Infinite DC

If there was one superpower Kara Danvers appreciated most out of all she inherited as a Kryptonian on Earth, it was the power of flight. Soaring high above the clouds, within the planet’s stratosphere, the wind whipped at her long, elegant golden locks and red, billowing cape.

Except for the wind itself, nothing could touch her at such a high altitude.

It was peaceful.

Well, almost peaceful.

Whenever her super hearing – her least favorite superpower – kicked in, and she heard the cries for help back on mother earth, there was no other option but to fly down and do what had to be done.

But what she heard were not cries; rather, it was shouting.

“This isn’t the Earth where I wanted to be, Cara!”

Kara’s ears tickled even more at what she believed to be her name than the recognizable voice that said it.

“Barry?” She muttered upon her descent through the troposphere.

It could not have been him. He was back on his own Earth, unless he somehow jumped back into hers again.

She followed his ranting voice right back to National City.

Her enhanced vision picked up his location on one of the rooftop skyscrapers where he bickered with a short-haired blonde in a black leather jacket and a t-shirt that bore the “House of El” family crest, albeit etched to show cleavage.

Are you kidding me, she irately thought of Barry’s new friend.

Driven further into investigating this situation, Kara gracefully landed at the rooftop, her arms crossed.

“Didn’t expect to see you again, Flash,” she pretentiously addressed him by his superhero name. He was, after all, dressed in his suit.

He turned from the blonde, who Kara presumed to be “Cara,” and the strange, towering rectangular solid behind her.

“Kara!” He shouted in his surprise. “Y-You’re here!”

“I am here – it’s where I live,” she said, maintaining her condescending tone. “The real question, or should I say questions, are what you’re doing here and who’s your new friend?”

“Oh, this…?” He gestured to Cara. “This is…uh…”

His stammering only made him look more ridiculous to Kara.

“My name is also Cara,” the blonde introduced herself. “You spell yours with a ‘C,’ too?”

Kara shook her head, grinning. “With a ‘K’.”

Cara’s face lit with delight. “Oh! And the way you swooped down just a sec ago – you’re an alien as well, I take it?”

“Kryptonian,” Kara clarified before nodding to the solid near them. “You?”

“Gallifreyan – or ‘Time Lady,’ as I prefer it,” Cara confirmed.

“Then may I ask why you have this…” Kara tapped at the crest insignia on her chest, “…on your shirt?”

Cara glanced down at her etched version, noting its similarity to Kara’s. “Wow! This is gonna sound, like, stupid…but I had no idea what this meant the day I bought it – which, for the life of me, I can’t even remember. I figured it just stood for ‘super’.”

“It does on this planet,” Kara said, her tone rising in disdain. “But, on mine, it stands for something greater…something very personal to me! And to see it represented in the way it is on your shirt just makes me…”

Barry could see Kara’s pupils glowing bright red in her fury and feared that the good-hearted heroine was on the brink of incinerating Cara with her heat vision.

Immediately, he stood in between them.

“How ’bout we just chill for a minute? O.K.?” He pleaded, primarily to Kara.

There suddenly came an odd droning register that resounded nearby.

A trio of bizarre, bronze-colored mechanical beings resembling human-sized pepper shakers emerged from seemingly nowhere.

“What the…?!” Barry exclaimed.

His words were cut short by the frantic, automated voice of the one alien pepper shaker in the middle, who was assumed to be the leader of this trio.

“WE HAVE COME FOR THE TIME LORD KNOWN AS ‘THE GLADIATOR’!”

Neither Barry nor Kara knew what to say to this pronouncement.

“I’m right here,” Cara said, stepping forward with a risen hand. “Gotta admit, boys, I was expectin’ your new, bouncin’ baby brother Dalek Vec to show.”

“WE WERE SENT TO PROCURE YOU BY DAVROS! YOU WILL SURRENDER TO THE DALEK EMPIRE OR BE EXTERMINATED!”

“Dalek Empire?” A bewildered Barry echoed. “Cara, what’s going—?”

Without a word of caution, Cara’s other hand, which she stuck into the left side pocket of her jacket, yanked out and flung a pink object of high plasticity directly towards the central Dalek.

Barry and Kara realized it to be Silly Putty, sticking right onto the middle Dalek’s eyestalk and obscuring its eyepiece.

“MY VISION IS IMPAIRED! I CANNOT SEE!”

“Krypton girl,” Cara addressed Kara. “Eviscerate these tin heads!”

Kara followed her instruction, producing her heat vision from her pale blue eyes and firing on the three Daleks.

Instantaneously, they each exploded into heaping piles of flaming, smoked scrap metal; their metal casings severed, exposing the mollusk-like creatures inside, now resorted to charred carcasses.

“What were these things?” Kara questioned.

“Daleks,” Cara solemnly answered. “Ones that came an awful long way just to take out my sorry butt.”

“You told them that you expected someone called ‘Dalek Vec’ to show up instead,” Barry recollected. “Cara, are you being hunted by these things?”

“Vec was the only one who did…up ’til now,” Cara said. “The rest of the Dalek mafia’s now somehow achieved trans-dimensional travel, which means my time on this Earth and other Earths is runnin’ real short.”

“Hey!”

The voice called to their attention from behind them, right where the tall, rectangular solid stood.

Kara looked back at it with Barry and Cara, startled to see that a set of doors had in some way been established on the solid, opened inward to some type of futuristic control room that was much bigger than the solid itself.

Standing there in the doorway were two adolescent boys in the appearance of an anthropomorphic cat and goldfish with legs. The cat spoke explicitly to Cara, “I think your alarm clock just went off or something, because the console’s buzzing like crazy, and what the heck just happened here?”

His transition was lost between describing the scene occurring inside the control room and observing the aftermath from the chaos that unfolded on the rooftop.

Cara, however, was intently stuck on the former occurrence.

“Buzzing, did you say?”

“Kimbyr,” as this sixteenth regeneration called herself, was still much of a mystery to Neas, Gen, and Mandy.

All they knew so far was that she could make some mean waffles.

She made stacks of them for everyone to eat in Neas’s console room, which began to smell like a Waffle House restaurant.

“Anyone for seconds?” She offered.

“No, ma’am,” Mouth said through a mouthful of waffles. “I’m good.”

The others voiced their satisfaction and indicated their full bellies; even Chunk and Sloth could not take another bite.

Meanwhile, Neas kept to himself near the console, opting against eating any of Kimbyr’s waffles. Finding him there, Lauren – who still had one waffle left on her plate – walked over and held it in front of his face.

The scent of syrup and cooked dough seeped into his nostrils.

“When was the last you’ve eaten?” She asked him.

“Seventeen weeks ago,” he vacantly rejoined.

By his deadpan timbre, Lauren was unable to discern if he was serious or not.

“What’s gotten into you?” She probed. “Ever since Kimbyr and Autumn showed up, you’ve been the grumpiest I’ve seen you since we were deployed over St. Anna.”

Neas pried his eyes from the console, focusing them on Kimbyr.

“Look at her,” he instructed Lauren, who did as he said, seeing Kimbyr take selfies from her iPhone 6 with Clarence. “She’s forgotten so much – the wars we fought, the nightmares we’ve faced…none of it matters to her anymore. Is that really what I’ll be in my sixteenth regeneration?”

“You sound surprised,” Lauren noted. “I remember one little girl who could never stop having fun, no matter how much she tried.”

Neas sighed. “Sometimes, in some lives, I wonder if that little girl still even exists after all she’s been through.”

“She does…in here.” Lauren gently held a hand against his chest, feeling his overlapping heartbeats. “And, right now, she’s over there.” With the same hand, she motioned to Kimbyr, who continued lifting spirits all over the console room. “She showed up just at the right time.”

Neas warmly smiled. “She did, didn’t she?”

“I thought I recognized you!” They heard Rigby say at the top of his lungs, in regards to Kimbyr. “You’re the PopSocket girl!”

“The what?!” Stef uttered in confusion.

“The PopSocket girl,” Mordecai repeated. “Rigby and I watch her vlogs when we’re on break every time. Most of them are about those grips you stick on the back of your smartphone.”

Kimbyr was touched by the recognition. “Awe! So glad you guys watch my vids! As a matter of fact, I’m about to make another this second for T.B.T.”

Mikey frowned, more perplexed than his fellow Goonies over the terminology thrown around like “vlogs” and “smartphone.” Their mid-1980s intellects had not yet adapted to such twenty-first century lingo.

“T.B.T.?” He enquired.

“Throwback Thursday,” Kimbyr simplified. “And you guys are all gonna be in it!”

Watching as she got her iPhone ready and faced it towards herself and the others, Neas panicked.

“She’s gonna vlog up in my T.A.R.D.I.S., Pop!” He told Lauren, who tried not to laugh as he frantically rushed over to Kimbyr and snatched the phone right out of her hand, before she could press the “record” button.

“Dude, what the fu—?!” Kimbyr stifled her profanity in acknowledging there were children present. “I mean, what the fudge, dude!”

“We don’t have time for your vlogging,” Neas objected, pocketing her phone into the left side pocket of his hoodie. “There’s a reason you fused up with my T.A.R.D.I.S., so tell us what it is.”

Kimbyr crossed her arms, pouting. “Well, if you’re gonna be all snappy, then fine. I got a mental call from Sanders, who filled me in on the big plan to get Dalek Vec off our butts for good. We’re getting all of ourselves together and luring Vec to this one dimension – the ‘Mad World,’ Sanders calls it – and frying him with some of Min’s hardcore tech!”

“Min?” Lauren recited the intriguing name. “Who’s Min?”

Kimbyr awkwardly glimpsed her way, appearing to have forgotten the English blonde was there. “Uh…I’m not at liberty to say…at this point in time,” she said in the most skeptical way imaginable to Lauren.

“So that’s the grand plan Sanders tried to share with me back at the restaurant,” Neas grasped.

“Yep,” Kimbyr confirmed. “And she sent me the coordinates to the Mad World where Min’s waiting for us.”

“Great,” Neas approved. “Let’s go.”

“Hold it!” Mikey intervened. “We still gotta stop the Fratellis from going after Willy’s treasure!”

“And rescue Shel,” Benson added.

Neas let out a frustrated groan. “Guys, look. I was willing to go along with the mission of stopping the Fratellis and saving Shel, but there are bigger things happening here. Besides, we still have no idea where they’ve headed in the infinite dimensions of time and space.”

“They’re headed to the past to get the jump on Willy and his treasure before it can ever be buried,” Kimbyr stated.

Her significant deduction drew wonder and a bit of ire from Neas.

“How would you know that?” He queried.

“Because it’s exactly the type of thing the rest of us would do,” Kimbyr smirked.

Mandy nodded at this. “She’s got you there.”

“True. That.” Gen affirmed.

Though he hated to admit it himself, Neas knew Kimbyr was onto something.

The Night Owl, a mid-seventeenth century English tavern, was the hot spot for a private ceremony held in honor of Captain William B. Pordobel. Once a court jester before he was an ingenious pirate, he was banished from the five Spanish courts for his practical jokes. Forming a merry band of pirates, he marauded hundreds of king’s ships and accumulated treasure worth millions.

Along the way, he even fell for a silver-haired splendor of a woman who called herself “Ms. Mars,” assisting him in his adventures alongside her own companions: a boy named Finn and his peculiar, talking yellow dog, Jake.

For this purpose, a celebration was necessitated.

Despite the raucous pirates having begun the festivities with their drunkenness, Mars extended the entertainment by climbing atop one of the tables and introducing the scallywags to a twentieth century invention known as karaoke with a song centuries ahead of their time:

I must have died and gone to heaven

’Cause it was quarter past eleven on a Saturday in 1999

Right across on where I’m standing, on a dance floor she was landing

It was clear that she was from another time

Like some Baby Barbarella with the stars as her umbrella

She asked me if I liked to magnetize

Do I have to go star-trekking ’cause it’s you I should be checking

So she laser beamed me with her cosmic eyes

She’s just a cosmic girl from another galaxy

My heart’s at zero gravity

She’s from a cosmic world, she’s putting me in ecstasy

Transmitting on my frequency, she’s cosmic!

The drunken Willy and his crew knew none of what the song or its lyrics meant; they only knew Mars had the most angelic voice worth singing along to. Her body swayed under the purple galaxy combat top she wore, her black combat boots stomping to the rhythm, nearly crushing a few crewmates’ fingers.

Finn and Jake sat at one corner table, both drinking mugs filled to the brim with milk – the only non-alcoholic beverage they were allowed to drink – and observing the evening’s merriments.

“Man, Ms. Mars really knows how to throw a party,” Jake praised.

“Yeah, man,” Finn agreed. “She’s really good at twerkin’ her butt, too.”

“Is that what she’s doing?! Man, I thought that—”

Jake jolted himself silent, as soon as he spotted a large group of strangers entering the tavern and into the disorderly party scene.

“Bro, we got crashers at ten o’clock,” Jake warned.

Finn gazed at his wristwatch. “Huh. Well, it’s only seven past eight, so we got plenty of time before they…”

“No, dude,” Jake elucidated. “Look!”

Finn followed his direction, seeing the new arrivals himself.

“Aw, man!” He griped. “Willy’s gonna flip when he sees those crunch-monkeys crashed his crew-only party! What do we do, man?”

“Hope that he doesn’t notice?” Jake timidly suggested.

Neas knew the second he entered the tavern that he would be in for a moment analogous to when friends and family watch an embarrassing home movie. Finding one of his earliest incarnations dancing silly and whatnot atop a table to the whoops and whistles of cutthroats, his head hung in shame.

“You told me that in some lives you wondered if that little girl still exists,” Lauren said to him. “Was this one of them?”

In response to her inquiry, Neas pulled his hood over his head, tightening it to hide his humiliated face.

It did not help much to hear Kimbyr admit of Mars afterward: “She was always my favorite.”

The dancing and singing stopped at the instant Willy fired his flintlock pistol into the air, taking out a portion of the ceiling. Mars and the crew froze and went silent, their attention squarely on Willy.

“I can’t believe it’s really him,” said a starstruck Mikey, who was promptly shushed by Brand.

Willy outstretched his arms, which barely filled the sleeves of his flashy, flowery frock coat, smiling through his bushy brown beard as he moved towards Mars. “My darlin’,” he poetically brimmed with lovesick joy. “My silver-haired bonnie lass, whose dress by means unknown to me or me crew captured the beauty of the stars and brought them down to Earth to praise the beauty that is you! My darlin’ Mars, I’ve traveled with ye to the ends of the earth and back! And here, before the company of my crew, I ask thee…”

Approaching the table, he got down on one knee to the whooping and hollering of his men, who knew what was coming next.

Mars was truthfully elated, her hands over her nose and mouth – for once, not from the stench of the unhygienic men around her – and holding back tears.

Willy took in a hopeful breath. “Will ye mar—?”

ACHOO!!

Mouth’s sneezing was all it took to ruin Willy’s moment.

Enraged at the interruption, he stood and aimed his flintlock at the intruding characters that not only stepped on his incomplete proposal to Mars but also crashed in on a reserved gathering.

His men followed suit, taking out their pistols, rifles, and swords as an intimidating gesture to the intruders.

“Any of ye bilge rats got last words for comin’ here better speak ’em now!” Willy coldly advised.

“Don’t cut us, bro!” Muscle Man sniveled.

Mars looked over the poor souls Willy and his crew were on the verge of tearing apart. By the manner in which many of them were dressed, it was obvious they were not from the seventeenth century.

Of course, the one thing that troubled her about the group was that some of the members were children.

“Willy, wait!” She beseeched. “Don’t kill them! Let them have a chance to explain themselves!”

His finger itched to pull the trigger, yet he refrained himself in the humility of pleasing the woman he loved. “As you wish, me love,” he obliged. “We let ’em speak their defense…and then we kill ’em!”

His ravenous crew howled in bloodthirsty glee.

Neas tautly stepped forward. “Well…uh…m-my name is Neas…I’m a Time Lord from Gallifrey, and I…uh…”

“You be from where, mate?!” Willy grilled. “Gale-le-frey? Must be a new home for Moors, ’cause I ain’t ever heard of it!”

His crew cackled at his jesting, which the pirate captain did best.

Mars, in the meantime, was preoccupied with the name of this tall, dark gentlemen and where he hailed from.

“We just need to know if a hideous old woman and her two man-children happened to have come here,” Neas said.

“No people by that description have stepped foot or peg in this merry establishment, lad,” Willy denied. “Now, if we be so kind to proceed where we left off…”

“Hold it,” Mars jumped off the table, walking up to Neas. “Where did you get your name?”

Neas knowingly smirked. “I was born with it…sometime before I decided to change it to ‘Candace’ and then – for some unknown reason – ‘Mars’.”

Mars’s face dropped in realizing who and what this man was.

“Regeneration?” She questioned with a developing smile.

“Ninth,” Neas meekly verified.

“And sixth,” said Mandy, with her hand halfway raised.

“Eighth,” Gen also substantiated, pointing to herself.

“Sixteenth, right here, baby!” Kimbyr flaunted.

Mars widely ogled the emerald-eyed woman. “Sixteenth,” she yelled. “We’re only allowed twelve regenerations! Where the heck did you come from?!”

“A long story, I’m sure,” Neas said. “But it’ll have to wait another time. There’s a mob family from the twentieth century – the Fratellis – coming for Willy’s treasure.”

“They be comin’ for me what?!” Willy thundered with unfathomed indignation.

“How does a twentieth century mob family get to the seventeenth century?” A flummoxed Mars inquired.

“They had some forced assistance from another regeneration of us,” Mandy informed.

“Sound like some bad dudes,” said Finn, both he and Jake waltzing into the conversation. “Especially if they’re daring to take Willy’s treasure.”

“No interloper’s stealin’ from Captain William B. Pordobel,” Willy boldly declared. “Unless they be wantin’ to keep their thumbs!”

Mikey and the other Goonies were in total awe being in the presence of the legend of the Goon Docks. He could hardly contain his excitement so much that his asthma kicked in, prompting him into using his inhaler.

Catching him with it, Willy engrossedly asked, “What be that magic tool you’re usin’, boy?”

“I-It’s just my inhaler, C-Captain Willy, s-sir,” the spellbound Mikey spluttered. “A-And I j-just wanna say, on our behalf – a-and by ‘our,’ I m-mean us, the Goonies – that you’re our biggest fan…I-I mean, we’re your…”

“I think he gets the picture, Mikey,” Neas interposed. “Captain, if you’d be so kindly to permit us to accompany you and your crew on your voyage, so that the ‘interlopers’ don’t succeed in getting your treasure?”

“Offerin’ to protect me booty, eh?” Willy twigged. “Captain William B. Pordobel needs no protection from interlopers!”

“Willy, darling,” Mars urged. “Take the offer.”

The captain fretted with the decision; he had his reputation to consider but also wanted to keep his fiancée-to-be happy.

“Oh, alright!” He finally coincided. “Sleep hearty this night! We sail at dawn!”