Chapter 55: When the League is Away…
Disclaimer: All things Supergirl/Superman, Flash, and Batman belong to DC. No infringement is intended.
One of the major benefits of being able to fly at high speed, Clark mused, was that it was pretty easy to maintain a friendship over vast distances. With his mom and most of the League off in space to visit Adam Strange' home world, Clark and Kona had taken the opportunity for some sibling bonding. After a day or two, though, Clark needed to get out for a bit and decided to look up the Flash in Keystone City.
Clark still felt a bit guilty that he knew Flash's civilian identity as Wally West, but Wally only knew him as Superboy and Kal-El, not as Clark Kent. He had actually talked with his mother about bringing Wally in on the secret, but she had wanted to give it a bit more time, especially now that it also concerned Kona and her brand-new civilian identity. Clark understood, but still felt guilty.
"Hey, Kal," Wally greeted him at their usual meeting place outside the city. "Everything super?"
Clark chuckled. "You know that joke is really getting old, right?"
Wally just shrugged.
"Any progress exploring your powers?" Clark asked. It hadn't been that long since their unintentional journey to a parallel Earth had revealed to Wally what he might one day be capable of. Time travel, dimensional travel, it blew the mind. Clark had made him promise to be careful, especially the time travel thing, seeing as he knew some details of what future Flash would eventually get up to.
"Not really, no," Wally admitted. "The other Flash showed me how to reset my internal vibrations in order to return to my own universe, but adjusting them to travel to a different one is a lot harder than it looks. Not sure how we did it the first time, to be honest."
"You'll figure it out," Clark assured him. "And the time travel thing?"
"That's even harder," Wally admitted. "Well, not harder as such, as it basically just involves running very, very fast, but before I can reach the necessary speed I either run out of places to run safely or loose contact with the ground, because I exceed escape velocity."
Clark mused that over. "You'd need something to help you run in place, maybe? Some kind of treadmill?"
Wally's eyes widened. "That's an idea. Of course it would need to be an especially reinforced one, so I don't wreck it with my speed."
The two teenagers busily discussed the necessary design specs of a treadmill designed to handle super speed when Clark suddenly stiffened.
"What is it?" Wally asked.
"There is an emergency broadcast. Some kind of freak storm has hit Metropolis out of nowhere."
Wally straightened, the goofy teenager vanishing in an instant. "Let's go then!"
In a burst of super speed, the two teenage heroes were on their way.
Kona was reasonably sure that she was going to get into trouble over this, but figured that she was due some teenage shenanigans by now. With Kara (just call her mom, damn it!) off in space and Clark visiting a friend, she decided to get out a bit, too, and visit a friend of her own. The list of friends Kona had was not really that long yet and while she got along just fine with Lana by now, the Lang girl was more Clark's friend than hers. That really just left one: Zatanna Zatara (call me Zee!), who lived in Las Vegas. Thankfully flight and super speed took care of the distance.
"Dad's away on some mystical quest thing or other," Zatanna told her when she arrived at the Zatara home, the other girl happily embracing her friend. "He said he'd be back in a day or two, but these things can be unpredictable. That one time he arrived back home three hours BEFORE he left."
"Weird," Kona agreed, though her understanding of what was normal and what was not still needed some work. "So what do girls do when they visit a friend while their parents are away?" she asked.
"I'm not really sure," Zatanna replied. "I haven't really had a lot of friends, to be honest. Dad kept us moving around a lot when I was younger for his tours and shows. The six months we've been here in Vegas are among the longest we've ever stayed in one place."
After some brainstorming, the two girls eventually decided to head for the couch, watch TV, and eat unhealthy things for starters. They chatted almost non-stop the entire time, Zatanna regaling Kona with stories of travelling all over the world with her dad. Kona did not have nearly as many stories to tell, though thankfully Kara had allowed her to share her origins with her friend, as long as she kept quiet about their civilian names. Zatanna was fascinated and appalled at the same time upon learning the story of Cadmus.
"Any clue as to who your human dad is yet?" she asked after a while.
"Nothing yet, no," Kona admitted. "So far I only know it's not that Westfield guy who ran the project, nor Donovan, the chief scientist. They did DNA comparisons with them."
Zatanna looked at her thoughtfully. "Do you think he knows, whoever he is? About you, I mean?"
Kona shrugged. "No idea. Odds are he doesn't, they probably just filched the DNA of someone who was compatible. The alternative is that it's some guy who willingly participated in Cadmus. Not sure I want someone like that as my father."
She looked over at Zatanna, who had a pensive look on her face. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, it's..., well, I don't really know a lot about my mom, you know? I only know that she died shortly after I was born. Dad doesn't really talk about her much. Whenever he does, he gets that extremely sad look in his eyes, so I don't press. Still, I'd... well, I'd really like to know more about where I come from, you know?"
Kona nodded, understanding. She remembered Clark telling her that, for the first 12 years of his life, Kara had kept their true origins secret from him, including the identity of his father (and the fact that she was actually his older cousin instead of his biological mother). Kona didn't really feel a pressing need to learn the identity of the man who had donated roughly 30% of her DNA, but it would probably be a different matter if she had been sired in a more traditional way instead of in a laboratory.
Suddenly the two girls were distracted by an unscheduled news broadcast on the TV.
"This just in," the announcer said. "A freak storm has appeared out of nowhere in Metropolis. We are now going live to our local correspondent. Linda, what is happening in Metropolis?"
A woman appeared on screen, doing her best to remain upright amidst a torrent of wind and rain. "The storm appeared from one second to the next," she yelled into her microphone, trying to be heard above the howling wind. "There were blue skies here just ten minutes ago, and now this storm. Emergency services are... wait a minute, Howard! I'm just getting word that additional help has arrived. Over there!"
The camera swiveled over and showed a red and blue shape flying over the city.
"I think Superwoman has arrived and... no, sorry, that's Superboy, I can see him now. Superboy has arrived and is lending a hand. Thank God for that, the wind seems to be getting stronger every second."
Kona watched her brother, feeling the intense need to go out there and help him. She had lived in Metropolis for a brief time, after all, after breaking out from Cadmus. While she held no particular attachment to the city, she didn't want to see it levelled by a freak storm, either.
"Something's not right," Zatanna whispered, her eyes glued to the screen.
"What do you mean?"
"I... I am not sure, but… I don't think that's a natural storm, Kona."
"Are you seeing this?" the correspondent suddenly yelled, drawing her eyes back to the screen. "Those lightning bolts are coming hard and fast and they all seem to converge on Superboy!"
The image of her brother being hit by multiple bolts of lightning was all Kona needed.
"Sorry, Zee, gonna have to cut this short. My brother needs help."
Zatanna was already on her feet. "I'm coming with you!"
Wally West, aka the Flash, the fastest teenager alive, had quite a bit of experience with storms. Living in the American Mid-West, storms were just a natural part of life one simply had to get used to. Ever since becoming the Flash, he had helped out during numerous storms and other natural disasters. He actually found that a lot more rewarding than fighting super villains.
Arriving in Metropolis, he and Superboy quickly got to work. Cars were overturned, blocking roads. Buildings were being damaged. People were trapped out in the open amidst the howling storm. In bursts of super speed the two teenagers helped wherever they could, bringing people to safety, stabilizing crumbling structures, generally doing their best to be everywhere at once.
"Something is weird about this storm," Flash heard Superboy over the ear transmitter his friend had given him. "It's getting stronger and stronger, yet not moving at all."
"Yeah, the wind patterns are all wrong, too," Flash agreed, having seen his share of storms.
"Keep assisting the emergency services," Superboy said. "I'm going to fly up and take a look at the heart of this storm!"
Flash nodded, speeding up again. He figured there was nothing even someone with Superboy's powers could do against a storm, but if this was not a normal storm, if it was somehow man-made, then maybe they could nip this in the bud.
"What the...," he heard Superboy swear over the com. Looking up, he saw that the Teen of Steel was being bombarded by lightning bolts. All of them seeming to zero in on him like homing missiles.
"Okay, now that is definitely NOT normal!" Flash muttered.
He figured that Superboy was pretty tough and normal lightning would probably not hurt him much, if at all. This, though? He started running towards his friend, or rather to a spot just beneath his friend. Superboy was being pummeled by lightning bolts, one after another hitting him in an endless staccato. Flash lost count, but eventually his friend dropped from the sky like a stone.
Quickly running in a tight circle, Flash created a miniature whirlwind that caught the plummeting form of his friend. A moment later, he was lowered safely to the Earth.
"You all right, buddy?" Flash asked, seeing that Superboy was conscious at the very least.
"I've been better," he answered, smoke rising from his body. Flash could see his muscles spasm, probably a result of the electric shocks, and the smell of ionization was strong in the air.
"Have you pissed off some thunder gods lately or something?"
"Not that I know of, but maybe Diana can ask around," he muttered.
Looking up, the two teenagers saw nothing but dark clouds, the wind tearing at them with ever increasing strength.
"Something really didn't want me to take a closer look up there," Superboy concluded.
"Seems that way, yeah," Flash agreed. "Now what?"
Zatanna was a Homo Magi, meaning that she had the innate ability to manipulate the exotic energies usually called magic. She was still learning, of course, and was far from being as proficient as her father. In theory, she should be capable of teleporting herself and Kona to Metropolis from Las Vegas, but she had never attempted it before and was sure it would have drained her strength almost entirely. Therefore, she had consented to being carried by her friend instead.
Draining herself to the point of passing out the moment they arrived sounded pretty good right now, though.
"We're almost there," she heard Kona say over the howling winds.
"I'll take your word for it," she muttered, her eyes squeezed shut since the moment Kona had taken flight.
"You could have told me that you're afraid of heights, Zee!"
"I am NOT afraid of heights," she insisted. "I am afraid of falling to my death! That's entirely different!"
"I'll take your word for it." She didn't need to open her eyes to know Kona was grinning right now.
"Shut up!"
Kona finally set her down on solid ground again and Zatanna resisted the urge to get down on her knees and kiss the concrete. Opening her eyes, she saw that they were now in Metropolis. The storm was raging all around them and every single nerve ending in her body tingled.
"Still feeling the vibes?" Kona asked.
"This is definitely not a natural storm," Zatanna replied, looking around, her fingers moving as if she was strumming some kind of invisible instrument. Trying to sense the currents of magic was something that was 80 percent instinct and 20 percent training, but she had never tried to do it in the middle of a howling storm. To be honest, she really wasn't sure that it had been a good idea to accompany Kona on this trip. Then again, there was no way she could have just sat at home while her friend went into danger. Damn morals!
Kona looked around as well, though she was probably trying to spot her brother. Zatanna was kind of excited about meeting Superboy (though not as excited as she had been upon meeting Superwoman, she had to admit).
"I see them," Kona suddenly said.
"Them?" Zatanna started asking, but it turned into a "THEEEEEE!" kind of sound as Kona grabbed her and they travelled at super speed to a different part of the city.
"Warn me next time," she complained when they came to a stop.
"Kona?" a male voice asked. Blinking, Zatanna saw that they were now standing right next to two teenagers. One of them was clearly Superboy, the uniform was a dead giveaway (and it really fit very well on his impressive physique… oh, shut up, hormones!) The other boy next to him wore a form-fitting red uniform with a lightning bolt on his chest. Oh yes, she had heard of him. Flashman or something like that.
"Hi, Cla... eh, Kal," Kona replied, grinning. "Glad to see the lightning didn't fry you."
Clark's head was still ringing from the multiple lightning impacts, so he briefly considered the notion that he was seeing things. After all, he distinctly remembered that his mom had forbidden Kona from using her super powers in public, yet here she was, super speeding towards them with another girl being dragged along. Both of the girls were wearing black hoodies with the hoods up, though some strands of the unknown girl's black hair had clearly escaped confinement at some point.
"Mom is so going to kill you!" he muttered, shaking his head.
"That's your sister?" Flash asked. "Wow!"
"Hey, no 'wow' about my sister, you hear me?" Clark protested.
"You told him about me?" Kona asked. "Mom is going to kill YOU!"
"Hey," the unknown girl said. "Don't we have other problems to deal with?"
"Who are you?" Clark asked.
"She's with me," Kona simply said. "Magic Girl!"
"Magic Girl?" the other girl screeched in protest. "I am NOT Magic Girl!"
"Hey, it fits," Kona told her. "Superboy, Supergirl, Flash Boy, Magic Girl! It's a theme!"
"Flash BOY?" Flash yelled.
"Since when are you Supergirl?" Clark asked, exasperated.
"Hey, I was Supergirl long before I had any other name, remember?"
"I am NOT Magic Girl!"
"Eh, guys…" Flash began.
"And no one will recognize me," Kona huffed. "I'm wearing a disguise!"
"Since when is a black hoodie a disguise?"
"Guys…!"
"Hey, you're one to talk! Your disguise is combing your hair differently!"
"Why Magic Girl? If I need a superhero name, why not Sorceress? Lady Magic? Enchantress?"
"GUYS! MOVE!"
A lightning bolt impacted right where they had been standing a moment ago. Thankfully three of their number had super speed powers, so a moment was plenty of time to move out of the way.
"Okay, I'm really getting tired of being hit by lightning bolts!"
"Kona, let me down! I think I can figure things out!"
Clark was about to ask what she could do, but a scalding look from Kona caused his jaw to snap shut. Magic Girl (or whatever her name was) closed her eyes, clearly focusing, and then looked up at the storm.
"MROTS EHT DNIHEB REWOP EHT LAEVER!"
The air around them hummed and Clark felt a very uncomfortable tingle all over his skin. He quickly forgot about that, though, as the sky above them suddenly began to change. What had been nothing but a mass of black storm clouds a moment ago now coalesced into a near-humanoid shape that was taller than the tallest building in Metropolis.
"What is that?" Kona asked, awed.
"I AM YOUR DOOM," a voice thundered across the city, smashing windows and causing people to press their hands to their ears in the vain hope of keeping it out. "I AM THE WIND! I AM THE STORM! I AM ULTHOON, THE TORNADO TYRANT!"
"No one's going to call him Tornado Boy," Flash muttered, staring up at the man-shaped whirlwind.
High above the Earth there was the Justice League Watchtower space station, currently empty except for two people. Hawkwoman and Hawkman had only been members of the League for a few weeks, so when the time came to decide who would stay behind to mind the store while the rest of the team joined Adam Strange on Rann, the two of them had quickly volunteered.
Right now, they weren't sure that it had been a great idea.
"Scanners say the storm in Metropolis is not natural," Shiera said, studying the readouts. She had only gotten a crash course in handling the Justice League computers so far, so she hoped she was reading these things correctly.
"Can it tell us something we don't know?" Carter asked, sounding irritated. Thanks to Superwoman, he had the memories of his past lives back, centuries of experience fighting all sorts of foes. None of which included fighting an apparently supernatural storm, though.
"Hey, don't take it out on me, mister!" Shiera shot back. "It was your idea to stay behind while all the heavy hitters headed into outer space!"
"Sorry," he raised his hands. "You're right. I just don't know what we're supposed to do now. How are two people with wings supposed to stop a storm? Any luck contacting Batman?"
Shiera shook her head. "No luck, he is incommunicado, it seems. Besides, he's not exactly brimming with super powers, either."
"No, but there is someone who is," Carter said, pointing at the screen.
"Superboy?" Shiera narrowed her eyes, trying to ensure that the red and blue dot she could see on the news broadcast the Watchtower computer had intercepted was really the son of their team leader. The Hawks had met him but briefly during the whole Kandor affair.
"It seems that way."
"Okay, we should head down there, Carter! Kara will have our hides if we just sit here while her son is heading into danger."
"Kara?" Carter asked. "Since when are the two of you on first name basis?"
"We went out for drinks two weeks ago. I told you about that!"
"You said you went out with a friend from work!"
"Kara IS a friend from work, idiot! Try and keep up!"
Carter just grumbled something about women under his breath before the hum of the teleportation beam cut him off and transported the two of them down to the Earth's surface.
"It's some kind of elemental being," Zatanna told the others, her mystical senses screaming at her. "It's made from air, but alive."
"And apparently pretty angry," Flash added.
"How can something made from air be alive?" Kona asked, staring at the giant shape before them.
Zatanna opened her mouth, but Kona raised her hand to stop her. "Wait, let me guess! Magic?"
"Well, not the kind that dad and I practice, but... yeah, more or less."
"Great! I hate magic!"
"How do we stop it?" Superboy asked. "Can you... banish it, or something?"
"No! Well, maybe! Probably not! But..."
"A little confidence here, Magic Girl!" Kona said, clapping her shoulder. "What do we need to do?"
Zatanna glared at her friend for the repeated use of that name, but then focused on the matter at hand. "I... elementals can't be destroyed, but... it might be possible to dispel it. Right now it's far too strong, though. The elemental and the storm are feeding each other. We would need to weaken it first."
Superboy nodded, his eyes scanning the storm around the towering form of the Tornado Tyrant.
"He's basically one giant whirlwind from the looks of it. If Flash and I create a counter-vortex around him with our super speed, that should slow him down."
"You know he's going to pepper us with lightning again the moment we get close, right?" Flash asked.
Superboy nodded. "Then I guess we'll need to be really, really fast!"
"And give him as many targets to focus on as possible," Kona added, pounding her fist into her palm.
For a moment, Superboy seemed poised to protest, but then simply nodded. "Okay, but you'll be the one to explain this to mom!"
"Coward," she replied, though Zatanna could see the brief flash of uncertainty on her face. She had confessed to her friend that she still felt somewhat unsure about her place in the family that had taken her in and feared what would happen if she messed up too badly. At that moment, though, Superboy took a step forward and hugged her.
"Let's make her proud," Zatanna heard him say. Kona smiled at him and nodded. "Let's!"
In a burst of super speed, the three teenagers were off. Lightning crackled around the speeding form of the Flash as he approached their opponent on foot, thundering cracks followed the two flying siblings as they broke the sound barrier.
A heartbeat later, they had reached the giant shape of the Tornado Tyrant and began circling it.
"FOOLS!" the elemental thundered. "YOU CANNOT HOPE TO TEMPER THE ETERNAL STORM!"
Lightning bolts flashed again, reaching out towards the speeding heroes, but all three of them were moving so fast that they left afterimages of themselves behind. Arcs of electricity danced around the vortex created by the Flash, lightning flashed and tried to catch the speeding super siblings. The winds around the battle became even worse as torrents pushed against each other.
"It's working," Zatanna muttered, watching from a distance. She couldn't see the shapes of her three allies anymore, she only saw colored streaks. Reaching out with her senses, she felt that the form of the elemental was indeed starting to break up and slow down.
"I WILL GRIND YOU INTO DUST!" the Tyrant screamed. With a gesture, rubble from the buildings that had already been smashed by the winds began to rise up and fly towards the center of the maelstrom.
"Oh no!" Zatanna desperately tried to think of something to do, wanting to stop the rubble before the Tyrant could push it into the path of the others, but the words wouldn't come to her. She was a stage magician, damn it, not a super hero!
Suddenly two other shapes were there, two people with wings, and they intercepted the rubble pieces, smashing them to powder with maces and war axes. Zatanna breathed a sigh of relief. She recognized the two of them; they were members of the Justice League. She had never before been so happy to see some adults arrive on the scene.
Focusing back on her opponent, she felt his strength begin to falter. Gathering all her strength, she prepared to cast what she hoped would be her final spell of the day.
"TIRIPS LIVE EHT LEPSID DNA MROTS EHT TEIUQ," she screamed, pushing all of her strength into the words, imposing her will on the magic around her.
"NOOOOOOO!"
In a flash the center of the storm imploded, the unnatural force that had caused the calamity being disrupted. A sudden vacuum at the center caused a massive boom as the air rushed in and two flying teenage heroes suddenly found themselves scattered like leaves on the wind.
Thankfully two winged people had the presence of mind to catch the super siblings before their invulnerable forms could demolish yet more buildings. The winds quickly died down and an eerie silence settled over the disaster area. Flash arrived next to Zatanna in a blur of red and with flapping wings Hawkman and Hawkwoman set down as well, an arm around Superboy and Supergirl each.
"I don't know what you did, but it seems to have worked," Hawkwoman said, letting go once she was sure that Kona was steady on her feet. Zatanna quickly went to her friend's side, making sure that she was okay.
"Superboy, I assume you know these other three?" Hawkman asked, eying the teens.
"Yeah, I..."
"Superboy? SUPERBOY!?" The heroes turned, seeing a camera team running towards them, led by a disheveled looking woman with a microphone in her hand. "Linda Park, WGBS News! You have saved the city! Can you tell us who your friends are?"
For a moment Superboy seemed like a deer in the headlights as the camera was almost shoved in his face, but then he smiled, looking at the other three.
"I guess you can call us... the Teen Titans!"
Flash jumped into the air, whooping. "Oh yeah!"
Zatanna just looked down, hoping against hope that her dad wouldn't recognize her when he saw them on TV.
End Chapter 55
Author's Note: The Tornado Tyrant, an air elemental called Ulthoon, first appeared as a foe of Adam Strange on Rann (Mystery in Space #61 from 1960). It was only later, when the entity journeyed to Earth, that it split itself into two beings, one good, one evil. The good entity called itself Tornado Champion and eventually became… well, that would be telling at this point, but I am sure avid comic readers know. The evil half was the Tornado Tyrant, who remained a powerful foe and clashed with the Justice League several times.
So we have had the very first adventure of the Teen Titans, hope you enjoyed it. Up next, another multi-part adventure of the Super-Fabulous, Super-Exciting, and Super-Amazing Super Family.
