Among the visually arresting techniques on display during the Wolf Tribe engagement, one person commanded the most sustained attention: Lois Lane—or, by the name she might properly carry now, Lois Lane Kent.
In Thea's assessment, Lois had pushed well beyond any ceiling her original timeline would have allowed her to reach. A long-compressed potential was finally releasing.
Luminous blue telekinetic energy had taken on solid visible form. Flight. Telekinetic object manipulation. Invisible force fields. Telekinetic blasts. Combat experience still fresh and rough—but if she could fully deploy what she currently held, Lois was not far behind Earth-3's Superwoman in overall capability.
Supergirl, for her part, had seized one unfortunate wolf-man in her grip, curled him into a ball, and bowled him into a row of enemies with the casual ease of someone settling a lane bet. Cassandra had found the alpha—a head taller than the rest, broader through the shoulders, skin shimmering faintly white against the grey-black of the pack—and engaged him directly. Seven or eight exchanges, neither landing decisively, right up until the moment Cassandra sent him flying with one clean kick. The fight was over.
Barbara had watched from the edge of the engagement, ready to back Cassandra up if needed, anxiety present but held in check. She had been quietly cultivating Cassandra as her heir to the Batgirl name for some time now, and watching her match an alpha in open combat was equal parts reassuring and nerve-wracking.
Named heroines facing anonymous foot soldiers produced the expected result. Thea waved the group on, and they teleported to the floating island.
If Hawk World was roughly Iceland-sized, the floating island was roughly the size of a city park.
Unlike the wolf-men—who had shed every trace of civilization—faint signs of construction were at least visible here: various containers, shelters in the loosest possible definition of the word, assembled from materials so minimal that even the most modest housing standards would not have recognized them. And people.
An elderly winged man stared at the group of heroines who had materialized in front of him with undisguised alarm.
He spoke in rapid, unfamiliar syllables. Even Hawkman and Hawkgirl felt something distantly familiar in the cadence—but nothing they could parse.
Thea raised a hand and extended a language-bridge across the entire realm, broad enough to reach every mind in Hawk World. She had her own sense of what was appropriate. She was not going to learn their language—it was considerably more efficient for them to understand hers.
Whether maintaining that enchantment indefinitely might eventually cause Hawk World's inhabitants to forget their own tongue was not a concern she found worth entertaining. The combat ceiling here was low. Even with Nth Metal present in the environment, this population was weak. Thea in projected form alone could dominate all of Hawk World; with her actual body present, it was as if a god had descended.
"Empress—enemies of the Empress!" The old man's words became comprehensible. His vocabulary was minimal; he cycled through the same handful of terms.
"Who exactly is this Empress he keeps referring to?" Barbara had slipped into analytical mode.
Thea smiled fractionally and pointed. "Your answer just arrived."
Wings filled the sky. The formation resolved quickly into more than three hundred fully armed soldiers—spears, shields, short blades, each weapon containing some trace of worked Nth Metal. The metal's purity appeared low, though; the enhancement it provided seemed marginal.
At the head of the formation flew a woman. Her entire face was hidden behind a gold mask. A solid-gold collar sat at her throat. A deep crimson robe. And behind her—a pair of enormous golden wings.
At her appearance, every winged person within sight raised their voice in unison: "Empress!" "Empress!"
"Wingless outsiders—" She hadn't finished the sentence when enormous pressure descended on her from above. She pushed against it, trying to hold her position, but her body was no longer hers to control. Despite everything she did, she sank toward the ground.
When her feet touched the earth, something surfaced in her memory from a great distance. How many years had it been? How many years since she had last been standing on the ground?
She was not alone. Every winged person present—guards and civilians, without exception—had been brought down.
No one in the group lacked intelligence. She understood perfectly well that the visitors in front of her had done this. The gold mask constrained her natural vision, but Nth Metal granted her the ability to see through things—and she could read the faint signature of energy that had reached out and pulled every last one of her people out of the air.
"How insolent," she said, through her teeth.