With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

[Mr Zoat]

17th November 2017
09:21 GMT -5

"…leave you now, as I see a deputation from the local government approaching. Remember, I'm an alien invader taking over your planet by force and yet I'm still better than the people running it now. Thank you for your call."

I hang up and shut down the cameras, then create an escalator for the group gathering on the plaza in front of the city hall building. Then I cup my right hand to the side of my face.

"I believe that a red flag was traditional for negotiation!"

There's a little looking around for a moment. Interesting. I don't see the mayor or the governor…

Then a long-serving state senator raises both hands to his mouth. "We don't got one!"

"I'm currently given you a 'D' for effort!" He stares up uncertainly-. "Get up here!"

He marches towards the construct escalator and-. Alright, he's walking up it even though it's moving, my respect for him has increased a little. A few of his braver subordinates -because if he's taking the lead like this then they are, regardless of technicalities- follow. They don't walk up the escalator, so I resolve to ignore them.

The Senator reaches the top and walks towards me, just about avoiding looking like a man walking to his own funeral. Still, there's something-? Ex-military? He's checking sight-lines, potential escape routes, things like that. Pointless given me, but after a certain level of experience it's all automatic.

"I'm Senator Rafael Sandoval."

"And I'm Grayven. Chief-of-Clan-Chiefs, Emperor, Prince Consort…" I shrug. "I'm not big on titles. How'd you get the short straw?"

"They figured you were less likely to kill me."

"Napier considers it gauche to kill people who are dying anyway. I kill people who deserve it. And despite-" I call up my-.

Ping.

-Mother Box's records on the man. "-a few minor campaign finance irregularities, I can see nothing that would warrant that."

He frowns. "Is this about the tobacco money?"

I nod. "Mostly."

"Look, it gives you throat cancer, lung cancer, angina and all kinds of other things. But I don't think there's anyone in this country who doesn't know that by now and if they wanna keep smoking anyway, that's their decision and it's not my place to tell 'em otherwise. Same with drinking or eating meat or any of that other government overreach bullshit."

"I'm not arguing with you on that, I'm just saying that you were a little less than forthright about that viewpoint in some of your campaign meetings and speeches, when people who would probably have changed their views on you if they'd known were there. Still puts you in the top one percent for moral probity. Well done, relatively speaking. What did you want to talk about?"

"Why are you in Dallas?"

"Picked it at random."

"You mind if we evacuate?"

"Not at all. I would never deliberately target innocent civilians, but-."

"Neither did Superman. Didn't help Metropolis."

I nod. "It didn't. That's why I don't mind, so long as it's orderly. By my estimates it will take another five hours for the American Federal Government to get anything here that they'd feel confident throwing at us."

"Air force could get here faster."

"Air force is filled with basically decent men and women who aren't quite as ready to obey their political masters as they were yesterday. Did you.. know about the island?"

"Heard rumours. Thought it was just a conspiracy theory. But that doesn't mean that everyone else is just gunna accept you taking over."

"As opposed to the-."

"The people who do now are on their way out. One way or another. The Second Amendment is for internal enemies, too."

I grin. "Oh, I like the sound of a citizen who knows their business. What would it take to make you accept me taking over?"

"Your broadcasts said you were gunna put people on trial." I nod. "We can handle our own business here in Texas. We'll thank you for your sources, but that's it."

"Acceptable, except Austin."

"Why Austin?"

"Because fuck Austin." A very thin smile appears under his moustache. "Also, it would take too long. The whole restructuring thing needs to start sooner than it would take to finish trials according to normal American processes, even Texan ones. I'm happy to hand the whole thing back after I'm done, assuming you maintain appropriate levels of probity."

"What are you doing that we can't?"

"Using telepaths for gaining evidence and handing down automatic two year sentences for Corruption in Public Office. Also, no Federal review of any kind."

"And what if we did all that?"

I frown. Ring? Oh. That is interesting.

"National Guard got their marching orders, I see. That's jolly refreshing. Alright, I'm game. Give it your best shot."

He relaxes a little. "Taxes."

"I rule seventeen planets. I will raise no taxes. Your money is only useful to me in that it will allow me to more easily reshape your society. In fact, given the businesses I'll be setting up and the technologies I'll be leasing for use by human companies, I fully expect to be a major tax contributor just about everywhere. I require no tax holidays or deferments or… Whatever, that isn't available to other people operating in the same location and industry. The only change I will make to your tax system is that you will start showing sales taxes on the shelves, because that's obnoxious and should have been fixed decades ago."

He doesn't appear to disagree. "You got a development plan?"

I look at the gaggle behind him who have made their way up onto the roof. "Which of your peons is the economist?"

He turns his head towards them and points one young man out. I wave my ring and a binder appears at his feet. "I have done this before. It's online, too, though I included Texas in the 'southern United States region'."

"Military. You said that you need our help to fight some other alien warlord. We don't have any starships, so I'm not sure what you want us to do."

"You do actually have starships. There's one in this state, and a few others in other places. And you should be able to use weapons I build in other places, farm food that can be shipped to my military units engaged in combat, and a handful of people with supernatural abilities can meaningfully involve themselves. But, I do see where you've been going with this, and I have no desire to repeat the British Empire's mistakes that led to the American colonies declaring independence. If you offer aid freely and of your own volition, I won't use force to compel you."

"Okay, but I've got no reason to believe that he's worse than you. He's never come to Earth before."

"No, he sent a small force here about… Five thousand years ago. Left two pieces of his personal organiser, as well as a few odds and ends. Hippolyta…" I wave my right hand in her direction. "Can tell you a slightly slanted version of the event."

He shrugs. "That was five thousand years ago. No one alive today saw it."

"Do you..? Want to?" He frowns. "I can just open a portal to our homeworld. You could have a quick look around, get a feel for the place and what Darkseid plans for the rest of the universe, then come back and report on it."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"Yes, but no one will attack you. He likes people to know what's coming. I'm more worried about what seeing it will do to your mind, which is why I'm going to put a rope around you so I can pull you out after a minute. That should be… Safe-ish."

He thinks for a moment.

"Yeah. Okay. Show me."

 

[Mr Zoat]

17th November 2017
09:25 GMT -5

"Fifty-eight, fifty-nine…"

And time. I tug on the rope, and when it doesn't immediately slacken I pull on it hard. Senator Sandoval comes flying out and I catch him as gently as I can while signalling Mother Box to close the boom tube.

Ping.

"Oh God. Oh God."

I set him down and he sort of collapses, shivering and staring into space.

"Oh God."

I kneel down next to him.

"Our Father, who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On Earth as it is in Heaven."

He appears to come out of it a little. He focuses on me, eyes still staring.

"What the Hell was that?"

"To put it simply, that was my Father's psychic aura." I offer a hand to help him up and he takes it, the shakes dying down a little. "Just being on the same planet as him makes everyone feel like that. You see why I want to keep him away from Earth?"

"Yeah. Yeah I do. God help me." He blinks, then focuses on me. "You..? You know the Lord's Prayer?"

I shrug. "My people are monotheistic… Sort of. And I've read up on popular Earth religions. So what did you think?"

"Yeah, that kinda evil-. We need to fight that."

"Excellent! I'll leave you to reorganise-" A red dot appears on my chest. "-Texas, but you should probably get off the roof now, because I think someone's about to try something 'clever'."

"It's not-. Ah, I didn't-."

"I know. Move."

He turns to his backing singers, still clearly shaken but rapidly recovering. "Alright everyone, move it!"

Subjekt-17 takes a few steps forwards, bending his neck to look at the red dot on my chest. "Finally."

"Yeah, sorry, I appreciate that it wasn't as interesting as it might have been."

Accomplished Perfect Physician shakes his head. "I found it quite educational. I had little time to study economics."

Adam nods. "Always good to know that the guy in charge has a plan."

I smile at them. "Aw, you guys…"

A canister of something hits me in the chest, green smoke rising off it for about half a second before I neutralise the… Nerve agent, and transmute the canister into a bobble head.

"Subjekt Seventeen, please remonstrate with whoever fired that."

He leaps off the roof, heading towards the edge of town.

Adam frowns. "What was that?"

"Nerve gas. Hippolyta… Not that I don't value your presence, but you're the squishiest person here and there isn't really anything else for you to learn. Perhaps it would be best if you evacuated as well?"

She looks… Up, towards the town centre. "I should brief my daughter first."

I follow her… Yes, that's Diana. Nice to know that she got her head out of her arse. She isn't coming in at full speed, but she is heading this way. "Do that-"

BOOM!

"-from another building."

She nods, and heads through the tube. Okay, scan, because-.

Two rays of green light hit Diana in the chest and knock her out of the sky!

What?

Oh no. Brannon, you miserable little third stringer, I didn't want you, it's supposed to be-.

I sidestep, daiklave appearing in my hand to parry the short sword that appears to come out of nowhere! A second sword strikes a surprised Captain Adam in the chest, mildly discolouring the metal over his heart before the user flies back into the air.

"What the-?"

Not faster than light, are you Hotshot? I raise my right arm, fusion cannon construct forming-.

The air ripples as Physician opens his mouth, a green and barely visible blur slowing and then falling from the sky, swords dangling from cables attached to his harness. He hits the edge of the roof hard, then falls towards the ground.

"Separate, and call out attackers as you see them."

Adam frowns. "Who was that?"

"Captain Jonathan Banks, United States Navy. The loyalty of the American military hangs by a thread. For the first time in living memory the government isn't sure that its orders will be obeyed. So they're sending fanatics. The people they experimented on after seizing Lex Luthor's research on kryptonian technology." I rise off the rooftop using my aero-discs. "And I've got to stop Brannon killing Wonder Woman. I don't think-."

Something hits me and a fraction of a second later I'm looking up at the sky through a small hole in the earth and asphalt. None of Brannon's team are fast enough and strong enough to do that. Looks like Thundermind got approval for cooperation.

Push.

The earth around me explodes as I shove it away, tracking the locations of all likely attackers. One of the Thunderminds has recovered the recumbent Hotshot, while the other-. Hah! Just tried that lotus mind trick thing on Adam and got most of the flesh burned off his face for his troubles.

Follow Hippolyta.

Ping.

Real-

I get my construct armour up as some sort of electrified kryptonite plasma slams into me.

-ly?

"You know I'm not kryptonian, right?"

Sergeant Adams -no relation- keeps her arm blasters pointed at me, maintaining the flow of plasma. Got to be a salvaged kryptonian power source powering that, because turning kryptonite into plasma is a very energy-intense process. It's also easy to counter if you have a power ring. I just create a plasma shield of my own and the kryptonite just flows around it.

And then I notice that the civil servants and politicians aren't out of the combat area yet and while this plasma might not do much to me it would scythe though a normal building without too much difficulty.

Right then. I stride forward, point my fusion cannon directly at her and fire, the plasma beam overpowering her discharge and striking her hard in the chest! Her armour takes the hit, her weapons shutting down as she's thrown into the shop front opposite us.

Fine, time to clean house. She's no real loss-.

Subjekt-17 slams into my side!

 

[Mr Zoat]

17th November 2017
09:28 GMT -5

I generate a crash mat construct as we go flying down the street, aero-discs straining to overcome our momentum! We hit it, slow, then we both slam our feet into the tarmac and try to stop before we hit-.

Darn it. That looked like a nice car, too.

I hear the heavy stamps of someone with super strength moving by bounding leaps, ready my daiklave as I turn and sidestep and slash.

The hulking suit of grey power armour with custom green radiation warning decals can't dodge fast enough to avoid getting its left arm cut, but the pilot stamps and twists, turning a swing that would have cut the arm clean off into a narrow slash that probably doesn't pierce the armour. Despite Sergeant Raymond Gibson being assigned 'Bruiser' as his codename, he is actually quite intelligent. And his armour is large enough that a normal sized man could comfortably stand inside one of his arms, if it were hollow.

Gibson himself is a dwarf, which I suppose means that there's more space inside for servos. Also means that I don't need to worry about stabbing him through the chest.

He leaps back, overbalancing and falling but tucking his limbs in and rolling with it.

"Subjekt Seventeen, switch opponents."

A wave of sound hits Gibson as he regains his feet, sending him flying backwards and embedding him in a wall. Glancing around I see Thundermind dive at Physician before something happens and he's suddenly flying downwards and slams face-first into the ground. Subjekt-17 obeys my instruction and heads towards Adams-. That's going to get confusing, think of her as Sekhmet instead. Heads towards Sekhmet, who has recovered enough to dodge past him and blast him in the side.

He barely reacts. And it's not as if I honestly need him to win. Just still be standing when the proto Justice League turns up.

"Gibson!" I march towards him as he pushes the wall away and braces for combat. "Compensating twice over?"

He approaches cautiously. I don't think that armour has a flight system, but he's strong enough to overpower mine. And unlike my comrades, he's practised fighting with that strength.

He leads with his right fist, well below his maximum possible speed. He's not sure what I can do and wants to test me. Normally I'd do the same but I do actually want to kill him. I lunge forward, meeting his fist with the edge of my blade. He pulls back before he can lose a finger and swings his left arm around to ward me off. Instead of backing off I continue my swing, tip of the blade catching him in the wrist and stabbing through the thinner joint armour. He jump-spins to try and pull it off the moment he realises what I'm doing, which mostly saves it, but means that he's facing away from me when I aim a fusion cannon at his back and fire.

That send him down on his front, outer rear armour slagged and smouldering. I get enough time for another shot at his left leg before he slams his hands into the ground to propel himself into the air.

Boom tube, Outer Hebrides.

Ping.

BOOM!

The tube opens below him as he starts to descend and it turns out that I was right and he doesn't have an integrated flight system. Hope he enjoys the scenery. Now, Hippolyta.

BOOM!

"…who created Doomsday in the first place!"

Brannon is giving Diana both eye beams, and she's blocking with her bracers while trying to talk him down. Good, I approve. That's the proper way for a superhero to act. Now I need to grab-.

Brannon turns his head towards shield!

The tower shield intercepts his eye beams just before they can turn Hippolyta into charcoal, earning me.. a.. grateful nod from Diana. Huh? And it's not even a grudging nod, she's genuinely… Happy?

"Brannon." Darn, that face mask makes him look like Black Mask of the Future. "Waller trying to avoid the noose? With all those agents she murdered and innocent civilians she fed to the giant alien starfish, there's no way she's getting out of this. First against the wall."

He glares at me. "She was."

That was.. quick. "Who did it?"

"Flag."

Good man. "I'll have to get him some flowers or something. But what about you?"

"Waller being an evil bitch doesn't change anything for me. Idiots with superpowers killed my wife. You all need to be stopped."

"Lex Luthor killed your wife when he released Doomsday on an inhabited city, and he doesn't have super powers."

"Doomsday was a mutant based on General Zod's corpse. Zod wouldn't have come here if it wasn't for Superman."

"And if Diana hadn't stopped General Ludendorff and Doctor Maru using her gas weapon at the end of the First World War then neither you nor your wife would have been born. I will give you Lex Luthor's current location if you and your team get lost now."

"And just let you conquer the world?"

"Make up your mind. Are you doing this out of patriotism, or to stop anyone being killed like your wife was? Because if it's the latter, I'm far better equipped to prevent that than any of the people who've been responsible for it so far."

He-.

I block his eye beams with a construct shield before-.

My fusion cannon shot misses as Diana lassos him and yanks him over to her, hitting-. I wince, but it looks like everyone had an attack of common sense and stayed home today. I turn to her.

"Careful doing that! I actually like this city!"

"It would have killed him."

"Better him than a bunch of innocent bystanders!" Hm. She's touching the lasso herself… "Why are you here?"

"To join with you in stopping Apokolips and purging this world of evil."

Noooooo…​

Okay, just her, she can-.

The batwing zooms over my head, hitting Thundermind with an anti-tank missile and smashing him into the ground.

Well, he's a foreigner, and-.

The other Thundermind flies after the batwing, then gets shot out of the air by a beam of… 'Martian vision'.

"Ah." Focus. "Them too?"

"Cyborg is still recovering from interfacing with one of the Mother Box fragments."

I take a deep breath.

"Thank you for the vote of confidence. Brannon, is the fifth member of your team-?"

A building to our north collapses. Then another in a line between the first and us.

"I see he is. Justify that."

"I can't. I wouldn't have approved it, and if I'd known then it would have been me and not Flag who killed Waller. But he is what he is and we need to stop you."

Mother Box, boom tube to Themyscira.

Ping.

BOOM!

"Hippolyta, get going. Now."

A moment of eye contact with her daughter and she goes. Brannon is smiling while Diana is starting to get nervous.

"What is it?"

"Joshua Walker. All-American Boy. Doomsday without the kryptonite vulnerability. This is going to be-"

I see a green blur, a hole appearing in the car park opposite and then pain!

 

[Mr Zoat]

17th November 2017
09:32 GMT -5

It takes a moment.

All I really think is: 'His spines can't move like that. My chest should be in the way.'

And then I taste blood, and I re-enact Superman: Red Son by flying through one.. building after another so quickly that between that and the blood loss I'm really not sure how many it is. The only mercy for me is that since I'm not a kryptonian I'm not aware of how many people I turned into pâté on the way.

And then I.. stop. In a basement of some sort, concrete straining and fragmenting around me.

Ugh.

"Grayven to everyone." Ugh. "Waller made a new Doomsday. Haven't seen it fly or use a vision weapon yet."

Healing ray, please.

It appears, and I shoot myself in the.. gaping chest wound that I try not to look at too closely.

"I knew he existed, but given how little of his mind appeared to survive the transformation I didn't think they'd try using him." I pull myself to my feet, using a construct corset to support my still-healing torso. "You could try using his comrades as human shields. He might recognise them. I'm going to need.. thirty seconds to be combat effective."

Mother Box, boom tube to Victor Stone.

Ping?

You want to leave him plugged in to Father's Box?

Ping.

BOOM!

I stick my right arm through, grab the first metal thing I feel and the drag it back. And continuing the universe's colour theme, this Cyborg is grey as well.

"Huh?"

"Use the metal part of your brain to think quickly. Government mad scientists made a new Doomsday, and your software is full of Apokoliptian malware."

"Uh. No, Dad made my cybernetics."

"Cribbing from devices he didn't understand, then you plugged yourself into one. I'm offering you an upgrade. No more control issues, and across the board improvements in performance. No more dysphoria. And I can change the colour to something a bit more cheerful. Five seconds to decide, then I'll have to do it later."

He looks shocked, in a happy sort of way. "Ah, yeah, yeah."

I nod. "Good show."

I put my left hand on his shoulder and take the Themysciran Box fragment from my belt with my right before pressing it against his chest.
Toy Soldier
I feel Father's malign influence immediately, but it's third or fourth hand. Easily dealt with if I apply a little force.
Ave Deus Machina
His body starts reconfiguring at once as I push the Box inside him. Faint veins of gold run through his silver-coloured plating as his internals shift to a more human-friendly configuration. Plates smooth and take on the form of human musculature, the glowing hole for the scavenged power source closed as the Box replaces it. Nerve impulse processors are similarly routed through the box as it effectively merges with his human brain. And I make sure it knows that it works for Victor.

Ping.

Faux-heartbeat, faux-pulse, mode switch between armoured and skin-like… Keep the weapons but-. Yes, like that. Extra-dimensional storage isn't difficult to include. Maybe a little more gold?

Ping.

Well, there's a lot less flesh there than I was expecting. We could offer to clone something for him later, but between a civilian-mode and the Box fragment he shouldn't need it. Done?

Ping.

"Okay, take a moment to get used to-"

He looks down at himself. "The fuck-?"

"-it language! You're a superhero!"

He looks at his arms, hands, torso and-.

I roll my eyes as his response to him covering his genitals. "Perhaps combat mode. Don't come out until you understand your basic functions."

Mother Box.

BOOM!

I armour up as I fly through the tube, scanning to try and find out what's going-.

Okay, add… Rebuilding most of Dallas to the itinerary. This-.

A small child in what looks like a prison uniform with a full face-covering helmet throws beams of golden energy at Manhunter, forming an aura around him and-

"Aaagh!"

-I don't know exactly what it's doing, but it clearly hurts. Nay I recognise because he was on my long list for my villain squad. I didn't pick him because I didn't want to endanger a child, but-.

I generate a cage around him and then thrust him into a partially destroyed building, breaking his line of sight and causing him to stop blasting Manhunter. That helmet, what's-.

Without turning his head he raises his hands and blasts me, energy slamming to my armour and shield, eating at them, but… Manageable. I turn the bars into solid barriers which gives me a chance to dash closer.

"Nay, stop, please. I need-."

"RAAAAHHHHH!"

"I need to deal with th-"

Golden energy blasts a hole in the construct crate and slams into my shield again. Okay, no starfish or butterfly, so he's not a corpse puppet. Can't see any other control technology-. Conditioning. The helmet. Without alien technology they aren't advanced enough for sophisticated implants, Burma or the Chinese. Just remove it.

I push the shield forwards until it envelops his hands, then use the respite to shove my hands through my own crate construct, grab his helmet and rip it off him in two halves.

He stops blasting at once, looking around in fear and confusion. I dose him with a knockout agent at once, catch him as he collapses and-

BOOM!

-gently shove him through the tube into Absolute Dominion's nursery.

"Grayven to Luna. One child guest. Please settle him in."

"Of course. Hath we acquired a new ward?"

"Maybe. I'll try tracing his family after I've brutally slaughtered the people who put him in a war zone. Out."

I take a purple healing ray in hand and fly out to where I last saw Manhunter. He's looking functional but unsteady, his skin gradually regaining its standard shape and texture. I shoot him with the healing ray and receive a grateful nod. Does he recognise the technology?

No. Something else I need to find out first.

"Why are you siding with me?"

"Darkseid, the ruler of Apokolips, first heard of the Anti-Life Equation from Mars. I incorrectly assumed that you were here on his service. Now that I know you fight against him, my course is clear."

I toss him the healing ray.

"Patch yourself up and then come and find us. I think we're going to need you."

 

[Mr Zoat]

17th November 2017
09:35 GMT -5

I fly towards the explosions, wondering how the heck I'm going to handle this.

I wasn't expecting them to back me. This Diana… Okay, she's effectively been an American citizen since the end of World War One. But she hasn't been a superhero, and I… Guess that she still thinks of herself more as Themysciran, and that Diana Prince is just a mask? Greek city-states were happy to kill or exile kings and tyrants while the system still carried on, so maybe that's how she's thinking about this? Hippolyta must have given me a glowing report.

Manhunter, I genuinely didn't know that his people told the local Darkseid about the Anti-Life. If that's his primary concern, fine. King Curry stayed in Atlantis because I didn't go for the Box that ended up in Atlantean care, so he's not involved. Cyborg… Maybe it's idealism? I did just show that the entire American political establishment needs a good hard patriots-and-traitors 2nd amendmenting.

One thing I've long liked about the American constitutional arrangement is the obligation it puts on the citizenry to rise up and execute their rulers if they become too tyrannical, and that it guarantees that they'll have the tools to do so. If I'm taking over, perhaps I need to consider giving them better guns?

So the options are that I either become more evil and convince them to overthrow me, or that I put up with it. That problem is that my god-name means that I… Doing something counterproductive-. I can't. When I first found out about that limitation I took it a bit to heart, but I'm well used to it now. Pursuing one path rather than another is something that I can do, even if I expect to be defeated. Doing something I know to be stupid…
Constructive Principle Observation
Looks like I'm stuck with it. Maybe I can organise a resistance campaign against myself later?

Ring, message to Lena Luthor. 'How attached are you to your brother?'

Message sent.

My ring pings me an alert and I look up to see Captain Banks just staring down at the rubble. One of his swords is missing, the cable which it was attached to severed with the end hanging loose.

Project.

"Not so edifying-" He looks around, spotting me after a moment. "-when you're the one causing it."

"I read his file. It's fucked up, this whole situation-." He points his sword at me. "Does killing you even get us anything?"

"The envy of my few surviving enemies. A natty head for your mantle. Though I'm puzzled as to what changed your mind."

"I read the file on that poor bastard. Just some.. kid, and Waller did that to him. Is he even still in there?"

I wince as a burst of very high pitched sound makes my teeth vibrate, and I see a flare of green.

"I don't know. Though while we're on the subject, the volunteers who didn't survive could do with your pity, too."

"Shit."

"Things like that aren't why I'm overthrowing your government, but it does rather damage the moral justification for the loyalist side. Deploying him in a city destroys it and completely eliminates any chance of me offering clemency."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

"Rescue civilians and try persuading Adams to disengage."

"What about Brannon and Gibson?"

"Brannon knowingly unleashed it. He's a dead man. Gibson's in Scotland. I don't care about him. Do what you like."

I fly again. Brannon is trying to shoot down the Batwing, which is viffing and launching smoke-. Does that idiot not understand what happens when you fire giant energy beams in a civilian area? Particularly when the aiming system is a human eyeball and the target is high in the sky?

Drone squadron 1. Hunt and kill.

BOOM!

Squadron dispatched. Warning, quantum event-.

Fuck! I fly as fast as I can towards the latest explosion of rubble, which it turns out is Walker with Adam in his right hand and repeatedly slamming him into a pile to broken bricks. Adam's epidermis is rent through and I can see the non-space inside, while Adam himself is gamely blasting Walker in the face with a continual beam.

It's not doing anything.

Walker is… Something else. Unlike Doomsday he doesn't have beard or sideburn spines, just weirdly huge teeth which protrude from his mouth. Where Doomsday was bald, he has what are either dreadlocks or some sort of head cable, with a glowing green radiation symbol on his forehead. His eyes and spines glow green, and unlike alpha radiation kryptonite radiation can easily penetrate skin. Everyone exposed and not immune to cancer is going to need monthly checks at least.

Hah, listen to me.
Taken To Our Leader
I land, daiklave in a two-handed grip.
Purpose Lends Strength
"Private Walker. I-."

Adam is tossed aside and Walker is leaping at me. I use my aero-discs to dodge, and-. Relax my telepathic barrier.

**Manhunter.**

Walker lands already knowing that he's missed, legs already pushing off the ground to propel him towards me, spurs already within-

Dodge!

-slashing distance! I try half-parrying a swing as I desperately keep dodging and-. His spur doesn't even get chipped while my daiklave loses a quarter of its length.

Dodge!

He's not leaping or jumping any more. No, he's using his size and speed to keep pressing me, to keep advancing and keep hitting-

A near miss causes the tarmac to explode in a plume of dirt and dust!

-at me.

**I hear you. I am providing medical aid-.**

**I need you to see if there's-**

Agh! A glancing hit and his spur sliced through the left side of my face.

**-any of Joshua Walker left in there.**

**His mind-.**

I fire energy pulses at his eyes but not only do they not hurt him but he doesn't even seem to get distracted.

**I know, but I need to know.**

A construct platform momentarily removes the friction between the ground and his feet, causing him to slip. A second's distraction, and I use the opening to grab my mega rod and smack him right on the radiation symbol.

**Then I will try.**

**Thank you.**

That knocks him down, but his spines shatter my construct and he rebounds immediately and I'm too close! He grabs my right arm and pulls!

 

[Mr Zoat]

17th November 2017
09:38 GMT -5

Fortify. Fortify

My armour glows brilliantly and my ring pours energy into my metaphysique as it fights to keep me in one piece. I deploy a purple death ray and shoot him in the face in the faint hope that death magic will kill him faster than his regeneration can restore him. Adam is checking his damage with his left hand and firing more energy bolts with his right, aiming for Walker's eyes.

Walker hesitates for a moment as he feels the resistance, ducking his head to avoid-.

Adam goes flying back as something hits him-.

Oh. That's my-.

I dodge again, off-balance without the weight of… Most of my right arm and the accompanying blood loss. And the mega-

Walker crushes my mega rod with a stamp.

-rod, which I was holding with my right hand.

**Grayven!**

"Adam, arm!"

Walker swings at me and I'm forced to fly down to duck under his arm. He goes for an overhead smash and I viff to the side.

"What about it?!"

"I want it back!" X-ionised needles, and I get a grip on the Sword of the Fallen. I fly around behind Walker as he stamps forwards, trying to-. No, those spines aren't flesh and I can't reach any of his-. He throws himself back and I have to ring-dodge again. "It'll take a month to grow back on its own!"

**Yes?**

**Are you alright?**

Slash with the Sword and why couldn't Chantinelle have made it bigger than a letter opener? It actually cuts through some of Walker's outer plating but I don't think he notices.

**Do I look alright? I just lost an arm!**

**I apologise. I have completed my scan of Mister Walker's mind.**

Back off, up and back and twist-stab, cutting off the tip of one of his spines. In theory clipping him to death might result in me winning, if I wasn't down an arm already.

**Relay faster.**

**That has risks-.**

**My eldest daughter is a telepath. I'm-**

Walker feints, and I'm already dodging before I realise that's what it is. I try pulling back immediately as his arm comes around but I'm notoooof!

**-used to it.**

Dropped the Sword but didn't stab myself. I grab the Sword with a construct, calculate and slash as I dodge towards him and then roll-

"RAAAAAGHH!"

-aside as the Sword slices neatly through his eyes.

He staggers a step as I back up-. That nick I inflicted a moment ago has already healed. He's not using magic at all so the Sword of the Fallen isn't neutralising his regeneration. But I've still got the purple death ray pointed at his face and his eyes aren't healing, good. Okay.

And then he stops moving.

He's listening. Because Doomsday variants here are mutated kryptonians and so they can hear like kryptonians. Okay, I've stopped bleeding, my environmental shield should prevent noise from my heartbeat or breathing getting out, I'm not touching anything for him to pick up the vibrations. The purple death ray isn't-

I shift it to the side and add sound insulation as he blurs into action, grabbing a broken piece of road and hurling it at the death ray projector. It misses, just, and then smashes into an office building with the force of an artillery shell.

-insulated, so he did hear that, but it's silent again. Okay, he can heal fast, but is he creating matter ex nihilo or can I wear him down? I-.

"I've got your-"

Walker orientates on Adam in an instant, leaping at the sound hard enough to buckle what's left of the road-. Looks like the contractor was cheaping out.

"-arm."

Construct directional speaker.

"Toss it!"

The speaker is smashed by the thrown lump of brickwork an instant later, but Adam has learned his lesson and throws the arm while frantically viffing to avoid Walker's charge. I need to get the purple death ray-

Walker jumps back, moving towards-. My arm, which makes a sound as it moves through the air. I throw out a construct tether to grab it-.

Walker grabs the tether. It breaks immediately, causing my arm to keep flying away. I send out another tether-.

Walker lands and leaps at me!

I-

**[I feel the shape of his mind, the drive to smash and rend, with a weak and barely noticeable whisper of meaning and context coming from a quiet voice somewhere near the back. Joshua Walker isn't exactly subsumed as he is a guidance system for something more instinctual.**

-dodge but I tried to dodge towards my arm and he's there in the way! I actually slam into his side while his arms strike the ground, and for a fraction of a second I'm looking right into his eyes as he blinks the dried scab out of the way and looks back.

Mother Box, find his parents.

Ping.

Fuck.

I slash at his eyes as I try to move up, because around is too predictable. And predict it he does, smashing his fist through the ground so fast that he's able to keep going and hit me again! Fortunately the angle and rotation are awkward and I just get smacked into the air-.

I immediately accelerate upwards and send a stealth drone for my arm. With his eyes working again that won't stop him seeing me, but-.

Diana dives down, slashing at him with her sword!

It-. Cuts through a spine, and his counter is intercepted by her bracers. Okay! I fly for my arm, grab it and slap the soggy end against my soggy end.

Construct sling, healing ray. Make Me Whole

And now I've got the same number of limbs as I started with, but the one way I know to bring Mr. Walker down easily won't work because his parents were in Smallville when the kryptonians started smashing stuff and were turned into collateral damage.

Mother Box.

Ping.

BOOM!

"Physician! Get through and heal Mister and Missus Walker!"

I raise the Sword of the Fallen, make momentary eye contact with Diana, then charge back in.

 

[Mr Zoat]

17th November 2017
09:40 GMT -5

Walker takes a step sideways as I come in, trying to keep us both in sight.

Pi-

Then he leaps at me while Diana gets a face full of asphalt. I dodge right, because this time he was ready for me to dodge forwards. I-.

-ng.

Brannon's dead? Good. Message Batman, ask him to check the corpse, then retask the drones for Thundermind because I have lost patience.

Ping.

Make sure that they're just helping with the evacuation, then ignore them.

Walker stops leaping and starts walking, his motions faster than his size implies that he can manage, arms lashing out to grapple rather than punch. Misses involve him throwing things at either me or Diana, releasing bricks or lumps of concrete to distract or obscure our vision. I've learned not to flinch and let my environmental shield handle the dust but at this point Diana's eyes must sting something fierce even from the hits she blocks. Two slam into her bracers as I dodge towards them to make a second swing awkward, Walker aiming directly at her head each time. She blocks the third brick only for a fourth to hit her bare left thigh hard enough to make her stumble.

Walker turns from me and lunges while she's off-balance, and I send the Sword of the Fallen darting in to slice through at least some of his Achilles tendon before pulling it back.

Ping.

Then one over their heads. The rest go into them if they don't get a clue. And deploy more death ray drones here.

Ping.

That's the least of my concerns.

Diana has her sword en garde to block any attempt Walker makes to grapple, but he manages a solid punch on her left shoulder. I hear her bones crack as she goes spinning backwards from the force of it.

"Ah!"

BOOM!

Good. Those drones won't need me to maintain concentration, and they're at least somewhat hard for him to detect. But the slice I made is already almost healed and it didn't stop him knocking Diana-.

No, she's back and doing low level flying while holding her sword in one hand. I could ask J'onn to heal her but that's probably not a good idea on a compound fracture-.

**Manhunter, troops are approaching the city. Please use your civilian identity to keep them away.**

**I will.**

Okay, how do we actually get Walker to stay still? How do we land a meaningful hit? Particularly with Diana completely unable to wrestle with him one-armed.

I consider the ground we're standing on. Walker can't fly, and the road is increasingly being churned up by the force that he's using to leap at us. Based on the strength he used to rip my arm off I don't actually think that he's leaping at full force. But the more smashed up it gets, the slower he'll be able to move. Leaping or walking.

Can't really communicate that to Diana. Just have to hope that she noticed.

Okay, targets are his eyes and ears.

**And have you seen Thundermind?**

**[An image of the wounded Thunderminds merging together and Physician doing something which turns him back into his school teacher mode.**

I move in, trying to tempt him into attacking me without getting close enough to initiate an attack myself. Walker's switching his attention between us, presumably trying to come up with a plan of attack. Or trying to work out what I'm planning.

**Good. Try and get him out of the combat zone, time allowing.**

**[An image of Subjekt-17 tearing his now-helpless body apart.]**

…

I suppose he had it coming.

Walker decides to advance on me, and I give him more room while maintaining eye contact.

"Diana, how bad's your shoulder?"

"I will live."

I don't speak, I just glare at her over Walker's shoulder. That sort of combat banter isn't appropriate for a disaster like this, and if she had more experience then she'd know that by now.

Walker swings at me with his left, flinging rubble at my face with his right. A construct catches the rubble and throws it back while I use my aero discs to move slightly aside then slash with the Sword, not at the arm but at his newly rubble-covered eyes. Got him! Clean cut through-.

He lunges-. And the rubble beneath his feet gives way, making him fall on his face and slide forwards instead. And then my death rays light him up, preventing his eyes healing while I send the Sword of the Fallen into both Achilles tendons. Success! A bit of a fiddle with the spurs, but he's now hobbled.

He tries to stand, and-

"Uuuuh!"

-he can't, clamping his hands around his ankles to… Try and hold them together? Shield them from the death rays?

Diana's closing the distance, sword extended-.

"Wait!" She halts her advance, frowning at me. "We've got a chance to talk him down! Physician is healing his parents as we speak. There's enough of his mind left to recognise them."

"He will heal-."

"What did you think the purple beams are for?" She looks up at them, nodding. "Is your shoulder fractured or just broken?"

"I am not sure."

Keeping a good distance from Walker, who appears to be listening intently but isn't trying to drag himself around with his still-functioning arms, I approach her, left hand glowing orange.

"Let me check. Depending on how your powers work I should be able to heal you." She nods, gingerly tilting her head aside while still watching Walker. "Adam!"

I take a closer look at her shoulder, scanning… I'm getting better feedback from her than Diana 16 ever gave me.

"Good news. Multiple breaks, but they're all relatively clean. I've no idea what any anaesthetic I could use would do to you and we don't know each other well enough for me to use magic, so this will hurt."

"I am prepared."

Orange light flows through her, pulling bones back into place. That's actually an advanced technique I learned from a parallel universe version of the man I was before becoming Grayven: using the subject's own desires to bypass some of their defences. Then I take out a purple healing ray and play it over the injury site.

Adam floats down, metal skin regrowing to cover his holes. "Yeah?"

"Help with recovering civilian casualties. I'm not expecting further attacks, but stay on guard just in case."

"Sir." He starts to turn away and then hesitates, frowning as he realises what he just called me. Then he brushes it off and gets back to work.

Ping.

Good. Bring the Walkers through.

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th April 1995
16:59 GMT

Peace.

Peace through power.

Heh.

Peace through the implied threat of geostationary satellite-mounted railguns. Peace through the very real possibility of a demigod turning up and… Killing everyone you tried to violate the peace with. And then you. Peace through dealing with ecological problems and the detritus of old wars.

It was the Earth's smaller countries who realised the implication of a new top-level power first. Someone who could deal with certain intractable problems they were facing without wanting military bases or cheap oil in return, and who would be happy to step in if one of the former top level powers felt like throwing their weight around. I've got honourary Chechen citizenship due to displacing the entire Russian army from their country while leaving all of their equipment in-situ, minus the unexploded bomb I left in the State Duma to make my point.

I vaguely remember reading about the Authority doing something like that..?

I've hunted drug dealers and gangsters for the Mexican government. With a heavy heart I detoxified the Vietnamese and Cambodian jungles. I've removed mine fields from Iran and Iraq, and arranged for certain officials in the latter to have unfortunate accidents because you can't hide that stuff from me. I've hunted enough child-rapists that if I wasn't still enlightened I'd probably be in therapy for the rest of my life. And for my own dear home country, as the signing date of the Good Friday Agreement draws closer I've been making sure that the Real I.R.A. and Continuity I.R.A. don't get the chance to emerge.

I know that Magnificent Kev did something like that.

And I've been living on a space station that I built because I do not trust a single one of the political, military or religious leaders down there not to kill me in my sleep. Building that was… Interesting. Some of the technologies that I'm used to flat out don't work here. Bless Vril Dox II's logical, mildly paranoid and entirely fictional heart, I do actually have a protocol for testing the laws of physics after a parallel universe shift, though the actual scientific principles involved are entirely beyond me. No bleed torsion generators, alas, but metallic hydrogen still fuses perfectly well and centripetal force can sub in for gravity acceptably well until I can either find a spaceship or visit a space dock to crib local-rules gravity plating off.

With so little… Weird stuff going on compared to the fake world of my memories, I've… Got entirely too much time to… Think about things. Making friends is… Difficult, in these circumstances. So despite my old opinions on the subject I've been seriously considering building a companion AI. Maybe not even an android or gynoid, just a station brain that can monitor the world, me, and make helpful suggestions and casual conversation. Philosophically, I'm against making new life merely for my own ends and particularly when I'm not sure that what I think I know about emergent machine intelligence is true…

I shake my head to myself.

Alright. I admit it. I need the Power Rangers. I've been in the insane superhero life for so long that it's the only environment I feel remotely at home in. The only people I can relate to and who can -hopefully- relate to me in turn.

I sigh, and… Transfer downwards.

15th April 1995
10:00 GMT -7

The Command Centre now has a helicopter outside of it, perched on a helipad that… Looks almost but not quite like the surrounding rock. Zordon's work, I assume. Can't scan through the defence screen, but I'm not seeing any sign that the Rangers are on-site.

Looking down the slopes I see the new military checkpoints that are springing up on all of the roads to the Command Centre. Those will obviously need to be replaced by something better disguised in the not too distant future, though a quick scan for physics anomalies suggests that Zordon has more subtle defences in place. Since no one immediately shoots me I assume that I haven't been uninvited, so I land and walk inside.

Alpha is in the entrance to greet me.

"Hello Orange Lantern! Zordon and Agent Rodriguez are inside."

"Thank you, Alpha. The Rangers not here?"

He hesitates, probably wondering if he should tell me. I mean, I know who they are and it probably wouldn't be hard to track them down-.

"They are receiving additional training in small unit tactics from human soldiers."

"Ah. Probably a good idea, even if not all of it is applicable. Might-." No, he doesn't make policy. "Pass on my warm regards if you see them before I do."

"Of course."

I nod politely, then walk forwards into the main room.

"Orange Lantern."

"Zordon. You're looking well."

Agent Rodriguez turns around as I walk in, but his gaze doesn't seem to be able to settle on me. Rather, it's constantly drawn to one strange piece of technology or another, and I can see how uncomfortable he is with the situation.

"I see you're a man of your word. No wars anywhere on Earth."

"I wouldn't go quite that far. Stopping wars between two more or less functional nations is simple. Stopping wars between hostile groups within a country who have no desire to come to terms or moderate their demands is far harder. And then there are the failed states."

And there I'm increasingly leaning towards 'give anarchy a chance'. If a government can't govern, what's the point in paying for rich people's hotel rooms and the fig leaf of legitimacy that comes with their rubber stamp? People went without nation-states for most of human history. If subsistence farming is possible and no complex infrastructure needs to be managed then it should be alright. Only problem is that I remember that Somalia ended up with a big problem with illegal fishing and dumping, which means that I'd be tied to policing their territorial waters for a few years. Not sure how many ships I'd have to beach before people got the message…

"You'll be pleased to know that the State Department is panicking a little less."

"A little."

"And… I know you're going to tell me to shove it-"

"Probably."

"-but they say that if you want any information, briefings or assistance, you can get in touch."

"Thank you. I'll bear that in mind."

He looks expectantly at me for a moment, but I just shrug.

"Okay. I'll tell them I told you."

If they couldn't be bothered to send someone here… Oh, I'm probably going to have to kick American government operatives out of a lot of places in the not too distant future, aren't I? Oh well.

I turn to our host. "Zordon. Have you been able to review my plan?"

"Yes. With Rita dead, I believe that I would be able to return within a few years without assistance, but using you to drain the spell will make the process quicker and easier."

"And you're as sure as you can reasonably be that it's safe? I don't want to accidentally drain you by mistake."

"I sustain this connection with my own magic. If you drain me by mistake, I can cancel the spell in an instant."

"Alright then." I take my lantern out of whatever passes for subspace around here. "Let's get you back."

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th April 1995
10:24 GMT -7

I sit on the floor facing Zordon's projection, watching the faint shimmer in the air as I keep drawing on the magic Rita invested in the spell binding him. I've only got a very approximate sense of how much energy I'm getting, but the flow has been constant after ramping up for the first couple of minutes.

"Alpha. Status."

Alpha checks a control console.

"The connection remains stable."

"I had to learn the feel of Rita's magic to steal the staff. Assuming that the connection is maintained by a mixture of your magic and this technology, it's no effort to avoid draining it."

"So, ah…" Agent Rodriguez hasn't started looking more relaxed since we started. "How long until we meet face to face?"

"The binding has weakened enough that I believe that I could free myself now. However, that would leave me significantly weakened."

"It's no trouble to take this slower. I half-imagine that an alarm will go off in Lord Zed's office the moment you get back."

"Lord Zedd did not detect Rita and I being imprisoned. Or if he did, he chose to take no action. I do not believe that he will immediately react to my return."

"Ah…" Agent Rodriguez looks even more unsettled. "'Lord Zedd'?"

"Rita's immediate superior. Tactically more dangerous, but… Strategically, the only change to the situation is that if I nuke him then the really heavy hitters would turn up."

"On the contrary, Lord Zedd is capable of creating monsters of much greater power than Finster's Monster-Matic."

"That's a tactical issue. Strategically, his attacks still involve sending a wave of putties followed by a monster with a trick which then turns into a giant monster."

"To my recollection, he also possesses a superior command of tactics as well."

"I'll tell the Rangers to hit the 'Z'. Any plans for when you get back?"

"I wish to contact old friends. And I will seek to ensure that you become fully real."

"I would appreciate that. I'm going to get a lot of people referring to me as a fictional character and I suspect that I'm one lawyer consultation away from being sued by Detective Comics." I exhale through my nose. "And I'd appreciate your guidance on dealing with Earth. I-."

My rings shine brilliantly, threads of orange light looping around my hands and striking the control room's consoles!

"Aye aye aye! Orange Lantern, what are you doing?!"

"I'm not!"

I focus, bringing my desires for control and utility to the front of my mind… But it's not working. As Agent Rodriguez scrambles back I call my new lantern-shaped orb storage unit out of subspace and try channelling the orange light into that. It sort of works, though there's a good deal more sparking and flaring than I'd like.

"Zordon! Any ideas?"

"Yes. You have been absorbing Rita's magic continuously from my prison without discharging it."

"I've been funnelling it into my own soul, the same as I did back in the-. Comic. I-. Does it not work like that here?"

"No. I have reviewed the comics which the Blue Ranger brought here, and the depiction of the soul is inaccurate to this reality. I believe that you were able to do it due to the way in which Baboo's potion caused the universe to interact with you differently. However, you have now reached the overflow point at which you are channelling more raw magic than the potion can account for."

"I'll take your word for it. What do I do?"

"The orb cannot properly absorb Rita's power. If you knew magic then you could use the power yourself."

"Helpful suggestions only!"

"Fortunately, there is an object on the table to which you have a connection. Channel the excess-" I look around-. They kept my comic? "-power into that."

"Is that going to bring more people to life?"

"No, but it should be able to absorb power without difficulty."

"If you say so."

I hold out my left hand, wincing as a console gets thrown across the room by an orange light surge. He's right, they're not acting like power rings any more, and I'm lucky that it hasn't gone wrong before now. Abandoning the effort to bring the comic to me I clamp my hands around the lantern and walk towards the table.

"Could you deal with this if you were here right now?"

"If I broke the remains of Rita's spell now I would return too weak to aid you."

"Alright then." I reach the table and place my left hand on the white patch of paper left by my realisation. As Zordon said, the page drinks the orange light without issue. "Brace yourself."

"What do you intend-?"

Left hand on the comic, I reach out my right towards his projection and pull harder.

"Please break free as soon as you can."

"That is risky."

"So is relying on fictional magic tattoos to not explode when they get overloaded with real magic. Just be ready."

"I am."

I look at the comic, and-. It's like one of those old magic eye pictures. It's still, but at the same time it looks like it's moving, the objects displaying their full range of motion. And as I'm staring at it, it's almost like it's stretching around me. I look back at Zordon and he's still there, but if I look down-.
//////////
1st April 2013
09:19 GMT -5

"-what you are seeing?"

"Huh?"

I'm-? I'm still in the laboratory, because-. Yes? Things… Went a bit strange there for a moment, but…

"You said that your perception was altered." Kaldur looks at me expectantly. And yes, I.. did. "Can you describe it?"

"For a moment, it was like I was more aware of the transition between instants of time, but…" I shake my head, looking over the analytic machine results. "I… Let me get back to you."

He smiles indulgently, then turns to leave. "Very well."

Alright then, let's see…

What's that? I don't remember putting-. On the console surface there's a Power Rangers comic, with… An Orange Lantern cross-over?

I don't remember signing off on this.

 

[Mr Zoat]

21st January 2018
10:14 GMT -5

I sigh to myself, an odd sensation of… What's that internet meme? Successfully failing? Filling my soul as I regard the written articles of accession. While they're not going to be recognised by any of the people still fighting against Earth's…

Mother Box, what's a less confrontational way of saying 'annexation'?

Ping.

Yes, I suppose that works. They're not going to take a blind bit of notice, but at least the areas that are at least nominally on-side have an official plan to work to. I mean, my plan to reorganise their economies has been going full-tilt anyway, but there are things that I need them to do.

"Suzerain Grayven?" The new Secretary General of the United Nations looks up at me with a degree of concern. "Is there a problem?" Understandable, given that he achieved his current office due to Subjekt-17 clearing house and me making him watch. The number and variety of crimes that UN diplomatic passports were used to cover for…

"No, no. Just wool-gathering." I subspace my copy of the document and straighten up. "I'll leave co-ordinating the governments in your hands. You know how to contact me if you need me."

Mother Box.

BOOM!

I walk through the tube and into the internal bunker area of the Absolute Dominion, immediately spotting the winch system that King Arthur has set up for his experiments with spiritual Mithridatism. It's winding in and I brace myself just in case. But no, Arthur staggers back through the tube a moment later, waving at Batman to shut it down.

Unlike Batman 16, this Batman was willing to accept Awakening almost immediately. As he put it, he didn't have a way to fight me, he'd already publically committed to my cause and I'd either follow through or I'd mess with his mind so much that he wouldn't know about it. Which…

I'm going to take Batman to Equestria once the initial rush is over. I think he needs ponies.

Anyway, he's on a knock-off Möbius Chair thing reviewing all of my plans with his newly expanded awareness. I don't know exactly what his portfolio covers, but I imagine that he's as good a person to check my work as anyone I could find.

"U-uh." Arthur bends over, hands on his thighs, as he tries to get his head back on straight. I'm not sure that what he's attempting can actually work, but it was one of his conditions for peacefully 'allying' with me and I don't really have any reason to stop him.

"Still in one piece, Arthur?"

"Yeah." He makes a point of straightening up, though the occasional twitch makes me think that he's preventing himself from dry-heaving by sheer obstinacy. "I'll go back in a minute."

"Perhaps… You could give it a rest for now? I was about to try reanimating Kal-El, and I think-."

"I never met Superman. You don't need me for that." He paces, staring at the boom tube opening point. "If I'm going to do anything against Darkseid I need to learn to cope with it."

Batman moves a hand over the controls of his throne, and a scanner light strobes over Arthur. Scanner says..?

Batman shakes his head. "Your mental state is drifting too far from normal. Take an hour."

Arthur clearly considers arguing for a moment, then swallows his irritation. "Fine." I walk towards the mausoleum, and he falls in besides me. "How's this supposed to work, anyway? People don't come back from the dead just because they caught some rays."

"No, not usually, but kryptonians are a little different to you and I." Bulkhead doors designed to be kryptonian resistant open to allow us into the brightly-lit room where Martha Kent and Lois Lane wait for us, the pair of them looking around as we enter. "The cells of their body are… Rather than relying on nutrients and oxygen provided by the blood, they can use a far wider array of fuel sources. Brilliant sunlight works best, though there are other things that work."

Arthur frowns. "But he's been in the ground for months. He wasn't getting any sunlight down there."

Martha gasps quietly, and Lois moves to comfort her. I shake my head.

"No way you could have known, Missus Kent. My hope is that his reserves were enough to prevent decay setting in, then it's just a matter of patching up the damage and jump-starting his brain." I frown. "Arthur, you grew up on the surface, right? You-?"

"I know what jumper cables are." He walks over to look more closely at the transparent case Kal-El's presently inert form is contained within. "What's with the suit?"

The white, skin-tight bodysuit that I put him in is a copy of Kon's old solar suit.

"It's a solar suit. It's designed to keep him slightly overcharged while he recovers. Should help, won't hurt."

The inside of the case is shining with the light radiating from the embedded sunstones. Calling up the readout, it looks like things are progressing… But I'd like him back in the field a little sooner, if only so that he has time to adjust to his trauma.

Alright. Mother Box?

Ping.

The sunstones begin to glow with greater intensity, the area inside the case becoming almost blindingly white. Hm. Yes, the energy is definitely being absorbed by his cells… I should probably give it a little longer before trying to-.

"Is now a good time for an interview?"

Expedite things. "Certainly, Miss Lane. I firmly believe that the citizenry have the right to question government officials. I just wish they'd done it a little more before now and then done something about it."

"So, you've actually conquered the world."

I nod, altering the display so that I can track an odd pattern developing in-. No, it's gone back to baselines. "So I actually have. Not as an autocrat, and I'm sure that people will start testing me once they get over the shock, but I'm the highest authority."

"I didn't even know it was possible. Legally."

"Yes, you can't ignore the mechanisms for rulership and control. There isn't much point in conquering somewhere if you plan on killing everyone. Plenty of empty planets around."

"And you had it all planned out?"

"No. I couldn't plan for exactly how everyone would behave." I sigh. "Especially my team mates."

"They helped you conquer Earth. What more did you want from them?"

"I was expecting Physician and A-. Atom to be conflicted at first, and then betray me once they got over the shock of what was happening. I planned on losing to provide the impetus to encourage Earth's superheroes to get their arses in gear."

Arthur stares at me. "You planned on losing?"

"I planned to win using a strategy that I expected to cause me to lose. Only I didn't fully appreciate how filled with scum most of the Earth's governments were, so now I've got to actually do it. Luna finds this all hilarious, of course."

Miss Lane looks shocked. "Of… Course. I'm sorry, I'm just having trouble getting my head around the idea that-."

Kal-El's eyes snap open, heat vision burning through the top of the resurrection chamber! Then with a crash he's gone, punching through the deck plating to fly off to goodness knows where.

I look up at the hole.

"In case you're wondering, I didn't plan for that either."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Third Year, Reign of Fire Lord Izumi, Midwinter

I frown as I consider the date. No, they don't do it like that anymore, do they? It should be '170 After Genocide', but that makes me quite uncomfortable. Planning a calendar after a brutal extermination campaign conducted by one still extant group against another? Even dating it from the start of the Great War has that problem, even if the phrasing would be a little more neutral.

I pull the oars again, while on the bench across from me Azula sniffs as she considers the map. And if I was more invested in the events of this world I might well sniff as well.

Firelord Zuko gave up every gain the Fire Nation made in the Great War, regardless of how long the region in question had been integrated into the Fire Nation, the ethnicity or disposition of the people living there and whether or not anyone living there wanted to go back to being ruled by whatever Earth Kingdom royal family used to rule them. An actual revolt in the oldest settlements resulted in one city and its surrounding rural region gaining theoretical independence as Republic City, but it only got actual independence after some sort of mass revolt by a non-bender paramilitary led to the council made up of appointees of the four nations being disbanded.

It beggars belief that the system lasted as long as it did.

Azula rolls the map up. "This isn't helping."

"Oh?"

"I thought that Zuzu might have grown into being Firelord."

"He made the decision to decolonise almost immediately after Aang defeated Ozai. There wasn't much time for him to gain more experience."

"Then he should have given the throne to Uncle Iroh." She reties the cord around the map and returns it to her satchel as we come up to the beach. "I don't think this is helping."

"On the contrary. I think this is exactly what you need."

She takes hold of the mooring rope and jumps, easily passing over the intervening patch of water and landing on the dark volcanic sand of the beach. I give the oars two more strokes before stowing them, then I stand up and jump into the knee-deep water besides the boat. The water feels entirely too warm for this latitude and time of year, which is the main reason that I wanted to come here once I heard about it.

Azula pulls on the rope and I push the hull, and between us we get the boat up past the high tide line before the guards reach us.

"Hey! You can't be here!"

Azula's eyes narrow immediately, but she calms herself a moment later. She's come a very long way in the last seventy years, but I must admit that I'm a little worried that reinstating the earlier context might cause her to relapse. Which is essentially why I suggested this journey: she is as well. That and the obvious.

The guards are wearing red and black leathers, and carry shields and cudgels rather than spears or swords. Armed for dealing with street criminals rather than a serious fight. It's rather nice that someone issued that order.

I smile broadly, walking past Azula to greet them. "Hello!"

The leader of the trio sighs. "Look, sir, this island is off-limits for as long as the volcano is acting up. It's for your own safety. So it's really best if you and your…" He considers Azula for a moment, presumably attempting to divine the nature of our relationship. "Girlfriend, try another island."

Azula takes another calming breath.

Azula has similar attitudes towards personal decay that I do, her eighty-five year old body looking perhaps half of that. She only started allowing her hair to grey in places when people assuming that she was a lot younger than her true age began to irritate her. I on the other hand have far more experience with looking like the old man I have allowed myself to become; a slightly more withered version of the face I wore when I first met her.

"Yes, that's why I'm here."

"Sir-."

"To commune with the spirit of the island and try to calm it." I point my right thumb at Azula. "She's my assistant, not… That. Hah! Not at my time of life."

"Oh! Ah, sorry, sir. Ma'am."

Azula makes a show of rolling her eyes and shaking her head, before turning away to pick up our bag from the boat.

"Ah, you're a Fire Sage?" The lead guard looks me over sceptically, no doubt noting my plain dress. "Lord Bao did send for one, but we weren't expecting a reply for a few weeks."

Radios, they have. Radios with good reception in isolated areas next to- I look up at the ash column. -powerful sources of electromagnetic interference, they don't have. And a traditionalist like Lord Bao would probably feel a little off about expecting the Fire Sages to respond to a radio call anyway.

"No, merely a humble wandering shaman. But I've been talking to spirits most of my life-" Certainly true by now. "-and I was closer."

The lead guard looks up at the volcano, sucking in air through his teeth.

The island is usually inhabited, but the villages have already been evacuated. The locals wouldn't be happy about having to rebuild from scratch, but they could do it and the Fire Nation is well accustomed to the idea that sometimes volcanoes erupt. The problem Lord Bao is more worried about are the neighbouring islands, where the falling ash and obscured sunlight is killing off the tourism from people trying to get away from the colder weather in other parts of the world, and the damage it will do to the next tourist season.

That actual problem is a good deal more serious, but he doesn't know that.

He doesn't want to let me up there. He has orders, and he knows how dangerous active volcanoes are and he doesn't want me to come to harm. But he also doesn't want to pass up on an opportunity to get this problem fixed. So 'we'll take you to our officer' in two, one-.

He turns back to me. "I'll take you to our Captain. He can decide if it's alright for you to go up the slope."

"Splendid!" Azula passes me my pack and I shrug it over my shoulders. "Lead the way."

The guard nods, then turns to his more slender compatriot. "Jin, take them back to base camp. Bo and me will keep watching the shore."

Jin nods with a smile, while Bo slumps slightly. "Aww…"

"You can do the next escort." The two of them start to walk off. "Seriously, you're getting paid to go to the beach, how do you..?"

"This way back to camp." Jin leads us in the opposite direction, towards the evacuated settlement. "So what's got the volcano spirit riled up? This island hasn't gone up for centuries."

"I don't know yet. Was the shrine at the peak in good repair?"

"I have no idea. Is that it?"

"Some spirits can be fairly sensitive about that sort of thing. Or traditional festivals being abandoned. Or made more touristy."

He winces. For the most part, spirits don't actually care much about how the humans who live near their holy places live. The issue is when there was some pact or other that requires that the humans do certain things at certain times, and then the humans forget about it. Most spirits do not handle that well, and just about everyone is raised on stories of why traditions are important...

And then the tourist money starts coming in, and that goes right out of the window.

"But I imagine that between us, we can sort this out. A quick refresh of the shrine, a few candles, a little chanting…" I smile reassuringly, while Azula remains po-faced. "We should be able to calm things down within a day."

Within A Day

And I didn't do any of those things. But things are a good deal calmer now nonetheless.

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th April 2015
15:31 GMT

The Chief Superintendent extends his right hand to me across the desk, and I carefully take it and shake it. To my surprise, I spot him being careful as well. Enhanced strength? Some sort of on-touch ability? Not sure. Interesting, though. I'd had the impression that this place had started sprouting superheroes only recently, but the chance of a senior member of the police getting useful powers and ending up here while still maintaining a secret identity is astronomically small.

I also have to be a bit careful because I'm not shaking his hand with my actual hand. I'm huge, and while my illusory ward might be able to cover a lot of things physical contact isn't one of them.

"I'm Chief Superintendent Jim Grey, and this is Doctor Dominique O'Brien."

He turns slightly to indicate the careworn fifty year old woman next to him. I smile and extend my right prosthetic hand to her. "A pleasure."

She manages a wan smile, and her grip's even weaker than his is. Something's not right there…

She gestures to the seat opposite them, and I nod and smile and crouch down in front of it in a way which I've learned causes my ward to display my fictional alter ego to look as he's sitting in it.

"Thank you for coming in, Mister-" She glances at the binder which I'm going to assume contains a print out of my curriculum vitae. "-Grayven. How did you find getting in?"

"Not as bad as I'd feared." When you look a fraction of the size you are, navigating a densely populated city is not a good idea. That's why Himon invented hush tubes. "And the security in this building was a good deal less than I was expecting."

"Direct attacks against the intelligence services are -thankfully- quite rare." Chief Grey smiles, bringing his hands together in front of him. "So… Why don't you start by telling us what interested you in this position?"

I nod. "Well… I retired a little while ago, and my wife was getting annoyed with me hanging around the house-."

"This is intended to be a full time role."

I shake my head. "I'm fully physically fit. And I'd rather... Make myself useful. And given how narrow my.. speciality is, I was rather pleased to hear that you were recruiting."

"Yes. Ah…" He glances at Doctor O'Brien for a moment, then returns his attention to me. "We'll get to your past experience in a moment. Firstly, do you have any unspent criminal convictions?"

"Hah! Oh-" I raise my right hand. "-no, but… After a certain point they stop being crimes and start being policies, don't they? I'm sorry, would you mind-" I move my right hand to my neck. "-if I took this off?"

He shakes his head. "Not at all. We haven't got the air conditioning sorted out quite yet."

I take hold of the necklace carrying my amulet, pull it over my head, lay it on the desk and release, and there's the double gasp as they see my real appearance. More from him than from her. She's… Thoughtful. "I apologise, but when I saw the trouble that the minotaur chap was having, it seemed to be for the best. The-" I point at the folder. "-physical description I wrote there is entirely accurate."

"Yes, that had rather caught my eye." Chief Grey crosses out one of his notes. "Thank you for clearing that up."

"How does this-" Doctor O'Brien indicates the amulet with her pen, carefully not touching it. "-work?"

"I'm afraid that I'm not sure of the precise details. Fundamentally, light is a form of energy, and therefore can be manipulated. Shorten a wavelength here, lengthen it there…"

"And it doesn't affect the mind of the person looking at it?"

"No, I never really had much truck with glamours. Irritating things. Some of them gave me a bit of a headache."

Chief Grey frowns. "I.. shook your hand. What was I-?" I hold up the prosthetic arm and wave it at him. "I… See."

"Physical contact doesn't interfere with the light manipulation, but anyone feeling something they couldn't see would realise something was up fairly quickly."

"… Right. Are you able to produce more of these devices?"

I consider asking if he's talking about the arm, but decide that's not an appropriate route to follow during a job interview. "No, but I know people who can make them and I'm happy to put you in touch. Regardless of whether my application is successful or not. I, ah…" I gesture to the folder with my open right hand. "Listed my innate abilities.. in.. that…"

Chief Grey flicks through. "Yes. I see here you say that you don't know precisely how strong you are."

"I can bend steel girders, but… Super strength is quite a good deal harder to measure than people realise. For example, I have no innate way to spread pressure around. If I tried to lift a.. passenger plane, for example, the plane would most likely break around my hands as it failed to support its own weight. Similarly, I can't punch at full force because I'm still held in place by the friction my feet generate against the ground." I make a circling motion with my right hand. "Equal and opposite reaction… My experience is that unarmed super strength fighting is all about grappling."

"Resilience… Immune to small arms. Immune to infantry support weapons. Highly resistant to anti-tank weapons."

"Immune, if I'm wearing armour."

He looks up at me.

"'Survived a point blank nuclear explosion'?"

I nod. "A suitcase device. It was a while ago and I've gotten tougher since, but I felt that a familiar point of reference would be more useful to you than… Talking about some of the more exotic weapons I've been hit by over the years. If you want me to stand in front of a wrecking ball to demonstrate..?"

"I.. don't think that will be necessary." He checks his notes again. "And… 'God of Conquest'?"

"I can enhance the offensive, defensive and administrative powers of those around me."

Something about that gets Dr O'Brien's attention. "'Administrative'?"

"If the administrator and I are aligned in purpose, I can… Grant them a greater instinct for organisation. A greater understanding of processes and a resistance to distraction."

"You can affect their minds?"

"Ah… Indirectly, yes. Essentially they.. gain part of my capacity. I don't get any direct control. They aren't even compelled to use it."

She leans forward, regarding me rather intensely. "And where does your capacity come from?"

"That's.. a bit.. difficult to explain. Essentially, I have a very small fragment of something call 'the Source' as.. the core of my soul. My capacity comes from the fact that that capacity exists in the universe. I just have.. more than my fair share of it."

"And is this 'Source' aware of you?"

"Ooh… Now you're getting into theology. I think the answer is: 'yes, but not much more than it is everything else all of the time'. I've never spoken to it-." Ah. "Alright, I shouted at it once, but I've never had any direct communication back."

She's still watching me intently, but I think I see a confused frown directed her way by Chief Grey. She looks away, leaning back slightly to allow him to take over.

"And I see that you have listed extensive law enforcement experience."

I nod. "Yes, particularly in the area of people with exotic abilities. In the case of this job, I believe that my practical experience of dealing with threats outside the normal range of human abilities will be particularly useful to you."

"Would you mind explaining that?"

"Humans -for the most part- fight using their hands. Guns and knives are hand held, handcuffs are the normal way of limiting their ability to fight. But when you're fighting someone who can -for example- shoot fire out of their eyes… And may have other abilities, immobilising their hands does not mean that you've won. You ask them to surrender, they raise empty hands, you step forward and fwoosh! The Met need a new Chief Superintendent."

"Ah." He chuckles nervously. "Yes."

"Similarly, disabling injuries do not necessarily mean that the assailant is not still a current threat. Any number of exotic abilities are not weakened by a lack of physical strength. On a more upbeat note, I also have experience in training and coordinating people with exotic abilities, helping them get the best out of their abilities and how to be most effective in the field. And as you can see from my CV, I'm used to fighting in that fashion."

He nods. "Thank you, Mister Grayven. Oh, ah, just one other question. I notice that you're not a British Citizen. Do you already have a tier two visa?"

…

Darn.

…

On my way out I send in the minotaur and stab the lizardman in the face with the Sword of the Fallen. I can't believe I just washed out of a job interview for a job I know more about than the interviewers!

I mean, what's not to like about me?

 

[Mr Zoat]

170 After Genocide, Late winter

"You see, ah… Ma'am?" The sport earth bender who was advertising for new team mates visibly squirms under Azula's glare. "Pro-bending is… Ah…" He looks around for support from… Someone? But the only people in the gymnasium are other pro-benders preparing for the new season and the other applicants.

Applicants seem to be a little thin on the ground.

"Yes?"

"It involves… Moving around."

Azula's facial expression doesn't change. That doesn't seem to be making her interviewer any more confident in his position.

"Like… Jumping and.. stuff?"

"'Stuff'."

"Okay, so, how about I…" He looks around and spots a stack of the clay discs which the earth benders use as ammunition during sport bending matches. He jogs over, picks a armful up and then returns to Azula. "Throw some of these at you, so that you can get a feel for it?"

"That's fine." Azula walks towards the nets which the gymnasium uses to catch misses and the larger fragments of clay which explode off when the discs are destroyed. She adopts a loose stance, her face still stationary.

"Uh…" Bolin takes his own more solid stance next to the stack of discs, then hesitates. "You're not a water bender, are you? Because not everyone wears 'national dress' and I got really confused when-."

"No."

"O-kay. Here.. we.. go." He gently stamps his right foot, the uppermost discs jumping a few inches into the air. Then he weakly swings his right fist, the disc flying like an arthritic frisbee through the air towards-.

BOOM!

Blackened and melted fragments of disc explode across the room, Azula's right fore and middle fingers pointing exactly at where the disc used to be.

Bolin blinks, his eyes slightly widened.

"Oh. So, you're a.. fire bending master? Like a… Real one? Because my brother can bend lightning but I've never seen him do it that fast bef-."

"Yes."

"Okay, well, that's… Ah, good?" He raises his hands into a semi-defensive, kneading-the-dough-of-his-thoughts sort of way. "But the thing is, lightning bending isn't actually allowed in Pro Bending?"

"Fine."

Azula takes a slightly more orthodox stance, though now a few of the other benders in the gymnasium are taking an interest.

"Because it's about bending fast and often and we're not actually trying to kill each other-."

"Again."

"Yesm'm." This time he gives the ground a more solid stomp and swings his arm in a more solid punch, though he's clearly aiming to miss-.

CRACK!

The disc explodes with only a little less force than the first time, Azula's signature blue fire hitting the disk and eating through to the centre before releasing its heat and superheating the clay surrounding it. Azula calmly returns to her original pose, face unmoved.

She was interested to find out what new innovations there had been in bending since she left. But while improvements to communications technology have allowed more people to learn lightning bending, the fact that the intervening decades have been relatively peaceful has really cut down the rate of innovation in combat bending. Bolin's brother might technically be able to bend electricity, but that's probably something he's done firing electricity into a step down transformer in one of Republic City's power plants, not something he's skilled enough to do in combat. She found the innovation in earth benders controlling metal more interesting because the Republic City police department can definitely bend metal in combat, but that's not something she can use herself. And I don't want to encourage her to 'try re-fighting the Great War properly', something she suggested doing in our earlier sessions.

"Hey Bolin." One of the other fire benders nods at Azula. "Your grandma's pretty good. Why'd you pick Mako over her last year?"

"Ah-." He glances at the crowd. "Ah, she's not-." He takes a deep and calming breath. "Okay, I'm going to go a little faster now? If you want me to stop-"

"I won't."

"-then just let me know." He hesitates, then goes to pick up another armful of discs on a path that lets him pass by me. "Is she always this intense?"

"Yes, always. Literally always."

"Okaygreat!" He smiles broadly as he tops off his pile and resumes his stance. He stamps harder, two discs rising into the air as a left and a right combo send them flying towards Azula in different speeds and from different directions.

CRACK-CRACK!

Two tiny jabs from Azula turn them both into dust, more efficient blows than she used for the previous one as she gets a better handle on how much force she needs to use to destroy them. Somewhat reassured that she can handle a basic attack, Bolin begins increasing the speed of his assault, stamping and swinging at a rate which I suspect is closer to what an actual practise session is supposed to look like.

Azula gradually shifts away from her classical form in favour of something that allows her to better make the small and fast gestures that more efficiently dispatch the clay discs. Not something appropriate to actual combat, where most combat earth benders are going to use considerably more mass than a small clay pigeon, but just the job here.

The fire bender who implied that Azula was Bolin's grandmother sidles up to me.

"She's really pretty good for an old lady. Are you joining the Fire Ferrets too?"

"Oh, no. I'd need to be a water bender, wouldn't I?"

He immediately starts losing interest. "Yeah, that's-." He frowns, and stares at my grey and orange robes. "What's.. required."

"And I'm not, so I can't. Azula, I'll meet you for dinner!"

She doesn't take her eyes off the incoming targets, but she does give me a small nod. I give the curious fire bender a polite nod, then turn and head out of the gymnasium.

I'm not.. sure how useful participating in sports bending will be for Azula recovery. But…

But I'm not the only enlightened Lantern any longer. And now there are a few more of us, the Corps has a rough idea of the mental transformations a Lantern needs to undergo to achieve this rarefied state. Except Azula's tried all of those, and she's still… She's very good, but she hasn't got that… Spiritual unity that we have.

Once she regained her sense of perspective with a little help from my counselling, she also regained her dedication and focus and has become an exceptional Lantern. Not the most spiritual, but she desires to master everything that she sets her mind to, and her command of constructs, strategy and tactics raised her above her contemporaries.

And with Dox retiring...

And in a few months she probably won't have the time to devote to self-reflection. She's going to become Clarissi, which isn't something I saw coming when I recruited her. And Clarissi is a full time job. She asked me if I had any ideas on how she could make a breakthrough, and coming back here and confronting the things she felt conflicted about was the best idea I had.

Visiting her old prison didn't really trigger anything. It's actually a spa for stressed aristocrats now. She did splutter with laughter when she found out what they think happened to her, a surprisingly unguarded response from her. But that was all. Visiting her father's grave didn't trigger anything, and visiting Ty Lee's grave only made her angry. Which might be useful, if she'd really been carrying that for seventy years.

But it's not what she wants. And I want to help her get what she wants.

I've got some thinking to do.

 

[Mr Zoat]

25th June 2015
08:36 GMT

I smile as a gaggle of convention-goers gawp at me, waving cheerfully as I stride past them in search of my wandering companion. Kevin the Human Cowboy has come a long way since I began working my Apokoliptian-sufficiently-advanced-technology on his mildly demon-gnawed brain, but he still has a worrisome tendency to get a little distracted. This is supposed to be a working event for him, after all.

Once that nonsense with the government's abortive attempt to put together a superhero team blew over, there was still quite a bit of interest from various parties in trying to work out how be to utilise those who came down with a sudden dose of superpowers. Being a Booth Dude for the Leeds Animated Festival and Anime Convention is at the low risk low reward end of the spectrum, but given the difficulty Kevin's physical alterations make holding down a normal job I felt that this was the way to go.

"Um, excuse me?"

I look down at the young woman who worked up the courage to speak to me, wearing… Looks like something from Avatar: the Last Airbender. I'm wearing a costume myself, but unlike the fanciful designs rendered in cloth and plastic worn by the convention-goers I'm dressed in an extremely functional Keldon outfit which shows off my impressive musculature and inhuman nature to best advantage.

"Yes? How can I help you?"

"Are you.. a superhero?"

"Not at the moment. I applied for that government team, but…" I shrug. "I was unsuccessful. I knew that putting Batman down as a reference was a mistake." I pause. "He never liked me."

The joke appears to fail.

"But you have superpowers? Like the Mole Man?"

With superpowers being a bit more… Strange here than back on Earth 16, some real… 'Odd' characters have managed to rise to an unusual degree of prominence. Including a man who's power allows him to burrow through the ground at surprising speed and who really has it in for people who don't pick up their dog's excrement.

"No, I have useful powers. Here." I slide a steel bar out of my costume and hold it out to her. "Test it."

She takes it and has a quick go at bending it before passing it back.

"Okay, so-."

I grip one end with my right hand and use my left to wrap it around my right fist, the metal screeching in protest the whole way. Her eyes widen.

"My colleague and I are doing a demonstration just after lunch today, if you're interested. He's the minotaur? I don't suppose you've seen him around, have-?"

"Oi, Gravy-mate!"

"You…"

I'm undone as much of the damage from his traumatic brain injury and negligent intuitive magic use as possible, but the man was born north of Watford. There are some things I just can't change. That said, Kevin… He's turning out okay. Despite his huge size -he's just about the only semi-conventionally organic intelligent creature on the planet who's larger than me- and at best average intelligence, he's never been violent. No criminal record at all, beyond a couple of incidents of accidental damage. And for some reason, despite me pointing out all of the disadvantages, he still wants to try and become a superhero.

And unfortunately, I think he's going to get his chance well before he's ready.

"Kevin!"

I smile and saunter across the hotel lobby to greet him. The shape of his mouth doesn't really allow him to smile, but I can generally tell when he's in good cheer. Like today.

"Smelt summat weird out of ma window, mate."

"Something weird?" His lexicon is improving by leaps and bounds as well, but… It's a muscle that he isn't used to exercising. I'm not exactly certain how 'super' his sense of smell is, but I've rather got the impression that he's not entirely limited to airborne chemicals. "Can you narrow it down?"

"Like fire, and cleanin' stuff and petrol and that." His happiness vanishes and he looks concerned. "Think it's a crash or summat? Think we should go help?"

The closest thing we've done to superheroing to date is helping the emergency services when they need some unusually resilient muscle. Pulling apart a wrecked car to free those trapped within is something which someone with super strength can do without too much training. But in central Leeds, I'm sure that the police will be on top of things. Still…

"Can't hurt to have a look. Let's have a quick…"

A member of hotel staff briefly tries to intercept a group of convention-goers who are intent on leaving the hotel, and is swiftly bypassed by the mass.

"Look. Come on."

I stroll over to the tail end of the early-riser crowd as the hotelier trudges back to the front desk.

"Excuse me, what's.. that about?"

She looks around and up, a slight intake of breath as Kevin and I fill her vision. I smile in a way which I hope is disarming, and Kevin-.

"Mooooo."

…

Yes. I guess it's not offensive if a minotaur does it.

"Ah, there's some sort of police emergency; they're shutting down the whole city centre."

I look out through the front doors at the mob of convention-goers ambling across the car park.

This…

I arm up, Apokoliptian armour I haven't touched for months replacing the Keldon leathers covering my body, daiklave appearing on my back and goggles appearing over my oh dear.

I'm half-way to the exit before I'm consciously aware of it and I accelerate, the doors exploding outwards from the force of my shoulder-barge. Being security glass they don't shatter, but being made of mundane materials they're still torn from their hinges.

"Kevin! Hero time!"

"Fookin' hell fire!"

The mage-knights on their monster steeds are barely visible at the far end of the road but the wave of magic hits us, clawing at our minds and senses. I'm fine, Kevin just snorts and one of the locals appears to go into a trance but everyone else collapses and I feel magic…

The cameras are targeting people-.

I get a dome shield in place just in time to block the transmutation rays coming from the CCTV cameras. What the fuck are they-? No.

"Kevin, get people back inside the hotel."

He's looking down the road at the… Unicorn riders?

"… The fook 're they?"

"Supervillains, and we'll be dealing with them presently but right now I need you to rescue people."

"Right, cap'n!"

He grabs recumbent cosplayers with his right hand and loads them into the crook of his left before dashing back into cover. The knights… Yes, they've seen me and they're accelerating into a charge. I.. was not prepared for this.

But that's okay. Days like this are why the Source invented beam singularity projectors.

 

[Mr Zoat]

25th June 2015
08:40 GMT
Reinforce.
Nitrogen degrades to plasma on the far side of my construct barrier as Kevin lumbers back to my side.
Reinforce.
"Fook is gawin' on, mate?"
Reinforce.
"Enemy wizards, Kevin."
Reinforce.
"Throwin' fireballs an' that?"
Reinforce.
"Throwing heat. It's a wee bit hotter than a fireball out there."
Reinforce.
Frustratingly, they wised up rather quickly once I sliced a line through their front rank. The unicorn-riding knights-. The ones who survived, anyway, spread out and fell back, correctly guessing that I didn't particularly want to destroy the entire centre of Liverpool. Some of them tried doubling down on their concealment spells and spreading out to attack me from multiple angles. Once I gunned them down, they decided to call in artillery.
Reinforce.
They don't have aircraft but they do have a few of some sort of flying wyrm creature. Sadly, they were intelligent enough to realise that if I could see their cavalry then I would certainly be able to spot their fliers. So they called forward some mages and… Here I am.
Reinforce.
"So we 'avin' a go at the fookin' bastards or wot?"
Reinforce.
"Kevin, what is the most important responsibility of a superhero?"
Reinforce.
"Protectin' folk. An' the only way t' do thaht is t' get the bastards wot're gettin' lairy, you tole me."
Reinforce.
"Generally, yes, and a degree of collateral damage is acceptable in order to prevent something worse happening because the malefactors were left to run riot. In this case, I appear to have their full attention. Which is good because..?"
Reinforce.
"'cos you're dead hard and you can tekkit."
Reinforce.
"Good lad."
Reinforce.
"So if they think they can get you, they keep shootin' you. But if they know they ain't gunna, they could run away or sommat."
Reinforce.
"Not as young as I was, Kevin."
Reinforce.
"So we get 'em together, right?"
Reinforce.
His ability to smile is somewhat impeded, but he sounds positively giddy with excitement at the prospect.
Reinforce.
"Kevin, I wanted to bring you into this whole 'superheroism' thing slowly. Train you, make sure that I knew your limits, start you off with something small and work upwards. But I'm afraid that events have rather gotten away from me."
Reinforce.
"So we gonna go fook 'em up. Yeah?"
Reinforce.
"So if we went out there right now, you'd probably die."
Reinforce.
"You said that wuz just something that happened!"
Reinforce.
"Sometimes people doing the job die, yes. But if you die because you didn't prepare properly then you're an idiot. Are you an idiot?"
Reinforce.
"Um. No?"
Reinforce.
"Am I?"
Reinforce.
"No, Gravy-mate."
Reinforce.
"So I've got some gear for you." I notice that the arcane force hitting my construct shield is falling off, though it's still air-to-plasma hot out there. "Armour, weapons, equipment like my goggles. I was going to give it to you when we started doing this sort of thing properly, but as I said-"
Reinforce.
"Gotta 'av it now."
Reinforce.
You know, I know that he's only this biddable because he's a bit dim, but in crunch situations like this it's really convenient.
Reinforce.
"Come a little closer."
Reinforce.
He obediently comes closer, the mostly shielded tarmac sagging noticeably under his weight. I reach out and place my left hand on his forehead, between his horns.
Reinforce.
"Awaken." Awaken!
Reinforce.
The local form of magic appears to revolve around feeding parasitic lifeforms from nearby parallel universes energy or information in various ways, and using them to produce useful effects. That's true both for magicians and people like Kevin with innate magical abilities. With the Awakening his parasites are merged with his metaphysique and overcharged, massively increasing the quantities of power they covert into useful work. And entirely neutralising the host-eating aspect. Kevin swells from his current large size to… Kalibak size. Perhaps a little taller. His muscles grow only a little, but with all the added demonic strength he'll be far stronger and tougher. Can't judge exactly how much…
Reinforce.
Naturally, his loincloth and decorative leather straps fail to keep up with his growth, but the belt I gift him with immediately deploys. I patterned it after Barda's deployable armour, and one tap on the buckle causes plates of New God armour to expand across Kevin's body. And a weapon… I was originally going to give him an axe, as that has legitimate civilian uses as a tool. But with no weapon training… A mace and a shield fall onto the tarmac next to him. And lastly, the goggles that will actually let him see his target.
Reinforce.
"There."
Reinforce.
He looks himself over, picking up the shield and mace and getting a feel for them.
Reinforce.
"Corkin'."
Reinforce.
"Simple plan. I go first, because I'm used to this sort of thing. I'll be shielding us as best as I can. The goggles will show you where they are, but their magic might well confuse your other senses. We're going to be moving at a run and aiming for their wizards. If anyone else gets in your way, smack 'em, but don't stop, don't slow down, don't bother checking them. We can run faster than their horses can, especially in an urban environment. When you get to their wizards, smack 'em until-"
Reinforce.
The air on the far side of my barrier has mostly cooled from plasma back into gas. Still too hot for a unaugmented human to walk through without cooking themselves, let alone breathe. The knights are cautiously approaching again, and… Yes, along with a few of their artillery wizard palanquins.
Reinforce.
"-they're mush, then find another target and charge them. Think you got that?"
Reinforce.
"Lamp anybastard looks at me funny. Like a regular Saturday night."
Reinforce.
"The ground on the other side of my barrier will be unstable, so I'll be covering it with a construct. You'll be able to run faster than you're used to, so take that into account. Ready?"
Reinforce.
He chuckles. "Fooking hell, mate, I ain't got a fooking clue."
Reinforce.
Fair enough, I suppose. "Got a target?"
Reinforce.
He nods, raising his shield and mace. I take my daiklave into my right hand.
Reinforce.
"Three, two, one, go!"

I drop my barrier and we charge across my construct bridge which now covers the ravaged ground. There's a brief delay, then I feel the scrabbling of.. some sort of spell tries to form a connection to our metaphysiques. I can feel them failing, fizzling, not being able to connect with us as… They most likely did everyone these invaders have passed by so far. Lesser blasts of heat come a moment later, my armour's tron lines flaring as I try and draw fire from my sidekick. Nothing critical yet, and we're covering the ground fast enough-.

I swing my sword, slashing through a charging knight and its-. Not a unicorn, though it looks a little like one.

Then the heat dims and they try and stop us in earnest as we bound through them. I don't even swing, just pressing off a little harder with my right leg and smashing though the second knight's full plate and barding and splattering his corpse against a partially-melted wall. Kevin leaps over, his mace swinging and pulping heads and chests. I try snapping off a singularity beam but the protective spells around the distant palanquin turn the beam upwards.
DIE!
I abandon the projector and draw a blaster, letting an arcane-enhanced lance clip my construct armour in order to take a magic-piercing shot at a knight in fancier armour. The shot hits, staggering them. The second kills and then we're past them, my sword artlessly slashing and parting horse and alien flesh alike. Kevin's.. managing, from the looks of things, and there's the first palanquin and the protective spells erupt as I cleave through them!

 

[Mr Zoat]

170 After Genocide, Late winter, later that day

Air Temple Island is located off the coast of Republic City, while still being protected from stronger winds and ocean currents by Yue Bay. The inhabitants are Master -and former City Councillor- Tenzin and his family, Avatar Korra, various White Lotus security guards and a handful of Air Acolytes. Air Acolytes are sort of… Air Nomad substitutes, people of non-Nomad heritage who choose to study air bending philosophy and live… At least somewhat as the Air Nomads of old did.

For being from a people who are supposed to abstain from material attachments, Tenzin seems to be rather attached to Air Nomad artefacts. Makes me think of the Museum Fremen from the Dune sequels; aping dead traditions despite the need for them having long passed.

Anyway, the residences are private and off-limits, but it's perfectly possible for members of the public to visit if they get permission in advance. The Air Acolyte population isn't anything like large enough or genetically varied enough to sustain itself and new recruits have to come from somewhere. The 'permission' thing is more about making sure that someone is there to show the visitor around rather than limiting visitors, though obviously Master Tenzin himself has a lot of demands on his time.

"…and this is where we're rebuilding the air bending gates." The elderly Acolyte gestures to an area… A raised platform where there are… Sails? Panels mounted on poles which allow them to spin in the wind. I can see the area they are supposed to cover, and some were clearly damaged by fire while others have simply been removed. Or were destroyed. "We have had to study the ancient scrolls describing their construction in great detail to ensure that they are the same as what the Air Nomads of old used."

"What is it for?"

"Airbender training." He chuckles quietly. "Though I doubt that there's a single Air Acolyte who hasn't tried to complete a run once or twice. The trick is to feel the flow of the air around you and move before the panel hits you." He thinks for a moment, then leans towards me. "I doubt that there's a single Air Acolyte who hasn't got more than a few bruises from it, either."

"I suppose that a non-bender would need near-preternatural awareness of their surroundings to match.. what I assume is a fairly basic air bender technique."

He nods. "It's difficult, certainly, though by no means impossible."

"And… There really aren't any air benders outside of Master Tenzin and his children-? And the Avatar, of course."

"No?" He sounds puzzled by my question. "Sadly, the soldiers of Fire Lord Sozin were quite thorough."

"I'm sorry, I realise that this is… Insensitive, but I've never been able to understand… How none of the Air Nomads of old were able to escape. That every single member of a nomadic people was in place to be ambushed, how they didn't see the soldiers coming, and how they couldn't get away when they could fly and their attackers couldn't. Even with the comet…"

"Oh, some did. We have records of a young Air Nomad named Malu who escaped, and she is referenced in Earth Kingdom records as having lived for at least fifty years after Sozin's Comet." He sighs. "There are most likely dozens of others who survived, only to be hunted down later as the Fire Nation's armies spread across the Earth Kingdom. By the time that Fire Lord Ozai came to rule over them, 'hunting for the Avatar' was considered a fools errand, but early in the Great War it was not."

I nod, noting that he didn't say what happened to Malu. If King Bumi survived to see Aang's escape from the ice, she could have lived that long as well. "They found every single one?"

He shrugs. "Perhaps some went to ground and forgot their heritage. Life in Earth Kingdom communities would not lend itself to the way of life compatible with air bending."

"Do you think it would be worth looking? I know that Avatar Aang said that all Air Nomads were air benders, but I have not been able to find any information on what happens when Air Nomads mixed their blood with other peoples. If some Air Nomads did escape and marry into other nations, it could be several generations before their line produced an air bender."

"I believe that the Order of the White Lotus has kept an eye out, but…" He shrugs. "The Order is not particularly large. Even as the Earth Kingdom industrialises, the vast majority of people still live away from the cities."

I nod, making a show of frowning thoughtfully.

"I'm not a bender myself, but my understanding of it is that the gestures involved in bending martial arts produce at least a little elemental output, even if the mind and soul aren't properly focused."

"Yes, a small flare of fire for instance."

"Then could you release a pamphlet, demonstrating the basic forms? Or perhaps send out Acolytes to the towns and villages around the Air Temples, and have them run demonstrations?" I shrug. "Perhaps nothing would come of it, but I don't see how it would hurt."

He thinks for a moment, then nods absent-mindedly. "It may be. It may be. I'll bring it up with Master Tenzin next time I see him."

"I would be happy to help." He looks at me curiously. "I'm an itinerant shaman. I've travelled the length and breadth of all four nations." I shake my head, smiling. "It's no effort to me to try to persuade people to join me for my morning exercises. And I think that the air bending style will be a little easier on my old bones than earth bending or fire bending styles."

His eyes widen. "Do you know the air bending style?"

I shake my head. "Not even a single kata. I was hoping that someone here might be willing to show me?"

"Certainly. They aren't a secret, after all. We hold demonstrations in the city parks several times a year." He hesitates for a moment. "I'm not sure if our younger instructors would be-."

I smile ruefully. "I understand and wholeheartedly agree."

He smiles back. "Perhaps if-." He looks past me. "Oh, ah…" I turn to-. "Master Tenzin."

"Senior Acolyte Ban. And Master Renkun, I hoped to see you during your visit." Master Tenzin doesn't exactly smile, but he does seem genuinely pleased to see me. "Lord Bao sent a message to the Order of the White Lotus asking for assistance, and another message tell us that it was no longer needed. I wanted to ask how you were able to persuade the spirit of the volcano to calm itself."

"Well, ah, with an angry spirit like that, the main trick is to avoid entering the spirit world."

He tilts his head slightly to the side. "'Avoid'?"

"Since I'm not a bender, I wouldn't lose my ability to bend by leaving my physical body, but a volcano spirit in its home environment can kill a man by proximity alone. They're rather warm." He nods, and I'm not sure he realised that was a witticism. "In my younger days I often came out of a trance to feel the pain of injuries inflicted on my spirit upon my actual body. Even bruises and burns would appear, despite the fact that I hadn't actually been struck or burned. It is far easier to avoid such things when you keep one foot in the material world."

"I see. I admit, I've always thought of the spirits as a source of wonder rather than as a threat. But I suppose that a storm doesn't have to want to destroy someone in order to sink their ship."

"Mentally sophisticated spirits at least share this much with humans: they have many different reasons for doing things. It is simply that their fundamental drives are different from ours. Why, only a few months ago I pacified a particularly violent reef spirit by engaging it in conversation while my disciple performed a ritual funeral for all of the sailors it had murdered. With their remains hallowed, it couldn't maintain its connection to the material world and I could drive it out."

And aside from that last part, that's what actually happened, too. Just in case he checks my references. And don't think I don't see that hunger in your eyes, Master Tenzin. You're interested in spirits? Alright, I can-.

"Master Tenzin?" Who had clearly forgotten that Acolyte Ban was there. "Master Renkun expressed an interest in learning the basics of airbending. He suggested that there might be distant descendents of Air Nomads who escaped the genocide who had never been exposed to air bending, and that as a wandering shaman he might be able to identify them if he knew how."

"I doubt it, after all this time. Still, if there was a chance…" He raises his right hand to stroke his beard, then makes a decision. "Master Renkun, if you have the time, I think I could show you the basics. And I am interested in hearing about your interactions with the spirits."

I smile. "I'm sure that I can remember a story or two."

 

[Mr Zoat]

170 After Genocide, Late winter, later still than day

I stand on the cliff top, slowly running through the kata which Tenzin showed me earlier today. It reminded me a great deal of tai chi, which surprised me a little because tai chi isn't a martial art. It's an exercise routine for old people. Which works for me in this situation, but it strikes me as a strange mnemonic for manipulating the air. Still, I did get a basic introduction to tai chi once upon a time, so I could afford to be a 'quick study'.

Avatar Korra has apparently returned from whatever was occupying her time today, and Tenzin wants to introduce us. I'm not sure where his particular romantic view of spirits comes from, but I do know the roots of his fixation: his father, Avatar Aang. Avatar Aang had three children, and Tenzin was the only air bender. Which naturally resulted in him having the closest relationship with his father, but almost all of that relationship involving the mystical element of air bending and being the Avatar.

Okay, they're there, so he should have a clear view of me. Switch the form slightly, move my right arm like so while turning my hand, and…

And a plume of purple plasma rises off my hand while my head isn't looking that way.

Tenzin stops, staring up at me.

I come out of the stance, giving myself a quick shakedown before making a show of spotting the two of them in the evening half-light. I raise my right hand in greeting while Tenzin keeps staring at me and Korra starts staring at him.

"Hey, Tenzin?"

He blinks, jerking his head towards her. "Hm, yes?"

I slowly walk down the hill towards them, smiling pleasantly. "Ah, Master Tenzin. I really must thank you for teaching that to me. I feel more limber now than I have for years."

Avatar Korra regards me with mild curiosity, but she's more interested in the strange behaviour of her mentor.

"Are you okay?"

He appears to come out of it. "Yes! Ah, Korra, this is Master Renkun. The next stage of your Avatar training-" She perks up. "-is to learn the ways of the spirits." She perks down slightly, but still holds out a little hope. "Master Renkun specialises in pacifying aggressive spirits, and as such has more direct experience in the subject than anyone I can think of."

I give Avatar Korra a shallow bow. "It will be a privilege to participate in your instruction."

"Ah… Yeah. So… Beat up any evil spirits recently?"

"Korra."

"Yes, several. Have you heard of the Dread Wind of Mount Greyspire?"

A slight increase in her curiosity. "Yeah?"

"Well, you won't anymore."

She smiles in relief. "Okay, this sounds like it beats sitting still with my eyes closed all day. When do we start?"

"Well, I.. don't have an evil spirit to fight right now, but if you think you're in the right frame of mind to absorb a little basic information, I can throw in enough exciting anecdotes to keep you awake. How about that?"

She shrugs. "Yeah, okay. Master… Tenzin?"

He's still staring at me, a little spaced out. "Hm? Oh, ah, yes. Dinner will be in an hour or so. Master Renkun, will you be able to join us?"

"I'm sorry, but I arranged to meet up with my disciple in Republic City for dinner. She's trying out for a sports bending team… The Fire Ferrets?"

Korra looks puzzled, and slightly amused. Tenzin just nods. "Breakfast tomorrow, then? She is welcome to join us as well."

That… Could be a problem. I don't know how much a particular Avatar shares the memories of their predecessors. Aang never met me, but he.. did meet Azula. Certainly, she looks different now, but…

Oh, it won't be a huge problem even if she does recognise her. And I doubt that it's something that they'd check for.

I bow again. "Thank you. We would be delighted. Avatar Korra, perhaps if we go to the.. library? A few illustrations might be helpful."

She nods. "Sure, this way." She gives Tenzin one more concerned look, then turns and heads back down the hill. I nod to Tenzin and follow her… About halfway to the library. Then I glance back up the hill as I see the silhouette of Tenzin head to the top of the hill and match my prior posture.

"Ah, Master Renkun?"

I grin, raising my right forefinger to my lips. "Shhshhshhshhshh! Watch!"

I beckon with my left arm and she walks over to my side, frowning at me. "What's-."

Tenzin repeats my gesture, causing winds to swirl around without creating the flash of purple light which I caused.

"What's he doing?" She cranes her neck, frowning. "I don't remember that one."

Of course, in theory, it should be entirely possible to pull the molecules of the air apart using bending. Given the fact that Republic City looks a little like an American city from the nineteen twenties or thereabouts, I imagine that their material science will be advanced enough to consider trying something like that in about thirty years or so.

"I raised the idea that there might be the descendants of other air benders out in the world somewhere, ignorant of their heritage. Then I practiced air bending forms and caused the air around my hand to turn purple. He's trying to work out-"

"What?!"

"-how it happened, because the obvious option is that I'm an air bender."

"Huh? Are you an air bender?"

I reach into my right sleeve, and pull out a pouch. Opening the pouch I show Avatar Korra the purple powder contained inside. "Pigment powder. Not magic, bending or spirits, but very pretty."

She takes a moment to understand. Then she grins.

"You're pranking Master Tenzin?"

"It is always wise to consider one's own assumptions. Master Tenzin has assumed something about me; he saw me making air bending gestures and the air changed, therefore the change must have been from bending. That is not so."

"Are you allowed to do stuff like that?"

"I first communed with a spirit when I was twenty-nine. Before that, ah… I wasn't the most spiritual man."

"Oooh-kay." She nods slowly. "Well… I'm.. not.. either, so hopefully this won't take as long as learning air bending did."

"I suppose that depends on what you want out of it. Spirits can be beautiful and fascinating… And they can be deadly and terrifying. The most important thing to remember -contrary to what Master Tenzin appears to believe- is that spirits are not inherently good. Nor are they-. Most of them necessary to the proper functioning of the material world. They are simply another group of beings who inhabit this wonderful world of ours, and the problems in communications between humans and spirits arises from their fundamental drives being different from ours."

Master Tenzin puts a little more force into the gesture, and this time creates a strong enough gust of air to knock himself over. He scrambles back onto his feet and straightens up, smoothing his robes and checking to see if anyone saw that.

"Now: to the library."

 

[Mr Zoat]

170 After Genocide, Late winter, even later than day

Korra drops heavily onto the… Teaching mat? There are wooden lap-benches stored in one cupboard, along with paper and writing implements, but there aren't the sort of desks that European nations used in the nineteen twenties.

"Okay, so… I don't have a lesson planned out or anything, and we've only got an hour anyway. Is there anything you want to ask, or shall I just… Ramble until the dinner bell?"

Korra opens her mouth, then hesitates, looking thoughtful and a little uncertain.

"I am very hard to offend. Whatever you're thinking-."

"What's with your voice?"

I blink. "My voice? Ah… I come from an island that doesn't really have much contact with.. the three nations. You probably wouldn't have heard my accent even somewhere as cosmopolitan as Republic City."

"No, not-." She frowns. "It's like… There's this weird vibration..? Or.. something? I don't know…" She exhales, irritated at her inability to express what she means. "Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"I believe so, yes. And I suppose that's as good a place to start as any. How far have you got with energy bending?"

"Ah…" She sits up slightly. "I can give people their bending back…"

"Alright. Stand up." She climbs to her-. "Oh, I should ask: have you ever actually seen a spirit before? I mean, not the indirect action of one, but an actual spirit."

"I saw Tui and La when I visited the Spirit Oasis in Agna Qel'a, but they're just… Fish. I mean-" She realises after the words leave her mouth that maybe referring to the spirits of the ocean and the moon as 'just fish' to a shaman might not be polite. "-they just look like regular fish."

"I've never spoken to them. My guess would be that as part of the process of becoming more a part of the physical world, they ended up with unimpressive earthly forms. Do you want to see one in its natural habitat?"

"Yeah! But what's that got to do with energy bending?"

"It's probably the easiest way. Meditation is one of the ways whereby you can loosen your grip on the corporeal and enter the spirit world in spirit, but I get the impression that meditation isn't really your thing."

"You…" She glances awkwardly to the side. "Yeah."

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we're probably going to have to do some of that until you get a feel for it. But there are other forms of meditation, and I suspect that some form of moving meditation might be better for you."

Her eyes widen as she stares at me. "Meditation where I get to move? Can we start with that?"

"Second lesson. For the first, I want to introduce you to my patron. And since there isn't a… There isn't anywhere near here where the barrier between corporeal and spiritual is particularly weak, that involves you energy bending me."

"A-uuuuuuh-."

"You don't need to try and restore my bending or anything like that. I've never been a bender. Just feel my chakra network without trying to alter it. That should be enough to get her attention."

"Okay." Korra nods. "I can do that. Juuust let me…" She bows her head, closes her eyes and takes a slow deep breath in, then out, then in, then out again.

"Oh, and I should warn you that my chakra network will feel different to what you're used to. Not something to worry about, but… Be aware of it." She nods, and I lean forwards slightly so that she has more comfortable access to my head. Then she reaches out with her right hand, eyes glowing white, and touches my forehead.

Ooh, that feels-. Odd. There's a slight tingling in my tattoos as they absorb a little… Something but-.

Ooh, there she is. The blank void, me standing here as the network of my tattoos and Korra as a sort of glowing copy of her corporeal self. She looks around and there's the Ophidian, her giant face moving towards us, tongue flicking curiously.

Her tongue is taller than both of us, and its length serves only to add scale to her size.

Korra stares at her, eyes wide and mouth hanging open slightly. "That's your patron?"

"Avatar Korra, meet the Ophidian, Embodiment of Avarice. And yes."

The Ophidian turns her head, staring at us with her left eye whose pupil alone utterly dwarfs us. Korra stares right back, then pulls

her hand off my forehead. "Huuuuh."

"She is my patron."

"That.. was… Weird." She nods. "Yeah, that was weird."

"Welcome to spirits. I think she liked you."

"So do they..? All look like that?"

"No, that's just her. The black void was because you were communicating with her through me rather than entering the spirit world yourself, and her size was due to her power. Most spirits are far smaller."

"Huh. Okay." She frowns as she lowers herself back to the mat. "And you were right: your chakra do feel weird. But what's that got to do with your voice?"

"The networks of spiritual energy in my body aren't just mine. I've absorbed tiny amounts of energy from each of the spirits I've dealt with. I actually had to get my chakra points altered to make that possible. And my patron, well… We're so close that neither of us are exactly sure where one of us ends and the other begins. I've become sufficiently… Like a spirit that my voice resonates with her power."

"Does that happen a lot?"

"I've known a few other people who've done it. But I suspect that your connection to your past lives would prevent it. Honestly, though, those same past lives are why you probably don't need it anyway."

"Why… Avarice?"

"The Ophidian has no concept of higher ideals. Everything is about wanting and getting. That sort of myopia is very common amongst the more primal spirits, who struggle to understand things outside of their nature."

She frowns thoughtfully. "Like..? A fire spirit couldn't understand not being on fire?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps it would understand things that were burning, things that could burn and things it isn't interested in. And as you deduced, it wouldn't have a problem with burning so might not understand that burning isn't the natural state of humans. It's not that it hates humans or particularly wants to hurt them, it's just… What it is. You eat food and breathe air, it burns. Now, the less… Primal ones can be a good deal more mentally complex than that. They are usually a bit more aware that humans don't think like they do, but likewise you need to remember that they still don't think like us. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"We're saying 'spirits', but that's actually putting a lot of very different creatures in the same category. It's even worse than putting every living thing in the world into a single category and then making blanket statements about them. You wouldn't treat a fish like a bird, and, well… The difference between a minor rice spirit and the Ophidian is far greater."

I look around at the shelves of scrolls.

"I imagine that there are all sorts of things written here about encounters between Avatars past and various spirits. It's probably all worth reading. But I'm going to try training you in the best way to approach them when you don't know exactly what you're dealing with. So let's go back to the trick I played on Master Tenzin earlier: the danger of assumptions."

 

[Mr Zoat]

28th June 2015
10:58 GMT

"Doctor O'Brien!"

I wave cheerfully as the woman who soundly rejected my job application two months ago approaches the police cordon. While Kevin and I ravaged the vanguard of the Dark Elf assault force, the actual solution to the invasion came in the form of the assassination of its commander and his second and the defection of their third. Still, he and I saved an awful lot of people, including the Liverpool branch of Britain's magical intelligence agency who were next in the line of fire. A mildly-roasted Kevin has spent a few days posing for the cameras, while I've mostly been standing guard over the new interplanetary asylum seekers.

At least they're definitely not economic migrants.

"Mister Grayven."

I narrow my eyes behind my goggles. It looks like she's upgraded her wards since last time we met.

"And what brings you here? While I'm sure they're glad that you're thinking of them, I don't believe that the Dark Elves really need a lesson is musicology at the moment."

I was interested to learn that the pyromancers who were trying to carbonise Kevin and me were vampires. They do need to drink blood, but rather than act as food it powers a particular type of extraplanar parasite which supercharges their magic relative to normal magicians. Usually, vampires I'm met before -including my children- struggled to make such an efficient conversion.

Of course, the government is still trying to work out whether the slaves they brought with them should be treated as part of their group or as a separate group. In either case, the vampire wizards are going to start shrivelling to death soon unless someone does something about it.

Oh no. Anyway…

"That's not why I'm here."

"Yes, I did work that out. I just hope that you know more about this than you do about superheroes."

"Is that what you are?"

Breathe in, breathe out, roll my eyes behind the goggles. "If you didn't intend to read my CV, then why did you bother asking for one?"

"You wrote that you were trained by Batman. If you weren't prepared to take it seriously, why did you expect me to?"

"I was trained by Batman! I mean.. not full time, he mostly just assigned us missions. I only remember getting… Three.. lectures? Before I packed the whole thing in. But he definitely had oversight."

She rolls her eyes, sighing in frustration.

"Mister Grayven, this was the first major attack on British soil since seventeen ninety seven. The government is in uproar. You-."

"Did you actually prepare for running a superhero team? I ask, because it was just supposed to be a working retirement for me. I assumed that you would be handling writing the standard operating procedures and feeding back on the legislative requirements while I or someone like me would be handling the superheroing. When I didn't get a phone call with an expedited Indefinite Leave to Remain I assumed that you had a prime candidate and I wished them well. Instead, it all fell apart after a couple of weeks. Though that whole mess did underline for me the problem with trying to operate under government oversight."

I hold her gaze for a few moments.

"Did you, or anyone working with you, know anything about being a superhero?"

"We were building a specialist police unit-."

I glower. "No you weren't! Superheroes only happen when either the establishment is so irredeemably corrupt that there's no point in trying to be part of it, or when a particular individual is so uniquely powerful that they can't operate inside it without their effectiveness being crippled. In the short run you didn't need police, you needed an armed response unit for stamping on would-be supervillains before they could become a problem, while at the same time you update training for detectives to include the basics on how to handle arcane phenomena."

The breath hisses through my teeth.

"I know this stuff. And you… Let me guess, you watched the sixties Batman series and thought you knew the first thing about superheroes!" I glare. "Worm. Marvel: Civil War. Supreme Power. Deus Ex. There are plenty of comics that take a more realistic approach to the application of supernatural power on normal police work. Go on." I raise my hands and then lower them in a gesture of frustration. "Tell me. Did you read any of them? Did you watch a modern film?"

And.. that.. fear of-.

She looks down at her blouse in alarm as her ward becomes extremely hot, her right hand reaching for something that's not there.

"Given what happened at the proms, I'm going to assume that your possessed violin was destroyed. It wouldn't have worked on me anyway. And here." I take one of Sunset's 'overkill' wards out of subspace and offer it to her. "This one actually works."

She eyes it wearily for a moment, then returns her gaze to my face. "What do you want, Mister Grayven?"

"A working holiday. From the feel of things, this world is about to get interesting. Magic… Is getting stronger. More accessible. Whatever moron nominated you for your position has at least spotted that, right?"

"Yes."

"So I still want the job and you've been fired. And Kevin and I -the two people you passed on hiring- are the men of the hour." I lean down a little. "I could just appeal directly to the government and press, but I prefer to work within established structures. Where do I find the organ grinder, so I can actually get to work?"

Her expression hardens slightly. "What did you do to Fabian Everyman?"

"I have no idea who that is. A.. really bad nom de heroique?"

"He was the man I was scheduled to interview after Mister-" She glances at Kevin for a second. "-Inglebrooke."

"Oh, that thing. I stabbed it to death. Don't worry, I learned my lesson with beings of that class after the second time one of them got back up. He won't bother you again."

She frowns in confusion. "What 'class'?"

"I don't know what he was, exactly, but it wasn't human. Some sort of… Multi-body entity? Powerful, but nothing I haven't fought before. My father would have eaten it alive, in his prime." I shrug. "I thought it best not to give it the chance to mind control your entire country, so..."

I draw the Sword of the Fallen.

"This is quite good at putting down entities like that. A great leveller. You have to remember to double tap them, but…" I resheathe it. "Manageable. Anything else?"

"What are your intentions towards Britain?"

"I want to help it deal with the oncoming crisis. For my own enjoyment. I've ruled an interstellar empire before, so I'm confident of my ability to put together a crisis squad to jump on any eldritch nasties. After that… Probably go somewhere else? Get a new job? Honestly, since you'll be long dead by then I wouldn't worry about it too much."

Her face tightens. "Would you care to explain that?"

"You're in your… Late thirties? Projected death date… An average of seventy one, given your occupation, general heath and stress levels? I'll be here long after that." I frown for a moment, then flatten my brow with an amused snort. "It wasn't a threat. I wouldn't bother. You're not that significant. Now do I get to meet your boss, or am I going straight to the PM?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

170 After Genocide, Late winter, even later still than day

"Assumptions can come in many varieties. A person may assume that their path is clear, only to find out that someone dug a pit trap in the middle of it."

Korra shrugs. "Not much of a problem if you're an earthbender."

"Oh, do you know how to use Master Toph Beifong's seismic sense technique?"

She hesitates. "Kkkkkinda?"

"'Kinda yes' or 'kinda no'?"

"I'm not as good at it as Chief Beifong, but I could feel a pit trap."

"Alright, or a thin patch of ice over a lake or a concealed archer in the trees. You know that such things exist, but in the moment you're not guarding yourself against them. We could call these things 'known unknowns'."

She winces. "Is this like neutral jing? Because I'm.. not.. good at that."

"No. That's-." I shake my head. "Perhaps I'm overcomplicating this. This issue with spirits is that they're so different that not only do your normal assumptions mislead you, but your very conception of how the world works misleads you."

She still looks bemused.

"A concrete example then. After you revealed Amon's true nature, you were able to use energy bending to restore the bending abilities of everyone he took it from. Well done, by the way. I imagine that you were tempted to leave a few without it."

Particularly given that you gave the entire Triple Threat Triad their bending back, resulting in them going back to robbing and extorting people. The people most of Amon's converts joined up to fight against and you put them back in power. I'm sure that won't cause problems in the future…

"That was…" She looks away. "That was mostly Aang. He energy bent me, then he walked me through doing it for other people."

"What exactly did he show you?"

"Ah… You know, how to touch someone's chakra points, how their energy is supposed to flow for benders, how to fix it…" She shrugs.

"And you could use that knowledge to remove someone's bending?"

She shifts uncomfortable. "I guess..? Aang did that to Yakone, so-. Ah, and Fire Lord Ozai, I guess-. If they were bad enough…"

"I'm not asking if you're planning to, just if you know how to."

"Sure. Yeah, okay, I could do that."

"What else?"

"Ah… What else?"

"What else can you do with energy bending?"

"Aaaah…" She scratches her head while she tries to come up with something. "Maybe… Like… If they had some sort of… Spiritual.. illness..?"

"Okay, yes. What else?"

Her frown deepens. "Well, I could see the Ophidian when I energy bent you."

"Yes, good. What else? Remember, the theme is 'things that change the way you see the world'."

"I can't energy bend the whole world."

"A little literal there, Avatar Korra." She shrugs. "Alright. I'm not a bender. How different did energy bending me feel, compared to energy bending benders who'd lost their bending ability?"

"About the same? I haven't-" She shrugs. "-energy bent any other non-benders."

I watch her for a moment. She just stares back. I'm not sure if I've reached the limit of her attention span, or she really doesn't get it. Either way…

"This is what I'm talking about. The thing I'm trying to get you to consider is such an alien idea that even with all of the parts… You can't work it out."

She slumps sullenly, looking a little frustrated. "Work what out?"

"Could you energy bend a non-bender into being a bender?"

"Could-?" She's still staring, but now she's staring into space rather than staring at anything. "Ah… What?"

"Or perhaps take a bender who has lost their bending and give them the wrong sort of bending back?"

"Ahhh…" Her eyes are sort of flicking left and right as she tries to get her brain into gear. "I dunno… I mean, if they can't…" She looks at me. "Can I?"

"That's not the question."

"I think-" She nods. "-it is."

I shrug. "How would I know? I'm not any kind of bender, and if any Avatar other than Aang knew how to do it then they didn't write it down anywhere where I've been able to read it. You could-"

Her eyes go white.

"-ask.. him."

Hm. I know that Sir Terrance Pratchett wrote that 'the important thing about culture shock is not to give it to someone flying a ten thousand tonne rock', but I think that this is safe enough. Korra can-.

She sits a little straighter, eyes still glowing. "That's a good question."

That.. isn't her voice. And her desires are… Sort of recessed. "Am I..? Speaking to Avatar Aang?"

Korra's body nods. "Korra's busy freaking out right now." He tilts her head to the side. "I'm kinda embarrassed that I didn't think of that either. I think the Air Acolytes would have really appreciated it if they could actually learn airbending. And I'd have liked having other airbenders around."

"It might not even be possible. And that wasn't the point. The point is learning not to lose focus when something shocking and unexpected happens. And -and I intend no offence when I say this- it would probably be better if you left Korra to cope without jumping in."

"She wanted to know if it was possible or not. But I never really experimented with it. I only thought about it as a way to stop dangerous people from hurting others, not as something I could use to enrich peoples' lives."

"Your situation was an unusual one."

It's more diplomatic than 'total arse-pull'. I mean seriously: all that tension about how Aang would cope with the situation, and he gets an out which allows him to avoid choosing whose existence was never previously hinted at from a being whose existence was never previously hinted at to help him fight a bender who was weaker than him anyway.

"Bumi would be disappointed I didn't try it." Korra's mouth smiles. "Both of them. But at least Korra knows now. Thank you."

The glow in her eyes fades as Korra regains control. She blinks slowly.

"Aang didn't know either."

"Then you can learn something genuinely new which you can pass on to future Avatars in turn."

"Huh." She doesn't sound certain, but I get the impression that she likes that idea. "Yeah. I guess I can."

 

[Mr Zoat]

8th August 2015
19:58 GMT

He's an idiot, and I already hate him.

"…one more person I want to bring on board before we begin discussing the specifics."

I've met vacuous politicians before, men and women of no strong moral beliefs who could operate at the highest level of politics through money, personal charm, tribalism and a rat-like skill at detecting when the ship was sinking. But the worst that Earth 16 could offer… The worst that just about any world I've been to could offer, wouldn't do something so stupid as taking a private meeting with a supervillainous magician known to specialise in parasitic mind control without a magician of their own in the next room and a garland of wards around their neck.

At the very least.

The Home Secretary is a dead woman. No one who tries to mind control her own country can be allowed to live, and if I have to invite the entire senior police leadership into a lecture hall and de-encephalise her myself then so be it. But Prime Minister Jeremy Michaels needs to be removed from office as well. Not because he's evil, but because he's either stupid or so conceited that the result will be much the same.

The Cabinet Secretary Nigel Irving at least has the excuse that he's a religious convert. If one accepts the idea that joining an evil religion due to genuine faith is less bad than giving them the nod because you're too self-absorbed to think that it might not be a good idea.

…

No, no, that's a little unfair. To a British person the Golden Promise Ministry just sounds like a slightly odd American Evangelical Christian denomination, and… To most of their devotees, that's pretty much all they are. Except they don't worship the Source, they worship some sort of insect fish thing from a parallel universe whose indirect presence is giving me a headache. Must find an honest American priest so that I can explain that they all sound like that to the rest of us.

"Oh?" Dr. Schiller-.

Huh, that's novel. His bond in mind and body to his inhuman master is so strong that I can't actually.. see or feel him in the way that I can most people. He's still.. there, as far as I can tell, but the unclean presence that he brings with him is so… All-enveloping that it's making me a little unwell. It's not an attack, his presence is just so discordant…

"And who might that be?"

But he's a three-trick pony, and his assistant isn't even that.

I walk out of the hush tube aperture, mildly pleased that the 'hush' part apparently includes the ability to dodge detection by fish-insect magic.

And I smile at the headache that will soon be departing and departed.

"Grayven!" Michaels smiles, because he knows almost nothing of warfare and so treats me like I'm a celebrity musician or something. "This is Doctor Schiller of the Golden Promise Ministry."

I nod, my eyes not leaving him for a moment. "A pleasure. Do you prefer 'Reverend' or 'Doctor'?"

And there it is. Nothing heavy duty, nothing too overt, just a slight and constant mental nudge to see him as what he presents himself to be and not to look too deeply into anything else especially his crotch. It isn't mentally crippling and won't result in most people who meet him thinking anything much about 'that nice American priest', and it can even be fought off by pure willpower if the subject has their wits about them.

I am a New God. With a ward, because I don't know how fast he can go from glad-handing priest to Host-of-the-Doom-Fish and that might actually give me a challenge. I could just let it slide off me or otherwise give the impression that I'd been at least weakly affected. But there's a good chance that I'll be the only one leaving this room alive, so I shut that blooming thing right down. Get lost.

There's only a mild twitch in his face as his spell breaks, which he turns into a smile. And I only notice the mild spasm in his trousers because I'm specifically watching for it. Never let it be said that insect-fish-monsters can't pick their mortal vessels with care.

"Doctor, please, since we're here to talk about temporal matters. In as much as there's a difference in this line of work."

I just hope he isn't going to give me some sort of secret cultist handshake. Actually, I'm surprised that he risked coming to Britain given that I'm here. But perhaps he's assumed that I'm just one of the eggmen.
I Am The Walrus
"Are you a godly man, Mister Grayven?"

"Yes."

Not like I don't know for certain that the Source exists, after all. It was a little odd when the Special Operations Executive's duty Christian priest seemed surprised by that, but I suppose that if you're forced to deal with weird magic stuff for too long it starts to cloud your vision.

And there's the Revered Doctor's renewed effort. This time it's specific. I'd guess that he's trying to probe for the residual embers of the Christian faith to fan back into insect-fish slanted life.

"You did God's work in Leeds, saving all of those innocent lambs from the forces of darkness."

It's a bit of a pot-to-kettle comment, but the elves do call themselves The Host of Air and Darkness. I tried explaining what that sounds like to their new Most High, but the human mind she was mantling apparently was into that sort of thing and thinks it sounds cool, while the elven part of her mind doesn't get it at all.

"I like to think so." Scan.

Oh, he felt that. His whole body tensed up. I wonder how his Church has been dealing with the superheroes they must have been tripping over by now? Mind control parasites, probably, but their random nature must throw a few interesting complications their way.

"I was under the impression that your work as a… 'Super hero' was freelance. Are you tendering for business?"

"Oh, no, no. I find consultancy work more satisfying these days. For example, Mister Prime Minister-."

"Call me Jeremy."

He makes my knuckles itch. "Jeremy. I couldn't help but notice that you're not wearing a ward. I have to tell you that that's quite unwise."

"Oh, I hardly need it for a private meeting like this."

"On the contrary, that's when you need it the most. Even a relatively weak magician could charm their way past your guards at a low security gathering like this, and as Prime Minister you're a far more inviting target than a random person on the street. Allow me."

I tag each of them and bestow upon him and the Cabinet Secretary an example of Sunset's work. The weak charm that the bugfucker has placed on them each collapses immediately, though only Irving shows any sign of being aware of it.

'Jeremy' shrugs, still smiling agreeably. "If you say so?"

"And the other point I feel obliged to make is-"

I don't rush, or swing my fist or do anything that implies for a moment that I'm not in full possession of my faculties. I simply reach forward with my left hand, grab the chief bugfucker by the neck and hoist him up. This Is Not Your Place

"What are you-?!"

I then tear off the bugfucker's trousers, the elephantine insect which long ago replaced his auto-emasculated genitalia dangling free. It hisses at us.

"-that you should listen to your bound servants when they try to warn you."

"What the-!" He instinctively tries to get away, throwing himself backwards into his chair in horror. "What-? Is-?"

Schiller tries. Michaels' and Irving's wards light up with the glory of the ascendant sun, and I have to grit my teeth slightly. But with me standing here like this, I can block his attempts to draw extra power from his master.

His handmaiden draws a gun and points it at Michaels. "Put-!"

I strike her very carefully in the forehead, sending her flying backwards unconscious but not dead.

"Mister Prime Minister, I would like your approval to kill this evil sorcerer."

"Do it! Do it!"

I close my left hand, severing his head. Then I grab his… Heh. Organ grinder, and rip it free. I raise the hateful thing up to get a good look at it, and it glares at me with hate-filled compound eyes.

"Oh, what interesting things you shall tell me. Assimilate."

G'goo goo g'joob

 

[Mr Zoat]

170 After Genocide, Late winter, early the next morning

"So, Bolin." Korra smiles as we walk up the steps to the island's living area. "Did Azula make the cut?"

Bolin stops gradually edging away from his new team mate as the group's attention turns on him. "Ah, well-."

Azula doesn't even look at him. "Yes."

"All the other firebenders ran away. Um." He risks meeting her eyes. "We don't usually decide who gets on the team by Agni Kai."

She raises her eyebrows. "We didn't decide who got to be on the team by Agni Kai this time."

"I mean…" He looks away awkwardly, scratching his head with his right hand. "Technically…"

Korra's smile widens. "And the waterbender?"

"Well, she's-"

Azula lowers her eyebrows as we reach the top of the island. "Remedial."

"-not the Avatar, but I think she'll be a great addition to the team." He nods with faux confidence. "Once we've done some team training."

Mako smiles faintly. "I was worried that you wouldn't be able to find anyone to replace us. I'm glad I was wrong."

"They're not replacing you, they're-"

"I am."

"-just filling in. Heh." He smiles for a moment, then his face drops. "She doesn't mean that."

"So, ah…" Mako considers his successor. "Azula. That's an unusual name."

"Is it?"

"Were you named after someone?"

"Yes. Fire Lord Azulon."

Korra looks away awkwardly while Mako's mouth tightens slightly. "The man who was in charge of the Fire Nation during most of the Great War?"

"Yes."

"That's…" He frowns, clearly trying to find a polite way to ask if her family are Nazis. "Were your family-?"

"He was also the man who changed the Fire Nation's conscription laws so as to reduce the burden on poor rural families and liberalised the laws on owning land and business in the colonies. He made people who had effectively been serfs under his father into the near-equals of the Fire Nation colonists. The consequences of his reforms are why the older colonies which make up Republic City's territory didn't want to rejoin the Earth Kingdom." Now she actually turns her head to look at him. "It isn't wise to accept a simple summary for a complex situation." He looks a little more thoughtful as she turns away from him. "But yes. My family were… Difficult."

"So, ah, guys?" Korra pulls ahead slightly as we get to the main courtyard, then turns back towards us. "You know I learned energy bending?"

"Yes." / "Yeah?"

"It turns out I might be able to just… Give people bending."

Bolin stares. "Huh?"

Mako frowns, then nods. "That makes sense. It's a shame you couldn't do that a few months ago. It would have completely undermined Amon."

Azula sniffs. "If you can do that now, we could have open auditions for a waterbender."

Bolin frowns at her. "We can't just kick Yurrare off the team!"

Azula considers that for a moment. "Waiting for her to die seems a little cruel. But perhaps we should be ready for when nature takes its course and start interviewing for a successor now."

Korra bunches up her fists. "Why aren't you guys more freaked out about this? I can give people bending!"

"For one, you might be able to give people." Mako steps forward to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "That's what you said, right?"

"Well, yeah. But it should work."

"Okay." He shrugs. "So what? It's not like anyone really knows where bending comes from in the first place, or why some people get born being able to do it and other people don't. I don't see why you being able to give it to more people is a problem, exactly."

"A commendably rational attitude, young man. Have you ever considered a career in shamanism?"

"No. I think I'll stick with the police. I need a regular paycheck."

"Also commendably rational."

"Why am I the only one freaking out about this?"

Azula regards her levelly. "Self-absorption. The world didn't begin with you and won't end with you and your problems aren't actually all that important. If you're worried about being able to give people the ability to bend then just don't."

Korra blinks, staring at her.

"A little harsh, but true. The real problem will come if other people realise that anyone can learn to energy bend. Avatar Aang learned it from a lion turtle after all, and I know of no legends where lion turtles use any other sort of bending."

"Uh…"

"Or that people might not be limited to one form of bending."

"Okay, no. Only the Avatar-" Azula's already rolling her eyes, but Korra sounds confident. "-can master all four elements."

I step away from the group, into the centre of the courtyard. "Ah yes. How does it go again?"

I slide my hands into my pockets for a moment, drawing out my four new rings. Who should remember that they work for me now.

I take a solid stance, arms bent and fists balled at my sides. "Earth."

I stamp and a chunk of brick leaps up. I punch, and it goes flying across the courtyard and onto the grass. I then switch to a more offensive stance.

"Fire."

A one-two punch combo vaguely reminiscent of the two actual karate lessons I took back on Earth Prime, each creating a small bolt of fire. I then switch position again to one of the poses Tenzin showed me yesterday.

"Air."

Korra boggles. "How are you doing that?"

A swing of my arms and a ball of air forms in my hands. A swirl and I toss it into the air, where it explodes in an omnidirectional blast of wind. A shift of my leg and I'm in a water bending pose.

"Water."

Hands raised and clench, and water vapour precipitates out of the air as ice crystals.

"How did-!?" She gesticulates, apparently at random. "What-?! What?!"

I relax my pose. "So anchored in your preconceptions of what is and isn't possible, Avatar Korra. You already know enough to work out what and how. Try and work it out over breakfast."

 

[Mr Zoat]

170 After Genocide, Late winter, a little later that morning

Breakfast with the air bender family is… Almost unbearably nostalgic. Tenzin's wife -an Air Acolyte named Pema- is doing circuits of the room with their youngest son, a boy named Rohan. And from the state of the table I'm guessing that Tenzin has tried to take up some of her usual duties in the kitchen, and done so not incompetently but certainly inexpertly.

A distant memory from before I got my ring: my own father doing the same. I don't remember where Mum was at the time… Visiting friends? Ill? Was that back when my sister was born? I honestly don't remember, and there aren't many memories I can say that about anymore. He cut carrots into cross sections rather than strips.

Anyway, there are two large flat balep loaves, one at either end of the table with no cutlery for cutting them. There's a pot of porridge in the middle of the table on a thick mat to protect the table from the heat, but the mismatched pile of bowls piled up next to it-.

Tenzin's older son -a boy named Meelo- waves his hand and makes a gust of air throw a bowl off the top of the pile and land in front of him. He grins, then leans forward and peers around thoughtfully at everyone else's place setting. Jinora, Tenzin's eldest child, spots what he's doing and then looks expectantly at her father. Unfortunately, Tenzin hasn't spotted what just happened. In fact, he looks quite out of sorts. I do hope that he didn't spend all last night trying to copy my 'air bending'.

I pull a ladle out of my robe and then stand, leaning over the short legged oriental style table. "Porridge, anyone?"

Tenzin snaps back to the present, spots Meelo and sends him back to his seat with an interrogative glare as I begin dishing out the porridge in a bending-free manner. Korra is sort of twitching as she tries to work out how I did that 'bending', her eyes pointedly avoiding looking at anyone. Mako and Bolin give her the occasional worried look, but appear to have decided to let her work through it.

"Master Renkun?"

Ikki, Tenzin's younger daughter, tugs lightly on my sleeve as I wave the last bowl at her father in the hopes of drawing his attention back to the present. He looks at it blankly for a moment, then nods in thanks before taking it from me. I smile at Ikki as I retake my seat next to her.

"Yes, Miss Ikki?"

"Why are you orange?"

"My tailor ran out of other colours. I'm just glad he had some grey left, otherwise people would mistake me for an air bender even more than they do anyway."

She frowns childishly. "No, not your clothes. Can't you see it?"

I'm wearing my rings of course, otherwise this conversation would be mutually unintelligible. But my environmental shield is set to 'absolute minimum', and shouldn't be visible.

"Well, my patron spirit is normally orange, and after I introduced her to Korra last night she might be paying my surroundings a little more attention."

Tenzin looks up from his porridge. "You introduced Korra to a spirit?"

"The Ophidian and I have been together a long time. She can use my spirit as a point of contact with the material world. Korra just had to touch my chakra network to commune with her." I wave my right hand. "Rest assured, if I was going to bring a spirit like the Ophidian here in the material sense I would have asked your permission first."

"Yes. And is that necessary?"

"Necessary?"

"By 'touching your chakra network' I assume that you are referring to energy bending." I nod. "Is that the only way to see the.. 'Ophidian'?" He frowns mildly, and then with only a brief glance reaches out with his right hand to redirect Meelo's spoon-hand to his mouth before he can attempt to convey his porridge there by flicking it in from arm's length.

"Technically, no, but the ways of thinking that she responds to are fairly antithetical to those associated with air bending. You would-." I frown. "I was going to say, 'you would have to choose one or the other', but I suppose that Avatars manage it-" Korra comes out of it a little, looks at me to see if I was talking to her, then realises that breakfast is in front of her. "-every time. Or you could learn energy bending."

"I'm not sure that someone who isn't the Avatar-" At the opposite end of the table, Bolin breathes in sharply while Mako winces. "-can learn to-" He glances their way but can't work out why they're responding like that. "-do that."

"You never know until you try. Isn't that right,- "

"HE CAN BEND ALL FOUR ELEMENTS!"

She's pointing at me, eyes slightly… Ah, crazed.

I might have had a larger effect on her than I aimed for.

"-Avatar Korra?"

Tenzin shakes his head with a frown. "Korra, that's impossible. And a little rude. Please don't point and shout-" Meelo worms his way onto his father's lap and nods imperiously as Tenzin speaks. "-at our guests."

"Ah, Master Tenzin?" Mako realises that he'll have to take the lead. "Master Renkun… Did bend the four elements. He did a demonstration outside."

Tenzin frowns in confusion, then looks at me.

"Oh, come now. Avatar Korra, you energy bent me. You know that I'm not a bender."

"THEN HOW DID YOU DO THAT?"

I smile politely, taking a spoonful of porridge. "How do you think I did it?"

"Okay!" She gets up and starts pacing. "Either-. Either you are a bender, and you can hide it.. somehow-."

"Not-" I shake my head. "-on touch, though I can hide things at a distance."

"Or you.. got a bender to do it for you while you did the gestures." She stops to stare at me. "Was that it?"

"Where would I find an air bender to help me?"

For a moment her face falls, then she looks suspiciously at Meelo. He straightens up for a moment, then glares at her.

"I don't know what you think I did but whatever it was I wish I did it!"

Korra looks away, huffing.

"Come now, Avatar Korra. I already told you everything that you need to in order to work it out. I hope you were paying attention."

Bolin winces harder.

"You..?" Tenzin's face has fallen a little, but his face naturally lends itself to that expression. "Aren't an air bender?"

"Sorry, I just threw some pigment dust out so that it looks like I was bending something. As far as I know, that gesture-."

"SPIRITS!"

I return my attention to Korra. "In the sense of-?"

She looks triumphant, grinning broadly. "You got a spirit to do it!"

"A spirit, for all four elements?"

"Four spirits. You made a deal with four spirits, and they did the bending. Was that it?"

"Close enough. Well done. Which spirits?"

"I… Dunno." Her shoulders slump.

"Korra, I told you their names. It's what I was doing before I got here."

"Wait, you mean-? The Dread Wind of Mount Greyspire, the Reef That Hunts-" I nod. "-and-. You beat up a bunch of spirits, and now they work for you?"

I smile at her. "You got there eventually. Well done." I reach into my pocket, pull out the four rings they're bound as and drop them onto the table. "Once grievous threats, now useful-" Ikki reaches out to pick one up. I interpose my right hand and pull them away from her with a small shake my my head. "-tools. And if you ever want a four elements on four elements sparring match, I'll be happy to oblige you."

 

[Mr Zoat]

17th February 1996
14:14 GMT +3

Ninety nine thousand nine hundred and eighty five bottles of slime on the wall, ninety nine thousand nine hundred and eighty five bottles of slime! Take one down and…

What do you even do with bottles of slime?

I take another moment to look around my prison. I've got to hand it to whoever created this place, anything that can contain boom tubes, power rings and irate New Gods… This is some advanced kit. Unfortunately, it's advanced kit which is projecting its effect area from outside the area I'm contained within and the projectors are resisting my ring scans.

What sort of person leaves a place like this just lying around? Something's keeping the dust out of this bit, but from the way it's built up outside-.

The cavern shakes. Earthquake? Ring?

Ability to detect environmental changes limited by unknown technology. Ability to passively detect environmental changes restricted by-.

Another shake, accompanied by a flash of green-white light from the direction of the entrance.

Amendment. Ionisation and luminant output consistent with plasma stream discharge.

Damn. From what little in the way of long wave radio I've been able to detect from down here it's late twentieth century Earth up there. Unless it's a one-off supervillain weapon, there's no way-

"…cave opened up, We can take cover in there!"

-they're advanced enough to fight whoever that is off. I'd offer my help, but…

"I don't know if this is a good idea. That hill is not big enough to shield anyone from a gun that big."

Hang the flip on. Is someone coming?

"I don't think we've got a choice, man. That thing was landing… Like, alien soldiers."

"What, you think they can't look in a-" I see a humanoid emerge from the entrance and stop, gawping. "-cave?"

"Hello, human." Pale skin, bushy hair cut to shoulder length, blue/grey jacket and jeans. Not an imposing specimen. "I was wondering-?"

"Agh! They're already here!"

"What?" A dark-skinned young woman with-. A waistcoat? Is this a steampunk Earth? The radio didn't say anything-. Anyway, she shoves him out of the way, spots me and then backs up, hyperventilating.

I raise my hands. "No, quite safe, I assure you."

"Who's quite-" Another youth walks in. "-safe..?"

I take a step closer and press my right hand against the barrier, which shimmers pale pink for a moment. "See. Trapped."

"Hey, who's trapped?" A dark skinned youth follows his compatriots into my little hole in the ground.

"Me." I raise my right hand. "Hello. I'm an alien in no way affiliated with the aliens outside."

Probably. Bombing random planets isn't Uncle Drax's thing but I can't guarantee that someone else hasn't taken the inadvisable initiative.

"Okay I didn't see anyone coming this way…" Another young dark skinned woman walks in, looking back down the passage as she does so. "But I don't know if-." She turns around and spots me. "Ohm'God."

"Take a picture. It will last longer."

"Ah…" Blonde bloke takes a step closer. "Are you really an alien?"

I roll my eyes. "No, I just have a skin condition and the pharmacy won't deliver down here." He blinks. "Yes of course I'm an alien, you nitwit. My name is Grayven, hello, how do you do?"

"And… You're in here… Because..?"

"Saw some interesting technology, came in to take a closer look, someone triggered this-" I press it again. "-containment device. I don't suppose one of you could-" I point to the closest projector. "-smash one of those with a rock, could you?"

Black woman one does a frown-sneer. "Why can't you do it?"

I crouch, pick up a stone, stand back up and hurl it at the projector. The shield appears and blocks it in mid-air. "The people who built this weren't stupid."

"Hey, Grayven?" Black youth comes closer as well. "Some other aliens are attacking the city right now. If we let you out, can you get rid of them?"

"I… Was planning on killing them all, but if you want me to restrict myself to moving them on… Sure?"

Black woman one shakes her head. "No, you can kill them." She turns away. "Any sort of rock..?"

I shake my head. "No idea. Just hit the thing."

"Wait a second, wait wait." Long haired white man comes closer, the group forming an arc around my prison. "How do we know we can trust you? I mean, we've only got your word for it you got stuck in there by accident."

"As I see it, there are two options. Either I'm a man of my word and will destroy your enemies in gratitude for my liberation. Or I'm an alien warlord who will destroy them because I don't want any rivals. Either way, the people-" Another shake. "-shooting up your city won't be a problem any longer, and your city won't have a bigger problem than they have now."

Black woman two shakes her head as black woman one picks up a rock. "That's not very-"

Black woman one brings the rock down and a force field appears around the projector, sending the rock flying out of her hands. "Ah!"

"-reass-" She turns around. "-uring."

Short haired white man shakes his head. "Looks like we can't get you out. Is there anything you can do from in there?"

"No." Ah. "Maybe. Do any of you have experience of combat?"

Short haired white man and black woman one nod. Black man shrugs. "Five years dance lessons?" Long haired white man shakes his head, looking worried.

I sigh. "Okay. Look. This isn't ideal, but I can empower some or all of you-."

Black man's eyes widen. "Like the Power Rangers?"

"Sort of." Surprised someone his age watched that, but okay. "You'll receive dramatically enhanced strength and endurance, and I can whip up some body armour. Unless you get me out that's the most I can do quickly."

Short haired white man looks around, making eye contact with each of the rest. They in turn sort of look at each other for a moment before they all turn back to me. They all nod, though only short haired white man is enthusiastic about it.

"Okay. Do it."

"But in return, if you live, I expect you to work at getting me out. Do we have an understanding?"

The other four look at him, and he hesitates. "I… Ah…" He takes a deep breath. "Okay. Unless we find out that you're totally evil, we'll try and get you out."

"Alright. Come right up to the barrier." He takes another breath, then steps forward. I reach out and hold my right hand against his chest. "This shouldn't hurt, but tell me if it does."

Ring, Danner infusion.

By your command.

Mother Box, Awaken.

Ping.

And fabricate soul-bound armour. Make it… Orange. Oh, and make sure it's got that disguise mode thing Barda uses.

By your command. / Ping.

Orange light flickers over his body, and I hear his gasp as the armour appears. A moment later he staggers back, hands going to his helmeted head and torso.

"Whow." He looks himself over. "And this will let me fight them?"

"You're strong and tough, not unbeatable or immortal. But if they can't be beaten like this, they probably can't be beaten by a level of force at our disposal."

"Okay." Black woman one steps forward. "Do me next."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Trivialities

3rd April 2013
11:36 GMT

"Recognised, Orange Lantern, B Zero Six."

I walk out into the Fortress of Solitude, and… Realise that the name is increasingly inaccurate as Kara looks around with a.. broad smile? Those weren't all that common before the Anti-Life-.

I do a quick scan to make sure that I'm looking at the right Kara. The practical and hard-wearing outfit suggests that I am, but-. Yes, I am.

She floats over, her eyebrows rising. "You just checked that I'm me, didn't you?"

"Yes."

She switches her smile from 'happy' to 'about to make rabbit soup with live rabbit' and widens her eyes. "How did you know it was me!?"

I roll my eyes. "Come on, she's not quite that bad."

She puts her face back to normal. "She is when she looks just like you. How do you cope with it?"

"With what? You mean my.. alter egos?" She nods, and I shrug. "They're not me. We have a lot in common, so… We just share information and stay out of each others' way."

"Doesn't that make it… Worse?"

"What?"

"That they've got a lot in common. Like, you're not…"

I frown. "Is this a girl thing? Do you want me to get M'gann?"

"No, it's not a.. girl…" She looks thoughtful, her eyes moving to the side as she frowns. "Thing?"

I fan my hands out, palms up, and wait for her to reach a conclusion.

"And anyway, M'gann's whole species are shapeshifters. They wouldn't-. That's not the point."

"No, no, this is fascinating from a social scientific point of view. Do you find yourself trying to gather a support group of beta females whose plainness will make you look relatively more attractive?"

"Ah, no?"

I grin, craning my neck slightly. "Do you think you should?"

"Do.. human-? No. You know what? No."

She floats back up and goes back to overseeing the newly constructed factory unit. It's kryptonian and designed to work with minimal oversight, but having someone who actually knows how this works seems much more sensible than waiting for it to try rebuilding Krypton on Earth or something.

I float after her. "Everything working alright?"

"Well, it's kryptonian, so yes. I don't know how Kal managed this long without a basic fabricator."

"I think that was your uncle's influence."

I see the reflection in one of the crystal surfaces as she rolls her eyes.

"You're probably right. It took a lot of getting used to, but I… I think I get what he meant, about what kryptonian society was… Missing."

"So we don't have to worry about you heading off to Xudar?"

"No. Not while Earth's in the state that it is, anyway." She cough-laughs. "It's funny. After everything… I thought it would just… Bring everything back. About Krypton. But actually… Earth survived. And… I think it's going to keep on surviving…"

She slowly rotates around.

"Um. Why is it..? You're here?"

"I'm here to talk to Kal-El about the Phantom Zone. Ah. But thinking about it-."

"I should probably sit in on this." She nods. "Kal should be in the arboretum."

She flies upwards to a wall-mounted door and I follow her out into… Huh. It's not exactly a forest. It's more like a agricultural laboratory as various types of edible plant are grown in their own modules where the soil chemistry, microbes, heat, humidity and… Everything else are constantly monitored in real time. Kal-El himself is checking up on a… Tree-like plant with unusually thick, green/yellow leaves.

"The Phantom Zone, huh?" He finishes his note-taking as we land, then takes a deep breath before turning around. "I hope you don't want to put anyone else in there."

"No. Ah. You remember Amalak, one of the people I'm-." Huh, it's been a while. "One of the people I was working with in Vega?"

He nods. "General Zod destroyed his home planet."

"And Amalak wants his head. Which I put it to you has no negative consequences."

Superman shakes his head. "He's already been tried and sentenced."

"Only for his attempted putsch on Krypton. He wasn't ever tried under the law of Amalak's people."

"I assume they'd execute him."

"If he were found guilty, yes. And in my opinion the evidence is fairly conclusive. You are aware-."

"Yes." He nods. "I know that criminals that I've apprehended have been executed before. And I know that if anyone deserves it, he does. I'm just not really… Comfortable with…"

"There aren't enough of them living in one place to form a government, and even if they had one they don't have an extradition agreement with Earth. They had one with Krypton but that only really covered petty stuff like kryptonian marines getting drunk while on shore leave. There is no legal system here, just you making a choice about whether he spends eternity is a disembodied void or gets let out for a week before being killed."

"I… I'll think about it."

"Okay, and then there's the rest of them."

He frowns slightly. "I don't think that Nam-Ek wants to come out."

"No, but there are other inmates: Amalak would probably want Non and Ursa, though Non might get an insanity plea. But there are plenty of others. Faora Hu-Ul…"

Kara shakes her head. "I… Think she can stay where she is. Even if we tried putting her on Themyscira… It wouldn't be safe for anyone."

"But we have gold kryptonite. We can make sure that she never develops superpowers, and… She wasn't given the indefinite sentence that Zod, Ursa and Non were."

"She was given a three hundred year sentence. She's still got about two hundred and sixty years to go." Kara frowns. "I don't think you get time off for good behavior when it's physically impossible for you to misbehave."

"How about Ak-Var? He had a thirty year sentence for theft, and he's served it. The only reason he hasn't been released already is that there isn't anyone to release him."

Kal-El nods. "Then he should be released. But I'm not sure we've really got the facilities to handle a kryptonian on parole."

"Gold kryptonite radiation again. Have him help you out here. If he proves he can be trusted, then he can have more freedom."

"That sounds reasonable. Kara? What do you think?"

"I remember hearing about it. I thought his sentence was far too harsh." She smiles faintly. "It'll be nice to talk to someone from Krypton again."

 

[Mr Zoat]

3rd April 2013
11:45 GMT

There's a shimmer in the air as Kal-El works the phantom zone portal control system. The release process isn't an automatic thing due to the nature of the zone. In the early days there were incidents where criminals nearly escaped by pretending to be someone else, or exited the zone in a partially disembodied state and made a mischief of themselves.

Kara looks at the shifting grey mists unusually expectantly.

"Not thinking about preserving the species, are you?"

"No?" She frowns. "Not particular-." She gives me a mock glare, and I smile. "He's a Var. … Which doesn't mean anything to you…" She shakes her head. "He might not have aged for thirty years, but he's still from my parents' generation. Frankly, I… If I were thinking about it, I'd rather…"

"Clone kryptonian sperm cells?"

"It's not sustainable. And… Uncle Jor was right about us being too cold and closed off. I think it's more important that my children have a father than that they be pure kryptonian."

I see where she's coming from, but I'm not sure that actually makes sense. Kon's body works biologically because of his genomorph tissue, and… Frankly, being partially human is a downgrade unless you go into very particular fields, and then you're better off being entirely human. Yes, two parents are better than one, but…

"Anyone in mind?"

"No, not really. I wasn't thinking about it at all until you brought it up."

"Alright." The ghostly image of an.. average-looking man in a jumpsuit of some sort is standing in the imager. One hundred and seventy centimetres tall, short hair combed into a side parting, and slightly more muscled than I'd have expected a kryptonian of his generation to be. He actually makes eye contact with us, and looks more than a little relieved. "I think that's our man."

Kara focuses her attention on Ak-Var as Kal-El pulls the lever, the translucent outline of a man gradually gaining colour and physicality. After about twenty seconds his feet make a quiet 'clack' as they land on the floor.

"Oh, praise Rao, thank you!"

Kal-El smiles. "Are you thanking me, or Rao?"

Ak-Var's jump suit is mauve with a black triangle covering most of the chest and white trim around the neck and wrists, and his hair is brown.

"I'll thank anyone who's listening." He regards Kal-El curiously. "Though I.. don't know what I've done to earn having Jor-El himself let me out."

Kal-El shakes his head. "Jor-El was my father. My name is Kal-El, this is Kara Zor-El and Orange Lantern."

"'Was'?" He starts to look concerned. "I was sentenced to thirty years. Jor-El shouldn't be.. that old. How long has it been?"

Oh, sugar. He doesn't know. And Kal-El's spotted that as well. The prisoners in the Phantom Zone were supposed to have some awareness of the material universe and Nam-Ek could have told them… But it looks like that didn't happen.

"A little longer than that. The projection equipment was destroyed and we only recently rebuilt it."

Ak-Var snorts quietly, bowing his head. "I shouldn't be surprised that I wasn't a priority. But I don't think-" He glances at me. "-Lanterns show up for petty thieves. I'm not planning on stealing anything else, if that's what you're worried about."

I shake my head. "No, I-." Kal-El and I make eye contact, and he nods.

"Ak-Var… You might want to sit.. down." He gestures to a chair next to the room's desk. "I need to tell you something that's going to be hard to hear."

"Sirm As-En got married, didn't she?" We all look a little blank. "We were betrothed-. Then I got convicted." He shakes his head. "It's been thirty years. She's probably a grandmother by now. And I doubt she'd want to talk to me." He shrugs. "I was expecting that. I would have been more surprised if she still cared enough to be here."

"Ak-Var. That's not it. Sit down."

He looks slightly nervous, then walks over to take a seat. "My parents died in Zod's coup attempt. Not that we were close. I don't have any brothers or sisters." He sits. "What is it?"

"Do you remember learning about Black Zero in school?"

"They were clone…" He frowns. "Cultists or something, weren't they? Tried to blow up the world until Van-El stopped them."

Kal-El nods solemnly. "It turns out that they weren't quite as unsuccessful as we thought."

Ak-Var frowns uncomprehendingly. "What do you mean? That was millennia ago. None of us would be alive if they'd been successful."

"The device detonated early, but enough energy went down their borehole to start a process of… It slowly turned the outer mantle of Krypton into radioactive crystal."

"So-?"

"The radiation built up until the core reached critical temperature. The planet… Krypton exploded, and almost every member of our species died."

Ak-Var sits completely still for several seconds, eyes slightly dipped and face slack.

"Oh. But… The-. The military, spaceships-?" Kal-El shakes his head. "Even if they couldn't evacuate everyone, then-."

"While you were in the Phantom Zone, the Military Council lost power in favor of the Science Council. They demilitarised Krypton and began a period of isolationism. There were a handful of kryptonians away from Krypton, but… Not many."

"So it-. The only-." He glances over to the phantom zone projector. "That's it? All that's left are the most evil… Men and women our species ever had?"

Kal-El crouches down and puts his right hand on Ak-Var's slumped left shoulder. "Not everyone in the Phantom Zone is a complete monster. You're not, and some of the other prisoners were in there for the same kind of crime you committed. We don't really have the resources for a normal probation, so the plan is to let them out one at a time and help them acclimatise."

Ak-Var looks around numbly. "Where are we?"

"A planet called 'Earth'. The species who live here are called humans, and they look a lot like us."

I raise my right hand and wave.

"No-. I mean, this building. It looks…"

"I left Krypton as a baby in a space ship my father put together in secret. He made sure I had a couple of construction crystals, just in case things didn't pan out the way he wanted when I got here. I was adopted by a human family, and I grew up here."

"Great Rao. If I hadn't been in prison-." He shakes his head. "Look, can you..? Give me a little while to get my head around all this..?"

Kal-El nods. "Sure, Ak-Var. I'll be a couple of rooms over."

He turns and walks out of the room as Kara cautiously approaches. Ak-Var looks up at her.

"I only got here a few months ago. I grew up on Krypton too, so if you want to talk about anything… I can listen."

"Thanks, but… Not now."

She nods. "I felt the same way. But it gets… Less bad."

She turns away and heads out. On foot, because this room is shielded against solar radiation because we're not stupid. Unless Ak-Var decides that he wants to go back to the Phantom Zone we're going to have to decide how to handle that, but for now he can stay a mere mortal.

But I've got other things I need to worry about today.

I nod to him and

step out.

 

[Mr Zoat]

29th November 2282
08:11 EST

I use the rear sensors to watch as Iowa disappears behind me. With that cybernetic lunatic verifiably dead, Lafayette can work on turning his victims back into… People, when they can recover their bodies. Or at least removing their brain chips if we can't. Autumn and Company were pretty upbeat about actually having a success, doubly so when it was against someone so clearly malevolent in an uncomplicatedly good fight. The fact that the majority of his victims were cryogenically preserved pre-War humans and as such 'pure Americans' by Enclave standards doesn't hurt either. The only downside is that now they have a population large enough to sustain itself, Autumn might be a little more reluctant to accept migrants.

But I'll take it. I'm calling that a success.

I'd wanted to stay with the State of Iowa a little longer, but the team I sent to the capital sent a telepathic squawk and then went silent and I'm the best placed to answer it. I originally sent the team that way to look for Enclave remnants, expanded the mission when I found out that there was a Brotherhood of Steel Chapter, and… My plan to aid Elder Lyons in becoming High Elder and so neutralise and integrate the Brotherhood that way was obsoleted when Elder Mari Törni replaced the crippled incompetent High Elder Jonathan Maxson, a man who looked at the NCR and said 'yeah, we can take 'em'. High Elder Törni was perfectly happy to pursue peaceful relations with the NCR, just so long as I 'don't kidnap her daughter again'.

She'll still find it helpful to have another example to point to of a Brotherhood Chapter being both successful and non-evil. The Midwest Chapter and Texas Chapter more or less merged with their respective states until they don't really exist as separate entities any longer. The Alamo Chapter has expanded a little, but they mostly keep themselves to themselves. They're improving their region a bit -the local villages would much rather have them in charge than the human-hunting cannibals who used to run the place, and they're not exactly eager for Santa Anna to take over either- but not enough to serve as an example.

But the Capital Wasteland Chapter is still unarguably Brotherhood, and unarguably following Roger Maxson's mission of using advanced technology to rebuild civilisation. Which is why I ordered my covert team to keep their Elder alive.

I'm coming up on Washington now. Best see if I can reach them.

**This is Krono. Report.**

The Brotherhood's main base in the area is located in the partially-restored Pentagon, though they've also built a secondary base in the Adams Air Force Base. Elder Lyons is supposed to be in the Pentagon, as unlike some Elders -Rusk and Solo come to mind- he knows that he's too far past his prime to jump back in a suit of power armour and lead from the front.

**This is Chief Krono. Report.**

The drawback of using telepathy rather than magic is that relatively mundane things can block it. Psychic nullifiers are just iron or steel that's been magnetised and shaped into a headband. Any blacksmith with the metal, a power cell and some copper wire could make one, and the Brotherhood certainly can. Further away from the brain of the psyker the effect is weaker, but thick metal walls will make communication difficult.

Alright, remote viewing. I close my eyes.

[The Pentagon, renamed the Citadel. Brotherhood Paladins standing guard and on patrol. One waves to a trader.]

Inwards.

[Corridors. A workshop. A drafting room. Two men engaged in 'spirited disputation' next to a plan for a.. blimp? One is Elder Lyons, and I don't immediately recognise the other.]

Where would you even get the gas? Don't disappoint me with boondoggles now. Build a foundry or something!

Inwards.

[Tree]

What?

[Tree]

Pull back..?

[A tree on a desk at a guard post. There's something… Almost entrancing about it.]

Great. Stopped by a psychic tree. I look out of the canopy and see the ruins of Washington D.C. around me, with the Pentagon… There. Alright, the saucer is still invisible. Pilot it over the wall and… Project thoughts of disinterest, and jump out.

I land on a walkway, the unarmoured lookouts closest to me looking around and then deciding that I'm supposed to be there. I raise my right hand in greeting and one nods back. Depending on how alert they are they might break the spell if I actually try talking to them, but I can find Elder Lyons on my own. Down the walkway into the base proper… Looks like they've expanded the orphanage program, a reasonable compromise between recruiting uncommitted outsiders and limiting themselves to natural population growth, and which doubles as a lifeline for all of the children who would otherwise been abandoned at Little Lamplight.

Keeping a dozen minds from really thinking about me is simple enough, and once I'm inside I don't even have to do that. They might remember me, but that memory won't seem important unless someone draws attention to it. Let's see… This way.

"…plans for it, but it simply isn't worth our time or energy. What would we even do with an airship?"

"Aerial observation. And there aren't any guns in the Capital region that could reach it at altitude."

"Observing what? Satellite observation can identify large groups of-."

I cough quietly, dropping my telepathic stealth. "Excuse me, Elder."

Both heads snap around, the other man reaching for his sidearm. The Elder frowns. "Who-? What are you doing here? This area is off-limits to visitors."

"My name is Krono." I pull a piece of folded paper from my robe and offer it to him. "My introduction."

He glances down, expression relaxing a little at the sign of a Brotherhood sigil on the seal. "Sneaking up on Elders-" He snatches it and breaks the seal. "-is a good way to get disciplined, even if you are from the Circle of Steel. What does-?" He looks up, concerned. "'High Elder'? What happened to Jeremy Maxson?"

"Stroke and brain haemorrhage, I'm afraid."

Aided by quite a lot of NCR bullets.

He returns his attention to the letter. "…cooperation with… Yes, why wouldn't we be cooperating with the NCR? We purged the West Coast of Enclave holdouts together."

Oh, right, his expedition left before-. "There are.. some things I need to fill you in on, Elder."

He finishes reading and the refolds the letter and slides it into one of his pockets. "Alright, I accept your affidavits. What do you want?"

"It's a little awkward, Elder. I assigned two people to watch over you, and it seems that they've been caught. My respects to your security, but I'd… Appreciate if it you could-."

"Those are yours?" I nod. "Do you know what they were doing?"

"I hope nothing worse than watching you with a telescope."

"They broke into our food storage lockers." I frown. They should have been able to get everything-. "They were removing our ration packs and replacing them with fresh and dried fruit and vegetables. The packs of prunes were specifically labelled 'For Elder Lyons'."

I close my eyes, hissing in frustration. "My specific orders to them were 'ensure that Elder Lyons remains in good health'. Ration packs decay in quality over time, and the preservatives-." I open my eyes. "They weren't supposed to do that, but I want to assure you that it wasn't an assassination attempt and they just decided to 'creatively interpret' their orders. I apologise for the way they have clearly overstepped."

"We were only holding them to try and find out how they got in and what they thought they were doing. I suppose I should commend them for their ability to hold their tongues under pressure." He hesitates. "And if I'm honest, the greater dietary range was a pleasant change of pace. I just wish they they'd traded with us opening rather than… Making a game of breaching our security."

I nod. "I will speak with them quite sternly on the subject. Would you object to keeping them on under your command? If so, I will arrange for their transfer."

"We could use a few people capable of subtlety. We didn't bring any Circle of Steel operatives with us when we left the West Coast, and I think that they would be useful." He nods. "Come with me. We can debrief them together."

 

[Mr Zoat]

29th November 2282
13:37 EST

"…for some reason, they decided to kill most of their own leadership." Sentinel Lyons snorts through her power armour's air filter. Lyons' Pride have actually switched over to repainted Hellfire Power Armour over their old T-51 armour. Some of them have either kept their old helmets or altered the Hellfire helmets to better resemble those traditionally used by the Brotherhood, probably to avoid friendly fire incidents. "Honestly, I don't know why they haven't just given up."

"My guess would be stubbornness. Once you commit to a course of action -particularly one which contravenes your established moral norms- the need for the ego to justify it can be utterly overwhelming."

Either the Brotherhood or the locals have cleared quite a few of the roads in the former capital, though they haven't done much beyond dragging the cars and rubble out of the way. This particular path on the other hand remains just as detritus-laden as ever. After all, what reason do the Capital Wasteland Chapter and the Brotherhood Outcasts have for talking to each other? They said everything they wanted to say when they split up.

"It's a relief to hear about it. I believe in what Elder Lyons is doing, but it was a weight off when you said that the High Elder approved it."

"High Elder Törni cleaves to the mission as espoused by Roger Maxson: preserve technology and then use it to rebuild human civilisation. However, the split that manifested here is not unique to your Chapter. The Texas Chapter split in the same way over more or less the same thing."

"What about the others?"

"The Maxson Chapter was almost destroyed by the Hangdogs tribe and then finished off by Caesar's Legion. The few survivors we found were shipped back to Lost Hills. The Mojave Chapter was almost destroyed in the NCR-Brotherhood War, but with the new cooperation agreement they're out of their bunker and making themselves useful. They've even given them de facto control of Helios One, given how much of a joke the NCR's science team was. Lost Hills has started turning all the territory between the bunker and the border with the Shi into a shining model of environmentally friendly industrialisation and farming. Midwest took a lot of casualties fighting the Calculator and has.. effectively dissolved. They've only been able to really start investigating the technology in Vault Zero since Elder Rusk sent them some of his Scribes from Dallas, and they cleared that out nearly a century ago. The Washington Brotherhood are going strong, much as everyone wishes they weren't."

"Why not?"

"They're raiders and slavers, led by a demon-worshipping madman."

"What?"

"Well, I say 'demon-worshipping', but it's probably not a literal demon." I shake my head. "There's something very strange going on in Seattle and our intelligence gathering capacity is limited."

Because compared to everything else, a raider nation with a few platoons of Black Paladins isn't that much of a concern, and Elder The Immortal seems to be focusing on expanding into Alaska of all places anyway. Looking for equipment left over from Operation Anchorage, perhaps?

"And then the Isotope Chapter just goes wherever the radiation is too high for anyone else."

"The Isotope Chapter?"

"Yeah." I shrug. "Most Chapters banish anyone who turns into a ghoul. Given the number of brothers and sisters who tried to breach the West Tek Research Facility over the years -or who just got unlucky- that's not a small number. High Elder Törni allowed the survivors to form their own Chapter and granted Ms Rutherford the title of Elder. Are there any former Brotherhood ghouls around here?"

"No, no Brotherhood zombies here. What do they.. do?"

"Old ghouls are living witnesses to history. A couple of them are old enough to have actually met Roger Maxson in person, and the rest have all of the skills that someone over a hundred years old picks up in their life. Plus, they're immune to disease and radiation, so they can enter dangerous pre-War ruins without risk from environmental factors."

"And what happens when they go crazy?"

"If the ghouls in question doesn't wake up crazy from the change, staying mentally active can hold off the madness pretty much indefinitely. Most of Elder Rutherford's work is making sure that everyone is fully employed. They've been plumbing the depths of the Necropolis and clearing out the Divide, both places too radioactive for anyone who isn't a ghoul."

"They.. don't all go crazy?"

"I've personally spoken to ghouls who remember the Great War. Since ghouls don't age I assume that they'll either go mad or be killed eventually, but how mentally coherent do you expect to be when you're two hundred?"

She makes an amused snort. "I never thought of it like-"

"HALT!"

"-that."

The squad comes to a halt in sight of the Fort Independence barricade, people in power armour painted Outcast grey and red pointing their weapons at us. Sarah takes a few steps forward.

"We radioed ahead, Casdin! Don't act like this is a surprise!"

"What do you want, Sarah!?"

I hold up my other letter, seal towards him. "A message from Lost Hills! From the pen of the High Elder!"

Casdin looks at me. Then at the seal. Then he starts to look at Sarah before his face crumples.

"No."

The other Outcasts either freeze or look confused, though I'm telepathically monitoring them to make sure that none of them are about to decide to shoot. Letter aloft, I walk towards the barricade. One Outcast on the right starts to aim at me -there's no real intent there, he's just keeping me covered- but Casdin waves at him to lower his gun.

"What-? What are the.. High Elder's orders?"

I keep approaching slowly, letter forward.

"Begin packing up. A ship is being sent from the Alamo Chapter under the command of Paladin Cade. Their Chapter is under threat from a robot army under the control of a Mexican AI. You will reinforce them. Their Elder is… More in line with your way of thinking than Elder Lyons. The Alamo Chapter has command of a part of the former United States' satellite network. You will be able to communicate with them directly to confirm their arrival time."

"What are we allowed to take?"

"Everything. Strip your facilities bare. The Alamo Chapter will need it more than the Capital Wasteland Chapter, and the ship has plenty of storage."

While not a full fleet carrier, the recommissioned Hornet-class amphibious assault ship can carry a substantial quantity of cargo as well as serving as a launch platform for the Alamo Chapter's Vertibirds. They captured both from a Mexican oil rig which looks like it was being prepared to serve as an alternate site for Control Station Enclave. It and the rig will be sunk in about a day if Santa Anna declares war and sends his own more primitive but much more numerous fleet north, so there's no real problem sending it here to do a pickup run.

"And… If we refuse?"

"You'll be excommunicated, and Paladin Cade will see to your execution. The High Elder understands that… Sometimes, loyal members of the Brotherhood might interpret the Codex differently. That there is more than one way to fulfil the Brotherhood's mission. And that their fixation might cause them to forget that other than in cases of outright treason they're supposed to follow the commands of their Elder even if they think they're being inefficient. That is why you are being afforded this chance to carry on the Brotherhood's mission in a way that you can tolerate. You have erred, yes, but High Elder Törni knows that you are no traitor."

He nods hesitantly. "Bring me the written orders. We'll need to-. Think."

 

[Mr Zoat]

29th November 2282
20:14 MST

"…complain about reinforcements, Elder Lyons." Elder Kathrine Törni doesn't exactly sound thrilled to be talking to the head of the Capital Wasteland Chapter, particularly given their philosophical differences, but at least she's prepared to be polite. "It's a shame that we don't have the facilities to build more Liberty Primes here."

"Oh, I think Owen can keep that robot right where it is." Elder Edward Jefferson Rusk sounds more amused. "I'm a whole lot more interested in this 'Project Purity' thing. A whole lotta land we can't cultivate down here for lack of fresh water."

"I can share the plans, but without a Garden of Eden Construction Kit I'm not sure what good it would do you."

"Oh, I think I could lay my hands on a G.E.C.K. or two, if it's for a good cause. Those Corporate Vault sons of bitches didn't strike me as being the farming types, but they might have salvaged it when-."

"No, that won't work. This requires one of Doctor Braun's.. second generation devices. We've taken to calling them 'Construction Kits' rather than 'Creation Kits' because it became confusing otherwise. They include more advanced matter transmutation technology that we haven't been able to replicate."

"Well alright then. I'd offer you a few of my scribes, but they're all up north. I guess that'll have to wait."

"Actually, I can help." Elder McNamara had been keeping rather quiet, controlling the smallest of the Brotherhood's still functioning Chapters. And one that is effectively an NCR electricity company right now. "We were able to secure two examples of the Sierra Madre's matter transmuters, and some of the Big Mountain Research and Development Center's records on their construction. Our scribes don't have much else to work on at the moment, and though I can't risk sending them to you I can transmit the results of our research."

"Not like this." Elder Törni Junior cuts in immediately. "Something that dangerous can only be sent over a secure connection, or better yet by armed courier."

"That won't be practical until-."

Doctor Diana Stone cuts my connection. "I'm glad that they're getting along. But I think we can be sure that they're acting in good faith. And so you too should act in good faith and grant them their privacy."

The Alamo Chapter and the Capital Wastelands Chapter both have access to the surviving United States communications satellites, and the Texas Chapter plans to send up its own satellites within a few years. But Diana managed to secure access even before the Great War ended, and she's perfectly capable of listening in on their conversations. And she's probably still listening, but has decided that I don't have a legitimate reason to eavesdrop any longer.

Diana can make the Mark II's, but she's not exactly overburdened with technically skilled personnel either. The Twin Mothers tribe were always intended to be primitivists, and most of them were forcibly integrated into Caesar's Legion by Lanius. Lending her my people has allowed her to make a few, but most of the time it's easier to stick to the Mark 1s.

I glance out of the window as my zetan saucer is flying over the front line between the Legion and the NCR. I'll say this for them: Legion soldiers do not quit. When frontal assaults failed they switched to ambushes. When those failed, booby traps and animal lures and prisoners wreathed in explosives. My people might have been able to assassinate Sallow and Lanius with fewer casualties, but… This war needs to happen. Psychologically, the civilised peoples of the wasteland need to be invested in this, need to value this.

Having a single hero fix everything for them just makes people not care about it.

"Do you need anything from me?"

"My people returned to me."

"You and the Brotherhood. We're checking, but by the time they're given any sort of freedom in the Legion people are usually pretty thoroughly indoctrinated. I don't think that things can be as they were, Diana."

"'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven,
time to be born, and a time to die.' I accept change, but they are still my children."

I don't comment on how the first generation of Vault 29's residents were raised. Kidnapping children is the least of the pre-War world's crimes, and at least they survived. Particularly…

"The children of the Legion might be capable of changing. Breaking through their indoctrination. Would you be willing-?"

"Bring them to me, and I shall care for them."

"Thank you." I look down again, the lights of Vegas well behind me and the familiar landscape of Groom Lake up ahead. "Alright, I'm nearly home. Contact me if you need me."

"I will."

Landing the saucer is something I'm well accustomed to doing; its agility and speed meaning that avoiding any other aircraft in the area is a simple matter even on those rare occasions when it isn't the only thing in the air here. The Legion only sent aircraft this way once, and our ground to air weapon systems made short work of their sortie. I set the saucer down in front of its hangar with a feeling of relief.

**I'm back, everyone.**

A whole month. That's the longest I've been away since I got here. Even the final negotiations between the NCR and the Western Brotherhood only took three weeks. Which was still too long, but…

I press the control to open the hatch and clamber out, the ground crew already moving in to check it for wear and tear. I wave a greeting as I jump down, using telekinesis to slow my descend to a comfortable speed. Alright, I need to check in to make sure that nothing's about to blow up in my face, then-.

**Chief?**

**Keanan. Good news from the East.** I start walking in the direction of my quarters. **Anything here I need to deal with immediately?**

**I'm afraid so. Chief Balm-Upon-Wounds is here. He needs to talk to you as soon as possible.**

My… Future father-in-law. Or-. No, I understand why people have been leaning on me. In the month I had to get to know her before I needed to get a move on with the Enclave transfer, she seemed… Nice? A good person to be the wife of a chief? And it's certainly a locally accepted way to forge an alliance with the Ammonites.

I don't love her, but I know more than enough about human history to know that I would probably end up loving her. And that loving her isn't necessary, because when you're in charge-.

It's not about you.

I never really saw myself becoming a father, but that's going to happen, too. I suppose this is what happens when you get a people-focused job.

**I'm not at my best, but-.**

"Husband!"

**Never mind, Tears found me.**

**I'll let him know.**

I turn to look at-.

You know, I think that's the first time I've seen her face without makeup. She's also switched her clothing style from the New Canaan/White Legs mix she was wearing over to the more techno-priest look that I've popularised amongst those members of the Sky Walkers whose business takes them outside of our core territory. Loose robes combined with a pip-boy, inertia suppression field and plasma pistol. That's-. A sign that she wants to integrate, which…

She smiles demurely. "Do you approve?"

"Ah, yes. I don't know if you are aware, but your father-."

She nods. "I thought that you would like to see me first. My father is… Troubled."

"I know, I should have given you a definitive answer before leaving." Her face stills, her eyes staring into mine. "Yes, I will marry-" She beams. "-you, though we'll have to sort out the details. I'm not a Mormon-."

"That is not a problem. Many of the Ammonites have not converted in their hearts. But that is not what my father wishes to speak with your about."

"Oh? Then what is it?"

"It is the Eighties. The banner of the bull has been seen at their race tracks and meeting halls. He fears that they will ally themselves with Caesar."

Which would open a whole new front in the war, even if they fought the Ammonites first. And unlike the Ammonites, the Eighties are a technologically sophisticated people. They even have their own tank battalion.

"Then take me to him. He will have my aid, and that of the Sky Walkers."

Spoiler: Original version

I press the control to open the hatch and clamber out, the ground crew already moving in to check it for wear and tear. I wave a greeting as I jump down, using telekinesis to slow my descend to a comfortable-

"K-chk-."

-speed..? One of the ground crew rapidly tries to master his facial expression while rubbing his side where one of his colleagues… Slapped him? I'm feeling a general sense of amusement from… The whole town, actually.

Glad to hear that no one's too worried about the largest war in the post-Great War world happening just a few miles away. I wonder-.

**Chief?**

**Keanan. Good news from the East. Anything here I need to deal with immediately?**

**Ahhh.** I can hear the amusement, even as he tries to conceal it. **Had some visitors, Chief. When we realised how long you were going to be away, most of them went home.**

**Who?**

**Chief Balm-Upon-Wounds of the Ammonites. He couldn't stay for more than a week.**

Ugh, yes, he's not going to be happy about ARGOS kidnapping his daughter. I've.. probably got time to visit New Canaan, but the saucer is overdue for maintenance and, frankly, so am I. I head in the direction of my quarters, more than ready to sleep in my own bed rather than on a mat besides a road or in an Enclave barracks.

**A few of his people stayed on as a diplomatic party.**

**Yes, fine. Tell them I'll meet them tomorrow, and their chief at his convenience.**

Through the streets, waving half-heartedly at the people who greet me. Through the doors and up the stairs.

**Will d-o, Chief.**

I stop just outside of my apartment. **Keanan, I know that something's going on. I'm not poking at your brain because surprise belated birthdays are pretty harmless, but at my age it's a bit silly and I'm far too tired-** I push the door open. **-to really-.**

"Husband!" Tears-in-the-Rain smiles at me from… My desk chair. She stands and turns to face me. "I have awaited your return eagerly."

**[Whyiswhatshedoesn'treallylooksprettygoodinthatdresstiredandotherjobnotfunny]**

"When you abandoned our marital bed for months, I was concerned that I did not please you."

**It kind of is, Chief.**

Her face looks completely innocent, but I'm a telepath. I can feel her amusement.

"Or that you had another wife in another tribe-."

"Tears-. Good work on the straight face, but your thoughts betray you."

She grimaces. "Curses. I have been preparing since I arrived-."

"We'll-. Are you serious about the-. Marriage?" … "The whole town knows."

"Yes. And yes."

"Alright. Ah. But you're a Mormon. I'm going to bed now, and you can't be here until-."

"The Ammonites are less…" She takes a few steps close. "Strict."

"And I don't want our first time to end with me falling asleep on you. Please?"

She bows. "As my lord husband commands. I eagerly await him calling for me, so that we may-."

"And now you're over-acting." I take hold of her in a telekinetic grip, float her through the doorway and shut the doors behind her. And then lock the doors.

Marvellous.

 

[Mr Zoat]

6th April 2013
09:57 GMT -5

Connection made to monitored phone line.

I glance down at my right with a faint smile on my lips. Been a while. This number-.

Oh, I'd… Forgotten about-. Well, not forgotten, but I'd stopped worrying about-.

After I got back from Vega, I sponsored the formation of a computer game company with a view to making a roleplay game about the region. Talented, passionate people to whom I gave as much data on the Vega Systems as I could -along with a chunk of seed capital- and left to it. Between the Sheeda and the Anti-Life I… Honestly hadn't spared them a thought for a year or so. In fact, I'm mildly impressed that they're still alive.

Um.

Answer.

"Orange Lantern here."

"It's… Ah. Hey. Ah."

"Good morning, Kurt. How are things?"

"We're ready."

Assuming that they were using an existing game engine -no real reason for them not to- and kept the main story relatively pared down, I suppose that they might have a first build complete after a year. It… Hm. I.. have no idea what sort of state the computer game industry is in right now. I haven't heard the others mentioning new games for a while, but it's not like I have a surfeit of spare time.

It's not like I actually need it to make money. It was… Not quite a pure ego project, but… Pretty close, if I'm honest. An undercurrent of 'if you don't like how I did it let's see you do any better'.

"Good show. Is this where you give me my pre-release code?"

"We're ready, sir. This is-. Everything you wanted."

There's.. something in his voice that's putting me a little on edge.

"Kurt, are you alright?"

"I don't know. I-I don't know. I've been-. I've just been writing and writing for… Ah…"

Where is he?

That.. wasn't what he looked like last time we spoke, but he's still recognisable. I

step out and

6th April 2013
07:59 GMT -7

reappear five metres away from him in his direct line of sight. I didn't detect any weapons or threats-.

Someone behind me drops something. "He's here!"

I glance around-. At a walking stereotype of a programmer: thin, pallid and unkempt, and staring at me through tape-bound spectacles. And to complete the picture it looks like he dropped a pack of cheetos.

And then he turns and sprints through some nearby double doors.

..

I think that maybe I should have checked on them before now.

"Ah. Sorry about-. Ah, Martin." I turn back to Kurt. "We've all… I mean, with everything that happened, it's a bit…" He hesitates, his gaze growing a little vacant before snapping back to me. "Y'know."

"No, I don't think I do. So let's start with the most important thing-."

He smiles. "The game!"

"Your health, and the health of the other employees." I scan him. Elevated stress hormones, but for a company chairman or someone who lived through the Anti-Life it's not that unusual. "Because you sound a little odd. What's been happening?"

He runs his right hand through thinning hair, glancing off to the side.

"So… At the start, things were pretty normal. Good, compared to a lot of companies. Everyone… Knew their jobs. Got the basic story sketched out, and we could get the graphic artists started right away because you told us what the ships and.. people, the different species, look like."

"I remember that much."

"And it was good! It was… The storylines were coming together, and-. And companion characters, faction leaders… Even the procedurally generated stuff could kinda link to the story missions, 'cause they wouldn't be available unless a faction was strong enough to advance its agenda, and NPCs would try things if you didn't recruit them or kill them. And… I'd say we had a basic playable build by November last year."

"That's pretty quick work."

"Yeah. And then… T-that thing."

"The Anti-Life."

"And we lost the will to live, but… Coding's not really living."

I tilt my head a little to the right. "What, exactly, do you mean by that?"

"That's what we did. That was our reason for being. For the whole-. God, was it just a month?"

"About a month, yes."

"The whole team, the artists, writers and… Backroom people, they… Cleaned up, made sure we ate enough to.. keep working." His slightly crazy eyes snap back to me. "And now we're done."

"Ready for beta testing?"

"I mean…" His eyes slide to the side again as he rubs his face with his right hand. "We probably should, but… It-it's done. Playable… We could add things, but it would disrupt the internal balance, and… It would be pretty gimmicky. You know?"

"Again, no, but I'll take your word for it. Internal balance is good?"

"The usual result if the AI is left to handle things is some sort of Citadel victory, which is what really happened. But exactly what happens changes every time. Some routes are harder so that works for people looking for a challenge. It's… Good. Yeah."

"Okay, well, I'm glad to hear that. I-."

"But you've gotta see it. Today-. Now."

He goes to reach out to me, then stops himself. I… Walk up to him and pat him on the shoulder.

"Okay, Kurt. Take me to the rest of the team, and…"

I'll make sure that they're basically healthy and not too crazy, because one of the things I wanted to do here was avoid the crunch that other computer game companies use to rush out shoddy and unfinished products and it turns out that they basically death marched it while under the affect of the Anti-Life.

Ring, low urgency alert to the rest of the team. Ask them if they're interested in trying out a new computer game.

Compliance.

"And then you can show me the game itself."

The smile he gives me is truly disturbing.