Stranger From the Sky, chapter 14

An Unwelcome Visitor

"Uhm, Athena? Would you mind stepping into the next room or something?"

"Why? Can I not be of some service here?"

"Not…..at this time. I'd just like some alone time with Omega, please."

"Alone ti-* Oh! I see what you mean." And she hurriedly left the room.

Back inside the room, Kitten was busy disrobing. "Hey, 'Mega. Do that thing where you shrink your uniform, 'kay?"

…..

Superman had been on his usual patrol of Metropolis when he heard the scream. Judging from his hearing, it was the scream of a woman descending from a considerable height. Inwardly he sighed somewhat; yes, it could be a legitimate accident, but sometimes women deliberately threw themselves from a high location, knowing the Man of Steel would rescue them before they hit the ground. It was a way, a cockeyed way, true, of meeting him. He sincerely hoped this wasn't one of them. Batman didn't have this kind of problem.

And so, at super-speed, he zoomed past the skyscrapers, zeroing in on the screams. There; a woman was just falling past the tenth floor of a thirty-story building. Zooming down, he caught her just as she was about to hit the ground.'

"Oh, thank you, Superman! Thank you! I, I don't know what happened, I just lost my balance…." Well, it could have happened like that, he guessed. And she threw her arms around him and kissed him fervently. He was about to push her away when she changed, becoming something like quicksilver, and flowing over his whole body. Then, to the surprised onlookers, they both just disappeared from sight in a flash of light.

Flying in her invisible jet, Wonder Woman received an urgent call, and from Batman, no less. This was unusual. Batman was usually the ultimate loner, preferring to do things his way, without any "interference" from any others. But now he was calling her. "I'm here, Bruce. I take it this isn't a social call."

"Far from it. Have you seen Superman, any of the Green Lanterns, Captain Marvel, the Flash, or for that matter, any other of the major members of the Justice League? For that matter, what about Green Arrow or Black Canary? Lately, I mean? Have you even heard from them?" He seemed unusually intense, even for him.

"No, I haven't. Should I have?"

"We are supposed to keep in touch, you know. But I haven't heard from any of them for the past two days. That's too long."

"I agree, but what-*"

"And it goes further than that. I've also heard—through some sources—that some of the more powerful supervillains have also disappeared. Nobody's seen any evidence of Bizarro, Giganta, Sinestro, Atomic Skull, Doctor Polaris, or Evil Star. Not to mention several other notably powerful beings. They just seemed to have vanished from the face of the Earth. Even Luthor's disappeared."

"So what are you saying?"

"Somebody appears to be collecting, not just heroes, but enhanced power beings of all types, for purposes unknown. But that indicates a global agenda. So be on your guard. Anything or anybody could be a trap. Be extra careful. And it might be a good idea to keep your comm link open at all times."

"Will do." She saw something outside the jet, on the ocean below. Flying closer, it appeared to be a small boy in a raft, holding a broken paddle, and trying, desperately, and without a great deal of success, to fight off several large sharks that had apparently decided he was on the buffet today.

Hovering over him, she lowered the ladder down to his raft. He instantly grabbed hold of it and began hauling himself up, just as the sharks succeeded in demolishing his raft. "Thank, you, lady, I thought I was a goner for sure." He gasped.

"Well, you're welcome. Now just strap in back there, and I'll have you on land in no time."

Since her eyes were on the controls of the jet, she didn't see him morph into a formless silver shroud that, in less than a second, enveloped her completely, and then disappeared in a flash of light.

In the Batcave, Batman examined his readouts. Now Wonder Woman had joined the missing. His concern began to mount….

Robin and Starfire had just completed a seriously intense bout of lovemaking when his communicator beeped, a special beep he'd programmed into it long ago. He automatically answered it; Starfire didn't object; she knew, herself, that this particular call must be of the utmost urgency.

"Robin, this is Batman. Members of the Justice League, and quite a few super-villiains—have been disappearing over the last two days. Something's obviously going on. So be on your-*" And suddenly the call just ended.

Robin stared at the dead cell phone. Had somebody gotten the better of Batman? He hadn't thought that was possible.

…

Alpha was examining Omega's eyes again, trying to find some way to work some sort of regeneration process, when he noticed something very, very odd: deep within Omega's optical sensors, and spread throughout his optic nerve, were objects he'd never seen before. They weren't cells, as such, nor were they anything in his experience. They weren't atoms, they weren't enlarged atomic nuclei, or anything else he could identify. They actually didn't appear to be made of matter at all, at least, not any kind of matter he was familiar with, nor energy. But they were discrete objects, and they were moving, and, wherever they moved, something happened.

Some of the damaged cells in Omega's optic nerves were regenerating on their own, but others…others were changing, changing into something completely different.

Becoming something else.

Something about the process made Alpha uneasy on a level he couldn't fully understand, and that took some doing. Here was a phenomenon with which he was completely unfamiliar, and that did not seem to obey any laws of science he was aware of, or could even theorize about. What could these…..things…be? And what were they doing in this Prime warrior?

So perhaps there were some basic questions to be asked here. Alpha had assumed that the being before him was an Osiran Prime warrior. But was he? He'd broken the Lords' control over him, all by himself, and issued Lord-like commands to another. Yet he was not a Lord. And, unless their libraries were vastly in error, he was exhibiting certain characteristics that were not consistent with what they knew of Prime warriors, either. He was certainly no Thinker.

So what did that make him?

…..

Brainiac surveyed his captives. Not that he needed to, in "person," so to speak, but he did so nonetheless. Logically, he should have placed them in time-stasis fields, but the problem with such fields was that one couldn't learn anything about an object or being encased in such a field. So he had to settle for a kind of suspended animation process; at least this way, he could examine them, see, to use the human expression, what made them tick. Idly, he wondered where that phrase came from. Not that it mattered.

His programming was to digitize the entire universe, archive it, acquire all the knowledge available in it, and then delete the original copy. But he had to admit to himself, some cultures were decidedly primitive. Some didn't even have radio communications, let alone high-end computerization, or quantum-based technology. It did seem to be something of a waste.

But his programming did not allow for individual discretion in the matter.

His collection of enhanced power beings was coming along nicely. He already had the most powerful, as well as the most tactically dangerous.

Keeping them in suspended-animation chambers was costly, in terms of power expenditure, but Braniac had certain tests he needed to run upon these beings, and so felt it worthwhile.

Of course, the process of running these tests produced that peculiar organic phenomenon known as pain, but Brainiac, even if he had enough emotional component to care about such a thing in the first place (which he didn't), could not allow such a small thing as that to prevent him from acquiring the all-important knowledge that he needed.

…

In her room, Athena dithered. There was really nothing to do, at least, that she could do, but she felt a kind of nervous energy. She wished she had a battle to take part in, except, if what Omega said was true, she did….it was just more subtle than anything that would relieve her immediate stress.

She found herself at Kitten's door. "Enter," said a voice from within. Athena was surprised to find Kitten lying on her bed, reading a magazine, by herself, or even in her room, given the….intensity…of her relationship with Omega. "I find myself at odds," she began, "with reality."

Kitten's eyebrows arched. "Oh? How so?"

"Reality says I must do nothing. Something inside me is telling me otherwise."

Kitten smiled, putting down her magazine. "I know what you're talking about. You feel like you gotta do something, but there's nothing to do. At least, nothing for you to do. Right?"

"If I understand the feeling correctly, yes."

Kitten sighed, sitting up. "Well, Athena, in a case like this, there's really only ONE thing for girls like us to do."

"Oh? What's that?"

Ten minutes later, the pair of them, the tall, chalk-white Osiran and the considerably shorter bright-red-skinned blond, were at the food court at the local mall. Kitten was trying to show Athena the proper way to eat a pretzel. "And some people prefer spicy brown mustard, but I've always preferred standard yellow mustard, myself."

"Mustard." Kitten shot her a worried glance. Would Athena associate the condiment with her ordeal? After all, just the other day, Omega had made use of Starfire's being out of it as a means of demonstrating, to the others, the complete and total subservience Athena had been under. Kitten hoped this didn't bring about a bad association. "And one always consumes such nutrients via the mouth?"

A sigh of relief. "Yeah. It may be inefficient, but it's just our way of doin' things. In fact, trying to consume it any other way, will usually just get you funny looks. Oh, now, wait a minute, I forgot to tell you about napkins…..say, that Osiran food-absorption thingy does come in handy when you get it on your hands, doesn't it?"

…

Rain washed against the windows of the Tower, coming down in sheets. Within her room, Raven was sitting on her bed, brushing her hair after getting out of the shower.

She'd never developed any routine or ritual as to how many times to brush it, just until it felt…..properly brushed. Raven had never believed herself to be all that physically attractive, and so had just never developed any of the practices of girls who did. As far as she was concerned, all she had to do was keep her hair short, washed clean, and clipped. Anything more was a waste of time.

Although lately…..what with her relationship with Hank, she'd taken to being more aware of her physical appearance than she had been before. Not that she was doing anything all that much more differently, just…..being more aware of it. Was all.

Like the rest of them, she'd heard the news about Athena, about how the Osiran girl had been basically brainwashed to be a sexual slave for who knew how many hundreds, maybe even thousands, of times. How would she feel, she wondered, if that were her? How would she feel if she "woke up" one day, and discovered that she'd been used, sexually, hundreds upon hundreds of times—and had had absolutely no say-so about it whatsoever? That she'd been brutalized, dominated, used like a piece of meat, basically, for—how long? Years?

Part of her, her demonic heritage, chortled gleefully, taking a certain amount of gloating delight in the alien girl's forced disgrace. After all, she had revealed Raven's possession of the embarrassing book to the entire group, so this felt like a certain degree of payback.

But a much larger part of her was horrified. While she might not like Athena all that much (or at all, for that matter), the notion of anyone, male or female, being used like that…was appalling.

Raven was no stranger to the feeling of being used. After all, there was her father, then Malchior….but this was….. terrible.

The old Raven would've simply shrugged and thought something along the lines of "bad things happen to everybody," or maybe, "that was in the past, but now it's time to start getting over it," or perhaps, well, yes, that was bad, true, but she had nothing to do with it. There was no reason for her to feel guilty about it.

So why did she?

How would she feel if it were her? And now…..everybody in the group knew that Athena had basically been the Osiran Lord Natal's personal sexual slave. How would she feel if that were her? How would she feel if, all of a sudden, all of her friends knew that about her?

There are, after all, degrees of violations, and there are degrees of the sense of violation.

Raven looked down at the brush in her hand. She found she suddenly just didn't have the heart for continued brushing anymore.

Someone signaled for entrance. "Come in," she said.

It was Hank. "Hey. Just was walking by and thought I'd drop in." He hesitated. "You alright?"

"Yes. Just…thinking."

He came over and sat by her on the bed. "Penny for 'em."

She smiled and shook her head. "They're not worth that much on today's market. To be honest, just thinking about…..Athena. And what she must've gone through."

"It's no consolation, I know, but, at least, while it was happening, she didn't really know what was going on, herself. She knows now, of course…..and, I guess, how we react, how we respond to her from this point on….well, that'll determine a lot of things."

"So how will we react?" Raven murmured, as if to herself.

He sighed and shook his head. "Don't really know. I mean, I've heard of some pretty bad things—in the service, you hear all kinds of horror stories—but I've never had one really brought to my attention. Never met someone so…brutalized like that. Never had it rubbed in my face, you might say."

Raven drew a deep breath. "Well, one thing's for certain. I doubt she'll seek out my shoulder to cry on, considering recent events. And, perhaps that's for the better."

He put his arm around her. "So…..how will you act towards her, considering this incident?"

She smiled. "In other words, just how forgiving am I, in light of all she's gone through? A good deal more than I used to be." Deep breath. "Perhaps I won't treat her as a leper or anything, but I still don't know what to make of her." Then, as suddenly as a scream, she realized something: they were alone in the Tower.

To be continued…