23b In Young Justice (The Animated Series) Part Two NEW!
Less than a week later normal time, after dropping Kent Nelson off back at his home and not the magical tower, over a year of severely compressed time had passed thanks to the dimensional expansion power I had gained in the Shield Hero universe. Dr. Fate, Eye, and I successfully converted and altered a good portion of my advanced technology to run using normal technology analogues and very basic magic power sources.
It was quite difficult to regress the technology to the point that I could use local assets to do it, which meant no matter what world I went to, I could use it. Even in a medieval society without modernization, it should still work. If magic was present, I would use those versions instead. It was quite the breakthrough, as was the finished major project in front of me.
“I am standing here in this blank cloned body and I still cannot believe it.” Dr. Fate said with an actual mouth and not the double echo thing he usually had with a normal host body using magic. It was only his consciousness inside, so there was no need for a bargain or to override the presence of the original host, because there was none.
“I completely agree, Naabu. It's some of my best work.” I said with a bit of pride. “How are the expanded magic channels? I know Panacea's work to enhance the clone's nervous system gave you more than the standard magic interface...”
Dr. Fate chuckled and put a hand on my shoulder to interrupt me. “My friend, your idea to embed microscopic magic crystals inside the nerve clusters was brilliant.”
“You came up with having Panacea check them for organic components before we started the experiments.” I countered.
“And you came up with having those organic components converted to match the biological samples to stop any rejection.” Dr. Fate said and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “I have never felt so empowered or connected to my role, and that includes when I had my original body.”
That reminded me of some of my own failed experiments and I sighed.
“Yes, even if we had some of my original flesh to use, it wouldn't have worked. No copies can exist for people like us, John.” Dr. Fate said and let my shoulder go.
I nodded. Tissue samples from me couldn't be expanded, grown, split, or enhanced. It was worth the attempts, just to prove that it would always be a futile endeavour, no matter who was making the attempt. It was also reassuring that no matter what happened, there would always only be one of me.
“Now that you have a solid basis for everything, will you continue to convert everything technological that you have access to?” Naabu asked.
I nodded again. “I won't be trapped anywhere without the resources I need to survive properly. It probably won't be much of a world if my tech doesn't have anything to interact with; but, I won't be limited by that ever again.”
Dr. Fate smiled and his head swivelled as he looked around the city-sized space that the magic tech lab had become. “Looking back at all of this, I do not regret using my powers to help you bring Order to your Chaos.”
I chuckled at his not-so-subtle hint that I couldn't have done any of this without him. Dr. Fate gave me a wink and tapped my forearm where the shield from the Shield hero universe was. He had successfully unlocked its subsumed state and it remained inside of me, because the rules of this universe wouldn't allow such a divergent magic system to exist within it.
“All right, you convinced me. Go ahead and take one of the prototype magical reactors to install in the Tower. You have to charge it yourself, though.” I said and waved at the side of the room.
Dr. Fate nodded and a large golden Ankh symbol appeared over one of the ten large test models we had built to refine the process. A less advanced reactor than the final product that could still power a city, was not going to be a hindrance for the Tower. He also knew enough to upgrade it on his own, so I wasn't worried about him ever running out of magical power.
“I'll stop by with some magic attuned computers and media centres for you as soon as I get them up and running in a few weeks.” I offered and then chuckled. “Damn me and my need to perfect everything from the ground up without cheating!”
Dr. Fate chuckled as well. “Thank you, John.” He said as he and the reactor floated up into the air. “Could I bother you to do something similar to this in the Tower's basement?”
I barked a laugh. “You want to spend even more time being displaced? Really?”
Dr. Fate smiled. “Ah, but this is by my own choice.”
“That's a good point. I'll be by for a visit soon.” I waved acknowledgement and he and the reactor disappeared in a flash of light. I glanced around the room as well and took in all the hard work it contained. Not surprisingly, the Stargate did not work interdimensionally and it didn't have the capability to be modified to do so, even with the addition of unobtanium upgrades.
I wouldn't be introducing the technology to this world yet and would keep it secret for now, since there wasn't really a need for them and humanity didn't really have anywhere to go. I apparated from my lab to the hallway in front of Megan's room and knocked on the door. It opened and the glare on her face and the angrily crossed arms gave me a hint of how pissed off she was.
Instead of trying to explain that mental powers couldn't cross the time-compressed dimensional barrier, just like the Stargate's wormhole couldn't, I opened my mind and gave her a condensed version of everything I had done in the lab and how much I wished she had been there.
Megan's glare didn't falter until she saw the several massive failures Dr. Fate and I had suffered through and that she wouldn't have survived the explosions if she had been there. I had to rebuild and restructure Eye's drones several times after some of the minor ones, too.
“Oh, John.” Megan whispered and pulled me into her room and kissed me soundly.
I let her feel how much I regretted being away from her for so long and begged her for forgiveness that it had taken me too much time to complete the project. If I had realized we needed to work on building the blocks to build the tools to build the equipment we needed to build the final product, I would have cut it up into more manageable time chunks instead. Hindsight was 20/20, after all.
“Once you started, you couldn't stop.” Megan whispered to me and easily pulled off my hero suit.
“Not even close. We kept having to go back to alter a single part or process, then we had to redo everything to get back to where we had been previously, only to hit another roadblock and then go over everything to figure out where we went wrong and redo it all again.” I said and kissed my way down her body as I undressed her and caressed her all over.
Megan practically purred as I worshipped her like that, then she blushed as I stayed on my knees and held her tenderly to work her over with my mouth and my tongue. She floated and lifted her legs to put them over my shoulders, then she moaned when I enthusiastically thanked her for giving me better access.
We were soon on the bed and she grew extra arms to caress me all over as we made love. For her it had been a long and frustrating week, for me it had been well over a year of mental frustration and near physical pain to not have her nearby.
The thoughts in both of our heads about us not being biologically compatible, filled us with regret and we both worked harder at making each other feel good. Even my consultations with Panacea couldn't alter us to fix the problem, which meant there would be no little green metamorphs running around.
The next morning arrived before we knew it and we were cuddled up on the bed together. Neither of us spoke and let our mental processes flow together unimpeded. There were no actual words exchanged, just emotions, thoughts, and desires. The regret that we couldn't have children was always there in the background.
“We could adopt when it's time or do what Panacea and I theorized when we worked out the processes.” I suggested out loud. Introducing Megan's genetic material into a generic male clone was as close to being my own child as we could get, unless I had a child with someone else and then tried to alter them with Megan's genome.
“Do you think we will still be interested in doing that in a few years with the lifestyle we live?” Megan asked and lightly kissed my neck. “I never really thought about starting a family before, even if I have 12 siblings.”
I chuckled and ran a hand over her perfect perky ass. “Being a brood mare never crossed your mind after all the times we've had sex?”
Megan bit my neck lightly and giggled. “You do have a penchant of making sure I am quite full.”
I pulled her on top of myself and looked into her eyes. “You've been pretty deep into my Halls of Memory, too.”
Megan gave me a soft and tender kiss. “I'm never going to find someone else like you, am I?”
I went over everything I knew about my people, or people like me, and how little I really knew about them and how little we ever crossed paths. I let Megan see the fluke of first finding Gloria and helping her, then our near accidental meet-up after several millennia apart and also having to part again.
Megan's eyes widened. “John, you... that... I feel both lucky and sad.”
I gave her a tender kiss back. “That's how I feel about it, too.”
Megan moved down slightly and put her head down on my chest. “I don't know how you can adjust so well in each world you go to.”
“I want to say I've had a lot of practice, except it's been a conscious decision on my part to live whatever life I find myself in.” I told her and let her see some of my transitions and a few of my reactions, even after losing the people I loved.
Megan's multiple arms hugged me and held me tightly. I didn't have to hear her thoughts to know she was even sadder about that and happy that I had shown up here in this world and found her.
*BEEP!* *BEEP!* *BEEP!*
I turned off the alert and summoned my hero suit to tap the comm badge. “Hyperion here.”
“Hyperion, it's Batman.” Batman's strained voice said.
“When and where?” I asked without preamble. He wouldn't call me directly if it wasn't important.
Batman was quiet for several seconds. “Robin and I had a run-in with a more powerful Clayface last night. I need The Team to search Gotham for him while I recover and take care of other business.”
“I'll scramble The Team and we'll start the search as soon as we get our suits on. A stealth drone will have a med-pack with enhanced bacta injections delivered to your location in fifteen minutes.” I promised.
Batman was quiet for another few seconds. “Good to know. Batman out.”
“I think he was surprised you knew where he is.” Megan said and climbed out of bed.
I nodded and double-tapped the comm badge. “Command override. Red Alert. All Team members are to scramble to the main hangar.”
A beep from each of the others tapping their badges in acknowledgement came from mine. Megan and I finished dressing the normal way to give the others time and we walked out of her room towards the main hangar. The Zeta Beam teleporters activated as we approached and Kid Flash, Superboy, Artemis, and Robin stepped out of them wearing their costumes.
“Hey, Connor.” I said and he nodded at me. “Did you enjoy your forced time off?”
Superboy gave us a rare full smile.
“Oho!” Kid Flash said with a laugh. “Cheshire pumped you for information, didn't she?”
“Yeah.” Superboy said. “After she thoroughly distracted me the first night, she snuck off with both my armored shirt and the limited datapad.”
That had Robin bark a laugh and the others chuckled.
“I'm glad you took my advice.” I said.
“I didn't want to believe it would work at first.” Superboy said with a shrug. “You were right about how she would react.”
“You told her not to touch your study materials without your permission?” Artemis asked and Superboy nodded. “My mom did the same thing to me almost as soon as I turned my back.”
That made me chuckle. “I don't know if the League of Shadows teach a course for that or if they recruit incurably curious people first and then encourage them.”
“Definitely the second one.” Robin responded. “Some of their best operatives are also their best infiltrators and investigators.”
“That I believe.” Aqualad said as he approached from the sea entrance. “Greetings, everyone.”
“Kaldur.” “Hey.” “Yo.” “Hi!”
Robin, Artemis, Kid Flash, and Miss Martian said. Superboy held up a fist to be bumped and Aqualad bumped it with his own.
“What is the red alert?” Aqualad asked.
“Robin, do you want to give the briefing?” I asked and he looked a little surprised, then he smiled.
“Sure! Thanks, Hyperion.” Robin almost gushed.
I waved at the hologram table and he walked around it. Robin activated his wrist computer and uploaded a few files wirelessly to show us. I had upgraded his microcomputer for him and he was extremely grateful.
“Okay, this is what happened last night...” Robin started and briefed us as the table played the video. Their battle with a much more powerful Clayface was a long and brutal one. Both he and Batman had analyzed the fight afterwards and it was almost as if they had fought a different Clayface than the one they had fought before.
Robin finished the briefing by saying The Team had an official request from Batman to track Clayface down and to inform Batman of the location and possibly Clayface's plans, if they could be discovered.
“Did you bring me a sample?” I asked.
Robin opened a small compartment on his belt and took out a reinforced baggie with a chunk of mud in it. He handed it to me and I waved Eye over. A tray opened up in his middle of his floating drone body and I tossed in the sample, bag and all.
“You're kidding.” Robin said and stared at Eye.
“He's had a few upgrades since the last time you've seen him.” I said and waited.
Eye worked for several minutes and then beeped a couple of times. I motioned towards the holographic table as an in-depth analysis appeared with several chemical formulas. Eye beeped several times as the display drew a few lines between the formulas and also notes about the reactions between them.
“Well, that explains Clayface's behavior and power boost.” I said and the young heroes gave me searching looks. “Oh, sorry. I wouldn't have understood it if I hadn't just done an extensive breakdown on several of my regeneration techniques, fluids, and technologies.”
“Explain.” Robin said in a fair imitation of Batman. The others chuckled and Megan giggled.
“Clayface's chemical composition has been contaminated and enhanced by a raw and unfiltered Lazarus Pit fluid.” I informed them.
Robin's mouth dropped open and the others looked surprised, except for Superboy.
“Does that mean I can punch him without worry?” Superboy asked.
“If we want to slow him down, making him splatter will be needed. It should take him about thirty seconds to reconstitute enough to move again.” I pointed to several of the formulas. “The main mass is where his consciousness resides. Any extra pieces will eventually grow big enough to have a limited intelligence and mobility and will make their way back to the main mass when they can.”
Robin stared at the formulas. “Is that why we don't have a dozen Clayfaces running around? He's been blown up and spread around a lot over the years.”
I nodded. “It's also why he is quite a lot stronger and denser this time. He must have been little more than a puddle or piles of crumbly dust when he entered the pit, probably by accident.”
“His parts reconstituted first and grew before they sought to rejoin the main mass in the pit.” Robin correctly postulated. “That makes sense. If he was both potentially resurrected and infused with those chemicals before reconstituting into his full humanoid form...”
“He's probably about as strong as Superboy was when he first exited the clone pod and is just as mentally affected.” I said and reached over to place a hand on Conner's arm. “Imagine having a few immature genomes inside your head and each of them are telling you what they want you to do.”
Superboy almost growled. “I'd be constantly angry and going crazy from all the voices.”
“That's right.” I said and looked at The Team. “A compromised Clayface is a very dangerous Clayface. You are to exercise extreme caution when searching for parts of him.”
“Wait, parts?” Robin asked.
“If I was him, I would break off bits of myself and change them into rats or cats to spread out and create a perimeter that I could relax in that no one could sneak up on.” I said and they all gave me surprised looks. “It might not happen that way. I'm just speculating on what I would do to split off some of those independent voices for a while.”
“I'm not sure why I can accept that as making sense.” Robin said with a smile. “We better add it to our operating restrictions if we're going into the sewers. The number of rats down there could easily be infiltrated by a morphed piece of Clayface.”
“The sewers?” Artemis asked and looked at me. “Please tell me you have some kind of environmental suit or something.”
“Why would you think I would have some kind of advanced technology that a normal person could survive in space with?” I asked and took out a millimetre-thin stretchy clear suit that had a collapsible oval helmet. When you had access to magic powered replicators, you could make wondrous things.
“You have to share that design with the League!” Robin gasped. “They could save so many people...”
I chuckled. “It can't be recreated using normal technology.”
Megan reached over and poked the side of my head. “Stop teasing him.”
“Sorry, dear.” I said and took out a free-standing industrial replicator from my storage space. It was fifteen feet tall, twenty feet long, and ten feet deep.
“WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?!?” Robin and Kid Flash yelled.
“It's something I spent about two months trying to figure out how to get to work with an independent power source and now blow up because of the unstable interactions.” I said and glossed over the fact that the source could be either a naquadah generator that could power a small town or a magical focusing crystal the size of my head, which was why the unstable interactions were so dangerous.
“What's it for?” Superboy asked.
“I could joke and say lots of things; but, it's main purpose is industrial-sized parts, equipment, and superstructure frames.” I said and turned around to type on the LCARS pad on the front of the display.
The Team stared as a swirling beam of energy appeared in the aperture and Robin's Batcycle formed from it.
“Jesus H. Christ in heaven.” Artemis whispered, almost reverently.
“It's fully functional.” I said and picked the motorcycle up and put it next to Robin. “I'll make suits for everyone while you examine that.”
Robin fell upon it like a starving man with a fresh meal and soon everyone joined in to help. While they were busy, I created more environmental suits and set them on the holographic table, then stored the industrial replicator. I was tempted to create some of the main support frames for a shuttlecraft and decided to skip that for now. There was no point in shocking the teens too much in one day.
The start of the motorcycle was the cue I needed that they were finished with the tests. “Shut it down and let's board Megan's bioship. We have a mission to complete.”
The Team perked up at the order and each of them grabbed a suit and went to the small hangar where the bioship was stored. Eye and I followed them, neither of us needed a suit for protection because we wouldn't be entering what I suspected would be an unnecessarily elaborate sewer system under Gotham.
By the time the ship reached the city for The Team to begin the systematic search for Clayface, Batman was fully healed and had sent me an official request to have several med-pack deliveries sent to the Justice League satellite in orbit and to Wayne Enterprises in Gotham.
I had no problems with sending them, because I knew from decades of experience that it was not reproducible without the original components, which I didn't have or had access to. I only had the final formula that worked the best it ever had and it only took years and years of tweaking it to get it that way.
Each world that had technology in it that I visited, allowed me to enhance and perfect the bacta fluid to the point that it gave someone a massive regeneration factor without changing or altering anything. The funny part was that it still didn't work to correct any inherent flaws in a person's body. Genetic quirks like damaged heart valves or birth defects had to be corrected another way and then healed.
“All right, Team. This is it.” I said as the bioship came in for a landing on top of the main sewage treatment plant. “I'm still in the advisory role, so it's all on you.”
“Understood.” Aqualad said and stood. “Robin, hack into the plant's computers and find the latest plans for the sewer system.” He turned and looked at me. “Do we have enough datapads for everyone?”
I handed over a box filled with them.
“Thank you.” Aqualad said and distributed them. “Do you have any advice or other equipment we might need?”
I gave him a thumbs up and handed him another box. Aqualad and everyone looked inside and Robin caught his breath.
“You can't be serious.” Robin said and picked one of the devices up.
I was tempted to make a Sirius Black joke and stopped myself. “I assume you know what those are?”
“Seismic detectors.” Robin said and turned one on. “If calibrated right, they can detect movement within a hundred feet.”
“They've also been modified to allow datapad access. If the datapad has a map on it...” I suggested.
Robin laughed and held a hand up for Kid Flash to give him a high five.
“The only real advice I can give you is that you don't need to waste time trying to pick out individual rats as you look for Clayface.” I said and looked right at Superboy.
Superboy had another smile on his face, because he understood right away. “Kill them all and worry about anything that keeps moving afterwards.”
“Excellent.” Aqualad said. “We will split into pairs. One close combat, one ranged, and watch each other's backs.”
“I'm with Superboy.” Artemis said.
“Dibs on the Robin-man.” Kid Flash said.
“I guess that means you're stuck with me, Aqualad.” Miss Martian teased.
“The close combat members take the datapads and movement trackers to point out where to go and where the movement is. It will allow the range specialists to keep their hands free.” Aqualad ordered and everyone nodded. “Let's move out.”
“Oh, just one more thing.” I said and they all looked at me. “Superboy, have you been practising your lung exercises?”
“Every morning when using the weight machines.” Superboy said.
“Great! If things get hectic, try using the Arctic Breath move to take care of any swarms.”
Superboy raised his eyebrows for a moment, then he grinned. “Not a problem.”
“Good luck, everyone.” I said and they left the ship to start the mission.
“Beep boop?” Eye asked.
“That's a great idea, Eye. Thanks.” I said and sat down on the pilot's chair. It reformed around me and I hit my comm badge. “Hyperion to Voyager Three. How's the view up there?”
“It's both interesting and boring.” V3 said and I chuckled. “What can I do for you?”
“Eye just gave me a great idea to borrow some of the artifacts from The Flash museum. Do you feel like beaming them up and seeing if you can replicate them?”
“I can try.” V3 said. “You know I can't replicate technology that's too complicated or has a power source that's not in my databases.”
“The preliminary scans from the transporter should tell you what you can and can't copy in seconds. Whatever you discover that can't be copied, send it down here to me and I'll copy it instead.” I said.
“Then you can alter it to work with technology I do have access to and will solve that problem.” V3 responded.
“Exactly.” I said. “I'll be up to visit after the mission to give you examples of everything I've changed so far. It's going to take me time to do more than the few things I've already done.”
“You have always fulfilled your promises, so I'm not worried.” V3 said. “Six of the ten devices can be replicated. They are made with local materials and easily reconstructed. Four of them have odd energy signatures and I don't dare try to pull them apart to see how they work.”
“Send copies of those six things back to their display cases and send me the four you couldn't copy.” I said and a small table teleported in front of me with four devices on it. One of them was a kind of belt buckle and I didn't know what it was. There was also a cold gun, a heat gun, and surprisingly a pair of ice skates.
I chuckled at the supposedly simple items that couldn't be added to a replicator and touched the belt buckle. I immediately gained the image of 'Mirror Dimension Portal Generator'. That was a shock, because the thing was only three inches long, two inches wide, and a quarter of an inch thick. Whatever power source it had would be quite the discovery.
I touched the cold gun and it also had a power source that was unidentifiable. It wasn't infinite, even if it did regenerate itself over time. Whatever it was, it let the gun shoot icicles, a stream of ice, and create large chunks from fist-sized to the size of an iceberg. The last one would drain it dry.
The heat gun was similar, only it created beams of heat that could melt pretty much anything. One setting even created lava somehow, which meant it was a matter converter like the ice gun. It was going to be fun trying to take the thing apart to figure out how it did the things it could do.
The ice skates were similar to the cold gun as well, except the emitters were on the blades and they created an icy surface no matter where they skated, including up in the air, essentially granting flight to whomever wore them and knew how to skate.
The power source was the same as the cold gun, so that meant the ice skates were not limited to only a thin patch of ice and could probably coat entire fields in ice for easy movement. It would drain the power source fast if used in a huge burst like that, however.
“Beep.” Eye said from beside me after I described everything.
“Yeah, inventors here are weird.” I agreed and asked Voyager to return the items to The Flash Museum. The four items and the small table disappeared. “If they could make such things, why would they turn to crime? They could make a fortune renting out their services.”
“Boop?” Eye asked.
“Yes, that's right! A small tweak of the cold gun's settings could possibly make snow instead of ice and it could be used to keep ski lodges in business year round.” I said and chuckled. “I can think of a dozen uses for a heat gun, the first of which is nearly instant road repair. Any crack in asphalt would meld right back together and then a quick low power shot from the cold gun would harden it.”
Eye beeped a couple of times.
“I have a sneaking suspicion that the mirror portal thing is similar to the dimensional mirror device I picked up back in SG-1. The controls are only on and off, which means it only opens to a single dimension and it's not adjustable like the other one is.” I said and crossed my arms. “Still, a self-regenerating portal device that you can use to escape from anywhere through any mirrored surface into a stable dimension, is quite the accomplishment.”
“Beep beep.” Eye reminded me.
I laughed. “I know! The first thing the genius did was try to rob banks with it! How stupid is that?”
“Boop beep boop.”
“Now there's a weird thought. Are there mirrored people on the other side if you use a mirror that has their reflections in them?” I asked him.
“Beep.”
“You're right. Dimensional rules are weird.” I said and uncrossed my arms. “I'm tempted to try it, just to see.”
“Beep!”
I laughed again. “I'm sure that even my reflection doesn't count as copying me. If I do somehow meet my mirror self, which I doubt can happen, he won't have my powers or abilities.”
Eye made a relieved sound and I patted his side.
“How are the kids doing?” I asked.
Eye displayed a hologram screen in front of me with the three teams as they had a blast clearing out the vermin from the sewers.
“This is probably going to take a while with them having so much fun.” I said and relaxed in the chair. It moved with me and the chair almost hugged me as the straps moved to secure me in place. Thank you. I thought to the bioship and it sent me a happy feeling. I sent it the contentment I felt and I could have sworn it let out an audible purring sound despite it not having any kind of mouth or vocal chords.
*
Artemis the Amazon Warrior Commander looked around the massive well-furnished living suite she shared with a fellow Amazon. She had been in the magically expanded and time accelerated space for a month already and the training was the hardest she had ever encountered. Her muscles had strained against the increased weights and difficulty every day and she would never admit that she loved it.
The specialized combat trainers pushed her to do better and to keep doing more. She felt a deep sense of accomplishment because she kept succeeding in tasks she would have balked at before, and in some cases, wouldn't have attempted in the first place. She also had a deep seated desire to punch John Hansen's face in.
How dare he restrict us from enjoying the stress relief gifts he had given the Amazons back on Paradise Island? Artemis thought, furious.
“Artemis, you're growling again.” Ganymede said and Artemis glared at her, so she smiled. “Personal wrestling match?”
“Best two out of three!” Artemis agreed immediately and tackled the other woman to the bed.
It was a quick and dirty fight as they exchanged blows that would have crippled or crushed a normal woman, and both of them were soon soaked in sweat and bodily fluids. They panted heavily when the first round was over and they collapsed to recover and cuddled each other.
“That's... one for me.” Ganymede said and lightly kissed one of her friend's extremely hard nipples.
“I was... so close... to beating you.” Artemis responded and kissed the top of her friend's head.
The two of them laid there for several minutes without moving.
“We could take off the weighted bracelets, anklets, belts, and neck straps.” Ganymede suggested.
“Don't you dare.” Artemis said. “Until we can move round like it's normal while wearing them, we keep them on.”
Ganymede sat up and looked down at her friend's face. “Do you think all of this is going to make a significant difference to our fighting strength?”
Artemis nodded. “I don't know how that asshole's claim about us becoming as strong as Princess Diana can ever come true; but, I have noticed that I am much faster when we fight and I can lift more weight than when we first started.”
Ganymede was quiet for a moment, then she understood. “Sweet Hera! We will be even faster and stronger after we take off the weights!”
Artemis nodded and pulled her down into a searing kiss to start the next round of bed battle, her tongue doing its best to dominate her friend's. Ganymede kissed her back just as enthusiastically and then the grappling started and they changed positions to dig their tongues in other places. They were soon too busy feeling great for either of them to keep track of who was winning.
*
“I can't believe how easy that was.” Kid Flash said as he and the rest of The Team stood around the flash-frozen form of Clayface that was in the middle of a punching move with a spiked fist. They had found six different pieces of him disguised as rats that they had hurt and followed back to the main body. Superboy's reaction to Clayface's attack had stopped the villain in his tracks.
“We might get an earful from Batman over engaging the target.” Robin said and the others looked at him. “What? He said to track Clayface and to call it in.”
“Did you?” Miss Martian asked him.
“Yes, he did.” Batman's rough voice said from the shadows. None of them were surprised to see him.
“It was in self defense.” Superboy said.
“What was?” Batman asked.
“Killing him.” Superboy said with a sigh.
“He's only technically dead.” Hyperion's voice came over their comm badges.
“He's frozen solid and there's no brain activity.” Superboy responded.
“There was none before, so that's no indication.” Hyperion said and that surprised everyone, even Batman.
“Explain.” Batman ordered.
“Matt Hagen actually died when his body was infused with an overdose of RenuYou. Every cell in his human body was dissolved away and was absorbed by the compound. What you're actually looking at is a sentient mound of an animated clay-like substance with a copy of Hagen's memories. If you broke it exactly half and let them reform into human shapes, you would get two teenagers with half of the original's mental capacity.”
“Oh, my god.” Artemis whispered.
“When he was broken apart into much smaller pieces and dust before being dropped into the Lazarus Pit, each piece absorbed some of the unfiltered compound and increased the creature's power and its ability to survive any damage done to it. It's just speculation on my part that if it can convert more living things into more of itself and absorb them, it could grow to the size of a building and then break itself apart into dozens of people.”
“Which we would never find inside a population as large as Gotham.” Robin said.
“Only because shooting random people to see if they bleed or change to clay would be a very bad thing. A normal person can accept us killing bugs and rats without a problem; but, if we try upping that to cats and dogs, we would be vilified and declared monsters faster than if we had killed the president on live television.” Hyperion said with a chuckle.
“That's totally true.” Miss Martian agreed and the rest of The Team nodded.
“So, what do we do with this thing?” Kid Flash asked and waved at the thing.
“I hear Venus is nice this time of year.” Hyperion said and Miss Martian laughed. “Or the moon of Europa around Jupiter. It's an icy heaven.”
“Can you arrange that?” Robin asked and his datapad beeped at him. “Are you kidding me?”
They all watched the telltale teleporter effect and the frozen Clayface faded away.
“V3 will fly out to Europa in a few minutes.” Hyperion said.
Batman's eyes narrowed at Robin's datapad that showed Voyager and its schematics. “I think we need to talk.”
“I have a better idea. We can have another family beach party this weekend.” Hyperion offered and The Team let out a cheer.
“I'll send out the invitations!” Miss Martian said and quickly started typing on her datapad. The last one had been a huge hit and everyone that attended had enjoyed it, especially the civilians.
Batman held in his sigh at his intimidation tactic being so thoroughly disregarded.
“Batman, do you have anywhere you need to be right now?” Hyperion asked.
“Unfortunately.” Batman said and something started to appear in the air in front of him. He caught the datapad after it finished forming and stared at it for several seconds. He hit a few options and held his thumb over the execute button. “Delaying bribe accepted.”
The Team watched as Batman and the datapad disappeared in a teleporter beam.
“Okay, that was cool.” Kid Flash said.
“If you could do that with individuals, why do we take vehicles and fly the bioship everywhere?” Robin asked, curiously.
“There's more to team dynamics than immediate transport to missions.” Hyperion said. “It gives time for more briefings, socialization, and building confidence in your teammates and their abilities.”
“And cohesion.” Miss Martian said. “Working together well gives us a huge advantage over nearly everyone else that we've ever been up against, especially when we encounter villain team-ups.”
Aqualad nodded. “I agree. We have been meshing together much better recently, despite having our own lives and side missions with our mentors.”
Superboy couldn't stop his smile at those words, because staying at the Kent Farm was great. The wide open spaces he saw every morning when he woke up, gave him a feeling of freedom that he never had before. Ma's homemade apple pie was to die for, too. Cheshire's regular visits made it that much better.
“The Flash let me catch one of Captain Boomerang's exploding boomerangs last week! It was awesome!” Kid Flash exclaimed.
“I hope you threw it up into the air or something.” Robin said and pointed in a direction. “Let's get out of the sewers. The closest manhole is a hundred feet that way.”
“Throw it? Ha! I vibrated it into the pavement at his feet. Kablooie!” Kid Flash said and laughed. “It knocked him right into the path of Trickster's glue gun and splorch! Two captured villains!”
They all started walking where Robin said to go.
“That's awesome!” Miss Martian exclaimed and kept an eye on her datapad. There were already ten positive replies to the party invite and she was quite happy about that.
“I'll land near the exit.” Hyperion said over the comm. “The ship is cloaked and at three o'clock.”
“Roger that.” Robin said and the rest of the team chatted about their missions with their mentors. Unlike them, a lot of the things he and Batman dealt with were not really for public consumption.
The Team climbed the ladder while still chatting and entered the bioship. They took off the thin environmental suits and sat down on their assigned seats. Miss Martian sat right on Hyperion's lap and more safety straps flowed over her to hold her in place against him. She felt him take a few liberties as she flew the ship up into the air and she didn't mind, and neither did her ship.
That gave Miss Martian an interesting idea about the next time they had sex. Maybe staying in contact with her ship would change things up a little? The ship shuddered for a split second and Hyperion's muffled laugh as he nuzzled her neck made her smile.
*
The beach party that weekend was a huge success. It was even bigger than the last one as most of the Justice League showed up with their families and significant others. It gave everyone an excuse to relax and enjoy themselves and the food was the best. Hyperion had reprogrammed the food synthesizers for each of their specific diets and made sure everyone knew that they could get their own specialized foods.
The talk with Batman included the other two members of 'The Big Three', Superman and Wonder Woman. The discovery that they could potentially transport down to anywhere on the planet and not just to previously set up Zeta Tube landing sites, gave them and the League a valuable resource.
To their surprise, Hyperion had already arranged for the installation of a transporter room with its own power source and computer setup for them and it wouldn't take long to integrate it with the Justice League satellite's established systems. Because of the sheer power of the thing, they could also transport to the moon.
When they asked why Hyperion hadn't shared the technology before, he had laughed and said that he and Dr. Fate had worked together in a magically expanded and temporally frozen pocket dimension to fix the major parts of his tech base and it was taking even more time working backwards to adjust everything to work properly without causing explosions or implosions.
The public medical facilities would be ready in a few weeks as well. They would soon open their doors and start treating people, free of charge for the first thousand customers, and would regrow missing parts, limbs, and anything else that needed to be replaced.
Of course, with most of the Justice League there, they all wanted another tour of the old base and discussed renting or buying all of the heavily modified workout machines and devices. The distinct improvements that all of The Team had shown since the last beach party had intrigued everyone and they wondered if they could improve themselves as well.
Hyperion had laughed at them thinking they had to give him money for the things and promised that he would make another visit to the station and would deliver multiple copies of each of the machines to replace the ones they had in their own large workout facilities, after he upgraded the bacta facilities he had previously delivered.
That put everyone into an even better mood and the party lasted for most of the day and part of the evening. When Martian Manhunter appeared that evening after his normal shift, Megan tackled her uncle and hugged him tightly. They hadn't had much interaction lately and she missed the much older martian. She also had a gift for him.
John Jones was brought inside Panacea's private lab and Megan was almost vibrating with excitement as Panacea explained her extensive work with biological specimens and systems. Her powers let her modify and change things to improve them, which she had recently devoted to fixing a particular weakness that all martians had. She could make him immune to fire.
John was so stunned by the revelation that he reverted from his human disguise to his normal martian body with extra arms and extended head instead of his superhero disguise. Panacea did not tell him that it was thanks to her work in trying to make Megan biologically compatible to have my child.
Megan hugged her uncle again. “It was Hyperion's idea to fix my own weakness to fire and asked Panacea to help him work on it.”
Megan then explained that Panacea didn't want to change martians into a difference species or change their biology fundamentally, so it had taken a while to come up with the right modifications to adjust their physiology to become resistant to fire and not have it only be a cosmetic change. Their children would inherit the ability, too.
It took no prompting at all for Martian Manhunter to agree to the procedure and shook Panacea's hand. “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to ease one of my greatest phobias.” The martian said. “When can you take the time to perform such an extensive procedure?”
Megan giggled and looked highly amused.
Panacea let the alien's hand go. “It's already done. Congratulations.”
Martian Manhunter stood there and stared at her, his mouth hanging open.
“Please don't jump in the bonfire outside to test it. You'll scare the hell out of everyone.” Panacea said and waved them out of the lab, because she and Lake were having their own party. “Goodbye.”
Megan grabbed her uncle's arm and had to drag the stunned martian out of the lab. She held in her laugh at his reaction until she met up with John. They both laughed and had Martian Manhunter change back into his superhero form to sit down and served him his favorite martian dish.
“Did you tell him that when the long range transporters are installed that he can visit Mars whenever he wants?” John asked her.
“Nope!” Megan said and laughed when Martian Manhunter's mouth fell open once more and a piece of partially chewed meat fell out. She floated it back in for him and closed the stunned man's mouth. “We have to give him time to recover from his extensive medical procedure before telling him that.”
John laughed at the joke and they left the poor martian to his food as they mingled among the heroes and their families. They were soon dancing to the music and encouraged a bunch of other people to join them. Who knew that a young Martha Kent could dance like that? Oh boy, could she go!
*
I woke up and I felt a sensual tongue delicately licking my balls. Normally, this wouldn't cause me any alarm, considering I was in bed with a pretty girl that liked experiencing a wide range of sensations.
The problem I had was that particular girl's head was currently resting on my chest and I knew that Megan couldn't grow a tongue anywhere else on her body. Yes, she tried. Like I said, she wanted to try a wide range of sensations. The times we had sex on her bioship were proof of that.
I lifted my head to look down to where I could still feel a tongue's gentle licks, only to see the blonde hair of Artemis as she happily gave my tender bits some loving care. She licked her way up my quite erect shaft and the look on her face was one full of desire and need, then she opened her mouth and sucked me in like a vacuum and plunged right down to kiss the skin around the base of my manhood.
My eyebrows rose at seeing Artemis take all of me in without any trouble at all and I let out a soft moan of pleasure as her tongue kept working, even with me lodged halfway down her throat. That took talent, because she wasn't choking or struggling for breath. She looked quite pleased at hearing me moan for her, too.
Megan. Sweetheart. Love. I thought, a little harshly.
Megan woke instantly at the tone of my mental voice and visibly winced. Y-yes, John?
Would you mind telling me why there's an attractive blonde giving me one of the best blowjobs I've ever gotten? I asked her, quite pointedly.
Megan opened her eyes and saw Artemis moving almost all the way off of me and then gobbling me down again. I... um... may have... told her about the body mods you can do.
Body mods? I thought and then stopped breathing when I understood what she meant. You showed her Panacea's research papers for working on Metallo.
I hadn't meant to. Megan thought in her defense. I commented about Panacea fixing my weakness to fire at the party, then we started discussing other things that could be possible and we eventually ended up in the lab to check on her research.
I mentally sighed and started breathing again. She knows about Miracle.
Megan nodded. It was only mentioned a little at first, so it wasn't clear what it was. By the time we reached the end of the report and I realized what it was, it had already explained the changes made to Metallo and how it enhanced his biological structure so he wouldn't die from the extensive modifications Cadmus had done to him and that you two had repaired and replaced.
I could feel myself reaching climax and I reached for Artemis and tapped on the top of her head to let her know. She gave me a determined look instead of moving away and plunged all the way down onto me and kissed the skin at the base again. I let myself go and she didn't even taste it as her throat worked as she swallowed it all. It wasn't like I could refuse her at this point, anyway.
Artemis slid her mouth off of me and gave me a pleading look. “Please, John. Please.”
I knew she was asking for more than what I thought she was asking for. I gave Megan a pointed look and she looked apologetic. I sighed and looked back at Artemis before I nodded.
“Thank you!” Artemis said with a huge smile and crawled up my body before she sat down on me. She must have prepped herself beforehand, because she easily slid me inside of her and she let out a womanly moan like it wasn't her first time.
I did a quick mind probe on her and I was surprised to learn that it really was her first time. She thought she couldn't have picked a better man to give it to and she had decided a while ago that if she ever had the chance to have sex with me, she would take it.
Her sound reasoning was that I didn't coddle her, or told her that she couldn't do something, and I never discouraged her from doing dangerous hero work like everyone else in her life, which included her mother and Green Arrow. I also taught her a lot of things not related to being a hero and she actually felt smarter.
Now that I had agreed to give her Miracle to bring the condition of her body up to minor superhero status, Artemis was devoted to proving that my faith in her wasn't wasted. I gave Megan another pointed look and she shrugged.
It's your fault for encouraging her so much. Megan thought to me and smirked.
I had to mentally laugh at that and reached up to cup the very nice pair of tanned breasts bouncing above me. This is kind of a vacation world with how easy it is anyway, so I might as well enjoy it as much as I can.
That's the spirit! Megan thought, happily. She would never admit that it also got her out of trouble.
Artemis let out an indecent moan as my hands groped her. After a few minutes, she laid down on me and kissed me passionately just before she had a body-rocking orgasm. She screamed into my mouth and I didn't stop moving my hips, because she kept moaning and her orgasm kept going and going.
Do you need a hand? Megan asked and grew an extra set of arms to give her four hands in total.
I rolled Artemis over and leaned up to kneel on the bed and lifted her hips. Go for it.
Artemis almost screamed in pleasure as Megan's four very experienced hands groped and rubbed her all over and I held onto her hips and moved in and out of her like a jackhammer. Since we were taking our relationship to the next level, Megan and I were going to make sure that Artemis was going to remember her first time for the rest of her life.
Three days later, the procedure was done and we were all in the main training area as Artemis was put through her paces.
“I love this new compound bow!” Artemis said and lifted the folding device from her hip, deployed it, and pulled a steel arrow from her quiver in one smooth motion. It was three times as heavy as a normal arrow and she handled it like it was weightless. She loaded it in a split second, aimed, and fired.
The projectile flew 500 feet almost instantly and went right through the center of the target and lodged into the bracing wall behind it.
“I really really love it!” Artemis exclaimed and put the bow back on her hip as it folded up. She waited for the next target to appear on the range and repeated her actions to drive another arrow through the center of that target.
“Your draw times are unbelievable.” Robin said and looked over his tablet. “You were already at near Olympic levels when you weren't enhanced and that was with a normal compound bow and arrow.”
“I know! Isn't it awesome?” Artemis asked and put the bow back on her hip. She started to turn to look at Robin and another target appeared. She whipped back around, pulled the folded bow from her hip, and it deployed as she loaded and loosed another arrow. It went through the center of the target again and she let out a cheer.
“Your reaction times are also enhanced. That lets me know our previous tests as a baseline were spot on.” I said and used my own tablet to double-check. “Yes, Miracle increases everything a non-enhanced subject has and not just the base stats like I thought.”
“If you're great at archery already, you become phenomenal.” Robin agreed and tapped a few things as he nodded. “You could give Green Arrow a run for his money at your current level.”
“No way!” Artemis gasped and put her bow away and ran over to him. “You're kidding!”
“Nope.” Robin said with a smile and showed her what he checked. It was Green Arrow's last performance tests done by the Justice League.
“Wow.” Artemis whispered, almost in awe.
“That's so great, Artemis!” Megan said and hopped a little and hugged the other girl.
“You can only get better from here on.” I commented and ended the test.
“I can?” Artemis asked and hugged Megan back.
“What would Green Arrow tell you if you stopped training?” I asked her.
“Only quitters quit!” Artemis almost shouted.
“That's right.” I said and stored the tablet. “Just because you are better than you were, that doesn't mean you're the best. Not yet, anyway.”
Artemis beamed a smile at me. “That means you're going to keep teaching me!”
I chuckled and nodded at her enthusiasm.
“YES!” Artemis and Megan shouted and hugged each other tighter.
“Can I get some of that Miracle stuff?” Kid Flash asked with a handful of corn dogs in his hands.
I shook my head. “It's not for previously enhanced individuals. Remember what I said about it. It enhances everything from the base.” I motioned to the six corn dogs he had left from the pile I had made for him.
Kid Flash looked scared. “You're kidding! I'd be eating more? Really?”
“You already have an enhanced metabolism. If you enhance it more, you'll probably have to eat all the time and not just a pile of food during meals.” I said and Robin nodded in agreement. “Now imagine how fast you run being doubled or tripled and having to relearn how to take turns and not run into things.”
“No thanks!” Kid Flash said and ate another corn dog instantly.
“Don't worry about it. I'm working with all of you to improve yourselves and to teach you all to handle your abilities. That's my job.” I said and they all nodded.
“What about me?” Robin asked.
I pointed at his tablet. “Case in point.”
“What?” Robin asked.
“It's configured specifically for you and your analytical mind. It's also loaded with everything I could fit onto it.” I said and he raised his eyebrows. “Don't tell me Batman didn't tell you about it after he examined it?”
“What didn't he tell me?” Robin asked, a little nervous.
“It has all the knowledge available on the internet on it.” I said and his mouth dropped open. “You thought it was connecting and pulling the information with each search you did, didn't you?”
“Y-yeah.” Robin said and looked down at his tablet. “You gave this to me weeks and weeks ago and I knew it was a great resource. I just never thought...”
“Now you know why Batman doesn't want me to release it to the public.” I said and he nodded.
“Can any baseline human use Miracle?” Superboy asked.
I knew why he was asking. He and Cheshire wanted to move their relationship to be more than dating occasionally and having a bit of fun. “I'm not sure it would be enough for what you're thinking.”
Superboy frowned a little. “What would you recommend?”
I walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Well done, Connor.”
“What?” The other members of the Team asked, clearly confused.
“Connor is angry about my refusal and didn't throw a tantrum or started yelling about how unfair it was. He instead thought through the problem in seconds and asked me what I would do instead of using Miracle.” I said and smiled at him. “Come to my lab later and we can discuss a fairly good alternative that should alleviate your worries.”
Superboy's slight frown changed to a slight smile. “Okay.”
I let his shoulder go and turned to Artemis. “I've collected all the data needed to submit to the Justice League and Batman. They'll update your records and amend your status to reflect what you can do now.”
Artemis gave me a huge smile. “They should increase my priority and give us more difficult missions.”
“Yes, they will.” I said and smiled back. “I just have to suffer through Batman reaming me out for enhancing you without his permission and then having a really really long discussion about Robin and Batgirl.”
“Batgirl?” Most of the others asked.
I gave Robin a quick look and his face flushed red. “It's a private matter at the moment. Let's just say we might be gaining a new member soon, even if it might be controversial.”
“That's an understatement.” Robin said under his breath.
“I seem to be saying 'don't worry' a lot lately.” I joked and he smiled.
“At least that's not as bad as 'trust me'.” Robin joked right back.
I had to laugh at that. “Good point. That's always trouble.”
“What's that smell?” Superboy suddenly asked.
“MY COOKIES!” Megan yelled and flew off at her best speed.
“I swear she does that on purpose.” I said with a shake of my head. “Come on, everyone. If you don't eat them while they're hot, they become bricks.”
That had them everyone laugh and we all went to the kitchen to see Megan pull out two huge cookie sheets from the oven with her bare hands. The sheets were covered in rounded cookies that only partially spread out before they started to brown.
“Dammit, not enough vegetable oil this time.” Megan groused and put the sheets on the counter.
“You don't have to make them from scratch every time, dear.” I said and gave her cheek a kiss.
“It's more satisfying this way when I finally get it right.” Megan said with determination.
“They're still good.” Superboy said and he had one in each hand with bites out of them.
“Yeah! Delicious!” Kid Flash said and he had his hands full as he ate them like candy.
“Thanks, guys.” Megan said with a blush.
“Despite the walking stomachs being willing to eat pretty much anything, these actually are pretty good.” Robin complimented her and took another bite from the cookie he had.
Artemis tried one and nodded as she kept eating it.
“Thanks a lot.” Megan said and smiled widely.
I took out a small dish of calamari from inventory and handed it to Aqualad.
“Thank you.” The stoic young man said and dug into the diced squid tentacles.
We hung out at the kitchen counter for about twenty minutes as we talked about what they wanted to do for the rest of the day. They all had plans, even Megan and Superboy. Megan was going with her uncle Martian Manhunter to Mars for a few days to visit their family and Superboy was going to visit Cheshire where she lived.
I walked them all to the Zeta Tubes in the main hangar bay and told them all to have fun before coming back to work their asses off next weekend. I kept Superboy back and when it was just him and myself left, I brought him to my part of the lab that was sectioned off. I hit the button combination needed to open the false wall and Superboy stared at the revealed clone pod that had a ten year old boy floating in it.
“I'd like you to meet your fraternal twin, Jon-El.” I said and Superboy looked from the pod, to me, to the pod, and back to me. “Yes, this was who was in the pod that was covered in lead when we rescued you from Cadmus.”
“He's like me?” Superboy asked and put a hand on the glass cover.
“Technically a clone of Superman?” I asked and he nodded. “He has most of the same DNA, only instead of having Lara's main facial features like you and Kal-El do, he took after Jor-El.”
Superboy nodded as he examined the jawline and the cheekbones. “We do kind of look alike, only his face is sharper and more regal looking.”
“He'll be ready to decant in a week or so. Panacea and I had to do a lot of work to fix him.”
Superboy looked away from the pod to look at my face. “He was first?”
I nodded. “He was also very unstable. I doubt he would have lived more than a couple of weeks if the pod had been opened. His genetic structure was a mess and he would have started breaking down almost immediately.”
Superboy looked back at the pod. “I'm going to have an older younger brother?”
I chuckled at his reasoning. “He might have been created first; but, you were born first. His birthday is next week.”
Superboy smiled at that. “I'm going to be the older brother.”
I patted his back. “I'm also going to give you the choice of telling Martha and Clark.”
Superboy whipped his head around to stare at me. “You want me to tell them there's another clone?”
I laughed and shook my head. “They already know there was another pod and Superman suspects it's another clone. He has no clue this is who it is or what they look like.”
“That's why it was lead-lined.” Superboy said.
“Which is why I'm giving you the option. Either way, they'll find out in a few days. I figured you would want to give them the good news that the House of El has another son to add to the family.”
Superboy's smile was really wide. “I understand. Thanks, John.”
“I've already given Martha a hundred million dollars for taking care of you, so I'm sure she won't mind having another Kent running around the farm.” I joked and Superboy barked a laugh. “Now about Cheshire...”
“Are you sure Miracle won't be enough?” Superboy asked.
“No, I'm not sure. That's why I have another plan.” I said and walked over to a pod that was empty. It was the one Panacea and I had regrown Metallo's body in. The other pods were empty as well, because Batman had relocated the Roy Harper clones when they had finished their treatment weeks ago and gave them new lives. I picked up another tablet and handed it to Superboy.
Superboy looked at it and his eyes widened. “You have to be joking.”
“I'm completely serious.” I said and tapped it. “Panacea and I have a lot of experience with Kryptonian DNA now and we've worked out how to splice it with Human DNA to make someone half-Kryptonian, just like Cadmus failed to do.”
“But, this says you can do it to anyone and not only to a specifically grown embryo.” Superboy said and scrolled through the information.
“A week dunked in the tank and using one of the samples we have to combine her DNA with, Cheshire will come out at around the same strength level that you were at when you first left your pod.”
“We can have sex without me having to be so careful.” Superboy whispered.
“Just so you know, no one else knows about this process.” I warned him.
“Why?” Superboy asked and looked genuinely curious.
“Because I'm doing this for you.” I said and his curious look changed to shock. “I was tempted to offer it to Lois first, except she won't accept for the same reasons that Martha won't. They want to stay human and don't care about the powers they would eventually gain after spending enough time under a yellow sun.”
Superboy nodded and looked back at the information. “You worked out something else for them.”
“Two different things, actually.” I said and he nodded. “Martha would only want to live longer, so that was pretty easy to work out.”
“It was?” Superboy asked.
“It's the same deal as you. Only a select few will ever know. Alfred and Bruce might also be getting a dose on the down low, if you know what I mean.”
Superboy chuckled. “What they don't know, won't bother them.”
“Exactly right.” I said and handed him another tablet. “This is what I've worked out for Lois.”
Superboy took the second tablet and his eyes almost bugged out. “You've altered the cloning process and you can use an egg from Lois and use Superman's full DNA to splice into the egg.”
“Yes, it will be their actual child and not a clone. It's a technique called a test tube baby. If she wants to actually be pregnant, I can easily implant it back into her womb. If not, a Kryptonian birthing pod will work just as well.”
“Superman gave you the plans for that?” Superboy asked.
“Sure, let's go with that explanation.” I said with a grin and Superboy chuckled, guessing correctly that I had Eye raid the Fortress of Solitude's computers. “Eye has been having an absolutely wonderful time playing with Kryptonian programming.”
Superboy nodded at the confrimation and passed me both tablets back. “I'll talk with Cheshire and see if she wants to upgrade.”
“In case you're worried about it, you won't be related. Panacea and I have become really good at scrubbing family distinctions from DNA. It's as generic as possible.” I said instead of telling him I had a generic female Kryptonian and a generic male Kryptonian to take samples from. “With all this important family stuff out of the way, you need to get going.”
Superboy reached out and put a hand on my arm. “John, thank you.”
“I promised you that I would do everything I could to help you. This is a part of that.” I reminded him.
Superboy smiled. “See you next week.”
“Have fun and tell Cheshire I said hello.” I said and Superboy left at super speed. I heard the Zeta Tube activate a second later.
“Are you sure it's safe to give an assassin super powers?” Panacea asked me over the intercom.
“I want to say it's a test, except I'm pretty sure she's going to be fairly busy for a few weeks after her treatment as she screws Connor's dick off.” I said and Panacea laughed. “Their pent up sexual frustration comes off them in waves, since neither of them wants to hurt the other by being energetic while having sex.”
“Yes, Lake was pretty randy after the last beach party.” Panacea said.
“She wasn't the only one.” I responded and put the tablets away. “Have you gone over the lab results comparing Amazon DNA and Miracle?”
“I have and it's even better than using it on a baseline human.” Panacea said. “A baseline Amazon is comparable to the best all-around Olympic athlete on the planet. Boosting that with Miracle, especially after our adjustments to have it be more effective like the bacta, should bring them up to Wonder Woman's last league assessment.”
I laughed at that. “Have you taken into account the Amazon's current training?”
“I thought I did. Give me a minute and I'll check.” Panacea said and went quiet.
I cleaned a few things up in the lab for several minutes and then I heard a disbelieving huff. I walked back over to the intercom. “Well? What's the verdict?”
“They're up to 50 times gravity already.” Panacea said with disbelief. “How?”
“Dimensional time fuckery, of course.” I joked and she laughed. “I didn't go too outrageous with the dilation. For every real-time week, they spend a month in high gravity and doing intense training.”
“I can't believe they agreed to that. It's insane.” Panacea said.
“They don't know about it.” I said and she made a choking sound. “I've been very slowly raising the gravity as they keep doing their workouts and fight training, so everything they do is progressively harder and they don't even notice.”
“How did you do that?” Panacea asked.
“I lied about increasing the weights and equipment they constantly use.” I said and she laughed. “It was a simple solution and it's not really a lie. Those things really are getting heavier in the heavier gravity, along with everything else.”
“They must really hate you by now.” Panacea said.
“Oh, they really really do.” I said with amusement. “Do you want to see what happens every time they see my face?”
“Sure. Let me turn on the monitor linked with Eye.” Panacea said and there was a click. “All right, go ahead and show me.”
“Ready, Eye?” I asked and he floated over to me in his drone body.
We apparated up onto the expanded level I created for the Amazons that was higher in the mountain. As soon as I appeared, Eye flew off out of the way as three different fists and six bare feet flashed towards my gut and legs.
“OOOFF!” I grunted at the gut shots and doubled over briefly to avoid the follow up kicks to the head by four other Amazons, then I rolled to the side and punched out to the left. A female grunted at the returned gut shot and I was tackled from the other side by an oiled up Amazon woman with a fierce look on her face.
I flipped us over before we hit the floor and instead of her being trapped on the bottom like I planned, we landed and she slipped right out from under me and of my grip with a smile on her face.
“You're mine!” A voice called out and I turned just in time to catch a glowing blade between my hands. I tried to twist my hands to break the blade and she let it go just before her shield slammed into my face. I tossed the blade aside as rolled with the hit and I tumbled head over heels from the force of the blow and slid to a stop on my feet.
I felt something coming from my right and ducked as a shield whooshed over my head and embedded into the far wall. I jumped straight up after that and two Amazons tackled each other and rolled over to bend their legs with their feet in the air.
A second later, another Amazon used them like a springboard and almost instantly flew up to smash a fist right into my jaw. I couldn't brace properly while up in the air, so I took the full hit and it flipped me over. Another Amazon appeared and both of her feet drop-kicked me in the side and we flew across the room and slammed into the wall and dented it.
I wheezed at losing my breath again and grabbed her ankle before she fell. She expected that and her other foot kicked up at my face. I tried to move back, only I was still partially embedded into the wall, so her foot hit my chin and rang my bell as my head was pushed even deeper into the wall. I didn't let her other foot go, though.
It was almost funny as we dangled there high up on the wall and the other Amazons couldn't reach us. She tried to kick my hand to free her ankle and I still didn't let go. I managed to blink my eyes a few times and shook off my stunned state just in time to see three shields be thrown at me.
Two of them I could ignore and the last headed right for my face. I caught that one with my free hand and let the other two hit my chest and stomach. The stomach hit let me catch my breath and I heard the Amazons curse at losing an advantage.
I turned the shield I had sideways and jammed it into the wall to pry myself out of it, then leapt out and threw it at the floor in the middle of the group waiting for me. They only moved enough to not be hit directly and the ricochet knocked one of them out of the way. I lifted the Amazon I hadn't let go and held her in front of my chest with a hand on her chest armor and one on her belt.
She yelled as I used her like a battering ram and plowed into the ones that tried to catch her. It was a great tactic, because they hadn't expected it. We landed in a large of grabbing arms and kicking legs. I held onto the Amazon as I rolled off of the pile and her back took several punches for me. She didn't cry out as she took a kidney shot, though. In fact, she looked turned on, and that gave me a crazy idea.
I laughed in my head at what I was about to do and as I landed on my feet, I stood her up as well and gave her a smouldering grin and I kissed her as I ground myself into her to get myself hard. She let out a moan before she could stop herself and her hands dug at my hair to hold on. A second later, I broke the kiss, flipped her over to smack two Amazons away with her feet, and tossed her up into the air.
“NOOO!” She yelled and flailed her arms and kicked her legs to try and right herself.
I couldn't tell if the yell was because I broke the kiss too soon or because she was in free-fall. It didn't matter, because I was about to be attacked by five angry Amazons... until I stored my clothing. Three of them skidded to a stop at seeing my fairly large and erect member, one seemed to trip as she intentionally dove for it and started sucking, and the last one lunged and wrapped her arms around my neck to kiss me hard.
I reached out and barely caught the Amazon I had thrown into the air and her weight knocked us to the floor. This was both fortunate and unfortunate, because I was suddenly dogpiled by a lot of horny Amazons. Very horny and quite naked Amazons.
I was quickly covered with many pairs of bare breasts of all different kinds, mouths doing their best to devour every inch of me, and a hundred demands to hurry up and take them before they went crazy. My hands were quickly in many different women and I fingered them all as I licked and ate out a constant train of dripping wet slits. I was also ridden like a bucking bronco after each oral treatment.
It was almost like a conveyor belt of women as my fingers were constantly used to prep them, then my mouth was used to get them off, then my raging hard-on was ridden to their satisfaction. It went on for so long that I actually lost count of how many times I had pleasured them. By the time they were all exhausted, we were cuddled up in a huge naked pile in the middle of the floor.
“I think that's my win.” I said as a joke.
Complete silence answered me for about three seconds, then a giggle broke it. Then another, and another, and soon they were all laughing pretty hard. It went on for a full minute before they all eventually calmed down and seemed to collectively sigh in contentment.
A blonde woman about six women away from me propped herself up on an elbow to glare at me. “I still utterly hate you for everything you've done to me and my people.” Artemis the Amazon Warrior Commander said, her face angry.
I didn't bother trying to argue with her and sat up. “I should warn you that relationships based on intense experiences and feelings almost never work or last long.” I said and that seemed to make a lot of them pay attention to me. “We have to base it on the fantastic sex instead.”
Again, complete silence answered me for several seconds, then most of them spoke at the same time. “We agree.”
Artemis stared at her fellow Amazons for several seconds before she sighed. “I agree as well.”
I grinned at her and laid back down to nestle my head back between someone's large breasts. “You all did really well this time. Who's idea was it to make a springboard to launch people into the air to attack me like that?”
A hand raised and she was twelve women away from me.
“If you can move, climb over here for your reward.” I said and a bunch of the Amazons laughed.
She did as I asked and started to move across the pile of naked bodies and her fellow Amazons helped her along. She neared where I lay and her hand reached for me. I grabbed it and pulled her the rest of the way. She moaned as she sat down on my hardness and then she laid down on my chest. She didn't move or do anything else and just stayed there.
“Comfy?” I asked and she nodded. “That wasn't what I meant as a reward.”
She smiled at me and the one I was laying on petted my hair. “That's what you think.”
I chuckled and ran my fingers through her dark hair. “Well, I had planned on giving you a power upgrade as a reward; but, if you want to just cuddle...”
The conflicted look on her face was worth teasing her.
“How about we do both?” I asked her and she nodded several times. “We can rest and relax for a while just like this and then we can pop over to my secondary lab.”
She smiled and rested her head back on my chest.
“You have proven to be a fierce warrior, John Hansen.” The one I was laying on said.
I thought about lying to her, then mentally shrugged. “I didn't boost myself at all for that fight.”
Silence fell for a third time and no one moved or spoke for several seconds.
“You were playing with us?” Artemis asked, her voice angry.
“No, I was showing you that after all your training, each and every one of you now have an even chance to take me down, without me enhancing myself with magic.” I explained and a lot of gasps and surprised sounds came from everyone. “After Calypso gets her reward and Panacea and I run a lot of tests on her to make sure it takes properly, I'll have to boost myself by at least 25 times to keep up with her.”
Calypso grip down there squeezed me tightly. “I think I love you.”
I smiled at her and combed her hair with my fingers again. “Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. Passion and desire can be created from both, as Artemis can attest.”
That had a lot of women softly laugh.
“He's right.” Artemis said and propped herself up on her elbow again. “I gain strength from both my hatred of him and my love for you, my fellow sisters in battle. Both drive me to be the best I can be, just so I can free us when this is over and I can punch his face in.”
That set off a lot more laughing and sounds of agreement.
“Providing the proper motivation is the key to all good leaders.” I said and Artemis nodded. “I assume you want to be first to get the upgrade after Calypso's successful integration and trial period?”
“As the commander of the Chosen 100, once you have worked out the process, I should logically be first, then the two platoon commanders, then the nine squad commanders, then the troops.” Artemis said and everyone agreed. “It will give us time to adjust to the new abilities as well and we can shepherd the rest appropriately.”
“Sounds good.” I agreed as well. “It should take about a week for Calypso, then a week for you, then on and on. A month should have you all upgraded to the same standard and give the instructors time to change their routines to fit your new range of skills and abilities.”
Every single Amazon let out a guttural growl at those words, even the one I was still inside of.
“Did you think what you were going through was tough enough?” I asked them and they immediately denied it, despite most of them thinking it was. “That's good, because your current weighted clothing and accessories will feel lighter than air after the upgrade.”
All the grumbling and complaining suddenly stopped and I felt the one I was laying on hug me.
“Remember what I said in my speech.” I told them and they all hummed. “You will become the pinnacle of Amazon perfection!”
The one on top of me sat up and she looked hungry, then she started to move. The one under me helped her and she moaned happily as I filled her again, then I was swarmed and each and every one of them took another turn on the Hansen Pole Ride.
Artemis was last and she rode me the hardest. “I can't wait... to pound you... into the ground!”
I looked at the cracked and broken floor around us and back at her face.
“You know what I meant!” Artemis shouted and then dropped down to kiss me hard and rode me harder.
I soon filled her up and she moaned into my mouth, despite not wanting to let me know I was getting to her, and she rolled off of me and into the arms of her regular bed partner. The two of them made out for a while then she went down on her and licked her out, both of them moaning the whole time.
I laid there surrounded by satisfied women and realized something important. I no longer had any civilized morals to cling to. Over the years, decades, centuries, and millennia, travelling from universe to universe, had given me exceptions to every rule I had set for myself while I was growing up. This last thing just cemented it in my mind.
I had completely ignored all the men the Amazons had killed over the centuries and only stopped them from continuing their crimes, without punishing them for what they already did. At the time, I didn't think I had the moral justification to vilify them for what they did to survive as a species, and now I understood why.
Calypso slid to the spot beside me and cuddled into my side, as did the woman that had been my support through most of the second round. She was quite pretty and her large breasts were quite nice. I caught her errant thought that it was because of her excessively large chest that she had been looked down upon by the other Amazons and never performed as well, because of the extra weight on her chest.
Now, she was just as strong and fast as the others and she was proud that I had used her as a pillow. I would need to make sure when I constructed her armor that it held her steady and didn't let her breasts control or alter her movements. I would make sure that they would become the assets they were always meant to be for her.
*
Megan didn't notice that I had been gone for a while, which was a relief. I did tell her what happened at breakfast the next day and she laughed her ass off. It made me feel happy that she had suckered me into becoming her significant other, because she was so relaxed with how my life could spiral out of control like it usually did.
I mean, who in their right minds goes into a combat situation and intentionally tries to turn it around from a death battle where anyone could die, into an orgy where he could die if he doesn't satisfy his opponents? This guy right here, of course. It made Megan laugh, so it was all good.
*
It was almost out of the blue when two Green Lanterns showed up at Mount Justice to talk to me. I didn't try to figure out what they wanted, since it was pretty obvious. To me, anyway. Hal Jordan removed his power battery from the pocket dimension he stored it in and put it on my lab table, then he took off his ring and handed it to me, leaving himself depowered and wearing civilian clothes.
I gave him a smile and a nod and brought him and John Stewart over to the holographic table and the industrial scanner. I put the ring in first and scanned it with everything I had, built a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the thing, and handed the ring back to him. He put it on and was wearing his Green Lantern costume again.
I put his power battery on the thing next and that took a little bit longer to get through. It was quite fascinating, especially the magical scans, and I handed him the power battery back when it was done. He stored it in the pocket dimension he used and I gave him copies of both reports.
With that done, we both turned to give expectant looks to John Stewart.
The dark-skinned man sighed and took off his ring to hand to me. It left him in just his boxer shorts with little hearts on them. “Vixen likes them.”
Hal and I smirked at each other and I put the ring into the analyzer. Surprisingly, it was slightly different than Hal's. I compiled the report and then gave the ring back, then he handed me his power battery. Again, it was slightly different and seemed to have different restrictions to it, just like the ring, and I compiled both reports and made copies to give to him.
“I'll have extensive materials analysis in a few days and I'll let you know if they can be repaired locally or if you have to go all the way back to Oa for repairs or replacements.” I said and shook both of their hands. “Thanks a lot for coming by and letting me have a good look at your equipment.”
Hal gave me raised eyebrows and I laughed.
“Yes, I said it like that on purpose. John's underwear gave me the idea.” I said and Hal barked a laugh. “At least you now know that even though you're both Green Lanterns, you are both different, as are your rings and your power batteries. I suspect your AIs in your rings are fundamentally different, too.”
“That is good to know.” John Stewart said with a nod, then he and Hal floated up into the air. They bid me a good day and flew off to wherever they went to during the day when they weren't being superheroes.
As soon as they were out of the base, I went to my expanded and time-compressed lab and got to work. I had two different power batteries to experiment with to try and see if I could recreate one for each of the colors of the spectrum, then try to combine them. I wanted my full Force powers back.
*
Four months. That's what it took in real time for the Amazons to be ready and finished of both their training and getting themselves used to the upgraded Miracle modifications to their bodies. Since each week was a month for them, that was an additional 20 months of intense physical and mental training for them.
By the end of it, each and every Amazon of The Chosen 100 was stronger and faster than Wonder Woman, whom was the pinnacle of Amazon society for her battle prowess and skills. They dwarfed her by a very wide margin, too. The only thing they didn't have was her flight ability, which I gave to them during their graduation ceremony, thanks to the blank recreation of her I had briefly hidden under the stage for the ceremony.
Surprisingly, all of the Amazons were blushing as I thanked them for hating me so much that they had to prove they were that much better than me. It wasn't because I was a man, either. I had proven that my gender had nothing to do with how much better I had been than them at first. It was my knowledge and skills that mattered. Now they had that knowledge and skill themselves and they all appreciated it.
With my miniature army completed, I brought them all to the large conference room and sat them all down to give them the presentation of my plans. It was ambitious, very dangerous, and could get a lot of people killed... other people, that is. That realization made all the Amazons grin and show off all their teeth, clear signs they were eager to get to it.
*
The members of The Team were shocked when I brought The Chosen 100 down into the normal part of Mount Justice and the hanger bay. Megan was the only one that knew all about it and the intense training program they had been through. Each and every Amazon had custom-made enchanted armor and weapons, which made them even more formidable. It made them proud to have fully earned it, too.
The newest members inducted to The Team, Barbara Gordon as Batgirl, Zatanna as herself, and a dark-skinned girl named Raquel Ervin called Rocket, were even more stunned than the veteran members. That didn't stop them from bombarding me with questions, though.
I let it go on for quite a while before I loudly laughed and the teens stopped the inquisition. “It's all right. They aren't here to replace you or to reduce your own impact on the world. The Chosen 100 is my solution to the existential threats to the planet, which includes their home and their entire race.”
“We have gladly taken upon ourselves this extremely important duty.” The Amazon named Artemis said with a fist over her heart to salute me.
“But... how... why...” Artemis of The Team asked, clearly confused.
“Oh! You're worried about the two of you having the same name.” I said, getting it. “Artemis has had her name for a very long time and I suspect you were named after her or the embodiment of the Greek gods she herself was named after.”
Both Artemis the Amazon and Artemis of The Team gave me surprised looks.
“It's an odd connection to share, I know. But, you can see it as an opportunity instead of being awkward.” I said to them and put a hand on the shoulder of the younger Artemis. “There won't be much chance to become an apprentice or have her mentor you for a while, though. We all have work to do.”
The younger Artemis gave me a nod. “Are you letting us in on it?”
I had to smile at that. “Unfortunately, what we have to do doesn't quite align with what the Justice League and Batman is doing with The Team.”
All of the teens opened their mouths and started talking.
I clapped my hands loudly and they quieted. “However, The Team will benefit from our missions.”
The Amazons nodded, all 100 of them, and that made the teens relax.
I tapped my comm badge. “Hyperion to Red Tornado.”
“Red Tornado here.” The mechanical voice responded.
“Are you sure you don't want my notes and designs for voice box alterations and programming tips?” I asked with a smile.
A mechanical chuckle responded. “If I suddenly had new speech patterns, I would be immediately disassembled and checked over to see if my programming has been tampered with t make me evil.”
“Ha ha, good point. I'll stop asking.” I said. “The reason I called was because I'm heading out into space for a week and I wanted to warn you that your monitoring duties will increase for the duration.”
“Thank you for letting me know.” Red Tornado said. “I will spend more time in the training room and hanger bay between my own workshop sessions.”
“Excellent, thank you. Hyperion out.” I said and tapped my comm badge before I looked at the members of The Team. “I'll still be in comm range. If you need me for anything, just call.”
“What if an emergency happens?” Robin asked me.
“I'll be back in as little as five minutes, which would be as soon as I could arrange it.” I said and he opened his mouth to ask me how I would do that. “I'm sorry. I can't tell you how. It's a secret that no one should know about, since it it ever became known, I would never be left alone. Heroes, villains, governments, secret agencies, spies, assassins, secret societies, and every country and race on every planet known and unknown would be after me for it.”
Everyone gave me shocked looks, even Megan. Since she was inside my head, she knew what I meant and she fully agreed with me. She just hadn't realized what it would mean if Stargate technology became known. The ability to instantly travel to any planet or moon in the galaxy, as long as it had a Stargate set up on it, would make everyone go nuts wanting it for themselves.
The worst ones would be the conquering interstellar races like the Hawkpeople known as Thanagarians, the Beetle-mecha-suits from The Reach, and the worst of the bunch was from a world called Apocalypse that was run by the despot Darkseid.
Megan caught the thought in my head about the first mission the Amazons and I were going on to confront a group of interstellar slavers that had raided the planet of Tamaran on the orders of the first princess to perform a coup and they kidnapped the second princess to ransom her as a sex slave.
Good luck, love. Megan sent to me as he hopped up into the air and kissed me deeply.
“We need to go. I've used up a lot of the time I had left as I made sure The Chosen 100 had turned out even better than what I promised them they would be.” I said and opened the main hangar as the Amazons all smiled happily. “Our rides to orbit just arrived, too.”
All the Amazons saluted me and then hopped into the air, let out shouts of joy at flying for the first time, then they shot out of the open hangar bay doors.
“THEY CAN FLY?!?” Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad, Superboy, Artemis, Batgirl, Zatanna, and Rocket all yelled at once.
“Yes, we can.” I said and hopped up into the air to hover there. “We'll be back in a week.”
Superboy gave me a longing look, so I saluted him. His look changed to a happy one as he felt a familiar feeling form inside of his brain. He gave me a nod and saluted back.
We are going for a fly when you get back. Megan sent to me, her thoughts of what we could get up to while flying, made me laugh.
Yes, love. I thought back and flew out of the hangar and joined the Amazons in the loading bays of the twenty automated Fireflys that would ferry us into orbit to Voyager 3. They would come along as well as escorts and guards, mostly because Voyager liked having similar company to herself as her passengers lived their own lives and did their missions.
Thanks to the extensive work I had done during the last four months, I had successfully converted all of my technology into its base forms. Everything I had could be made from the ground up from even the most basic of tech levels, even steam and solar power, so I would never be without.
Even the droids I created could function in a fully magic environment, which Dr. Fate took full advantage of to populate his tower home. He always laughed pretty hard every time his group of R2 units had a shouting argument about the 'stupid meatbags' and cursed like sailors. He still comments about every life needing a little Chaos in it, even if it was artificially created.
*
The slavers on their huge mothership didn't know what had hit them. Twenty oddly-shaped ships had appeared out of nowhere and shot their shields down in a second and then rammed into them on several different decks. Their responses to such things didn't exist, since they were usually the ones attacking a vessel and not trying to defend themselves.
Almost no one resisted the extremely powerful females that quickly overran the ship. The ones that did react by trying to shoot them, had their lasers reflected back to them with golden bracelets and their grenades caught and thrown back. The whole affair was over in less than ten minutes and all the slavers were dead.
A large floating drone plugged into the main computer on the bridge and had an absolute ball as it electronically tore apart the alien computer and deciphered their computer language. It found out who the passengers were, where they had been picked up, and where they were going to be delivered, then gave that information to the females.
The drone also pulled out all the money records and ordered everything changed to gold and other valuable metals to be picked up at a nearby system. As the prisoners and slaves were rescued, it watched everything and made sure that when everyone was done, it set the self destruct and fled back to the closest boarding ship.
The bright explosion let everyone in the system that a change was in the air. A new scourge upon evil was in space now and criminals had better watch out.
The Chosen 100 were on the hunt.
*
The 19 year old Princess Koriand'r of Tamaran slowly woke up and her eyes fluttered open. She was surprised that she wasn't in excruciating pain and she also couldn't feel the normal restraints that had held her to the wall in her cell. The extensive experiments and torture that the slavers had subjected her to had caused so much damage that she had thought she was dying more than a few times.
“Qhdreakts foressfe fadudek amr brewrajsdhjk ahdsk.” A soothing male voice said.
Koriand'r lifted her head from the very comfortable bed she was in and stared at the very handsome and quite large male humanoid wearing a skintight white bodysuit with an odd symbol on the chest. He must have worn it to keep her at ease and showed her that he was not concealing any weapons... and her eyes dropped down to the bulge between his legs.
He is definitely not concealing that weapon. Koriand'r thought and blushed as her eyes went back up to his face. She saw the smile there and had to smile back.
“Kdkrbej ferjjas dfferjsse?” He asked.
Koriand'r didn't understand a work he said, so she did the only thing she could do. She used the universal signal to bring him closer and he understood. He walked over to her bed and she reached up for his hand. He accepted it and she pulled on him and he fell on top of her. Their lips met and Koriand'r used her species innate ability to learn languages by matching mouths and exchanging saliva.
Surprisingly, neither she nor the male humanoid chose to break the exchange. It went on and on, then they were both naked and Koriand'r screamed with pleasure she had never felt before. He filled her unlike anything ever before and he knew exactly what she needed and did it to her. He was quite gentle when she desired it and then as rough as she could stand it when she desired that.
Two hours later, Koriand'r cuddled up to his side and rested her head on his chest. “I don't normally do things like this with someone I just met.”
The male humanoid chuckled. “Unfortunately, I cannot say the same, Koriand'r. Sometimes, it just happens and I usually deal with the consequences afterwards. It could be a one-time thing or it could lead to a long-term relationship. Then again, sometimes nothing ever happens when I meet someone.”
Koriand'r lifted her head from his chest to look into his eyes. “Why are you not asking about me understanding you?”
“I'm a telepath. My brain was restructured a long time ago to handle various inputs.” He said and then laughed. “I've never found someone like you before that can learn new languages by kissing. It's a great skill.”
“Thank you.” Koriand'r said and laid her head back down.
The man named John Hansen spent the next few hours telling Koriand'r all about what he had been doing back on Earth to help the young heroes adjust to being actual heroes, branching out to let his healing tech help the population, and training up The Chosen 100 to come out into space to rescue those in need.
“What should I do now?” Koriand'r asked when he was done.
John was quiet for a few minutes. “After going through your thoughts, there's no way you can return to your home planet. Your sister will have you murdered as soon as she finds out you've escaped from becoming a sex slave for some back-world warlord.”
Koriand'r giggled. “Isn't that what this was?”
John froze for a moment, then he laughed. “You're going to fit right in with Megan and the others.”
Koriand'r was perfectly okay with that.
*
The Team were shocked when they were introduced to their newest member, Starfire. She was as strong as a normal Amazon, could fly, and had energy blasts that could be shot from her hands and her eyes. Her powers were powered by her emotions and she was always happy after being rescued, which gave her powers a massive boost.
Starfire and Miss Martian hit it off right away, both being aliens and having similar personalities. They also quietly asked for Hyperion to modify Starfire with the same implant to allow her to talk telepathically with other telepaths. He did it and the three of them had full conversations in seconds and shared a lot more than they normally would. Starfire was just so happy that it was infectious.
*
After a short break, Hyperion and The Chosen 100 went out on their next mission. They planned and raided a metahuman trafficking ring and rescued a bunch of captured and enslaved teenagers with powers.
It wasn't a huge battle like raiding the slaver spaceship had been, either. They entered and dealt with the people in the office, checked their physical records against the electronic ones that Eye had found, and then went into the storage area that was really a prison.
Most of them chose to return to their lives and families, even some of the ones that had been sold and betrayed by them. I made sure that they had someone to contact when they were in trouble and let them go. The remaining ones were another matter entirely. They wanted to go with us, because they saw how strong and powerful the Amazons were.
So, we now had a bunch more young women of various ages to bring back to join The Team. Cassandra Cain was named Orphan and she couldn't speak and never learned how to read or do anything except how to kill and be the best assassin in the world. She used all of her senses to 'see' and 'detect' things around her, especially liars and criminals. She dealt with them harshly, too.
Megan, Starfire, and I had a very long conversation about what to do with her and eventually decided to invite her into out miniature collective, because telepaths didn't need to speak to talk. She accepted enthusiastically, almost frantically, and the introduction of her mind to ours was like dropping a nuclear bomb into a stockpile of old-fashioned TNT.
Her entire mental structure was fundamentally different than each of ours, which made our mind mix that much more of a collection of individual minds. There was mine, a supposedly normal human mind, Megan's Martian mind and her alien mentality, Koriand'r's Tamaran mind and her own alien mentality, and then Cassandra's deadly assassin mind that had been so twisted by the League of Shadows.
It took us a very long time to mentally work through everything and then we started to help her start to deal with her new life and what she could and couldn't do. She would not be allowed out into the general population for a while, because she would just murder the idiots that would try to annoy her, and we all knew someone would. So, sequestered until we could help her.
Another girl went by the name of Rachel Roth as an alias and her real name was Raven. She was half-human and half-demon, with a red soul gem embedded into her forehead. It was her connection to her demon-like soul-self that could move and interact independently of her, which was unsettling to say the least. She also had to block her emotions to stop her powers from going out of control.
So, I did the only think I could do. I created a Dementor and had it kiss the soul gem. Raven screamed as her demon half was sucked out of her and the Dementor ate it. It shivered and split, and split again, and kept splitting until there were six hundred of them. I was shocked by that and sent them to Azkaban.
Raven looked horrified by what just happened, then she suddenly realized she no longer had her dark passenger and she felt clean for the first time in her life. A great weight had been removed from her mind and her soul and thanked me profusely before she kissed me pretty soundly. She immediately asked to join Megan and the others in the telepath club.
Starfire and Cassandra happily accepted her. They both had their dark sides and could easily relate to the problems Raven had while she was growing up. She was also another completely new and different mind to the others and added her distinctiveness to our own.
The other girls weren't as bad as those two. Andie Murphy was someone called Mist and she could turn into living vapor. Livewire was a girl named Leslie Willis and she could change into living lightning and could travel through any electrical system or wire. Wendy Jones was named Windfall and she was an aerokinetic, which was someone that could control air. Looker was a girl named Lia Briggs and she was a telepath that loved having others she could talk to and share things with.
Tera Markov, or her codename of Terra, was a geokinetic. She could move earth with her mind. She was also the deposed princess of a middle-European country. Her brother was happy to hear she had been found and then tried to force her to fight his famly and take over, because he thought he could run the country better than them. She refused and stayed with us, because they had experimented on her and she wanted nothing to do with any of them.
Of course, with so many new members signing up to stay at Mount Justice, a few others chose to show up as well. Zatanna's friend Stargirl that uses a staff that harnesses Cosmic Power, decided that The Team was the best thing going and wanted to be a part of it. One of Wonder Woman's proteges named Cassie Williams became Wonder Girl and joined The Team as well, mostly because she had heard about the training The Chosen 100 went through.
Static Shock was a young black man that had electricity powers that weren't as intensive as Livewire's and he wanted the experience being a hero on a comprehensive team, which seemingly included getting Livewire as a girlfriend and them having a lot of fun combining their electric charges in as many different ways as they could.
Aquagirl and a second Aqualad joined as well and both refused to change their designations, despite there being an Aqualad on The Team already. Apparently, the second one had been offered the title first and declined it to stay in Atlantis with Tula, so he felt he had the right to call himself that. I renamed him Tempest and told him if he didn't like it, he could leave.
After a month of arguing and mistakes when someone called for Aqualad and they both answered and tried to act, he gave up and left. Unfortunately, Aquagirl chose him over being a hero and left with him.
*
Our next foray into space had me bringing a thousand Fireflys with Voyager 3. We had a very important rescue to perform and it was going to take a lot of firepower to pull it off. The trip took several weeks, because of all the territory borders we had to respect on the way to our destination. Apocalypse.
Darkseid's minions had someone I desperately wanted to save, now that I had a force that was strong enough to let me storm his citadel on his war world and actually survive. He had a lot of powerful beings between me and what I wanted, so I had to bring enough powerful beings of my own to overwhelm his defenses.
The despot himself wasn't at home and it was just his minions, so I had all the fireflys and Voyager unleash thousands of PAWs upon the surface of the planet and destroyed every weapon in sight. With the way clear, I unleashed The Chosen 100 upon the parademons that were flying up from the surface in wave after wave.
They were the basic troops the madman used to conquer various worlds and they kidnapped subjects to brainwash and train as his own personal guards, The Furies. They were who I was here to save.
The Amazons revelled in the battle as they had a difficult time fighting 100,000 opponents. They were outnumbered 1,000 to 1 and they loved it. Every punch crushed heads, every kick broke spines, and they felt themselves grow more powerful as they fought the nearly endless horde.
An old woman wearing weird armor came out of the citadel's main palace and she struck a stupid pose as she proclaimed us all infidels and our lives were forfeited and would be fed to their war engines at the core of the planet.
I powered myself up with my spells, hit my maximum of 100 times, and attacked in a blur. I pulped her head with my fist and the group of young women that had been guarding her, looked stunned.
“I've killed Darkseid before and I'll do it again. He powered his Apocalypse for ten generations before they had to start feeding it again.” I told them and their mouths dropped open. “Him not being here only delays the inevitable.” I said and walked over to the blonde teenager and knelt on one knee in front of her. “Kara Zor-El, I greet thee on behalf of your remaining family, your cousin Kal-El.”
The blonde gasped and tears came to her eyes. “N-No, I... I saw... Krypton was destroyed. There were no survivors.”
“Jor-El arranged for a single person craft to flee just as the planet exploded. The blast covered the launch and the small ship used the planet's destruction to gain enough thrust to escape the gravity well of the red dwarf star.” I explained and held a hand out to her. “Allow me to bring you to what can become your new home.”
Kara looked at my hand, at my face, then my hand again. Her tears stopped and her face changed to anger. “You're trying to trick me! Everyone is dead! Granny told me so! She showed me there's nothing left! NOTHING IS LEFT!”
I sighed and snapped to my feet and popped her on the temple with my finger and knocked her out. I caught her and threw her up into the air for a passing Firefly to catch in their forward hatch.
“NO!” Big Barda gasped and lunged at me, her staff weapon raised to strike me.
“Don't worry, Barda. I'm saving her from a life she doesn't deserve and you can join her.” I said and whacked her on the side of the head, only it didn't work.
“I am tougher than a Kryptonian that hasn't been under a yellow sun, kidnapper!” Big Barda said and stashed her staff in her belt and grabbed me by the neck with both hands.
I raised my eyebrows at her trying to choke me out. “Does that attack ever work for you?”
“Yes, as a distraction.” Big Barda said and smiled wickedly at me as her knee snapped forward and hit me right in the family jewels. There was a crack sound and she lost the smile, then she howled in pain and dropped to the ground and held her broken knee.
“I knew wearing an enchanted jock strap cup this time was worth the discomfort.” I said and punched her in the face until she was unconscious and tossed her into the air. Another Firefly flew by and caught her.
“You filth.” A woman wearing silver straps and a black bodysuit said. Se took out a silver whip and snapped it out. “You won't live long enough to enjoy your victory.”
I turned to face her and she whipped her whip at me. I stepped aside instantly and it missed me. “Lashina, you don't have to do this.”
“I am a goddess, mortal! You will bow down before me!” Lashina exclaimed and took out another whip, then she started attacking in earnest. She didn't see the leader of The Chosen 100 break through the cloud of parademons.
“RAAHHHH!” Artemis yelled and slammed into Lashina from above and drove her down into the ground, then through that and into whatever was below the surface.
“New goddess of Apocalypse, meet the embodiment of a Greek goddess from Earth.” I said with a smile on my face.
“How could you do this?” The fourth and last woman asked me.
“I'm sorry, Gilotina. It's not your fault Granny Goodness perverted you into this.” I said and motioned to her outfit that wouldn't be out of place in a medieval fair. “There's no need for you to throw your life away for Darkseid. He doesn't deserve it.”
“And you do?” Gilotina asked and drew her sword.
“Me? Of course not. I'm an ass and I don't deserve it, either.” I said and she looked startled. “I'm not here for me. I'm here for you. None of you chose to become what Granny twisted you into and I'm here to give you that choice.”
“I chose to stay.” Gilotina said and lunged at me with the sword.
I caught the blade by the edge and sighed. “At least Cassie is going to have some pleasant company for a while.”
Gilotina tried to pull her sword back and it didn't move. She let it go and tried to punch me in the face. I let the sword go and caught her fist, then realized my mistake. I was two late, however. Her foot moved in a blur and kicked the hilt of her sword and drove the enchanted metal of the sword right up under my chin and sliced right through my sinuses, severed my eyes from the sockets, and went up through my brain and out through the top of my head.
The sword guard hit my jaw and stopped the sword from going completely through my head and obliterating my face; but, only barely. The loud crack of my bones seemed to bring the entire fight to a stop and my blood flowed down my neck and soaked my superhero suit.
I kind of knew what was going on and I kind of didn't. I felt a bright light engulf me, thought I heard a sound of crackling energy and intense heat, then I lost consciousness.