Daughter of the Timeless

Surfaced

The book shrinks to a pocket size and I tuck into my back pants pocket as I step out of the iron doors onto the Themysciran beach. So much information, not enough time to truly process it all or even explore. One thing I do know is this book will only reveal parts at a time, as I go and discover my own story. Whoever thought of that kind of has it out for me.

Exhaustion begins to weigh my body down as I trek back toward the watch tower on the other side of the island. Outside on a wooden stool sits my grandmother Hippolyta sharpening her blade.

"I told the others to not go looking for you." She says, not looking at me, just continuing to sharpen the blade. "Where did you go?" She asks. Not a request. A demand.

"I felt a call." I say spreading out my arms in defeat. "I went walking, ended up over on the forbidden side of the island. Met an old buddy of yours. Turns out he likes to hang out with demons and dancing skeletons in his spare time." She looks up, quicker than Selena's whip.

"You ventured to the Underworld?" She says, eyes bewildered and angered. I sense betrayal.

"Well, to be honest, I am not hurting anything. Here." I say holding out a wrinkled parchment. "Your penpal says hello." I say shoving it into her hands. I storm off up to the top of the tower.

"These people never say thank you."

******

The island flourishes as Hades and Hippolyta rekindle their "flame." Apparently with Diana gone, even I can't fill a gap in Queen Amazon's heart. A love that every person needs eventually is what she craved. Hades can give her that.

Training and more training ensues. Visits from Kara, the only worthy outsider to step foot on the Amazonian soil, bring news of the war. Global. Luthor has set his eyes on the horizon, not just country wide. What Clark has feared all along is coming true.

Damien and Cyborg have agreed that Amazonian training is sufficient for now. I am needed at the front lines. Or at least at Waller's command post in the SpaceTower.

Powers slowly developing out of the blue, my life gets ever more so entertaining. Lazer eyes, but of gold beams. Healing powers, golden orbs that surround my hands. Flying.... Discovered in my sleep dreaming of flying in space, collapsing the wooden bedframe Hippolyta had personally constructed for me when I landed. Just like Clark.

The book Hades gave me reveals no more than a page at a time. The latest information updated was about a power inventory.

Super hearing, super strength to rival Darkseid and Doomsday 10 times over. The ability to neutralize radiation and poisons, to create oxygen in a vacuum. Bulletproof. Laser sight. In order for me to see in the dark or to use x-ray vision, my laser eyes have to blink rapidly, like a strobe light. My "talons" as I have come to call them are a sharp pair of black finger nails, beautiful and deadly all the same. Super speed to break the sonic veil of time.... Great, gotta worry about "crossing over" like Barry. Says nothing about weaknesses. Eventually I will get magical abilities, like Aquaman to harness the power of water, but not as much or as powerful. To manipulate the earth, to learn spells. That is going to be exciting I can tell. Animal empathy, being multi-lingual.

The ability to neutralize poisons and radiation is what caused Alfred, Lois and Grandma to have suspended age and to be around much longer.  Nothing about intelligence at all. Well, at least I don't have to worry about going insane like Brainiac or Grodd.

I walk the halls of the Space Watch Tower, silver and illuminated white, bustling with workers and fellow "heroes." I gravitate towards the dark crystal abyss on the other side of the toughened glass windows. The stars, the sun, everything is just so breath taking.

"Why didn't you guys bring me up here in the first place? Why not just post me up here instead of down there where bad influences could take over?" I ask Cyborg and Waller who stand conversing privately behind me.

"Bad influences?" Waller asks.

"The Joker? Disco." I exhale. "Was it necessary to be down there? I could have been up here, learning about something useful."

"You'd have rather been up here hiding than down there in the action?" Waller asks, intrigued.

"Kinda. I don't know. I just like the hum of the station. Something about it says "home.""

"That's because it is. Your first moments of existence were in the core, where the radiation was. Luthor had to be sure that your base DNA could do what we needed you to do. And it did, so he grew you. Finished you. You were incubated, birthed and raised in his lab below. Handed off and partially raised by Lois and Martha. Now here you are. Our golden girl."

I scoff at that one. "Golden girl? You know I am nothing like Diana or Clark right?"

"But Bruce..."

"Or him. There is a reason why I get along with the Joker and Hades so well." I say brushing her off. I don't like her at all. Something about her screams shady, vile, selfish. Worse than Lex.

"Well, I can't fix that."

"It shouldn't be fixed." Black Canary says stepping out of an elevator in the far end of the hall. "It is what is going to make you effective against Lex. You have a human darkness just like the rest of us that you are naturally acquainted with, that you don't hide. You are just you. You always have been. Those pranks you played when you were younger weren't some childish mischievousness, it's who you are."

"So, I am a black soul gem. Got it." I say walking away towards the cafeteria.

"No, you are just Bruce's daughter."

"I'm not his." I say snapping at her. "I am no one's daughter." I say storming away. In a moment I speed back towards them and stop. "You know you guys ask a lot of one person. Powers or not. I don't want this. None of this."

"No one ever does." Waller says.

"Bullcrap. You, you and you want it all. Why didn't you just have him make you better instead of making me? Why torture me with this pressure?" I ask. I breathe out. I just wanna fly away. Far out into that starry abyss. Find a planet of my own and just be by myself.

"I think the atoms in your body are splitting causing an emotional instability." Cyborg says.

"Your atoms would split too if you had to be in her presence for more than a day by yourself." I say, motioning towards Waller.

"You don't like me. I get that. But we have work to do. So pull yourself together." She demands walking back towards Cyborg who just opened the grand meeting room.

Massive metal doors absorb into the skeleton of the wall. Before me is an elongated table, seats for every one of the Justice League and it's subsidiaries. In the middle is an orb suspended by black metal like a crown from the ceiling of the Great Hall, and the table below. At the end, of course, is a seat Waller takes as the head of the Space Commission League.

I roll my eyes and step into the room. What I didn't see at first glance were massive glass walls to either side, rooms for meeting and open and unused lab spaces suspend level by level.

"Have a seat, Marti." Waller welcomes. A seat engraved with my initials raises from the floor.

I sit. I look across the table to see where the Classics would sit if they were here right now. Holograms with their symbols wait for them glowing from the floor. Seat warmers for those who will never show.