Disclaimer: I do not own Justice League, nor any of it's associated characters. All original characters are copyright me, and may not be used without permission.
"What's going on?" Adam asked, rising and walking around the corner. He suddenly stopped, the two moving to intercept him hands out stretched. He was pushed back, before they spoke.
"Who is she? We have to know right now." the voices were urgent and insistent. So he told them. They collapsed backwards onto the sofa. "She's it." Rayner breathed.
"She's what? Your turn to explain." Rayner replied with what he knew. Several things fell into place.
"Oh. That would explain what Sinestro is after her for then." Adam shook his head. "Is there anything we can do to help her?"
"Yes, get her home, or he'll keep coming after her. We can't use our rings within a certain distance, but it's a much shorter distance on earth. However, if we're correct, his won't function either." Kyle grinned. "However, we think she can focus it."
"So even if he's out of range?" Adam grinned as well. "Oh, that's good to know. Fate is going to sift through her memory in the morning, if we can figure out how she got here, we can get her home again."
"Good. Now, let's see if she can get our rings to work again." The process took some time, but after an hour, the rings were working again. "Thank you, I know it was a difficult thing, but we do really need them."
"It's alright, but I think it's time I go to sleep." she was exhausted, so Kara showed her to her room. Kyle and John left shortly afterwards.
I remained awake, for a little more than half an hour, rigging new wards, some twelve hundred feet out around the house. I wasn't in the mood to take chances, so these were not only attuned to Sinestro's energy signature, but would deliver one massive jolt along with alerting us. Hindsight says I should have known better than to set it for only him, and use only two wards. But I'm not always omnipotent. After settling the ward in place, I stood, and headed down the hall, and found Kara leaning against the doorway to the guest bedroom. Juliana was laying asleep on the bed, curled into a ball. I slipped my arms around my wife, hugging her tight. "Are you doing okay? I know you aren't alright, so I won't ask."
"I'll be okay." she replied, leaning against me. "She looks so much like us."
"Well, she is our daughter. Even if she's not ours." I shook my head. "I guess that's why Fate is how he is, travelling between dimensions like he does. It get's pretty confusing."
"Yes, that must be it. Does she have to leave?" Kara asked suddenly.
"Yes, she can't stay here, she'd never be safe." I leaned close, and kissed her cheek. "Of course, that doesn't mean we can't see if we can have our own." she giggled, cast a glance back through the door, and led me down the hall.
The cat prowled the halls at night. Watching not only for the occasional mouse, stupid enough to enter the building, but also for wandering children and anything out of place. Satisfied that all was in place, the cat climbed into his favorite chair, and curled his tail about himself, slipping into a shallow slumber. It was not long before his slumber was disturbed, and instantly, he knew something was wrong. He was more intelligent than the average cat, which was already quite smart, and he changed his form as he leapt from the chair. Now from a small house cat, he became a jaguar, lunging through the room, and down the hall. He hit the door once, then a second time. It gave beneath his weight, the sound startling the intruder within. A blast of gunfire winged the cat, but he hit the human full in the chest, snarling wildly, both in pain and exhultation. Claws tore into his prey, drawing a scream of pain from the man. The cat moved for the kill, but pulled up, sensing a second intruder. This time the bullet missed completely, reflexes throwing the cat sideways. Instead the round killed the first human. Powerful teeth tore into the leg of the second man, who cried out in agony. Now the human in the bed finally came awake. Pain of an aching sort hit the cat, as his teeth tore a piece of muscle from the intruder's leg. The muscle fell, and the cat looked around. Green flames gently licked from the gaping hole in the chest of the man leaning against the doorway. Finally his human stumbled into the room, the man wearing only the weird leg coverings the humans insisted upon. The cat knew instinctively this was not what delayed him. Knowing the house was now safe, the cat returned to normal size, leapt onto the bed, and began to clean his fur.
"Juliana? Are you alright?" I took gentle hold of her shoulders. "Hey, look at me." I coaxed. She looked up, tears in her eyes. "Oh, it's alright. Come on, it's okay." she collapsed forwards against me, crying softly. Most people say you need eight hours of sleep a night. I've never believed that, and right at the moment, I was glad. Something had kept me unconscious, but I wasn't quite sure what. At the moment I couldn't check, instead I focused on the young woman before me. The tears didn't last long, and after a moment, she was simply whimpering into my shoulder. My wife slipped into the room. She saw I had things in hand, and instead, carried the bodies out. The guns were held carefully by their silencers.
"I heard a scream, and woke up. He was... just standing there screaming, and I..." Juliana twisted away, and dry heaved. I helped her up, and and into the bathroom, then held her hair. Kara slipped in, and took my place half way through. I stood, and moved carefully outside. I stepped outside, and had a similar reaction. But I managed to keep control enough to halt. Instead, I pulled into my cold, mechanical personality, and inspected the corpses. Rather than trying to remove the ski masks they wore, I simply made them temporarily invisible. They were obviously not low class thugs, but professionals. That made our feline defender perfect. Lots of professionals expected dogs. None of them ever suspected a cat, particularly one that could grow to the size of a Jaguar. With my assistance, he could grow to the size of a tiger, but it wasn't often needed. After returning to the house, I found Kara and Juliana sitting on the couch, the former with her arms wrapped around the latters shoulders.
"Honey? Are you okay? I mean, they didn't hurt you, did they?" she shook her head. "I'm glad."
"I think the... cat, got to them before they could hurt me. Can... can I sleep in your room for the rest of the night, just in case." she asked. Kara tightened her grip momentarily.
"Absolutely." she answered. I nodded in support.
"Go ahead and get back to sleep, I'm going to recheck the wards." I announced. Kara nodded, and led Juliana off to bed. I slipped into a meditative trance, and reached out first to the huge ward. It had been caught, and tampered with. I'd been sent the jolt, instead of it going the other way. The near ward had been changed as well. I couldn't see Fate and Zatanna's just off hand, but I knew they'd have been altered also. I reset the two wards, and added a snap line between them. Any altercation to either would result in a complete magical discharge of the full energy of both into whoever was manipulating the ward. I decided that would solve most of the problem, and settled a third ward inside the second,and outside the first. Then I enhanced the house's shields until only a physical attack could break through. Which would break the whole house. I returned to the bed room, and sat in a chair, letting them take the bed. Kara curled protectively around Juliana, and they went to sleep. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and began to meditate.
Any other time, the night might have passed uneventfully, but this time it would not happen. I had defended the house against outside, intruders,but had failed to check the house for those inside. So that the instant Kara's scream of rage woke me, was the same instant I felt the shields breached, from within. She didn't stop to think of the consequences, but simply exploded up from the bed, and through the roof. I did something similar, but instead jumped straight into the twins room. They were safe and unharmed. The next instant I was outside, flaring thousands of joules of light across the lawn. I saw the truck race away. Kara was on it instantly, racing to catch it. I radioed for an emergency protection for the twins, which arrived in the form of Steel and Doctor Light. I tore off after the truck a split second later. As I caught up with it, I saw Kara rip the rear door off. She tumbled to the ground, the lead shielding from the door pulled over her. I exploded forwards, anger fueling me. A burst of unshaped magical energy disintegrated the Kryptonite. I was fully aware that I was burning magical energy at a vastly acclerated rate, and sought to end it quickly. Kara was back beside me, as I stretched out to rip the tires off. A huge robotic hand caught us both, and slammed us into the ground. Another of Ashmore's enourmous creations, there wasn't time to fight, but it refused to let us by.
"Catch the truck, I'll deal with the robot." Kara commanded.
"You're faster, I can kill it. Save her." she looked closely, as if to make sure I wasn't doing something stupid, and then bulleted sideways, and around the robot. It turned towards her, and I blasted it, drawing attention back to me. I stretched out, and sent tendrils up into space. I litterally had a single shot at this.
Kara raced away from the robot, searching frantically for the truck, and then saw it. She dove, accelerating, and finally hitting the hood, driving the engine completely out of the truck. Rising up from the wreckage, she reached out, and ripped the cab off the truck. The two thugs in front, were robots. Heat vision sliced a hole into the rear of the truck.
"Such a fool. As if you could really stop me." the man spoke out of a dark hood. Sinestro stood next to him, ring dark, holding Juliana, who struggled violently. "It is time to leave." Kara found herself immobile as the hooded man swung a staff, opening a tear in space, and stepping through to a desolate planet, with huge towers in the distance. "Good bye, forever." The opening flared and faded. Kara collapsed to the floor. Moments later, an explosion rocked the van.
A massive detonation some ten blocks away marked the arrival of the meteor. It didn't decimate a city block, or even damage the facings of the buildings. Instead it hit the huge robot square in the head, going nearly seven times the speed of sound. The head crinkled, and then wrenched the head, shoulders, and most of the arms down into the chest. The robot fell. Power drained almost completely, Adam tumbled the ground, managing just enough energy to save himself from death, he settled feather soft the ground.