Chapter 4 – The Nth Metal

Saturday, May 1, 1943 – New Orleans

Part 1

Kendra was dog-tired. It was the end of a long day after a long week in a seeming never-ending string of long weeks at work. She had been severely tempted to splurge and spend the nickel required to ride the streetcar rather than walk the eighteen blocks from the Plant to Mrs. Patterson's boarding house, which she shared with fifteen other young single women of color.

Usually, walking didn't bother her, particularly at this time of year. As the old saying went, April showers led to May flowers and June weddings. Gardenias, wisteria, hibiscus, and oleanders were all in full bloom. Even the magnolia trees had made an early start with the unseasonably nice weather they had been experiencing for the last two weeks. The scent of all these flowers was heavenly.

But it wasn't the May flowers that were forcing her to be extra frugal with every nickel and dime. No, it was the June weddings part of the old saying. Her favorite cousin, Charlene, was getting married back home in St. Roch up in Rapides Parrish in June. Therefore she had been scrimping and saving, working extra shifts were she could, so that she could afford the bus fare and a few small gifts for her family and friends back home.

And it had been way too long since she had been home, almost a year. With the war entering its eighteenth month and with no end in sight, the plant was working two shifts, seven days a week. It was difficult to get any time off and she had had to plead and beg and trade shifts to get five days in a row off for the wedding. It had even cost her Christmas holiday to get this time off in June. But in six more weeks she would have five glorious days away, her longest break since getting the job at Higgens Industries in February of the previous year.

She had just turned nineteen at the time and had been caught up in the post-Pearl Harbor patriotic fervor. It probably hadn't helped that another cousin, Joshua, had been a cook aboard the battleship Arizona when it had gone down with the loss of almost all hands. Her mother had tried to convince her there was plenty of important, useful work she could do in St. Roch. But Kendra knew that probably would have meant ending up out in the cotton fields to take the place of some man who had gone off to war. Her parents had been the first generation of her family to escape the cotton fields in the nearly one hundred twenty years her family had been in America. Returning to the fields now would have felt like a giant step backwards for her and her family.

And, besides, she had been tired of life in St. Roch, a small town in a predominantly rural area. She had visited New Orleans twice as a teenager and had become enamored with all its bars and clubs and nightlife. Therefore, against her mother's wishes, she took the big step of moving there in hopes of working in a war production plant to do her part.

With war work rapidly expanding and everyone screaming for warm bodies, it had only taken her two days to find a position at Higgens Industries' newest plant on Jefferson Avenue and then a spot at Mrs. Patterson's. The work at first had seemed so exciting, so different from anything she had done back home. But after months and months, the work had become just a job. Oh, she knew what they did was important, building landing craft for the Navy and the Marines. But sometimes even the large inspirational photos of troops using their craft to storm the beaches in faraway, exotic-sounding places like Guadalcanal and North Africa barely helped her get through the long hours of applying varnishes and sealants and paint to the crafts' mostly plywood hulls.

And lately the fumes seemed to be getting to her as well, as she was starting to experience the visions more and more frequently. She had started getting the visions when she had been just a girl. At first they had only happened once or twice a year. Her mother had said they were just a phase and she would outgrow them. But she hadn't, and the frequency had slowly seemed to increase. By the time she had left St. Roch she was getting one every month or two.

But now she was getting a vision at least once a week and sometimes several days in a row. And in the beginning they had only occurred at night and could have been confused with particularly vivid dreams. However the last several had occurred in the middle of the day and she had been forced to retreat to the ladies' room until they passed and she could give her full attention to her job without screwing up and hurting herself or others.

The visions were not all the same, but had something in common – they all involved heroic women and somehow these women were always versions of herself. Oh, they seemed to be of many different races and nationalities, but somehow they were still her. And while they were scattered throughout history, none of them ever seemed to be contemporary to any of the others.

There had been Lady Celia Penbrook, a blue-eyed blonde who had lived during the dark ages of Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire. And Kate Manser, a red-headed gunslinger in the Old West who went by the name Cinnamon. And Lady Ryuunosuke Midori, a swordmaster in Feudal Japan. And Queen Atalaya, creator of the Jaguar fighting style and ruler of the Uros Empire, an empire in the Andes of South America at a time long before the Incas or Aztec. And on and on, her visions had included countless others.

But her most frequent vision was of Princess Chay-Ara of Ancient Egypt. And this was the strangest vision of all. The other versions of her all had immense fighting skills to go along with a profound sense of justice and a duty to do what was right for their friends and allies, but they all still managed to feel like real people. Only Princess Chay-Ara seemed like something straight from some fairy tale with her enormous wings and her ability to fly.

Kendra shook her head to clear her thoughts; her trudging steps had finally brought her to the front door of Mrs. Patterson's Home for Colored Girls. Perhaps a nice hot bath would ease her aching muscles and drive away thoughts of the visions, at least for a little while.

Part 2

"Kendra Saunders, why do you always have to be such a wet blanket? I'm sure we can find a way home even if we do miss the last street car," shouted Vera Jefferson to be heard over the din of the packed crowd and the band playing a lively Cole Porter tune on the other side of the dance floor.

Two years older than Kendra, Vera was her best friend in New Orleans. They both lived at Mrs. Patterson's along with their other friend and comrade-in-arms in the hunt for husbands, Mildred Granger. Vera was a clerk in the front office at the Plant while Mildred worked four blocks over at the other nearby Higgen's facility, which built PT boats.

As usual, Vera and Mildred had ganged up on Kendra and convinced her she shouldn't just sit in her room on a Saturday night, but needed to get out and live a little. And they used the same approach that always worked on her – it wouldn't cost anything beyond the price of the street car fare, plenty of guys would be more than happy to buy them drinks.

So, as had happened on many previous Saturday nights, Kendra found herself in a club down on Bourbon Street. And at least part of the appeal was the overt illicitness of the whole situation. Back home, all the clubs were segregated. She was sure it had been the same here, too, in the good old days, but the war had changed this aspect of life the same way it had changed so much else. Hell, they had even let a trio of white boys buy them a round of drinks, although they had drawn the line at dancing with them.

"I'm tired and more than a little drunk," replied Kendra with a small giggle that only proved the little drunk portion of her comment was probably an understatement. "I want to go home before I find myself waking up in some guy's room hungover and pregnant."

"Spoilsport," shouted Vera back before she grabbed Kendra's hand and headed off in search of Mildred. Vera was already a lot more drunk than her more straight-laced friend, but that's why she and Mildred always brought Kendra with them. They had seen too many girls get kicked out of Mrs. Patterson's for ending up pregnant and they didn't want to go down that path or at least not until they found suitable husbands. So, when Kendra said it was time to go home, they almost always went.

They found Mildred talking to a pair of guys in sailor suits, who had arrived at the club within thirty minutes of the start of their twenty-four hour pass from their ship, the cruiser USS Birmingham. If there had been a third sailor with them, they might have been in trouble. But with two guys for three girls, Kendra's commonsense prevailed and they quickly said their goodbyes and headed out to the street.

The nearest stop for the street car line heading in their direction was four blocks away, but four blocks and a nickel beat walking the two and half miles, particularly this late at night.

They almost made it, but unfortunately, their luck turned sour. They were passing a dark stretch of street with several storefronts that looked to have been boarded up since the height of the Depression and associated burnt out streetlights when they ran into a group of at least fifteen white sailors, most likely also off the Birmingham. But these sailors had already been imbibing something a lot stronger than beer. And these guys were looking for some action and weren't about to be rebuffed by three attractive girls even if they were of the colored persuasion.

"Please, we are good girls. Please, let us go home," begged Kendra. Neither Vera nor Mildred were in a proper state to deal with these drunk men. Kendra was afraid if either of them opened their mouths they would only make the situation worse. They had all heard stories of drunken sailors gang-raping women, and even in their drunken-state, Vera and Mildred were cowering behind Kendra and hoping a police officer or an MP would make an appearance.

"We're good boys, too," replied the nearest sailor with a leer while attempting to paw at Kendra's breast.

"I said NO!" shrieked Kendra, giving the man a hard shove and sending him reeling back into his companions, the nearest three of whom all joined him in crashing drunkenly to the pavement.

"You shouldn't have done that, bitch," screamed the first man, as he staggered back to his feet and pulled a switchblade from his pocket. "Now, I'm going to have to mess you up."

"Don't mess her up too much, Red. The rest of us want to have a little fun, too, and three are barely enough to go around as it is," requested one of the more coherent sailors.

Kendra had hoped the more somber of the sailors might restrain the more drunken of their comrades, but obviously that wasn't going to be the case. She was really afraid they were going to be badly hurt, or worse.

But then it was suddenly like she was possessed by the spirits of the women in her visions. Her right hand snapped out, seemingly of its own volition, and hit the first sailor in the arm at just the right angle to force him to drop his knife. Then she pivoted and kicked the next man in the knee cap, sending him to the ground with a howl of pain. Then the side of her left hand landed a knife-blow to the throat of a third man temporarily taking him out, too.

If the sailors had numbered only four or five, her unexpected attack might have won them through. But before she could follow up on her initial success, their weight of numbers overwhelmed her. Quickly, she found herself pinned up against the storefront, one large man restraining each of her arms while a third man began ripping at her clothing. A glance showed Vera and Mildred to already be in worse shape with the fronts of their dresses torn open from throat to knees and the men in front of them already dropping their trousers.

This can't be happening, thought Kendra, as her panic rapidly edged higher and higher. With her blouse and skirt giving way to the man in front of her, her undergarments were sure to follow in the next few seconds. Why hadn't she listened to her mother and stayed in St. Roch?

"LET . . . THE . . . GIRLS . . . GO!" commanded a woman's voice in such a hard and menacing tone that for a moment all the sailors stopped what they had been doing and simply turned and gawked.

Two white women were approaching and they were more bizarrely dressed than anything Kendra had ever seen. The blonde was wearing a diaphanous white gown so sheer all her nasty bits were easily visible even in the dim streetlight. The only time she had ever seen clothing like that was when her cousin Joshua had surreptitiously shown her and her cousin Charlene some scandalous French postcards when he had been home on leave from the Navy. She never expected to own anything as risqué herself and would have been embarrassed to be seen in anything like that even by her future husband on their wedding night.

But being seen in the outrageously sheer gown didn't seem to bother this girl, who strode forward with a look of such strength and anger on her face, Kendra wouldn't have been surprised if the sailors had collapsed to the ground in fear before the girl even touched them with the unexpected staff she was carrying just like one of the women in her visions.

However if the blonde was scary, her brunette companion was absolutely terrifying. She was dressed all in black in a heavy armored garment similar to the samurai girl in Kendra's visions. And she was armed with a dangerous looking sword that put all the sailors' knives to shame. But the most dangerous looking thing about her was the expression on her face. One look said she hated men in general and potential rapists in particular.

"They are only human," stated the blonde. "Don't kill any more than is absolutely necessary."

At the blonde's words, Kendra felt a trickle of dread run down her spine that even the threat from the sailors hadn't equaled. What did she mean, they are only human?

"Why not, we don't need to keep any of them alive to interrogate," responded the brunette, the bloodlust obvious in her tone.

"Let's get them, guys," shouted the drunkest of the sailors and the one least able to grasp the danger these two armed women represented. "Three weren't enough for all of us anyway, but five should be just about right. And I've a hankering for some white meat even more than for dark."

The sailors hesitated just a moment as the two women continued to stride forward. But, as one, they seemed to realize they were in a fight or die situation. And even in their drunken state, they weren't ready to be meekly massacred.

Except for the men still restraining the three colored girls, the rest of the sailors charged forward and the two women's weapons blurred. If not for the experience of her visions, Kendra doubted she would have been able to keep up with what happened next. The women leapt and spun, their weapons flicking left, right, forward, and aft. And every man they touched with their hands or feet or weapons instantly collapsed to the ground. Those around the blonde most often fell with a moan or a hand clenched to some damaged body part. However around the brunette they mostly fell as silent as death.

In seconds, the men restraining Vera and Mildred released their holds and turned to reinforce the rapidly depleting ranks of their comrades. Then, even as Kendra's two friends collapsed to the sidewalk sobbing and feebly trying to cover themselves with the remnants of their tattered garments, it was obvious four more men weren't going to stop these two impossible fighters any more than their dozen predecessors.

The last two sailors standing were the pair holding Kendra. Once they saw the futility of their situation, they tried to break and run. Kendra clocked the one who had been holding her right hand on the point of his chin and he instantly collapsed to the ground, but it looked for a moment like the last one was going to get away. However the brunette pulled something small and metallic from some inner pocket of her armored outer robe and threw it hard in the man's direction. To Kendra, it didn't look like a normal knife as it seemed to have four sharp pointed ends like a miniature Greek cross, but it had an effect similar to a normal throwing knife. It slammed at least an inch deep into the back of the man's neck and he reacted like he had been hammered by a baseball bat. It knocked him forward off his feet and he skidded for almost fifteen feet before sliding to a halt. It was obvious to Kendra that he wouldn't be getting up again.

Part 3

"Are you okay?" asked Sara, as she stepped up to the girl they had come to recruit. The words hadn't come out as evenly as she would have liked, as she was still almost shaking inside from the brutality of Nyssa's attack.

She had been careful to only incapacitate her opponents and Nyssa could have easily done the same if she had sheathed her blade and used the heavy scabbard instead. But despite her request, Nyssa had torn through her opponents like a scythe cutting wheat. It had made Sara wonder if Nyssa had been helplessly subject to some similar attack in the past. For the millionth time she wished her memories would return.

But even as Sara had tried to stay focused on her own opponents, she had been forced to watch as soul after soul was dragged down to Hell. She hadn't seen any signs of demons among these men, so it was possible her demonic enemy Blaze hadn't know where they were. But this sudden influx of new minions would surely give the master demon a strong clue.

The girl in front of her nodded, forcing Sara's attention back to the current situation. With dead and wounded sailors scattered all over the street, it wouldn't be long before unwanted attention would descend on this location. Where was Hunter?

Almost as though he had heard her thoughts, the Timemaster came strolling up the street, his silver walking stick still carried loosely in his right hand.

"Well, haven't you been having fun. I see you have the situation in hand," said Hunter drolly before echoing Sara's thoughts. "But it looks like we should beat a hasty retreat before your actions draw a crowd."

"Who are you people?" asked Kendra, as her eyes continued to flick wildly between her two friends still sitting in shock on the sidewalk nearby, the sailors scattered around in the street, and the three strangers standing in front of her. The massive jolt of adrenaline she had experienced in the last few minutes was helping to clear any lingering traces of alcohol that had been clouding her thoughts and actions.

"My name is Rip Hunter," stated Hunter with a curt nod of his head. And then with a gesture towards his companions, he added. "And these ladies are Sara Lance and Nyssa Queen."

The last word was said with a quick wink in Nyssa's direction, which seemed to Sara to be an extremely dangerous attempt at humor given what she had just done to so many of these men.

"Kendra Saunders," Hunter continued. "We are here to recruit you to join our little team. We are on a mission to save the world and to do it we are going to need your help."

"How . . . how do you know my name?" asked Kendra, her eyes suddenly ending their dance and really focusing on the man for the first time. And he was just as anachronistically attired as his two female companions. He was wearing a suit like many men, but it looked like something from an old Victorian movie set fifty or sixty years earlier and not something any man she knew would be caught dead wearing in 1943.

Sara was just thinking about the similarities between the way Hunter had recruited them a bare three hours earlier and what he was doing here. He appeared to intentionally wait until they were in a life-or-death situation before making his request. But then, what person in their right mind would agree to just follow some stranger in any more ordinary circumstances? If he had walked up to her in a Starbucks and suggested she go with him, she wouldn't have given him ten seconds of her time. Then she wondered what a Starbucks was and once again found herself cursing her lost memories.

"I'm assuming you've already started having visions of your previous reincarnations," stated Hunter ignoring Kendra's original question while staring directly into her eyes. He saw her eyes widen. "Ah, I see you have. Well, if you join us, I have a gift from Princess Chay-Ara."

Kendra stared at the man. The only person she had ever told about her visions was her mother and the last time they had spoken about it had been years ago. And she had NEVER mentioned Princess Chay-Ara by name. How could this man know about the Princess? And what had he meant by saying the visions were of previous reincarnations of her? Had the people in those visions truly been real?

Kendra watched as the man opened a large leather pouch that had been slung across his back on a long strap. From it he extracted a lumpy, oversized belt made of some dark, but not quite black metal. She instantly recognized it as the belt Princess Chay-Ara wore whenever she was displaying the wings in the visions.

"This belt was originally from the planet Thanagar and is composed of a material that in my time is called the Nth Metal. The spaceship of its original owner, an alien, crash-landed in the Libyan desert almost five thousand years ago. Princess Chay-Ara found the belt and somehow it bonded to her. It will only work for her or her reincarnated selves, like you.

"I have never had an opportunity to study a sample of the Nth Metal in detail, but it has anti-gravity properties in addition to granting the bearer great strength. It is psycho-reactive, meaning it responds to the bearer's thoughts. If you have had visions of Princess Chay-Ara, surely you must have seen how it allowed her to manifest wings and fly."

Kendra just continued to stare at the man. Had he truly been talking about aliens and spaceships like she had seen in the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials at the movies? But she had seen the Princess flying in her visions. If she had truly been real, then the belt the man was holding must be real, too. And if he was right, it meant if she wore the belt, she might be able to fly, too.

She pulled her gaze from the man and once again looked at the men scattered around in the street, the first few of those who had survived the battle were starting to moan and move around a little. She hated what they might have done to her and Vera and Mildred or might do to other women in the future, if given the chance. Should she don the belt and use it to help others in need? She knew if she took that step, there would be no turning back.

Then she turned her attention to Vera, who was staring about wildly, and Mildred, who was sobbing with her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

"What about my friends? What happens to them if . . . if I agree to go with you?" asked Kendra.

The man looked at the two women and then began stripping off his long leather duster and gestured for Nyssa to remove her outer garment as well. As he moved over to the nearer woman to offer her his coat, he said, "My friends will see them to the streetcar. I'm afraid that's the best I can do."

Vera stood shakily due to a combination of shock and the lingering effects of all the beer she had consumed earlier. Hunter had to help her get the coat on and then do up the front buttons until she was modestly covered. She was swaying and the bottom of the duster was so long, she in her condition was likely to trip if she tried to move. Sara stepped up beside her while Nyssa helped Mildred into her own heavy, dark outer robe.

"So are you in?" asked Hunter in Kendra's direction once her two companions were decently covered.

With one last look at the dead and wounded lying in the street, she nodded. This had to be the reason she had been having the visions all these years.

"Good," stated Hunter and then turned to Sara and Nyssa. "I'll meet you back at the capsule."

"No way are all four of us going to fit in there at once," protested Nyssa. The last two trips had already left her trapped closer to the man than she liked.

"I'll take Kendra on ahead and then come back for you and Sara," Hunter replied.

Nyssa wondered where Hunter would be taken them next, neither Nanda Parbat or Ancient Egypt seemed likely. But she just nodded.

After getting directions to the streetcar stop from Kendra, since neither of the other two women seemed totally coherent, the four women set off down the street in the direction Kendra and the others had originally been heading while Hunter and Kendra headed to the dark alley where the camouflaged time capsule had been hidden.

Sara and Nyssa escorted the two women until the sign for the streetcar stop was just visible. Several people were already waiting there, so they sent the two women on alone. Their attire would be enough to raise questions without any of the bystanders needing to see Sara in her skimpy negligée or Nyssa in her undergarments that, while covering more of her than Sara, would still be something not seen in public in this time period.

They watched from the cover of some shrubbery until the streetcar arrived and the other two women were safely aboard. Then they turned and headed back to where the time capsule had been hidden, using what cover they could find along the way.

"Do you think this might be a good time to cut and run?" asked Sara. "We could blend in here and live nice peaceful lives. Since we won't be born for another forty years, the League would have no reason to look for us here."

Nyssa contemplated Sara's words for nearly a minute as they walked. Living here with Sara would be like her dream come true. And for her it wasn't so much about being away from the League as being away from Oliver. She was still very much afraid that if Oliver walked back into Sara's life, her memories would return and she would want to be with him instead of her. Hell, even if Sara's memories never returned, she knew his magnetism might still draw the other girl back in.

But she knew staying here was nothing more than a hopeless fantasy. Hunter would never have bothered to save them if the situation in the future wouldn't be absolutely desperate. And she had given her word to help him in return for his facilitating their escape from Ra's and his men. And what did she have left besides her honor?

"Somehow, I don't think either of us were ever destined to have nice peaceful lives," Nyssa finally said in reply to Sara's question.

Sara looked at the girl who apparently had once been the most important thing in her life. She wished she could remember those times. She felt tears welling up, but wasn't certain of their exact cause.

So she just nodded and turned her gaze resolutely forward.

End of Chapter 4

Coming soon – Chapter 5 – Hawkgirl in Training