Ahh, Constantine. Is there anyone you can't piss off by getting to know?
Assimilation [Young Justice SI]
- Thread starter Satire Swift
- Start date
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
A good litmus test to figure out if someone has met John Constantine before is to see how they react to the idea of calling him for help; if they respond with "No." then they have met John Constantine before.
- Location
- Sector 2814
Ollie you shit, by all accounts they're doing everything legally (as opposed to when they were the League's deniable asset, being used to violate treaties and national sovereignty). How would you propose not letting them "get away with it?" Teleporting in and punching them in the face for having the audacity to be superheroes?
KillingYouNicely
I've seen things. They weren't really interesting.
- Location
- Australia
Ollie seems to be under the impression that he's still capable of 'sending the kids to their room', since most of them are proteges of one League member or another. It seems as though he might need one of his own boxing-glove arrows to the face to snap him out of that misconception.
Great Interlude. Seeing the calculator embracing the madness despite seeing and understanding the consequences was a great story moment, all too rare that we get a sense that the supervillain really understands that he's playing with nuclear hellfire.
Both hero paragraphs had me searching for the YES! Button, a simple like will have to do.
Both hero paragraphs had me searching for the YES! Button, a simple like will have to do.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Of course not.
He'd teleport in and punch them in the face for being the wrong kind of superheroes.
The man apparently believes that bows are actually a superpower, snapping him out of misconceptions cannot be done.
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Yea, does he even know that archery is an Olympic sport? You don't need a tragic backstory to shoot a bow and arrow real good.
Hestia&theCourt
Turns out we're plural too.
- Location
- In transition
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You do need a tragic backstory to think it's a good idea to strap a boxing glove to an arrow, though.
- Location
- Argentina
overly sarcastic productions reference? good taste boddy
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- Location
- texas
You do need a tragic backstory to think it's a good idea to strap a boxing glove to an arrow, though.
Joker quote in the Injustice prequel "A boxing glove arrow? Obviously for when you want to punch someone far away. Makes perfect sense."
Hestia&theCourt
Turns out we're plural too.
- Location
- In transition
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Green Arrow: Your approval fills me with shame.
Since it's mentioned in the last update that Ocean Master went "off script" but not what the Light actually intended to happen, I'll provide my own speculation as to what their plan was. I noticed this bit a few updates ago:
The end result is, he gets to be King in his own identity, and he and the Light control Atlantis. It's not even that bad a plan, outside of Orm trying to pull it off with Lovecraftian entities. That was where it went from merely "risky and ambitious" into the realm of "supervillain overreach" and "doomed Lovecraft protagonist".
EDIT: * Re-reading recent updates, I happened across a line supporting this I somehow missed the first time around:
I suspect they had some kind of plan involving Orm making a show of "defeating Ocean Master" and the Deep Ones, with the latter possibly destroying the rest of Home Fleet so he'd control their remaining Navy. * Then he'd either push for more power or pull an outright coup to get installed as king, using the "failure to defend Atlantis" of the previous royals as a justification. Quite possibly also claiming that King was irresponsibly spending too much time as Aquaman dealing with surface worlders, both to discredit Aquaman and drive wedges between Atlantis and the surface (especially the JL).
The end result is, he gets to be King in his own identity, and he and the Light control Atlantis. It's not even that bad a plan, outside of Orm trying to pull it off with Lovecraftian entities. That was where it went from merely "risky and ambitious" into the realm of "supervillain overreach" and "doomed Lovecraft protagonist".
EDIT: * Re-reading recent updates, I happened across a line supporting this I somehow missed the first time around:
The underlined definitely sounds like the plan was for his Orm persona to defeat his "Ocean Master" one.
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17.1
- Location
- Elsewhere
=====A=====
"So, what is this?" Hephaestus asked, looking at the large briefcase sized object I hefted up on to his workbench. It had only been 2 weeks since I had last been in his forge, but it had become a lot more cluttered than last time. There were more benches, molds, foundry equipment... He was working on some project or another, but I couldn't tell quite what it was.
Either way, I had other business with god. "This… is a laptop." I said, and I opened it up to reveal a large keyboard and screen. "Well, technically speaking." Even though ruggedized computers tended to be larger than their counterparts, I went the extra mile when building this one. Partially so that it was sized for the god, but I also figured he'd appreciate something he didn't have to worry about dropping. "I figure that it will come in handy for our future dealings."
"Hmm, so this is one of those computer things?" He asked as he watched me boot it up. He studied the device for several long seconds before he registered what I said. "Wait, does that mean you're taking up my offer?"
"Yes, we are. Some things have happened since we last spoke and, well, my Kingdom has come together. We're calling ourselves the Silver. And the Parliament of Algorithms is interested in your offer."
"Great! As soon as you can make some proper shrines where you come from, I can get to work."
"Right, but before we get ahead of ourselves, we should talk logistics." I turned back to the laptop and pulled up a program. "And let's see if I can bring our logistics guy in on this."
I hit a key, and a moment later a video call popped up. On screen was a rough face made of motes of light, which moved in the approximation of a smile. A synthesized voice came from the speakers. "Greetings, Hephaestus. We are Calculus of the Silver. We would like to speak with you about the details of your proposal."
So it works across dimensions too, I thought as I checked the signal integrity of the incoming comm. I had finally managed to get something done with my research into the Zeta Tubes: a Zeta Ansible. Inside the laptop was a module that had a Zeta particle that was quantum entangled with another, located in a multiplexer back at the Mountain. Normal quantum entanglement may not have worked that way, but when it comes to exotic matter like Zeta particles it allowed non-interceptable, FTL communication.
"Logistics..." Hephaestus rubbed his chin. "I don't normally try to argue with that, but what's to think about? Just get people to worship me again."
"Restarting a religion is a bit more complicated in the modern era," Calculus said. "Ignoring that most born into a religion are reluctant to leave it, the primary motivation for individuals to take up religion is the promise of an afterlife. Which we don't think you can offer on your own..."
Hephaestus grumbled. "I'd rather not have to rope Hades into this… besides, I want them to worship me, not him."
" 'Worship' is a strong word to use in modern times." Calculus said. "The issue must be broken down into its most basic elements. What exactly do people need to do to give you prayers, and what can they expect in return?"
The god scowled. "There was a time when the knowledge I gave would be enough for people to praise me. I know humans have short memories, but are they really complaining that I haven't done anything for them lately?"
"We're not saying that." I cut in, before Calculus could respond. "It's just that… humans have learned to get by without divine intervention, and are used to it. But, you're not the type of god to become complacent either. Come on, humanity has accomplished great things without you… so think of what they could do with you."
Hephaestus looked off to the side in thought, though held his angry expression for a long minute. Eventually he settled down and scratched the side of his head. "Well… I could make maintenance and performance of machines more reliable. If I knew more about the machines themselves I might be able to make them perform beyond what they're normally capable of, once I have enough power. I've also still got a few secrets about metallurgy left, for those who really want to devote themselves."
"Humans have made advances of their own metal making," Calculus started to say.
Hephaestus turned to the screen and grinned. "Trust me, humans may have gleamed a lot from that first flame, but I've been working with it since time immemorial. I know how to make it change materials into something amazing."
I hummed. "Interesting... that reminds me, how is Prometheus doing? Is he still chained to that rock?" I asked. If he was, I should probably look into freeing him. Not only did he get a bad rap, but considering his actions, he'd probably be a good ally for the Silver.
Hephaestus waved me off. "No, Heracles freed him a while back. He's been laying low ever since. Smart of him. Anyway, that's what I can do for a start. I'll be able to do more once I have a proper cult."
"Again, we need to work on that terminology," Calculus said. "But yes, that is a good place to start. Now, how exactly do you want them to pray to you?"
"My siblings have temples, but I could do without. Most of the best work happens inside the workshop and forge, so that's where I got the most rituals dedicated to me." He said, and then his face brightened. "But I love a good torch race in my honor."
"I see. If these rituals can be digitized and performed through applications, it will greatly increase the number of prayers you receive, even if they require human input. The Silver already has plans to distribute technology to the masses, so we could incorporate these new functions easily." We had a few different projects planned, the first being a new CPU design that incorporated the Sliver mandala into its structure. Not only did it provide excellent performance, but it generated magical power for the Kingdom as well.
The god frowned a little. "Not quite sure what you mean, but it sounds like you want to automate the process. If you make it too easy to pay lip service, I'm not going to get much out of it."
"Perhaps, but we can analyze the quality and quantity of prayers for the optimal ratio. Besides, even with minimal energy derived from it, there are potentially billions of people who could find use in praying to you."
"...Billions, you say?" Hephaestus became a lot more interested. "That could work. Maybe if we-"
I coughed politely, and the two looked towards me. "I don't mean to break this up, but before we get too far into this, someone else would like to talk to you." I gestured behind me, and a short distance away Donna pushed herself off the pillar she had been leaning against. She was the one that had actually brought me to the Themyscira and granted me the invitation for this trip. Both of us had some business with Hephaestus after all.
"Oh, right." Hephaestus turned and hobbled over to her. "Donna! I don't think you've ever graced my forge."
Donna touched his shoulder, a tight smile on her face. "It is the first time I've been to Olympus at all. But, I'm not just here to say hello." Her expression flattened a bit. "Jacob told me that you said Nyx provided you the material for my outfit. Is that true?"
"That she did." He nodded. "A fine piece of the Celestial Sphere it was. And even finer after I fashioned it into armor."
"...How? I mean, when?" She asked. "Nyx hasn't been seen in nearly two decades! If she came to you only a few years ago, why didn't you tell anyone?"
Hephaestus waved his hands. "No, no, it was..." He paused to think about it. "You got the right of it, twenty years ago. When she gave it to me, she told me to hold it until a girl from Man's World came to the island." He looked away and raised a hand, " 'Born of the World of Men, accepted of the Sisterhood of Amazons, she will come. Powers beyond mortals, but no divine will claim her. You will fashion her raiment from these stars and send her forth to her fate.' " He looked back at her. "When you arrived, you seemed to fit the description."
Donna's jaw dropped open, and when she found her words her tone was incredulous. "And you didn't think to tell me any of this?"
The god shrugged. "You didn't ask when I gave you the outfit, so I assumed you didn't care."
"How would I know to ask any of that?! I was 13! Did you think to ask why Nyx was giving you it with such weird requirements?"
The god's face twisted into something ugly. "No, I didn't, and why should I? No one has ever asked what I'm doing or why, so why should I care about others' business?" He jabbed a stubby finger at Donna. "For that matter, I haven't seen you since the day I gave you that armor. And now you come in here and accuse me of not doing a thorough job because I didn't give you it's backstory?!"
I felt the forge around us get a little hotter, and I knew that it was time to cut the conversation short. "Ok, I think that's enough." I said, stepping in. "Donna, I believe he answered your question, so perhaps we should be going now." I gestured to the laptop. "Calculus can handle the details of our arrangement."
Hephaestus calmed down a little and waved us off, turning back to the laptop to resume planning with the other machine elemental. Donna bristled, but I managed to guide her back down the stone corridor which led outside to Olympus. As she fell in next to me, Donna breathed out and slumped her shoulders. "Sorry, I shouldn't have gone off like that. I didn't mean to kick you out of your own meeting."
"It's fine. Calculus can fill me in later."
"And I didn't even learn anything useful." She continued to mutter. "Somehow I have even more questions than when I started."
"Maybe, maybe not," I said. " ''Born of the World of Men, accepted of the Sisterhood of Amazons, she will come.' That sounds an awful lot like a prophecy. And remember who Nyx's daughters are?"
"The Three Fates?" Donna arched an eyebrow as she looked to me. "Perhaps… but they don't really get 'prophecies' the way you think of them, you'd have to go to Apollo for that. They see the thread of fate that dictates a person's past, present, and future."
"Maybe they saw their mother's?"
"...Normally I'd say that wouldn't work for a god, but I honestly don't know." She sighed. "I guess it's as good a lead as any. But you do realize they don't live on Olympus, right?"
"That I do," I nodded grimly. "Grab some obols, Donna. We're going to hell."
"Tartarus."
"Whatever, you know what I mean. Of course I doubt it will be simple even after we cross the Styx."
We reached the doors to the forge and Donna pushed them open with a grunt. "If they can really see the future, they can save us some time by-" She cut herself off as we stepped out onto the wide ledge of the mountain, finding that there were people waiting for us.
They were a young girl at the beginning of adolescence, a mature woman in her prime, and an old crone. I can't get anymore detailed than that, as their features seemed to shift moment to moment. It was like I was looking at several people at once, and I could see a new one just by looking slightly differently. Slipping in and out of view around them were countless threads, ethereal lines that seemed to flow from the youngest to the eldest.
Donna looked at them dumbfounded before she yelled "I was kidding!"
"That you were," Clotho, the Maiden, said. Her voice was light, lilting.
"And yet we are here." Lachesis, the Matron, continued. Her words were even and measured.
"And we will be here until you learn what you need to." Atropos, the Crone, finished. Her tone was heavy and final.
I arched an eyebrow at the three of them. "And you couldn't come see her earlier because…?"
"Because this is when we met you." The Matron said simply.
"...Should I mention that I don't believe in predestination?"
The goddess smiled at me with a thousand faces. "Mortals have a very limited perspective on the nature of time. Choice does not exist as you see it, but neither does Fate. The thread of Fate is a metaphor, and like all metaphors is simplified." She held her hands out and I saw a barely visible thread string between her fingers. "Most mortals see their lives like this, a single unbroken line. But the reality is far more intricate and involved."
In an instant the thread… split for lack of a better word, folding out in all directions into a three dimensional mosaic. I started to get lost as the pattern started to dip in directions I couldn't process before it collapsed back into a single line. "Careful," The Matron said to me. "You most of all should not get lost in possibilities."
I wondered what that meant, but Donna said "Alright, fine, we're all here now. Are you going to tell me what happened to Nyx? And how I'm connected to it?"
"We will tell you some of what you want to know, but not all." "Quite simply, we don't know the whole story ourselves." "We saw what was going to happen to our mother through the fate of those that brought the darkness. And we saw some of what happens to you through the fate of other mortals." The three spoke one after the other, with barely a break in their cadence.
"And?" Donna asked, impatient.
"We told Nyx what we saw: The men, the Brujeria, came to Tartarus seeking power. They brought a great darkness with them, a thing of corruption and evil. Nyx went to stop them, and while she expelled them from Tartarus she was lessened and… infected in the process. Her very nature made it easy for this darkness to take root."
The Maiden paused, letting out a soft breath before she said "But rather than suffer this indignity and fall to rot… Nyx ended herself. We told her all of this, and it was unavoidable."
The ledge was silent as that sunk in. Eventually, Donna spoke softly. "So… she's dead."
"Nyx is not dead, at least not in the mortal sense." The Matron pointed out. "The eldest gods are difficult to truly kill. Especially one that is prepared for it."
"So she didn't 'just' end herself." I said. "Nyx gave Hephaestus the night cloth because she knew Donna would come along. And Donna is..." I trailed off, looking at the woman in question.
She shook her head. "I don't know. Nyx disappears and then I come along, with some affinity for the night. And then New York happened and I crushed that effigy, and the power felt so familiar..." She struggled to find the words before she gave up. "Am… am I Nyx? Is that what's going on? Am I her reincarnation or something?"
"No. You are Donna Troy." "You have always been Donna Troy." "For as long as we will see your Fate, you will always be Donna Troy." "We believe that you being Donna Troy is important to this matter, but we don't know why."
"I don't… what does me being 'Donna Troy' have to do with this?"
The three looked at each other before looking back at us. "You are different from most mortals. Your thread of Fate is myriad." "You originated from many points, all which were distinct from one another." "And yet you will always become Donna Troy." "And now the one that is you carries the essence of our mother. A power that naturally shrouds itself, making it even more difficult to discern the cause."
Donna stared at the goddesses for a few seconds before she looked at me. "Did you understand any of that?"
"...I think they're talking about other versions of you in different realities or timelines." And the fact that Donna's messy comic book origins were apparently 'real' in some sense was worrying. "Suffice to say, you're a 'comsically' special individual. A piece of the puzzle, but not the whole thing."
Donna shifted her gaze back to the Fates. "So… now what?"
"You absorbed the stolen fragment of Nyx's stolen power. With it, the awakening of the divine within you has accelerated." "You are ready to take the first step to learning the truth. And now, the time has come for us to tell you."
The Crone stepped forward, a crooked finger pointing towards her. "You will go to the place of your first memory, your birth in flames. You will take with you the one with a similar thread of fate to yours. Together you will begin to learn about your past, and your future."
"One with a..." Donna trailed off in confusion. "Who's that?"
She pointed to me. "Him."
My eyebrows shot up. "Me?"
I felt the combined gaze of the goddess settle on me. "You are an anomaly." "You had no origin, but the longer you existed, the more interwoven you became." "You are now myriad, like Donna." "And your end will be just as uncertain."
I... wasn't sure how to take that. I guessed that me not having an origin was in reference to the fact that I came from a different universe, but what did they mean that I was 'interwoven'? It might just mean that I had changed the fate of people around me, but it felt like there was more to it. "Can you expand on that?"
"We will not." The Matron said simply. "Because we are now at the end of the conversation." The threads around the three suddenly increased in number, obscuring their forms more and more. "It was short, but nice." "Perhaps we will do it again sometime." The threads faded from view and the Fates along with them, leaving me and Donna alone on the mountain.
----------------------
With nothing else for it, we headed back down to Themyscira after that. Hippolyta was concerned about the sudden appearance of the Fates, but after relaying our conversation with them, she recognized that this was a more personal matter for the goddesses than usual and didn't pry too much. After she let us go, both me and Donna had some things to think about, so we ended up wandering the palace in silence for a while. We found ourselves on a public terrace overlooking the bay when I finally spoke up. "You don't seem too happy," I remarked.
Next to me, Donna broke her musing to glance my way. "Should I be?"
"Well, the last time a Greek primordial deity told me that I was who I thought I was, I felt pretty reassured."
"...We lead strange lives." She said before waving her hand. "But, while knowing I'm not the reincarnation of a goddess of the night is nice, it's not quite what I was looking for. Besides, I'm still 'myriad', whatever the hell that means. Though I'm sure it doesn't bode well."
"How do you figure?"
Donna didn't answer immediately, looking out over the plaza. Eventually she sighed and said "I... don't know. I've been looking for answers for what happened to me for god knows how long, and now that I'm finally getting some… it's not as satisfying as I thought."
I hummed. "Too… dramatic?" I guessed.
She nodded. "I just wanted to know if I had normal parents, a normal childhood. All of this 'divine' and 'shrouded connection to Nyx' stuff is too much. Ever since New York I've been feeling something building inside of me, and I'm worried it's going to overwhelm everything else. Like I'm about to be pulled into something I don't want." She looked back out towards the ocean. "And I don't know if I'll be the same afterwards."
I didn't say any, instead taking a moment to really look at Donna Troy. If she really was only 19 she was the type to mature quickly, as even with my eyes it was hard to see the lingering traces of adolescence on her face. Not only that… well, it was easy to forget when you lived with Kori, but Donna was by no means small. I looked for the teenage girl I first met a few short weeks ago, but in that moment I could only see a woman considering her future. Her body tense, while the starfield of her hair swept behind her like-
I stopped and did a double take. "Uh, Donna, your hair."
She looked to me before grabbing a lock and pulling it in front of her face. "Damn it, not again," she muttered, and after a few moments of focusing her hair returned to it's normal black color. "It's been doing that ever since New York. It's even started to happen to any blacks I wear that aren't my outfit."
"Well, I think it's quite lovely. Then again, I have a known bias long hair with 'interesting' effects."
"It may be pretty, but it also makes it difficult to keep my lives separate." She mumbled. "Made even trickier by how much people seem to love the Titans."
Though we hadn't had long to do much actual crime fighting, the Titans had made a huge splash in the media. It felt like most of my time these days was keeping track of everyone who wanted interviews and were vying for more info on us. Given how hard Donna was working to maintain her civilian life, this was the first chance we both could spare a moment to slip away and deal with the whole Nyx issue.
Donna paused, and looked fully at me. "How do you do it?"
"Do what? I don't have two identities."
"No I mean… how do you stay normal?" She asked. "You've been transformed, died, become an elemental avatar and yet you're still… you."
I took a while to consider my response before I said "I'm… boring. Or at least, I feel like I am compared to most of the people around me. B-type personality and all that. Even when I was worried about what my body would do to my mind over time, I was willing to see where it went. All the things that have happened to me have become a part of me, and just learned to roll with it."
Donna digested those words for a bit before retorting "I don't think a B-type personality would help form a superhero team and steal a mountain fortress away from the Justice League."
"I said B-type, not push over."
She laughed. "I think you're more 'well adjusted' than 'boring', but that still doesn't explain how."
I shrugged. "Well, I guess I try not to let any one thing define me. I may be a superhero whose been through some stuff and the Avatar for a new machine kingdom, but I have other things going on. I have friends to hang out with, a girlfriend to make happy, I love various kinds of media and am thinking of taking up writing again." I grinned. "And recently, I got to introduce the Amazons to Jojo's, so there's that."
Before we had gone up the mountain, I dropped off a few crates that I had brought to the island with Alexa. Crates containing a trove of books, both old and new along with a translation guide. Alexa assured me she was a quick study with languages, though when I had left her library she had eagerly started leafing through the already translated volumes of JoJo's I had made.
Donna shook her head. "Ok, the manga's one thing, but did you have to also include Sunstone?"
"What? I thought Amazons of all people could appreciate it."
Before Donna could reply, a new voice cut in."There is little Amazons appreciate about Man's World."
We turned to look at the three women who were approaching us. All of them were dressed in the longer, more formal robe akin to what Hippolyta wears, with the woman in front adding a violet scarf to the ensemble. Politicians? Wait, does Themyscira even have politicians? Either way these women seemed to think very highly of themselves.
The lead woman, pale with wavy brown hair, was looking at me with a cold expression. "And we often try to forget about those who come from there as much as possible."
I remained neutral for a moment before I gave her a friendly smile, and extended my hand. "Jacob Morgan. And you are?"
The woman didn't move. "Someone who does not approve of a lowly man standing on this island."
Disappointing, but not surprising, I thought as I pulled my hand back. Even with my unexpected return, the Amazons had generally been rather welcoming of me. On the whole they were distrustful of patriarchy, but they were willing to judge men as individuals. But, in a population of women who had sworn off men for thousands of years, you were going to find at least a few whose distaste was more personal.
Donna stepped up next to me and scowled. "Does Hippolyta know you're here Aella? Harassing our guest? Or were you just counting on the fact he doesn't know he's allowed to punch you for insulting him?"
The woman turned her attention to Donna. " 'Admonition by Combat' is the right of visiting dignitaries, which this man is not. He is here purely at your will, and your authority to allow such things is... questionable."
Donna ignored the jab at her and asked "Do you have a point in being here?"
"Just to inform the man his literature is being confiscated." The woman's lips quirked upwards, but I wouldn't have called it a smile. "If you could call them that. A good number had pictures, like for children's books."
My eyes narrowed. "Those were a gift to Alexa." I said flatly.
"She will get them later. After we confirmed that they are free of any oppressive patriarchal ideals."
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "For the love of- you've known Alexa for thousands of years. Do you really think so little of her that you don't trust her judgement with a couple of books?"
"Alexa is not not who I'm concerned about." Aella said sharply. "Our society has remained perfect due to its isolation from Man's World's filth and cruelty, and I will not let anything jeopardize that. Least of all you."
"You're giving me a lot of credit," I remarked blithely, mostly because I didn't know how else to respond. The woman was certainly irritating me, but I also didn't want to cause an incident considering I was a guest. Not to mention that if I did get contrarian anyway, it would likely feed into the woman's perception of me.
Donna must have noticed my predicament, as she spoke up for me. "Aella, you shouldn't be so dismissive of him or the books he brought. I know you have a lot of issues with Man's World, but it's not as bad as you think. You have to give it a chance-"
Aella did not let her finish."I don't have to do anything. We are Amazons, chosen by the gods to lead men to a better way, and they rejected us. Man's World has never made anything of worth, and the sooner you realize that, the better off you'll be."
Silence settled on the terrace, our two groups just staring at one another. As one, both Donna and I looked sideways at each other, and in that moment we came to the same decision. Donna then said "You know… maybe she has a point. There are a lot of things the Amazons have that Man's World doesn't. Don't you think there's a lot that you could learn from them instead?"
Picking up on what she was doing, I turned to face her. "You know… you're right. I mean, a lot of the problems in the world that existed back when Amazons lived in it still exist today. And from what I see, the Amazons don't have most of them now." I turned back to the trio of women. "For starters, millions die every year due to storms and famine. But I hear you have perfect weather all year round, how do you manage that?"
Aella was taken aback a bit, not expecting the turn the conversation had taken.. "Ah, well… the weather of the island is a gift from the gods. They won't extend it to the entire world."
"Oh. Well, what about medicine? Amazons rarely ever get sick, and their physical capabilities are far greater than normal humans. So, the medical knowledge about the human body you could share with us must be amazing."
The woman frowned. "Again, those are gifts from the gods, not something we can just give out."
"Oh. Well, what about your social structure? There's a lot of strife caused by different cultures and ideals running against each other, which is to say nothing of inter-generational conflict. How do the Amazons deal with that?"
Aella was scowling now, and didn't answer. Donna answered for her though. "Themyscira only has one culture. Which doesn't change since everyone's immortal and there are no children."
"Oh. Well, what about resource manage-"
"Enough!" Aella yelled. "Does this blathering have a point?!"
"Yes." I replied calmly. "That the Amazons don't face most of the problems that the rest of the world does, and that quite frankly you don't know what you're talking about."
The woman angrily looked to Donna. "And you're going to let the man you invited talk to me this way?"
"As long as you continue to be an embarrassment to all Amazons, yes." Donna replied. "The thing you never seemed to realize is that the Amazons were given paradise. The rest of those lowly men you think so little of have to actually work for it."
Aella looked like she was about to explode, but after a few seconds she simply let out a snarl and stormed off, her hanger-ons hesitantly following after her. We watched them go until they disappeared from sight, and Donna groaned. "Oh, I've wanted to do that to her for so long, but now I feel bad. She shouldn't insult the outside world like that, but at the same time I know where her hatred comes from."
"Maybe, but if this is the first time she's gotten a kick in the pants about it, I think it's been a long time coming." I told her.
A single laugh escaped her before she looked around. "Maybe we should get out of here. We have a lead to follow, and I'd rather not be around for when Aella complains to Hippolyta."
"Fair enough, but I want to make sure Alexa gets her books back before we go. Though… I'm sure I could manage that quickly… and without anyone noticing."
"That will make Alexa happy, but it'll be more ammunition for Aella. Do you have a plan for convincing the rest of the Amazons that you're not as awful as she says?"
"Well, there's only one way I know how," I sighed, looking out over the city with determination. "I'm going to have to seduce every Amazon on the island. Kori will understand."
A long silence stretched out between me and Donna. Then, with deliberate care, she brought her hand up and slapped me across the back of the head.
=====A=====
Hestia&theCourt
Turns out we're plural too.
- Location
- In transition
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's a good thing Aella didn't hear that.
Also, do you realize how difficult you've made rating this post? Funny, Insightful, and Hugs are all applicable here!
- Location
- Elsewhere
- Location
- Here
I cry one manly tear. "Brave warrior, your eternal sacrifice will be both remembered and honored! As you go into that darkness, those Left behind will remember you fondly... Go with God's grace!"
In the background there's much lamenting of women: "He had so much to live for!"
Hmm. A reference to those various alternate Jacobs?
Typos:
"gleaned"
A misspelling of "cosmically"? Or a play on words combining cosmic and comics?
"bias for long"
ExNihilo
SPACE!
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Or possibly the "just some guy" Apocrypha? Non/Ambiguous canon time travel just makes everything more confusing.
Zeuseus
KNEEL BEFORE YOUR GOD!!
FTFY
Jacob: Hey sweetie, I need to seduce an Island full of 7 foot tall immortal warrior women to prove that normal people are still cool, you okay with that?
Kori: *drooling*
Jacob: You are of course welcome to help me.
Kori: *Flying Tackle-hug* BEST. BOYFRIEND. EVER!!!!!!
When Jacob first came to this universe, he told the Justice League about "DC comics" and all that, but at their request/command didn't tell anyone else. Especially not the Team; at least once Batman got very tetchy with him for using comic book knowledge in front of Robin.
Now he's broken away from the Justice League's authority to form the Titans. Should he tell them about DC Comics? The reason I ask is that it's becoming relevant to his current quest with Donna, so it seems like maybe he should tell her what he knows.
Now he's broken away from the Justice League's authority to form the Titans. Should he tell them about DC Comics? The reason I ask is that it's becoming relevant to his current quest with Donna, so it seems like maybe he should tell her what he knows.
- Location
- Belfast
I was about to say that Kori would be more disappointed if he didn't invite her, but you seem to have beaten me to it
Variant 1.1
- Location
- Elsewhere
This is probably the last one of these alternate starts.
The room wasn't much, just a 15 by 15 foot box with a metal table sitting in the middle, and a one way mirror on the far wall. The trip to said room hadn't been the worst I ever experienced, but I still didn't care for the black bag they had shoved over my head. It was itchy and hard to breath in. Plus the metal chair I was sitting in was painfully uncomfortable.
But, in spite of the professionalism these people had shown when they 'persuaded' me to get off the street and into their unmarked van, I was surprised that they had removed my restraints when we reached the room. They had to know what I was capable of. They weren't completely foolish though, as sitting on the other side of the small metal table was a woman, watching me evenly. She had tan skin and black hair, and wore a black leather bodysuit of all things. The tightness of her outfit let me see just how toned she was, and the small movements of her muscles marked her as a fighter.
More than that, the ease with which she had moved across the room to take her seat was not something a normal human could match (not that most would notice). The woman was some kind of superhuman, and she was positive she could take me if things went south. Which was a good and bad thing. Bad in that, if she did have accurate data on me, she must be exceptionally dangerous to think she can take me. Good in that she might be overconfident, and I could use that to my advantage.
Eventually, the woman finally spoke in a smooth alto. "You are a surprisingly difficult man to track down, Mr. Morgan." My only response was to arch an eyebrow, and she continued. "For someone traveling with a team of super-powered individuals targeting secure installations, you're pretty good at traveling under the radar. I had assumed that you were responsible for that covertness… until we found you with this."
She took the item she had been holding and put it on the table between us. It was a sheathed sword, a kriegsmesser to be exact. The blade was slightly curved, along with an opposite curve in the hilt. "Not very low profile to be walking the streets of New York with this on your back."
Again, I said nothing, just staring blankly back at her. My interrogator sighed in annoyance. "Why do I have to be the one to do this?" she muttered under her breath before refocusing on me. "Look, we just want some answers. We'd like to know more about those people you've been going after. In all likelihood, we have a common enemy. These are bad people doing bad things… but I doubt I have to tell you that."
She reached over to the stack of folders at the side of the table, taking the top one and flipping it open. "Took us a while to piece things together from the facility that used to hold you, but we have a pretty good idea of what they did. Picked up orphans and drifters and experimented on them to make living weapons. You were one of the few successes."
She placed the file down on the table, and from my position I could see pictures of myself lining it. They were from a distance and at discreet angles, but you could make out my face. "We have evidence of drugs, bionics, cybernetics... I guess they were trying to turn you into a Chinese knockoff Mid-"
"Laotian." I interrupted.
She blinked at the first word I had said to her. "I'm sorry?"
"The doctor who worked on me, he was from Laos, not China." I tried to ignore how the vertical scars on my arms itched at the memory of that place. If I didn't distract myself quickly, the similar scars covering the rest of my body would follow suit, I said "From a shadowy organization that kidnaps people off the street, I'd expect some better intel."
She huffed, annoyed. "Oh, we have intel. On you, and the people you're running with." She grabbed the next file off the stack. "First and foremost, let's start with the one who broke you out of your prison." The woman opposite me tossed the open file on the table, and in the pages I saw the picture of a statuesque red-headed woman, mid-punching an armored man through a wall. Without thinking a memory floated to the front of mind...
The empty gun dropped from my shaking hands, and I started to run at the last guard at the end of the hall. Whatever had sent the facility into alert meant that this was probably the last one between me and freedom. I had already carved a bloody swath through the two dozen I had already run into, but I was also running on fumes. I was bleeding and exhausted, and had no idea what was going on.
But I wasn't going to let that stop me. I scoop up a discarded knife on the ground as I ran, and the panicking man opposite me desperately pulled out his side arm. No time to throw it, I had to close the last few meters before he got a bead on me-
The wall behind the guard suddenly exploded in a shower of rubble and fire. The man went down as he bore the brunt of the explosive force, and something else came tumbling through the hole as well. I tried to dodge, but the thing hit me full force and sent me sprawling to the ground, nearly cracking my head against the floor. For a few seconds it felt like I couldn't breath… until the woman who had landed on me pulled herself up.
She was a valkyrie of a woman, with red hair and well over six feet tall. Her purple and green leotard let me see just how statuesque and powerfully built she was. That and the fact she was basically straddling me.
She blinked owlishly at me, and for a moment neither of us said anything. Unfortunately, my mouth acted before my brain could catch up. "So, come here often?"
"Caitlin Fairchild," My interrogator said, snapping me out of it. "Super strength, speed, and durability. She's popped up all over the country, hitting secure facilities that have been experimenting on humans. And I'm guessing that's where you first met."
"It was a Meet Cute."
She looked at me in confusion before shaking her head. "I'm guessing that means you hit it off, because you apparently joined her. Didn't take long for you to hit another installation and pick up the next member."
The photos in the next file were a lot less clear, instead just being a mess of blue and red blurs. All save for one, a mugshot from a juvenile detention center, showing a teenage boy with shaggy brown hair.
"We don't have a lot of time," Caitlin said, looking over her shoulder, the sound of a helicopter echoing through the thick forest. They were heading towards the pillar of smoke in the distance, but we both knew that wouldn't last long. "Reinforcements are on the way. You sure he went in here?"
I nodded, raising my flashlight to peer into the darkness of the small cave. The sporadic skid marks hand led us all the way here from the wrecked base, and ended right in front of the rocky opening. It could have been a feint, but I doubted who we were following was thinking that far ahead. I carefully waked forward into the cave, slowly sweeping my flashlight.
It stopped on a messy red and blue blur that seemed to be vibrating rapidly. After a few seconds the blur resolved itself into a boy, maybe 15 years old and kind of emaciated. Dressed in a dirty jumpsuit, he was pressing himself back into the cave wall, his eyes wide and panicked. He was terrified, but he was too exhausted to run.
Slowly, I knelt down and reached out my hand. "Come on, kid. Let's get you out of here."
"Sean Levin, a.k.a. Blueshift. Can manipulate relativity to increase his speed. Was originally an orphan that disappeared from Saint Louis." The woman grunted. "Thought we managed to find the last of the Gen experiments, but I guess we missed one."
"Are you just going through all these people to make a point?" I asked dryly.
"Since you annoyed me, yes." Was the snippy reply, and she pulled out the next folder. "Besides which, I was hoping you could explain this one." The next set of photos showed a teenage boy with dark hair, though he also had gray skin with golden lines and equations on his exposed flesh. What the picture didn't show was how those equations were constantly scrolling. "This one's still a mystery, never seen mutations quite like that."
I rapidly parsed the info on the screen in front of me, blinking in confusion. "Uh, guys? I think I might be going crazy, because this says they've been experimenting with alien DNA."
Behind me, Caitlin throttled the last security personnel in the room before turning to me. "Really? Where'd they get it?"
"It's redacted," I said, scrolling through the file. "Though it says the original sample was 'scorched' after landing on earth, whatever that means. They've been trying to make a viable clone, but they've had to splice in human DNA to fill in the gaps." I let out a low whistle as I got to the next section. "And they did something right, because the specs to his containment cell are absurd. Kinetic dampeners, faraday cages, a near absolute zero cooled gap… they do not want him getting out."
A blue blur sped into the room and resolved itself next to me. "Took care of the main generators." Sean said. "Also, some guys are headed this way."
Without looking, I nudged him to the side before drawing my pistol and firing two shots towards the doorway. The two guards that had just entered the room dropped. "Great." I checked my watch. "That means power to security should be dropping in 5... 4… 3-" I stopped and looked back at the screen. "Wait, are the containment cells on the main circuit?"
The lights went out, before quickly being replaced by red emergency lights. And then, 10 seconds later, the whole facility shook with the force of a massive containment breach.
"Accelerator, no other name. Capable of vector manipulation, from physical motion, to electricity, to heat." I said before she could. I still couldn't believe he took the name I had suggested off hand. "He spent a lot of time underground. And they only feed him math books."
I saw my interrogator's eye twitch before she grabbed the next one. "This one I can only assume you picked up in Chicago," She threw the next file down, the only photo showing a blurry figure jumping between rooftops.
I stared down at the pile of unconscious men who I was supposed to be meeting, a frown crossing my face as I looked around the empty warehouse. Following a gut instinct, I looked up and said "Look, I know this wasn't exactly going to be a 'above the table' conversation, but it's still very rude to take them out before we even talked."
In response, a tenor voice echoed from the dark rafters above. In a transatlantic accent, of all things. "Sorry, they were getting jumpy and were about to bail. Believe me, I am just as curious about this nefarious organization you're asking after."
I slowly turned, keeping my guard up as I asked "Well, did you get anything out of them?"
"Other than that they had plans to double cross you if they didn't bail? Afraid not."
"I could have handled it myself, but much obliged." I remarked dryly. "What's your interest in this?"
There was a pause. "These people you're after… I believe I know of them. I believe they were the ones who took something very precious from me. And I want to make them pay."
"...So what do you want from me?"
I turned at the soft sound of someone landing, and a figure walked out from around a pillar, male and lithe. He was a tall teenager dressed in a vest, slacks, and sharp shoes. His button up shirt was rolled up at the sleeves, and he had a fedora covering a head of blonde hair.
The kid looked at me from behind a domino mask and said "I heard you have a team. I want in."
"Billy Kane, a.k.a the Hornet. Vigilante that works the city. Also claims he's the great-grandson of the Spider, the superhero from the 30's." The woman smirked. "I can tell you for a fact that he's not."
She was certain of that. Interesting. Billy was going to have some very pointed questions later, but at the moment there was only one file left. After a pause, I slowly reached my hand across the table, never taking my eyes off her. The woman tensed as my hand got near the sword, but I reached past it to pick up the last file. I leaned back in my chair and opened it. I wasn't surprised to find it much more sparse than the others. "You don't even have her name?" I asked.
"She's a ghost. Doesn't exist in any database we can access." The woman said, followed by an expecting silence.
"...Donna." I finally said, looking at the photo of a dark haired young woman. "Her name is Donna."
I ushered the last of the disheveled looking woman past the cargo containers and into the street, where the police would be arriving shortly. Normally I'd be a lot more happy about breaking up a human trafficking operation and getting one step closer to getting answers, but seeing as these women were already running for their lives as soon as we arrived… well, it looked like someone had beat us to the punch.
I moved deeping in the docks, where the rest of my team had spread out to find more victims or bad guys. I didn't know what I was walking into, so I drew my sword and moved silently past the containers, noting signs of conflict along the way. There was a mix of bullet holes and physical damage ranging from rents to crushed bits of metal. I also came across more than one body, though all of them appeared to be thugs.
I stopped when I stepped around another container into an open space, and the first thing that grabbed my attention were all the weapons. Not guns, but swords, axes, polearms, just about every kind of melee weapon was embedded in the containers around the space. They were all formed of a shimmering silver, and I could see a thin thread of wavering silver connected to all of them.
The weapons then pulled themselves free of the containers and floated back to the center of the area, where two people stood. The first was Caitlin, who stood still staring at the second, a statuesque woman with flowing back hair. She wore a white bodysuit, and more notably a pair of silver bracers that were connected to all the weapons being pulled towards her. They all seamlessly flowed into the bracers until there were none remaining.
The woman stared coldly at Caitlin, her whole body tense. "Who am I?" she asked rhetorically, probably in response to something my teammate said. "I am Donna of Themyscira, an island far more advanced than any nation of this world. Years ago my sister was sent out, to tell this world of the peace my sisters and our society could bring to it." Her face twisted in fury. "She was murdered from orbit the instant she left the island's protection. I am here to find the men responsible and make them pay." She took a step forward, her bracers glowing silver. "So help me find them… or get out of my way."
Caitlin looked back at her for a long moment before a smirk crossed her face. "You'll fit right in."
I dropped the file. "So, that's all of us. What little good we can in this world."
She snorted. "You're a bunch of vagrant misfits, but sure."
My eyes narrowed.
She continued. "Anyway, we're here to talk about what your team's been doing for the past year or so. Or more accurately, who you've been dealing with. Trust me Mr. Morgan, this will all be a lot smoother if you cooperate. You won't be getting rescued anytime soon-"
That's when the building shook, just a little.
The woman frowned. "The hell was that-" she cut off, and her head tilted to the side slightly. Listening to the voice on her earpiece tell her that a group of misfits was storming the lobby. Her expression slowly turned into a scowl, which only deepened when she saw the curiously innocent expression on my face. "It seems there's an incident I need to-"
She cut herself off, realizing that she would have to leave me alone to go handle the situation. Or leave me with some mundane guards, which amounted to the same thing. "Oh, don't worry about me," I said. "I'm sure I can find something to occupy myself while you're gone."
The woman's face twisted… before she broke out in laughter. "Alright, that's enough of that." She pushed herself to her feet. "This sort of thing isn't normally my job, and I'd much rather be downstairs to deal with that problem rather than you. So, I'm going to take it out of your hide right now, understand?"
"Two things before we get started." I replied calmly. "The first is that the nanomachines in Donna's bracers are surprisingly versatile. They can do any number of things from hack computers, manipulate magnetic fields, even track each other."
The woman looked at me in confusion. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"It segways nicely into the second thing," I said, pointing at the sword on the table. "That's not my sword."
She stared at me for a long moment before her eyes flicked to the sword. There was a beat before she jumped for it. Before she reached it my hand flicked up, and the nanites Donna had implanted in it pulled the weapon into my grasp. I rolled back with the force of the impact, tumbling back out of the chair and to my feet. The silvery blade was already drawn by the time the woman was on me.
And she was fast too, I barely had time to deflect her fist to the side of my head, missing me by inches. A flick of my wrist caused the sword to slice along her inner arm, and she screamed in surprise and pain before jumping back. We broke apart, and she paused to look at the gash along her arm. She may have been tougher than normal, but Themysciran nanoblades weren't exactly normal either. "That's for calling them misfits." I said.
Unfortunately, my hopes of ending this quickly died when she looked back up at me with a grin. "Finally, something fun." She said as she charged back in.
Figures she'd be one of those, I thought, slipping past her next punch and rolling over the table to get some space. Which she promptly cleared by grabbing said table with one hand and tossing it flat against the wall. She came at me and I was forced to duck to the side as she put her hand through the wall. I slashed back at her, but this time she was ready and skipped back out of range.
But before she could step back in, my free hand flicked out, and the paperclip I had lifted from the folder launched out of it. It perfectly bounced off the wall to hit her in the eye by the time she noticed the motion, causing her to flinch. I went low and forward, slashing at her leg, and slicing into her hamstring before she could react. As she rolled away, I tossed the sword up into the only light on the ceiling and bathed the room in darkness.
The people who held me captive wanted to turn me into another Midnighter, but the doctor they had specialized in artificial biology. His solution was to graft a second artificial nervous system onto my own, one that would give me much more direct control of my body. It gave me perfect motor control, enhanced reflexes, and the ability to learn somatic skills almost instantly. That, combined with darkness around us, was the only reason the very scary woman didn't immediately crush my skull in.
I danced around her in the dark, striking at her joints, ears, and throat. I couldn't meaningfully hurt her, but I could disorient her. Each hit, each jab knocked her more off balance, caused her to lose her position in the room. Which is why when I provoked her into charging at me, I was able neatly sidestep and let her plow straight through the door leading to the hallway. She tumbled all the way to the opposite wall, and I casually pulled the sword out of the ceiling and walked after her.
The building shook again as she got to her feet, and I looked at her evenly. "So, you've been talking a lot about me and mine." I said. "Let me do the same for you."
The artificial nerves in my body extended all the way up to my head, integrating with my brain. This was needed for me to actually internalize all of the skills I was picking up rather than just mimicking them. This also gave me a sort of secondary ability: intuition. I was constantly picking up details subconsciously, things like motion, words, facts. It didn't give me super-intelligence or anything, but it did nudge me in the right direction more often than not.
And right now, it was letting me talk through the mystery in front of me. "You're not the people we've been hunting. At first I thought you might be trying the 'common enemy' trick to get me to spill what I knew, but you were far too polite in asking me questions. Besides, they've come after us before, and they haven't bothered with capture, let alone being sloppy enough to let us see you coming. Hence me letting you pick me up with a tracking sword."
The woman didn't move, so I continued. "Of course, that leaves the much trickier question of who you actually are. You're not government, none of the gear your people carry are standard issue for any agency. And I don't think you're I.O. 2.0, if only because you aren't a complete power mad asshole." I gestured to her. "They never had anyone superpowered who wasn't crazy."
I raised a finger. "But, the thing that actually tipped me off was the car ride here. From the point you picked me up, the van turned left, right, forward for about two thirds of a miles, right, forward, right. Which is a parking garage. But then the driver turned up the radio to hide the sound of the portal door opening up. Only two organizations have that kind of tech on tap, and you're sure as hell not the Authority. So..."
I lowered the sword. "You're Planetary."
The woman stared at me for a long moment… before she let out something between a grunt and a laugh. "Alright, I guess you've got some skill." The woman relaxed, standing up straight as if she hadn't been just trying to break me in half. "Jakita Wagner."
"Charmed." I said flatly, ignoring how the rumbling was getting stronger. Planetary was part corporation, part futurist organization that had shown up big a few years ago, showing off all kinds of impossible tech. This, naturally, caused a huge mess, causing a number of other organizations to panic and try to get a handle on them. I hadn't really paid much attention. "So… what I don't understand is what the hell do you want with me?"
"We want to hire you."
"...huh?"
It was of course at that moment the wall at the end of the hall exploded, a very angry Caitlin crashing through it. One by one the rest of my team came pouring through the opening and soon enough they were arrayed behind me. They probably would have charged Jakita if I hadn't held my hand out to stop them. Once I was sure no one was going to do something rash, I said "You have a very unique way of making an offer."
"Well, we had to vet you." Jakita shrugged. "You're hard to get a hold of, and as you've guessed we don't know that much about you. So, we went for a slightly more… dramatic approach."
I processed this for a moment before I said. "You did this on your own initiative, didn't you. And then your boss is the one who made you follow through with the interrogation bit."
"...How did you guess?"
"Call it a hunch. So, you want to hire us?"
"Yeah." She breathed out. "I wasn't kidding, the people you're after are causing us problems too. We don't know much about them, but they seem to be put together from the remnants of other organizations dead and buried. International Operations for one. Do you know about the Four?" I shook my head. "They were another. The point is, we need more manpower to stop them. And since you're already doing that, we want to give you a hand."
"Out of the kindness of your heart?"
"Hell no. Kindness has nothing to do with this" She said bluntly. "These people are bastards of the worst sort, and need to be put down. And you lot have the motivation to do it. So," Jakita put her hand on her hips, looking at each of us in turn. "Are you in?"
I had a brief moment of deja vu, and something floated up from the back of my brain. Something that had been there since I stepped onto that subway and stepped out into a world of comic book madness. It was just a phase, something that had erased itself from my mind, but now came back.
With a strange sense of finality, I muttered "We all have to do this sooner or later."
"You seem… out of sorts." Caitlin remarked, looking down at me as she sat on my desk.
The desk, in fact, was part of the problem. "Doesn't this seem a little… surreal to you?" I asked, gesturing to the very nice corner office that I had been given as part of joining with Planetary. "Yesterday we were on the run, never staying in one place too long. And now… I've got an office." I paused. "Why am I the one with the office?"
Caitlin huffed. "It might be weird for you, but I got to have a home when running with Gen13. Well, It was Lynch's home, but still." She patted the desk. "Besides, you were an office worker, so this suits you."
"One, I was a programmer, not quite the same thing. Two, didn't you go to Princeton?"
"One, I never finished Princeton. Two… shut up."
We stared at each other before we both laughed. After which Caitlin leaned towards me. "Are you ok with this? Because if you really don't want to-"
I waved her off. "No, no, it's fine. I probably am the best one to help manage things between us and Planetary. Someone has to watch them and make sure they hold up their end." I sighed. "Besides, I'm the one who pushed for us accepting the deal. I wanted the kids to have an actual roof over their heads. I can deal with living out of motels, but they shouldn't have to."
Slowly, a genuine smile formed on Caitlin's face. "You know, that's a good look on you."
"What?" I asked, and at that moment I was acutely aware of just how close she leaned her face into mine. "Umm." I said intelligently, as her big green eyes seemed to take up my whole vision…
Which is of course when the door to my office opened, Ms. Wagner letting herself in. "Morgan, Fairchild. Settling in?"
We both started and looked at her. "You could stand to knock, you know." Caitlin scowled at her.
"You're adorable." Jakita said with a grin. "Anyway, I'm here to tell you we're adding someone to your team."
I blinked. "What? We've literally just agreed to join and you're already trying to put a plant in?"
Jakita rolled her eyes. "No, no, this is more of a… special case. Bring her in." She called out. The door opened and in walked an older man in a lab coat followed by… something roughly in the shape of a teenage girl. She had rough green skin and raised bone structures in several parts of her body. Which I got a good look at as she wasn't wearing any clothes. There wasn't much to see though, most of her anatomy was smoothed over. The exception was her face, which was close to human save for a few extra lines and sunken eyes.
One detail looked out of place though, which Jakita noticed too. "She's trying out hair now?" She asked, pointing to the unruly mane of red hair on her head. "It could use some work,"
The man shrugged. "I think it works well with her skin tone."
"Is… she an alien?" Caitlin asked.
Jakita looked back to us."This is Artemis, and while she's not human, she's not an alien. In fact she predates humans by a considerable margin. We recently had a bit of a mishap with our Time Loop device-"
"You have a time machine?" I asked incredulously.
"Of a sort. It's got some kinks to work out, as I was getting to." Jakita said. "Dr. Erdel here was looking into potentially looking into the past, and accidentally managed to pull something from it instead. While blacking out half the state at the same time."
The bespectacled scientist coughed. "My, uh, calculations may have been off by an order of magnitude."
I looked between them and Artemis. "How far back are we talking? Because I don't remember anything like her in the fossil record."
"Back when the Earth's atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide." The man said. "And her species wouldn't leave fossils, as her body is actually protean in structure. It's quite fascinating, she started adapting to our atmosphere the instant she stepped out of the timetrack. Not quite fast enough, but fortunately I recognized the problem and was able to cobble together a solution until she finished changing."
Jakita spoke up. "The problem is we don't know how to send her back yet, so she's stuck with us. Near as we can tell, she's an adolescent of her kind, so we figured..."
"Lady, I'm not a daycare." I said. "Can she even speak our language?"
"She's learning, quite quickly too." Dr. Erdel said. "We think she may have some psychic ability as well."
I looked back at the ancient girl in question. Artemis 'smiled', her face splitting apart to reveal two different rows of teeth.
"...You know what, screw it, why not." I threw up my hands in exasperation. "I've already resigned to herding a bunch teenagers for my job, what's one more?"
Caitlin gave me that smile again, her hand brushing against my shoulder for a moment before she got up from the desk and moved to Artemis. "So! I'm Caitlin. And if you're going to be working with us, I'm going to introduce you to the rest of the Authoriteens."
"Damn it woman we are not calling them that!" I yelled, but Caitlin was already leading the girl out of the office. "Caitlin! You get back here this instant before you poison that girl with your terrible taste! Caitlin!" My cries fell on deaf ears though, and she was gone.
Erdel followed them out, but Jakita stayed for a moment longer. "By the way, you got a package from the man upstairs." She tossed a thick brown package to me before turning and heading out. "Good luck."
I grumbled and turned the object over in my hands. I unwrapped it, finding it to be a thick, hardcover book. The cover read 'Planetary Guide to Earth: 2010 edition.' I opened the cover to find that the first page had a single handwritten line scrawled in it.
"The world's a strange place. Let's keep it that way."
Ah, Wildstorm. So dumb, but so cool, yet also so dumb. Still, a lot of good stuff came out of there, Warren Ellis's work in particular (shame he turned out to be a creep). This would basically pick up where Planetary left off. I'd also give it just a little bit of that Wildstorm grit, not full 90's level, but enough to give it some edge.
=====V=====
The room wasn't much, just a 15 by 15 foot box with a metal table sitting in the middle, and a one way mirror on the far wall. The trip to said room hadn't been the worst I ever experienced, but I still didn't care for the black bag they had shoved over my head. It was itchy and hard to breath in. Plus the metal chair I was sitting in was painfully uncomfortable.
But, in spite of the professionalism these people had shown when they 'persuaded' me to get off the street and into their unmarked van, I was surprised that they had removed my restraints when we reached the room. They had to know what I was capable of. They weren't completely foolish though, as sitting on the other side of the small metal table was a woman, watching me evenly. She had tan skin and black hair, and wore a black leather bodysuit of all things. The tightness of her outfit let me see just how toned she was, and the small movements of her muscles marked her as a fighter.
More than that, the ease with which she had moved across the room to take her seat was not something a normal human could match (not that most would notice). The woman was some kind of superhuman, and she was positive she could take me if things went south. Which was a good and bad thing. Bad in that, if she did have accurate data on me, she must be exceptionally dangerous to think she can take me. Good in that she might be overconfident, and I could use that to my advantage.
Eventually, the woman finally spoke in a smooth alto. "You are a surprisingly difficult man to track down, Mr. Morgan." My only response was to arch an eyebrow, and she continued. "For someone traveling with a team of super-powered individuals targeting secure installations, you're pretty good at traveling under the radar. I had assumed that you were responsible for that covertness… until we found you with this."
She took the item she had been holding and put it on the table between us. It was a sheathed sword, a kriegsmesser to be exact. The blade was slightly curved, along with an opposite curve in the hilt. "Not very low profile to be walking the streets of New York with this on your back."
Again, I said nothing, just staring blankly back at her. My interrogator sighed in annoyance. "Why do I have to be the one to do this?" she muttered under her breath before refocusing on me. "Look, we just want some answers. We'd like to know more about those people you've been going after. In all likelihood, we have a common enemy. These are bad people doing bad things… but I doubt I have to tell you that."
She reached over to the stack of folders at the side of the table, taking the top one and flipping it open. "Took us a while to piece things together from the facility that used to hold you, but we have a pretty good idea of what they did. Picked up orphans and drifters and experimented on them to make living weapons. You were one of the few successes."
She placed the file down on the table, and from my position I could see pictures of myself lining it. They were from a distance and at discreet angles, but you could make out my face. "We have evidence of drugs, bionics, cybernetics... I guess they were trying to turn you into a Chinese knockoff Mid-"
"Laotian." I interrupted.
She blinked at the first word I had said to her. "I'm sorry?"
"The doctor who worked on me, he was from Laos, not China." I tried to ignore how the vertical scars on my arms itched at the memory of that place. If I didn't distract myself quickly, the similar scars covering the rest of my body would follow suit, I said "From a shadowy organization that kidnaps people off the street, I'd expect some better intel."
She huffed, annoyed. "Oh, we have intel. On you, and the people you're running with." She grabbed the next file off the stack. "First and foremost, let's start with the one who broke you out of your prison." The woman opposite me tossed the open file on the table, and in the pages I saw the picture of a statuesque red-headed woman, mid-punching an armored man through a wall. Without thinking a memory floated to the front of mind...
The empty gun dropped from my shaking hands, and I started to run at the last guard at the end of the hall. Whatever had sent the facility into alert meant that this was probably the last one between me and freedom. I had already carved a bloody swath through the two dozen I had already run into, but I was also running on fumes. I was bleeding and exhausted, and had no idea what was going on.
But I wasn't going to let that stop me. I scoop up a discarded knife on the ground as I ran, and the panicking man opposite me desperately pulled out his side arm. No time to throw it, I had to close the last few meters before he got a bead on me-
The wall behind the guard suddenly exploded in a shower of rubble and fire. The man went down as he bore the brunt of the explosive force, and something else came tumbling through the hole as well. I tried to dodge, but the thing hit me full force and sent me sprawling to the ground, nearly cracking my head against the floor. For a few seconds it felt like I couldn't breath… until the woman who had landed on me pulled herself up.
She was a valkyrie of a woman, with red hair and well over six feet tall. Her purple and green leotard let me see just how statuesque and powerfully built she was. That and the fact she was basically straddling me.
She blinked owlishly at me, and for a moment neither of us said anything. Unfortunately, my mouth acted before my brain could catch up. "So, come here often?"
"Caitlin Fairchild," My interrogator said, snapping me out of it. "Super strength, speed, and durability. She's popped up all over the country, hitting secure facilities that have been experimenting on humans. And I'm guessing that's where you first met."
"It was a Meet Cute."
She looked at me in confusion before shaking her head. "I'm guessing that means you hit it off, because you apparently joined her. Didn't take long for you to hit another installation and pick up the next member."
The photos in the next file were a lot less clear, instead just being a mess of blue and red blurs. All save for one, a mugshot from a juvenile detention center, showing a teenage boy with shaggy brown hair.
"We don't have a lot of time," Caitlin said, looking over her shoulder, the sound of a helicopter echoing through the thick forest. They were heading towards the pillar of smoke in the distance, but we both knew that wouldn't last long. "Reinforcements are on the way. You sure he went in here?"
I nodded, raising my flashlight to peer into the darkness of the small cave. The sporadic skid marks hand led us all the way here from the wrecked base, and ended right in front of the rocky opening. It could have been a feint, but I doubted who we were following was thinking that far ahead. I carefully waked forward into the cave, slowly sweeping my flashlight.
It stopped on a messy red and blue blur that seemed to be vibrating rapidly. After a few seconds the blur resolved itself into a boy, maybe 15 years old and kind of emaciated. Dressed in a dirty jumpsuit, he was pressing himself back into the cave wall, his eyes wide and panicked. He was terrified, but he was too exhausted to run.
Slowly, I knelt down and reached out my hand. "Come on, kid. Let's get you out of here."
"Sean Levin, a.k.a. Blueshift. Can manipulate relativity to increase his speed. Was originally an orphan that disappeared from Saint Louis." The woman grunted. "Thought we managed to find the last of the Gen experiments, but I guess we missed one."
"Are you just going through all these people to make a point?" I asked dryly.
"Since you annoyed me, yes." Was the snippy reply, and she pulled out the next folder. "Besides which, I was hoping you could explain this one." The next set of photos showed a teenage boy with dark hair, though he also had gray skin with golden lines and equations on his exposed flesh. What the picture didn't show was how those equations were constantly scrolling. "This one's still a mystery, never seen mutations quite like that."
I rapidly parsed the info on the screen in front of me, blinking in confusion. "Uh, guys? I think I might be going crazy, because this says they've been experimenting with alien DNA."
Behind me, Caitlin throttled the last security personnel in the room before turning to me. "Really? Where'd they get it?"
"It's redacted," I said, scrolling through the file. "Though it says the original sample was 'scorched' after landing on earth, whatever that means. They've been trying to make a viable clone, but they've had to splice in human DNA to fill in the gaps." I let out a low whistle as I got to the next section. "And they did something right, because the specs to his containment cell are absurd. Kinetic dampeners, faraday cages, a near absolute zero cooled gap… they do not want him getting out."
A blue blur sped into the room and resolved itself next to me. "Took care of the main generators." Sean said. "Also, some guys are headed this way."
Without looking, I nudged him to the side before drawing my pistol and firing two shots towards the doorway. The two guards that had just entered the room dropped. "Great." I checked my watch. "That means power to security should be dropping in 5... 4… 3-" I stopped and looked back at the screen. "Wait, are the containment cells on the main circuit?"
The lights went out, before quickly being replaced by red emergency lights. And then, 10 seconds later, the whole facility shook with the force of a massive containment breach.
"Accelerator, no other name. Capable of vector manipulation, from physical motion, to electricity, to heat." I said before she could. I still couldn't believe he took the name I had suggested off hand. "He spent a lot of time underground. And they only feed him math books."
I saw my interrogator's eye twitch before she grabbed the next one. "This one I can only assume you picked up in Chicago," She threw the next file down, the only photo showing a blurry figure jumping between rooftops.
I stared down at the pile of unconscious men who I was supposed to be meeting, a frown crossing my face as I looked around the empty warehouse. Following a gut instinct, I looked up and said "Look, I know this wasn't exactly going to be a 'above the table' conversation, but it's still very rude to take them out before we even talked."
In response, a tenor voice echoed from the dark rafters above. In a transatlantic accent, of all things. "Sorry, they were getting jumpy and were about to bail. Believe me, I am just as curious about this nefarious organization you're asking after."
I slowly turned, keeping my guard up as I asked "Well, did you get anything out of them?"
"Other than that they had plans to double cross you if they didn't bail? Afraid not."
"I could have handled it myself, but much obliged." I remarked dryly. "What's your interest in this?"
There was a pause. "These people you're after… I believe I know of them. I believe they were the ones who took something very precious from me. And I want to make them pay."
"...So what do you want from me?"
I turned at the soft sound of someone landing, and a figure walked out from around a pillar, male and lithe. He was a tall teenager dressed in a vest, slacks, and sharp shoes. His button up shirt was rolled up at the sleeves, and he had a fedora covering a head of blonde hair.
The kid looked at me from behind a domino mask and said "I heard you have a team. I want in."
"Billy Kane, a.k.a the Hornet. Vigilante that works the city. Also claims he's the great-grandson of the Spider, the superhero from the 30's." The woman smirked. "I can tell you for a fact that he's not."
She was certain of that. Interesting. Billy was going to have some very pointed questions later, but at the moment there was only one file left. After a pause, I slowly reached my hand across the table, never taking my eyes off her. The woman tensed as my hand got near the sword, but I reached past it to pick up the last file. I leaned back in my chair and opened it. I wasn't surprised to find it much more sparse than the others. "You don't even have her name?" I asked.
"She's a ghost. Doesn't exist in any database we can access." The woman said, followed by an expecting silence.
"...Donna." I finally said, looking at the photo of a dark haired young woman. "Her name is Donna."
I ushered the last of the disheveled looking woman past the cargo containers and into the street, where the police would be arriving shortly. Normally I'd be a lot more happy about breaking up a human trafficking operation and getting one step closer to getting answers, but seeing as these women were already running for their lives as soon as we arrived… well, it looked like someone had beat us to the punch.
I moved deeping in the docks, where the rest of my team had spread out to find more victims or bad guys. I didn't know what I was walking into, so I drew my sword and moved silently past the containers, noting signs of conflict along the way. There was a mix of bullet holes and physical damage ranging from rents to crushed bits of metal. I also came across more than one body, though all of them appeared to be thugs.
I stopped when I stepped around another container into an open space, and the first thing that grabbed my attention were all the weapons. Not guns, but swords, axes, polearms, just about every kind of melee weapon was embedded in the containers around the space. They were all formed of a shimmering silver, and I could see a thin thread of wavering silver connected to all of them.
The weapons then pulled themselves free of the containers and floated back to the center of the area, where two people stood. The first was Caitlin, who stood still staring at the second, a statuesque woman with flowing back hair. She wore a white bodysuit, and more notably a pair of silver bracers that were connected to all the weapons being pulled towards her. They all seamlessly flowed into the bracers until there were none remaining.
The woman stared coldly at Caitlin, her whole body tense. "Who am I?" she asked rhetorically, probably in response to something my teammate said. "I am Donna of Themyscira, an island far more advanced than any nation of this world. Years ago my sister was sent out, to tell this world of the peace my sisters and our society could bring to it." Her face twisted in fury. "She was murdered from orbit the instant she left the island's protection. I am here to find the men responsible and make them pay." She took a step forward, her bracers glowing silver. "So help me find them… or get out of my way."
Caitlin looked back at her for a long moment before a smirk crossed her face. "You'll fit right in."
I dropped the file. "So, that's all of us. What little good we can in this world."
She snorted. "You're a bunch of vagrant misfits, but sure."
My eyes narrowed.
She continued. "Anyway, we're here to talk about what your team's been doing for the past year or so. Or more accurately, who you've been dealing with. Trust me Mr. Morgan, this will all be a lot smoother if you cooperate. You won't be getting rescued anytime soon-"
That's when the building shook, just a little.
The woman frowned. "The hell was that-" she cut off, and her head tilted to the side slightly. Listening to the voice on her earpiece tell her that a group of misfits was storming the lobby. Her expression slowly turned into a scowl, which only deepened when she saw the curiously innocent expression on my face. "It seems there's an incident I need to-"
She cut herself off, realizing that she would have to leave me alone to go handle the situation. Or leave me with some mundane guards, which amounted to the same thing. "Oh, don't worry about me," I said. "I'm sure I can find something to occupy myself while you're gone."
The woman's face twisted… before she broke out in laughter. "Alright, that's enough of that." She pushed herself to her feet. "This sort of thing isn't normally my job, and I'd much rather be downstairs to deal with that problem rather than you. So, I'm going to take it out of your hide right now, understand?"
"Two things before we get started." I replied calmly. "The first is that the nanomachines in Donna's bracers are surprisingly versatile. They can do any number of things from hack computers, manipulate magnetic fields, even track each other."
The woman looked at me in confusion. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"It segways nicely into the second thing," I said, pointing at the sword on the table. "That's not my sword."
She stared at me for a long moment before her eyes flicked to the sword. There was a beat before she jumped for it. Before she reached it my hand flicked up, and the nanites Donna had implanted in it pulled the weapon into my grasp. I rolled back with the force of the impact, tumbling back out of the chair and to my feet. The silvery blade was already drawn by the time the woman was on me.
And she was fast too, I barely had time to deflect her fist to the side of my head, missing me by inches. A flick of my wrist caused the sword to slice along her inner arm, and she screamed in surprise and pain before jumping back. We broke apart, and she paused to look at the gash along her arm. She may have been tougher than normal, but Themysciran nanoblades weren't exactly normal either. "That's for calling them misfits." I said.
Unfortunately, my hopes of ending this quickly died when she looked back up at me with a grin. "Finally, something fun." She said as she charged back in.
Figures she'd be one of those, I thought, slipping past her next punch and rolling over the table to get some space. Which she promptly cleared by grabbing said table with one hand and tossing it flat against the wall. She came at me and I was forced to duck to the side as she put her hand through the wall. I slashed back at her, but this time she was ready and skipped back out of range.
But before she could step back in, my free hand flicked out, and the paperclip I had lifted from the folder launched out of it. It perfectly bounced off the wall to hit her in the eye by the time she noticed the motion, causing her to flinch. I went low and forward, slashing at her leg, and slicing into her hamstring before she could react. As she rolled away, I tossed the sword up into the only light on the ceiling and bathed the room in darkness.
The people who held me captive wanted to turn me into another Midnighter, but the doctor they had specialized in artificial biology. His solution was to graft a second artificial nervous system onto my own, one that would give me much more direct control of my body. It gave me perfect motor control, enhanced reflexes, and the ability to learn somatic skills almost instantly. That, combined with darkness around us, was the only reason the very scary woman didn't immediately crush my skull in.
I danced around her in the dark, striking at her joints, ears, and throat. I couldn't meaningfully hurt her, but I could disorient her. Each hit, each jab knocked her more off balance, caused her to lose her position in the room. Which is why when I provoked her into charging at me, I was able neatly sidestep and let her plow straight through the door leading to the hallway. She tumbled all the way to the opposite wall, and I casually pulled the sword out of the ceiling and walked after her.
The building shook again as she got to her feet, and I looked at her evenly. "So, you've been talking a lot about me and mine." I said. "Let me do the same for you."
The artificial nerves in my body extended all the way up to my head, integrating with my brain. This was needed for me to actually internalize all of the skills I was picking up rather than just mimicking them. This also gave me a sort of secondary ability: intuition. I was constantly picking up details subconsciously, things like motion, words, facts. It didn't give me super-intelligence or anything, but it did nudge me in the right direction more often than not.
And right now, it was letting me talk through the mystery in front of me. "You're not the people we've been hunting. At first I thought you might be trying the 'common enemy' trick to get me to spill what I knew, but you were far too polite in asking me questions. Besides, they've come after us before, and they haven't bothered with capture, let alone being sloppy enough to let us see you coming. Hence me letting you pick me up with a tracking sword."
The woman didn't move, so I continued. "Of course, that leaves the much trickier question of who you actually are. You're not government, none of the gear your people carry are standard issue for any agency. And I don't think you're I.O. 2.0, if only because you aren't a complete power mad asshole." I gestured to her. "They never had anyone superpowered who wasn't crazy."
I raised a finger. "But, the thing that actually tipped me off was the car ride here. From the point you picked me up, the van turned left, right, forward for about two thirds of a miles, right, forward, right. Which is a parking garage. But then the driver turned up the radio to hide the sound of the portal door opening up. Only two organizations have that kind of tech on tap, and you're sure as hell not the Authority. So..."
I lowered the sword. "You're Planetary."
The woman stared at me for a long moment… before she let out something between a grunt and a laugh. "Alright, I guess you've got some skill." The woman relaxed, standing up straight as if she hadn't been just trying to break me in half. "Jakita Wagner."
"Charmed." I said flatly, ignoring how the rumbling was getting stronger. Planetary was part corporation, part futurist organization that had shown up big a few years ago, showing off all kinds of impossible tech. This, naturally, caused a huge mess, causing a number of other organizations to panic and try to get a handle on them. I hadn't really paid much attention. "So… what I don't understand is what the hell do you want with me?"
"We want to hire you."
"...huh?"
It was of course at that moment the wall at the end of the hall exploded, a very angry Caitlin crashing through it. One by one the rest of my team came pouring through the opening and soon enough they were arrayed behind me. They probably would have charged Jakita if I hadn't held my hand out to stop them. Once I was sure no one was going to do something rash, I said "You have a very unique way of making an offer."
"Well, we had to vet you." Jakita shrugged. "You're hard to get a hold of, and as you've guessed we don't know that much about you. So, we went for a slightly more… dramatic approach."
I processed this for a moment before I said. "You did this on your own initiative, didn't you. And then your boss is the one who made you follow through with the interrogation bit."
"...How did you guess?"
"Call it a hunch. So, you want to hire us?"
"Yeah." She breathed out. "I wasn't kidding, the people you're after are causing us problems too. We don't know much about them, but they seem to be put together from the remnants of other organizations dead and buried. International Operations for one. Do you know about the Four?" I shook my head. "They were another. The point is, we need more manpower to stop them. And since you're already doing that, we want to give you a hand."
"Out of the kindness of your heart?"
"Hell no. Kindness has nothing to do with this" She said bluntly. "These people are bastards of the worst sort, and need to be put down. And you lot have the motivation to do it. So," Jakita put her hand on her hips, looking at each of us in turn. "Are you in?"
I had a brief moment of deja vu, and something floated up from the back of my brain. Something that had been there since I stepped onto that subway and stepped out into a world of comic book madness. It was just a phase, something that had erased itself from my mind, but now came back.
With a strange sense of finality, I muttered "We all have to do this sooner or later."
----------------------
"You seem… out of sorts." Caitlin remarked, looking down at me as she sat on my desk.
The desk, in fact, was part of the problem. "Doesn't this seem a little… surreal to you?" I asked, gesturing to the very nice corner office that I had been given as part of joining with Planetary. "Yesterday we were on the run, never staying in one place too long. And now… I've got an office." I paused. "Why am I the one with the office?"
Caitlin huffed. "It might be weird for you, but I got to have a home when running with Gen13. Well, It was Lynch's home, but still." She patted the desk. "Besides, you were an office worker, so this suits you."
"One, I was a programmer, not quite the same thing. Two, didn't you go to Princeton?"
"One, I never finished Princeton. Two… shut up."
We stared at each other before we both laughed. After which Caitlin leaned towards me. "Are you ok with this? Because if you really don't want to-"
I waved her off. "No, no, it's fine. I probably am the best one to help manage things between us and Planetary. Someone has to watch them and make sure they hold up their end." I sighed. "Besides, I'm the one who pushed for us accepting the deal. I wanted the kids to have an actual roof over their heads. I can deal with living out of motels, but they shouldn't have to."
Slowly, a genuine smile formed on Caitlin's face. "You know, that's a good look on you."
"What?" I asked, and at that moment I was acutely aware of just how close she leaned her face into mine. "Umm." I said intelligently, as her big green eyes seemed to take up my whole vision…
Which is of course when the door to my office opened, Ms. Wagner letting herself in. "Morgan, Fairchild. Settling in?"
We both started and looked at her. "You could stand to knock, you know." Caitlin scowled at her.
"You're adorable." Jakita said with a grin. "Anyway, I'm here to tell you we're adding someone to your team."
I blinked. "What? We've literally just agreed to join and you're already trying to put a plant in?"
Jakita rolled her eyes. "No, no, this is more of a… special case. Bring her in." She called out. The door opened and in walked an older man in a lab coat followed by… something roughly in the shape of a teenage girl. She had rough green skin and raised bone structures in several parts of her body. Which I got a good look at as she wasn't wearing any clothes. There wasn't much to see though, most of her anatomy was smoothed over. The exception was her face, which was close to human save for a few extra lines and sunken eyes.
One detail looked out of place though, which Jakita noticed too. "She's trying out hair now?" She asked, pointing to the unruly mane of red hair on her head. "It could use some work,"
The man shrugged. "I think it works well with her skin tone."
"Is… she an alien?" Caitlin asked.
Jakita looked back to us."This is Artemis, and while she's not human, she's not an alien. In fact she predates humans by a considerable margin. We recently had a bit of a mishap with our Time Loop device-"
"You have a time machine?" I asked incredulously.
"Of a sort. It's got some kinks to work out, as I was getting to." Jakita said. "Dr. Erdel here was looking into potentially looking into the past, and accidentally managed to pull something from it instead. While blacking out half the state at the same time."
The bespectacled scientist coughed. "My, uh, calculations may have been off by an order of magnitude."
I looked between them and Artemis. "How far back are we talking? Because I don't remember anything like her in the fossil record."
"Back when the Earth's atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide." The man said. "And her species wouldn't leave fossils, as her body is actually protean in structure. It's quite fascinating, she started adapting to our atmosphere the instant she stepped out of the timetrack. Not quite fast enough, but fortunately I recognized the problem and was able to cobble together a solution until she finished changing."
Jakita spoke up. "The problem is we don't know how to send her back yet, so she's stuck with us. Near as we can tell, she's an adolescent of her kind, so we figured..."
"Lady, I'm not a daycare." I said. "Can she even speak our language?"
"She's learning, quite quickly too." Dr. Erdel said. "We think she may have some psychic ability as well."
I looked back at the ancient girl in question. Artemis 'smiled', her face splitting apart to reveal two different rows of teeth.
"...You know what, screw it, why not." I threw up my hands in exasperation. "I've already resigned to herding a bunch teenagers for my job, what's one more?"
Caitlin gave me that smile again, her hand brushing against my shoulder for a moment before she got up from the desk and moved to Artemis. "So! I'm Caitlin. And if you're going to be working with us, I'm going to introduce you to the rest of the Authoriteens."
"Damn it woman we are not calling them that!" I yelled, but Caitlin was already leading the girl out of the office. "Caitlin! You get back here this instant before you poison that girl with your terrible taste! Caitlin!" My cries fell on deaf ears though, and she was gone.
Erdel followed them out, but Jakita stayed for a moment longer. "By the way, you got a package from the man upstairs." She tossed a thick brown package to me before turning and heading out. "Good luck."
I grumbled and turned the object over in my hands. I unwrapped it, finding it to be a thick, hardcover book. The cover read 'Planetary Guide to Earth: 2010 edition.' I opened the cover to find that the first page had a single handwritten line scrawled in it.
"The world's a strange place. Let's keep it that way."
=====V=====
Ah, Wildstorm. So dumb, but so cool, yet also so dumb. Still, a lot of good stuff came out of there, Warren Ellis's work in particular (shame he turned out to be a creep). This would basically pick up where Planetary left off. I'd also give it just a little bit of that Wildstorm grit, not full 90's level, but enough to give it some edge.
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I kind of wish there were about a half dozen Satire Swifts so we could actually read the full versions of these alternates. Ah, well.
Typo:
Typo:
That should be "segue", not segway.
Segue is sometimes confused with Segway. Segue is a verb that means "to move without stopping from one topic, song, etc., to another." Segway, on the other hand, is a trademarked name for an electric transportation device.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Ah yes, the magical kingdom of technology, the place of 'we can do anything as long as we can justify it with convincing sounding technobabble', aka the patron gods of the Star Trek Federation.
Gotta side with Hephaestus on this one; nobody ever gives a shit about his business so why should he give a shit about anyone else's business? Explaining things is not his job, his job is to make things, if you want someone to explain things then you should go speak to Athena, or Apollo, etc.
It means that you are a computer elemental and you don't want to get stuck calculating the digits of infinite transdimensional π for the rest of forever, because being a computer means that is actually a legitimate danger.
Death just doesn't mean the same thing to an immortal that it does to a mortal, which is pretty obvious really when you think about it.
Hum.
This could mean a lot of things, did Nyx reincarnate herself into all the Donna Troys, just this Donna Troy, or is the power in the cloak intended to turn Donna Troy into a reincarnation of Nyx, or something else entirely?
How puzzling.
Well it is certainly thematically appropriate for a Silver Elemental to create themselves; the Silver is, after all, a made thing, a construct built by the children of other Kingdoms, the concept of creation is an inherent aspect of the Silver's very nature.
Typical Moirae, answering questions in such a way as to leave the ones asking with more questions than they had at the start.
Internet Trolls the lot of them.
Nah its fine as long as an Infinite Crisis doesn't happen. And I don't think that one of those is scheduled for Young Justice, so you're probably safe.
"I have a magical elemental algorithm for self-identity that I can repeat to reinforce and repair my ego, these days I mostly just leave it going passively in the background all the time because people keep trying to disassemble my mind for some fucking reason."
"In short, I don't worry about who I am, am not or might be, I just live my life as best I can. I also don't attempt to live two different lives simultaneously, at least one of which is a lie, that helps a lot."
See, that's where you're making the mistake; just because you forget about the rest of the world does not mean that the rest of the world will forget about you.
Classic laconic burn, probably best not to point that out though given how the Amazons probably feel about Sparta.
Classic Socratic irony fired right back, I don't know if you did this on purpose but it's very clever regardless.
Context mate, context.
More than 0 people you mean, if there are 2 people then there are at least 2 politicians.
If there is 1 person, then they will aggressively befriend nearby non-person things and declare themselves king (or queen), making them a politician.
I certainly can't see Starfire turning down the opportunity to seduce her way through an entire island of literal Amazons.
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