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.
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The challenge was not the usual kind that faced most superheroes, but then Dora was not like most superheroes. The challenge which was laid before was not a particularly difficult one either – pasta or rice to go with tonight’s soup. It had been some time since she had even put on her costume. The locals here seemed happy enough to have her living here. It was not everywhere that got to have a superhero as a local resident, and while this might bring some threats from some powerful villains for some, Godiva was not considered powerful enough to elicit any kind of response. After all it seemed often enough that her arch-nemeses were the local men that kept trying to ask her out on a date. It was not to be, not that she was opposed to dating, just that she knew she would have to get back into the superhero game sooner rather than later and so such relationships would not work. The Olympian had managed to find her and contact her. He wanted to meet her in Paris to create a new Global Guardians team, with the two of them as founding members. Before she would never have thought of it. She had always thought of her powers as somewhat of a joke, and if she didn’t take herself seriously then how would a villain. Recently though, there had been a change, something imperceptible. She had felt a new confidence and it seemed to be everywhere in her life. Whereas before she had felt as something of a poor excuse as one of the only heroes from Great Britain, now she felt that she was more than capable of living up to this. There was something else though, something difficult to describe. She woke at nights with the image of a man in her head, a blond man, fairly attractive but also in a sense vain. She did not know what to make of it, but he seemed very real to her. More so it seemed as though she had been in love with him. Not real love, more like an attraction that was never really acted upon, but one that never really existed either. It was a mess of the wonderful and confusing emotion called love, and would have been easier to bear if there was in fact this mysterious person to share it with.
She decided on pasta, it was more in line with such a meal, plus she liked it better for the texture. How far away was the idea of superheroics to her that she engaged her mind on such matters? The physical manifestation of her aversion to heroics at the moment though was her refusal to dial her answering service and finally call the Olympian back. He was waiting for her call she knew, he knew she would say yes even if she mostly despised working with him. His previous flirting with her disrespected her own position as a capable superhero, and rendered her to a backup role of either a token Brit or a token female or both. She would not take that anymore. Her passive approach to heroics was gone and now she was taking herself more seriously, or at least as best she could. She had been swimming 500 laps every day followed by a vigourous ten mile run. Maybe not to the standard of Batman, but it was something which she had never done before, instead always relying on her prehensile hair to get her out of trouble. Now she would try to be a better person before becoming a better hero, and when she felt confident with that she would call back the Olympian.
For the time being though she was happy to enjoy a regular life which most heroes didn’t. She didn’t mind a glass of wine with supper the more so that she had been eating alone for a while now. It was instead a part of her regular routine, before an early night to bed to start her training again the next morning. It was not only physical pursuits which she was engaged with, but also mental ones, some basic electronics and mechanics, world affairs, even some language. She was not happy anymore being pushed to the side when a crisis happened for crowd control or dealing with pick pockets on busy streets. She was going to be a real hero finally.
She didn’t know why, but tonight she felt like having a look at her costume. It looked like spandex, but was in fact anything but. After the last version of the Global Guardians had formed, they had received a private and anonymous donation, though they knew it had come from Wayne Enterprises. Top of the line costume designed for protection first and being lightweight second. Even with those limitations the engineers were still able to make it look like her older costume. She was facing a new problem with her costume though. Although she was never really out of shape, she was now far more toned than she had ever been and the costume was slack in some place and tighter in others than it had been before. It gave her a strange sensation to where it, and she sometimes put her costume on just to see how much she had changed her own body for the challenges of heroics.
She slipped out of her more comfortable clothes and into the special underwear designed to work alongside the costume. There was one funny thing which she thought of, most women when pulling their clothes over their head had to pull their hair out from being tucked in, but Godiva usually pulled her costume on with her hair, making this an unexpected unnecessity of her life. She looked at herself in the mirror, not to be vain, but just to see. Her costume looked better on her now, even when it didn’t fit as well.
Her hair twitched. Now that she had taken heroics more seriously, she discovered that she could use her hair for a lot more than she had ever thought possible. One of these was that she could isolate single hairs to detect small changes on conditions, be it air pressure, moisture or small shockwaves caused by motion. She had always had the capacity to do this just she had never known that it was possible. She had practiced at first doing this actively, but later it became something which she didn’t even need to focus on. So she could tell that five people, mostly likely all women had just appeared in her downstairs living room. She was not sure from where, but people did not usually just appear from nowhere like that. So was not sure if they were friends or foes for that reason.
Another anonymous donor to her career had given her another unexpected technological advance. He had implanted among her hair a microfiber containing a fibre optics camera. Wearing a special contact lens she could use this microfiber for spying essentially anywhere that a width of a hair could fit. She pushed her hair out to the floor. Her individual footprints might be recognizable, but spreading her weight across the entire floor with the tips of her hair would hide the sounds of her walking. She did this to get over to where she kept the special lens and slipped it into her eye. The strand of her hair with the camera went out her window below to where she could see those waiting for her. She did not recognize any of them. One was evidently a Green Lantern though so she decided that these were likely friends, though she wondered what was wrong with using the doorbell.
She heard a voice call up from downstairs.
“It is ok Dora,” Soranik said, “we mean you no harm.”
Dora walked into the hallway and down the stairs where she saw five females assembled together.
“My name is Dora,” she said, “what are you all doing in my living room?”
“My apologies from the incursion,” Scotia said, “the Justice League satellite tracked you to this location and we teleported here. We did not know it was a private residence.”
“It is fine,” she said, “so you are with the Justice League?”
“The woman bores with me talking,” Lashina said, “we are here for her, let’s take her and go.”
She whipped out one of her metal lashes in Godiva’s direction with the intention to capture, not to kill, but Godiva sensed the attack coming do to the change in air pressure and her reacted even before she could think of it. Her hair enveloped the metal band which had meant to capture her and immobilized it all the way up to and including Lashina’s arm which she struggled against.
“Lashina,” Scotia said as she grabbed her shoulder, “this is not how we do business. You are in my employ, not Darkseid’s”
“Unhand me whelp,” Lashina said and struck out as Scotia sending her flying across the room. Godiva reacted to that as well providing a cushioned landing for Scotia with her hair. She looked back at Lashina still struggling against her hold. Voodoo and Ya’Wara were not doing nothing, but were remaining stationary while preparing for a possible battle. Voodoo transformed into her clawed form, and Ya’Wara unsheathed her blades. Out of her the corner of her eye Godiva saw the other one moving back to Lashina. How had she escaped the confines of her hair without even feeling her move?
“Lashina!” Scotia barked, “stand down, or we send you back to Apokolips the hard way.”
Lashina looked at Scotia and the others and decided to relent.
“Good choice,” Soranik said, “I don’t think you would stand much of a chance against us.”
“So,” Godiva started again, “what can I do for you?”
“It is complicated,” Scotia said, “there seems to be a temporal anomaly surrounding you. Those that I have assembled here are all exhibiting the same presence of some anomaly, unable to detect what, but still present. We think you might be the key to finding out what.”
“This is a strange thing to tell a stranger,” Godiva said, “I suppose it would be not unreasonable of me to ask for more specifics.”
“More specifics are not available,” Soranik said, “Miss Miracle here is an expert in technology and my ring is able to detect anomalies as well. We are able to detect but not identify what is happening.”
“Then why me?” Godiva asked.
“We are told that you might know of Rip Hunter?” Scotia said.
“Rip Hunter?” she asked, “is that a real name?”
“How about Booster Gold?” Scotia asked.
“You think I have a hard time believing Rip Hunter is a real name and you counter with the name Booster Gold?” Godiva asked with a puzzled expression.
“So I take it the answer is no,” Scotia said.
“We have wasted our time here you fools, and on what? A second rate hero?” Lashina yelled.
“You will have to excuse our colleague,” Voodoo said, “she is not with us by choice.”
“It is all right,” Godiva said, “can I see a picture of him perhaps?”
Scotia looked around looking for some form of the antiquated objects which human called technology and found in an instant what she was looking for. Her father box tapped into the television screen and broadcast an image.
“Rip is a mysterious individual,” Soranik said, “rarely seen and never in great detail. He has a habit of erasing any trace of himself from the time stream.”
“I do not recognize him,” Godiva said, “another picture, maybe?” The father box responded to her request immediately.
“This is the only other known picture of him,” Scotia said, “and he is partially obscured by others.” Godiva shook her head.
“Sorry,” she said, “I am afraid I can be of no help.” The others looked disappointed at this news. Godiva looked back at the screen but not at the man this time.
“Wait!” she said, “who is this other man here?” It showed only his back and was mostly silhouetted against the focus on Rip.”
“That is Booster Gold, he is of no consequence except as he relates to Rip,” Scotia explained, “We have been unable to track him either though, and in fact were it not for the father box all traces of him have seemed to disappear. It would seem as though Rip is trying to eliminate all known examples of him from the time line. We are uncertain why.”
“He is not of no consequence,” Godiva said, “I see him in my dreams every night. Is it possible that Rip eliminated traces of a friendship or alliance that we once had without wiping it fully from me?”
“Indeed it is possible, “ Soranik said, “in fact he might be leaving certain remnants as a form of a temporal trail.”
“I am coming with you,” Godiva said.
“Are you certain?” Scotia said, “the path ahead might be hard.” Before Godiva defended herself, someone else did.
“She seems more than capable in combat,” Voodoo said.
“And her abilities to evade detection from my ring and even for counter surveillance were impressive,” Soranik said.
“Very well then,” Scotia said, “then we go to find Rip or Booster.”
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