Disclaimer: I do not own either Young Justice or its related characters. Such are the property of DC Comics, Warner Bros. Entertainment and Cartoon Network. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.
Tomorrow
Chapter Two: Its Just a Jump to the Left
A flash of silver steel in dim light.
A splash of blood, flowing freely from an opened well in the chest.
With a start he jolted awake.
Groaning, the bat-clan's Commander pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead and heaved a heavy sigh. Just a dream –technically a nightmare. Well, a nightmare by most people's standards, for a citizen of the Gotham Territory and a veteran of Old Gotham City before that it was just a dream. More specifically a dream of a memory. A memory of an event that had not yet happened –at least, not on this end of the timestream. The Commander slithered one hand under his pillow to touch the bo-staff he'd layed there just before going to bed. He always kept it close. Like a best friend, one that wouldn't throw a bitch-fit and leave him for how he chose to cope. No. He wouldn't think of Superman right now. Not when there were other matters to weigh on his mind.
Heaving a second, heavier groan, the Commander rolled off his narrow bed and padded his way to the bathroom.
Bracing scar-torn hands on the sink, he glared at his reflection in the mirror. Stringy gray hair hung in his face and the Commander ran a hand through it in an attempt to bring it back under some semblance of control. He glared at his reflection, blue eyes studying the face that he sometimes forgot to recognize as his own. The eye were still bright and keen and rarely missed anything, but the face they were set in was now wrinkled and creased with far to many frown lines and far to few smiles.
He had been a Robin, and he had been a Batman, now at the age of fifty-four he was the Commander. One would think he might consider himself lucky to have not only managed to survive the Light's meta-sapien soldiers, Apokolips' invasion, the deaths of over half the Justice League and Team, and all the civil wars that followed –especially with no powers of his own and nothing but his wits and a belt full of gadgets to carry him through. But the Commander didn't believe in luck. If he ever did, he certainly didn't anymore. The Commander made his own luck.
Of course, he also had a bit of an unfair advantage. The Commander knew his future. Well… the major events. There were some things that still managed to take him by surprise. But the big Earth-shattering events and major personal events he had a fairly decent mental outline for. Most notable of which was his own death –his own death at the age of fifty-four. Soon, now…
But damn it all to hell if he wasn't going to go down fighting!
A knock on the bathroom door drew his attention. He kept a batarand taped to the underside of the sink, and another one behind the toilet. Never allow yourself a moment's vulnerability, he always told himself and those whom worked under him. Even if they do catch you literally with your pants down, don't let them catch you with your pants down. The 'rang was in his hand before the Commander even thought about it, arm raised, poised to strike should he need to. "State your name clearly!"
"Its me, Old Man." Came the familiar voice of a young man in his late teens through the old wooden door. "Terry."
McGinnis. The kid he was training as the new Batman. The Commander lowered his weapon but made no move to open the door. The boy knew his policy on disturbing him without a summons. "What do you want?"
"Just an update." Terry explained. "The Sentry system we salvaged from the old Watchtower picked up a temporal disturbance a few minuets ago. Mar'i already went to go check it out. She told me you'd want to know about it right away, even if I had to wake you up and dodge batarangs and bullets to do it."
The bullets comment was, of course, referring to the old glock pistol he carried with him on missions. It was the very same gun that had killed Bruce Wayne's parents all those years ago. Now it was repurposed, taking the lives of criminals rather than innocents. It was an idea that had struck the Commander in one of his rarer moments of dramatic flair. There was a kind of poetic justice in it.
His throat tightened at the words 'temporal disturbance'. He gripped the sides of the sink, remembering the flash of silver steel in dim light, the SHEEING of sliced air and spurt of fresh blood. White knuckled, throat dry, he managed to croak, "Where?"
"Forty-one point eight two three nine degrees north, by seventy-one point four one three three degrees west." Terry supplied, obediently.
"Rohde Island." The Commander growled. "The Justice Crater?"
"How'd you know?" The boy sounded genuinely surprised. "I guess that's why you're the Commander."
He took a few calming breaths. Things seemed to finally be coming full circle now. Instantly, the Commander's mind began to run through every possible detail that could be changed, every move he could make differently than what he remembered himself making the first time around. But then, that brought up the Barjavel Paradox. His mind instantly changed gears and began contemplating possible methods to counter a paradox.
That was the problem with time travel. Well… that was one of the problems with time travel. Most people liked to believe time traveled in a strait line. Like a train running on its track. A plus B equals C. But sometimes time could loop back or skip forward and then loop backwards again, folding in on itself more like a celtic knot, bobbing, weaving, always intertwining –connecting things that shouldn't be connected. Y equals M multiplied by X plus B. The problem is, if Y has already happened, then it doesn't matter what variable you assign to X or what action you change for M, they will all still come out to Y.
With a conscious effort, the Commander forced himself to relax his hands. Letting go of the cracked porcelain sink before he strained something. In an even, controlled voice, he asked, "Is the Comm-Set up and running today?"
"Yes…" Terry began slowly. "But the last magnetic storm knocked out a lot of the towers. The signal wouldn't be able to reach outside of the city. The short-wave is always working, though."
The Commander rolled his eyes and fought the urge to sigh. "And did Nightstar take a radio out with her?"
The other side of the door was silent one… two… three beats before the young Batman admitted, "I don't know."
This time the Commander did sigh. Sometimes it was hard to believe that this boy had been partially cloned from Bruce Wayne. "If she did take a radio with her, tell Nightstar to forget the trio and come strait home. If she didn't take one, then don't worry about her, she'll be fine. Page Rip Hunter and tell him I want a progress report on his Time-Sphere on my desk by o' nine hundred. After that, dust off the old teleprism and tell Superman we need to talk."
If the young Batman wondered why his Commander assumed Nightstar would find a 'trio' at the source of the temporal disturbance, he did not ask. Instead he focused on the rare order to not only use the little bit of kryptonian crystal-tech they had, but to also call the Fortress of Paradise. "He gets mad when I drop your name."
At that, the Commander smirked. They had once been great friends. The 'Finest' of friends some might say. But that was years ago. They were different people back then. But it was a true testament to just how close they had been to one another that the mere mention of the Commander's name could affect the Superman so. "Then drop it twice."
Of course… that same reason was why he'd forbidden Mar'i from ever speaking Superman's name within his earshot, and he'd never even allowed Terry to learn it.
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tick-tock
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Kon with Tim on his shoulders and Bart by his side going only maybe about half his top speed, did not stop until they were well into what had once been Pennsylvania. Finally pausing for breath and finding shelter under a partially collapsed overpass. What might have at one time been the junction of the 70 and 76 freeways.
"Are we safe now?" Asked the demi-kryptonian. He let the Boy Wonder slide off his shoulders before sagging with unfamiliar exhaustion, placing his fingers on his temples and massaging his head. He had had his tactile telekinesis for seven months thus far and while he did use it often, he hadn't really ever used it for such a solid block of time before. Clearly, some version of stamina training was in order.
"Well, no one's shooting at us." Tim observed. He might have been wearing his Halloween costume, but the little Robin was still a bat and always had his belt on him. From it he withdrew a pair of binoculars and began scanning the skies for any sign of a dark haired, gold skinned beauty with a 'shoot first and ask questions later' attitude. "And that Star-something chick doesn't seem to be following us."
"Nightstar." Bart corrected. "Yeah. They don't usually travel this far west. To hard to maintain."
"Maintain what?" Kon asked.
"The territory." Elaborated the speedster. "Everything between Providence, Rhode Island and Annapolis, Maryland is under the Commander's protection."
Tim pursed his lips in sudden consternation. For some reason, when Bart used the word 'protection' it couldn't help but sound like 'control'. But what worried the little Robin more was that right smack dab in the middle of that stretch of land would be Gotham, New Jersey. Bruce had always harbored some slight autocratic tendencies. He usually managed to keep them pretty well in check most of the time, but in a post-apocalyptic setting such as this, Tim could easily see him taking that little sidestep into full-blown autarch. Bruce would be in his late seventies by this time, he wouldn't be able to swing around as Batman anymore, but he could still fill the position of a 'Commander'.
"What about Metropolis?" Asked Kon. Delaware was nestled just inside the southern border Bart described.
"What about it?" The speedster shot back.
"Well, where's Superman?"
Bart's eyes darkened. "Superman's territory is the Fortress of Paradise City State, in Kansas."
And he said no more on that score.
Tim did not like the way the speedster had said 'Superman' either. More than that, he didn't like the image of this future Bart was painting either. It was starting to sound like the Justice League had carved up the country (possibly the continent, hell! possibly the world!) into a series of feudal states with a Leaguer ruling each territory. At least, that's what the Robin was inclined to deduce. He was more than happy to have his deductions proved wrong. After all, he was operating on incomplete information. But if it were true… Tim wasn't quite sure how he felt about that. Perhaps it made sense at the time? He just didn't understand enough of the current times or the events that lead to it.
Tim was ambivalent. He needed to know more before he could form a clear hypothesis.
"Okay, Bart, we need you to explain to us what happened to cause all this." Began the Boy Wonder. "Don't speak yet, we're gonna do this in baby steps. First, why is it raining ash?"
"It's the aftermath." The speedster began. "When Apokolips invades a planet, they do this totally mode thing where they try to make it like their own. They bore these shafts way down into he core of the planet, like one giant lava vent that spews directly from the molten core to the surface. Think of them as super-volcanoes uniformly spaced over the planet."
"Shit!" Kon exclaimed. "Why didn't the League stop them!?"
"They did! …Eventually. But…"
"But the damage had already been done." Tim finished for him.
"Yeah." Bart nodded soberly. "Most of the shafts are dormant now. Some of them have been plugged up completely and the pressure dispersed through lots of smaller channels. Nathan says the clouds are actually thinning a bit which is totally crash, but it'll be something like another fifty years before we see any natural sunlight again."
"No sun light!?" Needless to say, the Superboy was alarmed by this news.
"No natural sunlight." The speedster specified. "The places that've got power make their own UV lights for growing food and stuff."
That made sense, Tim nodded. No matter how the world changed around them, people would always need three basic things: clean water, food and shelter from the elements. To get food, no mater what kind of 'food' it was, they would need the sun. Whether it was from vegetation, animals that ate the vegetation, or animals that ate the animals that ate the vegetation… It all hinged on the sun's life-giving rays. If the Earth was blanketed in clouds that the sun couldn't penetrate, then people would just have to make their own sunlight. It made sense.
"What about the places that don't have power?" Kon asked.
Bart tensed ever so slightly before answering, "They either trade with the places that do –mostly scrap metal or whatever else can be salvaged from the old cities-, or they… get stuff through other means…"
"Marauding?" Tim offered.
The speedster nodded. "Basically."
"Tell me about the territories." Commander the Robin.
"After the Team and League crashed the mode and repelled the Apokoliptan invasion, the world was in pretty bad shape." Bart began slowly. "The governments had collapsed, there wasn't really any other body to step in and fill the vacuum. Most of the big cities were destroyed and a lot of the useable land kinda dead-ish. People and places that had resources became targets for those that didn't… There was fighting."
"War?"
"Yes." He nodded.
"Son of a bitch!" Kon exclaimed.
"After a while, certain members of… our community lets say, not necessarily League, not necessarily Team; they realized to maintain some version of peace they'd have to switch gears from masked avengers and shining heroes and become actual leaders. That's when the territories started forming. Superman built a new Fortress in Smallville; the commander started in Gotham and began expanding out along the coast until he reached the limit of the area he could actively maintain. Raven and Animal Man went out west, I think they're in California or something-"
"Who're Raven and Animal Man?" The Superboy blinked. They didn't know anyone by those names.
"Oh, right. That hasn't happened yet."
"Lets not get side-tracked." Tim tried to keep them on point. "Since they're so far away, I'm going to assume that they won't effect us all that much. What's communication like between the territories?"
"That's a tricky answer." Bart admitted. "The Commander's got a set of communication arrays that should be able to reach as far as the Mississippi, he calls it the Comm-Set. But every time there's a magnetic storm, almost all the towers go down. Superman gave out a few of these things he called 'teleprisms' to some of the traders that the Fortress of Paradise does business with. They're kryptonian crystal-tech and I have no idea how they work. Then there's always short-wave radios. They're the most reliable form of communication."
"Where did you fit in, in all of this?"
"I was with one of the nomad groups. We scavenged what we could from the cities and traded with the territories. Those of us with skills over even powers might have done a few odd jobs here and there. Whatever we could to get together the materials to build the Time Capsule."
"That's the thing you arrived in, right?" Asked Kon.
Tim rolled his eyes at so obvious an answer.
"Yeah."
Tim cut in. "So, since you were with a nomadic group, its safe to assume you know the lay of the land pretty well. Kon and I need to get back to our own time. Where should be start?"
Bart was silent a moment, thinking. Finally, he said, "DC. When we were building our first time machine we scavenged most of the zetta-tech we used from there. But we didn't take all of it. There might still be some usable parts there. There's also a coal-mining town not to far from there. I've traded with them before."
"Alright then." The Robin climbed back up onto the Superboy. "Lead the way."
It didn't take them long to reach Arlington. From there it was just a hop, skip and a jump to the Hall of Justice. They climbed the cracked and broken stairs, picking their way over up-turned concrete, protruding rebar, and the remnants of what might have been Abrams Tanks or alien war machines. The metal was so misshapen and discolored by age and weathering it was hard to tell. Certainly it didn't belong in a normal city.
The lobby doors (what was left of them) hung open, bent and dangling from half-broken hinges. Just inside, the statues of the Founding Seven members of the Justice League were just as broken and torn as the lawn outside, some even toppled over, laying as nothing more than shattered pieces on the ground. Kon saw this and couldn't help but be reminded of the training simulation Batman had put the Team through back in that first year. Had the Dark Knight known something like this was going to happen? Unlikely. But he certainly understood it was a possibility and just look at the world now. Looks like he was right. Where was Batman now? Kon wondered. Was he killed at some point in past forty years? Or was he still alive and kicking, maybe in Gotham, helping (or fighting) the mysterious 'Commander'?
Clark was still alive. Bart said he had a new Fortress in Kansas. What happened to his old one? Up in the arctic north. They had done most of their training there. What about Lois? Was she in Kansas with Clark, or had something happened to her in this laps of almost half a century?
The demi-kryptonian was startled from his thoughts by a loud, gurgling growl next to him. Kon looked up to see Bart had his hand pressed to his stomach.
"Sorry." The speedster smiled sheepishly. "I haven't eaten anything since we left the Cave."
"Of course." Sighed the Superboy. "How could we forget the appetite of a speedster." He wandered over to where there had once been vending machines up against a wall. In his own time they were always fully stocked with chips, candy bars, gum, soda… The machines still stood there, but they were near empty now, void of whatever snacks they might have held. Except for one that stood slightly tilted at an odd angle, hiding what looked like a Snickers. "Anybody got a buck?"
Tim walked right up to the machine and shoved his red-booted foot right through it. The glass shattered and the Boy Wonder pulled out the lone candy bar, tossing it to the Boy of Steel. "This is the end of the world, Kon. I don't think the American dollar's gonna mean much here."
"Oh. Uh, right." He turned and offered the bar to Bart.
"Uh, no thanks." He waved it off. "If it wasn't made by Hostes then it's not safe to eat."
"Hostes? Really?" Blinked the demi-kryptonian.
Tim just raised an eyebrow behind his Scarlet Pimpernel mask. "Do you know how many preservatives they shove in those things? I swear, cockroaches and Twinkies, they're the only things that could survive a nuclear bomb."
"Oh, I'd love a good Twinkie right now." Bart sighed.
"I bet you would…"
All three turned at the voice underlined by the familiar and distinct draw of a bowstring.
She had the high ground, perched atop the smooth remains of one of the fallen statues. Later thirties, more likely early forties, short black hair, eyes hidden by a domino mask, dressed head to tow in red and black. The bow in her hands was old and well used –and very familiar- but the string was new, the arrow homemade and fletch with nylone.
"Nobody comes to the Hall, unless they're looking for something." She said. "And I'm betting it's more than a candy bar. Now, who are you?"
"Red Arrow!" Bart smiled up at her. "Red, its me!"
The woman glared down at him, her eyes narrowing behind their domino mask. "I don't know anyone who dressed all in blue."
"Huh? Oh, right. The costume." He vanished for a split second, then reappeared at her side and plucked the arrow from her bow. "Sorry. It was Halloween back in 2016."
"What the-!" She exclaimed in shock. Then her mind processed. Super-speed… 2016… "Allen, damn you! How many time do I have to tell you not to do that!? You- you… you're supposed to be in the past! What are you doing back here!? And who are your friends? I've never seen their colors before. Can we trust them?"
"Sure, you can trust them." The speedster said matter-of-factly. "The orange one with the helmet and rose-tinted visor is Skywalker and the one in red with the flower in his chest is the Scarlet Pimpernel."
"Never heard of them."
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Clark-Peter Ross, only child of Pete and Lana Ross navigated the narrow corridors of the Fortress of Paradise. Most of the city-state had been constructed from the remains of old Smallville and the weapons of both the former United States and the enemy. Wood frames, plaster or stucco interiors, armor plating on the exteriors. CP had just spent the past half-hour in front of the teleprism, ignoring other important tasks to tell the Batman in as many ways were humanly possible (some less polite than others) that Superman was unavailable. That the Man of Tomorrow had no desire to speak to the Commander or any of his underlings and so if this wasn't an emergency and the Earth was not about to be hit by a large meteor, or invaded by space-ninja vampires, then Superman had nothing to say.
At that point, the young Batman heaved an exasperated sigh and begged Clark-Peter than if he wouldn't go and get Superman, then could he please take a message? Fine. CP supposed he could do that. So, that was what brought him to this moment, stepping out of the dimly lit corridor out into an open field bathed in beautiful golden sunlight.
CP wasn't actually an errand boy. At the age of forty-one he was head engineer of the Fortress of Paradise. No one knew more about kryptonian crystal-tech except him and, of course, Superman himself. The name 'Fortress' was a misnomer.
It was really nothing more than a dome. One large, crystal bio-dome construction over the whole of the old Kent property and a few corners of the neighboring properties here and there (not that things like property lines mattered anymore). Atop the dome was the solar antenna, which relayed yellow solar radiation through or around obstacles it wouldn't have otherwise been able to bypass. It was what had allowed Clark to get sunlight at any time, day or night, back in his old Fortress, the Fortress of Solitude. Now, Superman used it to bypass the cloud-cover and pull life-giving sunlight directly into the dome and breath life into their fields. Almost every inch of ground inside the dome was devoted to food production, the area divided into fourths. One fourth for plating for eating, another fourth planting for other things (animal feed, medicine, ethanol), one fourth for animal grazing and the final fourth to be left fallow for rotation.
The city was built around the dome. Technically outside of it, room inside was to precious. But every building, every pathway, every corridor, every structure was paneled and armored.
Clark-Peter worked in the solar antenna. He was in the middle of training some of the younger technicians when the call came in on the teleprism. Calls on the prism were rare, most territories and traveling groups preferred the short-wave. So, CP had taken the opportunity to give boy a little tutorial on how to use the crystal-phone. He hadn't expected to get in an argument with the Commander's errand boy.
The fields were divided by four paths, all running from opposing points of the city to the center. There was only one thing in the center of the dome, the only thing not directly related to food production.
A house.
The dome was wide, and from far away it looked like little more than a shack. But as one draws nearer it becomes clear that it was at one time a very quaint farmhouse, the kind that only exists in stories. With a wide wooden porch and wicker furniture on the deck. However, it was not to this house that CP was headed. He turned off the path about half-way to it, hopping a corral fence and weaving his way between dull cows more preoccupied with chewing their cud. He found Superman kneeling over a downed heifer.
"Easy… easy, girl…" He whispered to the cow, one calming hand resting on the side of her head, the other over her swollen and pregnant belly.
It was sometimes had to believe that this… boy was the Man of Tomorrow. He looked so young. No older than sixteen. He didn't even shave! But then, he had always looked like that, for as log as Clark-Peter could remember… He wore old and faded jeans that had been patched and repaired so much, they barely looked like denim anymore. The colors of his shirt were so faded, the logo was almost unreadable as 'John Deer' anymore. That was fine, John Deer hadn't existed for many years now.
"Easy, girl. Its gonna be okay." He soothed and CP watched in awe as a cut appeared over the cow's belly as if cut by an invisible knife. Clark-Peter knew about the Superman's special power, but it was still eerily unnerving to watch it in action. The heifer began to struggle. "Hey, hey, hey, your baby's gonna be just fine."
"Want me to hold her?" Offered Clark-Peter.
"No. Stay where you are." The Superman commanded.
The invisible knife arched over her belly, giving the cut a distinct C shape and the next moment, Superman was pulled an infant calf from its mother's womb. Clark-Peter saw the problem instantly; the calf hadn't turned right and would have probably killed both mother and child to have been born naturally. It was lucky Superman caught it. Nobody liked to think about the consequences of lousing even one of the herd before it's appointed slaughter time. The calf climbed onto unsteady legs and Superman turned his attention to patching up the baby's mother. A needle stood at the ready, already threaded, stuck in a cushion in sitting on top of an old and well worn work-bag. CP watched mesmerized at the needled floated out of its cushion of its own accord and began to stitch up the Superman's surgery.
When it was over, he let the heifer go. Standing and replacing his needle and cushion back in the workbag which he threw over his shoulder. "What can I do for you, CP?"
"Batman called."
As expected, the Superman's eyes darkened just noticeably. One day, Clark-Peter promised himself he would work up the courage to ask what had happened between them. They were once Finest friends, now it seemed like they hated one another. Passionately.
"What does the Commander want?"
They turned and made their way over the field towards the house.
"Batman said the Commander had something important to tell you."
"The Commander thinks everything that comes out of his mouth is important."
Clark-Peter smiled to himself. "That's what I told Batman. But in the end I promised I'd pass on a message to you."
They were at the house now, the old Kent farmhouse. Superman held the door open for Clark-Peter.
"What was the message?" He asked, pulling an old dog-eared farmers' almanac off a shelf and flipping it open. Some of the pages were falling out and the spine was threatening to crack down the middle, but Superman seemed not to notice as he flicked through the pages.
"I'm supposed to tell you, in these words exactly, 'That thing that happened before has come full circle. I will need you at the end.'" Clark-Peter relayed obediently.
"Well that's horribly cryptic." Superman snorted.
"Batman said the Commander was sure you'd understand."
"Mm." Smiled the Man of Tomorrow. It was nice to see that the Commander still held such high opinions of his deduction and code-breaking skills. The problem was, there were so many things that happened to them before –back when they were still fiends- that were coming back to bite them in the asses now. It was hard to decide which thing he was talking about. …And then Superman turned to the page he was looking for and it hit him like a tone of bricks. Today was October the 24st. They hadn't celebrated it in over thirty years, but it was a week before Halloween! And it was 2056. The almanac slipped from his hands, the spine breaking on the floor, pages going everywhere.
It was amazing how time gets away from you. You live your life day to day and before you know it, forty years have passed…
Clark-Peter knelt down to pick up the pages.
"What is it? What's happened?" he asked. But when he lifted his head there was only empty air where the Superman had been standing.
A moment later, the Man of Tomorrow appeared in full colors. High-collar blue bodysuit, red boots, red belt, red cape. The S-shield bold on his chest in red and black over its background of blue. "CP, can you supervise the harvest in the west field for me? There's somewhere I've gotta be."
…And then he was gone.
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