Daughter of the Timeless

Game Plan

"We suspect that the nanites that Lex harvested from The Timeless Rift on Gotham's shores are what he used to weave into your DNA. The same way he did it to Conner when he cloned Superman. His powers weren't fully activated until he had been with Young Justice for a while. We think, that he found a way to suppress your powers until you were of age, or something "woke" them up. What I don't get is why Lex wanted to force you to get your powers? What is his goal?" Damien says with his hands on a catwalk railing, looking down at us. 

"He told me it was to end him. To end things." I say. "I don't know what that means."

"What was it that he said. Exactly... every word."

"He basically went on ranting about the darkness coming back 8 years ago, that he was sorta conflicted. That much I could tell. The evil in him is winning out. That is why I didn't want to believe it at first. Lex had been so good to me as my father. Then all of a sudden he withdraws and distances himself. Then reveals himself like this... I don't get it. If he knew that the darkness was back, why didn't he reach out to you guys and I don't know go back into the Rift?"

"Because he might not come back out. There is no guarantee he'd get the same results that he got the first time. Maybe he just wants dead. Maybe that is the conflict. The evil keeps him going and good just wants to be at rest. To be what he was for so long as your father." Alfred says.

"We'd only be so lucky..." Cyborg scoffs. "Maybe I shoulda let him fall like Aquaman said. He'd be done for, for good."

"Is that the tin can part of you speaking or the human part?" I joke nudging him. "Even if you did, you said you needed him for a reason. To create me and my siblings, as he calls them. For when Darkseid or whatever came for you. To be honest it is no wonder, the remaining Justice League has made a mess of things. No wonder Aquaman has stayed in Atlantis so long."

"Yeah they didn't handle the Antarctica situation too good. Canary did all she could rounding up everyone. They still lost a 15 mile shelf of ice and a massive hole burnt in the middle of the continent."

"When was that?" I ask.

"A couple of years-" Damien starts and cuts off. He realizes what that might mean. I see it on his face.

"No, there has been no activity down there, Damien." Alfred says. "Look, here are the readings." He says typing in a password. A grid and topographical map shows up on the main monitor suspended in the middle of the batcave like a huge mega-screen, like one at the Gotham Basketball Stadium. The land mass is usual, with a little chipped off in the east towards Australia and a big hole just gaping in the middle. With a little tweaking of the angle of the readings, Alfred shows us how it gradually curves downward about 700 miles, then bottoms out. There is nothing there."

"How would you know if you haven't explored?" I asked. "Have you done regular visits? I mean, no offense to the JL's tech or even the Greatest Detective himself, but the tech can be altered, the readings faked or whatever." 

"That would take a lot of time, energy and skill." Cyborg looks at me scoldingly.

"What, I don't have the super smartness y'all may have, that was one thing Lex didn't give me. So I don't know how that works. All I know is that Waller and her hirelings aren't exactly known for not cutting corners. They might have disabled something to save on energy costs, and Lex knew about it or found out. He infiltrated that way." 

"Is that your hypothesis?" Cyborg asks me. 

"That's what I would do. Find a hole and go for it." 

"No he isn't that obvious. Not when he is really going for the jugular. Kent always knew that Lex was a showboater, that is why Lex and Joker couldn't get along. The two of them couldn't run the show together."