With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Story Only)

[Mr Zoat]

26th October
20:11 GMT +6

"You totally cheated."

Jade's vibrating on the spot, air currents churning around her with the occasional crackle of electricity. I put the picnic basket into my subspace pocket and she took that as the signal to go.

"Ddnt."

"Did too."

I barely notice as she vanishes then cold, right in the face! I blink and brush off the snow as she watches.

"Most amusing."

"Hw?" She closes her eyes and concentrates until the vibrations cease, then opens them again. "How long does it last?"

"That depends on the dose. The amount you took gives you about four minutes at full speed, with a warm up and wind down period of about thirty seconds each. Obviously I would warn against attempting to vibrate through solid objects near the end of the time allowance. Also, don't rely on your sense of time. The accelerated perception-."

"Slows everything down. I did spot that."

I nod. "Do you like it?"

"I ran around the world three times in under a second after getting here and I'm not even tired. I watched that orange strand thing your faster than light travel uses move through the air in front of me!"

I smirk. "Is that a 'yes'?" I feel her hands at the back of my head pulling my face down before I see her, her lips pressing hard against mine. I open my mouth as the tip of her tongue rubs along my lips before pushing in. We haven't kissed like this before; quite aside from any risk with my former body there wasn't much point. I fold my arms around her back and bend forwards a little. She's still quite a bit shorter than me, and I don't want her breaking off because she lost balance. "Mm." Moments like this are what enhanced senses are made for. I can feel her heartbeat in the arteries in her lips through my own, I can smell her sweat and her preferred brand of soap, I can taste-.

"Jade, is that you?"

She jerks back, her eyes wide in shock. I remove my hands as she dashes over to face the elderly Vietnamese woman in front of whose somewhat upgraded house we have been clinching.

"Grandma?"

Missus Nguyen Thi Nhung spreads her arms wide and embraces her granddaughter, who surprises me a little by returning it immediately. Vietnam isn't a country where she's ever been wanted -in the criminal sense-, and I don't think Missus Nguyen is completely clear on her daughter's, late son-in-law's or elder granddaughter's employment. No, wait, Jade has an older cousin... Bah, I know what I mean.

"My little doe, it is so good to see you again. Your boyfriend said that you might be coming by." She pulls back a little. "He looks a bit strange, but he has a good heart, I think."

"It is good to see you too, Grandmother. Are you well?" She must be in a good mood if she didn't complain about the diminutive.

Missus Nguyen makes a face of mock disappointment. "Oh, you have not been practising your Vietnamese, have you?"

"I.. haven't been back here, not since-."

"Your grandfather's funeral, yes. Good. I would be dreadfully offended if you had been back and had just chosen not to visit me." Fixing Missus Nguyen up was a worthwhile investment in time. In terms of effort it barely cost a thing. Improving her house took a little more effort but was well within my abilities. I went for a 'prosperous Vietnamese peasant' aesthetic, rather than anything obviously western. Still stuck a geothermal power plant under the floor to power the new oven and the lights. I mean, there's trying to fit in and then there's being silly about it. "Oh, what am I keeping you both out here for? Come in, come in!" She makes a beckoning gesture at me before turning around and walking back up the steps to her front door.

I walk up behind Jade and put my arms around her once more. I hear her exhale. "I think I'm more a fox than a doe."

"I've.. certainly.. always thought of you as a bitch." She stamps on my right foot and I rub my face into her hair as I chuckle. "Still too tough for that."

She pulls free and moves to follow her grandmother up the steps. "Don't you have to go play tag with Robin, or something?"

"Not for another five hours at least." I follow after her.

"Is this my present? I mean, seeing her again is nice-."

"No, that's inside."

"Are you going to give me a clue?"

"No."

"The house looks.. different, from last time I was here." She pushes open the door and I follow her inside. "Did you do that?"

"Maybe."

"Is that it?"

"No."

Ahead of us Missus Nguyen walks through the opening to from the living area to the kitchen. "Both of you, sit down. I will put the tea on."

"Thank you Missus Nguyen."

Jade scans the room in detail. Seeing nothing of note, she sits down on a cushion on the settee. I designed it to look as if it were made largely from bamboo. It's actually entirely synthetic, though you'd need to dissect it to find that out. Similarly, the cushions look like they could have been made of leftover fabric but are water and flame resistant and unusually comfortable. I cross the room to join her.

"Still not seeing it."

"That's because-."

She blurs for a moment. "Nothing obvious in the house."

"Subspace pocket. Ring, reveal."

"By your command."

The eye piece appears on the table in front of us. I haven't gotten around to showing my team mates my new Apokolips-derived armour yet. After scrapping the disc-launcher I was able to get a grey with orange highlights suit that matched my style requirements. I can now fight clad in what is far and away the toughest armour on Earth at the moment. Can't really justify giving a suit of the stuff to Jade, sadly. I made one but it occurs to me that encouraging the League of Shadows to pick up the Apokolips contract would be a very bad idea. The visor derived eye piece, on the other hand, is just as impossible to replicate and is far less easy to identify as Apokoliptian. Especially as it doesn't have to be built in red. The one I now use is orange and Jade's comes in the same shade of green as her kimono.

"What is it, night vision?"

"Among its other modes. It also pierces magic disguises, registers and informs the user of the target's unusual abilities... I've started using one myself."

"You're.. new at giving girls presents, aren't you?"

"Um. Maybe? I can.. I mean, if you'd rather have-."

"No, I like it... How does it attach?"

"I couldn't understand the explanation. 'Very well', basically. Just hold it against-." She holds it over her right eye and presses the thin support strip to the side of her face. "That's not going to.. hold..." She pulls her hands away. Yep. I suspected, but there's a definite Dragonball Z Scouter look going on. I'd do the line but the series doesn't exist here.

Missus Nguyen walks back in with a tray supporting a teapot and three cups with saucers. She puts it down on the table before taking the seat opposite.

"So! When are the two of you getting married?"

!!!

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th October
13:06 GMT -5

"...don't see why people can't accept that they were reasonably well written but entirely of their time! They're not even that good!"

Diana and I are sitting outside a restaurant in Happy Harbour, having just finished lunch. I was interested to discover that while she prefers traditional Greek fare as far as she knows she can't put on weight. Apparently someone asked her to put her name to a diet book once. Don't think most people could copy her exercise regime.

"Alright, but I don't understand why it bothers you so much."

"It's ridiculous to give that much emphasis to one playwright! Shakespeare was the reason-" Why I didn't take English A-Level, but I can't tell her that. "-why I wasn't going to take English A-Level. Two plays for GCSE, and nothing modern. I mean, if we were going to use the qualification we'd be writing for modern audiences, not Elizabethans."

"Perhaps the British Department of Education disagrees with you about their quality. If they are still being performed after this long..."

"If longevity was the deciding factor then we should have been studying Sappho! Her work stayed on the Greek curriculum for over a thousand years, more than twice what Shakespeare's managed. "

"She didn't write in English."

"Shakespeare didn't write in modern English! The versions of the text we studied had to be annotated for us to have the slightest idea what anyone was talking about."

"Sappho is still studied on Themiscyra." No shit. "I had rather got the impression that her work hadn't survived in the rest of the world."

"Wait, you've got her complete..." She nods. "Have you ever considered doing a revival? Bringing a Themiscyran theatre troupe over and doing a few readings? I'd have thought that the notion that the greatest Greek poet in history was being forgotten -especially given that she was a woman- would be something Amazons would be a little more exercised over."

"She was a playwright as well, actually." She rests her right elbow on the table and her chin on her palm. "There.. might be interest on Themiscyra in doing something like that." She nods. "I think it would be worthwhile sharing her unknown work with the world. I'll speak to Mother about it."

"If they need someone to show them around I'd be happy to volunteer myself."

"They'll certainly need a translator. Few other Amazons speak any English, and only a handful have been to America before."

I take a sip from my milk glass. Across the road, a man sees Diana, stares, and walks into a lamp post. One of his friends offers him a hand up as passersby try to smother their amusement. I've never actually seen that happen in real life before. It's true that even in casual clothing she's a strikingly beautiful woman, but after spending this much time around her I am somewhat less stunned by her appearance than I was when we first met. I suppose a person can adjust to almost anything, given time. I nod in his direction. "Does that sort of thing happen a lot?"

"I've learned to tune it out. I seem to remember that you were somewhat distracted when we first met."

I shrug. "I'd never met a woman as muscular as you before. And I was still new to superhero costumes."

She raises her eyebrows and gives me a knowing smile. I take another drink. "Giovanni told me that your time with the Ophidian resulted in you getting a soul."

I look down at the case on the ground next to her seat. "We don't actually know it was the Ophidian. It might just have been the tattoos. Or the combination."

"Did Father Mattias try to convert you?"

"Not really. Though he did say I'd be better off with his god than with yours."

"Oh really? What's wrong with my gods?"

"Um... How accurate are the myths, exactly?"

"It varies. Which one do you have in mind?"

"Medusa. The thing with Poseidon-?"

"That was..." She exhales. "Athena did not turn Medusa into a serpent-woman as a punishment. She did so in the hope that Poseidon would lose interest."

"And did she turn her back afterwards?"

"Poseidon is more powerful. If turning her back had been possible he would have done it."

"Alright. Did it work?"

"No."

"So Poseidon goes on the-" I look out to sea for a moment. "-dick list. How about Ares?"

A wry smile. "As far as most Amazons are concerned Ares is the very definition of dick."

"Why bother with him then?"

"The gods represent all parts of both the world and Human nature. Though we may wish it otherwise, we are a warlike species and it is a habit we must strive constantly to overcome. Pretending otherwise would be foolish."

"So.. why don't you just replace him?"

"It.. isn't really up to us."

"Why not? I mean, the Amazons are basically the only people who worship the Olympians anymore, and there's plenty of decent war gods out there. How about Tyr? He's alright."

"He isn't.. part of the same family."

"That isn't a reason not to bring him in. And if it's really a problem.. well, Athena's still single, right?"

Her mouth drops open. "I'm not going to try-." She suppresses a chuckle. "To try and persuade the goddess of wisdom to.. to 'hook up' with a Viking god to satisfy your desire to play musical pantheons!"

"Persuade? Wait. Aphrodite or someone has had a chat with her, right? She does know people don't normally spring fully formed from their fathers' foreheads."

She bows her head slightly, unable to trust herself to respond. "I don't-. I don't think-."

"Ooh. Right. Amazons. Got it. I think Sekhmet's single." A splutter. "You know, if gods aren't her thing. She's got a bit of a temper, but get some beer in her and she's a real pussycat."

"Haahahahaha!"

"Athena's an adult, she can make her own choices. Or maybe Hera."

"H-Hera isn't single."

"She's married to the god of adultery. She doesn't really get anything out of being queen at this point so-."

"He... Lord Zeus doesn't behave like that anymore. One of the advantages of not having so many worshippers. Not that I'm excusing him, but their marriage is now one of genuine love and respect."

Eh? "Sir, did you read that file on potential future recruits I handed to Batman?"

She frowns. "I'm not... Just the records of those eligible now. Why do you ask?"

"Cassandra Sandsmark, aged eight. Natural daughter of Doctor Helena Sandsmark and Zeus, King of Olympus."

"That's impossible."

"She has super strength, fortitude and can fly a bit. Genetic comparison to a sample of Ares' blood left on one of your spears suggests a close genetic relationship and there's a picture of what I believe to be Zeus' Human-seeming form stored on the computer. I took it from surveillance footage on the cruise ship where they met. In Greek waters, if you're wondering."

All trace of humour is gone from her face. She stands up suddenly, lantern-case in hand. "I'm going to confirm this for myself."

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th October
13:27 GMT -8

There wasn't a zeta tube close to Gateway City, so Diana elected for us to travel there in her jet. We sat in silence the whole way. I'm not.. sure exactly how big a deal this is, either to her or in general. I'm sitting on a bench on the other side of the road from Cassandra's school. Through the window I can see her, and every so often I get a flicker of her white light core. It looks a bit like an Australian aboriginal painting, with everything else hung off it. I think. It's been a while since Dot and the Kangaroo.

Diana went to talk to Doctor Sandsmark over an hour ago. I think I should be feeling bad about it. No. I think this is something I would have felt bad about, and I certainly empathise with her, but the self blame I expected isn't there. I certainly didn't intend to seriously undermine her faith in her gods. At this point all of their personal failures are sort of out there. Zeus' habitual infidelity isn't something they weren't aware of…

I hear someone sit down at the other end of the bench. "You were right."

I turn my head in Diana's direction, noting that the box is still with her. "I know. Um. Sorry about that."

She shakes her head. She looks.. tired? Not sure. "You have nothing to be sorry for. You were not the one who betrayed your wife."

"I'm not sorry for doing it. I'm sorry for the outcome. I mean, I don't know exactly what it will be..."

"Either Lady Hera will leave him, or..."

"Or based on past form, simply accept it." She grimaces. "What do you intend to do now?"

"One of the charities I am a patron of works with young metahumans to hone their abilities. If Cassandra is as strong as I was at her age then she will need guidance and training. I offered to work with her myself. Doctor Sandsmark was.. less than keen."

"Is that going to be a problem?"

"Doctor Sandsmark was the student of an old friend of mine, and they're still in touch. I think I can talk her around, once she's had time to get used to the idea."

"Did she know it was Zeus..?"

"When they met?" I nod. "He told her who he was. She said she thought he was joking."

"That was probably more likely."

She finally turns her head to look me in the eyes. "How did you find her?"

I see a flicker of white. Yep, same basic look as Cassandra, though more... bass. There's more depth to it. "I didn't know Zeus was supposed to have sworn off.. well... I looked for reports of metahuman abilities, followed up on them. In her case there weren't any obvious metahuman genetic markers, her mother is an expert in Greek archaeology and I had Ares' genetic code on file."

She nods, and goes back to staring straight ahead. "I had meant to spend this afternoon asking you about your time with the Ophidian."

"I imagine that you remember it better than I do."

"You mentioned to Giovanni and Father Mattias that you think you are different now. Given how you responded to J'onn not being aware of his student's abilities..."

"Good point. Alright. I find prioritising easier. Rather than having to spend an hour a day going through all of my desires I'm constantly aware of all of them all of the time. The intrapsychic conflict that.. used to mess me up just isn't there anymore."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Oh, I'll do the meditation thing once I get the ring back. Assuming I'm getting it back, of course."

"And if you don't?"

I shrug. "The lantern's mine after a year. I don't want to have to sue the Justice League to get hold of it, but I would. Then, I'd forge myself a new ring."

"I thought you said that you didn't think you'd be able to do that."

"Forge a ring?" She nods. "It's hard, but as I said, I don't think focus will be a problem for me anymore. Isss.. that likely to be necessary?"

"I don't think so. You wouldn't be the first person associated with the Justice League to have their mind altered by an external influence. We've never held it against the people involved before. Giovanni offered to try to communicate with the Ophidian to be able to make a better assessment but J'onn and the Green Lanterns thought that would be unwise to say the least."

"I'm not... They might be right. I don't completely understand why the Ophidian's being this relaxed about the situation. Sir, about Larfleeze..."

"The Guardian embargo will remain in place until we can confirm that you are safe with your ring and that the Ophidian is indeed where we believe it to be. Once it's lifted, I know Hal intends to press them quite strongly for information. From what you were saying about Larfleeze I'm not sure there is much we could do to prepare."

"Could actually end up being really inconvenient for me, if the Guardians make a grab for the Orange Central Power Battery. Not as bad as Larfleeze going on a rampage, of course."

"From what I know of the Guardians they are unlikely to break their agreement with him, even if the reason for making it no longer applies. I imagine that they'll be monitoring the region far more closely just in case." She looks at me quizzically. "Before you bonded with the Ophidian, were you really planning to fight Larfleeze in the name of your Controllers?"

"Yes. I mean, I wasn't just going to charge in there. There are exploitable weaknesses in any system, and since beating him is in the Controllers' interests I expected them to be both helpful and well motivated. Speaking of exploitable weaknesses... What are the Watchtower's defences against magic like?" I remember during the Justice League comic with the League of Ancients that Jason Blood was called in to serve on the League while the main members were sent backwards in time. He was disturbed to learn that there weren't any and so put some in place himself. He's on the list of League possibles I gave Batman but he seems to be completely into his cover identity and I haven't seen any recent record of Morgana le Fay being active in the recent past.

"Giovanni put in a ward against scrying-" Ahah! "-but your Spell Eater is much more potent."

"That needs to be fixed. I'll pencil it in for next week, shall I?"

She smiles faintly. "We'll see. Are your own thought processes the only thing to have been affected?"

"No. Other things have changed too. You know I could sense the desires of others?"

"Yes."

"It's not just desire now. That's still most precise, but if I look at someone and make a little effort, I can see all the colours of the emotional spectrum, like coloured lines in their skin."

"What colors do you see when you look at me?"

"A mix of green, blue, indigo and violet. So, you know, HEY!"

That got a chuckle. "Will, hope, compassion and love. Kind of you to say so."

"It's not that you can't feel other things, it's that they aren't a fundamental part of your nature." I check my watch. "We should probably start back if we want to be in time for Kon's training session. Kaldur's volunteered to try out the flying belt thing as well."

She nods and rises to her feet. "Before we go, I received a letter for you at the embassy."

"Do you want me to start going through my fan mail again?"

"This wasn't fan mail. It was an invitation to dinner."

"Well, some of them-."

"From Lex Luthor."

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th October
19:43 GMT -5

"Okay, so I was wrong about no one else turning up."

"Y'think?"

Kon and I are lumbering through the air above the training area. Doing this outside wasn't really an option, and trying it in a room with a large body of water covering the floor didn't seem like a good idea. Kon got the hang of flying in a straight line fairly quickly and can hover just fine, but turning, manoeuvring and going slowly are still eluding him. I remember the comic in which Superman fought Preus; you tend to go where you're looking. For my own part, I'm finding this WAAGH! Okay, okay. Stable again. I'm finding it a lot harder than power ring flight. The controls are meant to be instinctive but the lack of AI support means you have to do everything manually. When I get the ring back I'm going to give it a thank you polish. I can fly forwards and turn, but trying to hover is an exercise in sea sickness. And forget flying backwards.

"I find the solution is not to fight the controls." Which Kaldur is managing just fine. No, better than that. He's taken to it like a fish to water. Ugh, I feel bad for even thinking that. He floats past us and comes to a gentle stop. "Kon, how are you finding the armor?"

"It's great! I just need-." He shoots up into the ceiling, hits his head hard "OW!" on the entrance to Red Tornado's quarters and spins away before getting himself back under control. "Did you make a helmet for this?"

"Sorry."

I hear gentle feminine laughter from below. We all look down to see M'gann cover her mouth with her right hand. She isn't participating in this exercise, saying that she was perfectly content with autolevitation. Wallace is standing next to her, holding an ice pack to his head. Turns out that kinetic energy manipulation belts don't mix with super speed. He got a little cocky when he got the hang of medium speed while Kon and I were still taking it slowly, tried going flat out and bounced off three walls at the speed of sound before crashing into the ground.

Zatanna seems to be enjoying herself, though she lost control of her yaw axis when she tried going above jogging pace. Thing is, I can't be sure that all of these belts are really identical. It's quite possible that the Ophidian and I decided to try slight variations and I just no longer remember what they are. That's the only thing I can think of to explain why Artemis is still upside down. I did start asking if she had the belt the right way up but she growled at me so I decided to back off. She should be having some sort of circulation problem about now, but she's not wearing the collar and I think the formula is keeping her going.

Diana is watching over us with fascination, Guy with amusement and Hawkman and Hawkwoman are watching Kon like.. a...

You know what? I'm not going to finish that.

Just Teekl, Wolf and Robin missing. Teekl's been avoiding me since I split from the Ophidian, though M'gann says that she's still around. Wolf's probably curled up in her basket in Kon's room. She's a lot less mobile without her feline bearer. Robin... I haven't seen him since I Dannered him. I was sort of hoping that he'd come to this...

Alright, another go. Nice easy arc around.. yes.. do a loop... Oh, these things don't maintain relative down. You need to get a bit of speed going or the pull of natural gravity feels really weird. Maybe the problem is my own expectations? I've gone soft training with the easy mode ring? I've got to say, I'm starting to really respect what Ms Ervin has been able to accomplish with this thing. Okay. Accelerate, yep, there's the purple aura. You tend to go where you're looking but OW! Foot! You need to bear in mind where the rest of your body is. Ow.

"Alright, playtime's over kids!" Guy starts to raise his right hand, makes eye contact with me and stops, clasping it to his left behind his back. Six tiny green filaments rise from the floor before terminating in a series of glowing green rings. A circuit. None are too close together, but they're all at different heights and angles. With the ring I could go through them in seconds. Faster if I was allowed to just FTL plot the whole thing. This is not going to be quite so easy. "Who's goin' first!?"

Artemis pushes herself upright by grabbing onto a rocky outcrop on the wall. "I think Wally should have first try, since he's sooo fast."

"Oh, hah hah."

"Well, Kaldur is our.. team leader." Oh, I shouldn't have said that. That just means-.

"But you designed the belts." Kaldur doesn't smile when he says it, but I think that's just because he's got better self control than me. I'd be smiling.

"I didn't actually design... Fine." Where's the first..? I spot it, high up near the ceiling. High speed surge aaaaand bubble. Dowh! Okay, using the force field bubble functions to stop suddenly works, but it doesn't kill off all of your momentum. I'll remember that. I take a mid air bow as my team mates laugh at my expense.

"You ready up there?!"

I don't usually fly in the swimmer pose, but I haven't managed to make anything else work with this belt yet. I take a moment to plot the route. Down hard and shallow right turn to ring two, forwards and upturn to ring three then immediate loop down to ring four. Back up high and right turn to ring five then down and angle for the finish. Deep breath. "As ready as I'm likely to get!"

"I'll start the clock when you go through the first ring!"

Face the direction of travel. Face the direction of travel. Deep breath. Aaand dive through the ring, face the floor and accelerate down, turn my face slightly early don't look at the ring don't look at the ring yes! It worked! Turn towards the ceiling again and through the next turn turn turn agh! Damn it! Right, not working, to the ceiling, kick off, better, down through four, land -this is costing me so much time- aim and up to ring five, simple enough, then dive down again, turn a little, and through! I twist in the air to convince the belt to deal with my momentum.

"How did I do?"

"Twenty three point seven two seconds. 'Part from the flip over you didn't do too bad." Not exactly high praise, but I'll take it. "Okay, who's next?"

"Ooh! I'll have a try!" Zatanna smiles broadly before aiming herself at the first ring. "Tleb og retsaf! Ah! Pots! Pots!" She slams to a halt what looks like inches from the rocky ceiling, arms and legs splayed. Maybe I should look into getting it padded? "Heh. Heh." Turning her head, she slowly edges away and back towards the ring. "So I just.. go?"

"Whenever you're ready!"

She flies through the first ring, loops up slightly, sights the second and spirals anticlockwise down towards it, goes past before completing an anticlockwise circle and going through it, leisurely turns up through three, stops dead, then drops down through four. Then up- "A elttil tib retsaf!" -accelerates, fails to make the turn and bounces off the ceiling before passing through the ring the wrong way, realises what she's done, goes back through it and then down to the ground and jogs through the finish. "How did I do?"

"Forty one point five four." She seems happy with that. Wait. Are they all assuming I know how to use this because I normally fly? "Next!"

"Superboy." Hawkwoman gets his attention. "Why don't you give that armor a try?"

"Uhh. Okay." He sights the first ring, crouches slightly in the air and he's there. "You all might want to get back a bit." I catch Zatanna's eye and we take refuge next to the zeta tubes.

"I wasn't really watching what he was doing. Is he really..?"

"Like an American sports car. Great in a straight line, crap at corners. Should be fun to watch though."

Kon blurs through the first ring, blurs down, stops hard, blurs through ring two, stops dead under ring three, shoots up diagonally through it, stops again, down through four, blurs up and straight into the roof, rock and dust raining down. Zatanna and I wince, but he's still going, wobbling a little as he passes through ring five before dropping like a stone to just above floor level, reorienting, and shooting through ring six and slamming to a halt just ahead of us. I take a half step back just in case. He looks a little shocked himself.

"Fifteen point eight five. New course record to the Kryptonian." Kon smiles and nods his head in satisfaction. "And you can fix the roof when we're done." He lands with a grimace. "Next!" Kaldur and Artemis look at each other. She aims herself at the first ring, pushes off the wall and promptly flips over.

"Stupid belt!"

"Aqualad, looks like you're up!"

He nods and flies up to ring one under perfect control.

The git.

"Recognised, Robin, B zero one."

Huh?

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th October
19:49 GMT -5

The interior of the left zeta tube glows brilliantly for a moment then dims, revealing Robin in casual clothing. He starts to walk out, trademarked grin in place, then makes eye contact with me and stops.

"Zatanna, could you give us a moment?"

"Um. Sure. I'll just go and.. um.." She points to the other side of the training area and starts walking away. I take a few paces back myself and Robin comes fully into the room.

"Nineteen point oh nine! Artemis, you joining in?"

"Yes! Just... Aaaaaagh!"

"Simetra nrut revo!"

"Wohw! Ah, thanks Zatanna!"

Robin looks around the room, then back at me. "Um."

"Robin, I want to apologise for what I did, altering your body like that. And also for anything else I've forgotten about while the Ophidian-."

"I thought that wasn't you you."

"It sort of was, sort of wasn't. The impetus came from me, the Ophidian wouldn't care about you enough to do anything like that. Uh. Ordinarily I'd offer to make you a power suppression collar like I made Artemis-"

"Thirty six point two three!"

"I'm going again!"

"-but I don't have access to the ring until Saturday at least..."

He holds out his right arm and pulls back his sleeve, revealing a suppression manacle. "I spent a few days putting these together. Figured they'd be less noticeable than a collar."

"Might be right. I just thought..." I shake my head. Yes, they occupy a larger area and feel more awkward but they'd be easier to cover with clothes. Especially if you didn't want people knowing that you were a metahuman. "How are you coping? With the.. augmentation."

He sighs and looks over to our supervisors. "Killer Croc punched me in the face and broke three fingers." Oh.. kay..? "I hate that you changed me without even asking how I felt about it, but the reality of having these powers? It's great. The more I think about it, the less I can deny it." He shuffles his feet. "When I was trying to get inside the alien space ship in the training scenario, I didn't even stop to think about it shooting me. Not really. Then, zap. No more me. It just really brought home how dangerous what we do is."

Shit. "I assumed.. you'd been injured before. I mean, Gotham isn't exactly..."

"Bruises, scrapes. A couple of knife wounds and I broke my leg once. I've never been disintegrated. I get into a fight now and I don't think there's anyone in Gotham who can hurt me."

"Well, at the point where that happened we all still knew it was just a training session."

"That's not the point. Batman always says to treat training sessions as if they're the real thing, and I do." He looks at the ground. "And... I'm sorry, but it's not just the enemy. You and.. and the Ophidian, you changed my whole body in a second. You didn't even have to try hard. I used to just laugh when I heard someone asking how a guy with no powers like Batman made it on the Justice League. Now I.. I can sort of see where they're coming from. It's just.. there wasn't anything I could have done to stop you."

"Twenty nine point six two! Gettin' better! Hey, Paul, you-!? Uh. Superboy, you goin' again?!"

"Robin, if I could take it back, I would. If... About the power level thing... You're not going to match the DPS I can put out, or that Kon can. We're not like Wallace where you can keep up by being more intelligent. Batman can't speed blitz with the Flash or Superman either. His skills.. his utility, and yours, lie in a different area. And it's not like anyone else could have stopped me when I was with the Ophidian either."

"I thought the Green Lanterns..."

"Is that what they're saying?" I glance over at Guy. "They got the drop on me and still only managed ten seconds before I had their rings off their fingers. They 'won' by rejecting their own desires and so making it impossible for the Ophidian to help them."

"How's Artemis handling it?"

"Reasonably well. I think she still believes that the divide between normal me and the Ophidian was.. more than it actually was, but... I think I'd pretty much sold her on the augmentation thing anyway, and my relationship with her was... I mean, you and me got on okay, but..." He nods. "Look, if there's anything I can do to make up for it..."

"Thirteen point eight four! Easy when you don't crash, huh, Superboy!"

"I don't... I don't think there's anything. I don't think this is something you can just make up."

I exhale. "You and me, are we going to be able to work together? I have no intention of repeating that.. whole thing, but I'll understand-."

"No, that's..." He shakes his head. "I know you thought it was helping, but you wouldn't have waited as long as you did with Artemis if you'd have considered forcing it on us without the Ophidian messing with your priorities. The other stuff... That's just something I'm going to have to work out."

"I'll owe you then." He nods, and starts to walk slowly in the direction of Wallace. I follow. "Diana said that she was going to offer you and Artemis lessons in how to fight at your new strength level."

"Yeah, Batman said. I tried doing a circuit in the gym back home, and all of my instincts were off. It's gunna be a while before I can really use my new strength."

"Are you here for that now?"

"Pff, no. Wally phoned me about the flying belts. No way I'm missing this."

Guy half turns, and a belt appears in the air just in front of Robin, who catches it. "You up next?"

"You bet!" Wallace trudges in our direction. "Hey, Wally, why're you down here?"

"Don't ask."

"Ooookay." Robin looks over the belt, then puts it around his waist and fastens it. This one has an 'R' belt buckle. Did I make it for him? No idea.

"Tap the buckle three times for normal activation. Oh, and if the rest of us are anything to go by you might want to turn your suppressors off."

He gives me a characteristic insolent smile. "Turned them off before I got here." He crouches then uncoils, leaping high into the air and not coming down as the belt activates.

"Glad Rob's enjoying himself. You two talked things out?"

"As much as we can, I suppose."

"Good, that's.. good. Um. Hey, Oh El?" Wallace has sidled right up to me, and is making a point of looking across the room. Okay..?

"Yyyess?"

"Sorta been meaning to ask. When you fixed my arm, did you.. you know, do anything else?"

I frown. "I didn't intend to. I don't have to precisely tell the ring what I want it to do, just a rough impulse... Why, is there some sort of problem? If you tell me what it is I'm sure I can fix-."

"Aaaah." His eyes flick down to the ground, and he fidgets slightly. "Nnnoo. It's fine. I think I'll just go, um, talk to M'gann."

"Oh.. kay?" I watch him wander off, ice pack still held against his forehead. Wonder what that was about. Not being able to come up with anything I walk over to where the Leaguers are standing.

"Kon seems to be adapting well to the armor."

I flash Diana a quick smile. "Good thing too. Not like I can modify it."

"Did you plan to make armor for everyone?"

"No. M'gann wouldn't be able to shapeshift, Wallace wouldn't be able to run... I think you were probably next on my list."

"I already have armor."

"Sir... How can I put this? I understand that your armour is made of orichalcum. I know that it has so many protective spells on it that a mortal magician would get a migraine trying to make sense of them, and I know that wearing it allows you to take an anti-tank rocket to the chest and barely feel it. But you have to accept that it looks like a leotard and even I don't understand why it doesn't cover your arms or legs."

"Hey!" Guy turns from my airborne team mates to point at me with his right index finger. "Wondy's armor's fine the way it is."

She gives him a slightly surprised smile. "Why, thank you, Lantern Gardner."

"You convince her to cover up some and you'll earn the hate of every red blooded man on the planet." He thinks for a moment. "An' I reckon more than a few o'the women. There's a place for fancy armor and there's a place for leotards. And that place is on Wonder Woman, capisce?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th October
21:49 GMT -5

I lean against the end of the row of lockers as I take off my socks, leaving me naked. Everyone else is still practising their flying in the training area so I've got time to have my shower before the others get down here. Another thing I miss about the ring, not having the automatic cleaning function. Guy left about half an hour ago, saying he was a couple of hours ahead and needed his beauty sleep. I still can't fly anything like as well with the belt as I can with the ring, but I can fly competently with it now and that's really all I need. Kaldur's still a little better, Robin and Zatanna about as good and Artemis is still a little worse. I wonder how practical it is for Kaldur to add the belt to the Ocean Master armour. It would work easily with his original gear... Wait. How water resistant is it? Okay, I'll have to suggest not wearing it under water until I can check.

Kon was flying circles around the rest of us at the end. Not sure whether his top speed is higher than ours or he was just less afraid of ramming into the walls. Since it went so well Diana wants to take him out for a 'real' flight tomorrow evening. I was a bit concerned that the Hawks might try and claim the armour in the name of Thanagar or something, but they seemed more interested in the techniques I used to make it than in the suit itself. I suppose that makes sense; one suit of armour isn't that big a deal but a non-Thanagarian supplier would threaten their monopoly. I explained what I could remember about making it to them, which wasn't much. Don't think I ever read any comic where the Hawks were the focus, except a bit of a Justice Society storyline where Hawkwoman reincarnated without her past life memories and became romantically involved with someone other than her predecessor's still-living husband. Don't think that applies here. Hawkwoman doesn't seem to be much like the Hawkgirl from Justice League Animated either.

I walk into the shower area and pick the shower to the left of the door. Seems simple enough, one knob for hot and another for cold. Huh. Hadn't really thought about it before, but this room's really big. Even allowing for a reasonable amount of personal space you could probably fit an extra row of showers down the middle without it being crowded. The shower spacing along the walls is about what I'd expect, so... Why'd they make it this big? And.. why were there that many lockers? Three banks on each side, two lots of eight per bank... Ninety six lockers? And that's just the men. How much recruiting are they planning on doing?

Right. First rule of using an unfamiliar shower: stand to the side when you turn the hot water on, and let it run for a bit before adjusting the temperature. I make sure I'm out of spray range and turn the hot knob three wrist twists anticlockwise. I'm not sure why the League went for a central boiler system when they originally built these; giving each shower its own heating element would be far more efficient. Didn't occur to me to ask Lantern Stewart when we rebuilt the place, but now I'm actually having to use it... Okay, constant and rather hot temperature achieved, now the cold... And I forgot the soap. Too used to just being able to make things appear. Right. Leave that running, nip back to the lockers, pick up the soap and shampoo... There's no soap dish. Right. Second thing I'm doing once I get the ring back is fixing this stuff. Under the water, rub up a lather, step slightly out so the water doesn't wash away the soap, put the soap down and soap my arms.

Doesn't look like the ring not maintaining my physique has produced noticeable decay yet. I joined Kaldur in the gym this morning but I'm not in the habit and I don't think I could keep up the sort of regimen he does. I mean, if I found exercise interesting or pleasurable I wouldn't have needed the ring to rebuild me in the first place, would I? Arms done, rinse them off... Hm, nothing like flying around a room lined with metal and rock at high speed with a xenotech flight belt you barely understand to make you sweat. Torso next. Good thing about having short hair is that I don't have to do what I used to do and sort of stick it in a lump on the top of my head with shampoo to keep it out of the way. Right, rinse the front-.

"Oh, hey Paul." I drop the soap. I'm facing the wall, and Kon just walked in the shower room. He's probably naked right now. "Didn't think you used these showers."

"No ring. Um. Have to clean myself the normal way."

"Oh, right." I hear his footsteps on the damp floor. He's.. oh. He walks around behind me then turns and takes the shower next to me. I keep staring at the wall, moving my soapy hands over my back as I try to work out what to do next. Naked anyone else would just be a little awkward. This is...

The squirting noise causes me to instinctively turn to my right as Kon drops his shower gel bottle to the floor and begins.. rubbing.. himself. Definitely larger pectoral muscles than me. I turn back to the wall, and then turn further to let the water rinse my back off. Turns out, perfect awareness of my own desires doesn't cover either unfamiliar social dynamics or other emotions. Normally after my torso I clean my genitals but he's right there. I don't know what the protocol for this sort of situation is. I feel my desire to avoid giving offence, but I don't know what might make that happen. For the lack of something else to do I crouch down and pick up the shampoo bottle. Of course, he's probably well used to this sort of thing by now.

"You have any plans for the rest of your week off?"

"Tomorrow, I'm having Mister Constantine do a check up on my soul, maybe modify the tattoos a bit." Super strength scry ward please. If it was good enough for the Shadows it's good enough for me. I put a blob of shampoo on my right hand and rub it in as I duck back down to return it to the floor. Huh. I can feel the heat from Kon's shower from here. I suppose turning just one knob is slightly quicker and his augmented toughness means that the hot water doesn't hurt him. "You know how magic messes me up, so that's probably Thursday occupied as well. Then on Friday, Lex Luthor's invited me for dinner."

"Luthor! You're not going to go, are you?"

"Don't see why not." Both hands in my hair now. "He's not going to have me killed when everyone knows where I am."

"What do you think he wants?"

"No idea. I mean, he'll probably start by thanking me for Taipei again then.. I don't know.. try and sound me out about some sort of cooperative venture?" Diana was having kittens about it but couldn't be more precise than 'he's up to something'. I mean of course he's up to something, he's Lex Luthor, but just because it serves his interests doesn't mean that it doesn't also serve mine.

"But.. if he did try something, you haven't got your ring. Shouldn't you.. I don't know.. try and reschedule or something?"

"I've got the belt." I tilt my head back into the water stream and use my fingers to assist in removing the lather. "If it really comes to it I can just fly through the window, but I don't seriously think it will. Look-." I turn my head left to meet his eyes.. and he's facing me. Completely facing me. Meeting his eyes takes a moment. Looks like Cadmus didn't cir-. No. Stopping that right there. "Um. I really don't think there's any need to worry about it." A flash of Ophidivision shows me the violet of his feelings for me. Fluffy violet, rather than the more spiky kind I've come to associate with romantic relationships after seeing it in the Hawks. The underlying yellow of his fear of rejection and isolation has almost completely been displaced by blue. That's good, but the violet thing makes me realise that building a romantic relationship with him would be a very long term endeavour. On the other hand, if a full frontal didn't put me off then I don't think I have to worry about any lingering heterocentrism. "So, um, what's up with you?"

"I took Wolf to play outside for the first time this afternoon. She seemed to like it, but she got tired out kind of quick. Oh, um... You know when you were.. possessed..?"

"I'm not likely to forget it, Kon." I bend and start soaping my right leg.

"Well.. M'gann took it really hard. I.. tried to make her feel better. You know, like you did for me..."

"Good for you."

"And we're... Well, we're kinda dating."

I freeze for a moment. Looks like someone didn't have my reservatio-. No, that's not fair. I remember her being in a right old state last week. "How do you mean 'kind of' dating?"

"We haven't actually gone anywhere yet. I mean, we've kissed and stuff..."

I'm.. happy for him. Them. I really am. In desire terms.. no, I really don't have any problem with my team mates being together. That just makes them both more appeal-. Oh dear. Another look at his face. Kon looks a little uncertain. Normally when he's this like this I give him a hug, but that doesn't seem quite as appropriate when we're both naked and soapy.

"Well. Good for you." He perks up as I smile. "Both of you. I'd try offering advice but.. I.. don't really have any..."

"Really?" He raises his left arm and rubs gel along his left side. "I thought.. you and Artemis..."

"I did say it wasn't a date."

"Okay. What about that assassin girl you keep visiting?"

"No. I mean, on that basis you could try and make out that I was dating Thomas Beresford." I pause in soaping my left leg. "I'm not, by the way. Um, suppose you could try reading up on Martian culture, so you'll know what she's expecting?" She'll have shown him her natural form, right? Agh, maybe I need to talk to her about this as well.

Now, to crotch or not to crotch?

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th October
10:22 GMT

Ugh... Too... Early...

I'm just about keeping myself awake in the back of Mister Chandler's cab. This is the first time I've actually felt jet lag and it's rubbish. My team mates left or went to bed at a sensible time but I decided not to. No. Diana said that she'd appreciate it if I could sort through the League's various trophies and artefacts to prioritise them for further study. She said to do it 'if I had time' and that there was 'really no rush'. So I stay up until half past midnight reading up on what they have, completely forgetting that a half past ten meeting in the UK is five hours earlier in the US.

"...apart from that one time when Sir Cyril ran over Mickey D's bonnet, but that doesn't really count..."

Fortunately the seat is hard, the suspension is stiff and Mister Chandler hasn't stopped talking since he picked me up. Not sure whether it's professional pride or he's covering nerves. I got the zeta tube from the mountain to London, walked about a hundred metres through a run down industrial estate and phoned him. We should get to the Tate Club early, not that I really think anyone there will mind. I suppose I could have flown but I didn't really want to draw that amount of attention without the ring on for protection. Sure, I have the belt, but part of last night's binge involved me acquainting myself with its weakness. Only stops kinetic force. Heat, light and electricity go straight through it. And magic, presumably. Even if I have some sort of spiritual presence now I'm sure that Mister Zatara would have said something if it looked strong enough to just tank arcane effects. I'll get John to check just in case, but I'm probably only as 'magical' as the average person here.

"...are you seeing those Tate weirdos for anyway?"

"Hmm? S-sorry, drifted a bit there. What did you say?"

"I mean, John's a mate, but I wouldn't trust the rest of them further than I can spit. Don't you lot have that Zatara guy handling your magic stuff for you?"

"Not really his field of expertise, I'm afraid. I asked in Atlantis but it turns out that it isn't really theirs, either. Besides, John's already done what I want done to me at least once. Easier getting him to do it again than trying to get someone else to work out how."

I watch the rear view mirror and spot him taking a look at me and giving an amused smile. "Hey, late night mate?"

"Uuhm. US time." I shake my head. "And if Helen of Troy's face launched a thousand ships Diana of Themiscyra's could easily make a man forget he had a meeting tomorrow."

"Wait. You telling me you and Wonder Woman..?"

"Uh? No." I shake my head. "She's my mentor. She asked me to do some research when I got a moment, unnn..."

"Thought you were gunna be a bigger bullshitter than John for a mo'. Anyway-" We pull up to the pavement and stop. We'd been slowing down but I'd sort of just assumed that was London traffic. "-we're here. Call it thirty quid."

I take a gold coin from my jacket pocket, reach forwards between the front seats and hold it out. It's one of the US ones, so he can easily change it to pounds sterling. He looks back and takes it from me.

"Renee said she wouldn't mind me doing more work for you in future." He turns the coin around in his hand. "Do.. y'know.. Justice League people usually tip like this?"

"Well, they're mostly Americans so it's.. fifteen percent pretty much the whole time. Batman tips big and on the few occasions Red Tornado actually orders something he writes out a full report and does an itemised tip based on how good he thought the experience was." Didn't see it myself, but Diana shared a story from the Justice Society days when they all went to a Chinese restaurant, and apparently he still does it. "Actually, if you're not prebooked or anything..?"

"You want me to pick you up when you're done?"

"No. Magic.. messes me up. I'm probably going to be fairly out of it when we finish here. I've booked a hotel room but I'm going to need someone to take me there, stick me in bed and hang around just in case I need anything." I shrug. "Bit rubbish, but if you're up for it I'll pay you well for your trouble."

He thinks for a moment. "When you say 'messes you up'..?"

"A bit like I'm drunk or high."

"You gonna throw up or something?"

"Haven't before, but maybe. Um. Sorry."

"Wouldn't be the first time. Mind if I stick some sheets down?"

"Makes no difference to me. If it happens I'm going to be too out of it to remember."

"Err. You're not going to get, like, supervillains attacking you or anything?"

"Don't think so, but just in case..." I take a card out from my inner jacket pocket. "This's got Green Lantern two eight one four B's mobile number."

He takes it lightly between right forefinger and thumb, looking a little lost. "Right..."

"He should be available all day, and he's just about the only one who could get here quick enough. Look, it probably won't come to that, but I like to prepare just in case. Unlike... You know..."

"John."

"Well. … Yes."

He thinks for a moment. "And how much..?"

The small bag chinks down on the seat next to him. He looks at it and purses his lips. "Right. You hop out now, I'll be back in about half an hour. You won't be finished by then, will you?"

"Doubt it. I'm expecting this to be an all day thing." I shuffle over to the left side of the seat and open the door. The outside of the club doesn't look like much. Same dull grey stone as the rest of the street with a frankly cheap looking sign over what I assume is a recent addition: a sort of shelter over the steps leading up to the main entrance. "See you in half an hour. John'll be in there if you can't get hold of me." I step out of the car and slam the door behind me. Mister Chandler pulls away as I contemplate the building some more. Bars over the first, second and third floor windows, and a general feeling that it could do with a bit of a clean. According to John London's got the most magic users per head of population of any city in Europe. Or North America. And this is where they hang out. You'd never know to look at it.

I'm still a little early, but there isn't anything else for me to do. I walk across the narrow pavement, up the steps and push open the door.

"Yes?" The uniformed concierge just inside the door isn't the same man as last time I was here. John told me that the owners are magic users but the other staff generally aren't.

"Good morning. Orange Lantern two eight one four to see Ms Clarice Sackville-" He nods and begins to point to the tearoom. "-and Mister John Constantine." He scowls for a second before mastering his appearance.

"Right you are, sir. Ms Sackville is taking tea at present." On her third gin most likely. I've no idea where she puts it; she's skinny as a rake. "Do you know the way?"

"Yes, thank you." I nod to him and walk across the foyer. Most of the ground and first floor of the Club form a single large room. The area around the edge forms a veranda overlooking the main floor from one floor up. It also serves to make it a bit dingier than it might otherwise be. Street magic is supposed to drive people a bit weird after a while, and looking at the architecture here I can well believe it. Ritual spaces, meeting rooms, libraries and whatever else this sort of club has are second or third floor, floor space being at something of a premium.

Turning the corner I look up another shallow set of steps to the various tables laid out, presumably for lunch. Only the one being used by Ms Sackville is occupied and as I predicted she is nursing a gin while speaking to her... Actually, I'm not sure what her precise relationship to Albert Case is. I suppose anyone who survives long enough around here just sort of drifts together. He was hanging around when I got my original tattoos done but I don't think I heard him say anything. I wave in their direction as I slowly walk up the steps. Mister Case notices me first and nods in my direction. She frowns for a moment before turning to look at me, stretching her wrinkled face into a smile.

"Dear boy! Come and sit down and tell me what exciting things you've been up to!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th October
10:33 GMT

"Well. Haven't you had an interesting week." Ms Sackville moves her cigarette holder to take another drag, only to find that it's burned down. Mr Case moved an ash tray under it while she was listening to me, and reaches into his jacket to take out a replacement for her. She slots it in and holds it out for him to light before taking a puff. I have no idea how she lived to her present age of two hundred and forty seven but it can't have been through clean living. She isn't undead, I checked that last time I was here and her body is organically functional. I'm sitting on a chair with her to my right and Mister Case across from me. "Albert, you remember Giovanni Zatara, don't you? He did a couple of seasons in the West End in the early nineties." Albert's face looks fairly blank. "Italian man. Wore a top hat. Used to be friends with John before that business with the Brujería. He was seeing that blonde woman.. oh, what was her name." There's a vague glimmer of recognition in Albert's eyes, but it doesn't look like he'd want to rely on it. Ms Sackville's eyes drop as she tries to remember. "Cinde-. No, wasn't Cinderella, but it always made me think of.. Sindella! That was it." She turns back to me. "How is she?"

"Dead, I'm afraid."

"Oh, that's a shame. I liked her. Added a bit of class to the proceedings. Unlike John sodding Constantine, who's late again." She looks over to the door and then -John not immediately appearing- snorts quietly. "Honestly. We'll just have to start without him. You told me Giovanni said that you've got a spiritual presence but it isn't like a normal Human soul."

"Essentially yes."

"And what exactly do you want me to do about it?"

"I'd like you to give me a second opinion, please. You understand better than he does what the tattoos should do if they work properly. And..." I reach into my right inner pocket and draw out a vial of Danner Formula. "I'd like your opinion on this."

Mister Case takes it from my outstretched hand, unscrews the lid and gives it a sniff, shrugs, puts the lid back on and hands it to Ms Sackville who looks at it carefully. "And what might this be when it's at home?"

"A small sample of something called the Danner Formula."

"Never heard of it. What is it supposed to do?"

"Assuming you're not pregnant, noth-."

Ms Sackville lets out a peal of surprisingly raucous laughter, ending in two dry coughs. "I think that's rather passed me by, dear boy."

"Um, I meant 'you' in the collective... Um." I shake my head. "Assuming the person taking it isn't pregnant, nothing. If they are, the child gets born with supernatural strength and stamina."

"And what else?"

"Nothing, as far as I know. Aside from the consequences of the strength itself there's basically no down side."

"Bloody hellfire."

"I'm showing it to you because I know it doesn't work through chemistry or nanotechnology, which basically just leaves magic. I don't know any alchemists, you've got connections to all of London's magic users..."

"Why? Do you want more of it?"

"No, I can make as much as I want. I want to understand the principles by which it operates. From what John was saying this is far more advanced than any alchemical formula currently in circulation. If we can unlock the mechanism for giving people supernatural powers safely..."

She purses her lips and leans back in her chair, shaking the vial slightly. "John told me he thought you got an avarice ring because you have so little avarice that you wouldn't be taken over by it." She stares directly into my eyes, and for a moment she very much doesn't seem like a jovial old woman. "He was wrong, wasn't he? You're just better at focusing it. Most people around here would give their eyeteeth for something like this. More than a few have sold their souls for something less than half as good, but for you it's just another stepping stone."

"I don't see a reason why I should be privileged like this when everyone could be."

She shakes her head. "There's always a price."

"Then I need to know what it is before the bill's due, don't I?"

She thinks, then nods, cautiously. "I.. can talk to some people for you. That Greaves girl... Albert, you know where she lives?" He nods. "Invite her for tea tomorrow. We'll have a chat."

"Thank you."

"We'll need to show her the Atlantean books."

"If she can read Atlantean Greek, sure. I can't do another translation until Saturday night at the earliest. Is John keeping the last one?"

"No, it's up in the secure library and he's put a very nasty spell on it in case anyone sneaks a look when he's not here." She clenches and unclenches her right hand. "Oh! Speak of the devil!"

I turn in my seat to see John walking up the steps to the main area. "Good morning John."

"Rather not speak of him, Clarrie. We've got a bit of a history."

"You're late, you scallywag."

"Someone nabbed me ride, didn't they?" Whoops. John pulls out the seat to my left and slumps in it. "Right, so why are we four gathered together?"

"He wants us to check his soul's working." Clarice holds out her left hand to me, and I remove the Spell Eater from around my neck before taking hold of it with my right. Her skin feels cold and saggy. Reminds me of my Nan's. Realising what's going on I offer John my left and he takes it. He shuts his eyes and Ms Sackville's gaze goes vacant. I don't.. feel anything. That's a good sign, usually this would be really uncomfortable. A flicker of Ophidivision -I need to come up with a better name for that- shows me that Ms Sackville and Mister Case are almost empty with just a tiny dynamo of white and black light in their souls, mixed around and... Harmonious? What? For a moment I'm too stunned to notice Ms Sackville and John release my hands. I haven't even seen black before. How was..? John pushes me in the left shoulder.

"Hm? Sorry?"

"Looks.. sort of... Clarrie?"

"The power you got off of the snake spirit got stuck, but it hasn't imprinted you yet. And when did you achieve enlightenment, you sneaky devil?"

"I'm not sure. I think it was just before the Ophidian left. What does that mean for me?"

John leans forward, putting his weight on the table. "You can resist magic as well.. probably a bit better than a normal person, but it won't sustain your consciousness. Not yet, anyway. It.. should mould itself to you..." He makes a dismissive gesture with his right hand. "Like I said when we did it, this is all new to me. Anything could happen, really."

"So I don't have the normal bits a person's soul would have?"

"'Fraid not mate."

No alchemically induced super powers for me yet then. "Alright. Can you.. sort of.. force it to mould to me in certain shapes? Like, cutting runes in a person's soul, but making it permanent?"

Ms Sackville blinks in confusion. "The binding tattoos.. sort of do that. I'm not sure it would actually be permanent, and there isn't a wizard alive who can cut runes onto someone's soul." John coughs. Ms Sackville gives him a sour look. "John? Something you want to share with the rest of us?"

John winces. "You remember Harry Cooper?"

"Oh, that mess was you, was it? I should have known."

"He was going to kill Cheryl, what was I supposed-?"

"No, I wasn't referring to that whole Fuckpig thing. I was talking about when that Succubus got knocked up by that Angel and you had to-."

He stares at me in shock. "How the fuck-!"

"I read it in a comic book from a parallel universe." He stops talking. Given that one of his friends was once abducted by fictional characters he isn't really in a position to dismiss the idea. "Scrying wards so strong the First of the Fallen himself can't see past them. A man in my position could use something like that. Is it doable?"

He stares at me, as if trying to discern some great truth from my face. After what feels like a minute he looks away. "Maybe. Probably. There's a cost to it, mind."

"I'm reliably informed-" I look at Ms Sackville, whose irritation has been replaced by curiosity. "-there always is."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Uuuuuuuuuuuunnnnghghnnngh

"Oi, mate."

Ughuhuhuuh. Something's...

"Lantern... owh. Should have got John to tell me what your bleeding name is."

I think..? Something soft? I curl up slightly.

"Alright, get it together Chas." Pressure, something, a hand! On my... Thing. Shoulder! "Oi!" I'm being shaken. "Orange Lantern! Wake up!"

My eyes snap open and I shudder violently. Peach sheets and a peach pillowcase immediately in front of my eyes and a duvet pulled tight around me. I'm lying on my front, and I hurt. "Uguh?"

The hand is immediately withdrawn. "Mate, your phone was ringing." That's.. Chas. Right. Right. So.. I don't really... He was going to get me to my room at the Lanesborough Hotel if I.. overloaded. "You told me I should answer it, so I did. Um. She says she's Wonder Woman?"

I roll over slightly and put pressure on something I shouldn't! OW! I jerk slightly, instinctively trying to get into a more upright position. Thanks to the ring I didn't really experience any soreness when I got my original tattoos done but that wasn't the case this time around. Plus the ritual wounding and burning. Branding. It didn't.. hurt... No, it did, but the pain didn't feel important at the time. I look blearily at Chas, who's holding the phone out to me as if it might catch fire at any moment and he wants to be able to drop it quickly when it does. He's still in the white t-shirt, and blue jeans he was in yesterday... it was yesterday, wasn't it? I shakily reach my right hand out from under the covers and he hands me the phone before retreating across the room to sit down heavily in an armchair and pick up a newspaper.

I drag it closer to my head across the surface of the pillow. "Hello?"

"Paul, where are you?" Diana. She sounds.. angry? Worried?

"London. I told you I was... I did, didn't I?"

"Are you alright?"

"Sort of?" I try moving my legs so that I can sit up properly, but they stick to the sheets. That isn't a good thing. Please tell me I'm not stuck to the bedclothes by my own excrement... I manage to shuffle up a bit with a pulling sensation on the aching skin of my legs and push the bedclothes back to get a look at the mess. "Oh dear."

"What is it?"

Looks like the wounds on my legs weren't fully scabbed over when I got in here. Either that or me moving around dislodged the bandages. I'm not bleeding heavily but it looks like I've seeped a bit. Most of it has already dried brown on the sheets. "Oh, nothing.. much. I wasn't.. really sure what the ritual involved... I don't appear to be seriously hurt."

"What ritual?"

"Well, I heard that John did this.. thing.. to a Succubus who needed to get away from her superiors. Made her impossible to detect through scrying. Thought it could be useful."

"I thought you said that you wanted them to check that your soul was developing properly."

"Yeah." I push the bed clothes off the rest of the way. What did Dan say about stuff like this? Take the sheets off the bed, bundle them up and leave a generous tip. I can do that. Shame I don't have the ring with me... "Apparently I've got a sort of orange light magic aura, but the tattoos are only gradually working it into soul shape. I wanted the other thing done before it.. set, sort of."

"And that's all that happened?"

"Well, my memory is still a bit fuzzy. You know how I get around magic."

Silence on the phone for several seconds. It's like that time I stayed out all night without letting my mum know in advance and when I phoned the next morning to let my parents know where I was she told me that she'd phoned the police and the hospital to try and find out if my body had been handed in. The only reason I hadn't phoned the previous evening was because by the time I'd decided to spend the night at a friend's house it was late enough that I thought they'd already have gone to bed. My desire to give them a good night's sleep resulted in them not getting one. A valuable lesson.

"Who was the man I spoke to earlier?"

She sounds calmer. Really not sure what she was so worried about. "His name's Frank Chandler. He's a friend of John's." Chas looks around at the mention of his name.

"Another wizard?"

"No, he's a cab driver." Chas is starting to look a bit concerned.

"He was guarding you?"

"No, more making sure I didn't do anything stupid while I was intoxicated."

"If you knew something like this might happen you could have come to me."

"Sir, the people I was dealing with? You'd probably have put them right off."

"And if you'd been attacked?"

"Then Guy was a phone call away. Sir, has something happened? I don't understand why you're-."

"M'gann felt it. Whatever they were doing to you."

Oh no. "I'm so sorry, I had no idea that would happen."

"I'm… Oh! No, she felt that they were doing it to you, not as if they were doing it to her."

I breathe a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank goodness. Is she alright?"

"A little shaken up." I hear her exhale. "I phoned you and you didn't reply. I tried the number you gave me for Constantine but I didn't get an answer from him either. Giovanni tried scrying for you, but couldn't find anything." Working then, at the moment at least. Good to know. "I've been worried sick." Yes, just like the time with Mum.

"Really sorry, didn't mean to worry anyone but I was never really in any significant danger. I can be back at the cave in-." What time is it? The bedside clock is analogue and doesn't have a date display, but it says nine minutes past one. I'm going to assume Thursday. "Um, say ten o'clock, your time?" I'd like to have a shower and something to eat as well as checking my injuries over, but Chas can just dump me in his cab and drive me to the zeta tube if we really need to.

"If you're really alright, then you don't need to hurry back." Oh good. "When you do get back, let me know. You and I are going to have a long talk about your insalubrious contacts." Darn.

"I'll see you in a few hours then. Um. I do appreciate the concern, sir."

"We'll talk about it later."

I nod as she hangs up and then put the phone down on the bedside table. "Okay. Um, Chas, please phone room service. Fried bread, bacon, fruit, milk and orange juice for me, and whatever you want for yourself. Er, and probably some fresh bandages. Realise that bit wasn't exactly what you were expecting, and really appreciate you sticking around like this."

He nods, apparently taking it in his stride. "You want a hand getting up?"

"No, I can-" I swing my battered looking legs over the side of the bed and gingerly lower them to the floor. Still wearing my underwear and a few bandages but my other clothes are absent. He probably just put them in a drawer or something and there'll be a robe in the toilet. "-manage, thanks. Which way to the shower?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

29th October
18:52 GMT -5

The LexCorp Tower isn't exactly hard to spot. Its curved central tower is visible from across Metropolis and the few buildings tall enough to block sight of it from the street don't obscure the view from the air. Even Lex Luthor can't monitor everything, but he does have most places in Metropolis likely to house a zeta tube under surveillance. That was probably why Diana agreed with me that flying in from New York under belt power was a sensible decision. Initially I flew in at my preferred cruising height but I swiftly reached the conclusion that doing so was a bad idea. The kinetic energy absorption system prevents you getting sandblasted by the wind but does nothing to protect against the cold or to prevent you swallowing an insect.

Mister Luthor's apartment is comprised of the top two levels of the central tower. I gave it a scan when I first started researching potential threats and despite the obvious wealth of the man it isn't all that big. As far as I can tell this is due to the fact that when LexCorp Tower was constructed he had just a fraction of his current purchasing power. Heck, when it first opened about two thirds of the place was rented out to other companies, though many of them were subsequently bought out and added to the LexCorp brand. The Lex we see now as the wealthy businessman isn't how he always was. In one of his recent interviews he claimed to keep the apartment 'for the view' but I think he keeps it out of pride, occupying the first visible sign of the position of power he'd earned.

I make a steadyish landing on the concourse in front of the building. The trick I've found is that rather than doing a controlled drop as I would with the ring you have to swoop down so that you're laying parallel to the ground and then fold your legs down. Intentionally touching the ground tells the belt that you want to stop flying and you can straighten yourself up without having to worry about taking off again. Not the most dignified way of going about things but then I only have to put up with it for another day or so. Diana said that Batman had been meaning to speak to me about it but something had come up in Gotham and he couldn't spare the time until tomorrow. Not sure what that was. I checked the news and there wasn't any mention of supervillain activity there. Maybe it hasn't been leaked... Right. Gotham. That's not going to have happened. They leak to the flipping mob, they're going to leak to the press.

Oh well. If he's not prioritising me then I'm probably going to get let off with a brief lecture. Anyway, quick look around. There's a few people on the street but my aerial arrival in a suit doesn't appear to be arousing any significant interest. The main entrance to the LexCorp Tower is a long row of doors at the top of a flight of shallow steps. I start towards it as I fish my invitation out of my jacket pocket. There are card readers by the door but to my surprise the door opens without me having to use it. Perhaps business hours here are somewhat later than I'm used to? Or maybe I was detected on radar and a security guard opens the door remotely. If I had the ring finding out would be easy. As it is... I suppose it probably doesn't matter.

The lobby is a broad area with the LexCorp logo displayed in granite on the floor. The large reception desk is still manned by uniformed staff, a couple of whom look up as I enter the building. I know the way up but I should probably-.

"Orange Lantern." Ms Graves steps forwards from the side of the desk. She's in her customary black jacket and skirt with white blouse and red tie. "If you'll come with me I'll escort you to Mister Luthor."

I walk in her direction. "Thank you Ms Graves. Oh, and um." I take out my name card and hold it out to her. She raises her right eyebrow as she takes it. "My name isn't a secret, I'm just physically incapable of saying it. Please, feel free to call me that." She nods and slides the card into her breast pocket before turning away to lead me deeper into the building. I follow after her. "I've been meaning to say... If you wanted, I could probably replace that cybernetic limb with an organic one. No offence intended to my host, but even advanced synthetic skin can't offer anything like the same level of sensory feedback that a natural limb can."

"Thank you for the offer, but I am quite satisfied with the limb I have."

"Why? I mean, if you want to keep the gun I could probably upgrade it. Maybe build the projector into the palm so you can keep use of the hand in combat?" She turns her head to give me a look. It's strangely impassive. The offer's genuine and I was expecting it to provoke some sort of response. Instead, nothing. "Okay. Don't worry about it."

We pass a bank of lift entrances and head to a separate lift within its own security glass enclosure protected by a group of three security guards. Mister Luthor's private lift. Ms Graves stands aside as she reaches the entrance and I hold my invitation card against the reader for a moment before the door unlocks and allows me entrance to an antechamber to the lift room.

One of the guards taps some buttons on a computer console. "Please stand by for a moment, sir. We're just going to scan you for weapons."

I roll my eyes. "Of course I'm armed, I'm a superhero coming to meet Lex Luthor." And it's just occurred to me that I'm not sure whether or not the belt shield would stop Ms Graves' arm gun. It would stop plasma and particle beams. Won't stop light or electricity... I wasn't planning on starting anything but I really should have considered that.

"Ahh, right." He peers at the screen. "I'm not picking anything up."

"Oh good, shouldn't be a problem then." I point at the door to the lift room. "May I?"

He glances at Ms Graves as if for instructions and gets a very shallow nod in return. I suppose that the belt just looks like a belt? If they don't know Cooperative technology it probably just registers at a metal belt, especially while it's inactive. Then the guard opens the door in front of me and I walk up to the elevator. Still haven't quite got used to security guards having guns like this. Before coming to this world I'd only seen real firearms in the hand of railway police, and then only a few times. I turn back to see if Ms Graves is coming the rest of the way and watch as she gets a perfunctory scan before coming into the room with me.

"This way please." She walks past me to the lift and places the palm of her organic hand against the palm reader plate. A moment passes and the door opens with a chime and she walks inside, taking up station to the immediate left of the door. I walk into the middle of the lift and turn around to face the door as it closes.

"So, is it just you, me and Mister Luthor?"

She doesn't turn to look at me as she responds. "Mister Luthor has invited a small number of other guests but wishes to speak with you privately before they arrive."

I just about feel the lift start its upwards journey. I usually enjoy running up the stairs, but I think that in a building this tall that could get a bit dull. "Think I can probably manage that. Anyone I know?"

"Mister Luthor wishes for that to remain a surprise."

"Okay." I smile at the back of her head. "Long as it's not Ra's al Ghul, huh?" No response. "Though actually, if it was, it would save me a lot of time." Nothing again. Oh well. As the lift continues to rise I take a closer look at its interior. Someone who knew something about design could probably name the style but to me it just says 'elegant simplicity' without any of the labels. Carpet's a pretty nice deep blue, and makes me feel a little self conscious about the fact that my shoes aren't 'ring clean' at the moment. "Did Red Arrow get an invite?"

"Mister Luthor wishes-."

"You said. Probably would be a bad idea." I try humming a few notes quietly, but stop when I realise that it might annoy her. How long is this going to-?

"The.. data stick you gave Mister Luthor in Taipei."

"Yes?"

"What was on it?"

"A novel called 'How to Succeed in Evil'. I can get you a copy on Monday if you want, but it's available online for free. Why do you ask?"

"Mister Luthor was.. laughing, when he listened to it. He doesn't laugh very often."

"I'm glad he liked it. I gave it to him because there's a certain similarity between him and the main character. And between Superman and one of the others, though the relationship is rather different."

She inclines her head slightly. "I.. might like-." The lift door opens and she cuts herself off. "Mister Luthor's penthouse. Please follow me." She steps out of the elevator and I follow into Lex Luthor's home.

 

[Mr Zoat]

29th October
18:58 GMT -5

We step out into a small wood floored antechamber. The walls are decorated with pictures, though without the ring I've no idea whether they're chosen to demonstrate the owner's wealth or because he actually likes them. Pastoral scenes for the most part, though there's also a framed photograph of Mister Luthor with.. some.. guy in a suit. He looks vaguely familiar. My instincts say 'President' but I could easily be mistaken. I haven't really studied recent American history in depth. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I could name the guy before George Bush I back home.

"I can take your jacket." Ms Graves holds out her organic arm, standing next to a door set into the wall.

Hm. Losing the jacket makes the belt a bit obvious, but the existence of the belt technology is hardly a secret. Icon's origin is publicly available information even if his identity isn't. I unbutton it and slide it off my right shoulder before taking hold of it with my right hand and extracting my left arm. I shake it to settle out any creases before passing it to her. "Thank you."

She opens the door and steps inside. Over her shoulder I see a variety of overcoats and jackets as well as a few scarves. She takes a wooden hanger off the rail and slides the jacket over it before pausing and turning to me. "I believe that Mister Luthor is aiming for a casual atmosphere. If you'd rather take off the tie..?"

"I spent an hour watching 'how to tie your tie' website videos today and a good fifteen minutes actually doing the thing before I got it right."

"If you'd rather ke-."

My fingers are already in motion. "No, I hate the blooming thing. Take it with my blessing." Silk, dark grey with orange sigil. It glows when I'm wearing the ring. She winds it around the hanger, hooks the hanger back over the rack and then steps out, glancing only briefly at my now revealed belt with the glowing circles front, sides and back. In the inactive state the glow isn't all that bright. Maybe she just thinks it's a fashion statement?

She leads the way through the inner door to the living quarters proper. It's two.. maybe three levels tall, the glass front probably providing a great view of Metropolis during the day. The room itself is probably about forty square metres, a size that would make the rent cripplingly expensive in this part of the city. Unless you own the building I suppose. I recognise one of the hologram television projectors at the base of the window. The seating area is slightly lower than the walkway around the edge of the room, with black leather settees forming a U shape around a wooden table. The room is decorated not with more pictures but with tall potted plants and abstract metal sculptures. I really hope he's not going to want to talk about them because my art knowledge really isn't up to it.

There's a door to my right at the end of the room and a spiral staircase near the middle of the right wall but Ms Graves leads me to the left. The next room is a large dining room where three members of the waiting staff are laying out places. Fortunately for me Diana gave me a lesson in formal dining so that part I should be able to cope with. None of them look up as we pass, but I suppose they're just that professional. I don't quite see how many places are being laid out. Six or fewer, I think. We pass what I assume are the double doors leading to the kitchen on the left and on to a smaller and lower-ceilinged room. Mister Luthor is standing at the far end staring at a picture. The room has several others of varying sizes as well as other objects of interest. Relics, they look like. He's wearing black trousers and a pale blue shirt. Seems a bit strange, seeing him without full 'business armour'. I stop just in from the door while Ms Graves approaches him. She whispers something and holds out the card I gave her. I see his head turn slightly towards it before he turns around completely and slowly walks towards me.

"Good evening Orange Lantern. Or may I call you Paul?"

"Be my guest, Mister Luthor. My name isn't a secret."

"And neither is mine. Please, call me Lex." He extends his right hand to me and I shake it. "I'm glad that your colleagues weren't able to warn you off."

"They.. expressed some reservations, certainly." Only time I've been glad that Superman tries not to have anything to do with us. Diana at least thought that my assessment of the risks was accurate.

"Mercy, would you mind..?" She nods and walks out of the room, closing the door behind her.

"I have to say, I'm a little curious as to why you've invited me here."

"Really? Quite aside from saving my life during the missile attack, your assistance in promoting peace in Rhelasia has already earned LexCorp in excess of twenty million dollars as part of the peace dividend." He stops for a moment and looks at me expectantly.

"I'm.. glad that's working out so well. LexCorp is certainly well placed to provide..." He dips his head with a chuckle. "What?"

"The reaction your associate Red Arrow had during the conference was more in line with what I've come to expect. Sometimes it seems that LexCorp can't operate anywhere without a superhero taking exception to it."

"I rather thought it was just Superman you had.. poor relations with."

"No, he's just the most notable. And the Justice League's UN mandate makes stopping him through legal mechanisms a little more problematic than most. Tell me, do you aim to join that august body yourself?"

"Oh, not any time soon. I'm only.. four months through a year long probation, and given what happened last week..."

His eyes narrow slightly. "Yes, I wanted to ask about that. Did you really.. spin the moon..." He raises his right hand, index finger extended, and makes a circling motion.

"Yes, that was me. I put it back."

"I wasn't aware that power rings had that sort of raw power."

"As a rule, they don't."

"Do you simply have a.. knack, for it?"

Hm. Giving information away is usually a bad idea, buuut... I do want to work with him in future. And it wouldn't be that hard for him to notice that I won't be utilising the same levels of power in future that I did last week. "You remember what I said about not swallowing an energy field larger than your head?"

A small frown. "That it tends to make a person... Ah. Was there a reason for you to disregard your own -quite sound- advice?"

"There is always some special case,
time or place,
to forget,
etiquette."

"Precisely how large an energy field..?"

"About the size of the universe. Fortunately it was fairly diffuse. And not hostile."

"I suppose that explains the New York.. event. Congratulations on your entry into the Billboard Top One Hundred by the way."

I blink stupidly. "Nnno."

"You hadn't heard? You may want to ask Ms Colbert to phone the relevant record company, I'm sure you're due some royalties."

"I'd.. really rather not."

"Can I assume that the 'eye constructs' were also your doing?"

"Yes, but those were actually useful. I was able to use them to find Ra's al Ghul, and what was left of his command structure is currently being held in a very secure location awaiting trial."

"This, following on from the League's attack on that place in Ecuador. There can't be much of the League of Shadows left."

"Not as far as I know, no. We missed the man himself, and I'm not sure what happened to his daughter Talia, but I think the League of Shadows can pretty much be written off as a functioning organisation."

"We'll just have to hope that you are right. And I wouldn't worry about Ra's. When criminals like him experience a turn around in fortunes such as he has, it's remarkable how often former allies turn on them in their moment of weakness. Add to that all of the politicians he was blackmailing who will now want him permanently silenced, and I fully expect that problem will be taken care of presently." He pauses for a moment. "The energy you mentioned, you seem to be functioning normally to me. Were you able to expel it?"

"It would be more true to say that we came to terms. Not sure I'd want to go through that again, though."

"That sounds like a wise decision. Before my other guests arrive-" His arm goes around my shoulders and I allow him to lead me over to the picture he had been studying. "-I wanted to find out what you made of this."

 

[Mr Zoat]

29th October
19:07 GMT -5

"I'm not really an art person." And I'm really not. I'm looking at a watercolour of a street scene. Looks... I don't know, could be anywhere in Europe and any when in the first part the twentieth century. I say that due to the style of the car and the fact that there's only one of them. A couple of open topped horse drawn carriages. The art style... Pass. Qualitywise it looks okay, far better than I could do but not something I'd expect to find in Lex Luthor's home.

"First impression?"

"Frankly? I'm not sure why it's here. If I saw it in a hotel I'd walk straight past it."

"I'll admit, the artist wasn't nearly as talented as he believed himself to be."

Lex wouldn't be showing me this for no reason. I peer a little closer. "I think... Are the people less detailed than the background? I'd expect it to be the other way around." No, more than that. I was sort of assuming that it was a stylistic convention, but they actually look misshapen.

"Art critics have tended to agree with you on that score, though they're usually less polite about it."

"Is this.. some sort of investment? Is the artist about to become really popular, and this is going to shoot up in value?"

"I rather hope not. It has a certain.. rarity value -perhaps surprisingly so given how prolific the artist was- but I don't think I'd ever sell it."

"Were the rest better than this?" Oh. That might... "Some sort of personal connection? It's not one of yours is it. Or-?"

He seems to find that idea amusing. "No, no. I have been known to sketch upon occasion but I've never had any real interest in creating art myself. Perhaps if you had a closer look?"

I'll- Oh. The street sign's in.. German? Or it could just be a German sounding name. "Central or Eastern Europe. Can't tell much from the clothes, the detail's not there. Car's got a curved roof rather than a square Model T style roof or a soft top... Between twenties and sixties? Later than that there'd be more cars. No obvious communist symbology..." I shake my head. Whatever the lesson is supposed to be, it's getting lost on me. Did the artist sign it? I take a look at the bottom. It's a bit worn but I can just take a step back in shock! I mean, I knew he painted but I never thought I'd see...

"For some reason the Defense Department keeps every one of his paintings they ever got hold of in a warehouse in Delaware. Given what else he did with his life, I'd understand if they had them destroyed. I'd understand if they sold them, or exhibited them. But, instead, all they do is accrue dust and consume taxpayer money. No one wants to make the decision. Bureaucratic inertia at its most depressing."

"This... This... It's a bit of a risk, isn't it? I mean, if the Jewish Anti-Defamation League ever found out you were showing one of these..."

"An embarrassing oversight. The painting was acquired as part of a job lot and.. I leave the task of decorating the interior of the LexCorp Tower to an external company."

A rehearsed excuse, but there's no way he'd take a risk like that without a better reason. "Why do you... I mean, I can't believe for a second you share his politics..."

"Of course not." He's standing besides me now, examining the picture again. "Have you ever thought about how history might have been changed if he'd met with more success in his preferred field?"

"Not really, I've played Red Alert. Without a strong leader Germany struggles through the thirties and forties while the Soviet Union reorganises, most likely invading the west sometime before nineteen fifty."

"You don't think someone else could have managed the situation just as well?"

"They didn't need a manager, they needed a unifying ideology and a charismatic leader. If there'd been someone else who could do the job as well as him, they'd have done it."

"I'm not so sure. There were a few people on the far right who might have been able to assume the role. If not.. things would certainly have been a good deal more dicey during the thirties, but Hindenburg or Papen might well have been able to pull things together without concerted Nazi opposition."

"It-. Maybe. I don't-. Why do you have an Adolf Hitler in your gallery?"

"Mostly, because I was curious. What sort of imagery would be produced by such a clearly depraved individual?"

"Low quality water colours. I guess evil really is banal."

"You know, when Superman first became.. active in Metropolis, I did find it somewhat aggravating. Not his power precisely, there'd been people who could fly since before the Second World War, and people with super strength earlier still. It was the way people responded to him. On the day he stopped his first armed robbery a full two thirds of the city went to work for me, directly or indirectly." He pauses for a moment. "And what made the news? Our work on fullerene tube circuitry? The bacterial strains we're creating which eat industrial pollution? The restoration work on the Museum of Natural History, made possible due to a LexCorp endowment? No." His head is tilted down slightly, his eyes a little unfocused. "Some guy in a cape, with his underwear outside of his tights."

"He doesn't do that anymore."

Lex turns his head and raises an eyebrow. "Stop robberies?"

"Wear his pants outside his leggings. They had a bit of an accident.. last week." He gives me a curious look. "I always thought they looked stupid too."

"I'm sure your medal for services to fashion is in the mail. Anyway, off the back of that frustration I ended up sinking a wasteful amount of money into armaments intended to allow the Metropolis Police Department to keep up with him. The press had a field day with that." Phillip Karnowsky, aka 'Barrage'. Lex Luthor's first totally-not-an-assassination-attempt on Superman. "They still use my equipment, but do you see that in the papers?"

"You know that the Daily Planet is basically a tabloid, right? In the British sense of the word? Superheroes are flashy, high impact, and this was happening in their city. Rational perspective didn't really come into it."

He looks at the painting again. "Hitler had relatively few strengths and many weaknesses, but he was living in a time and a place where he could make those strengths count and where the weaknesses didn't matter. At least, not in the short term. It was this painting which made me realize that the problem wasn't Superman, not really. Bread and circuses have always drawn the crowds, and I can't deny that he makes the more appealing clown." Petty. "When people see a figure like that, one who seems to stand up above the common man, their very evolutionary history encourages them to follow and obey. That story you gave me, 'How to Succeed in Evil'. Do you remember the part where Edwin wonders why people aren't more horrified by the actions of the Cromoglodon, only to listen to an interview where a local man empathises with his rage and experienced vicarious satisfaction through the destruction he caused?"

I nod.

"I laughed out loud when I heard that. It's so obvious. Superman didn't earn his abilities, he was born with them. And if an accident of birth is all that separates the man on the street from the demigod floating overhead.. then it's just too bad, isn't it? You can't compete with it because Destiny simply didn't choose you. Regularise it, as you and I are seeking to, and.. what was it the narrator said at Excelsior's press conference? They don't want you to bring their heroes down to their level. I can't be that shining, empty symbol, I'm just all too Human. In a world where even a man like the Joker has a fan club, I came to see that I shouldn't take it so personally. It wasn't as if we were directly competing with one another. Superman can fight the good fight all he wants, but he doesn't appear to be inclined to clean up refuse, run industry or balance the national budget. When the Appellaxians' attack was dealt with by the nascent Justice League, it occurred to me that if it hadn't been Superman, it would have been someone else. Some other super.. powered individual. And, upon reflection, I think it's far better for the world that it was Superman rather than..." He waves his right hand.

"Socialist Red Guardsman?"

"Among others. We've been quite fortunate with our super powered defenders over the years."

I've heard that idea before. "Plekhanov's idea of the beginner in history."

He glances at me before returning his attention to the picture. "Yes. Working patiently for the common good each day just isn't exciting."

"So.. you.. don't have a problem with Superman anymore?"

"I wouldn't go that far. When I.. got over the personal aspect of it and started to think about it more dispassionately, I realized that many of my concerns were still valid. Particularly when the budget for the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit was slashed in response to his activities." I hadn't known that had happened. I'll have to check that claim tomorrow. "I am simply not comfortable relying for our defense on a small number of apparently irreplaceable individuals. Or with the idea that mere 'normal' people could not hope to play a role in our planet's defense. That was why I was so glad that you brought the Danner Formula to my attention. If a man like Hugo Danner had come to me, instead of trying to take over Brazil... Well. Who knows what might have happened."

 

[Mr Zoat]

29th October
19:11 GMT -5

"I think I can guess. I did see your research centre in India."

"Yes. You'll no doubt be pleased to know that we've improved security substantially since your visit."

"I'd blooming hope so. I mean, I'm glad you're doing the research but I don't really want to have to fight uberrats again."

"Uberra-? Oh, I see. No, as I understand it Doctor Munro is no longer performing tests on rats." That's not as reassuring as I think he means it to be.

"I'm interested in how the Danner Formula works myself. I hope you don't mind, but I handed a sample of it over to an alchemist for analysis."

"An alchemist?" He chuckles. "I think I'll survive."

"Lex, I have a power ring. I've analysed the Formula completely. There is nothing in its chemistry which explains the effect it has on foetal development. This is something that hasn't made sense to me since I got here; you know magic works. Everyone knows magic works. And yet-" I spread my arms. "-hardly anyone uses it."

"I took your point about power generation, but convincing investors or shareholders-."

"Biotechnology, then. Atlanteans have the ability to regrow entire organs now, and as far as I know artificial organs are still years off."

"I have tried making overtures towards Atlantis. Unfortunately, my point of contact was Prince Orm..." Ah. Would he have known..? No way to be sure. As Garth pointed out, lots of people dealt with Orm. "Getting researchers from elsewhere is proving to be somewhat problematic."

"Do you know what the name of the city with the highest concentration of magic users in the western world is?"

"No. Somewhere in Australia, perhaps?"

"London. If you like I could talk to some people for you."

"That would be helpful. I hadn't realised you moved in those sorts of circles."

"It's a recent development."

He frowns. "You only started interacting with London dwelling magic users since moving to the United States?"

"Um, sort of? That wasn't.. really..."

"You said 'since you got here'. I assumed that you were referring to the US."

"Oh, no. I realise it sounds a little strange, but I arrived on this planet from a parallel Earth about four months ago, and I've been scurrying to catch up ever since."

Another glance. "I've heard stranger tales. What distinguishing characteristics..?"

"No magic, no superpowers. There's a load of minor differences spiralling from that, but they're the main ones."

"Gracious. You must have found our Earth a little strange."

I shrug. "I had popular fiction to work off. It's not the fact that things like that are possible, it's the logical inconsistencies in their use. I mean, so Superman gets born with the ability to fly, punch through steel plate and whatever. Captain Marvel can do nearly the same thing, and it's public knowledge that his powers are magic based. And yet, Cadmus clones Superman and no one researches the magic which might allow them to replicate Marvel's abilities. Biotechnology firms spend millions trying to work out how to give people the metahuman ability to create fire when any competent student of elemental magic would learn how to conjure fire within months, if they applied themselves. I thought it might have been religion, but apparently the Catholic Church doesn't have a problem with it..."

"American Protestant denominations have traditionally been less understanding and all major versions of Islam feel the same way. I can see that it would seem odd to an outsider.. and now that I hear you describe it, I'm a little puzzled myself. Are you.. sure.. that the formula is alchemical?"

"Sure? I can't be sure until the analysis is complete, but I can't think of anything else it could be."

"These.. London magic users. Are they of the robe and hat variety, or..?"

"I think there's.. some ritual clothing, but for the most part they dress sensibly. I mean, it's not like they could completely isolate themselves from the modern world, after all."

"It does produce a rather amusing mental image, doesn't it? I'll give you a phone number to pass on before you leave. Speaking of Cadmus, I had a rather strange conversation with Batman about that earlier this month. I say conversation, he mostly limited himself to vague threats and insinuations. As it is indeed 'PR poison' I haven't become directly involved in its operations but I have promoted James Harper to the position of Operations Manager and I don't intend to try to second guess him. I hope that -unlike me- the League feel that he can be trusted."

I'm not sure that anyone who was involved in Cadmus should still be there, whatever the courts said on the matter. A security chief who can't spot mind control isn't much better than one who is actively criminal, to my mind. And that's saying nothing of the enslavement of the Genomorphs. But if American law doesn't recognise AIs I can't imagine that getting recognition for a novel organic intelligence would be a quick process. "I can't speak for the League, but if the alternative was you..."

"Quite. Now, about the-. About.. my son."

I clench. "What about him?"

"Batman appeared to think I intended to... I do appreciate that the boy's life to date has not been anything close to normal. Please reassure the League that I have no intention of trying to snatch him away from whatever stability he's been able to find, but-."

The door opens and we both turn around. Ms Graves walks in, followed by a woman in a long, conservatively cut pale green dress. She has short black artfully tussled hair and I'd guess... Arabic appearance? It's subtle.. mixed parentage, perhaps? She looks familiar, but I can't quite place her.

"So good to see you, my dear." Lex walks over to her, takes her right hand and kisses it.

"Lex." Her eyes move to me. "And this is..?" I take a few steps closer.

"Orange Lantern two eight one four. Pleased to meet you." I extend my right hand.

There's a slightly awkward pause as she stares into my eyes. "You don't recognise me, do you?"

I shake my head. "I'm sorry, I see a lot of faces. You look familiar, but..."

"Since you are the man responsible for uniting me with my sister I will forgive you. I am-."

I blink. "Nyssa Raatko."

She smiles at me and takes my hand. "You do remember. When she knocked on my door I was quite astonished. She really did not want to believe I was who you said I was."

Her great grandson -a man named Vasily Arketov- is still alive at present, and in the comics it was his death which switched her into full crazy mode. As far as I know she's fairly rational at the moment, though she isn't usually particularly sociable.

Ms Graves whispers something to Lex, who nods and then looks at us. "Would you please excuse me? The head chef needs to talk to me about something."

I tear my eyes from Ms Raatko. "Oh yes, of course." He nods at me, nods more deeply to Ms Raatko, then follows Ms Graves out. "Were you able to convince her?"

"Yes. I still keep a few relics from the old days in my home."

I checked, and Talia wasn't part of the most recent round of League of Shadow arrests. "Do you know where she is now?"

"I believe that she intended to return to the house of her lover, the Batman."

...

"Well he's been keeping that blooming quiet!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

29th October
19:15 GMT -5

"I'm going to have to talk to Robin about his stepmother vetting procedures. They clearly need improving."

She raises her eyebrows. "Are you implying that my sister is unworthy?"

"She has a.. certain amount of baggage. Did she say why they broke up the first time?"

"Yes, because the Batman refused to join our father. Since he is no longer an issue, I fail to see why there should be a problem."

"She did quite a lot of stuff while she was working for your father that.. some people might find concerning."

"So did I, unless you think the fact that they happened a long time ago means that they count for nothing."

"You left him under your own power. Plus, the Justice League didn't actually get Ra's, so he's still out there somewhere."

"My sister did not leave our father simply because the League of Shadows was being destroyed. If she had still believed in his cause she would have stood beside him to the last. Your.. diatribe against him when you encountered her in Paris affected her more than you appear to have appreciated."

"Really? I.. sort of assumed that I was wasting my time."

"I particularly liked the bit where you called Ra's al Ghul, seven-hundred-year-old master of the League of Shadows, a 'nutter'."

"Yeah." I wrinkle my nose. "Probably not the most sensible thing I could have said, but the situation was really winding me up. How'd you feel about the bit where I shot him in the head?"

Astonishment, but happy astonishment. "She didn't mention that!"

Ah. If we're going to talk about this in Lex Luthor's home... I pick one of John's most recent gifts out of my right trouser pocket and hold it out to her. "If we're going to talk shop, would you mind holding one of these?"

She takes the small dark-grey stone from me, and for half a second there's a slight distortion in the air. I tested them before coming here and they certainly appeared to work. "I don't recognise the runes."

"I got it from a magician friend of mine. He described it as 'sort of like a scrying ward, but for sound'. It should prevent eavesdropping, lip reading or sound recording."

"Useful. But I'm more interested in hearing about how you shot my contemptible dog of a father in the head."

"It was just before the League hit Infinity Island, the League of Shadows ex-headquarters. I wanted to know where his Lazarus Pit was and it seemed to be the most expedient way to find out." Oh, that's right, she can make them, can't she?

"You shot him in the head and... Why did you need to know where his Lazarus Pit was if you did not intend to prevent him from using it?"

"So I could steal it." She lets out a peal of laughter, covering her mouth with her hands. "Well, technically, it's an arcane artefact used by a supervillain to enable criminality so the Justice League has the authority to confiscate it.. but basically steal it."

"And you did that.. before the Flash..?"

"The Flash didn't get there until after I shot the place up. " I shrug. "The Justice League didn't know about it."

"Then how did you find it?"

"Finding stuff is something power rings are really good at." Out of habit I start to raise my left hand, then remember myself and lower it. "Once I had Talia's DNA.. I was pretty well motivated. Scanning for Ra's wasn't that hard."

"What had he done to so enrage you?"

"He sent a man made of clay to attack Gotham City. I'd had to.. well, I thought at the time that I'd killed him. He's.. he pretty much survived, as it happened..."

"You had never killed someone before?"

"No. Far as I know, I still haven't. I don't have a.. the same level of resistance to the idea that some of my contemporaries do, but I think that if you're going to kill someone you should be sure that they deserve it. On an individual level, I mean. Besides, if you've got a power ring it's usually just as easy to take a person down without killing them." She nods, and takes another look at the stone. "If you don't mind me asking, what brings you here? I mean, laughing at Ra's' misfortune is fun, but we're quite a way from your home here."

"Lex.. wants me to work for him, at his research centre in India. My father shared his knowledge of alchemy with me before we parted company, and I have studied further on my own since. I wanted to ask you if you thought-."

"The cheeky bastard!" She recoils slightly at my outburst, then turns her right palm upwards and shakes her head, looking for an explanation. "He was telling me how hard it was to study magic, and he'd already made you an offer! Have you any idea how hard it is to find good alchemists?"

"Do you think he's untrustworthy, then?"

"That's... This was probably just a joke at my expense. Generally? I don't trust him to do what I'd like him to. I trust him to serve his own interests in a reasonably rational manner. If you come to an agreement with him he'll probably stick with it, but don't make assumptions about anything not covered by it."

"Does he have no principles at all?"

"Um. His desire to bring augmentation to the masses appears to be genuine. Beyond that, I couldn't say with any certainty. Does it make him money, bring him power? Can he get away with it?"

"He had given me the impression that your working relationship was rather better than that."

"But did he tell you it was?" She thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. "Classic Luthor. Still, if you just want to spit in Ra's' eye, he did try and kill Lex last month. It's not a bad place to start from."

"I was hoping for a simple 'yes' or 'no'."

"Sorry. I mean, if it's this or keep sitting in your lighthouse, I'd definitely take it. I'd offer you something myself but I just don't have the infrastructure that Lex does, and despite my urging the Justice League hasn't got itself into research and development yet. Unless you feel like working in Atlantis..?"

She smiles. "I don't think the water would be good for my complexion." Then the smile disappears. "Also, I am dependent on Lazarus Pits in the same way that my father is, and I do not believe that I could create one underwater."

Maybe I should talk to Batman about it when he comes up for air? I'm sure that Talia would enjoy spending some more time with her sister. Speaking of family... "How is Captain Arketov doing?"

"I suppose it would be too much to hope that I could keep any secrets from you. He is well." She sighs. "Since I age little I have to be somewhat remote so as not to invite suspicion among his peers. He knows who I truly am, but the only pictures he has of me are from when I allowed myself to visibly age."

If he stays alive, no kryptonite bullet. "If you'd like to tell me where he is, I'd be happy to aug-."

"Captain Arketov has agreed to join LexCorp as head of security of our Gdańsk facility." Lex closes the door quietly behind him. I hadn't even heard him come in. "A good deal safer than the Moscow City Police Department, and noticeably better paid."

Darn it. Giving him supernatural fortitude and regeneration would make him more likely to survive, but Luthor's done more or less the same thing just by giving him a cushy job. I nod, more to myself than to him. "I can see that a man would have to get up fairly early in the morning to catch you napping."

"My dear Orange Lantern, I would advise that man to abstain from sleep entirely."

 

[Mr Zoat]

29th October
19:19 GMT -5

"My final guest has arrived, and the chef has informed me that he's ready to begin serving. If you'll accompany me?" Lex waits a second for us both to turn to face him before half turning to open the door for us, bowing slightly as he does so. My eyes flick to the grey stone just visible in Ms Raatko's right hand. I doubt that Lex will listen to the recording -and there undoubtedly is one- until after we've left but when he does he will see the stone and I'd rather have it back. I pass through the door immediately after her and step to her right side as she turns towards the table, tapping her right hand with my left as I do so. I breathe a sigh of relief as she gets the message and drops the stone into my palm, our bodies blocking Lex's view. Back into my pocket it goes.

Two waiters stand behind two free chairs at the sides of the table, while Ms Graves stands behind the larger seat at the head of the table which I presume to be reserved for Lex. The seat at the foot of the table is already occupied by Doctor Munro, who is in the process of rising from it. "Orange Lantern. I hadn't realised Lex had invited you as well. And who is your lovely companion?"

He stood because he was being joined by a lady. I suppose he might be about old enough for that to be correct formal behaviour. "Doctor Arnold Munro, Ms Nyssa Raatko. Ms Raatko, Doctor Munro."

Ms Raatko walks towards him as he steps out from the table to greet her. She offers her right hand and he takes it and kisses it delicately on the knuckles. Wait, was I supposed to do that? "Tell me Doctor, what is your field of study?"

"Well, biochemistry, though lately..."

Lex walks up besides me, and I turn to him. "Doctor Munro isn't really comfortable in large groups, but he can be quite charming in a one to one conversation. Old world manners."

"And since you want them to work together, you want them to get on. It might be awkward if you just flew her out to India. And me being here helps put Ms Raatko in a more receptive frame of mind."

"That's.. part of the reason. You also made quite a good impression on Arnold. Of course, I wouldn't want you to believe that my gratitude wasn't genuine. I am rather fond of my life."

"But there's no reason not to have this meeting serve other ends as well. I take my hat off to you. I'm kicking myself for not approaching Ms Raatko earlier myself."

"No sour grapes, I hope?"

"Of course not. I want alchemy to be part of mainstream Human science as much as you do, and if the League can't be bothered with it, why not?"

This earns me a sidelong smile. "Oh, if only your colleagues shared your attitude. Nyssa, Arnold, shall we take our seats?" He walks around to his as Ms Graves pulls it out from under the table. Doctor Munro returns to his and the waiter pulls out the chair on the near side for Ms Raatko. I walk around behind Doctor Munro to take the far chair which the other waiter pulls out for me. I have literally never had someone do that for me before. Do I just sort of squat in midair and wait for them to bring it forwards? Or would it make more sense to just perch on the edge and then shuffle it in myself once they've left? I compromise, sitting down after a short delay and getting enough of it under me that it's comfortable.

Right, next step: serviette. It's there, folded into a fan just past the forks. I suppose Lex's idea of informal is somewhat different to mine. Diana was quite clear that it wasn't to be used as a bib, and that I should only use it as a lap cover if Lex did and it doesn't look like he is. The serving staff who were in the room retreat into the kitchen. It looks like Ms Graves is sticking around, though not joining in. Alright, commencing operation 'don't make an arse of myself'.

Lex turns his head in my direction. "Paul, I couldn't help but notice your rather eye-catching belt. I believe it's.. the same design as the young heroine from Dakota City.. Rocket, I think her name is.. generally wears. Are the two of you acquainted?"

"Not as yet, though I imagine that we will be before too long."

"Do you share a tailor?"

"No, it's a piece of xenotechnology her mentor gave her. Which I proceeded to copy. Much harder to use than a power ring, and much less flexible."

"Which I noticed you aren't wearing. I do understand that your colleagues have concerns about your safety. I wouldn't have demanded that you leave it behind."

"After the craziness last week I thought it best to demonstrate to my mentor that I could be relied upon not to routinely alter the movement of planetary bodies because I wanted everyone to be able to look at them from another angle."

"Wait." Doctor Munro looks thoughtful for a moment. "I remember hearing something on the radio about Jupiter's Great Red Spot disappearing almost overnight. You don't mean to say..?"

"Yess, that was me."

"The only Lantern I'd ever met before was a member of the Justice Society. I think I've been operating under a false idea of what those rings are capable of."

"Almost anything, given sufficient power and focus. Last week I had an encounter with an elemental which resulted in me getting near unlimited amounts of both."

Ms Raatko frowns. "You truly had unlimited power?"

"Not far off. Why so puzzled?"

"I'm not sure what I would expect from a person in that position, but..."

Lex jumps in. "Wouldn't you say that making a giant cake was a waste of an opportunity?"

"Getting power like that altered my perspective. Rational application of that power didn't really come into it. Orange power rings work on avarice, and what I really wanted was for my friends to get whatever they wanted. Of course, they were too busy freaking out about the changes in my behaviour to present me with an itemised list."

The waiting staff return bearing four silver trays covered by silver lids. They take up station next to each of us before removing the lids and placing the soup bowls before us. It's tomato orange with visible pieces of vegetable artfully arranged in the centre, topped by a sprig of something or other. It's not giving off any heat.. Gazpacho! "Hah!" I quickly check the cutlery and find the soup spoon in the expected location.

Lex raises an eyebrow. "Something amusing?"

"There was a.. television comedy series I used to watch. 'Gazpacho soup' were the last words of one of the characters. He was remembering an incident when he was invited to dine with his employers and didn't realise that gazpacho soup was supposed to be served cold. He felt that instructing the staff to send it back to be warmed up had put a permanent black mark on his record." Lex 'hmms' in a slightly amused tone as I pick up the spoon and take a small amount of the soup onto it. "So, Doctor Munro, had any more trouble with escaped rats?"

He swallows. "Oh no, we've stopped using rats for testing. It clearly works, after all, though I'd never considered combining it with other augmentative chemicals as the Brain did. I also wanted to thank you for putting me in touch with Tommy and Tuppence."

I'm glad that went as well as it did. Thomas I expected would be interested to meet him, but why Tuppence was alright about talking to him but not me I have no idea. "Have you had any luck in working out where their mother got the Danner Formula sample from?"

He shakes his head. "Hasn't, um, hasn't really been a priority. I think, err, I think Lex..." He looks over to his employer.

"I have some people looking into it, though, frankly, I doubt they'll find anything. It's infuriating, really; there can't be that many samples of the Danner Formula left that aren't owned by either Paul or LexCorp, and someone delivers a dose to a woman apparently at random and doesn't bother keeping track of them."

"I'm sorry." Ms Raatko holds her spoon just below her lips. "What is this 'Danner Formula'?"

"It's what I want you to work on with Doctor Munro. Doctor?"

"The Danner Formula is the work of my grandfather. Without wanting to go into too much detail, if injected into a pregnant woman it will result in her child being born with supernatural strength and endurance, approximately on a par with Princess Diana of Themiscyra. I... I would like to see it distributed as widely as possible, and Mis-. And Lex has offered to fund the research." She looks very interested. "More than just the formula itself, it might hold the secrets to unlocking all manner of supernatural abilities if we had someone who knew how to study the alchemical aspects that have been stymieing our efforts so far. Getting approval when we don't understand the basic mechanism..."

She nods, eyes down. "I think, Doctor, that I should take a look at your research."

 

[Mr Zoat]

30th October
08:57 GMT -5

"So as you can imagine, I was pretty glad to see him." Mister King looks a lot like Captain Metropolis from Watchmen. The older version. He's not fat, but he's definitely put on weight since Infinity Incorporated broke up. The suit he's wearing is designed to conceal it somewhat, and he has kept up his exercise regime. Too much rich food, I suppose.

"I can't believe they put you in an asylum for being telepathic!" He, M'gann and I are lurking by the zeta tubes in the training room while Kon, Donna, Artemis and Robin warm up for their first combined super strength combat lesson with Diana.

"They didn't know I was telepathic, they just knew I was hearing voices in my head. Statistically, in a Human that's far more likely to indicate some sort of mental disorder than it is to indicate that they can really hear what other people are thinking. And once they got some drugs in my system... Well, I became symptomatic."

"But why did your parents let them do that?"

I'm only half listening to their conversation. Batman's coming to talk to me. I stare at the zeta tube at parade rest. I'm in my armour, which isn't particularly comfortable to wear without the ring at the best of times.

"Mom thought I was ill and she wanted me to get help. Dad came to get me out as soon as he heard, but he was a career criminal and him and Mom weren't in touch anymore. So, anyway, he created a telepathic illusion of a fire, -" M'gann cringes slightly, but I don't think he noticed it. "-waited until they evacuated everyone and basically just walked away with me. Spent the rest of the week nursing me back to health."

The ring and my lantern are still in the box over with Diana, over on the other side of the room. She said that Batman would have a decision for me today. I want to stay here. If he's got conditions, I'll accept them. Heck.. yes, I even want it more than I want to maintain secrecy about my age and the whole DCU thing. If he asks for a full explanation, I'll provide him with one. I'd rather not have to, of course...

"Was that the first time you'd met him?"

"Yeah. I'd seen his pictures in the newspapers a couple of times when I was growing up, but I hadn't really thought anything of it. We were together about a month, him teaching me and us getting to know each other. Finally learned how to shut all the voices out."

"Had you always heard what everyone around you was thinking?"

"No, started kicking in when I was about nine or ten." He squints as he tries to remember. "Only heard a few whispers at first. Didn't get really bad until I was fourteen."

She nods. "Martians don't usually worry about that, but after what happened Wednesday I think maybe I should learn how to do that too."

I apologised to her once I got back from London. She said it didn't matter, but I could feel the echo of her fear when she spoke telepathically and I could see the yellow that still clung to her.

"Look, ah... Do you have a living area or something? I remember what it was like when Nuklon and Fury used to spar together and I don't think this room is going to stay a safe place for us fragile people for much longer."

"Yes, of course. Right this way. Paul? Paul?"

"Mm?"

"It'll be okay." **[Reassurance]** I nod. She's probably right. If he were planning on doing anything punitive the box wouldn't be here, but that doesn't stop me worrying. "Do you.. want me to wait around?"

"No, no. I'll be fine." I don't think she believes me. "Go on. Enjoy your lesson." She nods uncertainly and leads Mister King towards the lifts.

"Recognised, Batman, zero two."

Here we go then. I come to attention as he steps into the room proper.

"Orange Lantern. Do you have anything to report from your meeting with Lex Luthor?"

"I believe he was able to convince Nyssa Raatko to enter his service. From what was said I don't think he's pursuing other forms of arcane research."

"That would be Talia al Ghul's sister, correct?"

"Yes sir. She claimed to be an accomplished alchemist, and if she's still alive after this much time she at least knows how to make Lazarus Pits."

"Did anything else of note occur?"

"He showed me a painting by Adolf Hitler." Batman pulls his head back a little in surprise. "I think he was trying to make a point about the folly of mindlessly following heroic figures, but it was rather lost on me."

He thinks for a moment. "Owning paintings by Hitler is not itself a crime, even if it is a little disturbing. It seems unlikely to me that he has those sort of far right leanings." I nod. "Who else was in attendance?"

"Ms Raatko and Doctor Munro. Ms Graves was there, but she wasn't eating and didn't say much. I'll have the recording transcribed for you before the end of the day." Lex might not have been recording everything but I certainly was.

"Good." He looks across the room, where Diana is demonstrating the ineffectiveness of striking unanchored super tough opponents by punching Kon in the stomach, sending him flying across the room into the far wall. He gets up, brushes himself off and leaps back. "We also need to discuss your ring."

"Yes sir."

"Martian Manhunter reports no lingering ill effects from being branded. Are you still able to make use of the ability?"

"I assume so, I don't know. That was the first time I'd used it."

"Can you call your ring from here?"

"Probably."

"Do so."

"Sir, it.. hasn't been a week yet."

"Orange Lantern, almost the first thing you did after regaining your senses was give up your ring. I am not concerned about you repeating last week's behavior of your own volition. What I am concerned about is you being overwhelmed by the Ophidian again. I want to be sure that you retain your usual level of self control when you make contact with it."

"You do realise that you're right next to me if I can't, sir?"

"Your views on unaugmented Humans aside I am quite capable of looking after myself, and if there really is a problem then Wonder Woman and Superboy are just across the room."

I nod. I don't need to close my eyes or gesture, the ring just rises into the air and carries the box and lantern with it. I float it around the edge of the room until it arrives in the air next to me, then take hold of it with my hands and lower it to the floor. I open it. The lantern inside is glowing even brighter than it used to while storing two charges, but it doesn't seem to have decayed since I handed it over to Diana. The ring.. it's fully charged, but it doesn't look unusual in any way. I pluck it from its resting place with my right hand and then straighten up, holding it a short distance from my left ring finger to give Batman a chance to change his mind. He doesn't say anything. Okay then... It flies from my right hand into its accustomed place on my left ring finger, face inwards. The sigils on my armour light up immediately, I feel cooler and the stickiness of my sweat disappears, but I don't otherwise feel any different. I turn my left hand palm up and generate a sigil construct. No, it's still working.

"Do you feel any different?"

"Yes. I used to get a rush when I put it back on or recharged it. This time, nothing."

"What is your current charge?"

Ring?

Charge is currently at one hundred percent.

"One hundred percent."

"Try recharging anyway. If nothing untoward happens you can consider yourself reinstated."

"Thank you sir." I hold out my left hand towards the lantern. "Recharge." A thin beam of orange light projected from the lantern's core strikes the ring. It doesn't feel of

I can hear you again.

anything, though I note the beam is much more focused than what it was before I used Guy's lantern's template to repair it. I shake my head at Batman. "Nothing again."

He nods, and offers me his right hand to shake. "Then welcome back to the team."

 

[Mr Zoat]

30th October
19:34 GMT -5

"Give me back my pants!"

Artemis' cheeks flush red as she tries to hold down the ridiculously short skirt, though whether it's from rage or embarrassment I can't tell.

"It's part of her costume. It doesn't come with trousers."

"Looks good to me, babe. Aaarrrroooooo!"

"Uuugh!"

Artemis appears to be regretting accepting my offer to help with her Halloween costume. Wallace has gone with a wolfman headpiece. It's quite an impressive piece, actually. Kon is wearing ring-crafted bandages and pseudo-Egyp... Pseudo-Kahndaqi ornamentation. I even made it so that the bandages would have the same smell as actual mummification wraps. Wolf doesn't seem to think much of it.

"How about tights?" Okay, it was rage. I raise my hands in surrender as she stalks towards me. That costume doesn't come with a collar. "Cycle shorts?"

"Now!"

Ringmakeitso.

There's a brief orange glow around her.. her hips, and a pair of non-canonical white hot pants materialise, just visible under the hem of the skirt. She takes a quick look. "That's barely any better!"

"I'm sorry. Thigh socks would probably go with it, but... Would you rather I just tried something else?"

She tries tugging the skirt down, then gives up with a huff. "It's fine. What are you going as?"

"I'm not."

"What!? Why not?"

"It's an American holiday. I'm British. I don't do Halloween any more than I do Thanksgiving or Independence Day."

"It's just a party, Paul. What are you going to do instead?"

"Batman wants a chat with Kaldur and me, and I really need to get around to reclaiming the rest of my stuff from Guy."

"You could get your stuff from Guy any time. If the meeting with Batman finishes quickly you can still go."

Quite aside from the risk of being recognised, I really don't want to go to a party populated by teenagers. "I'll tell you what: if-."

"Recognised, Zatanna Zatara, A zero six."

M'gann looks around from admiring Kon's costume. "Hey Zatanna. Great costume!" A witch costume, really? Is she trying to reclaim the stereotype or something?

"Thanks! Are you.. going as a Martian?"

"Nooot exactly." M'gann takes a few steps away from the rest of us, holds out her arms and spreads her legs as her clothing and skin transform. First, her short skirt changes into a tattered floor length grey dress, t-shirt and jumper merging to form the bodice. Next, gloves in the same style appear on her hands and forearms as her skin changes to pale grey with heavy black eyeliner and lipstick. Lastly, a torn veil appears on her head, pulled back out of her face. "Grraaaaww!" She makes a grabbing monster gesture with her arms before resting them on her hips, satisfied with her transformation. Sort of a.. Corpse Bride thing?

"If what?"

I return my attention to Artemis. "If you'll celebrate Guy Fawkes Night with me next week."

Kon looks over to me. "Is that some sort of English holiday?"

"Yes. It commemorates a failed attempt four hundred years ago to blow up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening. If it had succeeded they'd have killed the king, most members of the House of Lords and a lot of members of the House of Commons. The country would have been decapitated."

"What do you do?"

"Traditionally, in the evening, there's a firework display and bonfire. Toffee covered apples are consumed. The highlight of the celebration is the burning in effigy of the leader of the plot, a man named Guy Fawkes, and the Pope." Stares. "The Pope of the day, obviously. I can't say his name, it's the same as mine. If you're interested in the background I studied the Reformation at school and I'd be happy to talk you through it."

Artemis' face looks a little pained. "I.. think I'll give it a miss, thanks."

"Rightyho. I'm not much of a party animal anyway."

There's a degree of awkward shuffling, which is brought to an end by Captain Marvel emerging from one of the side tunnels. I think he's started occupying a room here. Wallace waves at him. "Ah, hey Cap. Any plans for Halloween?"

"I thought I'd take Adom for a look around Fawcett City. Y'know, since this is the one night of the year when he won't get attacked on sight for, y'know, looking like the other guy."

M'gann looks puzzled. "Couldn't he just wear something else?"

"He doesn't seem to like the idea." He really doesn't. Once we convinced him that distinctive costumes were de rigueur for people in our profession he point blank refused to wear anything else. He appears to consider it beneath him. I thought he was being unexpectedly easy going, but he's now familiar enough with the modern world to start expressing informed opinions. I honestly don't see him accepting Diana's hospitality for much longer. One bad news story from Kahndaq is all it would-.

"Recognised, Artemis, B zero eight, Zatanna Zatara, A zero six."

The zeta tubes flare as they disappear. Huh. Guess they didn't want to go to the dance thing either. I suppose not really knowing anyone there would take the fun out of it.

"Well, we should probably be going too." M'gann puts her right arm through Kon's left and I reach out and take Wolf from his right. "Have fun with your meeting."

"I'll try. Enjoy the party." M'gann, Wallace and Kon head towards the seldom used ground exit as Wolf realises that she's been moved and wakes up enough to try burrowing against my body. In a normal puppy that would be cute but I have to reinforce my environmental shield to stop her ripping the outer layer of my armour. I shift her so that she's lying up my chest, and she turns her head to the side in order to lick my face. I stroke her head in an attempt to get her to go back to sleep. The licking doesn't bother me as the ring can easily deal with it. No, she doesn't seem to be feeling tired. Is Batman a dog person? I don't remember seeing one in Wayne Manor. It would probably be best if I persuaded her to stay somewhere out of the way for the meeting. I'll go and find her basket and put her in it with a hot water bottle, that usually works.

I start walking, then remember that the ring is back on my finger. A flicker and I'm at the cupboard where we keep the hot water bottles, another and I'm in the kitchen, turning the tap on to fill it. A quick blast from a heating element construct later and it's up to temperature. Right, basket... I look across to the living area and see Teekl cowering below the basket's rim.

"Teekl? I've been looking for you." There's fear in her eyes. She's shaking. "Teekl, I'm not going to hurt you, you daft cat."

"Not like big orange snake!"

"The Ophidian is inside my lantern. It isn't possessing me anymore. You're perfectly safe." My cat behavioural awareness tells me that approaching will just cause her to bolt so I stay right where I am.

"Not like big orange snake!"

"You don't like the Ophidian, I understand. It isn't here. Sniff me. Your orange light sense should tell you that I'm me again."

My Agent is correct. We are no longer joined.

Teekl suddenly calms down, blinking at me. She must have taken a look. I'd thought that it would take longer than that. Not that I'm complaining. I walk over to her and rub her head. After a slight hesitation she leans into it. Good. Everything back to normal.

 

[Mr Zoat]

30th October
20:16 GMT -5

I'm squatting in the air at chair height in one of the mountain's side rooms. Oh, I missed this. Hanging here, legs bent like I'm sitting on Mum's old kneeling chair but with the ring's flight system taking all of the weight. My back's slightly hunched and my hands are in my lap as I wait for Batman to start.

"Computer, secure the room."

There's a hiss as armoured blast doors close at the exits of the room and a clunk as the air vents close.

"Secured."

"Ooh, sir, before we start?" I float a grey stone each over to Kaldur and Robin on my left and Batman, Red Arrow and Red Tornado on the other side of the room. Shooould work on Tornado, but I'll use the ring to plant a listening device on an external wall just to check. They certainly covered my conversation with Nyssa. I remotely accessed his internal monitoring and the recording of our chat cuts out at the moment she touched the stone. Batman takes hold of his stone between his right thumb and forefinger, studies it for a moment and then looks at me for an explanation. "Scrying wards prevent remote viewing. These prevent remote listening. No one who can't see the speaker with their own eyes will be able to hear what they're saying."

"Was this created by your Atlantean contact?"

"No, by John Constantine. I'll show it to Sephtian next week and I should have an improved and.. smaller version available for League members-" I incline my head towards Red Arrow. "-and associates, within a fortnight."

Batman nods. "Useful." Then the thieving git slips it into his utility belt. It doesn't need skin contact to work but he could at least have asked. "I'll cut to it; do we believe there's a mole within the team?" I narrowly manage to avoid rolling my eyes.

Kaldur takes a step towards him. "I am convinced there is none. When Onyx claimed she had an inside source she was merely sowing dissent."

Robin sits up slightly in his chair. This room has plenty of chairs and I've got no idea why everyone else is standing up. "Her intel could easily have come from comparing notes with the other villains working for the 'Injustice League'." I glance left and, yes, he did the air quotes gesture.

"Kaldur and I did background checks on everyone after we first heard the accusation." I shake my head and shrug. "No evidence of malfeasance. There are other things we could do, but they're invasive and frankly.. paranoid."

"And think about it." Robin leans back with his hands behind his head. "If anyone was working with those creepoids..."

Kaldur inclines his head slightly. "...he or she would have betrayed us during our fight against them."

"I'm not convinced." Well of course mopey arrow isn't convinced. "Sure Robin, Aqualad and Kid Flash are above suspicion-"

"Thanks."

"-but I know Artemis isn't shooting straight." Isn't the only advantage of a bow over a gun that you don't have to shoot straight? "For starters, she's not Green Arrow's niece."

No shit Sherlock. Kaldur jerks his head around to stare at me. I shrug. "She has a secret identity. You said to just share information you needed, and you didn't need it."

"Your decision was correct." Batman nods slightly. "Though Artemis' relations may make her suspect, in the absence of specific evidence we have no reason to share her true identity without her consent."

"And what about you?" Red Arrow narrows his eyes at me. "We have no way of verifying anything you've told us about where you come from. And you've been getting friendly with Lex Luthor."

"Two points to consider in my defence. Firstly, I spent the week before last as a physical god. Assuming that I'd stayed true to whatever cause I was betraying you to, there was absolutely no reason for me not to off the lot of you. Believe me, it was well within our abilities. Secondly, Kaldur used the Lasso of Truth on me during our initial investigation. I don't remember exactly what I said-" I look at him for confirmation. "-but apparently it was quite convincing."

Kaldur thinks for a moment. "You said that you would only think it correct to betray the team in a situation where to do so would serve the greater good in a way that massively outstripped the harm done, and that you were aware of no such situation currently existing." Huh. Not exactly the declaration of camaraderie I was hoping for. "You also said that you were not capable of betraying Superboy, regardless of the situation." Orange light for the win. "Then you tried to explain some point of moral philosophy. Something about 'believing in the ideal and not the idol'? I'm afraid that by that stage you had become fairly incoherent."

I look at the others. "Well, I'm convinced."

"Then what about Miss Martian?" Red Arrow's really got the bit in his teeth at the moment. "She is Manhunter's niece, but he told Black Canary he has a few hundred nieces and nephews. And the first time he met M'gann was five months ago, when she stowed away on his last trip from Mars to Earth."

Hah! I grin. I didn't know that she'd done that. Kaldur remains impassive. "This changes nothing." He folds his arms across his chest. "I have fought side by side with these people. None, are traitors."

"Though.. there are techniques for bypassing agency. Kon was nearly the victim of one. Might be worth getting M'gann and Mister King to have a look at all of our brains." I think for a moment. "Actually, it wouldn't be a bad idea to make that a regular thing for all of us."

Kaldur thinks for a moment. "Members of the League of Shadows were routinely being issued with wards to block scrying. Might enemies with the capacity to use magic be gathering information that way?"

I look at Batman. "Please tell me this mountain's warded." A small shake of the head. Ah, poop. "Well, I could get someone in to fix that, but you might be happier if Mister Zatara did it instead. Scrying wards for League members -including when they're in their civilian identities- might also be a good idea. Aside from magic and telepathy... The greenies and I can scan for implants or nanotechnology. I suppose... Parallel universe duplicates? Are they a thing?"

Batman considers. "Though I haven't ever encountered one, your presence here suggests that they could be."

"Could the problem be on the League end?"

"I performed thorough background checks on every League member. All of them are loyal to the organization."

"A robotic engineer who had studied either myself or my brother or sister could duplicate our bodies, and we are not susceptible to telepathic interrogation." It's weird how someone Red Tornado's size can fade into the background just by being silent and stationary. "I have upgraded our security protocols to ensure that the technique our father used to ensure my siblings' obedience will no longer function."

"I don't suppose we managed to get Onyx during the last round of arrests?"

Batman shakes his head again. "Both she and Bane are still at large. We're monitoring his factory on Santa Prisca, but it doesn't appear to be in operation."

Robin leans forwards. "How about Brain? We know he had contact with both Wotan and the Ultra-Humanite."

"Gerard Shu-gel." He scowls at me.

"Nothing as yet, though all League members are on the alert for any information on their whereabouts." Silence descends. I can't think of anything to add to the discussion. After a moment Batman raises his head. "On the basis that we have no hard evidence, I think it would be best to proceed on the assumption that there is no mole. I'll ask Zatara to contact you with regards to the cave's arcane defenses. Dismissed."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Displaced

1st November
21:09 GMT -4

I dash up the dingy theatre aisle, ignoring the stares from the other members of the audience. Behind me on the stage some wizened thespian witters through Prospero's lines. Listening to Shakespeare while wearing a power ring is a strange experience; Elizabethan English really isn't modern English and half the time the ring decides that it needs to be translated. That amusement was just about the only thing keeping me interested, which is probably why I was the one who noticed Ms Reilly get up and head for the exit. The body I built for her doesn't creak in the way that Red Tornado's does and it can move pretty darn fast. By the time I'd clambered past Mister Grant and Jay and Joan Garrick she had already left the auditorium. The ring can track her easily enough but I can't use it to just appear at her location with all of these people around.

I slow to a jog as I pass through the corridor to the main lobby. Funny thing, it's actually quite difficult for a group of superheroes to get together out of hours. One camera taking a picture of a group of people with a particular set of physical characteristics when they're spending time together, one person realising that those people bear a remarkable resemblance to another group... It's even worse when the group in question includes people like Diana, Jay and me who don't have secret identities. Jay can just about get away with it this far from Keystone City, Diana wore a shawl, coat and big dark glasses and I avoided wearing orange but one little burst of FTL and I blow it for Alan and the others.

Through the main door and out onto the street, turning left. Ms Reilly has slowed to a walking pace but is steadily heading away from the theatre, and not in the direction of the nearest zeta tube. Red Tornado is back in the mountain, so...

"Ms Reilly!"

She slows slightly and I hurry to catch up. Not many people on this street during performances and her name isn't really a risk factor. Would someone recognise her, and so me and then the others? I'd have thought not, but the risk... I really don't like this secrecy. She comes to a full stop as I catch up and move ahead of her. Her face is completely still. She has a program for generating organic Human facial expressions but she appears to have it deactivated. I watch her for a moment, hoping for a clue as to the cause of her behaviour.

"You can call me Danette. Or Danni. I don't think it would be inappropriate."

"Um. Right. Danette. Is there... What's wrong?"

"Do you know how many times I have watched The Tempest?"

"No. I know Jay said it was your favourite..."

"I remember having watched it on seven occasions. First, in nineteen thirty one. Then nineteen thirty six, thirty eight, twice in nineteen forty, then forty two and forty four."

"Right?"

"How old am I?"

"I.. suppose it depends when you count from?"

"Danette Reilly's records say that she was born in nineteen twenty five. In fact I was first activated in nineteen forty two."

"So you couldn't have-."

"Seen those plays. Yes. The annoying thing is that the memories aren't even that detailed. I can manually access the files now. Those I really saw I can describe in perfect detail, every word, action, every stage direction. If I had to I could recreate the whole performance. For those that were part of my false background Father simply entered a review cut from a local paper. It's just a text file. Wesley asked me about the first time I saw it when I was a member of the Justice Society and I just blithely regurgitated the file without dwelling on the lack of detail. When we were in the theater just now Joan asked me the same thing and I nearly gave the same response."

"Ahhh..."

"What is perhaps worse is that the performances I do remember appear to be shorn of emotional context. I remember that I thought Ariel's enslavement was unjust. I can see my own reasoning, the false memories and implanted beliefs which led me to that conclusion. I simply don't feel the connection to it any more. It is as if I am reading an essay on the subject written by someone else."

"How do you feel about the things you've done since being.. reactivated..?" Not a good choice of word there.

"Distress. Loss. Uncertainty. Danette-. I didn't used to feel those things."

"But that means that you can still feel. Doctor Morrow didn't remove your capacity for emotion completely. You can still make a new life."

She turns to the road, head held straight. "Red Tornado believes that he can reinstate the program which caused me to interpret the data as memories, not as computer files. It is still active in our elder brother. It would likely allow me to become more like Danette once more, at the cost of becoming more deluded. I am tempted by the offer, but at the same time I do realize that this might simply be a transitional state. He said it was something I would have to decide for myself, but I find that since I am unable to trust my own recollections I have no sound basis for doing so." She turns her head to look at me. "Which do you believe would be the better course of action?"

"They're both a bit rubbish. Are there no other choices?"

"Yes. The most tempting choice of all would be to erase all memory since my reactivation and then reinstate the program. I would have to create a believable explanation for my resurrection and convince everyone who knows me to go along with it. But..." She stands there for ten seconds, completely still and saying nothing. She doesn't have to breathe unless she wants to speak, and at the moment she isn't. "Danette could be happy with the result."

"No. Absolutely not. Killing yourself is not the answer."

"It would not precisely be suicide."

"But if you have the program restored, you're effectively altering your mind to become a new person. You wouldn't be you anymore, it's close enough." I take a moment to think it through. "If the choice is a comforting delusion or an uncomfortable truth, I'd choose truth. That's part of why I'm an atheist. If you want.. help, making happier memories... I've got lots of spare time if there's something you want to do."

"Danette had few-."

"No. Don't worry about what Danette would have thought. Your problem appears to be you thinking you 'should' be Danette when.. from what you're saying.. there never really was a Danette." She tilts her head slightly to the side. "Alright, look. Hiding up in Red Tornado's penthouse is not a good way to accustomise yourself to the new 'you'. If you're seriously considering wiping your mind anyway there wouldn't be any harm in it."

"That.. makes sense. Do you have something particular in mind?"

"Batman's going to be occupied with.. um... Dealing with the fallout from us destroying the League of Shadows-" Technically true. And it might be properly true as well. I was pretty busy myself after Infinity Island. "-for the next week or so, and he told me it would be helpful if I could spend some time in Gotham. Not just doing crime prevention, but learning to interact with civilians and with conventional law enforcement while on the job. If you're interested in getting back into that sort of thing... Well, actually, if you don't have a better idea, it's as good a place as any to start."

"Are you aware that I cannot fly without setting fire to whatever is below me?"

"Not a problem. You can try using a flight belt, I can float you by ring, and you're easily strong enough and light enough to parkour it."

Stillness again. Then she turns to face me and in a smooth motion steps close and puts her arms around my chest, her head resting on my right shoulder. I freeze for a moment before reciprocating. "Thank you."

"You're.. welcome. Not that I miiind, but..?"

"It feels... Appropriate."

"Um. Okay. Dooo you want to see the rest of the play?"

"No. I believe I am content here."

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th November
19:22 GMT -4

"Really? Because I always thought Jay was his actual name."

"He does not use 'Jason' often. I only heard it once when Joan scolded him."

"Whaw. Learn something new every day."

Danni and I are hovering about three hundred metres above the streets of Gotham at the end of a busy but not particularly intense week. Lots of gangs and petty criminals, no one who can really stand up to a super gynoid or a Lantern. I've had more one liner practice than combat practice. Only bumped into Commissioner Gordon once, after Garfield Lynns tried using his flamethrower on Danni. It's a bit weird meeting someone famous like him in the flesh, because there's really nothing special about the interaction. I presented my credentials, handed over my recordings and that was it.

It was fortunate that Danni's pyrokinetic abilities work on other people's fires as well. She wouldn't have been seriously hurt, but I'm not sure I could rebuild her skin to quite the standard I did while merged with the Ophidian. I think I remember the weakness being intentional, to allow her to use the same chassis in both civilian and professional modes. She's currently wearing an armoured costume based on her Red Inferno chassis but following the contours of her Firebrand outfit.

I decided that under the circumstances I wouldn't comment on the mask.

"I have been meaning to ask you something."

"Go right ahead."

Gotham's a lot less scary when you're a Lantern. The ability to walk right up to a gang, politely ask them to lower their weapons and then sigh disappointedly when they shoot you has really helped me get over any remaining difficulties I'd had with social confrontation. And even though we've only been here four days, street crime has noticeably decreased. Power ring scans just own.

"I have noticed that when you and the Ophidian constructed this body you made it anatomically accurate, for a woman of my dimensions."

Hm. I don't feel embarrassed about it, but this could be a little awkward. "Yes? Wasn't.. that how it was when you were first constructed?"

"No. Areas which were unlikely to be on display were designed to be accurate in outline only. Now, my breasts hang naturally." She awkwardly shifts the upper part of her torso. There's a slight jiggle. "It is a strange sensation."

"Wouldn't someone have noticed?"

"When I joined the Justice Society I was the only female member, so there was little chance I would have been unmasked in the changing rooms. As for other sorts of physical interaction, it was the forties, and I was unmarried."

"What if you'd been injured?"

"In the event of a minor injury I was programmed to conceal it, repair myself and then forget that I had done so. In the event of major injuries I was programmed to enter a fugue state and signal Father."

And when she 'died' the other members of the Society covered up her true nature. They didn't know that she was one of Morrow's, but it didn't take them long to find out that her background was nonsense. Jay and Alan were so overjoyed to discover that she was back among the living I was concerned that they might have heart attacks.

"My skin is now far more sensitive than it was originally. What was the reason for that design choice?"

"A 'pure' AI wouldn't care much about the body it animates. It's just a tool, its true self is its mind. You're a gynoid. From what Red Tornado told me, your identity is more tied up with the state of your body, so we wanted to give you one that would enable you to fit in."

"A sensible goal, but that does not explain the level of detail. The patterns of sensitivity on my skin appear to match those of an organic woman. It is not merely my sense of touch that has improved. I appear to have erogenous zones now, including a vagina which so far as I can tell would allow me to engage in penetrative sexual intercourse. Furthermore, I believe that modifications made to my neural network would allow me to..." She blinks. "Enjoy.. the sensation. That was certainly not part of my original design."

"Is it a problem?"

"It is... No, it is not a problem. I was simply curious as to your motivations."

"I'm not really sure, to be honest. Now that I'm not merged with the Ophidian anymore, not everything we did together makes sense to me. I suppose... I mean, psychologically, sex is quite important to Humans, and since you're designed to mimic us..."

"Ah."

I don't think we did it because we particularly desired her ourselves. I just think that given the choice between hot robot girl and clunky robot androgyny, given that both would be equally powerful in combat, we went for the hot one without any particular personal designs in mind. I'm not.. completely sure, however. My instinctive understanding of my own desires only extends to current desires. And-.

Oh, thank goodness, a cat burglar. I have the ring magnify my vision and see a young woman in black jogging bottoms and black hoodie scurrying over the rooftops below us, awkwardly carrying a large rectangle, also covered in black. It's got straps on it but the size and shape mean that she can't easily manoeuvre it while remaining concealed.

"Looks like someone's out for a night time run along the rooftops. Along with.. a Jackson Pollock currently insured for three million dollars." Why, I couldn't say. Just looks like a mess to me.

"I see her." Danni's mechanical eyes have the full range of augmentations the Ophidian and I were able to copy from STAR Labs and fit into them. "What is her name?"

"Ring says..." Actually, the ring's having a little trouble. Looks like someone's been trying to stay off the grid. Ah, there we are. "Holly Robinson, seventeen years of age. Not currently registered as attending any local schools." I think I remember her. Wasn't she Catwoman for a bit? Of course, I can't assume that relationship exists here. I haven't really spent any time looking at Ms Kyle's background, partly because she isn't that significant and partly because I didn't want to step on Batman's toes.

"That's a shame. Does she possess any unusual abilities?"

"No. Baseline Human, though given that we haven't picked up the theft being reported she must be a reasonably accomplished thief."

"Shall we apprehend her?"

I tense my right cheek. "A bit overkill for us both to go. How about I get this one and you stay on stati-?" An alarm pierces the night, swiftly followed by what I've learned to recognise as a fire brigade siren. "That one's for you then." Danni nods, turns, and flies off in the direction of the alarm. She got the hang of the belt much faster than the rest of us -Kaldur excluded- did. It turned out that I hadn't got Artemis' belt wrong, she'd just been wearing it upside down. I'd forgotten that girls' belts usually buckle the other way around.

Now, what's the best way to apprehend Ms Robinson?

The world flickers around me and I'm standing on a roof a little above her current position across a narrow passageway. The ring lets me watch as she jumps a cluster of ventilation pipes and accelerates to leap across the gap. The additional drag from the painting slows her but she looks like she's going to make it until she spots my glow and jerks just as she gets to the edge. Without enough time to stop she jumps but her lack of momentum results in her only just grabbing hold of the edge of the roof and slamming into the wall painfully with her chest.

I walk over to the edge and look down at her. I've never been much of a fan of heights myself. I put my right foot on the lip of the building and bend, resting my forearms on my knee. "Good evening, Miss Robinson. May I offer you a hand up?"

"Gh! Duh!" She tries to get a better grip, but can't quite manage it. Her legs try to find purchase, but it's a fairly flat bit of wall.

"I think you'd survive the fall, but it would hurt a lot and you'd probably break a bone or two." I crouch slightly and place my right hand on her left wrist. She flinches slightly, then tightens her grip on the wall as she starts to slip. Once she's reassured herself that she isn't immediately going to fall she risks looking up at me.

"I know you. You're Orange Lantern."

"Nice to be recognised."

"You're the idiot who made that giant cake in New York. Are you even allowed out on your own?"

I blink, then move my hand away from her a little. "I can just leave you to fall, you know?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th November
19:26 GMT -4

"No you can't!"

"Why not?"

"It's..! It's, like, against the superhero code or something!"

I pantomime astonishment. "There's a code?"

"Yes!"

"No one told me."

"Everyone knows superheroes can't do stuff like that!"

"Isn't that basically the same as saying that no one's ever found out about a superhero doing it?" I look around. "Don't.. see any cameras..." Her eyes widen and her breaths become rapid and shallow. Might have been a bit much, but that should motivate her to move this time. I move my right hand back and take hold of her wrist. "Well?"

She thinks for a second, then pulls up just enough that she can grip my right wrist with her left hand. I'm not even using the ring at this point; she's not all that heavy and I'm easily strong enough to lift her weight. I pull up and step back and she scrabbles up onto the rooftop, releasing my wrist just as soon as she has solid roof underneath her. I move away from her a little to give her some space to recover as I try to decide what the best way to handle her situation is. I'm not sure exactly what the penalty for the theft she's committed is, but I'm confident it would involve prison time. I ensured that Jade would get out in a matter of months and thought it was a good deed despite her almost certainly being a murderer. It seems a bit hypocritical to send someone to prison for stealing what is frankly an ugly and overvalued piece of canvas. On the other hand, letting her walk off with it is probably a non-starter. I wonder if she's-.

"Hey!" She's crouching slightly as if ready to lunge or run, and she's.. got a knife in her right hand? I peer at it in puzzlement. What exactly is that going to achie-? "Step aside, and no one gets hurt!"

"You do know I.. have a power ring, right?" I hold up my left hand, palm towards her, and point it out. "Tiny knife..." I gesture at it with my right hand. "Xenotech super tool." And back to the ring.

She's still staring at me, and... Ah. She's shaking. I can see the yellow wafting around her. She wipes her eyes one at a time with her left hand, not daring to look away. "I ain't... I ain't going to jail."

My right forefinger taps my chin. "Gotham prisons don't have the best reputation, it's true. Prob.. bably wouldn't help rehabilitate you. On the other hand-."

She swiftly pulls the painting off her back and holds the knife to it. "Let me go, or the painting gets it."

"Look, what were you even going to get for stealing that?"

"Ah, if you, like, want a cut..?"

"I'm pretty sure that's against the rules. I'm just curious."

She stands there for a moment. "Nine hundred bucks."

"Whaw. I knew the mark down on stolen property was big, but that thing's insured for three million."

"It is? Fuckin' Lenny-." Her eyes go wide again.

"That would be.. Leonard Seeley? Pawnbroker with several convictions for receiving stolen goods?" Her head shakes a little, but her brain activity says otherwise. "Is that stolen to order, or just a target of opportunity?"

"Ah, I'm not sayin' anything else without a lawyer."

"Because superheroes are known for their observance of the niceties of due process. Look, h-how do you see this going? If you somehow actually manage to stab the painting, all that happens is that you've committed a more serious crime than you have already."

"You can't let me. If it's worth that much money, it's too important for you to risk letting me cut it up."

"I'm not.. really an art person."

Another pulse of yellow. "What?"

"Is this one of those superhero rules I don't know? The picture's ugly and it's insured." I shrug. "Frankly I'm.. not that bothered about it."

"You're bluffing. You gotta be!"

"Mmmmmmnnnnoooo? Honestly, I don't care about the painting. I'm more concerned about what happens to you next. I am provisionally prepared to accept that the chance of Blackgate rehabilitating you is so low that there isn't any point in sending you there. How's about you put the painting down and we discuss your future like rational people?" I try smiling, but with all of the yellow around I think that subtle body language isn't what is required. Eye contact and nodding? Eye contact and nodding. Huh, that actually worked. She shifts her knife to the side a little and lifts the bag's strap over her head before gently setting it down on the ground. She keeps a hand on the knife and her eyes on me the whole way. "Thank you."

"Soo... I can go?"

"Nno? Like I said, I'm not interested in the painting. That's really just a macguffin."

"What.. are you interested in?"

"You."

Her eyes flick to the side and she shuffles uncomfortably. "Oh. Um. I don't... I don't know..."

"See, it occurs to me that you don't really have a way out of your current predicament. Not just me, even if I wasn't here, you hand over the painting, you make a fraction of its value... You have no qualifications, every theft makes getting legitimate employment harder and you live in the same city as Batman. If you steal enough things he will come looking for you and however good you are, you are not better than him. I'd like to offer you a way out." That gets a little attention. "I can probably make the theft and breaking and entering charges go away and I can pay you a sum of-."

"Okay." Huh? She seems to wilt slightly as she puts the knife back in her belt. She's gone from staring at my face to looking at the ground. Defeated? Why would..? "Suppose I don't really have a lot of choice."

"I suppose not. So what I was thinking-."

She pulls her hoodie over her head and drops it to the ground, revealing a grey and slightly foxed t-shirt. She looks a bit scrawny, and the ring suggests that she isn't getting a healthy mix of vitamins. Making a project of improving her life is going to be so much easier with her not being in prison why is she taking her t-shirt off? I play back the last chunk of conversation just as I get proof that she isn't wearing a bra. Oh! I avert my eyes and put my right hand over them just to be on the safe side. "That wasn't what I meant! That wasn't what I meant!"

"Huh?"

"Did you really think I'd just drop down and tell you to... You're seventeen, for goodness sake!"

"You w-? Oh." I hear material sliding as she swiftly redresses. "Um, yeah, that was just... Um. So, you weren't telling me to..?"

"No!"

"Oh. 'Cause it sure sounded like-."

"Clearly I haven't adjusted my ears for Gotham yet." I rub the hand covering my eyes across my face. "Normally when something like this happens I offer to hug the other, um, don't.. think that's really appropriate here. Wait." I remove my hand and look at her. "This hasn't happened before, has it?"

"Not... No, not like this."

Right. Real crime. Sexual exploitation of the marginalised and vulnerable. No silly costumes, just lives getting ruined. I've only seen the headlines of how bad Miss Robinson's life is. If I'm going to do something about it...

"Have you had dinner yet?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th November
19:44 GMT -4

"So how come you get one with meat and I don't?"

"Because, Miss Robinson, among a power ring's abilities is the ability to restructure the wearer's body. I can eat what I like. You, on the other hand, are showing signs of vitamin deficiency and therefore I'm taking it upon myself to improve your diet. Starting now."

Miss Robinson pokes at what I believe to be a piece of squash with her fork. Finding a restaurant good enough to be worth eating at but empty enough for us to be able to get a table without reservations was easy enough for the ring, though I doubt it was the sort of thing the Maltusians had in mind when they created them. This branch of Tikka Nights has won praise from local food critics but hasn't been open long enough to have developed a regular crowd yet. Having tried their food I can say with certainty that they're missing out.

After notifying Danni of my intention I changed into my grey-with-orange-trimming casuals and transported myself, Miss Robinson and the painting to within easy walking distance. It's resting against the side of her chair now. She spears the squash cube, lifts it off the plate and looks at it for a moment before reluctantly putting it into her mouth and gingerly chewing it.

"Well?" She nods, then scoops up a larger load onto her fork and adds it to her current mouthful. "Glad you agree. Well, while you can't talk, here's what I want to happen next. I want you to write a report explaining exactly how you were able to bypass the security of the manor from which you removed the painting. Once you've done that, I will go there, repair the property, return the picture and deliver the report."

"Wuy?" She swallows. "Why bother doing that?" Another scoop is rapidly directed towards her mouth.

"Because you're hardly a master thief. If you could break in, so could someone else. This being Gotham, there's a good chance that such a person wouldn't limit themselves to merely stealing a painting. Aaand the people you stole it from are less likely to complain if they gain something from the process." Oh, they got the texture of this lamb just right. I've got to try and bring the others here some time. "Once that's happened, you're going to tell me the names of the people who would have been involved in fencing it so that I can monitor them. This is a big step up for Mister Seeley and I think I should make it my business to knock him back down." Miss Robinson wilts. "Then, I will give you three hundred thousand dollars in cash."

I get a shield up just in time to catch the spray as the sudden shock results in her swallowing vegetable curry into the airway. I pour her a glass of water and pass it to her while she finishes her coughing.

"T-thanks." She takes a gulp as the ring cleans the blast zone, then tries to get her breath back. "Um. That's... That's a lot of money."

"Ten percent of the insured value of the painting. Of course, there are going to be conditions attached. Though, compared with.. what you.. thought.. I wanted, probably not very onerous ones."

"Ughuum. Uhuuh. What..? What exactly..?"

"I become your... Parole officer? Sponsor? I'm doing this so you can sort your life out, the downside is that you have to sort your life out. Any recidivism at all and I send a file to the Gotham police. Or possibly Batman."

"Any what?"

"Recidi-. Backsliding. Criminality above the level of the utterly trivial. If you can give me a better idea of your skill set I will assist you in gaining legitimate employment. Alternately.. you could work for me, but the only thing I need around here is an informant and frankly.. my need for that isn't exactly great."

"Right..." Another sip of water, a quiet cough to clear her throat and then she starts at her food again.

"Whatever you choose I will be checking up on you at least once a week."

"Do I..." Ew! Not with your mouth full! "Do you want me to get a job right away? 'Cause three hundred thou is more money than..."

"No, but I would encourage you to prioritise it. Having something productive to occupy your time will make the transition to productive citizen much smoother."

"So-" She looks at me with a thoughtful expression on her face. "-how rich are you, anyway?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You just gave three hundred thousand dollars to a girl you've just met as if it wasn't even a thing."

"Alright. Um, it depends how you count it. I've got about five million dollars in cash, but in addition to that I'm the only person currently mining this star system's asteroid belts. If I fully realised that asset..." Ring? Oh. "Which I couldn't because that much money doesn't exist. Um... About five times richer than the Earth."

"No way."

"If you really doubt it I can take you to see them at some-."

There's a white blur and the waiter disappears. I whip my head around to catch sight of the other diners vanishing in the same way, and the crashing from the kitchen suggests that it's happened there too. The Spell Eater at my chest starts getting warm. Oh heck, if that's a magic effect then... No, it's cooling again.

"What happened! Where'd they go?!"

I hear a crash from outside. No, more than one crash. And screaming. Need to go! "Miss Robinson, finish your dinner, then go home and stay there." I push back my chair as I replace my clothes with my armour.

"But where'd everyone-?"

"I don't know. I have to go and find out." An orange line makes contact with the bag containing the painting and deposits it into subspace.

"Hey! You could just have-!"

"Yes, I could. Excuse me. "

A flicker and I'm high in the air over Gotham. I can't see any unexpected glowing or anything else that might indicate a source for what I just saw. Streams of traffic look.. stationary. I can see fires on the Vincefinkel Bridge to the south. Is someone attacking it? "Danni, you there?" Nothing. "Orange Lantern two eight one four to Red Infer-. Uh, Firebrand, please respond." Nothing again. Ring, find Red Inferno.

Unable to locate.

Up to me then. Another flicker and I'm above the bridge. This isn't my first time responding to a crash, but there doesn't appear to be a single vehicle here that remained under control. My eyes flick over cars and lorries that have anything from a minor dent to being complete write offs. As I look them over I unavoidably see the injured and... I don't know that they're dead, but there isn't a lot of movement from the more ruined cars. Batman was right about focusing on individuals, it really doesn't help keep you in the right frame of mind. First, the fires have to go. Hundreds of filaments radiate from my body, miniature freeze guns seeking out the heat of the flames and neutralising it. I try and have a more detailed look so that I can start freeing the trapped as I connect to the emergency services. Claw constructs shimmer into being and begin cutting through car frames and hurling ruined metal over the sides of the bridge. No one's answering. Are they just inundated? Someone must have reported this, right?

Then it hits me. The cars... The drivers' seats are all empty. I'm not seeing... No adults. No, wait. I see a young man staring in terror at a metal bar sticking through the thankfully unoccupied passenger seat of his car. Ring, how old..?

Samuel Barns, seventeen years of age.

Same age as Miss Robinson. Ring, scan Gotham and detect anyone other than me more than seventeen years old.

None found.

Shit. Ring, detect any adults in the world.

Thirty thousand seven hundred ninety two found.

Where?

All are located on Themyscira.

Not much help there then. I look across the wreckage and scan for corpses. Twenty nine. Assuming this is replicated on every road on the planet... I'm looking at one small part of the worst single act of mass murder in Human history.

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th November
19:53 GMT -4

I managed to heal the five worst wounded before I no longer want to heal them sufficiently to help them.

"Mountain to Orange Lantern."

I just... I don't, I can't identify with them. I'm using an orange ring. They aren't mine in the way that my team mates and Alan are. Should I feel worse about that? I don't know any of these children, I don't identify with this city. My revulsion at their injuries just got overwhelmed, compassion clouding out my avarice. There's just so many...

"Come in Orange Lantern."

The rest... There're some with broken bones, but no one else is going to die here. And that's not true for the rest of Gotham, let alone the world. I remember now, the storyline with that Genie... What was it called? Bedlam? At the behest of a child it created a replica Earth and sent all of the adults to it before altering the child's mind so that it wouldn't reverse the wish.

I raise the ring to my ear. "Orange Lantern here. Go ahead, Robin."

"Oh El! You're still here?"

"Oldest man in the world, I know."

"How come?"

"Not sure. My Spell Eater warmed up when it happened, but if the other adults haven't returned the effect of the spell is probably ongoing and it should have overloaded by now. Have you been able to track the source?"

"Not yet, but we're working on it."

"I'm going to go into orbit, see if I can see anything."

"Hey, mister?"

"Good idea."

"Then there's.. ah... There're a few people I could bring in to help." Robert, obviously, but I should also stop off in Poseidonis and get anyone who knows how to scry. William Batson... Gemma, I need to check on Gemma! John's usual opponents are just the sort to try something at a time like this.

"Who do you have in mind?"

"Captain Marvel's probably the most important."

"Ah, Captain Marvel's an adult, Oh El."

"Captain Marvel's ten. He ages up when he transforms."

"No way!"

"Hey, do you know where my Mom is?"

I don't look at the child. She's a toddler, wrapped up well against the cold. Even with the ring on minimal effectiveness I could still help here. I think that would be the Human thing to do, to help the people in front of me. But the only way to fix this on the global scale on which it's happening is to shut down the spell at its source. Though it's an easy decision from a utilitarian standpoint I'm still Human enough to be more affected by the suffering I can see and I really don't want to have the ring show me the global suffering that would be necessary to force a desire shift. It's a knife edge balance I can't risk completely ruining by giving in to compassion.

"No, but I'm going to try to find out. Be good until she gets back."

"Ah, oka-."

A flicker and I'm looking down on the world from orbit. A degree of the psychic pressure disappears and for the first time I can sort of see where Danni was coming from; it can be nice not to know why you think a certain thing. Nice to delude yourself that it's a rational decision and not a conditioned response. Three orbits should be enough, and my non-FTL flight is much faster, post Ophidian merger.

Ring, scan for anything more weird looking than normal. And find me Robert Marrack, William Batson and Gemma Masters.

Compliance.

"Scan in progress. Nothing obvious in North America." Robert's in costume, running down a street in Truro. Looks like a gang of teenagers are looting an off-licence. He should be able to cope with them easily. "Nothing happening in northern Russia or the North Pole." Except for deaths by exposure. I suppose that's more likely to be a problem in hot places. Gemma's at home, pacing in the living room with the television switched on. The automated stuff is still working, I suppose. "Nothing in Western Europe. Nothing in the North Atlantic." If it wasn't Bedlam then Atlantis is where I'd start looking. At the very least I need to pick up any other Spell Eaters Sephtian was able to finish. Should be a couple by now, right? I've already got some standard magic suppression manacles in subspace storage and Sephtian hasn't finished the design work on the super strength ones yet. "Central America clear. Pacific clear. Central Asia clear." William's shouting at the Fawcett City zeta tube. Ring, override. Add voice and physical appearance files for William Batson to Captain Marvel's record.

Compliance.

"North Africa clear. South America clear. Australasia clear. South Africa clear. South Pole clear. Marvel should be with you in a few moments. I'm heading to Truro. Might be worth Kaldur going to Poseidonis, see if any of the other Conservatory students can help with the scrying. And maybe some more of those nifty anti-magic chains."

"Good thinking. Is this Cornwall guy really going to be able to help?"

"Yes, I'm just not sure how much. I should be back at the mountain within fifteen minutes."

"Recognised, Captain Marvel, one five."

"Okay, stay in touch. Marvel just got he-. No way!"

I take the ring away from my ear and cut the connection. Oh, hang on, what about Squire? I didn't put her on the team list because I didn't want to risk Sir Cyril's sobriety, but for a one off... No. Not essential. Robert first. Space disappears as I make the transition to Quay Street, Truro, just outside the Red Elephant Beer Cellar.

5th November
23:57 GMT

The glass front of the shop is smashed in but mercifully there aren't any crashed cars. Of course, it's the middle of the night here, it should be-.

"Arrrgh!"

"Hah har! Go on, bite 'im Jimmy! Bite 'im good!"

I immediately transition inside. Robert's pinned to the countertop by someone who looks suspiciously like a Nanauvian shark. The sharkman is trying to get an angle that will let him deliver a fatal bite while Robert's trying to push him off. The sharkman -Jimmy, I assume- outmasses him considerably but Robert's lifted larger objects before. I'm not sure why he's struggling. His two accomplices have undergone partial transformations, developing baldness, scales and disturbingly broad and sharp-toothed jaws. One is slamming a till against the wall and the other is chugging a vodka bottle. Vodka bottle spots me first. His eyes go wide and he lowers the bottle.

"'oo tha' fuck are-?"

Shockcrown, shockcrown, manacles.

The two smaller sharkmen collapse and Jimmy is wrenched off Robert and suspended in the air.

"Put me down you landlubbing prick! I'll eat your arms and legs and leave you for the seagulls! I'll piss on-!"

Ring, muzzle. "Robert, you alright?"

He pushes himself off the countertop onto the ground. "Yeah mate. Yeah. Thanks."

"Who are these idiots?"

"Jimmy," He gestures to the suspended sharkman. "Stevey" Till. "and Richey." Vodka. "The Fearsome Fish-Eaters."

I've heard worse. "Can they do anything other than shapeshifting?"

He shakes his head. "Mate, they can barely write their own names." He straightens up and brushes ground glass off his cape. "You got any idea where all the adults have gone?"

"No, but we're working on it. And when I say 'we', I mean you as well." I extend my right hand to him. "Welcome to the team."

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th November
23:59 GMT

"Obviously I wish it were under better circumstances..."

He looks at my hand, then at my face, then at the ground. "The Justice League have gone too, then?"

"Except Captain Marvel, yes."

He nods and takes my hand. "Right then. What's our next step?"

"Before we get to that, are you on top form? Because I've seen you lift-."

"I know!" He turns away for a moment. "Aarh! Ugh. You know that altar thing Dad and me draw power from?"

"I wasn't sure exactly which object in the reliquary it was, but yes, I know what you mean."

"When there's two of us, two 'Cornwall' superheroes, it gives each of us less power. What Dad and me get now is half what he got when it was just him. When I went down there.. I must have got woken up by whatever spell made them disappear.. tried to connect to it... Maybe half of that?"

Curious. If this is this continuity's version of A World Without Grown-Ups then the adults have been transported to a newly created duplicate Earth. I would have expected ancient magic effects to stay behind, for Robert to be a fully powered solo Captain Cornwall. If that hasn't happened..? Maybe it's like that episode of Star Trek Voyager where the ship gets replicated except for one substance in the engine which can't be copied by the technique employed? Or maybe both versions of the altar report two users to the same underlying spell, which then counts it as four users?

"I don't suppose you can just charge yourself twice?"

He turns back around. "I had tried that, that's not how it works. It gives me power constantly at a steady rate for a set amount of time. If I trigger it again it just restarts the timer."

"Really? I assumed that it gave you a reservoir which you expended."

"No. If it did that it wouldn't matter if Dad and me shared."

"What happens if you build up power but don't use it?"

"Then we can keep going for a bit after the time runs out." He stores it? That shouldn't... He knows almost nothing about spell casting, there's no records of accidental discharges... He shouldn't be able to do that. He might have an innate ability like the Zataras have, but that wouldn't.. be.. linked.. to the altar. Just the male members of the family. Oh. Might be on to something there.

"It doesn't matter, I can still-."

I pull Jimmy down to our level. "Had an idea. This lot didn't look like this earlier. Their change is magic-based, right?"

"Yeah, think so. Why?"

"Try doing what you do to the altar, to them."

"What? That wouldn't do anything."

"Then there's no reason not to try it. I've got a theory, and it's dead easy to test." He starts to protest and I make a placatory gesture with my hands. "I wouldn't delay us if it wasn't important."

"Alright, if you say so." He steps up to the madly glaring Jimmy and holds out his hands. Jimmy's renewed efforts to break free meet with no success. "So, normally I'd-."

Jimmy collapses through my bonds, returned to the Human form I saw on my initial scan. He gapes and I shockcrown him before he can do anything. Robert's staring at his hands. "Well, that's new."

"It also explains why your Uncle Julian cast the spells that he did. He wasn't trying to cause an earthquake, he was trying to soak power from the ley line network and the earthquake was a side effect."

"So, what? I'm getting power from Jimmy like from the altar?"

"Probably. How does it feel?"

He clenches his right fist and a gauntlet of black stone forms around it for a moment before disintegrating.

"Stronger than it was? I think? I don't know, it's not like when I get power from the altar."

"I think -and we need to study this later to be sure- that you just ingested all of the power maintaining his transformation. It's a fixed amount; you're not continuing to drain him because there's no spare magic." I hoik Richey and Stevey off the ground. "Drain them, and we can dump them in the countryside somewhere on our way to Liverpool."

He nods and repeats his gesture. The two sharkmen swiftly revert. "Why're we going there?"

"The niece of a friend of mine lives there. She has some knowledge of magic and I'm worried that she's going to overreach herself if she doesn't have supervision."

"So, are we flying?"

"No. FTL transfer. One moment." I raise the ring to my ear. "Orange Lantern to cave. I've got Cornwall and am proceeding to Liverpool. Any news?"

"Zatanna's studying the spell her dad used to find the Injustice League. Hey, um, that thing you gave him-?"

"Until we know who's doing this I wouldn't know what sort of focusing aid to find."

"Right. Kaldur's in Atlantis and the rest of the team's in Happy Harbor helping out. Uh, M'gann was wondering: has this spread to Mars?"

"Don't know, I'd have to go there to check. I'll do it if I've got time."

"Right. Cave out."

"Who was that?"

"That was Robin. Stand by for-."

"Robin as in Batman-and-Robin Robin?"

The mask he's wearing makes it a little tricky to read his facial expression, but he sounds incredulous. "Yes. Transfer in two.. one."

We flicker into being over a woodland just north of Bodmin. No one around and it should take them a good few hours to make the walk to the nearest village once they regain the ability to move. I drop them and let the constructs fade. "You alright? Some people get a bit queasy when I do this?"

"We just..? Faster than light?"

"Yes. I'd teleport us but the North doesn't have any zeta tubes. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Scanning target loc- ohhh dear."

"What?"

"The ring's showing me the area around her home." I generate a construct to show him the row of terraced houses.

"I hadn't realised obesity was that bad in Liverpool. And why are they all hanging around outside her house?"

"Those aren't Liverpudlians. Those are Praexis Demons."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6th November
00:04 GMT

"Dad told me about them. They feed on misery, right?"

"Yes, but that doesn't explain why they're there, and why they're so fat. If it was midday or evening and everyone knew about the separation it would make sense, they'd be rolling in misery. In the middle of the night?"

"Are they really going to be a problem? They're suppose to be really weak."

"Weak to a superhero, or even a healthy adult. To a city full of sleeping children?"

"Oh. What's the plan, then?"

"We go there and kill all of them. Drain them if you can, punch them in the face if you can't. I'll assimilate a couple and see if they've got anything useful to say."

"Err, kill them?"

"Demons aren't legally people, I checked. And destroying their bodies would probably just send their spirits back to hell anyway. Also, city full of sleeping children."

"Right, yeah."

"I'm going to drop you here, just down the road from them. I'll be on the other side about five metres up in the air. I'm pretty much going to leave you to it unless it looks like you're being overwhelmed, you alright with that?" He nods. "Good. Transition in three.. two.. one."

The scenery flickers as I deposit him on the road, check he isn't being ill, then transfer to the other side of the mob and get my first look at them with my own eyes. Our targets are about a metre and a half tall, broader than a Human would be and disgustingly fat. Their bellies flop over their loincloths in a way that makes me nauseous to even think about, their arms are tubes of fat barely held together with skin, they waddle on legs whose knees are concealed by ugggghhhh. I vaguely remember this breed from Hellblazer but I don't remember any detail. Their heads are round, their eyes small and glowing red and their mouths are broad and sharp toothed. They don't appear to have cheeks but have no trouble opening and closing them.

Why are they here?

One at the far end has waddled in the direction of Robert. It stops about three metres away, sniffs at him, then opens its mouth and lets out a sort of hissing wheeze. Robert sticks out his hands and with a look of total confusion on its face it goes from bloated to emaciated in less than a second. Then it carbonises, catches fire and disintegrates into ash. The sound causes most of the rest of the mob to turn to face him and start moving in his direction, spreading out to encircle him as much as the straight street allows. I project a clamp around one of those who remain behind and pull him over to me, his arms and legs swinging helplessly. His eyes fix on me for a moment and then he tries to look somewhere else. His neck doesn't seem to have much articulation.

"Where is it? The nice taste? Give it to me give-!"

Assimilate.

Identity theft in progress. The Praexis shudders for a moment before the orange light converts it, spreading out from its bloated stomach across its entire body. No resistance detected. "Identity theft complete. Nameless Praexis Demon of Hell, you belong to the Orange Lantern Corps."

"Food? Get food now?"

Why is there an orange sigil on its loin cloth? Ugh... "No, you don't need it anymore, you disgusting abomination."

"Awww.."

"Who summoned you?"

"Don't know. Black. Said there was food. Is there food?"

"No."

"But hungry!"

I spare a moment to check on Robert. The Praexis threatening his position are growling and menacing but not advancing to a closer range than the black spot marking the place where their comrade died. Robert seems to be hesitating. "Cornwall! Get on with it!" He jerks, makes eye contact with me, nods and then raises his hands again and strides forwards. The front ranks of Praexis start to shrivel and with a roar the rest charge him. Teeth and claws... The Praexis aren't all that strong, but a helping hand wouldn't hurt. I fire threads at the legs of the middle of the pack and violently yank them out in all directions, bowling the rear ones over. I'm not sure they can get back up without help. A couple of the front rank leap at him but he steps to the side and punches the closest one in the head, which crumples under the force of the impact. The second waddles a few paces to try and stabilise, manages, grins to himself in satisfaction and then disintegrates as Robert drains him.

"How many more of you are there?"

"Ahhh." He raises his right hand to his mouth. "Some? Many?"

I see what John meant. "Did any of you go anywhere apart from here?"

"Maybe?"

"Why did you come to this house in particular?"

"There's food in there!" He claps his chubby hands together. "Can I eat it now?"

"No."

"But I want to!"

Ring, I need his knowledge but not his personality. Ideas?

Subsuming him into the structure of this ring will allow for full analysis.

Right. Do it.

Orange strobes flicker out from the ring, surrounding the Praexis. He looks at the ring in confusion.

"What does that do?"

His body distorts, being pulled into the ring belly first, shrinking as it goes.

"Waah!"

Gone. And I now know everything it knows. Which is fuck all. I wasn't exactly expecting it to experience the world in the same way I do but it had eyes, didn't it? As far as I can tell whatever it was motivating them was centred around the Masters' residence and I think that would have resulted in them all coming here. Looking over at Robert I see that he's finished off the last couple. A flicker and I'm standing next to him.

"Not feeling too demony, I hope?"

"No. I feel pretty normal. Is it..? Does this happen a lot?"

"This is the first time I've seen an actual demon. Come on, we can't stand around." I lead the way to Gemma's house. I think I see her pull back from one of the upstairs windows. Is she going to be afraid of us? I can just grab her but I'd rather be reasonable about it. Praexis Demons are weak, but I got the impression that this lot didn't arrive under their own power. For a moment I was worried that she might have summoned them, but then they'd be inside, wouldn't they? I bang my knuckles against the door. "Miss Masters, it's Orange Lantern. I'm a friend of your Uncle John. Are you alright?" The ring shows me that she's in the hall, looking nervously at the door. "Miss Masters, we've got a bit of a situation here and I'd like to get you somewhere safe." She takes a few hesitant steps towards the door, pauses, and then walks the rest of the way with more confidence. She puts the chain on the door and then opens it, peeking through the gap. She's thirteen at present. Her hair's short and brown, done in a sort of bob.. thing that probably has a specific name I don't know. I'm not sure how much supernatural exposure she's had other than 'as little as her mother and John can make it'. I know John's father was murdered over a year ago, so we're after that business with his ghost but before the thing with the Beast.

If that even happens here.

I really hope that doesn't happen here.

"I've seen you on the news. You're Wonder Woman's friend. Did you kill all the fat things?"

"All the ones around here, certainly."

"Were they pikies?"

"Um. Sort of?"

"Dad says I need to watch out for pikies. They'll steal anything, he says. Don't think Mum and Dad would want me going somewhere with a stranger."

"Normally, that would be sensible, but you do know who I am and you probably know who my friend-" I gesture to Robert. "-is as well."

"Why's he dressed like Captain Cornwall?"

"Captain Cornwall's me Dad".

She appears to think for a moment. "Where d'you want t'go?"

"Atlantis."

She smiles. "With the mermaids and that?"

"Probably. Then on to a secret superhero base."

"And that's safe, is it?"

I take a look at the scratches on the door and its frame. "Safer than a place the pi-. The Praexis Demons already know about."

She nods, unchains the door and steps back. "I'll write my parents a note."