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Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
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25/11/2010
Sarge Steel was a tall man with neatly combed black hair, cold blue eyes, a professionally pressed suit and a deep scowl on his face as he stepped into the Metropolis City Police Department.
He was not a happy man. For a variety of reasons.
His boss, Director Bones, had been shat upon from a very great height. And, as is the nature of feces rolling downhill, the skull-faced metahuman had ensured that Sarge was, in turn, shat upon from a great height.
Which meant Sarge got to enjoy having to personally deal with the situation that had instigated such a great number of issues. On what was supposed to have been a holiday.
Rubbing his left wrist as he walked to the front desk, staffed by a clearly disinterested young woman, Sarge was not looking forward to what he needed to do.
"I need to speak to one of the men in holding," the director told the officer on duty as he pulled a card from his breast pocket. "Now."
"Sir, we can't-" the officer was about to deny him when he slid the card across the desk to her. He could see the moment her eyes tracked across his job title, the name of the department he worked for. "...I'll go and get the chief. Please wait here."
Sarge reclaimed his identification card as the woman stood up and stowed it back into his breast pocket with practiced ease. He watched dispassionately as the woman hurried through a door and out of sight, anxiety clear in her body language.
Nobody was happy when the director of a three letter agency out of Washington got involved. Especially not the director, and he was more than willing to make sure people knew.
The man counted the seconds, his right thumb tapping the back of his left wrist on every other one.
At one-hundred and ninety-five, an overweight man with gray hair and a black mustache came out of the back, the officer on duty trailing nervously behind him.
"I'm sorry," the chief began, his eyes jumping from Sarge's gloves, to his chest, then up to his face. "We had no idea you were going to be here today! We were expecting one of your agency's lawyers, not-"
"Irrelevant," Sarge said, cutting off the sweating cop. "I've already wasted more time on this than needed. Show me to one of the interrogation rooms, then go and get Jordan."
"...Jordan?" the chief asked, tilting his head to nervously glance at the female officer. "I'm sorry, which one was-"
"The Puppeteer," Sarge ground out, his frosty gaze shifting to a full glare. "I need to speak with the Puppeteer."
And the rest of the team the feckless moron had dragged into the gutter, but they at least had the meager defense of following the lead operative's orders.
"Err, yes. Right away. Diane?" The chief asked, turning to fully face the junior officer. "Go and collect this... Jordan. Bring him to interrogation room one."
Director Steel followed the bumbling fool as the chief led him deeper into the building, finally arriving at a heavy door that had a delightfully descriptive plaque next to it designating it as 'Exam Room 1'.
"Well, uh, this is it," the older officer told him, clearly nervous. "Is there anything we can get for you, Director? Water? Coffee?"
"No, thank you," Sarge said before closing his eyes and slowly sighing. The man had to force his glare to relax, to relieve the tension that was building up around his temples. "I just want to get this dealt with and get on my way. If I'm lucky, and I doubt I will be, I might be able to catch a flight back to Washington with enough time to join my brother for the holidays."
Sarge pushed the door open and stepped through, pushing past the Chief of Police before the man could think of something else to say.
The room was set up as just about any other interrogation room would be. One table, two chairs on opposite sides from each other and a nice, big mirror along the back wall. Sarge walked around the table and sat down in the chair with its back to the mirror. The man crossed his left leg over his right and leaned back, fixing his posture to show that he was relaxed, that he was in control.
The only tell that his presentation was at least partially a ruse would have been the slow, methodical tapping of his right thumb against the back of his left wrist.
Sarge was kept waiting for nearly three-hundred taps. Five minutes.
Four minutes too long.
But at the end of those five minutes, a man was pushed into the room.
A tall brunette with messy, unkempt hair stumbled in, wearing a beige jumpsuit and a pair of handcuffs.
Jordan Weir. The Puppeteer.
"...Director?" the man asked after steadying himself while the door was slammed shut. "...You took your time! I've been in holding for days!"
"Sit down, Jordan," Sarge commanded, steel in his voice.
"...That's not my name," Jordan whined as he awkwardly pulled out the chair opposite to Steel and sat down. "You know I had it changed."
"You're going to have more important things to worry about, Jordan," Sarge continued, ignoring the glare sent his way. "Do you have any idea how many people you upset with your little stunt?"
"...We'd calculated that would have been the most opportune moment to apprehend Lois Lane," Jordan began to needlessly explain. "That should have been the time that Superman would have been least likely to intervene!"
"I do not care about your calculations, Jordan. Nor do I care about how bad you are at math. I asked if you had any idea how many people were shitting bricks at the idea that a government agency would try a stunt like yours in a city watched over by a metahuman of Superman's caliber?"
Throughout his dressing down, Sarge Steel kept his voice calm and even. He did not raise his voice. He did not shout.
"My name is Ette!" Marion, however, was very quick to raise his voice. "It's Marion Ette, damn it! I'm not 'Weir' anymore!"
"You could have had Lois Lane arrested and brought in for questioning on any number of charges," Sarge explained, ignoring the Puppeteer's outburst. "You could have called, her phone number is actually publically available, and seen about setting up an interview. You had a number of options available, Jordan. And you chose to try and pull a smash and grab like some kind of crayon-eating lackwit from the CIA."
Jordan leaned back in his chair, an ugly look on his face as his mouth twisted in a scowl and he glared off to the side.
"...If you're going to write me up, can we do it back on base?" Jordan asked, refusing to meet Sarge's gaze. "I need a shower. And some real clothes."
"That won't be happening, Jordan," Sarge explained as he leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. "Effective as of this morning, your employment with the Department of Metahuman Affairs has come to an end."
"...What?"
"Your personal effects will be returned to the address you have on file, after undergoing appropriate scrutiny, and you should be mindful of the fact that your various confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements remain in effect," Sarge continued to explain as Jordan's face went from a pinkish tinge to a deathly pallor before cycling back into red. "Your access credentials to government resources have been deactivated, your biometric data has been removed from our databases and your department line of credit has been revoked."
"You can't do this!" Jordan shouted, rising to his feet so quickly that his chair fell backwards. "The department needs me! My Anima-Psytronic technology could-it could even bring down Superman!"
"The department does not need a special snowflake that acts like a loose cannon," Sarge told his former employee as he stood up, much more calmly than the Puppeteer had. "Considering an immature, mentally handicapped clone was able to disable your 'Anima-Psytronic' technology within a few seconds of encountering you for the very first time, we somehow doubt it's nearly as valuable as you've been telling us."
Sarge straightened his jacket as he turned his gaze to meet Jordan's. He could see fury and panic in equal measures warring for dominance in the brilliant idiot's eyes.
"I would suggest you find a good lawyer," Sarge said as he walked around the table, keeping one eye on the unstable man. "I, however, still have things I need to do today."
Stepping out of the interrogation room and closing the door behind himself, Sarge waited for one especially long moment.
The sudden crashing noises coming from the room told him that the Puppeteer was having a particularly violent meltdown. The cursing and screaming nearly, nearly brought a smile to the director's face.
But only nearly.
Steel still needed to collect Jordan's team. And get those boys to give him a full debriefing.
He somehow doubted that the Lois Lane issue was going to be the only disappointment he'd be dealing with from the Puppeteer. Men like those were never satisfied at only making one mess.
-----
Stepping through the magical doorway that Alchemist summoned, M'gann froze in surprise at seeing countless other Martians, all walking around the main hub of the spaceport in Ma'aleca'andra.
More than seeing everyone, though, the part that really caught the young woman off-guard was the feeling, the noise-
"-need to pick up more water on the way home."
"-do I have enough szill'ech for dinner?"
"-have to pick up D'an today, her mother has to work late..."
-the mental chatter that filled the background and connected so many of her people together in a way that Humans just couldn't quite match. There were more than words that passed with each mental message. They were accompanied by flashes of emotions, brief instances of sight and sound and smell.
"What is that thing?" one mind asked, instigating a cascade of Martians to turn towards the gate and look at it. At her. "It's huge!"
At the surprisingly lithe form of Alchemist as he stepped out of the Gate behind her.
M'gann crossed her arms across herself, thick and white and uncomfortable... She'd been wearing a much smaller form for so long, reverting to her base Martian shape felt even more alien to her than wearing the green, human form did.
"Huh," Alchemist thought behind M'gann, sitting at her side as the Gate closed behind them. "There are more people here than last time."
"It's the start of the work week," M'gann explained, increasingly uncomfortable with the attention focused on her by the masses of G'arrunn around them. "People are going to work, going home, traveling- It's not that different from Earth, really."
"I suppose not," Alchemist agreed with her, his head swiveling widely in an arc at the end of his long neck. "So, where do you live?"
"Outside of the city," M'gann explained, wincing in discomfort when the majority of her thought simply failed to reach the wizard. His mental voice was loud and hard to miss but his receptivity to mental communications was limited. He didn't get a glimpse of cool, dark caves or smell the musty tunnels that she and her family called home.
It wasn't a new limitation for the man, a fact that M'gann honestly found incredibly sad. Alchemist simply had no native capacity for the mental arts, he lacked even the most basic attunement found in most other humans. Sometimes, she wondered if it might, somehow, be connected to the difficulties the man faced in connecting with other people, with communicating with other people.
"Come on," M'gann told the man as she began to walk towards one of the exits. "It's a bit of a trip but I think you'll enjoy it!"
"Alright," the dragon said from behind her. M'gann could hear him moving, could hear several joints popping as he probably stretched-
Then she jerked in surprise when his narrow head appeared between her knees and she was lifted, sliding down his neck to rest on his back as Alchemist stood up.
"So," he continued as M'gann settled into place atop a tattered black scarf like it was a cushion while the numerous surrounding Martians stared and murmured in confusion. "Which way do we go?"
"...We'll take the lirk exit- South! The south exit. Then go right and I'll point out where we need to go," M'gann explained, leaning forward and pointing to the direction they needed to go with one of her three fingers.
As Alchemist began moving, the crowds around them parted like water. M'gann didn't see any B'lahdenn mixed among the G'arrunn but there were a few other A'ashenn like her. Her fellow white Martians looked to her, then the great, black dragon underneath of her with confusion and incomprehension. They were far enough away, blocked by the minds of those around them enough that M'gann couldn't hear what they were thinking.
Stepping out of the building that served as the main hub of transportation in the capital city of Mars, as well as the primary feeding station for their bio-ships that were planetside, M'gann almost reveled in the feeling of the dry winds, the cold, distant sunlight.
Earth was wonderful and diverse and full of so many more people and animals but... it wasn't home. It was too humid, too hot, its people too distant and it simply smelled wrong. Everything on Earth was more than twice as heavy, too, and M'gann didn't want to admit to how long it took for her to adjust to that. Or how long it took for her to not feel tired just from trying to walk up or down the stairs to get to her uncle's apartment.
Travel through the city was awkward. Some parts of it were aboveground, others went through tunnels and, throughout the entire journey, people would stop and point and stare. Mostly at Alchemist, whom she could tell wasn't really ignoring things so much as he seemed to be amused by the reactions.
But some were pointing at her. She could feel the deep sense of superiority that so many felt because she was born A'ashenn warring with the confusion as they tried to feel whatever Alchemist was and they encountered the strange protections around his mind. They could hear what he was thinking, see and feel what he did as well, but his mind was largely incompatible with them.
It must have been incredibly confusing to look upon a creature that felt supremely confident and in control while it was seemingly handicapped.
Or it may have been because a part of Alchemist's mind kept on getting distracted and it would remember some kind of song or music that M'gann knew didn't exist on Mars or Earth.
'~Courage that you gave to me is price-less! Together as one, together as one! You and I will make it, dreams will last forever, we will face a brand new da-ay!~'
M'gann leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the dragon's neck as they approached her family home.
She'd missed hearing the wizard's thoughts. She understood why he guarded his mind; she'd seen the truth during a few unguarded moments...
A possible future full of horrors that had, so far, failed to come to pass. Fire, death and destruction on a scale that she could barely comprehend...
The disgust he'd felt at himself as he'd put his gun to the temple of a scrawny, disgusting thing shaped like a human in a lab coat. The knowledge of what the scientist had done, experimenting on children and murdering anyone that would stand against him.
M'gann had wanted to tell the man that she understood. She didn't, couldn't agree with what he'd done but... she didn't know what -she- would do, faced with unrepentant, uncompromising evil like the man named 'Hojo' had been. The people he'd been surrounded by that were just like him, murderous and power-hungry and in control...
"So, what does your family do?" Alchemist asked, drawing M'gann out of the melancholy spiral of her thoughts.
"What?" she asked, needing a moment to catch back up. "Oh! We, uh, my parents raise Shulls."
"...I have no idea what those are," Alchemist admitted as the duo ducked into a series of caves and M'gann pointed towards a thick cable embedded in the wall that he needed to follow.
"They're a kind of... not food animal, we don't eat them," M'gann tried to explain. "They actually host a kind of... not-fungus that grows on their shells. It's high in proteins and stores a lot of water in fibrous cells, so it makes up a staple in a lot of our foods."
M'gann knew what a Shull looked like, how many legs they had, how to determine their health by their shell condition and pretty much everything else but actually explaining everything to someone that had no frame of reference felt rather daunting.
Then there was trying to explain the szill'ech that grew on their shells. They were basically plants, especially in the makeup of their cellular structure except they didn't have a root structure and propogated in a way that was closer to fungal spores.
"So ranchers," Alchemist said, simplifying the vocation that M'gann's family did down to a single word. There didn't seem to be any negative connotations in his mind, though. Something she actually did appreciate, given the number of people on both Earth and Mars alike that seemed to think that farmers and ranchers were 'simple' people that couldn't be bothered with more 'intellectually' demanding jobs. "You know, half the people that I worked under in my last life, they came from agricultural backgrounds. Me and the other grunts, we'd all joke about how they went into manufacturing because they couldn't be bothered doing things like hard work. Or counting."
M'gann snorted down a laugh, slightly horrified for the wizard's sake because she knew he wasn't joking.
"So why did you go into manufacturing?" she asked as they passed a green Martian.
One of her brothers, D'a'ann M'gann realized when she recognized the unique timber of his voice, the feeling of his curiosity.
The girl waved and sent back a joyful greeting, getting an excited wave in return. The older Martian put down the creature he had been handling, an animal nearly the size of a small dog with a dozen chitinous legs that extended out from under a smooth, black shell covered in flaky green circles.
A young shull, its shell covered in juvenile szill'ech spores.
The shull was quick to scuttle away, hiding behind a rocky outcropping as D'a'ann hurried to catch up to M'gann and Alchemist.
"I needed a job," Alchemist explained, slowing his pace so D'a'ann could catch up. "Rent, bills, food. I didn't have any special skills and there wasn't any family business to inherit. My granparents on one side used to be farmers but they sold the land instead of passing it to any of their dozen kids. The factory I ended up working at, though, they had open positions and they were willing to train people. These days, not a lot of places are willing to do that."
"M'gann?!" D'a'ann 'shouted' as he got close to them. M'gann slid to the side and off of Alchemist's back, spreading her arms out wide as her older brother rushed to her. He grabbed her in a tight hug, lifting her off the ground and squeezing her against his chest for a moment. "We've all been so worried! Uncle J'onn said you were doing well, but... how are you here?"
"Magic," M'gann said, filling the word with the memories of Alchemist's Gate spells, how they bypassed space by opening doors through dimensional barriers instead. "I wanted to visit. I wanted to share some of what I've been doing on Earth with everyone here!"
"M'gann..." D'a'ann's voice was somber as he put her down. "You know our parents are going to try and keep you here. We were all so worried when you left. And M'comm... he took it especially hard."
"M'comm?" M'gann asked, looking up to her older brother's face. Searching for an explanation.
"...Our parents can explain," D'a'ann, though, kept whatever was troubling him back. She could certainly feel that there was something there, she could even dig it up if she were so inclined, but... "Come on! Let's go tell everyone that you're back! Em'ree is going to be so excited to see you!"
"Alright!" M'gann agreed, her worry pushed down as she joined her brother in his excitement. "I can't wait to see everyone again- Oh! You're all going to be so excited; we made food! From Earth!"
Following her brother the rest of the way towards their home, M'gann couldn't help but be swept up in his joy, his eagerness. She knew the reunion wasn't going to be easy, she knew that...
But she'd missed Mars. She'd missed her home.
She missed her family.
-----
In another realm, far outside of the Source Wall and disconnected from the multiverse of DC, a woman hovered high in the air above the crown of a grand tree.
The Valkyrie, whole and complete for the first time after being shattered in the distant past of her world. Truly aware of herself, the whole of her self, rather than the suffocating limitations she'd suffered under for so long. There were no more manipulations by Odin the Schemer, there were no magics left to sunder her soul and force her to sleep.
Garbed in silver armor, the woman was deathly still as she floated above the nine realms.
She was the goddess of Fate, yet she'd been unable to avert her own demise. The piece of her that had been Lenneth, the fragment of herself that presided over the present, had been unable to shift the coming of Ragnarok. Unable to undo the secrets and plots of the god Loki or the clever, scheming necromancer, Lezard Valeth.
With her eyes closed, the Valkyrie could see what had been meant to occur. Lenneth had been meant to take her place. Incomplete, her vision clouded, Lenneth the Creator would have stood against Loki and utilized her new body's abilities to fully realize the light of her soul. With the Trickster slain, Lenneth would lay claim to the two treasures he'd possessed, the Dragon Orb and the spear, Gungnir, completing the set with her own Demon Blade, Levantine and the Elven Bow.
Lenneth would have harnessed these treasures, unlocking the full strength of the Present and undoing Ragnarok. Reclaiming from death the soul of her beloved Einherjar, Lucian.
The Valkyrie was tempted to do the same. The part of her that was Lenneth, the piece of her that had been a young, foolish mortal girl named Platina wished so fervently to bring him back to her side. To feel the warmth of his hand in hers, to know that he cared for her, that he'd been willing to fight for her of his own volition instead of any grim agreement made with a plunderer of souls.
The Valkyrie was tempted to restore the man's soul, to reclaim it from the cycle of rebirth... but she was not so selfish.
Her darling Lucian was a failure, through no fault of his own. He would forever suffer under the crushing weight of his own doubts if she brought him back.
What, then, was the Valkyrie to do? She was more than Lenneth, she was also Silmeria and Hrist. She saw not just the present, but also the past and, once upon a time, she had borne witness to the future.
It was a strange thing, the goddess ruminated as she opened her eyes to look down upon the yellowing crown of Yggdrasil. Before her sundering, she knew all things past, present and future. Yet now, as her power grew in a body that knew no limits, the future was a fragmentary, broken thing. Broken images in a shattered mirror, reflecting a future that was...
Unwritten.
The woman turned her gaze upwards, to the stars above.
Without her intervention, the nine realms would shatter. Odin's scheming had weakened all but Asgard and Loki had seen fit to use the strength the elder god had stockpiled against itself. Even Yggdrasil was dying, her roots chewed apart by the foul, venomous dragon Nidhoggr.
The Valkyrie closed her eyes and sighed in exhaustion.
The realms would fall. Yggdrasil would die. Yet, in time, Midgard would rise again. Humans would repopulate, rediscover lost technologies and rise to heights that would rival Asgard.
And, in time, Lucian would be reborn. A different name, a different face.
A different fate.
Were she still just Lenneth the Creator, the Valkyrie would steal away the future. Now, complete, she looked upon such a possibility and was forced to ask herself if she truly wished to stagnate the future for the sake of enjoying the present.
She... could not.
It hurt. Worse than having her soul ripped apart. But her desire for selfish happiness, the possibility of ruling over Asgard in Odin's seat...
The Aesir had used her. Manipulated her, shattered her mind and forced her to send them the souls of powerful mortals to fight their battles.
She had no home among them. There was nothing left for her, here. She had no purpose, no drive...
The Valkyrie inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with thin, cold air as she contemplated her existence.
The past was set. The present was in motion. The future...
The Valkyrie reached down to her pouch, one hand briefly skimming the surface of the Dragon Orb before she extracted a folded piece of paper.
"Make sure your future is bright, alright?"
Small notes that had been left behind for her. She'd thought she was being mocked, but... she remembered the man that had written them. She remembered his final words to her before he and his companion had disappeared.
Her future was unwritten. She was... free.
It was new. It was novel! It was... frightening.
Opening her silver eyes once more, the Valkyrie looked down upon the nine realms. Upon the dying branches of Yggdrasil.
The realms held nothing more for her. She... had no future, here.
The Valkyrie brought one hand up to her chest and clenched it into a fist, it shook with the tension that filled her frame.
"My name," she declared upon the howling winds "is Norn! Goddess of Fate! And I..."
Her eyes squeezed shut as tears spilled from the sides. As she looked to the murky, broken future. Nothing was certain, nothing was assured any more.
But releasing a grip that held her senses in check, she could still gaze upon the myriad shattered possibilities of the future. Images flashed before her eyes, of battles, of victories and losses. There were too many, too many and all too often the participants would shift and change before her very eyes.
Focusing on the dying tree below, she limited her view significantly. The great ash tree had, even with its dying breath, produced seeds. Sown far and wide, taken by a traveler-
"@**&@%$#%, Alchemist, Alec Mist, you might know me as 'A' though."
In a distant future, in a world not her own, Norn saw a young man standing before her three aspects. The presence of the trio stabilized the possibility, rising from merely potential to a likelihood. She could not hear what was said, did not know what surrounded the event, but...
"...And I choose Freedom."
"You went threw my trash?!?!"
Oops, my bad.