Chapter 99: Rhythms of Darkness (Great Darkness Saga, Part 5)
Disclaimer: All things Supergirl/Superman, Legion of Superheroes, and New Gods belong to DC. No infringement is intended.
Planet Sanctuary, 1,000 years in the future, 90 days before Darkseid reaches Earth
The planet called Sanctuary had been selected as Kandor's destination for several reasons. One, it had a yellow sun. Two, it was on the outskirts of the United Planets, far away from the hustle and bustle of the interstellar space lanes and, far more important, many light years away from the route Darkseid would soon take on his relentless march towards Earth. Given that they had arrived three months before they had left, they had also made sure that no significant message traffic had gone in or out of Sanctuary during that time frame. They would remain undisturbed and (hopefully) not cause any further time paradoxes.
The first day after their arrival was insanely busy. The citizens of Kandor needed to know what had happened to them, where and when they were, and that their home planet no longer existed. Oh, and that they would soon experience massive changes to their physiology and gain superpowers. As expected, it had been a trying, emotionally draining day. Kryptonians were an enlightened race, beholden to reason and logic, and not prone to denial of facts. Still, the revelations heaped upon them had been too extreme, too far removed from everything they knew, to simply be accepted without protest. Quite a few of them did not take it well.
The second day after their arrival was worse. There was unrest, there was chaos, and opinions on whether Kara-El and her group were saviors sent by Rao himself or blasphemers for breaking every law of space and time changed almost hourly. There were endless discussions on the nature of time and causality, on whether or not there actually was a time loop, on whether or not Kara-El had done the right thing. It was an exhausting day that eventually ended in a calm that resulted more from sheer exhaustion than acceptance.
On the third day after their arrival, it was quickly becoming evident that something was very, very wrong.
Planet Sanctuary, 1,000 years in the future, 85 days before Darkseid reaches Earth
Soaring with the aid of her flight ring, Saturn Girl found Kara sitting on top of Kandor's highest spire, just looking into the distance with a look of pure devastation on her face. She quickly landed next to her.
"Don't beat yourself up over this, Kara!" Imra told her.
Kara had her arms wrapped around herself. Imra experienced an intense déjà vu, being reminded of another time she had found her friend in such a state on top of a building. Back then she had been a teenager, had still called herself Supergirl, and had just learned that she was destined to become the greatest hero of all time. Today, though, the revelations heaped upon this courageous survivor might weigh even heavier.
"How can I not?" Kara asked, tears running down her cheeks. "I did this! My one chance to save a portion of my people from destruction, to preserve Krypton, and what do I do? I take them into the one era where an unstoppable army led by a god is looking to lay waste to the galaxy without any means to defend themselves!"
"You couldn't have known!" Imra assured her.
"I should have known!" she yelled back. "The clues were all there, but I did not want to see them. I was not thinking like a Kryptonian looking to save her people, no, I was thinking like a general who needs soldiers to throw at her enemy! Rao, I was playing goddess, the very thing I was always so afraid of! Saving half a million of my people should have been enough all in itself, but all I could think of was gaining half a million super-powered warriors to use against Darkseid, to take vengeance on the thing that had taken and corrupted my son! If I was going to use them as weapons, I damn well should have made sure they were loaded first!"
Exhausted from her rant, Kara looked down at the people in the city stretched out beneath her. Half a million Kryptonians were mingling in the streets below. Half a million Kryptonians who had survived the death of their world and a hazardous travel through time. Half a million of her people.
And not a single one of them was capable of flying up here to meet her.
Planet Sanctuary, 1,000 years in the future, 81 days before Darkseid reaches Earth
Kara had stared and stared at the readouts of the medical scanner for what felt like days now, but all the staring in the universe would not change what the readouts were showing her.
"Still nothing?" Kona asked, studying the same readouts her mother did.
"Nothing at all," Kara nodded. "I do not understand how it is possible, but the facts do not lie."
She closed her eyes, wondering if some deity or other was having fun at her expense. They had pulled it off, the most impossible mission conceivable. They had travelled deep into the past, they had navigated history, they had abducted an entire city from a doomed planet and had moved it a thousand years through time. It should have been impossible, but they had done it. They had brought half a million Kryptonians into the future. Half a million of her people saved, who would in turn save the 30th century from being enslaved by Darkseid. Half a million super-powerful, invulnerable, flying superwomen and –men, an army that would help them defeat this unstoppable foe.
The only problem was: the citizens of Kandor did not show even the slightest sign of having any superpowers.
Oh, that was not quite true. The yellow sunlight of Kandor's new home planet was indeed having an enhancing effect on the Kryptonians. They were stronger, they were faster, they were tougher. On average they were roughly three to four times as strong and fast as your average human. Their senses were also enhanced to roughly the same degree. But none of them could fly. None of them could shoot energy beams from their eyes or shrug off a hail of bullets. None of them could move at supersonic speed or lift mountains.
For the hundredth time Kara's mind moved back to when they had originally discovered the genetic mutation in the DNA of her family, the one that made them different from the old Kryptonians who had built and lost an empire among the stars. It was this mutation that enhanced their ability to metabolize solar energy to such an enormous degree. Kara had assumed that this mutation had appeared in her species at some point after the collapse of the Empire, either accidentally or by someone's design. With only two living Kryptonians (plus one human-Kryptonian hybrid created from one of them), who all carried the mutation, it had made sense to assume that it had been a common trait among modern-day Kryptonians, one that no one had ever noticed due to them living beneath the red light of Rao. Checking more recent medical records, of which there were plenty in the Fortress' database, had never occurred to her.
Now, though, it appeared that they had been wrong. They had tested the DNA of over a hundred Kandorians by now, and the results spoke for themselves. None of the Kryptonians in Kandor shared the mutation that gave Kara, Clark, and Kona their powers. Apart from very minor genetic drift, they were the same they had been 10,000 years ago.
"Do you think it's some kind of family trait?" Kona asked, leaning on the back of Kara's chair. "Something unique to the bloodline of the El family?"
Kara shook her head. "No, I already checked that. There are at least seventeen distant relations to our family among the Kandorians. None of them show any sign of the additional DNA strands we have, either. I considered that it might have been the result of some event that happened after Kandor disappeared from Krypton, but that does not make sense, either. I was already born when that happened."
"So it must be some kind of spontaneous mutation, something unique to you and Clark," Kona concluded. "It can't have been triggered by yellow sunlight alone, otherwise the Kandorians would be getting it, too. Whatever caused the mutation in your and Clark's DNA, it must have been caused by something unique that happened to the two of you."
Thinking hard, Kara went backwards through her memories, trying to recall everything that had happened to her before that fateful journey to Earth. Everything that had happened to both Clark and her, mind you. Given that Clark had been born less than half a year before Krypton's death, that was a pretty short list. He had still been an infant when they... Rao, could that be the answer?
"You're having a brainstorm, I can see it," Kona said, scooting closer to her. "What is it?"
"It must have been the escape ship," she muttered, calling up the relevant data. "There was so little time. Dad and uncle Jor had to build almost everything from scratch, powered it with energy sources never meant for that purpose. We launched even as Krypton started exploding, a chain reaction that transformed almost the entire surviving mass of the planet into radioactive Kryptonite."
Kona nodded, seeing where she was going. "That's a lot of pretty extreme conditions all at one time. The trick will be figuring out what factor or combination of factors caused it and..." her voice trailed off, her eyes glued to the screen where Kara had brought up the schematics of the escape ship that the El brothers had built.
"What is it, Kona?" Kara asked, recognizing the exact same look in her daughter's eyes that she herself had probably had a few seconds ago.
"You said that your dad and uncle built the ship from scratch, right?" she asked, receiving a nod. "Including the hyper drive?"
"Yes, the technology had been around since the Empire days, but no one had actually used it for centuries. There were no existing drives except maybe some mothballed ones in a museum, so they had to build their own."
"You also said that Jor-El had previously abandoned his research on the Phantom Zone."
Kona pointed and now Kara could see it, too. She had built a Phantom Zone projector based on Jor-El's incomplete research, so she was familiar with the schematics. She had never noticed it before, but there were some distinct similarities to be found in the design of the hyper drive.
"Given the lack of time," Kona theorized, "they probably used whatever they could quickly get their hands on. Including left-overs from previous experiments."
"Hyper drives utilize some of the same principles as the Phantom Zone projector," Kara took up the idea. "They shift matter into a different dimensional stratum, where the rules of physics are different."
"So instead of flying through hyperspace," Kona agreed, "you and Clark might actually have travelled through the Phantom Zone, or at least a dimensional stratum closer to it than the ones normally used by hyperdrives."
Kara leaned back, her mind running a mile a minute.
"When Sandy first arrived from the Phantom Zone and tried to copy me," Kara said, "the first thing she took from me were those powers that resulted from the mutation."
"Because they were what was most familiar to her," Kona continued the thought. "Because the mutation giving you and Clark these abilities was somehow caused by exposure to the same phase-shifting technology that brought her into our dimension."
Mother and daughter looked at each other with the first glint of hope in days.
"You realize that all of this is just a wild theory, right?" Kara told Kona.
"Of course, so we need to test it."
"We need to recreate dad and uncle Jor's original hyper drive design, not the improved one I created for use in the Justice League Javelins."
Kona rubbed her hands together, grinning. "And then we'll need someone to use as our guinea pig."
Kara raised her eyebrow at her, causing Kona to blush. "Too Luthor-y?" Kona asked.
"Just a little bit!"
Planet Sanctuary, 1,000 years in the future, 72 days before Darkseid reaches Earth
Kara entered the Cathedral of Rao, the gleaming spire's crystal walls being almost entirely transparent to let in the light of the sacred sun. She had never been in this particular cathedral before, but a similar one had stood in Argo City. She remembered how it had looked, the interior basked in the red light of Rao. Now, with Sanctuary's yellow sun shining down on them, it looked... wrong, somehow.
Stopping in front of the stylized image of the sun that dominated the front of the cathedral, she lowered her head and closed her eyes.
"Looking for divine inspiration, sister?"
Kara looked up, seeing Diana standing next to her. The Amazon was looking around, taking in the place of worship. It was very different from the temples where the Amazons prayed to their gods.
"Maybe," Kara said. "Given how things are going, I would take every help I can get."
Diana nodded, being aware of how little success Kara and Kona's experiments had shown so far. By now they were certain that something had mutated the DNA of Clark and Kara during their journey from Krypton to Earth, something to do with the jury-rigged hyperdrive that the El brothers had created using left-over parts from Jor-El's Phantom Zone experiments. So far, though, that was the extent of their progress.
"I am curious," Diana said. "Do Kryptonians actually pray to Rao?"
Kara shrugged. "It depends on the Kryptonian in question, I guess. Our people have always known that the light of the sun makes us stronger, so worship of Rao goes back all the way through our recorded history. As our civilization became more advanced, it kind of shifted away from being an actual religious belief into more of a cultural tradition, I would say. It was just something you did as a Kryptonian, much like many humans in North America and Europe celebrate Halloween, for example, without actually believing in spirits and such."
Diana nodded, understanding. "Yet I have seen many citizens of Kandor visit the cathedral here, many of them even bowing their head in prayer."
Kara chuckled. "Well, their entire city was transported through time to a new world in order to escape the destruction of their planet. I guess that would be enough for many people to rediscover their faith or seek divine guidance."
Sobering, Kara shook her head. "Every Christmas I sing a song with my family, beseeching great Rao to return light and warmth to the world. A tradition. When we started on this journey, I asked Rao to watch over us. Just a habit, really. Now we are here, having succeeded and failed all at the same time, and I wonder whether Rao actually does exist and is just having fun at our expense."
Diana put her hand on Kara's shoulder. "Sister, I know your views on the gods. You have met many beings calling themselves such, and you acknowledge their existence, if not their divinity. Yet have you never wondered about the forces that have brought us to this point?"
"What do you mean?" Kara asked.
"I am talking about your journey through time. You saw that Kandor would be saved, motivating you to be the one to save it. The Flash sent you to the past where you kept Steppenwolf from conquering the Earth, yet it will be you who sends the Flash on this journey. All these events seem to be circles, yet who drew these circles onto the canvas of space and time to begin with?"
Kara scoffed. "If you are suggesting some higher power set all these events in motion, then I seriously question said power's motivation."
"Really?" Diana asked, surprised. "If not for your travel through time, my mother would have been killed and I would never have been born. If not for your travel through time, all the people in this city here would have perished when Krypton died."
"And if not for my travel through time, Darkseid would not have taken my son. He would not be here to menace the 30th century."
"The universe strives for balance, is that not what Metron said, sister?" Diana looked at the idol of Rao. "One does not need to be a believer in any sort of divine presence or higher force to know that things worth achieving always demand a price to be paid."
She turned to look at Kara, now placing both her hands on Kara's shoulders and looking into her eyes. "Now, you may not believe in gods or destiny, sister, but there is one thing you should believe in, because I certainly do. I believe in YOU! I believe that you will find a way! You always do! And you should also believe that we, all of us, will stand with you! No matter what it takes, even if the fires of Hades himself bar our way. We shall stand together and bring Darkseid to his knees."
Diana tapped the symbol on Kara's chest with her finger. "You told me once that this symbol here stands for hope. And it does, because of you. You bring hope wherever you go. Can you not find a little hope for yourself as well?"
Kara sighed. "I wish I could believe that you are right, Diana."
Diana looked into her eyes, then reached down and took the golden lasso off her hip. She wrapped it loosely around her hand and held it out to Kara.
"I believe in you," Diana repeated. "I am convinced that you will find a way! I know that we will defeat Darkseid! Take my hand, sister, and say it with me!"
Hesitating but a moment, Kara took Diana's hand, allowing the coils of the lasso to wrap around her wrist. Sighing deeply, she opened her mouth to speak. Behind them, the idol of Rao gleamed in the light of a yellow star.
Planet Sanctuary, 1,000 years in the future, 63 days before Darkseid reaches Earth
"Experiment 318 concluded," the computer voice intoned. "Cell sample subjected to phase-shift, specified radiation wavelengths, and accelerated to hyper speed. No mutation in DNA strands detected."
Kara threw herself into the chair behind her, frustrated beyond belief. Another day, another failure. They had tried so many different combinations already, had shifted so many cell samples through different hyperspace bands, had subjected them to different radiation levels found in the various dimensional strata between their universe and the Phantom Zone, but so far none of it had had any effect. Well, not counting experiments 273 and 298, which had resulted in the cell samples being utterly destroyed.
"What happened to us, Clark?" she muttered, looking into the distance. "What changed us so much during that journey where you slept in my arms? Why can I not figure it out?"
Closing her eyes, she saw the interior of the escape ship, barely large enough to accommodate an adult Kryptonian. She saw the grey walls, the tiny view port. She felt the cushioned cot she had been lying on, remembered the feeling of baby Clark resting in her arms.
"Could the suspended animation be a factor?" she wondered out loud. "The life support system? Some specific stellar phenomena on the way between Krypton and Earth?"
There were too many variables! Too many different things that could have made a difference, an infinite number of possible combinations of factors that could have been in play that day. A complex set of circumstances, impossible to recreate. They just did not know, and time was rapidly running out on them. They could not risk another large-scale time jump, more time disturbances, and paradoxes. They had to figure it out, here and now!
Someone knocked on the door to the laboratory, making Kara start. Looking over, she saw a familiar face.
"Maj-Ar?" she asked, surprised.
Maj-Ar was the senior police officer of Kandor, whom she had briefly encountered during her first visit to Kandor. She had, of course, met him again once they had brought Kandor here and he had been among the first group of Kandorians to be told about the nature of their travel, the time loop, and what awaited them here in the 30th century. She had not seen him since, as he had been busy trying to keep order in Kandor, which had not been an easy feat, especially in the beginning. By now most of Kandor had settled down into a nervous sort of anticipatory calm, uncertain what the future would bring.
"Sorry to disturb you," he said, stepping inside. "I hope I am not keeping you from your work!"
She shook her head. "I would have to be making any progress for you to keep me from something."
He nodded. "The Science Council briefed me on what you are doing, asked me to select a group of volunteers to undergo whatever procedure you came up with."
The Science Council of Kandor was running its own experiments to try and figure out a solution, but so far they were not having any more luck than she had. The same held true for the Brainiacs, for that matter. At this point Kara was honestly considering getting the Luthors involved for lack of a better idea.
As for the Science Council of Kandor, Kara was trying not to let her opinion of them be tainted by how Krypton's senior Science Council had treated the El Brothers and their 'preposterous' idea that the planet might be in danger. Thankfully the Kandorians were, in general, a more progressive and open-minded people than your average Kryptonian had been.
"Not an easy task, probably, right? How large a percentage of the citizens of the Kandor is hating me today?"
Maj-Ar stepped closer. "No one hates you, Kara-El. Sure, a lot of people were... confused at first. Myself among them. But we know what you did. That you saved us. Some may question the methods, some may wonder why more people could not be saved, but that does not change the fact that we are well aware that we would all be dead if not for you. And there is a very, very long line of volunteers standing ready to aid you, just so you know. And I am at the front of the line."
She smiled. It felt good to hear that. "Thank you, Maj-Ar. That is very good to know. I fear, though, that your wait will be quite long. I still have no idea what exactly happened to me and my son that changed us so much. Gave us these enhanced abilities."
"The Council told me about something called the Phantom Zone?" Maj-Ar said, sitting down in a chair beside her. "Something your uncle discovered?"
"Yes," she nodded. "My uncle and father used his research as a base to construct their own hyperdrive. We analyzed his design, rebuilt his prototype, and it does work differently than your standard hyperdrive. It still phase-shifts the vessel it is attached to into a different dimensional stratum where faster than light travel is possible, but we currently think that we actually have travelled part of the way through the Phantom Zone on our way to Earth, rather than 'normal' hyperspace, if there is such a thing."
"And you believe something in this Phantom Zone is the source of the changes in your DNA and gave you all these amazing abilities?"
"It has to be! Civilizations all across the galaxy have been using hyperdrives for millennia, Kryptonians included, without ever experiencing any mutations of the kind we are looking at here. No, something in the Phantom Zone must have influenced us, but I cannot figure out the factors. I have looked at radiation levels, I have looked at phase shift frequencies, I have looked at accelerations, but nothing seems to have any impact on our DNA. At least not the kind I am looking for."
Throwing her head back, she stared at the ceiling. "Maybe Diana is right. Maybe some sort of divine force was in play that day. Maybe some god had fun and simply reached into our ship and..."
"And?" Maj-Ar asked as her voice trailed off.
Kara sat upright again, staring into nothingness. "... and simply rearranged the very building blocks of our bodies, changing us, just like that. After all, it is all just matter and energy, is it not?"
"Eh, right?" Maj-Ar was clearly confused.
She met his eyes. "I think you just gave me a brainstorm, Maj-Ar! Thank you!"
With that she jumped out of her chair and vanished in a blur of super speed, leaving a highly confused Kryptonian cop behind.
"Eh, you are welcome?" he said, speaking to an empty room.
"Wait, run that by me again," Kona said, holding up her hand. "You think... you think it was Sandy that changed you and Clark?"
"Not Sandy herself," Kara answered, rapidly entering data into the computer in front of her. "But we do know that Sandy originally hails from the Phantom Zone. She is an energy being that has the ability to transmutate matter at the atomic level. She can change sand into flesh, can perfectly replicate DNA. When we were in Vega, she entered my body and transmutated the traces of spider venom in my cells. Is it really that much of a stretch to believe that she could also rewrite DNA?"
Kona mused that over, but then shook her head. "But the changes Sandy makes to matter are never permanent. She still cannot perfectly hold her form without that stabilizing bracelet we built for her and even that only works for an hour or so at a time. Without it she needs to constantly redo the transmutation in order to keep looking Kryptonian."
"Ah, but that is in our dimension, Kona. We are talking about Clark and I travelling through the Phantom Zone, Sandy's natural environment."
"Mom, even if you are right and Sandy – or possibly some other member of her species or whatever life might exist in the Phantom Zone – has the ability to permanently change matter while in their natural environment, why would they? I mean, when Sandy came into our dimension, she imprinted on you, yes, but she didn't... you know... try to improve you or something. She merely tried to copy you!"
Kara looked up. "Kona, I know it is a very far-fetched theory, but everything I know about Sandy, how her abilities work, tells me that it is, at the very least, a possibility. And we are rapidly running out of possibilities."
Kona took a deep breath, but finally nodded. "Okay, you are right. So what now?"
"I sent Wally back into the past. Hopefully he should be back any minute now and..."
"Did I hear someone mention my name?"
Mother and daughter turned to see the Flash walking into the laboratory, accompanied by a much smaller figure.
"One express delivery from the 20th century," Flash smirked, giving a jaunty salute. "Flash delivery, when it positively absolutely has to be there on time!"
"Hello Kara, hello Kona," Sandy greeted them cheerily. "Wally says you need my help?"
Planet Sanctuary, 1,000 years in the future, 55 days before Darkseid reaches Earth
Sandy closed her eyes, concentrated, and a surge of energy travelled through the apparatus Kara and Kona had constructed with some aid from Brainiac 5. The energy hit a small cell cluster suspended in an anti-gravity field and suffused it for several seconds. There was no outward change to the cells, of course, and the energy died down again a moment later. Sandy's body, which had briefly started to shift back into sand, resumed its standard shape as a young doppelganger of Kara.
"Okay, DNA scanner is running," Kara said, eyes glued to the screen in front of her. "And... Rao, there it is!"
She pointed, both Kona and Sandy looking at the screen as well. The computer was running a comparison between the unchanged Kryptonian DNA of the citizens of Kandor and the mutated one carried by Kara.
"Additional DNA sequences detected," the computer announced.
"It worked," Kara said, voice full of wonder. "Your power mutated the Kryptonian DNA in these samples."
Entering another series of commands, the cell sample was subjected to intense solar radiation.
"Cells are absorbing the solar energy," the computer said. "Absorption levels exceed normal Kryptonian baseline by 600% and climbing."
"It's working," Kona said, not quite believing it.
"It's all just matter and energy," Sandy said, shrugging. "I am afraid, though, that our success here is not really going to avail as much. My transmutations are kept intact by the presence of my energy field. Without it..."
There was a sizzling sound and the cell cluster burned up in the intense solar radiation.
"Damn it," Kara muttered.
"But... but that's progress, right?" Kona asked. "I mean, it did work! Just for a few seconds, but now we just need a way to make it permanent. Without people burning up, of course."
"I wish I could give you more information on how my abilities work," Sandy said, sitting down next to Kara. "I have no idea how I do what I do, though, it just comes naturally to me. And I have no memory of my existence before I left the Phantom Zone, so I cannot say what I may or may not have been able to do then."
Kara patted her shoulder. "I know, Sandy. I am very grateful for your help. I think we are on the right track, but sadly I have no idea how to continue from here. And our time is rapidly running out."
She stared at the readouts in front of her again. They almost had it, she was certain. Sandy was the key. But so many questions remained. How to make the effect of her ability permanent or at least longer lasting? How to apply it to thousands of people at once with just one Sandy present?
For a moment she considered the machine she had built back in the 20th century, how it utilized Infraspace Theory to change the informational sublayer of the universe to create Boom Tubes. Maybe she could use it here, too? No, that would not work. Her jury-rigged replica of a Motherbox had barely been able to open a Boom Tube by using a pre-recorded frequency and only with the aid of a computer program utilizing a world-sized war machine for processing power.
"How about an actual Motherbox, though?" she wondered out loud.
"What?" Kona asked. "What about a Motherbox?"
"The Motherbox I used to have," Kara explained. "It was a telepathic computer. The most advanced processing engine in the universe. Maybe if we had one of those..."
Her thoughts were interrupted by a group of Legionnaires entering the laboratory. Imra was leading them, the winged figure of Dawnstar behind her along with Brainiac 5.
"Sorry for interrupting you, but it looks like we have one more time loop to close."
"What?" Kara asked, standing up. "What are you talking about, Brainy?"
The Coluan brought up new data on the monitor in front of them.
"In preparation for the upcoming battle, we have gone over every single scrap of data we have regarding Darkseid and his initial incursion. We are trying to find weaknesses in their technology, their tactics, everything. While doing that, we noticed something peculiar."
Dawnstar stepped forward. "I was present when the initial Boom Tube opened into UP space. Well, I will be present, rather, given that it won't happen for another 50 days or so, but that's beside the point. I observed the opening of the Tube and the emergence of Darkseid's fleet. Something peculiar happened during that emergence, though with everything else that happened, I completely forgot about it."
"Brainy asked me to go through the memories of all the Legionnaires present that day," Imra took up the explanation, "in order to make sure that nothing was overlooked. I was able to help Dawnstar remember that incident, every detail of it."
Imra closed her eyes and sent out a telepathic broadcast to everyone present, sharing the memory she had seen. It was in deep space; the Boom Tube was opening far ahead. Dawnstar's unique tracking power was like an extra sense that no one else had, and Kara's mind needed a moment to interpret it. It mostly resembled smell, her mind resolved, and while the stench of those ships emerging from the tear in space-time was foul, something else briefly flashed across her awareness.
A small object crossed the course of the invading fleet, moving so fast that Dawnstar's eyes would have missed it had she blinked in that second, but her tracking power did not miss anything. The object smelled familiar. Almost like...
"That's me," Kona shouted, surprised. "You saw me? But... oh no, more time travel?"
Kara remembered how she had crashed into Darkseid's flagship upon her arrival in the 30th century to confront him about her son. She had seen damage already done to the bridge of that ship, had thought it to be a remnant of the war against New Genesis. Thinking back, though, it had looked like a small body had smashed right through the bridge at high speed.
"Okay, so apparently we send Kona back – or forward, rather, from our current time – to intercept Darkseid's flagship. Why, though? Obviously not in order to stop him. So why...?"
"Because they just opened a Boom Tube," Kona shouted, snapping her fingers. "Something they do using their Motherboxes. Didn't you just say we could do with a Motherbox?"
Mother and daughter shared a long look, then simultaneously shook their heads and groaned. Time travel! It really did make one's head hurt!
Planet Sanctuary, 1,000 years in the future, 41 days before Darkseid reaches Earth
Kara gently touched the Motherbox that Kona had acquired thanks to a quick jaunt through time. The target zone being in deep space, they had been unable to use Flash's time travel abilities, as there was nothing for him to run on. Brainiac 5 had come through, though, outfitting Kona with a smaller version of the same time travel mechanisms used in the Legion's time spheres. What with Kona being near-invulnerable, she had not needed the protection of an Inertron-forged shell, though her baby girl had still called the experience highly uncomfortable. She had come through, though, as Kara had known she would.
She briefly wondered why it had been Kona and not her to undertake this mission, but quickly answered her own question. If it had been her, she was not sure she could have focused on simply acquiring the Motherbox, not with both Darkseid and Clark standing on that bridge.
Once again Kara marveled at the ingenuity of these telepathic computers. So small, yet far more capable than all the computers aboard the War World together. The calculations it performed for her at the mere prodding of a thought would have taken any other computer decades to perform.
"So, is it going to work?" Kona asked, watching as her mother interacted with the Motherbox.
Kara looked up at her.
"I think it will. But we have to work fast. We are almost out of time!"
"Let's get started then!"
Mother and daughter sat down at their workspace and began.
Edge of the Sol System, 1,000 years in the future, the day Darkseid reaches Earth
The forces of the United Planets had known that this day would come for some time now. They had armed themselves, they had gathered, they had recruited allies far and wide. The entire might of the largest, most prosperous, most diverse civilization in the history of the Milky Way galaxy stood ready to face the onslaught, all fearing that it would not be enough.
First the very fabric of space began to waver, as if the heat of the sun made the air ripple, but there was no air here. A hush settled over the assembled defenders, as the very universe seemed to hold its breath in dread and anticipation.
Finally, somehow audible even in the vacuum of space, came the sound of the end of the world.
BOOM!
"The Hour has come!" a crazed voice shouted, blasting across all frequencies and languages. No one among the defenders knew that this was the voice of Glorious Godfrey, insane messenger of Apokolips, red-headed god of words and lies. They only heard his voice and felt the foundations of their sanity tremble.
"HE has come!" Godfrey shouted, causing communicators all over the assembled fleet to screech in protest. Godfrey had died in the War of the Gods, but the Omega force had ripped him from his slumber, for his master still required his services. "Who is beyond Good and Evil? Who is the Rock and the Chain and the Lightning? All Powerful! All Unforgiving! All Conquering! Who is your New God, now and forever?"
A shadow fell across the system and darkened the sun. The icy chill of deep space grew even colder as all hope was abandoned. As his flagship emerged from the Boom Tube, the most powerful being in creation stepped forward and beheld all that he would conquer today.
"Darkseid is!"
End Chapter 99
Author's Note: Well, you did not think it would be quite that easy, did you? One thing that always bugged me about many of the pre-Crisis stories was that any Kryptonian (or Daxamite, for that matter) just had to step into a patch of yellow sunlight and presto, instant Superman-level powers. Always seemed way too easy to me. Great power should only come about due to extreme circumstances. What exactly those circumstances were? Well, some things need to be saved for future chapters, but a lot of hints were given here.
Kona's side quest through time to acquire a Motherbox was briefly shown as a flash forward in chapter 67.
Now, the stage is set. The combatants are ready. Time for the big showdown in our landmark 100th Giant-Sized chapter of The Adventures of a Super-Family. Up, up, and away!