NOVEL NEXT Chapter 24: A Partnership
Cyborg:
"Raven," I say, holding my throat as Raven lifts me into the air. My feet dangle in the air as I try to break Raven's grip. However, there's nothing to break. I shoot out my hand and transform it into an arm cannon. With energy gathering in my arm cannon, all I have to do is shoot.
"Shoot," I tell myself. "Come on! Just shoot! Shoot! Shoot."
I try to shoot. I try to fire my arm cannon but I can't. This is Raven. At least, part of Raven.
"How could you stop us," the Lords of Order scream through Raven. "We almost had him."
"Did you not see anything," I say, still shaking my legs. "Did you not see the tornado? The tsunami? The earthquake? Whatever you were doing, it was destroying Gotham! It would have destroyed all of us if I didn't use the cannon on Raven instead of the man!"
Raven swings her hand, and I'm thrown into a wall. Screaming as dust and little bits of stones wall onto me, I try to push myself up but Raven slams me down. My face is grinding against the stone as Raven keeps on pushing me down.
"Your life, as well as the lives of the others, is a small price to pay for the death of the man in the glasses," Raven shouts. "You--"
"That's enough," a voice yells, cutting Raven off. A second later, I hear her screaming. Her scream is followed by a loud crashing sound. Gasping for air as I finally push myself up, I look to the right to see Superman standing there.
Superman turns to see me. He walks up to me and helps me to my feet. As soon as I'm back on my feet, I turn to Raven.
"Raven," I shout. Running over to Raven who is on the ground not moving, I drop to my knees and slowly pick her up. "Raven! Are you okay? Superman, why did you do that?"
"She was killing you," Superman answers. "I could hear the two of you from the command center. What the hell is going on here anyway? Why is Raven trying to strangle you?"
"It's not Raven," I say. "It's the damn Lords of Order!"
I feel the blood and oil in my robotic body start to boil.
"This is all your fault," I say, pointing at Superman. "Why did you agree to help them?"
"Because we both have a common enemy," Superman answers. "The man in the sunglasses!"
I look down at Raven as I stand back up. With Raven resting in my arms, I start to head to New Metropolis's infirmary. As I walk past Superman and through the set of double doors, I stop and look at him.
"I'm beginning to wonder about this 'partnership'," I say, looking Superman right in his eyes before carrying Raven away.
The Lords of Order:
With the connection cut off by Superman and Raven unconscious, I slam my fist down. Grinding my teeth against each other, I turn around to look at the other Lords.
"We are failing," one of the other Lords says. "The man in the glasses is still alive."
"And it seems Superman and his regimes are not as much help as we previously thought," another Lord goes on.
"I say it's time," one final Lord says. "We have tried many things to find the man or any of his allies but it seems someone is interfering with us. We have tried alliancing ourselves with Superman and his One Earth Government and they have shown us close to no results. We have even reached out to other magic users and gifted them a small portion of our power but it seems his magic is just as strong. I say it is time to activate one of our contingency plans."
"Which one," I ask.
The final Lord raises his hand and a large magical orb appears above us. Inside the magical orb, we see the events of the past; Supergirl being rescued from Stryker's Island, Green Arrow and Black Canary fighting Poison Ivy and Swamp Thing in Slaughter Swamp, and even Reverse-Flash fighting soldiers in the abandoned Gotham base."
As I look at the magical orb, I soon realize what the final Lord is suggesting.
"Show of hands," I say, looking at all the other Lords. "Who agrees?"
It takes no time for all of us to raise our hands.
"Then it is settled. We will rewrite time so that the man never exists."
"Before we do that," the first Lord says, "We must lure him out."
"Believe me," I say, "That will be the hard part."
All of us Lords of Order then raise our hands and shoot a beam at the time orb.
The Man:
I feel Kara's warm embrace as she hugs me. I feel her soft skin as her arms wrap themselves around me. I also feel something else. Something very strange. I start to rise my own arms and hug Kara back.
I pat Kara on her back as she rests her head on my shoulder. I can't be sure how long we still like this but after what feels like forever, we finally pull apart.
"What was that for," I ask.
"I'm sorry," Kara says, sniffing. She wipes a tear from her eyes. "It's just...I'm happy to know I'm not alone. I'm happy to know that someone else knows about Krypton, and more importantly, about my mother."
"You were never alone," I say. "You had your cousin. I mean..."
As I try to come up with something, I see Kara's eyebrows turn into a V.
"Nevermind."
I clear my throat as I look away from Kara. Staring at the floor, the walls, and the ceiling, I then remember something important.
"Wait," I say, reaching deep into my jacket pocket. "Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait!"
"What," Kara asks. "What are you looking for?"
"I'm looking for something I really hope I still have," I answer, still reaching around in my jacket pockets. "Luckily for me, I don't clean this jacket out as much as I should."
It takes a while, almost longer than the hug, but I finally find it. Pulling out an old picture, I hand it to Kara.
"I think you might like this," I say, handing the picture to Kara. As Kara takes it, she once again starts to cry.
"This is...This is impossible," Kara says, holding her hand over her mouth.
"There is no such thing as impossible," I say. "It's just really hard to do."
I smile as Kara stares at the picture. There, in the black and white picture are Kara's mother and me. Alura and I are standing side-by-side, in front of a small cave. Around us are some hovercarts with rock samples and some mining tools.
"What is this," Kara asks, her hand falling. "And why is everything black and white?"
"That picture was taken with my monochrome camera," I answer. "It was a souvenir from a store I used to own. Unfortunately, the camera with color wasn't invented yet. Also, I was on another planet at the time."
"Okay," Kara says, slowly nodding her head. "What about my mother?"
"As I said, your mother and I were research partners. We study the land and rocks. About a week into one of our studies, we posed for that picture. I almost forget about it until you reminded me of her. If Alura were to see you now, I know for a fact she would be beyond proud."
Kara keeps looking at the old picture. I imagine she had tons of questions, on top of the tons of questions from before, but she doesn't seem to concern about any of them. I think she is just happy to see her mother again. She hands me the picture but I hold up my hand.
"Nah," I say, shaking my hand. "Keep it."
Kara smiles as she holds onto the picture. Meanwhile, I keep on disassembling the gun. The more I disassemble it, the more I find unique parts.
"A combination of Earth and aliens tech," I say, placing my plasma cutter down. "The funny thing is, most of the aliens' tech used are from races Brainiac destroyed and captured."
"What does that mean," Kara asks.
I'm about to answer, but once again, I sense incoming shockwaves.