Butterfly Wings = A Horse's Hooves 9 (Patreon)

I don’t own Ranma or DC comics. If I did, James Gunn would be fired out of a gun, and Ranma would have gotten with Shampoo or Kasumi. Or even Nabiki.

Most of this had been edited by Grammarly and Hiryo has seen it too. Hope you enjoy what is a sort of segue chapter. Not quite, but it doesn’t really fit with the next arc or the last one, so...

Chapter 9: Impressions and Interruptions/Snoitpurretni dna Snoisserpmi

Ranma was still sitting on the landing foot of the helicopter as the US army helicopter began to descend about two hours after leaving the area where he and his three companions had set up their campsite. Normally, that much time just sitting around would have been annoying to Ranma, but most of it had been filled with a discussion about the incident in Star City with the general.

He and Kori had fielded most of the middle-aged man’s questions, while Cassie and Kara, who had taken over carrying the Amazon from Kori when the conversation had begun, had followed the helicopter. While the kryptonian made a few jokes about their overall speed and being bored. But unlike the ones that reporter lady had asked, the military men had kept their questions concise and dealt mostly with the various weapons and, well, the sheer lack of tactics or strategy the aliens had shown, making the conversation far less annoying or boring to deal with.

The general had been astonished by how Warworld’s invaders had conducted themselves during the incident, especially after analyzing the various recordings taken on people’s phones and later submitted as intelligence on the alien threat of Warworld. To his mind, the attackers had acted more like rabble, the ‘kind of third world bully boys with no fire discipline, no tactics and no ability to make their own equipment who sometimes make trouble in Africa and down in South America’.

Kori explained this lack of intelligence or training away with some of the information she had shared with Ranma and the others: Warworld really wasn’t as military, as any of the humans would understand the term. Rather, it was a piratical conglomeration of various clans and guilds that simply lived together on Warworld. Those that fought in raids were devoted entirely to that activity; indeed, most were born from the vats already loving fighting and looting. Other clans or guilds looked after Warworld, its built-in weapons systems and everything else.

She emphasized one point over the others already and warned the general about it in no uncertain terms. “Warworld is not an exception to the idea that invaders will not care about casualties. They are less organized and a bit more willing to not care about losses because every guild or clan makes use of the vats to keep their numbers up. But other pirate bands and even several other races my own planet was in contact with before my sister sold me to Mongul do not have the same respect for life as Shielder, Nyctimene and Ranma have indicated most humans do. At least, not judging by what I was told about them by my parents.”

Kori had then shaken her head regretfully but firmly. “Also, boyfriend Ranma has mentioned things called ‘rules of war’ and, in particular, how civilian casualties are seen to be bad in modern times. Do not think that aliens will care about your or their own civilian populations similarly. I don't remember much of my own people's history beyond stories from my parents, but I could at least occasionally read and watch Warworld’s activities through internal propaganda reports. They were very open that many planets they attacked were willing to destroy their own cities to fight off the raiders, let alone Mongul.”

This, along with the details she and Ranma had been able to give about Warworld's personal weapons, tactics and technology, had fascinated and worried General Wade Eiling equally. The fact that many alien races believed in total domination and large-scale conflict wasn’t new. The idea that those races would be willing to throw away so many lives in return for victory was new and had not been something the Green Lanterns or the Justice League had warned Earth of.

Although, the weapons they had claimed in Star City were at least a nice prize, to go with the general idea of what to expect from fighting, as Eiling thought of them, the grunts of alien armies: lots of numbers, not a lot of small unit coordination. Regardless, the fact that Shielder was so willing to help humanity build the means to detect incoming extra-solar entities (her term, not the general’s) had made him very happy that most of the guests he had called cookout would indeed be able to join the casual shindig he had put on in time.

… And yes, the whole ‘Boyfriend Ranma’ thing had thrown many of the soldiers and even General Eiling for a loop. When questioned, Ranma simply agreed with it, not giving them any details about why he and Kori had begun dating so quickly. When Eiling had asked about diseases though, he had just laughed and admitted that he’d never been sick a day in his life, while Kori stated that her species had an amazing immune system.

The Eiling Ranch was large, so large the helicopter took several minutes to reach the main house from when they first saw cows being herded by a group of farmhands. Or are they called cowboys? Ranma thought idly, asking aloud, and being told either term would work as he lounged back on the helicopter’s foot.

Watching him, Eiling and the soldiers got the impression again that being several thousand feet in the air, with only that small strip of metal between him and a fall, was just an everyday event or not worth thinking about. How much of that was because of Ranma’s magical form, which he’d been upfront about, and how much was his general attitude, Wade couldn’t say. He did remember that the young man had been able to leap upward several hundred yards from the top of a tree in his ‘normal human’ form and Ranma had mentioned he had no magic or anything else in his normal body.

Eiling wasn’t certain he believed him, hence why he’d called in some help to test Ranma’s abilities. Not a lot, admittedly, given the sudden nature of this meeting, but hopefully enough to force Ranma to show a bit more of what he could do.

“I must admit to being intrigued,” Kori hummed from the other side of the helicopter, where she had sat in the open hatch of the helicopter, and was idly kicking her legs out the side as she looked out down at the farm. “I never saw any of my own people’s agricultural worksites like this farm of yours. Seeing the creatures, you have domesticated, will be fascinating. I also have greatly enjoyed the variety of food available on Earth since my arrival. Even camping out, boyfriend Ranma has been able to make quite tasty dishes, and this steak substance sounds most tasty.”

“It’s a ranch, not a farm. A farmer grows most of the food; we look after animals, specifically cows. We have a lot more acreage as well,” Wade chuckled a bit at the alien girl’s actions and her verbosity. “There are other differences, but that’s the main one.”

Soon, the helicopter flew over a central road leading into the middle of the ranch, where two dorm-like longhouses for the farmhands sat, almost like guardhouses separating the main road leading to this ranch and others from the mansion itself. And it was a mansion, even if it wasn’t as big or ostentatious as many constructions that could fit that name.

The main house was only two stories tall, but it was wide, taking up at least as much space as one of the dorms, with a far less utilitarian design. It wasn’t ostentatious or anything, but it was clearly built to look good as well as be functional. Built out of wood and stone, it looked old to Kara’s eyes. Older than the Kent place and far better built.

By the time the helicopter settled down, someone had come out of the house and stood by the steps leading up to the small front porch, leaning on the railing there as the wind of the helicopter's landing buffeted her. The woman was middle-aged, with a face that could be called pretty without being beautiful, yet with a certain amount of liveliness that drew Kara and Cassie’s eyes as they settled down to one side of where the helicopter was. Her shoulders were broad, and she looked a little overweight, but still as if she could work any job on the farm she wanted, complete with shoeing a horse or rustling a steer.

She took both Kara and Cassie in at a glance, before turning towards the helicopter, her attention switching to Ranma, who had jumped away from the helicopter when it was still a few hundred feet in the air. He landed lightly, his legs barely bending under the impact before he moved over to join the other two. He was swiftly joined by Kori, who flew around the helicopter and landed beside the other three.

Rather than going over to introduce themselves, the four teens waited there for the helicopter to land and for the general and one of his troopers to get out, with the general moving quickly to the woman, taking her hand and squeezing it. “Mary, these are the four from Star City. Shielder, Nyctimene, Starfire, Ranma, this is my wife, Mary.”

In another life, Wade Eiling would have never gotten married. He would’ve never felt the desire to do so, never wanted to take over the ranch from his father, and would’ve ended up selling the ranch to his various team members, most of whom were twice removed, devoting his whole life to the army. Without anything else to balance out his military life, the presence of superheroes like Superman and others would’ve fed into a growing paranoia brought about by poor mental health.

In this dimension, however, Wade had taken up a friend’s offer to take him out drinking rather than ignoring it during a break between tours. From this one change, and a fight with a few local farmhands during which he won a date from one of the farmhands that started a whirlwind romance with Mary-then-Aloysius, daughter of another ranch owner. With her beside him, urging Wade to embrace his family’s legacy, the ranch stayed in his hands.

Mary, being a bit of a health nut, had even convinced Wade to see doctors far more regularly than he would have otherwise in that other dimension. Thus, the brain tumor that would have eventually ended his life, for a given value, was found almost upon its creation and removed. Now their marriage was firm and healthy, and Wade’s relationship with his wider family had never been stronger. The main house had been almost converted into a small commune for the clan’s kids and their parents, several of whom watched from the windows at the quartet of newcomers.

Feeling the happy awe and excitement from the kids, Kori waved happily at them, causing many to wave back, while Ranma, Kara and Cassie concentrated more on their hostess, who smiled at them. “Well, howdy there. It isn’t often, or ever, when I’ve welcomed heroes to my table. I hope you four brought your appetites. We weren’t certain what kind of food you’d like, so we just decided to compensate with having a lot of what we do,” Mary guffawed, holding out a hand.

Cassie gripped it, shaking it once, smiling at the woman. “A lot will do us just fine, ma’am, we’re not picky. Well, unless you’re talking about Asian food.” She poked Ranma in the side of the head. “This one’s been telling us stuff about some of their food that, well, we girls’d probably run for the hills if he brought out a box of natto.”

“I never said I liked natto. I just told ya it was a known food staple in Japan,” Ranma grumbled as he took his turn to shake the older woman’s hand, remembering that conversation. I enjoyed horrified looks that talk earned me, but having it turned against me since hasn’t been so fun.

“Hah, nope, none of that here. Now, come on through. I know my husband brought you along to get to know you all casual-like, but he’s also called in a few people that he wants to introduce one or two of you to,” Mary announced, admitting to knowing about the other aspect of this meet-and-greet with ease as they finished the round of handshakes. “Still, all three of you girls look more like you're back from a camping trip or an exercise club than ready for a cookout. If you’d like, you can take some time to change into something more comfortable.”

“We were told there would be baths as well as food,” Kara held up a hand, her normal shy nature coming out with reinforcements in front of this woman. Mary struck Kara as a better-off, younger version of Aunt Martha, and for some reason that made her even shyer than she normally was.

“MMM, I too would like a shower. To my mind, it was easily the best part of staying in a hotel, even if that first one we rested within did not have anything else positive going for it,” Kori agreed.

“Ha, I think we can do one better, if the three of you don’t have outfits ready?”

“I do, but Kori and Cassie don’t,” Kara admitted. She had a few pairs of clothes in her bag she hadn’t used yet.

Ranma obligingly pulled her bag out of his ki space. He normally kept a lot of their stuff in his weapon space per day, which included her bag, outside her toiletries, bathing suit and the chosen outfit for that day.

She and Ranma both ignored the blinking, confused looks from the people around them as she took it from him. “Cassie and Kori’s clothing, though, is mostly suitable for sleeping in, swimming in, or exercising in. Not being seen in polite company.” And even then, we left most of our clothing back at the camp.

“I would most enjoy a change to look at more clothing. It was quite enjoyable,” Kori agreed.

“Where did… you said you didn’t have any magic in that body, and you just pull that bag out of nowhere?” Wade nearly demanded.

Kara answered before a smirking Ranma could, pulling out her notebook. “It isn’t magic. Or, well, it isn’t ‘unexplainable phenomena that may or may not be based on manipulation of matter on a fundamental level through ritual or set—”

Cassie interrupted, putting a hand over her mouth. “Girl, you were going on about that when you were in Themyscira. You know there’s more to it than that.”

Rolling her eyes, Kara licked Cassie’s palm, but instead of pulling the appendage away, Cassie simply cocked an eyebrow at her. “Really?” she drawled. “I could say so many things right now, hmmm, which will make your face go the reddest… hmmm…”

Kara twitched away at that, blushing just a bit as she recalled a few of the things the pair had been doing since becoming a couple. Not that it was a long list, since they hadn’t been together that long, but tongue had certainly been involved in a few of them. Ugh, just my luck that Cassie woke me up by kissing my fingers and palm this morning. “Anyway, it isn’t magic,” she announced hastily. “It’s a quantifiable usage of energy that’s been created by the human body via pushing its fitness to a certain level. I haven’t quite got the math right but I’m close.”

“Setting aside Kara’s science talk, I learned years ago how to create what we martial artists call a weapons space or a ki space,” Ranma summarized, looking up as a few of the kids were shooed away from the windows by adult voices inside the house. “It’s a method to use the energy of the body to invert space in a small area, like a pocket or bag. It takes time to set up and needs maintenance if you change from one pair of pants to another, or use too much ki ya need to reclaim it, but it’s a great technique to have.”

“Oh my god, it’s a boob window,” one of the soldiers nearby muttered, only to pale as everyone looked at him, with Mary raising a haughty eyebrow as if to say ‘I beg your pardon’ for his language. “Er…”

“Ha, yeah, I’ve seen some girls use it like that. But which came first, weapons space or the anime version, I ain’t gonna say.” Ranma snickered.

“Well, that must make you popular to go shopping with.” Mary chuckled, a bit thrown off by it but not that much. She’d come into this meeting assuming she’d see weird things.

“And you say you learned this? That other martial artists out there use it?” Wade questioned, his tone just shy of being intense. “How hard is it to learn?”

“If you know how to manipulate ki, not all that hard. Getting to the point of being able to consciously do that? It’s much harder,” Ranma admitted. “I could only start to do that when I was fifteen, and it took me a year to shift from being able to consciously reinforce my body or healing factor to do ki attacks or use it to create a ki space. Someone like Nyctimene could probably make the jump pretty quickly. A soldier… I don’t know. I gotta warn ya, I was called a prodigy with ki by people who would know. Most ki users, they’re at least middle-aged before they can do what I can.”

The group had chosen well before this to keep the two blondes’ names off their lips. While Ranma wasn’t certain how the whole Clark/Superman thing worked so well, he knew it did, and if the twosome wanted to have a life outside of heroism, they could at least go by their normal names in their civilian roles. Kori couldn’t without the image inducer, and Ranma, well, Ranma didn’t see the point.

Wade grunted at that, bemused by the fact that Ranma had instantly made that jump, but didn’t seem to understand how revolutionary that kind of thing could be for the common soldier. A unit of soldiers who can carry as much as they want without actually rucking anything? That would be a literal wet dream of any commanding officer! “Where were you when I was a junior officer?”

“Um… not being born yet?” Ranma quipped. “No offense.”

“But all offense.” Wade snorted, although it was true. He was well past middle age, after all, and Ranma was only eighteen going on nineteen by the ID they had pulled up on him as the helicopter flew away from the foursome’s campsite.

“Well then, come on in, let’s get you three seen to.” Mary took charge, still holding her husband’s arm with her own, leading the way up onto the deck and inside. “I’ve always wondered how things like cold and hot water feel to someone like Superman or you, Little Miss Shielder. I have to say, I can get behind your stance against that Supergirl label. When I was younger, I wanted my nickname to be Poppins, like Mary Poppins, and at another time, I wanted it to be Alleycat, just because my last name started with AL. How silly would it have been to be stuck with that?”

“Thank you, but it seems beating that label is going to be an uphill battle. As for hot water, it's still incredibly nice. I don’t need it hotter or anything to feel it,” or else I wouldn’t have enjoyed the hot springs on the Isle of Women as much as I did when me and Nyctimene first met, Kara added mentally, looking over at her girlfriend. Still getting used to that, but… it feels nice. Really nice.

Cassie caught the look, and as they waited to enter the door, nudged Kara with a shoulder, smiling back. “Mmm?”

“Nothing, just… feeling really happy with where my life is right now,” Kara answered, leaning her shoulder against her taller friend’s upper arm, telling her without words what part of her life she was thinking about just then.

“Oh… me too. Very much so,” Cassie whispered back, taking the shorter girl’s hand in her own and squeezing for a moment.

Mary caught the brief interaction, but didn’t comment, as she led the way inside.

The front door led directly to a wide sitting room, with several sofas, chairs, a large TV, a fireplace and so forth that one would expect of such a sitting room. There were a few knickknacks and other oddities around the place, though, that showed more of a personality, along with several kids, the exact number of which wasn’t quite visible as they entered the room.

Not addressing the seven kids scattered around the room, as they began to shout questions to the alien girls for a moment, Kori flew over to look at a line of crystalline animals. To Ranma’s eyes, many looked very much like the kind of souvenir or knickknack that someone would bring home from a souvenir shop, but others looked handmade, and all of them had been placed lovingly along the lintel of the fireplace for some reason.

Ranma was more interested in some of the pictures and paintings. Most of the paintings were of natural scenes, but a series of pictures held pride of place along one wall. The four pictures flanked several rifles, two to a side, the rifles high enough that no child could reach and locked in place.

Given the soldiers' clothing, one depicted World War I, though Ranma didn’t know where it was taken. The other was from World War II and featured a scene in Paris. At least, that’s the Eiffel Tower in the back, heh. Both wars were also represented by weapons. Another picture had a background that looked almost familiar to Ranma, but he couldn’t place it, while a fourth looked like it was taken in a jungle. Only one guess as to where that could be.

“Do all your people have orange skin? I like orange. It’s a fun color,” one of the kids shouted, pulling Ranma’s mind away from the pictures.

“Where does that green glow come from? Is it how you fly?”

With her interest in the crystal figures satisfied, Kori turned and answered each question in turn before asking one of her own about the crystal figures. As other kids shouted questions her way, Kara shifted sideways almost as if using Cassie as a shield against some of the attention sent their way.

“Are you Superman’s girlfriend?”

“Are you his sister?”

“Is everyone where you’re from as strong as you?”

“Wow, you’ve got great legs, any advice?” That last was probably the best of them, and was addressed to Cassie, while the others just bothered Kara.

“Cousin, actually and yuck!” Kara shot back, sticking her tongue out at the kid who’d asked if she was her cousin’s girlfriend. “He’s pushing thirty, I’m barely 17, and I remember him as a baby, and we’re related. That’s yuck times three! Besides, I thought I told that reporter lady in Star City. Minus points for not doing any research.”

“Triple the yuck,” another kid laughed, causing several of the kids to giggle or shout that at one another even as more questions were hurled at the three girls.

Ranma didn’t seem to get as much attention, though that might’ve been because most of the kids were boys, five to two. None of them looked older than thirteen and many had a family resemblance.

“Let me guess, you’ve got the older set of free manual labor busy elsewhere?” Ranma joked. “And I gotta ask if those pictures from the world wars were taken from some of your family members?”

“Yes to the first, as all ranchers and farmers do and my father for both pictures,” Wade chuckled. “He fought in the Ardennes in both World Wars. The other two pictures are mine. The Korean War and the Vietnam War.” He smirked a little bit as he looked around. “I like to think my wife and I have trod the fine line between keeping my work separate from my home life, but also allowing me to put up my own stamp on this place.”

“Ha, ya seem to have, anyway, though I doubt my opinion matters much. If I had a house, I’d probably put up a lot of martial arts training equipment, weapons and other things like that. The Luger is a really nice touch. I can’t name the others, but that one I recognize.” Ranma chuckled. “Was it really as good a pistol as the movies make it out to be?”

Wade chuckled at that, while Mary interjected, asking Ranma if he wanted the chance to change into something more comfortable. He shook his head, and Mary gestured to the three girls, telling them to head upstairs, while using the other hand to shoo the kids away. Several other women and young men had come in and corralled their own kids out of the group.

As they did, Ranma reflected that Wade had probably planned a good deal of this, but it was working. The kids definitely put all four of them at ease, taking the edge off of being surrounded by strangers in a strange home. Still, Ranma was equally certain that he didn’t want to share a lot of things that he was going to be asked about, one way or another. Still, there are things I can be open about, like my ki space. I bet that the more stuff like that I share, the more I’ll throw Wade off Kara, Cassie and asking questions about my magic form. Heh, or should that be forms? I’m so damn glad that I’ve spent so much time in my female form lately that the water attraction part of the curse won’t activate.

While Mary chivvied the trio of girls up the steps to the second floor, Ranma declined the offer to change clothes, and Wade gestured him out to the backyard. “I’m going to need to introduce you and Shielder in particular to several official-type people, but there’s no reason you can’t get a drink and a snack first.”

A few comments on the guns and an opened door later, Ranma stepped out onto a large patio. It wasn’t quite as large as the sitting room inside, but it led out into the rolling grass behind the house, which in turn led to the nearest barn, outside of which was a paddock for horses. There were several such horses there moving around or eating at a trough, yet none of the kids outside, even the two young girls, seemed all that interested in running over to look at them, as if they were used to their presence..

Half of the patio was covered by a solid roof, while the rest wasn’t, and there were lights worked into the beams leading up to the half-roof, and several nice chairs and tables scattered around. A massive grill jutted out from the side of the house at a right angle, marking the end of the patio, and food had already been set out, mostly snacks and drinks.

Ranma took it all in, while Wade stood beside him, looking between Ranma and his home, as if seeing it for the first time in Ranma’s reaction to it. “You like it.”

That was a statement rather than a question, but Ranma still nodded. “It isn’t the kind of thing I’d ever do. I’ve never been the type to put down roots, or ever really thought of it. But it’s pretty obvious this place was built over generations for generations.”

“Over generations for generations, ha, I like that. Now come on, food awaits. I don’t know about you, but I had to wake up early, only had coffee, and I’ve spent the whole of the morning and afternoon since trying to find you and your friends,” Wade declared dryly, even as he made straight for some of the food himself.

That was a call Ranma could never ignore, and he nodded eagerly, following the man even as some of the kids who had been shifted out of the house ahead of them started to ask him questions. He fielded a few that he felt were innocuous enough and admitted more than once that he was the same Shazam that they had seen in videos and pictures from Star City, but that he wasn’t going to transform for them, at least not yet. He also found himself answering questions about whether he was an alien, too. Or a shape shifter, a question that had him grinning at the kid who brought it up, and tapping his nose as if he had a secret there. A few questions about his fighting style, and whether or not he was related to some superheroes or anime characters they'd seen on TV, were also interesting.

Listening intently to every response and watching Ranma’s reactions, Wade let the kids question Ranma until both of them had a drink in one hand and a bowl of fruit and snacks in the other. At that point, a firm look and a gesture sent the kids stumbling away, letting the first real guests move toward them.

With the kids dealt with for now, Ranma took in the rest of the small crowd sitting or moving around the patio. Some were young men and women, mostly farmhands and family members. Others were young soldiers, including one powerfully built, tall man with dark brown eyes and a crew cut who locked eyes with Ranma for a moment. Others watched Ranma closely, like he was a puzzle they wanted to solve.

Still, most of them looked as if they were comfortable in the semi-everyday wear that this kind of party demanded. One man among those watchers, who was now moving in their direction rapidly as the last of the kids were shooed out onto the grass, very much did not. He was older than most of the rest of the crowd, yet that alone wasn’t enough to make him stick out. Where everyone else wore jeans or good work slacks, this man wore pants. While everyone else wore button-down shirts or colored T-shirts, he wore a good shirt with a tie.

He also had sharp eyes and was almost glaring at Ranma even as Wade turned to him and made introductions. “This is Agent M, and no, you don’t need to know his name, Ranma. I don’t even know his name. But he’s here as a representative for the president as well as one of what we call the Acronym Gang.”

“Huh… I should’ve expected that, considering what happened in Star City and everything. Kind of funny to be talking to someone who represents the person who I’ve heard called the most powerful man in the world, but whatever,” Ranma answered almost blithely as he watched the man, deliberately laying it on a bit thick. “Still, I don’t know why he’s here if you are, General.”

Mind you, Ranma didn’t have any kind of automatic respect towards the president. He had learned long ago not to give out respect to titles, only to people and even then only in person. Moreover, what he knew about politics and stuff at the national level like that could fit on the head of a pin, with room left over for his general ‘give a fuck’ about such. But this guy was already grating on his nerves.

“Two observers are better than one, and while the general is here to speak more about military matters and future alien threats, I’m here more to look at things from a political angle, particularly you. What you represent, who you could possibly be working for, whether or not you could work for us and so forth,” the man stated, his tone straightforward even as his eyes narrowed further at Ranma’s tone. “Whether or not you’re a threat, in other words.”

“I don’t represent anyone. Well, not anymore anyway. As to being a threat, nah, sounds like too much effort,” Ranma joked, causing the man to grit his teeth.

That might have been why the man tried to bring up Ranma’s background in an attempt to threaten him. “We know about your past. Once the general here found you and sent a description ahead of you, we were able to find you and your connection to the Japanese government easily. Ranma Saotome, son of Nodoka and Genma Saotome. Martial artist, extreme. Our contact informed us that you had officially cut ties with them after you were involved in the death of the Joker in Gotham. That leaves a lot of room for interpretation, but I have to tell you if you think you have diplomatic immunity or whatever, you could not be more wrong.”

“Oh, really? Eh, that’s nice.” Ranma snickered, knowing full well he was getting under the guy’s skin while Wade watched on, knowing the same thing but not stopping the conversation. “Did these contacts of yours tell you how the Japanese government got me to work for them? Why I was doing the bodyguard work I did in Gotham?”

“No. In point of fact, they were very close-mouthed about everything, even when our diplomats began to put pressure on them, and on various resources we have in Japan. That makes us even more worried about you,” Agent M stated leadingly.

“Spies, got it.” Ranma rolled his eyes, ignoring that last bit once more. “They bought me.”

“Excuse me?” The man blinked, thrown off by the blunt statement.

“My old man, Genma, you got anything about him?” When the man answered that they only knew his name, Ranma grunted. “Typical. We lived most of our lives off the grid entirely, so I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me, but whatever. Anyway, my Pops was, well, a great martial arts master and very occasionally came within shouting distance of being a decent dad, but that didn’t make him a good person the rest of the time. He racked up a ton of debt in ways I’m not going to get into, and you probably wouldn’t care about. Put it down to societal differences.”

Societal differences? Hah, I think Ranma’s mask of uncultured martial artist just got very thin, Wade remarked internally, even as Agent M realized the same thing, and that he’d been getting needled by the younger man for his attitude.

“Anyway, it was to a lot of different families, originally,” Ranma continued blithely. “Then the government decided it could use martial artists like my old man and me, and he went around and bought them all out.”

“Your father, can he do the same kind of transformation thing as you can?” Wade asked immediately, while Agent M blinked, trying to get over the fact that Ranma was so open about this yet hadn’t given any real details. As for Wade’s question, while he had seen Ranma jump up from the ground and extremely dangerous in a fight, he had yet to see Ranma do anything truly spectacular in his normal body, so it was his other form that he was most concerned about.

“Ha, no. That form’s magical, like I said when ya first showed up over our camp.” He looked over at Agent M, shaking his head firmly. “I’m not going to get into its origins, so don’t even ask, either of you but no, my old man can’t use it.” Ranma held their eyes making it clear that was a line he wouldn’t cross before moving on. “Anyway, the Japanese government bought us out. They sent Pops off on some stuff I don’t know what, and then they sent me on a few local tasks, and then bodyguard duty to various people.”

Ranma wasn’t about to bring up his adventures with Lara, none of them, neither the whole Yamata no Orochi nor the cannibal zombies and what have you they’d run into on Yamatai. He figured that Lara wouldn’t like the extra scrutiny going her way. Her whole archeologist thing could be seen more as a treasure hunter all too easily. Worse, that would lead into a discussion about magic and so forth. I already stated my Shazam form is magic. That’s enough.

Changing the subject slightly, Ranma pointed a now empty glass of fruit juice at the guy in the semi-suit. “And you had better not be thinking about filing charges or what-have-you about that Joker guy so long after the fact. I know the local police had a bee in their bonnet about it, and Batboy acted like I was scum of the Earth because I helped the Joker off himself, but that’s all I did, he really only had himself to blame.”

“Don’t worry, that’s not my department,” the man replied, still somewhat stunned, getting some of the answers he’d wanted so openly. “So, you would disavow any connection to the Japanese government now?” his tone made it clear that he wouldn’t have believed that even if Ranma had paperwork to back it up but was asking for appearance’s sake.

“I worked off my debt to them. I’m done,” Ranma answered bluntly. He narrowed his eyes then. “And if you’re going to turn around and ask me if I’d be willing to work with the American government officially or whatever, the answer's hell no. You have nothing you can offer me. I’m not interested in money, I’m not interested in fame, becoming a US citizen or anything. I just want to be left alone with my friends to travel, train and enjoy life.”

“Yet you are willing to be so open about the fact that you have are the alter ego of Shazam,” Wade said, while the man scowled a little, almost glaring at Ranma but not quite. Best not to let Agent M try and make some ham-fisted threat about visas or whatever. Besides, from what we were told, he had his passport stamped just like the man he was protecting.

“I’m honestly still getting used to having that form. I also don’t see this whole superhero thing the way most of the superheroes I’ve heard of or met here in America do. To them, it’s simply something they do because they’ve got the power to and should, going out looking for trouble, going out and helping people like that. I… Let’s just say that my thinking about being a superhero is a bit different, and hasn’t settled down yet,” Ranma answered, thinking about the discussions he’d had with Cassie and the others, about how guilty he’d felt about not using his Shazam form earlier in the Star City incident.

He then smiled, and it was a look more sharklike than either of the men he was talking to was comfortable with. Wade had seen smiles like that before on fellow soldiers, and it never boded well for the enemy.

“Besides, if someone comes looking for Shazam in this form and thinks that I’m a pushover in it, they will be severely surprised. Just because I’m merely human in this form doesn’t mean I’m helpless, and I don’t need guns or anything else to show it. On top of that, the more supervillains or whatever who come after me like this, the less they’ll be doing anything else...especially after I’m through with them.”

“HAH.” Wade chortled. “I suppose that makes sense for a wanderer like you, and you already mentioned any threat to your mother would be met with appropriate force.”

Well, that wasn’t what Ranma had told them, and both of them knew it. Wade figured, though, that mentioning that if the US government tried to kidnap Nodoka and use her against him somehow that Ranma would go to the president and work his way down wasn’t a good idea. Even if I will pass it on to the president and the Joint Chiefs when I can meet with them next.

He then laughed quietly. “I have to warn you, though, if your normal body becomes linked to your Shazam form, you might not be able to live so footloose and fancy free. And I’m not talking about villains coming after you. You might just start to get mobbed by fans.”

Ranma shivered. “Ugh… okay, I hadn’t thought of that side of the whole alter ego thing. I’ll need to think about that in the future, but you lot keeping it a secret would be a nice way to show you’re acting in good faith towards me and the girls.”

“Deal.” Wade chortled, inwardly smirking. After all, sharing his name wouldn’t do anything for any of the parties here, keeping it secret is just easy.

“Are you interested in joining the Justice League, then? While they aren’t sponsored by the US, they are trusted in America as if they were. They have rules, guidelines, a set way to police themselves and so forth, making it far easier to trust the heroes connected to the Justice League to act appropriately than it would be to trust a single operator,” Agent M intoned. He didn’t like adding still more powerful people to the Justice League, people that answered to the League’s idea of right and wrong, of do’s and don’ts. But it was better than the alternative.

“Meh, never really thought about it much when it comes to myself. The girls have ideas in that direction though,” Ranma admitted. “Personally, I’m not much of a joiner. And if someone tries to force the issue, I’m much more likely to just disappear than put up with it. Call it a personality quirk. I’m more than willing to work with other heroes. Heck, I’m even willing to follow local laws, work with the army and whatever, and even follow orders, like we all did during the cleanup in Star City. So long as they’re sensible. But that’s about as far as it goes.”

Wade just nodded, noting that one of Ranma’s basic characteristics seemed to be his desire to be a free-wheeling individual. Yet for some reason, that seemed to rile up Agent M once more, and he glared at Ranma. “I assure you, Mr. Saotome, if we wanted to find you, we—”

“You’ve proved ya could find me here in America, sure, but the world is a big place. I can disappear off the grid entirely. Hell, I just said I lived off it most of my life. Whole countries out there don’t have internet access everywhere, and in a lot of places, normal people have a hell of a lot of trouble getting to it, which I'd find simply fun. A lot of those are in China.”

Ranma smirked just a bit as both Americans stiffened at that along with a few others who were close enough to hear him over the noise of the kids. Didn’t like the implications there, did ya? “Push me, I’ll disappear or just use my other form and fly out of the country. Either way, you’ll never see me again,” Ranma stated toothily, not backing down before he turned to Wade. “I thought this was supposed to be a more laid-back way for you to get to know the girls and me.”

“It is,” Wade grunted, breathing a subtle sigh of relief. Thank god that whole China thing seemed like a threat, not a sign of a previous association! “Agent M, however, doesn’t do laid-back, something that is true for the majority of people in the acronym gang. For my part, so long as you are willing to follow orders in a crisis, like you proved in Star City with the cleanup, I’m fine with that. Well, that, and I might want a way to contact you, and a way to ask for more specifics on your training. That weapon space from earlier, there are implications there.”

“Yeah, Nyctimene was interested in it too. As for contacting us, yeah, that’s fine. We’ve all got cell phones, and if you give us some numbers to reach you that is fine with us. Just don’t use them like a leash,” Ranma agreed, ignoring Agent M for a moment as another man came up and put a hand on his shoulder.

The older Agent M looked like he wanted to shake the hand off but didn’t, subsiding for a moment and Ranma continued. “If you want the science aspect, you’ll have to ask her. If ya just want to know how I do it, I can probably write up a training or meditation manual.”

“Nice.” Even on its own, that weapon space is an amazing find, and it wasn’t even on the list of things I wanted to learn in this meeting! Wade thought, before adding, “We’ll pay for that, like we’ll pay Nyctimene for her role in devising that sensor equipment she mentioned in that interview.”

Another man from nearby raised a hand, but Wade waved him off. “However, I have two specific questions, and then we can move on to more polite and less prickly topics. One, what is your general rule of engagement, and two, what do you think about aliens in general?”

“Aliens like the space type, or illegal aliens like the people who try to cross your borders and are such a big topic in a lot of the news I’ve seen since coming to America,” Ranma joked, causing Wade and three out of the four other men nearby to smile a bit. “I take’em as I see them. Most of the aliens I’ve met were from Warworld and were piratical assholes, but then there’s Kori, and of course Shielder, Superman, and that Martian Manhunter guy.”

“Therefore, they really are related, then?” Agent M murmured, calming down.

Ranma just blinked at him. “Dude, do you have to question everything like that? She mentioned that several times in that interview that bossy reporter forced us into, and again to several of the kids inside. Don’t tell me you didn’t hear them. You’re very much the type to listen at doorways.”

Wade guffawed at that, while Agent M just looked a little affronted. Rolling his eyes, Ranma very deliberately turned away from him to look at Wade, his eyes glancing over the other men who remained nearby, listening to his words. One was the same heavily muscled soldier Ranma had noticed before, while the other very much didn't. “As for my rules of engagement, I tend to not want to kill people, unless I think, by my own Code, they deserve it.”

He glanced around, making certain the kids were all out of hearing range before continuing. “If I find a rape going down, for example, I’ll snap their neck and won’t lose a minute of sleep about it. Same goes for murder or whatever.”

The few women nearby all nodded at that, while Agent M and the guy who had grabbed his shoulder a moment ago did not, instead frowning a bit. Probably about how little Ranma cared about due process or whatever, but Ranma just moved on.

“But if they’re, like, pickpocketing, I don’t see that as a big deal, and depending on why, I might not do anything to them even if it happens right in front of me. I won’t go out of my way to stop crime or whatever if that’s what you’re asking, not unless it’s a capital crime and it happens right in front of me or involves kidnapping, murder or drugs. Of course, in a warzone like Star City, my rules of engagement changed markedly... If too slowly,” he murmured the last, but Wade still caught it.

The general cocked an eyebrow, wondering what that was about, before asking a question about how Ranma thought about aliens in general, to which Ranma replied that he hadn’t really formed a general opinion just yet. He did think Earth needed more defenses against such threats beyond the Justice League and any other heroes who could handle them, though. “They can’t be everywhere, after all. How would they, say, respond to an invasion that sends in someone like Mongul to land here in America, but then drops a whole host of mooks like the rest of the Warworlders someplace else?”

“And the first part of defending us from something like that is seeing them coming, which is why I’m here,” the man who was very much not a soldier interjected enthusiastically. He was not so much mousey, but rail-thin, the kind of person who forgot to eat, feeling it was a waste of time rather than having the appearance of someone who looked after himself in any kind of way. He wore wide-brimmed glasses and carried a small computer under one arm.

Despite that, he still hadn’t stuck out to Ranma as much when he surveyed the crowd earlier as agent M had, if only because the guy had probably been making himself as small as possible around so many strangers. Now, he spoke up enthusiastically. “I’m an astrophysicist and a metallurgist working for one of the governmental think tanks built around solving that very project, and—”

Ranma held up a hand quickly. In fact, he held up both hands, having been eating from the bowl of food he’d grabbed even as he spoke to agent M and Wade. Where the bowl and the glass had gone, none of the people around him had noticed, but they would later be found balanced between one of the light fixtures in the nearby beam. “Hold on. If this is about that whole gravity sensor or whatever Shielder mentioned in the interview, I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a scientist.”

He laughed. “Heck, I barely passed high school and only got Cs in science because the teacher didn’t wanna deal with me. Whenever he tried to teach us about physics or biology, the guy’d occasionally look at me and start whimpering and muttering to himself.”

“Let me guess, he tried to figure out how you do what you can do with that ki stuff of yours and went a bit crazy, or just couldn’t figure out how your general physical abilities fit into the rules of physics?” the soldier questioned, holding out a hand. “I can see it either way. I’m James, by the way.”

Ranma chuckled as he took the man’s hand. “Both, actually, judging by some of the mutters and what I saw once in his office. The whole place was filled with equations and most of ‘em ended with ‘does not compute!” or ‘the math isn’t mathing’. Funnily enough, Nyctimene is something of the same sort, a science first kind of gal, but she sees it as a challenge. Starfire wasn’t thrown by it much either, despite coming from a high-tech society herself. And I’m Ranma.”

“That quite nicely segues into what I wanted to ask. I heard about your arrival, and about how you jumped up a few thousand feet up or whatever to grab onto the general’s helicopter. But that doesn’t translate to real combat skill all that easily in my mind. I’m wondering how tough you are as a base human, and if some of the reports Agent M was going over earlier have any real basis in fact.”

“Don’t let his words fool you, Ranma. James here is one of my own think tanks analysts, and he helped Agent M figure out who you were before we arrived. In fact, I’d wager anything that James watched what little video we have of you fighting in your current form in Gotham,” Wade said, shaking his head.

While Wade had personally asked for Cadmus to send over James Harper, AKA Guardian, Wade knew he should keep James’s actual origins a secret, as was the fact he was here to collect what genetic samples he could from Ranma, the Amazon and the two aliens at a party like this. Not that I think it’ll amount to much, but knowing before we start looking into even the weapons space concept that Ranma’s an actual human would be nice.

Whatever Cadmus got up to with those samples beyond that was not Wade’s purview, unless the group went rogue as its creator had. At this point, Wade’s long-term orders were more served by young Carl Reynolds, the astrophysicist who had the body of a beanpole and the social skills of a rock, along with his handler, than anything Cadmus would be able to find out. As for my other orders, well, I’ve already gotten to know one of the four targets of this little gathering well enough to pay for the effort it took to set up, and I don’t doubt I’ll get to know the girls better too, along with everything else.

Beyond keeping James’s background a secret, though, Wade was also willing to further highlight the differences between his own way of looking at Ranma and the world in general from agent M as much as anything else. Office politics was a thing, and the FBI and CIA had both been against this method of getting to know the young supers. They had also not been happy when the Army had been authorized to create Wade’s anti-invasion task group the year prior and held a grudge.

Ranma snickered, shaking his head as he put one arm behind his back and gestured with the other hand. “Well, if you want to see what I can do without my magic form, I can show you, if you want. There’s a patch of grass around here that won’t have any kids in it just yet.”

“Considering that I see my niece bringing out some of the hotdogs and chicken for the youngest, why don’t you two take it over to behind the grill?” Wade suggested.

Ranma and James both nodded, and the two men moved behind the grill, where they stood a few yards apart in the grass there. Ranma bowed as did the man, then he moved quickly, a fist coming up in a full blinding flash. There was no hesitation and no posturing, which Ranma approved of even as he ducked to the side.

As fast as the guy was for any normal person and Ranma would rate him on a five out of ten in comparison to someone like Batman. This was next to nothing to Ranma, but for now, he matched him for a few moments. Guy’s got experience for sure. The guy was good, maybe with speed and strength like Shampoo, but his speed was abysmal in comparison to Ranma, and his strength wasn’t up to Ryoga’s even back when they first met, judging by the glancing blow Ranma redirected with his forearm.

His style was both street smart and Judo based, but Ranma could tell he hadn’t been keeping up with sparring unarmed. His off arm’s always trailing too much, a position thing rather than an old injury, he’s used to compensating for a weight there. He’s also shifted from one attack to another with his other hand, like he’s used to having something in it… a tonfa, maybe?

When he was certain James had almost instantly realized how badly he was being played with, Ranma upped the ante just a bit, suddenly moving faster than he had been. He did this so smoothly it took James by surprise, forcing a wild haymaker out of him as he tried to sidestep. Instead of just dodging as he had throughout the fight, Ranma gently tapped a finger against James’s inner wrist with some force, causing him to hiss and hastily wring out his hand even as he ducked low and went for a spinning kick at Ranma’s legs.

Having seen it coming even before the man had crouched, Ranma jumped up and over them, actually touching down on the leg for just a second. Then he was pushing off into the air,

“Oh, that’s just not fair,” James breathed, his leg still outstretched as he stared at the younger man, who was somehow flipping through the air above him in slow motion. “How the hell, you even distributed your weight somehow across my leg!”

“It’s in how I’m pushing down on yer leg, it spreads out my weight evenly. Took me near a decade to be good enough to do it automatically,” Ranma explained, before his other leg flashed out in a kick. One toe tapped against Wade’s chest, this time with not enough force to damage the guy, just to show what would’ve happened.

Then he was back on the ground, dodging another punch, another kick. “You carry a weapon normally, right? A Shield, and something else.”

“Didn’t bring it along, but yes. A shield or police baton,” James grunted as he launched into a series of strikes and kicks. “And are you analyzing me as I’m trying to punch your chest in?”

“Heh, yep, been doing that since the first, haven’t you?” Ranma shifted sideways, and again flicked out a finger, this time into the guy’s elbow, and James backed away, ringing out his hand again as a crowd of kids broke off from their own activities nearby to stare and cheer them on.

“No, damn it, I’ve been too busy trying to keep up with youuuu!” James yelped as he ducked from a finger flick to his forehead. “And easy on the head shots, even with those finger flicks. I’ve had concussions before, and they aren’t fun.”

“Hah, I’d never hit ya that hard. Like the rest of my style, analyzing and keeping my hits only as strong as I want ‘em is just part o’ what I do,” Ranma joked, pressing in now, having gotten everything he wanted from this. He’s good for a normal guy, but nothing special. And I can see Wade watching all this and thinking, as well as that Agent M guy and a few others. Well, them and the kids.

A lot of the kids had come over to watch the match soon after the pair had bowed to one another. Luckily, they had all known to keep their distance. Most of them seemed to just be cheering in general, although a few had looked worried before noting how neither Ranma nor James were hurting one another.

Down one arm, James was pushed ever backward in a circle, trying hard to figure out what he could from Ranma’s style, but that was very little, as it had been from the start. Damn it, I expected to get my ass handed to me by someone who went toe to toe with the Bat, but this is worse than I expected. He’s not up to someone like the Flash or other speed-based supers, but his skill makes up for it!

Deciding he’d had enough fun, Ranma lashed out again with just a finger once more, this time hitting his ribs, and then the side of his head even as Wade tried to back away. As he did, Ranma was in his face, then around him. Grabbing at James’s outstretched arm, Ranma performed a perfect judo throw, before catching Wade by the back of the shirt, holding him in midair for a second before he could hit the ground.

When he was certain James wasn’t going to try and fight him any longer, Ranma flipped him onto his feet, setting him down gently. The shouts and cheers of the kids resounded as he shrugged at the other man. “Sorry, but if you’re going to try to test me, yer gonna have to come up with a harder test than just you.”

Rolling his eyes at the kid’s obvious attempt to sound like a hick, James nodded. “I kind of figured that going into it. I wanted to see if I could try and guess your style. I couldn’t even do that,” James admitted. While Wade might have thought he could learn how strong Ranma was in this form, James hadn’t, but had wanted to learn something. “I thought at first some of your responses came from jujitsu, I then some of your punches came from judo,” the man admitted. “Your file that we’ve got from the Japanese government had, ‘martial artist, extreme’ in it, but at least now I know what that means.”

Ranma chuckled at that, shrugging his shoulders, and his accent mostly disappeared as he answered. “My style is called Anything Goes, and it’s very much on brand, so to speak. Take of that what you will.”

That was as far as the pair got before the kids excitedly began to shout questions at the pair of them. Mostly Ranma, admittedly, but that was enough to divert everyone’s attention.

Yep, Wade thought with some amusement. Having the kids here was a master stroke, thank you, Mary. Hah, no one can just ignore questions shouted by excitable kids, especially teens, and these four don’t have the training to sidestep or make up answers on the spot. A lot of those questions were nonsensical, but some of them gave him still more information on Ranma, and, just as important, his character. On top of everything he’d discerned before this, he had a full idea of Ranma’s personality. And by the time they leave, I’ll bet Mary and the others will have done the same to the three girls. I have a decent idea there already with all the audio recordings and everything else we’ve gathered over the past few days, but still, in person is better. And more info about Nyctimene’s scientific knowledge is still the main goal of this whole meeting.

He was just done the hotdogs and the chicken when one of the soldiers he’d left out by the helicopter came in. Leaving one of his cousins to watch the grill, Wade headed off to greet the last guest to arrive. By the time he and the older man he’d come out to greet came back, several of the kids piled onto Ranma’s back, trying to, apparently, figure out many of the kids could cling to him at one time as he did some very strange looking pushups.

“Is… is that young man doing a push up without his legs touching the ground?” his new guest murmured.

“Seems so. And he claims to be a normal human in this form, make of that what you will…” Wade murmured back, watching as Ranma pushed himself off the ground with just his hands while six kids sat on his back. His expression was that of a lazy lion, all easy confidence as he worked, showing no strain even as he kept his body rigid like a blank. As Wade watched, he suddenly went from doing a ‘push up’ to a handstand, the kids sliding off his back one after another as they laughed.

The no touching the ground with your legs thing is possible. I’ve seen people do it before. But with a kid sitting on the back of your legs in not one, but four different places? No, that’s not normal, Wade thought with some amusement. Not that I needed more confirmation of that.

Thankfully, Wade’s cousin had kept up the cooking at the grill and now shouted that the hotdogs and chicken was ready. Women throughout the cookout calling their kids to heel, and the crowd began to spread out past the patio onto the lawn. A few more ladies came in from inside carrying more bowls of fruit and some salad bowls as well, with small plastic bowls being handed out and around, so that people could either sit and eat, or walk and eat.

Now able to take in the rest of the gathering, it became clear to Ranma that most of the group were farmhands taking the day off in order to just pal around, and family of the general. They were mere background noise, somewhat like the kids, although the kids intruded more into the area of the party where Ranma was than the farmhands did. Well, barring a few who looked to be former military men, who had been watching James and Ranma’s spar with interest.

One of them asked now, Wade once more took control of the grill while an elderly black gentleman took up residence in a nearby chair. “So, how do you think you’d fare against someone armed with a gun in your base form, as you called it to the kids.”

“Depends on what type, and how good they are with it,” Ranma answered instantly. “I mean, go talk to Agent M and the general about my running with the Joker and his group of thieves. Guns don’t really matter much if you can’t point them in the right direction. Meanwhile, I am pretty much bullet proof like this up to a certain point. I mean if you could get me in my eye, or maybe through my earhole from the side? That’d hurt like a…” he paused, looking around at the kids, then shook his head. “You know what I mean?”

The questioner, a soldier whose origins were what Wade had said earlier about James, shook his head. “All right, fine. But what about something bigger?”

“Buckshot wouldn’t even bother me. Rifles don’t exactly scare me. Tank rounds? I could dodge them, same with RPGs. Hah, in my other form, I’d probably just catch them, and use them as juggling tools. In this form I couldn’t do that, but not getting hit is always better anyway. Plasma, like the weapons I ran into with those aliens, those were a little more dangerous in terms of how fast they can fire, but not all that much in terms of impact.”

Ranma did not go into detail on why that was. The Phoenix Pill and the fact he’d taken it was another thing, like his curse and his Shazam Form’s origins. It isn’t as if there are anymore, after all. It would take the Joketsuzoku decades to make another one.

“And you claim that you’re just human?” another man, Wade’s foreman, muttered.

“Yep. Fully human. No power ups, no magic, no superpowers. Just a lot of grunting, sweating, tears, broken bones and everything else from the moment I was old enough to know what my hands were, let alone do anything with ‘em,” Ranma answered glibly.

“I broke a bone once,” one of the kids interjected. “It was last year, we were playing soccer, and we were winning, then one of the opposing team members did a flying tackle into my leg. Broke my…” he paused, trying to remember the name of the bone, which Nathan supplied absentmindedly, “fibula. But we won though.”

“And that’s the most important thing!” Ranma agreed solemnly, giving the kid a high five, which was enthusiastically received, as several of the other youngsters called out their own past injuries, completely derailing the conversation, with even a few of the hidden soldiers and farmhands getting into it.

One of them even beat out Ranma in terms of past injuries, which was kind of a surprise to all involved, as he had taken shrapnel from grenades going on nearby back inside. He’d been able to get medevac and seen to quickly enough that he only had scars to show for it, as well as a lot of therapy afterwards obviously, but they had definitely left some gnarly scars on his arm and side, from what the man showed of his forearm.

“Honestly, men and your scars. Enough of that. And you lot, you let that young man alone. He’s here to talk with Wade and the rest of us stuffy adults, not you all,” Mary admonished the children and men alike as she came out from the house, carrying a tray of freshly made fries, which she set up on one of the tables nearby.

Behind her came the three girls, and quiet seemed to radiate around the group of mostly menfolk as all of them, and a few of the boys who had reached a certain age, took in the three young girls. All three were attractive, but so were several of the other women around the area… just not as much. There’s also Kori and her orangeness to consider, Ranma thought with some amusement, even as the rest of him took in the trio with appreciation of his own, letting a wide welcoming smile appear on his face, which was mirrored by the newly showered ladies to various degrees as they looked back at him through the crowd.

True to her nature, Kara had kept her outfit simple. She wore jeans, along with a button-down shirt, much like most of the farmhands and many of the women folk around her, that covered everything up top and town to her wrist. On Kara, it just looked better than on most of the other women around. Her hair was flowing back and down her neck, unlike with Cassie, who had put her hair up in a ponytail.

The sight of the two different hair styles has Ranma blinking for a moment. Huh.  Come to think of it, which of their hair is slinkier? I haven’t had to help Cassie with her hair since I was on Themyscira but I remember it being slinky smooth. On the other hand, I have no idea on Kara, but I know Kori’s is frizzy, soft but also hard to work with.  GAH, why am I thinking about the other two, stop that, Ranma. Don’t be a Kuno.

Kara also had a pair of glasses on that just seemed to add to her good looks, in Ranma’s opinion, something his conscious mind didn’t put into those terms.  Honestly, the glasses make Kara look more… Kara somehow? Weird.

For her part, while she had caught Ranma’s smile of welcome and returned it, she was a bit too intimidated at present to return it all that well, to the point she had shifted to hide behind Cassie even as they came through the door. Ugh, darn it all, they’re all looking at us! I was fine with the kids, but this many adults and all of them concentrating on us?

In terms of clothing, Cassie had on a pair of shorts, or maybe a skirt? Ranma wasn’t certain where the line there was, as it did look like denim and looked a little too loose for shorts, but he couldn’t remember off the top of his head if he’d ever seen a denim skirt before. Regardless, it came down to below her knees and was perfectly acceptable in polite company despite showing her lower leg muscles off to good effect, which Ranma approved of.  Damn straight she should show off, I know exactly how hard she works for those muscles.

Her shirt, which was a kind of muscle T-shirt, but one that looked somehow dressier to Ranma’s eyes, more for a party like this than a Muscle-T should’ve been, did the same thing. Cassie’s biceps were on display, with more visible muscle than either Kori or Kara could show. A perfect mix of muscle mass and flexibility, Cassie’s arms looked damn good.

Or maybe it’s a sleeveless blouse? Again, Ranma wasn’t really certain as to the term there and where the line between one thing and another was. Whatever the case, beyond her muscles, Cassie’s shirt had been designed to show off just a bit of side boob, which Kara’s shirt very much did not, and which Ranma could not stop himself from noticing. Gah, stop it darn it all. Fucking hormones.  

Thankfully for Ranma’s control of his eyes, Kara moved quickly to the stereo, blocking his view of her side, with Kara trailing after her, using her slightly taller friend as a mobile shield. The stereo had heretofore been left unused but reaching it, Cassie set the pile of records down. While Mary chuckled at her from behind, subtly gesturing the men to stay back for a bit, she began going through the records before choosing one and sliding it on to the recorder.

Music began to filter out, and after a minute, Cassie hummed appreciatively. “Damn, it really does sound better on vinyl.”

“Miss Mary did say that it would, friend Nyctimene,” Kori reminded her, setting down her own burden of a plate of fruit on sticks, waving cheerily at a few of the kids who had been inside when they first arrived.

Unlike Kara, Kori preened just a little bit at the looks she was getting, the appreciation and flush of desire in the people who looked at her currently being quite nice. Only a few of the men here had feelings that fell below what she felt was the acceptable threshold of simple desire and appreciation, ranging into more licentious thoughts or desires to possess her. Or, worse, in a way, dismissing her as a person.

However, as Mary gazed around the crowd, those men abruptly all turned away, seemingly in acknowledgment of that fact. That was good enough for Kori.

Having moved closer to Kori through the small crowd, Ranma allowed himself to take in his girlfriend’s outfit in a way he’d tried not to do to Cassie, internally thinking not for the first time that having a girlfriend was going to take some getting used to. I like it though, a lot.

However, right now, he concentrated more on what Kori was wearing than the emotions their relationship gave him. “You look amazing,” he said honestly, and without any hyperbole. “Although I gotta say, it doesn’t match with what I’d thought you’d wear.”

Instead of the flashy, so to speak, clothing that she might’ve worn if she had gone shopping on her own, Kori wore a simple blue and light blue sundress. It showed off a decent amount of cleavage, and Ranma had to fight to keep his eyes from continually trailing down into that mysterious territory, but not nearly as much as some of the things that Kori had worn since Ranma had met her. It also covered her arms to her elbows unlike the outfit that Cassie was wearing, and fell down to her ankles showing none of her legs at all.  Which is a first for Kori since I met her.  Huh… now I kinda wanna see them again, despite having seen ‘em for days now more often than not.  What is up with that?

“Indeed it would not be, but Miss Mary had trouble finding things that could go with my skin color, and it is most fun to move in!” so saying, Kori hopped forward, letting the skirt flutter for a moment in the air, then as she landed, she pirouetted as if she were dancing, watching the skirt whirl around her legs with a giggle.

“Well, it looks great on you,” Ranma repeated, at which point he found himself pulled into a hug from the girl and given a kiss on the cheek. Having had a bit of time to get used to how huggy the girl was, he simply smiled and leaned into it, ignoring the hoots and catcalls from some of the other men around them.

“Why are they making those noises? I thought it was acceptable for a man and woman who are in a relationship to hug and kiss cheek in the public yes? Even if part of me is still a bit bemused by the fact that you use the term cheek for both the cheeks on your face, and for the parts of your bottom,” Kori murmured.

“It’s rank jealousy darling,” Mary laughed wickedly. “You’re a gorgeous alien girl who happens to be a princess. That’s straight out of many a man’s fantasies, and to know you’re into young Ranma here punctures their egos before they even work up the courage to shoot their shot.”

As Kori asked about that the phrase meant, most of the farmhands and single men there all laughed, and Ranma raised a hand away from Kori’s waist for a moment, holding up a finger, before shrugging and letting it fall back down, hugging her tighter to him. Even he’d have had a few dreams in that direction when puberty hit, as well as a few that were… well, now a little too close to real life for him to bring to mind without embarrassment. “Yeah, she’s got it in one there, I think.”

Kori snuggled deeper, chuckling as her boyfriend’s emotions rolled over her, always so happy to feel how close to the surface they were, how honest his expression was. There was a bit there when he replied to Miss Mary’s words, a secret of something added to the joke, Kori guessed. Still, that was nothing, and she felt Ranma’s desire and growing affection towards her more than anything else, a warm hug enveloping her after so long stuck on Warworld.

“Are you hungry now, or do you want to look at the horses?” he asked. “I know that you were interested in them from before.”

Before in this case meaning Kara’s words about the Kent farm and from what they’d seen from the helicopter. Ranma also figured that Kori, even more than Kara, might be uncomfortable with the question-and-answer sessions that Ranma had gone through already if the questioner was feeling emotions such as annoyance, anger, disdain or what-have-you.

Another person might have wanted to keep Kori close for that very reason, to make certain the people around them weren’t trying to double-cross them or feeling emotions they weren’t showing. But Ranma didn’t think like that. His priority was Kori’s happiness.

Sensing that Ranma was worried for her in some fashion, Kori hummed, then nodded as she looked around at the crowd. “Horses, please.”

Wade nodded to his foreman. “You can go look, Miss, but no going into the paddocks for now. I doubt they’d be able to hurt you, but they might hurt themselves trying.”

“Doubtful, if they react to the cats and dogs from Star City, or that bear cub we ran into,” Kara grumbled from nearby. “For some reason they like Kori’s smell.”

“Huh, that’s funny. Still, better to keep to the rules, particularly with the kids here, Starfire,” Wade said.

Nodding, Kori gave Ranma a final squeeze, then she was moving off the patio onto the grass, and then towards where the horses could be seen in the paddock. The orange-skinned girl was quickly surrounded by most of the younger kids, boys and girls alike. All of them were deeply intrigued by the alien princess in their midst, and soon they were chattering away at her and vice-versa.

A few of the farmhands went with them, but the majority of the people Ranma had dubbed the Serious Set in his head stayed behind. This included Agent M, two others of similar sorts, the astrophysicist and the new, elderly gentlemen who Wade had yet to introduce to any of the quartet.

Cassie soon found herself being questioned closely by Agent M and the guy who had stopped him from talking earlier. Ranma couldn’t hear all of what they were saying, but they were probably asking Cassie some of the same stuff they’d asked him. That, and we weren’t subtle about her being an Amazon. There might be some questions on that score too. I don’t know what else they want from her particularly.

Ranma was very correct on this point. Beyond wanting to know about Cassie’s moral fiber and where she stood in relation to the law and other things, Agent M was interested in if Cassie’s presence meant that Themyscira was going to be interacting with the world more often. His companions were interested in Cassie herself, her relationship with Wonder Woman, and wanted to ask her more questions about Warworld and what her future plans were.

Some of those Wade had already gotten answers to on the flight here from Ranma, but Cassie hadn’t been involved in that discussion. Still, more information was always helpful, particularly paired with the more utilitarian group of questioners that Wade had going over the leftover guns and so forth Warworld had left behind.

A shy Kara also hung back, following Mary’s gentle instruction without thinking about it, even as Ranma joined them. She was shown around and introduced to a few of the people who were here for more important business than food and playtime by the older woman, who seemed to act as a shield to some of the people who might otherwise have been questioning her more closely.

She was. Mary had been made aware by her husband the most important thing they wanted from Shielder, and getting the shy girl bogged down answering questions that they’d already heard the answer for would have been stupid if Shielder was as shy as she seemed.

The woman’s progress towards the elderly black gentleman was halted however by the man in glasses, who had hastily shifted through several of the other partygoers to get there ahead of one of the men like Agent M. Agent M himself had also been moving after Shielder and Mary’s direction but had unfortunately been out of position at the time getting a drink.

“You’re Supergirl, yes? Er, I’m part of an, er, I’m an astrophysicist, and our think tank, and I was invited to see if we could start thinking of well planning that sensor array you mentioned that might be able to warn us of more attacks like what Warworld did. Um, I think our think tank’s accountant is around here somewhere,” the man stammered, looking away from Kara for a moment, a blush on his face.

Kara blinked, trying to understand his muddled words. “Umm…”

“Here let me translate for you,” another woman drawled, raising a hand. She sounded to Ranma’s ears like she was a Californian, but she fit in with the rest of the crowd so well Ranma wouldn’t have picked her out as one of the government agents, let alone an accountant. “Name’s Samantha, and that one’s named Carl. We’re not agents, so no codenames here. But yeah, by the powers that be, we’re here to start the work on figuring out that gravity anomaly detection system.”

“And I’m here because I work for Wayne Enterprises. Lucius Fox, at your service,” the elderly man introduced himself, his voice deeper than his age would suggest. “Wayne Enterprises is one of the few companies out there that can, we hope, provide everything that this detection system needs.”

Why Lucius was here and how much political/business chicanery had allowed for this was not something he was going to bring up. Indeed, how Bruce had known to have him on call for this “down-low party with major business opportunities” and in Colorado was something he wasn’t going to be drawn on at all, not even when Wade had brought that topic up when he’d greeted him earlier after Lucius had exited his limo.

“Oh!” Kara gasped, then clapped her hands, shattering any idea a few of the acronym crew in the crowd had that she might hold back, or try to bargain. “Really? That’s excellent! UM, I worked on some of the plans over the past few days, if you have oh you do have a computer. We can…” She looked around quickly, and the guy in glasses, apparently named Carl, hastily moved over to a nearby coffee table where a few chairs stood empty at the moment.

“Ahem Let’s get this organized a little better if you’re willing to start helping us figure out plans for that kind of thing right away,” Lucius intoned, shaking his head even as he smiled at the girl’s simple willingness to help. “I’ve got my own work tablet in my limo. It’ll let me know from the start how much Wayne Enterprises can build or get our hands on, and how much it will cost. And you, little miss, should think about that too.”

That caused Agent M and his fellow to scowl a bit, but at a look from Wade, whose glare stood as a firm reminder of a conversation about money being no object, and they subsided as Ranma nodded firmly. “You can share what you’ve been working on, Shielder, but if you take part in planning or putting the sensor thing together, you should be paid for it.”

Kara frowned a bit but nodded. “I was thinking of it more as protecting my new home, but I… well I’ve got plans for some other tech to introduce too, so I guess creating a pipeline for it now would be a good idea.” She looked over at the general, shaking her head. “No weapons, I don’t think you need any help there. But some civilian stuff.”

“Does that mean you’re willing to sign a proper contract? Although, I don’t know how binding that would be unless you use your real name,” Lucius mused.

“Um… yeah, I think I would be. For the gravitic anomaly detection system, anyway. I’ll think about the rest.”

Another young man in a butler’s outfit came through the crowd with a briefcase, and the conversation between the two became very technical in a way at that point as. As that was going on, Ranma simply watched by Kara’s side, giving wordless support even though he didn’t understand a lot of the words after, “The going rate for a start-to-construct system design, is based on difficulty, proprietary knowledge, and—"

Thankfully, Kara did seem to be following it, and Ranma turned to look over at Wade. “Are we passed the ‘getting to know us’ bit of this shindig?”

“Eh, that part won’t end until the meal does and you lot head back to your camp. I’m not going to try and order you about, not like that, anyway. But the president… and apparently the UN Security Council, was adamant about seeing if that gravity sensor thing was a possibility, so it became the main purpose of this get together.” He shook his head, then as Lucius and Kara began to talk about specific bits of the contract, he nodded over to one of the farmhands.

“Go into my office and disconnect my computer’s mouse, keyboard and screen. Bring them all out here, as well as a power cord. You’ll find a spare power cord near the door in one of the drawers.”

The man quickly disappeared inside and Ranma pulled Kara’s notebook out of his ki space, a sight that caused Lucius, Samantha and Carl to blink. “Here ya go.”

Kara thanked him profusely then laid out the notebook next to Carl’s laptop as if seeing Ranma pull something out of nothing was an everyday occurrence. Which, for her, it was. The others around them, on the other hand, just stared.

“Nifty trick, there. Learned sleight of hand from a stage magician?” Lucius asked. He’d seen Ranma’s fight against General Eiling’s volunteer before and knew about Ranma from his time in Gotham, but this was something else altogether.

“Heh, no, but I get why ya’d think so. But since I already explained this once, I’m not going to do it again,” Ranma answered, snorting, looking down at the man’s briefcase and seeing the logo there. “Wayne Enterprises? Why does that sound familiar…”

“You met Bruce Wayne at the party where you killed the Joker,” Lucius reminded Ranma, shaking his head. “Or should that be put down? As much as so-called high-minded people might think, there was absolutely no chance of rehabilitating that man, much like most of the other local crazies who treat Arkham like a summer home.”

Ranma and Kara alike laughed at that, with Ranma adding, “Oh yeah, it’s definitely ‘put down’ when talking about that guy, but I will say, again, I didn’t do it. All I did was turn the Joker’s own weapon against him. That’s it. Huh…” he frowned suddenly. “I wonder what happened to that clown girl. The one with sense enough to run away. She seemed kind of like him, but also not. I never did look into the story there.”

“You mean Harley Quinn?” Lucius sighed. “A bit of a sad story there, but I won’t go into it right now. Suffice to say, the young lady in question is rather like a brilliant, but flawed crystal. She’s amazingly bright, but there is something wrong with her mind. I’m not certain if she was entirely sane before she came into contact with the Joker, but he certainly twisted Harley into something else entirely. Thankfully, with him out of the picture, she will probably join up with Poison Ivy as she has before.”

“Um, isn’t Poison Ivy an eco-terrorist or something?” Kara asked hesitantly.

“She is, but she’s a seven in terms of danger to other people. Joker’s an eleven with a point added over the scale because he was so insane,” Lucius answered with another sigh. “And, oddly, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn seem to… calm one another down almost? Or maybe they just turn their crazy on one another? So long as they stay out of Arkham anyway. Honestly, I’m truly uncertain that place serves any purpose. It’s more jail than asylum anyway.”

“I’m uncertain why Americans think insanity is a great way to explain away murder and other crimes.” Ranma shrugged. “I’ve dealt with crazies before, but they never crossed the line to becoming straight up criminals,” If only because they never attacked anyone but other martial artists, “but being crazy shouldn’t be an excuse to get away with murder.”

Lucius shrugged, not wanting to get into the discussion anymore, but Agent M spoke up quickly, seeing a way to learn more about Shielder and Krypton in general, a topic that had been on the backburner ever since Superman appeared on the scene, and had brown in importance a few times due to certain events over the years. “You mentioned in that interview in Star City you were a teenager on Krypton. Do you know what your people would have done for someone truly insane? Or prisoners in general? Heck, what kind of governmental style did your people follow?”

“Um… if by insane you mean someone with real mental problems I don’t know. I know criminals were given various drugs to control bodily functions or occasionally tossed into the Phantom Zone if they were deemed too dangerous to live among normal people. We didn’t do that often, though,” Kara muttered. “At least… not from what I remember. As to your other questions, I only remember a little bit, sorry. I rarely cared about the news, government or anything like that. Science and engineering were very much my interest before I came here. Nyctimene and Wonder Woman got me into staying fit, fighting and so forth, but back then, I’d prefer to look at the design of a space bridge rather than the news.”

“Space bridge?” Lucius questioned, memories of a certain cartoon his son loved going through his mind.

“A hyperkinetic rail gun used to launch supplies and passenger liners into orbit,” Kara answered instantly. “Old tech, but still in use. Gravity-based heavy lifters were expensive as heck. Now, as for this gravitic sensor, I think I’ve got the general idea of what it should look like here.”

Pausing even as she found the right page, Kara looked up at him and shrugged sheepishly. “I know this has suddenly become all about my engineering skill, and we’ll be here longer than we thought but…”

“Hah, you do you, girl. I’d prefer to see something like that in the hands of the UN, and owned by everyone, but that’d be my only suggestion, and it’s just that: a suggestion. If you can start on designing that thing right away, I’ll support you in that, and you know Cassie and Kori will too.”

Although I will need to make sure she doesn’t lose track of that notebook. I know some of the notes she’s made about me in there, and while I’m happy to help her figure out ki, weapons space and my curse, I don’t want anyone else to get those notes on me.

To those around them, there seemed to be something more to Ranma’s words then just the meaning behind them. Mary, Wade and several of the other married couples around them recognized it. It made several eyebrows rise, even more so when Cassie called out an agreement from where she was still looking through Mary’s collection of vinyl records.

“We’ve talked about this before, Shielder. Just because we can’t follow your science stuff or your being here on Earth now doesn’t mean you should forget your heritage or your knowledge from living on Krypton. Whatever you want to do with that big beautiful brain of yours, it’s fine be me.”

Kori, who had just come back from making friends with the horses, “I too think this is a most excellent plan, Friend Shielder, but remember our conversation on that score. There are other kinds of space transportation out there than Warworld’s. It would be better to build a full sensor suite that can detect them all.”

“Thanks, guys.” Kara beamed at her friends, then grinned and slid into the seat across from Lucius. “So, let’s get this whole contract bit out of the way quickly. I propose…”

At that point, Ranma tuned out again, moving over to join Kori out on the grass. Cassie, still by the record player, put on a new record, one that had a lot of dance tunes on it, mostly from the age of swing and then followed them.

Seeing the three of them and a few of the other young folk start dancing, Mary whooped, laughing and grabbing at her husband’s arm. “Suddenly I feel like moving my feet!”

When her husband made to protest or pull back, Mary leaned in, whispering, “Shielder seems more than willing to help with what you told me was your primary objective. I know you probably got as much as you will out of Ranma, let Nyctimene and Starfire ease more into the party before you start personally questioning the two of them, particularly our alien princess. You had the right idea with this whole party thing, it’s clear to see, now just wait.”

Having indeed gotten a lot of information on Ranma and the girls by this point, Wade went with his wife’s suggestion, and soon, many of the other people at the party were dancing around, more jokingly with the kids than anything else. Kori and Cassie joined in, with Kori and Ranma dancing together for a few songs.

This left Kara with Lucius, Carl and Samantha, and Kara instantly began to feel more comfortable with a small number of people. While the businessman and the accountant looked on, the other two sat side by side looking at the AutoCAD program that Carl had powered up. “How quaint.”

“Quaint? It’s the latest design program, it isn’t even out for sale and I… forgot who I’m talking to…” Carl began, then ended, shaking his head.

“Is it voice controlled?” Kara asked innocently, her eyes twinkling a bit behind her glasses. She slapped the computer lightly, then picked up the mouse and tried to speak into it. “Computer? Computer?”

“… Nice one,” Samantha laughed, while Lucius chortled. Only Carl didn’t seem to get the reference, which made Kara’s eyes widen a bit. “You, you haven’t seen Star Trek?”

“Um… oh, er, yeah I um, I didn’t…”

Faced with someone even more socially awkward than she was, Kara sighed faintly and sent the slightly older youth a smile before turning back to the computer screen, expertly sending its signal to the larger computer screen that Wade had donated. “Well, it should do for what you need in terms of design. Um, do any of you what me to go over the science of how this sensor will work?”

“Yes please,” the man answered earnestly, and Kara began, while the other two deciding now was a great time to grab some food.

Meanwhile, Ranma danced with Cassie as Kori danced by herself in the air above them, ignoring the fact she was flashing her legs and panties to any of the dancers who bothered to look up.

Seeing this, one of the kids, one of the two girls, giggled. “I know you said you can’t fly without your magic powers, Mister Ranma, but what about you Nyctimene?”

While Ranma muttered about the kid sounding condescending and calling him mister alike, Cassie shook her head. “I’m afraid not, little one.”

“Huh? But you come from the same place as Wonder Woman, right?” the little girls eyes gleamed with the simple adoration of hero worship as she spoke of Diana’s hero persona. “Does that mean you haven’t learned yet or something?”

Cassie laughed quietly. “It isn’t something you can learn, but something you must be worthy of. Wonder Woman has the Blessing of Hermes, which is an entirely separate thing than her strength, skill and so forth. I would need to have the same blessing, and I don’t.” And won’t, either. I’ll need to figure out another way to gain the power of flight.

Ranma smiled at her warmly. “Don’t worry about it, for now, Nyctimene. One way or another, I bet we can figure out a way for you to fly with the rest of us. You’re not the only one who wants to discover more of their own powers.”

Indeed, the names Hermes had sparked something in Ranma’s mind, but it fizzled out too quickly for him to grab. Still, he made a note of it, adding it to the names of old gods he might want to research going forward. I don’t just need to hunt down those other repositories, I need to understand more about the magic I have access to already and the gods it comes from.

“Thanks. It, well, I’m looking forward to that, and to more in the future besides. Exploration, training, music and friends,” Cassie chortled, her earlier moment of introspection disappearing as Ranma’s had. “What’s not to like?”

Kori swooped down then, grabbing Ranma his middle and floating up with Ranma. “Now is the time for the dancing, and the fun, and you were not moving nearly fast enough. Come, dance with me.”

“You know I can’t dance midair, right? Or is this just an excuse to hug me?” Ranma retorted, deadpan, even as his eyes twinkled at her.

“The last, of course.” Kori giggled, cocking her head coquettishly to one side. “Why would I not wish to?”

“Ehh, well, right back at ya. I’d prefer to be able to dance a little on my own, but eh, I trust ya to not let me fall… unless it would be funny, anyway.” Kori laughed at that, and the dancing continued for a time.

Back with Kara and her little group, Carl was staring at her blankly. Some of the things she had discussed, particularly the mathematical formulae, were well beyond what humans had discovered so far. He could still follow some of it, but not all of it. Samantha could barely follow one or two of the formulas, let alone figure out all the different variables.

Agent M could barely do that, while Lucius concentrated entirely on the parts Shielder thought would be needed for this thing. “Good grief you were not kidding about the size of this system. It’s going to dwarf anything ever built in modern times.”

Carl slowly shook his head, looking at the same thing. “Are you willing to help build it as well as design it? Only, some of these systems, they’re going to be ridiculously hard to build or even move.”

“Sure, building it will be more fun than designing it,” Kara answered chirpily. “Besides, Earth’s my home now. The US is my home now. I quite like it here.” Kara smirked then, shrugging. “So long as I don’t spend too much time in your cities, anyway. They’re so dirty and grimy! Maybe that’ll be the second thing I design, a drone that can erase or paint over graffiti, and another drone that can go around and pick up trash. That last will be a bit trickier to program though, and I wasn’t all that good at the programming courses.”

At that point Agent M used this opportunity to butt in. He’d been hovering around the table for a while now, understanding the importance of what Kara and the bespectacled man was talking about, but unwilling to forget his own inquiries entirely even if he’d already gotten some of the information he’d been looking for. They’d even gotten an idea of what Starfire could do, and the empathic powers she talked about and showed were very worrisome indeed.

“If you call America your home, does that mean you’d be willing to get an American citizenship?” And be bound by American Law and give us a leg in to your secret identity, the man added mentally. The idea of building up dossiers on the alter egos of the various heroes operating in America was a wet dream of every FBI agent out there, and getting one on Shielder would be an amazing start, considering her connection to Superman.

Kara was about to answer blithely when a cherry flew up out from the crowd around her to land in her mouth, causing her to chomp down and let loose a hum of delight. A second later, Ranma shifted out of the crowd of people beginning to sit down and eat earnestly after their dancing. He moved up behind the chair she was sitting on, leaning down as if to share a joke with her, but really warning the girl to remember that she might want to develop an alter ego in the future. Kara and Cassie were both still of two minds on that score, but they also knew that they weren’t the only ones who would be deciding that.

Watching this from where she was standing with her husband by the grill, Mary’s brows furrowed. Strange. I’ve gotten a few very odd vibes from all three. The looks they shared earlier, the stares Kara gave both other girls when they were changing, and now watching Cassie and Ranma dance with Kori and everything else. I thought they were two couples, but… are they just really close friends or something else?

After clearing her mouth and giving Ranma a thankful look, Kara answered with a handwaving motion. “Maybe, maybe in the future. I know that my cousin is planning to ask the Justice League to provide an alternate identity. Whether or not I go that route or not, I don’t know yet. I’m still getting used to being back in Man’s World after getting a handle on my newfound strength and abilities among the Amazons. I’ve already got a bank account though through my cousin, so the contract will be binding and I can get paid from the start of this project.”

“And um, how are you finding the program?” Carl questioned more to say anything to the very pretty, very smart girl who was sitting across from him, willingly talking about stuff he loved to speak about.

He didn’t even notice Agent M’s scowl, but Ranma did. Ranma also saw one of the soldiers tapping Agent M’s shoulder, urging him to back away, which he did.

“I’m finding it somewhat counterintuitive, but I can figure it out. The question will be if you all have the materials and a place to build it. Also…” she looked at what she had already inputted into the design program, wincing. “I was worried it might be large, and it very much is going to be.”

“I’ll take your word for it. The science you used, particularly the gravitic calculations, were so beyond me it isn’t even funny,” Carl admitted.

“Well, why don’t you power down the computer for now and get some food, Shielder? We’ve got steak on the way,” Ranma suggested, patting Kara’s shoulder.

“Hmmm, sounds good,” Kara agreed. She quickly joined Cassie, Ranma and Kori at a small table, laughing quietly as they all began to eagerly eat. A few of the acronym crowd shot questions their way, but they quartet lost themselves quickly into a discussion of other rivers they wanted to white water swim through. Some of those were in the Amazon Rainforest, and Ranma admitted to wanting to travel down into ‘the land of fajitas and Incan temples’ a phrase he had to explain.

As Ranma did so, one agent in particular nearly cackled madly at the idea of these four traveling through drug cartel country. That image made for a very happy camper in the agent’s mind, particularly after what the group had already done to organized crime in Star City and elsewhere.

As the meal continued, the agents, even M, slowly came to the same conclusion that Wade had made earlier. These four weren’t a threat to the US, or to the world in general. They were refreshingly open and down to earth, something none of the adult heroes out there could say. Not even Superman enjoyed being around kids so much he would volunteer to take them flying as Kori and Kara did, or would show an example of a Judo take down to a crowd of farmhands.

The meal was slowly winding down when one of the soldiers left out by the helicopter hurried onto the patio. His face grim, he made right for Wade, moving with a sense of urgency that drew the eye and silenced conversations enough that, when he spoke, his voice carried to nearly every ear there. “Sir, we just got a report of something going down in Metropolis. We should turn on the news…”

OOOOOOO

Daily Planet Ace Reporter Lois Lane leaned back in her office chair and reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose as she stared at the report that just refused to let her write it. It was supposed to be about an upcoming technology conference here in Metropolis and the changes that had been swiftly put in place since the assault on Star City, but it really didn’t grab her attention at all. It was make-work, the kind of thing that crossed Lois’s desk only when she wasn’t following up on her own stories or nothing serious was happening.

Unfortunately, nothing important had happened in the past few days, not since that attack. Lois had been in Paris at the time, covering talks about creating a Europe-wide banking system, along with rumblings from various countries that they might build on it in the future.

Such news could’ve been big; it should’ve been important. And it probably still was… over in Europe itself. But the news from Star City had completely overshadowed it. The descent of Warworld, the mindless assault, the escaped princess washing up on America’s shores, finding friends and three new superheroes willing to fight alongside her.

It was the kind of story that Lois would have loved to command from the start, but by the time she had learned of the attack, it was nearly over, and she had barely gotten to Metropolis by the time the reconstruction started. Even a jet couldn’t have gotten her to Star City before the new quartet disappeared into the grass again, and by that point, before the locals had all the ongoing news angles tied to the attack locked down to a fare-thee-well. She’d been tempted to dip her toe in regardless, but Perry, her boss, had nixed that idea.

It’s not the first time I’ve been caught out of position when something big goes down, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying! she thought to herself, shaking her head as she thought of that event days past, before her mind shifted to center on the real reason it was still in her head even now. And especially with four new heroes on the block. That’s the angle that should’ve been followed up on after the initial battle was laid out for the world to see.

Oh, I don’t begrudge the local guys and gals their time to shine, or how many of them wanted to concentrate on the local side of things, she thought, her thoughts tinged with a certain amount of arrogance that came with being a world-renowned reporter, but that gal who questioned the quartet, her inexperience showed as did her own issues. We still don’t know nearly enough about these four, Starfire and Shazam in particular. Oh, sure, the runaway slave angle is nice, but that doesn’t tell the world anything about her character or where Shazam came from. Then there’s Nyctimene and Shielder/Supergirl. Four new heroes, all of whom are teenagers.

Remembering her own teenage years, Lois shuddered, knowing very well that whether she was called a hero or a villain would have depended on her mood that day. That’s just a problem waiting to blow up, I know it. Superman talked about how he’d discovered his cousin, sure, but that doesn’t explain this Shazam guy, where he came from, or why a junior Wonder Woman suddenly showed up at just the right time to be on ground zero for an invasion, no matter how haphazard it might’ve been. Makes you wonder what the mysterious Themyscira place might’ve known ahead of time. To say nothing of the alien princess girl.

While Lois Lane was fully aware of Superman’s secret identity, the Kents and Kara, she only had a working relationship with Wonder Woman. Thanks to the magic involved in keeping her Wonder Woman and Diana Prince identities separate, Lois hadn’t even made the connection between Kara going to school with Cassie, Diana’s young acquaintance. Indeed, even now, she hadn’t done so.

Lois snorted, shaking her head. Although it was kind of funny how quickly Nyctimene shot down the idea that she’s really related to Wonder Woman. It would’ve been even more hilarious if she had had some boy toy sometime in the past who left her with a problem, heh. Something that would show that she isn’t entirely as perfect as she seems.

That thought was tinged with a bit more vindictive pleasure than Lois would ever allow anyone to see, as Lois had a problem with Wonder Woman. Normally, she’d be all for a strong female hero, something to show that even heroism wasn’t entirely a man’s job, but when Lois was around Wonder Woman trying to follow up on stories or after a crisis in which Wonder Woman had stepped in to help Superman deal with things, she always got the impression that Wonder Woman didn’t approve of her. Or maybe knew of and didn’t approve of Lois’ relationship with Superman. As if it’s any business of hers who Superman gets with! He’s a big boy, even in his Haystack disguise, and can look after himself, Lois growled mentally.

It didn’t occur to Lois that her thoughts on that score were precisely why Wonder Woman disapproved of Lois. Lois always saw Superman first, and Clark second. Lois had met him in his Superman persona first, and ever since becoming aware of the secret, Lois had seen Clark as just a suit that Superman could take on and off, a way to blend in, a way to see the normal people around him, but to Lois the real thing was very much the Superman rather than the farmboy. Despite the fact that the farmboy’s morals had shaped Superman, rather than vice versa.

Shaking her head, Lois resisted the urge to smack her face for second. Stop that. This isn’t about Wonder Woman or your issue with her; you’re just missing Superman. The whole United Nations was told about the mission the Green Lanterns wanted to borrow our heroes for, but they're taking so long to get back that it’s getting annoying. And… we didn’t exactly part ways on a high note.

For a few weeks before this mission into space, Lois had been getting the impression that Superman just wasn’t into their relationship all that much lately. They didn’t seem to have the time for one another her job, and his being Superman, pulling them away from one another a lot of times, and even after going off the clock, so to speak, ‘Clark’ hadn’t been all that interested in doing much, just wanting to have nights in and be all bland and boring. Lois was not about being bored. She needed to be energized, to be doing things or seeing things. Moments like that, or indeed like what she was doing now, quiet moments, were the bane of her existence.

Maybe next time he’s around, I’ll just demand he pick me up and fly me away somewhere. Get away for a good three or four days to the French Riviera, where clothes will definitely be optional. I suppose, if I have to, we could just spend more time with him as ‘Clark’ if push comes to shove. But if he mentions taking me home to meet the family again, I’m going to gag. What century does he think this is?

Lois spent a few minutes thinking lusty thoughts about having a naked Superman all to herself for a few days, in which she wouldn’t need to feel her legs, but slowly shook it off. She had a job to do.

Turning her attention back to the computer screen, Lois was about to start typing again when she noticed that the computer screen was shaking. Not the pixels, but the screen itself, as it sat on her desk.

Lois had lived in Metropolis long before Superman came around and instantly knew what that might mean. Between one moment in the next, Lois slid under her desk, barely in time before a sonic boom from outside shattered the glass of the window that had previously been directly behind her.

The glass slammed into her computer with enough force to crack the screen. This first boom was followed by still more booming noises outside. A second later, as screams and sirens began, there was a crunching noise that sounded as if concrete had just been struck by a house-sized wrecking ball, another noise that Lois knew quite well.

Rolling out from under her desk, Lois grinned and pushed herself to her feet to look over the edge of the window. Finally, some action!

Seeing that there was no danger directly around the ten-story window, Lois stuck her head out and looked down towards the street, where a piece of one building had been smashed into another from on high. Lois then saw something flying upward, crashing into a police helicopter. A second later, the helicopter and the piece of rubble disintegrated as they crashed into one another.

Normal people might have run for cover. Normal people might have shouted or screamed, asking the world at large what was going on. Or, considering the news lately, they might’ve stared up into the sky, fearful that Warworld had suddenly made a return, and not over Star City this time.

All of those reactions would have been understandable, especially here in Metropolis. Even before Superman showed up, Metropolis had acted like a lodestone for superpowered villains because so many technology companies and so on made their homes here. LexCorp was just one of several that set up shop here thanks to the very generous tax regulations for such companies. Since Superman had arrived, it had only gotten a bit worse in terms of the size of such threats.

Lois, on the other hand, hastily grabbed up her recorder and shot out the door, shouting, “Jimmy! Meet me at the elevator!”

“Better not take the elevator miss, I think some of the power lines are—” a voice shouted back over the scattered, semi-panicked hubbub of the newsroom, just as all of the computers around the room turned off, and what few lights had been on began to blink red, then slowly return to normal. That meant the emergency generator had kicked in, just as Jimmy Olsen had warned Lois, and that meant the elevators would probably be either slow or not powered at all.

Lois couldn’t honestly remember the last time the Daily Planet’s building had lost power like that and couldn’t bring herself to care one way or another. Slow was as bad as not working in her mind right now, excitement and delight going through Lois at the idea of getting another exclusive scoop of some threat to the city or planet.

The idea that Superman wasn’t around to save her if she got too close to the action barely flashed through her mind as she raced through the crowd, dodging people with effortless ease.

On the other hand, Jimmy, a teenager probably around the same age as the foursome from Star City that Lois had just been pondering on and off, did have a good sense of self-preservation. Hence why, when he, orange-haired, freckled, and gangly, met up with Lois at the entrance to the emergency stairs, Jimmy wore a flak vest and a hard hat, and wordlessly pushed another flak vest towards Lois. “Where’s your helmet?”

“Back in my office. No time to waste!” Lois waved that away crisply. That didn’t stop her, though, from grabbing the flak vest and shrugging it on over her spare frame even as she tried to wrench open the door to the stairwell. Sighing, Jimmy opened the door for her, then followed the older woman down the steps at a brisk run, absently commenting to himself on her ability to multitask.

By the time they were out on the street, people were already running for cover, shrieking or crying, the typical reaction to such events, even here in Metropolis. Just because they were used to such things occurring didn’t mean they were inured to the danger of such: in the main most of them were running into some specially designed and rebuilt buildings. These had first floors that doubled as shelters, just in case, something the city's mayors had all pushed for since such attacks began more than eight years ago.

Pushing through a crowd of civilians, Lois raced in the other direction towards the threat, with Jimmy hurrying after her, his trusty camera in hand. As gangly and somewhat annoying as the kid could be at times, Jimmy was one of the best photographers in the city. Indeed, he was so good that he had recently received a photography scholarship at one of the local colleges.

His skill with the camera was such that Jimmy had it up to his eye and was taking a picture even before Lois skidded to a halt and ducked for cover ahead of him, as something smashed out of a nearby building, shouting gibberish. Thus, it was that Jimmy became the first person to take a picture of the return of one of Superman’s former enemies, even if Lois was the one to have initially given him his name, and shouted that name now. “Bizarro!? What the heck, how is he here!?”

Lois remembered this particular crazy pretty well. From what she had discovered since, Bizarro had been created by some kind of super hush-hush government science team that wanted to control their own Superman soldier. He’d broken out, an obvious outcome in Lois’s mind, and almost seemed to want to act like a second Superman for a time, if in a rather ham-fisted manner. He had nearly given Superman’s alter ego away and had even claimed to have fallen in love with Lois for a time, something she very much had not enjoyed, given his attempts to get her attention had been just as ham-fisted as his attempt to be a hero. Even then, Bizarro hadn’t exactly been the brightest bulb around.

However, his mental acuity had gotten worse very quickly. Something in the cloning process had begun to go wrong within a bare three weeks of his being free, and his brain had begun to first simply stopped working and then become completely unhinged. Everything became different in Bizarro’s mind at that time, including good and evil shifting position in his mind.

Lois was no neuroscientist; she had no idea how that happened or whether one simple underlying problem caused it, but he went from almost aping being a superhero to being a supervillain. Worse, Bizarro had all of Superman’s powers, just in complete reverse. Instead of a hurricane of wind, he could breathe in, sucking all the air from around him, causing people to go unconscious at the sudden loss of air. He had fire breath instead of chill, and, even stranger, a gaze that could freeze anything he wished rather than laser eyes. It was only because Bizarro wasn’t the best fighter and wasn’t all that smart that allowed Superman to eventually overpower him.

Bizarro had then been imprisoned in some alternate dimension whose name Lois couldn’t remember just now. It was a prison that Krypton had devised apparently centuries ago, which Superman had access to thanks to some technological information that had been passed down to him by the records of his parents that had come with him to Earth.

How Bizarro had broken out of the strange alternate dimension he’d been imprisoned in was something Lois had to wonder about, and she made a mental note to question Superman about that when he returned. A thought that caused the reporter to pale significantly for a second, even as she hurled herself to the side and into an alleyway as a bit of shrapnel from where Bizarro had just punched a police car. The police car whirled back down the road past Lois’s hiding place as she cursed.

FUCK! All of the Justice League’s heavy hitters are away! Maybe one of the magic users can deal with him? I know he’s weak to magic just like Superman is, even if kryptonite doesn’t work on him.

As Lois finished dictating some background notes about Bizarro, Jimmy slid into place next to Lois, but before he crouched down beside her, he paused, then clicked a picture, before ducking into cover as another piece of shrapnel from a second police car slammed into the corner of the building whose wall they were hiding around. “Is it just me, or does it look like someone fed Bizarro steroids, Miss?”

Jimmy had just joined the Daily Planet when Bizarro had shown up the first time. Indeed, it had been the adventure that had set him up as Clark and Lois’s on-call cameraman.

Lois blinked, then frowned, listening for a second, as Bizarro spouted some gibberish again, lifted a parked car up and out of its place along the side of the road, and hurled it upwards to slam into the top of a nearby skyscraper. “Yortsed, yortsed, tset, egnellahc, ecneloiv, htaed RAGGG!”

“Bizarro doesn’t normally speak like that either… He speaks, well, like someone with serious brain damage, but that almost sounds like he’s speaking in reverse, and not anything coherent either. I caught test in there somewhere…” Lois muttered as she stuck her head out again and took a long look at Bizarro, her frown deepening, as she pushed her reddish brown hair out of her eyes, wishing she’d grabbed a tie for it. It was altogether too long, falling down to her shoulders, for such exertions.

“You’re right, Jimmy. Bizarro doesn’t look like he did when Superman beat him down. His muscles are bigger, almost oversized in his shoulders and upper arms, and the rest of him looks thinner. It could be that someone stuffed Bizarro full of weird steroid-equivalents, I guess?”

“Heck, miss, from what I remember Superman told us about the Phantom Zone, I didn’t think the prisoners ate anything there, just sort of floated in nothingness. Which… begs the question of how he got out in the first place,” Jimmy mused, coming to the same question Lois had earlier.

“Good questions, but not as pertinent as the question of how fast someone from the Justice League can get here to put Bizarro back in his box,” Lois said, before beginning to make verbal notes into a recorder, as Bizarro leapt up into the sky. Any hope of him leaving the city, though, was ruined as he smashed into the top of the L, marking the top of the Luthor Corp skyscraper. He tore it off, then hurled it down and threw it at another helicopter, before following the wreckage down into the city. A second later, he smashed into and through several skyscrapers of his own, as if simply delighting in destruction for destruction’s sake. Again, not something that matched what Bizarro had gotten up to after his brain started to fail him.

Out of the alleyway and towards the new source of carnage elsewhere in the city, grateful that she’d decided to wear sneakers that morning to work rather than high heels. “Come on! Let’s follow him.”

“I’d say this is a mistake, Miss Lane, but if ya listened, that’d be the first time,” Jimmy grumbled even as he raced after the woman. As he did, he hoped that the Flash or someone else from the Justice League would be arriving shortly. Although, I don’t know if the Flash could fight him all that well… fuck, where are the heavy hitters when we need ‘em?

Unfortunately, the Justice League was having its own issues because, in fact, Metropolis wasn't where Bizarro had first shown up. He had instead exploded out of a tear in reality right above the Justice League’s space station, the Watchtower. A tactical mind, someone who wondered about such things, of which there were many within the Justice League, would ponder that bit of serendipity. Regardless, the Justice League members on duty within the watchtower, Zatanna and Black Canary, had been caught completely flat-footed.

Zatanna’s magic was doing a very good job of repairing the outer hull and the damage there, but the electronics that had been destroyed when Bizarro blasted through the station like a speeding bullet train were going to take a while to get back into action. Thus, the Justice League wasn’t going to be able to respond very quickly to anything.

As he ran, Jimmy looked back at the second picture he’d taken and frowned, slowing to a halt for a second. “Miss, take a look at this!”

Lois paused, then seeing something coming down from on high, jumped backwards, propelling herself into Jimmy and both of them to the side, where the pair rolled under a large pickup truck for a second. The truck shuddered as something slammed into it; then they rolled out the other side, racing through several crashed cars and bits of rubble toward where Bizarro was standing now, slamming two trucks into the buildings around him.

“Now is not the time, Jimmy!” she hissed, ducking and bobbing into the wreckage of some kind of clothing store. Why’s he doing so much damage? What is the plan here? Even at his dumbest and worst, Bizarro never went into wholesale destruction like this. And even if he wanted to just destroy things, he’s not doing as good a job of it as he could.

“He’s got some kind of collar on,” Jimmy shouted instead of trying to argue.

Lois blinked, then they were in between two buildings once more, racing along a pedestrian-only area, and out into a small park, while in the distance ahead of them, Bizarro had just smashed his way out of yet another building, roaring and waving his hands theatrically. That’s not usual either. What’s going on?

They put a public restroom between the two of them and the distant Bizarro, whereupon Lois turned to Jimmy, scowling. “What are you talking about?”

Jimmy held up his camera, showing the second picture that he’d taken earlier, and Lois absently noted that once more, his ability to capture objects in motion at just the right angle had proven itself again. This image would make for great front-page even in black-and-white.

Looking at the picture, it was even more obvious that Bizarro had definitely skipped leg day but doubled up on arm day, yet Lois had missed other details before. His skin was still the same chalk white as before, but blue veins being visible on his hands and face was not at all usual. His clothing was the same as when he had turned villain: Superman’s costume but with the colors inverted and a simple S on his chest rather than the more stylized one that Superman used.

There was also indeed a collar around his neck, as Jimmy had noticed. It was so tight, in fact, that it looked as if it was almost embedded into his skin. A large segment of it went below Bizarro’s clothing and looked almost like a red jewel.

Putting two and two together, Lois frowned. “Could it be some kind of control device?” Or that and also an inhibitor?

“How’m I supposed to know? I just take pictures, Miss. Still, it’s definitely something to ask Superman about when he comes back,” Jimmy said.

Unlike Lois, Jimmy had no idea of Superman’s alter ego. He thought that Clark was back on the farm with the Kents helping around the place because his father had thrown out his back.

Lois nodded, then looked around the edge of the restroom for a second, as a sudden chill hit them. In the distance, Bizarro had just used his arctic vision to turn an entire street into a frozen wasteland. Thankfully for Lois’s sensibilities, she couldn’t see any human-sized ice statues from this angle, but that was scant comfort as the wholesale destruction continued. “For now, let’s just keep taking pictures, and keep following him. Maybe there’ll be an actual point to this rampage eventually, and if there is, I want to know what.”

OOOOOOO

“…So, he’s some kind of evil version of my cousin?” Kara scowled, crossing her arms. “Tell me you at least don’t have this group of scientists that created them still working for the government.”

“Several of them were locked up for malpractice and unsafe working environments,” James answered, wincing just a bit. It had, after all, been Cadmus’s original creator who had been behind Bizarro’s inception. A project that had gotten very much out of hand very quickly, in a way that anyone sensible would’ve been able to see coming a mile away. Not that anyone ever called that particular asshole sensible. “I have to wonder how he got out of the Phantom Zone.”

“Ahuh…” Ranma drawled, staring at him, then at Wade and the farmhand who had shared what was publicly known about Bizarro a moment ago.

Wade was glaring at the man, not having wanted any of the government’s dirty laundry to come out in this get-together, but in Ranma’s opinion, he needn’t have bothered. Anyone who thought a government didn’t have skeletons somewhere was a damn idiot. Even Ranma, who didn’t care at all about politics and very little about governments, knew that.

“Nice attempt to change the subject there. Just don’t tell me the main brain behind that wonderful idea is still around trying to create more clones, and we’re good.” Ranma’s sarcasm came through clearly, and nearly everyone associated with the government winced.

“Dabney Donovan was executed as a traitor to the US. He was just too dangerous to let live, even imprisoned.” Wade nodded, while James remained silent. That was the public line the government had followed, though those within Cadmus knew it was only the start of the tale. Still, it’s technically right, and that's the best kind.

“That doesn’t matter right now. What does is dealing with this before Bizarro can continue his rampage. Who knows how many people have already died!” Kara exclaimed, shaking her head and looking down at herself. She was still wearing the pair of jeans and shirt that she’d taken out of her bag from the Kents, but while it was hers, unlike Cassie or Kori’s, it very much wasn’t the kind of thing she wanted to fight in. And I just know it’s not gonna survive fighting someone on Kal-El’s level. “Darn it, next time we meet with a JL member, any member, I’m gonna demand some kind of costume from them. Even Plastic Man didn’t have as much…”

“Wardrobe malfunctions?” Ranma quipped as Kara fell silent, a flush suffusing the introvert’s feature. “I can probably infuse them with ki if ya want, like my slippers. It’ll take a while, though. Go too fast, and I’ll overload the cloth and get torn apart.”

“And we can’t take any time, drat it all,” Kara grumbled, while James winced a bit.

His own suit as Guardian was rated to take attacks from Superman and not be destroyed, even if its actual defenses weren’t much at all. It was also sized to fit him like a latex glove (except below the belt, so to speak) and very much wouldn’t work for a slip of a girl like Kara. Even if she can toss me around like a toy.

With no other choice, Kara shook her head. “Nothing for it, I guess.”

Kori and Cassie, on the other hand, raced inside, quickly coming out dressed in the same clothing that they had arrived in. While they did that, Ranma grabbed up Kara’s notebook, stuffing it into his ki space, then demanded that a large section of the grassy area between the horse paddock and the main house be cleared out, and the horses taken into the barn. “This is gonna be loud.”

“You’re going to transform right in front of us?” Wade questioned, still somewhat bemused by how little care Ranma had in keeping his new heroic persona separate from his normal one. It makes trusting him easier, but also bothers the heck out of me.

“I haven’t exactly been trying to keep the connection a secret before this. So long as my Ranma side doesn’t become famous enough to be bothered in my normal life, I don’t care.” Ranma shrugged, recalling Mary’s point when they first arrived. She’d had a point, darn it, but by that point, it had been too late.

“Understood. We’ll still keep the connection between Ranma Saotome, martial artist extreme and Japanese national, and Shazam, new superhero, a secret,” Wade agreed, backing further away from Ranma until he was under the half-roof of the patio. I suppose doing so can be a sign of trust between us, albeit a small one.

The kids had been chivvied inside, while the farmhands had shifted down to the farm and the other adults were standing with Wade. Seeing that no one was nearby, Ranma called out, “SHAZAM!” calling on the magic that his ancestor had graced him with. A second later, a lightning bolt slammed down into him from the still blue sky above, causing the watchers to cringe back and close their eyes.

When the lightning bolt faded, Ranma stood in his Shazam form. As he slowly stepped out from cover, Wade absently noted that in this form Ranma had become taller, broader and stronger-looking, just as he had expected from the pictures from Star City. The face was also far too different to be the same person. Ranma was clearly Japanese despite his deep blue eyes, with the common Asian epicanthic folds around his eyes and the typical skin tone of a Japanese man who spent time outside. Shazam’s face was now more Greek, or at least Mediterranean for those who knew what to look for. Certainly not Asian.

Wade pointed this out to Ranma, who gave him a thumbs-up before Wade looked over at Carl and the others that Kara had been working with, then Kara and the other girls who had just raced out of the house. “Will you four return here tonight?”

“Um…” Kara frowned a bit. “Er, probably not. It’s already evening, and I don’t know how long dealing with Bizarro is going to take, or how long the cleanup afterward. “We’ll probably find a place to stay for the night, right?”

She looked over to Ranma, who nodded. “Actually, we might try to head back to our camp. We left a lot of our stuff there. After all, this was just supposed to be a cookout, not an extended trip. Heh, though finding it is going to be interesting even from the air.”

“I’ll have my staffer ready to send you the coordinates if you call the third phone number I gave you,” Wade decided. I’ve gotten everything myself, the joint chiefs or the president realistically thought we could get out of this meeting. Their willingness to help against Bizarro is just another data point to figure out this quartet’s character. “If you also set up an email, we can restart work on the design of the sensor array.”

“Oh, if you want to keep working via email on the plans, I’m more than down with that,” Carl interjected enthusiastically.

“And I’ll get the payment plan ready to send to you as well, little miss,” Lucius added, smiling and nodding his head to the young blonde girl. He’d taken a shine to her during this shindig and was more than happy to help keep that project moving as it seemed as if it was going to do what Shielder thought it would. Even if her thoughts about how large it's going to be might give the actual builders an ulcer. The darn thing’s going to rival the Valley of the Kings in size!

“Sounds good,” Kara said, looking over at Cassie and holding out her arms. “Ready?”

Rolling her eyes, Cassie hopped forward into Kara’s outstretched arms, putting an arm around her shoulder. “This is still ridiculously undignified,” she grumbled, before leaning slightly into the shorter girl’s chest and shoulder. “Even if it’s kind of nice at the same time.”

Smiling gently, Kara nodded, and then the three flyers were in the air, with Kori leading, a bright green flare in the blue sky.

For a second, Wade stood staring after them, then shook himself, turning to point at Agent M. “Get me a timeframe for what happened here. How long did it take before the news got out that Bizarro had returned and was attacking Metropolis, and where is the Justice League and is this an isolated incident?”

Agent M blinked, and Wade fought the urge to roll his eyes or shout at the man like a drill sergeant. “Think, man! Could this be a different Bizarro? Someone else trying to create a clone like Dabney did? Or a sign that the Phantom Zone is somehow failing?”

“Um, that’s not scientifically possible,” Carl mumbled from nearby, before turning back to his computer, still on the tea table as it had been for the past hour or more. “Dimensions don’t just fail like that.”

“How would we know?” Samantha demanded, causing Carl to blink, then shrug, falling completely silent now.

“If Bizarro got out, could Zod or his followers?” Wade continued as if he hadn’t heard the two eggheads, causing Agent M to stiffen. The US government knew about Zod’s imprisonment in the Phantom Zone and wasn’t happy about. While the actual deaths he had caused weren’t all that much in comparison to some terrestrial superpowered threats, the disruption Zod and his two followers had caused on the international scene had been riotous. The fact Superman refused to bend on his no-killing rule even for such potent threats had also been a major issue.

Agent M nodded, and then raced off, pulling out a phone to demand answers. Meanwhile, Wade turned to one of his own currently undercover aides, snapping his fingers. “Get me in contact with the nearest National Guard base to Metropolis, as well as the nearest regular Army post. We might not have anything that can help against Bizarro himself, but we’ll be on hand to deal with the reconstruction afterwards if we have to.”

He smirked then, just slightly. “Out of any city in the world, Metropolis is certainly the best prepared to handle this kind of nonsense, but that doesn’t mean a helping hand would be out of place.”

As Wade organized everything, Mary began gathering the guests, moving them toward the door. The meal had been over for a while, and with all this going on, Wade was certainly not going to be playing host any longer. As they went, Lucius pulled out his phone and called his boss. He was unsurprised to hear that Bruce was off galivanting somewhere, of course, but he still went through the motions.

He was unaware of Bruce’s true location. Indeed, Batman had been in the air for nearly half an hour before the news of Bizarro’s assault reached the Eiling Ranch. That still put him more than an hour away, though, and with the Watchtower still not responding, there was no faster way to get to Metropolis. All the teleportation pads connected through the space station; a lapse of forethought Batman was going to rake the Martian Manhunter over the coals for in the not-too distance future.

OOOOOOO

The moment they were high enough that sonic booms wouldn’t cause a problem for any of the people far below, Kara began to put on the afterburners, with Kori and Ranma keeping up with her for a time. Kori slowly began to fall behind the other two, but still kept up well enough that Kara, when she noticed, slowed down. A few seconds more one way or another wouldn’t matter.

As the miles zoomed by, Ranma was somewhat stunned. He’d never really pushed his straight-ahead speed like this in his Shazam form, and outside of a few practice flights before the battle in Star City, hadn’t bothered testing how far or how fast he could fly without getting tired. Now, it seemed at least in terms of speed he could easily keep up with Kara.

He wasn’t even feeling any kind of strain, whereas Kori was lagging further and further behind. Damn, I really did make a mistake being so leery of using my Shazam form, didn’t I? Going forward, no more of that. I can’t afford to remain, ugh ignorant about this form’s abilities. That means way more than just sparring with it.  Actual tests, research into the gods who gave my ancestors these powers, and more.  The past few days were just a start, a good start, but that’s it.

“So, what’s the plan?” Ranma blinked, looking over at Kara, and she snorted. “Ranma, I might be the one urging us to take Bizarro on, but I know you’re the combat wunderkind here. So how do we do it?”

Ranma snorted at that, glancing down at Cassie, who shrugged her shoulders. “Eh, you’re certainly the best at adapting to your enemy. To my mind, though, Bizarro’s only half the problem. The other issue is getting him away from civilians.”

“Right. We need to get Bizarro out of the city. When we get closer, I bet we’ll find a nearby state park or open area where we can wail on him. That’ll be our first objective,” Ranma planned quickly, seeing what had to be one of the Great Lakes appearing on the horizon. Damn, and it can’t have been more than five minutes since we left Colorado! “Starfire, you’ll start by doing a strafing run. Keep his attention on you. Kori, deposit Cassie somewhere else in the city out of sight. If Kori’s blasts aren’t doing anything, she’ll fall back to join you and start helping with the local rescue efforts.”

Cassie scowled a little. “That makes sense considering Bizarro’s probably out of my weight class, just like Mongul was.” And me without a spear to even the odds. “But don’t think for a moment that I’ll let you steal fights like this in the future, Ranma. Particularly if I can figure out a way to fly on my own.”

Starfire also nodded in agreement to the plan, despite pouting just as much as Kori was for being possibly sidelined, since in her case, it was a certainty. Still, she understood the importance of starting the search and rescue as soon as possible, so didn’t complain overmuch.

“If Bizarro’s still on the ground like he was in that news reel, I’ll go in close and hit him into the air. Kara, it’ll be your task to grab him and get him away from the city once he’s in the air. If he’s already taken to the skyline, we’ll hit him together and drag his chalk-ass away.”

Kara had been about to protest, saying that this was her family’s problem, that this guy was a clone of her cousin. However, Ranma’s sensible plan took the wind out of her sails, and she nodded. “Sounds good to me.” She smirked a little. “After all, if there’s one thing you seem to specialize in, it’s getting your opponent to make the tactical mistake of getting into the air with you.”

“True that.” Ranma chortled at that, and the quartet zoomed forward. Soon after leaving the Great Lakes behind, they spotted smoke and fire on the horizon and split up.

Starfire went high, while Ranma went low, zooming just over one of the roads leading into the city, where hundreds of cars and trucks had stopped. Many people were out of those cars, gawking back towards the city rather than doing the smart thing of continuing away from it, something Ranma had to cringe at even as he sped over their heads so fast, he was a blur, leaving hair and skirts flying behind him. Hah, ooh, that is one bad toupee, my guy!

Meanwhile, Kara split off to the right with Cassie, coming in on the city from another angle.

Bizarro was indeed still on the ground. He seemed content to stomp through the city, lashing out occasionally now, while hunting down every policeman or car he saw, while also smashing some of the LexCorp helicopters and floaters out of the air.

The floaters, a name which had started with the children of the city and spread, were a invention by LexCorp that the company had begun to supply to Metropolis free of charge. They were essentially near-sci-fi creations that could use tractor beams, scanners and robotic arms and programming to rebuild and repair buildings across the city.  They were, apparently not even expensive, but also made for one hell of a tax write-off.

Lois had her own thoughts about those things and what Lex Luthor the bald version had wanted to use the tech for. But like the rest of the city, she didn’t have any problems with how Lex Jr. was using them. Even if the sheer number that the various LexCorp holdings had on hand was somewhat disturbing.

Losses among the police and first responders were only kept down by the dispatchers learning they were being targeted like this quickly. That, and the fact that Bizarro didn’t seem to care to enter any of the buildings. He had smashed through several at the start, but now didn’t, instead flying short distances or simply punting cars all over the place. He did seem to have a particular hate for billboards and buildings with the letters L or S on them, but that still meant he wasn’t destroying nearly as much as he’d feared.

Large segments of the city now had more cars embedded into buildings than on the ground. His ice beams had also gotten a workout, and several streets or even whole neighborhoods had been frozen solid. There still hadn’t been the wholesale deaths that Star City had dealt with during Warworld’s assault, but the watching Lois was certain that was going to end soon.

It’s almost like he’s waiting for Superman to return, and is just having fun while he waits, Lois thought, before recording that idea for later. It was so bad she was tempted to shout out, to grab Bizarro’s attention herself. The clone creature had been convinced at one point that they were in love, after all, and Lois wondered if that could be used against him again.

Then, as Jimmy raised himself from behind a chunk of rubble, the alien princess who had chosen the codename of Starfire came down on high with a howl. Bolts of green energy crashed down into Bizarro, and Starfire raked him from on high, shifting up and away as fast as she could.

Instead of leaping into the air himself, Bizarro just tried to catch her with his eye beams. That was another sign that Bizarro was probably not all there mentally, in Lois’s opinion.

Starfire ducked behind a building, the cryogenic blasts didn’t hit her. She popped out of the other side, blasting down at him with her beams once more, only to scowl as Bizarro seemed barely to stagger under the strikes. “Blast and botheration. Still, Boyfriend Ranma’s plan allowed for that,” she grumbled.

She kept up a hit-and-run strategy for a bit, but then, just as Bizarro finally decided to jump into the air to chase after her, Ranma appeared on the scene, coming in fast from the side.

He had found a route that would lead him straight to Bizarro and now zoomed along the streets, not nearly as fast as he had been going to reach Metropolis admittedly, but still a speeding streak of light to most of the civilians hiding around the area.

More importantly, Bizarro didn’t notice him until Ranma hammered into him at just the right angle from below, smashing Bizarro into an uncontrolled flip further up into the air. “Why don’t you play with the big boys instead of trying to emulate Godzilla on a holiday, asshole!”

“FZGLFGR nwonknu, ton detciderp, 124568289999!” Bizarro’s response was a harsh series of letters and what sounded like random numbers that Ranma couldn’t figure out.

Bizarro halted his out-of-control roll midair, coming back down towards Ranma. Starfire’s attacks from the side blinded him for a moment, causing him to halt, and that was all the opening Kara needed. Flying in like a jet on steroids even compared to Ranma’s earlier speed, she grabbed at his cape, making a mental note that yes, they really can be a liability, before she whirled like a top, hurling him up and into the air.

“Starfire, break off and join Nyctimene in SAR,” Ranma shouted, blasting into the air after Bizarro.

Bizarro could fly, of course. It was one of the few powers from Superman that his strange clone-based decay hadn’t changed, and once more, he halted himself near instantly in the air. A blast of cryogenic energy flashed from his eyes towards Kara, but even as she yelped and dodged, Ranma thundered into him from the side, grabbing him around his middle and continuing to propel them both away. “Now, now, White-and-ugly, none of that. You’ve done enough damage to this city already.”

With a final nod Starfire’s way, Kara followed, watching as Bizarro slammed his fists down into Ranma’s back one after another like a metronome, causing Ranma to grunt in pain. Fucking hell, he’s almost as strong as Mongul, but his coordination isn’t nearly as good. Even here he’s spreading out his strikes on my back rather than aiming for the back of my head. Can’t imagine Mongul making a mistake like that.

Ranma’s thoughts broke off as he let loose an oof when a knee came up into his stomach, followed by a tornado of fire exploding out from Bizarro’s mouth and onto Ranma’s back and head, causing him to yelp. Okay, so he’s got some surprises, but still, fire isn’t going to matter here.

Ranma’s current durability included an immunity to heat that meant even Kara’s eyebeams didn’t bother him. A mere flame attack like this one, no matter how hot, wasn’t going to do more than blind or startle him. Still, combined with the knee to his stomach, that was enough for his grip around Bizarro’s middle to loosen.

As Bizarro pulled back and lashed out with a blow that caused Ranma to be flung sideways, his jaw smarting, Kara’s kick caught Bizarro in the side of the head. Similar to Ranma, he was sent hurtling through the air, but he got it under control almost instantly and Kara was forced to dodge a punch, landing one of her own right to his jaw. Thank you, Cassie and Donna, for your training!

Ranma dove into the attack from behind, but Bizarro saw him coming thanks to his ability to see out of the back of his head, an odd skill that was part of how his inverted powers stacked up to Superman’s insane eyesight. He twisted aside, trying to grab Ranma’s arm as he passed. Ranma allowed him, only for Ranma’s next blow to take Bizarro in the side of the chest, followed by one to the side of the head. A third blow hit him in the jaw, breaking the grip, although Ranma did take one in turn to his shoulder.

              Using the momentum of that strike, Ranma shifted aside from a kick, which wasn’t pulled back nearly fast enough for Ranma’s tastes. He decided to show his displeasure with the slowness of his opponent by grabbing onto that foot, and twirling in place. “Batter up!”

Kara grinned and a second later, her fist crashed into Bizarro’s chest with all the force she could muster, which was quite a lot, enough to fill the evening air with a thunderous Crakooom noise. “HOMERUN!”

The blow blasted Bizarro away in the direction of a large forest in the distance. Ranma instantly followed up by zooming up and into the air above where Bizarro’s flight had taken him. Bizarro got his momentum under control once more, but barely had time to react as Ranma came down from on high again, and Kara came in once more from the front.

Back in the city, Lois was slowly shaking her head, staring at the image that Jimmy had somehow captured right as Shazam’s fist collided with Bizarro’s lower stomach. “Okay, I think we can safely assume that the reports about Shazam being near Superman’s level in terms of strength are pretty accurate. That looks like it hurt. Now come on, let’s go find a helicopter, see if we can follow the action.”

Thankfully for Jimmy’s sensibilities, if not his blood pressure, Starfire and Nyctimene arrived on the scene at that point. Gulping, he stared up at the pair of gorgeous young women as they descended through the skylines. Cassie came down from the skyline, having been racing along the rooftops to this point, while Starfire just came straight down, still pouting a bit at how little her energy blasts had mattered to Bizarro.

She shook that thought off, though, as she saw Cassie already working to pull a chunk of rubble away from the entrance into a building. She hastily began to put out fires nearby caused by Bizarro’s fire breath, before slowly thawing out a single building that had been struck by his cryogenic powers. “There are people still in here. I can hear their hearts, faint but there! I will need willing hands to help me get them out once I have started to unfreeze them.”

With the threat removed for the moment, a lot of the city-goers came out from inside buildings, and soon, street captains, mostly beat cops or small business owners, started to shout orders, getting groups of civilian volunteers organized throughout the city as the police and other first responders also came out of hiding. At the same time, the hover plates that had appeared at the start of the battle multiplied.

Hundreds more came out from slits built in the side of the LexCorp building, joining several dozen others already moving through the city. Each was shot out like a Nerf disk at the end of an air cannon, and then floated around, joining up with their fellows. With them came Lex Luthor Jr. himself, along with teams of specially trained builders.

All of them hovered in the air on their own hover discs, and soon took command of twenty other discs apiece. Still other floater-based first responders also started to move, bringing aid to the most beleaguered of portions of the city.

Meanwhile, the fight between Kara, Ranma and Bizarro continued. The pair had been able to completely stymie Bizarro’s ability to fly, keeping him corralled and on the ground between them, but both had taken a few hard blows in return, and oddly, Bizarro seemed to fight dirty. Blows to the boy bits for Ranma, grabs at Kara’s chest, trying to grab hair or ears. At one point, Kara moved her head just in time to avoid a tong to the eye, which slammed into the side of her temple with enough force to send her head ringing a little.

He isn’t as strong as Mongul, she thought, and he didn’t seem nearly as experienced to her, but she was no expert in analyzing her opponents like that. She just could tell that a lot more of their blows were getting through to him than vice versa. His durability is crazy, though.

Ranma, on the other hand, was an expert at analyzing his opponents, and even as he ducked to the right of a blast of cryogenic energy from Bizarro’s eyes, then blocked a kick from the other man, Ranma knew that this guy really was something of an amateur. He doesn’t have nearly as much experience as Mongul does. A straight-up fight between that bastard and me without Kara and the others around would be a toss-up. This guy? Even without Kara here, I could probably beat him since he seems so happy to just stand and take it. Now, well, you might be durable, chalky, but durability fades.

Bizarro wasn’t trying to adapt his fighting style to either Kara or Ranma’s, and also had completely abandoned any idea of using his flight to get away from them the instant he was back on the ground.  Something that you’d get me to do only if I was already dead and six feet under. He’s also not even trying to dodge most of the time.

That went beyond just not moving his body to avoid incoming blows; it made his whole style staid, unimaginative and even self-destructive. If a punch got past his guard, Bizarro simply let it hit rather than flinch or even move with the blow, something any normal fighter would do from the start.

His eye blasts and that flame attack from his mouth are difficult to deal with, Ranma reflected, hissing as the edge of another cryogenic beam nearly caught his shoulder, I ain’t used to trying to read attacks coming from that angle, but beyond that, my Shazam form gives me enough strength and speed to keep up with this guy.

Especially, Ranma thought, ducking under a punch, then lashing up and into the elbow of the fist that had nearly connected to his head, when you target specific spots time after time. “Kara, go for the hinges.”

“The what?” Kara questioned, even as she ducked away from a punch from Bizarro. Her return blow was blocked, and the two of them exchanged a few punches as Bizarro kept Ranma at bay for a second with his eye beams, with several getting through to Kara’s body and face, before Ranma lashed out with a kick to the side of Bizarro’s leg, catching the side of his knee.

No matter how strong Bizarro was, there were certain things that the human body just could not deal with, and being hit in the side of the knee was enough to make anyone stumble, or even fall to one knee. Bizarro didn’t do that, but he certainly lost his balance for a second, allowing Kara’s next blow to crash into the side of his face, sending him stumbling.

His return strike of cryogenic beams was matched with her own eye-beams, causing a blast of steam so hot that it would have boiled the skin of anyone, maybe even Ranma in his normal body. Instead, it simply blinded Ranma for a second.

Kara and Bizarro could still see through it, and when Bizarro made to capitalize on Ranma’s blindness, Kara intercepted him. A few punches and kicks passed between them in the steam, and even as she moved with a blow that slammed into her chest, Kara noticed that, like herself before Ranma came along, Bizarro didn’t make as much use of kicks as he should. His defense of his lower body was also suspect, and Kara was able to get in several shots to his thighs before he started to move his legs out of her range. In return, she took a few blows to the shoulder, chest and one to the head, though, which had her stumbling back just as Ranma got used to the steam.

A punch from Ranma’s magical body took Bizarro in the face. Bizarro blocked another strike from Ranma, but Kara’s punch took him in the side of the elbow, then the inside of the elbow, causing Bizarro to hastily bring that arm back in with almost desperate speed, pain very obviously starting to get through to him. His other hand came up and tried to grab at Kara’s chest, causing her to flinch away before his real attack, a stomp, caught her foot, causing Kara to yelp in pain. “AH, Jesus Christ!? Dirty tricks now?”

“Really?” Ranma snickered, catching Bizarro in the leg even as the deteriorated clone of Superman tried to knee him in the head. “You swear like that? You, an alien, swear like a Christian?”

“Eh, I suppose in duressss!” Kara hissed, ducking under another punch before stepping back, her foot feeling like it was broken by that attack, forcing her to fall back for a second, her words dropping into a mutter. “My own folk didn’t really have many curses, beyond the normal body-related ones, and well, with my upbringing since arriving here, that one just hits a bit harder. OW.”

A blast of fire distracted Ranma momentarily, but he was able to block the follow-on blow as Bizarro tried to take advantage of Kara’s movement. It didn’t work, and Bizarro was out of position to stop Kara from sliding into his knee again from the side with all the strength she could put into a kick.

This semi-standoff continued for a time, with both Kara and Ranma taking punches that hurt despite their durability. More Kara than Ranma, though, as his style was based around getting hit as rarely as possible. Several dozen times, Ranma’s ability to take to the air, to stay there and just use Bizarro’s own attacks to remain there, flummoxed and infuriated Bizarro. He tried to press hard against Ranma’s defense, only to become more and more frustrated, more wild with his attacks, which Kara took advantage of.

Finally, the repeated strikes to his elbows and knees began to tell. Bizarro’s footwork, such as it was, began to fade first. His legs stopped coming up into kicks or down into stomps, and he even stopped using his thigh to block blows meant for his chest.

He tried to grab up a piece of wood or something to use as a projectile, but Kara and Ranma were too close. When he took to the air, Ranma let him, shouting. “Hit and run!”

With that, Kara zoomed away, while Ranma kept Bizarro’s attention on him. A second later, Kara flashed in, her fist clocking Bizarro in the back of the head, causing him to stumble midair, and letting Ranma slam several attacks into his left arm. Ranma then took a blast of cryogenic energy to the chest, nearly freezing him in place before he started moving, shattering the ice as he pulled back, and Kara came in again, engaging Bizarro from behind and above for a moment.

At that point, Kara and Ranma took turns zooming around the battle as the other one pushed him in close combat, coming in at strange angles, crashing into him with punishing blows, never letting Bizarro take a moment to rest or concentrate long on his closer opponent. Any attempt to escape or gain distance failed, and soon, Bizarro, his legs having taken several hundred more punches and kicks, fell back to the ground, his mobility impaired even more than before.

That wasn’t to say that they had everything their own way. Occasionally, Bizarro's blows got through their defenses. Ranma was getting a bit battered despite his better training in dodging rather than simply taking hits around his shoulders and head, where Bizarro tended to target. Kara wasn’t nearly as much of an expert on using the momentum of such strikes as Ranma was, and was forced to back away in the air several times, while on the ground, she found herself at one point slammed into the ground hard from an overhead blow that came down on her head like the power of a sledgehammer.

However, when she knew she was going to be bruised, that was it. Bizarro didn’t have enough strength to break her bones or put her down for good, something that Mongul probably could have if he’d ever been able to concentrate solely on her.

As his legs began to be almost immobilized from the pain in his knees, Bizarro tried to use his eye blasts and fire blasts more often, but Kara canceled them out with her own. Soon, a blow from Ranma got through again on his knee, and Bizarro howled. “AGGGHHHH!!!” no strange mixed syllables this time, just a howl of pure pain and frustration.

From his eyes this time came a blinding flare of light, Bizarro trying to blind them rather than just outright attack the two. This worked for a second, as Ranma fell back with a cry, one hand going up to his eyes, which were supersensitive in this form. If he’d been ready for that kind of thing, he might’ve been able to turn away or close his eyes fast enough. As it was, it was like a normal human had been going about his nightly business and a floodlight suddenly appeared right before his eyes, concentrating all the power of the floodlight right into them.

Blinded, Ranma staggered back, and oofed as a blow smashed into his chest, taking two more despite Kara’s best efforts to divert Bizarro’s attention before the blinking lights in his faded enough for him to see through. Though even as they did, Bizarro’s strikes still hammered into him, the speed of the exchange so much it sounded like hundreds of jets had broken the speed barrier, but Ranma began to block and dodge them once more.

Faced with Bizarro’s attention on Ranma not wavering for a second, Kara just pummeled bizarro back, directing her blows once more into his arms and, as Ranma had put it, hinges. Within moments, the damage finally began to pile up and one of Bizarro’s arms fell limp at Bizarro’s side. He simply could not move his forearm anymore.

Bizzaro could still use that elbow as a striking force and tried to as he finally turned to her, but Kara blocked it, and Bizarro whimpered at the impact on her palm. Then Ranma, now recovered, went low for one more time.

His fists crashed down into one knee in a four-punch combo, and, with Bizarro’s durability now badly overextended, the bone there shattered, dumping Bizarro onto his side even as he desperately caught Ranma in a blast from his eyes. The frost cracked around the still moving Ranma even as Kara’s punch caught Bizarro right under his flailing arm, slamming into the area under his armpit. This caused him to howl in pain and twist to flail at her in a rage.

“I wonder what God I’ve got to thank for an immunity to being frozen solid?” Ranma quipped to Kara, even as he blocked another blow from Bizarro, returning several of his own before needing to shift away from a third and a fourth blow as Bizarro tried and failed to get to his feet. Only a matter of time now.

“No idea. I hadn’t made a study of Earth mythology before I went to the Isle of Women, and even then, only became interested in Greek gods. A god of warmth maybe? Hestia, or Apollo?”

“Eh, I’ll go with Hestia. Isn’t Apollo supposed to be an egotist?” Ranma answered, dredging his memories for what little he’d read about the gods after his ancestor had gifted him with this power.

“That’s what Nyctimene said, yeah. As a source of annoyance and anger for the Amazons, he’s right up there with Zeus, if for different reasons,” Kara answered, her hands flashing up and battering aside a pair of desperate punches, more wild flailing strikes than anything else, coming her way. She did this so strongly that Bizarro was forced to put weight on the knee that Ranma had recently broken. It failed him again, his knee collapsing under him once more.

A wild whirl of his head sent a beam of cryogenic energy all around him, but it was quickly blocked by Kara, and Ranma’s fists crashed into Bizarro’s head again even as Bizarro tried to defend himself.

The Arctic vision cut off, and Kara’s attack followed. Just as Bizarro tried to push into the air again, Kara slammed a series of punches into Bizarro’s side and chest as he tried to turn to face her, a big mistake.

But Ranma grabbed his outstretched arm out of midair, twisted, and performed a perfect over-the-shoulder throw. Bizarro’s back slammed down into the ground with enough force to create an even larger crater than the one they’d been fighting in for a while, causing trees nearly five miles away to collapse from the minor earthquake as the hill they’d been fighting at the foot of collapsed.

Bizarro gagged out at the point of impact and tried weakly to break Ranma’s grip. But with one arm next to useless, his legs also no longer obeying him very well and one of those broken, he couldn’t. With his last arm still in Ranma’s possession for the moment, Kara came down knees first, crashing into his stomach. She felt something within give, but he was still struggling, and so she rained blows down on top of his head, so fast and so hard that again, Bizarro’s durability began to fade.

A desperate lurch was enough to break Ranma’s grip, but Kara simply rolled to the side as that fist came up, then rolled back in, crushing her forearm down into his face again, before, as he tried to sit up, locking in a chokehold. “Do you think this will work?” she asked, while Bizarro rolled to the side, trying to throw her off without the use of one of his legs and one of his arms.

This would have made it hard for anyone of normal strength to stand up. But Bizarro’s strength, like Superman’s and the others', didn’t make him all that much denser than a normal human, so he was able to push himself to his feet relatively quickly. Ranma didn’t stop him, instead keeping his distance for a second, watching him closely.

“If you’re trying to choke him out, no, but it makes for a great distraction.” Just as Bizarro tried to push himself to his last remaining leg, Ranma darted in. Several punches got through Bizarro’s defense, if it could be called that at this point. His nose broke under a series of punches, and a tooth went flying before he was able to shake Kara off.

Still he was screaming, still he was shouting, flailing with his one good arm, and Ranma backed away just a little bit again, before lashing out with a kick as Bizarro tried to come forward, the kick catching him right in the diaphragm. Air whooshed out of him, and he doubled over again, allowing Ranma to lash up into his face with a knee as Kara came down with an elbow blow from behind. Both hit at almost the same time, and finally, overcome by the pounding he had taken, Bizarro began to slump, his eyes rolling up in their sockets. As Ranma removed his knee, he fell forward and crashed to the ground.

For just a few moments, Kara and Ranma stared at the Superman clone, then Kara knelt down beside him, examining the arm that it she’d made useless earlier along with the knee. She smirked, shaking her head, wincing a bit as her collarbone twinged. She started to run her hands up her body flinching at each new bruise but still pleased.  “All those lectures you gave me about dodging being better than tanking certainly came true here, Shazam, and so did the bit about needing to use my legs.”

Using Ranma’s hero name was an easy choice to make, considering there were at least six helicopters in the sky above them. Thankfully, the pilots kept their distance, but now that the fight seemed over, a few of those helicopters were coming down to land. “His elbow is in pieces in there, and his knee isn’t much better,” she concluded.

“Are we sure he doesn’t have any kind of healing factor?” Ranma questioned, slowly coming down from the high of a good fight. Compared to the fight they’d had with Mongul, this had been almost ridiculously easy, and looking back on it from start to finish, he wondered if this guy had been in his right mind. He acted half wild. Not like a wild animal, as animals, no matter how rabid, still have some instinct. It was more as if he was high on something, he mused, unknowingly coming close to the same conclusion that Lois Lane had speculated on earlier that evening.

“I know myself and my cousin can heal faster than a normal person, but if we take this much damage, where our bones are… well, you literally turned that knee of his into powder with that last strike, it’ll take a long while, if ever,” Kara half-observed, half-stated, shaking her head. “My cousin has never told me he’s ever been that injured.” And it makes me very happy Ranma doesn’t try to use that same tactic on me or the others during our spars. I mean, yeah, he concentrates his strikes, to get through my durability, but not on my knees or elbows, and not to the point of leaving bruises like I’m going to be dealing with for a bit after this.

Unknown to Kara, Superman had indeed been that injured before, and it had to do with several other current denizens of the Phantom Zone. It had happened more than two years before Kara’s life pod had deposited her on Earth. At that time, General Zod and his two companions, whom Wade had mentioned to his fellow government reps earlier, made their appearance. Somehow, they used Superman’s own opening to that dimension to track him down and return.

The three had given Superman the hardest fight of his life at the time. He’d dealt with broken bones and an eye he couldn’t see through thanks to the bruising around it for weeks after, and had, in fact, only won because of Green Lantern’s help and a shard of Kryptonite.

“Well, that’s good to hear, but… Is that necklace buried in Bizarro’s neck muscles? I thought at first he’d just sort of grown out of it or something, but…”

Ranma stared down at the object in question, and Kara knelt down again next to them, twisting Bizarro’s head aside to look at the necklace more closely.  “That’s not a necklace, it’s a collar, a slave collar…” Ranma frowned heavily, crossing his arms. “Damn, now I’m feeling sorry about the beatdown we laid on him. Messed up in the head or whatever, no one deserves to get crippled while following the orders of someone else.”

“Hmm… I can agree with that, although it wouldn’t absolve Bizarro of his crimes in Metropolis,” Kara began, frowning. “Still, no simple collar would be able to control Bizarro. There’s no way any kind of explosive powerful enough to bother him could be made that small, so long as he’s been subjected to the rays of a yellow sun.” With that, she concentrated and activated her x-ray vision. A second later, she blinked, twitching away, and the centermost portion of the collar, the strange jewel-like part, fizzled out and dissolved.

From where she was crouched nearby, Kara stared at it, then laughed sheepishly. “I thought it was about to explode and make me a liar.”

“What was it?” Ranma asked, kneeling on the other side of Bizarro and looking at the wreckage. Most of Bizarro’s collar was still in place, and looking closely, Ranma could see needles embedded into his skin along the inside of it, but the little crystal stud at the bottom was basically gone.

“I don’t know. I was just starting to look into it with my x-ray vision when it did that,” Kara grumbled. “We’ve got more questions than answers here.”

“Well, whatever. Nothing we can do to get answers now. This was targeted at your cousin rather than us, so we can foist it off on him when he returns,” Ranma declared chirpily, reaching down and grabbing Bizarro by the belt, heaving him up into the air and over one shoulder in one smooth movement. “Come on, let’s see if the locals have anything that can keep this guy under wraps until he can be put back into his special dimensional prison or whatever it is.”

Kara snorted, glancing towards several reporters who were running their way even as their helicopter kept on whirring behind them. “And our heading back to the city so quickly has nothing to do with dodging those nosy newsies?”

“That’s just a nice bonus.” Ranma’s deadpan response had her laughing, and the pair headed back to the city quickly.

End Chapter

I wanted to continue the chapter, but looking over the next scene, I felt I don’t give Lex Luthor (Junior in body at present) enough screen time. He’s going to be around and acting the part of a hidden adversary for Superman off screen and several times Ranma and his friends, and it just didn’t feel like I was showing enough there. Lois too was not shown in enough in that scene. So I ended it here, despite having another three thousand words written. Hope you all enjoyed this, even if there was a lot of talking and stuff at the start.

Oh, and the mystery behind Bizarro’s appearance and his actions, that too will be in the next chapter, although don’t assume that the reason behind it will matter much for the teens. I mean to have it as an example of, gasp, the adults in a setting actually doing something, LOL.

I am about 2/3rds of the way done Death's Avenger. It will be off to the editor by Monday. At that point, it's on to Ranma poll winner, which I will announce later today. Hopefully I will be done it by Friday, and then onto the HP winner, whose winner I will announce on Monday.