Episode 3:Preparations
Bruce was sitting at his computer station in the cave as Tim came out of the narrow hallway that connected it to the mansion. "Already hard at work now, Bruce?"
"Not exactly. I'm conducting more research on Lazarus."
"I thought you had done all the research that there was to do on it when you brought it back years ago?" Tim asked.
"I did do some work, but given the circumstance at the time, it didn't seem to be something worth pursuing much. Things are different now, I need to know as much as possible about it if I'm to use it on a continual basis."
"How long will the effects last?"
"The dosage I took and the way I took it will allow me to hold onto this youth for about three months. Typically it lasts longer if I were exposed to it directly like in a bath; raw and unfiltered. But knowing that there are unwanted side effects, I wanted to try and give myself a cleaner version of the material." Bruce began punching in a new set of commands on his console.
"What sort of side effects?" Tim asked as he came to stand next to Bruce in his chair.
Bruce spun his seat to look at tim with a list printed out, "Here are some things that need to get done as soon as possible. I know you like to work on cars so you can start with the vehicles, then start work on the suits. I will work on updating the software and hardware on this computer."
"Eh, right away then." Tim turned around and made his way to the built in spiral staircase that led to the driveway and Batmobile. The car was covered by a large and heavy drape. The only thing that was visible of the car was the front left side of the car and the wheel on it. Next to it was the Batpod or Batcycle as he called it, it too was covered with a drape entirely with only the lights above giving it shape. Although he wasn't into fighting crime like Bruce or anyone else, he did have an appreciation for the vehicles he used in his pursuits. He also knew that with that list, it was the perfect thing to keep him occupied away from questioning Bruce's actions or activities. When he was first adopted by Bruce, he knew he would respect him and treat him as if he was his father, then when he learned of this secret he showed more respect. Never did he consider working with Bruce like this. But maybe, just maybe he would call on him to help in more ways than just as a mechanic.
"This here will be your work space while you intern with us here at Oscorp. Now do you prefer to go by Miles or Mr. Morales?" asked Cheri.
"Miles is fine, thank you. Very excited to be here." Miles flashed a smile on his face before taking his seat at his new desk.
"Great, I will go and find Kevin who you will be reporting to." Cheri turned and left Miles in his cubicle. After Cheri disappeared, Miles pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number under the name Peter Parker.
"Come on, come on…" Miles was whispering.
"Hey Miles! What took you?" Peter asked.
"Oh you know the usual 'hi, welcome, and orientation of starting a job'. I have some time before the boss comes by and introduces himself to me, so I'm going to start your search now." Miles said.
"All right great, let me know what you find." Peter said through the phone.
"Really you should be doing this. My first five minutes into the job and I'm already trying to steal secrets." Miles pulled out a small silver USB stick and plugged it into his computer that was attached to the monitor before him.
"Two reasons why it's you doing it and not me: first I'm the guy who got in trouble for some of their things biting me. If I try going in again, I'm sure they would be suspicious, and two-whoa! Watch it buddy! Sorry, and two, you are more computer savvy when it comes to security." said Peter Parker.
"What was that noise?" Miles asked.
"What noise?" A sudden whoop was heard followed by sirens that came and went.
"Are you busy at the moment? Are you..." Miles looked around him before speaking again in a hushed voice, "Are you Spider-Man right now?"
Peter Parker was playing Spider-Man, he was currently using one hand to swing across the city while in the other hand he was on the phone with Miles, "You have about 2 minutes before I have to hang up and play hero."
"Oh this is so like you! Multitasking horribly! Trying to lead a secret operation while swinging across town, being a student, and trying to maintain a normal appearance with everyone including your girlfriend! You don't have eight hands!" said Miles through the phone.
"Oh relax, I'm doing fine! Now tell me how long will this take?" asked Peter.
"Well you mentioned some parameters that I put into the search program so it shouldn't take too long, maybe an hour or so. Which is fine since I'm going to be here for four hours. This better pan out Peter, I gave up better opportunities with Wayne Enterprises and Stark Industries to help you out with this." said Miles.
"It will Miles! Trust me, sure Norman maybe the scum of the Earth, but a name is a name. Gotta go!" Peter hung up and tucked the phone under his sleeve of his spider suit.
Miles put away his phone and let his security program do its work while he prepared to busy himself.
J'onn sat silently with his arms crossed as he took in the story Katar gave him.
"You don't believe me? You care to take a look for yourself in here?" Katar pointed to his head knowing of J'onn psychic ability.
"No I believe you. The scars and bruises you have on your body tell the story well enough. I'm just concerned about how we go about telling the rest of the world about this impending threat." J'onn looked out the window to the night sky.
"We need the others, humanity can't fight him alone. Matter a fact, looking at this technology just for medical purposes, I fear that Earth's forces will be crushed within hours of Darkseid's arrival."
"How much time do we have until then?" asked J'onn.
"Hard to say, with that mother box destroyed that will stop him and his forces from tracking my location. Given that it took five years for my initial voyage from Thanagar to Earth, I would argue that is the amount of time we have, but let's not get comfortable with it."
"Agreed. What I can do is inform the Green Lantern Corp. about this threat, they can act as a sort of watchdog should this being make his way towards us."
"How are you going to do that? With the league no longer active do you even have anything that could reach out to the Lantern?" asked Katar.
"I do, just before we disbanded and removed our tools and technology I saved some such as the communicators or electron microscopes to keep myself busy, and to talk to anyone who wanted to." J'onn smiled as he stood from his seat and made his way to the closet and pulled out a laptop and set it on the desk next to Katar's bed.
Eric poured himself a glass of water from the tap in his bathroom of his motel room when he heard a knock at his door. He put the glass down on the drawer nearby and approached the door slowly to look through the peep hole. There standing outside was Logan. Eric opened the door to greet his guest.
"Logan, what a pleasant surprise, I didn't expect to have any guests let alone one of Charles students, please come in." Eric stepped aside to let Logan come in.
"I looked over what you found, Eric." Logan said as he stepped in with Eric closing the door behind him.
"Oh did you?" Eric grabbed the glass of water to drink from it, "Water?"
"No, thanks."
"Please sit down and tell me what did you think of it all." Eric took a seat on the perfectly made bed of his room.
"No need. I'm making this a quick trip."
"Oh come to join my cause have you?" Eric set aside the now empty glass onto the coffee table.
"How could you tell?" Logan asked with a small smile on his face.
"Well if you weren't interested there isn't a need for you to come a tell me in person that you aren't buying." Eric let out a small laugh.
"Though I also wanted to ask you, how do you plan on taking one of these things out to start? If you had your powers they would be no problem."
"That's where I was hoping Charles and the rest of you could come in. Soldiers working towards a goal. Not to mention you still possess the jet, that could come in handy quite well."
"Yeah we still have that thing back at the school, yes I can fly it, but Scott and Storm, they aren't coming."
"Yes I can see that, so it appears to me that we are short on manpower, but tell me, why are you coming? Does it stir memories for you? To hear about them trying to change what we are, trying to control us as they always tried?"
Logan thought back to the days of the Weapon X program, all the missions, experiments and things he did while he was part of it before he answered Eric, "Part of me yes. Part of me would rather not go through with this because it means you're coming back and continuing your crusade against them."
"Something that I suppose is rightly to fear about. But when you think about it, I'm not going to be here for very long given my current age."
"Well with you gone, there will always be someone else to fight your fight. But should that time come, we'll be waiting for them."
Eric let out a small laugh, "Well enough about what may or may not happen. Let us focus on how we are going to make things happen. As you pointed out we are a little short on manpower, and even though we have access to the jet, there doesn't seem much else we have available to us."
Logan crossed his arms and gave a shrug, "I know a guy who can help, but it may be tricky to reach him as he's kept secret by the Canadian government."
"Who?"
"A guy named Wade."
Clark stepped out of the ship and into the open ice cave with the sun's rays beaming and bouncing off the white ice and illuminating the cave naturally. Clark took in a breath, he felt the cold in his nostrils as it went through his nose and into his lungs. His muscles felt warm. The sun was nurturing his body slowly. He hadn't stepped out of his own exile in many months. Occasionally he would step outside and take in the view, but even that stopped months later and instead he chose to sit in front of the view screen and watch events of the world unfold without intervention.
At first it was a struggle not to go and help when he knew they could use it. But if he was to respect their wishes he had to bite his tongue and stay back. If only he saved her things would be different right now. His attitude, the world, everything would be different. He raised himself off the ground and through a large tunnel that pierced the ice overhead until he reached the outside. The sun was shining through the faint clouds as the arctic air breezed. With the sun glowing on him, Clark could feel his powers rejuvenating, coming back to life. He certainly wanted to go back, but why go to where you're not wanted? Clark slowly let himself descend back down through the tunnel before he walked back into his ship. When he came back to the captain's chair and sat back down with his eyes on the view screen. Pundits, commentators, and experts all soon began to fill the screens in regards to the wormhole event each with their own ideas as to what it was that came through, and what it means for humanity.
"We should repeal the CV ACT and the UN should do the same with Initiative 53…"
"Seems to me that our planet is becoming a sort of dumping grounds for extraterrestrial trash…"
"We need a militarized NASA for when these things happen…"
"The idea that this government agency known as SHIELD is utter nonsense…"
"We need to make a stand that this is our planet…"
"We shouldn't meet this as a hostile act…"
Clark made a fist with his right hand and smashed it into the console of his armrest, cutting the feed of the channels and darkening the room to a near pitch black. Then the lights came on and the screen with channels flickered back on each showing the face of Lex Luthor, Secretary of Defense in the US. Clark turns to listen.
"Well let's not jump to extreme ideas in regards to this incident that has happened in Santa Cruz. Yes it is something that we are investigating, yes it is something we are prepared to handle. Is it a threat? Highly unlikely, if this were some kind of invasion then I would argue that we would be seeing more incidents like this one on a larger scale, and the fact that that hasn't occurred yet, means that this is a low threat." said Lex on the screen.
"There is, and has been a call to repeal the Costumed Vigilante Act or, CV Act, as others know it as people feel that they provided a sort of protection that our governments couldn't provide whether it be because of lack of effort, lack of resources, or lack of means to provide such help. With an incident like this, should we reconsider it?" asked the hostess.
"Again let's not jump to conclusions. While I'm sure that the heroes of the Justice League did great deeds, it was getting a bit out of hand. Let's face it, we were about to surrender our duties and responsibilities to a group of masked vigilantes who don't exactly abide by the laws like the rest of us."
"But many argue that they are a special case, they can do the things that we cannot-"
"Maybe so, but that doesn't mean they are above the law. If they truly care for our safety and wish to be part of our society, then they must respect the laws we create. We were elected in office by the people, they were never elected to their positions of power."
Clark reached to the left armrest that was left intact on his seat and powered off the screen, turning the room quiet and dark. Playing in his minds were the words his father, Jonathan Kent, "You are here for a reason. Now I don't know what that reason is exactly, but I would hope it would be a change for the world, for the better." Clark walked out of the room and made his way down the hall.
The fire pits continued to burn with the corpses of Thanagarians as they were tossed in like rags by the soldiers of Darkseid's army. Standing over the pit with the blood of his victims still on his battle axe and armor was Kallos. A young messenger comes behind him.
"Our father Darkseid wishes for you to see him, immediately," said the messenger before turning away and leaving. Kallos showed a smile.
Darkseid sat on a throne carved out of rubble with Thanagarian skulls acting as the ends to the arm rests. There he sat overlooking the continued destruction and rape of resources of Thanagar when Kallos arrived and bowed before him with one knee bent.
"Father, you called for me." Kallos said.
Darkseid stood from his seat still looking out to the battlefield, "You have brought me great success here Kallos just as Kalibak has against the Gordanians. But I am not fully satisfied."
"What is it that you wish for?" asked Kallos as he kept his head bowed before the dark lord.
"The Thanagarian leader, Katar Hol escaped my hands by the use of my mother box, and while his planet is now mine, I want his head. Kallos, assemble your team and bring him to me so that he may see his world as it is now before I take his life." Darkseid turned to look at Kallos who now stood up holding his battle axe.
"Yes Father I will begin immediately." Kallos said.
"Go see Desaad for he will have what you will need to start your task." Darkseid waved Kallos away before turning back to look at the continued destruction of Thanagar.
TO BE CONTINUED...