The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

"Well, um," Rose murmured, tucking a lock of her red hair behind her ear, glancing briefly, awkwardly at J'onn, "while you're the, uh, The Last Daughter of Krypton, it turns out you're not the only one who... who made it out of the building."

She smiled tightly. "I've met the bad guys from your planet -- there were two of them, earlier, at this Cave, and we... I... we stopped them. (This isn't to say that everyone from your planet is bad, no, that's... that's pre-emptive racism and xenophobia, and I won't be a party to that. There was a nice man named John. Var-Sen. He's gone now, too.) It's just that these two people were bad. But we... we stopped them."

Rose crushed her eyes shut, crushed them shut tight, and took a quavery breath before steadying herself again.

"But for every Horseman," she whispered, "there's an Apocalypse, right? We stopped the henchman and the henchwoman, but... the mastermind. He's loose on this planet. And he's... he's the bad guy to end all bad guys. He's smart and he's vicious and he... you have abilities, right? Powers beyond those of mortal farm-girls? He can do what you can do. Except he's evidently not constrained by conscience or by... or by any kind of conventional terrestrial morality. He can do what you can do, except he's not holding back."

Rose rubbed her face with her hand and smiled a smile that was both worried sick and somehow encouraging.

"(He's trying to put together this puzzle,)" Rose murmured. "(And putting together this puzzle will make him extra scary powerful because he'll unlock this ancient treasure trove of secrets. So we have to beat him to the pieces.)"

"He can do what you can do," she reminded Kara. "So basically, uhm, we just... we just..."

Rose opened her mouth, and then shut it again, and bit the inside of her cheek, and...

...and walked to the railing of the loft and vaulted off.

Dropped out of sight.

And then levitated back into view, hovering there, her hair wafting a little bit around her head in the breeze of her flight.

She hovered there in the air near Kara's Fortress of Solitude and smiled a tiny little smile.

"...we need you to do what you can do," she explained, simply enough, and prayed to God that she didn't sound a fool. "And we'll do our best to help you. We'll do everything in our power."

 

[Wyldfire]

Diana stayed quiet through the conversations, her mind was too busy processing everything she was hearing. Even the male transforming the way he did didn't shake Diana as badly as she knew it should. Krypton? That must be the name the Gods had for Olympus, but, if it was it didn't seem right for others to speak it. She stayed quiet however, staying closer to the girl that she had thought of as a Sister. The girl who was at the very least a demi goddess.

At the words Rose used to let Kara know she wasn't alone Diana asked "What does this other look like?" If it was who she thought it was there would be trouble. Aries had been responsible for Themyscira, but after he stopped coming the Amazons had turned their worship to Hera and Athena. Aries was almost hated by the Themysciran people, and Diana knew she would have to protect Kara, even at the cost of her own life.

As Diana waited for Rose to reply her mind turned to the Emerald diamonds. If the meteor rocks were indeed the same, Diana knew a way she could be of more help to her friend Kara. Before Rose could reply to the first question Diana turned to Kara and asked "Was the lake we visited hit by the meteor shower?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose blinked.

It just so happened that she had seen the face of Zod.

Only moments ago, in the memories of The Manhunter from Mars.

Even though J'onn had described the fearsome warmonger well enough in his summation of Krypton's End of Days, Rose was nothing if not a decent storyteller-- you had to be able to tell stories if you wanted to be a musician --and she decided to put her own spin on it.

"He had a soul as dark as the darkest day," she whispered, if only to herself, as the young woman called Diana had moved onto other topics... but Rose was quite practised at talking to herself. "And hair and beard as black as blackest night. His eyes were like bottomless cauldrons full of pitch and empty of life, and when he gathered his hands into fists, the pillars of the Heavens trembled. He was... tall. Not tall like mountains, but taller than you'd think a person could be without being a giant. And his skin was pale, nearly as pale as the crystalline expanses of Krypton's surface. I don't know what he sounded like..."

Rose closed her eyes, and shook her head, her hair wafting once more.

"...but I can hear his voice in my bones and at the back of my brain, when I picture his face in my mind," she murmured. "His is the voice of everlasting icy night. His is the voice of Sheol, of the grave-place. His is the voice of The Devil, who tempts before he destroys."

Rose opened her eyes and came back to reality for a moment.

(She wasn't especially good at reality? But that was where she was needed right now.)

Still levitating, Rose floated sideways 'till she was more in line with Diana.

Diana was very pretty. She, too, had depthless eyes, but... but hers were not empty of life. They were full of life, full to bursting, and Rose could find herself maybe drowning in those eyes.

She looked away, quickly, a little startled, and then tried again, her voice a murmur.

"I've got to admit," she chuckled faintly, "I don't know who you are, but you're... you're handling this really well. I got... I got all teary-eyed. (Like when my mum read me the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, I cried like a baby.) Are you... I might be the only Earthling here. Are you from another world, too?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Gabe, Chloe, Pete, and Jamie

Gabe stepped out of the bathroom, wiping his face and hands with a towel.

He'd gotten in there, and he'd... taken care of things. But then he'd realised he hadn't anything to drink in hours and hours, and he began to fill a paper cup from the faucet and drink the water down.

Then he'd taken a moment to catch his breath. He'd sat down on the little crocheted cover on the lid of the toilet and he'd held his head in his hands to stop the world from spinning.

He had splashed some of that water from the faucet onto his face to cool off.

He had cursed himself his weakness, but he was a perfectly normal guy. He worked at a crap factory in small-town U.S.A., for God's sake, how much weirdness was he expected to deal with?

And then, and only then, had he risen, and walked out into the hall.

And ventured into the kitchen.

And seen his daughter, beautiful and alive and seemingly unhurt, working like wildfire behind a computer keyboard. (It looked like she had some sort of command centre thing happening, Gabe had never seen the like.)

Pete was there, and a boy he didn't recognise-- but he only glanced at the lad quickly --and a tallish slender man in a blue suit and a red tie, and a fellow who was apparently decked out in some sort of stylised armoured costume?

He nodded in greeting to Pete, gave the grown-up a quizzical expression, and really gave the costumed gent a funny look-- after all, this was the third guy he'd seen in the last little while that had armour and a mask, but this one took the cake, even had what looked like phosphorescent contact lenses --but truthfully he only had eyes for his daughter.

She looked like she was taking a moment to herself, and he hated to interrupt, but he'd been held off from her so often already...

He moved quickly to her, sank to his knees at her feet, and he grasped her hands in his.

"Chloe Anne?" he murmured. "You're okay?"

Chloe blinked, and came back to Earth from Mars, whatever tenuous connection she might have established having been lost.

"What?" she blinked again, rapidly. "Dad?"

Her hand flew to his cheek and she grinned and she blinked back tears.

"You're here?" she shook her head. "You left me, you left me by the side of the lake..."

"It's a long story," Gabe apologised, eyes full of ache, "and I actually don't know the half of it. I can only tell you that I'm horrified and sorry that I did that thing. But you're okay? I met this man, he said you might be dead?"

Chloe chuckled brokenly. "'I was,'" she noted, with no small chagrin, no small irony. "'I'm better now.'"

Gabe blinked, uncomprehending. "Are you being funny? Because... because I don't think that's funny."

Chloe blinked away the last of her tears, and patted her dad on the shoulder, shaking her head emphatically.

"No, Dad," she murmured, "it's not funny at all."

Gabe glanced around. "So, uhm," he wondered, "what am I interrupting?"

Chloe chuckled. "Actually," she suggested, "you might be just in time. You're good with computers, right?"

"Mostly just payroll matrices," Gabe frowned. "Why?"

Pete moved next to Gabe where he knelt, and clapped him on the shoulder.

"'Cause the Weird-Shit-O-Meter just topped out at eleven," he grinned, "and you're maybe gonna help us save the world."

Pete stuck a hand out, and helped Gabe to his feet.

Bewildered, Gabe sank to a seat behind the keyboard of the red Alienware.

"This seems like a time for funny that is unfunny," he muttered.

"I ain't playin' with you," Pete shook his head. "Same planet that threw rocks at us ten years ago and again a few hours back just dropped off its gnarliest, scariest dude and his pet mass-murdering supercomputer, and we gotta bait 'em off this mysterious ancient artefact so's they don't get gnarlier and scarier and mass-murderier. We're faking an archaeological ka-ching and nippin' in and grabbing the thing while he's still scratching his dandruff."

"Oh," Gabe blinked. "Okay."

"Nice recap, Pete," Chloe grinned, impressed. "Way to pick up the bullet points."

"Learned from the best," Pete grinned, winking at her.

"You should be able to pick up the protocol from files I'm now sending over the LAN," Chloe suggested to her dad. "I e-mailed the stuff to myself, but it's just too slow. Quicker this way."

And then she smiled lopsidedly. "For now, if you'll excuse me?" she shrugged, knowing how ridiculous it sounded. "I have to try again and re-establish telepathic contact with a Martian, so he can psi-link Merick to his dad."

"Oh," Gabe blinked. "Okay."

"Need a hand?" Jamie asked gently, crouching down so that his eyes were on-level with Chloe's.

"Is this something you can lend a hand with?" Chloe arched her eyebrows.

"I don't make a habit of it," Jamie smiled faintly. "But I come from a certain trade, and that certain trade has certain tricks."

He touched his index fingertips gently to Chloe's temples.

And again, he turned his psychic defences inside out...

He wasn't telepathic, as such, not like The Martian, but by reversing polarity on established thought processes? He could nudge Chloe in the right direction.

He would have been reluctant to engage in such activity had his head still been bothering him, but the Excedrin had started to kick in.

Chloe closed her eyes. And the shells fell away much more easily... it wasn't so hard to push. Wasn't so hard to send.

'J'onn?'

Jamie rose, and dusted his hands off.

"Who are you?" Gabe wondered, a bit of accusation in his voice amidst the burning curiosity.

"Jamie Hamilton," he replied, adjusting his glasses on his nose and putting his hands in his pockets as he reflected he'd been getting that question quite a lot this evening. "Doctor. This is Merick, and this is The Wraith, and we're all pleased as Punch to meet you. Joining us via satellite are Dale Tennylson on speaker-phone and Odin on speaker-watch. Are you hungry? Merick brought spicy carnivorous comestibles from just North of The Border."

"I was hungry," Gabe breathed. "Now I'm not so sure."

Pete patted Gabe encouragingly on the back. "You'll get the swing of it, sir. We all did."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Bruce

It was not unlike looking into The Future.

Bruce trudged down the front steps of his porch, walking up to The Black Hood, sizing him up.

Bruce remembered a ghost of a shade of a snippet of that nightmare he'd had, the night he'd first fashioned himself his own dark outfit, and he thought he remembered seeing something like The Black Hood in it.

But no, the mask in his nightmare had been different, though he didn't remember it clearly.

False Faces...

Everything Bruce wanted to be, this Black Hood seemed to be in spades.

Walking in a slow circle around the masked mystery, Bruce continued to brood over his choice of attire, his demeanour, even the ice-cool efficiency of his mannerisms.

Bruce had once read a few passages about Jungian archetypes, the collective unconscious. Maybe Bruce wasn't so much looking into The Future... maybe they were both looking into the same past, tapping into the same archetype, finding the same darksome persona from the deepest darkest reaches of humanity's unremembered prehistoric memories.

No wonder he seemed so familiar.

But Bruce himself knew how dangerous the shadows of the past could be.

"Miss Sullivan is safe, 'Black Hood,'" Bruce intoned, That Voice having not released its hold, despite the fact that he'd shed his mask. "And her father will reunite with her momentarily, if he hasn't already."

Bruce stopped his circling walk, faced The Black Hood, crossed his arms over his chest, and narrowed his eyes at his counterpart.

"Do you have other 'patrolling' to do?" he wondered. "Or were you looking to plumb the depths of my hospitality as have these others? There is much to do, and very little time to do it, and adding to my busy schedule could be seen as a disservice."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

"We are The Outsiders, and we are trying to save the world. And it's just Wraith, not THE Wraith. Same one that has been hitting the criminal element in Metropilis hard over the last few months."

Then Odin piped in.

"Ok Chloe, using the paramaters you sent in I got our ruse ready to go. Also, in case of a traceback hit Ctrl-alt-shift-delete at the same time and it will wipe all the drives at once. Ready when you are."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick adjusted himself. He wanted to be ready. Ready for the worst. Merick looked about.

"Where did our hosts and Ms. McCrimmon go? If this goes bad I want everyone close. Dad, hang in there. Hopefully this Vulcan mind merge kicks in and we can get safe if we need."

Dale said nothing. He focused on his surroundings. Gathering in as much detail as possible.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Gabe, Pete, and Jamie

Jamie flared his nostrils and chuckled softly.

"Be fair, Eurynomos," he pointed out. "All I've done is add an extra article to your name. You keep calling me 'Mister McCrimmon.'"

Gabe sat and stared at Wraith.

"I thought his costume was rather intense," he mumbled, "but it's not even a costume at all, is it?"

"It's cool," Pete nodded. "Dude's on the side of Truth and Justice."

"The world is not what I thought it was," Gabe shook his head.

"I'm afraid, Odin," Jamie mused, sitting down at the silver Gateway, "that Chloe appears to be on the line with someone else right now."

He steepled his fingers in front of himself, and bunched his eyebrows.

"But considering time is of the essence," he wondered, "should we pull the cord without her?"

"Where did our hosts and Ms. McCrimmon go?" Merick wondered. "If this goes bad I want everyone close."

Gabe blinked at the young man.

"Mr. Wayne and the dark-haired woman are talking on the front porch with the most frightening person I've ever met," he explained. "Um, no offence, 'Wraith,' -- and there's a lot of testosterone flying around. (Especially from the woman.)"

"(That's my girl,)" Jamie chuckled.

"I'm sure they'll be in in a minute," Gabe suggested, though he wasn't sure of this at all.

 

[Wyldfire]

"I've got to admit," she chuckled faintly, "I don't know who you are, but you're... you're handling this really well. I got... I got all teary-eyed. (Like when my mum read me the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, I cried like a baby.) Are you... I might be the only Earthling here. Are you from another world, too?"

The description fit. It was Aries, it had to be. He had finally returned, but he wouldn't find willing servants in Themyscira. The Amazons would never serve him again.

"I believe I know of this one," Diana said, "We have a name for him. It's Aries."

Diana looked at Rose "I am from this world just as you are. I am Themysciran, and I believe I can handle things like this because we are trained from youth to be ready for anything we might encounter. And that includes when the Gods and their offspring walk the Earth. We have records of generations past when we were regularly visited by them. Some of them have made themselves unwelcome in my homeland. Aries is one of them."

She turned to Kara, "I am sorry if I made you uncomfortable my friend, but seeing the script of the Gods here were I had hoped to be away from my life at home surprised me."

 

[camerindrake]

Damian

Black Hood looked at the man that would become his father, who would become the Batman. He then turned around heading to his car. He then turned his head looking back to his father out of the corner of his eye and said, "I saw a crater on route 55. That was no Meteor. If I am right this is much bigger than just a simple patrol."

He then grabbed the lead lined pouch on his harness and removed it. He then tossed it to Bruce. "If who I think it is has come, you are going to have a hell of a lot of those made"

He placed the bag he was holding in the back seat of the car. He wasn't ready. He still had to much pride. He had to be broken and reshaped. Black Hood just hoped that he could stop the teacher from being his grandfather, The Demons Head, Ra's Al Ghul. But trust, that was something that he knew that his father would not ever be something that he could give out easily.

Black Hood looks then to Ceri McCrimmon, and says, "Come to the Seigal Estate tomorrow we can start the training. Im sure you will find it insightful. Sparring always is."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Bruce and Ceri

Bruce snatched the pouch from the air, his eyes glinting.

With an eyebrow arched, he opened the pouch, and extracted one of the kryptonite rings.

"Meteor rock," he murmured.

Not like the craggy stones Rose had, one of which I used on the evil goddess... this is refined, purified. He knows more than he's saying.

But then, who do I know these days who doesn't know more than they say?

Bruce stood, sombre, forbidding, and slipped that ring back into that pouch. Watching The Black Hood leave.

Ceri moved closer to The Black Hood, leaning against his car with an eyebrow arched.

"Sparring can be insightful, true," she noted. "Depends who you're sparring with. Ted Grant has all these nuggets of wisdom. Richard Dragon barely talks at all. (Sparring with him was like working with a practise dummy with a cruel roundhouse right.) I'll come by after work tomorrow, see how insightful yeh are."

She looked him up and down.

"I'm sort of surprised that you're leaving," she opined, "after you worked so hard to get in. And truthfully, all alpha-male territorial disputes aside, we are facing something big right now. If you are here to help, as you claim, we could use the help."

She grinned a roguish grin, heavy on the irony, heavy on the facetiousness.

(British sense of humour.)

"O'course," she pointed out, "if you're not here to help, I could always kick your arse."

 

[camerindrake]

Damian

Black Hood looks at Bruce then to Ceri. He then finally speaks, "Ask the lord of the house if he wants help. A little advice I can give until he gives his blessing. The meteor is known as Kryptonite. To purify it weakens it against the Kryptonians. However cutting it or grinding it into a dust lets it still have its punch."

He opens another pouch holding three of the Bat shaped throwing stars with a light explosive ring around a center of fiberglass containing a green dust. Their special detonator also in the pouch. He takes it off his utility harness and hands it to Ceri.

HE then tells her, "Which ever Kryptonian joins your side is going to need a lead lined suit if an arsenal can be made. I know how to find a way to have one made, but only if only I am allowed in.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

"I'm dating your daughter & your an adult I respect. Of course I call you Mr. McCrimmon. Besides your wife could probably kick my butt."

I walked over to Mr. Sullivan and extended a hand.

"Pleasure to meet you sir. And no, this is me. Long story and security clearances involved with telling you everything, so lets keep it informal."

Odin picked that time to pipe in.

"And the probing for the clearance will just make you cry like a baby"

I looked over at my watch and sighed.


"I think we should wait until Chloe gets done. In about three minutes Odin's satellite will be in visual range and it is about four generations better than the one that gave us the first images. It may be gone and I can slip us in quietly, retrieve the artifact and slip back out."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie, Pete, and Gabe

"I'm dating your daughter & your an adult I respect. Of course I call you Mr. McCrimmon. Besides your wife could probably kick my butt."

Jamie chuckled faintly, wearily.

"(Sort of missing the point there, Shuma-Gorath,)" Jamie muttered, good-naturedly. "I don't mind that you've not gotten my honorific quite right. You don't have to call me 'Doctor,' 'Mister's' all right. But the least you could do is get me surname right."

He spoke up, though, a wry smile. "And no joking, Echthros? She would hand you your arse before you blinked. (D'you blink, even? Anyway, it'd be quick.)"

Pete nodded. "I think you'd get the same effect if you started the party without the party-planner. Chloe'd whomp us so hard, it'd take more superpowers than Ray an' Merick combined to keep us safe."

Gabe smiled a tight little smile, shaking hands with Wraith.

"She always did have a temper," he noted wryly, and then focused his attention more on the demon-esque creature before him, "takes after her mother that way."

"I think we might do better with a 'don't-ask-don't-volunteer-information' policy," Gabe nodded. "My girl's been involved with this stuff for quite some time. (I always thought it was a... a hobby. Some girls have dollhouses, Chloe had her newspaper clippings.) I'm... I'm a little new at this. So. Maybe I don't need to know your Secret Origins? Maybe sometime later."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri and Bruce

"Have you fought a lot of these, then?" Ceri blinked, glancing into the pouch, and gingerly extracting one of the bat-shaped stars. "These 'Kryptonians?' You certainly seem armed enough to fight a small army of them, if the rock is their weakness."

She turned to show this to Bruce, but Bruce had already closed in, having spotted the dart from a distance and having wanted to get a closer look.

"Why did you choose The Bat?" he wondered, eyes tightly narrowed, but despite how closed-off he was, his curiosity was clearly getting the better of him.

I don't care how Chloe talks them up, or in how many legends they serve as heroes. I still hate bats.

He took the star from Ceri's fingers and held it up to the full moon light.

His jaw worked for a minute, as he weighed pride and secrecy against efficaciousness and the need to know.

He slipped the star back into the pouch and gave The Black Hood a cool hard look.

"You'd better come in, don't you think?"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

DOH!

"Sorry sir. I guess I wasn't listening as well as I should have. And I don't blink like this. Nor sleep, nor breathe even. Pressure doesn't touch me either. I've been over a mile down into the earth and not noticed it. Some parts of this i'm still getting used to, and some parts I may never get used to. One thing about being young, we do remember when we get embarrased and try & not have that happen again. I'll get it right from now on Mr. Hamilton."
I paused a second then looked at Roses dad again.

"And someday when we aren't trying to save the world your going to have to tell me what books you keep pulling my nicknames out of so I can figure out who in the sam hill you are talking about."

 

[camerindrake]

Damian

The Black Hood looked at Bruce. He had to refer to him as Bruce in his head or he would slip and call him father. He is Bruce Wayne boy billionaire. He then says, "Where I am from that was the choice of my predecessor. However he told me the reason why, He feared bats. He felt that the criminal element should share his dread."

He then closed the door to the car after removing the bag he had just placed in the back seat. He then placed it back on his shoulder and turned around. Looking Bruce Wayne in the eyes responding to the comment of joining the others inside, "I believe it is time to join the others inside." He then begins to walk to the front door of the manor.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Edmund Tennylson was no longer in El Paso. He had been on his way to Smallville for some time when Dale called. The miracle of call forwarding. As Dale was pulling over and reaching out to a dark, sullen bunker in the desserts of Nevada, Edmund Tennylson was in a leer jet, landing in Metropolis. Edmund exited the jet and walked toward a Hummer. Trailing behind him his best friend and butler.

"Doub-ya, have my gear ready. I may need it. What are you reading?"

The man walking bak and to the left looked up a bit surprised. After so many years, so many situations, nothing should have surprised this man. But somehow it always did. "Seems Morgan, has just met with Dale, sent him off with a bag of money, other assorted gear and a very nice car."

"Good ol' Morgan, tryin to play both ends o' the court. Tell 'im I am thankful for his information, but it still don't make us even. He screwed me on that job in Opal City."

"Sure, boss. Where are we going?"

"Smallville for me. You are staying at the loft here. I need you to get the gear ready, and be on call." Edmund got into the car. Slowly it pulls off the tarmac.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete, Jamie, and Gabe

"It's all right, easy mistake to make," Jamie chuckled faintly. "And I'll admit 'Jamie McCrimmon' does have a nice ring to it. But I've never been a McCrimmon m'self. Ceri and Rose were Hamiltons, once. Once. Before. They changed their names after Ceri and I..."

He trailed off a bit, got lost in his tangleweb memories. Things were always so complicated.

He shook his head, though, came back to himself, grinned a perfectly cheerful grin.

"As for your long list of aliases," he chuckled. "I've cherry-picked them from only the most impressive myths and legends and such, the shadowiest of the shadowy, the devilishest of the devilish. Shuma-Gorath was a Robert E. Howard Chthulu-esque thingy, and Echthros is the singular of Echthroi, pivotal enemies in one of Madeline L'Engle's series of novels inspired by a Greek word from The New Testament, book of Romans. (Some of them aren't myths, though. Some of them are real; that bloke I told you about trafficked in magic and he knew some of them by name. I hope you never find out which ones.)"

He got a thoughtful look on his face, laced his fingers behind his head a bit as he leaned back in his chair.

"Immune to pressure changes, are we?" he mused on that. "Maybe your carapace is more adaptive than it looks. Have you ever tried playing around at the bottom of The Mariana Trench? Blackest depths of the ocean, but you don't need to breathe and pressure's not a thing to you, and you thrive in darkness... does it work the other way? If all the pressure's inside of you and you need to keep it in? Ever gone to space? You'd be completely exposed to sunrises and such, but if you time your orbits right..."

Pete glanced to Merick, grinned wryly at him. "Looks like our boy Ray hit the jackpot when it comes to daddies-in-law. I ever get along that well with one of my girlfriends' dads, that'll be more good fortune than I'll know what to do with."

Feeling a bit stressed, Gabe was taking the time to read up on Chloe's smokescreen protocol and was, to his relief, finding it surprisingly fluid and easy to follow. There were some bits that were a tad unusual, and he wondered if these parts were the work of the mysterious man in the green pair of Converses. As a result of this focus of his attention, he missed Pete's aside.

Which was for the best, really. Because Gabe and Pete got along really well, they always had. But Chloe was not Pete's girlfriend, and, Pete was gradually realising, she never would be.

(But that was okay. That was okay.)

 

[ChasNicollette]

Bruce, Ceri, and Alfred

Turning your fear into your enemies' fear.

Bruce chewed over this as he watched The Black Hood walk toward the house.

I may not like bats? he mused. But I could take a page from The Black Hood's playbook, or at least his 'predecessor.' (Speaking of borrowing archetypes...)

Become that which you fear, and thereby become fearsome.

'Hell is for the fearful.'

'God hates a coward.'

Ceri, meanwhile, was taking a page from Chloe Sullivan's book and not looking a gift horse in the mouth. She had gone to her car and gotten a small thin metal case from the glove compartment, and fetched a long brown coat from the backseat.

(Wouldn't do to be unprepared, she noted, slipping that metal case into the inside pocket of her jacket, and if we have to leave here in a big fuck-off hurry, I shouldn't want James to have to leave his coat behind. He loves this coat; his dad got given it by Janis Joplin, or so he claims.)

But as she walked towards the house, carrying her things and The Black Hood's things, Bruce fell into step beside her.

"Do you trust him?" Bruce wondered, his voice as cool and hard as gravestone granite.

"About as far as I can chuck him," Ceri rued cheerfully.

"How far is that?" Bruce wondered.

"I'll let you know," Ceri mused, "soon as I have the privilege of chucking him."

"Hh," Bruce laughed in a way that wasn't a laugh.

(This was the most serious, coolhard laugh Ceri had ever heard on a person that wasn't Vic Sage, and it kind of put a chill to her spine.)

"On the other hand," Ceri noted, "he had opportunity to kill me back there, once if not twice, and he didn't kill me. And killing when you have the chance is everything The League of Shadows lives for. Not killing when you have the chance is antithetical to them. Anathema. I don't know what he is? But he's not The League."

Bruce made this question as casual as discussing Canadian White or Whole Wheat bread: "And what do you know of The League of Shadows?"

"Later," Ceri brushed this off, equally casual.

"Fair enough," Bruce nodded, with the definite undertone that she better believe there would be a "later."

(After all, he barely knew this woman, this dark-haired mother of one, barely knew her more than he knew The Black Hood.

But he had seen her fight.

He wasn't sure if he should trust her.

But he trusted Chloe, and Chloe trusted Rose, and this was Rose's mother. That had to count for something, maybe.)

As The Black Hood approached the door to Wayne Manour, the door swung wide and Alfred Pennyworth stood there, sleeves rolled up, as he'd been hard at work upstairs preparing spare bedrooms should they become necessary.

He was, perhaps, as astonished to encounter another masked individual as Gabriel Sullivan had been when encountering masked Bruce. But he kept this perfectly hidden, remained perfectly inscrutable. He, too, saw the markings on the bracer, and wondered if perhaps Henri Ducard had sent an envoy to make sure of return on his investment. His investment... in Bruce Wayne.

But an Englishman was hospitable first, and if a visitor turned out to be unworthy of such hospitality, then and only then would said Englishman turn the blaggard out on his ear.

Outwardly, Alfred managed to be only inscrutable. Only dubious. Highly dubious, and otherwise inscrutable.

"Good evening, sa'," Alfred nodded his head to the newcomer, that dubiousness leaking into his voice. "Come on in, put your feet up. Perhaps you'd like me to take your hat and coat?"

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick smiled at Pete. Pete was a really nice guy. Merick had never really got to know Pete, but in his brief time he intuited this much. Merick reached out to Pete. He sensed the melancholy in Pete. He recognised it. He laid a hand on Pete's shoulder, and he smiled. Not the puckish grin the Tennylson boys were so known for. This time it was a smile.

"Fortune is a fool. If you are smart and willful enough, you can totally fleece Fortune. Seriously, I saw it on the internet." Merick did grin now. And, he made a split second decision.

Pete was impulsive. Impulsive and so very squishy. Merick concentrated. He drew force threw his mind. Remembering the bone jarring force he had witnessed earlier. In his mind he refind the sheets of force as he summoned them, folding them like a master swordmaker would fold the blade of the Katana. Merick doubled and tripled the layers of force he was conjuring until he had made a fine weave of force. One he was confident would protect Pete. Then he sheathed Pete in the fine mail. For a moment while the force settled Pete shimmered and shone. Then the shine subsided but Merick could feel the weightless armor encasing his new friend. He smiled again.

"Pete, I always have your back. But if this misadventure goes bad, now at least for a moment, you have mine. Be careful. I think this should be strong enough to protect you for a few hits. But don't go tryin the rope-a-dope, shit goes down protect yourself and get the hell outta Dodge." Merick snatched a still slightly warm burrito off the counter were Pete had set aside the feast and started to munch. A man needs to keep his battery charged ya know.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

"Well, um... while you're the, uh, The Last Daughter of Krypton, it turns out you're not the only one who... who made it out of the building."

Kara raised an eyebrow out of curiosity, and she felt her heart skip a beat at the prospect of not being the only Kryptonian alive. There were more like herself, and for the briefest of moments she felt somewhat excited.

That was until Rose told her they weren't the nicest guys around.

And she learned then that their threat had been ended, causing Kara to feel alone again. Kara was only a young girl, and she hadn't yet fully developed her abilities. She wasn't even sure what powers she was capable of!

Rose moved away from their small gathering, towards the loft, where, to Kara's great surprise, she dropped out of sight and then came back into view, floating (or levitating).

She was flying... Rose was flying!

Diana in turn questioned Rose for what she knew of this mastermind before asking Kara whether Crater Lake was struck during the meteor shower. Kara softly nodded her head, though she knew that the lake had been cleared out a few years back. As far as she knew it was void of any meteor rocks.

Rose and Diana continued talking, though Kara had distanced herself for a moment. She was staring outside, looking out over the fields and the trees in the distance.

She clenched her fist together, and her muscles tightened.

This... devil was seeking her out. This murderer wanted to claim Earth as his own. Here he could reign supreme. Here on Earth he could rule as a god. The thought made Kara's blood boil.

"What am I to do?" Kara asked, though said out loud the question was more for herself than for those around her.

"I don't think I'm ready for a challenge like this," she added, a bit of insecurity evident in her young voice.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose stared in wonder and bewilderment at Diana.

She thought maybe at first Themyscira was a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri, or Barnard's Star, maybe even the binary stars of Sirius.

Because it certainly sounded otherworldly, the way that Diana was describing these things, these gods, as if they were a matter of fact.

But then again...

Aren't they a matter of fact?

Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So, too, as Chloe suggested, would be sufficiently advanced biology.

Zod is a god. Lowercase "g," that's for gorramn sure, and let's not forget he's definitely from the underworld side of the pantheon.

I've always believed in magic and miracles. But I guess if I'm going to believe in the good supernatural... I can't really pick and choose.

(I mean, look at Kyle. No official first date, yet, but we've kissed, and... I think he's very brave. My boyfriend is made of darksome magic.)

Humans have named every planet in our Solar System-- even our own, if you count that Gaia thingy --after creatures of myth, after gods.

Maybe beings from outside The Solar System could be named after gods, too?

These thoughts jumbled through Rose's brainpan, and she was about to comment aloud accordingly, but then Kara had her chance to speak.

"What am I to do?" Kara asked, though said out loud the question was more for herself than for those around her.

"I don't think I'm ready for a challenge like this," she added, a bit of insecurity evident in her young voice.

Rose floated up to crouch on the railing of the loft for a moment, and then stepped back off onto the floor of the loft.

She walked over to her friend, her beautiful beautiful friend, beautiful beautiful Kara, and touched her gently on the arm.

"I used to apologise to my mum for getting so caught up in fictional things," she murmured, "things like Bunnicula novels and The Girl With The Silver Eyes and Alan Moore's Top 10?

"She told me," Rose murmured, "that God had given me a gift, that He'd given me the ability to believe. Later, I realised that... that that gift was the ability to believe in everything... except myself. (Mum tells me that I have to develop that ability on my own, that that's part of everyone's quest in life, the ability to believe in themselves.)

"God gave me the ability to believe. And so I believe... just not in myself."

Rose smiled softly.

"I believe in you, Double-K," Rose murmured. "I believe in you enough for both of us. That's my super power."

She took a deep breath, and glanced at Diana.

"We might none of us be prepared for this," she noted, "not even you-- no offence meant, really really, don't be offended --whose people have trained you to be ready for anything."

She smiled softly at Diana.

"But we're all a little bit ready, right?" she theorised. "The world makes and shapes us for a reason, be it God or gods or just the basic forces of The Universe."

Her gaze swung back to Kara.

"There are a lot of us, Double-K," she stated, definitively, "and we're all behind you, we're all beside you. And I think between us, between all of us, we might maybe together be ready."

She smiled a game little grin, and though there was still fear in her eyes there was courage there also, wrestling the fear back.

"I mean, c'mon," she grinned that game little grin, "who hasn't always wanted to put an evil god on his ass? Hasn't everyone?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete

Pete blinked, and unzipped the jacket Bruce had given him.

In astonishment, he ran five fingertips over the fine layer of force-armour crafted for him by the spacebending Merick, and arched his eyebrows.

"I got so many people lookin' out for me," he chuckled softly. "Fortune may be a fool, m'man, but she's a fool for me. 'Luck be a lady,' an' all that classic noise."

Slowly, he zipped the jacket back up, and wiggled his shoulders back and forth.

Damn, son. Tight.

Y'know, in the good way.

"Don't you worry," he assured Merick, sternly, "I ain't goin' in there lookin' for no Rumble in The Jungle, you got me? But I ain't gonna be sidelined, neither. I'm an Outsider too, dammit. 'Preciate you're givin' me this thing to protect my brass, but I'm gonna do my part. Sound of things, not Zod nor BRAINIAC give a shit whether we're black, white, brown, paisley, plaid, underage overage or Information Age. I'ma do my part. I'ma be there when the shit jumps off. And I'm endin' that sentence with a period."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick couldn't resist. He hugged Pete. It was brief, and as soon as he did it he realized how uncomfortible it was.

"Pete, I didn't mean you no offence. I know what it is to be underestimated and picked last ya know. I mean, if it aint the old scars makin peole look twice its my... um... personality if you will. Anyway, Pete, you have a power all your own. You are a leader. A soul built of bravery, and that my friend is the thing of legend. William Wallace could shout lightning bolts out his ass, but he sure as hell had a brass set. Ghandi was no invincible force but he rallied more than just a nation. Even good ol' JFK, I mean his only super power was boning Marilyn Monroe, but he change the course of history in many ways. A hero is not defined by his powers, he is defined by his willingness to do whatever it takes to protect those he loves. Truth is, I would never underestimate you Pete, not even a little."

Merick tossed the last bit of Burrito in his mouth and stared red faced at the floor.