Eh.
Lot of memories, here.
True enough. Some good, some bad.
"Yeah, I know what you mean." Ah, good, he is here. "That's… How it is sometimes. Especially…"
"Yeah."
I see they're having their own moments of uncertainty, as they move into adulthood.
I round-.
"Rwrff?"
Wolf trots out of the kitchen, sniffing. She then locks her eyes onto me, staring for a moment and tilting her head slightly to the right. "Wrf."
Oooh, there's a
good girl we haven't seen in
far too long!
"Hello, Wolf." Her tail starts wagging, and she dips her head slightly as she ambles towards me. I crouch down, right hand extended for her to sniff. "How have you been?"
She gives me a quick sniff, then give my fingertips a quick licks before pushing forwards and pressing her head against my chest. I smile, rubbing her head as her wags get more enthusiastic.
Gotta remember, she's a lot more intelligent than the average canine, and more powerful too with that Danner Formula treatment.
"Paul?"
Kon sticks his head out of the kitchen, staring at me in surprise. Wolf immediately turns around and trots back to her owner. "Urf!" And then sort of turns around and looks at me to make sure that he's seen me.
Heh, still looking after her big packmate.
"Hello!" I straighten up. "Ah, friend part first-?"
"Mitchell called ahead."
Of course he did. SO Konner will know what he's here for. But there's no rush on
that front.
"Oh." I transition past him into the kitchen, nodding to Donna as I appear. "Okay. Uh. Sorry."
He reorientates on my current location, while Wolf looks around in confusion. "It's okay. We're all busy, and you don't have school."
Understanding of him. Although I find it amusing OL felt the need to kinda-teleport past him just to get into the room faster.
"Yeah, but I should have made time. So, I realise that I can't fix six months of minimal contact in an afternoon, and I.. mostly came to talk to you for professional reasons-."
"I think Zod should go to trial." He shrugs sombrely as Wolf walks past him to check that I'm still me. "He never got tried for all the people he murdered, so it's not a double jeopardy thing. I don't know if we can convince Superman, but…" He nods.
And ultimately, it's Clark with the Projector in his cupboard. We can only hope he's
reasonable about this.
"Do you think it's worth asking Har-Zod or Jor-El?"
He thinks for a moment, then shakes his head. "Neither of them really like making policy decisions."
'Leave life to the living', and so on? They
are personality engrams, not biological people. To some degree, they're highly advanced chatbots and database lookup interfaces. At that level, it kind of blurs the line between
virtually intelligent and
actually intelligent.
Donna frowns. "Did the kryptonian government really not care at all about him killing all those people?"
"I don't know for certain, but… What would be the point? Their harshest penalty was indefinite detention in the Phantom Zone, and they'd already sentenced him to that. European countries don't extradite prisoners to places where they might be executed, so it's not even that weird."
Ultimately, Krypton was not the
best of places. At least this universe is less
sterile than the immediate post-Crisis era...
"Yeah, but that's because they think it's immoral, not because they don't care about the victims."
"Well, that's a clean sweep of Earth's kryptonians, except the one who actually matters-"
Because of the aforementioned ownership of the Phantom Zone Projector...
Kon smiles faintly. "Thanks."
"-so I'll organise an appointment where we can get together and put our case to Superman. Now." I smile broadly, bringing my hands together at my chest with a clap. "What have you two been up to?"
Good, business out of the way, time to actually enjoy some time with
friends.
Donna glances to the side for a moment. "We were kind of talking about you."
"Did I do something else wrong?"
Plenty, but not necessarily something
bad.
"No, it-. It's about my sister."
Di-? "Wait, Deva?" She nods. "What happened to her, anyway?"
As in
Devastation? It's been so long I've just about forgotten her origins... I take it things are similar to
other canons.
"She fought against Mannheim and took the pardon. She… Hasn't broken the law… Much since then."
"Okay, good?"
I'm guessing nothing serious, mostly in the line of 'causing an affray', assault and battery, that sort of thing.
"We actually had a talk, back in January, and she basically needs to keep fighting to keep the magic making her alive going."
"And you want me to try and find an alternative?"
...Okay, that's kind of shitty. And I bet it won't work with 'mock combat' like Professional Wrestling, or combat sports like MMA type stuff?
"I… Was thinking more that you could recruit her."
"A-ahh…"
Well, OL
does seem to find himself in life-or-death fights fairly often. But I don't know what a Brute could do in his circles...
Okay, unless I want to be a total hypocrite, I can't really complain about her being a murderer. And she hasn't murdered that many more people than Jade has, even if that's due to her mostly trying to kill people in her weight class and failing rather than personal reticence. She doesn't know much about space-age technology.. or magic, as far as I know. Super strong, super tough, aggressive, not too intelligent…
Much more use of a foot soldier in a combat-zone than anything. Enough fights for her to thrive, but not enough responsibility to worry about...
"Were you thinking marines?"
"That… Might involve a bit too much formal discipline. I was.. assuming that you'd give her a power ring?"
She'd probably use it to make big gauntlets to punch better.
"Um. I'm not sure that she'd pass psychological screening. Maybe… Darkstar combat units..?" I shrug. "We should be able to work something out."
"Good, because I don't think the whole 'going straight' thing is going to last with her."
I blame her 'father'. If she was made by Cronus... He made her as a disposable weapon to hurt
everything.
Okay, that's easy enough to-. "You haven't let her go anywhere near Tuppence, right?"
"No?"
Heh. Smash sisters. in multiple senses of the word.
"Oh good, because Deva's someone I think she'd learn all the wrong lessons from. So, how have you both been?"
"Good." Kon's leaning against the kitchen wall, Wolf sitting next to his legs and waiting, tongue panting. He stretches down his left hand to rub her head and nods, once.
Yeah, Tuppence is trying to keep clean, but... She's not really the 'straight and narrow' sort.
"Glad to hear it. Donna?"
She looks at us in disbelief. "That's it?" Kon and I look at each other, then shrug at her. "Is that a guy thing?"
Yes, it very much is. Neither of them are really the 'long heartfelt talk' types.
"Ah, okay. Mitchell said you were going to college in the next school year?"
"Yeah, me and M'gann. She's doing criminology. I'm doing economics."
Interesting choices. Both useful in some way. Fitting for a prince to learn that sort of management, especially if Themyscira opens up more in future.
"Oh? Why's that?"
"We figured… She could be a detective in her Megan Morse identity, like her uncle. And I should probably learn something that helps Themyscira get along with the rest of the world."
Though I suspect she'll find that Private Investigation isn't as exciting as movies make it out to be. The way I hear it, it's mostly paper-trail following, occasional observations and if you get into a fight, you've pretty much fouled up.
"And Demetrios Prokopios can probably tutor you, if you need it." He nods. "And knowing how economics works helps with financial crime, which isn't usually a kryptonian strong suit. Though I suppose it's an unusually cutting edge science at the moment. So, ah… Who wants lunch? My treat?"
Yes, I imagine the Olympian god of Economics will be able to teach Kon some
amazing things.
