment that energy. To use his mind to reach out and actually see a place very far away. It won't work instantly, it takes time to get into the proper mindset, for me only a few minutes. But for Merick it may take longer, like i said this was my job."

Marcy smiled at Merick. Marcy had noticed the reaction from Bruce at the flowers. She couldn't read Wraith very well, but it seemed he might be dating Rose. Which was disconcerting to Marcy in and of itself. "Hun, listen, before you go off chasing monster around the world, one thing I need to tell you..." Marcy leaned down mouth almost against Merick's ear "never give flowers to a girl in front of their boyfriend. You are a sweet, but oblivious young man." Marcy gently kissed Merick on the forehead, then stood straight once more."Good luck kids. Chloe, while they do their thing, lets get a supply ration together. And Dale, you have even more explaining to do later."

 

[AmenRa]

J'onn J'onzz stood behind and over Chloe and Pete, watching them as they worked. He was aware his height and size intimidated people, and although he could not make himself any smaller, he could try to make himself seem more....human.

He spoke quietly, his voice almost a whisper....

"Shall I tell you of a the world of Red Sand?" he asked in quietness. "A place of desert and ocean, a world of dreams, of cities, of life like no other within our system. A twin world, much like this one, but opposite and yet the same. A world that basks in the warmth and light of Sol, yet now resides only in the dark shadows of a Curse.

"On this place, my home, Mars, I was a Manhunter, a bringer of justice, a reclaimer of criminals, a police officer," he told them.

And then he stopped. And he breathed a great sigh, and it sounded like the cosmos itself had groaned a weary breath.

"And then all I knew died.

"My wife. My beloved. My child. My heritage. My world," he said. And then he waited.

"And so I found my way to Krypton, where I served a noble Council as a bringer of justice and an enforcer of laws," he finished.

And that was J'onn J'onnz' story, told once again for Chloe, because he had held her when she came back from That Place, and he had seen inside her mind, and she inside his, and he wanted her to understand.

 

[camerindrake]

George

"Its not much of anything other than a bell and whistle for me as a reporter," George stated, "Its just that today after the meteor shower I saw a Real Estate agent place a sold sign on the old family estate. You know that place ins such disrepair. Why would anyone buy it especially after this second Meteor Shower in ten years?"

George then rubbing his five o'clock shadow, and shaking his head lightly. "But anywho, I need to head out and find Christopher. He wasn't at the hospital helping out when I went by there. Which means hes out on the streets trying to stop the rioters. He tries to be the hero. Which I don't mind honestly. I just wish he would think it through. Remember when the time he was protecting Kara out at the old mill from the Murdock boys?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri, Jamie, and Rose

(Jamie's slightly silly exterior was winning out over his mysteries, or perhaps they lived in symbiosis, these two sides of him, these two hearts in his chest? The shadows deepened and he stepped deeper into them, almost vanishing from sight in the gloaming.

He sniffed softly.

"Smells like magic," he murmured. "Positively reeks of magic. Why didn't I notice that before? The ley-lines, the ley-lines meeting at The Cave... must've been it.")

"We're all born to be someone," Ceri murmured, "everyone of us. And I think that maybe you're closer to being that someone than most kids your age. I like to think that Rose is, too. And I couldn't be prouder."

(Rose turned pink, and suddenly looked a whole lot less frightened, despite the gathering of the darkness.)

Ceri smiled, and she stood, and she walked through the shadows hunched down before Kyle and clasped him on both his shoulders.

"Don't ever lose that anchor," she whispered. "Don't ever fall into darkness. I've seen it happen, seen it happen to someone I still love very much. Don't let that happen to you."

She drew back from him, though, rose to her booted feet, and fixed him with a stern gaze.

"I'm not a rich woman," she murmured, "but I can afford to give you a shilling's worth of free advice: don't bite off more than yeh can chew, luvvie. At the head and the heart of The League is a darkness even blacker than the stuff you wade through. You're not the only one who lives forever, sweets."

She turned away, and she sat back down, and it was clear from her eyes, from her face, that she had said all she intended to say on the subject.

That if Kyle went further into this, pursued The Demon's Head into the greater darkness, that it was all on him. She had laid down her maternal law.

She sat, raven-haired and dark-eyed, in the shadows as they leaped and dervished about, and she looked right at home, like the person she'd been born to be, there in the shadows.

But she would take Kyle Greystone no further in, not by this path.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe and Pete

"If you'll let me beg your pardon for a moment, ma'am," Chloe apologised to Marcy, as fragments became portions became notions became whole, strategy forming behind her nigh-iridescent eyes, "I have something of an idea."

She smiled softly.

"Maybe Merick'll require training for this in the long run," she explained, "but I've a definite feeling that right now time is short, and we might be able to use Doctor Tennylson's experience in this field to our advantage and Merick's."

She frowned. "From what I've read on the subject, there's certain dangers involved in Remote Viewing, the same dangers inherent to any astral projection. Losing the silver cord, leaving your body vulnerable, that sort of thing. But Doctor Tennylson has training with this? It'll be good to have him along for the ride.

"We might be able to pull off a piggybacked Remote Viewing," she explained, and then turned to J'onzz, who had been standing and thinking...

...J'onn told her anew.

Told her of the heroism of his past, and the tragedy that had spurred him so very very far from home, millions of miles across stardust and trackless black gulfs.

And Chloe's meteorite-infused heart broke all over again for him.

And despite her reporter's natural detachment, she found herself again ashamed of herself and inspired by him.

(Pete hadn't gotten to hear the story the first time, and he caught himself, embarrassed, with a tear rolling down his cheek.)

Chloe walked up to J'onzz, and she put her hands in his and she gazed up at him with a tiny, encouraging smile.

"I'm sorry for the broken road that's led you here," she murmured to him, as inexplicable gloom seeped into the kitchen and climbed the walls, the aftermath and side effects of Kyle's fury. "I'm sorry that there's been such great pain for you, so great loss, beating you down with every stride you've taken along the path. But J'onn. Dearest, wond'rous J'onn... I am not sorry you're here. We need you.

"We need your experience," she murmured, "we need your strength, we need your heart.

"Not to mention?" she smiled, agonised, apology echoing in her eyes. "We need your powers. You read my mind, pushed my mind along. Could you do that with two minds at once, link them together with your powers? Could you do a... I dunno... a Martian Mind-Meld? Doctor Tennylson has the power to see great distances, and Merick needs to see where he's going to teleport.

"Can you bind them together with silver cord," she wondered, "that they might traverse the map together?"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

I looked over at Rose's mom. The last of my fury draining out of me and with a gasp i sank back into the chair.

"I'm sorry for that. Sometimes it's hard, so very very hard to control whats in me." A tear slowly ran down my cheek as I continued talking. "I have lost so much, so quickly that sometimes it just comes crashing back into me, and sometimes that gets wrapped up that is the chaos inside me, and it leaks out."

I sniffed and wiped my eye. I was not normally a person who cried, but too many emotions, too much sensation and surprises had been thrown at me for one day.

"I'm just a kid damnit. I'm sixteen! I have these powers and abilities, and know that I am just scraping the tip of the iceberg. Heck, even the dragon didn't do much more than startle me."

I stopped and looked at Ceri then.

"But I want to be a man, and to do that I have to make the right choices, good over evil, right over wrong, and do that every time. I want to be the man my father raised, not the creature that I could be if I left my humanity behind. And I have people who care for me to stop that from happening. My grandparents for one, and I think your daughter is another. I want to make them proud, and I will."

I paused. "And for the League of Shadows, I do have some grasp of tactics in my testosterone laden brain and won't go off hunting something thats existed for a mellinia or two, but I'll be damned if they find me a scared little boy again!" My voice dropped down to a whisper. "They already killed my family once, I won't let them do it again."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Bruce Wayne

Bruce stood in his "study," clad in black cloth and blacker armour, the ski-mask clutched in one hand and the bag of gear strapped to his side, the caltrops and et cetera.

He stood before the mirror used for shadow-boxing, and he stared at himself, and he found himself wanting.

It would have to do for now.

But there was something missing.

Something very much... missing.

But what?

The shadows seemed to shriek as they climbed the walls in his dark house, his father's house, and he arched an eyebrow at them but did not shy away.

"Good to see you, too," he greeted the shadows.

He pulled the mask on, down over his face, and adjusted it so that his eyes found the eye-holes, his mouth found the mouth-hole.

The mask came down over his face and he felt his aura shift, felt himself become something else.

Felt himself grow that much closer to the being he had been born to be.

(He wasn't there. Wasn't there yet, not nearly. But he was so much closer now.)

He felt The Voice whisper up within himself, The Voice he'd known since childhood, The Voice he'd been hearing since the afternoon he'd tumbled down that well at the old house in Gotham, tumbled down amongst the bats.

The Voice that had grown so much louder at the back of his brain since he'd watched his parents die, killed by a man who had danced with The Devil in the pale moonlight.

"Very good to see you indeed," he greeted the shadows, speaking in that Voice.

There was more that needed to be done. He wasn't the only one who needed equipment for an edge against the coming threat. And it wouldn't be much of an edge. But better a tiny edge than no edge at all.

He descended the back stairs, straight down into the basement, and found a few more things.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri, Jamie, and Rose

The fury of Kyle Greystone ebbed, and so too did the shadows on the walls, the shadows that Bruce had greeted with kinship and friendship, the shadows that had matched J'onzz' saddened heart, the shadows that had chilled Rose and the shadows that Jamie Hamilton had dove amongst like a child in a pool of multi-coloured playballs.

The room's lighting returned to normal, and Jamie made a face.

"Swizz," he frowned. "I've been burgled."

But then Rose caught him in a surprisingly crushing hug, grinning her face off, and he was consoled at the loss of his extradimensional plaything. He hugged his daughter.

The shadows receded from Ceri, as well, receded from the wall behind the loveseat, receded from her eyes, and she smiled gently at Kyle Alec Greystone.

"I've heard enough," she murmured, rising once more to her feet and offering Kyle a hand up. "You're in the clear. At least for now. Let's go back through and not keep the others waiting any longer."

Rose beamed, delighted.

It had been a rough ride, that was for darn sure, but it had turned out better than she could have imagined.

But then Jamie raised his hand, a schoolboy enquiring of a professor. "'Ang on. 'Dragon?'"

Rose's eyes widened, and she grinned a sheepish, lopsided grin as she turned pink again: "Funny story."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

Oh Crap!!!

I just HAD to mention the dragon!

"It's not that bad. Once you get them housebroken and trained to use the draggie-door they are managable. Hard to get homeowners insurance with one in the house tho."

At that I left te room and walked back into the kitchen.

"Hi y'all. Yes, this is 'Tall Dark and Spooky minus the spooky."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri, Jamie, and Rose

"'Dragon?'" Jamie repeated, bewildered.

Rose led her father and mother after Kyle, pausing only to scoop up The Crystal.

"'Pterosaurian throwback,'" she told her dad in her most mock-serious face and her most mock-serious voice. "'thermochemical respiratory system.'"

"Ah," Jamie nodded, sage as one of The Three Magi, as if this explained everything.

"'Draggie-door?'" Ceri repeated, bewildered.

"We're going to need a bigger drawbridge," Jamie grinned at her, as they re-entered the kitchen just behind the still-human Kyle.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

I looked at the suprised faces in the kitchen (well, Chloe wasn't suprised, more aggravated than anything else) when my wrist buzzed. I about jumped out of my skin!

"Excuse me guys, got a call I can't ignore."

I stepped back out into the hallyway and my wrist buzzed again, then a voice came out of the speaker in my watch.

"Kyle, I know your there. Rebecca has me set to contact you as soon as you got back into human form. She's really pissed. I mean, REALLY pissed!!"

"Just a minute Odin, i'm not secure here. Geeze, give a guy a second!"

And thats when Roses dad walked up with a confused look on his face, shortly followed by Rose and her mom. I mouthed the word 'A.I.' twoard them and continued talking.

"Whats so important that you made a emergency call instead of a text message?"

"Oh I don't know, maybe the fact that THERE WAS A FREAKING METIOR SHOWER A FEW HOURS AGO AND YOU WERE UNREACHABLE THE ENTIRE TIME!!"

I winced "Geeze, calm down ya overpriced Mac from Hell."

"Calm down!! This is nothing compared to what your sister was saying. Heck, I learned a few phrases I am going to have to use someday. You better call her very soon. I distinctlly heard her threaten to rent every billboard in town amd post your baby pictures on them. The bathtub ones, and the one where you are singing on the potty."

I started making shushing motions with my hands, I could feel the blood drain from my face. Gangsters, thugs, guns I could face. A pissed off billionare sister was a whole other thing.

"OK OK, tell her i'll call as soon as possible. I got a situation here that I'm dealing with and I will call her..."

Thats when I noticed the entire McCrimmon clan looking at me, her father in wonder, and Rose was in tears trying to hold back laughter, and her mom was just as bad.

Women!

"Odin, I am NOT secure ya idjit toaster! Tell Bekka I'll call her within a hour, and stay outta the TV stations computers!! No more hacking NBC to get a preview of the next season of Heroes. Bekka about turned a family of mice loose in your mainframe the last time she caught you."

"Ok buddy, but remember, you still gotta scan my comics in from this month. Rebecca says she will, but she always forgets."

He then broke the connection. I looked over at Rose and her family

"He's a young A.I., only online about eighteen months."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri, Jamie, and Rose

Jamie had a look on his face very much like the look he'd had when toying around with Kyle's random shadows...

...only now there was something of a hunger on his features, something of a gleam in his eye.

"A Friendly A.I.," he murmured softly, touching Kyle's wrist gently, lifting it, gazing at the watch. "Molto bene."

"Isn't it funny," he mused, squinting at that watch from behind his spectacles, "how the moment you get an artificial intelligence well into improvised reasoning or ad hocery, it starts gravitating towards sarcasm? It's like a reflexive virtual ancestral memory. Migratory sentience in digital form.

"(Though I've found, really? They get a lot less snarky with you when they're based in Ubuntu rather than a Mac O/S.)"

He hesitated, though.

"Wait," he arched an eyebrow. "Did you say NBC? Actually, I think I've met this one-eyed monster of yours. If, erm, indirectly."

Ceri shook her head, aghast, grinning, laughing, disbelieving of Kyle's existence, least of all Odin's: "Where does he get all those wonderful toys?"

Rose had her face buried in Ceri's shoulder, laughing delightedly, proudly, seeing her "boyfriend" of sorts get the riot act read to him by a machine, this was brilliant...

"My boy has the hook-up," she grinned proudly as she leaned back to look at her mum's face. "My boy is off the hook."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

I chuckled myself.

"Dad had both me and Bekka involved in the company from just about the time we started walking and talking. Bekka kept in touch with the board and once she turned eighteen she got back in charge. Gen-Tech has many different departments, but our biggest are advanced computers, of which you just heard our most advanced, and biggest headache. Other departments are medical research and defensive research."

I took off my watch, pulled my glasses out of my pocket and handed them to Mr. McCrimmon.

"That is one of their security 'toys'. The watch has a miniature transmitter than acts as a phone and a small computer. I can't play any real games, but it works great as a word processor and web browser. The screen is thrown up on the inside of my glasses. By the way, it does have a security lock so it can't be used by just anyone, but that function gets a bit snarky. Bekka lets me QC some of the newer stuff and keeps me in the loop about projects, like Odin."

I grinned at Rose then.

"Because once I reach eighteen I do inherit my portion of the company, thirty five percent holding I do believe. Bekka has fifty five percent, and ten percent is spread around. Dad made sure that one of us would always control the company. When I get in I need to be able to hit the ground running. Thats why I had some input on the Valhalla project. Odin is actually based on the neural pathways of Dr. Schlagels son, who as Bekka puts it, is a big a 'pain' as I am."

 

[camerindrake]

DAmian, Dinah & Chris

(OOC: Screw the time stamps i was using I pushed my time frame way to far ahead so i am saying nevermind them)

Damian by this time was pacing the room looking out the window every so often his gate very fast paced and if it wasn't such a industrial strength material for the carpet he would have started walking a trench into it. Dinah had Chris on her bed with his head on her lap placing a cool cloth on his for head.

"If you dont watch yourself you are going to wear out that carpet, young one." Dinah says as she looks up from the young boy still out of it.

"Cant help it. I am used to being on patrol at this time of night." Damian says as he takes another peak out of the window looking at the police round up the last of the drunk football team members.

Dinah raises her eyebrow to Damian's remark "Damn, How long does your patrol last."

Damian looks over to Dinah and shrugs, "Depends on how bad the night is and i work alone mostly. I dont have Syn running Oracle for me so It usually lasts until morning."

Dinah Sighs finally and motions her hand. "Then go. Dont do anything stupid though, Damian. This isn't Gotham, remember that."

Damian Goes into his duffle and pulls out a mask that is very simular to the one he usually wore as the batman but without the ears. He gives the armor and circuitry one last looks over and turns on its small battery and the lenses flash green for a short momment and then go back to their mirrored appearance and he slips the helmet like cowl on and situates his utility harnes and pulls out a different long duster a grey one with the top blackened and a set of armor a combination body armor and wet suit with heat retardant paint covering it. He goes into the bathroom and returns in his gear. "What should I call myself if someone asks."

Dinah shrugs, "I dont know. But the black hood thing looks like it works well with out the extended ears."

Damian smiles for a momment, "The black hood I like it."

Chris starts to waken and Damian darts out before Chris can see him. "Who were you talking to"

Dinah looks at him moving his hair from his eyes. "A friend ,thats all. just a friend."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Dale had only been listening passively to the discussion between the boy and his watch. Then he heard it. "Did you say Dad had you involved... Gen-Tech... Greystone?" Dale was absolutely puzzled now. This was the second boy back from the dead this afternoon. "I knew your father. Only in passing, but we had met. My father, is Edmund Tennylson. Of Tenn-Tech. Small world huh? What is it with this town and teenage boys coming back from the dead?"

Mericks face contorted with glee. He burst out. Not only had Tall Dark and Spooky just been reemed a new one by his wrist watch, and it turned out that his name was GRAYSTONE. Merick could hold back no longer. "BY THE POWER OF GRAYSTONE!!! Haheahaheah! Merick was giggling nearly uncontrollably. "He-Man for the win TDS!"