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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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Imra Ardeen considered herself well-versed on the arts of heroics. Negotiation, combat, conflict resolution... they were all considered to be the cornerstones of heroics by the thirtieth century. They were well studied, debated and practiced long before she'd been born on Titan, largest moon of Saturn.
She'd put in long hours to study the history of her star system. From ancient Earth to the now-dead treaties of Mars, she'd even looked into the many colonies that peppered Sol and read what was available about their founding.
She thought she knew a lot.
"Oh, god!" the man in the white and red shirt wheezed as he laughed, practically bent in half. "How are you so bad at time travel!"
She thought wrong
He'd claimed he was Alchemist.
He'd claimed to be one of the most debated figures from the twenty-first century. Spoken of in whispers with the same uncertainty as Batman.
And he was standing next to a Guardian!
"We're kind of new at this," Chameleon Boy said from next to her as he awkwardly raised his hand up to rub at the back of his head. "So we're kind of making it up as we go along?"
"No, no, I get-" the man was cut off by his own laughter. "I get that! But the rules of time travel are- Has nobody gone over how to not completely destroy the past with you?"
"...No?" Imra admitted with a sigh before she uncrossed her arms.
They had to wait a moment for 'Alchemist' to get his laughter under control but the man did calm back down after a moment. Then he started handing out bottles of water and pointed to the seats that were situated around the room.
Saturn Girl accepted the antiquated collectable, as did Chameleon Boy before 'Alchemist' set a few more bottles on the desk with the terminal and sat back down himself.
"So, do you want me to give you the quick and dirty rules or should we have Ganthet properly explain the do's and dont's of making a mess of the timeline?" the large man asked.
He seemed... unconcerned. Strangely so, given that Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy were time travelers that arrived without warning. It almost seemed as though...
Imra swallowed a mouthful of water wrong when she caught sight of a text document on the computer near the man. With a very familiar document that she'd read a dozen times over.
A document that shouldn't exist yet!
Saturn Girl coughed and hacked to clear her lungs. She was confused, off center and starting to worry that this might have been a mistake.
"Let's try taking things quick and dirty," Chameleon Boy suggested, oblivious to what was bothering her.
The discussion petered to a quick halt, however, as some of the doors leading to private suites in the clinic opened and a couple of people poked their heads out. One blonde girl with blue eyes so close to Saturn Girl's own and...
Tinya.
"Saturn Girl?" Tinya asked as she stepped out of the room.
Tinya looked... fine. Healthy, even. Phantom Girl was being taken care of, properly.
"Tinya," Imra said as she stood back up. "You... you look good!"
The two girls embraced, wrapping each other into a tight hug. Imra had worried that they wouldn't find her, had felt so desperately scared when Tinya got trapped in the Phantom Zone in the past but...
"Yeah," Tinya said, her voice thick with emotion. "Someone... someone cut a deal with one of the gods. Then Alchemist, he healed me. Just like..."
Just like the stories, Tinya did not say.
"So!" Alchemist loudly called out to the room. "Time travel! The do's, which are few, and the don'ts, which are many."
"...Fine," Imra said, as she walked back over to her chair, Tinya hanging on to her hand. The unnamed blonde girl followed as well, but kept a bit more distance. "What are the rules of time travel?"
"Number one rule?" Alchemist began to explain with a wide grin on his face. "Do not have sex with people in the past. You run into all sorts of problems, like becoming your own grandparent. Or passing on an infection that you're a carrier for but not symptomatic."
"...This is going to be just like listening to a member of the Science Counsel, isn't it?" the nameless blonde girl asked.
"Possibly," the Guardian agreed before he turned towards Alchemist. "Though, that is actually considered number four in the Green Lantern handbook of time travel."
"What's number one for you guys?" Alchemist asked as he set his unopened bottle of water down on the desk.
"Performing unapproved time travel," the little blue man said, his voice completely serious.
"...Number one rule of time travel; don't." Alchemist laughed. And the serious blue man cracked a tiny grin. "Love it. It's a great rule, one I try to live by."
"...Uh, listen," Chameleon Boy interrupted the duo. "We, uh, we're just supposed to pick up Tinya and go home. Can we just... go?"
"Fine, fine," Alchemist said with a wave of his hands. "I won't stop you."
"...Where are you going?" the blonde girl asked, openly and obviously confused.
"Forward to the year three-thousand," Tinya said before Imra could open her mouth. "I'm going home."
"...Oh," the girl, and Imra really wished that she'd asked her name. "Can I come? The Earth is so... primitive."
"I'd strongly suggest against that, actually," Alchemist cut in. At the confused looks he got from Saturn Girl, Phantom Girl, Chameleon Boy and unnamed blonde number two he cleared his throat and began to explain. "The year three-thousand is an unpleasant and very silly place. One of the supposed heroes is a next-generation Brainiac who's made multiple attempts at killing his teammates to soothe his ego. Their Legion of Superheroes, thousands of people strong, was taken down by a group of five mediocre metahumans, one of which was using a prototype of the Green Lantern ring."
"...How could you possibly know that?" Imra asked. Alchemist opened his mouth to answer but she cut him off. "No, actually, I don't care how you know that! If you're Alchemist, then you're the one responsible for Infinity Bastion. Then you're the one responsible for the Adamant Guard, for the likes of Archmage Bonnibel or Skycaptain Redfox. For those murderers killing hundreds of heroes that were mind controlled into attacking the realm you crafted!"
"...Cute," the man was still smiling at her but Chameleon Boy had gone deathly still. "That's not how the transfer of responsibility works, but cute nonetheless. Go home, Miss Ardeen, and leave time travel alone. If I catch you in the past again, you'll be returning to the future the hard way."
"You really think a villain like-" Imra's potential tirade was cut off by Tinya grabbing her wrist. The psychic silenced herself and looked to her side, to the warning in Phantom Girl's eyes. Then over to the fear that was dripping off of Chameleon Boy's chair.
The room felt... dark. Darker than it had before. Darker still than anything she'd felt before. And the silence seemed to close in around her, suffocating her.
Imra swallowed thickly. That...
He wasn't seven meters tall. He wasn't wearing an archaic suit of black armor that the legends such as Superman or Wonder Woman couldn't punch through. There was no sword at his hip, chained shut in black metal.
But that feeling? The oppressive darkness, the whispers crawling out of the shadows that she could hear in her mind?
That was very, very well recorded.
That really was Alchemist.
"...Fine," Imra said, her voice cracking as her false bravado failed her. "We-We'll just... go."
She turned her head to look at the other blonde girl but she just shook her head in the negative.
That... was unfortunate. Imra didn't know who she was but Alchemist hadn't been lying.
And they really could have used every bit of help they could get to deal with the Fatal Five in the far future.
-----
Alchemist watched the trio enter the Time Sphere with a gimlet eye, his mood soured.
Angry teenagers who think they know everything... Now or one-thousand years into the future, there really wasn't any difference.
As the time machine shifted from yellow to red, Alchemist took a small sip of his water and just watched. Waited as the vehicle disappeared from the infirmary.
"So..." The wizard turned his head enough to give Ganthet a bit of side eye. "Is the radiation this thing throws out going to give us cancer?"
"...No," the small man admitted as he stared down at his ring. "It's certainly riddled with negative side-effects but nothing biological... I can't believe they would use such a primitive... dirty form of time displacement."
"Being disconnected from the local time stream would be something of an issue," Alchemist agreed as he swiped at a pair of screens in front of his face.
~~ Perk Acquired! ~~
~~ Temporal Immunity ~~
~~ Changes made to the timeline will no longer directly impact you! ...Please don't try and Phillip J. Fry yourself. ~~
~~ Perk Acquired! ~~
~~ Paradox Immunity ~~
~~ Changes made in the past will no longer erase the holder of this perk! ~~
"Yes, it makes time travel equivalent to dimensional travel for the victim. Except there is no true path to be traveled that could return you to where you once came from." Ganthet sighed and dropped his hand to his side. "And those exposed to chronoton radiation, especially as much as that... device... released? May find reality changing around them if something happens."
"Hmm..." Alchemist hummed, turning to look at Kara as he dropped the untouched water bottles into his inventory.
~~ Water, bottled (5) ~~
~~ Purity: 99% ~~
~~ A bottle of filtered, refreshing water. ~~
~~ Notice! Chronoton Radiation has suffused this object, offering it permanence in the face of temporal alterations! ~~
"I feel... weird," the Kryptonian muttered, swaying slightly where she stood before she grabbed the back of an empty chair. "Kind of... woozy? I don't like it."
"...Why don't you take a seat?" Alchemist offered as he stood up to approach the girl.
Kara glared at him, distrust clear in her eyes for a moment before she turned to look at Ganthet and her gaze softened. With a quiet huff, she walked around and sat down.
Ganthet approached, slowly walking across the distance of the room. The man rubbed at his chin as he looked at Kara, his gaze sliding up and down to assess the girl.
"Kryptonian?" the Guardian asked as he hovered up to look into her eyes.
"...Yes," Kara said, a touch of hostility in her voice. "One of the last of us."
"Yes, I'm well aware," Ganthet explained as he held out his hand and a thin beam of light covered the girl. "We sent a Lantern out to Krypton with equipment to stabilize your star once we'd learned that it was going to destroy your planet but..."
"Tomar-Re did his best," Alchemist attempted to console the pair. "He had a haul of stellarium ready to go. He just got blindsided by a super-nova. Rao wasn't willing to give up the tragedy it'd been planning for eons."
"...Stop saying that," Kara demanded, turning her head up to glare at the wizard. "I don't know what your problem is, but Rao was- is the god of our star. He -loved- us!"
Alchemist pursed his lips and held back a sigh.
Telling the girl that the primary god of her people had shattered their planet and toyed with fate to ensure that a single child escaped, all to try and impress Despair of the Endless? He somehow doubted it would go well.
"...I've got a spell that can erase radioactivity in an area or target," Alchemist offered instead. "Do you want me to give it a try and see if we can't reconnect you to the currents of time?"
Alchemist watched as Kara looked down to Ganthet, who nodded, before she looked up to him and gave him a hesitant nod in response.
Raising his hand, Alchemist focused for a second and snapped his fingers, casting Remove Radioactivity on the girl. She released a full-body shiver in response to the spell, wrapping her arms around her frame.
"That is the most curious thing I believe I've seen in years," Ganthet mumbled out loud as he continued to scan the girl. Alchemist silently raised an eyebrow and glanced at the spot that the Time Sphere had previously occupied. Well, different strokes for different folks and all that. "It... did not reverse the effects of the chronoton radiation, however. Her quantum signature is still slightly displaced from the rest of reality."
"...So what's that mean?" Kara asked as she began to warm back up.
"Well, on the upside? You can't be erased if someone goes and undoes your conception," Alchemist offered with a slim smile. "The downside is that, if someone goes back and ensures that the stellarium would reach Krypton in time? You won't know about it. Reality will change around you and you'll be left behind to discover the differences by yourself. Well, you'll suffer the same consequence either way. So I guess it's sort of all bad, in a way."
"Is any of that likely?" Kara asked. Her question was aimed down to the Guardian, however, and not Alchemist.
Which was fair. The little man genuinely did have more expertise than Alchemist did.
"Time travel is an entirely unpredictable phenomenon which does not adhere to the realities of statistics or predictive modeling," Ganthet explained. Judging by the way Kara's face dropped, it wasn't something she wanted to hear.
Alchemist was already aware of how... difficult time travel could be. For the traveler it might appear linear but, from on outside perspective, it just tangled knots into the timeline that were a nightmare to make sense of.
Plucking his phone out of his pocket, the wizard checked the time and audibly sighed.
"I'm going to have to get moving," Alchemist told the other two people in the room. "I've got a kid to feed."
"Hmm?" Ganthet barely acknowledged the wizard, focused as he was on whatever his ring was telling him. "Yes, yes, carry on..."
Kara barely seemed to be paying any attention to him, likely lost in whatever mire of depression the reminder of Krypton's fate had sent her to.
Alchemist just snapped his fingers and cast Teleport, sending him back to his island.
He had work to do. Yuffie needed lunch, Jinx needed to get pulled away from the enchanting table, Kary would want a spar and Alchemist desperately needed to get a feel for the shape and weight of the swords he'd made.
...And he had a handful of bottles of water that would be very, very handy in making rain over his island.
-----
Dinah Lance had been struggling to get her schedule straightened out for a while. Between finishing her current degree, working with the Justice League to get paperwork and presentations ready, propping up her floral shop, planning out her wedding with Oliver Queen...
She... didn't want to admit it, but not having Jinx underfoot had been... helpful.
And the awareness of that fact killed her. Just a little bit.
"One-Three: Black Canary," the computer announced as Dinah stepped out of the Zeta Terminal and on to the Watchtower.
An empty Watchtower.
Pursing her lips in confusion, Dinah looked around the room before heading deeper into the space station. She didn't find anyone in the console room, and the meeting rooms were likewise empty. She was actually starting to grow a bit concerned right up until she found everyone in the largest single room in the facility that didn't have an airlock.
The cafeteria.
When Black Canary said everyone, she almost meant it. Looking over the group of technicolor spandex, there was one dour individual missing. Batman.
Replacing him, however, was a little blue man in a jumpsuit similar to Hal's who was floating in front of a whiteboard. And holding a comically large mug of coffee in one trembling hand. The other had a long green rod extending out from his ring that he was using to point at things that were being written on the whiteboard by a multitude of markers that were held aloft by green tendrils that also came from the man's ring.
"-by utilizing elements that simultaneously exists in and beyond a state spiritually similar to creation, the residents of New Genesis and Apokolips have been able to achieve an artificial form of apotheosis, allowing them to ascend beyond mere manifestations to a quasi-deific state," the blue man hyper-actively explained. "While they are in fact more limited in dominion than the previous generation of gods, they often make up for this in being significantly more potent in their much narrower specialty which has proven especially critical, such as during their uprising wherein they overthrew their predecessors."
Dinah grabbed a chair and sat down next to Shayerra. The Thanagarian barely sent her a glance, apparently enthralled by the guest in the Watchtower.
"What's going on?" Dinah whispered to the redhead as the little man with the giant head continued to talk.
"One of the Guardians of the Green Lantern Corps turned up thanks to everything that's been going on," Shayerra explained, also at a whisper. "He and Alchemist spent a long time talking and whatever the wizard told him, the Guardian decided that we needed to lecture on some aliens that are secretly trying to invade the Earth. He made a big deal about relaxing the classified restrictions for Hal and John."
"-among the most notorious members of Apokolips would be the ones who are likely present on Earth as of this moment. These individuals focus heavily on subversion as opposed to direct combat and are quite likely to flee if directly engaged. The new god of Child Abuse-" the myriad markers quickly sketched across the whiteboard and drew the face of a woman that Dinah found vaguely familiar. "-focuses heavily on subverting the most vulnerable minds in a society. Her most common tactics include educational reforms that are aimed at ensuring children lag behind or struggle so as to 'accommodate' individuals that would often benefit from an alternative learning schedule. She has also seen significant success in the past by involving herself in the media and encouraging programming that would deteriorate the societal moral fiber-"
"...You know, I think I've seen that face before," Dinah admitted as she squinted at the image on the whiteboard.
The man at the front of the room went deathly still for a second before he disappeared in a blink of green, the markers dropping to the ground as he reappeared directly in front of Black Canary.
"Where!" he demanded, his oddly deep voice booming in her ears.
"I'm not sure!" Dinah shouted as she scrambled back in her seat. "It, uh, it was on a show I was watching the other night?"
"...Well, let's find out, shall we?" the man asked, mostly to himself as he held his hand out towards a wall. A tendril of green shot out of his ring and connected to one of the oddly shaped ports that didn't fit any of the wires that anyone had tried. "Let's see... Dinah Lance, age twenty-four, alias Black Canary. Lives at 317-C Willough Drive. Viewing history..."
Dinah sent a glance at Shayerra but the redhead seemed just as put off as she did.
Around the room, everyone was staring. From Superman to Captain Atom and even Flash.
"'Say Yes to the Dress', nothing. 'Extreme Wedding Makeover', nothing. 'College Teen Orgy', nothing. 'Bridezilla', nothing." Dinah's face had turned a solid crimson as the man had somehow dug up the viewing history of her streaming stick. From outer space. "'Channel Six News'... Oh. Oh dear."
The tendril from the little man's ring faded away and instead turned into a floating green square. And it began to silently replay the news from the night before. It fast forwarded through the fluff before a face appeared on a secondary screen that indicated an interview.
Looking between the two images, the projection from the Guardian and the drawing he'd made, there were some clear differences. The drawing had long and wild hair with cold, cruel eyes. The projection had clearly just enjoyed the attention of a stylist and her eyes almost seemed warm.
Almost.
But the face itself was the same. The severe jaw, the way her lips were set into an arrogant scowl, the shape of her eyes...
"...This is among the most distressing discoveries I've made today," the Guardian whispered. "...I believe it is the third worst one."
"What are the other two?" Hal Jordan asked before Dinah could.
"The first is that Apokolips may have developed stealth capabilities," the little man answered after taking a deep gulp of his coffee. "The second is that the shame of Killalla is known beyond the legends of Oa."
Looking around the room, Dinah saw that pretty much everyone felt as confused as she did.
"...Who's Killalla?" John asked, the same question that was apparently on quite a few minds.
"You may ask Alchemist but I will not repeat the story," the Guardian stated.
Which, if he really expected Alchemist to give them a direct answer, meant that nobody was going to actually learn about it.
"But I fear I absolutely must leave immediately," the small man continued as he began to pace in the air. "I must alert the others as to these developments..."
The Guardian paused and looked down at his oversized mug and worked his mouth for a moment. He pursed his lips and looked longingly over to the coffee machine.
"...After one more mug of coffee."
Dinah... wasn't quite sure why but she was certain, somehow, that Alchemist was to blame.
-----
Meanwhile, far below...
Alchemist patted at Ash's head with one hand while the other was assembling a rather simple ham and cheese sandwich on a plate that already had a decent side of carrot sticks and cut celery on it.
Outside, rain gently pittered and pattered against the windows.
"~You're taking one down, you take a sad song just to turn it around~," Alchemist mumbled to himself as he worked.
He still needed to catch and talk with the dolls. If they were going to be targeted by time travelers from the future, he couldn't afford to keep coddling them.
The wizard paused for a moment and looked at the empty bottle of water on the counter before rubbing at his chest. He wasn't healed up yet and casting magic, especially a higher level spell, still felt incredibly unpleasant.
The wizard was practically counting down the seconds as he set the plate aside, next to a handful of identical ones.
"~You say you don't know. You tell me don't lie. You work at a smile and you go for a ride!~"
"Beloved?" Kary's voiced called into the house as she opened the door. "I have just had a most unusual experience?"
"What's that, hon?" Alchemist asked as he took a leftover slice of ham and slid it down to Ash. The hellhound swiftly scarfed the morsel and ran off.
"I was just notified by your system that I have gained a pair of perks. Without purchasing them."
"It's not just you," Alchemist said with a grin. "Everyone on the island, even the island itself is getting that."
His grin grew to a toothy smile, full of fangs as he continued.
"I ran into a few time travelers, today. Kids playing at things they can't begin to understand, with consequences larger than they'll ever comprehend. One of them was foolish enough to give me a prophecy, of sorts." Kary's eyes narrowed at his words as she worked out what he was saying. "And I intend on doing better than she could ever imagine."
AN/ Sad thing is, I'm not making up anything in regards to
Chronoton Radiation.
How does it work? Logically? I have no fucking clue. It sort of sounds like the Dark Omen from Chrono Trigger, for those who might remember the temporally desynced underwater palace.
