Chapter 9

"He's..." The younger Zatanna sighed, her eyes dropping to the floor. "He's Doctor Fate now."

The other magician blinked. "Um. Excuse me - isn't Kent Nelson supposed to be Doc Fate?"

"Not anymore. Actually, not for a long time. I hadn't met the Team yet, but there was a mission where they went to the Tower of Fate to check on the old guy, since he'd been missing for a month with no word to any of his friends. It turned out there was a plot in works by Abra Kadabra and Klarion the Witch Boy, which the others were able to stop, but Nelson ended up dying that night."

"Hn. That's not good. What happened with the Helmet?"

"Wally wound up with, after wearing the thing long enough to beat Klarion. He brought it back to Mount Justice, and there was another mission - also before I came along - where Kaldur put the thing on to defeat Wotan and the members of the Injustice League."

Elder-Zatanna's eyes widened. "A bunch of kids went up against those A-list monsters?"

"Well, the rest of Earth's heroes were busy trying to stop an army of plant monsters from causing mass chaos and destruction."

"Ah. Gotcha."

"Anyway, after those two occasions, Nabu wasn't too happy about his Helmet going back on a shelf in Mount Justice. Then, there was a magical incident that happened while Dad and I were visiting the Team - several evil magicians, including Klarion, Wotan, Faust, and a couple others, worked a Dimensional Displacement spell."

Her older self frowned. "That many heavy-weight casters, they must have been up to something big..."

"They were. They split Earth into a pair of realities - one for kids, one for adults eighteen and older."

"Ohhh, that's really bad."

"Yeah. The whole thing was meant as a distraction for an organization of bad guys called the Light, but we didn't know that at the time. The only reason we were able to fix things was thanks to Captain Marvel-"

"-because he's really a ten year old form-changer, who could go back and forth!" The woman grinned. "Brilliant."

"Lucky. Anyway, when we went to fight Klarion... I brought the Helmet of Fate with me. And ended up putting it on."

"Let me guess - based off of what you said earlier, Nabu decided not to give up a third host so easily, did he?"

The teen sighed. "No. And rather than see my life wasted like that, Dad made a deal - to put on the Helmet himself if Nabu released me." Tears started to slip down her face, and the elder magician shifted seating places so as to wrap an arm around her younger self. "I knew what I was getting into, it was my choice, and he still- he-"

"Shh, I know, he covered for you like any good parent would." The two of them stayed like that for a while, just letting the emotions flow through the air and clear away. Once the teen regained control of herself, her older alternate conjured up a box of tissues for her.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

"...What about over here?"

The elder Zatanna raised an eyebrow at her. "You mean what happened to Dad in this dimension? He retired a while back, giving me the show to run and settling in this dinky little retirement village in Florida." Her younger self gaped, causing the woman to chuckle. "Crazy, I know, but we can go visit him if you'd like."

She wasn't prepared for the sudden, bone-breaking hug, but in hindsight supposed she should've been expecting it.

-RL-

As Conner was expecting, this dimension's version of Superman was a bit wary of him at first. But then Kara had jumped in, talking about some of the things the teen clone had already brought up with her, and then encouraged him to pick up the thread and keep going. So, he told the two other Kryptonians about the rescue from Cadmus, his early days with the Team and Black Canary's anger management lessons, all the way up to starting school and entering into a relationship with M'gann.

"That's something that I think all of us still find surprising," Clark mentioned at one point, glancing over to where the pair of green-skinned heroes were sitting, blissfully ignoring everything else as they enjoyed conversing through a mindlink. "There's really still a thriving martian culture in your universe?"

"Well, sure. It's just... I'd say it's thriving more for certain people than others." Conner said awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his neck.

"Oh?" Kara asked.

"Uh... There are different types of martians. Greens are the biggest, population wise, and I guess the most in charge. They also discriminate pretty badly against the White martians, which M'gann is one of. She snuck onto J'onn's bio-ship to escape the prejudice by moving to Earth."

"That's terrible!" The female Kryptonian looked as though she'd like nothing more than to go sock a bullying Green martian in the face.

"I don't think I've ever heard our J'onn mention other colors of martians before," Clark muttered, to which Conner could only shrug.

"Could be there weren't any in this universe. I mean, there's a lot that different here, or so I've gathered, anyway."

"Well, I'm sure there's one thing that's just the same, or at least pretty close - Ma Kent's homemade apple pie."

"Ooh, can we head to the farm for a bit, Clark? Ma and Pa have GOT to meet this kid." Kara beamed, previous anger cooling off.

"We could probably spare an hour or two. Come on Conner, we can fly out the-"

"I can't fly."

Both the older heroes paused to stare at the apologetic teen. "Um, what?"

"I can't fly." Conner repeated, looking to the ground. "No heat vision, either, or some other things. I'm not as strong as a full-blooded Kryptonian, either."

"Full-blooded? What do you mean?"

"When Cadmus first tried cloning Superman's DNA, the first experiment, Project Match, was insane and uncontrollable. So, I was take two, when they mixed human DNA in, to make me easier to control."

"Oh, Conner..." Kara stepped forward and hugged, which was startling but not entirely unappreciated.

"You know," Clark said as he gently grasped the teen's shoulder. "I couldn't fly as a kid.

"Y-you couldn't...?"

"Nope. Not until I was sixteen. Granted, I was able to jump pretty far distances, and sometime it almost felt like I'd managed to fly for a minute before coming back down, but true flight like I've got now didn't come until I was a teenager."

"Hey, that's right! You said you're not even a full year old yet, right?"

"Yeah..."

"So, the rest of your abilities will probably come when you start getting older on the inside to match what you look like on the outside." Kara's expression was so determined, and Clark's so confident, that a tiny part of Conner couldn't help but believe them. Or at least, hope that their theories were true.