Clash of the Heroes
Chapter 3: Light-Years Away
Rogue landed on the hard concrete, scraping her cheek viciously on the granite. She groaned and slowly lifted her head. It looked like she was in an alleyway. Well wasn't this just peachy? How many people did a girl have to snap before she snapped herself? One minute she was minding her own business, in the kitchen at the mansion making herself a snack, happily bantering with some of her mates and poof she was in… where the hell was she? Her hands moved on the ground her black gloves ripped and dusty, but she pushed herself up nonetheless and made it to her feet. Where were Kurt and Kitty anyways? They couldn't be too far; they had been standing right next to her in the kitchen and Beast too.
She turned her head to the right and left, looking around. Of course she would find herself alone in a dark alley. Luckily the entrance wasn't too far off and she made it safely into the hustle and bustle of the street. But what street, in what town was the question. She was well versed with street life and she started to make her way around. Her years on the street helped her out in the end and Rogue snagged a paper from the stand before the guy who owned it had the chance to blink. She walked quickly around the block and looked down at the paper. Metropolis. Where the hell was that?
Rogue looked around swiftly and saw an older man in a nice looking suit. He had kind eyes so she took her chances and went to talk to him, "Excuse meh, sir?"
He looked up at her, noticing the white streak in her hair and shaking his head, probably assuming she was a hoodlum, answered, "Yes?"
"Ah seemed to have gotten maself all turned around and ah see ah'm in Metropolis, but ah was wondering if ya could tell meh exactly where that is."
"Why in Kansas of course."
"Kansas!"
The man nodded his head slowly, "Where are you from, my dear?"
"Ah'm actually from New York."
His eyes bulged slightly, "New York? Well you're a bit aways off, but you don't sound like a native New Yorker. I must say I don't know how you got so turned around, but oh I must go my limo's here. I hope you find your way dear."
With that the man entered the stretch limo and was gone. Rogue sighed and wondered what she was supposed to do now. She looked around and then noticed a phone booth, when was the last time she saw one of those? Anyways she pulled out a quarter, thank goodness for loose change and dialed the mansion. To her utter shock and disappointment the number she dialed was not in service. She knew she had the right number because she'd dialed it a million times before. Just what the hell was going on?
._._._._.
Kurt and Kitty landed in a heap of tangled limps and wriggling bodies. They coughed and struggled as a foggy haze washed over them.
"Ow, who's elbowing me in the side?" Kitty whined as she finally regained her bearings enough to phase through the other person and land on all fours. The fog started to clear and large red combat boots came into her line of vision attached to a man wearing a red cape with some big muscles.
The man stared down at her with a face of complete shock and amazement.
Kurt shifted his weight, "I hate it vhen you phase zrough me like zat Kitty."
"Kurt," she tugged on his sleeve.
"Vhat?"
Kitty tugged even harder so the blue mutant rolled to his other side coming face to face with the same red combat boots that Kitty was obviously trying to tell him about. Kurt looked up meeting the blue eyes of a man wearing a surprising combination of red and blue spandex. Although Kurt's neck hurt and he was pretty sure he busted his tail he jumped to his feet pulling Kitty with him and shielded her with his body.
"Vho are you?"
"I think I'm the one who should be asking you who you are," Superman countered. His amazement wore away and now he wore an expression of weariness. Just because the girl didn't look like she was any older than fifteen didn't mean she couldn't pack a punch, he'd learned after many years not to judge a book by its cover. And it wasn't an everyday occurrence that a blue… person fell through a portal onto your spaceship.
Kurt kept a trained eye on the man noticing that a woman was standing a bit behind him (was she related to Angel because she had the exact same wings as him except his were white and hers were gray). Not to mention the fact that she was wearing a mask, didn't look friendly, and had a not so friendly looking metal mace. An ally right about now didn't sound too bad. Then he saw the third person of the trio. He was a weird looking greenish guy with red eyes and a stoic expression. Great they were confused, lost, and outnumbered. Could things get any worse? Kurt glanced around then took hold of Kitty's hand and transported them to the magnificently large windows at the top of the odd shaped building.
"Hey!" Superman yelled as the duo disappeared into a puff of red smoke.
Kurt landed by the window on the second level and gasped.
"Is… is that the Earth?" Kitty whispered.
"How in ze vorld did ve get here?"
"I don't know, but how are we going to get back down there?"
"Hawkgirl, J'onn, search the perimeter they couldn't have gotten too far!" they heard the red and blue spandex wearing man yell to his comrades.
Unfortunately it seemed like Kurt and Kitty weren't in a good position at all. They were definitely going to need help getting back to the Earth or they might have to hijack a shuttle? Would one of them even be able to fly it, she wondered. Could it be that different from the Blackbird? Probably. Kitty looked down from their hiding place on the second level just when the woman with wings went to fly up.
"Eek!" Kitty yelped as she moved back just in the nick of time.
"There you are! What are you doing here?" Hawkgirl yelled at them, pointing her mace and hovering in the air.
"Look relax, we didn't come here for a fight. We don't even know how we got here so maybe if you could just put down the weapon we could talk," Kitty tried to explain.
"Over here Superman!" Hawkgirl called, and then turned back to the pair, "like I'm going to put my weapon down while you're here."
Superman landed on the second level a good distance away from them and by Hawkgirl. He wasn't sure how strong they were, they looked kind of scrawny but one of them did have some kind of teleportation power so they couldn't be too careful.
"Look we mean you no harm. We're from Earth and we have no idea how we got up here so Ms. Attitude over there just needs to relax."
Hawkgirl's mouth dropped open, "What did you just call me?"
Hawkgirl leapt from Superman's side and charged at Kitty. Kitty's eyes popped, who knew there was someone who had a shorter temper than Rogue out there. Kitty jumped to the side landing on her feet and keeping her eyes trained on the opponent.
"Hawkgirl!" Superman yelled.
"Che," Hawkgirl mumbled, "This isn't over." She jumped back flapping her wings once and landed in the spot she had started at, next to and a little behind Superman.
"Relax Hawkgirl," Superman ordered then turned to the others, "She didn't mean to do anything to you; we were just surprised by your sudden appearance. I'm Superman and this Hawkgirl."
"I'm… Shadowcat and this is Nightcrawler."
The quad stared at each other seemingly not to know what to do next.
Suddenly Kitty touched her head and looked around, "Hey where's that other guy? Is he trying to read my head?"
Kurt snorted, "You just noticed now? He's been trying to read your mind since ze second ve landed on zis ship."
"Well I was a little preoccupied since someone was jumping at me with a mace to really notice it right away."
Clark and Shayera's eyes both opened wide.
J'onn then materialized by Clark and Shayera with a troubled look on his face, "Are you telepaths?"
"If ve vere telepaths, you vould already know vouldn't you?"
"Then what are you and where do you come from?"
"We're mutants from New York," Kitty stated. She hated to just tell people that they were mutants right off the bat, but with Kurt it was always pretty easy for people to guess. Although maybe these people were mutants too since the lady had wings just like Angel.
"What's a mutant?" J'onn wondered looking towards Superman and Hawkgirl. He hadn't lived on Earth for that many years so he wasn't sure if it was just him that didn't understand the term or not.
"Huh? How do you not know what a mutant is?"
"Maybe it's something like the Green Lantern Corp and we've just never come into contact with it before? But I find that odd because I've never even heard of it before and I've passed through thousands of different galaxies already," Shayera rationalized. Then she turned to Kurt, "Where are you from?"
"Galaxies?" Kurt asked in wonderment.
"We're both from New York, I said."
Shayera rolled her eyes, "I got that you're from New York, I meant what planet are you originally from."
"From Earth, of course! What are you talking about?"
"I'm asking him," she pointed at Nightcrawler, "what planet he's originally from."
"I'm originally from Germany."
Shayera slapped a hand to her forehead and decided to let Superman take over.
"What Hawkgirl meant was she's originally from Thanagar, J'onn is from Mars, and I'm from Krypton but now we live on Earth."
Kitty and Kurt's mouths dropped open and they looked at each other in bewilderment. Had these people from other planets been living in a spaceship hovering over Earth for all these years without anyone ever noticing? Of course with all the mutants in the world they would never be able to tell the difference between a mutant and an alien. Felt really weird to say that.
"Um, I've heard of Mars," Kitty attempted.
"And you haven't ever heard of the Justice League or Superman or Hawkgirl?" Clark asked.
"Should ve have?"
"I think we've got a lot to talk about. Would you join us in the dining hall?"
"Zat sounds like a very good idea."
"Yeah since you didn't get to eat your peanut butter and jelly sandwich before," Kitty nudged Kurt playfully.
"I vonder vhose fault zat is," Kurt smiled, keeping Kitty within arms reach at all times. Not because he couldn't bear to be apart from her, although he couldn't deny that that was part of it, but because he was still nervous with these people they didn't know. They were trapped in a spaceship above Earth, outnumbered, with no knowledge how they got there and how they were supposed to get out. He wanted to be able to grab her and teleport as quickly as possible if necessary.
"Peanut butter and jelly?" J'onn wondered.
._._._._.
"Hey Bats."
Bruce turned around to see Flash standing behind him with a cheerful-as-always grin on his face. He was rolling from his toes to his heels in his usual manner.
Batman sighed, "What are you doing here?"
"I came to ride with you, aren't you excited?"
"If you'd call it that," Bruce mumbled.
"Hmm?" Wally asked leaning closer to Batman.
"Nothing, we better get going."
Bam!
Batman jumped to the side and Flash being his namesake was out of the way in a flash. Wally looked down at the duo that had literarily just fallen into their laps.
Scott groaned and looked up to see a guy in red and yellow spandex staring down at him. Before he could even decide what he wanted to do he had his hand to the laser projector attached to his vision and he pushed the button.
"Hey! If I wasn't so fast you would have fried me!"
Scott turned his head abruptly to see the guy who had just been standing in front of him was about twenty yards away and then wham he was right next to them again.
"Where did you come from? Well hellooo there, ms gorgeous," Wally had moved around Scott in an instant and was helping Emma to her feet.
Emma retracted her hand immediately when she realized it was a stranger, "Who are you?"
"Oh she's British, I love British accents," Wally laughed attempting to copy the way she spoke.
"Get away from her," Scott yelled, sending another beam towards the Flash.
"Jeez you're really trying to fry me aren't you? Well if I just take your cool eye gear then I bet you won't be able to do your neat little trick anymore," Wally said then in a flash he had Scott's gear in his hand.
"No don't!" Emma screamed. She already saw it was too late and changed her skin to diamond at the last possible moment. Cyclops hit her with a huge blast and she shot across the cave and smashed into the wall with a terrifying crack.
"Emma!" Scott yelled in panic, attempting to cover his eyes as the laser beams shot all around the cave.
Flash stared flabbergasted as he avoided all the laser beams shooting around the cave.
"Hurry up and give those back to him Flash!" Batman roared from behind a rock pillar.
In a moment Scott had his eye protector back in place on his face and he could see clearly. One guy was wearing an all black suit with his face covered and the quick one who had been goofing off. Scott looked around hurriedly and when he finally noticed Emma he dashed over to her.
Bruce glared down at Wally, "You just destroyed my cave."
Wally laughed slightly, scratching the back of his head, "It was an accident. More importantly, what are we going to do Bats?"
"I don't know yet."
