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

[Underdog]

Is there any way to to find all the different alt timelines to read, cause I allways forget what had happened in them? So if I wanted to read the complete story in 40k without having to scroll through everything.

 

[RoninSword]

There are 2 ways for you to do that.
Go to the story only thread, and search that thread only for the primary date stamp of whatever you are looking for. In 40k in specific, it's a very specific millennium date, and that should give you it.
The other is to go to the front page and look through all those spoilers posts for the ones you are looking for. Unfortunately wh40k is the only one with a specific date stamp that never changes.

 

[Mr Zoat]

11th April 2013
07:02 GMT +1

Bleez-.

"Thanagarians-" Kara leans back into the dining room from the kitchen. "-eat food, right?"

Bleez looks awkwardly at me for a moment, then turns back to Kara. "Yes?"

"Not, like, bird seed or anything?"

"I can eat seeds if that's what you're having?"

"Thanagarians can process human food perfectly well, thank you Kara."

"Okay! Human food!"

Kara ducks back into the kitchen, and I pointedly avoid scanning what she's doing. Bleez looks at me with concern.

"Is she… Alright?"

"She's from an isolationist world and doesn't exactly understand how to deal with aliens. She's lived around humans for long enough that she's learned our strange and nonsensical customs, but other species are unknown territory for her."

"So 'bird seed' isn't a kind of muesli?"

"It-. A human could eat it as a form of muesli, but I think she's trying to work out whether she should treat you as a human with wings or as a bird that can think."

Bleez looks mystified. "Is-?"

There's a blue and red blur.

"Or a hamster!" Kara smiles, hands clasped behind her back. "Because her helmet looks a bit like a hamster ball and I don't want to assume she's a bird just because she has wings!"

"What's a hamster ball?"

"It's a ball! For hamsters!"

"Hamsters are a small fur-covered Earth-native animal sometimes kept as pets by humans. Hamster balls are small plastic spheres that some hamster owners put them in so that they can exercise by running around the house without being able to escape-" Bleez twitches, her wings fluffing up slightly. "-or really hide themselves."

Kara nods. "And sometimes they put humans in them, too, just so the hamsters don't think they're being picked on!"

Kara then looks away with a frown, then sniffs twice. Then she vanishes in another blue/red blur.

I take a sound baffle out of subspace and put it on the table. Then I reach across the table and lay my right hand on her left.

"Bleez, you are a friend. I want to help you. But I also have responsibilities to Earth. I need to know what happened."

She pulls her wing in tight around her body. "He-. That guy you warned me about. He came to a concert I put on, on one of the planets Thanagar recently conquered."

"You went to a planet that had been recently conquered? Were you doing a concert for the army? And-."

"No-. Well. Kind of. It was suppose to be a demonstration of thanagarian culture. And the only people who got invites were super vetted, so I wasn't really worried, and then he was just there?"

"In front of you?"

"In the audience. I don't even know what species he was. I just thought he was some dignitary or something."

"I wasn't able to give you a precise description. How-?"

"He had a ring! And the blue skin and the weird haircut!"

"A crew cut's not that weird."

"It is if you leave the fringe long!"

"So… What did he do?"

"He-. Okay, he didn't really do anything. He was watching me, but everyone was watching me…" She stretches her wings a little, then pulls them back in. "I just kept it together for the concern and then jumped in a ship to get out of there before anything happened."

Hm.

"Being watched is sort of your job." Hm. "Thanagarian security is usually pretty good. How did he get through?"

"He had an invite. According to the guest list he's some sort of security consultant." She turns her hand over, taking hold of mine. "What do I do? You said that when he turns up Havania gets conquered!"

"Bleez, you can't assume that prophecy is that simple. What would you have done if I hadn't told you about what the oracle saw?"

"I.. Guess I'd have said, 'hi, thank you for coming, isn't Thanagar great' or something? I don't know?"

"And the oracle told me that he only attacked after you rejected him on Havania, right? So if he got that fixated on you, he didn't try anything there and waited until later."

"He's not after me?"

"I doubt that he's after you yet. More to the point, most people don't have unique haircuts. There are probably quite a lot of males from his species who look similar, and given your involvement with the Thanagarian military, if you've run into one then you're quite likely to run into more than one. Now, that doesn't-."

"It might not be the guy." Her wings and shoulders sag. "It might not be the guy."

"It might not be the guy. Or it might be the guy several years before he reached that point. Or he might have gotten obsessed with you after a meeting today that you didn't have because you came here. Heck, prophecy isn't completely reliable anyway." She nods. "Did you tell anyone about spotting a Yellow Lantern?"

"Yeah, but I don't know if they're actually going to do anything about it."

"Other than try and get someone into the Corps?"

"They might. But they might not." She circles her shoulders, settling her wings back into their default position. "I don't think you really understand how the government of Thanagar thinks about you. And what you've done for them."

"What, the cult thing? It wasn't that big a deal. And Lantern Dul hardly spends any time in this region of space."

"No, not that. Vulcan. He's already creating more Nth metal than all of the smelters on Thanagar put together. Which means that all the senior government officials have calmed down enough to actually read the reports about Earth and not write them off like they're works of fiction."

"To be fair, they do sound like works of fiction."

"So they know about what the Orange Lantern Corps is doing, and they also know that if you tell someone that an oracle says something, it's probably true, or at least kinda true? They've already got the Green Lantern Corps reports about Sinestro, so if they put it all together? I think they're more likely to shoot anyone with a glowing yellow ring than try and work with them."

"I'm glad to hear it. So, what's really with the spacesuit?"

"It-."

Blue and red blur, and Kara puts a large plate of pancakes down in the middle of the table. "Done! Oh!" Blue and red blur, and there are three plates, and containers for pancake-appropriate condiments.

And a packet of birdseed, with 'MUESLI' hurriedly written on the side.

 

[GigaVanguard]

Good to see that Paul-Thanagar relations are normalizing, or at least they're realizing they actually can't just steamroll Earth.

 

[Darko]

I doubt that he's after you yet. More to the point, most people don't have unique haircuts. There are probably quite a lot of males from his species who look similar, and given your involvement with the Thanagarian military, if you've run into one then you're quite likely to run into more than one. Now, that doesn't

Click to shrink...

Though most probably don't have power rings.

Yeah, but I don't know if they're actually going to do anything about it."

Click to shrink...

Especially if they want an alliance with the Sinestro Corps.

I think they're more likely to shoot anyone with a glowing yellow ring than try and work with them."

Click to shrink...

Unless they think that they can somehow control them and disregard any red flags that point to the contrary.

 

[Sockmonkey]

Kara from STAS was kinda ditzy, but never to this level. It's like she's five.

 

[RichardWhereat]

I love Kara. I really really do.

 

[Lord Ernest]

This Kara is good in small doses but right now she's exceeding the recommended amount.

Glad that Thanagar High Command are using their heads, though. If they came as allies it would be really welcomed, especially right now with the state of the planet. Also happy that Vulcan seems to be thriving, wonder if he's alone over there.

Poor Bleez, I can't fault her for coming, although I'm not sure how much the Illustres told her about what that Sinestro Lantern would do. Better to prevent that tragedy in any case.

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

11th April 2013
07:02 GMT +1

Bleez-.

"Thanagarians-" Kara leans back into the dining room from the kitchen. "-eat food, right?"

Click to shrink...

...It's a rare anthropomorphic species that doesn't. And in those cases, they either fuel their bodies with unconventional energies or are entirely artificial and thus also run on energy. ...The DC Universe has some weird people in it.

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

Bleez looks awkwardly at me for a moment, then turns back to Kara. "Yes?"

"Not, like, bird seed or anything?"

Click to shrink...

Depends on the material, I think? Most bird food isn't exactly pleasant to Humans or human-adjacent beings.

"I can eat seeds if that's what you're having?"

"Thanagarians can process human food perfectly well, thank you Kara."

Click to shrink...

Ah, good thing OL decided to stick around. Can you imagine the awkwardness if Kara brought out a bag of birdseed or a piece of cuttlebone? (Often used to provide house-birds something to maintain their beaks with.)

"Okay! Human food!"

Kara ducks back into the kitchen, and I pointedly avoid scanning what she's doing. Bleez looks at me with concern.

Click to shrink...

Why do I get the feeling that's a mistake? Kara is enthusiastic but... Not always sensible.

"Is she… Alright?"

"She's from an isolationist world and doesn't exactly understand how to deal with aliens. She's lived around humans for long enough that she's learned our strange and nonsensical customs, but other species are unknown territory for her."

Click to shrink...

Plus possible lingering mental issues from the trip to Earth. And possibly overcompensating for the knowledge that her entire people and everyone she ever knew are dead and gone by being super-bubbly...

"So 'bird seed' isn't a kind of muesli?"

"It-. A human could eat it as a form of muesli, but I think she's trying to work out whether she should treat you as a human with wings or as a bird that can think."

Click to shrink...

...And possibly foolishly simple. Seriously, did she study Japanese culture for her baka-moe act?

Bleez looks mystified. "Is-?"

There's a blue and red blur.

"Or a hamster!" Kara smiles, hands clasped behind her back. "Because her helmet looks a bit like a hamster ball and I don't want to assume she's a bird just because she has wings!"

Click to shrink...

...Wait, is she wearing the classic sci-fi bubble-type helmet?

"What's a hamster ball?"

"It's a ball! For hamsters!"

Click to shrink...

Ah, tautologies. Methinks Kara is forgetting that not everyone shares the same pool of cultural references...

"Hamsters are a small fur-covered Earth-native animal sometimes kept as pets by humans. Hamster balls are small plastic spheres that some hamster owners put them in so that they can exercise by running around the house without being able to escape-" Bleez twitches, her wings fluffing up slightly. "-or really hide themselves."

Kara nods. "And sometimes they put humans in them, too, just so the hamsters don't think they're being picked on!"

Click to shrink...

To be fair, Zorbing can be enjoyable. I can also understand the mistake concerning their equipment....

Kara then looks away with a frown, then sniffs twice. Then she vanishes in another blue/red blur.

I take a sound baffle out of subspace and put it on the table. Then I reach across the table and lay my right hand on her left.

Click to shrink...

Ah, the necessities of having a private conversation with a kryptonian around.

"Bleez, you are a friend. I want to help you. But I also have responsibilities to Earth. I need to know what happened."

She pulls her wing in tight around her body. "He-. That guy you warned me about. He came to a concert I put on, on one of the planets Thanagar recently conquered."

Click to shrink...

Well, guess that's confirmed then. Her obsessive fan-turned-supervillain.

"You went to a planet that had been recently conquered? Were you doing a concert for the army? And-."

"No-. Well. Kind of. It was suppose to be a demonstration of thanagarian culture. And the only people who got invites were super vetted, so I wasn't really worried, and then he was just there?"

Click to shrink...

Winning hearts and minds, eh? Probably a little trickier when your people were aggressively expanding their territory...

"In front of you?"

"In the audience. I don't even know what species he was. I just thought he was some dignitary or something."

Click to shrink...

...So it may in fact not be the guy. Was he at least glowing yellow?

"I wasn't able to give you a precise description. How-?"

"He had a ring! And the blue skin and the weird haircut!"

Click to shrink...

...All right, that's kind of conclusive.

"A crew cut's not that weird."

"It is if you leave the fringe long!"

Click to shrink...

Yeah, that's a bit... It's the hairstyle of someone with a definite lifestyle. Especially if said fringe was long enough to cover one eye, dyed black or otherwise sinister.

"So… What did he do?"

"He-. Okay, he didn't really do anything. He was watching me, but everyone was watching me…" She stretches her wings a little, then pulls them back in. "I just kept it together for the concern and then jumped in a ship to get out of there before anything happened."

Click to shrink...

So... You kind of panicked and ran to someone you could trust. Hopefully that was enough to derail the Corpsman's obsession.

Hm.

"Being watched is sort of your job." Hm. "Thanagarian security is usually pretty good. How did he get through?"

Click to shrink...

I would expect she's seen enough fans to recognise creepy-obsessive types. Just that most of them lack the means to do more than watch her ominously.

"He had an invite. According to the guest list he's some sort of security consultant." She turns her hand over, taking hold of mine. "What do I do? You said that when he turns up Havania gets conquered!"

"Bleez, you can't assume that prophecy is that simple. What would you have done if I hadn't told you about what the oracle saw?"

Click to shrink...

Good question. I assume you didn't go into detail about her personal fate, or she'd have been a lot more worried.

"I.. Guess I'd have said, 'hi, thank you for coming, isn't Thanagar great' or something? I don't know?"

"And the oracle told me that he only attacked after you rejected him on Havania, right? So if he got that fixated on you, he didn't try anything there and waited until later."

Click to shrink...

Still, better safe than sorry.

"He's not after me?"

"I doubt that he's after you yet. More to the point, most people don't have unique haircuts. There are probably quite a lot of males from his species who look similar, and given your involvement with the Thanagarian military, if you've run into one then you're quite likely to run into more than one. Now, that doesn't-."

Click to shrink...

Now, if he had glowing yellow eyes, perhaps with an almost insectoid symbol in them... Then you'd have good cause to be concerned.

"It might not be the guy." Her wings and shoulders sag. "It might not be the guy."

"It might not be the guy. Or it might be the guy several years before he reached that point. Or he might have gotten obsessed with you after a meeting today that you didn't have because you came here. Heck, prophecy isn't completely reliable anyway." She nods. "Did you tell anyone about spotting a Yellow Lantern?"

Click to shrink...

Also good points. For all we know, when he couldn't see her again, he gave up and began to fixate on someone else...

"Yeah, but I don't know if they're actually going to do anything about it."

"Other than try and get someone into the Corps?"

Click to shrink...

No doubt they think they could ally with Sinestro. Perhaps secretly, perhaps not.

"They might. But they might not." She circles her shoulders, settling her wings back into their default position. "I don't think you really understand how the government of Thanagar thinks about you. And what you've done for them."

"What, the cult thing? It wasn't that big a deal. And Lantern Dul hardly spends any time in this region of space."

Click to shrink...

Gee, I wonder why? Somehow, I bet Thanagar isn't too welcoming to those who stand out as much as Lanterns do.

"No, not that. Vulcan. He's already creating more Nth metal than all of the smelters on Thanagar put together. Which means that all the senior government officials have calmed down enough to actually read the reports about Earth and not write them off like they're works of fiction."

"To be fair, they do sound like works of fiction."

Click to shrink...

Probably silly, childish ones, at that. "This one person can lift entire freighters without them snapping in half? How ridiculous!"

"So they know about what the Orange Lantern Corps is doing, and they also know that if you tell someone that an oracle says something, it's probably true, or at least kinda true? They've already got the Green Lantern Corps reports about Sinestro, so if they put it all together? I think they're more likely to shoot anyone with a glowing yellow ring than try and work with them."

Click to shrink...

Especially likely if they weren't certain they could be in absolute control of said Corpsman.

"I'm glad to hear it. So, what's really with the spacesuit?"

"It-."

Click to shrink...

Well, it does show off her figure quite nicely, doesn't it?

Blue and red blur, and Kara puts a large plate of pancakes down in the middle of the table. "Done! Oh!" Blue and red blur, and there are three plates, and containers for pancake-appropriate condiments.

And a packet of birdseed, with 'MUESLI' hurriedly written on the side.

Click to shrink...

Goddammit, Kara... You're probably very lucky you're so cute when you do this stuff.

So, then. There may have been other motives behind her little unscheduled trip. Certainly, fear of the guy she believes would conquer her world and possibly do nasty things to her is one of them. Perhaps a chance to get out from under her intelligence handlers' thumbs, perhaps? I'm sure the lady could use a proper vacation without having to worry about her bosses' interference.

 

[Ardy]

No, not that. Vulcan. He's already creating more Nth metal than all of the smelters on Thanagar put together. Which means that all the senior government officials have calmed down enough to actually read the reports about Earth and not write them off like they're works of fiction."

Click to shrink...

This. This is the continuity I love this story for.

 

[Darko]

It's a rare anthropomorphic species that doesn't. And in those cases, they either fuel their bodies with unconventional energies or are entirely artificial and thus also run on energy. ...The DC Universe has some weird people in it.

Click to shrink...

Honestly Kara may not necessarily even need to eat as long as she's solar charged, so maybe that's why she asked.

Plus possible lingering mental issues from the trip to Earth. And possibly overcompensating for the knowledge that her entire people and everyone she ever knew are dead and gone by being super-bubbly...

Click to shrink...

Yeah, people can use humor to cope with trauma.

Heck, Thor did it in Love and Thunder after everything he went through.

Well, guess that's confirmed then. Her obsessive fan-turned-supervillain.

Click to shrink...

Technically he was already a supervillain before he was a fan.

I would expect she's seen enough fans to recognise creepy-obsessive types. Just that most of them lack the means to do more than watch her ominously

Click to shrink...

And given that she's an intelligence operative, she may be able to handle the ones that get aggressive.

Though a power ring makes that impossible.

 

[WereDragon]

"No, not that. Vulcan. He's already creating more Nth metal than all of the smelters on Thanagar put together.

Click to shrink...

Good for him. Although I hope he branches out and does more than just mass production of base resources.

I think they're more likely to shoot anyone with a glowing yellow ring than try and work with them."

Click to shrink...

Would be nice for Paul to semi-inadvertently screw with Sinestro, after all the times the Yellow gits have screwed with him.

 

[Finagle007]

Kara from STAS was kinda ditzy, but never to this level. It's like she's five.

Click to shrink...

She's high on caffeine at the moment. Wait till it wears off.

 

[RoninSword]

So last we heard about Vulcan he had been thinking about heading to Thanagar. This is the first we've learned he actually went there.
And that he seems to have started to fix Thanagar's supply issue with Nth metal...

 

[Chaoswind]

So last we heard about Vulcan he had been thinking about heading to Thanagar. This is the first we've learned he actually went there.
And that he seems to have started to fix Thanagar's supply issue with Nth metal...

Click to shrink...

This is wrong, last we saw we got confirmation he was literally packing to go there and that was two invasions ago, by this point Vulcan has to be more than settled and probably has a bunch of winged priestess and acolytes.

 

[Ngamer11]

This is wrong, last we saw we got confirmation he was literally packing to go there and that was two invasions ago, by this point Vulcan has to be more than settled and probably has a bunch of winged priestess and acolytes.

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't be too sure of the latter. The top people in the government are very anti-alien, so they would only work with Vulcan to get Nth Metal. I seriously doubt many people would worship him, at least openly.

 

[Lord Ernest]

I wouldn't be too sure of the latter. The top people in the government are very anti-alien, so they would only work with Vulcan to get Nth Metal. I seriously doubt many people would worship him, at least openly.

Click to shrink...

The establishment is anti-alien, yes, but they appear to be pretty pragmatic as well. There is a reason why they sent an agent to the Orange Lantern Corps and sent a formal request for an unemployed God to come take charge of their pantheon.

Thanagarians live and breathe by Nth Metal and now a literal God is saving them from their shortage. Building temples and establishing a priesthood seems pretty cheap in comparison. After all, I don't think they're paying Vulcan with money for the Nth Metal, so what do you think is happening? Prayers, rituals and festivals, same as Hepheastus asked of the Illustres and Ted Kord but in an even bigger scale, because he's essentially become the state religion for the empire.

And at the beginning it's probably all pretty mercenary, like Paul with Eris or Kon with Helios, but give it time and it will probably become not only part of the culture but people will really believe and pray, beyond the initial arrangement.

 

[Zig]

And the blue skin

Click to shrink...

Had me wondering if she was talking about someone other than Sinestro

 

[NightmareWarden]

She's high on caffeine at the moment. Wait till it wears off.

Click to shrink...

I wonder if it is sugar, instead. She seems like she'd prefer sweet stuff, and Krypton probably had the markets limited to healthier stuff, rather than colorfully packaged cocaine.

 

[Mr Zoat]

This is wrong, last we saw we got confirmation he was literally packing to go there and that was two invasions ago, by this point Vulcan has to be more than settled and probably has a bunch of winged priestess and acolytes.

Click to shrink...

It's really more like a couple of junior scientists. As stated above, thanagarians are pretty specieist, and they're also fairly anti-religion. Vulcan hasn't had a proper cult for a fairly long time, but he's pretty good at explaining things. It also helps that Thanagar's magic field is relatively weak, so some of the oddities that gods take with them are dialled down.

 

[Someguy Somewhere]

I wonder if it is sugar, instead. She seems like she'd prefer sweet stuff, and Krypton probably had the markets limited to healthier stuff, rather than colorfully packaged cocaine.

Click to shrink...

Maybe all those buildings back home were made of sugar crystals, and now that she's got one of her own she's started licking the walls.

 

[Jirachi]

It's really more like a couple of junior scientists. As stated above, thanagarians are pretty specieist, and they're also fairly anti-religion. Vulcan hasn't had a proper cult for a fairly long time, but he's pretty good at explaining things. It also helps that Thanagar's magic field is relatively weak, so some of the oddities that gods take with them are dialled down.

Click to shrink...

Yeah - Thanagarians are probably less suitable for the work then humans on earth would be, and he quoted like 30 years for being able to get to a place where they'd be able to meaningfully help his work from the arcane smithing side - though I'm sure there's a bunch of little things that a bunch of scientists can help out with in making the conditions for his work the best they can be.

 

[Ardy]

I just realized that The Bat could have been an alternate yellow ring user for the anti-life fight. The SI has the tech to visit, he's friendly, and he'd probably enjoy getting out into the field to help fight the "good" fight.

Plus he likely wouldn't keep it afterwards, if for no other reason than to prevent another earth wanting to take it back, and we can always point out the main guy who uses yellow rings has red skin.

 

[Mr Zoat]

I just realized that The Bat could have been an alternate yellow ring user for the anti-life fight. The SI has the tech to visit, he's friendly, and he'd probably enjoy getting out into the field to help fight the "good" fight.

Plus he likely wouldn't keep it afterwards, if for no other reason than to prevent another earth wanting to take it back, and we can always point out the main guy who uses yellow rings has red skin.

Click to shrink...

If you're talking about the National Socialist, the issue there is that he isn't very scary. Leatherwing is, but he'd never give the ring up.

 

[Ardy]

If you're talking about the National Socialist, the issue there is that he isn't very scary. Leatherwing is, but he'd never give the ring up.

Click to shrink...

The bat is a retired monster, but with a ring to rejuvenate him he'd be back in the swing of things before you can say "Paul why did you just give the nazi a power ring?!?!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

The bat is a retired monster, but with a ring to rejuvenate him he'd be back in the swing of things before you can say "Paul why did you just give the nazi a power ring?!?!"

Click to shrink...

Not really. He was a literal child during World War II. He's younger than Overman. And he focused on detective work and combat skills over causing fear.

And even if he had used Batman's methodology, that wouldn't necessarily rejuvenate him. Al Scott didn't rejuvenate, he just started looking like a slightly livelier corpse.

 

[RoninSword]

We had this conversation before I think? The only ones we've seen rejuvenate by power ring have been Orange Lanterns (Paul and Azula) and Alan because he's part emotional energy now.
Not sure if we came to a consensus about why the other colors can't do that.

 

[Lord Ernest]

We had this conversation before I think? The only ones we've seen rejuvenate by power ring have been Orange Lanterns (Paul and Azula) and Alan because he's part emotional energy now.
Not sure if we came to a consensus about why the other colors can't do that.

Click to shrink...

I think it might be a matter of implementation. The Illustres theorized that Guy managed to heal his possible brain damage while developing the technique to counter Assimilation and Malvolio is who knows how old, although I can't recall if his ring has the same thing as Alan to make him quasi-elemental. So it might be possible to Will a rejuvenation by firmly believing in a younger you as the best you or something like that.

Then we have the Indigos and Blues that seem to have it easier with healing, and the first Blue Lantern rejuvenated a whole star as his legendary first act. Violets, Yellows and Reds are the ones without a clear path to it, but I could see ways to focus the emotions in that endeavor. Yellow, for example, with a powerful and well focused Thanatophobia maybe? Who knows.

 

[Darko]

Violets, Yellows and Reds are the ones without a clear path to it, but I could see ways to focus the emotions in that endeavor. Yellow, for example, with a powerful and well focused Thanatophobia maybe? Who knows.

Click to shrink...

Violets may be able to heal those they love, but I think Red has been shown as being bad at things that aren't breaking things.

 

[Mr Zoat]

11th April 2013
07:13 GMT +1

Bleez looks impressed as Kara demolishes her seventh pancake. She isn't eating it at full-on super speed, but her cuts and jabs and scoops are far faster and more precise than any a human or thanagarian could make.

Then she stops completely still.

"Do you like it?"

Bleez looks down at the small pile of 'muesli' on her plate. "Ah, the seeds are a little chewy. Maybe they'd be better toasted?"

Kara's irises unfocus for a moment and I ready a construct shield as two planes of red light burn from her eyes and hit the seeds with a quiet sizzling sound. They brown, and Kara blinks as her eyes refocus. It's actually a little tricky to use heat vision on 'wide beam', but that showed an impressive degree of control.

"Toasted!"

Bleez is staring at her. Kara looks puzzled.

"Do I have something on my face?"

"No-. How-? What was that?"

"Heat vision!" Kara smiles brilliantly. "When kryptonians get exposed to main phase stars we get all kinds of neat powers! I mostly use it instead of brushing my teeth!"

"How hot was that?"

Kara raises her right forefinger to her mouth. "Mm, I'm not sure? I've melted dolomite before, but that amount of heat is kiiiinda super dangerous to all the humans nearby."

"Dolomite?"

Kara nods happily. "There was this TV show where the professor kept calling dolomite a 'wonder mineral'." She folds her arms across her chest. "Well it might be a wonder mineral, but it's not a super mineral!"

"And what.. else can you do?"

Kara starts counter on her fingers. "Ah, move super-fast, hit things real hard, I'm completely-." She stops still and then points her finger at me. "Almost completely invulnerable, I-" I nod approvingly. "-can fly, freeze things by breathing on them-. Oh, and hold my breath for a real long time! And then there's heat vision, and x-ray vision, which doesn't fire x-rays but does let me see through stuff. And super hearing, and super smell, and telescopic vision and microscopic vision…" She trails off, frowning. "And there might be some more I've forgotten. I've got a lot of powers."

"Don't forget ventriloquism."

Kara smiles and rolls her eyes, flapping her right hand dismissively. "Oh, that doesn't count. Oh! I can't put on weight! That's pretty useful."

"What do you mean by 'ventriloquism'?"

"I can make my voice sound different-" Kara's mouth is moving, but the sound is coming from Bleez's lips in Bleez's voice, much to Bleez's surprise. "-and make it come from different places. But that's not really a superpower, is it? That's just silly."

I'm just glad that she can't make a smaller, more powerful version of herself.

"Say, would you be interested in a job as my bodyguard? Even my mother couldn't complain about that."

"No, not really." Kara shakes her head. "Earth just had its whole everything stop working, and while you seem really nice, I don't think you're as important as a whole species."

"How about if I stayed here? I've done concerts on Thanagarian protectorates before. I could do some on Earth."

"I don't mind, but… I move pretty quick? I usually fix up a whole area before there's time for a concert. Buuuuut, maybe you could join in?"

"I don't know.. much about civil disaster management."

"It's not complicated! You just find something that needs to get done, do it, and then move on!" Kara nods confidently. "I let Batman and Mister Atom do 'managing'."

"Actually, if your ship can carry any sort of weight, you could be a big help with transportation. Otherwise, just being visible in places where there was violent conflict can really help to calm things down and give everyone the confidence they need to go about their days."

"My ship isn't really designed to move cargo containers."

"But it's got standard parasite attachment points, right?"

"Ah, I think so? I haven't taken them off."

"I can build a cargo pod that can mate with those. Earth can build weapons as good as anything the Thanagarian Empire has, but it mostly operates at a far lower level of technology. Certainly, we don't use anything like Nth metal. If you're willing to do that you'd mostly be moving people volunteering for agricultural work from cities to rural areas, and maybe farming tools and equipment."

She frowns. "That doesn't sound anything like what I'd expected. Doesn't this sort of thing usually involve transporting food, and… Fundraising?"

"Usually, a natural disaster affects a limited area, so bringing in resources from places that aren't affected is the most sensible thing to do. The problem that we have is that the whole Earth was affected, and we don't have an interstellar empire to draw resources from."

"What about your Lantern Corps?"

"Can't take the risk of Anti-Life exposure. Or risk picking a fight with Apokolips." I nod my head to the side. "Yet, anyway. We'll have to fight them eventually." I shrug. "I could probably convince them to send me a few ships that they don't urgently need, but there are only a handful of people on Earth who would have the slightest idea how to operate them. The nearest inhabited world to Earth is Mars, and they don't produce a food surplus, and they're going through a political upheaval of their own. Then there's Ungara, and they have to use solar reflectors to have any farmland at all. And then there's Earth's own farming policy-. It's something that we need to correct for ourselves. We've got all the stuff we need in order to do it, people just need… Jollying along. Guidance. Organisation. Once the first year's harvest is done we can probably just leave it, but until then…"

"Okay." She nods. "I have wanted to see more of Earth."

"I'll try and point out the interesting bits. So, the space suit?"

"Oh, it's a costume, you know? I had it on during the last song. I was just too freaked out to get changed."

"It's just, ah… I've noticed you… How can I put this..? Displaying yourself.. when we speak? My ring says that you want me to admire your physique, but that can be taken in a couple of different ways and I know that Thanagarian intelligence wants you to keep tabs on me, so..?"

She looks surprised. "I thought you didn't notice?"

"No, I just didn't want to get you in trouble with your handlers. Or me in trouble with Jade."

"Well…" She fluffs and straightens her wings awkwardly. "To begin with? I was trying to make you interested. I know enough about human culture to know that it was more… Overtly sexual for a human than it would have been for a thanagarian, I just… It was kind of a game? After a while? To see if I could actually get you to notice? And yeah, I could point to it when my handlers asked, but once Lantern Dul reported in that wasn't such a big deal for them."

I nod as I return my attention to my actually pretty good pancake. "Perhaps it would be worth suggesting to your intelligence contacts that using that sort of technique on an empath isn't likely to work."

Her pupils narrow, the thanagarian equivalent of eyes widening. "That works over long range comms?"

"It can do. It does for me." I turn to Kara. "Perhaps we could work in India today?"