[Archive] With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Story Only)

[Mr Zoat]

13th September
Something's buzzing

I open my eyes, the blackout curtains covering the window of Jade's bedroom maintaining their dutiful watch against the encroachment of the day.

Bzzt. Bzzt.

Jade's still dead to the world, face down in the pillows next to me. She doesn't appear to have curled up against me in her sleep, but she was pretty tired-.

Bzzt. Bzzt.

I lean up slightly and sight her phone on the bedside table, then transition out of bed, pick it up, and then transition into her kitchen.

Bzzt. Bzzt.

I look at the phone for a moment.

07:23 GMT -5

Artemis, right. I press the answer button and hold it to my ear.

"Good morning."

"Hey Jade. Arte wants-." There's a pause as Wallace's brain readjusts. "Oh El?"

"Wallace. Good morning."

"Ah, yeah, hi. How long have you been back?"

"A few hours short of a-"

"Is she ready yet?"

"-day. I was meaning to-."

"Hold on a sec. Artemis, Oh El's back."

"Why's he answeringohmyGod."

I look slightly nervously around the kitchen. Jade moved out of Holly and Karon's house shortly after I left. I suppose this is more convenient for work. "Um."

"Heh. Pretty smooth, Oh El."

"It's not like we hadn't been… I mean, we've spent a lot of time together during the past year."

"Oh, I wasn't trying to say you were easy or anythi-."

"Give me-! That!"

"Um."

"Hey Paul."

"Ow! Careful!"

"Good morning, Artemis. How have you been?"

"Ah, yeah, I'm good. Uh, so… You and Jade, huh?"

"Yes." I walk over to the closest cupboard and pull the door open. "You don't know what she eats for breakfast, do you?"

"Ahh-I think she just has a coffee before we go running. Is she.. there?"

"Yes, but-" I glance back towards her bedroom, sniffing the air. Probably.. should do a quick ring-clean of the place… "-she's still asleep and she was pretty tired-."

"Oh, ew!"

"Be.. cause we were out late… Cccatching up?"

"Yeah, that's not gunna stop me seeing-."

"Err…"

"Ask him if he's going to come 'round the mountain this afternoon."

"Wally wants to know if you're coming to the mountain this afternoon. Or.. at all, I guess."

"What? Why wouldn't he-? … O-kay."

"Um… Yes, I.. plan to. Batman's got me chasing down-."

"You've.. spoken to Batman? I mean, since you've been back?"

"Yes, and I've got the electrified anti-metahuman bolas to prove it."

"He shot you?"

"Batman shot Oh El? What's going on?"

"No, Batman's automated defences shot me after I teleported into the Batcave. There wasn't any specific malice."

"Oh, okay."

"What's okay about that? Gimme the phone b-."

"Ggh!"

"He wants me to find a couple of replacements for Nabu-. Um, as League magic users, I mean. I already knew about one but the second one's going to take a bit longer. I don't think it's really… I'm not going to be moving back in or anything at least until I've finished doing… Finding her." … "Are you still-?"

"Yeah! Still here."

"Totally unfair."

"So who'd you get?"

"Batman… Ah, and the rest of the League, they haven't approved it yet. But he's an African man called Nommo Balewa. He sometimes works under the name 'Doctor Mist'."

"I've… Never heard of him."

"How many African superheroes can you name?"

"Ah-. Ssseven?"

"Really?"

"Rocket did a lecture. She didn't mention him."

"Mention who?"

"Some African guy called Doctor Mist."

"Who? No, it's Oh El, there's no way I'm gunna have heard of them. I'm gunna go look him up."

"He's powerful and non-interventionist. And doesn't need a host-slave. And I think he's actually older than Nabu was. Ah… Maybe."

"'kay. Who's the other one?"

Yeah… "You remember Satanus, right?"

"Heh, the Devil Jizz guy?"

"Yeah, that's the one. He's the son of the wizard Shazam and a Succubus."

"Really?"

"Shazam spends all of his time on his own in a magic rock fortress. And if you're a powerful enough wizard to get away with it without getting your soul ripped out…"

"Okay, ew again, but so what?"

"He's got a sister. And they hate each other. And she was friends with Adom. So if Satanus has made new friends-."

"You think she might want new friends too. Huh. It's… Kinda twisted. But I can see you doing it."

"Thank you."

"So… Is she a superhero, or..?"

"Last I heard, she ran a nightclub and did some 'magic for hire' work. But… Guarantees about her behaviour can be part of our negotiation."

"Wait, is he talking about Blaze? Ask him if she's hot, because-."

"You better not be-!"

"I'll.. talk to you later?"

"O-okay. See yah."

I take a look at the phone to make sure it's off, then put it down on the work surface. That went okay, and it was nice to hear-.

There's a knock on the door.

Ah..? Oh, it's Paula. I walk over and open the door. She blinks at me in mild surprise. "Good morning, Paula."

"Hello, Paul. Are you joining us for our morning run?"

"Run?"

She nods, and I notice that she's wearing tight-fitting sportswear. I do good work.

"Yes. Artemis, Jade and I have been running together-."

"Oh, Jade's still asleep." I point my right forefinger in the direction of her bedroom. "I don't think-" Paula raises her eyebrows. "-she's going to be…"

I look at her.

She inclines her head slightly and raises her eyebrows a little more.

"I shouldn't have said that, should I?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th September
08:11 GMT -5

"Of course." I find myself nodding, even though there's no way that the man on the other end of the construct phone can see me. "That's fine. Teth Adom is a busy man."

"In your case, if it is an emergency, I can-."

"No, it's not. I'm just trying to get into contact with a friend of his and hoped that he could point me in the right direction. It isn't urgent. Just… Pass that on when the meeting's over."

"Of course, sir. Um, would you like to give me the friend's name?"

I wonder if he realises exactly how few friends Adom has in this era? Particularly ones I wouldn't know how to find. "Probably best if I don't. No offence intended, but the fewer people who know…"

"Not a problem, sir. I understand completely."

"Thank you. Have a nice-" A dressing gown-clad Jade walks awkwardly into the kitchen. "-day."

"Thank you, sir. You as well."

I dismiss the construct and rise to my feet, arms wide. "Good morning, oh-!"

"Just-." Jade raises her right hand in a warding gesture. "Just give me a minute."

"Um." She walks over to a cupboard and opens it, pulling out a mug and a jar of instant coffee. "Okay?" Next, she switches on the kettle and opens a drawer to take out a teaspoon. I note that her arms aren't straying much from a folded, defensive position. In fact, she seems to be doing everything a bit gingerly. "Jade..? Are you… Alright..?"

Two teaspoons of instant coffee go into the mug as the kettle comes to the boil. "Tired and.. sore. I wasn't expecting… Some of that."

"Oh." Um. "Ssorry?" I raise my left hand. "I can-."

"No." She half-turns my way. "No, that's… That's fine."

"Are you sure? Because you don't look fine. Um. Are we far enough into our relationship that I can say that and-?"

"I… Know how I look." She picks up the kettle and pours hot water into her mug, then puts the kettle down and gives the coffee a stir. "I wasn't…" She stops, looking down as she works out what she wants to say. Perhaps… Playing for time, she turns away again and awkwardly bends down to open the fridge door and pull out a small container of milk. She then straightens up and puts it down next to the cooking mug. Only then does she turn to full face me. "I… I didn't think you had much sexual experience. I think I assumed that I'd be taking the lead-."

"Oh, I don't."

She raises her eyebrows slightly. "Really?"

"Any, actually."

Her face falls slightly. "Any?"

"Well… Assuming that you don't count the.. Spider Queen." I nod. "That was my first time having sex. I mean, I'd done research, but-."

"Oh God."

"So..?" I wiggle my head side to side. "How'd I do? I didn't expect to get everything right first time, but I'm always willing to accept feedback."

Jade picks up her mug and holds it up to her nose, breathing in the scent for a moment. She closes her eyes and controls her breathing. "I wasn't expecting the power ring."

"Most people don't. I mean, for most of power ring history there were only Green Lanterns, and the level of mental focus they'd need means it isn't really practical for them to use it like that." Huh. "I mean, there are probably a few-."

"I meant-. I wasn't expecting what you did with it."

"Jade… The spirit is eager, but the flesh is that of a male humanoid. I couldn't have done most of that without-."

"And I don't remember you…" Her eyes widen slightly, not looking at me. "You didn't..?"

"Didn't what?"

She transfers her mug into her left hand and picks up her milk carton in her right. Then she… Twists her wrist so that milk splashes out into the coffee. Then she raises her eyebrows slightly in my direction. Then she spills another splash of milk into the coffee.

Why is sheoh.

"Um. No."

"Oh God."

"You see… You… Sort of..."

"Oh God."

"Stopped… Responding near the end of the second hour-"

She puts mug and milk down and brings her hands to her face. "Oh God."

"-and I don't really know the etiquette, but I thought… Carrying on wasn't really-."

"Oh God."

"Jade." I take a step towards her. "Jade, it's fine."

"Ohhhhh." She semi-flops against my chest as I gently put my arms around her waist. "Uuuugh."

"Too much?"

She takes a couple of breaths with her face against my chest. "Next time, you don't use your rings."

Next time. Which there will be. Good-oh. I nod. "I'm perfectly happy to not use my rings. And.. um… If you don't want me to deal with the… Soreness, with my rings, I have a purple healing ray?"

She manages a somewhat fragile smile. "Not going to offer to kiss it better?"

"My kisses don't have any particular healing properties. I'm happy to try, but… To be honest, that would probably just make the situation worse."

"Mpf." She pulls back slightly, and I release my hold to allow her to pick up her coffee. "Did Mom come by?"

"Sheeeee did."

She takes a sip, watching me over the rim of the mug. She's smiling as she swallows. "You told her I was still asleep, didn't you?"

"Yees, I did. And.. Artemis phoned."

"I wasn't planning on keeping this a secret, Paul. Mom and Artemis both like you. And you certainly weren't my first."

I nod my head to the side. "Anyone I need to worry about?"

"I wasn't with either of them for long." She walks around me and pulls out one of the chairs around the table. "And I haven't thought about them much, either. I suppose they're either dead or in prison after the League of Shadows was shut down. Given how I wasn't picked up, I think they'd probably come after me before you." She puts her mug down on the table and then carefully sits and jumps back to her feet a second later, her buttocks clenched. "I think I'll stand."

"The purple healing ray-." I take it out of subspace and put it down on the table next to her mug. "I'll just leave it here. Use it.. if you want."

She gives me a look of combined amusement and irritation. "Thank you."

"Um. Speaking about your mother… Is there a… Good time to introduce you to…"

She frowns slightly. "Your family?"

"No, my family is on Earth Prime. But there are.. people… I'm close to. Who I'd like you to meet."

"I'm drinking this, taking a shower and then going back to bed. But.. my next day off is next Sunday. I could meet them then?"

I walk up to her and kiss her gently on the forehead. "That would be splendid."

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th September
08:17 GMT -6

I press down on the writhing carapace of the horror beneath me, doing my best to keep my head away from its flailing raptorial forelegs. Perhaps the most disturbing part of this is that rather than chittering or screeching as I'd expected, the abomination is near completely silent as it tries to bring its natural weapons to-.

Gughuh! And it reminds me with a spray of toxic gunk from its spinnerets that it's anything but natural.

I turn to the observation window. "Do you need samples of this as well?!"

Cranius raises Otto's hand to his mouth. "If it is not too much trouble!"

I nod, taking a syringe in my right hand and doing my best to suck up the larger congealing pools. Insectoid Unmen. I have no idea what Arcane was thinking when he made these and frankly I'll be perfectly happy if I never do gain that sort of insight. This poor bastard used to be Corporal Frank Cruz before his disastrous assignment to General Sutherland's research project. Real zombies don't have infectious bites. In fact, they usually won't bite at all, lacking the animating spirit from which normal people derive motivation. These things on the other hand are totally infectious, symbiotic cells in their blood, digestive systems and venom glands straining with all their might to turn any animal they come into contact with into more Insectoid Unmen.

I turn my head aside and spit, a wad of transformed Unphlegm flying from my mouth. It has.. veins growing on it, the mass twitching as it attempts to develop a heart beat. My divine resistance is enough to prevent my body being transformed, but anything else…

I slide the syringe back into my armoured holdall, then take out another. This one is a bit tricky, and there's next to no chance that the creature itself will cooperate. Extreme option, then. I lift my hand from its thorax, braced for it to start writhing again. There's a token wriggle, but I think even its animal intelligence has worked out that it can't throw me from this position. Okay, step two. I slam my fist forward, striking it directly on the vertex. Nothing like a full strength hit, but hopefully… Yes, its eyes aren't focusing on me. I shove the needle into its mouth, piercing its venom gland and sucking a syringeful out.

Okay, done. I activate my aero-discs and rise off its body, forelegs swiping at me instinctively but being harmlessly turned aside by my armour. Well, that was revolting. I send a wave of orange light over myself to burn away any lingering goop. Mother Box, boom tube.

BOOM!

I slide the venom syringe into my satchel as I fly through, shutting the tube down as I land on the observation platform.

Cranius turns around on Otto's shoulders to grin at me. "Excellent work, my boy! Usually taking samples from zhe insectoids takes us weeks and costs us a great deal in equipment."

I unclamp the satchel from my armour and hold it out. "Happy to help, Cranius."

"Unt… You are not suffering any… Ill effects?"

Oh, my mouth is dry. Mother Box?

Ping.

Ring?

No abnormalities detected beyond the usual.

Huh. I think it might be learning bad habits from Sinestro.

"No, none that I can detect."

Otto turns around to face… To chest me and takes the satchel before walking in the direction of the stairs back into the main part of the Uncorporation headquarters. Cranius manoeuvres himself so that he can look back at me as Otto ascends. "I am very glad. You, I zhink, would be an even more troubling specimen zhen zhey are."

"I'd like to think so. What.. do you intend to.. use that for?"

"Eh, a back burner project of mine. I do not zhink zhat reversing zhe effects after zo long would… Be of use to zhose poor unfortunates. But, if anyone were infected in zhe future, possessing a way to arrest zhe changes would be wizhout price."

"And it would serve to improve your understanding of Doctor Arcane's workings."

His face twitches slightly. "Even I would stop short of creating somezhing like zhat."

"Glad to hear it." We leave the insectoid vault proper and step into the airlock, an entirely sensible precaution against airborne toxins and transmutative agents. And people trying to come back through without knowing that they'd been infected. The inner door clanks closed behind us and Cranius hops onto his perch while Otto begins stripping himself of clothing. "And your work more generally?"

"Zhe next round of zhe implantation procedures begins on Wednesday, unt zhen I will be fully occupied with zhe testing." He strums three fingers. "I am… Finding it an adequate replacement for zhe uncreation." He looks me over. "But… Zhis is not a purely social visit, no? You want my answer."

"I want to give you the opportunity to ask any questions so that I could allay any remaining concerns you may have."

"I…" He looks down for a moment. "I will be honest wizh you: I am minded to accept wizhout furzher qualification." He looks up again. "For zhe work you have done for me, for us, and zhe opportunities you have provided for us… I owe you zhis. And I believe zhat it will benefit us to continue zhis relationship. However."

"Yes? Please, any reservations-."

"I have no knowledge of my own expiration date. I could drop dead tomorrow, or… I could still be as I am a century from now. If I am to devote myself fully to zhis great transformative work you would heff me perform… I need to know zhat my people can continue wizhout me. My… Students are capable unt my brozher Crassus is skilled… But zhey do not have my experience, my insight."

"If you need me to go looking for more of Arcane's books..?"

"No." His neck bulges briefly as he passes more air through it, sighing. "At zhis point, zhere is little more a written text could teach me. Razher… Zhere are two.. furzher… People, who might lend zheir efforts to my work. I know where one is unt where zhe ozher was, but zhey are both beyond my reach. If you could get zhem, persuade zhem to come here…." He nods. "Zhen I am your man."

"Alright. Who are they?"

Cranius smiles in satisfaction. "Many of zhose… Zhe papers call 'mad scientists', zheir work has no obvious predecessor. In science, we are always standing on giants' shoulders, but sometimes… Zhat freeze ray you are so fond of. It is contrary to everyzhing in heat physics. Mister Snart read some zhings und zhen 'poof', it just appears in his mind. Arcane… It was nearly zhe same, but! Zhere was one man whose research he sought after and acquired, one man who inspired him."

"Victor Frankenstein."

"Jah. Yes. Frankenstein himself had long since died in zhe arctic circle, unt he destroyed many of his own records… But in his creations lie zhe secrets of his work. Find zhe creature or zhe Bride, unt we will heff zhat. Zhe last record we heff for zhem is zhat zhey worked for zhe American government during zhe Second World War. Your contacts in zhet area are better zhan mine."

Looks like I'm going to have to talk to Katarina again… "Okay, I can probably manage that. Who else?"

"Doctor Arcane had no true friends or peers… But for several years, he had an assistant. An Englishman wizh whom he had a certain… Familiar relationship. He came to us in zhe fifties, stayed for several years. Zhey parted on good terms."

"That… Really?"

"He was a somewhat unusual man himself. His name was Grymleigh Gartside Fiendstein, unt he continued his work after he returned to England. He is currently in zhe special prison underneath zhe Tower of London."

Well, I was planning on overthrowing the British government anyway… "What was he convicted of?"

"Robbery, arson, murder unt gross indecency." I raise my eyebrows slightly. "What? You zhought a friend of Arcane's would be a 'nice man'?"

"Probably not. On the other hand, I doubt that an eighty year old is much of a threat to anyone. Are you sure that he's still alive?"

"No, but his crimes had a certain notoriety unt zhere has been no announcement. I hope."

I nod as the exterior door opens. "I can't make any promises, but I'll see what I can do."

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th September
08:32 GMT -6

Harleen looks at me with considerable scepticism. "You rilly wanna see him?"

I nod. "Yes, I really do."

"'Cause this ain't gunna be like with Kadabra or Tommy an' Tuppy. I don't think this guy's evah gunna change. I mean, I ain't givin' up or nothin'-."

"But he doesn't have the same sort of deep-seated psychological issues as the others, considers mercenary work a career in which he's had considerable success and has multiple life sentences so there's no reason for him to cooperate with prison authorities unless it gets him closer to pulling off an escape."

She looks thoughtful, then nods. "Yeyeah, you pretty much gawt it."

"I don't think I'm going to rehabilitate him either. It's just-" We turn the corner, and I see Warden Waller at the entrance to the interrogation room with a couple of armoured heavies. "-that there's one or two things I need to say to him."

Waller's eyes narrow slightly. "I hope you've got a better reason than that for wanting to talk to Sportsmaster." For a fraction of a second I consider telling her my actual reason. "And don't think I don't know he's your convict girlfriend's father."

"I'm not going to stab him, if that's what you're worried about."

She screws up her face. "What?"

"Warden, Jade hates him. If I helped him in any way, she'd dump me. If I did something that impacted on him adversely, she'd be gratef-." I catch sight of Harleen rhythmically poking the inside of her cheek with her tongue. She stops when she notices me noticing. "Be grateful."

"'least you're not trying to pretend you're not involved with her any more."

"That's a.. recent thing, actually. So… Are you letting me in, or..?"

"You know what I found out about five minutes ago?" Oh dear. "I found out your Justice League permit got cancelled." She looks.. mildly satisfied. "Which means you can't just demand to talk to prisoners whenever you feel like it."

I nod. "That's… True. However, I was under the impression that you.. didn't have a problem with my scheduled visits."

"No, I don't have a problem with your scheduled visits. Prisoners who behave themselves are entitled to those. I have a problem when you turn up and expect to be able to see the most dangerous man in Belle Reve with half an hour's notice."

Most..? Ah, yes. With the power suppression on he probably is. Not just for his physical abilities and combat experience, but for the fact that I'm sure he has every aspect of Belle Reve operation memorised. "I.. can see that I've rather taken advantage of your hospitality, and I apologise." She looks.. mildly less disgruntled. Mildly gruntled? Huh, actually yes, that is the correct usage. "If you'd rather I didn't speak to him, then I can… Just leave. Has he caused you any trouble?"

"He's getting the inmates organised. Watching my guards, recording shift patterns. And we only found out thanks to a random cell check. And unlike the rest of them-."

I nod. "He knows how to fight without super powers. But nothing… Overt?"

"Not yet."

"If it helps, my empathic abilities might give me a clue about what's going on." I smile at her.

"He's trained to resist telepathy."

"Perhaps, but I doubt that he's trained to resist empathy. I won't be reading his mind, I'll be taking a look at his soul. It can be remarkably informative."

She nods. "Okay."

"You know… In future, if you want me to do things for you, you can just ask?"

"I'll bear that in mind." She steps aside, turning to the guards as she does so. "Open it up."

The outer door is armoured -though not to 'Superman-proof' standards- and is designed to resist prolonged assault by someone hopped up on regular Venom. Someone on Venom Buster or the original Blockbuster wouldn't fit in the passageway. I stand still and wait for the heavy metal locking mechanism to clamp into place, then the inner door swings open.

Mister Crock is thoroughly chained to the floor-bolted and welded seat set in the centre of the room. He regards me with mild disinterest, though he does make a point of keeping his eyes constantly trained on mine in an attempt to unnerve me. Fortunately, I can tweak my awareness so that I just register a sort of blur where his eyes are, and as a result the usual instinctive nervous response just doesn't trigger. I could just tweak my brain to achieve a similar result… But I'm still trying to cut down on that sort of thing.

"Good morning, Mister Crock. How have you been?"

There's another seat for the interrogator, as well as a clearly painted 'DO NOT CROSS' line around the prisoner seat. I walk across it, generate a construct chair within arm's reach of him and sit down.

"Biding my time."

"No offence meant, but I am a little surprised they haven't executed you. Given the plethora of capital crimes you've committed."

He graces me with a small smile. "Prove it."

Ring? Oh, seriously? Now I get the whole 'no witnesses' thing. It's not just professionalism, is it? No one alive to bear witness means no one who can be called to the stand to prove you did something. Sure, prosecutors know he was there when people died, but proving he killed any particular person within US jurisdiction… And I doubt Paula's going to give testimony.

Ah, what the heck. Short of a small war, he's not getting out of here before his death anyway. I narrow my eyes slightly and gaze deep inside him. Given the.. green, I suspect that he's doing the whole counter-telepathy mental exercise thing. Not that he'd think I could-. Oh, of course; a telepath in the observation room adjacent to this one would be a risk. Okay, from what I'm seeing he doesn't have a specific escape plan, just a way of keeping everyone organised to take advantage of any opportunities that emerge. Fine, I'll tell Waller.

I take a holocube out of subspace and toss it behind me, blue strobes flashing out as it scans the room and then projects a false image to anyone watching. Next, I have my rings start lying to the electronic monitoring systems.

Mister Crock watches with mild interest. "What, you planning on working me over, kid? You think you're Batman now?"

"Don't be absurd, Mister Crock. I never do anything by half. It's simply that the information that I wish to relay to you is of a personal nature. Jade and I are romantically involved, and no, because I'm sure you're about to make a comment, I'm not asking your permission or anything stupid like that. You see, I don't really care about you one way or the other, but Jade really hates you. So I thought I'd say from the outset, that if you become involved in the life of your natural family -or with me- in any way, I will kill you." He doesn't look impressed. "Nothing exciting; you'll just go to sleep one evening, develop a series of air bubbles in the arteries of your brain and.. not wake up." I shrug, a sociable smile upon my face. "That means your parents, brother, nephews, sister in law, ex-wife and daughters. No communication or skulduggery of any kind."

He looks at me for a moment, apparently as at ease as a man chained to a chair can be. "Do you seriously expect me to believe you'd carry that threat out?"

I raise my right index finger. "I thought you might say that. I thought you might say that." I nod. "You know, I was thinking a little while ago: what Human has killed the largest number of people in history? A lot of people would say Hitler or Stalin, but their-" I shake my head and wave my right hand dismissively. "-governments killed people for them, their armies killed people. I mean, personally. What individual has personally killed the greatest number? If you ignore really long-lived people like Vandal Savage, I reckon until a couple of months ago it was Thomas Ferebee. You know, the man who dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima? That was at least ninety thousand people, plus… The rest of his war record. Sound about right? I mean, there might have been some sort of.. extermination camp operator who really put in the overtime who beats that, but-" I shake my head. "-probably not."

"Now… I'm beating him. I mean, I killed a few people before I left Earth, but it was a handful. That was because Human society is essentially well-ordered. But when I got out-" I gesture towards the ceiling with my right hand. "-into space, I came across places that weren't like that. Murderous rampaging pirates, slavers, and, memorably, a religion that blinded all its womenfolk. So I killed them. Not all; I'm not a professional killer, some of them ran away. But quite a lot. I'm really not sure what my total is… I mean, when you drop a space station on a factory complex, who's counting exactly how many people got crushed? But it's a lot more than ninety thousand."

"Now, I know I'm not going to scare you or intimidate you by saying this. That's.. not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to save your life. Because if you disobey me, I will kill you. I will not feel happy or sad about it, but I will not hesitate, and I will not lose any sleep over it. I will simply consider it necessary and do it." I rise from my chair. "Goodbye, Mister Crock. I hope I never see you again."

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th September
10:13 GMT -5

"…reunion went better than expected?"

I turn the phone handset away from my mouth a little as I sigh, and try to distract myself from the amused tone in Alan's voice by studying the burned out remains of 'Blaze's' on Van Lew Street in the New Troy borough of Metropolis. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the idea that a Demon would want to turn a former church into a nightclub, but I am surprised that a church in a major American city could get so starved of funds that it would sell up like that. Far less surprising was the fact that it got torn apart by people hopped up on Devil Jizz a little over a month ago. Kal-El dealt with the Jizzers before they could destroy much else, but their presence nicely ties it to Satanus.

"It was… Yes. Sorry for not phoning you, but… By the time I knew I wouldn't be heading to-."

"That's fine. I was young once, y' know." A quiet chuckle. "So when do I get to meet her?"

I've got a small team of Praexis Demon constructs going over the site now while Detectives Leocadio and Jase of the Special Crimes Units look on. The owner, 'Angelica Blaze', disappeared in the aftermath and as a result the police's first thought was fraud. Except no one ever claimed on it. Beyond that, their investigation hit a dead end. Oh, they picked up a few conventional drug dealers and users while their investigation went on, but any actual cause for the place being targeted? Nothing. When Ms Blaze didn't reappear they actually upgraded it to a murder investigation, which I most sincerely hope it isn't. The next highest magic user on my list is quite a step down from her.

"Is it alright if I bring her around for dinner on Sunday? Her work schedule is pretty unsociable, but she has a day off and I do want to introduce her to… You."

"I think I can manage one more guest. So do you actually need my spare room, or what?"

"She's.. used to having her own space, she works different hours to me and… I don't want to crowd her. So, yes, please."

"Not a problem. I'll be cleaning up the place today."

"I can.. help with-."

"No, no. This'll give me a chance to learn to use my new ring for regular things. I want to make sure I don't make a fool of myself when we start training for real. So, ah… How'd it go with Batman?"

"I'm doing a job for him now. Once that's done, relations… Normalised. With him, anyway."

"Oh? What's that?"

"The League needs a replacement magic user. I found one yesterday and now I'm trying to find a second."

"Anyone I'd know?"

"Maybe? Did you spend any time in Africa during the Second World War?"

"I spent a couple of weeks in Palestine while they worked out whether they wanted to send me to Italy or Greece, but after what happened to Al Fiske the All-Star Squadron were kind of nervous about sending us to places still being affected by the Spear of Destiny."

Ah, yes. Unlike we comic book readers, the Allies didn't know that the Nazis planned to counter their superheroes with magic. They knew that the Society of Thule existed, but it was common knowledge in government circles at the time that magic was a real thing and the Thulists were only unusual in how well connected they were. And while the fact that people like Captain Falcon, Gougeman and White Eagle were quite happy to work with the Nazis was known, it certainly wasn't unthinkable that they were ideological converts to fascism. Or at least considered Germany less bad than the Soviet Union.

The young Master Man's sudden conversion was what finally clued them in to the fact that something more extreme was going on after his brilliant 'why don't I just run up through Spain and deck Hitler in the snozz' plan came a cropper. Later, they found out that while Franco wasn't quite prepared to declare war on the Allies, he had no objection to High Magister Krieger popping over to Madrid to extend the Spear's influence across Spain. Baron Reiter held Master Man off just long enough for the effect to take hold, and then…

Bloody good job that Rommel wouldn't have anything to do with Thule, otherwise they might have got Doctor Balewa as well. Now there's a scary thought.

"Probably not, then. He's an African chap, about eleven thousand years old. He operates under the name 'Doctor Mist'. I've got no idea what Batman plans to do for an interview process, but he isn't really in a position to be picky."

"Eleven thousand..? However did he manage that?"

"There are ways to extend Human life a great deal. Just look at Savage." Doctor Balewa had white light dancing around inside him in a way vaguely reminiscent of Clarice's strange black and white combination. Whether the Life Entity decided to grant him immortality or whether his own sorcerous abilities were sufficient I don't know.

"Well, sure, but eleven thousand years is a very long time. And Savage isn't a great example of how people should behave. I'd be impressed if someone that old could still get along with normal people."

"I suppose that in eleven thousand years you and I will find out what it's like ourselves."

The phone goes silent.

"Alan?"

"Oh! Sorry, I was just… Two days ago I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the end of the week. Now you're saying I could still be here in eleven thousand years. I can't even imagine what that's going to be like."

"Good show. Novel experiences are supposed to get more infrequent as you get older, so you should be glad that you can't imagine it."

"I'm not… I'm not sure that follows."

"It shows that you've already found something novel, and you've only known about it for a couple of minutes. You have a literal universe of possibilities; more, if we can get a planar portal to work. Don't worry about having something to do."

"Heh, I suppose you're right. Mala.. wanted me to visit Themyscira with her, see what they've done with the place since the prison shut down."

I consider coming back with a witticism along the lines of 'Sounds like I'm not the only one whose reunion went better than expected', but I… I don't really think that's appropriate here. I mean, there's no reason for Alan not to pursue a romantic relationship now, but I suppose that's an adjustment for another year. "I got the impression that they thought pretty highly of you there. I'd appreciate it if you could persuade a few more Amazons to visit the US. I'm trying to encourage them to get more involved in the modern world. Oh, and you noticed that your ring has a universal translator now, right?"

"I-. Huh. Well that explains… So I can talk to them, the ones who don't speak English?"

"Yep." I note that the Praexis Demons have stopped sniffing around in a purposive way and appear to just be trying to look busy. "Okay, time for me to get back to work, I'm afraid."

"Alright, I'll leave you to it. I'll see you this evening."

I close my left hand, dismissing the phone construct. Then I hold out my left arm in the direction of the building site and pull the Praexis Demons back into my ring. A confusing mishmash of images flit through my mind as the memories of what they tasted become mine. Okay, that's what Blaze's magic tastes like.

"You get anything?"

Corporal Jase is noticeably less fazed by what I did than his partner, who's trying to hide her expression of disturbed surprise.

"Not much yet." I rise slightly into the air. "I'll let you know what I find."

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th September
11:45 GMT -5

Ah, looks like my complete lack of respect for privacy has paid off again. Ms Blaze might have been able to conceal the link between 'Angelica Blaze' and other public faces of the sort that a demonic magic user would find it easy to set up, but in a wave of ring-based forensic accountancy and CCTV checking I can see people who had been leaving traces of themselves suddenly stop at the moment her club was destroyed. Some I can account for as employees, but I suspect that some-.

"Orange Lantern." I open my eyes to be greeted by the sight of Kal-El floating a couple of metres in front of me. We're a couple of miles above Metropolis here, clouds obscuring us from the ground below. "Captain Sawyer told me you were looking into the attack on Blaze's nightclub. Anything I should know about?"

Hm. While I think I know which camp he fits into on the Nabu matter, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that he'll have something useful to contribute. "Good morning, Kal-El. And that depends; are you wearing your ward?"

"Yes." He taps one of his belt pouches with his right hand. "That came in pretty handy when the attack happened."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"You think Satanus is behind it?"

"Almost certainly. I forget: do you have a go-to person for magic related things, or do you just fall back on your own abilities?"

"Not a lot of wizards in Metropolis. But, no, I don't."

I nod, then take a hologram generator out of subspace. "Did you mention the case to Captain Marvel?"

"Not that I remember."

"Exhibit one." I generate a hologram of the woman the police are looking for. "Angelica Blaze, surprisingly wealthy small business owner and Metropolis resident for at least eight years. Exhibit two-" A second image joins the first. "-Blaze, daughter of Jebediah of Canaan, aka the wizard Shazam, and a Succubus whose name I don't know. Given the demonic magic my Praexis Demons tasted on what's left of her club and the fact that Satanus is her brother, I believe that the two are one and the same person."

Kal-El considers the images for a moment. "Seems a bit much for sibling rivalry. Are you sure they're the same person?"

"Not completely. Ideally, I'd check an artefact that I knew for certain was infused with power by Blaze and compare the two. Unfortunately, my demonic magic contact has gone to ground, and the only person I know who knew Blaze socially is busy running a country. And confirming that won't help me track her down; finding Angelica Blaze is an end in itself."

He nods. "So what's your next step?"

"Data analysis suggests that she was using a number of aliases while in Metropolis. I was planning on checking whether any of them turned up anywhere else, but… Five different plane tickets, all seats occupied by women who vanished shortly after arriving at their destinations. Which probably means that none of them were her. So…" So I should have brought Doctor Balewa with me so he can track her. "I either need to search out every trace of demonic magic on the planet, or…" Huh. Well, I did need to see them anyway. "Or I get someone to summon a Succubus, bribe her to tell me who Blaze's mother is, summon her-."

"I don't think that summoning Demons is such a good idea."

"Okay, well, I only know of one Succubus who's out in the wild, and I sort of lost track of her after we turned her into a Love Elemental."

He smiles, ducking his head slightly. "You know, if you were anyone else, I'd say you were spinning a tale. How did you pull that one off?"

"The Star Sapphire. Then… We could just ask Jebediah. I'm sure he'd remember, but he might not want to talk to me about it."

"Or we could do both. Why don't you talk to Zatanna once she gets out of school while I talk to Shazam?"

I think for a moment. "Because Batman set me the task, and I'm not sure if using League resources invalidates the challenge or not."

Kal-El folds his arms across his 'S'. "This crime happened in my city. I think I'm allowed to investigate it."

"Okay, well… Good luck with Jebediah. I'll try tracking Chantinelle down myself, see if I can get it done before the end of school. I'd go with you, but I doubt being seen in my company would help you plead your case."

He nods. "That's probably true." He begins floating backwards, waving with his right hand as he goes. "Good luck!"

Hm. Luck. Alright, not really sure what a Love Elemental looks like or if her copy of the wards tattooed on my skin would defeat my empathic vision, but I'll try most things once. I open up my empathic vision all the way and look out across the world. U-uh. Yeah, there's no way I'm going to be able to find her like this. If I can see her then I doubt that I'd be able to pick her out from more than a few miles away. I could try a few places at random just in case, but… No, hang on, she said that she was going to go and fix broken relationships. And she mentioned Danita Wright, the woman John was involved with. A relationship she ended by getting in bed with John shortly before Ms Wright arrived back in their home while John was asleep.

Ring, where does Danita Wright work now?

Danita Wright is currently employed by the Roche City Gazette.

Right. Marvellous. Present location..? Ah, nowhere near the Hawks or their residence, good. And transition.

13th September
10:48 GMT -6

I ignore the starts and gasps around me as I appear next to Ms Wright's desk. "Excuse me, Ms Wright?"

She keeps looking at her monitor for a moment. "Missus Daniels actually. What is-" She turns towards me. "-it Orange Lantern?"

"Yes. I'm trying to track down an acquaintance of mine, and I believe that she might have made contact with you. Bat wings, glowing violet, name of Chantinelle? You once walked in on her in bed with John Con-."

"Constantine." Her jaw tightens. "Yes, I know who you mean. She came to see me months ago, but I haven't seen her since. I thought she was some crazy woman. And.. that was years ago. Why, who was she?"

"She was a Succubus turned Love-Elemental. I'm trying to track her down. I don't suppose she told you where she was going, did she?"

"What? No." Missus Daniels shakes her head. "She.. told me she posed John just so I'd break up with him and that she was.. really sorry about it. Was that true?"

"Yes. They'd had a professional falling out and she was trying to alienate all of his friends. John's done a lot of dodgy things, but he didn't cheat on you." I consider that for a moment. "To the best of my knowledge."

"Oh." She frowns as she thinks about that. "I.. probably owe him an apology."

"I'd be happy to relay it to him just as soon as I see him. Excuse me."

Sigh. Indiana it is, then.

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th September
12:25 GMT -5

I step around the custard smooshed across the pavement and the overweight man being swarmed by squirrels, then push my way through the cluster of rubberneckers watching through the bar's doorway and into the bar itself. My target is facing the bar, shoulders hunched as he nurses his whiskey.

"Excuse me." I stride across the intervening space as the chittering from outside reaches a crescendo. "I'm looking for Ambrose Bierce?"

"Ambrose Bierce?!" He wheels around none too steadily, glaring at me from under a messy mop of blonde hair that Boris Johnson would envy and.. probably attempt to emulate. "That clown?! You impertinent-." He cuts himself off and blinks. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

His diction's better than John's, that's for certain. The cigarettes in the ash tray next to him are roll your owns, rather than Silk Cuts, his coat is a little shorter and his face… They don't look anything alike.

"I said: I'm looking for Ambrose Bierce?"

"Ooooh, right. Sorry, got into a bit of a habit, there. What is it you want?"

"Selina told me you were the man to talk to about street level magic."

"Selin-? Catwoman?"

"Yes? She's a friend of mine. Can I..-" I point to his drink as I take a seat next to him. "-get you a top up while we talk?"

He nods. "Don't mind if you do."

I wave my right hand at the barwoman, then point it at Mr Bierce. "Whatever he's drinking?"

"I'm a bit surprised, you coming to me. I thought you were connected to the Atlanteans."

"I was. Then I royally pissed off King Orin and left the planet for two months." The barwoman puts a new whiskey down in front of Mr Bierce, and I pass her a twenty dollar bill. "Besides, they need a royal warrant to study Demons without it being a death penalty offence."

"You're connected to the Justice League, aren't you? What about Zatara? I heard he came off his leave of absence a couple of months ago."

I raise my eyebrows. "Are you interested in buying a bridge?"

He nods. "Thought it might be something like that." Then he turns in his seat to face me, looking at me sceptically as he does so. "And you didn't-?" He cuts himself off. "No. You know what?" He takes a sip of his whiskey. "I'm not questioning it. What can I do for you?"

"A while ago I and.. a couple of friends turned a Succubus by the name of Chantinelle into a Love Elemental. Now I'd like to track her down. Unfortunately, she's totally immune to scrying. And multifunction power ring scans. So it's a bit tricky." He looks at me in incredulous astonishment, his cigarette drooping and then falling from his open mouth. "Failing that, I need to know who Blaze's mother is."

"'Blaze' being..?"

"You remember when the Hawks and I fought a large Demon in front of the Hall of Justice?" He nods. "That was Satanus. His sister. He's attacking her holdings and I'd like to find her before he does."

He frowns. "Demons only have siblings metaphorically."

"Yeah, I was thinking about that. What happens if a Succubus possesses a Human woman, gets pregnant, then returns bodily to hell for the pregnancy and delivery?"

"Fucked if I know."

"I mean, they wouldn't be able to build a soul out of Earthly magics like happens with normal foetuses. So if they developed at all-."

He stares off into the distance as he thinks it through. "No, you're right. All that's left is Hell magic. Huh. Obvious, when you think about it. So she's a Human with a Demon for a soul who's also her."

"Just a working hypothesis. Superman's going to try and talk to her father, but I'd like to find out where she is before he does."

He frowns. "So what's Chantinelle got to do with any of that?"

"She's the only Succubus I know who might know the information I want and be prepared to give it to me."

"But you don't need-need her."

"No. Just Blaze. She's in hiding, and her scry defences won't be as good as Chantinelle's. But they're probably more aggressive."

"Well, standard thing there is to get something they own and use that to scry for them."

"I can get anything she left in Metropolis when she fled out of the police's evidence locker. I also had my Praexis Demons sniff around the remains of her club and I'm pretty sure I've got her magic resonance pattern."

"Whaw. You're a lot better prepared than most people who come to me with stuff like this." He knocks back what's left of his first whiskey and picks up the second. "So, you just need me to do a bit of scrying for you, is that it?"

"I was sort of hoping that you might have a lead on Chantinelle's location, but if you think that's the best approach… Yes."

"A bunch of people I usually use for that sort of thing went a bit peculiar recently. Divination pendulums spinning three sixty, flames made of water, dog and cats living together, rains of cheese, the Black Squirrel being seen as far afield as Luton…" Another sip. "It's going to be a while before they've got anything sensible to say for themselves."

I frown. "That sounds like something that should concern me. When did it start?"

"Beginning of July, actually. Something big happened, and the.. shockwaves are still radiating out around Earth's magic systems. I'd guessed it was something to do with the Justice league fighting that Titan, but-" He leans slightly closer to me. "-I can see from your face it was you. So what happened?"

"I'm afraid it would invalidate assurances I've given to various people if I were to tell you. The best I can do is to say that large amounts of order and chaos magic found themselves in the same place."

"Because the Chinese got Klarion, and… No one's seen Doctor Fate-"

"Nabu."

"-for a couple of…" He looks at me, downs his whiskey and then slams his glass down, coughing and wheezing. "A-grrah. Okay. Decided I don't want to know about that either." He flops back slightly on his stool. "At least I know that's all above John bloody Constantine's level as well." He looks at my face for a moment. "Oh, fuck off."

"Sorry."

He sags further. "Don't know why I'm surprised. So why isn't he helping you with this?"

"He's indisposed."

"Dead?"

"Indisposed."

"Dead's pretty bloody indisposed. Though if anyone could weasel out of it…" He gets up and straightens his coat. "Alright then, your place or mine?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th September
16:11 GMT -2

"Recognised, Orange Lantern, Ambrose Bierce."

"Welcome to Ice Fortress Two. Sorry about the dust."

Mister Bierce looks around a little uncomfortably as he follows me along the corridor, hands wedged into his pockets. "What dust?"

"Any dust the Russian secret services might have tramped in while I was away. I have cleaning robots, but none of them have rug-shampooing attachments."

"R..ight. Have you got some sort of ritual room in here, then?"

"No." I take a left turn and head towards the exterior access hatch. No frozen bodies, that's a good sign. "Most of the interior space is given over to flight, power generation and cold guns. Then you add in computers, environmental controls and living quarters, and there really wasn't space for it."

"So whereabouts were you expecting me to do the scrying?"

"The South Atlantic." I send a signal to the Fortress's computer, and the power to the anti-gravity system increases to push us higher into the air. "We can use the cold guns to draw out the symbols on the ocean in ice. That would work, right? Doing it on the ocean isn't a problem?"

"The ocean? No, of course there's no problem using magic on the ocean." He sniffs. "Fire magic, maybe. Scrying? Might even make it easier."

"Might?"

"Probably will. I don't really know. For some reason it doesn't come up very much. What sort of precision can those freeze rays do?"

"Fine as a Human hair, wide as you want. Do you think freezing an area would be better, or just leave it liquid and draw on top of it?"

"Did you do this sort of thing with John?"

"What, this specifically?" The inner hatch closes behind us, clanking sealed just before the outer hatch swings open. "No, as far as I know you'll be the first person to do this."

I stride out onto the observation deck, Mister Bierce hesitating slightly before following me. Rain lashes the defence screen around us, granting us a wonderful view of the interior of the storm while leaving us dry enough to appreciate it.

"Bloody hellfire."

"Let's hope not." Another mental command and the cold guns deploy from the dorsal surface of the Fortress. A flicking gesture with my left hand and a swarm of Praexis Demons fly outwards, passing through momentarily-appearing holes in the screen to take position over the ocean. "Now, if I remember correctly, a scrying diagram should look like-" I take a datapad out of subspace and copy out a standard Atlantean diagram. "-this."

"Errr… Basically. Can I just-? Right."

"There's a stylus on the side, and it's got a built-in inscription-assistance tool."

"Nifty."

Lances of blue-white light flash out from beneath us, rain converting to hail as they punch through the storm and strike the ocean surface below us. Mister Bierce's eyes flare and he starts stabbing the pad with the stylus in an effort to-. "That wasn't you. I'm just-"

"Oh. Right."

"-drawing the outer circle."

"You know what her father's strongest magical influence was?"

"Order. Probably.. followed by divinity?"

"What, was he an angel or something?"

"No, he was blessed by a prehistoric pantheon, then became a Lord of Order. I.. don't know the names of the gods involved."

"No, that's fine. Order's simple enough. I'm going with 'order', 'hell' and 'mankind' as the three strongest magic influences. Father, Mother and-.

"Holy Spirit?"

"Heh. Probably not. But the correspondence might help. Lesser influences… Fire, Demons, conflict… Mystic squiggles…"

"You can leave those out. I'm not a tourist."

"They help me, alright? Here." He passes the pad back.

Uum, yeah, looks like something that should work. "Are you sure you can make this work?"

"How badly would it mess up the planet's weather if I didn't?"

"A tiny bit, if I didn't fix it first. Which I will." Ah… "Unless Blaze's countermeasures do something to it, but that's what I've got mage slayers for." He raises his eyebrows as I send the complete design to the targeting computers before putting the pad back into subspace. I take a round out of subspace and hold it out to him. "Built in magic draining enchantment fired from a railgun." He nods uncertainly. I'm.. going to have to dump a lot of information on him to bring him up to speed if I'm going to use him again. Probably worth doing just in case…

I wave my right hand, a construct appearing on the ground at our feet displaying the progress being made by the cold guns. "Do you want cash for this, or would you prefer payment in kind? I've built up quite a library of Atlantean arcana, the Complete Annotated Book of Truth…"

"Ten large, a couple of books of basic Atlantean stuff and a phone number."

"Not that you're unattractive-" He is unattractive. "-but I'm already seeing someone."

He rolls his eyes. "Another thing that separates me from John is that I'm straight. But I can't have a working relationship with someone I can't contact."

"Alright, done. And…" The symbol below us completes. "Done."

"Alright." Mister Bierce shakes himself out, rubs his hands together and then closes his eyes. "This will take a minute or two. I'll be able to get you range and direction, maybe a mental image of the place."

"Go for it."

I nod, then form a construct seat and sit down. Depending on the defences being employed, this may well not take all that long. The Ice Fortress itself has basic wards in case of counter-scrying attempts… I bring the exterior defence cold guns online and generate some point defence constructs. Targeted summoning is a perfectly viable counterattack tactic for-.

A sheet of flame explodes over the exterior defence screen, blood red and purple flames biting into the super stable plasma making it up! The screen fails in a couple of places and I immediately fire mage slayers at the fire, punching holes in it and beating it back.

"GGGGGRAAAAAHHH!" Mister Bierce staggers, blood dripping from between his closed eyelids and down his cheeks. "Got her! Got the bitch! North East! Eight thousand miles, North Africa somewhere!"

Oh dear. "Hold still."

"It's one of those 'struck blind' curses." He waves his right hand and blinks-. His eyes are ruins. "They usually wear off after a day or two. Don't worry about it."

"Right. Let's.. see if I can't take a little off that." Orange light shines from my rings… Ah, good, no resistance. His eyeballs reappear and I clean the blood from his cheeks as an added bonus. "There we go."

He blinks, looks around and then nods. "Thanks. So, I reckon… Israel… Maybe Libya?"

"Or Kahndaq."

"Yeah, could be. I got a pretty good feeling for the place. When we get a bit closer, I'll be able to direct you."

"No, I mean… I think I know where she is."

He looks annoyed for a moment, then puts his hands in his pockets and shrugs. "Whatever. I'm getting paid either way." He frowns slightly. "Right?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th September
20:19 GMT +2

Mister Bierce staggers as we appear on the rock near to the dig site where -at the end of April- we created the Ace of Chaos. Churned earth around us marks the passage of military vehicles, and the khaki tents and sandbag walls set up around the main temple clearly demonstrate the site's new function.

"Bloody hell."

"Oh, don't worry. I'm a national hero. They won't shoot me."

"No, I mean…" He raises his hands to his face and drags them downwards. "What we just did to get here. What does it do?"

"Transfers most of everything about us to the Plane of Avarice then moves a.. sort of.. marker in the material universe from point A to point B before bringing us back in." I frown curiously. "You shouldn't really have experienced anything."

"Listen, buddy. I'm a magician. That means I'm a bit sensitive to what the world around me is doing, and when I get a sudden mix of where we were and where we are and just a hint of where we were between, it puts me off my stroke a bit."

"Ah. Sorry." I consider that for a moment. "I wondered why John mostly wanted me to use zeta tubes. He didn't say anything-."

He crosses his arms and turns his nose up slightly. "I could cover it up just as well as he can. I just didn't, alright?"

"Hey, it's useful to know. Could save a valuable few seconds somewhere along the line." I point my right index finger at the encampment. "Is that the place?"

He bends his neck, peering in that direction. "Yep. Unless they've been very clever, she's in there. And that felt more like a 'kill 'em all' defense than a 'clever deflection' defense."

"I tend to agree. And I-."

There's an almighty whoosh of air as Teth Adom lands at speed in front of us. Mister Bierce gets a momentary curious glance before being dismissed. I on the other hand get a genuine smile. "Orange Lantern. It is good to see you again, but I fear that you have come at an inopportune time. The wards protecting the former temple were overcome moments ago by sorcerers loyal to Satanus. Even now, his-."

"Ah." I raise my right hand. "Sorry, no. Unless there's been a really weird timing coincidence, that was us."

He now gives Mister Bierce a somewhat harder look. "I did not know that Constantine had a brother, particularly not one who shared his vocation."

"He doesn't." Mister Bierce takes a couple of steps towards him. "We don't even look that similar."

"John strangled his brother in the womb, and his sister avoids magic like the plague."

"Still, it seems strange to me that you were able to find a magician who looks so similar and was powerful enough to disrupt my wards."

"We used a scrying diagram a few miles across. Once Mister Bierce connected it to the world's magic systems, it could build up far more power than a small chalk drawing. The system doesn't actually require the caster to be particularly powerful."

Mister Bierce glances at me as he pulls a packet of tobacco out of his coat pocket. "Oh, thanks."

Teth Adom's expression grows a little vacant for a moment, then he nods. "Yes, Lord Zehuti say that is possible. But why did you do that? Do you know whom it is that I have given my protection?"

"Angelica Blaze, aka Blaze, daughter of Jebediah of Canaan, aka the wizard Shazam. I want a word with her. I didn't know in advance that she was here, and if I have offended Lord Zehuti by harming his temple then I apologise and will make recompense."

Adom bows his head slightly, then.. pulls a radio from a pouch on his right leg. That's new. "Captain, stand down. The Demons are not coming quite yet."

"Understood, Mighty One."

Adom lowers the radio. "Why do you wish to speak with Blaze? I am not.. unaware of the crimes she has committed, but I have offered her sanctuary. If there is any threat to her, I must answer it."

"With Nabu gone, the League need new magic users. She was my second choice."

Adom looks doubtful. "I protect her in memory of our friendship during my first life. It would surprise me if the League were willing to overlook her corrupting and binding men's souls."

"Yes, so she'll need to give that up… Could I please have this conversation with her, face to face? I swear that I will not attempt to compel her."

Adom gives me a shallow nod, then turns away to fly towards the entrance of the temple. I stick a flight aura around Mister Bierce and fly us both after him. As we pass over the camp I see soldiers glowing with relief that they're not about to have to fight Demons as they fall out, leaving the barricades to the sentries as they head back to their tents. Mister Bierce looks around at everything, taking the whole place in without showing particular interest in any one thing. The scaffolding around the entrance wasn't here last time, and I think that more of the structure has been dug out.

Adom drops to just above ground level, nodding to the saluting soldiers before flying inside. The soldiers then.. salute me. Ah. I come to attention in mid-air and salute back before flying after Adom, and Mister Bierce throws a jaunty salute of his own at them as we pass.

"Is he here?"

"No. It was the Orange Lantern, and his new serf-wizard."

"Serf-wizard?!"

"Do you want Blaze to take more notice of you?"

For a moment, it looks a bit like he does. Then he shakes his head. "Fine, serf it is."

I bring us to ground level, then stride towards the inner sanctum. Blaze shrinks back behind Adom as she sees me. She's.. actually not all that impressive in person. Skinny, short, and.. frankly emaciated. Even her clearly underwear-free semi-robe.. thing doesn't make her look appealing, just… Wrong. Ill, frankly. And the horns sticking out of her forehead are far too large to be aesthetically appealing. Now Melinoë, there's a woman who can pull off horns.

"Ms Blaze, a pleasure to meet you. Sorry about the wards."

She straightens slightly, and… Hah, that wasn't even enough to warm up my spell eater. "Lantern."

"I have an offer for you. Hah." I bow my head slightly. "Novel as I imagine that it is for you to be on that side of this conversation, I really do suggest that you accept."

She looks like she finds the very idea distasteful. "What is it?"

"Your brother… I assume you're hiding from him, and that he is the one responsible for the attacks on your holdings?" She nods. "Your brother has joined a supervillain alliance called 'The Light'. I don't like them very much. And neither does the Justice League. The League needs expert magic users, and… You are that. Having someone capable of countering him would be useful."

She nods. "I could be quite usef-."

"The problem is, you can't." I had enough of that with Nabu the Klarion non-counter. "If you could stand up to him, you wouldn't be in this situation. You couldn't do it when you had all your infrastructure… You certainly can't do it now. Besides." I shake my head. "There's no way the Justice League could take a Demon."

Her eyes narrow and her voice deadens. "Did you come here simply to mock me? Why are you here?"

I lean forward, hands clasped at my chest. "Have you ever tried… Not being a Demon?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th September
20:24 GMT +2

She actually twitches, then throws an accusing glance at Adom. His expression remains impassive. "Yes. And as much as I enjoyed being weak and powerless, I'd rather take my chances with Satanus-" She pronounces it the normal way. "-than become totally dependent on your good will."

"Ah, good; you don't need to corrupt souls to live, then."

"Heah. No, just to live for any length of time."

O-kay. I didn't know that was why she did it, but it was a reasonable suspicion. And one that works in my favour. "I ran into a Succubus called Chantinelle a little while ago, and she confirmed something I'd heard about Demons, but.. wasn't sure about. That they care about power but don't much care what form that power takes. She gladly accepted us turning her from a Demon of middle rank to a more powerful Elemental, even knowing that doing so would change her outlook quite considerably. But… You're Human as well." I smile. "And I know we Humans can be stubborn, spiteful bastards."

She regards me cautiously. "You want to offer me power of another sort?"

"The Justice League could not take a Demon. They need someone who can hard-counter Satanus when he's the de facto ruler of Hell. Other than conquering Hell for you, there's nothing I can do to make you that powerful using your current power source. And if I could conquer Hell-" Within a reasonable timeframe. "-then I wouldn't need you."

"The only power that would allow me to so completely defeat my brother would be that of the Silver City."

"Correct."

She rolls her eyes. "Foolish Human, they would never accept me."

I nod. "True. I doubt they'd accept me, and I'm far nicer than you are. But…"

I take an Angel feather round out of subspace and toss it to Adom. Blaze snatches it out of the air with her right hand before it reaches him- "Gaagh!" -and drops it at once, her hand visibly smoking. She glares at me, nursing her hand and crouching as if to lunge.

"I threw that to Teth Adom. If you caught it-" She grimaces, but calms herself. "-you've only yourself to blame."

Adom bends slightly and picks the round up. "This is what you used in Fawcett City."

"Yep. I try to keep them in reserve; Demons are the only target they excel against."

"Angel magic." Blaze takes a deep breath. "Powerful Angel magic. How did you come by it?"

"I'm friends with John Constantine. All sorts of things happen when he's around." She nods, rolling her eyes. "A few years ago, he went to an Angel to beg for healing. He had lung cancer, and that's a nasty way to die. The Angel told him that he was getting what he deserved, which… Wasn't a very New Testament attitude. So John remembered that, and when he thought that he could benefit from having an Angel on-call… The Angel in question had a bit of an accident involving a Succubus and a chainsaw."

"Gabriel."

"Unfortunately, John isn't quite as clever as he thinks he is. The First tracked down Gabriel's heart and destroyed it, sending him to Hell." I smile. "Minus…"

Her eyes widen slightly. "His wings."

"Yep. Want them?" I attach a filament to the round Adom's holding and send it back into subspace. "They're still.. sort of alive, and I've only taken a couple of feathers for my ammunition. The League couldn't take a Demon…"

"But they could take an Angel. Is that even possible?"

"My.. somewhat hazy knowledge of thaumaturgy says 'yes'. You would have to weaken your demonic aspect as much as possible, but your-" I smile. "-Human aspect was after all 'made in God's image'. We know that Humans can use divine theurgy. We just have to work out how to replace the structures of your soul with a form of energy that's totally hostile to what's there now. Assuming you're up for it."

She gazes off into the distance. "I would gain Gabriel's power."

"Possibly. At least some of it."

Her eyes narrow at me. "Why? Why would you offer this to me?"

"I square things with Batman, the League gets a magic user who can reliably trump Satanus, you become safe… And all those souls you have bound to your little demi-Hell get to leave, because there's no way you'll be able to combine those energies. And we get everything you know about Satanus." I nod my head to the side. "Or… Something goes wrong, you die and a thoroughly repugnant woman is expunged from the world. " I smile. "So I come out ahead whatever happens. Really, I've got no reason not to make this offer."

"I could turn you down."

"Enjoy living in this room for the rest of your natural life. Because while I'm sure Teth Adom is willing to shelter you, I doubt that he'll feed you the souls you'd need to become strong enough to be safe under your own power."

Adom looks at her sternly. "You are correct in that assumption."

"And Satanus -and his allies- probably are going to get stronger. Good as this temple's defences are-"

Mister Bierce smirks. "Were."

"-they aren't perfect and Satanus will work out a way around them eventually. I did, and I can't even use magic myself. So you've got a decidedly limited amount of time to make a decision, and… Only one realistic option."

"Throw myself upon the mercy of the Justice League."

"Whether they accept you or not, the wings would give you the power to resist Satanus. And I don't need them to approve me giving you the wings."

She looks down as she considers. "Adom? Do you trust him?"

"Yes. Orange Lantern has a particular relationship with the concept of greed. He would not make you this offer if he did not believe that it would serve everyone's interests. And to Lord Zehuti's ears… It is a good trade for you."

She pauses for a couple of breaths, then raises her head. "Then I accept. How soon may we begin?"

"Working out exactly how to attach the wings to you will probably take a while. That's why I brought Mister Bierce with me. If the two of you can't work it out together, you can tell me what extra resources you need and I can procure them."

She nods, then fixes her eyes on me. "Do you have somewhere to hide me while we study how to perform the.. attachment?"

13th September
15:33 GMT -5

"Recognised, Orange Lantern, B Zero Six, Angelica Blaze, A Four Three."

I grin at my friends, my arms spread wide as I walk across the Mountain's training area to embrace them. "Guess who's baaaaaack?!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Converse

13th September
15:34 GMT -5

"Identification confirmed."

Kon's face lights up even as he charges across the intervening space and matches my embrace, nearly knocking me off my feet as we come together. "Yeah, hello Kon."

He lets me go and backs up a pace, still beaming. "Two months, you didn't call once!"

"How was I supposed to do that?"

"What, they don't have phones in outer space?"

"Not ones that reach Earth, no. And I knew Guy wasn't here and I didn't want Alan wasting charge with personal messages."

He huffs theatrically. "Fine, but you gotta tell us everything that happened."

"Of course! With a power ring I don't even need slides!" Might… Leave out some of the mass-killing…

Kon nods and steps to the side as Kaldur approaches. "It is good to see you again." He offers me his right hand.

Ah, heck. I ignore it, step forward and hug him too. He stiffens a little, then with a quiet laugh decides to just go with it, letting go the moment I do.

**And M'gann! Hello to you-** She drifts through the air, puts her hands on my shoulders and kisses me lightly on the left cheek. **-as well. And -deadly serious- whatever you do, don't try looking into Ms Blaze's mind.**

**Ah, okay, but why?**

"Angelica." Kaldur offers Blaze his hand, and she politely shakes it exactly once. "Welcome to Mount Justice."

Canis looks mildly interested. "Have you brought us a new team mate already?"

"No, he most certainly has not." Yes, she might have picked her current visage in order to fit in with a group of teenagers, but it looks like her attitude hasn't changed at all. That could make this more awkward than it has to be. "I will be joining the Justice League to replace Doctor Fate. I will simply be staying here-."

"Because it's warded and the Light is trying to kill her."

"Barely warded." She grimaces. "If I can feel the greenery outside already. Do you really think this place can keep me safe?"

Kaldur takes her attitude in stride. "There is a grove of trees on top of the mountain tended by a Dryad. By combining her green magic and the Mountain's wards, other arcane signatures are made harder to detect than they would be by warding alone."

Canis sniffs. "And if you are to join the Justice League, should you not be able to defend yourself?"

"She's going to have some work done. We-."

Her eyes literally flame for a moment as she looks Kaldur over, then she turns her attention to me. "Please tell me that you've got someone more highly skilled than an adolescent Atlantean warrior."

Canis' hand goes to his mega rod. "I do not appreciate your attitude." "Welcome to the pack, omega."

I hold out my right palm in his direction. "Cranius isn't returning my calls, but I'd be happy to hire the most skilled biomancers in Atlantis for you. Otherwise, Kal-El was going to have a word with your father, and this may be the first thing that you've ever done that he'd actually approve of."

Kaldur raises his eyebrows at me. "Why would you wish to employ biomancers?"

I grin more than a little manically as I float the large case I brought with me forwards. Oh, hang on… "Is Zatanna here?"

Kon shakes his head. "No, she-."

"Paul." M'gann mock-scowls. "Haven't you gone to see her yet?"

"I was… Tomorrow?" M'gann looks unimpressed. "I went to see Alan, then Diana, then Batman had a job for me…"

M'gann smiles as her hands go to her hips. "And then Jade."

"Oh, you.. know about that?"

Kon nods. "Artemis called to tell us. I don't think she really believes it's happening."

I raise my hands in protest. "I wasn't that b-."

"This box feels strange." Canis is holding his hands over the case, frowning. "I feel a.. certain presence…"

I walk around the case and take hold of the lid. "No one tell Zatanna I've got these."

I crack the lid slightly, and Kaldur's already recoiling. Yeah, I can't feel a thing but for a magic-user these things do rather stand out. As I open it fully Canis frowns with curiosity, M'gann gasps and covers her mouth with her right hand and Kon makes an expression of intense distaste.

A pair of brilliant white wings lies inside the case, thin trails of silver blood dripping from the severed end of each. Canis dips his right fore and middle fingers into the small pool they've made and then brings them to his nose, sniffing them and then licking them clean.

"No one here's Christian, right?"

Kaldur blinks. "You mean to say..?"

"Gabriel doesn't need them where he is." I close the case. "Is the arcane laboratory still where I left it?"

"Yes, but I.. do not believe we have the facilities for attaching an Angel's wings to someone."

"Proper storage of reagents, Kaldur."

"I am unsure as to whether any Atlantean would be able to perform such a procedure. We do not commonly involve ourselves in the affairs of Angels."

M'gann moves her hand a little away from her mouth. "What.. happened to their.. owner?"

"The First of the Fallen crushed his heart and sent him to Hell." I frown. "Wait, why is this a surprise? Where did you think I was getting my Angel feather rounds from?"

"A single feather? Not… Two whole.. wings…"

"The metal for the Ace of Winchesters, then. And I'm sure that if Gabriel knew we were using them as weapons against Demons, he'd feel slightly better about the whole thing."

Very slightly.

Kon doesn't look much happier. "Batman was okay with this?"

"With letting Angelica stay here? Yes. I didn't ask him about all of the specifics. But the League needs a Satanus-counter, and we're-" I smile at Blaze. "-going to make one for him."

Kaldur nods. "That would be strategically beneficial. And -given your history- he could not honestly claim to be surprised that you were prepared to use extreme methods."

"No." I turn away and head towards the corridor towards the laboratory. "'Extreme' would have been killing Gabriel myself. This is just making good use of available resources." I turn my head back in their direction. "Look, I'll drop this off and get Blaze situated, then we can all catch up. Oh, and Kon? Do you have any plans for tomorrow after school?"

"Ah… No? Why?"

"I've sorted things out with Diana and Batman, but I still need to square things with Kal-El. And the one thing I know he likes is Kryptonian memorabilia, so I thought that the two of us could take a trip to the Rao system and see if there was anything to pick up. Sound like fun?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th September
16:02 GMT -5

"Hey guys, what's-?" Wallace cuts himself off as soon as he sees first the Spider Queen hologram and then me. I wave. "Hey, Oh El. This some sorta space bug you fought when you were off on your adventure?"

Kon and M'gann are still trying to suppress their giggles, and even Kaldur seems to be having trouble keeping a straight face. Canis, on the other hand-.

"She is the Queen of the Spider Guild sept closest to Vega. Orange Lantern manually pleasured her during negotiations."

Wallace stops dead, staring at Canis as Kon and M'gann start laughing again. "Wha..?"

I smile ruefully. "Could you tell the difference between a macroarachnid's spiracles and a macroarachnid's genital openings?"

A growing look of horror appears on his face. "Ah-h…"

"Because I can now."

There's a quiet chuckle from Kaldur as Wallace walks past the hologram, taking a subtle look at places where I think he assumes either the spiracle or the spider vagina might be. He shudders slightly as he turns around to sit in the chair on the far side of the living area. "So how far you got?"

"My first couple of days in Vega. A group of local warlords were having a peace summit and a paramilitary group were going to disrupt it."

"Warlords were having a peace summit?"

"You don't stay a warlord by fighting an unprofitable war. And the group fighting the Spider Guild didn't like each other any more than they liked the Guild."

"Okay, peace good. So you had to stop the terrorists?"

"I ended up doing that, yes. But I would… Er… I suppose that the Omega Men are terrorists, but… It's a pretty unpleasant region of space. The Omega Men wanted to overthrow the Citadel Empire and chose to try and do so by weakening its allies. The Citadel Empire is… Was violent, domineering and enslaved entire worlds."

"So… It worked?"

"No, it was a total failure. A lot of people died in the crossfire but neither the warlords nor the Citadel were noticeably weakened. I destroyed the Citadel Empire a little while later."

"And the warlords?"

"Formally allied to one another. Things are a lot more civilised, but… The warlords get to hold their territory over the claims of local governments, so… If people wanted the local warlord gone, they're out of luck. Or if their neighbours wanted a warlord gone, that isn't going to happen. See, the Crown-."

"So were there.. no good guys at all?"

"Define 'good'."

"You know… Truth, justice and the… Vegan way?"

"The Citadel Empire is pretty open about how they operate, while the Omega Men are a covert group. The Citadel Empire doesn't really enforce 'law', though they do enforce agreements between local powers. The Omega Men are a paramilitary group. They liberate slaves, but slavery is legal in Vega. They kill people on the Citadel's side, and.. generally target military targets, but the Gordanians-" I switch the holographic image to display a picture of Zaark. "-have armed merchantmen with largely civilian crews. Who may also be slave traders. And the Vegan orthodoxy was whatever the Citadel Empire said it was, having conquered its rivals and reached an accommodation with all other power groups. Do you understand what is meant by realpolitik?"

Kon nods. "Power politics. The ones with all the power treat each other okay, and everyone else gets trodden on."

"Yep. But instability can be just as bad for the people living in a place as bad government. Oh, has the.. Bialyan Civil War ended yet? I haven't checked."

Kaldur shakes his head. "Not completely. The three most powerful factions have absorbed or eliminated the smaller groups and cemented their hold on their own territory. The amount of fighting has reduced, but the war is still going on."

"Any good guys there?"

M'gann thinks for a moment. "The Prime Minister was elected, so…"

Canis sniffs. "And does that make the people he kills less dead? I still don't understand why your people are so fixated on forms of government. They will fight until one wins, then their new ruler will re-establish the nation."

"The Justice League could end the war in an afternoon. But while they might be prepared to support a government over an insurgency…"

Kon nods. "Who is correct to choose in a place like that?"

"Quite a few places regard the Omega Men as heroes, but they've killed a lot of Citadel-aligned civilians, and the techniques they used don't really… There wasn't a plan for actually winning. They'd attack somewhere, the Citadel would retaliate... Nothing changed."

Kaldur inclines his head slightly. "Until you arrived."

"More people would have suffered if I decided to remain inactive, so I acted. I kept the Spider Queen,-" I switch the hologram back to showing her, along with Jarko and Amalak. "-Commodore Amalak and Mister Jarko alive and gave them a bit of a-" I raise my left hand. "-ring-nudge into coming to terms they could all agree to. They in turn came to terms with smaller groups, and so the whole area became a lot more peaceful."

Wallace looks uncomfortable. "And the slaves?"

"The Guild doesn't use slaves. Jarko's people use enslavement as a criminal sanction -you can't be born into it- and Amalak allows debt-bondage but bondsmen still have legal protections. Most of their profit from the slave trade came indirectly, but none of them were going to complain much if that tailed off. And forcing it to tail off required the removal of the Citadel. And then empowering the people who were being enslaved to fight off anyone who might try and carry on. Which… Is a work in progress." I sit back in my seat. Of course, explaining the whole peace conference situation is quite a bit easier than… Some of the rest… "So what have you lot been up to?"

M'gann grins. "Kon got heat vision!"

What? "What?" Ring, scan. No, nothing changed there. "How?"

"Ah…" Kon looks a little self-conscious. "You know how Helios blessed me so I could take down Oceanus?"

"Yeah? I was right there."

"He.. kind of.. appeared in my dreams a couple of weeks later. He said that I'd done a good job and he wanted to reward me. And he asked me what I wanted. And I thought… I can fly with my armour or a kinetic belt, and I'm super strong… The only thing I don't have is heat vision." Kon shrugs. "So I asked him for that."

"And he could just… Do that?"

"Sort of. It made my eyes kinda itchy to start with, but now I don't really notice it unless I'm using it."

I get up. "This I have to see. Come on, let's head back to the training area and you can-." There's a definite air of hesitancy from my friends. "What?"

"I don't think Helios ever saw Superman's heat vision in action. Mine… Doesn't really work well in enclosed spaces."

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th September
15:18 GMT -6

I watch as most of my team retreats to what I think is supposed to be minimum safe distance. Canis doesn't go far back, but he's definitely retreated for his personal safety. Even Wolf doesn't need prompting to leave her father's side. Then I turn away from them and look out across the Chihuahuan Desert sands, and… At the wide swath that isn't so much desert as it is glass.

I generate construct armour and look at Kon a little nervously. "What exactly did Helios do?"

"Well, it's kinda…" He gestures vaguely in the direction of the end of the strip of glass. "Plasma. Like from the sun. Helios' magic lets me control it…" He follows my gaze, looking at the glass. "Sorta."

"Which… Bit of the sun?"

"The instruments got melted, but from the color Robin worked out that it's probably the same as the sun's surface."

"Six thousand Kelvin?"

He shrugs. "Fifty-eight hundred."

I look left and right. "Can I assume that Helios also gave you some sort of-?"

"Heat containment, yeah, I know. Robin and Wally spent all evening trying to work out how it works. It looks like anything hit directly gets the full heat, but everything near it just gets…" He flicks his right hand at the glass. "A bit melted instead."

"So are you actually going to show me, or what?"

He takes a solid stance, looking forwards. "Can you put up a target or something? It's easier if I've got something to aim at."

I send a series of filaments around the outside of the glass lane and then bring them together about 500 metres away, generating an archery target where they meet.

"Any good?"

There's a tiny puff of white-orange flame from Kon's eyes and then-.

My rings darken everything and all that I can see is a incandescent beam of blinding light blazing forth from Kon's eyes. My target construct is obliterated, and the glass-coated rock behind it gets turned back into its molten state before Kon blinks and shuts it off again.

Ring, how hot was that?

Observations of beam temperature are inconsistent. Plasma stream most likely between two thousand and six thousand degrees Kelvin.

…

That's quite hot. Actually, that's-.

I smirk at him. "That's hotter than Kal-El's, isn't it?"

"Ah… Maybe? A bit? I don't think it would work so well if I tried using it for spot-welding, though."

"His doesn't work for spot-welding. Yeah, he can melt steel together, but it usually messes up the structure of whatever he does it to so much that it's only good for temporary fixes. Why did you think they had all those cranes around the Metro-Narrows Bridge last August?"

Okay, air temperature is… Not much elevated, and the hurricane force winds that should accompany something like that have predictably failed to materialise. I drop my construct armour and visually examine the burned swath of desert before us for a moment before turning towards Kon. There's a slight orange glow in the centre of each pupil, but he doesn't otherwise look affected. No burns on his face or armour, which is a good sign. Hang on, if plasma is coming from each eye separately, shouldn't-? No, I guess Helios took that into consideration.

"I didn't actually go back." He blinks again and the light fades completely. "I think you've probably spent more time in Metropolis than I have."

Huh… Hadn't really… Put that together. I suppose that after Kal-El confirmed his decision to have nothing to do with him, there really wasn't any reason to. "Does it always come out the same?"

"No, I can… Cut it down a little."

"And can you turn it up?"

He looks at me, then at the molten sand, then back at me. "You really think that's a good idea?"

"Not on a planet, but if we're heading out into space…"

He doesn't look too sure. "Isn't the Rao system radioactive? And full of Kryptonite?"

"No, not.. really. The runaway fusion reaction that destroyed Krypton didn't convert all of its mass into Kryptonite, and Krypton's mass was only slightly more than Earth's is. There's a belt of Kryptonite-rich asteroids in Krypton's former orbit, plus Krypton's moons, but the rest of the system is barely more radioactive than the Sol system. And we know Kryptonians visited their system's other planets. Heck, depending on what happened to Wegthor there might even be salvageable ships there."

"What, you don't know? Haven't you had a look already?"

I frown. "Go to Krypton without you? No, of course not." He nods, and I notice the rest of the team coming back from their safe hiding point. "I did go to Daxam, but that was by accident and I.. didn't hang around."

"How do you go to a planet by accident?"

Wallace jogs up slightly ahead of the pack. "Oh El did what by accident? I mean, Spider, so, what else?"

"This." I raise my left fore and middle fingers to my forehead and step out then

13th September
16:22 GMT -5

back in again. "Good afternoon Mister Garrick."

Mister Garrick looks up from behind his magazine. "Ah… Oh, hey Paul."

I pick up his old helmet. "Glad to see you've recovered from the possession. Could I please borrow this?"

"If.. you really want, but-."

"Thank you!"

And out.

13th September
15:23 GMT -6

And back holding the helmet. "I learned to teleport."

I pass Wallace the helmet, which he takes and quickly checks over. "Couldn't you do that anyway?"

"No, this is far faster."

He slumps slightly. "How much faster?"

"Instant to.. anywhere in the universe where there's a person whose desires I can recognise."

"Eh-?" He shakes his head. "No, why am I even surprised?" Something occurs to him. "Hey, do you think your constructs are strong enough to block Superboy's heat vision?"

"Dunno." My construct armour flares back into being. "Let's find out."

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th September
19:12 GMT -5

Sinestro, how close are they?

Thirty metres, Corpsman. An image of their relative position appears in my mind's eye. While I most certainly appreciate the rationale behind presenting a strong opening position during negotiations, I am still puzzled by your decision not to plant traps of some kind. It would make the encounter so much more believable.

The logic is simple. While I know she doesn't care for her employers one way or the other, she might have a degree of affection for the people working for her directly. I doubt that simple traps would present her with much of a challenge, but it might kill them. If I wanted to avoid that I'd have to make them so obvious that I'd look amateurish for using them. As it is, there are piles of bodies to build their apprehension, and I stand here looking completely unconcerned amidst the carnage.

And if they do have a weapon that can hurt you?

Then I'll try to live just long enough that I'll be able to hear it when you say 'I told you so'. How about that?

Adequate, Corpsman. You may proceed.

Thanks ever so.

I lower my goggles over my eyes and look at the oncoming… I'm not really sure what to call them? What do drug cartels call their first responders?

In my experience, 'expendables'.

No, they wouldn't have sent her in with fresh meat. 'Made Men'? No, that's crime families. And you can be Made without being a front line fighter.

A grenade sails in through a broken window behind me, and I erect a barrier to protect my end of the room as it detonates.

Assault Team? Yes, that's a bit more sensible. Of course, when fighting and trading are so much a part of the same thing as they are in the cocaine business, they might not have a custom of calling them anything in particular. It makes it harder to lab-.

Two camouflage-clad men charge through the doorway, assault rifles blazing. Some bullets are blocked by my armour, stopped dead by my divine aura's refusal to let something as base as thruppence-worth of steel hurt me. Their missed shots -and even at this range the AK-47's enthusiastic spread pattern ensures that there are many- punch through both the plaster and wood of the wall behind me and the corpse of the base's late commander.

That was an interesting experience. I'd never crushed a man's skull in my hand before I met him.

"Good evening." I casually toss the desk aside and start walking towards them. "I would like it very much-"

A flashbang comes in through the window, detonating within a metre of my face. Attacking the senses is a pretty good move against most super strong people; heck, that's what I did against Captain Marvel 50. Unfortunately for whoever threw that, I don't have super hearing, and my divine resilience works just as well against pressure waves as it does against bullets. And my visor is easily capable of blocking the magnesium flare. But someone's clearly thinking.

And then the leader of the strike team leaps through the window and I realise that I may have spoken too soon.

"-if you would put down-"

You know, some people scoff at the idea of baseline Humans functioning in combat with superhumans. For myself, I think there's something beautiful about the physicality of a trained and honed peak-Human body in combat. And if people knew about the sheer number of the powered idiots who tried making it either as criminals or heroes and ran into someone who didn't have powers but did know how to use a gun… Cartels sometimes use metahumans as enforcers, but there are good reasons why they generally don't end up running the show.

"-your guns and-"

Perhaps Scandal Savage appreciates that as I reach out with my left hand, grab her around the right shoulder and throw her against a nearby wall. I mean, yes, she was on the ball enough to throw one of those expanding rubber pellet things Mister Queen is so fond of at my face as she goes, but it's a trivial matter to knock it aside. And even if it hit, I can let my rings breathe for me and navigate for me.

But it's a step up from what the people I've already killed managed!

Bullets are still failing to do anything as I lunge forwards and grab the offending weapons-

"-never mind."

-and crush the barrels in my bare hands.

"Ms Savage: good idea, but one which is sadly deficient to the situation. You two: bold, but after the initial volley failed you should have fallen-"

There's a brief plume of flame as someone outside fires a rocket at me as I'm briefly outlined in the doorway. I grasp it in a construct, then neutralise the explosive and spin it around before releasing it.

"Aagh!"

"-back. Even if you couldn't identify me as an individual, someone who is bulletproof is unlikely to suddenly stop being bulletproof because you finished your magazine." I let go of their guns as they cower from me. I reach forward and pat them gently on the head. "Call it a 'C' overall."

"What do you want, Grayven?"

That wasn't a full-force throw, but it would have hurt. Ms Savage is up as if nothing has happened.

"Well, to quote the Drahk: what I want from you… Is you. Obvious.. comments about not being your type aside."

"You've got a-."

"Funny way to show it, yes." Sinestro, detonate.

Done, Corpsman.

"But since I killed your father and your current employer, I thought that you might hear me out."

That gives her momentary pause. "My father is immortal."

"As I told him -before I turned him mind, body and soul into an orange construct- there's no. Such. Thing." I lean down to her level. "Wanna see what's left of him?"

"Yes. Why do you want to show me?"

"Not going to ask about your boss?"

"I can believe that. And what's one drug lord more or less?"

Yes, because I left the others alive. Honestly. "I want to show you because I-." One of her fellow enforcers shoots me in the back with his sidearm. I turn and glare witheringly at him until he drops it, then return my attention to Ms Savage. "I want to employ you myself. You see, your late father -as a sort of 'fuck you' to a retired former adversary- had a company he owned at several places removed buy the rights to some technology which said former adversary wanted put on the market. He intended to sit on it for just as long as possible, then release it in dribs and drabs for the maximum personal profit. I -on the other hand- want to release it as soon as possible to generate the most rapid possible enhancement in Human technology. Now, I could take direct action against said company, but that would complicate things dreadfully. And -with your father out of the picture- you are in the hot seat as his heir designate. Far simpler to ask you directly to come on board."

"On board with what?"

"A few.. friends and I have embarked upon a project to improve the lot of humanity. And we wish to employ you. Pay is good, conditions are excellent and you won't believe the healthcare. And you'd be doing the world a world of good. Oh, and…" I wave my right forefinger at her henchmen. "I'll hire them on as well." I smile. "Why not. Might need to upskill them a bit but they've apparently got a taste for the work."

"I want to confirm what happened to my employers. And my father. And I want to see some figures."

I smile broadly and straighten up. "Certainly! Mother Box, boom tube."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th September
20:43 GMT

Kon and I float in space a little 'above' the ring of dust and small rocks which surrounds Haron, fifth planet of the Rao system. Haron is a gas giant about two thirds the size of Saturn, and the only noteworthy fact about it is that it's the only one in the system. That's statistically quite unusual for a gas giant of this size. In fact, the only other places where I'm aware of something like this occurring are where someone has intentionally destroyed the other giants in the system. But I'm not seeing the characteristics of either destructive mining or superweapons… Maybe all of Rao's planets are captured bodies? That's unusual, but it could happen.

Kon's Nth metal armour is augmented for this trip by two (presently inactive) kinetic belts, two environmental shield generators (one active and the other in reserve) and two area effect radiation deflectors (both active). And a helmet. Not an Nth metal helmet, but still fairly resilient. Without air or inconvenient planes to worry about Kon can fly around fast enough that he doesn't need me dragging him around everywhere, but at the moment he's just staring towards the dull red glow of Rao itself. At this distance it's only just brighter than the stars in the background, and Krypton's completely invisible.

"I… Thought it would be…"

"What?"

"Green.. er..?" He floats around to face me. "Yeah, I know you said there wasn't kryptonite everywhere, but when you say 'Krypton', that's what you think."

"Actually… One of the things I want to do while we're here is see if there are other kryptonite isomers around here."

"Like that blue stuff you were going to use on Ultraboy?"

"Yes. Or anything. We don't know how many different types there are and we don't know what they do. That's a major potential problem when we've got Kryptonians around." I turn around on the spot. "You know, you wouldn't hit anything from here if you want to try your heat vision out on full power."

"You think I should have asked Helios to make me immune to radiation instead?"

"Kryptonite isn't very common. Even on Earth, high-strength plasma weapons are more likely to be a threat to you. So… No, I don't think so. Why do you ask?"

"I was thinking… It's impressive, but I can't really use it in fights, can I? I mean, Superman can heat up a gun without burning up the guy holding it."

"That usually causes serious burns to the hands of whoever's holding it. Metal's a good conductor, and there were a couple of cases early on in his career where the gun actually stuck to the gunmen."

"Yeah, but that's nothing like what my version would do."

"True. But it's still not a great law enforcement tool. On the other hand, against high-end opponents, your version's kinetic force and greater thermal output puts you at an advantage."

"Batman doesn't send us on those sorts of missions."

"I can help you work on learning more precise control if you want. Or we can have a word with Helios about-."

"No, no, that's… Yeah. I wanna get this under control myself." I hear over the communicator as he takes a deep breath and see him turn his head away. "Ah, would it work if I just fire it at the planet?"

Ring, likely effect of a blast of that temperature on a gas giant? Yeah, thought so.

"There'll be storms and all sorts of energetic reactions, but that's about it. This system is uninhabited, and that planet's definitely uninhabited."

"Nothing down there at all?"

I extend my left hand in the direction of the planet. Ring? "No. When the Science Council came in, they got rid of just about all of their deep space assets. Including the probes they were keeping here. Particularly after-. Um. A group of marines went AWOL."

Poop.

"Wait, you mean there could still be Kryptonians out there?"

"I've been assuming that there are. But Earth's… Isolated. There isn't much to draw a Kryptonian there. Plus, that was quite a long time ago, and after the Kryptonian Empire vanished there was a massive upswing in piracy in this region. Away from yellow suns… But, yeah, there's nothing down there."

"Okay." Another quiet series of breaths, then…

Static, as the communicator is completely unable to describe the sound of the colossal beam of plasma blasting from Kon's eyes.

Damn. I can see Haron's clouds of hydrogen and helium part, then leap upwards as the liquid below them superheats. It's visible to the naked eye from here and the ring's telling me that plume is thirty miles high. It's like dropping a stone in a pond, but the pond is a frozen planet and the stone is on fire. Shockwaves are moving across the surface, vaporised liquid hydrogen shoving neighbouring liquid aside and now it's catching fire!

Kon cuts the blast out and floats a little closer to me to watch the spectacle. "Whow."

"Yeah whow. And, hey, you also kept it up for longer than Kal-El does."

"I don't know. I think he can go for longer than he's been recorded doing. Though… I coulda gone on for longer. I don't think I've even got a limit."

"Worth knowing."

We watch the roiling planet in silence for a few moments.

"Oceanus could get lost in those waves."

"Yeah. Oh! Ah, you said Batman doesn't send the team on those sorts of mission."

"We're supposed to be recon. Something that can do that to a planet isn't really a recon weapon."

"I haven't really asked, but… Do you actually want to join the Justice League? Because the Justice League do fight people that could be used against."

"I don't really… I mean, people know we exist, and we've been called out to fight alongside the League a bunch of times. I don't think the difference really means much any more."

"It means you get to pick your own missions."

"Doesn't Batman pick League missions? He's the intelligence guy."

"I'm the professional development and training guy. And you.. are my prince."

I hear him sigh, but there's an amused lilt to it. "Don't call me that. It's bad enough when the Amazons do it."

"Do you want to pick your own missions without joining the League? Or-. What? What do you want?"

"I.. guess I want to go after the bad guys. Not just wait for them to do something. And I mean attack them, not just watch them and pass it on to the Justice League."

"Sounds like we're going to need to talk to Kaldur about that."

"Yeah, probably." He turns his attention away from Haron's flaming spot. "Where to next?"

"I want a look at Xenon. It used to be Krypton's third moon, Wegthor getting destroyed managed to knock it out of orbit. If Kryptonian relics survive anywhere, that's probably the best place to look for them."

"Okay. Let's go."

We turn away from the ongoing explosions, and space leaps as I warp us in-system.

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th September
20:48 GMT

"Yeah, that's more like what I was expecting."

Near-Krypton space is green. The large pieces of kryptonite aren't particularly close to here, but there are so many tiny grains of the stuff around here that they're the dominant light source. Even though it's still not that radioactive, it's more than a little disturbing.

"Want me to clear a path through it?"

"What do you think would happen if I heat-visioned it?"

"If you-? Um…" Kryptonite tends to.. break down at extreme temperatures explosively, and you get a blast of radiation before it denatures… "It might clear it out a bit, but there's so much around here that I doubt the effect would be all that significant."

He-. I think that's a nod, then accelerates in the direction of Xenon. I can see the dull flicker of his environmental shield as it increases its power in order to cope with the all-surrounding radiation sources. Perfectly within its tolerances, but the faint grey/purple does rather stand out against the all-encompassing green of our environment. As does the dust-free wake Kon leaves behind him.

Xenon itself doesn't have the pleasantly round shape of Earth's bizarrely large moon. It's more in the 'misshapen lump of rock' mould, with clearly visible impact craters along one side where lumps of its former neighbour struck it. Not going to be much there…

"Were there any mining operations on Xenon?"

"I don't know for certain, but I doubt it. Wegthor was closer, Koron was larger and.. then they had faster than light travel. It's perfectly possible that we're not going to see anything at all."

He reduces his rate of acceleration. "Shouldn't we go there instead?"

"Wegthor's… Kind of… All around us now. After the Kryptonian Stellar Navy got wound up, the Self Defence Force kept using their old command centre on Wegthor as a deep space monitoring station. That was probably why Jax-Ur decided to blow it up… Enthusiastically blow it up. So while there probably was plenty of interesting stuff there…"

"There isn't any more."

"Right. And the resulting debris did quite a bit of damage to Koron, and that's far enough inside the radiation zone that I'd rather not go there if we can manage it. And Mithen's classified as a moon rather than an asteroid due to history rather than size."

We both accelerate, Xenon's surface growing beneath us. My rings are showing me artificial structures, but further scans are being distorted. That suggests Science Council era; the Military Council didn't bother with covert installations this close to Krypton. Security against foreign invaders was what the fleet was for. Kryptonian science was certainly advanced enough that a Lantern would have to be at least a little careful in how he treated their kit, and if kryptonite existed back then its existence wasn't widely known about.

"Something down there. Think it's Kryptonian?"

"Most likely. Piracy might have gone up a great deal after Krypton went into isolation mode, but things are much more stable now. Erm, though.. in a couple of cases that was because the pirates either moved on or legitimised themselves. But legitimate traders avoid this system because there's nothing here, so there isn't much reason for pirates to be here either."

"Unless they wanted a secret base no one would ever find."

"Unless they've got very advanced stealth FTL, hiding in a system no one else flies to doesn't work. There's nothing to disguise the trail. And even if they couldn't just follow them, all someone hunting them would have to do is drop in a few monitor drones and wait. Whatever ships they were hiding would have to come out eventually, then they've got them. And secret bases are a pain to resupply, and-."

"Okay, I get it. So how do pirates really work?"

"Safe harbours like Vega, where the authorities tolerate or accept them and provide a degree of protection. Captured harbours like Dryanna that would probably prefer to get rid of them, but don't have the power to enforce their decision. Or they do what the Black Circle do in our own Sector, and pretend to be honest merchants themselves and hide amongst the real merchants." I point at one of the artificial objects on the surface. "That one?"

Kon changes his angle of approach and I follow him. I don't want to scan it too aggressively in case it has automated defences of some kind and treats it as an attack. Plus, letting someone who should read as… Actually, I don't know what automated Kryptonian sensors would make of Kon. Hopefully the 'S' on his chest will at least give them pause. On the other hand, the Zods were often in charge of military projects like this, so it might just provoke them.

"How are we going to get in?"

"Depends. If it's unpowered, brute force, ignorance and a construct airlock. If it's powered, you're Kon-El of House El and you're here to do an inspection."

"Inspection? What am I going to-? Wait, you think there could be people in there?"

"Possible, but unlikely. But Krypton had advanced AI technology. A facility of any size would have an intelligent management system to assist the crew."

"Okay, so what do I tell it I'm inspecting?"

"Everything. That way we'll know where the best salvage is. And hopefully where the computer core and main power are."

"So we can turn off the automated defences, right. Why wouldn't the AI know that Krypton has been destroyed?"

"It might well know, but if it wasn't programmed to do anything about that, then it wouldn't. Heck, it might just be waiting for a living Kryptonian to tell it what to do about Kryptonian civilisation ending."

"I don't think Red Tornado would wait like that if the Earth ended."

"Red Tornado was built-" Kon touches down and 'walks' over to the structure. "-to be a person, not a smart management system. He's got far more initiative than most civilisations allow their synthetic intelligences."

Kon and I study the structure which attracted our attention. Sticking out from the grey-white dust of the moon's surface, five fingers of dust-covered crystal stand out like sore thumbs. They're about three metres tall each and shaped a little like pinecones, fat lower ends coming to an angular point towards the top. The crystal goes under the dust built up between them-. Ah, yes.

"Artificial gravity."

"Strange that they've left it on. Low gravity wouldn't bother an AI."

Kon steps up to the closest finger, then holds out his right hand. "I suppose I just-."

There's a ripple of purple-tinted energy as the fingers shimmer, dust exploding off both them and the crystal on the ground between them. The curiously localised artificial gravity causes the dust to blow away like it would on Earth and then suddenly billow upwards and the force pulling it towards the moon's surface suddenly vanishes. The result is that we're left standing in the middle of a dust storm with the gleaming crystal of the… What is it, an outpost? The outpost, while the rest of the universe is whited out.

"Huh."

Ring scan… "There's a weak environmental shield keeping the dust away. Don't think I'll need to make an airlock."

Kon nods, and moves his hand towards the crystal ag-.

The centre of the circle of crystal between the fingers retracts back into the sides in fits and starts, creating an opening into the outpost. Ring, scan-.

A humanoid in black and red floats up out of the hole.

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th September
20:54 GMT

No real emotional resonance, so it's either a remote unit or a basic AI. Which is a relief, because I recognise an Eradicator when I see one. Its epidermis is matt black, decorated with a red cape and cowl, and its 'eyes' are shining points of yellow light. It's got the approximate outline of a face on its head, but like the humanoid shape that's a non-functional sop to the living Kryptonians who had to deal with them on a regular basis. On its chest is silver lettering identifying it as belonging to the Xenon reserve unit -which could mean just about anything- and a stylised red 'i' on the upper portion of the chest. Not a naval or Consular Guard unit, then.

Ring, what House is that?

In isolation, the Kryptonian character resembling the English character 'i' can refer either to courage or to House-

Zod.

-Zod.

Ooooh joy.

"Identify yourself."

Huh. Okay, there's no way that it hasn't seen the 'S' on Kon's armour. And it isn't attacking. Right, General Zod was a single bad apple from a House whose origins go back into Kryptonian history. Just because he was a prize arse, that doesn't mean that the rest were.

There's a quiet 'blip' as Kon switches from general to one-to-one. "Paul what did he just say?"

Oh.. yeah. Kon doesn't actually speak any Kryptonian languages. And there isn't much chance that the Eradicator would understand English. "It wants to know who you are. Hang on." I extend my environmental shield around him. "Try now."

"I'm.. Kon-El. Who are you?"

"Is the alien here at your invitation?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Lanterns are not permitted within the Rao system without an invitation from the ruling Council." The Eradicator floats past Kon and glowers at me. "Present your authorisation."

"I'm afraid that I.. wasn't given a hard copy."

"You are under arrest. You will be held until contact can be re-established with the ruling Council."

"That might be kinda tricky." Another blip. "Does he not.. know..?"

"I don't think its AI is very sophisticated. It probably knows, but it doesn't have any instructions relating to what to do about that."

Kon nods. "I'm afraid that the Science Council all died when Krypton was destroyed. Is there anyone else we could get permission from?"

The Eradicator floats upwards until it can see over Xenon's horizon, then rotates in the direction of the asteroid field that used to be Krypton. Contrary to 'realistic' expectations, the core of the field actually does consist of a group of large rocks in relatively close proximity to one another. A mere forty years simply isn't enough time for them to have ground one another down to gravel yet, and the run away reactions tended to be relatively local. After the initial blast, at any rate.

"Probability of Council survival minimal." The Eradicator drops back down to just above the surface. "In the event of a state of emergency being declared, authorisation may be sought from General Ren-Gor of the Kryptonian Self-Defence Force."

"Pretty sure he's dead too. Look, nearly everybody died. This system isn't even inhabited any more. Does this really matter?"

"Lack of local signals and weak FTL residues suggest that significant damage has been inflicted upon the Kryptonian Self-Defence Force. In the event of such wide scale breakdown in civil institutions, military officers and Heads of Households may grant temporary exemptions."

Another blip. "Does Superman count?"

"Ah… Maybe? Kal-El is technically head of House El now. Whether this Eradicator would accept it depends on whether Jor-El registered the birth or not. He wasn't that old when he got put into his escape pod… Otherwise-." Oh poot. "Kon, would you mind if I cut you out of the conversation for a second?"

"What? Why?"

"I.. told a person I would not share a particular piece of information with you, and I need to share it with this Eradicator."

"What, about Krypton?"

"Ah… I can't tell you what it's about without-."

"No, of course." He exhales. "Okay, fine."

Ring, direct to the Eradicator.

Compliance.

"Is Sub-Commander Karsta Wor-Ul able to give authorisation?" She'd be pretty angry if I had to get in touch, but… I imagine that a pet Eradicator would be right up her street. Maybe up her street enough not to follow through on her threats?

"Karsta Wor-Ul was dishonourably discharged for violation of Science Council edits. She is not authorised to grant you an exemption."

"Karsta Wor-Ul?" Oh. Right, because the Eradicator isn't using direct comms. Darn darn darn-. "You.. know another Kryptonian?"

"I.. am.. unwilling to comment further."

"So she told you not to-. But why?" He looks at me for a moment, then looks away. "No, no, she made you promise not to say anything. I guess I'll just have to find her myself."

Aaaaaaghh….

"Eradicator. What happens if there isn't anyone who can authorise me to be here?"

"You will be detained until there is."

"Can Kal-El give him authorisation?"

"Which Kal-El?"

"Ah… Kal-El, son of Jor-El? Son of… Um…"

"Seyg-El, son of Ter-El..."

"No such birth registered." It drifts over to float in front of Kon. "Scanning."

A visible series of yellow lines saccades over Kon. Okay, that might be awkward. He may be about 50% Kal-El by mass, but his actual body tissues-.

There's a flare of blue-white light as the Eradicator lasers Kon in the face!

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th September
20:58 GMT

"Black-" The Eradicator surges forward, punching Kon in the face with its left arm and sending him flying across Xenon's surface! "-Zero-" Completely ignoring me, it flies after him and fires its eye lasers again as he bounces off the moon's surface. "-insurgent."

Fuck me Kryptonian robots are fast! "Kon!" Construct armour up power armour on construct railgun-.

Destroyed by Eradicator laser vision the moment I created it. Though at least being forced to turn its head around means that Kon has a chance to get his hurtling under control. His armour looks intact, but his kinetic belt should have blocked the punch with no knock back. Why didn't-?

I open fire at the Eradicator with six laser cannon constructs, burning through its cape and doing no obvious damage to the black material covering its 'skin'. And this is the slight problem with relying on projectiles.

There's a barely visible silver shimmer around its fists. Of course, if one civilisation finds a way of reliably negating kinetic attacks, it shouldn't be surprising that others found a way to negate their defence.

"I'm-" Kon stabilises, spins so that he's lying facing the oncoming Eradicator and extends his fists as he accelerates. "-fine."

I vaguely remember from the comics that Kryptonians did have super strength martial arts, but unfortunately I haven't been able to find out much about them. Kon's studied wrestling, but I'm not sure how useful that will be against something without normal organic vulnerabilities. On the other hand-

The Eradicator attempts to punch with its left hand, and misses completely as Kon's Nth metal armour allows him to change vector just a little faster than a Kryptonian's flight ordinarily would. It attempts a laser beam, but Kon's thick chest plate is the only thing it can hit as Kon gets in behind it and wraps himself around its legs. The sudden extra mass causes it to spin as Kon gets to work on a knee-snapper.

-the Eradicator hasn't ever fought anyone like Kon before. Kryptonian marines did not learn Greco-Roman Wrestling. The Eradicator turns, giving me a perfect shot at its eyes as it fires down at Kon. Its shot strikes his left arm and shoulder, causing a minute change in the colour of the metal which vanishes a moment later. My shot causes its beam to wink out and makes the glowing yellow lights of its eyes flicker and fail. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's blind; it almost certainly has other sensors. But no more eye lasers: progress.

"Grug."

Kon squeezes as the Eradicator directs their shared spinning mass into Xenon's surface. Between the kryptonite dust and the dust thrown up by their impact it's a little hard to see what the result is, and the Eradicator doesn't really need its leg. I send a wide construct through the dust, shoving it away to give myself a clear shot while the two of them struggle inelegantly in near-Xenon space. I send a flexible construct at the Eradicator's right arm, but a flicker of silver destroys it before it can touch the black material.

Anti-construct as well. Suddenly starting to feel slightly bad about badmouthing Tomar-Re. Can't risk a shot without either a hold… Cold gun would be a bit of a risk since I don't know how the Eradicator copes with heat…

"Kon, can you-" I see the Eradicator's leg bend, dull grey and green material visible through the breaks in its exterior. "-cope? I think-" The leg no longer supporting his hold, Kon slips slightly as the Eradicator spins and it manages to grab his left wrist with its right hand. "-I should check-" Kon grabs its wrist in turn and twists his hands in opposite directions. "-to see if there's a-."

Kon turns his head to face the Eradicator's chest, then fires his heat vision. The blast lasts a second at most but the Eradicator evaporates. And the kryptonitefuckfuckfuck!

I transition and erect a bubble field around us just as the radiation wave passes over us and the blast wave ripples through the dust surrounding us. I can see Kon's surprised face through his helmet.

"Kryptonite generates-."

"An explosion and.. intense.. radiation…" His eyes dart around his field of vision. "Yeah. Ah, thanks."

"Well done with the Eradicator. Now, unless you want to watch the blast wave go all the way around Krypton's orbital plane, I think we should probably get inside the outpost."

"Uh-huh." We both turn and fly back towards the opening in the crystal. "Why d'you think it attacked me? Who are.. Black Zero?"

"Some sort of terrorist group. No idea why it thought you were a member. There wasn't much on John's ring about Kryptonian society and… Only person I met while I was away who might know wants…" We float down the crystal tube, lights glimmering inside the crystal as we do so. "He… Sort of wants to kill you."

Kon frowns. "Why? What did I do to him?"

"Not you specifically. All surviving Kryptonians. When General Zod attempted his coup, he had Amalak's world bombarded from orbit first. I'm not really sure why."

"But the Science Council had Zod sent to the Phantom Zone. He was just as much a criminal on Krypton as he was on wherever Amalak was from."

"Amalak's people would have executed him and all of his supporters. Possibly after torturing them. Which the Science Council did not do."

"I'm not sure that permanent imprisonment without being able to feel anything is much better."

"That wasn't the point. Amalak's homeworld… It's called Timaron. It used to be a Possession World, sort of.. in Krypton's sphere of influence. Whether it wanted to be or not."

"And that would have been-" We reach the bottom of the shaft, and Kon waves his hand over a crystalline pedestal to our left. The crystal making up the shaft responds by closing up. "-when the Military Council were still in charge. Then the Science Council took over… I guess the groups closest to Krypton didn't do too well."

"I didn't ask, but that sounds logical. Plus, the general break down in law and order…"

"Kryptonians would be pretty unpopular anyway." He nods as we make our way along the corridor. "And given how xenophobic the Science Council was… Would they even have bothered telling anyone else Zod hurt what they did with him?"

"I doubt it. They certainly didn't offer the survivors any sort of help."

"Huh?"

"After an orbital strike from Kryptonian warships? The planet wasn't habitable. Amalak told me he was concerned there wasn't enough genetic variety left in his species for them to have a future. Zod did far more harm to them than he did to Krypton."

"Oh."

We emerge into a small circular room with a pedestal in the centre. Kon looks at me and I shrug as best my armour allows me. "I'm not saying that I can't interface with it, but that Eradicator had construct disruption technology. And it wouldn't be easy anyway."

Kon nods, steps up to the pedestal and holds his right hand over it. A hologram appears showing the face of an elderly man.

"Hello. I was High Councillor Har-Zod. To whom am I speaking?"

"My name is Kon-El. Ah, son of-."

The hologram frowns. "An unfortunate name. You're a clone, then?"

"Kind of. I have two genetic parents, but I was made in a tank. What's unfortunate about it?"

"The syllable 'kon' can have several meanings, but the most simple is 'abomination'. It was commonly used as a term of abuse for clones. Not that I myself bear such prejudices, but it is curious to me that you identify yourself in such a way."

What?

"Oh. I… Just… It sounds like a name from Earth. That's.. the planet I grew up on. I didn't even know that it meant anything." He turns towards me.

I raise my hands. "I don't speak Kryptonian."

He looks at the ground for a moment, then appears to accept it. He turns back to the holohead. "So… What are you? Are you wired up to the machine somewhere?"

"No. What you are speaking to is a computer representation of my responses based on my most recent neural imprint. Given the conditions outside I think it likely that the original Har-Zod has been dead for some time. But; you are Kryptonian, and given what has befallen our people I suppose that I should make my archive available to you. What would you like to know?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th September
21:03 GMT

"Have any other survivors come back here?"

"If there are any other survivors, they haven't come to this facility. Unfortunately, my deep space sensors have long since been destroyed, and my local space sensors are not functioning at anything like full effectiveness. It is quite possible that there are other survivors in other parts of the universe."

"Paul, is the air in here okay to breathe?"

Ring? "Not quite Earth-normal, but yes."

Kon pulls off his helmet and holds it under his left arm. "Did anyone else get out? When Krypton was destroyed, did anyone apart from Kal-El get away?"

"How far back would you like me to go? The primitivists left to establish a colony on Daxam centuries ago. A small number of naval officers and enlisted personnel either refused to obey the isolation edict or fled later. Likewise, a number of colonists were officially recorded as remaining on their adopted worlds. If you are referring to the period immediately prior to Krypton's destruction, I detected two hyperspatial windows opening shortly before my sensors were damaged."

"Two-! Do you know where they were going?"

Har-Zod's head shrinks and moves to the podium's left. A map of the system appears in the space he vacated, and two out of scale lines indicate the crafts' trajectories.

"The hyperspatial window generated by the first would have taken it to a planet in a system outside the bounds of the Kryptonian Empire." The image zooms out, showing the path-.

"That's Earth. That must be Superman's-. Ah, Kal-El's pod."

"The identity of the occupant is not listed on my database. The second craft appeared to have been heading for a similar vector. Unfortunately, it did not get far enough away to escape Krypton's destruction." The image zooms back in and I see the change in its trajectory as the wave of debris passes it. "The craft appears to have initiated an emergency hyperspatial jump. However, attempting that with so much matter in the surrounding environment is extremely risky. It is unlikely they would have survived."

Kon is leaning forward. "Can you tell where they went?"

"Not without precise readings from the location in which the hyperspatial window was formed. If you want to pursue the craft, I would remind you that this was over thirty years ago. Assuming that the occupant or occupants survived, they are unlikely to be anywhere near that location."

Kon glances back at me. "We gotta check it out."

So. Kara Zor-El. Hopefully, anyway. The universe hasn't kicked me in the crotch with any of these yet. "We do indeed. Can you use scans from my ring to get the data you need?"

"What ring would that be?" I raise my hands and send my armour back into subspace, my ring's sigils clearly visible. "Ah, a Lantern. Yes, you should be able to. Here." The image of the system is replaced with… What I'm going to assume are technical schematics.

Ring, does that make any sense to you?

Yes. With this data it will be possible to relay-.

"Wouldn't it be easier for you to tell me how to calculate where it went?"

"Perhaps. However, that data is highly secure."

"Does that matter now? What if they made more than one jump? It's hardly practical for us to fly back."

"It is unlikely they survived, but in the event that they did the odds against them being in a position to make a second jump are astronomical."

"Why don't we just take you with us?"

"Kon, while I'm technically capable of warping Xenon along with us, I don't-."

"Not the whole moon, just the bit Har-Zod's recorded on!"

"I would only be able to communicate with you after being installed in a Kryptonian data interface. There is little advantage in moving me. If whoever was in that craft has survived the intervening years, I doubt that a day or so to come back with new data would create a significant problem."

"I think he's right, Kon." I put my construct armour back on and generate the Kryptonian communicator construct. "We can always move Xenon after we check on whoever this is."

"Okay." He nods grudgingly. "We'll be back for you."

"I don't mind either way, but I believe that the original Har-Zod would have appreciated the sentiment. Rao watch over you."

The face and map vanish as we head for the exit. Rather than take our time, Kon's flying as fast as he safely can in this sort of environment, donning his helmet as he does so. His hand flashes over the crystalline pedestal and he's already at the ceiling as it opens, rising out of the hole as soon as it's wide enough.

Finding a corpse would be… Awkward.

I fly after him, heading back out into near-Xenon space. Which is now a good deal clearer than it was before Kon blew it up. Okay, hyperspace window opened there…

I come up alongside Kon, generating a construct up ahead of us pointing to our destination. "Kon, ready?"

"Ready."

We both accelerate in that direction. "Two, one, warp."

Slightly green-tinted space bends around us for an instant, then the universe snaps back into being. Obviously there's nothing much to see… Other than a continent-sized lump of Kryptonradiation? No, no, it's far enough away that it's merely 'elevated'. Ring, scan hyperspatial distortions and other such residues, then relay to Har-Zod.

Compliance.

"Whow." Kon stares at the giant lump of shimmering green rock. Most of the kryptonite is on the side facing us, what used to be the outer edge of the outer core of the planet. For an object of that size at this distance, perspective is playing all sorts of tricks on me. My mind can't quite comprehend the idea of a rock that shape being 600 miles across.

"There might be ruins on the far side. But we can come back later."

"Yeah." He turns around. "Got anything?"

Data transmitted. Reply received. Most probable coordinates available.

I blink as the ring feeds them into my mind. "Best bet isn't too far from Alpha Centauri." I generate a construct marker and we both begin flying at best acceleration in that direction. "Warp in two, one, warp."

Rao is 'close' to Sol as these things go, but even with my recent experience there's still an appreciable time spent in the warp tube before the universe snaps back into being.

"Scanning... Yes, there's an emergence window. Not picking up other-."

"There!"

Kon's off. What-? Oh, the glowing green rock. I warp again, and a fraction of a second later we're right by it. Okay, we're not in Public Enemies territory here. This thing isn't going in anything like the right direction to hit Earth ever. Its relative velocity must be near zero. And if I remember my Justice League contingencies right, its mass is within manageable limits. Still pretty damn big though.

Orange lights run over the exterior as I scanthere.

"One small synthetic object, somewhat intact."

"Okay. How do we get it out?"

"Very carefully."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th September
21:07 GMT

Okay…

Possible living Kryptonian encased in a lump of silicon, iron and kryptonite. Oh, and thorium and curium and a few other things as well because that kryptonite had to come from somewhere and not all of the radioactive materials in Krypton were transmuted when it exploded. Thirty years' kryptonite exposure would turn a Human into a dead irradiated lump of cancer. If anyone in there has been exposed, they're dead. But. If the craft had some kind of shielding and a stasis or high-end suspended animation unit (which I think I remember the Power Girl version having) and everything stayed working (which is well within the capacities of Kryptonian technology) then she could still be alive.

Heat-based cutting is out, because that would make the Kryptonite explode and trigger a radiation pulse. Sonics aren't a good idea, because those could pass through the mass and damage the craft that is hopefully within. Giant drill construct and hope Kon never mentions it to Guy? No, those still cause vibrations. X-ionised cutting tool?

I turn up my empathic vision, but if there's anyone alive in there then they're not experiencing enough emotion to register. Soo, cutting tool that could go right through whatever ship they're in isn't such a great idea. This rock is baked with enough regular and exotic radiation that I wouldn't want to bet my scans are completely accurate…

I reach my hands forward and replace my armour's gauntlets with crumbler gauntlets. Still, not a great option, but these can be set to crumble particular materials. Whatever the ship is made of, it won't be made of kryptonite. I know crumbled kryptonite doesn't explode… For whatever reason.

"Kon, I'm going to crumble the green kryptonite and the rock. If you see anything that doesn't look like rock, tell me at once."

"Sure."

Right. Green kryptonite fir-. Wait, didn't this rock drop a tonne of non-green kryptonite on Earth in the comic? "And you should probably back off and increase power to your environmental shield."

"Why? If you crumble it, there'll be less radiation."

"Because we know that there are other kryptonite isomers and I don't know exactly how they'd react with an environmental shield designed to keep out the green stuff."

Ah… I think gold removed Kryptonian abilities. Red caused increased self-absorption in New Adventures and impulsiveness in Smallville and.. I think random mutations in the older comics? Black… Turns Kryptonians evil? That silver enchanted variety that made Superman behave like a child in Superman/Batman. And pink…

That… Probably doesn't… Actually…

Well, if it does, I'm sure Kon can control himself until the effect wears off. I jab my hands forward, chunks of kryptonite vanishing as I turn the crumble field up to a five metre radius. Just kryptonite. Vaguely draconic construct arms grab chunks of rock suddenly no longer connected to the main mass and toss them aside. I move forward into the available space and press my hands against the mass again. No, taking too long. Turn the crumbler field up again. Ten metres.

"Anything I can do to help?"

"Sorry, but I don't think so. Do you know if Cadmus has medical facilities for a Kryptonian? I know Star Labs Metropolis-."

"Wouldn't it be easier to take them to Superman's fortress?"

Another big lump of rock comes free, but all the big chunks of kryptonite from this part have been crumbled… Switch to silicon. Hands forward again.

"I don't know. Would it? I don't know what he's got in there."

"Really?"

"We're not exactly close."

"You're not exactly close to Batman. I guess I just figured…"

"Batman is in charge of the team and the Justice League. And he lives in a city with a high crime rate." Not as bad as it was, by any means. It's not Detroit or anything, not any more. But I certainly had business reasons for scanning there. "Superman's fortress is in the middle of nowhere, and he hardly spends any time there. So even if I did have a reason to speak to himDON'T GO ANYWHERE NEAR THAT!"

Kon backs off as I grab the shard of newly revealed black crystal in a very thick construct. "Okay, but… What is it?"

Radiation… Similar but not identical. How the heck does radiation exposure make someone evil? "Black kryptonite, apparently." I subspace it. "We can study it later. Do you know for a fact that Kal-El has medical equipment in the Fortress?"

"Yeah. He told Mom he was taking some of… Match's tissue samples there."

"That could just be a lab." I bring my hands forward again. Not… Too far now. "Ring, contact Lantern Stewart."

"Transmitting now."

"Power ring detected."

Automated message, ignore it. And because I'm no longer on the Green Lantern Corps' shit list…

"What is it, Paul?"

"Not on Earth at the moment, are you? "

"No, Athmoora. Why?"

"…happy to have his son raised…"

"Kon and I may, possibly, have found a Kryptonian survivor. They're in a kryptonite-rich asteroid in what I hope is a sealed container. I need to know whether Kal-El's got any sort of medical facilities in his Fortress or not."

"That's great news. And, yeah, he does. I took him there one time after he fought the Kryptonite Man and needed to get himself patched up."

"Thank you. I'll let you know how it goes. Orange Lantern Illustres out."

"…you well, but my brother speaks…"

I bring my hands forward again, crumbling the last chunk of rock between myself and what looks like the most structurally strong part of the craft. Okay, construct airlock and-.

"Emergency release."

NOWHATAREYOUDOING!

There's a small explosion and the front part of the ship is blasted at me, revealing an emaciated young woman currently being exposed to hard vacuum! I catch the chunk of ship and toss it aside as her eyes flutter and the cables plugged into her arms, chest and neck retract.

"…your care. My daughter-"

"Is that-?" Kon drifts closer to get a clearer look as I fill the area around her with breathable air. Okay, I'm seeing burns and severe malnutrition, but nothing that-.

The light from Helios' blessing shines on her. She blinks, her unfocused eyes turning red.

Oh fuck.

Beams of red light flash out and bore through the inside of the asteroid!

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th September
21:10 GMT

FUCK!

Her out of control heat vision bores through my construct, through the rock wall and through the kryptonite contained therein!

FUCK!

"Stop! Close your eyes!"

The air's escaping and she's too out of it to understand me!

Empowered Kryptonian bodies can take vacuum in a way that Human bodies can't. But it takes a lot more than a few seconds' vicarious exposure from the Chosen of the Sun to get to that level of toughness. I watch as boiling blood starts leaking out of the holes where the cables were connected, water vapour rushes from her mouth and her bladder and bowels void themselves and her heat vision is still going!

Environmental shield! Get in close and shiel-!

The woman's flailing smacks a hole in my barely-there construct shell just as the kryptonite starts detonating. The rocks around me turn green as light leaks through the furrows vaporised by her heat vision, before the rocks detonate as well! Block sunlight, stronger shield, keep the environmental shield up! Exit was that way move! Life signs… Not good, but at least she's not heat visioning anything anymore. And she's still alive.

At the moment.

Another explosion, and the radiation is seriously abrading my construct barrier as I-.

"What happened?"

"Heat vision."

"I didn't-!"

"Hers." I break through the rock detritus and see the faintly glowing figure of Kon just ahead of me. "Keep going!"

We both accelerate more, and I create an additional shield behind us as a third explosion erupts behind us. The ring shows me the huge lump of rock visibly start to tumble from the force of it.

"Is she okay?"

"No." Okay, no sunlight getting in… I repair her external wounds-. Her fat reserves are down to nothing. She doesn't just look emaciated, she is actually starving. Thirty years in a pod designed for a few days… "We're heading to Earth right now." I generate a target construct and we both fly in that direction. "Warp."

Alpha Centauri is even closer to Sol than it is to Krypton, and at my current level of need the journey is barely noticeable. As soon as the Earth appears beneath us I mark the location of the Fortress and power for it, Kon just behind me.

14th September
16:12 GMT -5

Ring, dial Clark Kent.

Compliance.

The Earth expands below me as I hear the dial tone.

"Clark here."

"I apologise for contacting you directly like this, but I have a severely injured Kryptonian and urgently need access to Superman's Fortress. Do you know where he keeps the key?"

"Ah-. Just outside the door-."

"Not the joke key. The actual key."

"Don't you think Superboy would-?"

"Not Kon." Ring, did that message confirm who this is?

Confirmed. Message indicated that occupant was 'Kara Zor-El', daughter of-.

Never mind, I know. "Her name's Kara Zor-El and I still don't know enough about Kryptonian physiology to fix severe kryptonite radiation poisoning. I mean, I can best guess, but-"

"I'll unlock it from here. Get her there as fast as you can."

"On it." Ring, hang up. "Kon, can you fly yourself there?"

"Yeah, go."

Transition.

And a metal door with an 'S' on it opening just in front of me. No giant palace of crystal here, though the interior is made of the stuff. I'm flying forwards into a small vestibule which scans me just in case I'm someone trying to come in without authorisation-.

"Please halt."

"Kal-El should just have sent authorisation. Please, I need to get-."

A section of interior wall-crystal retracts into the surrounding crystal. "This way."

I fly as directed. Ring scans aren't really penetrating, but at least I can see the shape of the environment now. "She's-."

"My niece. I know."

Crystals twinkle and I follow them, down, left and into a small chamber with an extremely uncomfortable-looking crystal bed and various other.. Kryptonian artefacts arranged around it. "Are you able to control this-" I lay her down as gently as I can. "-stuff, or-."

"Yes. Please, stand back."

I comply, and a crystal frame grows out of the floor and envelops the bed.

"And we're going to be having words later about why Match isn't in here."

"I'm afraid I don't know who that is."

"In that case, I'm going to be having words with Kal-El. Oh, and Kon-El should be arriving in the next ten minutes."

"He will be welcome. Please explain how you found Kara."

"Her craft appears to have dragged tonnes of rock and kryptonite with it when it went into hyperspace. When it came out, she was in the middle of it."

Patterns of pale blue light shine inside the frame, scanning and.. hopefully fixing.

"So, cellular damage of all sorts, maybe… Do Kryptonians get cancer?"

"Yes, but my niece will not."

"Plus, there's a good chance that she breathed in some kryptonite crystal, and… Not all of the kryptonite was green, so, don't assume that what you've got on file is sufficient."

A pillar of crystal extrudes itself from the floor next to me. "Please place any samples you have on the pedestal."

"This cannot come into contact with any living Kryptonian, even for a moment. Am I clear?"

"Of course."

I take the black kryptonite out of subspace and lay in on the pedestal. It's immediately surrounded in a faintly silver force field.

Fine. Ring, carefully monitor everything Jor-El is doing to Kara. I want to learn everything about Kryptonian physiology I can.

Compliance.

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th September
16:28 GMT -5

"How is she?"

I look around as Kon flies in and lands, helmet under his arm. "Jor-El says that he's fixed the radiation damage." I point to the pedestal with the black kryptonite on it. "Do not, under-."

"Don't touch it, yeah, I got it." He walks past me to take a look at her. "Do you know what her name is?"

"Kara Zor-El, daughter of Kal-El's uncle Zor-El and his aunt Alura. His cousin."

"So… She's my first cousin, once removed?"

I consider for a moment. "Basically, yes."

He stands next to the bed and looks down at her. "She looks… Really thin."

"She spent thirty years in a pod meant for a few days at most. I'm impressed that she lasted this long, actually. Once I know that she's going to be alright I'll fly back to Alpha Centauri and grab whatever's left of the pod. See if I can interrogate its AI."

"Does Superman have any.. chairs in here? I think I should-."

"I'm happy to oblige, Kon-El."

Crystal extrudes from the floor just behind him in the approximate shape of a throne, solid based and backed.

"Ah, thanks." Kon looks around, trying to spot the floating head. "Are you another recording of someone?"

"Yes." Another pedestal extrudes from the ground, this time with a back to it. A moment later, an older but still recognisably Kal-El-like face appears. "This program is-."

"A computer representation of the real Jor-El's responses based on his most recent neural imprint, I know. Har-Zod had one on Xenon." Kon sits, tries to get comfortable and then takes Kara's left hand in his. "Do you know who I am?"

"Yes, your friend the Orange Lantern explained it to me. You are Kon-El, a synthetic organic created using a combination of Kryptonian and Human biological material."

Kon shrugs. "Genomorph too. How's Kara doing?"

"She should survive her travails. I will need to regularly feed her small amounts of easily digestible organic sludge in place of normal food while she recovers from her malnutrition, but fortunately she shouldn't suffer any long term effects from it. The effects of radiation on the Kryptonian body were well-documented in my day."

"You knew about kryptonite? I thought that didn't get created until Krypton exploded."

"It occurred in small quantities on Krypton long before that. Though its effects are far less severe on Kryptonians who haven't lived their entire lives underneath a yellow sun, it is at least as dangerous for us as for Humans."

Kon nods. "How long's she gunna be out for?"

"Now that her injuries have been healed, it is likely that she will alternate between periods of wakefulness and natural sleep. At the moment, she is asleep. Given what has happened to her, I think that it would be best to leave her to it."

"There's a zeta tube down the corridor if you want to go home. Kal-El should be here in an hour or so."

Kon looks at Kara's gaunt face for a moment. "No, I'll stick around."

I nod, then turn to the hologram. "Jor-El, I've been trying to work something out. Exactly how.. Jor-Elly.. are you? I mean..? Do you have the capacity for creativity? Are you essentially a true AI based on the original Jor-El's mind? Because if so then I'm.. not happy about you being stuck in here like this."

"I appreciate your concern, but, no. I am not a creative intelligence in the way you are trying to describe. I am a highly complicated user interface capable of mimicking the likely responses of the original Jor-El with a high degree of accuracy, but essentially all that requires is that I access a database and speak using his syntax. Or a translation of it, for Kon-El's benefit."

"And you can't.. become..? A true AI?"

"Not by processes I can initiate myself. There were instances in Kryptonian history in which recordings such as myself were modified to possess greater mental freedom, usually in a misguided attempt to make their originator live again. Kryptonians are no more strangers to the extremes of grief than Humans are. But as I said, I am not an intelligent being. The result would simply be a new intelligence with access to Jor-El's memories."

I nod.

"Hey, could this…" Kon looks at the various pieces of medical equipment. "Could this be used to help Match?"

"Orange Lantern explained who Match is to me. There are a number of things that can go wrong in the process of cloning a Kryptonian in the way Cadmus attempted. Some of them can be fixed simply. Others are more difficult. I won't be able to tell you for certain without more information."

"I can bring him here once Kal-El turns up." Kon nods, giving me a faint smile before returning his attention to Kara. Hm. Since I'm basically here for moral support, I suppose I could have a listen to what that message from her ship was. Ring, you recorded that, right?

Confirmed, message recorded.

Extend a translation effect to Kon, then play.

"Power ring detected. Message begins."

"Green Lantern Tomar-Re. If you are hearing this, then the worst has come to the worst. Krypton is dead. You are now listening to what are almost certainly my last words, and in all likelihood my daughter and my nephew are all that survive. If the gods have been kind then Kara has reached safety. I am a lifelong atheist, and yet I find myself so unnerved that I am actually praying that is the case. I have little time. My brother's.. plan, is that Kal-El and Kara Zor-El be sent to a primitive world in the Sector neighbouring ours, where the locals physically resemble us and where their white main sequence star will grant them the powers with which the Military Council were so fixated. I have a different ideal in mind. My brother may be happy to have his son raised by neo-Daxamites, but my daughter is the product of a technologically sophisticated world. Giving up the stars was the greatest mistake our species ever made, and I am loath to make the last members of my species spend the rest of their days in such a place. I do not know you well, but my brother speaks highly of you. I have no right to make further demands on one who has done his utmost to aid us…" I hear him exhale. "As much as the confederacy of dunces who make up the Science Council will allow. But, please, I beg you: take them to your homeworld instead. If possible, into your care. Your people are technologically advanced, and can offer her far more than the primitive 'idyll' Jor thinks represents a better choice. My daughter… After a period of.. adjustment, will be perfectly capable of raising Kal-El in the traditions of our House. I have encoded a data crystal with as much pertinent data as I could access and placed it within this.. glorified Moses basket. Use what is contained therein as you see fit. I… I wish… So many things… Hah, I wish I had time to record a neural imprint as Jor has. But it's a little harder to make a pod for an adult woman than it is to make one for an infant. Kara, my daughter, I'm afraid that you'll have to make do with a short dictation. It's-."

…

"Ring?"

"At this point, the asteroid exploded and no further transmissions were received."

Damn. "The rest might be-."

"Uwraah? D-dad?"

I'm on my feet and at Kara's right side as she starts to stir. Her eyes blink, irises unfocused.

"You're okay, you're safe." Kon leans over her. "We got you out of that pod, and-."

"Uh?" She tries focusing on him and I extend the ring's translation effect to her. "Uncle Jor? Where..? Where am I?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th September
16:32 GMT -5

Her eyes close for a moment, and I think she might have gone back to sleep. Then she opens them again and takes a look around the room. Then she sighs with relief. "Krypton, I'm on Krypton."

"I'm sorry, Miss-."

She focuses on Kon's chest-. Where the 'S' of House El is marked on his chest plate because I have issues prioritising when merged with the Ophidian. Then she looks up at his face. "Who are you?"

"I'm K-."

She loses focus again and flops back on the bed. "I was… I got into…" Kon lightly squeezes her hand. "Ohnoohnoohnoohno."

"Miss Zor-El, do you remember what happened?"

"Yes, yes I remember." Her voice sounds like she's trying to cry, wavering and unsteady. "Krypton's gone. And… And I was trapped…"

She looks at Kon's face again, and he nods. "You were in there a while, but you're safe now. You're on Earth, and-."

"K-Kal? Little Kal?" She clumsily reaches out with her right hand. "You've.. grown up."

"No, I-. I'm not Kal-El. But he's-" He glances at the doorway. "-on his way. We had to bring you straight here because it's the only place that knows how to treat Kryptonians."

"And… The voice I heard was Uncle Jor's neural imprint." Kon nods. "It actually happened." Kon nods again, his eyes dipping further. "W-? How did..? Where is this?"

"Jor-El included some sort of auto-fabrication device in Kal-El's pod. Left alone for a couple of years it extracted materials from the surrounding rock and built this place. We're currently on a large island near Earth's northern pole. And slightly underground."

She manages to nod. "But if-" She looks at Kon again. "-you're wearing-. Are you his son?"

"Not.. exactly." Kon looks up, his eyes meeting mine for a moment before moving to the far wall. "A local genetics lab was doing work on Kryptonian DNA and.. made me."

"You're a.. clone..? I mean, not that that's a bad thing or anything-."

"No, I'm a mix of Kal-El, a Human called Lex Luthor and… And a few other things."

"What?"

"Yeah, Human science is kinda crazy. Oh, and, ah… Earth has a yellow sun, so you're… Things are gunna be a bit different."

"I'll be really strong, really tough and I'll be able to fly."

"And have laser eyes. You got a dose of sunlight when we dug you out, but at the moment we're excluding the relevant wavelengths from the light here."

"Why?"

"When we recovered you, your heat vision activated and the Kryptonite in the rock exploded. We all nearly died. That's part of why you're in a medical facility. So, until you're healthy enough to learn self-control, we can't let you get powered up."

She nods. "Okay, that's… Yeah."

"We're also-."

A tube extrudes itself from a nearby device and extends itself towards her mouth. "Kara, please swallow this."

"Uncle-?" The slight lift to her spirits fades almost immediately. "Right. What.. is it?"

"A nutritional supplement designed to restore your strength as quickly as possible. You were near-starving when they recovered you."

She nods and sits-. Tries to sit up, then Kon and I help her when she finds that she can't. The crystal of her bed shifts position to support her as well as she takes the end of the tube in her mouth and starts to suck whatever it is down.

"Recognised, Superman, Zero One."

We release her, and she leans back against her new support as she continues feeding. "Aw-?" She nudges it aside for a moment. "How long as it been?"

"Since Krypton..? About thirty four Earth years." She nods. I'm not sure.. how much of this she's really processing. My training relating to extremes of stress mostly focused on how to calm them down in the short term. "We think what happened to you was that a lot of rock got dragged along when you went into hyperspace, then your pod put you into suspended animation."

She nods, then notices that the tube isn't providing her with food any longer. "That's it?"

"You were getting starvation-level nutrition for thirty four years, Miss Zor-El. Your body-" Kal-El strides into the room, cape billowing. "-needs to get used to food again."

"Kara." I step aside and he takes my place on her right. "I almost can't believe you're really here."

"Kal?" She looks up at him, not quite believing what she's seeing. Then her eyes drop. "Thirty four years. I remember you being a little-" Her arms shake as she tries to lift them, her hands moving to indicate a small object. "-baby."

"You and Mom can compare notes-."

"Aunt Lara's here?"

"Oh." Kal-El looks momentarily stricken at his misstep. "I meant my.. adopted mother. I was brought up by a family on Earth. I didn't see my.. natural mother's face until I was in my teens."

"Oh. No, that… I'm glad you.. had someone."

"Once you're well enough, I'll take you to meet them." He catches my eye for about half a second, then turns his gaze to Kon. "You're invited too."

"I am? Ah, I mean… Thanks?"

Nice to see that his diplomatic training hasn't been completely wasted. And it's nice to see Kal-El making an effort. "Oh, Kal-El? When you've got time, I need to talk to you about how it went with Shazam, but-" He nods. "-not urgent."

Kal-El looks down at Kara again. "So how are you feeling?"

"I'm starving, weak, irradiated, I lost thirty years and everyone I ever knew is dead." This time she does manage tears. "What am I going to do, Kal?"

"First thing is, you're-" A chair extrudes from the floor and he sits on it. "-going to get stronger. And when you're well, then you've got your whole life ahead of you. Earth's.. not Krypton, but I think you'll come to love it just as much as I do."

"It… Do you want me to get a couple of G-Gnomes in?" They both look at me. "It just occurred to me that Miss Zor-El doesn't speak any Earth languages. And a telepathic tutor could fix that in a few hours."

Kal-El gives his head a small shake. "Not.. right now, Orange Lantern. Maybe later." I nod as he turns back to Kara. "Is there anything you need, anything I can get you?"

"I just… I think I'd.. like to sleep for a while?"

He nods, then stands. "We'll be right outside if you need anything."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th September
16:38 GMT -5

"Thank you." Kal-El's smiling at us like a man dragged from the sea. "I don't think I can even begin to explain how much this means to me."

"Unfortunate position for a professional writer to be in."

He makes an amused exhalation, and nods. "Alright, I could probably come up with something if you give me a couple of hours. I knew from Jor-El's records that Kara was supposed to arrive on Earth with me, but when there wasn't any sign of her I just assumed that she.. hadn't made it."

Kon's smiling proudly. I settle for nodding. "I was just going to get you a t-shirt…"

"Heh. Ah, Superboy-. Conner-."

"You can… Call me Kon. I don't really use 'Conner' a whole lot."

"Kon. I'm sorry for just springing that invite on you, but I wanted to make it clear I was including you. If you… If you don't want to come-."

"No, I… I do." He nods. "I'd like to meet them. Your parents."

"You two want me to.. get lost while you..?"

Kal-El nods. "If you wouldn't mind."

"Not a problem. If you need me, I'll be either at the Mountain or KordTech."

He nods, and I generate a zeta tube and step through.

"Recognized, Orange Lantern, B Zero Six."

"Identification confirmed."

Alright, where is agh!

"…a Demon?!" Canis brings his mega rod down on a bolt of purple flame, dissipating it harmlessly before it can reach us. "You would barely qualify as a Parademon!"

"I will skin you like a banana then feed you your own intestines!"

The two of them are contained within a glowing blue circle which is being maintained by Tula and Garth. Garth looks pleadingly at me for a moment as a blaster bolt narrowly misses Blaze's head, passes through the magic circle and is absorbed by the arena's force field.

I am… I don't know what's going on. I transition to the living area, where Kaldur is reading a thaumaturgy textbook and M'gann is.. doing history homework? She looks up as I appear. "Hey Paul. You're back early. How'd it go on Krypton?"

"Surpassed all expectations. We found a functioning database. And a living Kryptonian."

Kaldur's head snaps up. "A survivor?"

I pull out a chair and sit down opposite them. "Kara Zor-El, Kal-El's cousin. She's recovering in the Fortress of Solitude now. I left.. Kon talking things out with Kal-El."

"Recovering?" M'gann's attentiveness increases. "Is she sick?"

"Basically, she got into a tiny escape craft just before Krypton exploded, didn't get far enough away, then the craft put her into suspended animation to keep her alive until help arrived. Unfortunately, there wasn't any Kryptonian help around and Green Lantern Tomar-Re was too beaten up to remember that there was anyone to pick up. The Fortress's medical systems fixed the kryptonite poisoning, but she was close to starvation. I'm sure she'd appreciate a visit in a few days, but I don't think she's quite up to strangers just yet. She.. should be fine, eventually."

M'gann nods.

"What's going on with Canis and-" Kaldur sighs quietly. "-Angelica? Because she's meant to be working on-" Kaldur holds up his book so that I can see it's-. "-that."

"It appears some part of the magic which Ms Blaze was using offended Canis. They escalated their hostilities throughout the day before issuing mutual challenges. I felt that permitting them to spar might enable them to let off steam. Garth and Tula are making sure that they do not go over acceptable bounds."

I hold up my hands. "You're the one who has to live here. Did she actually make any progress?"

Kaldur closes the book and nods. "As far as I can determine, weakening her soul-prison should be a simple matter. She can free the trapped souls at will, and they would then move on to wherever they should have gone."

"Can we change that?"

"Is that important? This will already be the most complex thaumatic conversion that I have ever encountered, and I would have thought that simplifying any part that we can would be a more sensible course of action."

"The sorts of people who fall prey to Demons on Earth are generally long shots for going anywhere but Hell, and I think that we can consider ourselves to be Hell's enemies at this point. If we can just transfer the whole lot into Hades' care, or.. give them the choice..?"

Kaldur lays his hands on the book and slides it away from him. "Then I am afraid that you will need someone far more skilled than I to aid you."

"Okay… But… It should be possible?"

"Very few things are impossible. But I am afraid that I do not know whether what you seek is achievable."

I nod. "I don't suppose that you know the name of the second greatest thaumaturgist in Atlantis, do you?"

"There are several professors skilled in.. particular areas. I am not aware of a single individual whom I would describe as being the second greatest overall. Why do you not want to take the matter to Professor Sephtian?"

"Because I haven't had a chance to find out how angry King Orin is with me and I don't want to risk messing up his professional life any more than I already have."

"You-?" Kaldur blinks, then frowns slightly. "Why would King Orin be angry with you?"

"Not telling him about Koryak, and killing Nabu. I can understand him being angry for either or both things, and I want a chance to smooth things over before I start taking liberties."

"I think that you do King Orin a disservice by underestimating his capacity for rationality. And overestimate his anger with you. If someone he did not know was able to present a plausible case for a course of action they were taking being in the Justice League's interest, I am certain that he would give it due consideration. He would certainly not persecute a third party for their involvement in a matter which did not break Atlantean law."

I nod sombrely. "Okay. You know him better than I do. I'll ask Sephtian to involve himself."

"I note that you have not asked me whether I think this is the correct thing to do."

"If you can think of a better way to hook up the wings.- "

I stop as Kaldur raises his right hand. "I was referring to the question of whether or not we should be assisting a Demon who has preyed upon the souls of mankind for millennia. Not the practical realisation of that objective."

"If you know a better magic user, I'm all ears. But as far as I can tell, Ahri'ahn's still dead, Circe still wants to kill Diana, and… That's it. Once we get the wings plugged in, she'll no longer gain any advantage from doing any of the demony stuff she used to do. Or she'll be dead."

"Does that not risk compromising the League's status as heroes?"

"Yes. And next time they try fighting an arcane opponent without adequate support, it will risk compromising their status as living beings. Justice League membership is not a prize, it's a job. I could find you-" I call up a dozen construct personnel files. "-a hundred devoted heroes who would add less to the operational capacities of the League combined than she will simply because it is in her interests. And I am perfectly happy doing that."

"You may be correct. I have been concerned for my king's safety when he takes on such opponents without a sufficiently skilled magic user as part of his team. But given the speed with which you reached your conclusion, it seems that you have acquired a good deal of ruthlessness in your time away from Earth."

"No. I was like that already. But since Nabu's already dead I don't have to disguise it any longer."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th September
17:02 GMT -5

I smile as three quarters of the Knight family approach me. Jack's actually wearing the gear he-.

I grin excitedly. "Is that your cosmic staff?!"

Jack looks mildly nonplussed by my enthusiasm. "Ah, yeah?"

"Oh whaw. I mean-" I hold up my right hand. "-you don't need it, but I'm really happy to have the opportunity to see it."

He holds it up slightly, smiling faintly. "After the job you did selling it to the Senate Committee, I thought you might like a closer look."

"No way. Dad?" The teenaged Kyle Knight looks positively stricken. "You didn't say Grayven was a fan."

Jack actually chuckles. "I think Grayven likes weird technology the way I like modern antiques."

I nod. "Your species went from your first powered flight to what is basically a mega rod in thirty years. How is that not exciting?"

"Ah… Could you..?" Kyle comes forward and holds out a small hard backed book. "Would you mind signing this? I'm collecting superhero autographs. I don't have a lot yet…"

"Sure, happy to." Hmm. Want to make a good impression… I flip to the first blank page and generate a pen construct. "Just superheroes, or…"

"Huh?"

"Well, I was thinking…" 'Kyle Theo Knight. To the son of one remarkable man and the grandson of another. Grayven.' "If you leave this with me for a couple of days, I could probably get one or two other people of interest to-."

"Are you trying to get my son hunting supervillain autographs?"

"No. No." I pass the book back. "I was offering to do it for him. Perfectly safe." That earns exhalation hissing through his lips. "And Miss Knight." I crouch down and hold out my right hand to the youngest member of the trio. "Delighted to see you. I have a daughter your age."

She sullens, folding her arms across her chest. "Dad made me come."

"Yes, they do that sometimes." I stand. "But thank you all for coming, voluntarily or not. I have news, and something important to show you. This way please."

I lead the way across the car park between a selection of nondescript warehouses. Jack picks up his pace a little to come alongside me. "Did you find something already?"

"Oh yes. Does the name 'Vandal Savage' mean anything to you?"

"Yeah. I mean, I never met him personally…"

"Long story short, your father got rejected by a lot of tech companies who thought he was a crank-."

"Hey, any decent engineer or physicist would know that Dad could do exactly what he said he could."

"True, but when an old man writes in saying that he has a device that can produce unlimited cheap energy, they don't send their chief researcher. They send either the office junior or whoever p-." Quick glance at the children. "Irritated the boss most that month. Hardly anyone takes that sort of thing seriously."

"Someone bought-. Wait, really? Vandal Savage bought Dad's designs?"

"Yep. The idea of suppressing your father's work, then benefiting from it once he was dead is exactly the sort of thing he'd find appealing." I shrug. "I'd have found out about it months ago, except the company he used to do it wasn't directly owned by him and as such wasn't seized with the holdings we knew about when the Light was wound up."

Kyle comes up on his father's far side. "Who are the Light?"

"A group of supervillains whose holdings and persons were exterminated with extraordinary prejudice back in June. Anyway, I tracked down Savage's daughter and she was able to furnish me with a more complete picture of his properties." I did interrogate the Construct as well, pretty fucking thoroughly, actually, but I think it would be best if that thing's existence did not become more widely known. "And she was perfectly happy to assist me into transferring full control of your father's technology to someone who shares our views on how it should be used."

"If I asked 'who?', would I like the answer?"

"Hmmm." I make a show of considering his question as I push the door to Warehouse 3 open and walk inside. "Could go either way."

The golden form of the Starseeker sits in the middle of a mass of scaffolding in the centre of the warehouse. Upon the scaffolding stand numerous technicians and scientists who are engaged in very carefully examining-.

"Whow." Kyle's eyes widen as he takes the Starseeker in. "Grandpa Theodore really built that?"

"Yes, young man." Lex turns away from a couple of scientists and.. some guy I vaguely recognise as having been a Star Conqueror puppet at one point. I can feel Jack making a point of remaining calm as Lex and Starface walk over to intercept us as we continue towards the ship. "Your grandfather really was a quite remarkable man. Mister Knight." Lex offers Jack his right hand, and Jack transfers his cosmic staff to his left in order to clasp it. "It's an honor to meet you."

"Mister Luthor."

Lex chuckles to himself, and bows his head slightly. "Yes, I've… Rather grown accustomed to that response from Superheroes. May I say to begin with that if your father had brought this to me, then I would most certainly not have turned him away."

"I'm.. not so sure that Dad would have wanted the US army being the main benefactors of his work either."

Because last time that happened, two cities got blown up and he spent a couple of years in an asylum.

"Oh, no, no." Lex shakes his head. "This.. isn't going to be a LexCorp project." Jack frowns. "Mister Knight, I've fantasised about bringing Humanity into the space age since I was a small child. And now that I've been presented with that opportunity, I'm a little relieved to find that I'm still just idealistic enough to want to do it."

"Okay, so, what are you planning on doing with it? And what do you mean, it's not a LexCorp project?"

"I bought the patents myself, in my capacity as a private citizen. I already have people scouting possible locations for the production facility. Or…" He glances back at the Starseeker. "Perhaps facilities."

"You wanna build another one?"

"I want to build a fleet. It's long past time humanity extended its reach into deep space. And with your father's technology, we can make that happen."

Jack nods. "Okay, that's…"

"We're also going into mass production of cosmic converter-based electrical generation. That will be far quicker to implement than a spacecraft assembly plant. No offence intended to your father, but some of his.. design choices-."

Jack draws himself up slightly, but with an air of mock seriousness. "No one insults Art Deco."

"If you'd seen the interior of the LexCorp headquarters you'd know that there's little danger of me doing that. Rather, my researchers believe that modern technology which your father wouldn't have had access to might improve the performance of the core systems he designed. It will be some time before the first designs are ready to be put into production."

"And how are you going to pay for that? Are you going to be selling ships-?"

"Oh, no, no. I wouldn't trust anything this important to the future of humanity to anyone but myself." There's a little self awareness in it, and from his smile I think Jack picks that up. "Within a few years, your father's technology will enable me to completely dominate the world's energy generation markets. Even at a substantial discount on current prices, I don't think I'll have to worry about having trouble funding the project."

"And your cut of that is going to be..?"

"I'm running it as not for profit. My reward is that I get to be the man who leads the Human race back into space. And I intend to give your father full credit for his work. How does a… Theodore Knight Foundation sound?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th September
20:16 GMT -2

I lay my right hand on the resonance receiver that serves as the Atlantean equivalent of a doorbell for a moment, then drift back in the water slightly. One magic guy disappeared from the material universe, another so far out of his depth that the fish have lights on their noses -though perhaps I shouldn't think that around here- and the other -shock horror- having a life outside of work.

I don't know how he lives with himself.

The water barrier marking the entrance to Sephtian's home becomes translucent as an Atlantean woman I don't recognise answers my ringing. It's not the same building as Sephtian lived in when I first met him; it's an upgrade in both size and location. Poseidonis real estate isn't any cheaper than the dry land equivalent. The woman in question is octofolk… No, that doesn't sound right. Octopodiform? A somewhat better proportioned Topo. The tentacles around the lower front part of her face are in constant motion, and hide the hard beak I know to be under there. Her skin is a sort of mottled sandy brown with darker spots and her eyes are black circles mounted on a smooth face.

"Orange Lantern, I didn't know that Sephtian had invited you."

"Oh… He didn't. I just.. wanted to ask him about something… Work-related. I can come back, it's not a problem."

"An Orange Lantern project? Of course you can come in!" She takes hold of my right arm and tugs me through the doorway. "Most of us are thaumaturgists of one stripe or another. I know I've been positively green-" Her skin momentarily changes colour to match her words. "-with envy over the things he's been able to do with you."

"I've only recently returned to Earth." A few of Sephtian's other guests look around as my escort continues pulling me through Sephtian's home. "I take it that his work is going well?"

"So many projects were being held back by a lack of materials. Some of us have been nearly laying siege to the Conservatory's circuit-printing equipment."

"If you're interested in working for a surface company with access to that sort of-."

"Hah hahah!" She glances at me, her lip tentacles forming a circular shape. An indication of polite amusement. "You certainly don't waste time."

"No, but it's a serious offer. KordTech is quite serious about securing marketplace dominance, and it doesn't really have any competition at the moment. But it also doesn't have its own pro-."

"Paul!" Sephtian darts around another couple of Mantafolk and comes to a halt just in front of me. "Welcome back to Earth!"

"Thank you. I apologise for intruding."

"Oh, no, no. This.. whole gathering has been discussing the sea change in modern thaumaturgy your.. input has created. Your presence here is.. entirely appropriate." He stares me in the eyes for a moment, then smiles. "Should I.. assume that you have something new for me to work on?"

"Yes, but don't want to take you away from your-."

Sephtian lets out three loud clicks, and the conversations around us die. Guests begin filing in from other rooms. "Friends and colleagues! Orange Lantern has a problem for us!"

"And you're sharing now?!"

A quiet laugh passes around the room and Sephtian's head jerks towards the speaker. She has visible gills and a slightly metallic sheen to her skin, unusual in Atlanteans. "Sabina, I would certainly be delighted to share some of my headaches with you. Especially with you."

"Hmpf."

"So what is it? A new arcane device you need me to build? Something to.. analyse?"

"That will.. probably be involved." I turn my head left and right, taking in my audience. "Is anyone here a member of a monotheistic religion?"

I wait a moment, but no one responds in the affirmative. About what I expected; there are Atlantean monotheists but the idea hasn't ever really caught on. And as part of Ahri-ahn's legacy to Atlantian society high-end magic users are likely to have a more dismissive attitude to elementals in general.

"Item one is an ancient Human magic user with a soul made out of Hell magic. Item two is a pair of wings cut from a high-end Angel. I need to know how to fuse the magics of-" Sephtian starts laughing and twitching, his right hand wiggling backwards and forwards and sending him in a circle. I think he's been drinking. "-the wings with the demonoid without destroying her. This is made more complex by the fact that she's empowering herself using a pocket Hell containing thousands of tormented souls. Ideally I'd like a way to release them somewhere as part of the process."

My escort's tentacles are hanging straight down now. "Is that all?"

"Um… I was wondering… If it would be possible to include scry-ward tattoos like mine? Since you're essentially going to have to recreate her soul from nothing without killing her, I thought you-" The whole room is staring at me. "-could..?"

An Eel-man standing toward the back of the cluster in the library puts his right hand to his mouth. "Do you have a thaumatic break down of the demonoid's power?"

I shake my right hand, causing three Praexis Demons to fall out of my ring. "No, but they do, and the woman herself is available for consultations." Ah… "But that will have to be on the surface; her abilities don't lend themselves to the aquatic life and she's loath to leave a heavily warded environment."

The Praexis Demons give up on trying to waddle through the water. Instead, two of them pick up the third and throw him at the cluster around the library entrance. That provokes a sharp bit of backing up as it lands, tilts back its head and opens its cavernous mouth. A floating wisp of purple/red flame emerges from the back of its throat, and after a moment's delay the guests' hands rise, tattoos glow and invocations get muttered.

Sephtian recovers himself somewhat, and clicks again. "Working parties! Pure thaumaturgists! We need a way to replace one energy with another without losing the fundamental structure. Spiritualists! We need theoretical models for the transmigrations of souls under a variety of conditions! Biomancers! How do we interface a set of wings with a Human body in such a way that they can function? Arcanists! Techniques for making any of this happen. How can we affect such magics?" He turns back to me as the guests begin to group up. "Do you.. have.. an example-?" I take three angel feather rounds out of subspace and hold them out to him. "Excellent. And artificers! We'll need mana taps and containment channels and… All manner of devices to handle the energies. Unless any of you have them already, in which case:-" He gestures imperiously towards his front door. "-get out for not sharing!"

There's some distracted laughter, but the guests are mostly focusing on their new problem.

"Anyone left?" A couple of slightly nervous hands. Sephtian looks perplexed. "And what do you do?"

A Dolphin-man with a pocket of air bound to his blowhole hesitates slightly. "Elementalism?"

Sephtian blinks at him. "Who invited you?"

"Ah. You did? You said you liked my study piece on-."

"Oh, that. Do you.. know anything about Angels?"

"A little. There isn't much published, but I-."

"Fine. Thought models. How is Orange Lantern's latest project going to need to behave in order to use their new magics?"

The Dolphin-man looks around as the huddles turn their back on him. "Just… Think about it on my own?"

"I'm sure you're used to it. Elementalism." Sephtian turns to the Pureblood owner of the other hand. "And you?"

"I… No, I'm Ankhu's date. I work in the diplomatic corps."

"In that case, you can help Orange Lantern work out the political ramifications of his actions, and the best way to deal with a simultaneous invasion of Earth by the armies of Hell and the Silver City when they find out what he's doing this time. And what all of the surface monotheists are going to make of it."

"Ah… I… Really.. work more in inter-city diplomacy than-."

"Just do your best. Ikeni!" Sephtian swims towards the pure thaumaturgy group while the two leftovers look at me slightly helplessly. "What about negative space dream form…"

"Alright chaps, looks like you're with me."

"Nothing wrong with elementalism."

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th September
08:11 GMT -5

Ted blinks, then takes another look around the room. "Ah..?"

I hold up my hands. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

He shakes his head, small back and forth gestures as his mouth tries to form coherent sentences. "W..? Who..?"

"Apparently, this is what happens when you give a fascinating problem to the greatest magical minds in Atlantis when they're drunk and feeling competitive."

Ted looks around again, but this time he's actually focusing on individual people and artefacts. "You kept them away from the welding torches, right?"

I shake my head. "They didn't know what those were. Most of them don't know surface world equipment. They just-" Ted crouches down and picks up a complicated helical object made of at least five different metals. "-either had the arcanists weld them with magic or did some sort of.. property altering thing to make them a single object."

"Graaakhakhakahak."

The company's sole (hah!) sharkman snore-splutters and then rolls off the workbench he'd been using as a bed, hitting the floor with considerable force. He doesn't wake.

"Greatest.. minds in Atlantis, huh? How much did they-? Wait. Sharks don't snore." He steps over both a sixty year old Professor of Pure Thaumaturgy and her wineskin in order to take a closer look. "How is he snoring?"

"Ted, don't… Stick your head in the Shark's mouth. His name's Da'huk, and he's a biomancer. He decided that it would be easier to turn himself into an air breather than use a water manipulation charm."

"He gave himself-?"

"A-akk-akk-kak-snrk."

Da'huk snore-gulps, giving Ted an excellent view of his dentistry. Ted backs up. "Has he considered a career in surface world medicine? Because-?"

"Why do you think I encouraged them?" I wave my right arm at the rest. "Sephtian's been publishing a lot, lately. And it seems that they think that the surface world presents them with a massive opportunity. Since there's all sorts of fascinating magic stuff up here and no one local who knows what to do with it. So-."

His phone is already out. "Calling my Human Resources manager!"

"Okay, but I kind of need them for a little while first."

He shrugs. "You're already using my labs. Is it something we can bothMaria!" He turns away from me. "I-. Yeah, but-. More of an opportunity. How hard would it be to get green cards for about-" He does another quick look around. "Twenty-."

"Forty."

"Forty Atlanteans? No, no, researchers. The market for product development-. Ah… No? But-." He winces slightly, bowing his head. "Power generation? The medical-? Yeah, I can-." He looks around again. "Maybe… Need to… Get some coffee in them…" He pulls the phone away from his mouth. "Can Atlanteans drink coffee?"

"Mostly. Where do you think I sent the rest?"

"The staff cafeteria?" I nod. "Huh. Okay." He lifts the phone up again. "And you'll need to call the ambassad-. … Ah, yeah, I-." He winces and holds the phone away from his ear for a moment. "O-. O-. Ok-." He bows his head again. "Okay. You're right, I'm sorry. But when you do-." He winces again, then lowers the phone. "They're available for hire, right? I didn't just wake my Human Resources manager up on her day off for nothing, 'cause she's kinda pissed with me now and I don't wanna have to tell her that I was wasting her time."

"I only met these people yesterday. I think they're relatively free agents, but you should probably check with… The sober ones."

"Okay." He holsters his phone and leads the way out of the laboratory in the direction of the cafeteria. "What were you guys working on, anyway?"

"Justice League needs a new magic user, I'm trying to turn a Demon into an Angel so they've got someone who can beat Satanus."

"Is that possible?"

"That's what we were trying to work out. Though I think… Some people might have gotten slightly off track."

"'Off track' like 'dangerous mad science off track', or just distracted? Because psychotic invisible monkeys aside, we've actually had a pretty good safety record here."

"Couldn't really follow it. But they were mostly doing theories and working models and Atlantean magic professionals know not to have anything to do with Demons." He glances back, apparently not much reassured. "If anything was going to explode then it would have already exploded."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right. And if I'd been invited, I-" He pulls open the cafeteria doors. "-would pro.. bab.. ly…"

We both look at the wall of water covering the entrance. I recognise the slight sheen indicating that it's being held in place by Atlantean magics. Inside, the other half of the Atlantean brain trust are talking in low tones, with those who are actually eating occupying a small circle of seats around the counter where they've left an air pocket.

"Huh."

"Though this is something your Human Resources manager should probably plan for."

"Yeah, for the disciplinary process." He stands as close to the water as he can. "Hey! Other people have to use this place too, you know!"

Most of the Atlanteans wince, and Sephtian waves his right hand at the huddle of three arcanists. Their tattoos glow, and the water peels away from the entrance and goes… Not sure. Not anywhere in the room, at least. Sephtian then makes his way towards the dry section and Ted strides on to meet him.

"Good morning, Sephtian!"

Sephtian sticks his head through the divide between the flooded and dry sections of the room. "Ted. I understand that we weren't… Expected. And I.. thank you for your forbearance."

"Did you build anything dangerous?"

"No. No. Uum. Not.. that I remember." He blinks. "In the short term."

"Okay. That's what I need to know. How about we talk about what your people have been working on over breakfast?" Sephtian nods, and pulls himself out of the water side of the room with visible reluctance. "You joining us, Paul?"

"No, I'm happy to pass this over to you. I've got another… Appointment to get to. I'll come back this afternoon with the… Volunteer?"

Sephtian nods while Ted looks curious. "Really? A room full of groundbreaking magic research and you need to be someplace else?"

"I want to visit Zatanna before she needs to be at school. And check up on her father as well."

Ted frowns for a moment. "Oh yeah. Wasn't he on.. some kind of leave of absence? I'd have thought it'd be easier getting him to come back rather than getting a team of Atlanteans to work out how to turn a Demon into an Angel."

No League announcement to the contrary, then? I suppose I'm not surprised. "It might be. I'll know for certain when I see him."

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th September
08:19 GMT -5

Heh. With zeta tubes making coming here so easy, I haven't actually spent anything like as much time looking at the outside of Shadowcrest as I have the inside. Perfect recall means that I know the garden didn't look anything like this neat when I last saw it, but I don't know if that was Zatanna or Mr Tong while Mister Zatara was still Nabued or if it's a more recent thing. Still, the birds are twittering tunefully in the trees and the crickets are chirping in the grass as I head up the pathway to the front door. Given the early hour and uncertainty of the welcome, just turning up inside the building seemed like a bad idea. Looking good so far though; I distinctly remember Zatanna telling me that the protective spells extend into the garden, and if I haven't activated them I'm not on the banned list.

Hm. No one has mentioned there being any sort of problem with Zatanna, so I'm going to assume that she hasn't been demonstrating any sort of sign of being damaged by violet light exposure. I doubt that she's done what would probably have been the most sensible thing and just put the staff in a warded box and then tried to forget about it…

I glance down at my rings.

I like to think that I'm not that hypocritical. But, as long as she's kept her use within sensible bounds, there shouldn't be a problem from that quarter.

I walk up to the door and take the knocker in my right hand, giving it three short taps against the rest. Then I step back with a polite smile on my face. Can't hear a thing from inside the house and the windows have one of those 'false view' spells on them. Like a lot of wards, there are ways around them with a power ring, but given that this is the house of an ally I don't think that's really appropriate.

The door starts to open. "Yes? What can I-?"

The somewhat dressed down Giovanni Zatara and I regard each other for a moment. This is the first time I've seen him in person not wearing his trademark suit. His hair's still the same, but he's wearing brown corduroy trousers and the sleeves of his shirt are rolled up past his elbows. He looks… Recovered. None of the physical signs of his ordeal with Nabu are present, and neither is the wash of yellow that I'd expect from someone totally traumatised by an experience. Good show.

"Good morning, Mister Zatara."

He hesitates for a moment. "Orange Lantern. What..? Brings you here?"

"I wanted to see how you were. Oh, and.. ah… Let Zatanna know that I'm back on Earth."

"I'm…" He looks away for a moment. "I am in good health. Zatanna has-."

"Who is it, Dad?"

He stiffens slightly, then steps out of the house and closes the door behind him. "Orange Lantern, I-."

"You may as well.. use my name, really. Not like it's a secret."

"Mh." He nods. "Paul. Zatanna has.. made it clear to me that she feels that the way I spoke to you after I woke up in hospital was… Ungrateful, to say the least."

"It didn't particularly bother me, Mister Zatara. You'd been through an extremely unpleasant episode." I shrug. "It wasn't your considered opinion."

His face grows more sombre. "What makes you think that my considered opinion would be any different?"

"The fact that the world hasn't fallen apart in Nabu's absence. Something which you've had plenty of time to note. And if Nabu actually wasn't essential, then all of his justifications were hot air."

"I believe that you are still doing him a disservice. Nabu acted to serve the greater good. While serving as his host was most certainly not a pleasant experience, the good we-."

"He."

His eyes narrow slightly. "We accomplished eclipses what I had done in my time with the Justice League. Do you know how many evil magicians there were in the world before Nabu began seeking them out?"

"And making sure they all got fair trials, I'm sure. No. And I don't care. That didn't need Nabu."

"Do the lives he saved mean nothing to you?"

I hold up my left hand, showing my ring's sigil. "No. But I have been wondering something. Did Nabu have any sort of plan to replace you with someone?"

"If he did, he did not choose to share it with me."

"So if you died, he -and the world which he was apparently responsible for- were back to square one. And he wasn't making succession arrangements which would have allowed him to leave you of his own accord. And he wouldn't accept a golem body." My lip's curling. "Heroes like him the world can do without. I can still barely believe that you're defending him."

"Oh, I am not happy with his treatment of Zatanna-."

"What about his treatment of you?"

"No, I am not happy about that either. I simply realise that there was more to his character and actions than you appear prepared to recognise."

I shrug. "I'm not saying there wasn't more. I'm not saying that everything he did was bad. I'm saying what he did was enough to justify my response, whatever else he was doing. Whatever he was doing, it wasn't enough."

He nods. "Thank you."

"Excuse me?"

"I saw the good Nabu did, but I still missed Zatanna terribly. If I had remained as his host, I would never have seen her again. Whatever his absence will mean for the world, I am hardly blind to the fact that it benefits both myself and my daughter considerably."

"You're welcome."

"And on that subject." His face hardens. "What precisely is the nature of your relationship with Zatanna?"

"We're good friends. Working together against Nabu brought us very close tog-."

"How cl-?"

"If you're working up to asking whether we're romantically involved or not, no. I directly told her that wasn't on the cards at New Year, and I haven't done anything to suggest that my view on the matter has changed since."

"Hm. Then I will not need to lecture you on the subject."

"I like to think that you didn't need to lect-."

The door opens again. "Dad, who is-?" Zatanna's eyes widen. Then she smiles. "You're back!" She dashes past her father and.. wraps her arms around me.

Mister Zatara's eyes lock on me as I return her hug.

"Good morning, Zatanna. How are you?"

She pulls away and takes a half-step back. "I'm great. How was space?"

"Big, black and full of evil doers. I was planning a full slideshow in the Mountain this Saturday, I don't want to… Stop you getting ready for school or anything."

She shakes her head. "I don't go to school any more."

I frown, glancing at Mister Zatara for a moment. "You don't?"

"No! I had the G-Gnomes give me a full high school education and passed my General Equivalency Diploma instead. I mean, spending three more years going to high school just felt like such a waste of time when I could learn everything in a couple of hours instead." Mister Zatara's gaze makes it clear who he blames for that bit of lateral thinking. Not that she's wrong… "And I want to be a stage magician and a superhero anyway, and high school doesn't teach that. So were you here for something special?"

"I wanted to talk to your father. And I.. need help with inventing a magic process, and all the Atlanteans I could ask are nursing hangovers. Do you think you could-?"

She grabs my right arm and drags me through the doorway. "Sure! We can set up in the library. What exactly are we working on?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th September
08:33 GMT -5

A little way away I can hear Zatanna singing something to herself as she continues her search for grimoires relating to the structures of Demons' souls. There are a lot of books in Shadowcrest's library, and with its owner returned to it some of the safeties designed to keep younger members of the household away from anything too dangerous have shut down. Even I can tell that the passageways now go further than they did when we were looking for information on Lords of Order.

"It wasn't my idea."

"I don't remember accusing you."

"I'll lend you a mirror." There's a slight huff and a glance aside from Mister Zatara. "I may have mentioned the applications for telepathic learning… In reference to potential employment for Genomorphs, once. I certainly didn't encourage Zatanna to-."

"I do believe you. My daughter is an intelligent young woman. She is quite capable of making decisions for herself. But I hope that you recognise that my daughter has made this choice by applying the approach which you taught her to other areas of her life."

Hooray for utilitarianism. "How much of an.. actual problem is this?"

"It would make it more difficult for her to get into college, but she has made it quite clear that she has no desire to do so. I would be far more hostile to the idea if it meant that she was restricting her educational opportunities, but from what I understand of the process from Mister Dubbilex and from Conner, she has received a better education than most schools can provide and will retain it better than most children do."

"How.. many languages can she speak now?"

"Before, she could speak a little French and Italian in addition to English. Now she speaks both fluently, as well as Spanish and Latin."

"Latin? Odd choice."

"It was the Frankish language of Europe for nearly two thousand years. Many books written across the continent were written in Latin so that they would reach a wider audience."

"I would have thought that Atlantean Greek would be more useful for a magic education."

"Mister Dubbilex told me that he was unsure if learning more languages in that manner was safe. If it is, then I am certain that she will ask."

I nod. "I wanted to ask: have you noticed any lingering effects from your time with Nabu? Has it altered your magical abilities at all? That was my largest concern-."

He points to the piles of books already in front of us with his right hand. "Skoob, esinagro sevlesruoy ni redro of ssenlufesu." They each rise off the table and into the air, then fly around one another until they're arranged in three piles. "I was weaker for a time, but when I recovered I found that my powers were much the same. If anything, I think that I have a little more endurance now."

I nod again. "Batman asked me to find the League new magic users."

"Please tell me that you are not doing this in the hope of cleansing John Constantine."

"No." I clear my throat. "No, a woman named Angelica Blaze. But… Look, if it were me, and the League had treated me like they did you, I wouldn't want anything to-"

"That is not-"

"-do with them-"

"-why I have not-"

"-either, but-."

"-rejoined the Justice League."

"Okay, so… Why, then?"

"I have decided to take a genuine leave of absence in order to repair both my professional career and my relationship with Zatanna. I.. may rejoin the League, in the fullness of time."

"Sounds pretty reasonable. More reasonable than I'd be."

He reaches forward and picks up one of the books from the pile closest to him, then sets it down in front of him and opens it. "Stnetnoc egap."

The pages blur back and forth for a moment, then open at what looks like a new page close to the front. "Hm. Who else did you find to replace me?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You mentioned an 'Angelica Blaze'. Who else?"

"A man named Nommo Balewa."

"Ah, Doctor Mist. I met him once. I am a little surprised that he was willing to come out of seclusion, but I think that he will be a worthy addition to the League."

"I hope so, because Ms Blaze is more a case of needing someone to counter Satanus than someone who is actually a good fit with League ethos."

"Is that why she needs information on Demon metaphysiology? So that she can fulfil that purpose?"

"Um…" Um… "Under what circumstances would you want me to withhold an answer to that question?"

His jaw tightens. "None."

"She's currently.. something I don't have a word for. Her soul is made of Hell-magic, much as my own is made of orange light. We're looking for a way to correct that."

He looks a little relieved. "Paul, I have no objection to you studying magic in order to remove a curse."

"Honesty compels me to say that it's only a curse metaphorically."

"Did John find her as well?"

"No, found her myself."

"That is not as reassuring as you mean it to be."

No, I suppose it's not. "Does Zatanna still use the Star Sapphire?"

He glances up, then starts flipping through the pages of his book. "I've seen her train with it occasionally. Why?"

"Slight concern on my part that it might affect her in the way my ring did me." He looks up at once, eyes wide. "But we did everything we could to reduce the chance… And if she hasn't shown any odd behaviour at this point, it's probably nothing to worry about."

"Paul, I missed eight months of her life. I would not know if the changes in her behavior are a result of the increased maturity she has gained through the work you did to fight Nabu or a result of the crystal."

Ah. "Okay, but violet is the light of love-."

"That is not quite how Lantern Jordan described it. But she has not started behaving as Ms Ferris did, so-."

Zatanna strides back through one of the side doors, holding her mobile phone. "Wally just called. The Justice League are fighting an alien in some place called Thayer's Notch in Massachusetts. Wanna go join in?"

"I.. don't think so, Zatanna. I doubt that the alien uses magic, and if it does? Then Batman has my telephone number."

"I really wanted more time before I had to deal with the whole League professionally. Just a sec-."

Ring, scan.

Oh dear.

"Excusemeneedtogo."

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th September
08:38 GMT -5

Mister Queen leaps from the roof of a collapsing building, loosing his arrows while in the air. Konvikt uses what's left of a Bradley IFV to block the shots, quick hardening gel coating the side of the wreck even as it leaves his hands on course to intercept Mister Queen at his landing zone.

"Ah, cra-"

Mister Freeman's there to catch the Bradley, Mister Queen rolling out of the way and sprinting for cover as Konvikt takes advantage of Mister Freeman's Bradley-obscured vision to leap, smashing into the vehicle from the opposite side and dragging it and Mister Freeman down to the wrecked street where they land in an explosion of concrete.

I really wish I'd finished reading Trinity.

A red blur rushes past them, blowing the billowing dust clouds aside. I can see the crowd forming at the edge of the town as Mister Allen deposits the civilians whose town is being torn apart by the conflict and-.

A pair of Apache helicopters fly under me, keeping low and then opening fire on Konvikt with a volley of hellfire missiles the moment they get a clear shot. Konvikt pauses in punching Mister Freeman in the face just long enough to toss a wrecked car in their path, then dodges to the side. One missile hits his left leg anyway, the detonation knocking him over. He simply rolls into a tumble and then continues dashing towards the helicopters, who try to rise and back off. Two other missiles fly past him and slam through the wall of what had been a reasonably intact structure before detonating, chunks of debris flying through the exterior window holes as they do so. I'm just glad that hellfire missiles aren't incendiaries, because-.

The fourth missile hits the dazed Mister Freeman in the chest and detonates. He is sent flying into a wrecked building hard enough to smash through brick walls, and there's blood on his chest.

Konvikt leaps for the helicopters only to be knocked from the air by a shot from Major Adams. He recovers none the worse for wear, climbing the building he was smashed into as artillery shells from a trio of US Army Paladins finish off its neighbour. What kind of lunatic is trying to use unguided artillery on someone that tough?

Mister O'Brian telescopes up from the far side of the building as Konvikt grabs chunks of roof to throw at Major Adams, wrapping himself around the hulking alien. Who ignores him for long enough to bean Major Adams, then grabs his head in his right hand and slams it flat with his left. That's not fatal, but it's clearly left Mister O'Brian stunned.

Ring, is there enough left of the recordings for us to work out how this mess got started?

Multiple series of images taken from security cameras and mobile phones appear in my mind. Arranged by timestamps and attempting to fill in the rest with observed data…

Konvikt's crashed mini-ship landed over there. Broken trees and huge footprints mark his path from there to the nearest road. It was early morning, but there was still some traffic. One crashed car, but it neither appears to have hit him or been hit by him and no one was seriously hurt. That's where the first pictures come from. He then walked at a relatively slow pace into Thayer's Notch. People run, but there's no evidence that he started actually attacking anyone. No further car crashes; it was still early morning and low urban speed limit meant that cars had plenty of time to stop and back the heck away. Phone calls to the police increased substantially at this point… And someone phoned the Fort Devens US Army base.

Where General Hardcastle is presently stationed.

I thought Kal-El was joking, but this mess has his signature all over it. He's wanted the US Army to get responsibility for dealing with high-end supervillain rampages for years. Fort security cameras show military vehicles already rolling as the local police formed a barricade with a couple of cars. Thayer's Notch is too small for its own SWAT team, but from the recordings I got from what's left of their dashboard cameras they'd tooled up somewhat. Konvikt approached the police line in clear violation of instructions to stop in a language he almost certainly doesn't understand… And then the banging starts and I don't have good footage.

Gaaaaaaaah!

Mister Hol ducks under a swing, but takes a knee to his chest.

You'd think a world where this sort of thing could happen-

Konvikt winces at Ms Lance's scream, but closes the distance between them and she's forced to dodge as he swings at her. A glancing blow, and a red blur moves her out of the area before his second swing can crush her.

-would have better processes. Just hope he doesn't have construct disruption.

I step out and then reappear just behind him. His desires are almost exactly as I was expecting: the need to lash out at his oppressors and the burning rage at his mistreatment. I tag him with a filament before he can turn and transition us to a small clearing in the woods near to where he first landed.

My armour returns to subspace, my construct armour fades and I sit cross legged on the grass as he takes a step away from me, searching for his enemies. Two steps before he turns around to look at me, and I take a thermos flask of tea out of subspace along with two-.

There's a fist in front of my face.

I blink at his fingers, then tilt my head to the side so that I can see around them. "May I offer you some tea?" Konvikt's eyes narrow slightly as he pulls his arm back. "I'm afraid that my people don't really have a formal guest ritual, but I hope-" The fist comes around again, but the thing about these 'honourable warrior' types is that while they're perfectly happy ripping apart anyone who fights back -regardless of whether they were actually a threat or not- hitting non-combatants is still a major no-no. "-that you'll accept this in its place." Ragnar's exactly the same. If any of the people he fought for rings had turned down his challenges he'd have torn himself apart resisting the orange light drive to recharge himself. He really would have made a good Green Lantern.

I smile. "Tea?"

He looks down at the flask as I pour the liquid into both mugs.

"I quite understand that you're not feeling particularly trusting at the moment, so perhaps if I take a drink first?"

And in the spirit of honesty I don't simply use my ring to alter the taste. No, I take an honest mouthful of leaf water instead. And I swallow.

"It's honestly not as bad as I'm-"

"This is pointless." Konvikt starts to turn away. "They attacked me, I should-." He stops.

"Forgive me for violating the conditions of your sentencing, but I felt that this might be easier if we could actually talk to each other."

"I can.. speak again?"

"Not exactly. My ring-" I hold up my left hand, palm towards him. "-can interpret any form of communication. Even the intent to communicate. And then it can play it out loud."

He stands completely still for a moment, staring at my ring. Then he takes two steps towards me, sits down cross legged just in front of me and picks up his cup. He sniffs it, but there's surprisingly little suspicion in the gesture. He's more worried about the taste than the idea that I might have dosed it with something.

He takes a sip, a tiny mug in huge hands against a huge mouth. He appears to like it better than I do.

"Why is this happening?"

"The universe is fundamentally mechanical and hence uncaring."

He snorts, the sound coming from his nostrils rather than my ring. "No. Why did they attack me?"

"Because you're big and scary-looking. The ones who shot first are supposed to look after the rest and judged that you were threatening them."

"I did not threaten them. I walked to the town without hurting anyone."

"Now, I didn't say it was a good judgement."

"Fools." He turns his head in the direction of the town, spotting a thin trail of smoke rising up above the trees. "And what about the rest?"

"People honour bound to help the first people if they found themselves in a fight they couldn't handle."

"Oh."

"So. What's say we talk about your situation like rational people, hm?"