A Hollow in DC

Once we arrived back in the states it actually wasn't much of a surprise to see who came to pick up Kobra and the Kobra-Venom with how he had been mentioned several times to being the one who was to our handle.

"It's interesting... I understand how the bioship had a soul but you a machine have your own soul. Congratulations I suppose." I said somewhat absently as Red Tornado came to shake our hands for completing our mission as well as a greeting for the ones amongst us that have never met him before.

His mechanical robot voice buzzed for a moment in an almost humming sound before Red Tornado spoke to me. "As much as I would enjoy debating the logic of actually having a soul, I must put Kobra into a secure cell along with transporting this Kobra-Venom to Starlab's so they can begin studying it." Red Tornado spoke brusquely before his loud mechanical voice softened as he picked up his charges. "I do appreciate your discovery though Lorde."

Then before we could speak with Red Tornado more, past his brief greeting and taking his charges, he was captured by the Zeta Rays that the League's teleporters used and disappeared in the usual flash of light.

"Well let's take the Bioship back... I would kind of feel bad if we made the ship fly back on its own." I said flippantly as I went back to collapse into the best chair in the world.

"Yeah, my baby does get lonely if she flies alone," Megan said as she explained how Martian bio ships were the dogs to humanity as they were to Martians as they had basically treated them with great love and the ships themselves were fully capable of fully changing shape with her ship being able to turn into a humanoid shape like a transformer.

"Superboy how about you go into a store and grab some pizzas with Megan," I asked as those two with Miss Martians body-shaping abilities could easily get into a Walmart or whatever to get our snack food.

I mean the others would normally fit in better, but they are all in full costume and obviously, I couldn't go as it would be the same situation as the viral videos consisting of that certain floating pizza that fled a Supergas station that had absolutely nothing to do with me at all...

"Ooh, I would love to go shopping with you Conner!" Megan said excitedly as she morphed and lost her green skin tone to take on a darker almost Mediterranean skin tone with red hair.

"Alright fine... But I get to choose the sodas we drink." Conner capsulated and funny enough the half-Kryptonian during our lockdown had become a bit of a soda snob and only wanted to drink things like vanilla cherry pepsi/coke and once hearing how his favorite drink was a staple to go along with pizza, he showed a great deal more enthusiasm.

So, we quickly landed our cloaked ship in the side lot of a superstore, and they got a fat stack of pizzas for Megan to carry, and Conner was carrying likely a couple dozen gallons of soda with the stack of twelve-pack boxes that went from his waist all the way to his chin that he used to steady the load.

"If all those sodas explode in the ship, we will never get the sticky out," I muttered as Kid Flash ran ahead with his super speed and began stacking the twelve packs to the side, but I couldn't help but worry that the sodas touched by the speed force were going to explode like a grenade.

-

Once we got back to Mount Justice, we were welcomed back by the stoic form of Red Tornado and he made it fully clear that although he was our handler that he wasn't going to be holding our hands and was mainly to be emergency backup and to guard the Mountain in case our identities were leaked, and villains decided to attack the mountain.

"You are all heroes of humanity, and I will not be mediating teenage conflicts. If such things do arise, please make your mentors aware of them so things can be discussed, as such trivialities do not fit within my programming." He said and I could tell he was pretty locked on the coming drama of Kid Flash hounding after Miss Martian and the Martian in question only barely noticed him as she had a crush on Superboy.

"Now Lorde. I wish to discuss what you spoke of earlier at length of my being having generated a soul." Red Tornado said and honestly, I didn't mind explaining so I reached out towards him with my Pesquisa.

"I can't interfere with souls without harming them so I can't just bring it out to show you... However, I do have a technique that allows me to ping out my own soul in a wave-like motion and whenever the soul wave energy collides with another soul, it will bounce back to me like a radar." I then pointed at the still form of Red Tornado as he was probably doing some form of introspection. "So, I am damned sure you have a soul."

"Huh, a robot with a soul... That's cool!" Kid Flash yelled as he then went on about how I should try to put souls into cars and stuff to make Transformers.

"Would that be Transformers or Knight Rider?" I questioned idly and Wally looked like I just insulted his mother as he began explaining how in great detail how Transformers were better.

Finally, though his preaching monologue about the differences between dinosaur Transformers was cut short as Robin threw a paper plate like a shuriken into the speedster's mouth. "Wally shut up! Jake is literally tuning you out and is half asleep!"

Hearing Robins's voice cut through the din I slightly shook my head as I opened my eyes wide and said as casually as I could. "Huh nope, I wasn't asleep. I certainly wasn't wondering what would happen if I tried to give souls to ships and see if they become ship girls."

It was only a couple minutes later that I realized this Earth had a far weaker anime community what with superheroes widely running around anyway so personified waifus wasn't much of a thing...

Truly this world was doomed.

"So, were there heroes in your world or something? You never really seemed all to surprise when it came to the Justice League members." Kaludr asked as he put down his slice of pizza and gave me his attention and the question gathered the attention of the rest of the team.

Saying how I came from a completely mundane world wouldn't make any sense, especially seeing how I came out of Hell of all things with only the occasional night terror. So, telling them I came from the world of Bleach where I got my powers just made more sense as I had plenty of context for the world and would explain how I got my powers.

"Well, we didn't have heroes per say. We had warriors that would take care of the supernatural side of the world as the mundane police were able to take care of the mundane criminals and should a civilian get powers and go on a criminal rampage, they would be dealt with lethally in order to keep the peace of the world." I didn't get into the whole Hollow thing as being known as the monster under the bed wouldn't help engender me to the team, so I left that out.

They had plenty to chew on when I told them that there was basically no heaven in my world as I very clearly explained the differences between the four realms of Earth, Hueco Mundo being purgatory, Hell and the afterlife of Soul Society or the Seireitei that was basically stuck in the medieval period with feudal lords and squalor everywhere.

"Wow... I really don't want to die now." Kid Flash muttered before he continued. "Do you guys think Heaven is around on this Earth?"

I coughed and said wryly. "Well, I was launched into this world Hell so it's likely there is still an analogue for the better people to go something like heaven. But in the end, I believe that your afterlife is what you make of it unless you are an extremely terrible person who will be dragged to hell kicking and screaming to be tortured for eternity..." I added on the end absently as even Hell wasn't too terrible if you could find a group of people that wouldn't stab you in the back immediately like that village of demons, I met that just wanted to live out their immortality in peace.

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