The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[ChasNicollette]

Ten Rings I Hate About You

Darkness fell, darkness upon darkness, and the village descended into chaos.

Bellowing men, chattering firearms, roaring engines...

The giant of a man, Raza, was unconscious even before he struck the flimsy walls of that hut.

His ring glinted, his right hand the only part of him still extruding from the rubble.

Edgar Cole was already near panic stations, already close to madness, and when the hand gripped his arm from within the darkness, he nearly screamed aloud.

He nearly screamed, but had so little air in his lungs from his panicky whimperings, the sound only came out as a gasp.

"If you want to live, you have to trust me. Can I take you out of here?"

He nodded helplessly, rapidly, and then, unsure if the creature who spoke with that dark dark voice could even see him in this eldritch blackness, he croaked with eyes clenched shut: "Please. Please. I don't want to die. Please please get me out of here!"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

"Close your eyes. This will be strange, but it will be over soon."

The darkness dropped and I backed into the tree I had decended from. Shadows swirled around us, and in a instant we were in Shadow. Moments later, and I was back in wayne's house, in the room where Rose and her parents had talked with me.

"You can open your eyes now, but stay here. Someone will be here to get you."


With that I walked out the door and down to the kitchen.

"Umm, guys, a funny thing happened to me in Hondouras...."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick was loving his churro. "Pete, lines on a map do not a people make. El Paso may be Texas, but believe me, it is as Mexican as anywhere south of the Rio Grande."

Merick was all grins and munching until Wraith reappered.

"That doesn't sound good." Merick sensed danger. He was on his feet and ready before he had finished the words. His hands were shimmering with energy, and his eyes were beginning to take on that emerald flame. "How bad?"

 

[Superman1496]

Chloe looked into his eyes with courage that filled him with warmth, something he thought would be impossible.

But, before he could speak his mind, he heard strange commotion from outside. Quickly, Bruce made for the front door.

Outside, he saw McCrimmon fighting a boy. Bewilderment flooded Bruce. Not that they were just fighting on his front lawn, (not that it wasn't strange enough) but it was the fact that the boy had something about him.

ENOUGH! Bruce bellowed. His voice echoing through the air. He looked at the boy. He had never met him before, not that he could ever remember. But there was something about him that seemed extremly familiar.

Bruce removed his mask, and looked at the combatants on his lawn. What's going on here, and who the hell are you two? Bruce demanded, beeming at the two strangers who had just arrived at his house.

 

[AmenRa]

The Martian Manhunter nodded his head, just once, and closed his eyes. Her presence was felt so near to him, and it was simple for him to connect with her mind.

There was resistance at first, but then J'onn J'onzz assured Rose's subconcious that he was only going to show her his memories, not delve into hers.

He felt her smile, and they connected, mind to mind.

The Son of Sarek would have been proud, if such a feeling were allowed and not a revulsion against Kholinahr.

In Rose's mind, she stood next to J'onn J'onzz in his Green Martian form, standing in a blackened space, with a doorway before them. The Martian Manhunter took her tiny hand in his and stepped to the door. He reached and turned its knob, pulling it open, and stepping through. Rose was ushered along behind him.

And then she saw it.

Krypton.

It was white and icy and blue and it shown like a diamond-encased sapphire in the inky blackness of space. Behind it, the angry red fire of Rao glowed with quiet fury.

They descended, and features of the planet's surface came into view. She saw the crystal spires of the world's largest and capital city, Kryptonopolis. As they moved over the surface, other cities distant came into view...Kandor and Argo City. And then they moved down, before Kryptonopolis, following a jagged crystalline landscape to where they moved over the Valley of Peace. And there, against the Valley's cliff wall, stood the three monuments, the center-most bearing the symbol of the House of El.

J'onn J'onzz took them higher now, over Kryptonopolis, where Rose then saw the Great Dome. It was into this they flew, and then came to rest it seemed while Rose watched the Martian Manhunter's memory.

The Great Dome was filled with the members of the Science Council. Rose could see J'onn himself standing in the center of the great dome, standing behind a silver-haired male clad in white robes. There was a shaft that shown down in the center of the dome, and where it struck the floor two rings connected to each other spun and rotated against each other. A bearded Kryptonian wearing black stood in the center of the rings, in the center of the shaft of light.

Rose was snatched from this place, and taken to a laboratory full of strange, technologically advanced computers and implements. The silver-haired Kryptonian male she had seen earlier was there, and so was J'onn, and the Martian Manhunter was holding an infant child wrapped in blankets of red, blue, and gold and she had the faintest wisps of blonde hair. J'onn J'onzz handed the child back to the other, and the two appeared to be talking, but she could not hear what was being said.

There was a woman who came into the laboratory, and she was beautiful and blonde and walked with grace and purpose. She took the child from the silver-haired one and seemed to say a few words to the Martian Manhunter, who smiled and nodded. A few moments later, Var-Sen came into the lab, holding some strange instrument in his hand, and began talking to the other and J'onn. They moved off into an anteroom, and...

She shifted again, and found herself standing atop a high peak of crystal that refracted the angry red rays of Rao. Looking down into the purely clear sea she could see ocean creatures of all shapes and descriptions, and one or two appeared to wave at her as they swam near the surface.

She stayed for a while there until J'onn J'onnz took her hand once more.

"Come, child," he said in her mind, "it is time to go now."

And with that, the planet Krypton as remembered by J'onn J'onzz began to fade to black.

He left her mind, returning to his own.

He opened his eyes.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie, Pete, and Chloe

"Pete, lines on a map do not a people make. El Paso may be Texas, but believe me, it is as Mexican as anywhere south of the Rio Grande."

"Yeah, but dude," Pete shook his head fiercely. "Some Cuban guy moves to Nicaragua and makes a cigar? They ain't gonna stamp 'Cuban' on the cigar box when they export the sucker. 'Nicaraguan.'"

When The Wraith came rolling in, Pete had a mouthful.

"Yeah buh wha?"

Jamie stood up from behind the computer, nudging his glasses, and arching both eyebrows.

"You went to Honduras already?" Jamie frowned. "Jesus wept, Nebiros, are you familiar with the concept of 'jumping the gun?'"

Chloe stared after Bruce, biting her lip.

He'd been about to say something important. One of the very things, she suspected, he might have said when they were alone in this very same kitchen before everyone else showed up.

But he hadn't said it.

And then he'd tramped off, like the angriest Billy Goat Gruff she'd ever seen.

Coming back to herself, she glanced across at The Wraith and she frowned.

"Kyle," she murmured, darkly, natch, "what did you do?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Edgar Cole

"You can open your eyes now, but stay here. Someone will be here to get you."

Edgar didn't open his eyes, not at first. He kind of stood there, trembling, and took his little black watch cap off, grasping it in his hands.

When he did open one eye, he peered around himself, and found himself in a little sitting room.

"I died, didn't I?" he mumbled, sinking into the high-backed armchair, conversing with the portrait of Thomas Wayne. "(Houston, we have a problem.)"

"I died, and this is Hell's waiting room?" he shook his head. "I-it's e-either that or a psychotic break, and I'm not sure which I prefer."

He put his hat back on, and he stared down at his hands.

"I guess it's better to be crazy than dead," he mumbled, "but it really hurts a career as a mathematical archaeolinguist when you don't have sanity on your r-resume."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

I hadn't felt like this since I broke Dad's binoculars and tried to hide it.

"I just went there to scout out a insertion point for our team. Ther are lots more rebels there than we thought, and they are a bit better organized. Equipment is pretty ragtag, but there are still lots of guys with guns. Well, I was observing them from the trees when they drug out this scrawny guy, who said he was a archaeologist and said something about a crystal of power."
I paused a second to get a look at everyone. I quickly continued.

"So when I heard that I couldn't just let him get taken in and give up that information, so I dropped a darkness field, knocked the big guy holding him through a house, and , well, brought him back here. He's in the study and still scared out of his mind. I didn't tell him anything, so he doesn't even know where he is. I'm sorry, but I couldn't think of anything else to do."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri and Gabe

Just before he reached the house, Gabe hesitated. One of the patches of darkness there was alive, though he hadn't realised it at first...

It was alive, and it was angry, and it took its mask off and it was a he.

He was Bruce Wayne.

Oh, Gabe realised. That Mr. Wayne.

"My name is Gabriel Sullivan," he explained, in a hurry. "I'm here to see my daughter. (And to use your restroom.) I have no idea who this man is, he just offered me a lift. (I think he might be crazy, but his dress-code seems to go with what you're wearing so everyone here might be sane instead of me.)"

"Introductions are in order," Ceri glanced at The Black Hood, "don't you think?"

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick was frazzled. "This might complicate things. Chloe, how are we doing? You need to be ready to jump if it comes to that. So, this scrawny guy? He isn't a threat then?" The light in Merick's eyes began to fade.

"Pete, several tribes of Native Americans are known for making extraordinary blankets and other crafts. If a Native American moves off of the reservation, but continues to craft the items in traditional fashion, using traditional materials, are they not still Native American Blankets?"

Merick relaxed a bit. He kept the energy around his fists, still tightly coiled, but no longer at the ready.

 

[camerindrake]

Damian

Black hood looks at his father dumbstruck for just a moment. Just seeing how young and full of hope Bruce is at this age. Black Mask then regains his composure thanking the gods its night and he is wearing his cowl to keep them from seeing his eyes. He then straightens his back standing his full height, his shoulders squaring. He was Black Hood once again.

Black Hood then says, "I believe you are right, I am simply calling myself the Black Hood. I believe in our trading of blows I didn't get a chance to get yours. Though I can easily tell you are originally from Wales, and a martial artist of some calaber. Recognised at least three styles if not more. And it looked like you are a bit rusty. If i find everyone trustworthy I might be willing to help you knock the rust off. I think a sparing partner would be good for both of us. He then outreaches his hand towards Ceri. "And Mr. Wayne I was on patrol and found trace ammounts of blood on some grass and I thought I would investigate and try to find Mr. Sullivans daughter for him. Also there are some unexplained events occurring. I thought that certain people could be of assistance."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie, Chloe, and Pete

Pete shook his head. "Yeah, guy," he explained, slowly and carefully, "if he's still in America, shit, sure. But he maybe sets up shop in Osaka? I guarantee you his dreamcatchers're gonna say 'made in Japan.'"

Jamie took off his glasses.

His face was bunched up, and his eyes seemed extra dark.

"All right then," he declared. "Not to seem bossy, but that's something of a situation. 'Spose it was clever of you to get the lay of the land, but chucking petrol onto a bonfire five minutes before we're wandering into camp generally isn't the best way to keep a low profile, or keep things running smooth.

"Also?" he smiled tightly, trying to keep his voice from bubbling over into anger, "we're guests in this house and there's a lot of secrecy about. Bringing a complete stranger here puts all of us in danger, not the least of which is our humble host."

He made for the door of the kitchen, and stopped in the doorway.

"You lot stay in here," he suggested, indicating Pete and Merick. "And keep your voices down. I'm going to have a word with our new guest. Chloe:"

Chloe stopped scowling at The Wraith and blinked at Jamie.

"I've isolated what I think is our footprint," he pointed out. "Have a look at it, see if you can't incorporate it into our search algorithms."

"Right," she nodded, seeing the reason in that, though there was a look on her face like who died and made you boss?

Whistling sharply through his teeth-- fweeet! --and gesturing to The Wraith that he should make haste in following, Jamie whirled and strode down the hall towards the sitting room.

He had his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets and his eyes as dark as can be.

"Bee-elzebub Hasadevilputasideforme. Can you make another globe of darkness, small one," he wondered, "like from the barn, except just around his head? Blind him? I want to have a talk with this bloke, but it's important he doesn't see anything that gives us away. (Bad enough he's seen that bloody painting.)"

Back in the kitchen, Chloe sank down to a seat behind the computer and began typing.

"Still," Pete suggested, trying to be optimistic, "guess it's better that we didn't dive into a shit-ton of guns without warning."

"I guess it's better that you're not going at all, yeah," Chloe nodded.

"What?" Pete blinked. "But. But... yo hablo espanol!"

Chloe scowled at him, no time for this. "Tu hablas bullet-riddled corpse?"

Pete didn't have an answer for that.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick was starting to tense. Through all of the craziness of the day, Jamie seemed almost relaxed. Now he was full of wrath and damnation. This could not be a good thing.

Merick flung a hand at Pete and Chloe. Almost instantly Merick, Marcy, Chloe, and Pete were incased in a dome of force. "Pete, no offense amigo, but if shit goes south right now, I want to make sure you are safe. And when we get this done, we are going to El Paso. Then you can tell me about authentic Mexican." Merick was grinning. "You guys be ready to move if things go south."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

Damn. I fucked up big time.

I followed Mr McCrimmon out the hallway and was thankful I was in my armored form. Nobody could see the shame on my face. Then his question completely caught me by suprise.

Shrink my Darkness???

"I have never tried to control how big or small it is, I just... do it. I can try, but I can't garentee it will work. You still want me to?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Traditional renderings of Heaven often describe it as having streets made out of gold.

But not all that is gold glitters.

For a moment, as J'onn introduced his mind to Rose's, Rose panicked at the unfamiliar sensation-- it didn't feel like Var-Sen, J'onn's telepathy, it was deeper and rounder and shaded with colours that didn't have names --and she thought for damn sure he was going to open the pages of her mind right at the place where she got hit by a train in a car stolen from her father...

But then gentle reassurance came, and she walked instead through the door into his engrams rather than him through the door into hers.

And for a moment, her katra merged with his, point for point.

She shivered softly, and she rubbed her upper arms, though she did not feel cold.

She shivered from... bewilderment. She shivered from awe.

Her eyes were very blue and very wide, and she could feel spiritual electricity racing up and down her skin. It was like. It was like being invited to converse with a certain Burning Bush. It was like being invited onto Holy Ground.

She stood beneath the light of Rao, red and wrathful, upon the ice of Krypton, cool and strong.

She felt like she should maybe kneel. She felt like she should take off her shoes.

The cities were like a puzzle made of crystals and antigrav, Escher-esque feats of architecture, every building was as beautiful as a cathedral or a palace.

And there was The Symbol. Great and big and bendigedig.

'Hope.'

It still made her feel as safe as houses. It was sacred, she could feel it in her soul.

The Great Dome was a geodesic masterpiece, though the dark-haired man who stood at its centre filled her with dread, limitless dread.

Like staring into the heart of a neutron star, it was, to look in his eyes.

This man, this bearded soulless man, was as profane as The Symbol was sacred.

Rose's eyes drank hungrily of the rest of the scene, though, the younger J'onn, the older gentleman...

Deep in the crowd, she spotted a man of similar age to the white-haired fellow who stood with J'onn, and this man in the crowd had a blonde girl with him who might have been Rose's age or older.

(She wondered at this. Was this Take Your Daughter to Work Day?)

But then Rose was taken away from The Science Council's work, and taken instead to the white-haired man's solo campaign. But whereas Rose would ordinarily have had eyes only for the science, only for the sci-fi and the supermath, in this instance she saw only the wisp of blonde hair that sat upon the forehead of the baby girl.

Instinct and intuition, so long having failed her, flashed instantly to the forefront of Rose's mind.

Kara.

Instinct and intuition flashed to the forefront of Rose's mind, and tears flashed to the forefront of her eyes.

Baby Kara.

Hope in infant form.

The tears cluttered her vision, even in this astral state, and when she blinked them away she thought that much time must have passed because here Kara was as a grown-up...

No. Not Kara.

She's holding Kara.

Same girl from the audience.

Pretty, though.

Rose bit her lip.

I hope she made it out okay. When it happened.

I hope...

And there was Var-Sen, and Rose's tears threatened to become a torrent, the hand that J'onn hadn't held onto turning into a fist at Rose's side as she willed herself not to lose it.

Then he moved into another room, conversing and confabulating, and Rose had to bite the inside of her cheek so as not to beg him to stay. So as not to beg him not to leave her all over again...

But they were gone again, The Martian and The Omnitherm.

They stood on one of the great heights of Krypton. They were so high up that all sense of scale was lost, but it seemed to Rose that this mountain was taller even than Olympus Mons, a great mountain on J'onn's native planet. Its facades were steeper than El Capitan on Earth, and it seemed as close to the red red sun as The Tower of Babel must have been to Heaven.

Rose wondered, gazing out upon the city-states of Krypton and the vast singular ocean of clear clear blue, if her flight powers would still work in an environment of increased gravity, or if she would drop like a stone.

She wondered if Jesus had felt like this when The Devil had tempted Him to cast Himself off of the temple that angels might catch Him on the way down. She wondered if Jesus had felt that weird kind of imaginary falling sensation in His stomach, the ghost of a freefall vertigo that would never come to pass.

The urge to jump. The urge to fall.

Rose shook her head as if to clear it, and when she opened her eyes again she saw only beauty, only sea to shining sea, "Starlight" by Muse.

She wondered if planets had an afterlife.

"Dresden Codak" theorised that civilisations, having passed away, had their own graveyard...

But that wasn't the same thing.

Rose whispered a little prayer, expressing her hope that Krypton had gone to Heaven.

(She knew that Kimiko "Thunderbolt" Ross would probably express disdain at that sort of thinking. But Kim could be dumb about certain things, and besides which Rose had always liked Alina better.)

Rose waved sheepishly to a Kraken-sized beastie as it grazed the surface and suggested that it might be pleased to meet her...

"Come, child," J'onn said in her mind, "it is time to go now."

And Earth, Rose's capricious native world, her sometimes loving, often violent mother-planet, swelled up into Rose's senses in place of Krypton.

And Rose sank to her knees, and her tears rolled down without hope of containment.

Her tears were many, and her tears were massive, and Rose knelt there in Kara's barn and she wept for a world lost.

She sniffled, though, and recovered relatively quickly, wiping away tears and mucous on the long black sleeves of her tee.

"'I am Grey,'" she whispered, again something of a prayer, penned by another man who, like Aaron Diaz of "Dresden Codak," didn't believe in God. "'I stand between the candle and the star. We are Grey. We stand between the darkness and the light.'"

She smiled faintly, wiping away the last of her tears, and stood up tall, holding The Crystal before her.

"'We walk in the dark places no others will enter,'" she swore, an oath of courage, an oath of fealty, akin to that selfsame prayer of Grey. She swore not on holy Scripture of Earth, but on a sacred stone of Krypton. "'We stand on the bridge, and no one may pass. We live for The One, we die for The One.'"

She smiled faintly at J'onn J'onzz, and she nodded.

"Thank you," she murmured. "I needed that."

"I'm ready now, I think."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete and Chloe

Pete blinked. "Sweet of you. But I ain't useless. I been staving off bullies for myself and this bug-obsessed kid I used to know, didn't have anyone to protect me. I can handle myself."

Pete couldn't help but wonder, though, how much of this was self-defeating stubborn bravado and how much of it was proper and righteous.

He couldn't help but wonder.

The field flew up around the dwellers of the kitchen, and Chloe's laptop connection flickered for a moment before electromagnetic energy of certain wavelengths-- including wi-fi and cell communications --began behaving normally again.

Chloe began typing faster.

Doctor Hamilton had isolated a section of code, reading between the lines, that had stood out from the facility's subframe. Not so much like a sore thumb? Maybe just a hangnail. But Hamilton had found it all the same, and copied it to her clipboard.

She then proceeded, as Hamilton had suggested, to integrate it into the search function of her code-sifting protocol.

She clicked "start."

Code began sprawling.

Code began scrolling, trundling past, defying even her very quick eyes to read and memorise it all...

She got a hit almost instantly, and she blinked with surprise.

The protocol found a matching footprint as nearby as Metropolis. A footprint, judging by the timestamp, that was only moments old.

"Oh my God," Chloe whispered.

You were less than a heartbeat away.

But by now, you could be half a world gone.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie and Edgar

Jamie fished in his pocket and pulled out Ceri's cellphone. Cuing up the camera feature, he held the phone around the corner at arm's length and got a look at Edgar Cole that way, peering at the LCD, without exposing himself to Cole's eyes.

"I don't know this one," he murmured.

He bit his lip, thinking hard, and rubbed the patch of skin behind his right ear with fingers extended from the hand that held the snapped-shut phone.

"Erm," he muttered. "No, s'pose not. Wouldn't do to have everyone in a large radius suddenly wondering if they were dead."

He shivered for a moment, at the memory of that...

"Tell you what," he suggested, softly. "Stand behind me, look imposing. Whatever else I might say about you, Zarathos, you certainly look imposing. You need to interject, what have you, feel free. I'm just going to have a word."

He tucked the phone into an inside pocket of his suit coat, and then strolled 'round the corner.

Edgar stiffened, eyes going wide.

"Who are you?" Edgar breathed.

Jamie didn't smile.

"My name is Lawrence Nightingale," he began, affecting a much loftier accent, Received Pronunciation, much the way John Smith had sounded before his untimely passing, "British Military Intelligence, Section Thirteen. We've just saved your life, and you're going to return the favour with assistance of your own."

Edgar's eyes bulged.

"You've no need to tell us your name;" Jamie declared, imperious, unwavering, as he dragged an ottoman near to where Edgar sat, and perched himself upon it, fingers steepled, discomfortingly close to the archaeolinguist, "we don't like to use proper names in MI-13. For ease of communications, I'm going to refer to you as 'Alonzo.'"

Edgar nodded, though he was quite understandably bewildered.

"Okay," he whispered. "I'll d-do my best to help."

Jamie tilted his head sagely. "Tell us about The Crystals. Tell me everything you know."

Edgar hesitated.

Jamie gestured for him to be quick about it. "Allons-y, Alonzo."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick's heart twanged for Pete. "Pete, no disrespect, but if gun toting mercenaries, or things like we saw at the cave show up, they are a bit worse than bullies. I believe you can hold your own. But I won't let you get hurt. Chloe would kill me."

Merick waited. Whatever may happen, he waited.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

Lawrence Nightengale???????

I stepped around the corner, fingers sharpened into claws, eyes alight with their lavender fire.

The man gasped, and got even whiter.

"He asked you a question." came out of me in a menacing hiss.

 

[AmenRa]

J'onn J'onzz could only stand there and watch her cry.

He knew why she cried. He understood. And inside of him, behind the stoic exterior of strength and limitless power, the Martian Manhunter's heart broke everytime he remembered.

And when she said she was ready, he gave her a deep bow of respect, and he reached out and wiped a stray tear from her blue eye.

And together they waited on the arrival of Kar Zor-El, the Last Daughter of Krypton.

 

[AmenRa]

The BRAIN InterActive Construct was diligent in its mission to locate the piece wayward crystal that had been left in Honduras.

It was, however, late.

It had missed a critical portion of the quest, a man who had identified and could possibly reveal the crystal shard's location.

The villagers, unable to explain the man's sudden disappearance without the reference to myth and legend were of no help.

And they were actually a hinderence in the BRAINIAC's search.

So it killed them. Systematically, it eliminated them until one old man was left, and this one, who had carried water and supplies for the missing, had referenced piedra de la estrella, the "star stone", many times as the artificial intelligence killed his village.

The BRAINIAC was unable to learn the Star Stone's location from the old man, so it killed him, too.

For all of its logic, the BRAINIAC could not correlate the fact the crystal, which it knew was Water, was within the very element of its namesake and less than a kilometer away.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Edgar and Jamie

Edgar was quite pale already.

He set a record with how pale he became when he finally saw The Wraith in all his glory.

He bit his lip and nodded rapidly, very rapidly.

"Yeah," he agreed, grinning quick, nervous, talking rapid-fire. "Okay. Filling in the blanks? Pattern recognition. Hehheh."

Edgar rearranged himself in the seat, utterly unable to get himself comfortable.

"Not unlike The Genesis Flood," he explained, "or the tale of the sunken continent, the legend of The Ancient Traveler cuts across every major ancient civilisation. He's come and he's gone many times, either immortal or reincarnate, and always he has been called different names, but he's most infamous under the name of 'Naman.' His most recent visit was only apparently five centuries ago, at which time he bestowed upon three legendary peoples each a portion of a great artefact which, when united, would unleash a source of unimaginable power.

"Back when f-folks were searching for those so-called Cities of Gold, or The Fountain of Youth?" he pointed out. "They had a greater treasure in mind."

He took a deep breath, adjusted his glasses, fidgeted with his hat, tried not to lose it.

Scary monster. Very intimidating.

And the guy in the blue suit just sat there in silence, drinking in data.

In his way, he was almost as unnerving as the creature with the blazing lavender eyes.

"Each fragment corresponded with an element," he explained. "Not, you know, like a periodic table element, more one of the classics, Planeteer stuff. (Which, I don't really know the significance of that.) Based on sound mathematical principles, I was able to create a cross-reference grid search, assimilate sightings of a local so-called 'star-stone,' and was able to trace its last verifiable appearance to the clutches of a Spanish rogue named Rodrigo Angelo in 1524. This individual, i-in turn, was famous for smuggling Mayan and Xukpi artefacts out of Central America before the Christian priests got a hold of them, ostensibly for sale as curiosities to l-learned people overseas.

"H-he was killed in a scuffle, however," he noted, "in San Lorenzo, while trying to get in contact with a Pacific pirate captain whom he hoped would take a shipment of artefacts to Shanghai. He had nothing on him at the time but a list of-of the objects he wanted taken, no sign of the objects themselves, and oddly enough the piedra de la estrella itself doesn't appear anywhere on that list. I had a thought that maybe he was smuggling within smuggling, that maybe the s-star-s-stone had been concealed inside one of the other objects on the list."

"The question remains," "Nightingale" pondered, tapping fingers to his chin, "what happened to the objects from that list?"

Edgar grinned his nervous grin and nodded rapidly, so rapidly.

"That's what I thought, too," he affirmed. "But then I extrapolated travel distances from San Lorenzo along with traditional haunts for those of what you'd call 'extra-legal' tendency, and combined that with knowledge gleaned from nearby villages of hidden trails that don't appear on maps, and found that both these lines of enquiry intersected over a 'rough neighbourhood' centred around the waterfall at the base of this nameless mountain."

He smiled thinly, winced, squinted one eye nearly shut.

"I guess I got excited," he mumbled, "I do that, I-I get excited, and I didn't take into account how rough that neighbourhood really was. (And now they're all dead. The rest of my party is dead. Which, I didn't really want that. I don't want power or money; I just wanted to solve the puzzle.)"

"Nightingale" gestured for Cole to stay calm.

"Did you tell anyone where you were going?" he wondered. "Anyone at all?"

"I-I told my superiors at Princeton University," Edgar suggested, "the general area I was searching. I sent them an e-mail update the last time we had Internet access, but that was, ooh, tch-tch, not since Tuesday, and I've got to tell you? Professor Dunkhan is notoriously bad at checking his e-mails. It's probably still lodged in a server somewhere on-site at the university."

"Nightingale" nodded, blew through his teeth, nodded again.

"What of the other Elements, the other 'star-stones?'" he asked. "Any word on them?"

Edgar shook his head, quick-sharp-fast. "There was a team in Egypt? Hot on the trail of F-Fire, heh, hot on the trail. But on Tuesday I hadn't heard back from them, no e-mail in my inbox. And Air is just. Air is just a mystery. (Houston, we have a problem.)"

"Nightingale" stood, scritching at one of his sideburns with an absent-minded fingertip. He turned away.

"Agent Nightingale?" Edgar wondered. "What's all this about? Academic interests aside, I don't really believe uniting these artefacts will do anything like what the legends describe. You don't believe that, do you?"

"Nightingale" glanced back over his shoulder at "Alonzo," tugging on his ear with one hand, fishing in his pocket with the other.

(His hand found a gum wrapper. Merick's Fruit Stripe, one of those innumerable elevensies.)

"Someone believes it," he pointed out. "And that's enough to get a lot of people killed."

"Oh dear," Edgar shook his head, shook his head, "oh dear oh dear."

"Nightingale" offered him an encouraging smile.

"Not to worry, eh?" he suggested. "We'll give those blighters what-for and have you home in time for tea."

Edgar nodded happily. "Thank you. Thank you, sir."

"Nightingale" pushed the ottoman away with his foot, got in close to Edgar, and, without Edgar seeing exactly what he was doing, he extracted one of the temporary tattoos from the gum wrapper, a little premium included in all wrappers of Fruit Stripe.

He adhered the tattoo, a funny-looking zebra, to the back of Edgar's neck, and then patted him on the shoulder before drawing away.

"I've just adorned you with a dermal transponder," "Nightingale" instructed him. "You go anywhere near one of these archaeological hot-zones, MI-13 will know about it immediately, and we will not be nearly so... helpful... as this time around. Also, if you tell anyone what you've seen here, or tell them that you've talked to agents from Section Thirteen, it'll automatically bio-convert to H-two-S-O-four and eat through your spinal column. So mouth shut, all right? Mum's the word."

Edgar nodded, eyes almost as wide as his glasses' lenses, nodded rapid-fire.

"The Crown thanks you," "Nightingale" murmured gently, "for your co-operation."

Jamie Hamilton turned, moved closer to The Wraith, and whispered as low as he could, his normal accent returning: "Get him out of here, Neron. Hopefully he'll be none the wiser. Take him somewhere. Erm. (Princeton?) Take him somewhere New Jersey-ish, if you don't mind."

He patted The Wraith encouragingly on his armoured shoulder.

"If fortuitousness be on our side," he whispered, "that lonely little unchecked e-mail shouldn't come back to haunt us."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

OK, if Rose is anything like her dad, I'm in love!

I walked over to the Doctor, my claws softening. (Didn't help much, the man looked like he was going to wet himself.)

"Doctor, take my hand and I will drop you off somewhere closer to home. We at MI-13 do appreciate your help in this manner, and will appreciate even more your discretion." I leaned in closer to the man. "Because you do not want to raise our ire if that discretion goes away."

I reached over and killed the lights in the room, then took the doctors outstretched hand, and called upon Shadow. Worlds flickered, and the doctor let out a small scream when we materialized under the T-Rex exhibit in the Smithsonian.

"Remember Doctor, Discretion."

Shadows took me, and I was back in a moment. I looked over at Mr. McCrimmon.

"OK he's off at the Smithsonian. It was the closest site I could remember and I didn't think a extended stay in Shadow was a good idea. What now?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie

Jamie Hamilton stood there with hands in pockets, looking tired, trying his headachey best to tune out the rubbish going on on the front porch.

"Cheers, Tezcatlipoca," Jamie nodded with a faint little smile.

"Sorry if I got too livid with you before," he apologised. "You did the right thing, all told. Saving a bloke's life should ever be a priority. But sticking to the plan can also have its uses."

He gestured down the hall, an apres-vous sort of look on his face.

"'Now,'" he suggested, "we rejoin the others in the kitchen and see if they've made any progress."

He paused, though.

"Wait," he muttered, "The Smithsonian? Washington, District of Columbia, that Smithsonian? DC is to Jersey as Aberdeen is to Croydon."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

"I know it's not very close, but it's the closest place I could drop him without having to pause in Shadow. I don't think he would have taken that pause very well. Shadow can be a bit creepy and he was jumpy before I stepped in."

As we walked I sorta stepped into lecture mode.

"I have two different ways I can teleport. Short range from shadow to shadow. I can only go about a hundred yards that way and have to know or see where I am going. Also, I don't think I can take anyone with me that way. My long range is different though. I sorta shift myself to Shadow, then from there I shift back onto this plane. If I am going somewhere I don't know real well, then I shift to Shadow, and have to stop and concentrate on where I want to go. My willpower is what allows me to get there. It's not as accurate, but i get a ballpark. Dad took us to the Smithsonian a few months before.. well, before he died, and I remembered the dinosaur exhibit well enough to drop him there."

I stopped then and looked him in the eyes. "I did the right thing in my mind by saving that guy. I know I may have endangered the mission, but I couldn't just stand by and watch him get killed. I'll try and be more careful in the future, and try and think more. But I stand by my decision."