As soon as Clark came over to the door waved his hand to the side, prompting the senor to open the door to the hallway. I was just about to ask Clark which way to turn when I felt the slight rush as air as I found myself standing in what looked like Oliver Queen's wet dream of an armory. Once the momentary unease of having traveled at super speed subsided I looked around the room. Uniforms, weapon racks, some kind of futuristic 3D printer, and several motorcycles were all lined up around another one of those teleporter pads from the main hall. Just on the opposite of that pad I saw it, my armor. No doubt Clark or maybe Oliver had run back to fetch it from the Star City museum. With that in mind I made a mental note to have a long talk with Oliver about putting my personal stuff on display for the whole damn world to see. As I took a step forward I noticed Superman was standing behind me, staring far too wide-eyed at me for my taste.

"Yes, I do remember everything Clark. And yes, I will get caught up on the 20 some years I missed, but that's gonna have to wait." I quickly crossed the pad and picked up my mace as Clark awkwardly tried moving the conversation forward.

"It's just weird, seeing you, but not actually you, but then actually you, once you remember everything."

I shrugged, holding my mace, testing the weigh in my hands. "I remember the first time, trying to convince everyone after 20 years that their prince had come back from the dead. Now that was weird. But after a while, I got used to it. You probably will too." As I unfastened the chest plate from its mount I could practically hear Clark wringing the back of neck as he tried to figure what to say. "After all, you're probably going to be around for the next few at the very least, assuming you don't have to fight Doomsday again." I turned my head to see the look of surprise on his face. "I do happen to remember all the events of Michael's life as well. You're little Jesus moment kind of stands out in his memories a bit."

The quizzical look on my friend's face returned. "Does it usually happen so fast? You getting your memories back, I mean."

I lifted up the chest piece off the mount, putting my arm through the hinged side, closing the other side around my shoulder. As the open side closed the symbol on the chest glowed red again and I could feel the power of the Nth metal as the wings unfurled behind me. I let the feeling wash over me for a moment before answering Clark.

"No, not this fast. But I also usually remember things well before my wife, so that's two major differences for this cycle. Looking back on Michael's first contact with her, she pretty clearly knew all about who I was, and who she was to me. She always likes to lord it over me for a while when things go that way. I supposed being around so many people who knew me in my previous life kind of jumpstarted things. Plus, she wouldn't have no idea that Oliver knew who I was, seeing as she had died long before I met any of you."

"And speaking of Michael…" Clark's voice drifted off, and I knew where he was going.

"You can still call me Carter." I took a swing of the mace, re-familiarizing myself to its weight. "I liked being Carter, minus the decade or two of alcoholism and depression."

Clark laughed, finally breaking some of the tension he was carrying. "Yeah, I don't think anyone wants to relive those days. You were kind of.."

"An ass?" I dropped the mace into its hip holster as I cut it. "I suppose I was. Now, what do you say we go find Oliver so I can piss him by telling how old he got while I was gone?"

"I think that will have to wait, as fun as it would be to watch." The hologram of Tess popped up on my left.

"You look…different." I looked Tess up and down before looking over at Clark. "I take it I missed the part where you turned Tess into a computer?"

"Technically I'm a fully sentient AI based on the neural make up of Tess. But that's just science talk for 'Lex killed me, I got trapped in his head thanks to the neuro-toxin I used to wipe his memory, then Emil built a computer that could handle a human brain after Clark and Lois figured out I wasn't really all that dead, and then I basically became a less murderous Skynet.'"

"Well damn, I really did miss a lot."

Tess nodded in agreement. "More than you know Carter, more than you know. But my path to returning to the world of living didn't involve me coming back as a 22 year old version of me. Am I correct in assuming the woman the shadow man stole was your reincarnated wife?" I caught Clark's sideways glance at Tess, who barely missed a beat. "What? We digitized Carter's journals years ago. The way they met, both drawn to artifacts of their past lives, as well as to each other, it makes sense that Sarah's the new life Shayera was born into."

"Well you may be a computer, Red, but you're still just as on your game as ever. Yes, on all points. But just like the last time, The Shadow Man's going to lose."

"You're sure of that?" The concern in Clark's voice hadn't changed a bit in the time I'd been gone.

"Well this time I'm going to be fighting alongside this super-powered friend of me. Perhaps you've heard of him. Like to fly, shoot lasers from his eyes. Has a thing for red and blue."

Tess chuckled at that last bit, but quickly composed herself. "So, any place in particular we should start looking?"

I thought threw the last few encounter with the Shadow Man before turning to Tess. "Pull up a map?" A few taps on her holographic pad and just as the overhead lights dimmed down, a blue partially transparent map of the world popped up between Clark and I. "Focus on the east coast of the US, Boston in particular." The map suddenly zoomed in, way in, until a layout of Boston had taken the globe's place. I racked my brain, trying to remember the name of the warehouse, who owned it the last time we fought. I looked up to find Clark and Tess staring at me intently. "I don't have an exact location; the last time we fought was over 50 years ago. But each time Shayera and I defeated him it was in the exact same spot, a dockside warehouse in Boston."

Clark took over from there. "Are there any warehouses reporting electrical issues or loss of power? When this Shadow guy popped up in the museum the electrical grid went completely haywire."

Again Tess tapped away at the holographic pad, no doubt diving through more information than I could hope to in a lifetime. I wondered why she was even bothering with the projection of a pad; it had to be purely cosmetic. But she soon had an answer. "There's one place, dock 19." The number jumped out at me and I shot a look at Tess as she continued. "It was bought back in 1973 by Grant Holdings after some kind of electrical problem drove the previous owner out of business. Apparently Mr. Grant had meant to turn it into a training facility for up and coming boxers, but that never got off the ground. All the other warehouses on the dock haven't had an electrical spike in days, but Dock 19 had a huge power spike about 12 hours ago and then went totally dark. No power readings at all."

Suddenly that memory hit me. "I remember now. Ted helped me buy the place after the JSA helped capture the Shadow Man and imprison him in the statue. It was never going to be turned to a training site, at least not one for the public. We'd barely gotten that JSA training ground running before Checkmate came calling."

Tess called up a few photos and blueprints of the building. "Looks like there's an old-school security system on the perimeter, probably what trigged the power surge in the first place."

I brushed my hand over the leather strap on top of my mace. "Then I think we've found our target. So how do you guys get to places now? Teleporters?"

Tess tapped emphatically on her pad, and the photos and blueprints disappeared. "They're actually zeta beams, but close enough. We borrowed the technology from a friend on-"

"Rann." I cut in, knowing exactly the planet she was talking about. I noticed the look of surprise on her face. "Hey, I may be literally older than the pyramids, but your contact with Rann isn't the first time our two peoples have crossed paths. But that's a long story, and we have a fight to get to."

Tess kicked the main lights back up and led the way back to the door Clark and I had come in through. "And speaking of stories, Carter, I think that old JSA site might be a perfect fit for our black box project, assuming you can talk Mr. Grant into transferring the rights to the property."

I stopped abruptly. "He's alive?

Tess nodded. "Oh yes, modern science has helped the former heavyweight champion lived well into his nineties. Assuming you handle things in Boston I'll have a meeting set up."

It had never occurred to me that after this long anyone from my JSA days would still be alive. "Thank you Tess, but you're right. Clark and I need to take care of business in Boston first."

"Well I hope you weren't leaving without telling me. My feelings would get hurt." I guess our conversation about Ted distracted me from Oliver walking through the open door. Oliver walked up to me, seemingly scrutinizing my face.

"You get any closer and we've either got to hug, or I hit you with my mace."

Oliver cracked a 1000 watt smile. "Well, that's definitely Carter." Queen extended his hand, and I shook it. "Good to have you back."

"Good to be back Ollie."

"So what's this I hear about you and Clark heading to Boston." Seeing me nod he went on. "I assume you have a plan?"

I looked to my right and noticed Oliver's old workstation from the first Watchtower. "Funny you should mention that. I was actually going to ask what kind of net arrows you have these days."

Oliver sounded a little confused when he responded. "I'm not exactly sure how we're going to capture a shadow guy with a net."

"It'll work, as long as the net's made of an Nth metal allow. The stuff interferes with dimensional shifting, but a mace doesn't have enough surface area to fully cancel out his shadow form. I just hope in the 20 or so years I was gone you lot managed to scrounge up some more of the stuff because I really, really, don't want to melt down my mace."

Oliver looked over to Tess. "Oh, I think I can whip something up. I might even be able to fight it into an arrow to boot."

I sighed at my old friend's subtle attempt to come on the mission. "You're not coming with us Oliver."

"What?" He sounded a little incredulous, but I guess not for the reason I would have thought. "Chloe would kick my ass if I went with you two, and I happen to like my ass exactly the way it is. No, Carter, I was going to send Roy with you."

Now it was my turn to be confused. "Roy?"

Clark cut in before Oliver could answer. "Which one?"

Oliver glared at Clark. "Like I'd bring Arsenal up here. Give me some credit, would you big guy? Of course I'm talking about Red Arrow, yeesh!"

Tess raised her voice above the three of us, making herself a little taller in the process to get our attention. "Boys, while this little back and forth brings back some fond memories, I believe we have a job to do, right?"

Clark nodded. "Yes." He looked over at Oliver. "Get started on that net, we'll go brief Red Arrow on the situation."

As Tess winked out, headed off to god knows where, and Oliver left the room to start fabricating I looked over at Clark. "Red Arrow? Not exactly an imaginative name."

Clark shook his head and cracked a smile. "Oh I know. Just don't let Oliver, or Roy, for that matter, hear you say that." He motioned for me to follow him as he headed for the door. "Come on, I'm sure J'onn and the others will want to say hi before we can get Roy on board."

A/N: Please review!