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

[Mr Zoat]

21st June
16:18 GMT +1

"Eh." Hephaestus lumbers his way across the lower slopes of Mount Etna. "Nice day for it."

"Not sure Lord Vulcan will see it that way."

"No, he will. When either of us is in there, there's such a pressure to make use of our time that it can all get a bit… Well, a bit much. First couple of days you're out, you spend your time decompressing." He stops and looks at me. "Why did you think we didn't just set up another workshop under some other volcano? Santorini would be a heck of a lot more convenient for me than a place in southern Italy."

"I had wondered."

"There you go." He turns back to his previous direction of travel, takes a moment to examine the ground in front of him and then starts off again. "Besides, it's not really an ideal workplace for modern manufacturing. Way back when we first built the place, all we were doing was making things of metal. You don't need a huge forge for electronics."

"I… Have been meaning to ask you… Um…"

"Oh, ask. I can't promise I'll give you an answer, but I promise not to plague you with rust or anything like that."

"Your leg. I don't know how much modern medicine can actually affect you-"

He glances down at it for a half-second. "Not much."

"-but it should be fairly straightforward to make a better.. frame. Or an exoskeleton section like my power armour. Or a cybernetic."

"So what you're saying, is that I should cut off my own leg."

"No, I'm saying you should get a competent chirurgeon to take a look at it. Whatever the damage is, it might be repairable by modern medicine. The cybernetic replacement thing would be a last resort."

"Do you know who the Greek God of Medicine is?"

"Yes, it's A… Pollo." Ah. "But you had millennia-."

"Yeah, I did. Exactly how good was cybernetic technology a few millennia ago?" He sighs. "Besides, this wound was inflicted by Zeus. Having another god fixing it would be a declaration of war against the King of Olympus, and no one is willing to do that. For me, anyway."

"Okay, but… Mundane stuff?"

"I'm going to see what I can adapt from the schematics you gave me. I don't move around all that much, but it would be nice if I could." We emerge from a small copse and start walking over the rubble-strewn ground of the lower slopes. Hephaestus slows for a moment, getting his bearings. "This journey used to take me months. One nice thing about modern transportation technology."

"Have you given any thought to the idea of using a Dolmen Gate? I certainly don't object to giving you a lift, but I.. know that in your place I'd prefer to be able to make the journey myself."

"Maybe. But if I do, I'll need to talk to Vulcan about it. And we'll probably want to make it ourselves." His brow furrows slightly. "I think… Technically, the Atlanteans are his people."

We continue slowly on up the slope, though the incline isn't particularly steep down here.

"Leaving the planet, huh?"

"Not quite yet. A little over two weeks."

"Anything big planned for your send-off?"

I can't help but clench slightly as he asks. Not that I think he'd care all that much. "We're having a bit of a get-together. My friend Kon is having his birthday party on the fourth of July, so we're sort of merging the two together."

"Kon, as in 'Prince Kon-El', right?" He glances at me once more as I nod. "How long you planning on being away for?"

"As long as it takes. If I'm really lucky, just a couple of months. But…" I glance down at my rings. "I can go literally anywhere I want. I could be the first Human in another galaxy if I wanted, and didn't mind losing the few months the journey would take. I might just spend some time out there… Just, flying around." He nods. "You ever felt like getting away from the Earth?"

"Sure. Soon as I heard about the space program. Just for the sake of it, though? Not really. I wasn't really one for travelling even when I could do it easily." He stops. "Wait." I obediently come to a halt. "I'm pretty sure we're here."

"You're 'pretty sure'? How long have you been coming-?"

"I'm the God of the Forge, not navigation. The greenery changes from year to year, and sometimes there's an eruption and the whole landscape changes." He lifts his hammer from his shoulder. "Anyone around?"

"Ah." Ring? "No. Not in visual range, anyway."

He bangs the rock beneath us a couple of times with the head of the hammer. "Yeah, sounds about right. Hey! Vulcan! Open up already!"

There's a clank, and just ahead of us a circular section of rock with a diameter of about four metres starts turning, rotating clockwise and rising as it does so. Dust and small stones cascade from the upper surface as it rises to the height of our heads and then keeps going. There's a noticeable bevel to it, so that the rock plug can sit neatly in the hole that's cut into the rock. As it keeps rising I see metal beneath the rock, a huge steel screw frame that's hollow on the inside.

"Glad the mechanism is still in good order. I always hate it when the first thing I have to do is work on the damn entrance."

There's a clank as the whole assemblage halts, and I hear footsteps clanking on a metal floor.

"What! You sleep in or something?!" The voice comes up through the screw, echoing slightly on the metal. "I've been waiting to go since dawn!"

"I never get here at dawn!"

"The start of the day on the solstice!"

"Look, if you wanted to leave you could just have told the tripods to work the entrance! It makes no difference to me!"

A figure moves into sight from inside the screw. The footsteps are regular, which I was expecting. Hephaestus found my initial assumption that Vulcan would be some kind of palette swap of him quite amusing. Apparently Vulcan isn't physically deformed, he's just ugly. His hair is dark brown, unlike Hephaestus' own greying locks, and if not actually better kempt it is at least shorter. His beard is likewise better groomed. He's wearing a mostly red shirt decorated with a tartan pattern and faded and well-worn jeans. His face… It isn't that bad. His nose is quite crooked and quite a bit too fat for his face. His ears stick out to the sides and bristle with hair and his brow is rather heavy. I mean, he's not traffic-stoppingly ugly or anything. I guess Juno just has really high standards.

He walks out into the light, wincing slightly as he does so before walking up to his shorter Greek counterpart. "Hephaestus."

Hephaestus nods. "Vulcan."

They stand there looking at each other for a moment, before they both smile and step towards each other, wrapping their arms around each other and embracing tightly. "Oh, it's good to see you, Heph."

Hephaestus slaps him on the back. "You too."

They stay like that for a moment before separating, Vulcan transferring his attention to me. "So who's this? Apprentice? A son I haven't met?"

"This is… One of Diana's students. You remember, the Amazon Princess?"

"Yeah, I remember. He working with you this year?"

"No, but he's got a few projects he wants to work with us both on. You have to rush off?"

"I can give you a few hours." Vulcan frowns, then turns his thickset eyes my way. Weighing me up. Then he turns back to Hephaestus. "Why don't you tell me what you've been up to?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

21st June
16:53 GMT +1

Hephaestus grins as Vulcan comes back into the dining room, followed by a strange clockwork tripod automata. "Ah, the good stuff!" The tripod appears to be largely clockwork, chain and pulley driven legs allowing it to waddle along the corridor with an amphora firmly clasped in its mechanical grasp.

"There's nothing wrong with my wine, Hephaestus."

"I didn't say there was. But ambrosia's better."

"Ambros-?" I look from one forge god to the other. "Is it alright for me to drink that?"

Vulcan pulls out a stool for himself and sits down at the table. "There's little harm in it."

"Okay, but… Doesn't it have any..? Strange side effects?"

"It gets you drunk." Vulcan makes a beckoning motion to the tripod and it approaches the table. "It has minor regenerative properties, but one amphora won't do much."

"What's it actually made of?"

"Nectar, boiled and fermented." The tripod unwinds an arm and uses it to pick up the amphora and offer it to Vulcan. He takes it with a nod and holds it up slightly. "Not that the right flowers are easy to get hold of. Usually just pay the Dryads to grow them."

Hephaestus nods at me. "Drink up. We'll need new cups for this."

I'm really not a wine expert. I don't even like the stuff, but I thought that doing my normal 'ring, make me taste something else' would be rather rude to the people who I hope will become business partners. So I smile, pick up the slightly weathered cup and drain what's left. I know that Ancient Greeks and Amazons water wine down in situations like this. I guess that Gods don't bother.

"Thank you."

Vulcan takes three empty goblets from the tripod while Hephaestus takes my cup and turns in his seat to put it on the sideboard.

"I've been meaning to ask: your tripods. Are they really mechanical robots?"

Vulcan shakes his head as he pours for us. "No. I could build a mechanical robot, but it would be enormous. These are controlled by small Elementals."

Hephaestus nods. "Powered, too. Much easier than having to wind them up every few hours."

"The Elementals-" He puts the amphora down on the table and offers me a goblet. I take it. "-have an affinity for the metal. That means they can… Empower it or move it as if it were their own body. In fact, because their affinity is for ore-level concentrations of metal and this metal is pure, they're stronger and tougher like this. Happier too." He turns to look it in the… Torso? "Isn't that right?"

There is a series of rapid mechanical clicks.

Hephaestus raises his goblet, then looks at me with his eyebrows raised. I mirror the gesture and a moment later Vulcan does the same. "Jupiter."

"Zeus."

I blink. I don't think that saying 'Eris' in a forge would be correct. 'Colin' doesn't sound right either. "Ophidian."

"Eh?" Vulcan frowns faintly and looks at Hephaestus. "I thought he was one of yours?"

"He is, but his patron is… That woman."

"Oh." Vulcan nods, then raises his cup to his lips. Hephaestus and I do the same. Tastes… Sweet? Sort of a mildly florally scented alcopop. Vulcan puts his goblet down. "Say no more. So, mortal. What exactly do you want from us?"

"A better question, sir, is what do you want from me." I shrug. "What do you want from life? Assuming that you're as old as Hephaestus, you're four thousand years old."

"Close enough."

"Italy has been Christian for fifteen hundred of them, and doesn't look like it's going to change any time soon. I don't know how long you expect to live, but you don't look old. Maybe-" I indicate our surroundings with my goblet. "-you're happy like-."

"No. I'm not." Vulcan watches me intently. "So you can stop trying the market trader routine on me. But there's not a lot of call for forge-gods these days."

"Do you want there to be?"

"I'm a craftsman and a teacher. I want my work to be seen, used and appreciated. Same as Hephaestus, unless he's changed his mind lately."

"Human knowledge of metallurgy has come on in leaps and bounds in the last century. You could take pride in that."

Hephaestus raises his eyebrows slightly. "You know what I feel, whenever I look at one of those skyscraper things?"

"Pride? Envy?"

"Nostalgia." He drinks deeply from his tankard, then sets it down and sighs heavily. "I can still remember when you people needed us."

"Well-."

"I didn't think I was asking for much. Not compared to some. I didn't ask for gold or silver. I didn't ask cows or sheep. Heck, compared to the new guy… I didn't even ask people to behave better towards each other. I just taught people how to make things with metal, and all I wanted in return, was that when they gathered together to celebrate what they'd done with those skills… They did so in my name. Was that too much? Or was it too little? Would it have stuck in their minds more if I'd been more demanding? If I'd demanded a copper coin every time they heated their forge if they didn't want their iron to be full of impurities?"

Vulcan nods, sipping from his goblet with a bitter expression on his face.

"Did I ever mention my friend John Constantine to you?" Hephaestus nods, but it looks like Vulcan's the first arcane being I've met who hasn't heard of him. "He once had an encounter with an Aztec death god by the name of Mictlantecuhtli. John said something disrespectful to goad him, and Mictlantecuhtli told him to watch it, as he might have lost nearly all of his worshippers but hadn't lost any of his power. John's response was… Doesn't that just make it worse? You can do all of these wondrous things and no one wants to know."

Hephaestus looks contemplative while Vulcan's eyes narrow slightly. I smile.

"We want to know. On the twenty third of August KordTech will be sponsoring a technology demo to show off its latest developments. Most notable amongst these are the arcane metals that Hephaestus taught Io how to forge. We're calling it the Hephaesteia, and we're going to make it an annual thing. To start with, it'll probably just be us and the Atlanteans, but in future we hope that other companies will get involved. Diana will be leading opening and closing prayers and Io's going to be there to field questions."

"That's already.. set. That's going to happen. You don't need to do anything else. But you can. We would be delighted to trade for large quantities of arcane metals, especially jovium. Seriously, we can't get enough of that stuff. We'll trade for instruction, teaching others how to make it."

Vulcan's eyes are on the table. "You're going to want every little secret, aren't you? Everything we've learned…"

"I want you to teach us. I want you to share knowledge. We're happy to do the same, with things outside of your domain that don't come quite so naturally. I want you to get involved in the world again as gods. I want you to remind people that pagan gods aren't all arseholes."

"Hm." Vulcan puts his right fist to his chin for a moment, then turns to his Greek counterpart. "Well? He's one of yours."

Hephaestus nods. "And I'll be spending some time making jovium with Io and Pallas this summer. Maybe one or two others. And I've got some designs Paul wants made for his allies. But the Atlanteans are yours. What do you plan on doing with them?"

Vulcan stares into his goblet for several moments. Then he looks up. "Find me one who knows how to repair a Lancia, and we can talk."

 

[Mr Zoat]

22nd June
05:18 GMT -8

"Captain Eiling, I assure you that your father will be fine."

I look around the staging area as I hold the phone construct to my ear. With everyone who can physically threaten me -read: Mordru- out of the way, the rest should just be a mopping up operation. Still, this will be good practice for General Lane's people. They won't be going after Savage -I'm here to handle the combat part of the operation personally in case something unexpected happens- but they'll handle the covert reconnaissance, communication and the teleportation jammers. I even managed to purchase a fun little piece of kit from Venturia called a Havock Stone which should stop arcane teleportation… Well, by a non-expert at least.

"Fine doesn't land you in the hospital. Look, I know that you can't tell me much-."

"No, no, I can tell you pretty much anything. I'm not part of the US military and I haven't signed any sort of non-disclosure agreement." Which now that I think about it is a bit odd. "Your father is suffering from the after effects of a petrification spell. He's been restored to flesh, but we want to keep him in for observation. And you know how hard reliable magic users are to come by."

"No, I can't say I do. Can I.. visit?"

I nod to Vera as she gives me the thumbs up. Chester, Mister Tawny and Miss Amane are with the team going after Brain on the grounds that it's a wee bit easier to bring weapons and personnel to a location in Mali than it is to the United States of America. The government are cooperating -on paper at least- but they aren't going to send troops anywhere near an international supervillain if he isn't actually attacking them. To be fair, that's probably for the best.

"Best… Give it a day or so. But after that, sure. Just.. phone General Lane's office sometime tomorrow and they can get hold of me."

"Thank you. I'll do that." He pauses for a moment. His.. rapprochement with his natural father came about as a result of my team-. My former team's efforts. But he grew up under the care of his treasonous stepfather General Eiling, and I can well understand that he's conflicted about the whole situation. "Why is it I'm hearing this from you?"

"I was in operational command at the time. I know superheroes don't have the best reputation for command and control, but as far as I'm concerned it's my-" My left hand traces a line along my armour, following one of the talon wounds I received yesterday. "-responsibility. Bloody.. glad he didn't die, actually. I've never done one of these before."

"As someone who has, I think you're handling it okay. I'll pass it on to Peggy."

"If that's the protocol. Listen, I need to get going-."

"I understand. I'll call in tomorrow. Goodbye, Mister Grayven."

"Goodbye Captain." I dismiss the phone construct. "Vera, we ready?"

"We were just waitin' for you." She and the US army officer in command -a Major Laramore- walk towards me. "Situation report is all ready."

I nod. "Then let's hear it."

Major Laramore glances at a datapad in his left hand. "We think he's got seven people in the hotel, and some sort of rapid response team in a privately owned warehouse a couple of miles away. Give…" He shakes his head. "Sir, I… I've never actually worked with a superhuman as.. powerful as you before. Are you really going to be able to do this on your own?"

"Seven guys, probably carrying Earth weapons? Yes? I'm more worried about your people."

"Okay then." He nods. "We've got three sniper teams in position on the rooftops. We'll lay explosives on the roads right before the attack starts, but I don't wanna do that too much before in case-."

"In case some civilian walks into it. That's the right call. Are your soldiers going to be alright working with Operative Black?"

"My men are professionals, sir. There won't be any problems."

"Good. I realise that it isn't ideal, suddenly having to work alongside people you haven't trained with. I'll try and sort something out with General Lane.. before we do anything like this again."

"Thank you, sir. I'd appreciate that."

I look around again, then nod, raising my left hand to my ear. "Grayven to General Lane. Las Vegas reports full readiness."

"The teams in Ecuador and Mali report the same things. General readiness is at about eighty percent, but I don't think we should wait any longer. The more time we give them, the more likely they are to smell a rat."

I nod. "I agree. By your command?"

"Just a sec."

There's a brief pause. "All teams, this is President Horne. Operation Light Switch is go. I repeat, Operation Light Switch is go. Godspeed."

"Call you back, Sam."

"Go get 'em, Grayven."

I lower my hand and focus on Major Laramore. "We're go. Get your team by the offsite group to lay those explosives and send the team at the hotel upwards. I'll meet them in the penthouse. Hopefully I'll have dealt with everyone, but don't take any silly risks."

"I'll.. reiterate that, sir. Give us one minute, then you can start."

I nod, and he turns away and marches towards the command station. "This is weird."

Vera glances my way. "What is?"

"Soldiers."

She raises her left eyebrow. "You don't have soldiers on Apokolips?"

"No, we do, but they're all Lowlies. We don't expect them to do anything clever or complicated. Just… Die for Darkseid." Her right eyebrow joins the left. "Hey, I'm not saying I like the system. This is better, it's just… Odd." And right. Competent people, trained and experienced, loyally carrying out my orders. I like this. Oh yes, I've got to look into getting one of these.. army things. Or maybe a navy..?

I watch Major Laramore for a few moments, half listening to the radio chatter. Of course, no Apokoliptian Elite would stand back and organise when there was a fight going on. And I'm not either. Maybe there's some sort of… Course I could go on..? I'll ask Sam about it after-.

Major Laramore looks up. "Sir, everyone's in position."

I smile confidently. "Right then. Best not keep Savage waiting. Father Box, hush tube."

"Ploong."

22nd June
13:21 GMT

I step lightly across the lunar surface as the tube closes behind me. Obviously I'm not stupid enough to open a portal directly to the target. I take a moment to look at the glimmering Earth far above me. Father Box, hush tube.

Ploong.

A new portal appears and I stride through, shutting down the internal cameras as I do so.

22nd June
05:21 GMT -8

Savage's penthouse is the epitome of his horrible, gaudy taste. Dozens of trophies -presumably from various historical events he lived through- on display. No plaques though. This isn't for tourists. This is for lecturing guests and for reminiscing. I flick my goggles down over my eyes. Savage is asleep in bed, and mercifully his current companion is over the local age of consent. I wiggle my left hand… Just doesn't feel quite right with a finger gone. Eh. Crock and Dorrance materialise, and I wave my left hand in the general direction of the front door. They should be well capable of dealing with any relief team.

Movement from the bedroom. I'm not bothering to be silent, but it is a little impressive that they heard me already. I stride confidently towards the door. Looks like Savage is going for a high-calibre pistol, while the woman goes for a sword and some knives. For a moment I'm reminded of Jade… No, too tall. Neither of them bother with clothing.

I stop a little way from the bedroom door as they both move out of line of sight from the doorway.

Sinestro. Sonic cannon construct.

 

[Mr Zoat]

22nd June
05:22 GMT -8

One doesn't really hear a sonic weapon. And not just because they'd burst your eardrums if you were in a position to do so; the variants I'm familiar with either use sound at frequencies much higher or much lower than those a Human can naturally hear. I'm getting a sort of 'whumwhumwhum' from the vibrations that pass through my hands from the weapon and are transmitted through.. my.. bones…

Father Box, how exactly is that bypassing my divine resistance?

Ploong.

Oh, of course. Anyway, despite the name, you don't hear the weapon. Any science fiction which depicts it otherwise is using artistic licence. On the other hand, you can hear whatever the stream of sonic energy hits exploding.

Like Savage's bedroom door, which is torn apart, splinters spraying in all directions.

Like the far wall, plaster evaporating, metal running in streams and stone blasted into dust and shooting out of the side of the hotel in a cloud.

Hah! I mean, it's not a black hole gun or anything, but it's still bloody good fun. I believe that I have located my inner redneck.

That'll do, Sinestro.

Corpsman, confrontational grandstanding is always ill-advised.

Not if no one advises you to do it, it isn't.

I am not going to dignify that with a response.

I'm not keeping that gun because this hotel has other occupied rooms. The falling dust is too fine to cause serious injury and we're too high up for anything bearing critical weight to be on a horizontal plane with us. It's completely impractical for a close quarters fight.

At least you've thought about it this time.

I take my new shoklave from the scabbard at my hip with my right hand. Didn't have time to make a full sized one, but this will do for most purposes. Haven't… Done this for a while, but I also make construct armour and a construct kite shield. Just to be on the safe side. Then I stride forwards, using the orange ring's flight aura to float over the somewhat worse for wear floor that was in the sonic cannon's effect cone.

I can see where they are perfectly clearly through the walls. The woman is behind a decorative pillar to my right, presumably waiting for me to pass her by so that she can make a surprise attack. Not seeing any fear from her. Savage is standing in the open to my left, holding his pistol two handed. No fear there, either. Being organically immortal I suppose this sort of thing is old hat for him.

Warning:

A beam of murky gold energy hits my construct shield, doing minor damage before cutting out.

Radion source detected.

Oh, thank you very much.

You are welcome.

Savage lowers the pistol. "Grayven." I knew that radion weapons of that size existed of course, but they're single shot affairs. A bit worrying that the rings couldn't detect it until it fired, but again: I know that sort of technology exists. I wonder how he got hold of it.

"Savage." I glance right. "And friend."

He still doesn't look worried, but he does look curious. "I was told that your kind were vulnerable to radion weapons."

I nod. "Oh, we are. Dreadfully so. Power rings aren't. The Thanagarians only got that shot off by downing my construct armour with fire from their fighter craft."

"Do you truly believe that the Light will follow you because you deposed me?"

"What, you really think this is a power play? Savage, this is the end of the Light. My people are attacking Brain, and the US Navy is levelling Infinity Island. Across the world, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and law enforcement officers are getting their marching orders."

He glowers, though given how gifted he is in the glowering department that might well be his neutral expression. "Luthor."

"Actually, no. He's being unsubtly watched by the FBI. I honestly have no idea what he sees in you, but as far as I know he never acted against you."

A nod. "Was this your plan from the first?"

"Oh, you were right about superheroes being an impediment to Human achievement. And I tried, I really tried to talk you into doing something about that using sane means. But you just had to summon an eldritch abomination, you utter buffoon!"

Movement to my right. I instinctively lash out, a thin band of yellow light striking the airborne daggers and knocking them aside. Faintly glowing eldritch script on the side of the blades… But it doesn't look like it does anything if you don't hit the target. The now clearly visible naked woman-.

"Ms Wu-San. I was not expecting you to be here. And I rather thought that you would have better taste than to bed… Cavemen."

I clearly see her muscles move under her bare skin as she shifts to a fighting stance. "Vandal Savage is a superb fighter."

"Okay, but he-. Oh! Hahah! Him and David Cain? Of all the chat up lines I never thought would work! How is little Cassandra?"

No verbal response. Her eyes still locked onto mine, she just takes her sword in a two-handed grip.

"You really could do better. I'm not single myself, but I know a few-."

"Oh really?"

I turn back towards Savage as he grins, snapping in half some sort of wooden medallion.

…

"Was that meant to do something?"

"I never truly trusted you. I thought that your devotion to the future of humanity was genuine, but that you lacked… Vision, where hard methods were required. Mordru was intended as your opposite: disinterested but ruthless. And alerted by this medallion, he-"

"Hah!"

"-will momentarily be-"

"Hehahah!"

"-joining us."

"Um. Yeah."

His eyes narrow. "I fail to see the humour."

"I killed Mordru yesterday. You seriously thought that I'd come after the rest of you without dealing with the most powerful member of the group first?"

"He is… Immortal."

"Savage, one little piece of wisdom, from Apokolips? There's no such thing as truly immortal. Not Klarion, not my Father, not me, not you and probably not even the Source itself. Whatever you do to anchor yourself to the material universe will eventually fail. Everything ends. Everything dies." I glance back at Ms Wu-San. "Look, you actually aren't on the arrest list, so if you want to just disappear I'm not going to stop you. Though for the good of the Human gene pool, I really would suggest a morning after pill. Or.. five…"

In an elegant motion she leans forward and pushes off, going from still to full charge in a second, sword ready to slice through me.



I blast her to pieces with a bolt of orange light, chunks of painfully-outclassed martial artist raining down around the room. It's really nice to have that option back, without having to get my head into the fear-space.

Well, back to Savage. "You're under arrest."

He shakes his head. "I think not. I'm immortal, and while I believe that I have a soul far greater than those possessed by the common herd I am not a magic user. The sword with which you so memorably slew Klarion will have no more effect against me than any other sharpened piece of metal. And while you may be able to defeat me in combat, there is no prison in which you can-."

"Ring, assimilate."

A wild burst of orange blasts from the ring and strikes the jumped up caveman in the chest. Orange light spreads over his body immediately, and he holds his hands up to watch the progress.

"Thing about you, Savage, is that you're all about avarice. Making what you want to happen happen. It's a vice I share, but unlike me you don't have anything else. And you never learned self discipline because you never thought that you needed to."

"This won't work!" Finally he loses his cool! "I'll come back! I always come back! I am immort-!"

He shudders as the change completes.

"Vandar Adg of the Blood Tribe. You belong to the Orange Lantern Corps."

I walk over and stare my new Construct Lantern in the eyes. There's little reaction.

Good. Now, where to next?

 

[Mr Zoat]

22nd June
10:34 GMT -3

Admiral Strom looks around as I step out of the hush tube and onto his carrier's bridge. If it wasn't for the stinking headache I've got right now I'd make time to be a little more impressed by how quickly the marines on duty bring their weapons to bear. Ah, damn it, I should really have thought that through better.

It's fascinating, Corpsman. For every flaw you correct, you swiftly find another to replace it.

He's not wrong. When I call Crock or Dorrance into the ring, I get a quick information burst of whatever they've done or seen. Mildly useful the first time, pretty much irrelevant since. It should really have occurred to me that doing the same with a man as old as Savage might be… Inadvisable.

That's certainly one way to put it, Corpsman.

I mean, it's kind of interesting that despite his claims to the contrary he actually wasn't Genghis Khan. He was some guy called Yelü Chucai, and basically ended up as Genghis Khan's Prime Minister due to being the only one in the whole horde who knew how to do anything other than wage war. It's a bit surprising, given what I know of Savage. I struggle to imagine him letting someone else out-rape and out-pillage him, but I can see from his own memories that he did.

This is the closest I've come to having any respect for him at all. Rather novel, considering the fate worse than death I consigned him to.

"Is there some reason why you've decided to join us, Mister Grayven?" I note that Admiral Strom hasn't turned to face me. He also hasn't told the marines to stand down.

I blink, hard. Head in the game. Embody strength!

"How goes the attack, Admiral?"

"Gotta say, I'm impressed by how many sea mines they stuck in these waters with no one noticing. Could probably walk to the damn island." A short nod to his flag captain and he steps back from his station, turning towards me. "You sure about them having anti-air lasers?"

"I got a tour as a thank you for resurrecting the Tasmanian Tiger."

"Well, we've been dropping missiles and shells on the coordinates you gave us since we got the go-ahead. Those sites are about as flat as we can make 'em." From outside I hear the roar of a jet engine igniting. I look out of the conning tower window as the first planes take off. The admiral follows my gaze with a cruel smile, then walks over to the window to watch them go. "I told 'em not to bother being too precise, seeing as how everyone on that island is a terrorist and it's gunna be a couple a' hours before we can land troops by sea."

I nod, though I don't otherwise move and test the marines' discipline. "Any problems so far?"

"Lost one minesweeper to frogmen."

I frown. "I'm sorry, this line of work… When you say 'frogmen'-?"

"People in scuba gear. Swam out and stuck charges on the hull. I've got a screen of dinghies with marines out in front, stop anyone doing that again."

"The crew?"

"They all got out." He glances my way. "Stand easy, fellers."

The marines snap their guns back to a rest position.

"Thank you. Admiral, you understand… This is a navy operation, but President Horne's orders were quite clear. Under no circumstances is Ra's al Ghul-."

"Yeah yeah, you wanna go in yourself."

"I'm not trying to steal your credit or anything, but-."

"His house is getting trashed in the first wave of air strikes, but we're not using bombs designed to penetrate fortified structures. Any underground bunkers are gunna still be intact." He looks over his shoulder towards me. "And you can take our bombs, right?"

"Anything short of a tactical nuke, yes."

"Then what're you waiting for? Go get him."

"Thank you." Father Box, hush tube to… Oh, I don't know…

Ploong.

Yes, that'll do.

I give Father Box a moment to create the new hush tube, then send through two blaster drones and one death ray drone to scout out the far side. Anything..? Ah. Interesting, though hardly unexpected. I stride through, yellow construct armour manifesting around my body as I appear in the catacombs under Ra's' mansion.

"Batman. What an unexpected… Meeting."

He steps out of the shadows to glower at me. "Grayven."

"Aren't you supposed to be in Germany? I'm almost entirely certain that was the plan. In fact, I'm not even sure how you got here-."

"I'm here for Talia."



"Funnily enough, so am I. As the League of Shadows' moneyman-. Moneywoman…" I frown, then dismiss the point. "Her arrest and conviction is just what we need to make the takedown real for people." He continues to study me. "What, you thought I was going to let her just disappear, take up some new identity? After all the murders she's arranged? Don't be absurd, Batman. She's going down and she's staying down."

"I don't recall you having the same attitude towards Jade Nguyen."

"And I'm sure that if you took down the League of Shadows, President Horne would have offered you a get out of gaol free card. Besides, Jade was hardly critical to the organi-." There's a tremendous BOOM from up above us, the walls around us shaking in response. "Organisation. They have killers to spare, but no one else Ra's would trust as their business manager." We continue to regard each other. "The United States government wants her by the end of the day."



"And I don't rate her chances of being taken alive if I have to come looking for her."

He waits a moment, then walks backwards and tries to fade into the shadows. A move which completely fails due to my ring augmented vision. I see him clearly as he turns and runs towards the minisub pen.

Oh, he'll be better off without her.

I turn left, heading towards the command centre. Yeah.. I.. do kind of need to eat Ra's' brain as well. There are bound to be shadows and other such people I don't know about. And I genuinely am curious to see if I can track down David Cain. I mean, if anyone knows where that nasty little psychotic serial killer is, it's Ra's al Ghul. Not sure what I could do for little Cassandra -if she even exists here- but I'm sure that it's more than him. I walk out into a training area and-.

"Grayven."

Oh, it's that Ubu bloke. He pulls a metal bar… Thing… Off the weapon rack and brandishes it. I raise my left hand and explode him. I start walking again as parts of his body rain down around the room. I just can't work these people out. They must know I don't care about killing them. Right? I mean, I called in the US fucking Navy. I shrug to myself.

A short corridor later and I'm outside the underground command centre. The yellow ring shows only four people inside. Two shadows, that Sensei bloke and Ra's himself. Three sources of fear, but Ra's himself is perfectly calm.

And… Suddenly I'm bored with this whole thing. This is just barely worth my attention. All these… Self-proclaimed masterminds just can't cope with someone of my power level stomping on them. Not without editorial fiat protecting them. I don't even bother shooting, I just barrel into the door at a loping charge, knock it down, grab the shadows around their necks and squeeze. As their heads drop to the ground I'm already lunging at the Sensei, a solid punch from my right fist crushing his chest to a mess of mashed organs and broken bones.

Then I turn to my prey. "Ra's."

He seems calm. If I had to characterise his mood, I'd describe it as disappointed. Well diddums. "I assume that you're here to kill me."

"No. Someone might find a hair follicle and use a Lazarus Pit to bring you back. I'm going to turn you into a construct, and use the knowledge that grants me to ensure that your organisation is completely destroyed."

"Talia?"

"Batman's going to find her. A show trial, and then life imprisonment."

He nods. "You would not attempt this if Mordru and Savage were not already.. taken care-."

"Dead, they're dead. Of all people, you shouldn't be squeamish about saying it."

A slight curl of distaste appears on his lips. "We could have achieved so much. Your betrayal-."

"YOU LEFT YOUR DAUGHTER TO DIE IN A NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMP! YOU DON'T GET TO CALL ME A TRAITOR!" My construct armour fails as I let the rage flow through me. "Father Box, boom tube."

BOOM! The glowing portal opens next to us, and a moment later Nyssa Raatko steps through. Her eyes are hard, and she's smiling cruelly. She's going to be useful, and she was so eager when I offered her the chance to watch this.

"Assimilate."

 

[Mr Zoat]

22nd June
14:06 GMT

"…because I'm interested to see how you work." I try not to wince as Nyssa steps through the hush tube after me. Adding a seven hundred year old to Savage's multi-millennial memories shouldn't make all that much difference, but it's… Such a different outlook. I need to get back home and dump both of them in a cupboard as soon as possible. "While I am grateful to you for dealing permanently with my louse of a father, I will want to know you better before I commit myself to your cause. You have.. something of an unsavoury reputation."

And now I've got to deal with this.

Ring, where the fuck are we?

A map appears in my mind, and it's swiftly followed by Savage's memories of riding through this part of the world with a band of mercenaries two centuries ago, mixed with Ra's' recollections from even further back. Euuuurrrrgh…

No. Whatever benefit these two might give me, they're just a distraction now. Father Box, hush tube to… Storage room seven?

Ploong.

I send a filament through the portal, dump out all four of my Construct Lanterns and then close the portal. Oh, that feels better.

I turn to look at her. "Ms Raatko-."

"Nyssa." I raise my eyebrows slightly. "I think that you have earned the right to call me by my first name."

I nod. "Alright. Nyssa. This is an active combat zone. I'll be… Happy, to discuss my plans with you in more detail. But this really isn't the time."

She nods. "When, then?"

"Once I've finished up here, I'm going to spend the rest of the day transcribing data for the police and military of every country taking part in this purge. I doubt that you'll find it interesting, but you're certainly welcome to watch. Please, wait for me in my home as my guest. I will be with you shortly."

She continues to look into my eyes for a moment, then nods. "Very well. Thank you for your hospitality, Grayven."

Father Box.

Ploong.

Nyssa turns to face the hush tube and walks towards it, only looking back at me the moment before passing through.

Alright, shut it down and then open another… The base was built into Mount Tenakourou, but I never actually visited the place. I know he uses some sort of super plastic injection system to hollow out space underground and prevent collapses that would give away his location. I can feel the approximate locations of my subordinates by the effect of their enhanced metaphysiques, but… A good part of this was to make sure that they can work together to meet an objective without constant oversight from either myself or Doctor Robbins. I don't want to interfere, or risk giving away their positions if they're busy. Alright, according to the plan there should be local soldiers over there… A new hush tube opens and I step through.

Krak! Krak!

What?

"Over here!"

Krakkrakkrakkrak!

I look over to a nearby copse and catch sight of a soldier in the uniform of the Malian Army pointing his Kalashnikov at me, smoke from the propellant drifting from the barrel. Another soldier dashes up behind him, stares at me for a second and then grabs his gun off him. "Idiot! That is Grayven!"

The first soldier looks at the second, his eyes wide. "Oh shit."

Hm.



Okay, PR time. I stride in their direction, my best approximation of a friendly smile on my face. "No harm done. You." I point to the first soldier with my right forefinger. "What's your name?"

"Ah, ah-. Oumar-. Ah, Private Samake, Mister Grayven. Sir." He salutes as his colleague shakes his head in disappointment.

I stop within arm's reach, then pat him on the left shoulder with my right hand. "Good reaction time. Well done. But… You may want to check your targets a little more carefully in future."

"Yes sir. Thank you sir."

"Good man. Now." I turn to his colleague. "Whereabouts are my people?"

The second soldier -a corporal- nods his head towards the top of the bare stone hill. "They were up there, last time I saw them. Our orders are just to maintain the perimeter."

I nod. "No offence to you, but it's probably for the best. Any idea whether they've finished up or not?"

"There haven't been any new explosions for ten minutes, sir. Beyond that, I could not tell you."

I nod. "Thank you." I armour myself before transitioning into the sky above the mountain. No vengeful plasma explosions or anti-matter beams greet me, so it seems likely that my people were victorious. In fact, looking down… Ah, good. I allow myself to plummet, not bothering to brake at all as I slam into the ground with enough force to crack the rock… And make me bend my legs slightly. Fortitude: not just for taking punches.

Grodd looks up from the ruined body of Monsieur Mallah, baring his teeth at me. Hm. Looks like he cracked open his former troupe mate's skull and ate his brain. A moment later he recognises me and returns to his meal. A short way to his right Mister Tawny looks on in palpable disgust. Grodd… Might have been granted Human-equivalent intelligence by Doctor Durant's work-. No, it doesn't work. I can't think of him as being anything other than The Brain. By Brain's work, but he clearly hasn't picked up the insight into civilised niceties that interacting with Humans has given my feline companion. I'm not completely sure that Grodd will prove to be a worthwhile investment. Still, helping him get revenge against the ape who betrayed his troupe costs me little.

Other bodies surround the two of them, presumably part of Brain's retinue. Some sort of man-elephant, his chest torn open. A woman in a body stocking with a green cape, blood still leaking from her eyes, nose and ears. A woman wearing some sort of light armour, her body cut in three and then dragged roughly back into shape. There'll be others, of course. Once I've assimilated Brain I'll add them to the international manhunt.

"Where y'been, cock?" Chester stands next to a large hole in the rock, presumably his point of entry. "Missed all the fun, didn't yeh?"

"Not all of it, Chester. Everything secure?"

"Everythin'? Where's the fookin' fun in that? Heh."

"Chester, we're nearly done. Did you get-?" He makes an upward motion with his right arm, his eyes glowing green. Brain's heavily damaged travel machine shoots up through the hole to hover next to him. "Good work."

"Piece a' fookin' cake, cock. Not sure what alla the fuss was about." He drops his hand and jerks his head to the left. Brain's travel machine is tossed in the direction of his head, hitting the ground side-first, shaking and sliding to a stop.

"Iname?"

"Givin' the whole place a once-oveh. Think she's tryin' t' score points with yew or somethin'." He nods at the fallen Brain. His dome has cracked, and whatever the fluid he keeps in there is is gradually leaking out. "Well? Come on, then. We all know what you're here for."

I raise my left hand to my ear. "Grayven to Iname. Are you-?" There's a small gust of wind as she appears in front of me. "No trouble, I hope?"

She hesitates, uncertain how to answer. "There were a few… But nothing that we could not handle, Master. Do you want me to go back down? There are still a few rooms that I have not gotten into yet."

I nod, smiling at her. "I'm glad to hear it that you're alright. And I'm pleased with your work." She beams beatifically. "But don't worry about the base. We can go through it later, once the rest of the League is destroyed. Batman skipped out on Germany, so I want you to-."

Another blast of air and she's gone. So eager to please, that one. Hm. No sense in delaying.

"Brain, I've got no idea why you did what you did. And I care even less. Rest assured that I'll put your talents to better use than you ever did. Assimilate."

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd June
09:23 GMT -5

"…always thought that Superman's costume was striking, but it isn't exactly haute couture."

It's a little difficult to focus on Ms Madison and ignore the cameras. Most of the media relations training Ms Cobert provided stressed the importance of looking directly at the camera. But this is a pre-recorded program. There isn't an audience, and the camera has a small green light on it which lights up when I'm supposed to look directly at it.

"That's certainly true, but a lot more goes into the creation of a superhero's costume than whether it's in keeping with current fashion. While it's not so much the case for some historical costumes-" Naming no names. Starman. "-most modern costumes have sound logical reasons for looking like they do."

The studio actually has a hologram projector. Not as good as the ones I'm used to, but it can create solid colour 3D images. Ms Madison presses a button on her remote and an image of Mister Kent's costume appears.

"Why don't you talk us through it?"

One of the crane-cameras pulls back, following me as I walk over to the projector and gesture at the image with my right hand. "The obvious part is the insignia. Though most superheroes don't need to establish a brand in the commercial sense, the aim is to make it clear to anyone who looks at it exactly who they are dealing with. When dealing with civilians, it helps them recognise the wearer as someone they can trust to look after them. When dealing with criminals, the intent is to attract attention towards the wearer and away from civilians and law enforcement who may be unequipped to deal with supervillains. That need for swift recognition is why few superheroes wear a camouflage scheme."

"And the bright colors help with that."

I look her way and nod. "Quite so. Now, in Superman's case there are a few other points to bear in mind when examining the design. Take for example the skin-tight nature of most of the costume. There are a couple of reasons for this. Superman -as I'm sure everyone knows- can fly under his own power. Having a skin-tight costume makes it more aerodynamic. But perhaps more importantly is the way it interacts with his tremendous resilience."

"He has to wear skin-tight clothes because he's really tough?"

"It's more about where his toughness comes from. While someone like Wonder Woman or Icon has very tough body tissues, Kryptonians project a biological force field a very short distance from their bodies. Superman's costume fitting tightly around his body means that it's inside the force field, and so receives the same protection as the rest of him. That saves the embarrassment of him being hit by, say, a flamethrower, and having all his clothes burned off while he himself is uninjured."

Ms Madison shifts in her seat to look knowingly at the camera. "And we certainly wouldn't want that, would we, ladies?"

"The external underwear is an aesthetic choice, intended to call to mind old-school circus strongman performances. They don't serve any particular physical function, but they do serve to break up a large area of blue."

"What about the belt? Does he have trouble with them slipping down?"

"Given the speeds he can fly at, it's possible." Yes. "But to be honest, I haven't asked. I do know that there are a few rather useful devices built into the belt, but I'm afraid that I can't really talk about what they are."

He was a surprisingly easy sell on the kinetic belt, but there really is only so much room under his force field. A personal atmosphere generator will have to wait.

Ms Madison presses her control button again. "How about Wonder Woman? Her old costume didn't look very practical to me."

"Again, it's to do with what the individual needs. Diana is immensely tough. The original Wonder Woman uniform was designed for mortal Amazons called upon to perform the role of Wonder Woman. That-" I change the hologram to show it. "-was a somewhat more decorative version of the traditional Greek hoplite armour. The armour around the torso protected the wearer's internal organs against sword or spear strikes, the helmet protected the head, the 'skirt' protects the thighs and the greaves -the shin armour- protects the lower legs. As with Superman's 'S', the gold colour marked the wearer out as a warrior of note."

"Protective and sexy."

"Yes, but the male soldiers of the era wore more or less the same thing. Sexy in a gender-equal sort of way."

"But that isn't what Wonder Woman wore."

I change the hologram back to the basque.

"No, the armour Diana wore -and it's important to remember that Wonder Woman is a title that many Amazons have had over the millennia- was designed at the behest of her mother Queen Hippolyta."

"Didn't Wonder Woman leave Themyscira when she was fifteen? My mother certainly wouldn't have wanted me going out dressed like that at her age."

"She did, but Amazon standards of dress are.. a little different." Making cracks about Hephaestus designing it to look like that because he hasn't gotten any in three thousand years probably isn't appropriate for television. "And so were her requirements. Unlike most other Amazons, Diana has both super strength and super toughness. Super strength means that the design absolutely has to avoid binding her joints, otherwise she would damage the armour whenever she moved. Toughness means that providing total protection was far less important. If.. an.. Abrams tank shot an anti-armour round at her and managed to hit her thigh, it would knock her back and it might bruise, but it wouldn't cause her any significant harm."

"So she didn't need the extra protection like other Amazons would."

"Just so. Though her original armour is armour. Anyone trying to shoot her with some sort of exotic ray gun that could hurt her would most likely be aiming for her centre of mass. That's what the armour is designed to stop. And it.. also has a modesty-preserving function."

Ms Madison gives me a comedically incredulous look. "I think that's the first time anyone's ever described Wonder Woman's armour as 'modest'."

"Superman's force field protects his clothes if they're close to his body. Diana doesn't have that. If her clothing wasn't armoured up to.. her level, it would risk being destroyed when she fights." This time Ms Madison just glances at the camera, her right eyebrow arched. "The armour isn't just metal, it's also protected by powerful magic. Similarly, the bracers are designed for blocking incoming attacks, because while she is very tough, there's no sense taking unnecessary risks."

"Wonder Woman's recently been seen wearing a more heavily armoured version. I understand that you had something to do with that."

I switch the hologram for Diana's current armour. "This armour was the result of a design project between myself, Ted Kord, an Atlantean by the name of Sephtian and Hephaestus. The obvious differences are the fully covered arms and shoulders, the plates covering the thighs and shins, and the armoured boots. The chain mail parts are enchanted so as not to impede the range of motion. Unlike the 'basque' armour, this is designed to protect every part of her body."

"Have you been helping other League members improve their costumes?"

"Those who've asked, though the one I'm proudest of is the partial credit on getting Hawkwoman to abandon the appalling get up she wore when she first started operating on Earth." I have the hologram projector show a image of Mister Hol and Ms Thal side by side. "Now, Hawkman's armour has a couple of curious design choices, most notably the heavy shoulder pads. He has those because his normal mode of attack involves diving directly towards his foe. When he does that, all they can see are his shoulders, head, his upper chest and the leading edge of his wings. And as you can see, those are all armoured. The rest of his body is covered in an extremely tough material, but the most important feature is that it doesn't weigh much. Defensively, his aim is to evade attack by high speed flight, and unlike Superman and Diana he's kept in the air -at least in part- by the power of his muscles. He can't afford to get weighed down with heavy armour. As such, the design of the armour makes sense."

"Hawkwoman's armour on the other hand has two very obvious design flaws. Firstly, it has a boob window. Those belong on dresses, not on things that might get worn in combat. If she dived at an enemy while wearing that, she'd be giving them an unobstructed shot at her bare skin and at the lungs beneath it. Secondly, the miniskirt. Diana can get away without protection on her legs because she's super tough anyway. Thanagarians aren't much tougher than Humans; they're certainly not bulletproof. Compromising her protection like that was a bad decision, and I'm glad that she's fixed it."

"Do you know why she chose that design initially?"

"I think it was something to do with.. misunderstanding Human customs relating to female clothing." I turn to the camera. "Comics rot your brains, kids."

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd June
14:47 GMT -5

"Hey!" Guy waves his hand as I walk into the restaurant. "Get a load of the TV star."

A few of the other diners look around as I roll my eyes and start walking faster towards his table. Tora's there already… Ah, they've finished. I suppose things did.. run on a bit longer than I thought they would. I sit down opposite them. "I'm sorry. They just wanted to… Go over a few things…"

"Ah, don't sweat it. I guess we should just be grateful you've still got time fer the little people at all, what with yer new career an' all."

"Guy." Tora pats him gently on his left arm. "Be nice."

He rolls his eyes back, shaking his head. "But seriously: how'd it go?"

"It was a fluff piece. It's not as if I was going on a serious interview program or anything." I wave my right hand around in a circle. "It went okay..? I think..? Either that or they were being very polite about it all."

"When is it being broadcast?"

"Ugh, a little after I'm scheduled to leave, actually. By the time I… Get back, I imagine that all the excitement will have died down."

"An' I'm sure no one's gunna bear any grudges at all."

"You didn't say anything mean about anyone, did you?"

"Not… Especially. I couldn't risk giving out information on League member weaknesses to potential enemies, so I couldn't mention a lot of the things I got really exercised about. Ah, you getting on alright with your armour?"

Tora nods, smiling modestly. "It fits quite well, thank you. And I'm sure that if Bea was here she would say the same thing."

"Once you kicked her under the table a couple a' times, maybe."

Tora doesn't look totally happy with the description… But doesn't appear to be able to advance an argument against it.

"So anyway… "

"Yeah. Did, ah..? Do you know how King Orin..?"

"You ain't exactly his favourite Lantern right now, but I don't think he's plannin' on black ballin' yeh."

"No, I mean..? How are he and.. Koryak..?"

Guy shrugs. "I dunno. We're not that close. Think J'onn said something about him inviting the family down to Poseidonis this summer." I nod. "Course… You've got everybody wonderin' what dirty secrets you know about them." He looks at me as if he's expecting me to say something. I give my shoulders a slight shrug. "What, nothin'?"

"The Ophidian and I already gave you the best we had. That, and the chip on your shoulder you had about…" I look around the room, as more than a few people have their phones out and are recording us. "Green A. But you seem to have dealt with that. Actually… You're looking a lot greener than normal. Um. You and… Ion..? Doing anything?"

"He ain't still here, if that's what you mean." Guy thinks for a moment. "I dunno. After Oceanus went sploosh I just kinda… Snapped back. Things jus' seem kinda… Clearer, now. Like… I don't gotta worry about stuff I'm doing, y'know?"

I nod. Sounds a little like what I got out of bonding with the Ophidian. "I suppose you couldn't really hide this from the Guardians."

He shakes his head. "Nah. An' honestly? I don't think I shoulda done that the first time, neither."

"You could be right. I don't know them well enough. I was just… Worried. What have they said about it?"

"They wanna run some tests… Make sure I'm not gunna explode or nothin'." Tora's eyes widen, and her head whips around to stare at him. "Whu-? Oh, no, no, that was just Guardian Kontross gettin' his dress in a twist 'cause they didn't plan fer this."

"Are you sure that you're not in trouble? I could… Come with you..? If that would help."

"Ah… They said just me. I mean, they probably just didn't want me t'bring Orange-" He nods my way. "-with me, but… Kinda covers you as well." He shrugs. "Sorry, babe. Look, it's as much fer my own health as anythin'. I'll probably be back in a couple a' days. A week, tops. I'll just-." He glances across the restaurant, blinking as he sees.. the wall clock. "Ah, heck. Listen Orange, there was a bunch a' other stuff I wan'ed t'talk about, but Tora an' me got a show t'get to-."

"Oh. Yeah." I shake my head, waving his concerns away with my right hand. "Go. Go. We can talk later."

"A'ight." Guy rises from his chair, then offers Tora a totally superfluous but mildly gallant hand up. "Oh! Yeah." Guy focuses on me as Tora puts her jacket back on. "Green Arrow said he wan'ed t' talk t' you about somethin'. Wouldn't tell me what it was."

I nod. "Thank you for letting me know. I've got a sneaking suspicion that he's not going to be the last."

"Yeah, well, you made the bed, you get t' clean the sheets." He and Tora link arms as they head towards the doors. "Or whatever."

Yes, I rather suspect that I.. do. Not all that hard to work out what Mister Queen wants to talk about, considering what I revealed to King Orin. I stand up, pushing my chair back. Ring, current location of Green Arrow?

Green Arrow is located on the Watchtower.

Right then. Zeta tube.

The waiter who'd been heading my way takes a step back as the orange circle appears, the other diners not even bothering to hide their interest. With a royal wave at them, I step through.

23rd June
19:51 GMT

"Recognised, Orange Lantern, B zero six."

Mister Queen turns from where he'd been standing staring down at the Earth. "Guy talk to you already?"

I amble in his direction. "He said that you wanted to see me."

He nods, not meeting my eyes. "You know what this is about?" He closes his eyes for a moment, shaking his head. "Empathic vision, right."

"I don't use that as a matter of routine, sir." I extend a sound baffle around us. "But… If you know, and you know that I know… I'm not sure that I know why you want to talk to me." I hesitate. "Just in case we are actually talking about two separate things-."

"Connor Hawke. My son."

"I have his current address and phone number, if you want them."

He bows his head, shaking it as he does so. "God… I don't know. I don't have Aquaman's excuse. Moonday told me she was pregnant. At first I didn't believe her, then… I was.. a jerk. I just…"

"It's not much of a secret that you only straightened your life out after coming back from that island, sir."

He looks up. "Yeah, but it's like… Being an alcoholic. You realise you've got a problem and you try and get help, your friends help you. I only met Dinah after I became Green Arrow. She knows I used to be a…"

"Tearaway, sir?"

"Whatever you want to call it. But she thinks I'd stopped doing that."

"You didn't father Connor-."

He frowns, looking straight at me. "No. But I knew he was out there, and I didn't do a thing about it. About him."

I shrug. "Are you planning on doing so now?"

He exhales slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I am. Gimme that phone number. I can work out what I'm gunna say to Dinah afterwards."

 

[Mr Zoat]

24th June
20:27 GMT -5

I stare out across the Metropolis skyline towards LexCorp Tower. Lex is in his office, putting in his usual full working day. I'll say this for him, he's certainly hard working. Aside from having his desk repositioned so that it faces the window, an external observer wouldn't notice any difference in his behaviour from the norm. Not unless they knew exactly what they were looking for. The attempt to send a message to a burnable phone in Savage's possession. The satellite picture of Brain's mountain fastness.

The updated Will.

In a hotel room off to my right the FBI monitoring team are preparing for the shift change, writing up their notes and downing the last of their coffee. The whole policing situation is a bit.. confused, at the moment. The legislation for the organisation currently bearing the placeholder name of 'Department of Extranormal Operations' is still in committee. Jon needs it to be something Republicans and Democrats broadly agree on, and not just because the Republicans currently control the House of Representatives. He -we, I suppose- need this to be the route America takes in dealing with their… Oddball freelance law enforcement/breaking types in future. If the next guy just takes it apart or if Congress just deny it all funding after their initial enthusiasm wanes, we'll end up with a worse mess than we started with.

Anyway, the FBI are doing this for now. Both the NSA and General Lane's people had a claim… As do local police. But the FBI had an existing investigation going on and people with the relevant skills on site, so they got it. General Lane didn't argue the point; with his people getting credit for Savage and him having operational command of Operation Light Switch, getting the job of monitoring Lex was penny ante stuff.

The roundup of Light operatives worldwide won't be complete for months, if then. But the infrastructure is already entirely in the hands of national authorities, and that's the killing blow we needed. A few facilities owned at several removed by LexCorp ended up getting included due to the uses the other Light members were putting them to. They haven't made more than local protests, though I assume that people further up the chain have been notified.

Chairman Jiang's people were thorough and lethal in their work. They made a point of not taking any Shadows alive, though he did hint that he had secured quite a lot of intelligence from them. I didn't ask if that included blackmail material, but whether by crook or by hook his standing in China has never been higher. The Justice League were -naturally enough- far less lethal in their arrests, which I suppose is to be commended. Batman escorted Ms al Ghul to Belle Reve himself. Perhaps he didn't want to risk her doing something stupid and causing the marines to shoot her. Brain's surviving people are being housed in the European Union's premier metahuman prison, a facility in Austria called The Labyrinth. I'd never heard of it before we started planning this, but then the comics did rather focus on the United States. Kal-El's on duty there as an additional guard, just in case there are any problems with the influx of new residents.

Which rather neatly means that he can't be here when I do this.

And now… Time to finish up. I flare my environmental shield as I step off the roof and float at some speed through the air. The FBI team were… Informed that I was in the area and planning on speaking with Lex, but they aren't accustomed to my melodramatic habits. This should provide them with a little entertainment. I spot Lex glance up from the document he's reading… Paper and not electronic, I note. Burn after reading? Or maybe he's just looking after his eyes. Curiously, the expected surge of yellow doesn't happen. Yes, given how he's behaved so far I was expecting him to face the end with dignity, but I was also expecting a little more of a reaction on his part.

Instead, he simply gathers up his papers and straightens them before laying them down just to the side of him. Next he straightens his tie, then he rests his hands in plain view on the desk before him.

I stop a metre from his office window, arms folded in front of me. I'm not sure how well he can see me; it's dark out here and the glow my ring generates does rather obscure fine detail. See if I can get a reaction. I fling my arms out to the side, ripping the window before me to shards of glass which float in a cloud of sharp edges around me! The wind whips through his office immediately, plant leaves rustling and the papers he so neatly positioned going flying from his desk. I pose for a moment, then allow myself to drift forwards through the hole before pulling the glass back together behind me.

"Lex."

He regards me for a moment, then reaches over to activate his desk intercom. "Mercy, that will be all for the evening."

"Mister Luthor-."

"Thank you." He takes his finger off the button and returns his attention to me. "I.. understand that you've dealt with our colleagues."

"Yes."

"I'm.. not sure.. what you hoped to-."

PFWOOOOSH! The door to his office explodes and Mercy marches in, her cybernetic arm in gun-mode. She aims at me and fires again, a beam of low power plasma splashing harmlessly on my cuirass. I march towards her once the shot ends, closing the distance as her weapon recharges. She fires again, this time aimed at my face.

"Mercy, no!"

I ignore Lex's outburst, raising my right hand to block the shot. It wouldn't have hurt much, but I only just got these eyes. I don't want to spend the rest of this encounter blinking to try and clear the spots. The energy discharge knocks my gauntlet back about one sixteenth of one inch, then fades as the weapon expends its power. I'm looming over her now as she puts her gun back into fist mode and swings it at my head. I catch it, wrapping my left hand around her forearm and then grabbing her torso with my right and lifting her bodily off the ground.

"No, no, no. This-" I wiggle her robotic right arm back and forth and she squirms in my grip. "-is not a threat to me."

"Grayven. Please, she isn't-."



"This is." Orange light flows over the arm, reconfiguring the weak Human cybernetics with a superior kind. Not Apokoliptian, she isn't a New God, but Qwardian robotics and prostheses were really rather good. I replace the qwa energy projector from the original design with a purple ray projector, and the skin with a more sophisticated version based on what the Korugarians use for their medical prosthesis. As the orange light fades I take a moment to appreciate my work.

Then I casually toss her in Lex's direction. He's standing now, genuine concern for her wellbeing giving his face an expression I've never seen on him before as she lands hard on her left shoulder.

"Ah-!"

"Lex, I've been doing some thinking." I fold my arms behind my back and slowly stroll in the direction of the front window. "I was trying to work out… Why you were doing this. Why you were working with a group of clearly deranged supervillains. And -try as I might- I couldn't work it out." I bring my left arm out in front of me for a moment, making a show of studying the orange ring. "Savage wanted to follow his Neanderthal instincts and club to death everyone who threatened his rule of the tribe. Ra's wanted to recreate some sort of nonexistent iron age idyll. Mordru and Brain wanted test subjects… But you?" I shake my head. "I genuinely can't work it out. It couldn't just be for the connections; you already knew those people. And anyway… You're as rich as a Human can practically get. Then I thought… Maybe it was killing Superman in a way that couldn't be traced back to you. But your allies could have done that at New Year and they didn't. So unless they just welched on the deal that couldn't be it."

In the reflection on the window I see him cautiously help Ms Graves up before regaining his composure. "I tried to help the Human race. I may not have been-."

"Why?"

Lex shakes his head. "I don't think I understand the question."

"I don't see your investment." I put my left arm behind my back, then turn to face him. "I'm invested in the future. In two hundred years I'll still be here, reaping whatever benefits humanity has enjoyed from my efforts. But you?" I shake my head. "You might live another fifty years in reasonable health. You have no heirs. You've never had any lasting romantic relationships, you have no close friends, you work three hundred and sixty four days a year -three hundred and sixty five on leap years- and use your one day off to do the exact same thing every year. You have a sister you never see, and I think there's a robot around here somewhere that sends your niece gifts at her birthday and Christmas. You're-."

"Actually, Mercy does it."

"You're the least Human Human I know, and I know Batman. So where's your investment? Why does it matter to you if superheroes rule the roost while everyone else gets their discarded crumbs? I'm genuinely fascinated to know."

He takes a moment to consider the question, eyes down, nodding to himself. "Pride." He looks me directly in the eyes, his face relaxed. "The one thing I believe in more than my own greatness is Human greatness. Klarion was a tool and Mordru was a mistake, but the rest of us were working to direct Human civilisation to more effectively-."

"No, you were building doomsday devices and diligently following the tropes of supervillainy with a nifty sounding motto."

"As opposed to what the Justice League does? Lording it over the world from an alien space station, divorced from all Human institutions save the small UN fig leaf? And you know from your own experience that they're happy to ignore that when it suits them. Time and time again, technologies… Minds, that could be advancing our understanding of the universe, that could revolutionise Human technology, are relegated to being used in pointless costumed brawls. And Humans learn all too well from the examples they see. I achieved this-" He holds his hands outward to the room, palms upwards. "-in two decades of hard work, leading tens, then hundreds, then thousands of other Humans. And iconoclastic characters from Saturday morning cartoons become figures of envy and admiration."

He looks away, shaking his head. "And you will make us the villains of the piece to justify another round of costumed mummery. You may as well kill me now. I don't have anything else to say to you, and I'd rather not die in a worse mood than I'm already in."

I shake my head. "No, I'm not going to kill you, Lex." He frowns at me, head cocked slightly to the side. Block all listening devices. "The original plan was to leave you and Queen Bee alive. She rather ruined that…"

"… I don't understand. You strengthened your position with President Horne. You probably could build the Earth up until you could harvest the useful parts for your army-."

"Because I agree with you. I have for a while. What I don't understand is why you thought the others would manage to keep to that ideal rather than reverting to type." He clams up. "I have a message for you from President Horne, and a task from me. The President is uncomfortable with the idea of arresting you. It disrupts the narrative too much, and you're too well connected. Keep your nose clean, pay your taxes and keep out of politics and you'll be allowed to continue on. Don't, and you won't live to see a courtroom."

He nods slowly. "And the task you wish for me to perform?"

"The Human race still needs someone kicking it up the arse. The Light were -for the most part- exactly the wrong people to do that. Far too… Crazy. In a few weeks, I will be taking a holiday from the Earth. When I return, I expect to find a new Light waiting for me. Rational people, who are prepared to do the actual job of advancing humanity without getting distracted by pointless feuding and egotism. Then, we will begin the great work of guiding the Human race into becoming great by its own efforts. Do we have an understanding?"

A very small nod.

"I'm glad." I turn and walk toward the doorway. "Lex. Ms Graves. I'll show myself out."

 

[Mr Zoat]

25th June
10:17 GMT -5

"…our partners around the world. I can announce that all members of the supervillain group who called themselves 'The Light' are now dead, and that almost all of their followers are either dead or in custody. Over the next few days, the work of-."

Someone mutes the television as President Jonathan Horne walks into the room. Since -as far as I know- no one outside the usual intelligence community suspects are likely to be eavesdropping, we're having this meeting in a normal briefing room. Happy faces all around; if this hasn't guaranteed their man's re-election then nothing will.

Oh, and the world has been saved from the King of Tears, so there's that.

Jon approaches his chair at the head of the table and takes a quick look around the room. "Sam?"

General Lane nods. "We got him. Johnny Sorrow is right now heading to a special containment facility, still trussed up in the gear Brain designed to keep him where they wanted him."

"That's excellent news. Excellent news. Grayven?"

"I've transcribed everything I recovered and passed it on to the appropriate authorities. Though I'm afraid that what I got still isn't quite everything." True to his professed ideology, he didn't try and cut any sort of deal in exchange for supplying the information. Wherever the enemies of mankind lurked, the governments of those regions got everything they needed, whether that be information or military aid. US commandos fought and in some cases died crushing the Shadows in South America and Africa. It's not just Jon who's coming out of this looking good; America's international reputation just got a major boost.

"One hundred percent would be too much to hope for. And the other thing?"

I nod. "I think Lex got the message."

He nods, satisfied. "Glad to hear it. Caroline?"

"It'll take a while for my people to go through everything, but we shouldn't have any trouble making sure that no one gets bail at least. Given how big this is… I'm afraid to say that the Department of Justice might have to request additional funding to take on more lawyers. On a temporary basis."

"You sure about that?"

"I don't imagine that we'll be getting another surge of cases like this for a good long time."

"Okay. I'm sure we can get something set up before it becomes urgent. John?"

"Mister President, right now you could conduct every southern Representative in a rendition of Rally 'Round the Flag and they wouldn't complain about it. The budget hawks might want a sunset clause written in, but you've easily got the votes to push through whatever sort of bill you want in spite of them."

Jon shakes his head. "No. I want to bring as many people with us on this as possible. This isn't a victory for the Democratic Party, this is a victory for America and for the entire world. If Caroline doesn't think it'll be a problem, a sunset clause is fine." They both nod. "Let's… See if we can't get the Destructive Persons Act through committee a little faster. Ah, Adrian?"

"Mister President?"

"Set up some meetings. Don't beat any brows over this. This needs to be as bipartisan as possible. Throw them a few.. minor amendments, if that's what it takes."

"I have to agree with John, sir. I really don't think I'll need to."

"Well. The option's there. Henry still behaving himself?"

"He was starting to grow his spine back. I think, ah…" Adrian nods at the silent screen, showing prisoners from Infinity Island being marched onto transport ships by the marines attached to the 4th Fleet. "I think this'll remind him who's in charge."

"Don't be too hard on the guy. He's not a bad man. Just ill-informed. Oh." He looks down at his chair, as if surprised that he isn't sitting in it. "Got a bit carried away there." There's a little very polite laughter as he slides it out and sits down. "Okay. This.. Department of Extranormal Affairs we're creating."

Sam leans forwards slightly. "I've already got CID people lined up to transfer over for the investigation branch, and a few promising metahumans for a strike team. It might be worth-."

"I'm.. I'm sorry." I raise my right hand. "I was under the impression this was going to be a civilian agency?"

Sam shrugs. "Sure, eventually. But I've already got the infrastructure in place. It'll be easier to adapt existing teams than build them up from scratch. It really makes more sense to start it out as part of my command."

"But the long term aim here is to bring as many free range superheroes as possible into the fold. Starting this off as a military project is going to put a lot of them off. Plus, you'd be blurring the divide between law enforcement and military action. A lot of your job now is weapon development. I can see some foreign governments being a little concerned-."

"I do know how civilian law works, Grayven."

"I'm not saying you don't. And if you wanted to resign your commission to take the directorship, you'd have my support. I'm sure that you've got the ability, I just don't think-."

"Have you got any idea how long-?" He blinks, sitting back in his seat. "So that's your angle."

"My angle?"

"You want to head up the civilian end yourself." Oh goodness no. "You know what?" He nods. "I'm actually okay with that. Probably do people good to see a superhero running the show. You could take my people as a temporary thing, replace them when you've got your own agents ready. And I'm sure Robert-" He looks down the table to the Director of the FBI. "-can have some of his people transfer over permanently."

He nods. "I was kinda assuming that would happen."

There are entirely too many smiling faces at this table right now. I shake my head. "Looooook. Grateful as I am to have my name under consideration, I'm afraid that I would have to decline. I don't think that having an alien who isn't even a US national in that sort of position is even legal, and I'd been planning to spend some time away from Earth once this mess with the Light was straightened out."

Jon nods. "Sure you won't reconsider? It would do wonders for public confidence."

"I'll support whoever takes the position, and I'll make sure they can get hold of me. But, yes, I'm sure."

"Very well. Robert, Sam, Keith, Michael, Todd… Prepare dossiers on three of your people each for consideration. We can go into more detail when we've got a better idea of what the job will entail." Five nods. "I'd rather make it a civilian from the get go, so, Sam? Make sure anyone you submit details on knows that."

"Yes sir."

"Okay. Now, I-. Oh, I meant to start with this. Grayven, I don't totally understand why this needs to come from me directly, but…" His personal aide comes forwards and hands him a thin manila folder. "As requested, one full Presidential Pardon for your informant."

He hands it over to me, and I take it with a grin. "Thank you, Mister President. Since you're curious, according to Apokoliptian custom it needs to come directly from you because we're… Feudal. Handing it to me yourself shows that I'm a valued retainer while getting someone else to do it says that I'm not worth your time."

"That's, ah… That's interesting. Now, you understand that while that covers any crimes Miss Jade Nguyen committed inside the United States and would prevent her extradition from the United States for other offenses, if she gets arrested anywhere else… We can't help."

"Not to worry, Mister President." I open the folder and check the pardon over. Perfect. "I plan to take her off planet with me for our honeymoon."

Jon seems to take that in his stride. "I suppose it would be a rather dull affair without her. I hadn't realised that you were married."

I roll the Pardon document into a tight cylinder, then take the ring I'd chosen out of subspace and slide it through. "We're not, yet. But I want to fix that as soon as possible. In fact, do you..? Need me for anything else… Right now?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th June
04:26 GMT +13

I exit the hush tube into a corridor in the Paihia Beach Resort Hotel and start heading in the directopn of Jade's room.

"Would you like to.. swing on a star?
Carry moonbeams home in a jar?"

Guess the League of Shadows pays its people alright. Used to pay them alright.

"And be better off than you are?
…
Or would you rather be a mule?"

In my left hand, a bouquet of freshly plucked roses. Thorns still on. In my right hand, Presidential Pardon and engagement ring. Haven't got the actual wedding ring yet. She's going to want to be involved in that decision, and I still remember -and how sad is it that this is my best reference?- that in Sex and the City Carrie had a bit of an episode after Aidan proposed with a rubbish ring. This engagement ring is a simple platinum band with a representation of her genetic structure picked out in silver. I did consider something a bit more… Technological, but I didn't want to give her something she'd have to take off when she decides what super power she wants. A ring made from two non-magnetic metals should be pretty safe. And anyway, you can't fit a weapon worth a damn in a ring. Not without replacing the finger.

Speaking of, I've got my proximal phalanx back. Hooray for the mana infuser. Even with all of the running around I've been doing, it could still buff my regeneration enough to regrow an entirely missing component. I need to see about seeing Zatanna before I leave, see if she's had any ideas about the personal version.

Maybe I could make that a ring? Functional and decorative. And I can't quite stop myself thinking 'like Jade herself'. Is that offensive? She's pretty, lives without regrets and can kill people without being a complete psycho about it. Or being reduced to a neurotic wreck about it. I am truly privileged to have her in my life, in a way I just couldn't imagine before coming here. If I do ever find out who was responsible for that… I'm going to punch them less hard than I originally planned.

"A mule is an animal with long, funny ears,
He kicks up at anything he hears."

I'm not wearing my visor at the moment, so I give myself a quick burst of augmented vision. Plenty of sleeping people, a few employees on night duty… Jade's awake. Bit of a privacy violation there, but I didn't want to burst in if she was asleep. Not like waiting a few hours would kill me.

Ah, hell. I was thinking about doing this anyway… I awkwardly slide my yellow ring off my right ring finger. I mean, there's no way she would be able to keep up with me without augmentation when we go to Vega, but a power ring will be a decent placeholder. And Sinestro can't complain, because he's already off my finger!

Right, rings, Pardon, flowers. Ah… I twist my left hand awkwardly, trying not to put pressure on the flowers as I knock on Jade's door.

Inside, I see her look up instantly, and press… Some sort of device.

"Ah..? Who is it?"

The voice is that of a middle aged Australian man, speaking as if he just woke up. A recording. Clever not to use her own voice. I lean forwards so that my mouth is next to the wood of the door. "Mister… White.. Ven."

She crosses the room in an instant, pulling the door open as I blink to dismiss my visual augmentation. "Were you followed?"

"Flowers!" I gently push the bouquet towards her.

She looks at me over the top of the roses. "Is this really the-?" She cuts herself off with an exhalation, then reaches forwards and grabs the flowers by the wrapping paper before stepping backwards into her room. "Is this really the time to be bringing me flowers?"

"I haven't seen you for over a week, so… Yes. Yes it is." She tosses the flowers onto her settee and then stands in a somewhat dejected pose in the middle of the room. "You know, if you put them in water they could last for-."

"How can you be so calm? The Justice League just destroyed the League of Shadows."

"It was.. really more of a joint exercise. It was the Fourth Fleet that took Infinity Island, the Great Ten who wound up operations in-."

"How do you-?" She takes a breath to steady herself. I'm honestly not sure what she's so worked up about. "How do you know they're not coming after me next? This isn't a safe house, but they've got my name and face." She turns away, heading towards the toilet. "How could they have learned so much? Batman spent years trying to-."

"I told them." She stops dead, facing away from me. "As I said during our first conversation, the plan was always to destroy the Shadows. Once I knew enough. Of course, knowing what I know now I obviously had to destroy the rest of the Light as well. Took some doing."

"V… Vandal Savage is immortal."

I nod cheerfully. "That's what he said, too. And as Lex Luthor would say… Wrong!" Heh. "Just a matter of disintegrating his entire body and eating his soul, like I did with your father. Good luck coming back from that." I exhale. "Look, I… Realise that you might have some… Lingering attachment for the people who took you in after you left home, but their latest plan had about a twelve percent chance of destroying this planet and everyone on it. And about a forty percent chance of inflicting deaths in the hundreds of millions."

"So… You're.. a hero again."

"Really more of an anti-hero. Paragon types don't have my body count. So, anyway: I've got your Presidential Pardon right here. If anyone asks, you were instrumental in getting me vital intelligence."

"Vital…"

"That's officially why you're getting it. Pardoning a friend's girlfriend doesn't go over that well with Congress. I'll talk to Chairman Jiang, but China doesn't pardon people very often. You'll probably just have to… Avoid the place." Hm. About time. I kneel down, ring-bound Pardon balancing on my upturned palms. "Jade, I want to ask you something-."

"You could have been one of the rulers of the world."

Um. Okay? Semi-witty reply? "I.. wouldn't want to rule a world.. that would.. have me as its ruler?"

"And you… Just… Was.. our relationship.. just… Cover? For you?"

I grin. Oh, is that all she's worried about! "Turn around and find out."

"Get out."

I.. frown. "I'm..? Sorry?"

"I trusted you, Ra's al Ghul trusted you-."

"I did.. say. If you thought that I'd.. changed my mind, then-."

She wheels around and-. I've misjudged this rather severely.

"You used me as cover and you betrayed everyone." She turns, reaching into her jacket and pulling out a pair of knives. "Get out. Get out now."

"B-. B..I…" I sort of wiggle the scroll in my hands. This… This..?

What?

"Get out!"

She steps towards me, knives held in a combat stance.

Why-?

She slashes at my hands, and I shuffle backwards in case she hurts herself when the knife jars out of her hand.

W-what-?

"Jade, please, I-."

Another frantic slash and I stand, stepping backwards.

"Jade, I would never-."

"I never. Want. To see you. Again." She's breathing fast, and…

Wh-w-wh..?

"GET OUT!"

I stare…

I…

…

I…

F-father Box, hush tube.

Ploong. He comes.

 

[Mr Zoat]

25th June
09… something, GMT -6

She…

My breath comes out as a whimper.

Sheshe…

"Erauh…"

Okay… O-okay. That happened. I-I guess I guess I should have… Reconfirmed that we were on the s-same page.

I walk down the corridor between the entrance to Challenger Mountain and the living quarters in what I distantly appreciate is something of a daze. The G-Gnomes are apparently finding it fascinating, sitting along the walkway and staring blankly, their horns aglow.

Jade… Jade's…

And it… Appears… That I have lost the capacity for tears.

I'm not sure it would help but but but at this point, I'd…

Okay. It's Sunday. Lynne… Is probably here. I need to… Pull myself together. A bit. I stop walking, raise my hands to my scrunched up face and just hold them there. I hold them there as my ragged breathing slows a little, as my shoulders ease back a little from their hunch.

Alright.

Maybe.. when she calms down a little, she m-m-m-ight-might-might-.

I dig my fingernails into my face.

…

Some time has passed. I'm not sure how much, but I'm… I'm not any happier… In fact, I'd say I that I'm downright miserable. But the shock of her rejection has at least… Dimmed, a little. I… I don't really know what to do with myself now. My plans… They all involved her… I start walking towards the living room. I mean… Yes, I suppose that I… Should go to Vega anyway. Kill Larfleeze, take the Central Power Battery… Make sure that Tamaran is more or less alright.

Ugh.

To be honest, how I'm feeling right now? I could just not come back. Lynne could travel to school by boom tube… Or I could just get a telepath to tutor her, someone who comes from a telepathic species. She could go to school with the Tamaranean children. I doubt that she'd… Mind.

No. It's an entertaining fantasy, and at the moment I really would. But I'm sure that in a day or two, I'll feel a bit better. A bit more rational. Just.. avoid making any major decisions… Maybe avoid people until I know that I won't explode at any of them… I don't feel particularly explosive, but… I've changed a lot this year.

I close my eyes and breathe out.

Alright. Just.. spend the day watching television. See if there's something on that Lynne wants to watch, put her on my lap and let my brain go to sleep. That sounds like a… An acceptable idea. Feeling a little more like myself, I push open the living room door and-.

!!!

"Hello, my son."
Self=Darkseid
Darkseid sits quite calmly in my chair, a clearly terrified Lynne silently weeping on his left knee. His left arm lays on the arm of the chair while his right hand closes a book… Victoria, which he then puts on the table.
Self=Darkseid
"Father." I bow while I wait for any idea of how to handle this situation to occur to me. "I had no idea you were coming."
Self=Darkseid
"Do I need a reason to visit my family? My… Only grandchild?"
Self=Darkseid
Since we seem to be doing this informally… I straighten up, and see that his right hand is now gently stroking Lynne's hair. Thinkthinkthink! "Of course not, Father. But if I'd known I could have laid on some sort of entertainment. Or at least food. Has my seneschal offered you anything?"
Self=Darkseid
"I regret that this will have to be a short visitation. I am here to offer my congratulations."
Self=Darkseid
"Thank you, Father. What.. particular part of my actions here have.. earned them?"
Self=Darkseid
"You are too modest, Grayven. I refer of course to your recent betrayal and utter ruination of the other members of the organisation which you called… The Light. I must admit, when you accepted such a subordinate position, I was… Sceptical. Even after you defeated Devilance and Brimstone, I had thought that your sojourn into the Bleed had reduced you to the level of Kalibak: that of a thoughtless brute. But I see that instead it has taught you patience and cunning, traits that are entirely absent in him. This pleases me."
Self=Darkseid
"I'm glad to know that you approve, Father. I will admit, I was concerned that you might look unfavourably upon my way of operating. Being so contrary as it is to the style of Apokolips."
Self=Darkseid
"I have turned Apokolips into an extension of my own self. But having done so, there is a limit to what else it can teach me. By studying your actions and decisions, I will learn more of myself."
Self=Darkseid
His glowing eyes and rocky face reveal no expression. I have no idea what he's really thinking, why he's… Here. I have no idea how to handle this. "I am humbled at the idea, Father."
Self=Darkseid
"I particularly like the way in which you refused to take a formal position in their government. It has been some considerable time since I operated so indirectly myself. It stirred… Old memories. Nonetheless, it is important to me that your successes.. and your failures.. are your own."
Self=Darkseid
I've got no idea what he means. Beyond the obvious. He's giving every impression of believing that I'm Grayven, but at the same time he's showing that he has considerable information on exactly what I've been doing here. I'm not sure how he's been getting it. I've checked every so often and there haven't been any other New Gods on Earth-.
Self=Darkseid
Ploong.
Self=Darkseid
No.
Self=Darkseid
Ploong.
Self=Darkseid
You-.
Self=Darkseid
"Something troubles you, my son? I could not help but notice the absence of your consort, Jade Nguyen. I do hope that she is not unwell."
Self=Darkseid
"No. Thank you for your concern, Father, but she is quite well. We… Had a… Disagreement about… Work…"
Self=Darkseid
"Ah. I understand."
Self=Darkseid
I think that's a smile. Is this… Apokoliptian father-son bonding? Scott described the whole civilisation as rather different, but I suppose that Darkseid's never had a son so apparently on his wavelength as I appear to be. He gently picks up Lynne and deposits her on the floor before rising. As Lynne collapses, hugging her knees to her chest, he takes a few steps over towards me. We're actually about the same height, though he's a little broader.
Self=Darkseid
"When it comes to romantic relationships, I really have only one observation for you. Perhaps you may learn something from it."
Self=Darkseid
"What would that be?"
Self=Darkseid
"When one is in love, everything is right in the universe. One's enemies are less significant, one's trouble at one remove, one's ambitions closer to realisation. And then something happens, something causes that emotion to curdle, to sour in our souls. This artfully draws our attention to a fundamental truth of the universe. One with which we are now both well acquainted."
Self=Darkseid
"Truth, Father?"
Self=Darkseid
"Yes, my son."
Self=Darkseid
He lays his right hand on my left shoulder, then leans forwards slightly so that his mouth is next to my right ear.
Self=Darkseid
"Life=Pain."

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th June
12:32 +3 GMT

The crowd fills the forum of Themyscira City completely, not just overflowing into the surrounding streets but leaning out of the windows of the surrounding houses. Due to the clement climate and their limited technology, Themyscira started using glass for windows only since Diana returned from America the first time. Most houses just make do with shutters, which are being pushed aside so that the residents… And probably their friends, neighbours and.. just whoever shows up can either lean out or climb up onto the roofs.

All watching as my fraction-of-real-size hologram of Kon slams into Oceanus' helmet.

There's a gasp, and a pushing in the crowd as Oceanus collapses 'towards' them, calming only as the image loses integrity before hitting them. Guy's shield is still in place, though I'm depicting him with Ion floating just behind him as the truth doesn't really suit a visual medium. The image of me then flies down into the steam, Diana and Kal-El shortly behind me. The image then dissolves, switching to me flying Kon out to safety.

Yes, by Amazon standards the image presented is a fairly homoerotic one, but I hope that they'll overlook-.

Kon cringes slightly as the crowd turn towards us, cheering and-. I blink as I'm hit in the face by a shawl. What? Oh, right. Throwing clothes at performers is how Greeks show approval. They're clapping too, the applause echoing off the walls of the buildings until it sounds like it's coming from all directions.

Or perhaps it genuinely is.

"Sisters!" Queen Hippolyta is standing on a construct platform just ahead of me, her arms raised to focus her countrywomen's attention. "You have witnessed the valour of my grandson this day! He won the highest blessing of Helios and used it to defeat a Titan, the ancient foes of the Olympians!"

That's not quite how it works, and from the slight wince on Donna's face I know that I'm not the only one aware of that. Diana takes that as the signal to hug Kon from behind, making him cringe more.

"Can there still be any doubt that he is worthy of his title?!"

"No!"

The crowd don't quite cry that out as one, but it's not far off.

"Do you agree then, that we should amend our law and allow this man, this hero, into the line of succession?!"

"Yes!"

Queen Hippolyta smiles, and I… Well, that's one way to do it. Public holograms are something Diana never tried to introduce and they're far more immediate than word of mouth or plays. Kon doesn't seem to care one way or another, but I know that Diana and Queen Hippolyta regard this as one way to help my… Social engineering project. Give the Amazons male heroes.

Donna sidles over to me as Kon is shoved towards the front of the floating platform. "You could have come and got me, you know? I might have been able to talk him down."

"Diana tried. And, we're still not sure whether Orm was influencing him or not. You're not… Quite as tough as Diana. The lightning bolts she took might have killed you." She looks a little dubious. "Yes, it was something we could have tried and yes, it might have worked. But I'm afraid that I'm… A little less hesitant to use lethal force than an ideal superhero would be, when the aggressor is as dangerous as he is. If you want, I can give you a lift to Porto Santo. The magic holding Oceanus inside isn't absolute; you could probably still talk to him."

"Thank you. I think I should try, at least."

"Um…" Oratory might have been a common skill amongst Ancient Greek political leaders, but Kon wasn't programmed with much in the way of public speaking skill and hasn't taken the time to learn it. I'm… Not sure that Queen Hippolyta has realised that. He takes a look at the crowd, his admirers and countrywomen gazing up at him and waiting for him to speak. I make momentary eye contact with the faintly scowling Clyemne and smile at her. "Thank you? I-." He glances back at Diana, who smiles reassuringly. "A.. little under a year ago, I got my first glimpse of the world outside of the pod where Cadmus grew me. My first chance to interact with real people. It took a while before I learned to really appreciate the skills they had and how much.. of an impact they could have on my life." This time he looks back at me. "And I like to think I've… Made an impression on them as well. And not always just with my fists."

There's a little polite laughter as he takes a moment while he works out where he's going-. No. He knows where he's going, he's just not entirely sure how to get there. Several of those present have watched while he spars with various volunteer Heraklya. He doesn't usually win, but he's doing better than most one year olds would.

"I'm not really sure I'm ready to be a prince. I'm certainly not gunna be ready to take the throne any time soon. But I'm learning as fast as I can. If I'm not worthy now, I will become worthy. It is a great honor you have bestowed upon me, and I will live up to its demands."

"Pavlos." I look left as Queen Hippolyta speaks my name. "The rest of this will be a… I believe my daughter has referred to them as 'meet and greet sessions'. If you wish to absent yourself, you may do so."

"Thank you." I nod, floating the platform backwards towards a solid-looking rooftop. The forum isn't really designed for public events of this size. Maybe I should have done this in the amphitheatre instead? But this is where the crowd was, and… That was the point. To get across a heroic tale from 'Man's World'. Once the royal party is safely down on a solid surface I eliminate the construct and turn away, floating in an arc in the direction of the closest empty street.

"Where are you off to?" Donna's following on behind me, apparently considering my dismissal to include her as well.

"In less than two weeks, I'm leaving the Earth. Possibly for years." I wonder if that counts if Klarion or Nabu manage to kill me? There's a good chance I'd end up in Erebos… "So there are more than a few things I need to get settled first."

Donna nods, pulling up alongside me as I head down into the streets. "You know, I didn't really think about it until Megan handed me the invitation, but Kon's birthday is on the fourth of July."

"Yes?"

She looks at me as we touch down, her head bowing slightly as she maintains the stare. "The fourth of July? In America-."

"Treason Day, I know. I think half the reason why Zatanna's so enthusiastic about it is that it's the only way she could ever persuade me to take part."

"You know, after midday, saying things like that is a pretty good way to start a fight in some places."

"Why after midday?"

"Most people hesitate to take a swing at a guy whose eyes glow orange. But once they get a few beers in them…"

"We're doing the party mid-afternoon and into the evening, and most of us aren't old enough to drink."

"Right. Because that always stops teenagers."

"And I can… Probably avoid making remarks likely to undermine the American nation." … "For a day."

She nods as we enter a building and start up the stairs. "Are you leaving right after?"

"No, I'm planning on leaving on the eighth. Assuming that nothing comes up." I suppose I.. could ask Mister Free to boom tube me part of the way. It would save a good deal of time… Mm, can't hurt to ask. I stop outside my destination and knock on the door with my right fist.

Donna grins. "What, is this your secret Amazon love-" Iola opens the door, her abdomen swollen with a six month old foetus. Donna's eyes widen. "-neeeest?"

"Pavlos!" Iola steps out of her house and carefully embraces me. "It is good to see you!"

"Just thought I'd give you a quick check up while I'm here. Have you noticed any-?"

"Uh. As I have told my mother, my grandmother, my great great and many more greats grandmothers and every single one of my cousins, I am fine. Practice contractions, uncomfortable stretching, anal bleeding and clumsiness are all perfectly normal parts of pregnancy."

"Okay, then.. I.. guess I'm just here for the imaging scan. Assuming that you want to-."

"Oh yes! Tekla!" She turns away, heading back into the house. "Pavlos wants to show us what our daughter looks like!"

I take a hologram projector out of subspace. Hope this goes better than last time.

9th May
12:32 +3 GMT

Iola looks uncertainly at the holographic image.

"Is it.. supposed to look like that?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st July
20:32 -5 GMT

This is going to be uncomfortable.

This will be the first time that I've spent any time in the company of Mister Luthor since the citizenship ceremony. The first time I've been alone with him but for Ms Graves since he decided to double down on his allegiance with the Light. It's… I'm not used to being impolite to people who are being polite to me. In fact… I'm usually pretty polite to people who are being impolite to me. And I know that he's going to make some reference to it, some snide comment about 'turning into Superman' or something. And I won't get annoyed. It always sounds a bit stupid to me when people say it, but I really am just disappointed.

I float down towards his office window… Given how often this sort of thing happens, he really should look into getting an external entrance put in or something. As I drop into view the woman -Miss Teschmacher- on the far side of Lex's desk starts, stepping back and pointing. Lex doesn't move for a moment, then leans back and twists slightly in his seat to look my way. No real reaction in his face, but he then turns back to his guest and says something that has her bob her head and exit the room with some speed, Ms Graves opening the door for her.

Ring, phone Lex Luthor.

Unable to comply.

Alright then. Electron inductor construct.

The strange and vaguely ray gun like device manifests just in front of me, pointing at Lex's desk phone. It's actually a tool of intelligence gathering, capable of remotely reading or generating patterns of electrical activity. Seems a bit.. daft to have to use it to make a telephone call, but there we go. Unless he's got a force field generator around the phone, this should work fine. I pick up the construct handset. Ring, try now.

Connection established.

This time, Lex picks up the telephone and stands, turning around to look at me. "Orange Lantern. It's been a little while."

"Would you mind if I came in, Mister Luthor?"

He steps away from the window, a polite smile on his lips. "By all means."

I dismiss the construct and trigger my armour's phasing system, floating forwards and p-.

I tap the exterior of the window. Huh. I'd known that phase disrupting technologies exist, of course. But… Ring, manual phase shift.

Compliance.

Orange light flares around me as the ring directly aids my armour, an effect not unlike the flame aura Alan gets when he uses his ring. See, while a force field can block certain types of exotic effect, unlike with magic it's a simple 'who has the most power' fight. And I have two power rings in addition to my armour's bleed torsion generator while Mister Luthor is restricted to Human technologies. Of course, if he's somehow secretly replaced his glass with some sort of phase shifting material…

I move forward, passing through the window and.. probably overloading whatever was generating the effect. Lex himself doesn't seem unduly troubled, simply walking around to the far side of his desk and putting the phone down.

"May I offer you something to drink?"

"No, thank you." I dismiss the effect and return my armour to subspace, taking out a hologram projector as I do so. "But please, feel free to drink yourself."

"I'm really more of a social drinker. What.. brings you into my office today?"

"Power armour with pink force fields. Mister Luthor, the agreement was that you would share everything that you learned from the OMAC technology."

"And I have. STAR Labs and the Justice League have received a copy of every test and every scan. I did not agree to share data on every technology LexCorp developed from what we learned. We didn't simply… Cut parts out of them."

"Fair enough, I suppose." I take a quick look around the room. Doesn't look like anything else has changed. "What do those things retail for?"

"I'm afraid that's a confidential matter. Was… That what you came here to talk about? The armour?"

"No. No, it wasn't." I give him my full attention. "I'm here because I want to get a message to someone and I think… No. I know you can help."

"I'll do my best. Might I enquire as to the identity of the recipient?"

His tone is polite, enquiring… Helpful, even. "Klarion the Witch Boy."

His face grows sombre, his brows frowning. "Wasn't that the name of the individual primarily responsible for the Roanoke Island event?"

"Yes."

"I'm.. not sure why you think-."

"Mister Luthor. As I said before, I know full well that you're a member of the Light. Not to the extent that I can prove it in court-" Yes, there's the picture. A meeting of the members of the Light. Meeting Klarion caused just enough fear for a trace to become visible inside him. "-but enough for my own purposes. I offered you an out, you didn't take it. So… I may as well take advantage."

Lex thinks for a moment, his eyes dipping to the floor. "If we say… For the purpose of this conversation, that I could pass on a message to him, what exactly would that message contain?"

I nod, walking a little further into the room. "The Light knows from the Justice League's files that the Lord of Order Nabu is currently occupying the body of Mister Giovanni Zatara. I want to remove him. Unfortunately, I lack the… Skills required. Lords of Order are rather… Resilient."

"You intend to ask him for help? I'm rather surprised. He's responsible for the deaths of-."

"I'm not keen on it, and any arrangement we come to will last exactly as long as it takes to get rid of Nabu. But I… Need him."

"I doubt that someone like that would simply volunteer their services."

"I have his cat hostage. I'm willing to return her, in exchange for his cooperation." I feel a flicker of yellow… He doesn't want Klarion back at full power. Nice to know that he hasn't completely taken leave of his senses. "Ideally, I would like to meet up with him tomorrow to discuss the matter. On Roanoke, where the ritual took place."

"I.. was.. rather under the impression that he hated you. From what you've said-."

"Oh, he does. But he can always kill me after taking advantage of my offer."

"Well…" Lex shrugs with his forearms, hands turned upwards. "In the extraordinarily unlikely event that I come across him-."

I hold up the hologram projector, and an image of Mister Truggs materialises.

"It will devastate everything on the Atlantic rim. But you know we're going to try and stop him. Why are you telling me?"

"I work for the Light. But my actual employer is… Our mutual friend. And-."

"Lex Luthor is rather quite attached to Metropolis. He wants action on supers, but he doesn't actually want the attack to be successful."

"Sounds reasonable ta me."

"If Klarion doesn't show up, that gets released to whatever news stations want it." I close the hologram down. "Not conclusive, and certainly not admissible in court. But that wouldn't be the point. The point would be to associate you in the minds of the general public with Klarion. The point would be to hound you. The drawback of secret identities… Is that they matter when you can't use them any more. Can I assume that Klarion is going to be there?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd July
19:45 -5 GMT

"…which meant that I had to change a few cards which affect mutual tension so that they move it two places."

Zatanna cautiously leafs through my binder. "Okay. That.. sounds like it makes sense."

"And adding the game AI means that you don't have to remember whose turn it is, or what different things are doing."

"Wouldn't it be easier to just put it all on a computer?"

I glare. "Heresy."

She holds her hands up in mock surrender. "'kay."

"I also got rid of the need to use a card to declare war, because-."

"Hsssssssss-hhakk-kk-k."

My Babylon 5 folder goes back into subspace and construct armour appears around both me and Zatanna as Teekl hisses in the general direction of the tree line. Zatanna stares in the direction of Teekl's ire as she takes a firm grip on her staff. Her new armour is a little more sensible than the Sororitas gear she wore during the assault on Black Manta's base, and does far more to empower her magic. It's mithril based, since I doubted that she was up to fighting in anything heavier without power support she hasn't trained to use. Combined with my new generation mage slayers, we might well be able to kill Klarion without using exotic techniques.

Not that I've done anything so stupid as leaving the Sword of the Fallen at home.

Talking the warden into closing the memorial down for a couple of days wasn't that hard. It's not really all that popular anyway. We just had to say that we wanted to check that Oceanus' summoning hadn't caused any of the spells here to reactivate. Which technically could happen. That left us with plenty of time to make our preparations, but we still didn't have any idea when Klarion would actually turn up. If he would at all. So we've been stuck waiting here.

Klarion himself steps slowly into view, eyes glowing purple and an expression of severe disgruntlement on his face. "Stoopid… Cat." Wisps of purple smoke curl around his fingers, but aside from one or two facial… Oddities, he looks more or less Human.

"Raowraowraowraowraow!"

"Nobody asked you!"

"Klarion."

He walks clockwise around the clearing. "Don't even think I'm coming any closer!"

"Klarion, if I wanted you dead-" I tap the pommel of the Sword with my right forefinger. "-you'd be dead. Or bound. Remember New Year?"

"You know, at the time, I really couldn't work out why you tied Nabu up with me."

"I'm assuming that Lex told you everything I told him."

Klarion taps his lower lip with his right forefinger. "I don't think I was meant t' confirm that. And I don't really think anyone would believe me." His eyes glow brilliant purple as he throws his arms wide! "Hey everybody! Orange Lantern and me have totally been working together the whole time!"

"Klarion."

"It's a novel experience for me! Hating two people and hating them this much!" In an instant he calms again. "Maybe I should just tell Nabu that you're plotting against him. Maybe I'll just watch and see who wins. That oughta be fun."

"You could do that. I suppose it all depends on how much you want to be a Lord of Chaos again." His eyes narrow. "I'm sure-."

"I'm still a Lord of Chaos!" Klarion whips his right hand back and then swings it forward, a burning purple ball heading our way!

Zatanna raises her staff. "Eb edamnu!" The Star Sapphire flares violet, then Klarion's ball detonates in a blast of violet. "Who's using baby magic now, oh great Lord of Chaos?"

"Why can't I just hate you to death!"

"We've been over that. You're not currently attached to the Plane of Chaos. Thus, the overwhelming power you're accustomed to is cut off. And I'm sure that you've tried... Performing the ritual again. Fixing it yourself. Any luck so far?"

"What d'you want?"

"Let's not kid ourselves. You hate me, I hate you. The moment any agreement we come to is over, we'll try and kill each other." He grins. "But. You also hate Nabu… And you really really want your full power back. So… Let's make a deal."

"You want me to get all my power back? That doesn't sound too smart." He frowns. "Truggs keeps saying that you're the smart one. What are you up to?"

"I have a plan to deal with Nabu, and for it to work you need to try to reconnect with the Plane of Chaos. I took the liberty of-" I wave my right arm around. "-preparing the ground."

Klarion follows my gesture, sniffing. He flicks his fingers out, flashes of purple light leaping from his hands and running over the ground. Swiftly, his magic finds the runic design I embedded into the ground. "Huh." He carefully studies the designs. "That won't stop Nabu detecting what we're doing."

"No. But it will delay him long enough that you'll either be at full power, or… You'll know for sure that you're not getting it back, and we can all flee before he gets here."

"I don't trust you."

"And I don't trust you. I know for sure that if he's not here when you get to full power, you'll attack me. And since-."

He smiles. "Yeah, that does sound like me."

"And since we have to do that first, I'm the one taking the risk here. You shut down this ring last time we fought here, and I'm sure that you've been dreaming of doing all of the horrible things to me that you'd be capable of if you were at full power."

"Some of them were mutually exclusive."

"Nice to know that your mind is still working. So? Do you want to keep skulking around, clasping those epic level scry wards to your chest like a teddy bear? Or do you want to be you again?"

"How about you die first, and I think about it?"

"I'm not repeating the offer, Klarion. Power and revenge now, or irrelevance and obsolescence forever." I make a sad face. "It didn't exactly escape my notice that Orm and Satanus handled the recent fun-and-games without you. Not able to..? Keep your end up? You wouldn't want to end up like Ra's now, would you?"

I can't see his emotions. But I think I can guess.

"Come ooooon. It's an alliance where we both plan to betray each other at the first possible opportunity."

"That sounds like me too!" He squints. "What's your plan? If you think you can just give Teekl back-"

"Raaaaaaaoooorwwww!"

"-that won't work. I need a proper reconnection. One you can't revoke whenever you feel like it."

"I know. That's why I set this up. Why don't I… Talk you through it?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd July
19:51 -5 GMT

Klarion puts his hands on his hips. "Huh. That's kinda clever. But I still don't see what's supposed to stop me just blasting you the first chance I get."

Klarion has allowed himself to get a little closer, though he hasn't been so foolish as to enter the area marked out in glowing purple and I strongly suspect that he's got at least half a dozen emergency escape spells in place upon his person.

"Nothing, really. Except it turns a three-on-one-in-your-favour fight into a three-on-one-against fight."

His face creases up in confusion. "Why would Nabu fight with you?"

"Because he hates you more than he hates me. And while I have friends whose opinion has a material impact on his life, you don't. Plus, he'd only have your word for it that we were working together. All I'd have to do is say that I set up an ambush and got in over my head..."

Klarion.. twitches, in a way which nearly has me reaching for the Sword. "I know there's a trap, there's gotta be a trap. Teekl-?" Without thinking, he turns to Teekl and then remembers that she's a construct. His face twists, flesh moving in ways that Human skin just can't to form a scowl of truly inhuman rage. "Why is everything so hard?!" His head darts around, looking for… I don't know. "Fine, let's do this. I can just kill you after."

"You can certainly try." I indicate the glowing purple circle that is the focal point of the ritual space. "If you would please take your place."

He stares at me, then cautiously walks around the side of the ritual space until he's as close as he can get to the circle without entering the general area. "Oh, is that how it is?" He brings his hands together in front of him, the space between them glowing purple. Then he wrenches them apart, the runes around the circle flaring and being subtly altered. Klaron smugs at me. "Can't trick me that easy."

No, I didn't expect that I'd be able to. Still, it helps me if you spot one or two traps. I don't really want you looking too deeply. What's he done..?

"Zatanna, will that still work?"

"Cigam wohs em eht cinur scinahcem."

A complicated series of glowing violet runes appears in the air in front of her, spinning and oscillating as her spell calculates the interactions of the set up we made for Klarion.

"You're asking her? P-lease. I just took out the thing you were gunna use to drain me, and-."

"Aaaand changed it so it will flood your circle with raw chaos from the start."

"I happen to like chaos."

"Okay, but will it still work?"

"Of course it'll still work. Hmpf." He picks his way around the layout, takes a last look at the circle… And then steps inside it. "Much better." He pirouettes, the whole rune layout flaring slightly as he does so. "Now let's get started!"

"Klarion." Zatanna shakes her head. "You have to release control over the network. If you extend your magic outside that circle-."

"You don't tell me what to do!"

"Do you want this to work or not?"

Scowling, Klarion sits down on the bare earth and thumps his hands against it. Immediately, the rest of the layout dies down to a faint glow. "Happy now?"

"My father's possessed by Nabu and I'm having to put up with you. I'm a long way from happy."

"Look on the bright side. Soon, you'll be dead."

"How is that a bright side?"

"Pretty bright for me." He looks over to me. "What's the hold up? Upset I saw through your little scheme?"

"Just enjoying you being powerless for a little longer. Teekl."

"Teekl not help nastybad-."

"Teekl." The rings on my fingers glow brightly. "Obey."

Teekl shudders, the orange sigil on her forehead shining brightly for a moment. "Not-. Not like! Bad! Not like!"

She-. No. I know perfectly well that she was complicit in everything Klarion did before I assimilated her. This has to happen. "Do what I tell you."

Her fur standing on end, Teekl grudgingly stalks in the direction of her smaller circle. That part of the spell will mirror her link to Klarion's presence in the Plane of Chaos while bypassing her. It won't be instantaneous -at least it shouldn't be, and we checked pretty thoroughly- but it will allow Klarion to gradually pull himself together. It's… It's not at all like hacking a computer, actually, but that will do as a metaphor. Guessing a password is hard. Getting the user to enter it for you is far easier.

Teekl reaches her circle and curls up inside, paying as little attention to the world around her as possible as she purrs to calm herself down.

"She's in place."

"So start already! The sooner I get my powers back the sooner I can kill you!"

"It won't work while you're still using Bedlam. The system isn't designed-."

"I know." He waves dismissively at Zatanna and I with his right hand. "Take a few steps back."

"Why?"

"Simple. I don't trust you. So I'm gunna bind Bedlam to a magic shield around the ritual space, and you need to be outside a' that."

"Fine." I lift Zatanna and I up with the rings and float us backwards until we're clear of the design by a decent margin. "Happy now?"

Purple light radiates out from Klarion's eyes and mouth, coalescing in the air above him as Bedlam looks out on the world for what may be the first time since the Roanoke Island Incident. His apparent freedom lasts for about four seconds as Klarion tugs downwards on the last few strands that link the two of them.

"Get down."

Bedlam billows towards the ground, half his mass apparently being torn off his upper torso to form a translucent purple barrier between us and the ritual area. Hopefully not a critical problem… No, that should still work.

"Okay, whatever, but you'll still need to cut your links completely."

Klarion shakes his hands, as if trying to get rid of water droplets. "Fine. Done." As Bedlam loses all connection to him he eyes me warily, wondering if this is where the double cross comes in. No, not quite yet. "Can we get started now?"

I nod. "Zatanna, if you'd be so good?"

She takes a deep breath, then taps the butt of her staff onto the ground. "Etavitca."

And that's when the full ritual space activates, four times the size of what Klarion uncovered. The look on his face is priceless.

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd July
19:55 -5 GMT

"Whaaaat's that do?"

"Interesting story there, Klarion. After I-."

"What's it do! Tell me!"

"After I hit Infinity Island… Gosh, it's ten months ago now." Doesn't time fly. "After that, I started losing the ability to locate people by-" I hold up my hands so that the rings are clearly visible. "-power ring. When Bane attacked the Rhelasian peace conference I discovered that that was probably due to a rather vexing piece of arcane kit called a 'scry ward'. You see, it seems that a power ring's scan is similar enough to magic-based detection that it can be thrown off by some very simple magic countermeasures, while at the same time being sufficiently mystically weak that it can't just punch through."

"You have no idea how frustrating that's been for me. At times… I honestly felt like the universe was conspiring to remove my greatest advantage, just to make the job of rounding people like you up harder."

I walk a little closer, coming right up to the Bedlam barricade at the closest point to Klarion. "These days… It seems that every single supervillain I run into has a ward of some kind. And there are so many different types! You know, I.. catalogue them carefully after each encounter, in the hope that doing so will allow my magic using colleagues to find a way around them." I shake my head. "It doesn't work, because the designs keep changing, each drawing on slightly different arcane traditions… I can't even be sure that they're coming from the same originator. Maybe they weren't. Maybe just releasing the information that it was possible was enough."

"As a result of banging my fucking head against a wall over this for months now, I… Probably know more about scry wards than anyone else on the planet! Funny how that works. Hehaha!" I throw my arms out to the sides. "The design was made with carbon nanotubes which I transmuted from the soil itself. The-."

"That-! No, that couldn't work!"

"I wasn't sure it would. I really wasn't sure. Not until we worked out an activation system that linked it directly to me. As you probably know, I'm the best warded thing on the planet when it comes to counter detection techniques. And it turns out that it's actually pretty easy to link an existing ward to a new ward using a sympathetic link. It still took quite a lot of my blood to do it, so I might have ended up a little bit cranky, but I'm choosing to associate my current lack of comportment to you being a mass murderer."

"You want to know what it's designed to do? See, this isn't a trap for Nabu. We're doing that in a few days. We talked about asking for your cooperation back when this first happened, and the answer was a resounding 'no'." Klarion gestures at the circle around him, prompting Zatanna to stamp her staff on the ground again. This triggers the enhanced circle around the one he thought that he was standing in. He yelps and pulls away from the edge. "One thing I learned from Mister Truggs: if you're going to monologue, make sure that you're not going to be interrupted. And you're not going to interrupt me." I look over the diagram again. "This magnificent piece of work just won't allow it."

"Frankly Klarion, you're useless to me." I glance at Zatanna. "To us. Too much we don't know about your full capacities, too much mutual hate. But some other Lord of Chaos, that could be useful. So we looked into that, with a little help from The Changing Man. We could ascend a mortal mage… Eventually. But apparently there's some sort of cosmic balance thing which stops too many of you being in the same place at once. They'd probably just disappear. So that wasn't any good. And as for recruiting a current Lord of Chaos, well… I talked to Adom about Oggar. Mad, bad and/or dangerous to know."

"That was when we hit on this idea. You've got a roiling mass of energy just waiting for someone to connect to it. As far as 'the authorities' are concerned, it's already assigned to Earth… So there won't be any problem there. So we just needed a candidate and… You."

"It's my power you can't have it!"

"Want to bet?" I draw the Sword of the Fallen with my right hand. "I could kill you now. No Chaos power and no Djinn make you extremely killable. In fact, I could probably do it with-" I generate two construct railguns. "-mage slayers. But I'm not going to. Hijacking your power requires your cooperation-."

"I'm not going to!"

"Yes, you are. Because if you don't, I am just going to kill you. The only way for you to have even the smallest chance of survival is to grab that power just as fast as you can. That way, you'll stand a fighting chance."

Klarion… Goldfishes, his eyes boggling and his mouth chewing on air. I'm actually a little worried that he might explode from confusion, rage or hate. Him killing himself is one of the few things I couldn't work out a way to prevent. I don't think it would present an insurmountable barrier, but it would require a good deal of rethinking on our part.

"Would you like to meet your replacement, you feculent piece of excrement?"

"Yes! Because that way I know who else I need to torture to death!"

"Lively one, inne." John steps out of the shadows around the memorial, tossing aside a spent cigarette as he does so. He left his jacket at home, his shirt sleeves are rolled up and his coat is folded over his right arm. "Always assumed if I ever stopped bein' Human it would be 'cause of a Demon." He heads towards his appointed part of the enlarged diagram, glancing at Klarion only for a moment. "Name's John Constantine, by the way."

He steps over a smaller circle, dropping the deflated fish balloon into it with his off-hand. He had to keep it with him for as long as possible, as we found that it swiftly throws off organised magics placed upon it. Including scry wards. John's had his work cut out keeping it contained, but since we're about to start… Zatanna's spotted it as well. She doesn't do anything as dramatic as slam the butt of her staff down, but she does start quietly muttering the incantation.

"Dnib lla strap rehtegot-" John reaches his own circle and drops into a cross-legged sitting posture. I had thought that him getting into the required headspace might be an impediment, but I was worrying unnecessarily. John is perfectly capable of various forms of mystical projection, but when dealing with Demons those sorts of thing are more dangerous than useful. "-dna ekam siht tiucric elohw."

"That's it? You couldn't do better than him?" Again, with his inhuman facial expressions and whatever it is he does to block my empathic vision I can't tell whether Klarion is genuinely not impressed or just putting a brave face on things. "He's barely even got a whole soul already! He won't last five seconds of pure Chaos."

John looks faintly amused by the outburst. In his case I know that he's not faking. He's taken on scarier things than Klarion with far less preparation than this before. "If you're that sure, we might as well get started, hadn't we? No sense hanging about."

Klarion lashes out with his right hand, slamming it into the edge of his circle only for it to bounce off harmlessly. Each of us is treated to a last snarl, then his face goes perfectly blank and calm. He sits down cross-legged, his hands clasped together in what looks almost like a praying gesture. "I'm gunna tear your soul apart, magician."

He says it without any particular malice, in the same tone with which one might describe the weather.

"Better than you tried, mate. An' the only one ever managed it was me." John closes his eyes, hands resting on his knees.

There's a sort of… Hissing noise. It's faint, and it's… Coming from the ritual space, everywhere the nanotubes run. Chaos magic is pouring into the system and changing the magics we put there. That's my part done, now that Klarion's started. Zatanna's watching the ritual, ready to unleash the power of love if it looks like Klarion's won. Or is cheating better than us. I'm on Nabu-monitoring duty, because if he spots this through the wards then we're all in deep trouble. I think I could talk my way around the Justice League, justify it on the grounds that we'd get someone so it may as well be John, but that would cost us the element of surprise when it comes to fighting Nabu.

Nabu is supposed to be answering questions on the Oceanus incident and magic more generally to a UN committee today. They're still meeting, and I've got an eye on the internal cameras. He doesn't scry ward himself routinely, but I'm reasonably confident that he can detect it when I scan him so I'm trying to make this as indirect as possible.

All up to John now.

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd July
20:09 -5 GMT

"Pirt pu!" Zatanna backpedals as the blue and red Tiger-striped man falls toward her, turning it into a controlled tumble as he does so. "Who are they?!"

I fire a bolt of orange energy at the turquoise and red one, a hole opening in his chest to allow the bolt through. Fortunately, it doesn't stop the gauntlet construct from savagely backhanding him across the face. "Don't know. Some of Klarion's hangers on, presumably."

A large weight clearly marked as '10 tons' materialises over John's head. I generate a construct hand, catch it and shove it aside to land in a pile with the others. I think I'm noticing a theme here.

"bOSS kLARION SAYS-."

"Dnuob dna deggag!" His red stripes peel away from his skin, looping around his wrists, ankles and mouth. He falls, squirming against his bonds. "I think I've worked out-!"

"Cartoon style effects only." Cartoons like Road Runner use horrific acts of violence -including people being crushed to death or incinerated- as entertainment. Should have realised that would be Klarion's thing. It also explains all of the dead Coyotes and Road Runners that have been found lately. So naturally his entourage are proof against everything else. Not quite as dangerous as Onomatopoeia… Or maybe we're the ones who have improved? Of course, that's-.

Another one runs at Zatanna with two sticks of dynamite. As expected, they're marked with the brand name 'ACME'.

"Ekar."

A rake appears out of nowhere, jumping up to slam into the madman's face.

"Erifsim."

The dynamite explodes weakly, knocking her assailant down and covering him in soot. It's not like the cartoons, though. I can see blood all across his skin where the pressure waves have torn his flesh away… Looks like under those garish colours he's Human after all. More blood from his ears where his ear drums have ruptured, and he'll be lucky if he keeps full use of his hands.

Of course, seeing them reminds me of what happened the first time I tried fighting Klarion. I've done a lot since then to try to ensure that that couldn't happen again, but I'm getting a sort of phantom ache from the lower left side of my torso. John… Really needs to win this.

Another weight appears, this one… '1 Million Tons'. That's a bit more than I can lift. I generate a gravity nullifier construct underneath it before it can start to fall. It stops in mid-air. Okay, it's still got inertia, but if I can shove it hard enough… "Zatanna, if you get a moment, could you possibly-?"

"Ekar ot edaps. Gid a eloh."

Um. Okay..? The giant weight is slowly moving, three opponents down and I can't see any others. I cautiously take a runestone out of my armour's left hip pouch and float it over to the one bound in his own-. It melts before it gets close enough for a reading. That's a problem with this sort of ritual; there's so much magic around that delicate sensors can't survive it. They just get overloaded and break. I've got seventeen less precise ones around the edge of the site to try and record the event… Give us some idea of when it's coming to an end so we can brace for a fully repowered Klarion. Not that we really have anything to compare it to.

"Eb ni eht eloh."

The busy shovel is now out of sight, earth showering upwards and raining down on the surrounding area. Then it-.

"Eip yrujnoc."

A yellow and red striped man shoots upward, propelled by the shovel. He flails around as he falls to the ground, and as he turns to look at Zatanna she slams a custard pie into his face hard enough to break his nose.

…

"I bow to your mastery of cartoon physics."

"Hm." Zatanna takes a moment to look down at her fallen opponent, then looks up at me. "Do you think this means that Klarion's winning, or that he's losing?"

"I don't really think we can tell. You heard the description John got from The Changing Man."

"What do the readings say?" She nods at the fallen.. clown-zebras. "Eb dnuob yb ruoy sepirts."

"Lots of power, far more than when we started. It's slightly more focused around Klarion… But that would probably be the case if John was winning, because he's.. basically hijacking Klarion's connection, which he-."

She nods. "Can't do if there isn't a connection in the first place."

"Any progress with Bedlam's binding spell?"

She looks up at the pained expression on his purple face. "I think so, but I don't want to push too hard in case he actually gets free." She looks through him into the ritual area. "I know we talked about what this would be like, but doesn't it seem strange to you that they're fighting some sort of huge magic battle and there's no external sign anything is happening at all?"

"No explosions, fire, lightning, monstrous creatures… Present company excepted. That sort of thing?"

"Even a… Visible clue about who was winning. A burning candle… Maybe… If the circle was part one color and part another?"

"As convenient as they are, progress bars aren't realistic." Ah… "Unless you can-?"

"Not with this much chaos magic around."

"Because, I mean, those guys were annoying, but if there was actually a way for us to hit our opponents as hard as we can and for the worst that could happen to them to be that they get knocked out-."

The magic in the ritual space surges, red light flaring across the diagram! Sympathetic explosions mark the deaths of my larger runestones. Drat. Sephtian is not -I generate construct railguns and load mage slayers as I take the Sword of the Fallen from its sheath- going to be happy about that.

"Uuuuughhh…"

I'm not.. sure where the moan come from. John's body is sort of slumped forward while Klarion collapsed-. Klarion's eyelids open, the eyes behind them burning with the same red light as his spells. He slams his right hand to the ground, groggily pushing himself upright.

John's still not moving.

Ah, shit.

Klarion stumbles towards us, the lines marked out on the ground fading away as he thoughtlessly stumbles through them. He squeezes his eyes shut, hands coming up and clasping his head in obvious discomfort.

I'm sorry, John. I train my guns on Klarion's head. Let's see if I can add to his discomfort a little.

"Fuckin' hell."

…

What?

"Oh, hang on."

Klarion stops, looks around and then walks towards the fish balloon. "Won't be needin' this." He bends down to pick it up, the fingernail of his right index finger growing to the length of a short sword and puncturing the rubber of the fish. There's a squeak as the hole he made sucks air in, the fish reinflating and pulling away from his grip. It flies a short circuit around him and then flies off into the air.

Then… Whoever that is turns back to face us. "I miss anythin'?"

"Jjjjohn..?"

He makes a gesture of appeal with both hands. "What, were you expecting the bleedin' tooth-" He appears to notice his hands. "-fairy. Oh. Thought it felt a bit odd."

"Are you..? Stuck..?"

"Gimme a sec." He clenches his fists, and then steps forward, the surface of his skin and clothing running as if liquid, gradually shifting until it takes on the form he's more accustomed to. If a little more sombrely dressed.

"It worked?"

He nods, then shudders. "Never again. That was… Pretty fuckin' horrible." He turns away, strolling in the direction of his former circle and nudging the pile of clothes with his right foot. Klarion turns onto his back. He.. seems to be unconscious. John reaches down next to him and picks up his coat, putting it over his left shoulder. "Right then. We'd best be making ourselves scarce before Nabu turns up. Who wants the Witch Boy?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd July
20:13 -5 GMT

"I've got a plan for that. Can you..?" I sheathe the Sword, then gesture vaguely towards the insane clown posse with my right forefinger. "Do something about them? Whatever Klarion did-."

John claps his hands together, red flames flaring from our assailants. As the flames die down, four normal-looking naked men are revealed. "That should undo everything that's happened to them since they met Klarion. You know who they are?"

Ring, scan. Anything on missing persons?

Matches found.

"Yes. They're Hub City natives, reported missing… Beginning of last month. Minor criminal records, but no outstanding warrants on any of them. Shouldn't be any problem just handing them over to the local police."

"Right." John waves his right hand, crackles of red energy momentarily linking him to each of them. They flicker then.. disappear, replaced by small black/red.. stars..? The stars shoot high up into the air and then turn north north west, accelerating as they go. "That's that sorted. What about-?" He notices as Zatanna and I glance at each other. "Look, the whole point of doin' this was to give me the power I need to fight Nabu, right? I know hundreds of spells and whatnot that I couldn't use without begging some dodgy Demon or uppity god to do the heavy liftin' for me. Now, I've got all the power I could ever need." He holds his hands in front of him, palms upwards, as blood red flames flare up from them. "Might as well get used to it."

Zatanna looks him over. "Are you.. okay..? What..? What exactly happened in there?"

John starts patting down his coat until he finds a pocket. "Best you don't ask." He pulls out a packet of cigarettes, extracts a cigarette and puts it in his mouth. "Alright if I leave the cleanup to you? I don't have a lot of time to get used to all this."

"Of course. I'll phone you Tuesday if I haven't heard from you-" My helmet's camera shows Nabu stand and walk out of the meeting room. "-by then. Nabu's moving. Go."

John nods and turns away, a slash opening in the air like the one Klarion used to escape Roanoke. "One thing first." His right hand twists, pulling an oil lamp from nowhere and holding it out towards Bedlam. "Not leaving you hanging about. In you go."

The Genie snarls, but is unable to resist as it's pulled inextricably into the spout. Once the purple has completely disappeared John looks the lantern over, nods to himself, then strides towards the tear. "Be seeing you."

I turn to Zatanna as the tear seals over. "Okay, you handle-."

"Lla cigam secneulfni, eb detapissid!"

Alright then. I raise my hands as violet light surges through the area, sending a wave of orange through the ground and resetting it to how it was before our arrival. Though I'm not completely sure that Nabu would notice the nanotubes -they are very small- it's best not to leave any sign at all. Him finding us here isn't a problem. Someone's almost certainly going to mention that Zatanna and I were here all day. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that the comatose Klarion is here it would probably be better if we stayed until he arrived. As it is…

"I'm done."

Zatanna's eyes glow violet as she focuses on her task. "My bit is a little more complicated. Is Nabu coming here?"

I generate a gurney construct underneath Klarion and strap him in before pulling him over to us. I then take out a runestone and hold it over his forehead. No, barely any reaction at all. Huh. Okay, if a Lord of Chaos replaces the normal worldly magics in their soul with chaos magic, what happens when the chaos magic is taken away? No, no, it can't have been completely removed. If it had, then he wouldn't have been able to use magic after I took Teekl. Still, these symptoms are the same as those shown in Hollow Men who achieve that state through misadventure.

"Not sure. He's left the building. Can you give me a count down?"

"No… I'm about a third done."

"Checking television cameras… I've got him. If he's coming here he doesn't seem to be in any sort of hurry about it. He's-. No, he's going north west. I think he's following John's transportation star things."

"Of course, if I get this wrong he's going to turn around pretty quick."

"Yes, but the time pressure's off a bit. Do a good job rather than a good enough quick job."

"I have been doing this longer than you." I dismiss my construct armour and raise my left eyebrow at her. "Just saying."

"I know. I apologise for doubting your professionalism. It's just that I have effective operational command, so it's my responsibility to make sure that everyone is on the same wavelength."

"That's okay. Annnnd… Done. Eugh." She blinks, her eyes returning to normal and her grip on the Staff of Love loosening slightly.

Ring, message to Major Fang and Chairman Jiang. Tell them that I need an urgent appointment.

Compliance.

"Are you alright?"

She holds the staff up slightly, looking at the Star Sapphire at its head. "I've never used it quite this much before. I think-." I attach a construct to it and yank it out of her grasp. "Hey!"

"Remember the safety procedures."

"I wasn't-!"

"You were staring at it. Zatanna, I know how dangerously addictive the emotional spectrum can be." I hold the staff up. "You can have this back tomorrow, but right now, you're going home."

She breathes in as if about to protest. Then she exhales, bowing her head. "Yeah, you're probably right. Do you think…?"

"What?"

"Do you think it would help if I did the same thing you and Guy Gardner did? Made contact with the.. Predator?"

"No. I survived that by pure luck, and Ion seems to like the Green Lanterns. The chance of you successfully integrating with the Predator is slim to say the least. And even if you could, we've got five days. That isn't enough time to completely rework our plans. Or deal with a rampaging Embodiment if something went wrong." She nods reluctantly. "Okay, let's get out of here. Teekl!"

No response. Where's that blasted Cat gotten to?

"Teekl!" Nothing. Can't see her. "Ring, where's Teekl?"

"Not found."

I frown. "What do you mean, 'not found'? The Cat, the Construct Lantern."

"Construct Lantern Teekl not found."

I-. Oh. I… suppose.

Zatanna looks at me, her face sombre. "Is she.. dead..?"

"Unable to quantify. Construct Lantern 'Teekl' is no longer associated with this ring."

"No, I… I should have guessed." I shake my head. "From the way she was protesting… She was Klarion's link, and if he's not linked anymore…"

"Oh."

I just… Killed my Cat. And not just in an are-Construct-Lanterns-still-people sort of way. She's… Gone. No, no. I can't worry about that now. "Let's go."

Our surroundings flicker, and we appear in Zatanna's front garden.

"Right, I'm off to China to hand Klarion over. You.. just.. do something that doesn't involve love for a day or so."

"I should probably get some practice in-."

"A day, Zatanna. Practice, fine… Just not with the Staff. Alright?" She nods, and I reluctantly hand it back. I can't be seen out and about with it in case someone realises what it is. "I'll see you later. Ring, plot route to the Great Wall Complex."

 

[Mr Zoat]

3rd July
10:02 GMT +8

I don't think that Major Fang can narrow his eyes, but he can certainly still glower. "What do you have in the box, Orange Lantern?"

I keep my posture neutral. He's returning the favour by not quite pointing his spear at my face. Meeting me on neutral ground in Hong Kong was one thing, but me actually being on the grounds of the Great Ten's headquarters seems to be putting his back up. Judging by the Xeno-Team soldiers not quite covering me and Socialist Red Guardsman very obviously covering me.

"I want to say 'classified', but then… I'm a civilian. So let us say that it's… Sensitive."

"You expect me to allow a mysterious box inside our headquarters?"

"Major, I have two power rings. I'm struggling to think of what I could put in a box that would do more than a technology I have on clear display. But if you -and just you- want to see…" I step slightly away from the construct box containing Klarion and gesture to it with both hands. "Take a look."

I wave my right hand, and a viewing tube extends itself from the box just above Klarion's face. I leave the viewing window opaque. Major Fang stares at me, trying to discern my motive. Gaining no further information, he steps smartly forward and leans into the viewer. For three seconds I turn it transparent before rendering it opaque again.

His reaction is minimal, a slight hissing as he breathes in. He remains where he is for a further two seconds, then steps back. "Socialist Red Guardsman, you are dismissed. Detail, return to your posts."

I see Gu Lao glower at me from inside his mech suit, turning away before closing the aperture over his chest cannon. From the corner of my eye I see several Xeno-Team soldiers make a point of trying to minimise their time in his arc of fire. Does he realise how much they hate and fear him? Or is it like North Korea back home, and he still thinks his comrades back him in any circumstances? It's ridiculous really; you don't see Diana behaving like this and she's at least a decade older than him.

"Is Chairman Jiang at home?"

"He is here. And I believe that he will want to see you. Accompany me."

He turns and heads towards the entrance of the main office complex. I let him get a short way ahead and then start walking after him, the box floating along beside me. I've had some fairly advanced medical technology try and work out what's going on with Klarion and I think that my initial supposition was correct: he's been hollowed. There simply isn't any biological reason for him to not be awake. It's like his brain just can't get.. awake enough for him to do anything. His heart is beating and he's breathing unaided, but that's about it. I suppose… Using the system that I have tattooed onto my skin it might be possible to restore him to wakefulness, but… It's Klarion. I don't think that anyone wants him awake that badly.

Major Fang presents his identification at the front entrance. The technician on duty runs it through some sort of scanner… I could scan it, but I don't think that would be appropriate. She then turns the scanner on Major Fang. Presumably it's looking for evidence that he's Durlan, which must give it some trouble as his body is a product of Durlan technology. Whatever it is they're looking for, they appear to find it. His identification is handed back and he's waved through. Once past the checkpoint he turns and beckons me. I walk forwards, stopping in front of the desk when he holds out his right hand in a 'stop' gesture.

Given that it's reasonable that they don't want me turning into a sentient explosion of metal blades in the middle of their command facility, I turn down my environmental shield as far as I can while they scan me. They should have basic information on me on file as part of the data the Justice League shares with Security Council members, but I doubt that it's enough to be completely certain that I'm not a shapeshifter pretending to be me. Or maybe they just want a scan so they can confirm my identity next time. I wait, and a few moments later I get a nod from the technician.

Environmental shield back to full. I think it was Rogal Dorn who said 'sleep well in the camp of your allies, but always keep your bolter within arm's reach'. I don't seriously think that the Great Ten are going to act against me, but it doesn't hurt to take reasonable precautions. I once more follow Major Fang as he leads the way into the administrative part of the building. I get a few curious looks, but I imagine that they're somewhat used to odd-looking people around here.

"I did..? Call ahead? If that wins me any points at all?"

"It is why you were not met by Thundermind's fists. Given that you intruded without permission in our most secure facility, I do not think that we have been unreasonably hostile."

"Thank you. Um, point of fact? Thundermind probably couldn't get through my defences fast enough to prevent me disengaging." Though his lack of easily exploitable weaknesses would make actually beating him harder than beating most flying bricks.

"I will remember to include that belief in our next briefing session."

He stops outside of a meeting room door and knocks carefully on the wood once.

"Come!"

Major Fang pushes the door open and then steps aside, allowing my cargo and I to enter first. Chairman Jiang nods at me before turning his attention to my cargo. He's a pretty nondescript man, a little young for his position and carrying a little more weight than is healthy, but otherwise physically unremarkable. He waits while Major Fang shuts the door and takes up position behind me.

"And what do you have for me that required an immediate meeting?"

I float the box forward, tilting it so that the feet end is down, then dismiss the lid. Chairman Jiang's eyes widen slightly as he takes in the sight, and he takes a moment to get himself back under control.

"You are certain it is him?"

"Yes, completely."

"How? How did you do this?"

"A baited trap. A lot of very powerful life forms have exploitable weaknesses, and I've spent months determining his."

"Is he.. safe? Like this?"

"He's in a coma. It's unlikely that he'll ever wake up, and if he does the chains will prevent him doing anything."

Chairman Jiang nods, cautiously. "Why are you here, Orange Lantern? All the world wants this.. thing dead, and yet I have heard nothing."

"It's been less than an hour, and we carried out the ambush in an isolated location. I don't believe that anyone except those who took part knows that it happened. Why..? I don't want to explain that. I have my reasons, and they don't really matter to you. I want to hand Klarion over to the People's Republic. I'm perfectly happy… No, I'd prefer it, if my name was kept out of it. Give credit to one of your people… As long as it's not Gu Lao… Or don't explain, I don't care. I want him tried and punished according to Chinese law, with full videos made publically available after the event. And I need you to not announce that it's happened until the eighth. British time. And he's not to be harmed until the conclusion of the trial. This needs to be seen as completely above board, completely just."

He nods. "Anything else?"

"No. That's it."

"I agree to your terms, of course. But it seems like a paltry reward. Even if you want the matter kept secret… I would like to know who worked with you to achieve this. Both for the State and.. my family, I would like to know the names of the heroes who brought this monster down."

I suppose there's no harm. "Zatanna Zatara and John Constantine took part in the ambush with me. Several Atlanteans helped craft the spells, Professor Sephtian chief amongst them."

"The girl? And… I have heard of Constantine. He is a street magician of low repute."

"But incredible cunning. Though this time I'm the one who set things up while he directly confronted Klarion." I look aside, smiling to myself. "And I'm afraid that's as much as I'm going to tell you about what happened any time soon." I dismiss most of the construct holding Klarion, revealing the arcane binding chains that are there just in case. "Can I leave him here?"

"Certainly. If we put him in a body bag, we can conceal him. I am not certain that we can assemble a proper panel of judges within five days-."

"Longer is fine. Just not sooner."

He nods. "I will keep my end of the bargain." He stands, and bows from the waist. "Thank you, Orange Lantern. You have performed a great work today."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Life
=
Pain
Self=Darkseid
I sit on the beach, turning away from the ragamuffins as Diana takes in my little speech. And I can see it in her face, in the slight frown and tightening of the skin around her eyes as she almost manages to master her expression that I have spoken unwisely and alienated an admirable woman merely by being me. I didn't want to do that. Why did I..?
Self=Darkseid
I smile as I put my right arm around Wallace's shoulders, being happy that I just deliberately made a fifteen year old boy who of his own free will fights armed criminals for no greater reward than knowing that he did the right thing… Made him feel bad.
Self=Darkseid
Lawrence Crock looks at his own arms in horror as they turn orange and I permanently alienate myself from all of my peers and create a secret I can't tell my… The woman who might have become my mother in law. Did my parents not raise me better than this? I felt satisfaction, joy at my victory… But now…
Self=Darkseid
I smile at Artemis' expression after I made a tentacle sex joke to a fifteen year old girl while alone with her in a darkened corridor.
Self=Darkseid
I chased Jade across the country because I found the fact that I could scare someone like her so easily pleasant. I apologised later, but looking back I can see a little of the damage I caused in every part of our interactions.
Self=Darkseid
Jade sits on my chest, smiling down at me as she runs her hands over my naked chest and by every gesture I am reminded of the time eleven months hence when she will reject me and slash at me with a knife.
Self=Darkseid
I turn away from Theodore Kord's office, already knowing that the fool will misuse my technological gift for something puerile. Why did I bother?
Self=Darkseid
N-no. Jade-!
Self=Darkseid
She will reject me and slash at me with a knife.
Self=Darkseid
I… I don't…
Self=Darkseid
She has rejected me and slashed at me with a knife. She never wants to see me again.
Self=Darkseid
M'gann is still dazed by Artemis' apparent death. She's my friend, and I torture her to break the illusion because that's just how things are.
Self=Darkseid
Life…
Self=Darkseid
Ms A'Daire shakes with fear as I drive away yet another group I could so easily have befriended.
Self=Darkseid
I reach out to Richard in order to improve our relationship but can't resist sabotaging my own efforts for momentary amusement.
Self=Darkseid
The Justice League, people I believe to be better and more moral than myself, stand around like garden gnomes as Mister Zatara goes to put the Helmet of Fate upon his head.
Self=Darkseid
Diana is so concerned about my possible actions that she takes the time to confront me, ignoring the bleeding world outside. Poor threat assessment? Could she not stand it? All that…
Self=Darkseid
I lift away a heap of rubble to reveal the mangled remains of the family of the woman who followed me inside. She collapses with a wail, sobbing 'why? why?'. She cared, and she suffers for it.
Self=Darkseid
My team mates are genuinely conflicted as I make every effort to turn them from their mentors. They're children! They shouldn't have to-!
Self=Darkseid
Kon vaporises Luthor's drugs because he's learned to behave that way from me.
Self=Darkseid
Lynne, shaking and sobbing on the floor as Father steps towards me.
Self=Darkseid
I was trying to turn them into me. No higher reason. Just because.
Self=Darkseid
Because I'm me.
Self=Darkseid
Because that's what I do, what I am.
Self=Darkseid
I strove to crush the idealism that I can't feel myself.
Self=Darkseid
Alan gave me his lantern in a gesture of trust and hope and I've done everything I can to make him regret it. I made the greatest hero of the greatest generation cry with joy finding out that I wasn't a supervillain! How low were his expectations of me!?
Self=Darkseid
Life… Equals…
Self=Darkseid
I get to spend time with Jade and I'm happy, even though in nine months' time she will reject me and slash at me with a knife until I discover that a single careless phrase has made her cry and doubt my love.
Self=Darkseid
I sit down to eat with Jade's family while eight months in my future she slashes at me with a knife and I killed Paula's husband and I can't tell her.
Self=Darkseid
My pretence at being Grayven nearly gets my friends killed by Apokoliptian soldiers. Jade lies broken and bleeding while eight months in my future she slashes at me with a knife.
Self=Darkseid
I try and help a world avoid its destruction and I get shot, beaten and nuked for my troub-.
Self=Darkseid
No! That was-! I did-!
Self=Darkseid
Fire all around me as the worthless fools who I've been trying to save don't help me as my flesh evaporates.
Self=Darkseid
That's not-! I… I helped!
Self=Darkseid
Kara In-Ze casually suggests killing me after I twice saved her world and am at her mercy. Why do I help these people?
Self=Darkseid
Life… Equals…
Self=Darkseid
Doctor Robbins served the greater good her whole life and ended up a gibbering incontinent in a home for people no one cares about.
Self=Darkseid
Doctor Robbins..? What happened to-?
Self=Darkseid
Lines of staring Genomorphs, unseeing as Father's presence does its work. They trusted me to show them the world and I wanted to. And that is what they received. Lynne, curled up on the floor and sobbing.
Self=Darkseid
She's probably the same.
Self=Darkseid
Lynne comes through the portal, smiling and running towards me as she sees me and she's sitting on Father's knee as the living repository of the Anti-Life reads to her.
Self=Darkseid
She throws her arms around me and collapses, hugging her knees to her chest and it's my fault. I brought this on her!
Self=Darkseid
We fly a kite and she collapses, hugging her knees to her chest and it's my fault!
Self=Darkseid
I love Jade and it made me vulnerable, made me hurt.
Self=Darkseid
Life
Self=Darkseid
I love Lynne and it hurts! He wouldn't have come here but for me! It must have been even worse than when she was in the SHADE facility, she'll never feel safe again!
Self=Darkseid
=
Self=Darkseid
Graaaaaagh, no! No! It doesn't! I don't believe-!
Self=Dar-. No! I'm Grayven! God of Conquest! And you won't-!
Father looks down on my broken body with disappointment. He knows.
Self=Darkseid
Even if I recover… Lynne will never recover. Lynne will never forgive me.
Self=Darkseid
No! Even… Even my pain! My pain is mine! Whatever you do-.
Self=Darkseid
Even if I lose everything, I can rebuild. It will hurt, and that is right, but I tried to repair my relationship with Richard and only drove him away more strongly.
Self=Darkseid
Help me! Someone, please!

 

[Mr Zoat]

3rd July
14:43 GMT

I stand on my newly built stage facing the relatively small crowd gathered to hear me speak. Quite a bit smaller than the number who gathered to watch me work, but I suppose that was the interesting bit.

"As you can see behind me, the Pitsea Waste Management Site… Or if we're a bit more honest with ourselves, the Pitsea Landfill Site… Is now clear not only of all waste material, but also of any toxic or poisonous chemicals that might have leached into the soil." A disgruntled looking Gull lands on the right edge of the stage and takes a look around. "Most of the site is going to be handled over to the RSPB for development as a bird sanctuary, and the rest will be used for housing."

I step aside from the podium for a moment, looking back at the piles of material which ring-sorting through the colossal piles of rubbish generated. Plenty of metal in rubbish, and recyclable plastic and any number of useful chemicals. It's just not efficient for them to be reclaimed at Earth's current level of technology. I've left them stored neatly by element and material and the site's employees are going to be occupying themselves selling it and transporting it to places that can use it. Recycling levels in London are… Okay, these days. Most of this mess is historical.

I return my attention to my audience. "The refined material will start being shipped out-" The ground rumbles as a large lorry drives past the stage. "-right now to its new homes. Now, I imagine a number of you are wondering why I'm doing this. Not exactly.. typical superhero work, is it?" I smile at a few faces I recognise from... Some of them from other parts of Boris' work program. A couple of others from the Dolmen Gate reveal. "One of the projects that I've been engaged in has been an attempt to increase the range of what can be done with technology Humans already possess. My friend Ted Kord is already mass producing arcanotechnological orbs which can control clouds. Most of the technology involved in that was taken from work done by Doctor Thomas Morrow… So we're only seventy years behind the times there."

"I'll reiterate, for those of you who missed my last complaint about poor technology application regarding zeta tubes. We've had the technology to control hurricanes for seventy years, and it's only just now being applied to something that isn't a weapon."

"But can anything on Earth do what I just did?" I shake my head. "Not just yet. But we're working on it. In the KordTech laboratories now is Earth's first nanotech disassembler. Its co-inventors are the nano-robotics expert Doctor Serling Roquette and cryogenicist and recovering theme criminal Leonard Snart. The current version could do what took me a couple of mornings in… About… Two months. Nothing like as fast, but controllable, reproducible and made entirely with Earth technology. That point cannot be made strongly enough. This is a world of technological wonders the likes of which.. just don't exist on other planets."

"I didn't do this because I have some burning desire to work in waste disposal-." I cut myself off and half turn in the direction of the nearest group of orange-clad workers. "No offence, guys!" A couple of them look around, but they don't otherwise respond. I turn back to my audience. "I did it because I wanted to-" Take my mind off what I'm doing next week. "-demonstrate the capacity of super-advanced technology to change the world for the better.. in ways that directly and immediately affect people's quality of life for the better. It isn't all about… New ways to blow things up and… People in ridiculous costumes finding new ways to shoot at each other." I shift from my suit to one of my more garish armours. "And I know what I'm talking about on that last one."

…

No? No one?

I switch back to my suit.

"I mentioned in my last speech on this subject that Doctor Thaddeus Sivana's story made me the most angry. But it wasn't until I had the chance to see some of the things he's invented since then, and… Well, meet the man, that I discovered the full extent of humanity's loss. And that's why I'm announcing today that KordTech is opening a scholarship program for… Let's call them.. angry scientists. Had an idea of revolutionising a field of industry, but lackwits and fools-" I ham it up, clenching my fists and railing at the heavens. "-refuse to give you the time of day? We want to hear from you. We want to help you. Preferably before you feel the need to.. go on a rampage to.. prove how wrong they were to doubt you. You can't revolutionise anything from in prison."

I make a shrugging motion with both hands. "Alright, I'm done. Any questions?"

Several hands go up, but an angry-looking man with an RMT badge on pre-empts them. "Why do you hate the British railways?!"

"I used to go to work by Southern Rail. The management's incompetent and the employees think they belong to the National Graphical Association. The trains are a natural monopoly and the unions have taken full advantage, becoming so cocky that people are willing to use teleportation portals rather than put up with them any longer. We can replace a fifth of the network for less than the cost of High Speed Rail Two with a form of transport that's safer and quicker. So begone, all of them."

"You think it's okay to destroy workers' livelihoods?!"

"On the contrary, the Atlantean artificers who make the Dolmen Gates are extremely well paid. Next question." I point to a woman at random.

"Dominique Westlake, ITV London. Are you planning on clearing up any other landfill sites?"

"No. I did this to show that it can be done. I'm of the opinion that having superheroes clean up every social or economic problem is like a fit and healthy adult who still has someone to wipe his arse for him. I've only just been on this planet for a year, and already I've helped develop a technology that could do what I just did. You get one, you can do the rest yourself."

"So you're saying that you could?"

"Without a greater purpose to work towards I'd get bored before long, and I can't use these rings for things that bore me. It doesn't work. But no, I probably wouldn't be willing to even if I could do so reliably. Next."

"Nigel Smith, BBC. Isn't Doctor Sivana a wanted criminal?"

"Yes. We met under flag of truce at a family dinner and I'm a man of my word. If it makes you feel any better, he claims to be mustering resources to fight against future alien invasions because he doesn't think that superheroes offer enough of a challenge."

"That doesn't sound reassuring."

"I find it reassuring that the greatest scientist of the age isn't focusing on fighting other Humans any longer. Next!"

…

3rd July
15:08 GMT

I stroll into the Mayor's meeting room. "What did you think?"

"The press bit meandered around a bit. Usually best to just-" He makes an odd sort of pouncing motion with both hands. "-keep things focused."

"I'll bear that in mind in future. So, are we square?"

He nods. "Yah, yah. You've done your week, and I think we're all set for tomorrow. Oh, have you met-" He gestures to the uniformed man sitting a little way down the table. "-Bernard?"

I nod. "Commissioner. A pleasure."

He nods back. "The cordon won't be a problem, and we could do with an evacuation drill. I'm still a bit puzzled by your request to join the Met. Could you explain that?"

"I don't have arrest authority. I don't imagine for a moment that the Lich will actually yield, but best practice requires that I at least try to resolve the situation in a lawful and orderly manner. Or as close to it as possible. Obviously it'll be an on-paper thing and I'll resign as soon as the matter's resolved, but it would be a help."

He nods. "If you say so. I can swear you in as a Special Constable. It will be entirely above board, if a little.. odd. Obviously there's no way our regular police could confront a powerful sorcerer."

"Thank you, Commissioner. That's just what I need."

 

[Mr Zoat]

3rd July
21:02 GMT -5

"…the topic of discussion tonight, please welcome our first guest, Orange Lantern."

Ms Manning turns towards the side of the stage as I walk on. Unlike my first television piece, this one is going out live. And I'm… Actually more nervous about this than I was about confronting Klarion. There, I was pretty certain that I'd covered all the angles. Here, once the initial discussion is underway the audience can throw out pretty much whatever they want.

There's a polite round of applause, and I smile and nod in the direction of the audience -and the cameras- as I take the first seat opposite the presenter. Ms Manning is a favourite of Diana's due to being an oddity amongst American anchors: a woman working in television who remained employable after she stopped being hot. She's a presenter and an interviewer rather than an investigator, which is… Actually the way these things normally work. Huh. There are a statistically improbable number of investigative reporters associated with superhero work, aren't there?

"Orange Lantern, thank you for joining us tonight."

"A pleasure to be here, Ms Manning. Thank you for inviting me."

That particular greeting went through several revisions during rehearsals. In the end, she ruled that it should stay in. Everyone else is told to call her Marla from the start, but 'formal and polite if a little stiff' is perfectly fine for a superhero and because she can't really use my name. There's no way to explain why I can't introduce myself by name in a way that makes any sense on television, so by skipping the whole issue there's no implied power inequality or distain.

"Perhaps I should start by asking you exactly what your religious beliefs are."

"Well… That's a little complex. I worship Eris, the Ancient Greek Goddess of Chaos. However, as I'm sure-" I glance towards the cameras. "-everyone here knows, Eris is part of the Ancient Greek pantheon. This means that I -theoretically at least- acknowledge their authority even if I don't worship them on a regular basis."

"That sounds fairly straightforward."

"The problem arises due to the use of the word 'belief'. I've met Eris; I've spoken to her in person on several occasions. I don't have 'faith', there isn't anything I need to believe that I can't prove… Or at least could prove if she felt like cooperating. I may believe things about her which aren't true, but I would be perfectly happy to revise those beliefs once I… Proved that."

"When did you start worshipping Eris?"

"I'm a citizen of Themyscira, and it is.. customary, for a citizen to choose one god to… Follow, to study. When I first visited Themyscira back in January, I was asked if I intended to do the same. I thought about it, thought about… What I wanted to do with my life, and realised that she was the best fit."

"What religion were you before that?"

"I was… Sort of an atheist. A year ago today I was firmly an atheist, but since coming to this world… I've been confronted with overwhelming evidence that certain… Classes of being demonstrably do exist, and that denying that would be… Daft."

"But you still considered yourself an atheist?"

"Just because they exist is no reason to go around believing in them. It only encourages them." There's a very faint laugh from some parts of the audience. "I used to refer to things.. other people might have called gods, as 'jumped up elementals'. Sentient magic-based life forms that had ideas above their station. I.. grew up in.. Britain, a monotheistic society… And once I'd convinced myself that the God of Abraham didn't exist, there just didn't seem like much point worshipping anything else."

She presses a button on the control panel and the screen behind us shows one of the pictures the Justice League released of Oceanus. "What exactly was that?"

"What you're looking at there is the body of an entity called Oceanus."

"Is he a god?"

"That really depends on what you mean by 'god'. If you mean, 'are there people who worship him', then yes, the Saremite renegades we fought on Santo Porto do. If you mean, 'is he a sentient magic-based life form'-."

"A 'jumped up elemental'?"

I nod. "Quite. He is, as far as we can tell. If you mean, 'is he very powerful', clearly he is. If you mean, 'is he inherently deserving of worship', I'd say not. I suppose that might be the biggest leap for a monotheist; when I say that a god exists, I don't mean either that I worship it, or that I think people should. Most Christians believe in Satan, but they don't worship him."

"But Satanists do."

I shrug. "Nothing about being powerful necessitates that you're a good person. My job would be a lot easier if it did."

"Back in February, Fawcett City was literally besieged by Demons. In the aftermath, there was a major increase in attendance in churches across the city, and across the country." Another button press and a graph comes up on the screen. That.. is quite an increase. "What do you think that says about religious faith in America today?"

"We've all seen the recordings made in Fawcett City during Sabbac Two's attack. I don't think that anyone doubts the existence of Demons any more. The existence of Demons was documented well before that of course, but the attack on Fawcett made it apparent that Demons were a thing that could affect everyone. This means that people now have.. what they believe to be evidence for the truth of some part of their faith. Demons exist, therefore so does the Abrahamic God and that has immediate relevance."

"You don't think they're just going there looking for protection?"

"I hope not. While the Catholic Church has got its act together with regards to magic since the Second Vatican Council and the Anglican Communion has.. a degree of institutional knowledge, a lot of Protestant and Orthodox denominations treasure their ignorance of magic. There's nothing about wearing a crucifix or.. being a priest that makes you proof against magic in general or Demons in particular. The priest I worked with in Fawcett City -Father Mattias- was able to hold Sabbac Two off, but he did it by.. using magic to manifest his faith in the world around him, not by channelling part of his god. That's why he's Father Mattias and not Saint Mattias."

"Now for the million dollar question: does God exist?"

"That's a tricky one. If you mean in the sense of the Sistine Chapel roof, elderly man stretching forth his hand to Adam, almost certainly not. A being that is at one with the entire universe.. would not be anything like that Human. On the other hand… May I..? Borrow the screen?" She nods, and I bring up an image of a part of the Source Wall from John's old database. "This is called the Source Wall. It sort of.. bends space around it, but there are several places in this galaxy from which it can be accessed. Once you can see it, you can't fly around it; it just stretches up to infinity. A lot of alien monotheistic religions believe that God exists behind it in some sense. Certainly, Angels and saints get their power from somewhere."

"I don't recall there being any mention of Angels in Fawcett City."

"I didn't see any. But they do exist."

"Do you have any idea why they didn't get involved when Fawcett City was under attack?"

"I'm afraid that I don't. The one person I know who has met them didn't have much good to say about them, but he isn't exactly on their Christmas card list either. Possibly they believed that we could handle the situation. Perhaps it was part of some larger plan the rest of us aren't privy to. Angels don't really feature in the Hellenistic religion."

"In that case, we should speak to someone who knows a little more about them. Please welcome our second guest, Father Mattias."

 

[Mr Zoat]

3rd July
21:28 GMT -5

"…and I imagine that the Coca-Cola Company is prepared to acknowledge the existence of other cola brands, while still maintaining that theirs is the only cola you ever need to drink."

Mattias bows his head with a chuckle. "I am not.. entirely sure that is an appropriate metaphor. The Lord God created the universe and everything in it. Mister Pemberton may have combined ingredients in an original fashion, but he did not create them ex nihilo."

"The Guardian Krona's time travel experiments allowed him to witness the creation of this universe. From what little I know about what he saw, it would be .. difficult to link the event to Genesis in any literal way. The Earth made in six days, with the rest of the universe coming into being on..? What, the fourth day? As an offhand act?"

"Without having seen Krona's records, I could not comment on what he saw. In such matters, the line which was reinforced at the Second Council was that doctrine cannot contradict reality. What is real is real, and any fault lies with those who recorded the relevant biblical text or with those of us who misinterpreted it."

The audience member who asked the question looks none the wiser. "So how literally should we take the stuff about heaven?"

"The.. existence of the Silver City has been confirmed by various mystics… Including those who have no reason to have heard the Christian accounts. So again: something exists, but I don't know how closely it resembles what you believe."

"We can be a little more certain than that. The Church has records of communication between Angels, saints and various visionaries. While.. not all accounts can be assumed to be completely accurate, there are enough trends that we can conclude that practicing conventional Christianity honestly will get you there, and that it is a place of glory and wonder. Though.. that goes back to what we were saying earlier about the difference between professed faith and actual faith. You must accept Jesus Christ into your heart and soul and genuinely repent your sins. Simply going to church once a week is not the same thing as being a committed Christian."

That appears to be a little more helpful. "Okay, but, ah… Orange Lantern, you said that you're not Christian, right?" I nod. "Doesn't that mean that you're kinda… Stuck? I mean… What happens to you?"

"No one knows for certain. I've simply had too many influences at work on my soul to predict it. The most likely thing to happen is the conventional Hellenist afterlife; I'll.. become conscious of myself entering Erebos through the Gate of Shades, cross the river Styx and be judged by Lord Hades. Alternatively, I could earn the favour of enough Olympians to pass straight to the Elysian Fields. From there, I understand that reincarnation is possible, though I don't know the precise mechanics." Should probably find that out, actually.

"The Elysian Fields… Is that like… Greek Heaven?"

"No, Heaven is a reward for faith and good behaviour. You live a good life and you go there automatically. Getting into the Elysian Fields requires personal sponsorship. You can live a good life and still not get there."

"Sounds like a raw deal to me. Ah, thank you." He starts to sit, passing the microphone back to a member of the crew.

"No, it's not so bad. Asphodelopolis has a far higher population than the Elysian Fields. If I've got to spend eternity somewhere, I'd want to make sure that I've got interesting people to talk to."

Ms Manning gestures to the left of the audience. "The lady over there?"

Another member of the crew heads toward her, passing a microphone over.

"Thank you. I guess.. the question goes to both of you. How do you excuse the bad things that your gods have done?"

"Specific acts, or the nature of the world in general?"

She hesitates. "Both, I guess?"

"Well, I'm confident in my own mind that the Olympians didn't make the world, and that was either creative advertising on their parts or a mistaken belief on the parts of the Ancient Greeks. So I don't blame them for the built-in stuff. As for particular acts… Ah…" I glance upwards. "How well earthed is this building?"

Mattias turns to me with an expression of utter solicitousness. "Are you concerned that the being you worship will express their displeasure at your answer?"

"It's a valid concern. To answer the question: I recognise them as bad. The Olympians aren't anybody's ideas of paragons of morality. They're more… Mortals writ large. There are.. some moral rules they regard as absolute, but for everything else… There's a reason why Zeus and Hera aren't married anymore."

"Wasn't Eris the one responsible for the Trojan War?"

"She kicked off events, yes, but pride and ego played a far greater part. If Paris had said 'you're all equally lovely', or if Aphrodite hadn't tried to bribe him, or if the other two had shrugged it off… If Helen had decided to stay with her husband and not start a war, if Menelaus had given her a divorce on the grounds that no mortal could prevent Aphrodite making them fall in love… Time and time again, everyone had the opportunity to choose differently. And if they didn't, then that's their fault."

"Okay, I guess… And Father Mattias? What's God's excuse?"

"Once Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge… Whether that was a literal tree or more of a metaphor, all Humans gained the capacity for good and evil. God gives us independence to act on that capacity, and respects that independence even if he sometimes weeps for how we exercise it."

"Yeah, I respect the free will thing, but what about the stuff he did directly? Killing the firstborn son of every Kahndaqi household, even if they were babies who'd never hurt anyone, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and everyone who lived there… I mean, if he's omnipotent, why didn't he just teleport all the Israelites somewhere, or just kill the bad people?"

"In the case of the Israelites, they had a compact with God that guaranteed them both protections and a particular area of land to call home. When the Kahndaqis enslaved them, they trespassed against that protection. If you ask 'why the firstborn?', I cannot say for sure. The Bible gives no specific reason why they were targeted, but I would point out that that was the last stage in a series of escalating punishments, and at each stage there was a clear warning that they would continue to grow worse if the Israelites were not freed. Kahndaq at the time did not have modern mass communications, each plague had to be something that could not be explained as a natural phenomenon. It had to be clear that the usually remote God of Israel was so enraged that he was prepared to interfere in the natural course of the world in order to protect his followers."

"Or Moses was a wizard."

"Hm?" Father Mattias jerks his head my way, blinking in surprise.

"Like you said, we don't have good records of the event. If… Moses was a wizard who either claimed that God was acting through him, or… Was in modern terms a saint empowered by God's magic, he'd be the one deciding what level of punishment was correct himself."

Father Mattias considers that. "I do not myself believe that, but I suppose it is possible."

"Wait, so you're saying that when Greek gods do bad stuff, that's their fault but other people can make things worse, but if the Christian God does bad stuff, that's always someone else's fault?"

"No. I am saying that God does not make mistakes. So, if something happens that looks like a mistake, then it was either the best thing that could have happened, there were events occurring that we are not aware of which He was, or the fault lies with some Human agency. It is easy to blame some supernatural event when things do not go as we would like them, but more often the cause is something far more mundane."

She doesn't look all that impressed, but sits and hands the microphone back to the crew member.

Ms Manning looks around the audience again. "Gentleman over there?"

"Ah, thanks. So, I get that some… Or, I dunno, all? Pagan… Things pagan religions worship are real, and God is definitely real-."

"In some sense, yes."

"Right, so… Are Angels real?"

I nod. "Unfortunately, yes."

"Unfortunately?"

"The last well documented incident of Angels interacting with Humans was about twenty years ago where they made contact with a Millennialist Evangelical Christian sect called 'The Resurrection Crusade'. They were active in the southern states and in a couple of places in Britain. They rather fell apart after their leaders died during a magic ritual in Glastonbury; the crater's still there if you want to look. Actually…" I glance at Ms Manning and she nods. I wave my right hand at the screen and put an aerial view on display. "Like a lot of supervillain organisations, they were quite stupid. They thought it was a good idea to create a new messiah and end the Human capacity for free will. Then they made such a mess of the ritual that the Angel they called up killed them all."

"Or…" Father Mattias glances at the image. "The Angel was so disgusted at what they were attempting that it rendered judgement upon them."

John was pretty confident… But I suppose that an Angel angry over one thing is much like an Angel angry over another. "I suppose that could be the case. If I ever meet it, I'll be sure to ask."

 

[Mr Zoat]

4th July
14:54 GMT -5

Artemis looks at me over the kitchen counter. "You sure you're not gunna feel left out?"

"Of course I'm going to feel-" I scrape the last of the cake batter into the cake tin. "-left out, but that's my own silly fault for not having a secret identity, isn't it?"

Since Kon does actually have friends at school who aren't part of the superhero community, he wanted to celebrate his birthday in a way which involved them. Which is fine for most of our team, even if explaining how he knows people from Gotham and Central City is a little tricky. But for those of us who don't have secret identities -or who couldn't convincingly pretend to be Human for five minutes, Canis- that means that we can't go. I'm a bit surprised that none of the people who spotted me around the school last year ever made the connection. I'm even more surprised that no one appears to have spotted Kon. He does.. have a secret identity, but his face is uncovered and he doesn't really change the way he talks.

On the other hand… Superman, glasses…

Wallace nods. "And going on TV a whole lot. Think The Resurrection Crusade are gunna make sure no one forgets what you look like."

Yeah… While most of the central leadership did die in Glastonbury, a lot of lower level leaders who weren't in the know survived. I'd actually missed that the Crusade was still a going concern… After a fashion, at least.

I shake my head. "I don't think that lawsuit is actually going to go anywhere."

Artemis frowns. "They can't sue you for having an opinion. And that stuff actually happened!"

"No, they can. They probably can't do it successfully, and... Since I'm leaving the Earth for an extended period in three days, I wish them all the best actually serving me."

A construct oven glove pulls open the oven and I start putting the cake tins inside. With how big the team's got, plus Diana and Dubbilex, this had to be a wedding cake sized affair. Perfectly within my abilities, but I'm going to need to get this done before I start on dinner proper.

The left side of Wallace's face twitches. "How long you gunna be away for?"

I close the oven and straighten up. "No idea."

"Know where you're going?"

"Roughly. I mean… There's places I need to go for professional reasons, then there's places I just want to see. I'm going to Thanagar because Ms Thal wanted me to take a message to her mother and Mister Hol gave me their reports to drop off… Tamaran, because-."

Artemis smiles. "Orange bikini babes."

Wallace nods. "It's a good reason."

The skin around my right eye tenses sceptically. "Orange.. third world planet.. horribly oppressed by the local imperial power. They probably have bikinis as well, but that's not why I'm going." Two slightly awkward grimaces. "J Five Eight Six, where Lantern Medphyll comes from. They have city trees. And they're fully sentient!"

Wallace nods. "So you're gunna be Earth's first space tourist. Take lots of photos!"

"Second, actually. Adam Blake beat me by about fifty years. Heh, maybe I'll bump into him."

Wallace gives me a flat look. "Oh El, you know that thing you do where you mention someone no one else has heard of and expect us to know who they are?"

"Oh. Sorry. Ah, Captain Comet, superhero active in the fifties and sixties. Red uniform with a-" I point to my upper chest with my right hand. "-comet on it? Had telepathic and telekinetic abilities? Bit of a shame Mister J'onzz wasn't out-and-proud at the time, actually. He could probably have dropped him off back home."

Artemis nods, starting to move away. "Say 'hi' to him for us."

"Will do. You two have fun."

"Oh El, it's a beach party." He and Artemis link hands as they head for the exit. "I don't think we could not have fun."

I watch as they leave the room, then find myself sagging slightly. I'm.. not going to be seeing them for a while. After the seventh, I mean. Even assuming the thing with Nabu goes better -much better- than expected, it could actually be years before I'm back on Earth. I'm not going to know.. anyone, the food is going to be weird… I exhale. Before I came here, the idea of spending long periods of time on my own and only really interacting with people for professional reasons would probably have been something I'd have found satisfying. Now, I've… Rather gotten used to there always being people around. And for the most part I've gotten over the feeling of creepiness I used to feel about being nearly twice their age.

And on the subject of creepiness…

I take my Will out of subspace. In case things go really badly… I've been intentionally running down my cash reserves, because.. it wouldn't be any use to me where I'm going. Heh, win or lose. One useful thing about Blume eating so much of it was that I actually don't have a giant mountain of gold waiting for me any longer. I don't know, I'm probably just going to endow the Sivana Super Scientist Scholarship fund. There isn't really any other cause I feel strongly about that needs it.

Thing about being an Orange Lantern is, when you feel strongly about something… It doesn't tend to need further attention afterwards.

Equipment? That's easy. Roy and Ted can split that, superhero stuff going to the former and other stuff going to the latter. Don't want Ted getting distracted, and I don't want Roy unable to keep his equipment in working order.

The ring… S…

I hold up my left hand. "Ring, in the event of my death, make best possible speed to Maltus and report to whoever the senior Controller is."

"Compliance."

I lower my left hand and raise my right, studying John's old ring. Sending the original ring to Maltus discharges my responsibility to the Controllers. I could set this one to go anywhere I want. Unfortunately, the comics didn't show anyone who could use orange rings without going mental. There's a slight but statistically significant chance the Controllers are going to take one look at these things and flip the heck out.

Under happier circumstances I might be setting it to go to Lex-.

"Paul?" I look up and Rob walks in. "You got a minute?"

"Yes, but… No offence intended? I don't think you're well known enough to prevent you heading to the beach if you want."

"No, I just… It's about… You know, Thursday?"

Ring, internal monitoring gets nothing.

"Compliance."

I reach into my upper right pocket and toss Rob an anti-eavesdropping stone. He catches it with a nod. Then I put up a sound nullification field with the ring. "Shoot."

"It's just… Is this whole thing necessary?"

"Not sure what you mean by 'whole thing', but I believe so. I don't want to hurt-" Bearing in mind that this is a facility that has had Batman in it. "-the target. I told you what I intend to offer him as my preferred option."

"You really think he'll take it?"

"No, but I've underestimated people before. Rob, going into a fight with no way to win is a stupid thing to do. I'd rather-. "

"But you already beat Klarion! I just thought… Didn't that box guy say that if you did that, he'd tell Nabu to get lost?"

"No. No he didn't. He offered far less, and if there's one thing I'm not prepared to do it's rely on the goodwill of a being who probably doesn't have any. As with a lot of things… People I could tell, I don't do so in case the target gets tipped off. And I don't feel inclined to trust someone who used that as a negotiating tactic. Robert, I've done everything I can to make sure that we don't end up needing to kill the target. If you've had an idea since our last talk about it, I'm all ears. Do you?"

He shakes his head, and I raise my hands in a shrug.

"Then the plan is still going ahead. If you want to back out, that's fine, I'll under-."

"No, I'm not-. Backing out, I just-. I really… I really don't like this."

I picture for a moment all of the other League members voting Nabu on board. "No. I don't either."