Chapter 2
Orion flew into the south bay of the Celestial Kingdom, an empty bay that once held the Phantom, Ptah's ship, a massive vessel that stretched over two hundred yards. It no longer had the Phantom in the bay because Orion had the vessel attached to the side of the Celestial Kingdom while Po'Darro had his ship in the bay. But after the two Kryptonian kids took over the planet Neo Star, Orion needed the ship to address the situation within the parameters the Great Mother specified. Orion felt a coldness, a betrayal because of her Lord's absence, but if she didn't keep apprised of the situation on Neo Star, she knew the Kryptonian kids would destroy that planet.
The bay was the place where Po'Darro built his massive ship, The She Ah Vog, a vessel made for entering into the Speed Force and bringing out his precious Momma, Ro'Dan. The only person who knew of the young man's lineage was Orion, and due to the laws within the realm of the gods, she had to keep it secret to protect them. Even though Ptah had children with Trilobites in the past, it became a crime among the gods of old to do so in the days of the Kryptonian unrest. If he had known about the birth of his children with a lowly Trilobite, he would have been obligated to kill them. The Speed Force sucked in his Momma, Ro'Dan, nearly twelve years earlier, and for some reason, Orion knew he would do anything to try and save his Momma. With all the knowledge that she gave Ptah's first child with Ro'Dan about the Speed Force, she knew he'd fly to his death in his massive ship, and in some way, the death of him and his siblings would save her from ever telling Ptah they existed.
Ptah's oldest child with Ro'Dan stood in the middle of the bay wearing his black, spiked helmet that fit his head like a glove. The front of the headgear had ridges on the forehead part. Orion made the helmet for the demigods to block them from accidentally drawing the attention of their father. His bare arms were blue and muscular, and he wore black gloves that protected him from reacting with the metal of the ship. It was due to his demigod status that caused an interaction with temporal steel, an explosive reaction that had enough force to kill him.
She studied every inch of Po'Darro's ship over the last few years, and gave him the formula to the precious metal the gods called Temporal Steel; it gave the ship the capability of traveling through space and time-and entering into the Speed Force with little to no cosmic consequences. When Orion approached Po'Darro, he had a negative attitude that caused her dismay.
"Don't you dare try to stop me, Orion," he said with a grimace. "My father, the one who forsaken my Momma and never took the time to know me lives on Thanagar with his whore wife and bastard children."
"Your brothers," she reminded him quickly. It bothered her that Ptah flew to Thanagar with a new Siren love, and used Orion's mind to imbue her with knowledge from the last four million years. "That whore wife you mentioned has my mind and the mind of your mother. They're one and the same, you know?" She paused for a moment as she flew next to Po's head, and then said, "If you're not careful, Ptah will sense your presence with his powerful mind, and then he'll eradicate you as the law requires."
He snarled. "I didn't ask to be the child of a god who destroyed the old verse," he snapped, "I'm the lust, the shame, the awfulness of Ptah. I wear this helmet you made so he can't detect my mind," he snapped, "Once I'm in the Speed Force, I will know freedom from this device. I will be away from Ptah's reach and closer to my Momma."
The Vulcan stood in front of the noisy Senate, a group of mostly old, white men and women, who argued over the advent of the new Justice Corp. None of them knew the young man under the mask, the god of old-Ptah. At this point, he barely knew himself and still hadn't come to an understanding of his true identity. He spent nearly two hundred thousand years as a conscience inside a box in the Celestial Kingdom waiting to enter the perfect host. Due to the curse of the necklace, he lost so much time and understanding, and if not for his daughters, he would be completely lost.
His solid black uniform covered him from head to toe with the letter "V" in the middle of his chest. He stood nearly seven-feet-tall, towering above all the other people in the room. He had the ability to control his appearance and often appeared taller when he stood in front of the Senate. The Vulcan didn't trust the men in the room because they often sided with rogue agencies like Downing Chemical, an evil company who poisoned the town of Freeland. With the power of his mind, he could've obliterated the people responsible for contaminating the town, but he knew if he acted in that manner, the moment to teach would be lost. Tapping his fingers on the podium, he watched the men and women in the room closely. He could feel the tension in the air.
Miss Sticky (his girlfriend) stood to the rear right of him and Supergirl stood to his left; his girlfriend wore a solid white uniform with a red circle in the middle of it. Her white mask with the flowing red cape made her look majestic. She stood close to the Vulcan, and it was obvious they were a couple. Vera stayed in the Regency Hotel with Veo, and they formed team Victory. Bruce Wayne sat in the Senate on the front row looking dapper and still in his forties because JJ used the healing machine to make him younger after his heart attack, and Clark Kent was one of the reporters in the rear of the room. At the time, Bruce Wayne was actually around sixty-five-years-old.
The amount of vitriol spewing from the Senators would've easily overwhelmed most people, but the Vulcan expected it because of the money he received from Downing Chemical caused a lot of their investors dismay. Earlier, James Olsen allowed the world to see the Vulcan cleaning up Freeland, but even so, the courts continued to deny the people restitution. For him to receive his payment, he had to use scare tactics by entering the dreams of the Downing board members. He had them so scared to deny him the money that they paid him immediately. At the same time, he knew his demands (payment for the clean-up, never contaminating the area again, and protecting the citizens of Freeland) would cause a backlash from the government, but he didn't care. Standing in front of the Senators, the Vulcan said, "Without the Justice Corp, the world is open to attacks from powerful nations beyond our planet. With the resources that each government of the world puts into Justice Corp, we can build a powerful defense against an alien attack." As the Vulcan continued to speak, an old man hopped to his feet and interrupted what he was saying. He looked at the old man in his beady eyes and came close to frying his brain with his telepathy.
"Why should we listen to you?" The old man named Senator Jax Little asked in a strong, disrespectful voice. He patted his stomach and smirked. The old man stood approximately six-foot-two, and when he spoke, his voice sounded harsh but brittle. He pushed back his chair with the force of his butt, slammed both of his leathery hands on his desk, and then walked toward the Vulcan menacingly. "You extorted money from a government contractor!" He turned to face his colleagues in the Senate, and then screamed, " It set their development back for twenty years."
"Here we go," Supergirl whispered as she looked worried for a moment.
The Vulcan gazed over at Supergirl for a moment, and then at Senator Jax Little, a large pudgy man with a high and tight haircut. He had a strong but brittle voice, but when he spoke, it cracked. "You're asking us to give you billions of dollars for your little project, but you extorted over five hundred million from Downing." He put both hands on his hips and swayed back and forth. He continued to try to anger the Vulcan while getting his comrades to support his diatribe.
Calmly, the Vulcan said, "You're using such strong language, Senator. You're basically using words like extorted, but that isn't the case now is it? Do you think a business should be able to poison the people without consequences? Mind your manners, you're on television."
The Senator flailed his arms, and then screamed, "You don't tell me what to do, son!" He became agitated, and grabbed the glass of water that set on his desk, and took a swig. "We make the laws. We decide right and wrong." He pointed at the Vulcan and then screamed, "Not you. You aren't judge and jury, freak."
"I did a much-needed service by cleaning up the toxic mess in Freeland," he said calmly. He grabbed the microphone, looked at Clark Kent, and then said, "But the contamination is in Metropolis too. I didn't clean that up. There's already a ten percent increase in pancreatic cancers in the area." He paused for a moment, and then said, "That water you're drinking. That very glass of water, Senator, contains contaminated water from Freeland."
"What?" Senator Little screamed. "Why didn't you clean up that mess?"
"I don't work for free," The Vulcan said as he stepped away from the microphone.
Later in the morning...
JJ, Peppermint, Vera, and Kara flew back to National City in his flying car, The Messiah, from Washington DC in about ten seconds. With modifications he made to the vehicle, with the help of Orion, the car had the ability to open and close portals, an ancient attribute he possessed when he had the power of a god. In time, he would ascend back to the level of a god, but until then, he used the ancient technology from Orion's memory banks to build the addon. While he spoke with the members of Congress about starting the New Justice Corp, Orion worked with Captain Atom to close the anomaly within the Speed Force that affected the skies over Metropolis. As he prepared his car to open a portal over Washington DC, Orion flew into the sunroof, and then into JJ's backpack.
"We closed the rift over Metropolis," she said, "But something isn't right. I detected several slight anomalies over the entire area. It's tacking something."
"What does that mean?" Kara asked.
"Something is disrupting the Speed Force," JJ said, "Normally, it's an unrecognized speedster on this plane."
JJ looked over at Peppermint for a moment, and then asked, "Are you having any unexpected vibrations?"
"Nope," she said with a grimace. "Could it be the baby?" She asked.
He looked over at his girlfriend, and then said, "It could be, but his powers won't manifest until much later."
For a moment, he thought back to his homeworld, to his daughters, and wondered if one of them knew the reason for the anomalies within the Speed Force. Kova La-Ptah's first daughter with Sekhmet-imbued him with his memories from the Neuronet, an event that would've happened naturally at the age of twenty-one. When he returned to his homeworld, he wanted the knowledge of his former self in the hope it would speed up his apotheosis. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case and it pained the young man. He developed several tools over two million years ago that allowed him to enter the Speed Force, but he left them on his ship, the Phantom over two hundred thousand years earlier. When he created the Speed Force nearly two million years ago, he intended it to imprison the most powerful beings in the universe. But when the magnificent energy shot across the galaxy, it not only created a prison but a multiverse: all the planets and beings except for the Original La family were replicated an infinite number of times. Whenever a new speedster arrived on the scene, the Speed Force mapped their DNA by absorbing them into its wake for approximately two weeks. The process was called Awakening.
Kara looked over at the young hero from the backseat, and said, "This car is incredible, JJ."
When he flew over Little Africa, he saw the shredded metal on the ground, in the badlands on the outskirts of the city. Tiny white vials littered the ground, and he didn't know what to make of it. They were everywhere like a metal container had exploded. He landed his car near the wreckage while he was in invisibility mode, and then drove into the city. Once he ducked behind a building, he made the car visible, and then Kara said. "You need any help with this?" She was referring to the mess all over the badlands of Freeland.
"We're good," JJ said, "We'll handle it."
"Okay," Kara said.
"I'm going to check out those white vials all over the ground," he said.
"Send me a text on what you find?" She said as she climbed out of the vehicle.
JJ and Peppermint walked up to the wreckage while Vera stood behind with the car. "Let me in on the action?" Vera asked.
"We got this," Orion said as she flew out of JJ's backpack, and began analyzing the vials that were all over the ground. Vera climbed into the driver's seat of the Messiah while JJ looked closely at the vials. "That's strange," Orion said.
"Momma's going to kill me if we stay gone all day today," Peppermint said with a grimace. She picked up one of the white vials. "Let's find out what's going on, and then get home."
"She's enjoying her grandson," JJ said, "She's not worried about us." He waved his right hand, and several of the vials formed into a large, white pile.
She laughed, "I don't know about that," she said, "He's constantly hungry and annoying."
"It looks like the Guardian fought this creature," Orion said, "I'm seeing his shadow on everything, but I'm also detecting signatures from other times and dimensions. It's the same signature I saw over Metropolis."
JJ pressed the communicator button on his right wrist, and then said, "James, you left this wreckage all over my side of town?"
"Excuse me for saving the city, dog," he said, "But I did what I had to do."
"I have Orion looking at these vials on the ground," he said, "I find it quite odd that the robot came to Earth just to throw his trash everywhere."
"Roger that," he said, "Keep me in the know?"
"Will do," JJ said, "I will drop by your office later."
Orion flew over to him, and said, "In the future, we call this liquid substance Pump, but it's a much older drug, a drug that dates back over a million years. This version of the drug is military grade, but there's a milder version that is used for recreational use. In some species, it causes super strength while in others, docility."
"What's the purpose of throwing it all over the ground like this?' Peppermint asked. "It smells chalky."
"It's highly addictive," Orion said. "If criminal elements use this drug, the police won't be able to stop them. It will cause undetectable superpowers."
"This drug was on Vega Star nearly one point two million years ago," JJ said as he held up one of the white containers. "I remember this. When did Pump originally hit the scene in the future?" JJ asked as he looked at one of the vials.
"In the year twenty-twenty-two," she said, "So, as I said in the meeting, time is altered, and its effects are deadly."
JJ looked over at Peppermint, and said, "You and Vera head out. Orion and I will take care of this business."
"Okay," she said as they kissed. She hopped in the passenger seat of his car and took off down the street.
When Peppermint and Vera left, JJ bent down, grabbed a vial from the pile he made, and then sniffed it. "It does smell chalky." He paused for a moment, and then said, "My memory is returning, and I remember this drug, Orion. It was a major player in the Great War."
"I figured the sadder memories would return," she said, "The drug originated on Vega Star. They sold it to the Peridians who used it on the Gidison slaves," she said, "It kept them docile. It works quite well in most humanoids, including Kryptonians under a yellow sun."
"But this robotic creature isn't Peridian at all, is it?" He asked. JJ picked up a piece of metal with a familiar symbol on it, and said, "I swear this looks like the same symbol I saw all over that Decayan ship, but it has distinct differences." He paused for a moment, rubbed his forehead, and then sighed. "Orion, you, Veo, the Great Mother, and I exist solely in this verse. When we enacted the Speed Force, it replicated everything in this verse an infinite number of times, and some of the different verses would veer off course from this one."
"That's right," she said, "I would say they all have their own idiosyncrasies."
"This language is Decayan. The Speed Force has somehow merged this verse with another one and there are subtle differences in the tongue," he said.
"You're right," she said, The tech looks Decayan. Very Decayan, but I will agree it's from another verse."
JJ used his telekinesis to lift the machinery off the ground, into the air, and then out into space. As he pushed the belly of the creature up into the atmosphere, thousands of more vials of the drug caught the jetstream and flew to different parts of the country.
Immediately, he flew into Catco Media, on the balcony, and walked into James' office. It was mid-afternoon, but Mister Olsen wasn't anywhere to be seen. He walked over to his enlarged picture with all the darts in it and shook his head in disagreement. On some level, the idea that his friends put darts in his photo bothered him, and he didn't quite know why.
"They don't like you too much," Orion said as she floated by his head. "It's odd that you do so much for them and this city, but they despise you." Immediately, he donned his emo attire, sat at James' desk, and acted like he ran the company. "He's going to kill you."
When James walked into his office with Kara, he lowered the blinds over his entire office so nobody could see into it. "What did you find out?" James asked.
"The Lords of Decay made the robot," JJ said with a grimace. "The vials are a drug called Pump. It not only gives the user a high, but it also gives the user super strength."
"What's their endgame?" James asked. "Why put the drugs all over Freeland?"
"Chaos," JJ said calmly. "If criminals are on this drug, the cops won't be able to handle them." He paused for a moment, and then said, "Just think the chaos that would erupt if one man had super strength against a group of cops. Now, with this drug on the streets, everybody who uses it will have super strength."
"This means we'll be working nonstop if every petty criminal has super strength," Kara said with a grimace. "There's no way we can stop this."
"The drug can't be detected with the new metahuman test either," Orion said, "Normal people will have super strength, and the new test won't work on them." JJ hopped out of James's seat, and then Orion flew onto his shoulder. She looked like a parrot for a moment. "A side effect of the drug is lactation," Orion said, "I don't mean a little lactation either. With lactation comes severe dehydration. It's a club drug in the future, but can have deadly consequences if not mixed correctly."
"Gross," Kara said, "Why?"
"This drug will change our society," JJ said with a grimace. "And not in a good way."
James sat behind his desk, rubbed his bald head, and then asked, "Why did you kill Red Raider, JJ?"
JJ looked at Kara for a moment, and then simply said, "I did what I had to do. For me to administer the elixir, I had to knock her out." He paused for a moment because he knew he walked into a trap. They wanted to get him cornered so they could drill him about killing Lena Luthor.
"Really, JJ!" Kara exclaimed, "Don't pretend like you accidentally killed her. She was my friend."
"I knew I could bring her back to life," he said with a grimace. "Please explain to me why you two are acting crazy when she's okay? Aren't you dicking her down every night, James?"
"That's not the point, JJ. You'd be the first one to flip out if anybody else killed somebody," James said, "You didn't kill that Decayan in Freeland."
"Listen. I know you already know why I killed her. Orion, you got a big mouth," JJ said with a grimace, "I thought you had my back for life."
"Oh, so you're going to read my mind?" James asked.
"Damn right," he said. He looked over at Kara, and said, "Kara, she was supposed to die in twenty thirteen, but somebody in this room saved her life, James. I thought taking her down would put us back on course, but it didn't. After we fought the Red Raider, I went to the Time Bureau, but they didn't know jack."
"There's a Time Bureau?" James asked.
"Yeah. We have a rogue time traveler mucking up history," he said, "But for some reason, I couldn't get the Time Bureau to act on it because they didn't detect the anomaly."
"JJ, I'm picking up some chatter on the news channels about Downing Chemical," Orion said. She flew over to the monitors, turned them on, and a special news report on the company appeared on the screen. A young, black reporter out of Freeland came on the tube, and said, "The courts just threw out the city's case against Downing Chemical because The Vulcan cleaned up the spill."