The leaders of Melmoth's… 'Guests' watch as their ancestor and would-be overlord works the console that controls the temporal displacement system. It's only got enough… 'Time juice' for one journey, though we can keep the portal open for a few minutes to check things. Then… That's it. The Sheeda are stuck in the future and we're stuck coming after them the slow way.
Neatly removing them as a threat... Until another future's Sheeda make their own play. Assuming that's how thing work in this universe now, after the Paragon's little self-crossover.
They're from some parallel not-quite Earth Melmoth was planning on using as a fallback position after Gloriana backstabbed him. They weren't keen, overthrew him when he was at his weakest, then followed through on their puritanical instincts and cast out anyone who didn't conform, thus creating a 'natural' following for him to lead into the promised land. He was originally going to take them to post-Harrowing Earth, but with the Harrowing falling at the first hurdle and Starbreaking suffering an existence-failure he changed his destination. They sided with him on the grounds that it was better than being burned to death and none of they seem all that bothered with me controlling him.
The joy of ignoring one quest line instead of another. It's crazy how much content the Devs produced to accommodate such wide and varied choices. And without procedural generation, too!
A couple of the less-mutated ones look a little like Klarion, but I suppose that's a fairly generic look.
I don't know if Melmoth was right about us being doomed. His systems don't record exactly when the fall of civilisation happens, and I haven't wanted to risk being marooned in the future by using the chronal viewer to check. I'm going have to actually have one of my rare meetings with the Controllers to make sure that they're keeping an eye out for 'Starbreaker'. And… One of my rarer meetings with the Guardians.
No doubt his relationships with both groups are far worse than the Paragon's. Lower loyalty, less reputation bonuses... All from a few simple choices early on...
Melmoth jerks, and I apply a little more orange light to render him obedient. Puppetting someone like this is something I've found easy, but since I've sworn off assimilation I've been trying to use it to futz around with the target's desires. Make them pliable. I haven't quite… Got it, yet, but it's a work-in-progress.
"It's… Ready… On… Your command…"
Gee, good thing he stopped off at the emotion-caster city offscreen before the confrontation, huh? Bet he's still burning a lot of charge to manage it though.
I glance at Artemis. She takes a moment to confirm her desires on the subject, then nods to me. Back we go, then.
"The commend is given."
As invested as she is in things here, I seriously doubt she'd commit to staying. It's going to be weird though...
Melmoth presses a button and green-glowing liquid burbles through the system. A moment later a portion of the Harvest Dreadnought's bridge disappears at the space within is subject to a temporal overlay. Artemis draws and looses a volley of eye-arrows, but it's a formality. The monitoring technicians confirm the target a few seconds later.
A literal bubble of timey-wimey-ness. Now, what to do with Ol' Swirly-Cheeks?
It feels… So long. Not in a… I've been off work for a few weeks and it takes me a moment to remember the processes. Not, 'I've been on holiday for two months and school starts in September' long. I… Haven't forgotten as much as I expected to. Details… I'm going to need to relearn some of the paperwork requirements for my role in the Department of Metahuman Affairs and some names… I think they've slipped away. What I was doing in the days before the start of the Harrowing attempt. But my family? I remember them as clearly as when the attack started and I ordered them into the Challenger Mountain facility. With… I was with… What'shisname, the… Piper! The piper fellow! I don't know if that's something to do with how memories are encoded, something to do with being a New God… Something to do with the 'we stop ageing at thirty' thing.
Yeah, they're both going to need a break to get their heads back in the game, as it were. Imagine how worse it is for Artemis' memories, having been a teenager when this began...
Or maybe the time I've been here is nothing like as long as I suspect that it is. Artemis is in much the same position; I get the impression that she's be a lot less enthusiastic about returning if something wasn't happening which weighted her life prior to her arrival in the future differently to the life she's lived here. But then I was thirty while she was seventeen. Even if my theory's true, that's thirteen years of being moulded by the Land of Summer's End.
You can thank Starbreaker's warping of time, then. Assuming that
was going on. It really will feel like a trip to Fairyland. or Oz.
The Lord President Anarawd steps forward to wish us a good journey. He was appointed by Artemis and I due to being on a relatively even moral keel and having the charisma to bring Sheeda civilisation with him in its new direction. Melmoth's novel methodology has thrown a few new wrinkles in that plan, but he appears to be coping so far. Which is good: he can be removed by the collective will of the Witam and will have to be careful to maintain their support.
The Witam being their impromptu parliament, I take it? I get the feeling they won't want the old king back, at least.
"Lady Artemis, Lord Grayven. I don't have time to fully describe your impact on our civilisation, but to be brief: we owe you everything we've become and everything we will build in the future. Thank you both."
He bows, and the Sheeda all across the bridge mirror the action. Artemis looks around and then dips her eyes, looking away slightly and trying to avoid eye contact.
While she may have made friends amongst them, they don;'t live very long at all, do they?
It'd be like losing pets, over and over again...
I smile for the crowd.
"Our pleasure." I raise my left hand and disintegrate Melmoth. "Just be on the watch for Starbreaker. Artemis?"
Now, to see whether total disintegration sticks as a final solution for Melmoth, or if his brand of immortality will
eventually piece him back together...
"Oh, ah, yeah." She draws an arrow. "Anywhere in particular?"
"The Hall of Justice?"
You do remember where that is, right?
She blinks. "In, ah… Washington?"
"Unless they've moved it."
Hopefully she at least remembers where Washington DC is... It probably feels like a hell of a long time, however long it's actually been.
"Rrrright." She draws and looses, a rainbow smear linking the future with the past. "Let's get out of here before the time juice runs out."
I offer her my right hand with a faint smile, and she slings her bow and takes it.
Trippy. Pity it's literally a step, or I'd cue up some Doctor Who music...
5th May
09:12 GMT -5
"This is a restricted-."
Oh, yeah, ongoing invasion. Hopefully they've arrived
after the whole 'Exploding Castle Revolving' bit. Otherwise there's going to be some confused people...
The American army lieutenant whose men are pointing guns at us cuts himself off.
"Agent Grayven? Ah, sir?"
At least some of them aren't too jumpy to recognise him.
"Lieutenant. Status of the Sheeda?"
"Ah-. The Castle ship got destroyed yesterday, and… Luthor's fleet got all but one of the harvest-ships." The soldiers mostly return to guard duty, with a few flashing curious glances at Artemis and me. I suppose that she's not all that well known-.
Ah, good. Even money that Lex is taking full advantage of the publicity. That one escapee is a worry though..
Ugh. Just lost my connection to the Land of Summer's End. All that… Wonderful conquered territory.
"We think they made it invisible, somehow. These-" He holds up his rifle a little and I see the underslung spell-breaker unit Clea is lending to the United States. That was a fun surprise for the Sheeda who assumed that their armour would adapt to attacks from regular soldiers. "-came in real handy, but HQ reckons that there are a whole bunch of the bastards still out there. You… want us to call in..?"
Anti-magic rays suitable for mass-usage? Nice. I assume there's not enough for
every soldier to carry one, so they're deployed more like Squad Automatic Weaponry (read: the
big guns...)
Right, Artemis's radio got eaten by Starbreaker.
"No, we're good. Shout if they notify you of active combat."
Unlikely. The remaining harvest ship is likely sweating bullets as they look for somewhere to keep their head down.
He nods. "Sir."
Sinestro… No. Ring, show me Venus. Was Sivana successful?
Since Ringestro hasn't charged yet? I guess they could manage to recharge
Avarice but not
Fear, eh?
Images of acid hurricanes and barren rock flicker through my mind.
Not found.
Well, that's a big downer ending. At least he went out with his enemy's throat in his hands, screaming imprecations about their parentage (I know, not really... But that sounds so much cooler!)
"Grayven to Jean. Send a team to secure Doctor Magnificus Sivana. He will be staying at Challenger Mountain for the foreseeable future."
"Yes, Mister Grayven."
Putting him on a discreet suicide watch might be a good idea, at this point. With the loss of his father... There's going to be a bit of
Black in his thoughts right now...
"Please inform my children that I'm alive and well and that I'll be with them within the hour."
"Of course."
Heh, that should be amusing. For them, it's been maybe a day without contact. For him? Much,
much longer.
I fabricate a League personal computer for Artemis and pass it over to her. She looks at it blankly for a moment, then straps it to her left arm.
"Ah…" A couple of miss-presses, then she finds the communication function. "Artemis to Justice League. I'm at the Hall of Justice. Grayven and I got off the Castle before Sivana destroyed it."
Boy, is her report going to raise eyebrows. Raise them clear off the owner's faces, no doubt.
"Are you hurt?"
Who-? Batman. Bruce Wayne. I haven't… Forgotten who he is, but the slight distortion in his voice meant that it took me a moment to link it to him.
Honestly, the voice changer effect is one of the few good ideas the DC movies had.
"No, I'm… Fine." From her expression, Artemis is having a little-. Ah, she's remembered. "But-. Some things happened, and I… Unless you really need me I'd like some downtime."
"I'll inform Aqualad. Debrief tomorrow."
...That's putting it
mildly.
"Sure." She closes the channel and then turns to me. "Grayven, can you… Take me home? I… Can't remember how to get there."
oof. She is going to need a lot of help in the weeks to come, I think...
