9 Calming Down

I formed a hard light construct claw and shot it out, grabbing onto Batman and pulled him towards me. He threw explosive batarangs at me, but they exploded without doing any damage. He as brought into range as the blizzard around me condensed, freezing him solid in a block of ice.

"Come on Batman, where are all of your contingencies now?" I said, when a construct train ran into me, shattering against my body.

"Let me show you how it's done" I said as I channeled the green lantern energy, forming a cage around Hal and making fists form from all angles inside the cage, pummeling Hal's body into unconsciousness.

I felt a punch impact my back. Turning around, I found Superman trying to punch through the Amazonium composing my body.

"How much pain can the Man of Steel take?" I asked as I grabbed onto his arm when he threw his next punch and channeled millions of volts of electricity into his body.

"Ah" Superman cried out as he fell to the ground, stunned from the electricity. I continued to overload him until he was knocked out, his brain unable to handle the amount of electricity being channeled into his body. It was then that I felt arms wrap around my neck.

"The Amazon joined the battle" I said as I mentally manipulated my body, forming bone spikes out of my back that impaled Wonder Woman's midsection. I then froze the blood in the wound solid, and headbutted her, knocking her back as she had to deal with the pain of having her body impaled and frozen. I grabbed her arm and channeled electricity into her as well, causing her body to spasm and then collapse as she fell unconscious.

Looking down at the heroes around me, I began to laugh.

"You couldn't leave well enough alone now could you. The so called protectors couldn't even manage to protect themselves from one teenager, how sad is that. I might as well put you all out of your misery" I said, crouching down towards the downed forms of the heroes with my claws at the ready.

"Casper" Laura's voice cut through. Looking up, I saw her looking at me intensely.

"What?" I asked.

"You need to stop" she said.

"Why? They attacked us, wanted to imprison us. I'm just reacting in kind, aren't you curious what color an alien bleeds?" I said, a deranged smirk on my face.

"If you kill them you won't be the same. It's not like killing a bad guy, once you go there you can't go back" Laura said, her own experience bleeding through.

"What, you killed a lot of heroes in your day?" I asked, that ever present smirk still on my face.

"No, I killed my mother. And I have to live with that for the rest of my life" Laura said, her face turning sad for a second before she got a focused look on her face.

"I won't let that happen to you, so if you won't stop I'll make you" she said.

"Ha, and how are you going to do that? I just beat people way more powerful than you are without breaking a sweat" I said.

Instead of answering, Laura started running at me. I just watched her, amused in her attempts to stop me. When she got near, I expected her to lunge forward and flip over my body, since that seemed to be the move she favored so much, but instead of doing that she sheathed her claws, taking me by surprise as she ran forward and wrapped her arms around me.

"What, you wanted a hug at a time like this?" I asked, when a sudden pain hit my body. Looking down, I saw her claws sticking out of my ice side.

"That was pretty sneaky, but it won't do anything" I said as I grabbed onto her arm, but I couldn't bring myself to freeze it.

'She's in my way, I need to remove her from the equation' I thought as I tried again to freeze her solid, but my body wouldn't move. I couldn't bring myself to hurt her in a way that might actually kill her. Her healing factor was strong, but being frozen from the inside out might not be something she could heal from.

"You can't do it, can you" she commented, looking up at me with a new certainty on her face.

"You're in my way" I said, but she just shook her head.

"You can't hurt me, even if you've lost your mind. Just calm down Casper, stop letting the power control you. Are you so weak that you can't even control your own power?" She asked me.

'Me, weak? This power doesn't control me' I thought as I slowly regained some mental clarity, the Amazonium half of my body turning back into skin.

Laura, seeing that it was working, kept going. "Are everyone else's powers really stronger than your own? What was even the point of training you if you were just going to lose control?"

'I will be the most powerful. Some powers aren't going to control me.' I thought, the blizzard around me abating as the green aura around me disappeared. My claws turned into bones and my body returned to normal. The change still had an effect on my body though. My eyes had changed from channeling so much energy at once. My eyes were originally brown, but since absorbing and channeling the Green lantern energy through my body they had changed to green. I could mentally feel that my reserves of Green Lantern energy and electricity had increased a lot as well. Alongside that, the half of my clothes that I had turned to ice had also been destroyed. My shirt was torn in half along with my pants, so I was quick to absorb the adamantium and form some metal pants.

"You didn't need to make pants that quickly" Laura commented, a smile on her face.

"What, appreciate the view?" I sniped back.

"Yes" Laura said bluntly.

'Well she's blunt. That was sarcasm.'

My legs began to feel weak as I wobbled and fell forward, but Laura caught me.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"I'm fine, I just need a minute to recover. That took a lot of energy out of me." I said as she carried me to the wall and leaned me up against it, Laura taking a seat next to me. I looked over at the unconscious bodies littering the warehouse. The entirety of Young Justice, every X-Men besides us two, and four leaguers were on the ground. Batman was frozen in a solid block of ice in the middle of the room.

I felt Laura lean against me, her head on my shoulder as she asked "So you okay now?"

"Yeah, thanks for bringing me back to my senses."

"Just don't do it again. I can't bail you out every time." She said.

"I'll try my best not to." I said.

"Do you want to talk about it? Your mother I mean." I asked Laura.

Laura sighed as she said "I still get nightmares you know. All I can see is her face as my claws were driven through her. They trained me with a trigger scent that would make me lose all focus and try to kill my target if I smelled it. They put it on her, to get rid of any attachment I may have. After that I escaped, getting away from them and trained myself to ignore the trigger scent. That's when I broke into SHIELD to find where Logan was."

I put my arm and gave her a hug as she leaned into my embrace.

"I would tell you to try to move on, but that would be a lie. You can't move on from something like that or forget about it. We'll just have to try to make some better memories, so you can start having some happy dreams instead." I said.

Laura nodded and closed her eyes. We sat there for a long time until she fell asleep in my embrace. Her breathing turned irregular, so I mentally reached out to her. could feel her mental distress so I projected happier thoughts, to try to let her have a nice dream. Her mind calmed down and her breathing calmed down as she slept leaning on me.

I let her sleep for a little while, but I could see that people were beginning to stir. I woke up Laura and looked around at the group. I wanted to get this over with all at once, so I reached out with my telepathy, mentally awakening everyone as the people around us stirred. I mentally commanded the ice around Batman and the rest of the room to disappear, as I didn't want any evidence of my ability to use other powers to exist. The leaguers might mention it, but I wanted to drive the conversation so they wouldn't reveal it.

Laura and I stood up, watching as everyone came to their sense.

"What happened?" was the sentiment around the room.

"We won, that's what happened. Now I've got some demands." I said, as everyone's attention focused on me.

"Casper, what's going on?" Scott asked.

"Later, I don't feel like explaining right now. Now, we've established that your group can't beat ours. But we aren't actually villains, so I want to clear some things up." I said to the Leaguers.

"So what, breaking into and stealing from Wayne Tower was an act of heroism?" Kid Flash said sarcastically.

"Ssh, the grown ups are talking. Now, as we explained to you guys, we're from another universe. We were stranded here when my device went wrong, so all we want to do is return home." I explained.

"Why should we believe you?" Superman asked.

"I mean, you don't really have to. We've established that you can't beat us. I guess you could call the rest of the League here to try to detain us, but I can guarantee I won't come quietly. Why not save yourselves the trouble and watch as I build us a way home." I said.

"You could be building a weapon to neutralize us or harm innocents" Batman said.

"Why would I need to do that when I could do it by myself? We're weapons of mass destruction, we don't need more weapons to do that." I said.

I saw the Leaguers and Team look at each other, having a mental conversation. Eventually, the reached a consensus.

"We'll leave you alone if you agree to be monitored by a Leaguer at all times." Superman said.

'They're doing it for the sake of appearances. They know no Leaguer could stop us.'

"Fine, now let me get to work. I want to get home as soon as possible." I said, pulling out my cube and removing the materials and partially finished device.

I tuned out the rest of the world, keeping a cursory awareness of what was going on around me. Laura was talking to Superboy, which I was somewhat curious about. They were both clones, but their experiences were pretty different. Laura's was a lot worse, but her father figure had immediately acknowledged her and accepted her as his daughter, while Superman seemed content to refuse Connor's existence.

Scott and Aqualad were also an interesting conversation, probably comparing leadership tips or something.

Everyone else seemed to be interacting with the younger Team while the adult Leaguers had a conversation and the left, with only Superman being left.

It was as I was working that something interrupted me. Hearing a loud slapping noise, I looked up to find Laura with her hand broken, although it quickly healed, and a confused Superman looking down at her.

"This 'Ignore the fact that you have a son thing' is stopping now, or do you're dealing with me." Laura said, popping her claws our menacingly. It was somewhat amusing to watch the diminutive girl threaten someone who was a foot taller than her and much bigger, but Superman just looked unsure of what to do.

I zoned back in on my work, assuming that Laura would be convincing. Superman needed a reality check about Superboy, and Laura's experiences were best suited to bringing it.

A day passed, with some food being brought to us by the Leaguer, who was Wonder Woman, her having been replaced Superman. I didn't eat, regulating my body so I could continue to work without needing to sleep. I wanted to get this device built as quickly as possible, ready to go back home.

It was hours later that I finally finished it. Looking at the finished device, I had decided to model it after another multiverse travel device, Rick's Portal Gun. It was much more streamlined than the original, now that I had a good baseline to work from I could make it better.

"I'm done" I called out, standing up with the finished device.

"You finished? We can go home now, right?" Kurt asked excitedly. Everyone else from the X-Men had similar sentiments of excitement at the prospect of returning to their own universe.

Scott and Aqualad shook hands as everyone said goodbye to the group. Batman was also quick to arrive at the news that we were leaving, which drew my suspicion.

"It was an interesting talk with you my friend" Aqualad said.

"You too Kaldur" Scott said.

Everyone said their goodbyes and I activated the Portal Gun, shooting a green portal into the air.

I gestured from everyone to enter the portal, each X-Men walking in one by one. I was the last one to enter, and as I took a step into the portal I felt something attach to my leg. Coming out the other side of the portal as it closed behind me, I found everyone gathered outside of the Institute. Looking at my leg, I found a small device attached to it. Reaching down, I studied it and found it was a tracking device.

'Batman really can't leave well enough alone.' I thought as I crushed the device. I stored the Portal Gun in my storage cube when no one was looking and pulled out another piece of technology, crushing it with my hand.

Kitty was the first to run forward, excited to get inside. Everyone else ran after her, entering into the institute as Kitty yelled out, "We're Home!"

Her voice echoed through the Institute and we heard voices coming from a hallway. From the hallway emerged a group of people, some surprising, other's not so. There were the expected adults, Xavier, Ororo, and Logan, but it was the other two that were surprising. Standing next to them were Sue Storm and Reed Richards.