"Are you sure dis is gon' work?" asked the woman in her strange,
unrecognizable accent. She had long, dark hair and deep brown eyes
complimenting her rich, dark skin. She wore jeans, a white T-shirt, and two
very large, wicked –looking guns on each hip. She was sweating profusely
and took the time to dab at her forehead with her cloth.
Before her stood a girl, seemingly unaffected by the hot, Egyptian sun. She looked nine or ten, but the woman knew better than to treat her as anything less than a devastatingly cunning prodigy, far more intelligent than she or most other people around.
The girl gave a careful and tilted up her face, so that the shadows didn't obscure her most distinguishing feature: her albino skin. It was pale, almost translucent and extremely sensitive to light, hence the large, wide brimmed hat. "It will work, Kari." The girl was still scanning the landscape, but a few seconds later, she paused. "There, there it is."
"What? I don't see anything."
"No surprise, it's a hologram, a visual projection. A rather complicated one, if I'm not mistaken.
"How do you know where it is then? Olivia?"
The girl was walking already, and she waited for Kari to catch up before answering. "The ambient light, it seems to bend around the hologram, it's a deficiency that even the best of the come to experience. It's nearly imperceptible, unless one knows what to look for.
Kari furrowed her eyes, she still didn't see anything.
That was right around the time that the child prodigy, Olivia, literally disappeared from sight , seeming to vanish into thin air. Kari's eyes went wide, and then all of the sudden, the entire landscape around her changed from a desert landscape to a dark, musty chamber. "What de-"
"You have just entered the hologram," explained Olivia, who was already on the other side. "We currently happen to be inside of an ancient treasure site, as the manuscripts predicted."
"You said dere would be technology."
"Just because it does not superficially resemble our current technology does not mean it functions unlike it." Olivia walked over to a wall and placed a finger against an inscription. The figures instantly lit up an iridescent blue. Olivia withdrew her finger and then traced along one of the other inscriptions, doing the same to another once she was finished. That same blue light trailed the path of her pale, index finger. Finally, after ten minutes or so, Olivia withdrew her hand a half a foot holding it there. A section of the wall, shaped like a cube suddenly disengaged from the main body, coming to hover above Olivia's outstretched hand.
"What is dat?" Kari nervously fingered the straps to her twin blasters.
"This, "Olivia paused, as if searching for the right words. "This is leverage."
"Over whom?"
A smile. "The entire world."
***
Wonder woman flew through the Gotham sky in the Javelin 7, searching for any sign of the Dark Knight.
She put her JlA communicator to her mouth. "This is Wonder Woman. Remind me again how I'm supposed to find him."
"Look for any sign of trouble, odds are he'll be there," said Superman on the other side of the connection.
Easier said than done, thought the Amazonian Princess. "Why must he keep a secret identity, its almost like he wants to make himself hard to reach," she then muttered to herself.
"Pardon, didn't quite catch that."
"Nothing." A flash of light caused Diana's gaze to shift toward the view port. "Huh, just saw an explosion or something."
Another flash, this one with an accompanying boom that Diana clearly heard. "Hold on just a second," she said, "I'm going to go check this out." She put the Javelin into landing mode and landed right in front of the entrance to the Gotham Bank. Flames and smoke rose into the air from a hole in the east wall and multiple figured clad in back were toting heavy-looking bags out of the building. Diana may not have been entirely familiar with the Man's World, but she sure as heck knew a bank robbery when she saw one.
She glided out of the cockpit, having barely made it out before the robbers began shooting at her. In the nighttime, their aim was terrible, making up for accuracy with sheer numbers.
Ping. Her bracelets were up, deflecting the rounds that came her way. "Give it up, she yelled, walking forward, her arms flying once in a while to intercept a bullet.
No response. Sighing, Diana took the offensive, flying forward and solidly socking one of the masked men in the jaw. To her left, one of the thugs was preparing to hit her with a club, but she quickly dismantled him with a sidekick that sent him careening into two of his companions.
"Lady, you just made a big mistake." It was the first thing any of the robbers had said since the shooting started. Diana whirled around and knocked his gun hand out of the way just in time to keep from being nailed in the face. So surprised had she been that she hadn't even held back, and with an audible crack, the bones in his hand shattered. Howling in pain, he sank to the grass, incapacitated.
BOOM. With the force of a freight train, something slammed into the Amazon and exploded, the force depositing her a good fifteen yards backwards. There was a moment of blistering heat, and then a thud as she hit the ground, skidding a little before landing to a stop. She sat up, and then noticed the last robber with a very large rocket launcher that was propped up against the side of the getaway car.
Diana's Amazon training took over. She flew to the side, narrowly avoiding being hit by another missile, and then made a beeline for the fire hydrant. With her Amazon strength, she easily unscrewed the nozzle. The resulting stream of pressurized water knocked her remaining adversary, missile launcher and all, smack into a nearby tree.
She heard sirens in the distance, which was good, although she wondered why they had not arrived earlier. Or more importantly, where Batman was, since that was whom she had come to find in the first place.
***
The Batman raced down the dark alleyway in pursuit of the murderer. He was vengeance incarnate and one pathetic little killer wouldn't stand a chance. Behind, bleeding on the ground lay the dead couple, both of whom had been fatally shot multiple times. And for what? A petty mugging.
The gunman had gotten an incredible head start but Batman had since shortened the gap between them significantly. He reached and grabbed the fleeing man's arms, violently yanking him backwards. The man reached for his gun, but it was batted away he got two devastating punched in the gut for his trouble. Gasping, he dropped the bag of money he had been holding in his other hands, falling to his knees. He looked up and the Bat, those merciless white eyes boring into the depths of his soul. Then he collapsed, unconscious.
It was the fourth criminal that Batman had apprehended that day, and he still was not satiated. He was frustrated, and the quickest remedy for that was usually a good round or two of villain butt-kicking.
It wasn't good enough though. Even as he climbed back into the Batmobile, he berated himself for not arriving on time to actually stop the murder instead of just the murderer.
His comm. link went off. He pressed the transmitter in his cowl. "Oracle?"
"Yeah, just wanted to let you know there's a commotion down near the bank, it's all over the police bands."
Batman cleared his head of all previous thoughts, focusing on this new situation. "I'm on it."
"Oh, and you got another message from the JL, do you want me to-"
"Not right now."
A pause. "Okay, whatever you say."
When he arrived at the scene of the crime, he immediately realized that whatever situation there had been was no longer one now.
It wasn't too long before he also realized why. Standing in the midst of a dozen or so cops was Wonder Woman. He scowled. What was she doing in his city?
He got out of the Batmobile, pushing his way past reporters and cops to where Commissioner Gordon stood talking to Wonder Woman.
"Batman," the Commissioner said. "Glad you made it.
Batman gave a curt nod, surveying the scene. His eyes came to rest on Diana, who fidgeted nervously under his gaze. "What happened, Jim?"
The Commissioner nodded to Wonder Woman. "Ask her, she was the one who stopped the robbery."
Diana opened her mouth to speak when she noticed all of the reporters and policemen gathered around her and the Batman. Batman picked up on this too and a piercing gaze from his trademark BatStare dispersed the crowd soon enough.
"What are you doing here?" he asked coldly.
"It was the only way to contact you, since you weren't answering your communicator."
"Why, whats the problem?"
"Cities all over the world are experiencing a change in weather patterns. The Watchtower's sensor arrays are detecting a rapid acceleration in the progress of global warming. The obvious effects won't be noticeable for a good week, but by then, it could be too late. Also, there's something beginning to materialize over the earth's atmosphere and we have no idea what it is." She spread out her hands in a gesture of helplessness.
Batman tapped the comm. link in his cowl. "Are you getting this, Oracle?"
"Yep, the lady's right, I'm afraid. Something's screwed up in the atmosphere, satellites are just starting to pick up on it."
Batman looked back at Wonder Woman. "And you have no idea what it is?"
"None, Oracle responded.
Satisfied that her story had been confirmed, Wonder Woman continued. "We could really use your help."
Batman was silent for a moment.
"Look, if you're concerned about Gotham being safe in you absence, just have one of your protégés take over in your absence," Diana said, answering the very question that Batman had been contemplating. She did have a point.
He glanced over at the Javelin 7, resting on the bank's front lawn. "I'll come."
Wonder Woman smiled.
"One thing though. This is my city, Diana, and I don't take kindly to new superheroes making waves here." With that, he turned and began walking toward the Javelin 7.
"But I just stopped a-"
"You upset a balance, Diana. Good intentions nonwithstanding." He continued walking.
"Yeah, you're welcome."
***
Back in the Watchtower, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Superman, Flash, and J'onn, waited for Diana to return. Flash was playing his X-Box while Superman and J'onn pored over the onboard computers of the Watchtower.
John was washing dishes in an attempt to make himself useful. There was a tenseness in the Watchtower, had been for a while since J'onn had first discovered the strange anomalies on earth and in the atmosphere.
It felt good to take a break from the ring though. He used it so often that sometimes, it was almost as if it was the ring that defined him, and not the other way around. The ring, it was such a powerful, awe-inspiring weapon and sometimes, he thought he was in danger of forgetting that there was more to him than the ring.
No ring now, just him and a sink full of dishes, Marvin Gaye playing in the background. After he finished, he would probably fix up something to eat. Spaghetti maybe, perhaps even a pizza . . .
He was about to put a wet dish in the drying rack when a hand reached out and took it. He turned around to find Hawkgirl standing behind him. She smiled and flapped her wings faster than the eye could follow, creating a gust of wind that immediately dried that dish, along with all the other pots, pans, plates, and bowls in the drying rack.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey yourself."
"Superman said you were in here."
"Come to give me a hand?"
Hawkgirl shrugged. "Not like there's anything better to do." She took another wet dish and dried it in the same fashion she had before.
"Not even playing Shopping Cart Derby 4 with Flash?"
"Tried that. A game whose basic point is running around on a motorized shopping cart, knocking over shelves and bystanders gets real old real fast."
"Well, I appreciate the help." He was suddenly struck by a thought. "Tell me Shay, what's your favorite earth food?"
"Why?"
"I was thinking of cooking something up, but I can't decide what."
"You cook?"
"Yep."
"That surprises me."
"I came from the Marines, Shayera. It was either learn how to cook by yourself or be forced to eat the tasteless, odorless, mush they fed us." He finished the last plate, which she subsequently dried. "Any word yet from Superman and J'onn?"
"No. Diana volunteered to go get Batman though, and he probably has a lot more resources than us." She shuddered. "That guy gives me the creeps."
"I think he'd take that as a compliment."
Before her stood a girl, seemingly unaffected by the hot, Egyptian sun. She looked nine or ten, but the woman knew better than to treat her as anything less than a devastatingly cunning prodigy, far more intelligent than she or most other people around.
The girl gave a careful and tilted up her face, so that the shadows didn't obscure her most distinguishing feature: her albino skin. It was pale, almost translucent and extremely sensitive to light, hence the large, wide brimmed hat. "It will work, Kari." The girl was still scanning the landscape, but a few seconds later, she paused. "There, there it is."
"What? I don't see anything."
"No surprise, it's a hologram, a visual projection. A rather complicated one, if I'm not mistaken.
"How do you know where it is then? Olivia?"
The girl was walking already, and she waited for Kari to catch up before answering. "The ambient light, it seems to bend around the hologram, it's a deficiency that even the best of the come to experience. It's nearly imperceptible, unless one knows what to look for.
Kari furrowed her eyes, she still didn't see anything.
That was right around the time that the child prodigy, Olivia, literally disappeared from sight , seeming to vanish into thin air. Kari's eyes went wide, and then all of the sudden, the entire landscape around her changed from a desert landscape to a dark, musty chamber. "What de-"
"You have just entered the hologram," explained Olivia, who was already on the other side. "We currently happen to be inside of an ancient treasure site, as the manuscripts predicted."
"You said dere would be technology."
"Just because it does not superficially resemble our current technology does not mean it functions unlike it." Olivia walked over to a wall and placed a finger against an inscription. The figures instantly lit up an iridescent blue. Olivia withdrew her finger and then traced along one of the other inscriptions, doing the same to another once she was finished. That same blue light trailed the path of her pale, index finger. Finally, after ten minutes or so, Olivia withdrew her hand a half a foot holding it there. A section of the wall, shaped like a cube suddenly disengaged from the main body, coming to hover above Olivia's outstretched hand.
"What is dat?" Kari nervously fingered the straps to her twin blasters.
"This, "Olivia paused, as if searching for the right words. "This is leverage."
"Over whom?"
A smile. "The entire world."
***
Wonder woman flew through the Gotham sky in the Javelin 7, searching for any sign of the Dark Knight.
She put her JlA communicator to her mouth. "This is Wonder Woman. Remind me again how I'm supposed to find him."
"Look for any sign of trouble, odds are he'll be there," said Superman on the other side of the connection.
Easier said than done, thought the Amazonian Princess. "Why must he keep a secret identity, its almost like he wants to make himself hard to reach," she then muttered to herself.
"Pardon, didn't quite catch that."
"Nothing." A flash of light caused Diana's gaze to shift toward the view port. "Huh, just saw an explosion or something."
Another flash, this one with an accompanying boom that Diana clearly heard. "Hold on just a second," she said, "I'm going to go check this out." She put the Javelin into landing mode and landed right in front of the entrance to the Gotham Bank. Flames and smoke rose into the air from a hole in the east wall and multiple figured clad in back were toting heavy-looking bags out of the building. Diana may not have been entirely familiar with the Man's World, but she sure as heck knew a bank robbery when she saw one.
She glided out of the cockpit, having barely made it out before the robbers began shooting at her. In the nighttime, their aim was terrible, making up for accuracy with sheer numbers.
Ping. Her bracelets were up, deflecting the rounds that came her way. "Give it up, she yelled, walking forward, her arms flying once in a while to intercept a bullet.
No response. Sighing, Diana took the offensive, flying forward and solidly socking one of the masked men in the jaw. To her left, one of the thugs was preparing to hit her with a club, but she quickly dismantled him with a sidekick that sent him careening into two of his companions.
"Lady, you just made a big mistake." It was the first thing any of the robbers had said since the shooting started. Diana whirled around and knocked his gun hand out of the way just in time to keep from being nailed in the face. So surprised had she been that she hadn't even held back, and with an audible crack, the bones in his hand shattered. Howling in pain, he sank to the grass, incapacitated.
BOOM. With the force of a freight train, something slammed into the Amazon and exploded, the force depositing her a good fifteen yards backwards. There was a moment of blistering heat, and then a thud as she hit the ground, skidding a little before landing to a stop. She sat up, and then noticed the last robber with a very large rocket launcher that was propped up against the side of the getaway car.
Diana's Amazon training took over. She flew to the side, narrowly avoiding being hit by another missile, and then made a beeline for the fire hydrant. With her Amazon strength, she easily unscrewed the nozzle. The resulting stream of pressurized water knocked her remaining adversary, missile launcher and all, smack into a nearby tree.
She heard sirens in the distance, which was good, although she wondered why they had not arrived earlier. Or more importantly, where Batman was, since that was whom she had come to find in the first place.
***
The Batman raced down the dark alleyway in pursuit of the murderer. He was vengeance incarnate and one pathetic little killer wouldn't stand a chance. Behind, bleeding on the ground lay the dead couple, both of whom had been fatally shot multiple times. And for what? A petty mugging.
The gunman had gotten an incredible head start but Batman had since shortened the gap between them significantly. He reached and grabbed the fleeing man's arms, violently yanking him backwards. The man reached for his gun, but it was batted away he got two devastating punched in the gut for his trouble. Gasping, he dropped the bag of money he had been holding in his other hands, falling to his knees. He looked up and the Bat, those merciless white eyes boring into the depths of his soul. Then he collapsed, unconscious.
It was the fourth criminal that Batman had apprehended that day, and he still was not satiated. He was frustrated, and the quickest remedy for that was usually a good round or two of villain butt-kicking.
It wasn't good enough though. Even as he climbed back into the Batmobile, he berated himself for not arriving on time to actually stop the murder instead of just the murderer.
His comm. link went off. He pressed the transmitter in his cowl. "Oracle?"
"Yeah, just wanted to let you know there's a commotion down near the bank, it's all over the police bands."
Batman cleared his head of all previous thoughts, focusing on this new situation. "I'm on it."
"Oh, and you got another message from the JL, do you want me to-"
"Not right now."
A pause. "Okay, whatever you say."
When he arrived at the scene of the crime, he immediately realized that whatever situation there had been was no longer one now.
It wasn't too long before he also realized why. Standing in the midst of a dozen or so cops was Wonder Woman. He scowled. What was she doing in his city?
He got out of the Batmobile, pushing his way past reporters and cops to where Commissioner Gordon stood talking to Wonder Woman.
"Batman," the Commissioner said. "Glad you made it.
Batman gave a curt nod, surveying the scene. His eyes came to rest on Diana, who fidgeted nervously under his gaze. "What happened, Jim?"
The Commissioner nodded to Wonder Woman. "Ask her, she was the one who stopped the robbery."
Diana opened her mouth to speak when she noticed all of the reporters and policemen gathered around her and the Batman. Batman picked up on this too and a piercing gaze from his trademark BatStare dispersed the crowd soon enough.
"What are you doing here?" he asked coldly.
"It was the only way to contact you, since you weren't answering your communicator."
"Why, whats the problem?"
"Cities all over the world are experiencing a change in weather patterns. The Watchtower's sensor arrays are detecting a rapid acceleration in the progress of global warming. The obvious effects won't be noticeable for a good week, but by then, it could be too late. Also, there's something beginning to materialize over the earth's atmosphere and we have no idea what it is." She spread out her hands in a gesture of helplessness.
Batman tapped the comm. link in his cowl. "Are you getting this, Oracle?"
"Yep, the lady's right, I'm afraid. Something's screwed up in the atmosphere, satellites are just starting to pick up on it."
Batman looked back at Wonder Woman. "And you have no idea what it is?"
"None, Oracle responded.
Satisfied that her story had been confirmed, Wonder Woman continued. "We could really use your help."
Batman was silent for a moment.
"Look, if you're concerned about Gotham being safe in you absence, just have one of your protégés take over in your absence," Diana said, answering the very question that Batman had been contemplating. She did have a point.
He glanced over at the Javelin 7, resting on the bank's front lawn. "I'll come."
Wonder Woman smiled.
"One thing though. This is my city, Diana, and I don't take kindly to new superheroes making waves here." With that, he turned and began walking toward the Javelin 7.
"But I just stopped a-"
"You upset a balance, Diana. Good intentions nonwithstanding." He continued walking.
"Yeah, you're welcome."
***
Back in the Watchtower, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Superman, Flash, and J'onn, waited for Diana to return. Flash was playing his X-Box while Superman and J'onn pored over the onboard computers of the Watchtower.
John was washing dishes in an attempt to make himself useful. There was a tenseness in the Watchtower, had been for a while since J'onn had first discovered the strange anomalies on earth and in the atmosphere.
It felt good to take a break from the ring though. He used it so often that sometimes, it was almost as if it was the ring that defined him, and not the other way around. The ring, it was such a powerful, awe-inspiring weapon and sometimes, he thought he was in danger of forgetting that there was more to him than the ring.
No ring now, just him and a sink full of dishes, Marvin Gaye playing in the background. After he finished, he would probably fix up something to eat. Spaghetti maybe, perhaps even a pizza . . .
He was about to put a wet dish in the drying rack when a hand reached out and took it. He turned around to find Hawkgirl standing behind him. She smiled and flapped her wings faster than the eye could follow, creating a gust of wind that immediately dried that dish, along with all the other pots, pans, plates, and bowls in the drying rack.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey yourself."
"Superman said you were in here."
"Come to give me a hand?"
Hawkgirl shrugged. "Not like there's anything better to do." She took another wet dish and dried it in the same fashion she had before.
"Not even playing Shopping Cart Derby 4 with Flash?"
"Tried that. A game whose basic point is running around on a motorized shopping cart, knocking over shelves and bystanders gets real old real fast."
"Well, I appreciate the help." He was suddenly struck by a thought. "Tell me Shay, what's your favorite earth food?"
"Why?"
"I was thinking of cooking something up, but I can't decide what."
"You cook?"
"Yep."
"That surprises me."
"I came from the Marines, Shayera. It was either learn how to cook by yourself or be forced to eat the tasteless, odorless, mush they fed us." He finished the last plate, which she subsequently dried. "Any word yet from Superman and J'onn?"
"No. Diana volunteered to go get Batman though, and he probably has a lot more resources than us." She shuddered. "That guy gives me the creeps."
"I think he'd take that as a compliment."
