XXX

Two Months later…

Above the earth circling the planet's orbit, a massive structure floated, known as the Watchtower. As it floated, Superman could only gaze out of its window with awe, Batman standing behind his friend as he took in the sights

"Incredible, do your stockholders know about this Bruce?" He asked the dark cowled hero, to which he responded. "A line item hidden in the aerospace R&D Budget, this watchtower will act as an early warning system for detecting other threats of invasion from space." Pocket change really, and every penny was worth it.

"And this place has got one sweet fully stocked kitchen to boot. Want some Iced Mocha big guy?" Flash said, walking in with the Amazon Princess in tow. Superman smiled before declining politely. Flash simply shrugged and drank some more.

Wonder woman meanwhile had tried what Flash called an Ice Mocha, and despite her calm appearance, the taste was quite pleasant. She enjoyed the drink, something she had never had on the Island, explaining to her compatriots.

Flash simply grinned before replying. "Then stick with me princess, there's still a lot of things about the world you need to see." Diana answered grinning, "Perhaps I will," She said, not realizing that Flash was flirting.

Green Lantern and Hawkgirl joined them after surveying the entire structure. "This is an impressive installation. Very impressive, but I get the feeling that there is more to this than just showing off this place. You have something in mind that involves all of us here today, right Superman?"

Superman nodded. He stared at the Earth to remind him what he was going to say, "I once thought that I could handle defending the Earth by myself, but I was wrong, working together we saved the planet and more. That's why instead of working separately we can work together as a team to become a force that can help ensure that the ideals of justice and peace are better protected." He replied.

Flash was amused "Work together, like a bunch of Super Friends?" He said, crossing his hands before smiling. Superman smirked, realizing the humor before replying. "I was thinking more along the lines of a Justice League."

Flash grinned before replying. "You have any idea how corny that sounds?" He turned to face the others however, his face becoming more serious before speaking. "But I think the big guy here has a point, working together is a lot more effective and with all of us behind, it can definitely be a good thing. Count me in."

Flash placed his hand on Superman's own as Green Lantern and Hawkgirl did the same thing with the two placing their own hands. "I'm in." "So am I."

Diana looked nervous and hesitated, before resolving to join. "My mother would not approve of this, but Man's world is very interesting to me, very well, I am in." She said, before placing her own hand on Hawkgirl's.

"What about you Batman?" Superman asked, although he suspected that Batman already had an answer. Bruce replied in his stoic voice. "I'm not much of a people person, but if you need me, and no doubt you will, call me." Superman nodded, understanding Batman's personality. "I understand."

"Hold up, where's J'onn?" Flash asked, finding him staring at a console at a picture of Mars. His face remained calm, but Superman could see that the Martian was in reality at a loss. "J'onn?" He asked, slightly worried for his new friend.

"Mars is dead and gone now…and I am the last of my kind anywhere." He said, distraught, only for superman to calm him down. "J'onn, I know that none of us can take the place of your family at all, but we would be honored if you were to call Earth home."

The Martian smiled, shaking the Kryptonians hand. Flash then realized that they were missing one more person from their group, their marksman Courier 6 who had been a major help. "Hey, what about Courier 6? Doesn't she also get a say?"

Upon speaking, Christina actually showed up, wearing this time her Black Jack Duster over Joshua Graham's armor, her head covered by Ulysses Gas Mask, Lucky Shades, and a black Stetson hat, her Anti Material Rifle on her back. "Don't worry, J'onn was kind enough to let me on." She said, with her heroes finally getting a good view of the woman before them.

"Whoa, and suddenly I'm in love all over again." Flash quipped. "First guy who puts his hand on my ass gets a fist in the face." She said, causing Flash to gulp nervously, the others humored by her rather crass mannerisms. "You have questions, no doubt, and I'm here to answer them, afterall, it's the least I could do."

She said, before typing into her pip boy, as the others gathered to listen in about their new companion. "I'll answer questions you have, but keep in mind, some of them are kind of personal, so forgive me if I refuse to answer them." That actually pissed Jon Stewart, who went off in a tirade. "No good. You're a complete unknown, and despite your help, you have been real quiet on who you are and where you came from."

Superman raised his hand, breaking up the upcoming fight. "What he's trying to say is that we are just concerned about finding out who you are." Christina sighed, before responding. "And you're right. But think of this from my perspective. I've heard all about you, but I don't know anything about you, so all I have to go on is that you're just incredibly powered individuals with no other agenda." She pointed to Batman, "I have my own stories, but until we get to know each other more than just co workers or allies, I'll only stick to the basics."

Jon Stewart wanted to argue, only for Superman to stop him. "We understand that you have your own personal boundaries, right now, we'll work on what we do know." Christina was relieved, pleased that Superman was respecting her own history. "Well, before I begin, who here knows about the existence of Alternate Realities."

"Isn't that the idea that there are always the existence of infinitely very similar worlds, but each one has a slight difference?" Hawkgirl asked, only for Christina to shake her head. "No, that's what you call a parallel reality. An alternate reality is when several things happen very differently and history does not happen the way we know it."

"Hold on, there's no way you could be from an Alternate Reality." Flash exclaimed, only for Christina to laugh bitterly. "Yeah you're right, there's no way for me to be from an Alternate Reality. That must also mean that aliens, magic, and meta humans shouldn't also exist, sorry for wasting your time." She continued on. "For everyone else listening, in my reality, it is the year 2281, more than 200 years after the nuclear bombs blasted everything away."

"Wait, your earth was nuked? How was it possible?" Hawk girl asked, curious as to how anyone could do that. "Simple, they wanted to prevent an energy crisis.'" If anything, both of those countries just ended up fucking everyone over. "Sometime in 2060's, oil was running out, so Communist China invaded Alaska."

"Obviously, America wasn't happy about it, so they went to war over it, and fought back, forcefully annexing Canada in the process." To which, that shocked Jon. "That's absurd, the US would never invade Canada."

"The US was a fascist dictatorship that desired the extermination of everyone considered impure, I'm pretty sure it had no problems invading Canada." Christina said, annoyed by Jon's interruption. "Even after nuking the world, they still didn't die out, instead creating more problems for the survivors, until eventually dying from a joint operation of NCR, brotherhood and several specialists led by a tribal called the Chosen One."

"The chosen one, sounds corny." Flash remarked. "Bite me. Anyway, after America died, the communities that they terrorized joined each other at first in mutual defense, forming the bare bones of what would become the New California Republic." She said, and it was the first time anyone see her visibly proud.

"I'm a Ranger of the NCR, one of the post-apocalyptic nations that rose from the ashes to begin anew. Basically it's the nation of liberty, equality, justice and rule of law, taming the wastelands one house at a time. And, with the help of the northern tribes, including mine, the NCR was able to destroy America and create stability, just taking the fight to the slavers and raiders." She said, proud of her achievements.

"Sounds like you really enjoyed being a Ranger." Diana said, admiring a fellow woman's achievements. "Oh I enjoyed every minute out in the field." But then the tone became somber, as she took a next turn. "The problem was the brass. Chief Hanlon was like a father figure to me and the rest of the rangers, loyal to the NCR and a brilliant leader, and he ended up being replaced by 'General' Oliver, aka the glory hound who thinks the best strategy is to mass soldiers waiting for a climactic battle that gets more people killed."

She spat that name out, and the others realized that she didn't hold that person in high regard. "Guess he's not invited to parties." Hawkgirl quipped, followed by a snort from Courier 6. "If he was before, he definitely isn't now, after his stunt with the president. Not like Kimble was any better, deciding to keep sending us out scouting for more territory instead of helping out our people. Eventually, I just got sick of the bureaucracy and just filed for honorable discharge."

This caused a few to raise their eyebrows. "Wait, aren't you still a ranger?" Flash asked, genuinely confused about her discharge. "I am, I rejoined after a few events, but in between that time period, I decided to instead help people out more personally. So I decided to sell the skills I learned to people in need." This actually caused a disapproval in the gathering of heroes. "A mercenary."

"First of all, I like to see myself as an independent contractor, and second, I wasn't actively trying to exploit people of all their caps or becoming a contract killer. Heck, sometimes, I just did the damn job for free if they had a serious problem but didn't have the caps. True I do have my share of sins but trust me when I say that compared to others in the wasteland, I'm actually an angel." Christina did make mistakes in the past, but her travels had turned to forge her into a better person overall.

"You say that you are better, but you showed you have killed people before, what makes you any different." Jon Stewart demanded, and really was pissing Christina off. "There was this one story of a guy named Motor Runner, one of four leaders in a group called the Fiends. He was a raider who enjoyed carving civilians with his chainsaw. And he was the nice one."

This actually caused the heroes to recoil, only for Superman to respond. "Even if there is one exception, you shouldn't try to kill..." Only to be interrupted by Christina. "Oh he wasn't an exception. He was the average, see, those are your standard raiders. You've also got slavers, rapists, cannibals, terrorists, cultists, escaped convicts, fascist authoritarians, mad scientists, savage tribals. Take your pick on what type of shit you'd like to deal with."

This promptly caused everyone to shut up, as she ranted. "I'm not saying that we can't do better, it's just that we aren't in a position to, at least not yet. I've been trying to help my people out, and when I discovered your Earth, I was thrilled actually."

She waved to the Earth they were orbiting. "The reason why I came here was to scout ahead for some other land for possible resources. What I didn't expect was for the portal I used to end up taking me to your Earth, which not only has unscorched land, but technology that is different and yet advanced in many different ways."

"Everyday, even with some victories in the Wasteland, it's still hard out there. I'm trying to make it easier for my country." She said, looking back at them. "I know you don't trust me, and I know that I don't have anything to get you to trust me, so consider this the first step." She said before sighing. "I'll give you space to talk about it." She walked out of the room, letting the heroes talk things through.

"She can't be serious, I mean, everything regarding her origins, an alternate universe, nuclear war, all of that isn't even possible." Jon Stewart responded, on edge by the wild car. "It does seem rather extravagant, but we must also consider the possibility that it is also true." J'onn said in a dull tone. "But even so, there's no way the US would start a nuclear war, it goes against every single value it champions." Clark responded, worried about her. Even though he liked to think he was an American patriot, he was still raised on midwestern values, believing that the American government would do what was right.

"I don't think the US we are familiar with is the same as the one from her world." Batman responded. "It would certainly explain her entire personality, and it makes sense with what she said before, and why she doesn't hold back." While Batman could never take a life, he finally understood that she had different standards compared to him.

"She just wants to help her homeland, it is a worthy goal, no matter where you're from." Dianna said, giving her own piece. Flash agreed, "She didn't have to help out, she still fought for this Earth. I don't know about you, but I say she earned her place here." Everyone of the heroes had their own beliefs regarding Courier 6.

They all had a general idea of her world and what she believed in. Diana, J'onn, Hawkgirl and Flash were more tolerant and even understanding of Courier 6's use of lethal force. Given the circumstances that she developed in, they understood that unlike this Earth that had options, in her world, the only law that rang true was that it was either kill or be killed, and compared to her, the other standards were rather horrible.

Batman, Superman and Green Lantern however were much more skeptical. Whereas Jon Stewart believed in a strict series of laws, both originating from his service as both a US marine and as a Green Lantern, Superman and Batman had a rule regarding no killing. While Superman was much more willing to give Christina the benefit of the doubt, Batman was not as open minded. He understood that she had different standards, but her methods were brutal regardless. He had already had to deal with this situation with his former protege Jason Todd, now going around Gotham as Red Hood.

But then again, Red Hood had begun a violent crusade, all in the quest to purge Gotham of all its criminals in a rather visceral manner. Christina was similar in that regard, and despite the story, he still knew she was hiding something. It may have been a complete breach of trust and privacy, but at least for now, if she was going to work with them, maybe he could find out more about her.

"Despite whatever her past maybe, we still shouldn't disregard her character. She didn't have to help when the aliens attacked, but she did. We shouldn't disregard her for simply helping." J'onn said, putting his own stance on the table.

XXX

Christina had wandered around the kitchen on this Watchtower, it's kitchen completely stocked with food. She looked through everything, and checked the rad levels. Every single one of them was clean, something that she still couldn't get over. Back in her world, it was rare to get food that was completely clean, usually you had to purge it of the rads either by cooking it or using Rad medicines, and even then, there was still leftover radiation.

She had always read history books and archives that the Followers had, specifically the idea that humans where one time so advanced that they could leave the earth. She didn't believe it before, and even when she helped Jason Bright, she always thought that the radiation from space would have killed anyone who wasn't either a ghoul or a super mutant. Something she would have to ask whoever paid for this station.

As she sat on a chair deep in contemplation, the door opened. She turned to see the other seven members of the league. Guess it was time for them to decide whether she would be kicked out or joining.

"After thinking this over, all I have to say is that I would be honored to fight by your side." Diana said, surprising her. Well, not that surprising, considering her heritage as an Amazon, probably helpful that they were the same gender. "I'm guessing you're speaking for the group, and not just individually?"

Superman nodded, still smiling. "After discussing it thoroughly, and because you decided to take a chance and trust us, we decided it wouldn't be fair if we didn't return that trust." He said, holding out his hand for a handshake. "If you're open to the idea, that is."

Christina couldn't believe it, she had met several different characters on her travels, but never once did she think that she would be joining a team of heroes, that was something that only happened in old comic books, with guys like the Silver Shroud, Captain Cosmos, or Grognak the Barbarian. But if she was being honest, it wasn't the first time where something happened that she didn't believe. She probably wouldn't be surprised if the next day, she went back in time.

Still, even though these guys had good intentions, in her opinion they were too idealistic, like the Followers or the Sorrows tribe. They needed iron, else the truly monstrous groups would swallow them up. No one could survive on their own, and thus the reason why she had the NCR make so many allies with the members of the wastes, instead of forcing servitude.

All she could say was this. "I'm in," shaking superman's hand.