I do not own Superman, or any other D.C. character mentioned. The rest, I made up for my own story. This is a fanfic, and not for profit, so just enjoy.

SUPER

By LJ58

Part 8:

Diana stood ready for anything as the air roiled before her, and the girls with her stood back.

For a moment it seemed she could almost make out a body on the other side of what appeared to be a portal, then the shimmering haze vanished with a dull popping sound, and everything looked normal.

Just before a streak of flame blazed down across the island, and she looked up to see Superman landing nearby with a woman on fire. Not just any woman.

"Calm down now," Superman was telling her as Diana's keen gaze made out familiar features in spite of the bright flames. "Deep breaths, and calm down. Focus on me. Just like before," he was saying as the woman, smiling hugely, let him settle his cape around her shoulders as Diana realized the woman was completely naked.

"Ms. Graves? Clark, what happened?"

"I suspect you already know, Diana. If those scientists back on our Earth were right, I suspect being in my presence helped jumpstart Ms. Graves' meta-gene."

"That is so cool," one of the girls exclaimed as they came over now, seeing any apparent danger was past.

"Not completely," Anna told them. "I only learned after the fact."

"After….?"

"After someone bombed her apartment," Clark told Diana grimly. "She thinks it might have been General Billings."

"He was…..more than a little testy. He reminds me a little of General Eiling back home."

"I don't know who that is, but he would have to be pretty bad to match Thomas Billings," Anna said.

"All that can wait," Clark told them. "Diana, we need to take Anna to the medical lab, and ensure her powers haven't had an adverse affect on her. We also need to get an idea just what is going on here. She exhibited some similar traits to Volcana, but I can't be sure, because her powers do seem to surge with her emotional state."

"I remember her. All right. I'm sure you'd also like something to wear," Diana said, smiling at Anna.

"While you take care of that, I'm going to contact the D.C. authorities and let them know Ms. Graves is safe. And mention her….suspicions."

"That might not be a bad idea."

"Does this mean Ethics is canceled," one of the five with them asked.

"No chance. Dr. Li is giving that one."

"Which one," the older woman asked.

"Alicia Li," the younger girl remarked. "She's pretty good. Dr. Chang tends to get distracted by theory. She's more….practical."

Diana smiled at that, then led them all toward the temple.

"Oh, hey, what about that weird glowy thing that showed up," the younger girl also blurted as she looked around.

"What weird glowy thing," Clark asked just when he was about to turn to go his own way.

S

Circe emerged on the beach even as Diana shoved her crude raft into the water.

She frowned.

One moment she had been inches from the Amazon who stood before her in full armor, and now she was watching her on the far side of the island, all but naked, shoving a makeshift raft into the glassy seas.

Holding up the still glowing bolt, she focused on it, then slapped it to her robe's belt, and focused on the mystical device as it shrank down, and become a small sigil on the newly fashioned plate of her belt. The lightning design of the sigil was less than coincidental.

"Show-off," she muttered, knowing which of the gods had influenced the shape.

There was, predictably, no answer.

They never answered when you wanted them to speak. They weren't exactly 'people deities.' More uptight, surprisingly prudish little tyrants that had their own ideas how to oversee the physical realm. Gods help you did you step over their lines, though. Prometheus was likely still suffering for his daring. And last she had heard, Hera was still making Heracles' afterlife a genuine Hades. She was pretty sure the woman's allowing his deification had been no favor. Not knowing that frigid…..

She glanced around, the eerie sensation of being watched filling her mystic senses as she sighed, and shook off her apprehension.

"Fine, fine. But I can't too well act until I reach the moment you chose. And I'm obviously not there yet, am I. Something threw me off."

No reason not to have a bit of fun, though, she decided, taking the shape of a bird as she flew up and overheard as she paced Diana's raft.

She paced the raft for days until a storm came up, and then she chose to dive into the ocean, altering her shape yet again as she continued to shadow the Amazon who was obviously struggling to survive. It occurred to her that never had her nemesis been so weak. So helpless. Now would likely be the only time she would ever have a chance to truly finish the troublesome Amazon.

Yet she also had a calling. One she couldn't ignore. Not considering who had summoned her, and how she had gotten here. For all she knew, she could not return without the Amazon's aid. Taking the shape of a large, sleek shark, she easily followed the raft now being tossed about above her. When the waves grew too high, she considered going deeper, but it occurred to her that the Amazon might actually need help herself.

She rose up under the raft, noting the debris being washed over the side, but the woman atop it seemed to be clinging to the surface with a strength born more of desperation than the gods. Had the princess truly lost her powers?

Morning came again, and she was airborne again.

Finally, she saw a ship from man's world, and watched the men drag the nearly spent Amazon aboard. Reducing herself to the size of a flea, she followed and watched as she realized the men thought her mad. It took the wisdom of seconds to realize there were no costumed heroes in this world. No League of allies waiting to assist her. Yet, where was the alien hero Batman thought was here, too?

She wasn't sure, but for now, watching, and waiting were quite amusing.

She might not be able to strike at her longtime foe, but she could gain a lifetime's worth of amusement as she played invisible spectator to the indignities visited upon the hapless woman she had fought time and again with no clear victory.

And it was amusing, until the day the princess chose to break and run, and almost got herself killed.

She compelled the woman to turn at the last minute just before one of those treacherous men shot her in the back. What manner of men were these that would shot an unarmed woman so? Still, even she was astonished, and impressed as the nearly powerless Amazon still managed to charge through her attackers, deflect the gunfire aimed her way, and still made it to the beach of the island.

She just didn't have a chance to escape the newcomers.

She watched the woman be struck down, still alive, and dragged to a prison where the uniforms were different, but the tactics remained much the same as any captor she had ever known.

It occurred to her that Diana might actually be in trouble as she noted the doctors taking samples of her blood, hair, and tissue, and even calling certain personages who replied in cryptic codes she didn't understand.

She did understand what was coming, though, and moved to find the Amazon aid before she did end up dying on this world. She wasn't ready to approach her. Something told her it was not the time. Not the place. Still, Diana was still in genuine danger. She was possibly facing a very real death here.

Something that could not happen. Apparently, did not happen, since she now perceived that other Amazon she had seen was sometime in the future. Not to far, she didn't think, but far enough that something had happened. Something monumental.

She sensed it.

When she went to mainland, seeking a counterpart to Bruce, or his companions, she found the alien hero already working in his usual fashion. She didn't dare just approach him, though. Not just yet. Not without Diana.

She watched him. Followed him now as an invisible observer, and found her pawn. The woman with the federal agent was the sort that would react to injustice. She could sense it in her. She was easily led to the damning report by several of her superiors, and it took no real prodding to get her to reveal it to her own partner.

Who predictably carried it directly to the Amazon even as she discerned a growing plot. Still, she was astonished at how close she still came to losing the woman she was apparently there to aid in some fashion even she did not yet understand. She watched as the admittedly glorious specimen of masculine power carried off the Amazon, and then followed once more in his wake.

She watched invisibly as they made their plans, then left for the island. The very place she needed to be in due time. Thus, she followed, for it was obvious that whatever was going to happen had left the place impenetrable to even her magics. First, however, she had gone to play a little prank of her own once she deciphered what some of the men were trying to do. She replaced all that stolen blood and tissue with sand. Ordinary sand. Let them make something of that. Afterward, she ensured she returned to the island before she was again prevented. Something had plainly repelled her when she had tried to exit that portal. Which meant they were going to do something that she could not afford to be on the outside of this time.

She found a cavern once they arrived, and quickly made a discreet home of it, shielding it with her magic, and altering it to her tastes as she waited.

Then the very world was rocked as she realized the titans, the very titans Zeus had once imprisoned eons past, were trying to reemerge in this world. She gasped in genuine dread as they tore the very sky asunder, and still the heroes' attackers paid no heed to their own danger, but tried to take Diana back.

Then the blue and red clad hero actually drove those monsters of yore back into the depths of their prison, and then frightened away Diana's attackers. Diana, who despite her much reduced powers, still held back those men as if fighting green recruits. Still, they were hardly Spartans.

Yet there was a taste in the air. Something that seemed…..familiar.

She watched as she pushed the notion aside, noting the relieved group watching as their enemies fled their wrath in the end. Even she could understand that kind of fear. A man that could drive back titans was a man that you did not trifle with.

Going back to her cave, she watched in impatient solitude as she felt time compressing around her. She watched the temple begin to rise. Watched Diana pray, and saw her restored. Once again the peerless warrior of Themyscira, she would now be a match for virtually anyone that faced her. Then she saw the rise of the hybrid machines that the alien built with exact care and precise calculations that belied the claims on their world that he was nothing but flying brawn.

His machines generated a barrier that now held her on the island, even as it once held her out. Only it was still not time.

Soon. Very soon. But it was not time. Yet.

S

"It doesn't look like much," Thomas Billings complained as he eyed the massive electro-magnetic plate surrounded by five steel ribs curving up and around the base with emitters on the end of the downwardly curved fins.

"It's not the looks," Jacob told him. The geneticist was overseeing the placement of the last emitter on the tip of the fifth fin, and was hoping that the light show would be enough to convince the man he had his 'weapon.' Meanwhile, he could still bluff as to its potential effectiveness as there was no way he was going to get an AI capable of running the complicated program he and his allies in this scientific shell game had devised.

The disgraced general walked around the device they had created, and then returned to Jacob McKinley's side.

"It is ready, then?"

"Except for the computer core," Jacob nodded, his team looking around uneasily.

"Good. It should be here in a few days."

"It…..should," Jacob asked more than a bit surprised by that statement.

"Of course. I may have been forced out of my position by those treacherous, short-sighted fools in power, but I still have my own connections. Loyal connections. Be ready to install, and activate the device when it arrives," he said, then looked to one of his men.

Jacob shared a genuine look of anxiety as the guards now began shepherding them back to the lift that returned to the underground installation.

"And when do you we get to leave," Jean demanded, his outrage making him bold as the man hesitated to enter the lift with the others. "I'm a geologist. Not a geneticist, or a computer tech. I've nothing to do with the rest of this."

"So you don't," Thomas smiled, pulled his pistol, and shot him.

"Anyone else want to quit now," he asked.

No one said a word as two of the guards dragged off the body.

Jacob realized now what he should have already known. Not only was Billings completely and certifiably insane. He had no intention of letting any of them go. He could see that now.

"We're all going to die, Abby whimpered as the lift carried them back down into the bowels of the compound deep below the earth.

He couldn't tell her otherwise. Not just then.

"He still needs us to program the computer," one of the other scientist said quietly. Jacob glanced over at Adam Eastman, a genuine technological genius drafted for his computer knowledge, and saw the speculative gleam in his eyes.

"True," Jacob agreed.

Adam gave him an imperceptible nod. Apparently, Jacob realized, the man had a plan of his own.

He prayed it was better than his own. His had just fizzled out, drowned in that poor Frenchman's blood.

S

"What is it," Anna asked, sitting up after the machine's swinging bar that contained some kind of LED lights passed over her, blinding her with a vaguely pinkish-white light. "What is happening?"

Diana was eyeing the console where she was studying the results of the medical scanner, and frowning.

"This….doesn't make sense," she frowned.

"What? What is it? Am I…..still human," she asked, now wearing a one-piece toga like the girls wore between classes when not dressed for other activities.

"I assure you, Ms. Graves," Diana told her. "You are still very human. Incredibly enough, this indicates that Clark was right. You do have an active meta-gene."

"But…..?"

"Only it's not what I expected."

"What do you mean?"

"This," she pointed out. "I've seen this energy signature before now. And it shouldn't be here. Not in this world."

"What do you mean," Anna echoed, rising to her feet, and walking up behind her.

Diana turned to study her. "Most meta-genes are a result of a physical trauma triggering a latent mutation already present within the basic genetic structure."

"Well, I'd say a bomb going off in my face counts."

"Maybe," Diana told her. "But the bio-energy signature here isn't organic. It's…..magical. Pure magic. And that should be impossible on this world. In this dimension. When I first arrived, there wasn't a trace of magic anywhere. That lack almost killed me. Yet now, here you are literally radiating magic. Magic so strong that even Dr. Fate would be hard-pressed to match you."

"Dr….Fate. Okay, if I remember the stories I've been...studying, that's the guy with the magic helmet. Right?"

Diana sighed. "Yes."

"So, this flame thing of mine is….magic?"

"I believe it is. We need to test your skill, and ascertain your degree of control, but….I believe you are channeling pure magic. Not just physical pyrokinesis as we first thought."

"Pyro….? Fire? Right?"

"Literally, mentally summoned and controlled fire. We fought a foe with that power, and it was….quite formidable. I suspect yours might prove even moreso considering its apparently arcane source. I just cannot fathom how you manifested raw magics on this, a hitherto non-magical world."

"Don't look at me."

"I'll need to speak with Clark on this. Meanwhile, I'd like you to go to the field beyond the temple, and practice simply summoning and dismissing your flame. Only contain it just to your hands, if you can. If you can hone that kind of control, then theoretically, you should be able to hone your control over every aspect of your…..new gifts."

"All right. But I'm telling you now, there is no way I'm going to put on spandex, and start punching people. That's not my thing."

"Yet you were an agent of your government?"

"That's right. A federal agent. A law officer. Not a…"

"Vigilante?"

"No offense," Anna frowned as she slid into the sandals left for her. "But I prefer to operate inside the system."

"None taken, sister," Diana told her. "But consider. We both have enemies that would like to see us all dead. Or imprisoned. You now have the ability to better resist them. If you can control yourself. Otherwise, you might prove yourself a danger even to your own allies at home if you don't find and manage that control over the powers that are now yours."

"Point taken," Anna grumbled. "I'll be outside."

Diana nodded. "Don't worry. We will help you. You are among friends here. I hope you know that."

"Well, at least my new room isn't likely to explode," having been given a room in the 'temple' for the time being.

"Not unless you do it yourself," Diana couldn't help teasing as she watched the brunette head for the door.

Anna froze, looking back over her shoulder in astonishment.

"That is not even close to being funny."

Diana only smiled.

"Go and practice."

Anna grumbled, but left to do as she said.

Diana was still going over the finding again, looking for explanations when Clark, sans his cape, walked into the medical chamber.

"Did you hear…..?"

"I heard you both," he nodded. "I also filled in Agent Carter. Hopefully he can use what Ms. Graves suspects, and any physical evidence they might find to help lead us to whoever is behind all this madness."

"Magic, Clark. Here. Something is going on, because it wasn't here before. I know. I would have sensed it."

"So, magic, and meta-genes?"

"Yes, I anticipated a biological variant of some kind, and I found it. But the energy patterns were not organic. They were pure magic."

"I won't ask if you're sure," he murmured, and both of them knew what made him nervous. Magic was one of his few weaknesses. Even on their world it was just rare enough to find a competent user that he only had to face that threat on a rare occasion.

"Wise of you," she murmured all the same. "I've considered the source. While it's theoretical possible that you might have been responsible for jumpstarting human metagenes here, as some have suggested, I don't think you are a source of magical abilities."

"Hardly," he agreed.

"I suppose it's possible that the rift the Old Ones tore in the sky might have…..leaked some of their arcane essence into this world."

"Enough to account for something like this?"

"I…..don't know. It's all I can think of just now."

"What of that disturbance you noted earlier?"

"I don't know. It could have been magical. It's possible that your energy barrier prevented whatever it was from fully forming. Still, nothing actually appeared. Which leaves me puzzled, because, Clark, the only other explanation is that someone purposely came to this world, and somehow opened a fount of mystic energies previously unavailable to this realm."

"You're almost there, Princess," a voice drawled. "See, I knew that you could be clever when you tried."

Both of them turned to see the regal brunette in silvery-white robes staring at them from the corner of the room.

"Circe," Diana hissed, and raised both fists.

"Pardon the intrusion, but this is official business. Believe it, or not, I'm here on behalf of the gods to help you two."

"You expect us to believe that," Diana demanded, not lowering her guard.

"You'd better. Because you're very close to the truth, Diana," the witch told her. "Ares is here. I finally scented his bitter stench when I settled down, and began to recognize his hand in the recent events around us."

"Ares," Diana frowned. "Here?"

"Yes, and he's apparently violated the pact Zeus set down regarding this world, and intruded into this realm that was to be left untouched by gods, or the rule of magic. He's already trying to influence and shape men here to his liking, and trying to arrange a world war. A true genocide."

"Why," Clark gasped.

"Why else," Circe sighed as she rolled her eyes. "He is the god of war. Likely he has his own silly hidden plans, but so far as I know, they all start with the destruction of this world."

"That is why we were sent. To stop him," Diana realized.

"But then why did they not just…..?"

"Kal-El," the witch called him, ignoring the fact she had overhead him called by a name she should not know. "Since when did the gods ever make things simple for mortals? Or their champions," she asked tellingly.

"So, they sent you here, too? Why?"

Circe stepped forward, smiling as she slid a hand over the glittering buckle on her robe's belt. A moment later, and a long, jagged spear was held before her in both hands.

"Zeus said you two would need this."

Diana's eyes rounded. "Great Hera! Is this….?"

"Just what you think it is."

What do we do with it," Clark asked, frowning as Diana reverently took hold of the cold steel that thrummed with secret power.

"What else? You are going to hold an arcane ritual, and summons the gods of Olympus to this world. Only then can they infuse you, and their champions, with the might to face Ares' forces."

"The gods…..are coming here?"

"That's the plan," Circe nodded. "But we don't have much time. You can bet you know who is going to be sensing what you're up to the moment you start to act. We have to be ready for him. Or he could stop the ritual, deny the gods' their physical manifestation in this realm, and leave you helpless to completely thwart his plans."

Diana looked at Clark. "I believe her," she told him.

"But you yourself told me….."

"Kal," she called him now, glancing back at the witch. "Whatever is going on, the only way Circe could have gotten Zeus' thunderbolt is from my mother. Trust me. She would not have just casually handed it over." Diana looked at her again. "I believe her."

"Very well," Clark nodded at them both. "How do we start?"

To Be Continued….