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

[Mr Zoat]

10th April
16:14 GMT -5

The elderly man in a grey tweed suit pulls back the cloth covering the bier's occupant. He doesn't flinch, but there is a slight inhalation at the sight of the level of damage done.

"…going on about how he's 'the might of zhe vaterland' and 'zhe embodiment of fascist ideology' and how members of 'zhe lesser races are not fit to lick his boot leather'…"

I glance back at Raquel as she recounts events to Wallace while surreptitiously slipping a rune stone out of my waist pouch. If that was the first time she'd seen a body she seems to be handling it pretty well. The rest of the team stands in huddles of their respective demigroups. No one came back with more than minor injuries and every group except mine has handed someone over to the police.

"…I'm thinking 'you keep stamping and not paying any attention'…"

The man checking the corpses over looks over to our hosts. "I will need to touch..?"

The group -consisting of representatives from the legal, defence and political sections of both the German and Israeli UN missions- exchange a few quiet words, then there's a nodding of heads. The man who appears to be leading the group -the German Deputy Political Director, a man named Klaus Wernholt- nods to the examiner more emphatically. "Whatever you need to do. Make completely certain."

The examiner nods back before returning his attention to the corpse and reaching out with both hands. He makes the lightest contact with his fingertips and then stills himself and closes his eyes. A moment later my stone lights up very slightly. So, maybe a minor wizard, more likely a self taught parapsychic. I suppose I should be impressed that they've got one on staff at all. Or that he's lived to this sort of age. Usually the constant spiritual contact with the world wears them down well before this point.

"…used his own energy to throw him straight through the wall, and I'm all like…"

Batman will want a word or two with us… With me later, but for now he is content with leaving us to clear up the mess we created. Never quite taking my eyes off the examination I shuffle over to where Kaldur stands. His eyes flick to me momentarily as an acknowledgement. "What sort of split do you think is fair?"

Another glance, as if he doesn't want to further disrupt the quiet. "I am not certain what you mean."

"The current bounty on Albrecht Krieger is thirty million euros, and the one on Wolf Krieger is twelve million." He blinks. "Technically, only Kon's team and mine were directly involved, but since it was a whole team activity I think it would be fairest to do an even split on Albrecht's bounty. That's one point eight seven five million euros each, or about two point seven million dollars."

"I had not realised that such a bounty existed."

"Germany put up about half. Israel and Russia paid most of the rest. The Kriegers were the last two significant Second World War era war criminals left in the wild. Between them, they killed thousands of people personally. Far more than that died due to their strategic impact." I give him a moment to process that. "Obviously the cash makes no difference to me, but that sort of thing would pay for a college degree in a good college for our American colleagues. Or a house. Or a period of long term illness."

He doesn't immediately respond. "And what of Wolf?"

"The man who… Finished him, would be due a cut as well. For simplicity's sake it might be better to just give him the whole thing." I hesitate. "I.. don't think telling anyone here who-."

"On that we are in agreement."

The elderly man folds the sheet back over Albrecht before walking over to the bier supporting the mummified remains of Wolf.

"It might be worth asking if M'gann could suppress the memory for him. Not.. erase it, just make it a bit less-."

"It is them." The elderly man carefully wipes drying blood and mucus from his hands with a wet wipe before dropping it into a biological agent bin. "I will confirm that these are indeed the mortal remains of the men known as Wolf and Albrecht Krieger." He looks over to our hosts once more. They're not quite smiling, but there's an air of relief about the gathering. "You have my recommendations for dealing with the remains?"

Mister Wernholt steps forward to shake his hand. "Yes. Thank you for your help."

"Don't make a habit of asking me to do this, Klaus. I do not want what life is left to me blighted by these pictures." The elderly man holds his gaze for a moment before pulling away and heading for the exit.

Mister Wernholt waits until he leaves the room before turning back to his colleagues. "Ladies and gentlemen?" I can hear his accent; he's speaking English. It's really odd when the ring tries to best-fit an English accent to someone speaking a foreign language when I'm used to hearing their speech accented by their own language instead. "Do we accept this testimony, combined with the visual reconstruction provided by Orange Lantern and the verbal testimony of Rocket as a true version of events?"

They nod, some with a simple inclination of the head, others with more enthusiasm.

"Good, thank you." He meets the eyes of the leader of the Israeli delegation. "I imagine that the Chancellor will contact your Prime Minister sometime tomorrow. I will see to the paperwork and the.. remains, myself."

"Thank you." The woman risks a small smile. "Knowing that these men are gone from the world is a relief to all of us."

The Israeli delegation files out, along with most of the other Germans. A couple of medical orderlies move over to start work on the bodies as Mister Wernholt heads over to speak to us.

"On behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany, on behalf of decent Human beings all across the world, I would like to thank all of you for your work today. Now, since you, ah… Many of you have secret identities, we will make a wire transfer of the reward to the Justice League, and.. they can handle it from there."

M'gann looks confused. "Reward?"

I turn my head her way. "Bounty payment. We'll talk about it later." She nods.

"Ah, hey." Raquel briefly raises her right hand and wiggles it a bit. "Captain Nazi was lying, right? He wasn't really the embodiment of fascism or anything."

"He wasn't the embodiment of fascism, but, ah…" He shakes his head. "Oh, it doesn't matter now. He was the embodiment of Germany."

We just sort of stare at him for a few moments.

"Is it that much of a surprise? In America, you have Uncle Sam? During the Second World War he fought as part of the All-Star Squadron?" A few nods, including one from me. Not a character I'd really studied, though I think Alan mentioned him in passing. I think I'd find meeting him in person to be a rather trying thing. Don't think he's active at the moment, which does rather go against his established character. "He is the embodiment of the American character, as it was at the time he came into being. Similarly-."

"Wait a second." Richard holds up his right hand. "You're telling me that the embodiment of Germany is a Nazi superhero?"

"They don't age. If no one kills them they can just keep going." He glances back at the shroud-draped outline of Albrecht Krieger. "When Adolf Hitler came to power, his associates in the Thule Society told him of this. He ordered them to find the embodiment of Germany. Probably, he was hoping they would be a Prussian militarist. We don't know exactly. Instead, he found a man named 'Lucky' Hans, working in a puppet theatre in München. He embodied the German spirit as it was in the seventeenth century, poorly organised, cheerful and happy go lucky."

Richard grimaces. "I'll bet Hitler wasn't too pleased."

"I doubt it very much. So, Wolf Krieger informed his leader of this, but promised to him that it could be fixed. Poor Hans was abducted, ritually murdered and… Albrecht Krieger was the result. Hitler had his Aryan superman. Worse, for we Germans, he had a constant connection to our souls."

Raquel narrows her eyes. "You're not saying, that's the reason why the Holocaust-."

Mister Wernholt holds up his hands. "No, no. Of course not. At that time, there were more than enough people sufficiently devoted to the cause to carry out that genocide without the need for magic intervention. It is only since the end of the Second World War that we have felt the baleful effects. There is a tendency in the Human mind to retroactively justify the things you have done, even when you know that they were wrong. It is a form of ego preservation. If you perform a misdeed you can only become a better person by recognising that and resolving to behave differently in future. Now, imagine if there was someone inside your soul, constantly telling you that you were right all along. That the Nazis were powerful and cool, and not the gang of hateful murderers they actually were."

He shakes his head. "There is a reason why Auschwitz is left as it was and not turned into a memorial park. But we grew accustomed to that. We kept needing to do more! I mean, my God! We had brass plaques with the names of Holocaust victims placed across our major cities in nineteen ninety two! We had to mutilate our psyche as a nation just to keep Albrecht Krieger out of our heads!"

"And… Now you don't?"

"No. I mean, the Holocaust was a great evil, but… Speaking for myself as a man in his thirties? Someone whose parents were born in the fifties? It is a historical one. A black mark on our nation's history, but one which has no personal relevance to me. No more than most Americans feel the need to berate themselves over the Trail of Tears."

Raquel crosses her arms across her chest. "Maybe they should."

"If you look in any nation's history, there are any number of things to be ashamed of. Usually, they do not have to be confronted by them every time they turn on the History Channel." He shakes his head. "Constant shame is not a good way to live. If nothing else, because it distracts from the things you are doing wrong now." He comes to a stop, then steps away and motions to the bodies. "These will be cremated, mixed with silver and calcium oxide, exorcised and then scattered widely in secret locations. Let this finally be the end of it."

 

[Mr Zoat]

11th April
20:03 GMT -2

"What do I think?" Sephtian quivers in place. I still don't entirely understand his body language, but it doesn't look like the good kind of quivering to me. "I think that it is the most terrifying arcane object I have ever seen and I will thank you to take it a very long way away from me."

I lift the Spear of Destiny from the props he was using to keep it in the mana field reader. "I can do that. What exactly is it about it that is so terrifying?"

He actually backs away a little as I move away from the equipment. "So much of how magic works… In the wild, is about conceptual connections. It is why we Atlanteans find it far easier to manipulate water than fire and... It is why it is often necessary to have an object precious to a person in order to use curses on them from a great distance." For a moment he stills. "That is not.. quite true, but it is a lie that is not completely inaccurate."

"Okay?"

"That spear-." The shuddering starts again. "It maintains a weak connection to everyone."

I blink. "Everyone?"

He makes a small cupping gesture with his hands. "As far as we were able to identify. I could not test.. people from other planets. I think it can be shielded against, but.. the normal magic interference which prevents what our forebears described as 'scry and die'-" I don't laugh. "-being a practical technique… It does not apply. I.. must tell you. When I.. realised what it could do… I nearly attempted to destroy it."

I frown. "Hey!"

"I am sorry, but I work under a royal warrant. I have responsibilities to Atlantis, and allowing that thing to continue to exist is.. dangerous."

"Okay, so why didn't you?"

For a moment he just stares at me. "What possible technique could I use that would be safe?"

Oh, sugar. "Exactly how strong is this connection? Wolf Krieger was using it to mind control people."

"A mind control spell that triggers automatically within a particular area? Do you..?" There's a sudden squirt of water from his gill slits. "I doubt that you can understand how complex an undertaking that must have been. From the records you provided to me, it was most likely some kind of ward linked to the nations his people controlled. Such a thing could in theory be set to respond only to individuals who posed a threat above a certain level."

"It didn't just detect superheroes?"

"How would you define 'superhero'?"

"How would you define 'threat'? I mean, I know Harold Thompson was able to operate in Germany for years, but I assume that was just because he didn't have super powers."

"It would probably be possible to set a spell to detect a particular type of power, but in general terms the phrase does not have an arcane meaning. At least, not yet. Threat does."

"The spell got Green Lantern once while he wasn't wearing his ring."

"I… It is possible that I am mistaken. I have been struggling to work out how a man with no knowledge of theoretical thaumaturgy could have created such a work… Without the opportunity to examine the spell it is difficult for me to determine exactly how it functioned."

I nod. "And that wouldn't have been possible without the Spear?"

"Not without using enough power to reshape the world. As you know full well, the soul resists outward attempts to change it. But, that is also true of the unshaped magics of the world. Creating a spell requires a magic user to fortify their work against abrasion by the etheric currents all around it."

"Which is why artefacts never really caught on. They need to be refreshed so often it was easier to just cast the spell."

"Not in all cases, but often, yes."

"The mind control spell isn't inherent in the Spear though, right? I'm not risking taking control of you by holding it?"

"I don't think so."

"You don't think so?"

"I may well be the foremost expert on thaumaturgy on this planet, Paul. I certainly have more advanced equipment than any other mortal in position to make such a claim. And I am telling you: I do not think so."

"Oh."

"The spellwork on the Spear of Destiny is like nothing I have ever seen. I deduced its function not by analysing its inner workings but by applying tiny external pressures and observing the output. I do not know what it does in the hands of someone who is.. affected by strange energies as you are. But I can imagine."

I release the spear, letting it float in the water just in front of me. "I could use the Sword of the Fallen on it."

"It might work. Would you risk it?"

"Sugar. Um. Got a suggestion?"

"The Spear seems designed to allow a person to heavily influence the state of the world, the soul of the wielder constantly influencing everyone else in tiny, subtle ways. You could hand it to the most praiseworthy person you know and hope that their influence is a good one. Or you could hide it away and hope that it never comes to light again."

"And this is my choice?"

"I considered trying to make the choice myself. I could not. I know no one so good, and nowhere so remote. You are a good man and you know what you want. It may as well be you as anyone."

Krieger had this for decades and the world didn't convert to fascism. On the other hand, I don't have a world free of his influence to compare it to, other than mine. The population here is smaller… I know that over a large enough population a small change in opinion can have some fairly serious macro level results… Was it all his influence? Okay, anyone would be better than him, but who could I trust like that? Mister Kent would be most people's choice, but I'm well aware of the way he treated Kon. Diana..? I want to think 'yes', but there's the Nabu thing… If I handed it to Alan, would it help him stay alive? I don't know, but I do know that he hates it and wouldn't want anything to do with it. Anyone else? John Co-? No. Heh, no. I mean, I don't think he'd take it anyway, but no.

Do I keep it myself? I know orange light exposure isn't healthy for a lot of people, but I can't help but think that if people got a little more of my-.

No. That's mind control. I'm not prepared to nudge the species like that, particularly when it could go badly wrong.

"I'll try and find somewhere safe to store it, out of anyone's way. Until then it can live in Themyscira's reliquary. That's as well protected as anywhere, and it will be under constant observation."

"I understand that the League has a highly capable magic user? Would it not be worth consulting them?"

"No, because they might ask for it. Nabu is a Lord of Order, and I don't trust him not to squirt order into the rest of us 'for our own good'." Darn, that was heavy. I wasn't expecting that when I came down here. "Were you able to look into Captain Nazi himself?"

"No, but the theory is simple. Using magic to speed the formation of an embodied genius loci? Nothing about that violates the functioning of magic as I understand it. Though I have only guesswork for how I could identify such a being if I encountered one."

"Does Atlantis have one? You use more magic than anyone else."

"And that very fact would prevent one from developing here. We use so much magic that it becomes structured. For an intelligence to emerge there must be pools left to format themselves over large periods of time. Other places? Perhaps. I haven't.. studied the phenomena, but it could well be."

"Thank you." I take hold of the Spear again. "I'll get this out of your way."

"And I will begin work on a way to block it."

 

[Mr Zoat]

A Star Reborn

12th April
07:27 GMT -6

"You… Completely sure-?"

"Eh-heh eh-heh eh-heh."

Miss Shimmer stares up at me through bleary eyes as her coughing fit comes to an end while her right hand fumbles for the tissue box. Nice to see that her hand usage has improved so much.

"Yeth."

Naturally -being a magically transformed Pony- Miss Shimmer had none of the usual immunities and resistances to local diseases most people take for granted. Or at least have injected into them in early childhood. I had just been giving her a daily purification with my ring, but we talked about it and agreed that bringing her immune system up to scratch was a much better solution.

She may be regretting that now.

"Okay. Aaaah. You know where the intercom is. If you need anything, just-." She presses a button on the control pad and the television comes on.

Oh no, it's Spongebob Squarepants.

"I'll leave you to it, then." I leave her room at a quick-march and close the door behind me. Shame, really. I had been hoping to include her in Thursday's lesson… Oh well. Might still be possible, but she really has to be better for Lynne's birthday.

"I take it that the young lady is little better, Mister Grayven?"

I shake my head. "No." I frown. "Can Genomorphs get ill?"

"Yes, but Human diseases have little effect on us."

She.. visibly hesitates. That's odd. "What is it?"

"I have a request." I wave my right arm in a 'continue' gesture. "A personal one, though I imagine that the results would be of interest to all Genomorphs."

"No need to beat around the bush. What do you want?"

"I wish to know of our origins, Mister Grayven. Through Dubbilex's memories I have seen all of the records relating to the development work done to turn our G-Promethean brethren into the other Genomorph strains. What I do not know is how they were developed. Cadmus has no record of it. I thought that perhaps Mister Luthor may be more willing to divulge the pertinent information to you now that you are a member of the Light."

I nod. Interesting question, actually. They're not direct copies of any species that Father Box or Sinestro have ever heard of and creating them whole cloth should be well beyond Human biotechnology. Or… I suppose a malign hypercognitive could, but I doubt that they would stop there. "I am somewhat curious myself. I can't promise that I'll be able to find anything out, but I will certainly ask him."

She bows. "Thank you, Mister Grayven. Miss Wayland is presently attempting to teach herself remote viewing in the 'rumpus room'. Your meeting with Director Williams is scheduled to begin in two minutes at the Centre for Paranormal Studies in Metropolis."

"Thank you, Jean. Father Box, hush tube."

"Ploong."

I step through the portal in the air and into the hardened room we built into the Mountain for full contact superpower combat practice. Lynne sits with a couple of G-Gnomes and a row of blank white cards lying on the floor.

"Square." She turns over the first, revealing a diamond. "Ohh."

"Poppet, time to go. Are you ready?"

"I guess." She sweeps the cards into a pile and hands them to one of the G-Gnomes. "Is this place really going to be my school?"

"Maybe. Depends…" I extend my right hand and take hold of her right hand to help her to her feet. "If the Genomorphs can find a way to safely teach you things telepathically, I'd rather send you somewhere more normal starting in the next school year. Otherwise, this place is.. probably the best place you could go." I lay my huge left hand over her right, sandwiching it between mine. "Now, if you really hate it, I won't insist. But this isn't like the people who tried to teach you things before. This is a charitable foundation run by civilians."

"I… I know." She looks away. "I just… Okay, let's go."

I'll… Just have to hope that she warms up to the idea. "Father Box."

"Ploong."

A new portal opens, and we step through.

12th April
08:30 GMT -5

Hm. Looks a bit like a hospital reception desk, actually. I lead Lynne in the direction of the receptionist. "Good morning. Grayven and Lynne Wayland to see-."

"Hello there!" We look around to see Director Williams walking towards us, waving his left hand and smiling cheerily. He's about three feet tall and completely bald, wearing what must be a custom lab coat with a shirt, blue jumper vest and navy blue bowtie. "I'm Doctor Williams." He walks closer. "And you must be Lynne."

"Hi?"

She appears to not be quite sure what to make of him. He certainly isn't visibly threatening, which is one of the reasons I think this might actually work. I didn't warn her that he was a dwarf, or tell her that he's a telekine himself. That can be something for her to find out on her own recognisance.

"Now, there's no need to feel nervous. For a lot of our students, coming here is the first time they've met anyone who can do the sorts of things that they can. Now-" He turns away and motions for us to follow with his right arm. "-classes don't start for another half an hour, but a lot of the children here live on site. Why don't I introduce you to a few of them while your father and I have a walk around."

"Um, okay." Lynne starts after him while I bring up the rear. "Why do they live here?"

"We're the only school like this in the entire country. Our students come from all over, and a lot of the time it isn't really practical for them to go home at the end of the day. Or even at the weekends."

Head that one off… "Lynne, you can always call for a hush tube."

"Oh, uh, most of them do, though. It's actually a major limiting factor in the total number of students we have. Some only come for a few weeks each year, but for the full time students, they either have to be local or… Well, their abilities are so overt that they need our help in learning to control them."

Normal parent question next. "What sort of class sizes do you have?"

"Class sizes for our normal education program range from eight to twelve children, but when it comes to teaching the children to use their paranormal abilities we use much smaller groups. A lot of the time teaching is one to one, so the student's development can be precisely monitored. There's a lot we don't know about how these abilities work, so we put a great deal of emphasis on safety, both for the children and the staff."

Lynne nods. "Do you have..? Other telepaths?"

"Several students have different forms of extra sensory perception. If you mean 'can they speak to each other mind to mind', there are a couple of other children who can do things like that." He smiles up at her. "Would you like to meet them?"

"No." She shakes her head, stopping dead in the corridor. "No. I shouldn't go anywhere near them. If they.. touch my mind by mistake…"

"Ah, yes." He glances at me, then returns his attention to her. "Mister Grayven did.. mention the tragic incident with your parents. But don't worry, everyone here knows not to poke into other people's minds without permission."

"She does have a point, Director. I wouldn't want to needlessly endanger anyone."

"Hm. Ahhh… Ah!" He sets off again with a spring in his step and we follow. "Since not all of our students are capable of conventional telepathy, it wouldn't really be hard to put you in a class where no one else was. At least until your control is good enough that it isn't a problem any more." He knocks on a door, waits for a moment and then pushes it open.

"Hey Doc."

"Good morning, Claire. We've got a visitor. Would you mind looking after her for a little while?"

"Sure. Why not?" The Director steps back as a teenaged girl with astonishingly long and flame-orange hair comes out after him. I get a momentary frown before she turns her attention on Lynne. "Hey."

"Hello?"

"So what are you in for?"

"I'm a telepath. I can turn off people's brains." She pauses, not quite sure where to go from there. "What do you do?"

"I burn stuff." Claire holds up her right hand and it's momentarily enveloped in flame. "Wanna come meet everyone?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

12th April
08:46 GMT -5

"…have had children come to us in difficult circumstances before, but…" Doctor Williams shakes his head sadly. "Nothing on a level with what Lynne's been through."

I nod. I hadn't expected that they would. Huh, I hoped they wouldn't. I like to believe that what Lynne went through couldn't happen here, not without me knowing about it. That's one of the reasons I've been spending quite a bit of time mapping out the extent of SHADE 16's influence. And why one of the first things I'm going to raise with the Light is the idea of doing away with the opposition: thinking and planning type supervillains. It takes a very particular type of person to organise that much misery.

"That's why I want to ease her into a school setting gradually, rather than having her start attending immediately."

I've had to be subtle about it. Don't know for certain that we even have a Father Time. As far as I can tell, our version of the organisation grew out of the support structure for the All-Star Squadron. At the end of the war all but a handful of the 'talent' left, but they were still in control of some very dangerous individuals and plenty of baseline Humans with very specialist expertise. Like the Marine Corps, despite the fact that they didn't have an obvious purpose any longer they never quite got absorbed by any of the other agencies looking to expand their remit. The laws which let them create federal agents are still on the books but they don't appear to get any federal funding. Instead, they survive by 'renting' their expertise out to other agencies, though I'm sure there are plenty of off the books revenue streams I haven't found yet.

We step through the door to his office and he walks around his desk and climbs up into his chair as I take the seat opposite. His is a plush… High chair, complete with wooden steps to allow him to get to the seat. It looks a little… Infantilising, but I can't think of a better alternative for him. Assuming that he can't autolevitate.

"That's probably for the best." He looks uncomfortable for a moment. "I'll be honest, Mister Grayven: I'm not.. completely certain we can give Lynne what she needs. The children here have a wide variety of mental abilities, but only a few are classical telepaths. Take me for example." He raises his right hand and a short stack of papers rise out of his in-tray and floats over to him. "I can lift small objects and I can apply sudden bursts of force to larger ones. And I've got-" He waves his right arm at his computer. "-scans of what's happening in my brain when I do it. But we're still a very long way from understanding the biological basis of what I can do. And what I do is relatively simple to quantify."

"And telepathy isn't."

"When we first started, I assumed that psychic phenomena would be the result of a single oddity in some people's brains. Enough people had similar sets of abilities that it seemed like a reasonable hypothesis. I have what looks like a-" He taps the back of his head with his right fore and index fingers. "-small growth attached to my cerebellum. It's stayed the same size for as long as I've been checking up on it so I know it isn't cancerous. That, and the fact it lights up whenever I use my abilities. Most of the other people here who can move things with their mind have something very similar. Then…" He fans out his hands. "Others don't. And I can't explain why."

"Have you eliminated the possibility of magic use?"

He shakes his head helplessly. "I wouldn't know where to start. For the most part I assume that they're non-psychic metahumans whose abilities have a different basis. Teaching them… We'd had success with the same methods, so it doesn't make much difference where the children are concerned."

"I could… Probably… Get my hands on a few magic users. If you.. wanted to examine it from that side."

"Ahh." He looks away, right hand briefly covering his mouth and then stroking his chin as he thinks about it. "I'm.. not certain that our trustees would… Understand…"

"Do you know the difference between a parapsychic and a telepath?"

"Of course. A telepath can connect to other peoples' minds. A parapsychic can usually do that, but they can also read… Impressions from inanimate objects."

"That's the definition. But the important difference?"

He frowns slightly. "There are several, but..? Telepaths often have altered amygdala function while parapsychics usually don't? I've never been able to come up with an adequate explanation for how it's possible to get a mental impression from a thing without a mind-."

"Parapsychics use magic."

His face relaxes and his eyes dip as he takes that on board. "You're sure?"

"I'm not a magic user myself, but the descriptions of the ability in your literature match and the handful I've been able to examine directly do. One of the problems with the way you study now is that you can't eliminate such possibilities."

"That… Would explain… But that means…" He focuses his attention on me. "When you say that you can get a magic user..?"

"An… Associate of mine is looking to form a connection to a surface world institution. Test the water, as it were."

"Someone from Atlantis?" I nod. "I…" He breathes in and out again. "That could be very helpful. I'm just a little worried about how the oversight committee will feel about it." He sighs. "Despite our results, it's sometimes a struggle to persuade them that it's worth investing in psychic phenomena. Magic research… Are you aware of just how many Americans believe that magic is inherently evil? Particularly after Klarion-." He suddenly remembers who he's talking to. "Ah."

I smile. "Doctor Williams, I am fully aware of that. And I am fully aware of the Human propensity for burying their heads in the sand. But pretending it will go away if it's ignored hard enough is stupid. It may amuse you to know this, but are you aware that your school is the most advanced centre of magic research in America?"

"Really?" He frowns. "But we.. don't study.. magic. Not intentionally, anyway."

I nod. "Yes. That's how bad things are." I pause to let that sink in. "I think my connections in the US government will allow me to talk people around to expanding your remit. Even the.. Protestant right.. are aware of just how vulnerable America is. I'm perfectly happy to act as your political cheerleader."

I still believe that Jade only got me that costume because she didn't credit the idea that I'd actually wear it.

"Oh. Thank you. But the funding we get from the federal government only comes to us indirectly. And we can't go without money for the time it would take them to pass an appropriations bill."

Which leads me nicely on to the other reason I'm here. Places like this were amongst the first absorbed by SHADE 50 when they ballooned after the fall of the Justice Lords. The work they do is too valuable to me personally and to humanity more generally to let it become some sort of.. stupid paramilitary training centre. Keeping tabs on this place helps steer the country away from that, as well as giving me something I can point to when the rest of the Light ask what I've done for humanity recently.

"I was thinking of making a donation myself, as a thank you for helping my daughter."

"I'm sure that we're grateful for anything you can contribute, but the amount-."

"Two hundred million dollars."

His eyes widen. "Oh…"

"Obviously, that would go to a trust. And there would be conditions."

"Such as..?"

"That you don't accept money from the military or other security agencies. I'm all for defence spending, but your students are children."

"Yes, well, that shouldn't be a problem." Something occurs to him. "May I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"I'm a little surprised that a man in your position doesn't have other options when it comes to this sort of thing. I know that there are telepathic superheroes out there."

"Yes, I did consider seeing if Henry King could make time for me. Thing is, for all his skill he doesn't have an understanding of the underlying mechanics of his ability. Lynne doesn't need to learn how to be more telepathic, she needs to learn control." And to be taken slightly -but not greatly- out of her comfort zone. "And there's the same problem with recruiting a Martian; their brains handle things differently. Humans aren't anything like as plastic, they can't adapt to feedback as quickly."

"I assume that your own people don't have anything similar?"

"Most of what we do is a sort of.. innate magic. Those amongst us who learn to manipulate that in clever ways end up more like sorcerers rather than telepaths." Thank goodness. Dread to think what Apokolips would be like with living Anti-Life broadcasters. "And to be honest my people are pretty unpleasant. I'd rather not dip into that well if I can avoid it."

 

[Mr Zoat]

12th April
15:43 GMT -6

"OOOOphF!"

Guy goes flying backwards, slamming into the rocky ground below us as Jordan moves his hammer construct back into the guard position. We spend a moment watching Guy unsteadily pull himself out of the resulting crater as the people in the stands cheer.

"Heh." Jordan doesn't quite take his eyes off his fallen sparring partner, but he does glance my way. "Guess I don't need this as much as you thought."

I frown. "Sorry, he's… Usually a lot better than this." I cup my right hand against my mouth. "Guy, you alright?!" He waves me off with his right hand, before shaking his head to try and clear out the cobwebs. Or perhaps to chase away the circling birds.

"Maybe you're not as good as you think either." He smirks. "I mean, if that's the best you've ever sparred against…"

"Bet you a power ring?"

The hammer dissipates. "Hey, I'm just saying-."

"Guy." The man in question gives his head one last shake before looking up at me. "Jammer and countdown."

Jordan hasn't come remotely close to mastering short range FTL hops so there's not really much point practising with them beyond what I need to in order to emphasise that he really needs to. And I'll freely admit, my skill in purely construct combat is a little below par. I mean, if I can't do better than a flipping boxing glove, that's just embarrassing.

A glowing green set of grid lights appears in the air above us, horns honking as the first set of lights shine a dull green. Jordan and I switch our attention to totally focusing on one another. Another horn blast and the second set of lights comes on. Immediately I generate construct armour while Jordan flies backwards to maximise the distance between us. A third horn blast and I fly towards Jordan at high speed while he swings his right arm in a punching motion and generates a swarm of boxing glove constructs, grinning confidently as he sends them at me.

Flak gun constructs appear on my shoulders and bolts of orange energy meet and disintegrate each one. A simple scan shows him generating a baseball bat construct while my vision is obscured… He's actually holding it in his hands. Numpty. I send thin filaments out from me in all directions, reaching out for any green light they might encounter.

He swings just as my guns destroy the last boxing glove. To be fair to him, at least he tried to conceal what he was doing. I'm only going to have half a second to respond before I join Guy in eating desert.

Half a real second.

Time slows as the bat brushes my filament fronds and I focus on making the bat construct mine. They latch on and it begins changing colour. I increase the amount of glow that my construct armour is putting out, in the hope that doing so will prevent him from reacting for a fraction of a second longer. The flak gun on my right shoulder changes into a laser and fires a twin shot at his eyes as a further distraction even as I jink around the bat I'm already more in control of than he is.

Then I have the bat extend its bindings around his hands and start swinging him around the sky.

His environmental shield should prevent him feeling dizzy, but from personal experience I know that it's still quite a disorientating process. He keeps his head in the game and forms a knife construct to try cutting through his own usurped bat. He'll be through in a moment, so I generate a construct boxing glove of my own and spin him in my direction before dissipating the bat. He gets a half-second of staring in shock before the construct leather meets his forehead.

A stunning blow, but thanks to his environmental shield not a knockout one. Filaments latch on and begin usurping his environmental shield while yanking him hither and thither. A simple impact pulse to the usurped patch over his abdomen has him doubling over, air rushing from his lungs. Again, he doesn't exactly need to breathe, but Human instinctive responses work in a certain way. I use his distraction to generate a large and very solid snake construct directly above him and bring it down fast!

"Alert! Incoming-."

He gets just enough warning to look upwards before it slams into him snout first and conveys him into the ground at speed, sending a plume of grit and dusts upwards and earning me a cheer from the crowd.

"Aaaaaand winnerrrrr!" Guy gives me a respectful nod as he floats closer. "That wasn't.. actually the big snake though, right?"

"Of course not. Her head's narrower than that."

"Good t'know."

I remove the snake construct to allow Jordan to check himself for injuries. "You seemed.. kind of out of the game today."

"Ye-ah." Guy looks more embarrassed than anything. "Haven't been sleepin' too good lately. Head's like it's fulla cotton wool. Dunno why. I'd blame Tora-"

"Please don't."

"-but it ain't that."

"If you're actually ill…"

He shakes his head and Jordan flies towards us. "Nah, I'll just… Take some Tylerol and have an early night."

"Okay, well, I need to go and pick up Zatanna-" Guy snorts. "-so since you're not exactly fighting fit we should-."

Jordan's ring flashes, and his face takes on a vacant expression for a moment. "Sorry guys. Duty calls." He rockets upwards towards the edge of the atmosphere.

I shrug. "Okay, well, take it easy, Guy. I'll see you Saturday."

"Yeah." I can see how much he dislikes having made a poor showing against Jordan. "You too."

12th April
16:47 GMT -5

I appear in front of Shadowcrest. No need to go for low impact here, this is known superhero territory. Zatanna smiles up at me, still in her school uniform. "Ready to go?"

She nods excitedly. "Oh yeah." She takes hold of the poster tube concealing the Sapphire Staff… Not a great name, but it'll do for now.

"Do you want to try flying up there yourself or-."

"No. Maybe… When we're finished? If there's time?"

"Rightyoh. Stand by." A flicker, and New York is replaced by the Mars-Jupiter asteroid belt.

"Nepo." The cardboard outer spirals open and reveals the glowing staff within. Zatanna takes a firm grip and.. her uniform subtly alters. Nothing… Inappropriate… Quite. Though I imagine that someone would have a word if she tried wearing it at school. A moment's hesitation, then the violet aura flows over her and I remove my own tether.

Sephtian was more than happy to work on the design for a magic battery. He was even willing to devise a version which took full advantage of orichalcum's greater enchantability, though I didn't ask him to make one. No sense implicating him. No sense implicating Io either, which is why Zatanna has spent some time on Themyscira watching her work.

"Dlog dna reppoc ot muclahciro."

I watch as the metal begins to transmute and our storage vessel begins to take shape. Not exactly energy efficient, doing it like this. But it does preserve the secret, and that's the more important thing.

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th April
10:07 GMT +2

"Good morning, Falil."

Adom's harried-looking Principal Personal Secretary looks around from his discussion as I walk down the corridor towards him. "Orange Lantern. Good to see you."

"Falil, why are there severed heads on poles outside the palace?"

"Ah. Yyes, his Excellency wished to talk to you about that."

"Goood. Is he free now?"

Falil looks distinctly nervous for a moment. "Ah… Possibly. I will check for you. Would you please wait here?"

"Of course."

He walks off in the direction of Adom's new office. Having thoroughly.. liquidated the previous government, one of Adom's first acts was to pass a law authorising the seizure of their assets. It wasn't particularly hard to prove rampant corruption and other forms of.. barbarity. The Swiss banks they used were reluctant to comply with the confiscation order, but fortunately I have a power ring. Adom didn't want to move the centre of his government to Cairo so that part of the reclaimed money which didn't obviously belong to someone else is being put towards the construction of a new government building. Some of the more hostile media pundits have taken to describing it as a palace, but in fact it will be no more a palace than the White House is. When finished it will very much be a working office building. But for the moment the Kahndaqi provisional government is operating out of another hotel.

Adom already has the approval of his neighbours and the tolerance of the United States. The UN Security Council has removed a few sanctions and discussion on the rest is being held off until the ratification of the new Kahndaqi Constitution. I know several European countries-

"…primary education, like they do in…"

-have… I frown and look in the direction of Adom's office. Female voice, clearly very angry. I only got a burst of what she said while Falil had the door open. Might get another burst when Adom throws her out of the window, I suppose. What sort of person thinks that berating a demigod is a sensible thing to do? Adom responds fairly well to reason; vitriol like that just annoys him.

"Uh, Orange Lantern sir?"

"Hm?" I look around as one of the other civil servants nervously holds up his phone.

"Would you mind if-?"

Heh. I shake my head. "No problem."

He grins, then turns around while holding his phone out. Despite spending far more time in the United States than I do here, Kahndaqi people identify with me far more than most Americans. Hardly anyone called me the Cake Man, particularly after last month. He leans backwards until his back touches my chestplate and then presses the button to take a picture. Selfies aren't something I've ever got into, but given that this man's predecessors were probably killed by a giant alien robot I tend to feel that I should make an effort.

"…excuse not to…"

Falil closes the door as quickly as he can as my latest admirer checks his picture. Apparently he likes it. He smiles at me -"Thanks!"- then spots his boss heading our way and hurries back to whatever he was doing before.

Falil approaches with an air of discomfort. "His Excellency will see you now."

"Thank you, but what.. was.. that..?"

Falil closes his eyes and sighs. "That.. is.. one of the things he wishes to speak to you about." He opens his eyes again. "It is probably best that he explain himself."

"Okay? Should I just..? Go in?"

He nods distractedly. "Yes. Please.. excuse me. The deputation from Qena have raised some sort of problem with the veto procedures, and-."

"You're a very busy man, I understand. Keep up the good work."

He nods and turns to walk away, giving me a very small flicker of a very small smile. Kahndaq… I'm constantly worried that the country is going the way of Iraq Prime, a universally hated dictator being overthrown leading to chaos as different armed groups try to establish control. Kahndaq at least had the advantage of leaving most of the government structure in place.

Those still occupying positions of authority after Adom killed the old government took the hint and left, without the need to spend the next decade running trials. Lower level types are being allowed to keep their heads down as long as they stay away from the offices of state. The only comparable situation I'm aware of is when the Russian oligarchs got the deal from Putin that he wouldn't look into how they acquired state assets so cheaply in the post-communist fire sale as long as they stayed away from politics, and I know that didn't work. But those left here aren't anything like as powerful and they're surrounded by a country that hates them. Adom's amnesty and personal popularity might be the only thing keeping a lot of them safe from a mob right now.

I push the-

"…accepted limited authority because that is the way things are done now."

-door open-

"You are making excuses. You could do anything with Kahndaq, and you know-"

-and the first thing I see is a woman five and a half feet tall staring Adom down, despite the fact that he's above her, being both taller than her and slightly off the ground. Adom's abandoned his dispassionate arms crossed pose and is currently winning in the battle to keep his temper under control. Just about.

"-that!"

"Excuse me?"

Both their heads snap in my direction, the woman's eyes narrowing slightly while Adom actually.. looks.. relieved? "Orange Lantern." He floats upwards a little, arms folding in front of his as his body posture relaxes. "Miss Tomaz was just leaving."

And she snaps back to him, right index finger extended. "This is not over." She extends her glare for a few seconds, then turns and walks past me through the door. And slams it closed behind her.

"Um."

Adom doesn't groan. I can feel him not groaning. "The heads belong to a deputation from a criminal syndicate which had dealings with the former president. They wished to continue that relationship with me. I turned them down."

"Did they give you a name?"

"Yes. Intergang."

I nod. "They're a 'known'. Shouldn't be too hard for me to do damage control. Um..?" I point after Miss Tomazzzzzz. Tomaz. As in 'Amon Tomaz'. As in the woman who becomes Isis. That's… Interesting. "May I ask..?"

"Intergang is engaged in 'people trading'. Slavery. They offered her to me as a gift." He takes a deep breath. "And she has seen fit to remain despite the fact that I have freed her."

"Why?"

"Intergang's allies still within Kahndaq have her brother. I told her that I would hunt them down and free him once the country is stable. Perhaps she has remained to remind me of my promise. Perhaps not. Whatever her reason, she spends her time berating me over every aspect of my conduct which does not meet with her approval."

"May I ask why she is allowed to do that?"

"She is not… Always, entirely incorrect in her statements. All too many of my advisors are reluctant to gainsay me in even the smallest way. She is… By and large, helping." He grimaces. "I merely wish that she would choose a less infuriating manner in which to do so!"

"She hasn't known you long, Mighty One. I'm sure that you'll grow into each other. And I don't need to remind you of the value of honest counsellors."

"Hah! True. In my first life, only my wife would defy me so openly. Her latest complaint is that I am not ensuring that each governate will offer equal educational opportunities to boy and girl children. As I told her, that authority is devolved, and I will not undermine those who make such decisions by… Giving with one hand, and taking with another."

"About that, Mighty One. When you said during your last interview that you were considering restricting voting to the heads of each household..?"

"Yes, I.. heard." 'Ancient Pharaoh Denies Women Vote' was not a headline I expected to have to deal with. "I apologise for any difficulty it caused you. I was not trying to disenfranchise women. It had not even occurred to me that their menfolk might vote without reference to their wives. It was off the cuff, and the idea was that they would vote on behalf of the whole household. If it had become law younger men would not have been able to vote for themselves either."

"Can I assume..?"

"It will not become policy. It was a misstep. One which Miss Tomaz has already lectured me on." Another sigh. "At length."

"Glad to hear it. So, I'm at Kahndaq's disposal for the rest of the day. What do you want me working on?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th April
20:33 GMT +3

Miss Shimmer blows her nose loudly, then wads the tissue up into a ball. She holds it up, staring down her still red nose at it. After a few seconds thin wisps of smoke begin rising from the top, and for a split second I think I see a smile on her lips. Then she notices that I'm watching and returns to dourness, flames consuming her tissue as she tosses it over the side of the construct platform she's standing on.

Then Miss Amane grabs her, wrapping her arms around the other girl with an expression of purest joy on her face. "You can use magic again! I'm so happy for you!"

Miss Shimmer holds her arms out to the sides as if she's not entirely sure what to do with them. "What did she say?"

Miss Amane pulls back. "You." She prods Miss Shimmer in the abdomen with her right forefinger. "Can use magic." She holds up hands and wiggles her fingers. Then she grins. "Again."

Miss Shimmer's command of English has advanced a great deal since she learned a short Atlantean ritual for memorising data tables. Unlike me, she understands the formal rules of grammar well enough to actually use it.

"Okay, thanks, but… Slower, okay? Just not as slow as that."

Miss Amane places her hands on the sides of Miss Shimmer's shoulders. "I Will Speak At Normal Speed."

Miss Shimmer sets her jaw, then places her own hands on Miss Amane's upper arms. "Thank You."

"You don't need to talk slowly for-." Miss Amane realises what she did, then bites her lower lip for a second before beaming again. "Okay!"

"Besides, it's not much magic. It's just so hard to form an etheric connection without a horn!"

"Um." Lynne looks a little self conscious when the two older girls turn their attention on her. "You, um. You neighed the last bit."

"Ugh." Miss Shimmer sags slightly, then focuses her ire on me, "Why are we here? Where is 'here', anyway?"

"To answer your second question, we are about eight thousand metres above a place called Darfur. To answer your first, we are here for a lesson."

She rolls her eyes. "Great."

"I'm glad you approve. Today's lesson is about moral theory, in particular-."

"Is it about friendship?"

"Only tangentially. Rather, I-."

"Is this going to be a lecture?"

"I will deliver a short lecture, then you will-" I make a horizontal circle with my right index finger. "-discuss the matter between yourselves before acting on the decision you make. Then you will observe the consequences of your actions and compare them to what it was that you were trying to achieve." I lean slightly towards Miss Shimmer. "And most likely try to work out where you went wrong."

"Oh." She seems unfazed. "Field work. Okay. That could be fun. I thought this was going to be another one of P-p… Celestia's pointless lectures."

"Take that, sun horse." I straighten up. "Now-."

"Sun horse?" Miss Amane looks at Miss Shimmer in puzzlement for a moment, then her eyes widen and she looks back at me with her hands over her mouth.

"Princess Celestia is planet Wilson's-" Miss Shimmer snorts. "-sun goddess. Or possibly demigoddess." It really wasn't clear from the cartoon how powerful she was. The beam of war with Chrysalis suggested 'not very' but I'm not about to treat an animation in which none of the characters have genitals or arseholes as entirely reliable. "She was also Miss Shimmer's teacher before they parted on bad terms." Oh, what's the line again? "I'm perfectly happy to answer questions, but please try to keep them to the end of the class."

She nods. I'm glad that Miss Amane isn't some sort of mindlessly obedient death puppy, but I… Probably should have thought through what I was going to do with her a little better than I did. At least she's replaced that nice looking but impractical Apokolips tech scythe with an Apokolips tech war scythe. I didn't want to instruct her in her choice of weapon because she would have obeyed without question, but when I showed her a few variants that she might 'find more practical in some circumstances' she jumped at it right away.

"Miss Shimmer. When is it appropriate to use force to compel another to your way of behaving?"

"Um?" Her pupils dart to the side as she tries to work out what sort of answer I want. "Never?"

"No, don't be daft. Do I look like Celestia? What's your real answer?"

She rolls her eyes. "Why does it matter?"

"I'm helping you become a goddess. I'd like to think that you'll be able to use that power responsibly. Well?"

This time she actually thinks about it. "When they'll hurt themselves worse if you don't?"

"Okay." I create a construct blackboard… Huh. Yellow on yellow. That's not going to work. I dismiss the construct blackboard and take a holoprojector out of subspace, writing 'WHEN THEY'LL HURT THEMSELVES WORSE OTHERWISE' in the top left. "Iname?"

As ever, she brightens slightly at the use of her 'superhero name'. She also doesn't hesitate to answer. "When they're bad people."

I nod. An expected answer. I write it in the top right. Those are the two main categories I want to focus on, but… "Lynne?"

"When they'll.. be.. better if you.. do..?"

I write 'THEIR OWN BETTERMENT' in the middle.

"Alright, that should get us started. Miss Shimmer, how badly would someone have to be about to hurt themselves before you would step in?"

A mild frown. "Well… As long as they get hurt less than they would have done… That's okay, isn't it?"

I raise my right hand, ring pointed towards her. "So I should purge you of your current viral infect-?"

"DON'T YOU DARE!" Her eyes figuratively blaze with indignation.

I nod, making a circling motion with both hands. "So..?"

Her eyes widen slightly as she realises what I mean. "Sometimes people get hurt for their own good."

"That's one way to put it." I add 'HOW MUCH HARM' under her suggestion. "Keep going."

"Aaaaaaaah… They'd have to be getting seriously hurt? Something they couldn't get better from?"

"What if you're not sure whether they will or not?"

Miss Shimmer's face appears to shut down as she's forced to actually think about some of the things Celestia tried to teach her. Guess who actually was paying attention all those times you ranted about her? "The.. risks of intervention have to be offset against the risks of inaction?"

I blow her a raspberry.

"Whaaaaaaat?"

"Of course they do. What you need to know in your own mind is 'how much risk'. 'How much injury'." I add those to the hologram. "And you should have a pretty firm idea of where you think the 'intervention point' is before you put yourself into a position where you might be expected to intervene. Which you will in a couple of hours."

"We will?"

"Iname. How bad does a person have to be?"

She hesitates, though in her case she's trying to work out what answer I want because in her mind that is the right answer, rather than because she thinks that the question is stupid. "You can only do as much harm as they would do."

I write 'EYE FOR AN EYE' on the board. "Alright, but do you mean to them, or in total?"

"I.. don't think I understand."

"Let us take the example of a murderer. According to the principle you stated, killing them would be correct. But what if they've got a dependant who requires them to live in order to survive themselves? Or if they have some vital job lots of other people rely on? You would be harming lots of other people when you killed them."

"Grayven?" Lynne raises her right hand. "Why are we having this lesson over Darfur, rather than somewhere else?"

"Because there's a rather nasty war going on down there. And once the three of you have decided on your moral beliefs, you're going to stop it in accordance with them."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th April
17:45 GMT -6

"…realise this is a silly reason to contact you."

"Oh no, Mister Grayven. It was necessary to test your system and of all of us I am least likely to be distracted from my work."

"Yes, but that's not why I picked you." I exhale, not quite able to look at his screen. Okay, yes, that would make sense. He designed the communication system we Light members use to contact one another for official business, using it to contact him is the logical thing to do in case any problems arise. But that wasn't why. "Ever since our last meeting, I… I can't get the fact that no one knows your name out of my head. It's been bugging me."

"I see."

"I've tried getting the rolls for every university that's had a student from southern France for the last fifty years, I've tried examining your old haunts and trying to get a genetic sample… I even tried going back to Gorilla City and asking the residents-."

"Sacred blue, Mister Grayven."

"I know. They were neither pleased to see me nor inclined to be helpful. Eh, they couldn't really describe you and I wasn't prepared to ease off on my mental defences for them to try showing me telepathically." At least Lynne enjoyed the trip. "So there's really only one way for me to find out left." Well. Other than have Chester rip it out of the Ultra-Humanite's mind I suppose, but there's no guarantee that he knew.

"And what would that be, Mister Grayven?"

"Brain, will you please tell me what your name is?"

He pauses for a moment. "Mister Grayven, is that a Wizard of Earthsea reference?"

Ah? "Sort of. I mean, I don't need you to tell me in order to leave the building."

"You have read it?"

"Yes, while I was on Earth Prime. I wasn't.. massively impressed, but it held my attention at least." I think my dad read it to me for a bedtime story. I may have tried reading it again later, I don't really remember. I've been reading Enid Blyton's Adventure series to Lynne. I don't think she's really.. developed her own tastes yet. That and the fact that we spend most of our time together meant that shopping for her birthday party was a bit tricky. Fortunately, I have a personal shopper with super speed. "Soo… Will you tell me, please?"

"Of course, Mister Grayven. It is Doctor Marcel Durant."

…

"Oh."

"I am sorry if it is not a great revelation. I did not choose my name. I would say that The Brain suits me somewhat more."

"Yeah, I think I agree with you th-."

Lex Luthor's screen activates. "Grayven, I'm-" There's the tiniest hesitation as he spots that the Brain is online as well. "-glad that you're there. We may have a small problem."

"Is it a problem which requires the attention of the entire Light, Mister Luthor?"

"No. In fact, I would have just handed it over to our enforcer."

Hm. "Oh yeah, who is that at the moment?"

"After you killed the last two, the position has remained vacant."

Ah. That. I frown. "Seems like an important job to remain unfilled."

"It will be on the agenda at our next meeting, Mister Grayven. It was decided that it would be best to wait until the new members were confirmed."

"Fair enough. So, what, we'll be deciding between David Hyde and Slade Wilson?" Wasn't really surprised that he extracted himself from custody, though I was a little disappointed.

Lex inclines his head slightly. "They are the leading candidates, though there are one or two others that may be worthy of consideration. Is there anyone you wish to nominate?"

Chester doesn't have the planning skills, Vera hasn't fully acclimatised… I have been meaning to track down Scandal Savage -or whatever her real name is- but I don't have any information on her career. "No, not really. So, why were you calling?"

"One of our secure storage facilities has failed to respond to a check in attempt. Given the nature of what we are storing there, the matter was escalated to me immediately. I dispatched a security detail, and they report that the place is now empty."

"Don't keep us in suspense, Lex. What were you keeping there?"

"Among other things, the exotic remains which the Shadows recovered from STAR Labs during the Roanoke Incident."

"And.. what do they do?"

"It formed the basis of the mind control technology which Mister Klarion used to control the Justice League, Mister Grayven. That, the technology provided by Professor Ivo and Mister Klarion's own magic made for a most potent combination."

"Did wonder where you got that from." I glance back towards the door. I kept one myself, but with everything that's gone on I haven't had the time to study it in any detail. I think the League kept the rest, though I seem to remember Wallace saying something about keeping one as a souvenir. "Do you want me to track down the thief myself? Shouldn't take all that long."

Lex nods. "I was hoping that you would volunteer your services. I'll forward you all of the information we have been able to gather on the creature."

Yes, and then you'll feel obliged to answer when I ask about the Genomorphs, so that works for me… Wait a moment. "Creature?" I frown. "I thought all you had were more of those mind control chip things?"

"Not all of the creature's flesh was consumed creating those. It showed truly remarkable regenerative properties. That was why we kept studying it."

!!!

"You had a living alien in your possession?"

"We were not able to confirm its origin, Mister Grayven. It may indeed be of extraterrestrial origin-."

"No, I know this species. They're called 'Star Conquerors', and at their peak they mind controlled the inhabitants of three Space Sectors. That fight was the last time the Green Lantern Corps really took their gloves off. Do you know how big the one you got your sample from was?"

"I believe Ocean Master said it was something like thirty meters along its longest axis."

"Okay. Okay, that's.. less scary. If it was one of the really big ones…"

"It is interesting to see you so discomported, Mister Grayven. How much of a threat do they pose?"

"I'll send you my files. The closest equivalent in Human popular fiction would be a telepathic Morning Light Mountain from the Commonwealth Saga. If we can contain it quickly, not much. If we can't, if it makes contact with one of its larger kinsmen, very much. Grayven out."

I cut my connection and send Sinestro's files on the species before heading to the door. Blast, what a crap time for it. I'll need to grab… Eh, Chester's still in no fit state... I'll see if Jean's awake. She and a G-Gnome or two-.

"Master!" I look down at the 'thump'. Miss Amane is genuflecting to me, face pressed against the floor. "I have failed you! Please, forgive me!"

…

…kay..?

Miss Shimmer and Lynne follow along behind her, Miss Shimmer looking more than a little nervous. "We.. couldn't come up with a strategy that didn't just result in lots more people dying."

Miss Amane looks up, tears shining in her eyes. "Master, please tell us what we are supposed to do!"

"Miss Shimmer. What did you come up with?"

"Ah…" She ducks my gaze. "If… We thought that if Linn stunned each war band and Iname killed the leaders, that might be enough to convince the rest to back off."

"I don't see a big pile of heads. Did you just leave them there?"

"But we'd have to kill hundreds of people! And that's not even counting the government officials who covered it up for so long! And that might not even have worked!"

I nod, smiling pleasantly. "Oh, so you were paralysed in the face of-?"

"It wasn't possible." Lynne is frowning slightly, as if she's been thinking hard and has just realised something. "The war has been going on for years. You must have known that we wouldn't be able to come up with the right solution in a few hours."

"I would have been surprised."

"Hey!" Miss Shimmer looks irritated while Miss Amane looks like she just got a reprieve from death row.

"If there even was a right answer. In the real world, there may well not be a good solution. Or if there is, the information you would need to make it isn't available. Deciding that there must be a right solution and refusing to take any action until you find it is a rather daft way to proceed. But a few hours was a ridiculously brief target for me to give you. Lynne, well done for standing up to me. But the three of you need to keep studying. I do expect a solution eventually, and more people die while you delay."

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th April
20:17 GMT -5

I smile as Jade opens the door. "Good evening, Catgirl."

She rolls her eyes, turns away and walks back into the house. "Holly and Karon aren't here."

I wince in sympathy as I follow her in, closing the door behind me. "Job interview.. not go so well?"

She stops, but doesn't turn around. "I-." There's a sharp exhalation. "It was a good idea, but apparently they were looking for someone who 'looks a little more intimidating'."

Darn. Jade isn't exactly unwilling to take something minimum wage, but I can well understand that it's a bit of a step down from the sort of thing she used to do. Thing is, she doesn't have much in the way of formal qualifications and she doesn't have anything remotely resembling a reference. I thought 'bodyguard' was quite a good fit… But, yeah, I see their point. Bodyguarding is about keeping the principal safe. A slightly built Asian woman doesn't intimidate people unless she's got a reputation and they know what it is. There are people in Gotham who'd give her that sort of work, but they're all career criminals and probably wouldn't be interested in tolerating her moral hang-ups about doing anything more assertive than guarding.

"This is Gotham. There'll probably be other openings."

"Yeah. Great." She walks over to the closest settee and lithely lowers herself into it. "Guess you heard about me going out with Selina."

I blink. "Well darn. Looks like I misread the situation."

Another eye roll, though this one is slightly better humoured. "Not like that. After working with the League, working out in the gym just doesn't cut it." She pauses as I walk over to sit in the chair across from her. "You're not going to try telling me this violates my parole, right?"

"Not as far as I know." I flick out my right hand. "Don't kill or maim, don't let bystanders get hurt and keep the evidence more or less in one piece and there shouldn't be a Bat-problem." She nods. "New costume?"

"Selina's not a fan of the kimono."

"Gotham's not exactly classy. Not in the sort of places you're needed."

"Plus it's probably better if there isn't an obvious connection between a new vigilante and a recently released ex-League of Shadows operative."

I nod. "Right. Um, look. About... Two weeks ago…" Her eyebrows arch slightly. "It's.. been explained to me… By Artemis… That after you asked about Doctor Blight… You were probably expecting me to…" I make a combine harvesting motion with my arms. "Press my suit. Rather than back off."

"You asked my sister about that?"

"It came up in conversation." And I got away with only a mild ear bashing. "Um. I'm not… Very good at-."

She shakes her head. "I honestly hadn't noticed."

I close my eyes for a moment, exhaling lightly. "Not something I've got a lot of experience with. I just.. took that as you saying 'no', and…"

"Oh."

"I mean, I thought I was making a clear statement of interest, you backed off…"

Her eyes flick away. "I wasn't.. backing off, exactly…"

"Okay, well, I'll.. take that as having your permission to be a little more assertive in future."

"Huh." She treats me to a Cheshire grin. "That'll be fun."

"But in more serious news…"

Sad face. "Aww… And I thought you might have come over while Holly and Karon were out to… Assert."

"N… No. There's a.. situation that's arisen-" Her eyebrows rise again. "-that you not like that!"

"Can't blame a girl for hoping."

"A situation has occurred that.. your particular expertise may be able to help with. Obviously, this is a job, I'd be paying you for-."

Her eyes narrow. "This better not be a pity offer."

I raise my hands in mock surrender. "Wouldn't dare. I'm completely serious. I'm planning something, but I don't have any actual experience-"

"I think I worked that out."

"-with this sort of mission. Oh." I take a ward stone out of subspace and toss it to her. She catches it in her right hand without otherwise moving as I have the ring do a quick scan of the immediate area. I think we're in the clear. "You'll need that."

She looks at the stone carefully. "The only thing… I have experience with… But you don't…"

Killing people, presumably. "Actually, there was a fellow a few days ago-."

"So you don't need my advice on boys?"

An attempt at humour, but her lips aren't smiling. "I'm planning an assassination. Hopefully, it won't-" She looks away. "-come to that, but I need to be sure that I'm prepared just in case. I think I'm covering all the angles-."

"Is this..!" She glares at me. "This better not be some sort of messed up test."

"The Lord of Order Nabu is possessing the body of Mister Giovanni Zatara, and he has no plans to give it up."

Her face creases. "What?"

"Nabu's spirit is bound to that golden helmet. If anyone puts it on, they get shoved into a black featureless void while he gets complete control. Mister Zatara hasn't been taking a leave of absence, he's been a prisoner in his own body since Roanoke Island."

She relaxes a little. "Do the Justice League know?"

"Yes. Which is rather why I'm not going to them… To the rest of them with this."

"That girl, Zatanna. She's his daughter."

"Yes."

She lays there, thinking it through. "Who did you kill?"

"A man named Albrecht Krieger."

Her eyes flick up for a moment. "You killed Captain Nazi?"

"Yes. Of course, killing Nabu is rather more problematic. He's a member of the Justice League-."

She nods. "And we can't risk killing his host."

"Not without a reliable way to resurrect him." Vandal Savage's surviving tribespeople appeared to be my best bet, but I haven't been able to trace them.

"Is that even… Possible..?"

"I believe so. I have a… Scenario in mind. It won't be possible to disguise what we did afterwards, but as long as you're not 'in at the death', we can probably keep your name out of it."

"And if I say no?"

"Then.. you.. forget we had this conversation. I'll understand if you need to think about-."

"I'm in." The look on her face is deadly serious. "Show me what you've got so far."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
09:19 GMT -5

"Soooo?"

I look up from the book John got me on Norse runes to where Artemis leans against a nearby bookshelf, looking rather pleased with herself. "So… What?"

Since I definitively eliminated the Kriegers as a way back to Valhalla for the Einherjar, Batman assigned me the task of coming up with an alternative. The Einherjar themselves don't seem all that bothered. Can't say I'm surprised; some of them have been there for well over a thousand years and are metaphorically chomping at the bit at the prospect of being able to fight something else. Presently they're being entertained by some sort of pagan society in Norway, who are delighted to have tangible evidence of the truth of their faith.

"So? You? Jade?"

I return my attention to the book. "Your analysis was broadly correct. We talked about it…"

"And?" She walks towards me. "You two dating now, or what?"

I smile slightly. "We're probably going to be seeing a little more of each other, certainly."

Artemis pulls out the chair opposite me. "And Zatanna's okay with that?"

I glance up and nod. "Oh yes."

I love sophistry. I handed Jade the standard League of Shadows deposit for a well defended high value target and a summary of the techniques we believe can be used to kill Klarion. The folder it's in is warded and designed to self destruct if anyone else looks at the contents, but even so I'm not comfortable having our actual plan written down anywhere. I have been thinking about how to kill Klarion as well; my hate for Nabu doesn't blind me to the fact that he has to go first. Nabu is a reasonable Klarion counter, killing Klarion is a better one. Once Nabu no longer serves any purpose I won't feel that I'm imperilling the world by threatening him.

"Fine. Don't talk to me about it." She looks around the room. "I thought Gardner was supposed to be here at nine?"

"He said 'nine-ish'. Guy's the only local Green Lantern not to have spent any time in the military. Nine-ish doesn't mean 'at nine, unless something comes up', it means 'somewhere around nine, to within half an hour, probably'." I shrug. "Besides, I train with Guy a couple of times a week anyway. I already know everything relevant to the job that he knows. I'm half expecting him to walk in, ask what we're normally doing at this time of day and tell us to carry on with it."

"The only one who wasn't in the military?"

"Two eight one four A-."

"Hal."

Ah. "Oh, okay, I didn't know that you knew."

She shrugs. "He introduced himself when I was in Central City one time."

"Okay, well, he was in the US air force and B was in the marines."

"What about Mister Scott?"

"He was conscripted during the Second World War. He went through basic training before being transferred to work on Stars and Stripes. He's still got the uniform up in his loft, though he said he hardly ever wore it."

"How did he handle the secret identity thing?"

"With difficulty. When he was in boot camp Green Lantern basically disappeared because he couldn't sneak out. Then, he still had to go where he was sent and he could only act in places where his airspeed could take him there and back." I half-chuckle. "Just a good job he wasn't a paratrooper. If he'd been ordered to drop somewhere inside the Nazi control zone things might have become rather tricky." I frown. "What were you doing in Central City?"

"Hanging out with Wally."

"Oh. Hadn't realised you.. did that."

Her eyes narrow. "Seriously?"

"What?"

"I've been going out with Wally for, like, a month now."

I blink. "You have?"

She gives me an odd look. "You didn't notice..?"

"Notice what?" My gaze grows vacant as I try to remember. "You've.. been.. sniping at each other lessssss?"

"Oh.. my God. You must be the least observant guy I know!"

… "Sorry? I guess… You didn't seem to be having a problem…" Weird. "Really you and Wallace?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well I.. can see why he'd find you attractive, but you just seemed to find him annoying. Aside from this hobby we share, I.. don't really see what you've got in common."

"Yeah, I guess we don't. But-."

"Hey." We both look upwards as Guy's voice comes in over the intercom. "Paul, Artemis, unless I'm intrudin' on your 'personal time', get up here. Got a mission for yeh." Artemis gets up as I close the book. "An' if I am intrudin' on your personal time, I'm turnin' the sprinklers on in five."

"That ass!"

"He… Grows on you." I rise to my feet. "Want me to create a zeta tube?"

"No, he can wait while we walk up."

"Buut." There's a flare of orange as I don my armour. "Mission."

We head out of the library and start along the corridor. "Jerk probably wants us to wax his car or something."

New topic, new topic. "How did your mother react to Batman's telling her about the money?"

"She was… Happy." Batman agreed with dividing it as I suggested and he agreed to handle.. laundering it. Unfortunately, most of my team mates aren't going to be able to access the majority of it until they're eighteen. "She sort of started giving me a lecture about bounty hunting and how that wasn't the heroic identity thing I was trying to make for myself…"

"And then?"

"We got talking about some of the bounties Mom and…" Toss of the head. "Went after? We don't really talk about Huntress very much."

"Bounty hunting is a way to make a living while still being heroic. As long as you're careful about which ones you accept."

"Yeah, and I remember you saying Green Lanterns get paid like that. But… She's right. And, now I can definitely afford to go to college, I think I'd rather do something else."

I nod. "Have anything in mind?"

"I dunno. Grandpa would probably like it if I joined the army."

"And your father would hate it, so it has that going for it."

She shakes her head. "I don't.. care what he thinks. Wally's been trying to persuade me to study chemistry with him… I'm not used to having to worry about it. Oh! I was supposed to tell you. Mom's got a new job."

"What happened to the old one?"

"They paid minimum wage. She's working at the gym now. They saw her working out and said she'd be perfect."

"Good for her."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
09:27 GMT -5

Artemis pulls ahead of me as we get to the training room, moving at a not-quite-jog towards our double line of team mates. A few absences today, I note. I wasn't expecting Troia, but we're also down a Squire and a Speedy. They might be busy, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that Guy just didn't bother reading the SOP manual for how to notify people when there's a mission.

Guy looks around from the holoscreen. "Arty, Orange. Good of you to join us."

I generate a construct umbrella and -Ring, chemical structure of Artemis' lipstick?- add a few minor decorations to my face and neck.

"Sorry we're late, Lantern Gardner."

He looks… Ooo. He wasn't joking about having trouble sleeping. Lanterns can go extended periods of time without sleep, but Guy told me that he has that function deactivated after he found out what the consequences of using it too much were. Think he might need to rethink his policy.

"Kinda surprised you were cuttin' class-." His eyes widen slightly, looking at-. Hah! Got him! He blinks and looks away as I dismiss the umbrella. "Uh, whatever. Okay gang, listen up."

Artemis takes up position next to Wallace… Which now I think about it she's been doing… Whaw, I really did miss that. I thought she just wanted to be within slapping range. I join the end of the line next to Kon, Wolf giving me a greeting sniff as I do so. The holoscreen is displaying images of the Starro-tech, the Cure-tech and what appears to be archival footage of larger Star Conquerors from the Green Lantern Corps' last encounter with them.

"Last July an Atlantean expedition to the Arctic found a big one of these-" He points to one that would be about the size of the one destroyed in Poseidonis. "-hidden in the ice. If any of you haven't heard already, these things are flying, telepathic alien starfish."

Wallace splutters in surprise and disbelief. "Alien starfish?"

Guy glances at him for just long enough for him to start feeling self conscious about the fact that the rest of us didn't react. Then Guy returns his attention to the screen and has it play the attack we watched when I spoke to the Greenies about those things last December. "Yeah, everyone says that to begin with, but these things are no joke. Originally, they used ta be pretty small. They'd just mind control animals on their homeworld, kinda like how that weird fungus reproduces using ants." Someone's been watching the Discovery Channel. "The animals would move 'em around, fight predators, whatever." There's a picture of a herd of… Some sort of alien armoured octopuses, most of which have Star Conquerors on their… I'm going to assume that's their face. "Since they couldn't move much on their own on land and there were other things that ate 'em, they weren't much trouble."

M'gann cocks her head slightly to the left. "That doesn't sound too dangerous. But then how did they get so big?"

"Part of their thing was they could use the brain of whatever they got stuck on. Do that to an animal, it learns what the animal eats, what sorta thing's a threat to it, that's about it. Stick on somethin' a bit smarter-."

Richard nods. "And it gets smarter too."

"It was worse than that. Looks like the first intelligent species they ran into were telepathic themselves, so the Star Conqueror that got stuck on one a' them could share its smarts with the rest. We're not really sure what happened next, but a couple a' decades later they'd given themselves a full upgrade." New images appear. "The big ones are Mother Stars. Their telekinesis is so strong they can fly faster than light with it, protect themselves from capital ship weapons and rip things apart. Not to mention their mind control powers."

We get a short clip of one coming under fire from a small flotilla of warships. It's approaching them eye first, the smaller Star Conquerors hiding behind its bulk. The warships open fire with scintillating beams of energy… Which fade to nothing before hitting home. The Mother Star's eye narrows slightly and one ship ceases firing. One tentacle bends slightly and another ship crumples.

"Real bad news. Good news is, we think they're all dead."

Kon raises his right eyebrow. "You think?"

"After the war between them and the Green Lantern Corps was over, the Corps checked alla the systems anywhere near where they'd been and destroyed any Star Conquerors they found. But y'can't check alla space. It's too big. Could be some a' the big ones cooled down and hid in deep space." He shrugs. "Way I see it, if they were gunna make trouble they'd have done it by now."

"The medium sized ones are Star Hunters." The video turns back to showing the Green Lantern fighting two of them I saw last December. "Like the one the Atlanteans found. They actually come in a bunch a' different sizes… Anyway, they're flying weapon platforms. Mostly they use their telepathy t' paralyse people and then stick the little ones on their faces with their telekinesis. They're tough, but once you actually start hittin' them they tend to go down quick enough. The real problem on the ground is the little ones."

More archival footage, this time showing the descent of a small group of Green Lanterns into a city where every citizen wears a Star Conqueror. Thousands of cyclopean eyes turn to track their progress.

"When they're like this, every one has a hostage they can make fight fer them."

"I can't imagine what that's like."

I hear Zatanna mutter, and from the uncomfortable look Richard gives her it looks like he did as well. Guy didn't.

"They'll know everything the host knew an' since they're all networked together if one's seen you they've all seen you. They don't really have any sense of self preservation; as far as we can tell only the big ones are intelligent on their own."

Wallace nods. "So they're like.. Starfish Zombies."

Artemis doesn't hit him.

"Sure, if Zombies can do all the things they did when they were alive. Watch." A new video appears, humanoid soldiers from the same planet as before taking up position. A Star Hunter moves out from behind a building and immediately comes under fire. It narrows its eye and the soldiers closest to it shudder. The video pauses. "See that? Needed line of sight. These guys are gettin' their nerves jammed." The video resumes, a flight of small Star Conquerors descending from above and landing on the faceplates of the paralysed soldiers, which swiftly give way. "The little claws on their undersides can be reinforced with telekinesis. Rip through just about anything." He makes eye contact with me. "Including constructs." The soldiers flail around for a moment then with precise coordination assault their colleagues with their fists. "They're not using weapons there because they want more warm bodies more than they need the ones they're wearing to stay alive." The images speed up, then return to normal speed, showing the newly Star Conquered soldiers manning anti-aircraft emplacements and firing at local aircraft. "Here, they need the local fighter planes down more than they need the pilots."

Kaldur nods. "Do you believe that we will need to fight these creatures?"

"Hope not." Guy turns off the hologram. "Since December I've been keeping tabs on the Atlantean team who dug out the first one. They've found some biological remains they want taken someplace safe." He shrugs. "I'd say it wasn't anything to worry about, but the Light created Starro-tech with hardly anythin' and the Star Conquerors were notorious for bein' able to regenerate. We're transferin' what we've got to STAR Labs in Gotham City."

Artemis frowns. "Wasn't that where the last piece got stolen from?"

"Yeah, but it got put there in the first place 'cause they've got the best people for checking this sorta thing out. They're workin' on beefin' up the security, but in the meantime I want there to be a bunch a' superheroes on hand in case anyone tries anythin'." He smiles. "And that's you. Your job is to make sure that the samples get to Gotham and make sure they stay there. Any questions?"

"Ah, yeah." Wallace nods. "What sort of size are these samples?"

"Starro slushy, basically. They're being transported in six nitrogen-cooled and heavily insulated shipping crates. Don't think you have to worry about anythin' jumping out at yah."

"Can I just FTL transfer them to Gotham?"

"'Fraid not. The Star Conquerors fought the Green Corps for a long time, and they're sensitive to all kindsa energy and radiation. You understand exactly what happens when you do an FTL transfer?"

"Not.. exactly."

"Then it ain't worth the risk. Any-?" His ring blinks, and he winces as he looks at it. "Ah, heck. I gotta be on the other side a' the Sector an hour ago. You kids can handle this by yourselves?"

Kaldur takes a confident step forward. "Yes, Green Lantern. You may leave this with us."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
11:57 GMT -5

I ignore the glowing around me as the rings react to my displeasure at the dilapidated and bird poo covered state of STAR Labs Gotham's roof by performing a tidy up and look out across this part of the city. You know, for a wretched hive of villainy it doesn't look all that bad. I can hear police sirens, but not more than I would be able to in New York at this time of day. No screams, no gunshots, no screeching tires… With Hugo Strange in prison in Louisiana a Doctor Young is running Arkham Asylum and incidents of escape and violence are well down. There are still gangs and the occasional minor supervillain sticks his/her/its head up, but at the moment things are surprisingly quiet.

I tap my communicator.

"Orange Lantern here. Everything calm and peaceful on the roof. Robin?"

"Robin here. STAR's electronic security is actually pretty good."

"Oh?"

"They get supplied by WayneTech."

"Ah. Are you occupied?"

"There's some spyware I need to get rid of and their physical electronic security could use a little work. I'll have done everything I can in about an hour."

"Rightyho."

Wallace strolls over to stand next to me. "Is that really a thing English people say? Or are you just.. trying to make a catchphrase happen?"

I set my communicator to 'off'. "It's an unusual turn of phrase, but I believe that other English people use it."

He leans against the wall surrounding the edge of the roof. "You know you've still got that makeup on, right?"

"Makeup?"

"Yeah, okay, it was kinda funny? But you're overplaying it." He's probably right. Got a few funny looks from my team mates on the way over here, not that anyone said anything. "And I'm not insecure enough to let it actually bother me. No way did Artemis kiss you."

I make a vague gesture with my right hand and the lipstick evaporates. "I'm afraid that I lack your highly refined sense of comedic timing."

"Guess I finally get to teach you something. Hey, I've been meaning to talk to you about-."

"I just.. need to finish the ring around. Then you'll have my undivided." He nods. "Zatanna?"

"I've put wards on each external door and I'm.. trying to work out what the best way to create a ward for the whole building is."

"We need something that will alert us to an intruder.. and something that will block scrying and magic-based teleportation. Anything else is gravy. Don't worry about how long it can last. I'm sure we can persuade Atlantis to send up a battlemage or two to create something really strong if we think it's necessary."

"Okay, I can do that. Call it… An hour and a half?"

"Okay, let me know if there's any problem. Artemis?"

"I've finished the background checks on all of the staff and most of the suppliers."

"Anything turn up?"

"Nothing worth mentioning. The only tie to the Light is that they get some of their lab equipment from LexCorp, and that all looks legitimate."

"Okay, good work. Let me know when you've finished. Rocket?"

"Seven force field emitters in place, eighteen to go."

"Okay, that's-."

"Some of the security guys are getting a bit unhappy about this."

"Once we've finished up you and I can give them a demonstration of how the things work, let them talk it out. For now, focus on getting them assembled."

"I hear you. Rocket out."

"Canis?"

"FTL jammers and teleport jammers in place. And one of the staff is making an obscene gesture at me."

"If it is weak, either kill it or ignore it. Anything else honours it."

"Then I will ignore it. Though… The individual in question is not unappealing."

I tap my communicator again. "Sorry, Kid Flash. You were saying?"

"How come you're not putting up the force fields? Off-loading the boring jobs onto other people?"

"Because I know how to assemble mobile force field generators and Rocket doesn't. Or rather, didn't." I walk over to the surrounding wall and take a look over the edge. Heights used to scare me, but somewhere along the line I lost that fear. Probably all the flying I've been doing. "I've.. been thinking… About my leaving."

"Going to Maltus?" I nod. "But you'll be back, right?"

"I don't know. Hopefully, but I've got no idea what the timeline will be. If they want me to teach classes it could be a year or two before I can get away for any length of time."

He nods thoughtfully. "So… When is it you're leaving?"

"Haven't picked a date yet. My obligation to remain ends on… In the middle of the night on the fifth of July, Eastern Standard Time. I'll probably leave-" Depending on how things go with Nabu. "-a little after that. I mean, heh, I'd hate to go through all the trouble of keeping my oath and then mess it up by working out a time zone difference wrongly."

Wallace gazes off into the distance. "Huh."

"What?"

"Oh, it's just… I knew the team wasn't a permanent thing. Roy's going to want to join the League eventually. Probably Kaldur too."

"And you?"

"I don't know. Unless I can get my Garrick Formula fixed I'd still be the slow Flash."

I wince slightly. "Sorry, I've… Been kind of occupied. How's that been going?"

"It kinda hasn't." His eyes drop to the ground for a moment. "Nyssa's been doing her best, but the knowledge just isn't there."

"Anything I can do to help?"

"I don't think…" Something appears to occur. "Can you give me Rush Hour's number?"

"I can. I'd.. rather check with them first. Why do you want it?"

"We know that whatever the Garrick Formula did to my body, it was alchemical, right? And 'alchemical' means 'making magic with chemicals'."

"Basically."

"Which means my next step is to get an actual magic user to take a look. But since there aren't any super speed magicians around the place they're probably not going to know any more than Nyssa does."

"Not immediately, no."

"But the Rush Hours already use magic to get super speed. If I can learn what they're doing, that might work."

"Might. But we thought that about Jesse Quick. You really shouldn't-."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." He waves me off. "Probably won't. But, it might. So I'm gonna try it."

"Alright. I'll talk to them about it once the Starro slushie is taken care of."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
13:31 GMT -5

The large roller shutter door at the rear of the building opens, revealing the heavy goods vehicle carrying our crates. Raquel waves at me from the passenger seat as the driver drives forwards into the loading dock.

Doctor Wilson Farr steps up beside me. He's the head of STAR Labs: Gotham, having worked on any number of highly sensitive projects for various concerns, Batman and Superman being amongst them. "Heh, well, I'm glad that went smoothly."

The roller shutter door closes as the lorry comes to a halt. "Please avoid tempting fate, Doctor Farr." I raise my left hand. "Orange Lantern to team, scanning package now." Standard scan, sonic pulse -which makes both Canis and Beton Brut wince- and gravity resonance scan. Nothing unexpected. Be a bit surprising if there was, but I'm not about to muck this up by not taking it seriously. "Scan shows no abnormalities. Zatanna?"

Outside the observation booth the driver goes to open the door, only for Canis to shake his head and point. Something about the fact that he's sitting on a giant Dog seems to make people more obedient. Maybe I'm overdoing it, but 'no one gets out until we're sure they are who they should be' seems to be a reasonable precaution in a situation like this.

"I can't wait to get started." The other man in here with me is Doctor Silas Stone. He'll be heading the team working on the Star Conqueror material. "It's not every day someone gets to work on an alien life form." He glances at me. "Not in Gotham, anyway."

Zatanna walks around the lorry. From here I can see her lips moving, though whatever she's saying is too quiet for me to make out. Once she completes her circuit a band of blue-white light passes over the lorry, running up from the wheels and coalescing in the middle of the top surface. She taps her communicator. "Everything seems to be in order."

"Thank you. Step back." She retreats to the edge of the room. "Artemis, Robin." Though they're both about as strong as Canis, they look less intimidating. "Rocket, please open the rear doors."

"Ahright anal retentive Lantern."

Artemis and Richard take up station on either side of the door, far enough back that they'll have time to respond to a sudden rush. The rear doors open… Revealing exactly what we thought would be there. Six crates designed to maintain a very low temperature within them.

"Robin, visual inspection."

Doctor Farr gives me a sceptical look. "Is this.. all really necessary?"

"Probably not, but I've seen enough of what Star Conquerors can do to not want to take any risks."

Richard jumps up into the rear of the lorry while Artemis puts an arrow on string. As he enters the code to pop the hatch on one I close my eyes and mentally prod Fatty to peer over the rim of this building's roof. A moment later I get an unobstructed view of the surrounding streets. Nothing out of the ordinary. I could be using a full swarm for this, but I don't think Batman would be best pleased if I started a citywide demonic invasion panic. Unlike in the comics people around here do remember what happened a few episodes ago. I don't like to draw the link, but Fawcett City made it clear to everyone in America that the Roanoke Island incident might well not be a one-off thing. Places and people who used to scoff at magic and its practitioners -heh, 'ancient religion'- are now wising the heck up all around the world. The Atlantean mission to the UN has expanded to a proper embassy, though they aren't having to process a significant number of visa applications as yet. Hopefully, the cultural immersion will encourage the mages Atlantis is renting out to broaden their horizons. Wait, would that phrase mean anything to an Atlantean? They don't often.. see.. horizons after all…

"All clear in here."

"Okay, send in the unloading team."

"We could just.. carry them. I mean, we do have super strength."

"Which is why I don't want you encumbered. You're here to fight off attackers, not rearrange furniture. Besides, there's probably some sort of training course you have to do first or their insurance gets invalidated."

"Okay."

Richard leans out of the back and makes a beckoning motion at the staff member on the forklift truck. Artemis slowly walks out of the way as they put it in gear and drive towards the opening.

"Rocket, you and the driver can get out now."

"Thank you." She smiles sarcastically in my direction before getting the driver's attention and pointing at the door.

Aaaaaahh?

Chubbs sends me a mental image of three people entering STAR Labs' reception area. A bit hard to tell as he doesn't process clothing images in a particularly Human way, but from what I can tell they seem to fit in. Ugh, I wish Teekl had been cooperating this morning. Her mental images are far clearer. I send him a 'keep watching but take no other action' instruction, but now he's set off my paranoia. Outside… The pavement seems a little busier, but I don't know how busy it usually gets during the lunch period.

Aaahh! Aaahh! Aaahh!

Oh, what is it shiiiit! Where there were three Humans there are now three hulking Demons. Ugh, can't tell-. Ring, security camera! The largest is eight feet tall and looks heavily muscled, though with Demons there's no guarantee that mass means what it would to a Human. Its skin is a dull red-brown, with darker armour-like sections protecting its vitals and two sets of curved horns extending from each side of its head. The second has bright blue skin, its head pulled into its torso and its arms and legs stretched out to extreme lengths. The third looks something like a Human corpse, oily black liquid dripping from numerous pins stuck into its skin and evaporating as it hits the carpeted ground.

Right then.

"Kid Flash, Artemis, attack at the entrance."

Doctor Farr's eyes widen. "What do you-?"

I hold up my right hand to stop him as Chubbs observes the receptionist flee for safety, then transition out into the loading bay. "Three Demons, unknown power level?"

"Demons?" Canis grins. "Demons! I have yet to face-!"

"Canis, stay here, guard the cargo. There could be more." Artemis leaps over to me, steadies herself and then gives me a nod. "Transitioning."

We reappear in the corridor leading to the reception area just as Wallace dashes up. "Someone not say grace at lunch?"

I create a railgun and load cold iron rounds, then put construct armour around both Artemis and myself. "Hail Eris, full of chaos."

Artemis notches an anti-magic arrow. "I got yer grace right here."

"Think I shoulda picked up some holy water."

The doors at the end of the corridor buckle inwards as the blue Demon shoves its fingers through the middle and grips them from the inside. I hold up my glowing rune stone for a moment as they're ripped free. Yep, definitely a magic life form and not an unfortunate metahuman. Always best to check. The Demon behind the doorway awkwardly lowers its body to look at us. Huh. It's gained a few extra arms from somewhere. Looks a little like the Oni from Roswell Conspiracies.

"Raaahwrawrwaw!"

Its chest opens, revealing its teeth-ribs, dripping noxious digestive juices and seven prehensile tongues.

Artemis and I fire.

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
13:36 GMT -5

My round strikes it near the centre of mass -just missing where its spine would be if it were Human- and punches clean through. I experience a split second of fear that the overpenetrating round might hit someone before I see that the larger armoured Demon was in the way. Artemis' arrow hits it directly in the upper right shoulder, the head burying itself in the joint.

"Grahhhgahggahhhh!"

The transferred kinetic force from my railgun round slamming into it causes the Demon's torso to jerk away and Artemis' arrow causes it to lose hold of whatever it was gripping onto with the hand on that arm. It staggers back and Wallace uses the opportunity to dash out into the reception area.

"Lord Satanus, bless my claws!"

My second shot blasts through the blue Demon's left leg, severing it entirely. Artemis' second arrow was a quick hardening foam which erupts within the hole that appears to serve as the Demon's throat, covering its visible insides and thoroughly clogging up its pseudo organs.

It collapses to the floor, deep blue ichor leaking from its wounds. Must be a weak one. Artemis and I advance past it. That should hold it for now, I can get Zatanna or John to interrogate it later.

"Blmvrl."

Wallace is running circles around the large Demon as it slams its huge three-fingered claws into the ground in an attempt to strike him. Were he less experienced in using super speed the vibrations passing through the floor might be enough to cause him to trip. As it is, he jumps, runs along the wall and then rushes back down towards his target. The Demon swings its right arm -another area effect attack, must be one of the intelligent ones- only for Wallace to handplant on the top of its forearm, bounce from there onto its left arm and then dash up onto its shoulder and smash something in its face.

For a moment the Demon just looks confused.

"GRAAAAAAGHHH!"

I can hear hissing as whatever Wallace just hit it with begins to eat away at its head, armoured plates and horn visibly abrading as we watch. The Demon collapses to its knees, clawing at its face. The only obvious result of that is that its upper left horn snaps off.

Wallace precipitates out of the air just behind us. "Essence of Vitriol. Just what a budding alchemist needs when fighting Demons."

The Tar-Covered Corpse flows away from us slightly, careful to keep its face towards us.

"Alright, you." I load a Mage Slayer. "Answer our questions and I send you back to hell not much worse for wear. Refuse, and… Well. Chubbs!"

The 15-rated Slimer wannabe descends from its hiding place near the ceiling, waving its chubby right arm. "Haa-iiy."

The Corpse turns its head to look at Chubbs for a moment, then turns back to us. Can it not rotate its eyes? Does it actually have eyes, or are the black holes it? Face fixed on us, it makes a strange sort of yawny-hiss noise which the ring's translator can't make sense of. The black gunk appears to stop dripping, instead choosing to defy gravity and pool on the vertical surfaces of its body.

"Was that hiss-yes or hiss-no?"

"Orange Lantern?"

Without taking my eyes off the Demon I tap my communicator to respond. "Not a great time, Zatanna."

"Are you certain they're Demons?"

I take a second to review the camera footage of their arrival. "Walked in Human shaped, turned into inhuman monsters with non-functioning physiology. Possession doesn't work like that… Pretty confident. Why?"

"They didn't set off my ward. Anything as magically powerful as a Demon should have done so."

Hm. She's right. "Maybe someone in Hell's been a bit cleverer than usu-?"

The Tar-Covered Corpse opens its mouth and zooms towards us, black filth spraying from its mouth! The creature just sort of leans forwards and flows across the ground, no leg movement required. Artemis instinctively jerks back as the first few droplets splatter against our construct armour and begin eating through it! I erect a construct barrier but that dissolves too as the Demon reaches us. Fine then. I step up as Artemis' anti-magic arrow strikes it high in the chest and appears to be engulfed in black goo, battering ram construct swinging for its abdomen.

"Orange Lantern! More Demons assail us!" "Finally!"

The goo almost completely absorbs the energy of the strike and begins eating away at the construct. The Demon takes the time to hiss again.

"Have fun, Canis. Keep them away-" I turn the battering ram into a railgun and fire a Mage Slayer round. "-from the lorry."

"Pwaghhuhuhh!" The Demon recoils, thick globs of Tar sloughing away from its body as it tries to cope with the sudden power drain. The noise cuts out as Artemis puts an arrow in its throat, though the Demon still isn't going down.

"Zatanna, if reasonably practical try to capture one. Otherwise, stay back. Robin, make sure the civilians are out of the way."

"Already done, Oh El."

The Tar-Covered Corpse flicks its arms at us, inky droplets spraying off the skeletal fingers. I generate another construct barrier as Wallace darts away, the large Demon lying still on the floor groaning piteously in pain as he kicks its exposed flesh on his way past. This time the droplets don't melt, but rather begin to mix in with the orange, darkening it. I abandon construct. Don't know what that was but it didn't look good.

"Okay, fine, you want to be difficult?" I open both palms to face it. "Brand." Thick bars of orange energy slam into the Demon, battering its personal oil slick and exposing more of its ruined flesh. "Artemis, I've got this one. Make sure the other two stay down."

"Right."

"Laaaanteeeeern."

"Oh good, you can talk. Let's start with your name."

"Laaaanteeeeern."

Oh, for goodness sake. The oil is almost all gone now. If I were a better thaumaturgist I'd probably find the way it behaved utterly fascinating. As it is… I'd guess that the oil isn't inherently magical but the control mechanism is? Oh, that's interesting, there's some sort of design scrawled on the Demon's flesh.

Orange sigils form in its eyes.

"You overreach, Laaaanteeeeern."

"Critical power drain detected."

The runes cut into its flesh light up orange in a design that reminds me a little of the ones Dark Druid used in Liverpool.

"My power naow!"

Cut the connection cut the connection!

"Heeyhaaaaagh!"

Not cutting. With two quick hand motions I pull the rings from my fingers and back the heck up. The beams cut off and the Demon takes the opportunity to pose as dull orange oil covers its flesh, sigils shining through the murk from underneath. It exhales and a cloud of orange wafts from its mouth.

I put the rings back on. Rings, what's the damage?

Thirteen percent remaining.

Ooooh poop.

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
13:39 GMT -5

"Orange Lantern to everyone." I draw my sidearm and point it at the Demon. "One of the Demons just ate my ring charge. This isn't going to be-" Two Arrows of Unmaking strike it in the chest and trigger.

"Raaaaargh!"

"-as easy as I thought."

The Tar-Covered Corpse flows away from us, the two round holes ripped in its chest swiftly being swallowed by dull orange goo. It slaps its right hand against the fallen form of the Juggernaut Wallace melted, and orange strands glow across the brute's skin, matching the runic patterns I briefly saw on the Corpse's own flesh.

Okay, power armour, go for my personal lantern or try fighting like this? Call for help? No one could get here- I note another arrow moving into my field of vision in slow motion- fast enough, at least no one with the necessary anti-Demon skill set. I pull the trigger on my pistol, sending an iron bullet towards the Corpse. Doubt that'll do much. Angel feather railgun round? In situations like this I'm really supposed to retreat but I can't leave Artemis and Wallace in the lurch, to say nothing of all the squishy civilians. Fingers moving in slow motion I pull the trigger again. Disadvantage of polytheism is that I can't just pray to my preferred jumped up Elemental to make the Demons go away. I'd have to get a god with a particular pre-existing hostility.

Wallace runs forwards, another vial prepped. The Corpse's eyes flash orange for a moment and a tar tentacle bubbles outwards from its chest, lashing out at his most likely approach. Wallace jumps, twisting in the air to throw himself over it. Next to the Corpse, the empty pits in the Juggernaut's face that once held its eyes flare orange.

Right.

My power armour appears around me-

Warning, twelve percent remaining.

-and I activate the flight system and phasing.

"Ragh!"

Things move back into normal speed. The Corpse's tentacle intercepts Artemis' arrow while the Corpse itself slides out of the way of Wallace's hurriedly thrown vial. My bullets hit but appear to do no damage. Par for the course, really. Artemis' second arrow -this one an Unmaker rather than a anti-magic arrow- punches a hole in the tentacle and causes the part severed from the Corpse to fall to the ground, where it… Ugh, where it shimmers and vaporises in a decidedly unhealthy-looking fashion. I raise my right arm, construct railgun reforming and a cold gun appearing from subspace. Cold gun is a bit iffy as Demons don't always bother creating bodies from matter, but if Crumblers worked they're probably solid enough to have their vibrations impeded. Wallace is moving too fast for me to precisely track him, but from the way the Corpse's head is constantly jerking and the presence of numerous small but heavy airborne objects I'm going to assume that he's super speed throwing things.

The cold beam hits the Corpse in the chest, coating its epidermis in frost as super cooled whatever-it's-made-of causes the water to precipitate out of the air. The Demon itself actually seems mildly perturbed by this, looking down at itself and making a weird sort of choking-panting noise. The Juggernaut starts to pull itself to its feet, a sort of crystalline construct growth appearing along its forearms. I've been reluctant to use angel feather rounds because I only have a very finite number of them, but I think I've found the time for them.

An Unmaker from Artemis hits the Juggernaut hard enough to make it jerk away, and the detonation causes the orange runes to blink out. I load an angel round and fire it directly at that point.

The round punches cleanly through the Demon's skin and into its pseudo organs.

"Yaaaaaahhh!"

It collapses, flares of gold and black flickering around it as the magics conflict and counteract one another. The Corpse takes one look at what's happening to its colleague and propels itself my way on a plume of orange ichor, mouth unhinged and hissing. I go to dodge, but its oil coated talons still pass through.. me…

Ooh, that feels disgusting. The physical component went through, but I think.. I just caught the edge of its magics and-

Warning, ten percent remaining.

-got drained further. I'm going to need Zatanna to check me out fully after this. Artemis rolls out of the way as the Corpse has a moment of indecision: go for me again when the first attempt appeared to achieve nothing, or try reinforcing its other fallen comrade? I come back into phase and fire the cold gun again as Artemis looses another Unmaker, trying to create another hole in its oil coating. It shudders under the beam's effect but doesn't seem notably disabled. Artemis' Unmaker gouges another break, but the oil covers it once more before she can capitalise. Wallace blurs past, another vial breaking on the Corpse and a patch of green sludge spreading across its back. It doesn't hiss in the way the acid did, but the Corpse flails around for a moment trying to reach it anyway. The bits I froze are stiffer, but not nearly as much as they should be. I can see the heat being leached out of the air from here; absolute zero is bloody cold.

Wallace drops back to normal speed just behind me. "Aim for the green stuff!"

Okay then. I raise my railgun and load an angel round as Artemis hurries around to this side and notches an anti-magic arrow. We fire simultaneously, my shot striking home just ahead of hers. Both finally penetrate the Corpse's outer defences and burrow into its insides.

"Nraaaaooooow!"

The Corpse collapses to the ground, more of its body appearing as the oil streams off and runs across the floor.

Right then. Rings, get my gosh darn power back.

Orange vapour leaps out of the muck and towards my gauntlets. Okay, I'm going to assume that means that the spell binding it is broken. Rings, we got a recording of the rune layout, right?

Confirmed. Ninety percent of image available. Charging in progress. Eighteen percent available.

Good to know.

"Master! Please!" The Corpse claws at the air, presumably begging either its summoner or its overlord. "Aid meeee!"

"Mrrruhhhhmrm." Keeping the rings scanning the Corpse I turn to the fallen Juggernaut. It's shrivelled as the angel round leaches its power, horns vanishing and its grey blood turning… Red? What?

"Ah, Oh El? Is it meant to do that?"

Charge at twenty three percent.

I quickly review the footage once more. The Juggernaut was that one, so… The horns vanish and the hair begins to grow from the top of its head in replacement. Behind me the outer flesh of the Corpse begins to reappear, covering its exposed muscles and bones. The injuries we inflicted are now painfully visible, and from the way the Corpse is thrashing about I'm going to assume that they can feel them now as well.

What?

"Kid Flash, healing unguents."

"But they're De-."

"That's not how Demons work. I don't know what they are."

"Okay, God, ah…" He pushes the woman who became the Juggernaut firmly onto her back, revealing the full extent of her facial burns and the hole in her chest made by my railgun round. He pours the content of one vial over her face as I go to work on the rapidly bleeding puncture, cauterizing and reknitting the damaged flesh. As well as extracting my round. Those things don't grow on trees. My constructs fade once I'm reasonably sure that she isn't going to die immediately. Wallace's efforts on her face have restored it to third-degree-oil-burns level, back from skull-with-some-meat-attached. The eyes are still gone, but that's to be expected. Don't think we caused any brain damage, but it's too early to be certain.

"Okay, next one."

Artemis just stands there, staring in shock as we rush to patch up the Corpse. I use the rings to bring her temperature up… Not sure what happened there, having part of your body at absolute zero should be pretty lethal for a Human but she seems to be getting off with extreme-but-survivable cold. Wallace splashes healing potion on the holes all over her torso.

"A-Artemis to team. The Demons, they're… People. People turned into Demons! Try not to kill them!"

How is this even possible?

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
13:57 GMT -5

"My God." Doctor Stone shakes his head, stunned at the destruction unleashed in the loading dock. Or possibly stunned by the injuries we just inflicted. Probably best that I not tell him that this sort of outcome is about par for the course when we fight people in our weight class and they won't surrender. All of the former Demons are bound by magic suppression chains and look thoroughly the worse for wear.

Only two attacked the loading dock, but when they bought their tickets in the superpower lottery Hell smiled on them. One was left basically humanoid with a head about three times as tall as it should be and split down the middle. Between the two halves was a black void from which it could fire highly resilient chains burning with hellfire. Richard was dangerously close to getting dragged in at one point before Zatanna worked out how to disrupt the portal. The other resembled a sort of Wurm/Millipede combination, with the added bonus that its partially intangible nature let it both fly and destructively phase through solid objects.

Richard sidles up to me as Zatanna finishes the physical components of the truth compulsion ritual. "So what'd we call them?"

I point to the ones Wallace, Artemis and I fought, generating small constructs of their transformed states. "Oni, Juggernaut and Tar-Covered Corpse. Do you want to name yours?"

Canis decided that it was best to make the portal disruption permanent and darn near stove in their first opponent's head. His Demon form was tough and not all of the injuries they suffer translated back onto their Human forms but the left cheek and jaw are comprehensively shattered. That will take a great deal of surgical effort to stick back together. For the moment, he'll have to make do with Richard and the lab's medic's effort to create a sort of frame around the left side of his face.

And yet, somehow, I couldn't quite muster the desire to fix it myself.

The former Wurmipede is still unconscious from the feedback generated by the interaction between its aura and Raquel's kinetic belt. Raquel was a bit out of it herself, but her I could help.

"Do you think 'Centipede' is too obvious?"

"I think it's taken."

He thinks for a moment, then smirks. "Oh yeah. I forgot about that guy."

"How can you laugh about this?" Doctor Stone gestures at the wreck of the transport lorry. "That creature destroyed the samples! The Atlanteans will never trust us with a second batch, if they can even find one."

"Doctor Stone, the Bio Ship is fast, but it's not that fast. The samples won't get here for another four hours."

"You-! You knew we were going to be attacked?"

"Knew, no. But the obvious time to attack was the moment the samples arrived. Wasn't expecting.. this." None of the scientists or workers were injured during the attack, having all lived in Gotham long enough to know to get the heck out of the way when things start getting weird. Or maybe they just weren't targeted. The ones who entered via reception certainly could have killed the receptionist if they'd wanted. "Thought it was best to spring the attack during the dress rehearsal rather than the real event."

Doctor Stone nods. "I.. suppose. What exactly did they do to themselves?"

"Not sure. Hopefully, we'll know in a few minutes."

"Orange Lantern." Beton Brute pads forwards as Canis hails me with his right hand. "Do you have pencil and paper?"

"Yes… May I ask why you want them?"

He nods, smiling. "The sight of that creature moving through the air has inspired me. Since the fighting is -for the moment- concluded-."

I take an art pad and a selection of pencils out of subspace and float them over to him. "Knock yourself out."

"Thank you."

"Okay." Zatanna stands up and takes a step back. "That should do it. Orange Lantern?"

I nod. "Robin, if you wouldn't mind?"

"Sure. Never interrogated a Demon before."

The two of us walk over to the woman who was briefly the Tar-Covered Corpse. Mary Dey, a college drop out whose previous criminal history amounted to a few parking tickets. Juggernaut had a slightly more jaded past, but the rest had similarly clean records. My physical scans showed no particular anomalies and I couldn't see any unusual financial activity when I had the ring take a look at their accounts. Bit of a puzzler, really.

"Zatanna?"

"I dnib uoy ot kaeps eht hturt, eht elohw hturt dna gnihton tub eht hturt."

The circle around our subject gleams slightly and there's a faint distortion in the air.

"Poetic. Well then, let's start with the obvious stuff. Would you please confirm your name for the record?"

"Fuck you." Her eyes glaze slightly. "Mary Dey." Her eyes return to normal, then widen slightly. "The fuck was that?"

"Encouragement. It won't let you lie or dissemble."

"You shit sucking-."

"What caused your transformation?"

"Juice." Another flicker. "Hell Juice. I dunno what the stuff is really called."

"Robin?"

He makes a small frown. "Never heard of it. What other names does it have?"

"Ah… Devil Jizz, Dee Em En… I don't know any others."

"DMN? Demon? Who came up with that?"

"Maybe it stands for something? Demonic… Metamorphosis… Narcotic?" Um. "Nectar?"

Artemis makes a face. "And who'd take something called 'Devil Jizz'?"

"These five, apparently. Who is your supplier?"

"I never met him. And when I spoke on the phone he used one of those voice altering things."

"Why did you attack this place?"

"It was jghrh." She visibly strains against the spell. "My chance… To get big. I knew whoever it was had something good going on. I wanted a piece of it. We all got sent stronger Juice so we'd be able to do the job. We got told, wait for the delivery, then make sure it got destroyed."

"Destroyed. Not captured. Curious. Is this the first time you've transformed?"

"No, but it's the first time I've gone that far or become that.. thing. Usually I pick something.. prettier."

"Ever met an actual Demon?"

"No. But I figured, that's what I'd look like if I was a Demon."

"Have you had any other significant contact with the arcane?"

"No. Least, I don't think so."

"Can you provide us with the names of other users and locations where you people congregate?"

"Yrrrrrr… Yes."

"Ah, Oh El?" Wallace raises his right eyebrow. "I don't think this stuff is actually illegal. I mean, it should be, but…" He shrugs.

"As a narcotic? No. But I think I could convince a judge that they should count as 'baleful or sorcerous weapons', and there's a decent penalty for using those. Robin, find out everything she knows. I'll get in contact with the Gotham police."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
17:27 GMT -2

Tao crouches reflexively as the explosives vent their fury against my barrier. "They were prepared for us."

I shove the barrier forwards, into the interior of the LexCorp submarine. "No. They're not planning on going back up. They booby trapped the one obvious point of ingress. Ugh, and now we can't use this submarine to get back to the surface without repairing the airlock." The ring shows me the empty corridor. "Clear."

I step forwards, turning to the right. Tao steps up to cover the left. "Surely your power ring would make that simple."

"Making things is much harder with a yellow ring than an orange one." Sinestro, access submarine computers.

There aren't any, Corpsman. Data storage devices have been physically removed.

Damn it. This hunt has been a good deal less fun than I thought it would be. And I've only got an hour until our guests start arriving for Lynne's birthday! For some reason -probably something to do with their relationship with a species that once fought the Green Lantern Corps to a standstill- I can't scan for them, so I've been reduced to doing actual detective work! I got a lucky match on one of the missing researchers from a LexCorp-monitored traffic camera, but from there I was always one step behind. I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised that they've headed to the site of the Atlantean survey expedition that dug out the original Star Conqueror, but… It doesn't make sense. Klarion had to use highly involved magic to control the Starro-tech chips. Okay, assuming that they somehow got exposed to what they were studying despite knowing the risks and the Starro-tech somehow formed a mental network…

"What next?"

"Doctor Robbins, Hush tube. Send in drones to secure the submarine."

"Opening now."

"Tao, we need to get to the dive pool."

"Understood."

I start down the corridugh. Lex's prized experimental next generation submarine isn't quite the glorified sardine tin which modern military submarines are, but it still isn't exactly roomy. Not for someone my size, anyway. But I can't risk transitioning around beings who might conceivably have a way to disrupt it.

"What do you think we will face?"

What indeed. "Worst case scenario, they've freed a large Star Conqueror from the ice and got it up to speed. The mind scrambler I gave you should keep it out of your head for long enough for us to kill it."

"You are not wearing one yourself."

"I was trained by Chester Black. It isn't getting in my head."

"Tell me honestly: do you believe that we can save the researchers?"

"I can't really say. Starro-tech is simple enough to remove. People controlled by actual Star Conquerors can usually recover if they're freed within the first couple of days."

"And after that?"

"Too much of their mind is rewritten. They might learn to function again, but the person they were is gone."

"And why was Lex Luthor studying these creatures?"

Hm. "If you're asking me as an upstanding citizen, I'd say that noted futurist Lex Luthor has made a point of studying any strange or alien technology that he comes across, both to enrich his company and to enrich humanity at large. If they were used in a criminal fashion before the tissue samples his company received came into his possession, he had no knowledge of it. If you're asking me as a member of the Light, I'd say that anything that can mind control the Justice League is something that needs to be studied. If something can control them, it can control anyone."

"Perhaps this practice should be reviewed in light of this escape."

"If Lex had thought to check with the resident alien exactly what he was dealing with, this wouldn't have happened." I pause just before the reinforced doors to the plunge pool. "Wait, did you just make a pu-?"

The doors jerk open, and for a moment my eyes meet the equally surprised eyes of King Orin. Tao keeps his bow down as Orin, Kaldur and the small squad of Atlantean soldiers ready their weapons.

"Grayven. I wish I could say I'm surprised. When my people called for help, I assumed that a surface world submarine was spying on us. Imagine my surprise at finding you on a LexCorps vessel."

"Orin. If only your people had left well enough alone in the first place."

His eyes narrow slightly. "And what do you mean by that?"

"Your people dug out a Star Conqueror." I generate a construct image of an active one. "Did one of the Green Lanterns brief the League?"

"Is that why Luthor attacked my people?"

"Luthor hasn't attacked anyone." That I know of. Recently. "Some of his people got exposed to the Starro-tech and they came here on their own initiative. Or more likely, a Star Conque-."

His right fist slams into my jaw, catching me by surprise. I tip my head back slightly in response. No follow up. I tilt it back down again. "If you were Kal-El, that might have hurt."

"You were studying those things!"

"Do you enjoy being ignorant, or has it simply become a habit for you?"

Kaldur -who has switched back from his Apokoliptian armour to his old blue-and-reds- steps forwards and hesitantly lays his right hand on his monarch's left arm. "My king, the people in the research center are still in danger."

I nod. "And unless you're a much better telepath than your League records suggest. And, have some way to remove Starro-tech…"

I'll credit him at least with not wasting time glaring at me. "Archer, can you breathe in water?"

He taps the upper arm of his bow against his mouth, causing the energy based filtration system I gave him to sparkle. "While I wear this. The water will not prevent me from shooting, though Grayven had intended to force it away from the combat area with his power ring."

Hmm. "The Star Conqueror might have done that anyway. They can function in water, but they usually prefer shallow pools or dry land to oceans."

Orin nods, then stands aside. "You can go first."

I shake my head. "No, the drones go first. Doctor Robbins?" Three drones momentarily drop stealth in the air just above the plunge pool, their weapons visibly trained on the Atlanteans. I smile at their discomfort as I walk towards the pool. "Send them down, would you?"

The drones shimmer and then disappear. Invisible and mindless, they should be able to escape detection. Phased, they won't be affected by the water.

And someone thought that bringing mooks was the answer.

"Atlanteans don't have any special resistance to mind control, right?"

Orin clenches his jaw for a moment. "Several members of the expedition were highly skilled with ice magic. But if Star Conqueror mind control is purely telepathic, no."

I narrow my eyes, focusing on the images from the drones. A simple magic membrane divides the interior of the Atlantean base camp from the Arctic water.

"Celestial Archer." Oh, look at Kaldur trying to be subtle. "Why are you working with Grayven?"

"We are hunting dangerous aliens, Aqualad. I believe that my duty to protect the Earth has higher priority than the.. dispute, between Grayven and the Justice League. "

"Be nice, Kaldur. If he hadn't agreed to help me I'd have had to kill each infected person to prevent the Star Conquerors spreading further." Well, him or Zatanna, but I don't want to cause her trouble at home. "Drones show nothing in the entrance or living quarters. I'm heading down."

I throw myself head first into the water and swim towards the habitat.

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
17:38 GMT -2

Oh, they had to loot Lex's exotic weapon lab before they left!

Tao's shot misses as I'm forced to yank him out of the way of a beam of purple nothingness. Of course, the Star Conquerors have had access to starfaring civilisations before. I suppose they might just have stolen raw materials and made it themselves. Doesn't really matter now. Kaldur waves his Water-Bearers in an attempt to block a second and again I'm forced to intervene as the beam passes clean through his water barrier. Drones!

Behind their position my drones phase in and fire their purple beams, and… It does nothing. I could have them turn it up, but that risks killing the hosts. I'm not doing that unless I need to. Two of the men being controlled by the Starro-tech turn to take shots at the drones, who are already reactivating their phasing systems. Not going to get a better chance…

"Tao." I surge through the air separating us from our targets, Tao preparing a new shot as I do so. If I get them away from the Atlantean ward-shields-.

"Look out!" Off to my left an Atlantean soldier shouts a warning, gesturing upwards with his right oh fuck off! Shards of ice explode outwards as Facehugger-type Star Conquerors drop from the ceiling of the chamber we're fighting in. I stab upwards with a construct blade as one flies at me, but it twists in the air and strikes the construct with its mouth claws and the construct shatters. I grab one of its tentacles with my right hand and agh! Unable to reach my face, it twisted around and latched onto my arm! Armour's holding, but the telekinetic effect appears to have penetrated somewhat. The red and green eye on its front surface blinks at me as it redoubles its effort to chew off my arm, the two defenders who were firing upon my drones opening fire at me once more.

No matter.

I fly sideways in a jinking pattern while forming another blade construct and shoving it through the creature's eye. I feel it convulse. Were its teeth actually in my flesh it would clamp down, but as it is the only thing holding it to me is its telekinesis and to direct that it needs clear mental function. Keeping my right hand gripped around the uppermost tentacle I grab another tentacle with my left hand and pull.

And the tentacle comes off.

Might I suggest-?

I dig the fingers of my left hand into the eye socket and pull, the Star Conqueror splitting in two in a spray of purple goo. Ugh, right, how did everyone else d-?

And this is why we don't bring NPCs to a PC fight! A Star Conqueror lies twitching at Tao's feet, two arrows through its body which is somehow on fire. I see another fly into the distance as Kaldur swings a water hammer around and Orin is scraping his off the blades of his trident. Three out of four of our escort are now sporting Star Conqueror facials, cyclopean eyes blinking as the Star Conqueror group mind gets used to controlling their bodies. The fourth aims his weapon uncertainly at his colleagues.

"Tao, get the-" An arrow slices neatly through the centreline of the closest, splitting eye and Star Conqueror in two. "-m!"

Right, assume he's got that under control. I draw my Apokolips tech sword and resume my charge, armour construct reappearing just in time to hold off a shot from one of the controlled Atlanteans. Great, the one thing it can stop is on my side. I cleave through the barrier with my sword just quickly enough to shove Lex's pride and joy upwards, another purple negabeam flaring up through the ice.

"Thank you." I drop my sword and gently punch the man in the diaphragm before letting him drop to the ground. And now it's my ggrregh! Other guy shot me and -yep- left cheek carbonised and.. right side of my jaw rendered brittle and notably painful. Another surge and I slam his head into the edge of the ice tunnel.

Ow! I'm going to.. need to have another look at those blasted helmet designs, aren't I? Oh, he might just have been aiming at the only unarmoured part of my body. I don't think Star Conquerors ever encountered New Gods but Lex's people would know that I'm tough. I clean off the goo covering my left gauntlet before reaching up to feel the hole in my face, flicking away the ashen -heh- flesh around the wound. Shouldn't take too long to heal. Subspace the guns.

I turn back to my companions in time to see electricity flare from Orin's trident and stun the remaining Star Conqueror host as Kaldur slashes at another dropping from the ceiling. I stick construct manacles around the two LexCorp researchers and haul them up into the air. "Tao, when you have a mo-" Arrows pass through their chests, emerging on the far side with Starro-tech impaled on the tips. "-ment." I dump them on the ground. "Thank you."

"Stay alert." Orin slices through the Star Conqueror on his armsman's face with a precise stroke. "There'll probably be more of those things, and inside the ice they'll be able to attack from any direction."

"Hey, you." I nod at the remaining soldier. "What's your name?"

"Ah." He glances at his king, who nods. "Martus."

"You dodge yours, or just get lucky?"

His eyes drop to his fallen comrades. Blood flows from the nasty looking holes in their faces where the Star Conquerors bit in, but since they don't try to physically connect with the brain of their host the wounds aren't mortal. With Atlantean biomancy they probably won't even scar. "Luck."

"Good. Stay lucky." I turn to Orin. "Ready to go?"

He nods. "How many are left?"

"Assuming they got everyone who disappeared? Should be another sevente-." The room shakes. "I assume that means that we need to go?"

The five of us start up the tunnel, Kaldur lagging behind slightly as he runs his left hand along the wall. "They are altering the structure of the ice. Trying to free more of their kind!"

Tell the drones to use lethal force?



Ugh, no, not yet. The Arctic has had any number of ground penetrating scans over the years. Even if they're trying to free a larger Star Conqueror, it can't be that big. From the Green Lantern Corps data I acquired, it looks like I should be able to kill one. Probably.

"How many Atlanteans were stationed here?"

Orin glances at me as we accelerate to a run. "Seven, but only two have the sort of power needed to dig through the ice quickly. The rest are here f-." I feel the mental pressure even as he clutches at his head and staggers to a halt. Martus collapses along with him, while Tao is unaffected and Kaldur merely winces. Hooray for being a god.

"That all you got, abomination!?" I attach yellow filaments to Tao and Kaldur and accelerate into the next chamb-.

Ice surges up and envelopes us. It's a metre thick in all directions. Outside, I see most of the remaining researchers -both Atlantean and LexCorpian- standing, watching us. Just above them floats… Is that supposed to be a Star Conqueror? The eye alone is nearly the size of the facehuggers, but that's nearly all the body it has, stubby nubs replacing the tentacles it would normally possess. Guess that's the target, then.

Kaldur's arms shove outwards as the ice explodes off us, a fusion cannon already forming on my left ar-.

"We surrender."

The voice.. echoes. Sinestro?

The floating eye is using its telekinesis to manipulate the air around it in order to speak. You're hearing it slightly before the spoken vocalisation of the others.

Huh.

I allow myself to float forwards slightly. "How stupid do you think I am, Star Conqueror?"

"We do not believe that you are stupid. Our hosts had access to extensive records of your abilities. We have no other techniques remaining. We do not believe that we can defeat you. For our continued survival we throw ourselves at your mercy."

Huh. Wasn't.. expecting that. Alright, kill count zero as far as I can tell… I don't need to kill it for anything it's done. On the other hand, could it be safely imprisoned?



I could.. probably come up with something. "We will remove the hosts infected with Starro-tech immediately, and you will release the others once we have farm animals for you to transfer your drones onto."

The eye blinks. "Agreed."

"Tao-."

"Wait." Kaldur frowns. "Where is the other mage?"

The ice rumbles again and the still-controlled people charge forward in another delaying action as the Star Eye flees further in.

"Suckers."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
14:27 GMT -6

I pause, and my audience leans forwards. Mitchel takes a swig of his beer, checks to see if the others are going to say anything and then decides to take the initiative.

"Then what happened?"

I chuckle and shake my head. "About two minutes of total mayhem. Kaldur defended Tao while he shot the Star Conquerors and Starro-tech off and out of people and I chased after the Star Eye as it fled back to the innermost cave."

"Where the other wizard was?"

"The other wizard, and the recently reawakened medium size Star Conqueror. About… Fifty metres.. tentacle tip to tentacle tip? They needed to dig it out, wake it up, bring it up to speed and get it access to the open air. So I dash into the chamber, the Star Eye blinks at me and then boom!" I jerk my hands wide. "The wizard forces all the ice above us to explode upwards!"

"Was the ice not very thick or something? Or… Was that guy just that powerful?"

"The Arctic is one big iceberg. It doesn't actually get all that thick. The Atlanteans had basically built extra ice onto the bottom for their convenience. Those pictures you see on the Discovery Channel of big ice cliffs? Those are all ice over land. Antarctica, usually. It was only about eighteen metres thick total where we were, and only about… Five metres above us? Still a pretty impressive blast, though."

"Then the little one on the Atlantean's face jumps off and gets scooped up by the big one's telekinetic field. The Star Eye generates a really strong telekinetic field to try and hold me still while the big one leaps out of the hole. It actually showed up on satellite. Here." I take a couple of print outs out of subspace and hand them over. The NRO were happy to hand them over in exchange for me explaining what the hell they'd just seen. "Once it was clear the Eye went after it and I went after the Eye, jamming faster than light travel for all I'm worth."

Someone.. whose name I can't immediately call to mind, sits back. "What would have happened if it got away?"

"Best case scenario? Nothing much. It just.. flies away to somewhere out of the way, slowly rebuilding its species using animals. Worst case? Giant Star Conqueror suddenly appears in low orbit and it rains little Star Conquerors. Earth becomes the new Star Conqueror nest world in short order.

"Hold on a sec." Sandra gives me an incredulous look. "If those things were so dangerous, what in God's name did those people think they were doing growing a whole one?"

"I checked their laboratory early on in my investigation." I wiggle my sandwich around for emphasis. "Their precautions were actually pretty good. Thick lead walls, direct manipulation was by robot only, and they cut bits off it if it looked like it was getting too big. Without dedicated telepath blocking technology -which Earth doesn't have- it was about as safe as it could get."

"Then how'd it get out?"

"Little ones… They're usually telepathic. It's unusual for them to be telekinetic. If I had to guess, I'd say that the fact it was there allowed the big one to connect to the Starro-tech chips they were studying, and nudge the Eye to grow telekinetic nodes and.. throw the chips at the researchers. Anyone outside of the room would only have a few seconds to spot what had happened before the chip would be absorbed through the skin, then good luck detecting it." I shrug. "But… That's speculation on my part. Not only did they destroy the local copy of the surveillance recordings, they also hit the off site backup on their way to the coast, and their memories now are pretty scrambled."

"I still don't see why they did it. If Earth doesn't have good enough anti-telepath technology-."

"How would you like Earth to develop that technology, if not by studying telepaths?" I shrug. "They were too worried about external attack and not worried enough about a break out. But, the League used their authority to close the whole thing down anyway, so it won't be a problem in future." A decision I wholeheartedly agree with. Lex wasn't exactly thrilled, but if there's one thing the world doesn't need from the Light it's more mind control technology. He can make do with the records I recovered and the memories of the researchers.

"So, ahhh…" Mitchel jabs his beer in my direction. "You won, right?"

"How are the burgers?"

"Ah." He nods. "Pretty good, pretty-." His face pales. "Oh God. Y… You mean..?"

I give them a few seconds to get worried. "No, no." I wave my sandwich dismissively. "Just messing with you." A few nervous laughs. Most people nonetheless return their buns to their plates. Mitchel takes another bite instead. "Seriously though, don't eat alien meat without rigorous testing. There are all sorts of chemicals in the bodies of many aliens that would do a Human a mischief." I suppose… If the Star Eye had actually surrendered, if we could actually trust it, it could have been a major asset. Probably for the best we didn't try doing that. Assimilating it… Ah, well.

"The fight was frustrating… Sort of a puzzle boss thing. Once the big one realised that it couldn't control or affect my brain it tried manipulating my body… Pain sensations, yanking control of my nerves… While the Eye was shielding it with telekinesis or hitting me to try and make me stop jamming the faster than light. Fortunately, they can feel fear so my constructs were getting a boost from that. Still, it was a hard fight until they tried getting cute. The big one turned off my optic nerves while the little one and the Eye tried latching onto my face. Fortunately for me, my ring could tell me where they were and my sword wasn't as easy for them to disrupt as my constructs were."

You're welcome, Corpsman.

"I ended up incinerating the bodies, because that was one risk too far. But! Use fossil fuels responsibly because there could be more of those things hidden in the ice, and if the ice keeps melting-"

"Mister Gravyen, your guest is here."

"-they could get out." I stand, turning my head to look at Jean. "Thanks Jean. You told Lynne?" She nods. "Please see to our guests in my absence." Back to my audience. "Excuse me. I need to.. deal with this. I'll be back out in, like, half an hour."

Mitchel nods. "Take it easy, man."

The hush tube opens and I step through it into the mountain's reception area, waiting for it to shut down before I greet my guest. "Jade, I've missed you so much." I step towards her. "What the heck did Ra's have you working on?"

I hold out my arms to embrace her, but stop when she holds up her right hand. "Grayven, is there something you want to tell me?"

"I got a mountain!" She doesn't look amused. "Also, a daughter. Yes, I realise that it would have been better to talk to you about that first-"

"Yes, it would."

"-but I couldn't have referred it to you on Earth Fifty and there really wasn't time when she turned up here. You did read my message, right? Ra's said that he'd get it passed on."

"I read it. That's why I'm so calm right now."

She's not even slightly calm. "Look, I'm not…"

"And why is she here?"

"Hello Master!"

Ah. "Iname, could you possibly.. keep an eye on our guests?"

She bows. "Yes, Master." There's a blast of air as she exists at speed.

"I've taken her on as a student."

"A girl nearly my exact age?"

"She's younger-." Oh. "Oh, she's not.. by much, is she? She just acts so much younger, I'd.. sort of…"

"With the power I told you I wanted."

"It's not as if I can only give one person super speed." I shrug. "This way, I can check that it works in case you decide you want that rather than teleportation. I'd have been happy to Awaken you months ago. You wanted to wait and I respected that." Wait, she doesn't-? "Jade, she's not a you-replacement. No." She raises her right eyebrow and folds her arms. "No!"

"You do like Asian girls. And I come back to find that you're living with one."

"Yes, but… She's so dependent. She's really doesn't interest me in that way. I mean, I'm living with a Pony girl-."

She squeezes her eyes shut in disbelief. "You're… What?!"

"An intelligent equine turned into a Human by magic." That mollifies her a tiny bit. "And a retired superhero, a British assassin, a bunch of Genomorphs-" I try stepping towards her again. "-and I'm not interested in having a romantic relationship with any of them. I love you. I have allies, some of them are going to be female. I'd rather spend my time with you, but that's not practical given our respective work commitments. That doesn't mean I'm going to start.. knocking boots with the first passably attractive women I meet."

"Okay." She takes a deep breath. "But what about… Your daughter."

I nod. "I also love Lynne, but in a different way. I know I could have handled that better, and if you hadn't been on assignment we'd have been having this conversation weeks ago. You don't.. have to have anything to do with her… At least in the short term, if you don't want to. But she's the only person I know who had a worse childhood than you did. She deserves a decent father and I'm… Well, I'm available. She's… Really.. quite a nice girl..? And I'm getting fatherhood practice in for when -or if- we have children."

"You should have talked to me."

"Yes. Yes, I should. And I'm sorry that I didn't."

She makes a quiet grunting noise, then steps up to me and puts her arms around my chest. "I missed you too."

"Jade, I-."

"So we're going to meet your daughter, and then you and I are going to have a long discussion about exactly what you're doing here."

"Of course."

"Okay." She pulls away slightly. "So where is she?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
18:26 GMT -5

"…got records of him being killed twenty nine times, including being flattened by a rockslide." Richard shrugs as we watch the Bio Ship approach across the Gotham skyline. "I think he said something about getting his power from a meteor, but that doesn't really explain how it works."

"Okay, but he could have got through a rockslide more or less intact, right? I mean, there'd be living tissue left."

"Of course there would." Wallace looks at me askance. "Why, you wanna try completely disintegrating him to see if that stops him?" He smiles. "Throw him into the sun or something?"

"Yes."

He blinks, inclining his head slightly. "You serious?"

"I realise that historians might prefer it if I assimilated him instead, but flying to the sun only takes me a few seconds." As the rest of the universe experiences it. From my point of view it's nearly instantaneous. "And I'm sure that he's been sentenced to death somewhere."

Richard brings up his arm computer. "Actually, I don't think he has."

"Really?"

"You don't usually have a trial after the one who committed the crime dies. We know he's immortal, but when he first started showing up people just assumed that he had some kind of lucky escape."

"Okay, I… Suppose that makes sense. But how does he remember stuff if his brain gets destroyed every so often? He should lose just about everyth-."

Artemis strolls over. "What are you guys talking about?"

"Oh El wants to throw Vandal Savage into the sun."

"Huh." She looks thoughtful for a moment. "Would that work?"

"Since we don't know how his immortality works, we can't know for certain. Klarion said something-" The Bio Ship uncloaks and descends to rest on the rooftop helipad. "-about needing to find his amygdala at New Year after Adom turned Savage into pâté. Savage hasn't ever demonstrated super toughness, and I'm fairly sure that the sun could completely burn up his amygdala."

Wallace frowns slightly. "Exactly how much thought have you been giving this?"

"By definition, madness ends in one of two ways: clarity, or death."

I lead the way towards the Bio Ship as the other half of the team disembarks. Wolf dashes out first, taking the time to sniff me and then run around the rest of my half of the team. Kon's out next, followed by Kaldur. They both look… Wary? I know we decided on radio silence but I wouldn't have half the team on the roof if the threat was ongoing. The would-be Demons were picked up by the Gotham police department over an hour ago, and the only reason it took that long was they had to get special equipment -explosive collars- on hand in case they tried demoning out again.

Warning: Spell Eater temperature rising.

I frown. "Aqualad? Something you want to tell me?"

M'gann exits the Bio Ship behind them, eyes glowing. I feel a slight pressure on my mental defences, but it disappears after a moment. She and Kaldur make eye contact… They're having a telepathic conversation. This is.. odd, though I suppose that when dealing with mind control technology it isn't an unreasonable precaution. Garth and Tula are out next, tattoos glowing faintly.

Wallace exhales frustratedly. "Something you wanna share with the rest of us, Aqualad?"

Kaldur turns back to us. "When we arrived to collect the samples, we were attacked."

"By who? Manta?"

"By the researchers. The samples were somewhat more intact than Lantern Gardner had led us to believe."

"How intact?"

Kon glowers. "I nearly got a Star on my face."

"How did you miss them-" I hold my right hand up to my face. "-being infected? Those things aren't exactly subtle."

"It took us some time to understand, but closer examination showed that they were under the influence of Starro-tech."

"Oh dear." If they can hide that they're controlling people… "But, we've all… Except Canis, we've all had the cure."

He nods. "M'gann cannot hear your mind, or that of Canis. Tempest and Aquagirl's attempts to confirm your identities by magic are being blocked by your amulets."

M'gann steps towards me a little. "Actually, you've been.. blocking me out for months now."

"Yes, after I was nearly killed by a telepathic weapon twice." This.. is tricky. My telepath blocking technique isn't exactly precise. If I let M'gann take a peek there's a risk that she might see something she's not supposed to. I.. don't know where the rest of the team would stand on the subject of Nabu. Zatanna hasn't mentioned anyone else speaking to her about reversing the possession…

Richard steps up. "Wait a second. We were attacked too."

"The Star Conquerors are already here?"

"No, five people using a drug which gave them demonic super powers." He thinks for a moment. "I didn't check them for Starro-tech, though. Could that have survived them turning into Demons?"

"It worked on everything else. But we can't use Cure-tech on everyone."

Kaldur nods. "Perhaps not, but we should give it to everyone working in this facility." He fixes his eyes on me. "After we have confirmed that you are who we think you are."

"Alright." Ring, subspace my Spell Eater.

Compliance.

I walk around Kaldur and hold out my right arm to Tula, subspacing my torso armour. "You'll probably need to touch me to get around my tattoos."

"Alright." She lays both water-covered hands on my bare skin, her tattoos glowing again as she casts… Hm, I don't know, actually. There are a few different spells that could be used for this… Anyway, it's good to know that visiting an Atlantean locale didn't encourage her to revert to that cloth 'armour' she used to wear. I didn't exactly shove her and Garth through the doors of KordTech, but they really needed something mundane -if mithril can be called mundane- to augment their water armo-. "He's clean." She lets go of my arm and turns to Kaldur. "There's no sign of the magics used in Starro-tech."

"Good to know."

Kaldur nods. "We should still check Canis."

"Okay." I nod. "How many doses of Cure-tech do you have with you?"

"Twelve. If we are sending five to your assailants, we will need more. I will contact Professor Vulko while you ensure that the Star Conquerors who assailed us-" Rob wheels out a nitrogen shipping vessel. "-are securely contained within STAR Labs."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
18:39 GMT -5

"Do you..?" I look away from where a couple of STAR scientists are directing Kon towards the cold storage room. M'gann looks a little uncomfortable.

"Do I what?"

"Do you have a problem with my telepathy?"

"Not.. really." **Why do you ask?**

**You asked Tula to check you rather than me. And I know that sounds… Really.. petty… It's just that when we first met, we had a really good telepathic rapport, but since Bane and Truggs captured you, you've been… You've been blocking all the time.** She looks away, a little self consciously. **It used to be you'd talk to me like this all the time, and now you talk out loud instead. And even now, all I can hear is the words you're sending to me. I just… I'm just worried that you've… Gone off telepathy.**

Oh. I suppose.. I can see where she's coming from. **Finding that I was so vulnerable was an unpleasant shock, but we've all had basic telepathic resistance training.**

**You're doing more than that.**

I smile at her. **Guess I'm just an overachiever.** But I don't need empathic vision to realise that she's worried that I've gone off her. I.. haven't been neglecting my mountainmates, but I have been spending less time with them than I used to. **And… Also… I came into possession of some privileged information that I… Shouldn't risk getting out. It's not that I don't think you can be trusted, it's just that every extra person who knows-.**

**Is an extra risk. I remember Superman's lecture.** She nods. She doesn't look happy about that, but now that she's got something to pin my behaviour on hopefully she won't continue to think she's done something wrong. **Is it… Something you're going to be able to tell me about? I miss… Feeling.. you.** She blinks. **Okay, that didn't come out right.**

**I understand what you mean.** Really, I can probably ease up on the mental blocks around the mountain after the showdown with Nabu, but if I give me leaving as the deadline it'll be a bit obvious. **I should be able to ease off on the mental blocks after I come back from Maltus.** I shrug. **Sorry, I hadn't realised how much this was bothering you.**

**It's okay. I get that there are some things you can't share.**

**How was.. Canis about.. proving that he was still Canis?**

She rolls her eyes. **At first he wouldn't believe that he could be infected, then Conner pointed out that Wonder Woman got infected and she's tougher than him. And then he didn't want to use Cure-tech and refused to believe that the rest of us had used it.**

**Did he give a reason? I am.. assuming here that he wasn't infected.**

**No, he wasn't infected. He just didn't believe that Human technology could affect him in that way.**

**Neither Star Conquerors nor Klarion are Human.**

**That's what convinced him. But then he said that the place we put it on him itched, and-.***

"Out of the question!" We both look around as Kaldur and Doctor Farr come around the corner. "You have no idea what those.. things could do to us in the long term!"

"Doctor, you will be dealing with a telepathic alien race that has already demonstrated that they have access to this technology. None of us have suffered any adverse side effects-."

"How do you know? Have you conducted double blind trials, comparing the state of health of those who have used them to those who have not? How often do your people have medical examinations? Have your studies been peer reviewed?"

"They.. have not. We have medical examinations each month, conducted by one of the inventors of the technology. She is not yet ready to publish her results."

"Well… Come back once she does."

Bit of a relief to hear someone wanting to stick to what I regard as sane medical practice. I mean, in our case if it hadn't worked as advertised I could have expunged it from our bodies, but at the time it never occurred to me that it could be a problem. Super scientist think tank says 'sure, this'll work, no problem', it just does. I mean, I know the gestalt thing sped things up a bit but they only took a few hours. It's only just occurring to me how daft that was.

Of course, if we're following standard superheroic tropes…

I tap my communicator. "Orange Lantern to Kid Flash. Come in please."

"Kid Flash here. What is it, Oh El?"

"Any reaction to the Cure-tech from the Demons?"

"Couple of them tried saying it was a violation of their rights, but… They didn't go unconscious like the, ah, the other people exposed to it did."

"Oh dear. Right, who's there with you?"

"Artemisss…"

"Right. Anyone else?"

"Ah. No?"

"Kid!"

Oh, give me strength. "Mission's not over yet, lads and lasses. And I've got an unfortunate feeling that it's about to go south rather quickly. Get somewhere with good lines of sight."

"Hey." Artemis' voice has a slight echo to it as Wallace's com picks her up as well. "Why didn't Gardner know that they'd found Star Conquerors in the Arctic? I thought he was supposed to be keeping an eye on them?"

"I don't know. I'll try and get hold of him now." I tap my communicator again to cancel the connection, and then hold up my left hand, palm up. "Ring, contact Guy Gardner, Green Lantern two eight one four B."

The ring shimmers for a moment as it tries to connect. No, nothing. Doesn't mean that there's anything wrong. He could be busy. He could be meeting the Guardians right now. Reasonable enough that he wouldn't want to answer right away. Hm. I never asked him about how his work with the Atlanteans was going. He muttered about babysitting once, but otherwise it was just a job he had to do. He's had his Cure-tech dose, so there's no way that he's been Starro-teched again. On the other hand, he's still vulnerable to Star Conquerors… Ring, any records of Star Conqueror victims having instructions implanted into them?

No records found.

And where exactly would the Demons come in? They weren't infected. The person giving them the drugs may have been infected… Ring, any records of Star Conquerors using magic?

No records found.

Klarion would just release the Star Conquerors to cause havoc. Would the rest of the Light go along with that? Would they be able to stop him? No, no, that would explain the Starro-tech, but not the Star Conquerors. And okay, he could probably have infected the Atlanteans… But the Star Conquerors themselves shouldn't have recognised them as being on their side. They should have tried to facehug the researchers just as much as my team, and they didn't. So, the Star Conquerors must be in control of the Starro-tech. Where did that come from? All of the samples the League had were handed to Batman and then used by William. The only other source is the Light. Would the Light work with Star Conquerors? No obvious benefit to them, and Star Conquerors were never interested in negotiation, even when it would be in their interest. Assume that they're not working together, then.

The Demons were here to destroy the samples. They didn't know why. Star Conquerors working independently, someone trying to stop them? Sort of makes sense, though Lex just phoning me and warning me would make more sense… Except that Klarion hates me. Hm. Can Klarion bind Demons? Probably, it's not exactly hard. Demon infusion potion? Harder, but I suspect that it's within his abilities. Or he might have outsourced…

But if they were trying to stop the Star Conquerors, why attack here rather than the Arctic? Accessibility, I suppose. But we didn't exactly advertise what we were doing. The Devil Jizz users were watching this place in advance. "Orange Lantern to Artemis. Is STAR Labs hiring anyone else to cope with the extra workload?"

"Yeah, a few guys. They all checked out, though. They used to work for someplace called Advanced Research Laboratories, but that got closed down a little while ago."

I look over to where Doctor Farr is stridently refusing Kaldur's request. Would LexCorp have used its own people to make more Starro-tech? No, an officially-third-party-but-in-reality-controlled-by-Lex company? Or research it to try and find a way to make a conventional profit from the technology in the device? So, something went wrong, the staff got infected and the Star Conquerors took over? Possible. "Who performed their interviews?"

"Doctor Farr."

I take a Cure-tech wafer out of subspace and -holding it in my right hand- walk towards the Doctor. "Understood. Stand by." I make eye contact with him.

"Ah, what is it now?"

I smile. "I was wondering if you could help me with-" My right hand flashes out, tapping the Cure-tech onto the side of his neck. Immediately, his eyes glaze and he collapses into my arms. "Aqualad, we have a problem."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
18:43 GMT -5

His right hand goes straight to his ear. "Aqualad to team. The staff have been infected by Starro-tech."

"Ugh!" / "Ghr!"

I look around as M'gann slams two security guards to the far wall with telekinesis. Both had been in the process of drawing their guns. Kaldur dons his helmet and draws his Water Bearers. "Take them down. Miss Martian, can you detect-" There's a burst of gunfire from somewhere in the building, which rapidly cuts off. "-their telepathic communication?"

"Klarion used magic when he was controlling them. A Star Conqueror would just use normal telepathy. I.. should be able to." Her hands go to her forehead. "I'll need a minute."

"A trap we could not even recognise! So elegant!" Glad Canis approves, though unless he has something helpful to say he really shouldn't say it over the comms-. "Aqualad, if we cannot slay these revenants, where shall we deposit them? I did not think to bring bindings and my aunt -ugh- tells me that I should not break Human kneecaps."

Kaldur glances at me. "The exotic materials lab has a testing chamber we could seal. And I've got plenty of spare zip ties."

"We will congregate them there, but they are most likely a distraction. Miss Martian is attempting to locate the Star Hunter, and we will need to move immediately once she has."

"Fifty seven people are working here today. Kid Flash and me got seven. D'you want us to drag them to you now, or go looking for the rest?"

"We can track down the remaining infected staff later. It is more important that they are out of the way when our true enemy reveals itself."

"I got nine!"

"It's not a contest, Robin." Okay, let's see if I can get anything on empathic visio-. I create an armour plate construct in front of the door as a.. strange purple beam punches through the thick metal. No, the beam isn't purple. It's.. sort of.. colourless, with a faintly purple aura. My construct evaporates even as I send filaments rushing down the corridor to strike the two scientists carrying the guns firing it, shock crowning them. They collapse, dropping their guns, which hit the floor, sparking and burning. Darn, I wanted to look at those. "Watch out for scientists using their equipment."

"Think we can take a guy with a microscope, Oh El."

"Two guys just shot me with some kind of energy weapon."

"I didn't-. See anything like that-. On their computers." Robin sounds a little distracted.

"Did they bring them in from home? Ah, I got five, by the-."

"Not a competition, Cornwall. And I'd guess not. Maybe the Star Conquerors told them how to build it." I tap my communicator off for a moment. "Aqualad, what was the timeline on the additional Cure-tech?"

"It should be ready now, but we cannot spare you if there is a Star Hunter concealed here."

"Kid Flash could pick up Tula and dash to the zeta tube. I'm assuming that the work is being done in Poseidonis?"

"Yes, but that would not get them to us quickly." He reactivates his communicator. "Aquagirl, attempt to contact Professor Vulko and then have him send the Cure-tech through the Poseidonis zeta tube. Kid Flash, once we have been notified that it has arrived, run to the Gotham zeta tube and bring it here."

"It'll only take a moment."

"Okay, Artemis and I are in the lab. Superboy's here as well. I can make it to the zeta tube and back in about a minute and a half. Two minutes, tops."

Wait, how were those guys aiming without a line of sight? Telepathy? No, that wouldn't-. I notice that the guards M'gann stunned have their eyes slightly open. Shock crown, pithing needle. Their eyes open fully for a second and then they slump bonelessly to the floor. Guy did say that Star Conquerors can share information. Ring, scan them and see if my ring knowledge has improved to the point where I can detect the signs of Starro-tech.

Compliance.

No, not getting anything helpful. I look through the building with empathic vision, trying to pick up any particularly inhuman sets of feeling. Yes, there's-.

Oh. No. That's just Canis.

"So where exactly is this Star Hunter, anyway?" I hear more shots, both through the building and through Raquel's communicator. "Shouldn't it be flying through the skies of Gotham, throwing little stars at people? And can someone get over here and stop these guys shooting me?"

I blink, taking in the whole of the building. "Zatanna, Robin, she's down the corridor to your right."

"Be there in a second."

"I thought your belt made you bulletproof?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't make the guy standing next to me bullet proof and they're just shooting-." There's a bang. "Thanks Robin. I've got a few guys out cold here and the others were just blasting away with shotguns."

"Kid Flash, while you're in the lab, check to see if they were making any more Starro-."

"Already doing it, Oh El. Can't see anything here, and Starro-tech had a nanotech component. STAR Labs Gotham doesn't have a nanorobotics lab."

Kaldur checks both corridors leading away from our position, both with his eyes and with puffs of scalding steam from his Water Bearers. "Starro-tech was created by the Light. We have no reason to believe that they used everything they produced on the Justice League."

"I've thought about it, and I don't see the Light working with actual Star Conquerors. It's too much of a risk."

"Vulko says the Cure-tech will be at the zeta tube in four minutes."

"Acknowledged. Kid."

"I'll set my timer."

Kaldur turns to me. "Then what do you believe happened?"

"People get exposed… Maybe researchers, maybe test subjects. We know there was a Star Hunter in the ice. Why not two? Or more? Maybe they tested it on a telepath? Whatever. If Klarion wasn't there or wasn't managing it full time, could it have been woken up by that? Or… Maybe a piece in their laboratory regenerated a full sized brain?"

"Oh El, are you just trying to let Luthor off again?"

"You don't stay a successful criminal in a city patrolled by Superman by being stupid or reckless, Kid Flash."

Kaldur shakes his head. "At this point it makes little-."

M'gann's eyes flash open. "I've got it! It's in the-!"

With a tremendous booming crash the wall to our right flies apart, bricks shooting right at us! Kaldur and I both throw up barriers to block it and I stick a construct platform under our feet as the floor starts to tip and crumble! As the building starts to subside I get a momentary glimpse of a huge red eye moving upwards through the rubble and metal, before it vanishes in the dust.

Shit! Ring, building schematics. Compare to sonic scans. Construct construct construct! The wall turns orange as the rings light it up in an attempt to prevent the building collapsing any further. A sub-basement, it was in a sub-basement. They must have dug it out and lined it with.. something. Scan for bodies. No one? It must have made its thralls get out of the way. Optics? Yes, there's a Star Hunter in the sky over the building. Still can't scan the bastard thing. This must be how magic users feel about me.

"Aqualad to team! Is everyone alright?"

I tune out the affirmatives as I try and shore up the building. Some rooms I give up on, letting them collapse and crumble into the chasm the Star Hunter left in its wake. In others I fuse brick and metal, taking girders out of subspace to create a stable surface.

There's a loud bang followed by a series of metal-on-concrete clangs. A quick optical check shows that the Star Hunter has torn apart the vessels containing the frozen Star Conquerors with its telekinesis, throwing the containers aside carelessly while its smaller kin recover from their imprisonment.

"Aqualad, if I'm going to stop it getting away, I need to get up there."

He nods. "Go. We will follow."

I abandon my construct, don my power armour and phase through what's left of the wall before flying upwards. The Star Hunter isn't exactly like the ones Guy showed us, but he did say there was a good deal of variety-. Daghh! Its eye focuses on me and I feel the telepathic assault against my mental defences. Less powerful than some of the things M'gann's tried in training, but the Star Hunter doesn't appear to have to focus completely on me to pull it off. Ring, extra psi-baffles. Ah, that's better. Right, railgu-.

The warehouse on the far side of the road collapses as a second Star Hunter pulls itself free.

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
18:47 GMT -5

Two-? Where did-?

What?

While the first is in the conventional purple and blue colours, the second is far more vibrant. Its skin is a brilliant pink-red colour, with darker red veins of red visible through-.

Starro-tech colours.

While the first has eight small Star Conquerors sluggishly orbiting it, the second has a small cloud of Starro-tech wafers just behind it. It was… It must be grown from what the Light had left over. How… How did they lose control that badly?

**All will be one.** / **All will be one.**

My body locks up as two small Star Conquerors fly at me through the air, teeth first. I'd forgotten they had mouths there. Hacking my peripheral nervous system? Fine. Railguns form on either side of me, a stream of solid iron rounds flashing out towards them. The first few are blocked by a telekinetic field, but as the living projectiles close the distance they get outside the effect area and are torn apart. Ring, secondary nervous system. Analyse how it's controlling me and block.

Compliance. Working.

"Orange Lantern to Aqualad." The second Star Hunter shudders and Starro-tech wafers fly away from the main cloud. Several are fired into the Gotham streets but two are launched at the STAR Labs building. What is it aiming for? "Confirmed two Star Hunters." The staff are already infected and my team is already immune. Does it know that? Yes, it must. If it didn't then it would have fired more. So what was it aiming f-?

**No! My ship!**

Oh shit. For a moment the Bio-Ship drops stealth and I can clearly see the Starro-tech wafers on its outer surface. A moment later they've faded into its hull.

Oh shit.

"They just used Starro-tech on the Bio-Ship." It shudders, then begins shifting shape. "Successfully." The guns I persuaded M'gann to add manifest along the hull as it rises into the air. On the pavements below us the people it managed to hit with the wafers get to their feet and begin running in all directions. "Call the League."

I point my railguns at the first Star Hunter and open fire.

**Kid Flash, go. Everyone else, get outside as quickly as you can!**

Crumbler rounds are intercepted by telekinetic strikes, triggering them before they can impact on its skin. Tried this with M'gann once and she was just about able to pull it off against one round, if I fired at the lowest possible speed and gave her a good deal of space. The Star Hunter is doing it against fully automatic fire. Meanwhile the Red Star is pulling back. The Bio-Ship moves towards its domitor, turning as it does so to hose down the STAR Labs building with plasma fire! I extend a filament to create a shield-.

**Oh no you don't!**

Seriously?! A third Star Hunter -this one somewhat smaller than the other two- exits the STAR Labs building through one of the holes in the wall and takes up position behind me. This one has white skin and-. **M'gann?**

**I can even turn into things Mister J'aarkn didn't have sex with. Ugh, all these lobes!** The Bio-Ship retracts its guns. **But if you think I'm letting you use my ship against my friends, you've got another thing coming!**

The closest Star Hunter narrows its eye slightly and-. My optic nerves, it just jammed my optic nerves. Ring, autofire and bypass.

Compliance.

I feel the railguns fire and a moment later the ring shows me another small Star Conqueror falling to the Gotham streets in pieces.

**Hey Lantern!** A small shower of bricks marks Raquel's journey through an exterior wall. **How're we fighting these things?**

With difficulty. **How does-** I replace one railgun barrage with a destructive orange light blast. **-your belt-** It passes through the area defended with telekinetic fields, but does little more than char the Star Hunter's epidermis. **-react with powerful telekinesis?**

**Like any other foraagh!**

M'gann floats forwards slightly. **Get out of her head!**

**You are not one of us.** / **You are not one of us.**

There's a yellow blur in the streets below us as Wallace leaves the building. Starro-tech infected locals try to grapple him, but he dodges around them with consummate ease and heads for the zeta tube.

Okay, what next? Freezing worked well enough for the Arctic. I take a cold gun out of subspace, only for it to be crumpled into a ball by telekinetic force. Right… Um. Control. Ring, assimilate.

An orange beam is projected from my chestplate and strikes the closest Star Hunter, passing through its telekinetic barrier like it isn't there.

Assimilation in progress. The Star Hunter blinks. Progress negligible.

Negligible? Maybe they have perfect self awareness or something? I stop and switch back to railgun fire. Off to the side of me Raquel recovers slightly while over the road the Red Star manoeuvres itself onto the front of the stationary Bio-Ship, docking itself in the same way the smaller ones do to people's faces. I don't remember anything about them doing that in the Green Lantern Corps' records. The assumption was that they lost the ability as they grew.

**It's going to try and get away! Stop it!**

**I'm on it.** Kon leaps into the air from STAR Labs' front entrance and flies straight at the Bio-Ship.

**Get away? Where are they going to run to?**

**Gardner was right. One of the big ones survived. It thinks it can get to it with my Bio-Ship.**

**Your Bio-Ship doesn't have FTL. If it thinks it can get there before anyone can stop it…**

Kon slams into the Red Star's telekinetic barrier. It doesn't flinch, I notice. Doesn't shake or reflexively close its eye. Which is impressive because -clever techniques and weakness exploitation aside- Kon hits a lot harder than I do. Especially when wearing his Nth metal armour and glowing with the light of the sun. I can see the air shimmer with telekinetic force as the Red Star tries to maintain the barrier.

**Orange Lantern. Try assimilating it again!**

Inside my armour I frown at M'gann. **It didn't do anything.**

**It was distracting it! I can't-! I can't fight both of them!**

She's the expert, and my guns aren't getting anywhere. Assimilate. Assimilate both.

Two beams of orange strike home and the eye of the closest Star Hunter narrows slightly. A stream of bricks floats up from the ground, moving to orbit around it. It waits until it has thirty or so projectiles and then flings them at speed at M'gann. I go to raise a barrier but Raquel is already there, her kinetic barrier easily absorbing the impacts.

Two streams of water blast up from the ground, bending around and sticking to the closest Star Hunter for a moment before flashing as Rob and the Atlanteans use it as a focus for their lightning magics.

Connection lost.

I suppose it's a little tricky for my ground bound colleagues to directly fight against flying opponents-. A small Star Conqueror flops as one of Artemis' arrows pierces it, its protector too occupied by not being electrocuted to properly shield it. Kon's repeated strikes are getting closer to the flesh of his foe. He's stopped trying to ram it and is now using his armour's flight ability to continually press against its telekinetic envelope, reaching out with his hands to try and grip it. Then he's knocked back, the Red Star and Bio-Ship glowing emerald green-

Will detected.

-as Guy Gardner points his ring at us, a Star Conqueror covering his face.

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
18:49 GMT -5

Jammerhe'sjammingtoowhydidIteachGreenLanternstostopmeaccelerate!

Green filaments flick out from Guy's body, each one striking a point in the air around him and for a fraction of a second generating a magnetic pulse to fire Crumbler rounds out of his subspace pocket at myself and my team mates.

Ring, message to Lantern Salaak. Inform him that Guy is under Star Conqueror control and request that he shut down Lantern Gardner's ring.

Message sent.

Okay. I form point defence laser constructs and instruct them to target the incoming railgun rounds. Travelling through the air prematurely triggers the crumbling mechanism if you fire them with too much power, turning them into purely ballistic projectiles. The Red Star could just have him dial up the power and wreck a good chunk of Gotham. Lucky me it's so mission focused. Or maybe it's just because it doesn't want to distract him from fighting me?

**Mmmmmmm-**

I extend my armour's kinetic shield as the lasers flick out. All burning the Crumbler rounds up completely achieves is turning them into super hot fast moving projectiles, but the Crumbler mechanism itself is fairly vulnerable to being destroyed and once it is I don't have to worry about my kinetic belt being destroyed like the time I missed one during testing. The fact that the barrier locks me in place isn't really a problem. With both Gardner and I jamming neither of us can use FTL and slower forms of movement are too slow to be meaningful.

**-'ggggggggg-**

One laser strikes off centre, nearly missing the projectile. Why-? He's not firing them all at full speed. He's varying it to make interception more difficult. How? Guy's a Green Lantern, under normal circumstances he isn't able to accelerate his thought processes. Does the Red Star know enough about the Human brain to do that for him?

Message rejected as 'unauthorised'.

Oh, now they decide to filter me-!

**-aaaaaaaaa-**

No, Star Conquerors -even the small ones- can parallel process multiple lines of activity. They have to in order to be able to function. But his ring would only accept instructions from Guy, so they can't be being telepathically transmitted from one of the others. Is that why he's not using strong constructs to attack as he usually would? How many rounds does Guy have? Could they have built more?

**-nnnnnnnnn-**

Light runs under the skin of the Red Star, red veins flickering and glowing. Starro-tech has three components: Star Conqueror flesh, nanotechnology and… Magic. Magic's unusual away from Earth, but Kaldur said that the Atlanteans at the arctic research-.

The Star Hunter is being battered by Atlantean magic.

**Kaldur, shut off-!**

The bubble of water and electricity surrounding the Star Hunter ripples twice and-

Mental pathway damage limit reached. Acceleration discontinued.

-my team mates duck and dive as the highly charged water leaps back at them!

"Akh!" / "Aah!" / "Uh."

Garth and Tula are knocked aside as they aren't quite fast enough to avoid all of the water, jerking spasmodically as the electricity ravages their bodies. Kaldur braces himself, his enchanted armour better able to take the punishment as the water freezes around them. My point defences continue to fire on automatic and I'm really grateful that Guy never bothered to learn how to generate Kryptonite radiation. Kon's battering on the construct barrier protecting the Red Star as the Bio Ship tries to pull away.

**-nn, confuse Green Lantern.**

The Star Hunter that was being repeatedly shocked looks more than a little worse for wear. Its Star Conqueror escort were completely destroyed. I can't even see their remains. The Starro-tech that had been floating around the Red Star on the other hand is rapidly growing, the three prongs getting longer, three smaller ones growing between them and a sort of.. eye.. shape, appearing in the subcutaneous circuitry. Klarion was relying on Bedlam when he created those things. Would they be chaos magic or whatever Bedlam itself is made of?

Guy weaves to the side as the Red Star fires red lightning at me from the tips of its tentacles. Two shots miss, my tattoos presumably preventing the targeting part of the spell working. The other three strike my armour and my armour's display flashes a few warning messages before they get soaked by my Spell Eater. Right, the Atlanteans wouldn't have known much about chaos magic in particular. It's trying to come up with something based on general arcane knowledge and just throwing energy at me. And that just won't-.

Graaaaaagh!

Isolateisolateisolate!

Kon drops from the sky, Raquel goes limp and Kaldur drops to his knees as the pain effect kicks in. Direct nerve stimulation. I've had to cut off my own nervous g-gwh. A Crumbler hits my environmental shield, disrupting it and causing me to drop two metres before my kinetic belt kicks in to replace my flight capacity. Then the green aura around Guy ripples and fades. He doesn't physically react, but M'gann must be having some success.

"You think that this hurts, creature?!" There's a blast as a boom tube opens above the Bio Ship and Beton Brut bounds out with Canis on his back. "Try living-" He slashes a small Red Star Conqueror in half with his sword as they pass. "-on-" Brut lands, scrabbling for purchase as Canis dismounts and stabs downwards into its flesh! "-Apokolips!"

Debris flashes past him and the Red Star tries to shove him off but whatever makes New Gods as tough as they are seems to be letting him resist. Guy's shots have cut out entirely as the thing controlling him tries to reinforce its defences. Still need to free him without killing him. I could probably cut off his ring finger, but-. No. There's an easier way.

I fire an assimilation beam at the first Star Hunter.

Assimilation in progress. Progress negligible.

From the way M'gann isn't reacting to the pain projection I'm going to assume that Star Conquerors can't actually feel pain. Its injury probably isn't totally debilitating for it. Even with its eye ruined its brains should be well insulated enough that it can still pick up on what the others are seeing. Wait a second. Given how many are left… I generate a new railgun construct on its far side and fire a small solid slug at it.

**Okay guys, I'm back. Scientists all de-Starroed.** Pain aura's off. **And I think I got all the civilians it hit, too.**

The low velocity slug passes through its body, causing a hole and lots of nasty shock damage. Assuming that its body layout follows the standard pattern I actually took out a telepathy amp node there. I fire again, but it's got its telekinetic barrier back up. Doesn't appear able to do anything else though.

Canis jerks back his sword and thrusts his right hand into the cut he made in the Red Star's flesh before stabbing down again. One of the smaller Red Stars flies at his face and he's forced to hurriedly withdraw his sword in order to intercept it.

And then Wallace dashes out of the still open boom tube and super speed slaps Cure-tech onto the Bio Ship's hull.

And if Guy's shield is that weak… Ring, send a report to Lantern Salaak.

Compliance.

A pulse of orange light leaps from the ring and flies towards Guy. It moves relatively slowly, so I have time to fire a destructive pulse directly at the Star Conqueror on his face. It prioritises the larger attack, creating a small green ablative barrier to protect itself. The message packet hits his ring, and no doubt its horrible formatting will get Salaak's attention momentarily.

Richard's joined Wallace on the Bio Ship as more small Red Stars go for him. He tries striking one with a baton, only to have the Star Conqueror twist in the air and slice it apart with its newly grown mouth. A quick frown and he switches to Crumbler discuses instead. Those are a little more effective.

"Star Conquerors!" What exactly does Kaldur want to say to them? "You are defeated! Surrender and you will not be killed!"

Another pulse of red light from the Red Star and half of the Star Conquerors still around it disappear. Then the green barrier around it disappears. **I yield.**

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th April
19:35 GMT -5

"Ah, jeez. Why do I always get roped int' these things?" Detective Bullock stares up for a moment at the two Star Hunters as they float in mid air, bound to anti-gravity generators. The blue one turns its partially recovered eye in his direction while the red one keeps its own gaze on Kaldur.

"Hey, Detective Bullock." / "Good evening, Detective."

He sighs, then turns to Richard and I. "Alright. One a' you wanna explain to me why there's a giant Starfish staring at me?"

Richard nods. "Those straps around its body explode if it tries using telepathy, and we're not really sure what other senses it has."

Detective Bullock stares at him with an air of resignation for a moment, then turns to me. "Orange? Gimme a break here?"

"STAR Labs Gotham is one of a handful of places in the world capable of doing xenobiological research. On behalf of the Justice League we were transporting biological materials here for them to study."

Detective Bullock glances at the blue Star Hunter again. "Kinda… Big. Ah, how smart 're those things?"

"Fully sentient. In fact, these two are probably the two most intelligent things in the city at the moment."

He sags. "Please tell me you don't want me ta put those in Arkham?"

"No, the Green Lantern Corps is sending some people to pick them up."

"Oh, thank Christ fer that. What are they, anyway?"

"Their species is called 'Star Conquerors'."

Detective Bullock nods. "Because they're shaped like stars and they conquer things. Makes sense."

"Actually, their name comes from their ability to conquer star systems. Most spacefaring species don't think of stars as five pointed shapes. Describing a Starfish as looking like a star wouldn't make any sense to them. They'd probably think you were referring to a plasma based life form."

"Okay. Didn't… Know that. So, what, you were transporting 'em and they got away?"

"No, we were only transporting the little ones." Richard nods over to the containment cylinders where eight red and one blue Star Conquerors lie in repose. "And we weren't even supposed to be transporting that. When we set out, we thought it was just frozen cellular residue."

Detective Bullock looks up again. "That ain't cellular residue, kid." Red Hunter is a fair bit smaller than Blue Hunter. Shorter tentacles… In fact, I'm not sure that they have the flexibility to be called tentacles. The core section is smaller too. In terms of total mass I'd say it's about two thirds the size of its original model brethren. And yet, they prioritised Red Hunter's escape. Curious.

"They were already here when we arrived."

"Yeah, that's… That's what a punk says when I catch them just after they threw a brick through a window. Aliens invading Gotham? I'm gunna need a bit more." He suddenly frowns. "Reports said there were three a' them. Where's the other one?"

"That was Miss Martian." Richard half turns to where she's tending to Guy. I already healed his facial wounds from where the Star Conqueror had been holding onto his skull, but she needs to go through his brain to make sure there isn't any Star Conqueror programming left. Finding out that they can leave instructions to be enacted even after they're off a person -including 'come here and put me on again'- was an unpleasant surprise. He couldn't remember when he first got taken, and it'll probably be easier to get a date from the Atlanteans than from him.

"She can do that?"

"Oh yeah. All Martians-."

"No, I mean…" Another look at the Star Hunters. "Turn into other aliens."

"To her, Humans are 'other aliens'."

"Yeah, okay, but Martians look like Humans." Richard and I smirk slightly. "Don't they? Or… Is that just what they-." He shakes his head. "Y'know what? That ain't my problem. Okay, so, you transport the little ones here so they can get cut up, then you get attacked by… People using some kinda drug t'turn into Demons, who wanna destroy them?"

"That was their objective, yes." The Juggernaut -Eric Hardwick- was a little more in the know than the others, but even he had never had direct contact with Satanus. I need to talk to John about the current status of Hell's governance sometime soon, see if we can confirm whether he's actually in charge or not. "None of them knew why they were being told to do it, and none of them could confirm exactly who was telling them."

"Please tell me Demons ain't fight'n aliens in my town."

"Actually, no. They never did fight the aliens directly. Ah, the STAR Labs people all got implanted with alien mind control devices -don't worry, we've given them the antidote- and tried to hustle us out as soon as we'd made the delivery. I spotted that something fishy was going on, and…" I look up. "They tried to make a break for it."

Richard nods. "I'd say we kicked their asses, except I don't think they actually have asses."

"And the Green Lanterns are gunna pick them up?"

"Uh-huh."

Detective Bullock takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. "Any chance this is a federal problem?"

Huh. Not sure actually. I don't think any goods were transported illegally across state lines. Devil Jizz isn't specifically illegal, though the general law… "I don't… Know..? Technically, this is an act of war against the United States by a foreign power, but the Star Conquerors don't have a government… Not any more, anyway."

"What happened to it?"

"The Green Lantern Corps threw it into a star. Two stars, actually."

He sags a little further. "Okay. Well, I guess I better question them. Can they… Answer questions?"

"Yes. That's why Zatanna is drawing those shapes on that tarpaulin." Zatanna didn't take part in the fight after having part of a wall fall on her. Between her spells and the ring she won't suffer any lasting damage, but I think I need to have a chat with her later about leaving her kinetic belt active even if she doesn't appear to be in a conflict zone. "I think she's about done if you want to start now?"

"You got… Questions you wanna ask it?"

"A few, yes."

"Then I'm gunna let you guys go first." He follows Richard and me as we walk towards the Blue Hunter. "What exactly's stopping it messing with our heads?"

"I am, Human lowlie." Canis doesn't bother looking at Detective Bullock. He's been pretty alright about the rest of us, but being polite to normal people is a bit of a strain for his world view. "Apokoliptian technology, designed to explode and incinerate the one they contain should they attempt to use telepathy or telekinesis without the permission of their betters. A single thought out of line and there will be naught left but ash."

"They can't mind control us without sticking one of the little ones on our faces, but they can do various other things… Turn off our optic nerves, trigger our pain sensors…"

"The Green Lantern Corps okay with this?"

"Okayish."

"Then it's fine by me."

Kaldur nods at Detective Bullock as we approach. "Detective. We are about to begin questioning." Bullock just sort of waves his right hand, indicating that it's all a bit beyond him. "Very well. Star Conqueror!" Red Hunter blinks at him. "Can you understand me?"

The-. Oh, that's interesting. M'gann has turned her right arm into a mouth piece. Her telepathy won't trigger the boom. "Yes."

"Oh, that ain't right."

"Where did you send the smaller Star Conquerors?"

"Away."

"Where precisely?"

It blinks twice, and then is consumed by an explosion! I instinctively create a shield as the Blue Hunter goes up as well, but Canis knew what he was doing and the blast is perfectly contained. We stare stunned as the remains are reduced to cinders.

Kaldur stares at Canis, who is grinning in delight at the sight. "Did you trigger the incendiaries?"

"No, of course not. It destroyed itself so that it could not be forced to betray its kin." He nods. "Commendable. Now, I will take my leave. I am sure that your lowlies can handle sweeping away a little ash."