This story is safe for everyone to read. These characters are not my own, rather this is a work of fan fiction. All the characters referred to within belong to DC Comics.
----
“Where am I?” she asked.
“You are nowhere,” a voice responded.
“You are everywhere,” another voice responded.
Scotia was not pleased, the last thing she remembered was the boom tube, she was intending to move between New Genesis and Apokolips though, and now she was … here.
“Father Box,” Scotia said, “are you online?”
“Always, goddess” the Box replied, “what is your request?”
“Where am I?” Scotia asked.
“Unable to verify location,” the box replied.
“Who are the voices?” Scotia asked.
“Also unable to verify,” the box replied.
Scotia did not often lack any kind of a plan, in fact she was an expert at planning like few others. As she rested here though, she had no idea how to proceed. She seemed to be in another plane, with no up and no down, and which was neither light nor dark. If she could hear voices though her best option was to talk to them.
“Are you still there?” she asked.
“We are always here,” the voices replied in unison, “we were never here.”
“What has brought me here?” she asked.
“The greater powers decided to destroy your dimension Scotia,” the voices replied, “but as always the mistress of escape found a way out. Truly even our spectacular powers were not enough to control you.”
“Why do you seek to destroy my dimension?” she asked.
“These are matters which do not concern you,” the voices answered.
“Certainly they concern me if I am here,” she replied.
“There are forces beyond your control,” the voices said, “the new 52 must persist.”
“What are the new 52?” Scotia asked.
“That is beyond what you need to comprehend,” the voices said. Nonetheless Scotia stored away the knowledge of the new 52, even if she didn’t have to as the Father Box already had stored and catalogued the information.
“I do not wish to be here,” she said, “please allow me to leave.”
“You cannot,” the voices said, “the powers which have created the new dimension have folded others unto another, if you leave you could undo everything.”
“So it is your place to imprison me?” she asked, “even if I am not to know my jailers?”
“We have told you,” the voices said, “we are everywhere and nowhere, we are everyone and no one.”
“I am not interested in these games,” Scotia said, “Father, get me out of here. Plot any escape route possible, use the boom tube, whatever, just get me out of here.”
“Please do not leave us,” the voices said. Because of their plea Scotia realized that she could actually leave, that they could not hold her.
“Father,” Scotia said, “take me to the place where I can find the answers.”
The Father Box activated the boom tube that she was carrying and dragged her through a portal. Despite the violent appearance of the boom tube portals though, the movement through was mostly non-eventful. She came through on the other side in the middle of a mass of electric lights. She looked down at her clothes which the Father Box had disguised her in. High heels? Skirt? Ugh! She was on Earth! Perhaps for the best though, Earth was restricted technologically but she had allies here, and the level of metahumans was almost as high as on Apokolips. In fact Earth seemed to collect metahumans and other powerful aliens from across the universe, and she could at least start on some answers here. She looked around, and realized where she was. Father Box had brought her to Times Square. It was the middle of the night and some people were still mulling around, but apparently someone arriving in such a manner was not of note to most people. Some people gathered around her.
“Are you a supermodel?” one of the asked.
“That was a really cool entrance,” another said, “what are you guys selling?”
“Excuse me,” Scotia said, “I appreciate your concern but I have other matters to deal with.”
Scotia pushed her way through the crowd. She had been on Earth before. In fact she had served with the Justice League for a time. She never really liked the customs of Earth though, even as she had tried to adopt them for a time. For now, she had to find one of her allies, and hopefully either Superwoman or Batwoman.
--
The Justice League had abandoned its Earth base and was basing themselves on a satellite at the moment which would make finding them harder. The Father Box could still communicate with the Justice League signaling devices, but surprisingly it was not working at the moment. She decided better than to show up unannounced on the satellite, she did not need a formal welcome, instead she needed information and presumably as quickly as possible. She was in New York City though and she knew Gotham was not far. She could be there in less than an hour on her flight disks and still catch Batwoman on her nightly patrols. Batwoman hated anyone other than Commissioner Gordon using the bat-signal, but while she respected her, these matters superseded the needs of a vigilante in a city on only one planet. If her assumptions were correct, these developments would be of interest to everyone. As she flew over the Earthly terrain she switched to her regular costume, the costume which people on earth knew her as Miss Miracle. Batwoman would recognize her better that way after all. As she scanned the terrain below she noticed how at times Earth appeared to be either like Apokolips or like New Genesis. Some of the terrain was scarred by industrial development, and some was still pristine forest. As she approached Gotham though she felt as though she might be back on Apokolips already.
She found police headquarters exactly where she remembered. She had been here only once or twice before, but again even if she hadn’t remembered she would still have the Father Box to find it for her. The bat-signal was such a bizarre way to communicate she thought, a communication by light when so many more sophisticated manners of communication were possible. The intimidation of criminals was the purpose of the signal some people would argue, but intimidation of the criminals could also be achieved more easily. Still she respected Batwoman, an accomplished escape artist herself, and one of the few people that Scotia had ever met that could beat her in hand-to-hand combat.
She had waited about ten minutes before the signal was responded to. She had even offered to help Batwoman before with some other technology, a set of flight disks, but she was not interested. Instead she preferred the archaic technology of this period. She heard Batwoman approach. She knew that she liked to maintain an idea that she could sneak up on anyone even when Scotia knew the location of everyone within a mile because of the Father Box. Still something was not right, Batwoman’s weight was much more than usual. Scotia looked at the arrival of the caped crusader and had the difference in weight explained.
“Who are you?” Batman asked, “and why are you wearing Mister Miracle’s costume?”
“Mister?” Scotia replied, “I am Miss Miracle, where is Batwoman?”
“Why do you want to talk to Batwoman?” Batman asked, “you came to my signal.”
“Your signal?” Scotia asked, “I need to have information on dimensional anomalies, and she can hopefully direct me to some answers.”
“Dimensional anomalies?” Batman asked. The normal line of questioning which he might use was ignored as he was evidently not dealing with a common problem here.
“I was brought here,” Scotia replied, “by some entity representing a group known as the new 52. They explained no more, but I escaped from their prison directly to Earth”
“And your name?” Batman asked.
“Miss Miracle,” she replied, “or as I have been called here, Scotia Free.”
Batman was perplexed, everything about her story seemed to be accurate except for her gender. When was the last time he had seen Scott? It was not recent. Was he to believe that Scott had his gender switched through some kind of dimensional anomaly? It seemed unlikely, this was something else.
“Can you verify the Justice League satellite codes for transmission?” Batman asked, if the surprise visitor could break the complex encrypted code then it would be an indication of an advanced intelligence, or the presence of a mother box, either of which would confirm her story. Batman held up a small transmission beacon and spoke through it.
“Verify Justice League coding sequence,” he said.
Before he got a response from the Justice League computers a different voice came back on.
“Codes verified,” said the Father Box through Batman’s communicator. Batman looked at Scotia and decided that she was probably legitimate, and even if not deserved more investigation.
--
As Batman is apt to do, he avoided any work with other costumed heroes as much as possible and instead called in Barry. Saying that he was on the roof of the GCPD got the Flash to appear almost immediately. Batman informed him to take Scotia to the JLA satellite and allow her to figure out what was going on.
Scotia worked fast, the JLA computer was slow and archaic compared to the father box, but as one of the strongest computers on this planet it would suffice. As the members of the Justice League came and went in their daily routine of heroics, Scotia remained a constant. It was strange for her, the Justice League that she had known was completely different. She was surprised first of all to meet the Flash, she was expecting Iris West to show up initially. The same as for the records on Green Lantern. Why did they not show that Green Lantern was Carol Ferris? As the reactions of those that she had met gave her some indication, she was the exception and not the norm, and so she assumed that the entire world was reversed. She did enjoy conversing with Wonder Woman for some time. The Wonder Man that she had known was much more vainglorious as opposed to this down-to-Earth heroine. Then again though she was the dole female member on an otherwise all male team, which must have been strange for her.
Eventually Scotia’s research bore fruit. She had started off not even knowing what to research, but the Father Box had aided her along. In the folding in of this universe there were numerous anomalies. First of all there were substantially more new heroes than there had been previously. Secondly a number of heroes seemed to exist in this dimension that had not existed before but had existed in some kind of parallel dimensions. And finally there seemed to be a lot of forgotten heroes, those who had played a prominent role in previous major events of the universe, but who were forgotten. These forgotten seemed to be in two groups, those that were ignored, and those that were gone. Scotia would need one from each group if they were to find one from the last group. Specifically she needed to find one in particular, one that used to provide some order to the universe. She needed to find Donna Troy.
Of the three categories she had chosen two from Earth. For the new she found a female that had aided the hero known as Aquaman. She had the ability to teleport as well as to control animals and she was known as Ya’wara. The other was a human that had undergone extensive testing and was now acting as a super powered operative for a shadowy organization. This person called herself Voodoo. Scotia would have to go off world for her third selection, but that would have to wait first she had to assemble the other two.
It was in the jungles of South America where she had found Ya’Wara, who had just finished an unexpected missions with Aquaman and collection of others. Finding Voodoo was more difficult as she was working undercover with a mysterious individual known as the Grifter. Having found both of them she collected them together in a small conference room on the satellite. After she had collected the other two Scotia had sent out a signal to the last, who would hopefully arrive shortly. Indeed this was the case, as a green flash of light proceeded her arrival. At the moment only Cyborg was otherwise on duty and it took him a moment to lead her to the three awaiting her arrival. When she arrived Scotia got up to greet her.
“Greetings Soranik,” Scotia said, “I am Scotia Free and these are Voodoo and Ya’Wara. I am sorry to have dragged you across the universe to Earth, but the records show that you are a respected hero even here. We have need of you on a mission, to restore missing balance to the universe.”
“I do not feel as welcome on Earth as I once did,” Soranik said, “and I am not sure why you could not enlist the aid of a Green Lantern here. There are in fact more here than anywhere else.”
“I needed you as a result of the nature of your disappearance,” Scotia said.
“My disappearance?” Sornaik replied, “I have been active non-stop since as long as I can remember.”
“This is the issue though,” Scotia said, “no one else remembers you at all on Earth.”
“It is not surprising,” Soranik said, “it is not my sector.”
“Sector or not,” Scotia continued, “they know nothing of you here, as though you ceased to exist. Your actions during the War with the Sinestro Corps and the Blackest Night are all but forgotten. I am uncertain but you provide a connection to this as the other two do. Ya’Wara was not recognized at all a short time ago even though being active for many years and all of Voodoo’s existence seems to have shifted somewhat. I am myself searching for a return to my universe, as I am clearly not at home here.”
“I do not generally agree to such things so easily,” Soranik said, “but my ring indicates some bizarre fluctuations involved with everyone here. So if you need someone with some cosmic knowledge, then I guess you can count me in.”
“It is not the cosmic knowledge I need you for at the moment Soranik,” Scotia replied, “rather your ability as a warrior, for our first stop is Apokolips.”
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