"This is amazing, what I'm wondering is why now"
"Might have something to do with what we were just told, either that or it might be something completely different and this would have happened soon anyways"
"Unless we ask we'll never know though"
"And unless it's needed we won't ask"
"Good idea"
"So...I get the feeling that things will be interesting"
"No kidding"
The rest of the time Katherine had before starting work was actually pretty calm, the day after she had seen the League she was called into the Planet only to confirm her medical clearance which had included a drug test
"You're all set to start on the second"
"What I'm wondering is why we're meeting here if the Planet is shut down during the holidays"
"That's something Kent suggested actually, getting you familiar with the layout of the building without worrying about so many people about and possibly giving you wrong directions, he seemed to think you can memorize this place with just one or two tours"
"Yeah...there's reasons behind that thought process"
"Secret stuff that I can't know about?"
"Got it in one"
"Very well, but if you need directions to a place in the building I'll give you a few names you can trust to give you accurate directions to where you need to go"
"Since I know that makes sense I will agree to it, just don't be too surprised if you find out that I didn't need directions"
"Okay, I know that Kent can't tell me why he thinks you can memorize this place quickly but is that same restriction on you?"
"In regards to Kent yes, as to how I know for a fact that he's correct no, my family has trained me from a young age to be aware of my surroundings and to learn my layout as quickly as possible in case of emergencies, thus why I will only need two tours of the building at minimum, three at most more than likely"
"Speaking of your family just how classified is that?"
"You know because you have to, but otherwise unless it's by pure accident or like you absolutely necessary no one can know, at least for now that may change depending on several factors but that's a wait and see situation"
"Am I allowed to know those factors?"
"Nope"
"Fine"
"Sorry chief, but those factors are not only extremely vague but then there's also the fact that quite frankly they're personal for my family and could change at a moments notice"
"Understood, now then I don't want to see you back here until the second if it can be helped"
"I know and will obey, but all bets are off if it becomes a necessity"
"I know"
The rest of the time before the second was entirely calm and then the day came that Katherine started her jobs, her Daily Planet job actually sent her on assignment with Lane and Kent to go to the reveal of the newest League member, in private though the three knew they needed to talk first (Lois had known about Clark's other identity since he had been thought dead through the doings of a crooked police officer though she had had her suspicions for sure since Bruce Wayne had come to Metropolis)
"So...how are we going to do this Clark?"
"You type up a few things and we'll supplement them Kerenai, plus we'll figure out a way of proving you were here taking video, though that I don't know about yet"
"Like you said we'll figure something out"
"You nervous?"
"A little bit, but I also know this is standard procedure so there's no backing out of it"
"Your...special people will also be there so that should help"
"I forgot about that even though they recently mentioned that very thing"
"What are you two talking about?"
"Sorry Lois, but unless you have special clearance you literally can't know what we're talking about, as it is my Superman identity has the clearance to know while my Kent identity should have no idea what's going in regards to Kerenai's special guests"
"That must be confusing sometimes"
"Sometimes yes, but for the most part I can keep things straight"
"In any case it's almost time, what about you?"
"It's entirely Kent this time around, Superman has already made statements about his being unable to attend for personal reasons"
"Gotta do your job sometime huh?"
"Yes, the chief doesn't know about my other identity, though I do sometimes wonder"
The press conference went off without any huge incidents, the only hiccup was the microphone going out in the middle of an interview but that was quickly resolved and everything else went okay, then Ratchet signaled that he wanted to meet with the entire League afterwords
"Best let Ratchet know that it's allowed if it is guys"
"Good point"
Finally everyone was at the watchtower
"Okay Ratchet what's going on?"
"Remember that poison detection I've been working on for years now?"
"Oh yeah, the most recent failure was a year and a half ago"
"I've gotten the insert down and it works 98 percent of the time"
"I volunteer for the first jab, mainly because of the fact that quite frankly while the League trusts you guys in emergency situations they still aren't really going to trust you in regards to medical matters in normal situations"
One of the League members who wasn't around the Cybertronians or knew about Katherine's connection decided to speak up
"And you trust this robot for medical needs that humans have?"
(Sighs) "Ratchet do you know if..."
"Yes I do and was made the designated relay person since they knew I wanted to speak with the entire League, everyone, not just the founding members can know about our connection, but only the heroes, any support personnel is still not allowed to know anything, but that's only because of the fact that quite frankly it is very unlikely that they'll ever work beside us, but the main League members..."
"Got it, are you allowed to tell me the reasons now?"
"Part of it was a background check, the other part I found out was them waiting to see if you would actually join the League or not, actually the third reason behind that thought process is because quite frankly we never really thought about it even if we became official allies because until that day we never thought you would fight alongside the League"
"And then that day happened and you guys had to scramble to figure things out and it ultimately took a while for everyone but the founding members to gain your trust"
"Exactly, can you blame us?"
"Nope, I always kinda suspected that due to you having raised me since I was what...two weeks old?"
"More like three months but you were still extremely young"
"Wait, what do you mean by that?"
"I am the legally adopted daughter of the Cybertronians through an equally binding will left by my parents who were in the EDC"
"No wonder you trust him then you've been doing so your whole life"
"Exactly"
"You go first though like you said, we need to see exactly what this procedure is about"
"I know, by the way Ratchet this is FDA approved right?"
"Yes, that's part of what took so long this time around, my last test when you were poisoned by Cordinleys had been approved but after it's failure I needed to make several modifications and thus needed new FDA approval"
"Wait, why would you need approval for a detection system?"
"Because it's a microchip that I'm inserting into a body, the last time it was an injection of special Cybertronian like drugs that would allow the body to detect poison and fight it until you could get help, this time a microchip will alert those who need to know about the poison and get you out of danger immediately, initial approval was EDC officers only and is only just now slowly being made available for others that are at risk of being poisoned"
"One step at a time Ratchet, now then do you know if it will be expanded to normal civilians as well?"
"Probably not most likely, but only because they're not at high risk of being poisoned, but for now the League has permission to get the microchip and the US military is inserting the microchips in select units as a test run for it's effectiveness of detecting military specific poisons"
"But I thought...no wait never mind I know what's going on there"
Katherine gets injected with the microchip first and the founding members were the next ones to get injected, though for Superman and also Supergirl they had to be exposed briefly by Kryptonite for the injection to penetrate their skin but both agreed it was worth it because they could still ingest and inhale poisons even if the enemy couldn't get to them with knives
"So...I can't stay the rest of the day but I can quickly train the medical staff to finish the injections"
"We'll make a staggered schedule for all League members but hopefully by the end of the month everyone will have the microchip that detects poisons"
"Good make sure that the chips are connected to your network"
"We will, now then is there anything else we need to be aware of before you leave?"
"No, the leaders will contact you directly if anything comes up"
"Got it"
Before Ratchet could leave though J'onn spoke up moments before the alarms went off
"We have trouble"
"What is it?"
"It's the Imperium they've returned"
"But..."
"I don not know how they have returned but they have, and they are not alone, Ratchet you must contact your leaders and let them know that they must be part of the fight this time"
"What for J'onn?"
"Because they have allied themselves with known EDC enemies"
"Right I'll let them know right away"
"J'onn do you know the exact enemies that we'll be fighting?"
"Unfortunately not Enshrouder girl"
"Got it be prepared for anything then...oh man and I'm going to have to act like I've never fought these guys before while at the same time act like I know what I'm doing"
"Which is why you're not joining in the fight this time, you still need to be established as more than just someone who just joined the League, people need to know you can handle yourself and you need training not to be so familiar with enemies in a safe environment"
"Fine, but I'll be joining in soon enough I promise you that"
"We know"
"In the meantime I can act as adviser since my family is unfortunately going to be too busy for you to be told where the weak points are, you guys just haven't fought enough enemies to automatically know that...except for Quintessons, they pop up way too frequently in everyone's mind"
"Okay, is everyone clear on the fact that Enshrouder girl is the one giving attack commands?"
Everyone replied yes except for Superman and Supergirl, but that was because back when the two sides met and had the potential to become official allies through Katherine she had long said that due to their invulnerability she would not give any direct combat orders to them and let them make their own plans based on what they heard over their earpieces if she was giving other League members orders on fighting against EDC enemies
"Good, now then one more very clear order if the Cybertronians give you orders you are to also obey them because that means they know something you don't that either involves the enemy or the city that you are fighting in since I get the feeling that they're going to split up"
"But I thought..."
"No guys, I can't see everything even with me monitoring the situation up here, there are going to be things I miss, and that's where my family comes in because they can cover my blind spots"
"Oh...that actually makes sense now that I think about it"
"Indeed, now then I think you all have your assignments, once you're there let me know and we'll go from there"
"Understood, so wait, what about Superman and Supergirl?"
"They both know their roles in this already"
"She's right, we already know what to do"
"How?"
"Those procedures have been established for a while now"
"How?"
"Not your business"
"Very well"
Ultimately it turned out that the enemies were Lakrins, Delnetlon's, Quintessons yet again with their Sharkticon enforcers, and to everyone's surprise Skranino's, but for the Skranino's they quickly found out that they were under mind control of the Imperium, it still wasn't an easy fight and several times either Katherine or a family member had to give emergency orders to the League for safety reasons and Katherine also was explaining weak points on a regular basis as well and there were injuries for both the League and Katherine's family and the Skarnino's had to be dealt with in a different matter from the rest of the enemy forces because of the fact that the Cybertronians knew that something was wrong with them but overall things came out okay
"Well, the alliance definitely works"
"Indeed it does"
"Enshrouder girl you do need training though so that you can join in the fight next time, the Cybertronians admitted as much when they said that it took twice as long as normal to find out that the Skarnino's were under enemy control"
"Yeah, that's something I forgot about, due to the fact that we don't normally go up against actual allies under enemy control I tend to forget that my powers have that ability"
"Does that include your family?"
"No, that's something that's always confused us but for whatever reason I never know my family is under enemy control until I am fighting them and others have seen them be put under enemy control and yet avoided that trap themselves"
"Maybe because they're living robots"
"Who knows all we know is that unless it's my family we know immediately that there's allies or at least potential allies under enemy control, they don't always go for trade and alliance agreements but they are at least not enemies"
"So more passing acquaintances than anything unless they decide otherwise later"
"Exactly, they won't go out of their way to harm us but they also won't necessarily go out of their way to help us if we're in trouble"
"So I guess it all depends on what's going on in their situations at the same time that has them deciding on if they should help you or not"
"Exactly"
"Let's just confirm though that at the very least they won't attack you guys"
"Not without serious provocation like us attacking them, even if we're the one's being controlled, however they are going to be willing to listen to our side of the story once the initial attack happens and we demand a cease fire for explanations"
"At least there's that much at least"
"Indeed, now then I do want to get in some training today so that we can get things started on me being able to join in the fight against EDC enemies at need"
"Good idea, you also need more training against League enemies"
"That unfortunately will only come with time and actually fighting them"
"I was afraid of that"
"Sorry but there really is no other way since they can be highly unpredictable"
"Figures, I can never learn things the easy way, even if I have actually had practice against the enemies I haven't done so in my identity that we just created, good thing that we had a backstory already solidly prepared or my introduction into the League would be suspicious"
"There's also the fact that we tried to keep you out of things until now"
"Good point"
"For now though you have a second job to get to"
"Right, if you see him Superman tell Clark Kent I have a message for him to pass onto the Chief"
"What's the message?"
"I'll be in China doing that invasion followup story since he apparently never has anyone in China doing such things for whatever reason, I'll let the branches in the other countries handle their own places but China is mine, don't expect me back for a few weeks because I might also do some helping with the rebuilding too while I'm at it"
"I'll pass on the word, and according to Kent whenever I see him the reason no one is in China is because the Daily Planet got kicked out of the country temporarily a few years ago when all the newspapers were being blamed for water issues and a few other things, combine that with the fact that it's hard to work in such a country and the Planet has never really had a strong presence in that country, as it is he's been trying to have a small office there again but because no one wants to live there it's slow going, at least according to Kent through his boss"
"Understood"
Katherine leaves the watchtower and heads to China via a ride from Thundercracker due to the fact that Skywarp was currently there but due for a transfer and Thundercracker was his replacement