Justice League of Amazons: The Unplanned Variable
…
Chapter 3
After Captain Adam left the Daily Planet, Lois immediately headed to her office. Whatever was left of the Daily Planet's workforce were already buzzing in excitement about the seemingly only man left on Earth. Frowning to herself, Lois stood before to address them all.
"Alright, everyone, I know this is all fairly exciting, but we have a job to do right now!" she said to them sternly. "We can discuss the Captain in our downtime, so get back to work!" she ordered them and they all went back to work.
Taking a seat in her new office, much as she didn't want it in the first place. At least not how she would've wanted, Lois opened up the desk drawer and apprehensively took out Jimmy Olsen's signal watch that Superman, or rather, Clark, had given to him. If what Adam had said to Lois held any weight, if anyone came looking for him, he would meet them on his terms, nothing else. Lois could respect that and she knew that the only people in this new world who would have benign intentions would be the Justice League, or what was left of them anyway. If nothing else, she could at least use the signal watch to get the attention of Clark's cousins, Supergirl and Power Girl, and explained the situation to them.
Suddenly, Lois's smartphone beeped twice and on instinct, the acting editor in chief took up the phone and she had to suppress a groan of frustration as she saw the notification on it. It seemed that the photo that had been initially taken of Adam had begun to circulate on social media. Lois knew it would be a pointless exercise to try and contain the situation, but doubtless the Justice League would be alerted to the presence of Captain Adam now and would come looking for him. Not to mention more seedy elements of society would begin hunting for Adam.
With a tired sigh, Lois activated the signal watch which would tick at a very high frequency that only a Kryptonian could hear. With the watch now activated, Lois prepared for whomever would come.
…
Aboard the Watchtower, two of the remaining Kryptonians on Earth suddenly winced as they heard the repetitive ticking sound. "Do hear it?" Kara asked Karen who nodded.
"Yeah… Lois must have gotten her hands on Jimmy's watch," the older Kryptonian replied.
"We'd better get down there then!" Supergirl stated. "Should we bring the others in for this?" she asked.
"I'll get Shayera and Diana to come with us. It might be something important," Karen said as she flew off to find Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman. "I'll meet you at the hangar!" she hollered over shoulder as she flew down the hall to find the two senior League members.
Supergirl was already flying towards the Justice League hangar and was in the midst of starting up a Javelin's engines when Power Girl arrived with Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman in tow.
"Someone's gotten the signal watch?" Shayera asked Kara who nodded and replied, "Yeah, it was given to Jimmy in case he was ever in trouble, but with things as they are now, Lois must've gotten her hands on it."
"Whatever the case may be, we'd better find out whoever has the watch and what they want from us," Shayera stated. "Fire up the engines! Let's punch this baby!" she commanded.
Kara quickly flicked on all the relevant switches to the on position and the Javelin gave a growling hum as it vibrated to life. The Hangar door pulled open and Kara pushed the accelerator to cruising speed and the Javelin lifted off the floor and flew out into the void of space. With a slow wide turn, Supergirl steered the Javelin ship down towards the planet, setting the co-ordinates for Metropolis City. Taking care not to enter Earth's atmosphere at too high a speed, lest they risk burning up on entry. Some turbulence rocked the ship as they breached the stratosphere, but the aerodyne was still intact as the entered the skies of planet Earth.
Streaking through the air at the speed of Mach 2, they soon reached Metropolis slowing down to a cruising and hovering speed and landed on the rooftop of the Daily Planet. And there waiting for them was Lois Lane with the signal watch ticking in her palm.
Hawkgirl got down to brass tacks immediately as soon as she left the Javelin. "Miss Lane, what is it you need?" she asked briskly.
"Doubtless, you might already know, but if you haven't been paying attention to social media, I'll tell you," Lois replied. "There's a living man left on Earth," she said bluntly.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" Hawkgirl asked in a dumbfounded voice as she and the others stared at the reporter who pursed her lips in annoyance.
"There's a living man left on Earth," she repeated what she said a moment earlier. "His name is Captain Adams of the Unreliable, from the Halcyon Colony," she informed the four Justice League members.
"There's a living man left on Earth?" Diana echoed in surprise. "Where is he, now?" she asked.
"He's not here, anymore," Lois said regretfully. "Some government lady named Amanda Waller representing Cadmus showed up shortly after he did and tried to… persuade him into going with her, but he said no and not long after, he left," she explained.
"Amanda Waller? Cadmus?" Karen repeated. "Who are they?" she asked.
"If I had to guess, I'd say Cadmus is some black-ops government agency and this Amanda Waller is its head," Shayera said with a grim look in her eyes. "But what about this Adam character? Anything you can tell us about him?" she asked Lois.
"He claims to be from another universe, in the year 2355, from a far off space colony called Halcyon," the reporter said to the Thanagarian. "He told me a bit about what Halcyon was like and what it had gone through; some of it made me sick to my stomach," she added with a look of disgust.
"Did you take any notes of what he told you?" Supergirl asked Lois who nodded and handed over her written notes of Captain Adam which Supergirl took to peruse.
"Did Captain Adam leave any way for you to contact him?" Shayera then asked and Lois shook her head.
"No. But he did say that if anyone came looking for him, that he would meet them on his terms. Can't say I blame him."
"Which exit did he leave by? Maybe we can pick up a trail?" Karen suggested.
"The back entrance. I'll take you there," Lois replied as she led the four heroines down to the back entrance of the office building.
Once there, Shayera looked at Supergirl and Power Girl, saying to them, "Okay, try and pick up trace of the guy. Chemicals, fibres, thermal patterns, the works."
"On it!" Karen said as she focussed her superhuman eyesight to look around the area of the back entrance. "Found a thermal pattern, but it's faint," she stated.
"I've detected some chemical residue," Kara put in. "This Adam guy was sure in a hurry," she remarked.
"Can only guess why," Shayera said sardonically. "If he's out there, then he's at risk himself," she added.
"I wouldn't say that, Hawkgirl," Lois commented and everyone looked. "When that Waller tried to coerce him to going with her, Adam laid out what would happen if she tried anything. He even said that he could kill her and her two guards before they could even pull out their guns and he even alluded the fact that he's made good on such threats in the past. And I believed him!" she described.
"What kind of guy is this Adam, anyway?" Supergirl asked.
"He called himself a Freelancer, but did say mercenary was a more accurate description of what he did for a living," Lois answered. "He even told me that he worked as a private detective a few times," she then said.
"So, he's well-armed and experienced then," Karen said in thought. "Just what we needed; a two-bit thug with a gun," she added with a grimace.
"I wouldn't call him that either," Lois said defensively. "He told me that he tries to give people who threaten him a way out, and some of the stories he told he tried to get the most peaceful resolution possible for everyone involved. But there were too many people who were too stupid to take the way out offered to them," she pontificated.
"I'll have to hear that from the guy myself," Karen said dryly. "So, do we follow the trail and see where it leads?" she asked Shayera who nodded.
"We follow it and see where it ended up; we might find some clue as to where he's gone next."
With a nod of thanks to Lois, the four Justice League members followed the trail left behind by Captain Adam, hoping to find this mysterious man and bring him to safety.
…
Adam jogged his way through the back alleys of Metropolis City. He held his assault rifle in his hands, finger touching the trigger, ready to aim and fire at a moment's notice. Spying a fire escape ladder, the spacer quickly traversed it, going up to the rooftops where he began to dash across the rooftops, leaping from roof to roof using his armour's in-built thrusters to make the jumps that were too wide for him to cross on his own naturally.
Sliding down a slanted rooftop, Adam took a moment to scan the area with his helmet's scanners. So far, so good, he thought to himself as he then jogged across the building coming up to a rooftop garden. Entering the greenhouse, the spacer took a moment to look upon the flora of Planet Earth. A small smile formed underneath his helmet as he gazed at the flowers and plants that were so unlike the flora of the Halcyon colony's planets. Briefly looking at what he believed to be a peony, Adam touched one of the flower's petals with a gloved finger, smiling to himself more widely, his mood boosted before he made his way through the glass structure and exited out the other side.
Met again with the urban landscape of the Metropolis, Adam sighed a little as he walked his way through the some airducts and turbines.
The sound of air conditioning vents humming and the turbine fans thrumming, Adam walked slowly as he prepared for whatever may come next.
The sudden rattling of something alerted Adam and he whirled around to aim his assault rifle and relaxed as he realised it was only a cat scurrying across the roof. A part of the spacer wanted to chase after the cat, not out of malice but because it had been so long since he'd seen an actual feline. Raptidons didn't count as felines.
Relaxing and continuing on his way, Adam pulled out a bottle of Glacial Age water and sipped on the hydrating liquid.
Suddenly, there was the small of ozone and burnt copper in the air which made Adam pause for a moment. Thinking that one of the turbines was in danger of breaking down, the spacer prepared to get off the rooftop when crackling hisses and fizzes of sparks shot out in front of him. It was a maelstrom of electricity that coalesced into a humanoid figure before settling to reveal a young woman. Her appearance was jarring to Adam to say the least; she had pale almost neon white skin, her hair was a vivid electric blue done in a spiky punk style and her attire consisted of navy blue bordering on black leotard with a lightning bolt cutout on the front of it. Her glowing white eyes flared with electricity as her dark blue lips curled into a sneering grin.
"Well, lookee what I got!" she cackled. "What are you supposed to? 40K lite?" she taunted with a laugh.
Adam backed away slightly, raising his rifle up to aim at this strange woman. "Who are you? Identify yourself!" he ordered in a harsh voice.
"Aww, aren't you cute? Trying to play tough guy with a girl!" the strange woman teased. "What are you gonna, spaceman? Shoot me?" she laughed.
Annoyed, Adam squeezed the trigger and fired a burst of Vulcan heavy-grade bullets at his tormentor who yelped in alarm, throwing her hands up and a barrier of pure electricity formed in front of her, blocking and even vaporising the bullets that tried to hit her.
The woman then looked at the Spacer in surprise. "You shot at me?" she asked in disbelief before she frowned indignantly. "You shot at me!" she screamed accusingly.
"I'll shoot you again if I have to," Adam said casually.
"Like to see you try, asshole!" the electric woman spat before she gave a piercing whistle. Two more women appeared; one in a whirlwind of ice and snow and the other in a nova burst of fire. The first woman had an icy complexion with ice blue hair wearing a deep blue outfit with white fur trims. The second woman was dressed in dark red skintight leather with a mane of long fiery orange hair.
"Well, lucky me; three flavours of cake. All rotten," Adam quipped sarcastically. "Now, what can I do for you?" he asked as he alternated his aim between the three women.
"Saw you on social media. Figured we could catch you and use you as a bargaining chip to get whatever we want," the icy woman said with a cruel smile on her lips.
"Well, better be prepared to haggle. I don't come cheap," Adam replied as he fired a salvo of bullets from his assault rifle. The three women scattered across the rooftop, doing their best to avoid the gunfire.
Quickly reloading, Adam leapt backwards to avoid a wave of fire that the woman in red launched at him with a wave of her hands. Going into Tactical Time Dilation, Adam looked at the red woman and shot at her shoulder in a quick burst. The woman screamed as the bullets hit in the shoulder and she stumbled backwards, clutching her haemorrhaging limb.
"Holy shit!" the electrical woman exclaimed before she looked at Adam in surprise and fear. "You ain't playing around!" she said in observation.
"What was your first clue?" Adam replied before aiming at her. His honed reflexes kicking in, Adam used his armour's thrusters to avoid a veritable stalagmite of ice that nearly speared him.
The ice woman growled in anger as her hands were wreathed in ice and snow as she formed with a long icicle with a razor sharp point to it. "Think you're tough, cowboy!?" she said to Adam. "Let's see how you do up close!" she hollered as she sprinted across towards Adam who switched his Hall of Famer tossball stick. Deflecting the first thrust from the ice spear, Adam shoved his opponent back and swung his weapon at her. The ice witch was knocked backwards and sent flying into an airduct, where it partially crumpled on impact.
The electric woman looked at her two companions were taken out so quickly, a look of fear on her features. "You're trying to kill us!" she realised as she looked at Adam who stalked towards menacingly.
"Any other observations you want to make while I'm here?" Adam asked in a near emotionless voice.
The electro-female threw her hands up and a wall of pure electricity was then between her and the Spacer. "You can't get past this, loser!" she shouted, although her voice quavered betraying her fear.
Going into tactical time dilation, Adam looked deeply at the woman; she comprised of nearly pure electrical energy. If that was the case, then maybe he could short her out and render her inert. He just needed a viable source of water to do it.
Looking past the woman, Adam smiled under his helmet as he spied a water tower behind his foe. With a volley of Vulcan heavy bullets, Adam shot at the hull of the vessel containing water. Then a veritable deluge of water burst and splashed right onto the electric woman causing her to cry out as her electrical being was compromised and her powers were shorted out. Collapsing to the floor, the electro-female was removed from the equation.
With a sigh of satisfaction, Adam prepared to make his exit when suddenly a volley of razor sharp icicles came towards him.
"I'll turn your blood to ice, douchebag!" the ice witch snarled as she flung icicles from her palms at the spacer who dodged the icy missiles as best he could. Running behind a turbine, Adam peaked his head out only to pull it back as an frosty spear nearly hit him.
"One shot," the spacer muttered to himself as he checked to see if his pistol was loaded. Seeing that the magazine was fully loaded, Captain Adam of the Unreliable nodded in satisfaction before leaping out from his hiding spot. Going into a forward roll and getting to his knees, Adam went into TTD mode and fired a single shot at the ice woman's knee. The Spacer's Choice brand lightweight calibre bullet shot through the gap and pierced the woman's knee, almost severing it.
The ice woman screamed in agony as she fell over, clutching her bleeding limb and Adam noted that her blood was an icy shade of blue, hinting that she was not entirely human.
"You fucking psycho! You shot me!" the ice witch screamed as teardrops of ice fell from her eyes as she clutched her bleeding limb. Suddenly she felt the barrel of Adam's auto-mag pistol press itself against her temple and she gave a terrified whimper as she realised that this guy was going to kill her!
Adam contemplated the thought of killing this woman, as well as the rest of her companions. But he decided to be nice about it and pulled out from his kit a few vials of adreno and tossed them to the ice witch.
"Inject that into your wound and see to your friends," the spacer advised her. "You're lucky I'm in a relatively good mood," he added for effect before turning around and leaving the three women on the rooftop.
"You bastard! When I find you, you're gonna die screaming! You hear me!?" the ice witch screamed at the now distant figure of Captain Adam of the Unreliable.
Adam frowned under his helmet and muttered, "Story of my life…"
TO BE CONTINUED…
A/N: There! Third chapter of this is done and dusted! I hope it was enough to satisfy you all because I sat down to write and this came out. Not much to say about this chapter, but I hope you liked that first encounter Adam had with the metahuman element of the DC universe.
In other news, I've written a prologue for an Elder Scrolls/Fallout/Witcher crossover. Basically, the Dragonborn and Triss Merigold end up in the Fallout universe; I've set up a voting poll of which Fallout shall be the setting for the story and although not many of you have voted, it seems Fallout 4 is the most popular choice. So for those of you who haven't, please do cast your vote; I'd like to number of voters to get up to at least ten or so before closing it.
And apart from that, I haven't got anything more to add, so I'll leave this here and see you all in the next one.
Be kind to one another,
Angry lil' elf.
