Lightshear
11/03/2010, 00:13
Metropolis #5
“Herocliques”
By GarganisScorpion
Growing up in the future I never had any problems making friends. The other kids at school were always friendly and polite and just plain decent. And being the cheerful sort that I am, friends just naturally flocked to me. I was even class president one year, for gosh sakes. Oh sure, Chr'estl was my best friend, but I knew just about everybody my age, and all of them liked me. I was the daughter of the world's greatest superhero, what could you expect?
But since I've come to the past, things have been different. People are sometimes rude, mean even, and I'm not just talking about the bad guys. It never hurt my feelings if some gangster or mad scientist called me names. But when you reach out to a potential friend and they turn you away with a cruel remark, why it can just ruin your whole day!
And the really sad part is that this has been happening to me a lot since I got here. I know I've got this secret identity now, but I figured my winning personality would shine through. Well, I guess I have made a few friends, sorta. Power Girl comes with me on patrols some times, and shows me how to be a better super hero. I'm surprised dad never mentioned her. But Kara is old, and she's always thinking about work and stuff. And Superboy, I mean Conner, he seemed to like me... but he's a boy, and boys can be weird in a whole different way. Plus he lives out in Smallville so it's not like I can see him whenever I want.
What I really wanted was a girl my own age, even just one friend would be enough. So when mom decided to switch me to an all-girls school starting in the january semester, I was ecstatic. And I get to wear a spiffy school uniform, too! Yay! Which I thought would make it all the more easy to fit in and find some friends I could relate to. My search for friends began with those that I had the most in common with. Naturally, that would mean the most popular girls in the school, just like me.
It didn't take long to find the school's most exclusive clique. Five of them, all tall and blonde and perfect complexions. The way they walked, like they were in formation, like a flock of birds or a school of fishes, it made everyone in the crowd step aside when they walked through. They were obviously the top of the school's social food chain.
“Hi!” I had greeted as I always do, smiling sunnily and performing a curtsey with my new uniform's pleated skirt. “My name is C- Laura, Laura Lane. Nice to meet you! I'm new here and I thought that maybe we could be friends. Are you on the school's cheer squad? I was a cheerleader at my old school but this one is all girls so I don't know who we'd be cheering for cause for a football team you need boys right, but really I just liked dressing up and putting on routines and yelling at a crowd so maybe it doesn't matter anyway I know try outs are over by now but I was hoping I could still try to join the squad if maybe-”
“Stop talking.” said the girl in lead, glaring down her nose at me. Maybe I had been talking to fast, I do that some times. But her words came out slow and cold.
“The cheer squad is not accepting new members.” said the girl to her immediate left, the pitch and tone of her voice carrying the clear sound of her irritation.
“We're not even on the cheer squad.” added the one to the right.
“Our school doesn't have a football team.” said the one in back.
“We have girl's field hockey.” said the last one.
“And we don't cheer them.” finished the girl to the left.
I had looked from one to the other, unsure which stern face she should be addressing. They all looked basically the same, especially the identical scowls all facing me. “Uh, that's okay, maybe we could... what do you do for fun around here?”
“We have our hobbies.” answered the girl in back.
“We're the student council.” said the one in the lead.
“All the positions are filled.” said the one to her right.
“So you can't join.” assured the girl to her left.
“Not that we'd hang out with you anyway.” finished the final girl.
“Whu- why not?” I had stammered, shocked by the bluntness of their rejection. The five blondes immediately broke into a titter of laughter, looking back and forth to each other to share their mirth before the giggling stopped abruptly.
All five pairs of eyes scanned me up and down. Staring at my thin arms, my black pageboy cut hair, these silly book-worm glasses. I just stood there awaited their judgement, my bottom lip shaking a little but holding my ground all the same.
“You're just...”
“...far too...”
“...plain,”
“...Lane.”
All five of them smirked at the juxtoposition of their words, and in an instantly harmonized singsong they simultaneously repeated the insult, “Plain Lane!”
Plain Lane! What a nickname to get saddled with. Oh how I wanted to fly into the air and show them how wrong they were... but mom had made me cross my heart and swear that I wouldn't let anyone know I was Supergirl. So I was stuck being regular little Laura Lane... who was apparently boring and plain. Demoralizing as it was, I was never one to give up hope no matter what the situation. Perhaps it wasn't too late to reinvent myself. These girls all had a certain look and attitude, maybe I could find a way to fit in. But I wasn't sure, would the people of Metropolis really like Supergirl better if she was a blonde?
Before making any drastic choices, i decided to make a visit to the school guidance counselor. I was in need of both guidance and counselling, so it seemed like the logical place to go. I was in for several surprises though. The first being that the cousellor was a man! Being an all-girls school, staffed pretty much exclusively by women, this one solitary man in a sea of girls made him feel like an alien from a whole other species. It didn't help that he was also more accurately like ...one third of a man.
I froze. I didn't know what to say. I knew what a dwarf was, but I had never seen one outside of the circus before. This guy wasn't dressed as a clown but he still made me want to laugh. He was balding but tried to make up for it by letting his remaining hair grow long, but kept it pulled back into a stubby ponytail so he wouldn't look like a crazy person. The black goatee flecked with gray struck the same balance between professional and approachable, which was probably important when your job was working with highschoolers. But that balance was totally thrown off by the bright hawaiian shirt and sandals he wore, like some laid-back hippie. In a school full of uniformed students and uniformed teachers, he might as well have been dressed as a clown after all.
He looked up suddenly when he heard me giggling, seeming surprised at my sudden arrival in his office. He took one look at me and smiled, saying “You're new here.”
“Yes.” I said politely, “I'm Laura Lane. Is this the right place?”
“Delighted to meet you Ms. Lane.” he continued, hopping down off his too-large chair and around his desk to shake my hand. “My name is Dr. Edgar Cizko, I'm the school's psychoanalism-holisti-cognotherapist, but you probably already knew that... or else you wouldn't be here, amiright!”
“Doctor... Psycho... Analicallifragilistic--” I stumbled, having only barely kept up with what he was saying.
“I know, it's a bit of a mouthful. But don't sweat the details, the title is just there to justify my paycheck. Really I'm just a trumped up school counsellor.” He assured me, leading me to a chair opposite his. “Can I get you a cup of herbal tea? Personally I love the stuff. Keeps me mellow.”
“Uh, no, thank you.” I said, watching as he proceeded to prepare a mug for himself from a little silver thermos he brought from under his desk. “Actually it's my first day here and I was wondering--”
“How to fit in? How to make a few friends?” he finished for me, seeming to know exactly what was on my mind. “Believe me, you're not the first girl to come into this office feeling alone and friendless. And I was definitely able to help them, so I don't see why you should be any different.”
I smiled, feeling better already. The friendly doctor rummaged through his files and pulled forth a brochure sort of thing that he handed to me. On it was a long list of the extra-curricular events, intramural leagues, clubs and committees that the school hosted. It was honestly kinda daunting, so I just started at the top.
“Aqua-fitness class, archery, astronomy club...”
“Any of those would be a good place to start meeting people. But you know, here at the Elias School for Girls we get so many students coming in from all walks of life that I was asked to set up a social-esteem class. It's like a sort of ice-breaker for new students, or existing students who are having trouble finding their place. Why don't you drop by after classes are done today, and join in?”
“I will!” I agreed, quite excited. This was probably the first time since I travelled back in time that the world was actually working the way it was supposed to. The rest of the afternoon I was on pins and needles, waiting impatiently to meet my new circle of friends.
The class itself wasn't quite what I had expected. It was more of a lecture, on things like sharing and respect and how to “open up”, which I didn't really get. I paid attention anyway, until I noticed that I seemed to be the only one! Most of the other girls were dozing, or gossiping, or playing with their tiny cellular phones, completely ignoring this very important lesson on community building.
“Hey,” I whispered to the girl next to me, “why isn't anyone listening? Don't they know there's a test at the end?”
“It's always the same test.” the girl answered dismissively, barely looking up from her binder. “...C, A, B, B, A, D, B, D, C, A, C, false false true false, and the jumble is 'self-esteem'. What, have you never been in detention before?”
“No, never!” I gasped. “This is detention? Oh no, my perfect record! What will I tell mom?”
She looked confused, and closed her binder to focus her attention on me. “Relax. Don't spaz out about or something. What did you do anyway?”
“I'm here voluntarily.” I answered, which made her give me an even weirder look. “I thought it would be a good way to meet some friends.”
“Something tells me you wouldn't want to hang out with the kind of girls that are stuck in here.”
“Well, you seem nice enough.” I said back, getting a measure of this girl. She wasn't like anyone I had met before; back in the future I had had friends with orange skin and blue skin and green skin, but I had never seen a girl with chocolate-brown skin. And her crinkly hair was braided in a neat way that was unfamiliar to me... how exotic! I wondered what faraway land she might be from. But before I asked that, it seemed only polite to introduce ourselves. “What's your name? Mine's Laura.”
“Natasha. And thanks.” she said, smiling. “But seriously, most of these girls are bad news. Bunch of bored daughters of rich families looking for attention, it's no wonder their parents shipped them off to boarding school.”
“But, then, why are you here?” I asked, curious what set Natasha apart from the others.
“I blew up the art class' kiln.” she muttered, her smile fading into a sigh. “...it was the only thing in the school that would achieve the temperatures I needed for an experiment I was doing, but of course they'd never give me permission to use it, so I had to sneak in after school... it was a bad idea anyway.”
“Oh.” I said, letting the subject drop. But I kept talking with Natasha, and found that she was a lot like me. She wasn't from Metropolis but her parents were well off so they sent her to school here because Elias' boarding school had such a good reputation. I got the feeling she wasn't very close with her parents though... but she did mention an uncle living in the city that she would visit on the weekends. After we had talked a while, she said she could take me to meet him some time. There was a lot of stuff she wanted to show me, when she realized how unfamiliar I was with the present day world. Movies, music, clothing stores, video games, even after living here for half a year it seemed like I had barely scratched the surface of Metropolis. I guess that's what you miss out on when you don't have friends your own age.
But maybe now I did.
The day was really looking up for a change, and I was looking forward to spending more time with Natasha after we got out of detention. But it was right about then that I spotted Conner hovering outside the second story window, waving at me.
“Uh, Mr. Cizko, may I be excused? I think I've learned all I need to about empathy today.”
“Oh, alright then.” he said, distracted for a moment from the sound of his own lecture. I grabbed my bookbag and ran, the counsellor calling out after me, “...And it's doctor Cizko!”
I really had to struggle to keep my feet on the ground, and not to break the door off it's hinges when I exited the school. What can I say? I had a lot of fun with Conner the last time I visited Smallville, and I was happy to see him again. Delusions of being my father notwithstanding. I tore down the side of the school and ducked into a garbage-strewn alcove, a dead end but for the locked service entrance to the cafeteria, where I found Superboy waiting for me.
“Hey Conner, what are you doing here?” I asked with a smile.
“Hi Cir. I'll explain on the way, your mom sent me to come find you. Why are you still here anyway? School's ended almost an hour ago.”
“Extra-curriculars. It's a great way to meet peop—oohh!” I started, before he grabbed my hand and lifted straight up into the air. “You know if you're not going to bother listening to my answer, you shouldn't even ask in the first place!”
“Sorry, but we've got to get out to the outskirts of Metropolis. A UFO has landed!”
“Like a flying saucer?” I asked.
“Sort of. I saw it pass over Smallville and followed it out here, where it landed just outside of town. Then your mom showed up with a news crew, but it was still just sitting there in park.” Superboy explained, as we flew at high speed over the highways and outlying suburbs of Metropolis. “She sent me to go get you when you didn't answer the phone at home.”
If mom thought she needed my help when Conner was already there, I figured that had to mean the moon-men were hostile. Probably some sort of advanced scout for a coming invasion, horrible slobbery bug-eyes things intent on eating human brains. Any second the saucer's door would open, a sleek metal ramp would extend to the ground, and the conquorer would reveal themselves. We hadn't a moment to spare.
“Oh wait! Hang on a minute Conner; I need to change out of my school clothes.”
“...!”
“Don't get excited, I've already got my singlet on under my clothes.” I said, pulling open my blouse and exposing the red “S”-shield beneath in suitably dramatic fashion. I stripped off my skirt and knee-socks and tossed it all into my knapsack with dad's glasses, and took out the gloves and boots I wore with my superhero ensemble.
“There!”
“Can we go now?” Conner asked impatiently, then mumbled “...and I wasn't excited.”
“Yep! Let's go!” I said, politely ignoring his side comment. Really, there was more important things to do than tease him. Namely dealing with the alien spacecraft that was coming into view, surrounded by news crews filming the scene and waiting for some sort of movement.
“Nothing's even happened yet?” I asked, a little surprised. Superboy and I landed by the craft, and were immediately barraged with questions from the assembled press. A jumble of shouted “Supergirl!” and “Superboy!” arose as they fought for our attention, some reporters not even bothering with that formality.
“Snapper Carr, WGBS. What do you know of the UFO's pilots? Are they more Kryptonians?”
“Jack Ryder, Fox News. Do the aliens pose a threat? Are we being invaded again?”
“Ron Troupe, Newstime Magazine. Superboy, is your recent entry into the public eye connected to the debuts of the other Supermen seen in Metropolis?”
“Just let me handle this,” I said to Conner, ready to try out the media-wrangling skills that Power Girl had taught me. Turning back to the crowd, I held up my arms and attempted to calm their fears. “Now everyone, we don't know what's inside that flying saucer yet. It could be a horrible cannibal blob monster, or little green men, or...”
Behind me the hatch of the ship finally sprung open, releasing a hiss of pressurized atmosphere and extending a metal walkway clanking down to the ground. The crowd fell silent, and for a moment I thought I was doing a really good job with this press-conference thing. But then, a beautiful woman promptly stepped out.
“Or, sure, it could be a super-model. That was my next guess.”
[Musical Accompaniment (http://www.mediafire.com/?hyjmnw1g52y)]
The woman looked down imperiously at the crowd, at Conner and I, then strode confidently halfway down the ramp. She looked exactly like a human woman, about 19 or 20, and totally gorgeous. She was wearing a shiny green and gold costume that was exactly the sort of thing I would have expected a space-princess to wear. Conner seemed to notice too; I glanced over and saw him staring at this alien, whoever she was, with her big gold boots that went up to her thighs and her exposed midriff and a long gold cape fluttering in the wind...
“Hey, wait, there isn't any wind...” I said to myself, noticing that my own cape wasn't fluttering majestically like hers was. Or her long curly red hair, that tossed about on her shoulders, a few locks falling playfully in front of her face just long enough for her to sweep them aside and smile. Why wasn't my hair fluttering like that?!
“I come in peace.” she announced, and the crowd gave a collective sigh. She waited a second for that statement to sink in. “My name is Maxima, princess of the planet Almerac. I have come to Earth seeking the warrior called Superman.”
“....”
“I'm Superman!” announced Conner, stepped boldly up onto the foot of the spaceship's ramp and gesturing to the emblem on his chest with his thumb.
“Con-... Superboy, wait! Something's not right about this.” I tried to warn him, but he was focused pretty singularly on this Maxima person. Maxima didn't exactly share his interest; she looked down at him and her sharp little eyebrows furrowed, like she couldn't decide if she was disappointed or just confused. Conner, on the other hand, was looking up at her like his tongue was about to hang out of his mouth.
“Someone please explain... I have met Superman, I have seen him emerge victorious from the combat pits of Warworld. This boy is not Superman.”
“I am so!”
The assembled throng of reporters did their best to answer Maxima's question. “That Superman died last year,” someone said, “Now there are four new Supermans in town.” someone else offered, and Maxima's confused look alleviated slightly.
“I'm the real Superman!” Conner insisted, taking another step forward. “And I'll fight any space tyrant or stop any alien invasion I need to to prove it! Whatever you've come to Earth for, I'm your man!”
Maxima looked suitably impressed, looking Conner over anew. She smiled at him, reached for his defiantly raised fist and took it softly in her hand. “You are young, but perhaps I was a little hasty to dismiss you. Superman.”
Conner smiled, glad that someone finally wasn't calling him “Superboy” for once. “So what can I do for you, princess?”
“The genetic stock of my people is failing. After witnessing his triumph at Warworld, I knew the last kryptonian would be the ideal match to renew the strength of the royal bloodline.” Maxima explained, though I didn't really get what she was saying at first. Luckily she put it a little more bluntly. “And so I have come to Earth to find my husband and future father of my children.”
“...what?”
“But if there are three other potential Supermen, this complicates things. I owe it to the people of Almerac to only bring back the best possible mate.” Maxima went on, thinking aloud. Maxima rose into the air then, and Conner went with her, though I am not positive if it was by choice or not. “Come, I will seek out these other Supermen and give you a chance to prove yourself against them.”
“Hey, not so fast!” I shouted, floating into the air after them. I was tired of being ignored, and besides, finding Superman was my job! But before I could catch up, I heard mom call my name from the ground below.
I glanced down, and saw that several black vans had pulled up to the landing site. From out of them had come a squad of serious looking men in suits and others in heavy metal armor, and they were chasing away the reporters. Mom and her cameraman were doing their best to stay put, but they were going to need my help.
“These guys just appeared out of nowhere, they must have been waiting for the spacecraft to be left unattended.” Mom said to me, pointing out how the armored men were approaching the craft cautiously, preparing to lift it onto a flatbed truck they had brought in. “I would have thought it was some kind of government cover-up, except that the press has already gotten away with a ton of footage.”
“That's because it's not the government.” came the voice of Agent Sage, fighting his way through the crowd of fleeing news crews and dark suited agents clearing them away from the area. His partner, Jefferson, was with him, and they looked pretty serious. “Not an official part of it anyway. These guys are DEO, President Luthor's newly minted private task force for doing whatever he wants done. They're just here to strip the alien tech out of that ship!”
“But if they're working for the president, shouldn't we let them...” I began, unsure.
“Supergirl, if our country had made laws about UFOs, I'm confident I would be arresting these guys for violating them. But until they do, just trust me when I say it would be a bad idea to let Luthor get his hands on a flying saucer.”
Mom looked from Vic to me, and reluctantly agreed. I suppose it was up to me to keep the saucer safe until Maxima got back. But while I was doing that, what was she doing with Conner?
_______________________________________
The Proud City of Argo:
Cir-El (R Unl Supergirl) - 108
Or LE Lois Lane - 17
Vic Sage (R Gotham Undercover) – 14
R Black Lightning – 48
Total: 187
Vs.
DEO Agents:
Sergeant Talpa (V DEO Agent) - 21
Lieutenant Cale (LE Hope) - 33
Armored Suit ‘Anubis’ (V Lex Corp Battlesuit) - 51
Armored Suit ‘Sekhmet’ (E Lex Corp Battlesuit) - 39
Officer Dais (V Lex Corp Security) - 20
Officer Kayura (V Lex Corp Security) - 20
Total: 184
Map: Small Town ( http://www.ianparmenter.com/hcutils/map.jsp?map=LO&g1=x-408y-271)
Scenario Rules:
-- The DEO wants that UFO! Represented on the map by the large 2x2 circle (considered blocking terrain), the goal of the DEO in this game is to keep a number of agents adjacent to the UFO for a minimum of 5 consecutive rounds. The more agents there are nearby, the better their success will be:
1 Agent: DEO gains basic intel from UFO computer systems.
2 Agents: DEO gains extensive intel & ship schematics from UFO systems.
3 Agents: DEO is able to air-lift the ship out of the vicinity.
To counter this, any member of the Metropolis team has the option of declaring that their next attack will not do damage. If the attack hits, the target is instead knocked back a number of squares equal to the attackers unmodified damage value.
-- If the Metropolis team manages to prevent the DEO from gaining any intel from the UFO, they gain +4 bonus TXP. If the DEO is able to call in an air-lift for the vessel, Metropolis takes a penalty of -2 TXP.
“Herocliques”
By GarganisScorpion
Growing up in the future I never had any problems making friends. The other kids at school were always friendly and polite and just plain decent. And being the cheerful sort that I am, friends just naturally flocked to me. I was even class president one year, for gosh sakes. Oh sure, Chr'estl was my best friend, but I knew just about everybody my age, and all of them liked me. I was the daughter of the world's greatest superhero, what could you expect?
But since I've come to the past, things have been different. People are sometimes rude, mean even, and I'm not just talking about the bad guys. It never hurt my feelings if some gangster or mad scientist called me names. But when you reach out to a potential friend and they turn you away with a cruel remark, why it can just ruin your whole day!
And the really sad part is that this has been happening to me a lot since I got here. I know I've got this secret identity now, but I figured my winning personality would shine through. Well, I guess I have made a few friends, sorta. Power Girl comes with me on patrols some times, and shows me how to be a better super hero. I'm surprised dad never mentioned her. But Kara is old, and she's always thinking about work and stuff. And Superboy, I mean Conner, he seemed to like me... but he's a boy, and boys can be weird in a whole different way. Plus he lives out in Smallville so it's not like I can see him whenever I want.
What I really wanted was a girl my own age, even just one friend would be enough. So when mom decided to switch me to an all-girls school starting in the january semester, I was ecstatic. And I get to wear a spiffy school uniform, too! Yay! Which I thought would make it all the more easy to fit in and find some friends I could relate to. My search for friends began with those that I had the most in common with. Naturally, that would mean the most popular girls in the school, just like me.
It didn't take long to find the school's most exclusive clique. Five of them, all tall and blonde and perfect complexions. The way they walked, like they were in formation, like a flock of birds or a school of fishes, it made everyone in the crowd step aside when they walked through. They were obviously the top of the school's social food chain.
“Hi!” I had greeted as I always do, smiling sunnily and performing a curtsey with my new uniform's pleated skirt. “My name is C- Laura, Laura Lane. Nice to meet you! I'm new here and I thought that maybe we could be friends. Are you on the school's cheer squad? I was a cheerleader at my old school but this one is all girls so I don't know who we'd be cheering for cause for a football team you need boys right, but really I just liked dressing up and putting on routines and yelling at a crowd so maybe it doesn't matter anyway I know try outs are over by now but I was hoping I could still try to join the squad if maybe-”
“Stop talking.” said the girl in lead, glaring down her nose at me. Maybe I had been talking to fast, I do that some times. But her words came out slow and cold.
“The cheer squad is not accepting new members.” said the girl to her immediate left, the pitch and tone of her voice carrying the clear sound of her irritation.
“We're not even on the cheer squad.” added the one to the right.
“Our school doesn't have a football team.” said the one in back.
“We have girl's field hockey.” said the last one.
“And we don't cheer them.” finished the girl to the left.
I had looked from one to the other, unsure which stern face she should be addressing. They all looked basically the same, especially the identical scowls all facing me. “Uh, that's okay, maybe we could... what do you do for fun around here?”
“We have our hobbies.” answered the girl in back.
“We're the student council.” said the one in the lead.
“All the positions are filled.” said the one to her right.
“So you can't join.” assured the girl to her left.
“Not that we'd hang out with you anyway.” finished the final girl.
“Whu- why not?” I had stammered, shocked by the bluntness of their rejection. The five blondes immediately broke into a titter of laughter, looking back and forth to each other to share their mirth before the giggling stopped abruptly.
All five pairs of eyes scanned me up and down. Staring at my thin arms, my black pageboy cut hair, these silly book-worm glasses. I just stood there awaited their judgement, my bottom lip shaking a little but holding my ground all the same.
“You're just...”
“...far too...”
“...plain,”
“...Lane.”
All five of them smirked at the juxtoposition of their words, and in an instantly harmonized singsong they simultaneously repeated the insult, “Plain Lane!”
Plain Lane! What a nickname to get saddled with. Oh how I wanted to fly into the air and show them how wrong they were... but mom had made me cross my heart and swear that I wouldn't let anyone know I was Supergirl. So I was stuck being regular little Laura Lane... who was apparently boring and plain. Demoralizing as it was, I was never one to give up hope no matter what the situation. Perhaps it wasn't too late to reinvent myself. These girls all had a certain look and attitude, maybe I could find a way to fit in. But I wasn't sure, would the people of Metropolis really like Supergirl better if she was a blonde?
Before making any drastic choices, i decided to make a visit to the school guidance counselor. I was in need of both guidance and counselling, so it seemed like the logical place to go. I was in for several surprises though. The first being that the cousellor was a man! Being an all-girls school, staffed pretty much exclusively by women, this one solitary man in a sea of girls made him feel like an alien from a whole other species. It didn't help that he was also more accurately like ...one third of a man.
I froze. I didn't know what to say. I knew what a dwarf was, but I had never seen one outside of the circus before. This guy wasn't dressed as a clown but he still made me want to laugh. He was balding but tried to make up for it by letting his remaining hair grow long, but kept it pulled back into a stubby ponytail so he wouldn't look like a crazy person. The black goatee flecked with gray struck the same balance between professional and approachable, which was probably important when your job was working with highschoolers. But that balance was totally thrown off by the bright hawaiian shirt and sandals he wore, like some laid-back hippie. In a school full of uniformed students and uniformed teachers, he might as well have been dressed as a clown after all.
He looked up suddenly when he heard me giggling, seeming surprised at my sudden arrival in his office. He took one look at me and smiled, saying “You're new here.”
“Yes.” I said politely, “I'm Laura Lane. Is this the right place?”
“Delighted to meet you Ms. Lane.” he continued, hopping down off his too-large chair and around his desk to shake my hand. “My name is Dr. Edgar Cizko, I'm the school's psychoanalism-holisti-cognotherapist, but you probably already knew that... or else you wouldn't be here, amiright!”
“Doctor... Psycho... Analicallifragilistic--” I stumbled, having only barely kept up with what he was saying.
“I know, it's a bit of a mouthful. But don't sweat the details, the title is just there to justify my paycheck. Really I'm just a trumped up school counsellor.” He assured me, leading me to a chair opposite his. “Can I get you a cup of herbal tea? Personally I love the stuff. Keeps me mellow.”
“Uh, no, thank you.” I said, watching as he proceeded to prepare a mug for himself from a little silver thermos he brought from under his desk. “Actually it's my first day here and I was wondering--”
“How to fit in? How to make a few friends?” he finished for me, seeming to know exactly what was on my mind. “Believe me, you're not the first girl to come into this office feeling alone and friendless. And I was definitely able to help them, so I don't see why you should be any different.”
I smiled, feeling better already. The friendly doctor rummaged through his files and pulled forth a brochure sort of thing that he handed to me. On it was a long list of the extra-curricular events, intramural leagues, clubs and committees that the school hosted. It was honestly kinda daunting, so I just started at the top.
“Aqua-fitness class, archery, astronomy club...”
“Any of those would be a good place to start meeting people. But you know, here at the Elias School for Girls we get so many students coming in from all walks of life that I was asked to set up a social-esteem class. It's like a sort of ice-breaker for new students, or existing students who are having trouble finding their place. Why don't you drop by after classes are done today, and join in?”
“I will!” I agreed, quite excited. This was probably the first time since I travelled back in time that the world was actually working the way it was supposed to. The rest of the afternoon I was on pins and needles, waiting impatiently to meet my new circle of friends.
The class itself wasn't quite what I had expected. It was more of a lecture, on things like sharing and respect and how to “open up”, which I didn't really get. I paid attention anyway, until I noticed that I seemed to be the only one! Most of the other girls were dozing, or gossiping, or playing with their tiny cellular phones, completely ignoring this very important lesson on community building.
“Hey,” I whispered to the girl next to me, “why isn't anyone listening? Don't they know there's a test at the end?”
“It's always the same test.” the girl answered dismissively, barely looking up from her binder. “...C, A, B, B, A, D, B, D, C, A, C, false false true false, and the jumble is 'self-esteem'. What, have you never been in detention before?”
“No, never!” I gasped. “This is detention? Oh no, my perfect record! What will I tell mom?”
She looked confused, and closed her binder to focus her attention on me. “Relax. Don't spaz out about or something. What did you do anyway?”
“I'm here voluntarily.” I answered, which made her give me an even weirder look. “I thought it would be a good way to meet some friends.”
“Something tells me you wouldn't want to hang out with the kind of girls that are stuck in here.”
“Well, you seem nice enough.” I said back, getting a measure of this girl. She wasn't like anyone I had met before; back in the future I had had friends with orange skin and blue skin and green skin, but I had never seen a girl with chocolate-brown skin. And her crinkly hair was braided in a neat way that was unfamiliar to me... how exotic! I wondered what faraway land she might be from. But before I asked that, it seemed only polite to introduce ourselves. “What's your name? Mine's Laura.”
“Natasha. And thanks.” she said, smiling. “But seriously, most of these girls are bad news. Bunch of bored daughters of rich families looking for attention, it's no wonder their parents shipped them off to boarding school.”
“But, then, why are you here?” I asked, curious what set Natasha apart from the others.
“I blew up the art class' kiln.” she muttered, her smile fading into a sigh. “...it was the only thing in the school that would achieve the temperatures I needed for an experiment I was doing, but of course they'd never give me permission to use it, so I had to sneak in after school... it was a bad idea anyway.”
“Oh.” I said, letting the subject drop. But I kept talking with Natasha, and found that she was a lot like me. She wasn't from Metropolis but her parents were well off so they sent her to school here because Elias' boarding school had such a good reputation. I got the feeling she wasn't very close with her parents though... but she did mention an uncle living in the city that she would visit on the weekends. After we had talked a while, she said she could take me to meet him some time. There was a lot of stuff she wanted to show me, when she realized how unfamiliar I was with the present day world. Movies, music, clothing stores, video games, even after living here for half a year it seemed like I had barely scratched the surface of Metropolis. I guess that's what you miss out on when you don't have friends your own age.
But maybe now I did.
The day was really looking up for a change, and I was looking forward to spending more time with Natasha after we got out of detention. But it was right about then that I spotted Conner hovering outside the second story window, waving at me.
“Uh, Mr. Cizko, may I be excused? I think I've learned all I need to about empathy today.”
“Oh, alright then.” he said, distracted for a moment from the sound of his own lecture. I grabbed my bookbag and ran, the counsellor calling out after me, “...And it's doctor Cizko!”
I really had to struggle to keep my feet on the ground, and not to break the door off it's hinges when I exited the school. What can I say? I had a lot of fun with Conner the last time I visited Smallville, and I was happy to see him again. Delusions of being my father notwithstanding. I tore down the side of the school and ducked into a garbage-strewn alcove, a dead end but for the locked service entrance to the cafeteria, where I found Superboy waiting for me.
“Hey Conner, what are you doing here?” I asked with a smile.
“Hi Cir. I'll explain on the way, your mom sent me to come find you. Why are you still here anyway? School's ended almost an hour ago.”
“Extra-curriculars. It's a great way to meet peop—oohh!” I started, before he grabbed my hand and lifted straight up into the air. “You know if you're not going to bother listening to my answer, you shouldn't even ask in the first place!”
“Sorry, but we've got to get out to the outskirts of Metropolis. A UFO has landed!”
“Like a flying saucer?” I asked.
“Sort of. I saw it pass over Smallville and followed it out here, where it landed just outside of town. Then your mom showed up with a news crew, but it was still just sitting there in park.” Superboy explained, as we flew at high speed over the highways and outlying suburbs of Metropolis. “She sent me to go get you when you didn't answer the phone at home.”
If mom thought she needed my help when Conner was already there, I figured that had to mean the moon-men were hostile. Probably some sort of advanced scout for a coming invasion, horrible slobbery bug-eyes things intent on eating human brains. Any second the saucer's door would open, a sleek metal ramp would extend to the ground, and the conquorer would reveal themselves. We hadn't a moment to spare.
“Oh wait! Hang on a minute Conner; I need to change out of my school clothes.”
“...!”
“Don't get excited, I've already got my singlet on under my clothes.” I said, pulling open my blouse and exposing the red “S”-shield beneath in suitably dramatic fashion. I stripped off my skirt and knee-socks and tossed it all into my knapsack with dad's glasses, and took out the gloves and boots I wore with my superhero ensemble.
“There!”
“Can we go now?” Conner asked impatiently, then mumbled “...and I wasn't excited.”
“Yep! Let's go!” I said, politely ignoring his side comment. Really, there was more important things to do than tease him. Namely dealing with the alien spacecraft that was coming into view, surrounded by news crews filming the scene and waiting for some sort of movement.
“Nothing's even happened yet?” I asked, a little surprised. Superboy and I landed by the craft, and were immediately barraged with questions from the assembled press. A jumble of shouted “Supergirl!” and “Superboy!” arose as they fought for our attention, some reporters not even bothering with that formality.
“Snapper Carr, WGBS. What do you know of the UFO's pilots? Are they more Kryptonians?”
“Jack Ryder, Fox News. Do the aliens pose a threat? Are we being invaded again?”
“Ron Troupe, Newstime Magazine. Superboy, is your recent entry into the public eye connected to the debuts of the other Supermen seen in Metropolis?”
“Just let me handle this,” I said to Conner, ready to try out the media-wrangling skills that Power Girl had taught me. Turning back to the crowd, I held up my arms and attempted to calm their fears. “Now everyone, we don't know what's inside that flying saucer yet. It could be a horrible cannibal blob monster, or little green men, or...”
Behind me the hatch of the ship finally sprung open, releasing a hiss of pressurized atmosphere and extending a metal walkway clanking down to the ground. The crowd fell silent, and for a moment I thought I was doing a really good job with this press-conference thing. But then, a beautiful woman promptly stepped out.
“Or, sure, it could be a super-model. That was my next guess.”
[Musical Accompaniment (http://www.mediafire.com/?hyjmnw1g52y)]
The woman looked down imperiously at the crowd, at Conner and I, then strode confidently halfway down the ramp. She looked exactly like a human woman, about 19 or 20, and totally gorgeous. She was wearing a shiny green and gold costume that was exactly the sort of thing I would have expected a space-princess to wear. Conner seemed to notice too; I glanced over and saw him staring at this alien, whoever she was, with her big gold boots that went up to her thighs and her exposed midriff and a long gold cape fluttering in the wind...
“Hey, wait, there isn't any wind...” I said to myself, noticing that my own cape wasn't fluttering majestically like hers was. Or her long curly red hair, that tossed about on her shoulders, a few locks falling playfully in front of her face just long enough for her to sweep them aside and smile. Why wasn't my hair fluttering like that?!
“I come in peace.” she announced, and the crowd gave a collective sigh. She waited a second for that statement to sink in. “My name is Maxima, princess of the planet Almerac. I have come to Earth seeking the warrior called Superman.”
“....”
“I'm Superman!” announced Conner, stepped boldly up onto the foot of the spaceship's ramp and gesturing to the emblem on his chest with his thumb.
“Con-... Superboy, wait! Something's not right about this.” I tried to warn him, but he was focused pretty singularly on this Maxima person. Maxima didn't exactly share his interest; she looked down at him and her sharp little eyebrows furrowed, like she couldn't decide if she was disappointed or just confused. Conner, on the other hand, was looking up at her like his tongue was about to hang out of his mouth.
“Someone please explain... I have met Superman, I have seen him emerge victorious from the combat pits of Warworld. This boy is not Superman.”
“I am so!”
The assembled throng of reporters did their best to answer Maxima's question. “That Superman died last year,” someone said, “Now there are four new Supermans in town.” someone else offered, and Maxima's confused look alleviated slightly.
“I'm the real Superman!” Conner insisted, taking another step forward. “And I'll fight any space tyrant or stop any alien invasion I need to to prove it! Whatever you've come to Earth for, I'm your man!”
Maxima looked suitably impressed, looking Conner over anew. She smiled at him, reached for his defiantly raised fist and took it softly in her hand. “You are young, but perhaps I was a little hasty to dismiss you. Superman.”
Conner smiled, glad that someone finally wasn't calling him “Superboy” for once. “So what can I do for you, princess?”
“The genetic stock of my people is failing. After witnessing his triumph at Warworld, I knew the last kryptonian would be the ideal match to renew the strength of the royal bloodline.” Maxima explained, though I didn't really get what she was saying at first. Luckily she put it a little more bluntly. “And so I have come to Earth to find my husband and future father of my children.”
“...what?”
“But if there are three other potential Supermen, this complicates things. I owe it to the people of Almerac to only bring back the best possible mate.” Maxima went on, thinking aloud. Maxima rose into the air then, and Conner went with her, though I am not positive if it was by choice or not. “Come, I will seek out these other Supermen and give you a chance to prove yourself against them.”
“Hey, not so fast!” I shouted, floating into the air after them. I was tired of being ignored, and besides, finding Superman was my job! But before I could catch up, I heard mom call my name from the ground below.
I glanced down, and saw that several black vans had pulled up to the landing site. From out of them had come a squad of serious looking men in suits and others in heavy metal armor, and they were chasing away the reporters. Mom and her cameraman were doing their best to stay put, but they were going to need my help.
“These guys just appeared out of nowhere, they must have been waiting for the spacecraft to be left unattended.” Mom said to me, pointing out how the armored men were approaching the craft cautiously, preparing to lift it onto a flatbed truck they had brought in. “I would have thought it was some kind of government cover-up, except that the press has already gotten away with a ton of footage.”
“That's because it's not the government.” came the voice of Agent Sage, fighting his way through the crowd of fleeing news crews and dark suited agents clearing them away from the area. His partner, Jefferson, was with him, and they looked pretty serious. “Not an official part of it anyway. These guys are DEO, President Luthor's newly minted private task force for doing whatever he wants done. They're just here to strip the alien tech out of that ship!”
“But if they're working for the president, shouldn't we let them...” I began, unsure.
“Supergirl, if our country had made laws about UFOs, I'm confident I would be arresting these guys for violating them. But until they do, just trust me when I say it would be a bad idea to let Luthor get his hands on a flying saucer.”
Mom looked from Vic to me, and reluctantly agreed. I suppose it was up to me to keep the saucer safe until Maxima got back. But while I was doing that, what was she doing with Conner?
_______________________________________
The Proud City of Argo:
Cir-El (R Unl Supergirl) - 108
Or LE Lois Lane - 17
Vic Sage (R Gotham Undercover) – 14
R Black Lightning – 48
Total: 187
Vs.
DEO Agents:
Sergeant Talpa (V DEO Agent) - 21
Lieutenant Cale (LE Hope) - 33
Armored Suit ‘Anubis’ (V Lex Corp Battlesuit) - 51
Armored Suit ‘Sekhmet’ (E Lex Corp Battlesuit) - 39
Officer Dais (V Lex Corp Security) - 20
Officer Kayura (V Lex Corp Security) - 20
Total: 184
Map: Small Town ( http://www.ianparmenter.com/hcutils/map.jsp?map=LO&g1=x-408y-271)
Scenario Rules:
-- The DEO wants that UFO! Represented on the map by the large 2x2 circle (considered blocking terrain), the goal of the DEO in this game is to keep a number of agents adjacent to the UFO for a minimum of 5 consecutive rounds. The more agents there are nearby, the better their success will be:
1 Agent: DEO gains basic intel from UFO computer systems.
2 Agents: DEO gains extensive intel & ship schematics from UFO systems.
3 Agents: DEO is able to air-lift the ship out of the vicinity.
To counter this, any member of the Metropolis team has the option of declaring that their next attack will not do damage. If the attack hits, the target is instead knocked back a number of squares equal to the attackers unmodified damage value.
-- If the Metropolis team manages to prevent the DEO from gaining any intel from the UFO, they gain +4 bonus TXP. If the DEO is able to call in an air-lift for the vessel, Metropolis takes a penalty of -2 TXP.