WFGE Fic: Search and Rescue
Title: Search and Rescue
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark, Bruce, the League
Continuity: Justice League Unlimited
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 3000
Summary: Batman reluctantly goes to find a missing Superman. But why would a Kryptonian need rescuing?
Notes: For the WFGE! Prompt F23: Batman and Superman have a tumultuous relationship, but when Superman goes missing off world it is Batman who goes to search for him. Clark has gone through an ordeal that has caused amnesia. He doesn't know Batman or remember his past life. Bruce finds himself re evaluating his feelings for Clark.
The Javelin dropped into orbit around the lush green planet of Zalelebe, its huge and icy moon hovering behind it in the viewscreen. The console beeped: "Zalebian Control to unknown ship, identify yourself or prepare to face the consequences."
Behind his cowl, Batman raised an eyebrow. Not the most cordial of welcomes. He opened a channel: "Zalebian Control, this is Terran shipJavelin."
The line crackled. "Why are you here?"
Batman indulged in a moment to wonder that himself. "This is a search and rescue mission for a missing member of my team. The ship that he was on was last seen in this system. It was a small ship named Lightning, bound for Terra, returning from Winath"
A much longer pause, long enough that this time both Batman's eyebrows rose. "Javelin, we have no records of such a ship."
"Indeed." Batman's hands danced across the console. "That's strange, Zalebian Control, because I detect traces of Lightning's ionic trail. It seems to be heading toward that moon of yours. I'll just go there and check it out."
"Negative, Javelin! All travel to the moon of Nalehl is strictly forbidden! Repeat, all travel--"
Batman cut off communications and pushed the Javelin into acceleration, deciding not to mention that he hadn't detected any ionic trail at all. Yet his intuition--confirmed by the reaction from Zalebian Control--told him his quarry was there. He wasn't surprised when, moments later, his flight was interrupted.
He was surprised that it was interrupted by what seemed to be three large space dragons, their wings scooping implausibly at vacuum and their maws full of gnashing teeth.
Batman began evasive maneuvers and pondered the fact that of all the strange things going on, it bothered him most that he still didn't have a good answer to the question "Why are you here?"
: : :
Two days ago:
"I'm sure Superman can take care of himself," Batman said to a glowering Wonder Woman.
"There are a lot of dangers out there in the galaxy that even a Superman might have problems with," observed Green Lantern.
"He missed his check-in three weeks ago," Wonder Woman said. "That's not like him."
Batman held up a black-gloved hand. "The man can fly," he said, holding up a finger. "He has laser beam eyes, super strength, and super speed. Oh, and he's nigh-invulnerable." He spread his five fingers. "Did I forget something?"
"He also has cold breath," Flash suggested. Batman ignored him.
"Fine. I'll tell you what," Batman said, "I'll find him for you. I'm sure he's gotten sidetracked somewhere and is playing superhero on some worshipful planet and just forgotten to check in. They're probably building statues to him right now as he juggles mountains for their entertainment. I'll just go tell him the League can't function without him and would he pretty please hurry home, all right?"
"Oh, and super-ventriloquism!" Flash called after him as he turned and stalked from the room.
: : :
Batman activated the camouflage field and watched the Javelin seem to become transparent against the rocks and snow. It wouldn't hold up to close inspection, but it would probably be good enough to keep it from being spotted from the air.
Probably.
He'd lost his pursuers, but he was sure they'd be looking for him. On the horizon, the lights of the largest settlement gleamed, and Batman started to move toward them, the harsh wind tugging at the generic brown robe (in storage for just such an occasion) he'd thrown over his suit. Something was definitely off about this world, and Bruce had a suspicion he would find Superman right in the middle of it. If there was injustice being perpetrated, the Kryptonian would be right there to put a halt to it, as gaudily and sanctimoniously as possible. He'd punch the bad guys, receive the keys to the city, give some speeches about flossing regularly and being good to each other, and then Batman could get him to come home so the rest of the League would stop worrying about him.
Batman's breath steamed in the icy air as he huffed an exasperated sigh, and he forced his shoulders to unclench.
He wasn't sure what it was about Superman that got under his skin, he admitted to himself as he made his way across the tundra. It wasn't that Bruce thought he was a glory hog like that annoying Booster Gold. No, Superman was an authentically good guy, brave and true and all that.
Maybe it was just that he made it all look so easy. Bullets bounced off him, he could lift tanks--gravity itself didn't dare say "boo" to him. He'd never had to work for it, it all just came with the package, plus some extra charisma.
Perhaps you're just jealous, a snide voice in his head said, but Bruce tamped it down severely.
: : :
A quick survey of the town revealed a few interesting facts. First was that this was definitely a planet on which magic and science existed side by side: he'd seen something like a motorcycle go by, weaving in between the owlbears being used to pull carts.
Second was that this was a town seething with some kind of rebellion. The furtive looks, the scowling guards on most corners, the sight of flickering hand signals between people--it all pointed to political repression and a resistance movement that was at least semi-organized.
Strange that Superman was here in the system, but the oppression was still in place. It's not that Batman was worried about the Kryptonian, but he began to focus harder on getting information, listen more closely, collect more clues.
Half a day later, there was still no sign of Kal-El, but Bruce had started to hear rumors of a work camp outside the city limits where captured rebels were sent to labor. Kangehmorar, the whispers called it, and they made reflexive signs when they said it, as if to ward off evil. Two weeks ago, he heard them whispering, they'd taken Tep away, and no one came back from Kangehmorar. One woman started weeping: "What will we do without him?" she sobbed.
As the sun set, Bruce was forced to admit that there was no trace of a flashy, superheroic Kryptonian in the city. The wind picked up again, howling between the stone buildings, and the streets emptied of people. As the temperature dropped, Batman found an abandoned building to slip into, just warm enough that he wouldn't freeze during the night. Holding his warming element close to his body, the rough robe pulled around him, Batman wondered once more why he was here, huddled in the cold, trying to find a man who was impervious to it.
Kangehmorar. A chill ran down his spine, and he pulled the robe more tightly around himself and cursed both the cold and stubborn Kryptonians alike.
: : :
Kangehmorar proved hard to break into: well-guarded and with a high-level security system that used both magic and technology. But eventually Batman found himself inside the camp, where small tents swayed in the icy wind and skeletal, starved figures ghosted across packed dirt paths. He kept the robe wrapped tightly around his body, pulled the cowl down so he wouldn't stand out so much, and began to search for shining red and blue fabric.
He found nothing but the dismal realities of a work camp: ragged scarecrows of men hauling wheelbarrows full of rocks, guards with whips and sticks looming over them. Then he heard a familiar voice raised above the moaning wind: "He hasn't done anything wrong! I won't let you hurt him again!"
After that he heard laughter, the sickeningly distinctive laughter of cruel people with power. And then the crack of a whip and the thud of boots into a body.
Bruce broke into a run, heading toward the sound, rounding a corner to see a small clump of people: a frail, white-haired man on his knees, arms raised in helpless appeal, and three big, beefy guards kicking at something on the ground. Superman wasn't anywhere in sight, Bruce realized--shouldn't he be stopping this? Where had he gone? Before he could reach the group, the guards delivered a final, contemptuous flurry of kicks, then turned away and strolled off, leaving the old man to hobble over to the crumpled form on the ground.
"What happened?" Bruce said to the old man, who looked up from the beaten body in alarm. "I thought I heard Kal's voice?"
"Kal?" The man's withered face was streaked with tears, already freezing in the cold. "Please, whoever you are--please help my friend."
He reached down and rolled the huddled body over onto its back, so the beaten face looked up at Bruce. The blackened eyes were closed, the lip split and bloody. Dried blood caked the nostrils and old bruises mottled his face with sickly yellow-brown.
Kal-El of Krypton lay on the ground, battered and broken, his body shivering with the cold.
: : :
"I don't understand," said Bruce.
The old man, who had introduced himself as Tanir, wrung his hands as he looked down at Kal on the narrow cot. The walls of the tent shuddered in the wind, and Kal-El's breath whistled through his swollen nose as Bruce stared down at him.
"He's always this way," Tanir said. "Ever since they brought him here. The guards hate him. They hate that he calls them cruel, that he defies them to their faces."
"They hurt him? Just normal people, and they could do this to him?" There was fresh blood at the corners of Kal's mouth, and Tanir knelt to dab at it. "He didn't just fly away?"
Tanir gave him an odd look. "He's a human, not a dragon, lad. Humans can't fly."
Kal's blackened eyes flickered and opened. "Tanir," he croaked. "You all right?"
"They left me alone, Tep," Tanir said, patting his hand. "You have to stop doing that."
"Don't like bullies," Kal muttered.
"Kal," said Bruce, and the bruised eyes turned to him with a wince. "What are you doing here?"
There was no recognition in the bloodshot eyes. "Tanir, who is this?"
"I don't know, Tep. He came running when you were being beaten, helped carry you here."
Bruce suddenly found that he had to sit down on one of the tent's rickety stools. "I'm--Batman," he said, and was shocked at plaintive his voice sounded.
Kal took a cautious, wheezing breath. "You know me? From before?"
"Yes. I--I know you."
Kal struggled to sit up as Tanir protested ineffectually. "Who am I?" he gasped. "The first thing I remember was back on Zalelebe. I was in front of the king, and he was...laughing. He--he struck me. Said he didn't need to listen to my prattle anymore, and had me dragged off to a shuttle and here. I don't remember anything before that." His vehemence had broken his lip open again, and fresh blood trickled down his chin. "You know me?"
"You're Kal-El," said Batman. "We're teammates. You...you would have been wearing a uniform, in red and blue."
Superman's eyes widened. "Yes!" he said. "They stripped it from me, and--" he broke off. "I remember the suit. We're--teammates?"
"You're not from here," Bruce said. "You're from a different planet, a different solar system altogether. I came here to find you and take you home."
For a moment, a tentative smile blossomed on Kal's battered face. Then it dropped away again. "No," he said.
"What?"
"I said no. It's impossible. I'm not going." Kal's face was set in stubborn lines that Bruce remembered well, although the effect was somewhat different when covered with bruises and blood. And as always when Kal got mulish, Bruce felt his jaw setting and his hands clenching.
"What do you mean, you're not going? I didn't come all this way to let you rot in some freezing prison camp! Obviously some spell has been cast to strip you of your memory and powers, but when we get back to Earth Zatanna or Doctor Fate will figure it out and--"
"--I said no." Kal was scowling at him. "You don't understand! Tomorrow is the night of the planetary conjunction, the only night when we can shatter the Great Crystal here on Nalehl and break the king's link to the pool of magic on this moon!" Kal dragged himself to his feet; he was shaking with cold and Bruce realized he was hollow-cheeked with hunger under the bruises. "If we do that, the cells on the main planet should be able to topple him without much bloodshed, and his reign of injustice will come to an end. But it has to be tomorrow, and I'm not leaving until then!"
Bruce fought down an impulse to make Kal sit down, to throw his robe around him and stop his shivering. "And how exactly did you intend to do that from inside a prison camp?" he snarled instead.
"I had an escape plan," Kal explained. "I was going to get by the guards tonight and walk back to the city. There are--" He put his hand to his forehead and swayed, "--There are only a few of us with the knowledge of where the crystal is kept and how to shatter it. I have to be there, or all the sacrifices they've made--they'll be for nothing. I have to be there!" His eyes blazed, but he was tottering on his feet, and Batman had to jump up from the stool to keep him from falling on his face.
"You're going to walk back to the city, in sub-freezing weather, dressed in rags and starving? You can barely walk across the room!" Batman grasped his shoulders and shook him, torn between a desire to make him snap out of this and a fear that he would knock the man over. "You'll die."
Without warning, Kal leaned forward and put his head on Bruce's shoulder. "I have to try," he said, his voice muffled. "I can't stand to see these people suffer anymore. They're depending on me."
Bruce realized to his confusion that at some point he had put his arms around Kal and was patting him gently on the back. "Well," he growled, "I didn't come all this way just to let you get yourself killed on some stupid suicide mission, so I guess I'm going to have to help you."
Kal put his arms around him in turn, resting against him as if he had finally found a stable place to lean on. "Thank you," he murmured, his body trembling.
"You're a damn fool," grumbled Batman, still patting his back ineffectually and feeling more than a little foolish himself.
: : :
Strange blue planetlight streamed down onto the marble steps of the temple of Nalehl as the small group of rebels fought their way upward. "We're almost there!" Kal's voice rang out over the clash of weapons and the whine of phaser fire. "We have ten minutes left in our window to shatter the crystal!" He gestured to one of the other leaders, a stocky woman with long braided hair: "Mehanes! Take the left side, I'll take the right!"
The rebels were holding their own, armed with stun guns and some armor from the Javelin. If I hadn't shown up it would have been a massacre, Batman thought in disgust, watching the emaciated and bruised Kal rallying his troops to surge forward into the great hall where the violet crystal sang.
He found himself side by side with Kal, fighting toward the right side of the crystal. The resistance was more fierce here, and Bruce could hear Kal gasping for breath, exhausted. As Bruce watched, he was slow to parry a crystal sword, and there was a spray of blood as it sliced across the top of his arm.
Bruce leaped forward to knock the sword-wielding guard unconscious, but as his fist hit the man's jaw with a satisfying klunk, he slipped in the pool of Kal's blood and for a moment his footing was unsure.
Several things happened at once, unfolding as it seemed to Bruce's horrified eyes almost in slow motion:
Another guard lunged forward with a wicked barbed spear, its point aimed unerringly at Bruce's throat.
Kal threw himself between the spear and Bruce, his face set and determined, steeled against the inevitable blow.
Bruce's heart lurched sideways and began to break.
And behind them all, Mehanes shattered the great violet crystal with a blow from her hammer.
There was an explosion that seemed to tear at the soul rather than the ears, a blaze of light like a cry. Kal crumpled to the ground as light flamed and flared around them, a look of terrible shock on his face as the guard slammed the spear home.
"No!" Bruce heard himself scream.
And then Kal smiled at him, and turned around to seize the guard by the collar and lift him into the air as lightly as a feather. "I think now might be a good time to surrender," he said to the guard, as he floated into the air.
"I surrender! We surrender!" yelled the guard, and all around the hall there was the sound of weapons being dropped.
"Hello, Bruce," said Superman as he drifted slowly to the ground.
"Breaking the crystal and the King's power source broke the spell on you," Bruce said, because it was safer to explain the obvious than it was to laugh or cry or--God forbid--throw his arms around Superman and hug him. "And you got your powers and your memories back in that moment."
"Not a moment too soon," Superman agreed.
"You could have been killed."
Superman looked thoughtful. "Some things are worth dying for."
Batman gestured at the hall, full of people laughing and hugging each other. "Like truth and justice, freedom and democracy?"
Superman put a comradely hand on his shoulder, and for the first time ever Batman felt no inclination to shrug it off. "Among other things," Kal said.
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark, Bruce, the League
Continuity: Justice League Unlimited
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 3000
Summary: Batman reluctantly goes to find a missing Superman. But why would a Kryptonian need rescuing?
Notes: For the WFGE! Prompt F23: Batman and Superman have a tumultuous relationship, but when Superman goes missing off world it is Batman who goes to search for him. Clark has gone through an ordeal that has caused amnesia. He doesn't know Batman or remember his past life. Bruce finds himself re evaluating his feelings for Clark.
The Javelin dropped into orbit around the lush green planet of Zalelebe, its huge and icy moon hovering behind it in the viewscreen. The console beeped: "Zalebian Control to unknown ship, identify yourself or prepare to face the consequences."
Behind his cowl, Batman raised an eyebrow. Not the most cordial of welcomes. He opened a channel: "Zalebian Control, this is Terran shipJavelin."
The line crackled. "Why are you here?"
Batman indulged in a moment to wonder that himself. "This is a search and rescue mission for a missing member of my team. The ship that he was on was last seen in this system. It was a small ship named Lightning, bound for Terra, returning from Winath"
A much longer pause, long enough that this time both Batman's eyebrows rose. "Javelin, we have no records of such a ship."
"Indeed." Batman's hands danced across the console. "That's strange, Zalebian Control, because I detect traces of Lightning's ionic trail. It seems to be heading toward that moon of yours. I'll just go there and check it out."
"Negative, Javelin! All travel to the moon of Nalehl is strictly forbidden! Repeat, all travel--"
Batman cut off communications and pushed the Javelin into acceleration, deciding not to mention that he hadn't detected any ionic trail at all. Yet his intuition--confirmed by the reaction from Zalebian Control--told him his quarry was there. He wasn't surprised when, moments later, his flight was interrupted.
He was surprised that it was interrupted by what seemed to be three large space dragons, their wings scooping implausibly at vacuum and their maws full of gnashing teeth.
Batman began evasive maneuvers and pondered the fact that of all the strange things going on, it bothered him most that he still didn't have a good answer to the question "Why are you here?"
: : :
Two days ago:
"I'm sure Superman can take care of himself," Batman said to a glowering Wonder Woman.
"There are a lot of dangers out there in the galaxy that even a Superman might have problems with," observed Green Lantern.
"He missed his check-in three weeks ago," Wonder Woman said. "That's not like him."
Batman held up a black-gloved hand. "The man can fly," he said, holding up a finger. "He has laser beam eyes, super strength, and super speed. Oh, and he's nigh-invulnerable." He spread his five fingers. "Did I forget something?"
"He also has cold breath," Flash suggested. Batman ignored him.
"Fine. I'll tell you what," Batman said, "I'll find him for you. I'm sure he's gotten sidetracked somewhere and is playing superhero on some worshipful planet and just forgotten to check in. They're probably building statues to him right now as he juggles mountains for their entertainment. I'll just go tell him the League can't function without him and would he pretty please hurry home, all right?"
"Oh, and super-ventriloquism!" Flash called after him as he turned and stalked from the room.
: : :
Batman activated the camouflage field and watched the Javelin seem to become transparent against the rocks and snow. It wouldn't hold up to close inspection, but it would probably be good enough to keep it from being spotted from the air.
Probably.
He'd lost his pursuers, but he was sure they'd be looking for him. On the horizon, the lights of the largest settlement gleamed, and Batman started to move toward them, the harsh wind tugging at the generic brown robe (in storage for just such an occasion) he'd thrown over his suit. Something was definitely off about this world, and Bruce had a suspicion he would find Superman right in the middle of it. If there was injustice being perpetrated, the Kryptonian would be right there to put a halt to it, as gaudily and sanctimoniously as possible. He'd punch the bad guys, receive the keys to the city, give some speeches about flossing regularly and being good to each other, and then Batman could get him to come home so the rest of the League would stop worrying about him.
Batman's breath steamed in the icy air as he huffed an exasperated sigh, and he forced his shoulders to unclench.
He wasn't sure what it was about Superman that got under his skin, he admitted to himself as he made his way across the tundra. It wasn't that Bruce thought he was a glory hog like that annoying Booster Gold. No, Superman was an authentically good guy, brave and true and all that.
Maybe it was just that he made it all look so easy. Bullets bounced off him, he could lift tanks--gravity itself didn't dare say "boo" to him. He'd never had to work for it, it all just came with the package, plus some extra charisma.
Perhaps you're just jealous, a snide voice in his head said, but Bruce tamped it down severely.
: : :
A quick survey of the town revealed a few interesting facts. First was that this was definitely a planet on which magic and science existed side by side: he'd seen something like a motorcycle go by, weaving in between the owlbears being used to pull carts.
Second was that this was a town seething with some kind of rebellion. The furtive looks, the scowling guards on most corners, the sight of flickering hand signals between people--it all pointed to political repression and a resistance movement that was at least semi-organized.
Strange that Superman was here in the system, but the oppression was still in place. It's not that Batman was worried about the Kryptonian, but he began to focus harder on getting information, listen more closely, collect more clues.
Half a day later, there was still no sign of Kal-El, but Bruce had started to hear rumors of a work camp outside the city limits where captured rebels were sent to labor. Kangehmorar, the whispers called it, and they made reflexive signs when they said it, as if to ward off evil. Two weeks ago, he heard them whispering, they'd taken Tep away, and no one came back from Kangehmorar. One woman started weeping: "What will we do without him?" she sobbed.
As the sun set, Bruce was forced to admit that there was no trace of a flashy, superheroic Kryptonian in the city. The wind picked up again, howling between the stone buildings, and the streets emptied of people. As the temperature dropped, Batman found an abandoned building to slip into, just warm enough that he wouldn't freeze during the night. Holding his warming element close to his body, the rough robe pulled around him, Batman wondered once more why he was here, huddled in the cold, trying to find a man who was impervious to it.
Kangehmorar. A chill ran down his spine, and he pulled the robe more tightly around himself and cursed both the cold and stubborn Kryptonians alike.
: : :
Kangehmorar proved hard to break into: well-guarded and with a high-level security system that used both magic and technology. But eventually Batman found himself inside the camp, where small tents swayed in the icy wind and skeletal, starved figures ghosted across packed dirt paths. He kept the robe wrapped tightly around his body, pulled the cowl down so he wouldn't stand out so much, and began to search for shining red and blue fabric.
He found nothing but the dismal realities of a work camp: ragged scarecrows of men hauling wheelbarrows full of rocks, guards with whips and sticks looming over them. Then he heard a familiar voice raised above the moaning wind: "He hasn't done anything wrong! I won't let you hurt him again!"
After that he heard laughter, the sickeningly distinctive laughter of cruel people with power. And then the crack of a whip and the thud of boots into a body.
Bruce broke into a run, heading toward the sound, rounding a corner to see a small clump of people: a frail, white-haired man on his knees, arms raised in helpless appeal, and three big, beefy guards kicking at something on the ground. Superman wasn't anywhere in sight, Bruce realized--shouldn't he be stopping this? Where had he gone? Before he could reach the group, the guards delivered a final, contemptuous flurry of kicks, then turned away and strolled off, leaving the old man to hobble over to the crumpled form on the ground.
"What happened?" Bruce said to the old man, who looked up from the beaten body in alarm. "I thought I heard Kal's voice?"
"Kal?" The man's withered face was streaked with tears, already freezing in the cold. "Please, whoever you are--please help my friend."
He reached down and rolled the huddled body over onto its back, so the beaten face looked up at Bruce. The blackened eyes were closed, the lip split and bloody. Dried blood caked the nostrils and old bruises mottled his face with sickly yellow-brown.
Kal-El of Krypton lay on the ground, battered and broken, his body shivering with the cold.
: : :
"I don't understand," said Bruce.
The old man, who had introduced himself as Tanir, wrung his hands as he looked down at Kal on the narrow cot. The walls of the tent shuddered in the wind, and Kal-El's breath whistled through his swollen nose as Bruce stared down at him.
"He's always this way," Tanir said. "Ever since they brought him here. The guards hate him. They hate that he calls them cruel, that he defies them to their faces."
"They hurt him? Just normal people, and they could do this to him?" There was fresh blood at the corners of Kal's mouth, and Tanir knelt to dab at it. "He didn't just fly away?"
Tanir gave him an odd look. "He's a human, not a dragon, lad. Humans can't fly."
Kal's blackened eyes flickered and opened. "Tanir," he croaked. "You all right?"
"They left me alone, Tep," Tanir said, patting his hand. "You have to stop doing that."
"Don't like bullies," Kal muttered.
"Kal," said Bruce, and the bruised eyes turned to him with a wince. "What are you doing here?"
There was no recognition in the bloodshot eyes. "Tanir, who is this?"
"I don't know, Tep. He came running when you were being beaten, helped carry you here."
Bruce suddenly found that he had to sit down on one of the tent's rickety stools. "I'm--Batman," he said, and was shocked at plaintive his voice sounded.
Kal took a cautious, wheezing breath. "You know me? From before?"
"Yes. I--I know you."
Kal struggled to sit up as Tanir protested ineffectually. "Who am I?" he gasped. "The first thing I remember was back on Zalelebe. I was in front of the king, and he was...laughing. He--he struck me. Said he didn't need to listen to my prattle anymore, and had me dragged off to a shuttle and here. I don't remember anything before that." His vehemence had broken his lip open again, and fresh blood trickled down his chin. "You know me?"
"You're Kal-El," said Batman. "We're teammates. You...you would have been wearing a uniform, in red and blue."
Superman's eyes widened. "Yes!" he said. "They stripped it from me, and--" he broke off. "I remember the suit. We're--teammates?"
"You're not from here," Bruce said. "You're from a different planet, a different solar system altogether. I came here to find you and take you home."
For a moment, a tentative smile blossomed on Kal's battered face. Then it dropped away again. "No," he said.
"What?"
"I said no. It's impossible. I'm not going." Kal's face was set in stubborn lines that Bruce remembered well, although the effect was somewhat different when covered with bruises and blood. And as always when Kal got mulish, Bruce felt his jaw setting and his hands clenching.
"What do you mean, you're not going? I didn't come all this way to let you rot in some freezing prison camp! Obviously some spell has been cast to strip you of your memory and powers, but when we get back to Earth Zatanna or Doctor Fate will figure it out and--"
"--I said no." Kal was scowling at him. "You don't understand! Tomorrow is the night of the planetary conjunction, the only night when we can shatter the Great Crystal here on Nalehl and break the king's link to the pool of magic on this moon!" Kal dragged himself to his feet; he was shaking with cold and Bruce realized he was hollow-cheeked with hunger under the bruises. "If we do that, the cells on the main planet should be able to topple him without much bloodshed, and his reign of injustice will come to an end. But it has to be tomorrow, and I'm not leaving until then!"
Bruce fought down an impulse to make Kal sit down, to throw his robe around him and stop his shivering. "And how exactly did you intend to do that from inside a prison camp?" he snarled instead.
"I had an escape plan," Kal explained. "I was going to get by the guards tonight and walk back to the city. There are--" He put his hand to his forehead and swayed, "--There are only a few of us with the knowledge of where the crystal is kept and how to shatter it. I have to be there, or all the sacrifices they've made--they'll be for nothing. I have to be there!" His eyes blazed, but he was tottering on his feet, and Batman had to jump up from the stool to keep him from falling on his face.
"You're going to walk back to the city, in sub-freezing weather, dressed in rags and starving? You can barely walk across the room!" Batman grasped his shoulders and shook him, torn between a desire to make him snap out of this and a fear that he would knock the man over. "You'll die."
Without warning, Kal leaned forward and put his head on Bruce's shoulder. "I have to try," he said, his voice muffled. "I can't stand to see these people suffer anymore. They're depending on me."
Bruce realized to his confusion that at some point he had put his arms around Kal and was patting him gently on the back. "Well," he growled, "I didn't come all this way just to let you get yourself killed on some stupid suicide mission, so I guess I'm going to have to help you."
Kal put his arms around him in turn, resting against him as if he had finally found a stable place to lean on. "Thank you," he murmured, his body trembling.
"You're a damn fool," grumbled Batman, still patting his back ineffectually and feeling more than a little foolish himself.
: : :
Strange blue planetlight streamed down onto the marble steps of the temple of Nalehl as the small group of rebels fought their way upward. "We're almost there!" Kal's voice rang out over the clash of weapons and the whine of phaser fire. "We have ten minutes left in our window to shatter the crystal!" He gestured to one of the other leaders, a stocky woman with long braided hair: "Mehanes! Take the left side, I'll take the right!"
The rebels were holding their own, armed with stun guns and some armor from the Javelin. If I hadn't shown up it would have been a massacre, Batman thought in disgust, watching the emaciated and bruised Kal rallying his troops to surge forward into the great hall where the violet crystal sang.
He found himself side by side with Kal, fighting toward the right side of the crystal. The resistance was more fierce here, and Bruce could hear Kal gasping for breath, exhausted. As Bruce watched, he was slow to parry a crystal sword, and there was a spray of blood as it sliced across the top of his arm.
Bruce leaped forward to knock the sword-wielding guard unconscious, but as his fist hit the man's jaw with a satisfying klunk, he slipped in the pool of Kal's blood and for a moment his footing was unsure.
Several things happened at once, unfolding as it seemed to Bruce's horrified eyes almost in slow motion:
Another guard lunged forward with a wicked barbed spear, its point aimed unerringly at Bruce's throat.
Kal threw himself between the spear and Bruce, his face set and determined, steeled against the inevitable blow.
Bruce's heart lurched sideways and began to break.
And behind them all, Mehanes shattered the great violet crystal with a blow from her hammer.
There was an explosion that seemed to tear at the soul rather than the ears, a blaze of light like a cry. Kal crumpled to the ground as light flamed and flared around them, a look of terrible shock on his face as the guard slammed the spear home.
"No!" Bruce heard himself scream.
And then Kal smiled at him, and turned around to seize the guard by the collar and lift him into the air as lightly as a feather. "I think now might be a good time to surrender," he said to the guard, as he floated into the air.
"I surrender! We surrender!" yelled the guard, and all around the hall there was the sound of weapons being dropped.
"Hello, Bruce," said Superman as he drifted slowly to the ground.
"Breaking the crystal and the King's power source broke the spell on you," Bruce said, because it was safer to explain the obvious than it was to laugh or cry or--God forbid--throw his arms around Superman and hug him. "And you got your powers and your memories back in that moment."
"Not a moment too soon," Superman agreed.
"You could have been killed."
Superman looked thoughtful. "Some things are worth dying for."
Batman gestured at the hall, full of people laughing and hugging each other. "Like truth and justice, freedom and democracy?"
Superman put a comradely hand on his shoulder, and for the first time ever Batman felt no inclination to shrug it off. "Among other things," Kal said.