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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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28/11/2010
A hefty mug of coffee saw Diana off to a good start for her day.
Batman was in the Hall of Justice, doing his part and being seen with Captain Atom while the other members were either taking care of things on their end or, like her, were on call in the Watchtower for emergencies.
It had been hard, lately, for her to find time to relax. Her little sparring session with Alchemist had been the first break she'd had in weeks of fielding inquiries from the U.N. and hunting down mission logs and reports to corroborate, well, a lot of things.
The woman took a long sip as she leaned back in the chair she'd claimed in the monitor room. She also had a fairly large bowl of Wonder-Os. A sugary, terrible cereal that she still couldn't believe she'd approved the use of her image for but, well...
It had been one of the few legal sources of revenue for Wonder Woman that wasn't tied up in Themysciran funds. The company, WayneAggro, also sent her a free box every week.
So that was something.
Yes, she knew who owned WayneAggro. Yes, she knew who she was accepting money from.
Look, it was either that or she'd be stuck asking her mom for money. And that got embarrasing after the first fifty years.
...It did taste good, though. Diana wouldn't argue about that.
Chewing on a mouthful of sugar and milk, Diana was distracted from staring at a screen full of nothing when she felt her phone going off.
She didn't recognize the number that was calling her.
"Hello?" Diana asked, a mustache of milk hovering over her top lip as she spoke. "Who is this?"
"Diana, hey, it's Alchemist."
"...How did you get my number?" She wasn't actually upset that he had it, she knew he wouldn't do anything too foolish with it.
She just needed to know how he got the number to the cell phone she used for her ambassadorial duties.
"I couldn't find a number to contact you with and this isn't really League business, so I sent a text to Flash. And he went and got this number for me from -his- mentor."
...Garrick. Alright. That made sense.
"What did you need, Alchemist?" Diana asked. She looked down and considered the rest of her cereal... then set it aside.
"I've got a message for Alan Scott. I was wondering if you'd be willing to deliver it for me?"
"It depends on the message but I might be able to do that for you."
Diana had been planning out how to try and tell the old man what she'd discovered. She was struggling mightily with it, considering the truth of Rose wasn't exactly an easy topic to broach.
"Well, it's more like a package," Alchemist admitted from the other end of the conversation. "I'm pretty sure he'll understand the message, though."
"...Is this a guy thing?" Diana had to ask.
"I'm pretty sure you'll understand when you see the package, too." Alchemist sounded... smug. Whatever he had in mind would either be impressive, very specifically impactful or else it meant something to the wizard that few others would understand.
"...Is this a penis joke?" Diana had to ask.
"...No. No it's not."
"Alright. Give me one second, and..." Being in the monitor room actually did work to Diana's benefit in this case. It meant that the controls for the onboard Zeta Terminal were within easy reach! "Alright. I've got a code for you to use the Zeta Terminal to come up to the Watchtower. It will only be good for about thirty minutes before it resets, so-"
"...You do know that I can just teleport, right?" Alchemist's voice echoed through Diana's phone and from the room just down the hall.
"...Yes," Diana said as she stood up and began to walk out of the room. "But some of the other members get nervous about people being inside of the Watchtower that aren't logged and registered."
"Wow." Alchemist could still be heard as Diana ended the call and stowed her phone away. "That must really upset Batman."
"It does," she agreed as she finally caught sight of the man. Alchemist stood in front of the Zeta Terminal wearing his 'work' clothes. A white, long-sleeve shirt with a hood that had a row of red triangles wrapping around every opening, a pair of blue-jeans and work boots.
It didn't look professional at all, something that likely harmed the image many held of the man... but she'd seen his 'professional' attire. Jet black armor that didn't bend under her fists and a faceless helmet that betrayed nothing of what the man inside was thinking.
Diana also took note of the long sword the man was carrying in both hands. And, more importantly, the emblem that stood out on the scabbard in brilliant green.
An old oil lantern, as seen from the front.
"Is that the message for Alan?" Diana asked as she reached out to take the weapon. Alchemist handed it over to her, hilt first, and the woman was surprised at the weight.
Or, rather, the lack thereof.
Between the wooden scabbard and the blade within, it weighed somewhere between one, maybe one and a half kilograms. Unusually light but not extremely so....
Grabbing the hilt, Diana also noted that there was some extra length to the handle. Easily enough for her to hold the weapon with both hands comfortably.
But it was when she pulled the sword free that Diana found herself breathless.
The workmanship looked rather simple, at a glance. There was no adornment to the weapon, no artistic filigree or whorls or waves. The straight guard of the sword did not have any gems or jewels embedded within.
That was not to say that the blade was lacking in color. While the heart and core of the sword was forged of the same black metal as the knife Batman had given her a long time back, the edges of the weapon were a brilliant, solid green. A verdant color with which she was quite familiar.
It glowed with the same light as could be found in Hal Jordan's or John Stewart's eyes.
"...What -is- that!?" Speaking of which, one of the Lanterns in question had just stepped into the room.
"Hello!" Alchemist called, greeting the newcomers.
"Solid Willpower?" a new, wizened voice asked.
An unfamiliar voice, actually. Something that drew Diana's eyes away from the impossible weapon and to the new arrival.
Hal Jordan stood next to a small, squat blue man that wore the same outfit as him. A small, squat blue man with a surprisingly large head.
"Yep," Alchemist answered. "Solid Will, attached to a core of Adamantine Alloy."
Diana stared at the wizard, boggled at the impossible claim that he'd made.
"...May I?" the little man asked as he approached Diana with his arms held out. "I must see this for myself!"
Diana glanced to Alchemist, who nodded, before she leaned down and handed the weapon over to the yet-unnamed Green Lantern. The little man unsheathed the weapon, at least partially, so that he could see the verdant green blade.
"Alchemist?" Hal asked. "Where did you get this?"
"My workshop."
"You mean to tell me that you manufactured this?" the little blue man asked.
"Yes," the wizard answered.
Diana was still a bit stuck on the fact that the largest piece of Will that she'd ever seen before now had been the power battery used by one of the Green Lanterns that she worked with.
"How?" Hal asked as he leaned down to look at the tool.
"Well, the first step actually involved getting some metal heating up in my forge while I figured out what design I should use," Alchemist began to explain, a small smile working its way on to his face. "The real trick was deciding how to join the two materials. I could have probably done a sort of sleeve held together under the guard but I felt that my chosen method would offer more stability."
Diana... had no idea how to answer that. She wasn't a smith.
"No, I mean, how did you get your hands on the Will to do this?" Hal clarified. "I was sure that only the Oans could do this!"
"Zombies," Alchemist answered, as though that actually clarified anything.
As though that...
Wait...
Were there zombies of heroes in Player One's Illusion Dungeon?!
No, no, Alchemist would have needed to get both of the Green Lanterns power batteries to get enough material for the blade of that sword.
"I don't think that explains things very clearly," Diana admitted as she tried to figure out what sort of illogic Alchemist was operating on.
Or perhaps he was being deliberately obtuse?
"Ah, yeah, fair enough," Alchemist said before he cleared his throat and continued. "I got a sample of a broken Green Lantern ring off of a zombie that was used as a base to transmute lesser materials into physical Will."
"I... do not believe I am aware of the Earth possessing such technology," the little blue man admitted as he sheathed the blade.
"It actually falls under the magi-technical skills of Transmutation, one of the key areas of study in Alchemy," Alchemist explained as he crouched down to the elderly blue man. "Which would fit, given that the name I use is Alchemist."
Alchemist actually held his hand out to the little Green Lantern, and the small man reached out to grab his hand.
"And I am Ganthet, one of the Guardians of Oa." The two shook hands and Diana sent an almost panicked glance towards Hal as she realized that Alchemist was in the same room as a foreign diplomat. "So, you were the one that was held under torture by Apokoliptian technology?"
"Briefly, yes," Alchemist agreed, not a drop of shame in his voice. "And you would be the lone progressive among the Maltusians of Oa."
"Well, not the lone progressive," the now-named Ganthet demurred before he handed the sword back to Diana. "Though we are the minority, unfortunately. Now, I understand that you managed to counteract a rare and dangerous piece of technology by invoking..."
Diana stared in confusion as the two began to walk towards the cafeteria, actually talking to each other. Talking -to- each other.
"What... just happened?" Hal asked as he watched the two disappear around a corner.
"...I have no idea," Diana admitted. "But whatever it was, it wasn't what I was expecting."
-----
Robin wasn't sure how he felt as he, Kid Flash and Aqualad ducked under a line of police tape at a 'crime scene'. Outside, Zatanna was keeping watch.
The building they walked into was... not quite decrepit, but certainly ill-maintained. Some of the windows didn't have blinds or curtains, old stains littered the carpets, some of the cabinets in the kitchen were only hanging on by one hinge.
It reminded him a lot of the little trailer home he used to share with his parents, before their murder. Always on the road, never quite poor but definitely struggling, the need to put a few things off here and there that always ended up being put off a little more, a little more and then a little more after that.
The Hayes home in New York, what should have been the home of Harm and Secret.
Instead Harm, Billy Hayes, was in Juvenile Detention following an arrest for Marijuana and Secret, Greta Hayes, was living homeless on the streets.
It... didn't make any sense.
"This place looks like it's right out of a murder movie," Kid Flash commented as he opened the fridge and disrupted some roaches that had been nesting underneath. "Like, not even a murder mystery. Straight up gore-fest kind of stuff."
"According to what I could get, the two occupants were basically children. Seventeen year old, male, dropped out of school to hold a job. He had a sister, fourteen years old and still in school." Saying it all out like that, it made what had happened tragic and what would have happened even worse.
Robin hadn't told the others about the video Alchemist had shared with Batman. He didn't know where to begin trying to explain that he'd seen a record of what should have happened. And he definitely didn't know how to explain that the building they were in was supposed to have been a murder scene, not a drug bust of questionable validity.
"...Isn't this a bit beneath us?" Aqualad asked as he opened one of the doors in a hallway in the small, dilapidated house. "I thought we had something of genuine importance to do."
"We were asked to find evidence of corruption leading to an illegal arrest," Kid Flash told off the older boy. "That's not 'unimportant', bro."
"...I know, I just..." Aqualad sighed and ran a hand through his hair, short though it may have been. "This is my first week free of my duties in Atlantis. The queen has proven to be a very demanding mother, you see? I was hoping for something less..."
Aqualad waved an arm into the room and Robin leaned around him to look inside. The scene that was revealed to him showed a room that had been torn apart, drawers ripped out of the dresser, clothes scattered across the floor and the barren bed flipped against the wall, its stuffing spread out around the room.
The police... hadn't found what they were looking for.
"I know," Robin told the older boy. And he understood, he really did. Fighting supervillains was easy... Well, no, it wasn't 'easy'. It was simple. "But this is the real part of being a hero instead of a soldier."
Robin stepped around Aqualad and into the room to start his own searching.
None of the normal hiding places turned up anything. And none of the good hiding places had much in them beyond dead bugs. Even the spots the cops hadn't wrecked in pursuit of nothing turned up, well, nothing.
No money. No drugs. And there wasn't anything 'new' or 'valuable' throughout the house.
Not furniture, not clothes, definitely not bedding.
"...I don't think there's anything here," Robin finally admitted as he closed the door of a closet full of girl's clothing.
"So the cops got everything?" Kid Flash asked. The boy was leaning against a doorway with his arms crossed. Following his gaze, Robin saw a roach crawling along the opposite wall of the speedster.
"They didn't even look," Robin denied with a shake of his head. "The kitchen had a lot of canned foods and instant ramen. Spaghetti was probably their idea of a good meal."
And it could be. But it would take a bit more work and preparation than ground beef and canned sauce.
"So they didn't have the money to be doing drugs. And they don't show any of the normal signs of coming into money by dealing drugs." The television in the living room had been a floor model, a big and heavy block of wood and glass with a cheap, HD antenna on top. The computer, while functional, had likely been used when the Hayes got it. Probably from a school that was upgrading. "If the guy living here had been able to afford a lawyer? They'd have gotten the case dismissed straight off."
Robin couldn't tell them about what Billy Hayes was supposed to have done. It hadn't happened, not if Greta was still alive and the supposedly mystical sword was still safely tucked away in the museum.
Which meant Billy was innocent. And whatever conflict Robin felt over that, it didn't matter.
Justice wasn't about what people 'could' have done. It wasn't about what people 'would' go on to do. Billy was innocent of what he'd been accused of and he was suffering for a crime he didn't commit.
"So, what are we going to do?" Aqualad asked as he held up the police tape so Robin and Kid Flash could leave the abandoned house.
"I'll use Batman's contacts to get a hold of some local lawyers," Robin explained as he hunched in on himself and started to shiver. The cold air of late November and the biting wind ripped the heat from his thin frame almost immediately.
His shivering came to an abrupt halt as Zatanna snapped her fingers and cast something on him that brought his shirt and pants up to a comfortable temperature.
"If the guy was innocent, why'd he get arrested and tried?" Kid Flash asked.
"The police got started and there wasn't any kind of pressure on them to be honest or admit they were wrong," Robin explained with a shrug as he crossed his arms to try and keep them warm. "I wouldn't be surprised if they're getting some kind of a kickback from the prisons, either. More inmates means more money and they don't care about whether or not someone is innocent."
Robin hated admitting that. He hated knowing how many of the cops in Gotham were corrupt and the fact that Batman actually kept a spreadsheet detailing which cops had which vices and which ones would be useful in certain situations versus when they would be liabilities.
It was godawful and depressing.
Robin remembered how useless the police had been in catching the man that murdered his parents. He pushed back at that uncertainty and sadness with anger and straightened his spine.
"That's awful," Zatanna said. The girl knew how bad things could get, she was a Gotham native but... Well, Robin honestly thought that Giovanni might have kept the girl a bit too sheltered.
"That's why we're here," Robin argued as he took up the lead. "So we can make sure that innocent people don't suffer. Whether that's from supervillains or corruption, we're the ones that stand against it."
-----
In the distance, a girl with blonde hair and brilliant green eyes watched.
She'd said her piece and the heroes were finally, finally doing theirs.
Flipping the hood of her shirt up, Greta disappeared into an alley.
She would wait. And she would watch. For justice, if they intended on doing their jobs.
Or, the girl swallowed thickly as she touched on a knife hidden in her hoodie.
Vengeance, if they wouldn't.
-----
"Would you care for coffee, or tea?" Alchemist asked as he and Ganthet entered the kitchen on the Watchtower.
It was very... coincidental that the man, sometimes god, would be on the space station at the same time that he was delivering a tool for Alan Scott.
"Coffee, perhaps?" Ganthet shrugged, largely unconcerned it would seem. "All of the Lanterns from Earth seemed quite fixated on it during their training. And quite displeased that there were no analogues on Oa."
Alchemist hummed quietly and turned to busy himself with the coffee maker.
"So, what has the Guardians so concerned that they would send someone to check on things in person?" the wizard asked as he debated the best way to serve the beverage.
Giving straight, black coffee to someone that had never had it before would be... bracing.
"Quite a number of things, it would seem. And your name has come up in quite a few of the reports that we found rather... concerning." Ganthet sounded more curious than concerned, which Alchemist would take as a win. On the list of people he wanted at his side, the Green Lantern Corps actually numbered, collectively, in the top ten.
"Well, I'd be happy to answer whatever questions you have. Provided I can, of course."
"Of course," Ganthet agreed. The man had actually taken to hovering at Alchemist's side and watching as he put together the ingredients that would go into the coffee.
It was just milk and sugar, really, but that would still make the beverage infinitely more palatable.
"One of the more concerning reports that we received was a notice that some of your scientists were experimenting with cell clusters taken from an entity known as 'Starro the Destroyer'. A rather significant interstellar threat."
"I'm aware," Alchemist answered the leading statement. "A space-faring hive-mind creature that uses lesser copies of itself to subsume the mind of an unwilling host. Has it been handled?"
"...It has not," Ganthet said, regret clear in his voice. "Without being active, Green Lantern doctrine does not allow our local agents the leeway to apprehend the samples. And your 'Star Labs' has refused to surrender the samples without an order from the appropriate authorities."
"Lovely." Alchemist quietly sighed, conveying rather clearly that the news was anything but. "And I know you can't do anything about the Reach sniffing around until after they outright violate their treaty, so that's..."
"An unfortunate conundrum, yes," Ganthet agreed, an equally quiet sigh on his lips. "...Among the myriad reasons that I came here was the fact that you, specifically, were exposed to an Agony Matrix. I would very much like to take a scan to see if your ability to survive can be understood."
"Go for it," the wizard readily agreed.
In front of him, the coffee machine began to drip black liquid into a mug.
Next to him, the Guardian held his hand out, his ring glowing, and a thin beam reached out to Alchemist. It expanded, surrounding the wizard in a green aura. Portions of it pulsated, a thick band that started at Alchemist's head and moved down to his feet before moving back up.
"...Hmm, fascinating," Ganthet muttered, his tiny eyes glowing green as he processed whatever his ring was telling him. "Alchemist, have you been in contact with entities from the Silver City?"
"Just one," Alchemist said as he reached for the milk, then paused. "Well, maybe two? The second one didn't originate from the Silver City but she's changed into a member of their species in exile."
"Strangely enough, your answers generate more questions. I believe I now see why Lantern Stewart finds dealing with you rather... trying." The green glow around Alchemist cut off and Ganthet accepted the mug of coffee that Alchemist had made for him. As they moved over to take a seat, the Oan continued to talk. "I ask because, while I could find no lingering traces of harm left over from the Agony Matrix, I did encounter some unusual higher-dimensional resonance artifacts centered around you. While I cannot begin to guess as to their purpose, this is fairly similar to what we've recorded during our rare encounters with those entities in the past."
"Well, I have a means of healing the damage inflicted by the Matrix. And I made use of it after ensuring that I was scanned by a local member of the Lantern Corps so they would have a record in case more pieces of that technology made their way to Earth." Alchemist hadn't made any coffee for himself. Instead, he simply reached into his inventory for a bottle of water. "As for what Helel and I got up to? That's between us, I'm afraid. What they did was only relevant to myself."
"I see..." Ganthet held the mug up to his face and took an experimental sniff of the vapors wafting off of the coffee. "And did you encounter any additional pieces of technology with the same origins as the Matrix?"
"A Fatherbox inscribed with the concept of 'Failure', yes," Alchemist admitted as the small man took a small sip of his beverage.
Ganthet obviously moved the liquid from side to side in his mouth for a moment before swallowing and looking down into the mug.
"I do not believe I am aware of what a 'Fatherbox' is," Ganthet admitted. "And I find it quite concerning that you seem to be oddly aware of events and technologies that we do not know of."
"I ran into a recording of potential future events," Alchemist admitted. He took a slow sip of his water as Ganthet raised one big, bushy white eyebrow in curiosity. "It's become less and less reliable as it's been acted on, however. Events have been kicked out of place and I can't really guess why in some cases. Anyway, as to the Fatherbox? It's basically a Motherbox except they're designed from the core up to propagate the belief in Tyranny and they can open 'Hushtubes', Boomtubes without the boom."
Alchemist took another sip of his water as Ganthet's complexion grew chalky.
"The one I encountered was being utilized to prop up a mad psychic that had worked himself up to a gestalt body but didn't actually have the means to sustain it. And, as I mentioned, it was inscribed with the metaphysical concept of 'Failure'. Which was quite a lot less surprising than it really should have been, all things said and done." Alchemist took another sip as he let that all sink into the Guardian. "I managed to counteract that by inscribing the Life Equation into the Fatherbox after I stole it from the gestalt."
"So, our readings were not in error." Ganthet took another draw from his coffee and this time he didn't spend the time to properly taste it. "If I might ask, where did you learn the Life Equation?"
"It's actually part of the religion over on Mars," Alchemist admitted. "Although I couldn't begin to guess at how they figured it out. Might have something to do with being a favored species of Dream?"
"...We try to avoid drawing the ire of the Endless," Ganthet admitted, his voice faint. "It has not ended well for us in the past."
"I know. Dream has re-aspected, though. He's still severe but a bit more... forgiving. If you and yours asked for a reprieve from his punishment, he might be willing to grant it now."
The Guardian didn't say anything for a long time after that. Either he was considering everything Alchemist had told him, or else he was dealing with a handful of other internal issues.
"...If I might ask, were you trying to poison me?" Ganthet asked as he held up his mostly-empty mug.
"...No?"
"Then your species naturally consumes a methylxanthine?"
Alchemist stared at the Oan for a long moment and slowly mouthed out the word he'd just said. Frowning in confusion as he failed to recognize it, the wizard pulled out his phone and ran a quick search on it.
"...I think you mean caffeine," Alchemist said as he read through the listed articles. "It's a naturally occurring compound in a handful of plants that we consume on Earth. Coffee beans included."
"...I had always wondered why Humans had such a robust cardiovascular system," Ganthet muttered to himself. "I had no idea that they consumed such a potent stimulant as part of their regular diet..."
Alchemist let the small man continue to talk to himself. Or maybe he was talking to his ring?
Still, it was better than Larfleeze talking at his ring. That one was just plain crazy.
-----
"...What are they doing in there?" Superman asked as he struggled to make sense of what he was seeing and hearing. Some of the things the two were talking about, he knew a bit to make some connections but there was so much being said that relied on context he just didn't have.
"I have no idea," Flash admitted as he, too, stared from the doorway.
Alchemist and the Guardian were just sitting at a table. Drinking their beverages and just... talking.
"I'm just surprised nobody has gotten angry with someone, yet," Lantern Stewart admitted. He couldn't hear what the two were talking about, he was no Superman, but he could see his superior pale at whatever the wizard had told him.
"...It could just be a normal conversation," Captain Atom suggested, though even he doubted his words.
"Given his track record, Alchemist is probably telling him things that are terrifying, horrifying or just... impossible," Wonder Woman said as the conversation within the Watchtower kitchens carried on.
They didn't know what all was going on. They didn't know what was being said.
But, like the gossip mongers they all secretly were (except the Flash, who was very open about it), they all wanted to know but none of them wanted to intrude.
