Issue #14

Send in the Rejects

"Ow! Ow! You're kinda chokin' me here! OWWWW! Lemme go, ya big cornfed oaf!"

Lois Lane suddenly found herself compelled to discover the source of these bizarre exclamations that coursed through the clamor of The Daily Planet newsroom. After a 15-year career wherein she had acquired the reputation as a reporter who knew how to find a good story, Lois had honed a finely tuned eye for identifying any possible foundation for an intriguing story. Perhaps that was the aspect of her personality that had originally attracted her to Clark, her ability to notice that perceptible aura of intrigue that seemed to circulate around the wide-eyed, hayseed son of a farmer from Middle of Nowhere, Middle of Nowhere.

Despite her long-acquired talent to expect the unexpected however, Lois couldn't quite rein in her surprise upon the sight of her husband, a man who was usually the picture of self-control and serenity, carrying a blonde-haired teenage girl by the scruff of her sea green sweater as if he were a lioness carrying one of her unruly cubs. The girl was twisting back and forth rapidly in her efforts to escape, although Lois couldn't help but notice that the teen could quite keep herself from smiling. As peculiar as this scene appeared to be, it didn't appear to be attracting the attention of the other Planet writers, many of whom were no doubt working feverishly to finish up their deadlines. The scene grew even stranger when Clark calmly swung open the door to the nearby men's room, heaved the girl inside, and then went in after her.

"Um, Miss Kent? Why did Clark throw that girl into the bathroom?"

Lois somehow managed to keep a straight face throughout the absurdity. After all, a reporter's greatest quality was their ability to maintain professionalism under fire. "First honey, for the hundredth time, please just go ahead and call me Lois. Second, that's exactly what I'm going to find out."

"Look! I said I was sorry for just blurting it out like that! Maybe it just seemed so obvious to me that I just sorta figured that everybody already knew! And besides! It's not like she believed me! She already thought I was just some fruitcase!"

Clark hardly seemed appeased by Stephanie's apology. "Young lady, how would you like it if I went around telling everyone that you were a Green Lantern?"

"I thought that your identity was just public knowledge! I mean, it's not like you're making some great effort to hide the fact. You don't wear anything to hide your face! The suit that you're wearing doesn't do anything to cover up all those muscles and you barely change your voice! The only thing different is that you don't have that weird looking spit curl. Just how do you do that anyway?"

"I'm wearing glasses!" Clark exclaimed, suddenly feeling very defensive despite the fact that his attacker was a 16-year-old girl.

"Oh, like that would fool anybody!"

Clark sighed. Needless to say, he was hardly in the mood to have this type of conversation. "Just why did you come here anyway?"

"It's just like I told that Nazi interrogator subbing in as a desk clerk!" Stephanie said as she moved towards him. "Bruce Wayne sent me here to speak with you! I thought it was kind of odd at first that he'd send me to some reporter for something like this but now that I know who you are this whole thing is starting to make a little more sense. . ."

Clark could tell from Stephanie's steady heartbeat that she was telling the truth, but the warning bells started to ring. It was quite obvious that this was very tricky ground he was stepping into. "You. . . know who Bruce Wayne is, don't you?"

Now it was Stephanie's turn to be wary. Did this guy know who Batman was?

"Uh, yeah. . ."

"That Bruce is. . ."

"Yeah. . ."

"That he's Batman?"

Stephanie breathed a sigh of relief. "Yep! Uh-huh! I know that Bruce Wayne is Batman! I'm the new Robin!"

Now Clark was really beginning to doubt his ability to read the girl. "You're Robin?"

"Uh-huh."

Oh, Bruce. Don't tell me you fired another one! "What happened to Tim?"

"I replaced him," Stephanie replied calmly. "He's working in Bludhaven now."

Clark sighed and began to rub his temples. He didn't know how but he just knew that somewhere, somehow, Bruce was laughing himself silly about this. "Are there any other Robins out there that I don't know about?"

"That depends," Stephanie replied. Her tone seemed to be halfway between bemusement and caution. "How many Robins do you know about?"

Clark groaned, absolutely refusing to engage in this fruitless debate. "All right. The point is I am attempting to keep an air of anonymity when I'm at my other job! Now, I would appreciate it a great deal if you kept this knowledge of my identity a secret."

Stephanie grinned saucily and sidled up to Clark. "And what're you gonna do if I don't? Maybe you'll superkiss me and make me forget?"

Of course, the gods of fate and comedic timing chose this precise moment for Lois Lane to swing open the bathroom door and see the peculiar sight of her husband, a man who had performed many of the most phenomenal feats of strength and courage ever documented on any medium, stumbling and crashing into a sink like an acne-ridden 13-year-old boy.

"Young lady, will you please stop making advances on my husband. As for you Smallville, what the hell is going on?"

Luckily for all parties involved, the arrival of his loving wife caused Clark to regain his normal composure. "This young lady works for Bruce. Apparently she's the new Robin."

"What happened to Tim?"

"She/I replaced him." Clark and Stephanie respectively replied.

"I see." Lois gave the young woman an appreciative nod. "So Bruce finally got another girl on his team. Well, points to him for equal opportunity."

Stephanie broke away from Clark and walked towards Lois, apparently finding the woman to be far more interesting than the world's greatest hero. "And you said you were Superman's wife?" She extended her hand. "Hi! I'm Stephanie Brown!"

Lois didn't expect so much amenable behavior to come from one of the "Batclan" as Clark sometimes liked to put it, but she took it in stride and shook the young lady's hand warmly. "Lois Lane. Pleased to meet you." Lois couldn't help but notice that Stephanie had quite the inquisitive stare still focused upon her. "Is something wrong?" she asked.

Stephanie continued to look at Lois curiously. "I don't know. I just figured that Mrs. Superman would be somebody more, you know. . ."

Lois gave the young lady a prim smile. After all, it wasn't as if the young lady was the first person to come to such an assumption. "It's Miss Lane, Stephanie, and I seem to get along all right."

"So. . . you and Supes do. . . well, y'know. . ."

"Oh, Great Caesar's Ghost!" Clark murmured as he resisted the temptation to slam his head against the mirrors.

Lois did a far better job maintaining her composure. After all, it wasn't as if the young lady was the first person to come to that assumption either. "Trust me, little lady, we get along juuuust fine.

As Lois and Stephanie both chortled at the expense and Superman explored the possibility of fleeing the country (it would only take a couple of seconds, after all), another person made their presence felt.

"Um, why are all of you talking about sex in the bathroom?"

So it was within this rather outlandish state of affairs that Stephanie Brown had her first meeting with Kara Zo'rel, the 16-year-old cousin of Superman and the heroine tentatively known as Supergirl.

Judging from the shy, reserved demeanor that the young woman was expressing, it hardly appeared that the young lady was capable of trading punches with the most malicious and powerful creatures imaginable. She had a model's build: lithe and tall with colt-like legs and a long, elegant neck. Her deep blonde hair hung just past her trim shoulders and her faded blue jeans and t-shirt gave her the appearance of a young woman who just came to the city from the Midwestern farmlands, a rather fitting masquerade given her somewhat secret identity. In fact, the only aspect about her that seemed even remotely out of the ordinary were her eyes; eyes so blue that they may have very well been liquid crystal.

"We're not talking about sex in the bathroom, Kara," Clark said sternly.

"Uh, you kinda were, cousin." Kara replied. As a recent arrival to the planet Earth, the youngest of the two surviving members of the House of El was not yet quite in tune with the Terran concept of subtle deceit to avoid embarrassment. "I could hear you guys from all the way across the hall."

Clark continued to wallow in embarrassment as Stephanie burst out into a paroxysm of laughter. Kara, on the other hand, looked like a doe in the headlights while attempting to discern just whatever could have brought about these wildly different reactions to a simple statement.

"My kingdom for a camcorder," Lois said.

To his inestimable credit, Clark was quick to recover. After taking a moment to make certain that there were no prying eyes or ears, he began to make the necessary introductions. "All right, all right. Stephanie Brown, I would like you to meet my cousin, Kara Zo'rel. Kara, this is Stephanie, an associate of Bruce's."

Stephanie could see Kara cinch up the moment Clark had finished speaking, as if the mere mention of Bruce Wayne seemed to sting her. Now, Steph knew that this was hardly an uncommon reaction, but she didn't even know that Bruce had even met this girl! Regardless of not knowing what necessarily caused this reaction however, the newest Robin could see the look in the young woman's eyes grow a great deal more frigid.

"Any chance I can get some water to go with that ice, girl?" Stephanie asked as she extended her hand.

Kara self-consciously sifted through her hair with her right hand before shaking Stephanie's hand with her left. She presumed that the stranger had read her expression but a small part of her couldn't help but think that Bruce's (Friend? Partner? Enemy?) wanted her to get her a cup of water.

She wisely thought it was the former. "Oh, um, I'm sorry about that. It's just that me and Batman and I haven't really gotten along well and," Kara paused in her apology, a gesture brought about not only through her syntactic slip-up but also for the fact that she may well have divulged some very secret information. Her sapphire eyes expanded almost comically as she considered the possible implications. "Oh! Oh no! I just. . ."

Stephanie lowered her hands in a conciliatory gesture. "It's cool. I know B is B. And don't worry, he gets that reaction from a lot of people." That brusque comment seemed to put Kara a little more at ease while Clark and Lois shared a knowing glance.

"Well, now that we have the introductions out of the way," said Clark. "Perhaps you could explain why Bruce sent you here to Metropolis instead of just contacting me himself?"

Stephanie shrugged her shoulders. Now that she thought about it, she wasn't exactly certain why B had chosen her for this. She decided to stick with what she knew. "Bruce wanted me to get in touch with you because he thought you could help me get a hold of some magical doodad that Shazam was taking care of." Stephanie reached into her knapsack and pulled out the dossier that Bruce had given her. "He said it might help with finding Brother Eye."

Despite reading the tinges of doubt in Stephanie's voice, the young lady's words had certainly grabbed Clark's interest and he plucked the offered file from Stephanie's hand. He began leafing through the contents of the dossier. "Good, this will remind me that I need to speak with him after all this is over." He gave Stephanie a pointed glare while he said this, a gesture that was easily countered by a cheery smile. "I'll look into this right now. While you're here though, might I ask a favor of you?"

"Shoot," Stephanie replied calmly.

"Well, Kara just came in from Paradise Island to pay me a visit and it seems to me that she's feeling a little boxed in."

Kara hedged and grumbled, the archetypal reaction of a teenager who knows that somebody is saying something about them that's true but still would rather not hear about it.

Clark continued his pitch. "Perhaps you would be interested in having Kara show you around town? Take in some of the sights?"

Stephanie gave the nervous-looking young woman another once over. "Teenage superhero bonding, huh? Well, it's not exactly my strong suit but I'm game if she is."

Clark and Stephanie both turned to Kara, who seemed rather uncomfortable with the sudden attention. "Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. You, uh, want to go leave now?"

"Fine by me," Stephanie replied before turning back to Clark. "I'll take a shot in the dark here and presume you know how to get in touch with me?"

"I should hope so, young lady. And, as I said before, I think I'll have a bit of a chat with your boss as well. Still, you two just have fun!"

"Okie doke! Thanks for the help, Supes. Mrs. Lane, it was nice to meet you!" Stephanie waved to the couple in a jovial fashion as she walked out of the bathroom with the exceedingly uncomfortable Kara Zo'rel in tow. Stephanie didn't have any problem placing her important mission into Superman's hands. Not only did it appeal to her innate nature to engage in idle behavior but as Bats himself had put it, if you couldn't trust Superman, who the hell can you trust?

As the two young ladies made their exit, Lois turned to look at her husband, a man who looked quite pleased with his recent round of decision making.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, honey?"

Clark calmly waved off his wife's legitimate concern. "I'm sure they'll be fine. Stephanie seems like a nice enough girl and Kara could use the time to bond with the people she's probably going to be working with in the future."

Lois met her husband's logic with an upraised eyebrow. "And of course, we all remember how well that worked out the last few times we tried that."

Clark grimaced. Yes, he most certainly remembered those disastrous results, but he stood firm. "I think there's quite a bit of difference between this situation and the last time, Lois. Besides, Stephanie seems like the kind of person that can draw somebody out."

"Oh, yeah," Lois agreed. "Very energetic. Seems to have a good head on her shoulders."

"Definitely," Clark agreed.

Pause.

"She's got to be driving Bruce up the walls."

Clark Kent nodded.

London, England

The lunch crowd at the Hog's Head looked to be on the verge of settling up their tabs before returning to their respective places of work. The smell of lager and half-finished soups and sandwiches lay at the forefront of a rich array of senses up for perusal at the centuries-old watering hole. By all extents and circumstances, the day featured no more surprises than the day before: the same hasty consumption, the same busy chatter, the same frenetic movements of the waitresses and cooking crew. Nothing out of the ordinary save the daft-looking bugger wearing a green Martian suit that just came crashing down on top of the bar.

"OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD! You have to help me! He's gonna kill me! He's gonna KILL ME!"

"Wot in the ruddy hell 's the matter wit' ya?" The coarse bartender forcefully shoved Irwin Schaub off of the countertop he had worked so diligently to make spotless. "An' wot's with your poncey threads? You take the wrong turn out of a Doctor Who convention or sumthin?"

Having long since abandoned any trace of reason or composure, Ambush Bug leapt over the counter and grabbed the bartended by the shirt. Many of the bar patrons who weren't already shuffling out the door took time out of their busy lives to laugh heartily at the hopelessly panicked man. "Don't you get it? He's everywhere! No matter where I go he's there! And, and, and he'll get you too! He's horrible! Absolutely horrifying!"

"GIT YOUR BLOODY HANDS OFF ME, YA TOERAG!" The bartender all but threw Ambush Bug back over the bar with such force that the frazzled teleporter ended up falling ass over teakettle. The barkeep didn't allow for a moment of recovery as he continued with his tirade. "Now I'm gonna brain ya if you don't back off, quit your nancyin', and start talkin' straight! Right then. Now who's after you?"

Before Ambush Bug could reply, the door at the front of the Hog's Head swung open and a man briskly walked up to the bar.

"'Scuse me, mate. Pint of Bass please."

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!" Irwin Schaub's high-pitched scream was immediately followed by yet another teleportation performed in an effort to get away from his relentless (and increasingly amused) pursuer.

Lloyd smirked at the awestruck expressions of the patrons as he snatched an entire bottle of Bass from underneath the bar and threw ten dollars down on the counter. As much as he abhorred him to pay in such a fashion, he hadn't quite found the time to run by Heathrow and get his dosh changed.

"Keep the change, mate." Lloyd said to the silent bartender as he walked back out.

It took a good two blocks before Kara could work up the courage to wade into the intimidating and seemingly endless wave of words that constituted Stephanie's normal speech patterns. In the Gothamite's defense however, once the young Kryptonian did manage to speak up, Stephanie gave Kara her full attention.

"Uh, you're not here to fight me, are you?"

"Say what?"

"Well, it's just that every time that I meet up with another superhero it's like we end up fighting each other."

Stephanie found that conclusion to be oddly amusing. "Come on, girl. I'm sure it's not that bad! Granted, it does seem like we capes fight each other a lot more than we probably should, even when we're not hypnotized or anything. Why do you think that is? Maybe it's like some kind of superhero substitution for those times when bulls run into each other to see who gets to mate with the female or something." Stephanie wrapped her right hand around her chin, now firmly motivated to discover the source of this legitimately bizarre tendency. "Then again, it happens with the ladies too. And there aren't even that many female superheroes! I mean, you'd think that we'd have some kind of female solidarity or something like that. You know, sisters doin' it for themselves or something. . ."

Stephanie turned to Kara for confirmation only to see the young lady looking absolutely bewildered amidst this onslaught of theories. She made a note to reign herself in. "My bad, my bad. Okay, so you were talking about everybody wanting to fight you?"

Despite Stephanie's apology, it took some time for Kara to work up the nerve to speak. Still, a bit of silent egging on by Stephanie pushed her into it.

"I mean. I was on Paradise Island for a couple of months after I got here and there wasn't really anything else to do except fight and train. So, then I went to New York to talk with Power Girl 'cause I figured she'd know what I was going through because I had heard that she came from Krypton too. Next thing I know, she's trying to kill me. Then after I get all that cleared up, I decided to go to Smallville and talk with Superboy about what happened with Powergirl but then Wondergirl shows up and she thinks I'm trying to hit on her 'boyfriend', which is just disgusting since he's practically my brother. Anyway, she tries to electrocute me and Raven tries to suck me into her soul-self or whatever and then Starfire shows up and takes me over to San Francisco to meet with the Outsiders."

Stephanie attempted to get a word in edgewise but Kara appeared to be on quite a roll. "Then the Outsiders decide they want to fight me because apparently that's how they socialize and Thunder tries to crush me and Grace is calling me an anorexic, whatever that is. But then Lex Luthor shows up and I kiss Nightwing before going off to fight Lex and then he pulls some kind of trick with some kind of weird Kryptonite and he creates another me. So the other me beats me up before she starts beating up Lex and a lot of the Justice League before I caught up with her in Gotham and then Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman put the two of us back together. Now after all that, everybody who has ever worked with my cousin looks at me like I'm going to make their head explode and I don't want to go back to Paradise Island and I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing!"

Stephanie took in Kara's heartfelt statements and gleaned what she considered to be the most important aspect of it all.

"You kissed Nightwing?"

Kara's response was an odd combination of blushing profusely and looking mildly indignant.

Stephanie worked to defuse the situation. "Okay. Okay. Simmer down, girlfriend. Relax. I assure you I don't want to fight you. You'd probably just kick my ass anyway." That statement seemed to calm Kara down significantly. "Besides, you're not anorexic. Maybe a little on the thin side but isn't Grace like seven feet tall and 300 pounds? Who's she to start talking about anyone being too thin or too fat?"

Kara enthusiastically agreed, now quite encouraged with the possibility of camaraderie. "Is that what anorexic is? Being too thin? Damn. I'm sorry but it's just that I haven't really had a lot of time to learn to speak English so I haven't got all the little stuff down yet."

Stephanie accepted that. If she could deal with the monosyllabic utterances of Cassandra Cain, she could certainly manage her way through this. "It's cool. I've been on this blue ball for sixteen years and I still haven't figured everything out."

Kara giggled, seeming to be quite at ease after getting what appeared to be a rather heavy load off her chest. She and Stephanie continued to make their way through the busy streets of downtown Metropolis in companionable silence. Suddenly, Kara turned towards Stephanie and decided to offer her new friend an opportunity to engage in the most tried and true method of bonding between adolescent young women.

"So, do you want to go shopping?"

Paris, France

"As I am sure that many of you know, the Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the late 16th century. Framed modestly with Poplar wood, many believe it to be a painting of Francesco del Giacondo, a noblewoman that da Vinci had frequently interacted with. Some, on the other hand, believe it to be da Vinci's intriguing interpretation of a self-portrait."

The calm, composed speech of the tour guide held a trace of her native French accent but it was quite clear to anyone who made an effort to notice that she was making a great deal of effort to mask her brogue as much as possible. After taking a moment to remind her temporary flock that flash photography was not allowed within the museum, she continued on with her spiel.

"Though the source of da Vinci's inspirations remain unclear, there is little argument that it is considered to be one of the aesthetic hallmarks of the Renaissance and it is viewed by over 3 million people every year. And despite its many different viewers, those who have taken great measure to analyze this immortal work also agree that everyone who look upon the picture will draw their own perspective upon what lies behind the model's enigmatic smile."

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

There was no mistaking the look of terror on the face of Irwin Schaub as he barreled through the cluster of tourists and art aficionados standing around the Louvre's prize piece, some of them crashing into one another in order to avoid personal contact with the queer looking fellow in the olive alien suit. Some merely stared. Some even considered the furtive looking man to be an eccentric exhibition of some obscure new Parisian fashion line.

Despite the many different perspectives concerning the source of the bizarre man's fright, Irwin ignored them all and continued to dash through the corridor that held the most celebrated work of art in all of Western civilization with the dignity and grace of a headless chicken.

While all this was going on, Lloyd ambled into the room. There was a blank expression on his thin face but his lips were whistling a cheery tune. Waving briefly to the frazzled tour guide, who was apparently not taught the proper procedures for this kind of situation at employee training, Lloyd made his way through the throng of onlookers and calmly climbed over the security rail. He took several moments to stare at the Mona Lisa from a proximity of no more than twelve inches, shifting his eyes back and forth to take it all in. Then, without a word to anyone, he climbed over the rail and calmly continued his chase while still whistling the same indistinguishable melody.

In the end, it was a trip that took Irwin Schaub and Lloyd Thomas to 13 countries, 5 continents, and a room where there was some bloke dressed up like a bishop getting spanked by wet noodles. After Lloyd had calmly rescued the panicked Ambush Bug from falling off of the Great Wall of China, he slung the quietly quivering man over his shoulder and teleported back to El Paso.

"All right, you. Hold it right there!"

And that's when Lloyd ran into the third problem of his day.

The people that surrounded him were quite the motley crew. At least that much was for certain. One looked like a man scraped from the bitter dregs of a Renaissance fair. Another fellow looked to be entirely made of rags. The two women of the group also were dressed rather bizarrely (although Lloyd found both of them to be quite easy on the eyes). One was a pale-skinned young woman dressed mostly in black leather while the other was a haughty, olive-skinned beauty dressed in loose gypsy garb.

And then there was the blue devil and the talking chimp.

Blue Devil, Detective Chimp, Enchantress, Nightmaster, Nightshade, and Ragman. They were the Shadowpact, a team of mystically inclined superheroes brought together to aid Shazam and his apprentice, Captain Marvel, with the task of bringing down the power-mad Spectre and preventing the harbinger's plan to annihilate the world. However, with Shazam death's and Marvel's sudden disappearance, the rag-tag group had devoted themselves to the task of retrieving the many caustic and dangerous items that Shazam watched over.

Unfortunately for Lloyd, the Shadowpact considered the Scarab of the Blue Beetle to be quite caustic and exceedingly dangerous.

"Now see? Isn't this better than shopping?"

Kara appeared to give the question some serious thought as she continued to munch on her plate of nachos that had just been delivered to her from the bustling kitchen of the finest Mexican restaurant in Metropolis. "I don't know. I read somewhere that Americans my age like to go shopping, so I figured that's what you wanted to do. Still, this is good too!"

Stephanie waved her right hand, which was currently holding a half-eaten shrimp enchilada. "I've never really been much for my shopping. I'm still getting used to having a disposable income. Back with my mom it was food stamps as usual or coupons if we were lucky. I gotta admit, being financed by Bruce Wayne definitely has its perks."

Kara once again shivered at the mention of Batman's civilian identity. "I just don't see how you can get along with him. He's just. . . so. . ."

"Scary?" Stephanie offered.

"Creepy!" Kara emphasized. Much like her cousin, she was afraid that she, a person who could lift armored tanks like Tonka toys, could possibly be frightened of a middle-aged, paranoid man that ran around at night in black and blue Kevlar.

"Bruce isn't that bad. He's lost a lot in his life so he just wants to keep a close eye on the things he cares about."

Stephanie's description clearly intrigued the blonde Kryptonian. "So you're saying that whenever he's watching me patrol with those fancy cameras of his he's doing that because he's worried about me?"

Stephanie shrugged her shoulders. "Well, either that or he wants to make sure you don't go nutzo and try to blow up the planet."

"Hey!" Kara protested as she threw a tortilla chip at Stephanie.

"Well, you did say that you were fighting a lot of superheroes!"

Kara groaned in mild exasperation and shook her head.

Stephanie chuckled at the display. "Well, now that we've gotten to aggravate each other, is it okay if I ask you why you really left Paradise Island and came here to Metropolis?"

Kara hemmed and hawed, making an effort to consider the possible consequences of making such an admission, before she finally relented. "Well, it's just that all they do over there is fight. They train, like, hours upon hours at a time. I mean, I don't mind learning how to really fight, but there's gotta be more to do here than that! I mean, there's no crime, no supervillains. . ."

"No boys." Stephanie added, causing Kara to throw another chip at her. Robin plucked the chip out of the air and ate it. "Yeah, I can understand the need for a little time away from something like that. I mean, I love being Robin and hanging out with Batman and Lloyd and Alfred, but it's been a loooong time since I've been able to just sit down and have some girl chatter."

Kara grinned cheerfully, quite pleased that she could be the source of "girl chatter" as Stephanie put it, although she wasn't entirely certain of what the term meant.

KRRRRRRRRRRASH!

Of course, as Kara and Stephanie were beginning to learn, peaceful times tended to have a very short expiration date in the world of superherodom.

The source of the spoiling came from a massive bulk of machinery. Nine feet high and looking quite loaded for bear, the creation was made even more disturbing by the fact that it bore a human face.

The human was John Corben, a former small-time thief who had been nearly killed in a gruesome automobile accident. His body frayed and fractured well beyond the point of repair, a scientist named Emmet Vale saw Corben's horrible situation as an opportunity to test the durability of a metal alloy that he had spent decades developing. Enveloping the unwilling Corben within the alloy, Vale had created one of the most potent man-made weapons on the planet. Corben had repaid Vale's hideous ministrations by murdering the mad professor in a hideous fashion before using his new body to expand upon his criminal career.

Stephanie knew that much about the man now known as Metallo. She also knew that Metallo operated mostly out of Metropolis and frequently tussled with Superman. Thus, being Superman's cousin, Supergirl was quite likely to be a possible target for Corben's anger. Thus, given that she was standing next to Supergirl as Metallo morphed his left hand into a massive cannon, Stephanie anticipated that her rest period was coming to an abrupt end.

"Look you wankers!" Lloyd yelled as he firmly grasped Ragman by his withered arm before throwing him at Blue Devil. "'M not here for a fight! I just want to take the scarab and be on my way!" The young man winced slightly as a black beam of energy hit him from behind.

"That's convenient," the costumed heroine known as Nightshade quipped. "We're here for the same thing. And unless Shazam named you as his replacement, that scarab doesn't belong to you." Despite her jovial demeanor, Nightshade couldn't help but notice that her shadow homunculi didn't seem to be hurting her opponent. In fact, it seemed to be having the exact opposite reaction.

Lloyd confirmed Nightshade's theory by firing a thin blast of energy that pierced through Nightshade's attack and hit her in the chest. As Nightmaster, Blue Devil, and Ragman rushed to avenge their unconscious comrade, the remaining two members of Shadowpact still hung back.

Although she had been the other person to hold back, the Enchantress found her companion's behavior to be quite inappropriate. "Will you not aid us in our fight, primate?" she asked arrogantly.

Far too cool and collected to blindly respond to such a combative statement, the three-foot tall Detective Chimp calmly stubbed at his cigarette and shook his head. "Why is it we always have to fight everybody we come across? I don't suppose we could have just asked the kid why he's so interested in the scarab? It isn't as if it's some kind of little trinket everybody knows about! This is why I don't hang around with other superheroes; all these unresolved violence issues."

"The child possesses the blood of a demon and he seeks the scarab," the Enchantress pointed out. "What more proof do you require, chimp?"

"Well, you'll excuse me if I don't consider the matter closed after discovering two coincidental factoids. I suppose that's why they call me Detective Chimp instead of Blindingly Stupid Chimp or Overcompensating for Repressed Anger Chimp. And perhaps you didn't notice this while you were pointing out to yourself how spectacular you are but it's not like we're actually winning this fight."

Detective Chimp's assessment was quite accurate. Nightshade was already out of the running and Lloyd had no trouble parrying Nightmaster's mystic blade before striking the armored man in the forehead with the hilt of his saber. As the swordsman went down in a heap, Blue Devil and Ragman doubled their efforts, hoping to break Lloyd's defenses with their combined strength. However, as physically impressive as these two demonic specimens were, the Black Dog was something else altogether. Lloyd dodged the attacks with ease before striking Blue Devil with a series of palm strikes to the torso that sent the massive, blue-hued demon skidding past Detective Chimp and Enchantress.

Now left alone, it was Ragman who landed the first genuine measure of offense for the Shadowpact. He had wrapped his garb around Lloyd's extended right arm, attempting to use the ethereal power of his garb to quell Lloyd's raging soul. Unfortunately, that maneuver produced yet another unforeseen dilemma. Ragman lurched backward, struggling to maintain his balance amidst the gale of energy circulating around him.

"You. . . you have more than one soul."

"Yes," Lloyd said nastily as he grasped Ragman's right hand with bone-shattering force and threw him aside. "And you can't have either of 'em."

It was the Enchantress that came at Lloyd next, striking the young man full in the chest with a blast of magic. It was like attempting to stop a tidal wave by throwing water at it. The Black Dog absorbed it, felt the energy simmering through his body, and channeled it to make it his own. While the Enchantress attempted to discern this unusual turn of events, Lloyd teleported directly in front of her and punched her lightly in the gut.

Five down, Lloyd thought. One to go.

Lloyd turned to Detective Chimp, who made absolutely no effort to defend himself. The primate merely took another drag from his Chesterfield and blew the smoke into the El Paso air.

"Please tell me you're the sensible one of this little group?" Lloyd asked plaintively.

"Yeah, I am. Thanks for not hurting my partners too badly, by the way. Now, I know I'm not in any position to try an' stop ya, but I've got to tell you that the object you've got in your hand is pretty important. Mind tellin' me what you plan on doing with it?"

Lloyd glanced at the scarab in his right hand while he sheathed his saber with his left. "Look, mate. 'M just here under Batman's orders. He wants the scarab 'cause he thinks he can use it to find Brother Eye."

Detective Chimp took that in as he took another drag. He had been pretty busy what with chasing down Jean Loring and the Spectre, but he had enough free time to read up about the rogue satellite and recognize the implications behind the kid's statement. "Well, there's somebody else lookin' for that thing too. The reason we came down here was because we wanted to get to it before he could."

"And who would he be?" asked Lloyd.

And that's when Lloyd ran into the fourth problem of his day.

Unfortunately, this was not something as harmless as a gaggle of redneck cops or a team of well-meaning superheroes or some whack job in a green rubber suit. This was a symbol of righteous anger; a massive form that towered well over the few high rise buildings that El Paso had to offer and a being that could go toe-to-toe with deities and the sternest of mortal men spurned on by the unending motivation of serving justice in what the being considered to be a world populated by the lawless.

The Spectre.

"VENGEANCE WILL BE HAD!" The Spectre's voice was like a sonic boom, the sheer volume penetrating and permeating the minds and bodies of everyone from miles around. However, the creature's eyes; emerald-green, pupiless irises that had been the last sight of countless imperfect beings, were focused upon Lloyd and the Shadowpact.

"Well. Shit." Lloyd said succinctly.