Chapter 2 - Meeting the Queen

The small group waited in the hallway before being escorted into the great hall, ready to be presented to the Amazon queen.

Ambassador Napolipolita-Daitokuji was nervously going back and forth to each of her daughters, rubbing a smudge of dirt from the face of the youngest and straightening the seams of another. She hovered over her children like a nervous mother hen fussing over her chicks, doing her best to make a good first impression as they were about to be presented to the Amazon Queen and Royal Court.

As the oversized double bronze doors swung opened to admit them, Aysha panicked when she realized that she wouldn't be able to show the proper respect and homage to the legendary Amazon queen with a squirming child in her arms. She shouldn't have worried, for as she looked around for her son Hikiri, she found him in the arms of the Man of Steel, sharing comfort and safety with Clark's own little son and daughter. Having already sensed the Leptonian ambassador's predicament, he had accepted the responsibility of looking after the three children himself so that their mothers could be free to attend to their official business.

As the small group moved forward, Dr. Stellamaris and Napolipolita's young daughters were a bit overwhelmed at the sight of the Amazon Queen sitting regally on her throne and at the sight of her warriors who surrounded her. Both the good Doctor and Napolipolita's daughters had stood in the divine presence of their beloved Queen Zazen'lda more than once in their still-young lives, and had been more than impressed by her. But the woman who sat above them now was someone far different than any queen they had ever seen before. She might have been queen only on this one island, unlike the Cygnan ruler Zazen'lda the First. Even though Hippolyta did not govern a vast galactic empire, her very presence seemed to fill the great hall.

Before the group (with the exception of Clark and little ones) dropped to their knees in homage, the Ambassador's daughters gazed up at the tall woman who seemed to tower over them. Even under her robe, which had been cut in the ancient Greek manner, they could see the well -developed muscles of her arms and legs, as well as the width and breadth of her shoulders. Being naturally perceptive, the girls immediately recognized her uncanny resemblance to A-ko's own mother. It was then that everyone in the group fully realized that this woman was not only a queen, but was every inch a warrior queen as well. The fact that she was over three thousand years old only increased their awe and respect.

But all that adulation failed to stop Hippolyta from smiling at her only daughter and the grown-up grandchild kneeling next to her. The Queen of Amazons then asked everyone to stand.

Spying the large form of her son in-law at the back of the hall, Hippolyta told him, "An armload of children seems very natural to you, Clark! But I don't remember your having two sons - and one with green hair, at that," she teased in a good-natured way.

He returned the smile. "Little Hikiri – my kids call him Kir or Little Pickle Head – is my godson, Your Majesty - " Then he remembered himself and said," - I mean - Mother."

Stepping forward, Aysha announced, "Kir is my son, Your Highness. His Leptonian name is Kir Azenath of the House of Napolipolita."

"And what about those three young girls doing their best to hide behind you?" asked Hippolyta.

The Napolipolita-Daitokuji daughters had never been considered shy; nevertheless, their mother had to drag them in front of her. When they were so assembled, Napolipolita stood behind them and, placing her hands on each girl's shoulders, introduced them to A-ko's grandmother.

"This is my daughter Akana, born on the Homeworld. These are my half-Terran girls, Shiiko and Mitsuko, both born in Japan." When their mother finished with their introductions, the three young amazons stood at attention and gave their best tiger claw salutes to honor the Amazon queen.

After her granddaughter explained the honor, Hippolyta thanked the young girls and told their mother, "Looks to me that you have done a wonderful job raising three future warriors to serve their Queen and Empire, Ambassador!" Shiiko and Mitsuko gasped; the notion that they could someday become fierce soldiers had never entered their pampered little heads. Hippolyta then turned her attention back to her oldest granddaughter and her friend that was standing next to her. "And whom have you brought along as a guest, Granddaughter?"

"This is my friend Biko, Grandmother."

"Welcome, Biko. I hope you find your stay with us interesting." Spying C-ko behind her granddaughter's back, the Amazon queen told her, "C-ko! There is a brand new two-year-old filly, all ready to go for you." The Queen didn't miss much, and certainly hadn't missed the fact that the young blonde was an able horsewoman. C-ko smiled broadly at the thought of once again finding herself astride a horse.

Suddenly, a tall woman with a familiar face walked up to the throne and whispered into the ear of the Amazon queen.

Biko was shocked at her friend's reaction. A-ko seemed to shake with rage at the very sight of the tall redhead who had just leaned over to whisper in her grandmother's ear.

"Thank you, Artemis," Hippolyta said before turning her attention back to her guests. "Duty calls. Artemis will guide you all to your rooms. I will rejoin you later at the reception dinner." With that, she stood up quickly, nodded once to her visitors, and left the great hall.

Coming together, the group of visitors fell into line behind the tall Amazon with hair the color of a morning sunrise. Alongside her walked Diana, carrying her son Jonathan, and one step behind her came her husband with A-ko's sister Lois in his arms.

Stopping in front of a very familiar door (familiar to Diana, that is), Artemis told her, "Your mother the Queen thought you would like your old room for you and your - mate, my Princess."

"That's 'husband', you piece of s - ," growled A-ko behind her.

"A-KO!" her mother scolded.

"Sorry, Mama," the young redhead answered with bowed head.

"Don't apologize to me! You owe an apology to Artemis."

"Never," A-ko replied. She set her jaw. "Not even if my life depended on it," she added.

Diana turned to her oldest child, ready to correct her wayward behavior, when Artemis cut her off. "That's all right, Diana - I had a big mouth and a bad temper at her age as well!"

"Then why don't you try shutting my big mouth for me?" offered A-ko

as she balled up her fists and took one step forward.

Before any more could be said or done on either side, Clark turned to his daughter and simply told her, "Enough!" in a deep rumbling voice.

She in turn simply responded, "Yes, Papa," and remained silent.

As the group of Cygnans was escorted to their rooms in another wing of the Palace, A-ko's parents were put in the same room in which her mother had grown up. A nursery had been prepared for her brother and sister in an adjoining room, next to her parents. All three "Ko's" each had their own rooms further down the corridor.

Biko found her luggage already in her room, waiting for her. Not bothering to unpack, she made her way to A-ko's room, knocked once, and walked in before A-ko could send her away.

There she found C-ko giving their mutual friend a hard time about her behavior. "How can you talk to Zoey's mom like that?" scolded C-ko.

"Who's Zoey?" asked Biko, interrupting their conversation.

"Zoey Valcuria is A-ko's cousin. We first met when all of us were ten years old," answered C-ko.

"I didn't know you had a cousin!"

"Not the way you would know," answered A-ko. "She is my closest friend among the Amazon Sisterhood. Since all Amazons are considered Sisters - we began calling ourselves cousins!"

"They even look alike," interrupted C-ko. "And Artemis is her mother!"

"So what's between you and this Artemis?" asked Biko.

A-ko looked her friend in the eye, and in a low menacing voice told her, "As much as I love Zoey, I hate her mother even more!"

"You hate? I didn't think you had it in you to hate anyone!"

"When it comes to that bit-, uh, woman, I do!"

"But why?" asked Biko.

"None of your business," replied A-ko.

"What do you mean 'none of my business'? I thought we were friends."

"We are," A-ko reassured her. "But it's still none of your business!"

"But - "

"But nothing," A-ko cut her off. "Are you going to drop this?"

"If I am your friend, I can't," answered Biko.

With that, A-ko announced, "I need to stretch my legs." She then quickly moved to the balcony, leaped from it, and took though the sky above Paradise Island.

"God! I hate it when she runs off like that!" complained Biko.

"Tell me about it," C-ko agreed with a sad shake of her little blonde head.

Turning to her small friend, Biko asked, "What do you know about all of this?"

"I'm not sure if it's my place to tell you."

Biko asked, "If not you, then who?"

C-ko thought for a few minutes, which seemed more like hours. She was debating with herself if she had any right to share the tale with their mutual friend. Finally, because of that very same friendship, C-ko realized she had no other choice.

"We both met Zoey for the first time when the three of us were ten years old. We first met at a Christmas pageant, and it was hate at first sight between the two of them." C-ko was silent for a moment before going on. "Maybe what I should be saying is that Zoey all but hated A-ko, and that was only because she had been fed a line of bull about A-ko's parents by her mother Artemis."

"What sort of bull?" asked Biko.

"Nasty things," C-ko replied. "Some of it going all the way back when A-ko's mother told Queen Hippolyta that she was pregnant and was leaving to make her life with A-ko's father. They argued, and - I think - even fought. The other Amazons got involved, including Artemis. When their Queen ordered them to stop her daughter, Artemis was the one who led the attack on her when she fled this island to be with Mr. Kent. Because of that, Diana and her mother neither spoke nor saw one another for the next fourteen years - until A-ko and I first came here for a visit."

"And Artemis?" asked Biko.

"Artemis had always resented Diana, and had raised her daughter to feel the same way. To make a long story short, A-ko and Zoey got into a fight after Zoey insulted her parents. They challenged each other to a Kiss of Blood... "

"What's that?" asked Biko, interrupting. "Some sort of formal duel!"

"And I thought A-ko and I were stupid at sixteen!"

C-ko laughed and nodded her head as she remembered how her friends used to bang heads almost daily as teenagers. She then added, "After the duel Zoey and A-ko became close friends, especially when Zoey found out something about her mother and about the father she'd never known."

"Who told her about her father?" "A-ko's pop!"

Biko nodded her head and smiled knowingly, recalling how the Man of Steel had talked to her about her own mother, helping her to understand the reason for her own father's coldness to her. "But why does A-ko hate Artemis so much?"

"Perhaps in part of what she'd done to her own daughter, but most of all because of what Artemis tried to do to her mother, Diana."

"Did what?"

"After the duel, Artemis struck Zoey for losing. The result was that Zoey ran away. Artemis was frantic and begged A-ko's mother to help find her. Naturally, Diana wanted to help, so she agreed to meet with Artemis on top of the Empire State Building before beginning the search. When she arrived, she found a tearful Artemis, and as Diana tried to comfort her, Artemis stabbed her in the back with a blade forged by the God Hephaestus himself. It almost killed her."

"I'm surprised that this Artemis is still breathing!"

C-ko asked, "Did you notice Artemis' left hand?"

"The burn scar?"

"A-ko's father did that to her. He also promised to break every bone in her body if she ever threatened his family again."

"I can see how that would make our friend hate her, but that's not all."

"No, as I told you earlier, when we were fourteen A-ko and I visited her grandmother. A truce was called so we could go, and her mother went with us. One night we were having dinner with her mother and Artemis joined us. Over dinner, then, Artemis said some vile things about A-ko's mom and pop. A-ko exploded and tried to rip Artemis' throat out. Her own mother had to hold her back. I never saw anyone so angry! It was awful. Over the past few years, Diana's helped reconcile Artemis and her daughter, and managed to forgive her. But A-ko never will. She simply hates her too much!"

"I feel sorry for her."

"For Artemis?" asked C-ko.

"No, of course not! For A-ko. I know better than anyone what hating can do to a person, and I'm afraid what that kind of hate can do to our friend."

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Besides the present holder, there had been only six men and one woman to wield the most powerful weapon in the known galaxy during the past hundred years. The seven had been the protectors of Galactic Sector 2814. It was in this sector that the planet Earth could be found.

The weapon in question took the form of a ring. It had the capacity to form almost any type of matter, shields, or energy bursts its owner could imagine. Although the energy powering this weapon came from the central power battery on the planet Oa, the will and the imagination to use it came from the Green Lantern Corps members themselves.

These persons served a thousand worlds and an equal number of different life forms as a roving police force. The Corps had been unknown to the Cygnans only because they hadn't come in contact with them, so vast was the number of worlds in the Leptonian allied galaxies. Thus, the Lepton Kingdom of Alpha Cygni was out of the Green Lanterns' sphere of influence.

These individuals protecting the sector of space containing the Earth were all natives of Planet Oa, and had a few things in common with one another. All of them were possessed of a high moral fiber. All were dedicated to their calling, and - perhaps most important - all were fearless. All had been picked, and therefore were controlled, by the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Guardians, then, numbered among the last handful of the oldest race in the Milky Way Galaxy, and they had created the Green Lantern Corps as intergalactic law enforcers. They were all men - small, blue-skinned, and very, very ancient. Lois Lane had often called them "smurfs", particularly when they had demanded an important (and almost always terribly dangerous) service of her husband on behalf of the Galaxy they endeavored to protect.

When she had grown old enough to understand such things, A-ko had heard from her mother that it had been her own father who had been chosen to be the greatest Green Lantern of them all - indeed, the Generalissimo of the entire Corps. The guardians had worked from the shadows for over ten thousand years; through tactics both subtle and blunt, they had selectively bred a perfect physical and moral descendent of the House of El. It had been their design that this person would relieve them of their duties, and to take over the leadership of the Green Lantern Corps himself. In this they had failed, though not due to bad planning on their part, but because the world known as Krypton had the last laugh to the very end.

In fact, the Guardians had tried to prevent its destruction, even sending one of their best and most powerful Green Lanterns to prevent the holocaust. Sadly, however, the Green Lantern known as Toma Re had failed through no fault of his own. Unfortunately, this member of the race descended from birds had been in another solar system at the time, desperately racing to gather a rare mineral that would have stopped the chain reaction building in the core of the giant planet. There, the sun of that system had blazed into a nova, blinding Toma Re for a time and preventing him from saving Krypton.

The loss of Krypton had been considered the greatest failure of the long history of the Corps, and it had remained a black mark not erased until the legend of A-ko's father had begun to grow. The Guardians ultimately came to believe that the universe had a greater need for a "Superman" than another "Green Lantern" - even if he had initially been chosen to become the greatest Lantern of them all.

The space sector's present ring bearer was now all of eighteen years old. When a Green Lantern knew that his or her time was near, they would send the ring out to find his or her replacement, as custom demanded. As Earth's last Green Lantern lay dying, he had thus sent out his ring to find his heir and retrieve him, so that he could instruct his replacement on the duties and history of the Corps.

This replacement had been picked for his courage and his potential rather than for his faults. The present Green Lantern was unusually young to hold such a heavy responsibility; and if he was foolish and a little arrogant at times - well, it was believed that these were only the failings of youth, and would pass in time.

A-ko had often heard her father say, "Some sicknesses are best to have when one is young." This philosophy had led the Man of Steel to believe that this chosen youngster would develop into a Green Lantern who would bring honor to himself and all others who had come before him. In fact, A-ko's father had asked the boy to join the Justice League in order to speed up the maturing process. On the other hand, her mother Diana held no such faith. In fact, A-ko remembered just how furious her mother had been at her father for even suggesting such a thing.

It had been one of those all-night arguments that had forced her younger brother and sister to climb into her bed for comfort. Through the use of her super-hearing (although she would never admit it), A-ko could pick up from their heated discussion that her mother believed the new Green Lantern was arrogant, infantile, and a shameful embarrassment to a noble tradition and the men and women with whom she herself had fought side by side. A-ko had also learned that her father had simply liked the youngster, even when the teenager had referred to him as the "old man" or "Mr. Boy Scout". As always, such talk on the boy's part would always send Diana into a rage. Superman would simply laugh and do his best to calm her down, while also trying to guide the young man through his example.

So it had happened that this newest and youngest of the Green Lantern Corps was now alone on the Moon, serving his monitor duty in the JLA Watchtower. He hated it when he pulled the duty, always complaining to anyone and everyone who would bother to listen. Despite his grousing, the young man did his duty; even as Diana would admit in time (although she was loath to do so!) that he was both brave and someone upon whom one could count while in the heat of battle.

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The lad had been carrying out his routine chores this day - routine, that is, until the warning system had blared as the giant Shakanar battle cruiser had passed the Moon on its way to achieving Earth orbit.

Grateful that something had finally happened to end his lonely and boring vigil, he tried to communicate with the giant vessel. "Hello, and welcome to the System of Sol and to the planet Earth!"

The Shakanar officer on board answered his friendly hail by unleashing a broadside from the ship's main battery, destroying the Watchtower and sending the whole huge complex crashing down on top of him.

And then - as if the ship itself had no further interest in the damage it had caused - the starship Revenge assumed a standard stationary orbit directly over Paradise Island. The attack was driven by their desire to overcome their sterility; they had heard a signal from Deesha Dakina's last internal nano-bot as it was being destroyed by the tiny bots of Krypton. They knew that her steriiity had been reversed, and immediately made their way to Dakina's last location. Also motivated by the Shakanars' lack of dominance over those weak-bellied officers of the CygniCity Space Academy, its inhabitants now prepared to begin their bombardment.