Chapter 6: Feeding Time.
"What in the hell was that?"
Personally, Harry thought that question was more than fair, but at the same time, it was one that was extremely difficult to answer. Even more so when you took into account the fact he wasn't certain what exactly happened himself.
"What's the deal with the ring anyway?" Chloe asked Harry, who shook his head.
"You tell me, and we'll both know," Harry muttered, the ring was suspended above the table and encased in a bright glowing light. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop or perhaps the ring to do something beyond making funny noises. He crossed his fingers that nothing too….insane...would happen, but at the same time, he knew that there was a chance that the ring could punch a hole through time and space.
Kara turned up then, dressed in a night shirt that went down to her knees. Several other members of the Legion joined them and once they did, Chloe was quickly in her element.
"Shrinking Violet, Dream Girl, make sure the front entrance to the base isn't damaged, and that nobodies trying to break in!" Chloe ordered the two newcomers. She focused intently on the ring although she had to turn her mind back to the matter at hand. Her eyes flashed violet as she focused.
At exactly the same time Chloe's eyes flashed, the ring stopped glowing and dropped into Harry's hand. The once plain gold ring, now had a glowing inscription circling it that most certainly hadn't been there as of three minutes ago.
"Okay, this….this has just gone from kind of really fucking weird, to really fucking strange," Chloe stated after taking note of the new addition to the ring. So far, all was calm right now, but that didn't really mean anything. Chloe knew better than to think that just because things were calm now, didn't mean it wasn't just the calm before the next storm.
Karen showed up then and she looked ready for anything to happen, before she stepped into the room fully, she paused to look over her shoulder nervously.
"There was an explosion in Room Three!" Tinya said as she popped up from the floor below them.
"Room Three, well that's not good," Chloe muttered to herself. She was trying to keep a positive spin on everything, but even she knew that if anything escaped through the portal in that room, it would be game over for them all.
"What's not good?" Harry asked her and Chloe was all too happy to explain the situation to him, at least the best way that she could.
"Room Three contains a portal to the Phantom Zone, some of the most dangerous criminals in the twenty eight galaxies were imprisoned there, but….if a rift has been torn in the dimensional barrier, anything could have gotten through," Chloe stated, without taking a breath. Not that she needed to given her upgrades, but breathing allowed her a connection to her humanity.
Harry remembered running into several mentions of the Phantom Zone during his research into the Veil, but this was the first that it had really been brought up during a conversation outside of that.
"Time and space functions differently in the Phantom Zone than it does here," Karen stated, picking up where Chloe left off. She had been trapped in the Phantom Zone for a long time, what seemed like decades from her perspective, thankfully for her sanity, she managed to keep her wits together. The fact she didn't break mentally during the time she spent trapped there showed the true strength of her character.
Given that nearly everyone trapped in the Phantom Zone hated Jor-El and to a lesser degree her mother, she was very fortunate not to be hunted as someone's trophy. Of course, she wasn't stupid enough to broadcast her identity.
"The security system isn't showing anything out of place," Imra said from the console she was using to scan the facility. "However, given the unpredictable nature of a rift in time and space, it could happen two minutes from now, or ten hours in the past. Until we know for certain whether or not there's a breach in Room Three, I've put the force fields up."
"That should buy us about seven minutes and forty nine seconds," Chloe muttered as she bit down on her lip so hard that it left an indentation.
Kara and Harry locked eyes onto each other, considering the mental bond that they shared, it was obvious that they knew what the other was thinking. Never the less, emerald green eyes met ice blue and Kara was the first one to speak, mentally at least.
'What if the ring drew them here?' Kara questioned him over the bond.
'Don't think I haven't thought about that already,' Harry responded, he had this sixth sense that usually warned him when shit was about to hit the fan. He thought that he might have developed it sometime after he merging with the Hallows, but perhaps he had it before then and was simply unaware of it until afterword's.
He needed to fine tune it however, but sometimes it was on the ball and when it was on the ball, it was really on the ball.
"Stay sharp, Kara," Harry whispered into the blonde's ear, nodding she swallowed a lump in her throat as she maneuvered her way into position.
Chloe frowned as she shifted through the security footage that HQ's camera's had recorded in the last couple of hours. Perhaps it was a just false alarm, a false alarm would actually be the best that they could hope for. Any number of things could have come through from the Phantom Zone and given that they had a wing dedicated to celebrating the life of the son of Jor-El, it wasn't going to end well for any of them if whoever came through ended up being hostile.
"Nothing yet so far ," Chloe muttered as she answered the unasked question.
"Oh there's something out there alright, we just haven't figured out what it is yet," Harry corrected her her as he cracked his neck and stretched his arms. So far, he hadn't heard anything except for the sound of the refrigerator in the next room, but that meant little to nothing.
"Oh and what…."
"We'll find out when it happens," Harry whispered to Chloe as he wrapped his arm around her waist. She closed her eyes, relaxing into the embrace.
Luornu split herself into three, then sent each one down a separate hallway as a way from them to cover a lot of ground quickly. They returned about five minutes later with a frown on their faces.
"Anything?" Imra asked them and they responded in the negative.
"I don't like this," Harry whispered and while there were times where Kara was a trifle bit annoyed about how pessimistic her husband could be, there were times where he was right on the mark and as she felt shivers roam down her spine, she thought that this seemed to be one of those times. Her neck craned back a fraction of an inch as she prepared for what was going to happen next.
"What don't you like?" Chloe asked.
"There's something down the hallway," Tinya whispered, quickly answering the question. The dark haired girl took a half of a step down the hallway, but she couldn't help but wonder if she was walking into a trap.
Thankfully, the other members of the Legion were there to back her up and that was quite certainly a good thing.
Tinya made her way down the hallway as the lights flickered above her head, which caused the tension she was already feeling to heighten even further. They once got their hands on some horror movies from the 20th century, it was a rare find and she knew from her watching them that flickering lights was not a good thing.
"Salu, Luornu?" Tinya asked looking back over her shoulder nervously, she though the her teammates had followed her down the hallway, but the girl weren't there. Letting out a full body shudder, she faced forwards once more and nervously continued down the hall. She stopped sudden when she heard….well, she heard something. It sounded like something straight out of a horror movie from the 20th century.
"Just stay calm," Imra commented right into her ear.
"I AM CALM!" Tinya yelped out out in shock as her heart rate sped up rapidly in her chest, but the way that she said it wasn't encouraging at all.
"Are you sure that you're calm?" Chloe asked with a teasing tone to her voice and Tinya nodded her head, she was sure, oh yes she was very sure.
"I'm pretty sure that the gateway or a rift into Phantom Zone hasn't opened," Harry offered Tinya and her shoulders slumped in relief. However, Harry wasn't done yet. "But just because the Phantom Zone Portal wasn't opened, it doesn't mean that something didn't slip through the barrier between the two dimensions."
Tinya honestly hoped that it wasn't be the Infected. Despite the fact that they remotely destroyed the two vehicles when they escaped from the Forbidden Zone, it didn't really mean anything, since they might have tracked them here, somehow, someway, likely by magic.
Her mind was nervously running a mile a minute, she let out another yelp when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She ended up nearly phasing through the floor, but she caught herself in time and looked up to see Salu standing there, her eyes glowing a weird purplish color.
"You've got to calm down, Phantom Girl," she commented in a breathy voice. "If you don't you could end up lose control of yourself and lose track of the person in the tower as a result."
"Right, right, sorry, Salu," Tinya said, she could barely make heads or tails out of what happened. "Did you find anything?"
Nodding slowly Shrinking Violet lifted her hand up and beckoned for Tinya to follow her.
Phantom Girl shook her head in an attempt to clear it and refocus herself, she knew that there was strength in numbers. So there was no doubt in her mind that once they caught up with Triplicate Girl, she would provide the necessary numbers they needed given her powers.
"I heard something on the other side of this door," Salu whispered as she waved the nervous girl forward.
Tinya grabbed onto the latch of the door and pushed it open. The dark haired female's mouth falling open as she saw something truly shocking on the other side.
Salu was slumped against the wall, with a tired expression on her face, looking like she was suffering from a really bad case of the flu.
"You children are so gullible," the Salu behind her whispered, Tinya tried to scream out for help, but she was cut off by the faux Salu clamping a hand over her mouth. "Your powers are merely something to wet the whistle, I'm going after the real powers later."
Tinya's eyes widened in terror, she couldn't scream, she couldn't fight back, she was pinned against the wall as this parasite drained her of her powers. She felt herself grow drowsy as all the warmth was leeched from her body and when it was finished, she slumped to the ground as the world around her faded to black.
Trailing a tongue across her lips, the faux Salu shifted fluidly into Tinya's form as she turned away from her most recent meal and walked out of the room. The being know Parasite was an old enemy of Superman and had been for years. Unfortunately, the last time Parasite did battle with the Caped Crusader, he'd ended up getting trapped in a cell deep underground. While it wasn't quite the Phantom Zone, it couldn't even drain a cockroach so he had been stuck there until now.
Now, he was in a place where there a lot of young, willing, and powerful females alongside one extremely powerful male. He would taste each one in turn, he had an entire buffet available to him and he would consume all their powers, it would be delicious.
'Ahh the telepath, now this could be tricky,' Parasite thought to himself as he looked around, slinking in the shadows preparing to pounce.
He found himself trapped there against the corner and knew that he was not strong enough to take on a Kryptonian, at least not yet.
"IMRA, GET DOWN HERE! SOMEONE'S DONE HERE!" The Parasite yelled in Tinya's voice as he moved around debris to stimulate the fact that she was trapped underneath it.
The Parasite created a mental shield around its thoughts made up of false memories and it tried to keep its head up off of the ground. There were a few seconds where it gave off the impression that it was trying to push itself free from underneath the debris.
"Help me, help me, help me," he moaned out as he gave the impression that Tinya was to trying to break free from where she was trapped, but there was no easy way out for her at all.
"I'm coming! Hang on!" Imra called out as she scrambled down the steps and she let out a sharp breath when she nearly tripped in her haste to get there.
Tinya was laying there on the ground in front of her, but she also noticed two scrambled and weak thought patterns on the other side of nearby door.
"I think Salu got taken down as well," Tinya whispered tensely, watching with eager eyes as Imra turned her back to her slightly.
Imra moved in the direction of the door, and then stopped suddenly to block an attempt by Tinya to grab her from behind.
"The Parasite," she grumbled loudly as she hurled the creature down to the ground.
"So you about know me, I'm touched," the Parasite said with a creepy leer as it tried to get back to its feet, while still staying in the form of Phantom Girl. "But now you're the one that's about to be touched!"
It tried to force itself onto Imra in order to drain her powers, but she hastily erected a telekinetic shield which the creature bounced off of.
'Harry, Kara, Karen, it's the Parasite! An enemy of Superman, I'm sure you may have come across some information about him in the archive, he already drained Salu and Tinya! Chloe seal all the exits! Make sure he doesn't escape! I'm going to….'
Latching his hands around Imra's throat, Parasite slammed her hard against the wall and keeping her pinned there, he began to feed from her. The blonde strangled frantically against his hold and her eyes practically bulged out of their sockets when she felt her powers being drained from her. She tried to shout out in the hope it would allow the others to find her, but all that came out was a weezing gasp due to the grip Parasite had around her throat. There was nothing that she could do to keep this thing from taking her powers.
"Oh, there's nothing better than your power….well, there is actually something better, that's a Kryptonian," Parasite commented as he dragged Imra's unconscious body into a storage closet.
The Parasite assumed her form and waited to see who would turn up. Much to his agitation, it was not one of the Kryptonians.
"The Parasite huh? Well obviously with a name like that, we know he's some kind of power drainer," Harry commented as he took careful note of his surroundings, trying to find any hint of the creature stalking them.
"Thank you for that impressive deduction, Professor Obvious," Kara retorted sarcastically as she used her X-Ray vision, but she couldn't make out anything of note.
"I snuck a look at the Legion's files," Karen added nervously. "He….he has the ability to drain people and also to assume their forms. So he's pretty much double trouble."
"Wonderful," Harry stated dryly, he wondered if things would get even worse from this point forwards. He knew after encountering Polyjuice for the first time in second year and again in his fourth, that the person next to him might not be precisely who or what they seemed to. So he'd have to double check everyone, even more so than he unusual did.
'Keep your wits about yourself, Potter,' he thought to himself while pondering his next move. His hand rested on the door knob in front from him, and after taking a deep breath, he opened it and shot down the hallway with Kara and Karen following closely behind.
He made his way towards a Storage Closet where he'd heard some panicked breathing. He could tell that the person inside was in a lot of trouble, so there was no time to mess around. Grabbing hold of the doorknob he practically flung the door open.
Imra was slumped up against the far wall, her wrists having been bound hastily to it, she'd have been able to get free easily enough if it wasn't for her current condition. Right now, as drained as she was, there was pretty much nowhere she could go and nothing she could do. Harry moved towards quickly and after untying her hands, helped her up onto her feet.
"Thank you," she managed to rasp out in a near whisper, there was obvious bruising around her neck.
"Providing you are the real deal, we'll find a way out of here, but we've got to find everything else before…."
"I'm the real deal, I swear, Harry," Imra whispered to him and he continued to hold her up, because quite frankly she couldn't stand on her own accord.
Kara and Karen stood out in the hallway near the door, ready to attack at a moment's notice. The two blondes kept a watchful eye out for trouble as Harry helped a third out of the room.
There was a sudden loud crackling noise followed by a hissing in his ear. Harry pulled the communication device free from where it rested in his ear, he examined it closely before exchanging wary looks with the three blondes. The Parasite must have disabled the League's communication system.
"We're on our own now, without technical support," Karen admitted clenching her fist. If he'd done something to hurt Chloe, she was going to take his head off at the first opportunity.
"No problem," Harry commented as he looked around. "We've just got to stick together moving forwards."
"Right, we've got to stick together," Kara agreed, since the Parasite was using divide and conquer tactics, sticking together gave them the best chance to finish this battle quickly.
The Parasite was somewhere close so the quartet kept to the shadows. The lights had gone out with the comm system so Harry was illuminating their path using a charm.
"He hungers for everything but what he likes the best are Kryptonians," Imra informed them weakly.
"Given that he was an enemy of Superman, I'd guessed as much," Harry replied to her, before he looked over his shoulder he could hear a thump, thump, then a crash in the distance.
Karen nearly banged her head off the ceiling when she jumped into the air due to her shock at hearing it, but a quick scan of her X-Ray vision showed that there was no one coming up behind them. Not that it improved her nerves much at all, but she really had no need to lose her head. The blonde turned her head from one side, then turned it to the other, before she felt Harry pull her into him.
"We'll find him, and we'll shut him down," he whispered into Karen's ear and the blonde nodded her head in agreement of his words. She could take faith in that, she knew that Harry wouldn't let anyone down, even when the chips were down. As the three blondes stood beside Harry an idea popped into Kara's mind.
"Don't worry! I've got a cunning plan," Kara whispered excitedly with wide eyes as she bounced up and down so fast it almost appeared like she was vibrating.
Harry raised an eyebrow at that, before asking warily. "Should I be excited or scared?"
"My plans always work!….Except for when they don't work," Kara admitted and Karen corked an eyebrow, before offering a small snicker.
"Well, you can't argue with that kind of logic," Karen stated as the younger model of herself bit down on her lip. The pout that she was giving on her face was kind of adorable, not to mention hilarious at the same time. The older blonde shook her head in bemusement. "So, what kind of plan do you have running around in your devious mind?"
Kara shrugged. "It's kind of a long shot and yes Harry, I know that the long shots are sometimes the only shots we have."
"I didn't say anything," Harry stated, throwing his hands up into the air.
"But, you were thinking it!" Kara argued, she knew her husband very, very well after all the years spent together and Harry had a look on his face akin to having been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
"You do realize that you would be a delicacy to him?" Imra managed, she held her head up and shook it in hopes of clearing some of the cobwebs out.
"Yes, I realize that," Harry confirmed and the smile on his face shifted to a smirk.
"But, you have a….yes, I know you're thinking of something devious," Imra commented. Her powers being all wonky had lead to a headache that made it extremely difficult to concentrate, let allow breath.
"Oh, you're begging to know me well, are you?"
Harry would have taken this further, but he had no idea where Parasite was. Given that he absorbed Shrinking Violet's powers, he could be hiding anywhere the same size of a gnat.
"He never used to be able to chain powers together like this, which mean he's evolved," Imra breathed out slowly, before she felt herself be stricken by a sudden wave of dizziness.
Harry craned his neck from the left to right and then turned back to his wife, it was go time.
"Kara, your plan," he whispered as he kept an eye peeled for Parasite, he figured that they would have only seconds to react when he did pop up.
There was nothing better than a high pressure situation to get the juices running in the morning, least that's what Harry figured. Never the less, he waited for his wife to plan.
"Well, we're going to have to contain him and send him back to where he came from, right?" Kara inquired and there were several nods in agreement at this. The blonde bit down on her lip for a moment so she could review the plan in her head. "So, we need the perfect bait for the trap."
"I'll do it," Karen chimed with a firm and fixed expression on her face, which caused Harry and Kara to turn towards her.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Karen?" Harry asked her and the elder blonde looked extremely focused. It was rather unnerving in all honesty.
"Yes, I'm sure, trust me," she confirmed without a moments hesitation.
"Okay, so now that it's settled," Kara whispered, careful not to give any hint of the plan away to Parasite, in case he was listening. "We're going to have to move quickly."
The plan was insane, however, it just might work. Or perhaps it would get them all killed, there was really no middle ground.
Harry thought those plans were the best kind, but perhaps being put on ice for some long had made him a trifle insane.
The hairs stood up on the back of Karen's neck as she waited for Parasite. The blonde took another half of a step forward and peered over her shoulder once more, knowing that he could pop out of the shadows like a slasher villain at any moment.
'Well, this is it,' she thought to herself, before she frowned. ' It's pretty much, do or die time now.'
She could hear a faint rustling off to the side and the blonde once again wondered if he was trying to lure her into a trap.
"KARA COME QUICK!"
'It's showtime,' Karen thought to herself.
"Tinya! Don't worry, I'm on my way!" Karen managed she moved to push the door open and she could hear the faint buzzing behind her, she turned around to see the Parasite standing behind her. He was wearing Tinya's form, but the eyes were glowing a malevolent shade of purple.
"NOM, NOM, NOM!"
"Okay, that's just kind of creepy and not creepy in the cute kind of way either," Karen dead panned, she dodged around Parasite's attempt to grab her, then sped off down the hallway with the purple people eater in hot pursuit.
'Okay Harry, Kara, your up next I guess,' Karen thought to herself as she flew down the hallway but Parasite had plenty of speed on his own. When he shrank himself down to microscopic size, he could cover a fair bit of ground.
She had an advantage over him though and that was the fact while she was faster than a speeding bullet, he wasn't.
Parasite followed Karen into the next room.
"Come out my pretty! Come out and play! I just want a little taste," Parasite whispered disturbingly as it moved to search the room. "You see, that's the trouble with you broads! You say no, but you don't really mean it."
Seeming to appear out of thin air, Harry trapped him within a containment field. The Parasite gave out a shrieking moan as he collapsed to the ground. The next spell the emerald eyed wizard used siphoned off the stolen energy that the Parasite took and returned it to those that he stole it from, along with giving them an immunity to his powers in the future.
"You dare!" Parasite yelled, he was now a burning purple mass of puss and it was not a sight for the weak at heart.
"I've dared for years," Harry remarked dryly and then the Parasite got excited as he looked at Harry.
'And he now he has one of those, I'm going to molest you and take your powers faces,' Harry thought to himself with a shake of his head. He had run into those looks far more often than he would have cared to admit. Fortunately, he knew exactly what he had to do.
"Oh, so much power, this is going to be so good!" Parasite said excitedly.
"Dude, get a room!" Kara yelled out with a disgusted look on her face. She was getting the impression the Parasite was going to tug one off right there and lose himself in orgasmic joy.
"Come to me! Come to Daddy, little boy!" Parasite yelled out before lunging at Harry, but he teleported out of the way. "Oh, are we playing hard to get?"
"You don't want to eat my powers, you don't know where I've been," Harry stated dryly as he waited for the Parasite to do something stupid and then he would have him.
"Well, I'll have you know that I have a cast iron stomach and I can digest anything, so c'mere, come on, COME TO ME!"
Parasite dove at Harry once again, but he conjured several white hot knives and flung them at the creature with a super sonic fury.
"With just your own powers, you're as fragile as the next person, although you've learned something from draining Superman's powers over the years, haven't you?"
"Oh, are you kidding, the guy tasted the best!" Parasite cheered. "Of course, his tendency to polish his telescope while staring at his neighbor was kind of squicky, but a guy has to have a hobby."
"Where do you come get off calling someone else creepy, anyway?" Harry asked as he once again dodged his outstretched hands. Parasite bounced back up like a demented monkey and three cutters were flung towards him, the first two he was able duck but the third caught him across the side.
"Hey, you've just got to call a spade a spade, boy," Parasite growled, showing off his demented smirk while he licked his lips. "But I'm going to get off on you now!"
"Oh kay, yeah, this guy's really creepy," Kara stated as she used her super breath to send the knives that had fallen on the ground hurtling towards him.
One of them stabbed the Parasite in the back and weakened him severely. He gave a pained grimace, but that was not going to stop him from eating.
"Think that a little knife like this is going to stop me," Parasite grumbled, he reached an arm around his back and tried to pull it free from of his body. "AH HA-HA!"
Pulling the knife free, he lunged forwards suddenly and grabbed Harry around the shoulder, then tried to drain his powers. The key word being tried, because it most certainly didn't work, as the creature found out the hard way.
Parasite was flung backward and smashed against the far wall. He fell to his knees feeling even weaker than before.
"NO! I must have you! I must! I MUST!" Parasite stated as he crawled forwards on his knees, but Karen jumped down and curb stomped him right on the back of the head.
"And I got the power back on!" Chloe cheered out over the comm system as Parasite rolled over on his back.
"Good one, Chloe," Imra stated as she came out of the shadows to place a containment field around the Parasite. "So, this plan of yours….."
"Don't worry," Kara commented as she pulled a crystal out of her pocket. Karen recognized it immediately as one of the Phantom Zone containment crystals. "Don't worry creepy purple pervert! I'm sure that you'll find the phantoms to be quite the delicacy though, so you better enjoy them because you won't be getting out any time soon."
The Parasite disappeared with a loud crack and an even louder bang, as he was sucked on through to the other side.
It wasn't easy, but it worked and sometimes that was the best you could hope for.
"Well, that wasn't that pleasant, but at least we got the job done," Harry concluded as he collapsed down into a chair. Salu, Luornu and Tinya were all accounted for so he felt like he was going to just take it easy for a while. The green eyed wizard felt a bit winded from the battle, although he didn't collapse in the aftermath like the rest of them did. Still, he had to play duck and run a lot while they were getting Parasite into position and it had been a long time since he had a fight that intense.
"Yeah, we got the job done," Kara agreed as she sank herself down onto Harry's lap and the green eyed wizard wrapped his arms around her.
"The others will make a full recovery," Imra stated as she sat down across from the two of them. The blonde blew her hair from out from underneath her face. "On an added note….I think that I've discovered what might have happened."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "What happened?"
"The problem with history is that nothing is ever certain," Imra admitted to him as she slid back in her chair. "Even less so given how many times there has been a great crisis with history being rewritten in the aftermath. We have records of infinite Earths, some of which have been destroyed, others of which have just been moved or rewritten, so the further back you go, the more you tend to take all historical references with a grain of salt."
"Okay," Harry said as he invited for her to continue and continue was she did.
"The issue is this," Imra commented to him as she locked her eyes onto his. "You and Kara….well, you're not native to this time line….and the Forbidden Zone exists outside of the pull of time as well."
"So the infected, they shouldn't really exist in this dimension and neither should we," Kara added as she snuggled into Harry closely.
"Yes, and no, there's a lot of paradoxes out there, some of which we're not able to….we're not able to figure out," Imra said as she cupped her chin in her hand and then threw her head back. Her sigh became even more extreme. "I do know that you're not completely human."
"Well, wand wavers have argued that they are different species than the mundanes," Harry told her.
"I mean you specifically, your far more complex than that, I'm not sure what you are exactly, but I know the key lies with your mother," Imra stated just as Tinya walked into the room in a daze.
"Hey, Tinya, are you feeling better?" Harry asked.
"Yes, I'm feeling much better, it would have….thank you," Tinya said in a bit of a rambling manner as she tried to get her bearings together.
"Sit down, I was just addressing some information that might be able to shed some light on what Harry is," Imra stated.
Tinya, before she could think better of it, blurted out the first thought that came to mind. "Other than…well, other than amazing?"
"Yes, other than amazing," Kara confirmed with a bright smile to her as she pulled out a chair for her and Tinya eagerly took offered seat next to her.
"So, you mentioned my mother?" Harry asked Imra, who nodded.
"Yes I was speaking of her, the circumstances in regards to how she was adopted were quite curious," Imra commented to Harry and the wizard half raised an eyebrow. "And judging by the expression on your face, you had no idea that she was adopted, did you?"
"Not in the slightest," Harry admitted to her with a shake of his head. Although that would explain so many things about Petunia and Lily given how they were absolutely nothing alike and looked absolutely nothing alike. "It does explain some things."
"I'm sure it might," Imra agreed as she gripped Harry's hand and squeezed it, the blonde shaking her head. "So…."
"Yes, so," Harry told her, although he was rather enjoying the interplay between the two of them, he wanted to get down to business. "What happened in regards to my mother's adoption?"
"Well, I'm…. still trying to piece this together from historical records, which are…."
"I know, hard to piece together even in the best of times," Harry interjected.
"Right, it seems like her birth parents may have abandoned her….but, that's not the strange part, her….origins are similar to Kal-El's, in that they were both sent off of what was a doomed planet, but its hard to say, perhaps I'm reading more into this then I should," Imra suggested as she looked at Harry. "Tell me, how much to do you know about Peve-Rell?"
"Well, that's the story with the three brothers…."
"Actually I'm not talking about that glorified work of fiction, although it does have a few fragments of the truth to it from what I've been able to piece together," Imra stated with a smile. "Death is a curious entity, although many have been given her a negative reputation, that she doesn't really deserve."
He was intrigued at that, really he was.
"Continue," Harry told her and Imra did so.
"Very well, I'll continue, but your mother may be a descendent of Peve-Rell, but I'm not sure if she was a pure Kryptonian, in fact one might consider her to be an urban legend within her own right," Imra stated and she paused, before trying to reign in her babbling. "Be that as it may, the green eyes that you and your mother share, there was only one other person who had that particular shade of green."
"And you think it's her," Tinya piped in, not wanting to be left out of the conversation.
"It could be her, but who was she?"
"A brilliant inventor, apparently, given that she may have created the objects in question and passed them down to the son she said with...well, the exact name is shaky, it's said to be either Har-Zod or Har-Rell. Regardless, the son is said to have then passed them down to his three children before he disappeared," Imra informed him.
Harry smiled, although he figured that the true story was no where near as exciting as the fictional tale.
He was intrigued and there was no doubt in his mind that more information could be dug up when the time was right. He knew that Dumbledore was lying through his teeth about ninety percent of the time and the other ten percent of the time was a half truth at best.
Then again, that was just the way Dumbledore learned how to deal with people and he never was taught any differently.
Regardless, it raised certain questions about the blood protections that Harry wished to have answered.
To Be Continued.