(Chapter Published March 31, 2017.)

"Forever People?" Connor asked as they followed the newcomers, who were in the midst of trying to explain who they were and why they were there. Cecilia still wasn't sure what to make of them, but she did trust Connor's judgement, and these people did seem friendly, if a bit odd. Sphere also seemed to trust them, so they couldn't be too bad...

"We're young gods," the behemoth, red-haired man explained, his voice loud and strong. "New gods."

Never mind, they couldn't be all that good, either, if they referred to themselves as gods. As far as Cecilia was concerned, there was only one God, 'And I'm fairly certain that His clothing doesn't have multicolored, neon lines highlighting it.'

"Right..." Connor replied doubtfully as Cecilia clamped her mouth shut, trying to mentally convince herself that they didn't refer to themselves as beings to be worshipped and it was all a misunderstanding. The blonde cowboy guy tipped his hat, grinning as he introduced himself, "They call me Serifan."

"I'm Dreamer," the black-haired woman added, gesturing to herself and then to the darkly-dressed man and the dark-skinned man, respectively. "This is Moonrider and our leader, Vykin."

"Hm," Behemoth hummed, "and I am named for an animal that does not exist on this world." The redhead thought for a moment before snapping his fingers with a clever smirk, "But you may call me... Wolf."

Wolf - the actual wolf - growled as Connor explained somewhat defensively, "This is Wolf."

"Ah," the newcomer muttered, tilting his head to the side thoughtfully. "Bear, then. Yeah, Bear is even better!"

"I'm Con-" Connor cut himself off suddenly, and Cecilia couldn't figure out why until he corrected himself, "Superboy. And this is, uh, Lantern."

'So we're not supposed to let them know our names, even though they're probably on our side?' Cecilia wondered, smiling at the newcomers in an attempt to play along, "White Lantern, actually. It is nice to meet you."

"This is Mother Box, the living computer," Vykin finished up the introductions, holding up his small, remote-like box, which gave a small ding as a greeting. "She has tracked technology stolen from our homeworld, New Genesis. She has found our Rescue drill... there."

Cecilia peered around Connor to catch a glimpse of where they were heading and noticed many tall, rectangular pillars silhouetted against the fading pale glow of the already-set sun. The structures had many lights shining from their sides, like lanterns hung to welcome guests. The twelve-year-old hugged Connor more tightly as they approached what was becoming increasingly recognizable as a city, complete with the intersecting lines of black rock, or asphalt, that was also in Happy Harbor. As they flew above the city, just above the tall towers, the Roman could make out a few little vehicles scurrying along the roads like ants, so small from this height that she imagined it would be quite easy to crush them.

Mother Box dinged again, causing Cecilia to focus back on the situation as both Connor and the Forever People circled around a large gap in the buildings. Below them, nestled between the streets, was a square block of dirt with a deep hole drilled in the middle and some men gathered around it. Vykin translated for Mother Box, "It is beneath us. Eighteen meters underground."

"That's a construction site," Connor quipped, staring at the scene below. "Perfect cover for drilling, especially with the federal reserve conveniently located across the street."

Everyone, including Cecilia, gave him a blank look. The Roman knew both the word "federal" and "reserve", so she could deduce that the government used the indicated building to store something, but she had no idea what. The Forever People didn't seem to understand either, so Connor sighed and explained in an impatient tone, "The government keeps money there."

"It's a heist!" Serifan exclaimed, standing up and prepping his guns, an excited smile on his youthful face. "C'mon, partners! Let's ride in there, guns ablazin, and round up 'em outlaws!"

"He's... watched a lot of earth Westerns," Dreamer explained Serifan's eccentric behavior apologetically. Personally, Cecilia thought it was rather funny, at least it would have been if everyone else wasn't acting so seriously. Connor grunted and replied wisely, "Yeah, well... There's a time to go in strong, and a time to go in smart."

"This is your world, Superboy. We shall follow your lead," Vykin told the sixteen-year-old, indicating that he would be coming up with a plan of action. Cecilia wasn't accustomed to dealing with strangers, so she gladly let Connor take control of the situation. Besides, it looked like they would have to journey underground, and despite the fact that she was currently living in a hollowed-out mountain, the Roman girl wasn't thrilled to jump into a giant hole of unknown depth and probably filled with hostile strangers. No, she was perfectly content above ground... just maybe a little closer to it.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do," Connor announced, his voice at once both compelling and quiet. "Cecilia, you're going to stay here with Sphere, um, as a lookout. Warn us if anything starts to go wrong above ground. Got it?"

Mentally rejoicing that she wouldn't have to battle anyone underground, the twelve-year-old bounced her head up and down in confirmation. Connor relaxed slightly at this before turning to the others, "The rest of us will take out those guards and find out exactly what we're up against."

Vykin nodded respectfully, silently showing that the Forever People agreed to and would follow the teenager's plan. And with that affirmation, the eight of them landed their two vehicles out of sight of the construction site and parted ways, Connor and Wolf leading the Forever People towards the bad guys and Sphere flying Cecilia high into the sky above them. The Roman girl was terrified of being so far up without another person, and her iron grip on Sphere's handlebars proved it, but she forced herself to keep watch for any potential complications to Connor's plan. It was her one job, after all, and even though heights are even more horrifying when looking down, she knew that Sphere wouldn't let her fall.

If only that knowledge would stop her heart from jumping at every downward glance...

To distract herself, Cecilia kept her gaze focused on her friends - or really Wolf, since the huge, white animal was the easiest to spot in the dark. They were stealthily sneaking closer to the construction site, using the shadows to hide from the three grunts guarding the giant hole. She couldn't make out much, and at one point she lost sight of the group completely, but after a few minutes she noticed what looked like an old lady wander out towards the guards, who all whipped around and pointed some metallic object that Cecilia had yet to learn at her. For a moment, the Roman feared for the old woman's life, but the guards quickly lowered their weapons, just in time for one of the Forever People - Moonrider, she thought - to blast two of them with bolts of blue light. The only remaining guard pointed the unknown object first at Moonrider, then back at the old woman as she morphed into Dreamer. The guard then proceeded to smash the object into his own face, oddly enough, but the fact that Vykin seemed to be standing behind him might have had something to do with it. 'Wow, the Forever People are fairly impressive.'

Connor, Wolf, Serifan, and Bear stepped out of the shadows and regrouped with everyone, then they proceeded to jump into the hole.

From that point on, things got more than a little boring. Cecilia had always imagined missions as being action-packed and exciting, if not always fun. But as the seconds stretched into minutes and her patience dwindled, she began to reconsider this assumption. She tried multiple ways to keep boredom at bay: watching the unconscious guards, observing the very few stars in the night sky, practicing her counting... Nothing worked. Eventually, she settled on humming the tune of a song her father liked to play in Rome. It was a simple melody of about four notes, but it was very dear to her heart because of its connection to her family.

After a while, Sphere joined in, nearly causing her to jump off of the flying vehicle in fear, hand over her heart. After a few heavy breaths, Cecilia whisper-shouted, "What was that for?! Don't scare me like that!"

A loud rumbling almost drowned out Sphere's apologetic whirring, and Cecilia glanced down in panic only to see a giant, pointy, spinning thing grow out of the ground. Not too far away was Connor, Wolf, and the Forever People, all of whom were staring at the thing in what was probably either horror or hostility. The thing fully emerged and revealed that it was the front end of a red and yellow vehicle. Following the vehicle was a woman with really long hair and several men with what Cecilia could only describe as black armor on their chest with red tubes and a circle on the front. Cecilia furrowed her eyebrows and asked her companion, "Did you see them come back?"

Sphere beeped once, signaling a "no," and then without much warning proceeded to nosedive towards the battle. Cecilia let out a small shriek as her stomach tried to climb into her throat and she gripped Sphere's handlebars for dear life. However, she quickly altered her fearful scream into a war cry as Sphere approached the ground, leveling out and firing the same blue light that Moonrider did earlier. The men and woman leapt out of the way, and Sphere began circling around the construction site to distract them from Connor, Wolf, and the Forever People. With the wind in her hair and the bad guys properly confused, Cecilia was really beginning to enjoy herself.

That was, until the men started shooting glowing, red disks at them, which obviously wasn't good. Then a giant - like, really, really huge - blue and gold automaton with glowing eyes appeared out of nowhere and just waltzed right into the midst of everything. It was enough to make Cecilia's eyes nearly pop out of her head as she shouted hysterically to no one in particular, "WHAT IS THAT?"

In response, Sphere belted out several unintelligible beeps and whirs that the Roman girl couldn't even begin to guess the meaning of, so she changed her question, "Is it on our side?!"

Two beeps met her ears, and she sighed in relief. There was no way they could lose with such a large automaton on their side!

The bad guys' attention quickly turned to the ginormous robot, and Cecilia imagined that she could see the panic on their faces. A couple of them decided to punch the ground with their armor, but whatever effect that was supposed to have didn't do anything to slow the automaton's advance. It took a couple more steps before stopping and shooting beams of light - lasers, she thought they were called - out of its eyes, causing the armor of two men to vanish without hurting them at all. Then two more men, one of which was kind of big and ugly, fired more red disks at the robot, but it just deflected them with a wave of its hand. With its other hand, it sent out what looked like pulses of energy that sent everyone else flying but the woman, who seemed to have found whips made of fire. 'The future must have everything!'

The woman tried to whip the robot, aiming for its face, but it caught the flames and used its lasers to destroy her weapon. Then with another effortless wave of its hand, she was also thrown across the construction site.

A large circle of bright light blinked into existence next to the men, allowing them to retreat, as if walking through a doorway. The woman, with a cry of "Ugly, wait!" tried to run after them, but a second later she fell to the ground, bound by ropes. With one final act, the automaton created another circle of bright light under the vehicle with the pointy front, engulfing it. Then the robot glowed even brighter and shrunk, dividing into five parts, each morphing into one of the Forever People. As Sphere flew down to join them, landing just behind Connor and Wolf, Cecilia felt like her mind had exploded as she tried to comprehend everything that just happened.

"What was that?" Connor demanded, appearing just as surprised as Cecilia was. She shakily climbed off of Sphere and looked expectantly at the Forever People, also wanting the answer to that question. It was Dreamer who replied calmly, "Infinity-Man. We merged to become part of the Source and greater than the sum of our parts."

"Glad my team's not that close," Connor remarked, crossing his arms. Bear nodded in understanding, "Lower beings tend to fear intimacy."

"Hey!" Cecilia protested, feeling insulted on behalf of humankind. Bear smiled at her apologetically, "I meant no offense."

The Roman gave the behemoth one last look before focusing on Vykin as he steered the discussion back towards the current problem, "None of the makes any sense. How are these humans acquiring technology from both New Genesis and Apokolips?"

In response, everyone's gaze turned towards the captured woman with really long hair. She was staring a the ground, but she must have sensed that the conversation now included herself because she raised her head enough to glare resentfully, "I'm not talkin'."

"You were not asked," Dreamer replied curtly, pressing her fingers against her temples until her eyes glowed pink. The woman grimaced, as if she was uncomfortable, as a steam-like cloud wafted out of her head and accumulated beside her, eventually revealing a horribly disfigured, hooded figure with sickly skin and evil eyes, chuckling creepily. An involuntary shiver raced down Cecilia's spine, and she quietly stepped behind Connor and Wolf. The Forever People seemed shocked, which frightened the twelve-year-old, and Dreamer gasped vaguely, "Dasaad..."

'This has officially been the weirdest day of my life,' Cecilia decided firmly. 'And I have no idea what's going on.'

"Look," Connor spoke up, addressing Dreamer, "I've been remarkably patient - y'know, for me. What is going on?!"

Vykin and Dreamer exchanged glances, with Vykin nodding in approval. Then Dreamer held her fingers to her temples again and explained as images of two planets - one fiery red and the other watery blue - began to appear in front of them, as if in a dream, "The New Gods come from two worlds at war. Those of us from New Genesis are gods of life, freedom, and the Source. Our enemies are of Apokolips, the gods of antilife, slavery, and degradation. This," the images faded, and Cecilia looked again at the hooded figure, "is Dasaad, god scientist and chief torturer of Apokolips. His experiments are pure evil, his works abominations, his master..."

"Unspeakable...," Dasaad finished, laughing softly and smiling menacingly. Again, Cecilia spasmed awkwardly as a chill shook her spine. Could he actually hear them? Dasaad dissipated in smoke as Dreamer ended the vision. The woman, still staring at where Dasaad once stood, admitted, "He is seriously creepy."

"Then why are you working with him?" Cecilia asked her bluntly, using her best condescending voice (because frankly, anyone dumb enough to team up with a guy that clearly evil deserved it). The woman gave her an equally criticizing look, "Look, kid, money is money, and Intergang doesn't care where it comes from."

'That's kind of sad,' Cecilia thought, wondering how people could say such things and mean them. Of course, people did the same thing back in Rome, but one would think that people would improve over time. 'But again, I'm wrong.'

She heard a high-pitched wailing in the distance, growing closer by the second, and turned to Connor for an explanation. He frowned, "Police. They'll take care of her. For now, let's find Ugly."

A/N - Surprise, I'm not dead! Apparently, I actually have a life, and it decided that this month was the perfect time to drag me away from my regular stress-reliever (writing) and have a metaphorical dodgeball tournament with various responsibilities. *sigh* Fun times... Not. Anyway, I made this chapter extra long to compensate, and I wrote most of it in the past two hours. So here you go! Enjoy! Comment! At this point, just do whatever! Life has been insane, so this is my weekend to go insane so that my sanity can return by Monday, so... I didn't really have a point with that...

Also, I have fallen behind on my Star Trek fanfic (which I am currently seriously revising), and April is another NaNoWriMo month, so I won't be updating this again until May. At least. Sorry! Just know that I'm not abandoning it! Have a blessed day!