9th January 2004
23:46 GMT
"-just handed it to me!
"
"
Hahaha!"
John's grinning despite himself.
"And the next thing I know, this huge grey guy with a horn coming out of his face shoulder-checks me through a table!
"
Zatanna snorts and Doctor Gardner smiles as he shakes his head.
Shayera is unapologetic. "You should have seen your face when I pointed you out to him." She stares at her fork, pantomiming an expression of utter cluelessness.
"Yeah, yeah.
"
I don't know exactly what this stuff we're eating
is, but actually? The texture and taste are okay. I've certainly had worse at restaurants before now. It's some sort of stew, though the colour is a little.. purple? I think all the Humans at the table breathed a sigh of relief when Shayera said that while the meat was traditionally supposed to be chemically cooked in the creature's own digestive juices, they didn't have any of those on board. Some civilian vessels from advanced civilisations either have their own gardens or use a form of animation suspension to keep things fresh. Thanagarian military vessels don't have those sorts of luxury.
Ooh, now I'm remembering that time where my parents and I went down to the harbour and I had chilli pasta and ended up needing to down the whole water jug. Ah, a pleasantly non-Grayven memory. I don't know if it was the Anti-Life or the relaxation, but my pre-Earth 16 memories seem to be coming to the fore more than they had been for months.
Gardner's wearing a restored Thanagarian uniform, presumably created using Katar Hol's grave goods for the Nth metal and modern tailoring for the cloth. Every so often Zatanna's eyes drift to his chest, but the rest of us are pretty much used to it. He started this conversation when Shayera asked what Chay-Ara was like. Turns out? Much less aggressive than our Hawk. I'll need to get a scan of Chay-Ara's skull to do a facial reconstruction to know what the physical resemblance is like; at the moment his artificial memories of her just aren't reliable enough.
Shayera waves her fork at me. "What about you? Any good stories you wanna share about you and.. Jade?"
"Ah… Well. Jade is a member of…" I frown. "Your version of Ra's al Ghul. What's his organisation called?"
"The Society of Shadows. You mean she's an assassin?
"
"Yes. She's the daughter of two supervillains: Huntress and Sportsmaster."
"
Sportsmaster?" Shayera turns to John. "Wasn't that the guy we ran into in Seaboard City?"
"No, that was Sports
man. Your guy doesn't wear a football uniform, does he?
"
"No, his body armour had a fairly sensible design. And most of his weapons were only 'sporting equipment' in fairly broad terms: swords, explosive javelins and discuses, a little plasma gun designed to look like a crossbow. By baseline Human standards he was a highly skilled mercenary. Long story short; a job the two of them were on went badly and Huntress ended up paralysed from the waist down and in prison. Jade… Well… Sportsmaster was a fan of the Spartan style of child rearing."
My fellow diners make eye contact with one another and John loses.
"He beat her?
"
"Yes, but he did it because he was trying to train them. Her and her sister. After their mother went to prison Jade left home and joined the League of Shadows. The training wasn't any easier, but she told me that the people there were nicer. And there was a mutual respect she didn't get at home."
Shayera nods. "How old was she?"
"Thirteen. Anyway, she was nineteen when I met her. The League were trying to assassinate a nanotech expert my team and I were looking after."
She smiles. "And your eyes met over crossed blades..?"
"No, it was actually a really short fight. I basically pounded her colleagues to mush then let her run away. I mean,
I had augmented strength, toughness and a power ring. They had glue guns, knives, and one of them had replaced his right arm with a crane?" I shake my head. "That still makes no sense to me. I tracked her down to a safe house later and she agreed to act as my source inside the League."
"How did you go from interrogating her to dating her?
"
"I'm still not completely sure. Though, I think the fact that I killed her father about a minute after meeting him for the first time had something to do with it." That gets a few eyebrows. "She did completely hate him. Anyway, working for the Shadows, we don't fight alongside each other much. Only time we have so far was when Darkseid decided to throw me a challenge match. If my friends and I won, he'd leave the Earth to me. If we lost, we'd be too dead to worry. Jade was carrying a piece of Star Conqueror based technology her boss wanted the League to take possession of. The Apokoliptians were supposed to attack us to make it look like an ambush, but they decided to stop playing by his rules and make it an actual attack."
Zatanna 50 looks curious. "I'm assuming one of these friends was your Zatanna?"
I nod. "On our side, Superboy, Mat-."
"Your Superman has a son?
"
"No, our Luthor just had better luck with cloning than yours did. Same with Match. Then there was Rocket, Miss Martian-. Our Mars is still fully inhabited. Robin-" I open my hands towards Zatanna 50. "-Zatanna, Kid Flash, Celestial Archer, Artemis and Aqualad. Jade and Riddler were there as bait, but when the Apokoliptian leader said what the stakes were I convinced Aqualad to permit me to release her. On the Apokoliptian side, Devilance the Pursuer, two Gravi-Guard, two flights of Aero-Troopers and
quite a lot of Parademons."
"Does Jade have super powers?
"
"Not yet, but I gave her a shot of something called 'Velocity Ten'. It grants short term super speed. That, plus a few x-ionised blades and she was ready to go." I sit back slightly. "I wish I could have seen more of the fight, but I was rather occupied."
Shayera nods. "I remember when we killed
our version of Devilance. His spear's powerful."
"Oh no, Kon and Match took
him on.
I got to fight a Brimstone class plasma servitor."
"The giant radioactive robot?
"
"Ours was a walking sun. The only vulnerable point is the techno-seed in its chest that serves as its control system. Anyway, Jade got busy slaughtering any Parademon stupid enough to land -something my team mates refused to do- while I had to work out how to harm an object at the core of a star. Without the star incinerating everyone around me. I ended up using the orange power ring to generate magnets powerful enough to force Brimstone's body to deform so that I could get at it. Once I had a link to the techno-seed I ordered the thing to be passive, picked it up, flew it to the edge of the star system and set it to shut down after I left." I frown. "Should probably go back at some point and make sure that the techno-seed didn't survive."
Shayera nods. "And what did Jade do after she finished off the less intelligent Parademons?"
"She went after the Gravi-Guard. Cut one up before they knew they were under attack. Unfortunately, the other realised more or less what was happening and dramatically increased gravity around it. At the speed she was going… She fell, then got her legs mangled. I fixed them up afterwards, but they must have been incredibly painful." I look away for a moment. "I need to nag her again about getting super powers permanently when I get back. Anyway, Kon and Match dealt with Devilance easily enough."
"How come?
"
"Brimstone was a walking sun. A walking
yellow sun." John nods, while Shayera bows her head with a snort of laughter. "I don't think Devilance realised quite how stupid he was being. Not until after they broke his fingers, stole his spear and punched him out. Our
Zatanna spent most of the fight keeping everyone from getting incinerated or irradiated by Brimstone just being there. She
also restored the area to mint condition after we were finished. It turns out that planets aren't really meant to have suns walking on them."
Zatanna 50 looks curious. "How powerful is she?"
"She has your natural ability, New God soul structure and a Lord of Order as a teacher. I'm not sure exactly, but I'd say 'very'. Okay. Joseph-."
He winces slightly. "Could you please call me Katar?" He sighs. "I know you think I'm just-."
"Fine, it's fine. Katar. Any good stories about ancient Egypt?"
He smiles slightly, then nods. "One or two. Let's see… It was about a year after we first landed…"
