[Archive] With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Story Only)

[Mr Zoat]

7th May 2013
10:36 GMT -2

Kaldur's staring at nothing, though I think it's because he's thinking hard rather than because any sort of Dream-related spell is trying to reassert itself.

But because I'm not an idiot, I take out a Spell-Eater and poke him with it. His head jerks around and then down to see what it is. His right hand reaches for it, then stops.

"If I were acting under some enchantment, that may alert whoever cast it that I am free."

"We already went through this in Nanauve. I don't think it's that precise. And we can't do anything about it if you start forgetting what we're doing every few minutes."

He nods, takes the Spell-Eater and slides it into one of his robe's pockets.

"If you have encountered this before, do you know what is causing it?"

"Not exactly. One of the previous sufferers described it as being half-asleep. My first thought was something to do with the Dream, but given how the new format spells that Ahri'ahn's introduced work it's possible that someone's learned how to piggyback onto them."

"That…" He nods. "It is possible, but they would have to be very highly skilled. Lord Ahri'ahn himself checks the functioning of the network daily."

We look at each other for a moment, then I raise my eyebrows.

He shakes his head. "There would be no purpose in Lord Ahri'ahn doing such a thing. He is already the second most powerful person in the country, as he was during the Sinking. He has never shown any desire for further political authority."

"But you have to admit, the timing's pretty suspicious."

"He was working on this system for months before the Rising. Almost all of Atlantis's thaumaturgists are aware of how it functions. And even after our government was purged of as many of Prince Orm's followers as we could find, it is unlikely that we found them all."

"So where is Koryak?"

"I do not know." He glances aside. "I did not spend a great deal of time with him. As I remember it, the last time I saw him was during a class at the Conservatory of Sorcery. It was… Before the Anti-Life."

"You haven't seen him since you got back here?"

"No. Locating him was not my primary concern. Or… Perhaps I was made to forget."

"How about King Orin? Have you seen him?"

"Yes. He greeted me when I was first granted entry. He was relieved to see me."

"And that was..?"

"Four weeks ago."

Oh.

"Is something amiss?"

"Oh… Just… I know I've been busy with the core and reconstruction, but I honestly didn't notice… That you hadn't been around. I think we've spoken… What, twice? Three times? Since the broadcast?"

He nods. "We have grown apart. It was the same when I left the Conservatory of Sorcery to train with my king. Sometimes I did not see Garth or Tula for weeks, even though we lived close to one another."

And I am… Not good at keeping in touch with friends.

"Um." I shake my head. "When you say 'relieved'..?"

"Atlantis did not know how the rest of the world fared. He was relieved to learn that the Anti-Life was no more and that the world was recovering as best it could."

"Did he talk to you about… Rising up?"

"No. He… Said that we would lower the barriers soon. They were not intended to be simple to remove, but since he had confirmation that the world was safe we could begin the process."

"Makes sense. Was Ahri'ahn around at that point?"

"He was in Atlantis, but he was not there when I spoke with my king."

"Did he..? Say how long Ahri'ahn had been back for? Or how he got here?"

Kaldur nods. "He arrived a few weeks after the shields were activated."

"Did he say where he'd been? I mean, did he die at any point and resurrect himself? Or time travel?"

"I do not know. There are legends dating from that period, but little recorded history."

"Legends? Like what?"

"Legends that he left Atlantis to try to find a way to reverse the Sinking. But I would not place much faith in them. We do not even know if they were contemporary, or a later invention."

"Do those legends say where he went?"

"No, they do not. There were few places in that era that could have given Atlantis aid."

To put it mildly. And Ahri'ahn is a massive Atlantean nationalist and exceptionalist. Even if there was a civilisation around that could help, he wouldn't-.

"Kor. The only place he might go for help is Kor."

Because their arcane learning was more advanced than any of their contemporaries. Though I doubt that it was anything compared to what Atlantis ended up developing. But since that was where Atlantis got its magical start, he wouldn't have the same distaste for the place that he would have for just about everywhere else.

"Kor did not exist by then."

"No, not as a country, but that sort of magic tends to persist. He might have thought that there was something to learn there."

"I suppose that it is possible. If that happened at all, and he was not simply killed by the Sinking itself."

Another thing to investigate. I've got no idea where Kor was other than 'somewhere in Africa', but Dr. Mist can point me in the right direction.

"And he might have gone looking for the mighty king Nommo Balewa."

"Neither of them mentioned meeting."

"No, but if Doctor Mist tells me where he was during that time, that's somewhere else to look for clues."

"To what end?" Kaldur gives his head a small shake. "If he is an impostor or has betrayed Atlantis, where he was thousands of years ago is of little importance. If he has not, then it matters even less."

"Alright. King Orin. Where did you last see him?"

"The day after I arrived. He seemed distracted. He merely told me that he had important business that he could not speak to me about."

"Is not talking to you about missions normal?"

"It is not, but… It is not surprising."

"Alright. I've got leads to follow up outside of Atlantis. Can you handle enquiries here?"

"I will need Garth and Tula's aid. Do you have more Spell-Eaters?"

I pass them to him, rolling my eyes. "Next you'll ask if I remembered my rings."

 

[Mr Zoat]

30th September 1995
18:39 GMT -5

Peter gestures back towards the counter of the Chinese restaurant we're in with his left thumb. "You sure you don't want anything? We're coming up on rush hour."

"No, thank you." We head over to a side table to wait for his order. "We usually eat together as a team, personal schedules permitting. But if this place has your recommendation then I'll definitely bring Anne-Marie here sometime."

He looks around, and… "I'm not sure it's really a date kinda place."

I follow his gaze, and suppress the desire to clean and repair the place. And the desire to check the kitchens. "Is the food good?"

He shrugs. "It's cheap."

Ah, right. The few Spiderman-related comics I read took place long after he stopped being an part-time photographer for the Daily Bugle, but here that's still his sole source of income. If I try asking for good restaurants he could probably tell me what the Bugle's restaurant critic likes, but I've seen critic-food, and… No.

"You know, you really didn't have to come. I'd have been fine getting home by myself."

I shake my head. "No no. New York has a truly impressive crime rate, you're under the weather and… There's that web-slinging menace to society to consider."

That gets a wry smile.

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

"I guess? I might not wanna answer…"

"Have you ever..? Have you ever thought about how.. what you've learned about your own genetics..? Does it affect your decisions about..? Dating, or having children yourself?"

"Huh." He sits back in his chair. "That is pretty personal. And heavy." He glances at where my right hand rests on the table top. "Are you and your wife having.. problems?"

"Anne-Marie's power drains the life out of anyone she touches."

"So-." He blinks as he immediately realises the significance of that statement. "Oh. So..?"

"Mutant powers don't work on genetic relatives… Some of the time. As far as we can tell, she should be able to carry a child to term as long as they're a mutant too."

"And what happens if they're not?"

"Ah… Rough guess, the fertilized egg would be drained the moment it touched the uterine lining. In the normal run of things we wouldn't even know that she'd been pregnant."

He frowns slightly, looking down. "I guess that's… Better than…"

"Draining them continuously while they tried to grow? Or giving birth and not being able to touch them? Maybe. But we can easily do I.V.F. and make sure that they're a mutant… Except there's a good chance they'll get an ability similar to hers and that's not exactly a lot of fun either."

"Does it happen like that every time?"

"Have you heard of Magneto?"

"Everyone's heard of Magneto."

"He's got three children, and one of them inherited his exact power. The other two have powers that are completely different. Cyclops and his brother both fire energy beams, but from different parts of their bodies."

He half-grins. "Do I wanna know?"

I roll my eyes. "His hands. Though in theory there could be a mutant out there who fires beams from other places."

He nods. "So… You wanna know if I've thought about it? Passing on… What I have to my kids?"

"Yes."

"Not really. Mostly I just try and work out how to get to the end of the week. But now you've made me think about it… It's not like they'd need to put on a mask."

"Your thing happened a few years ago. Things might be different if someone had it from birth. And I doubt that a child would know to keep quiet about it."

"I guess not. And that's not even thinking about all the ways it could go wrong." He sighs. "I don't think this was covered in health class."

"You'd think it would be by now, given the increase in the number of people born like that. Though I suppose it doesn't usually become an issue until adolescence."

"But you decided to go ahead anyway?"

I nod. "Anne-Marie and I. I'm pretty sure that the popularity of the Friends of Humanity is a short term panic response, so I was going to wait until things were a little calmer. She-." How to put it? "I have a lot of respect for Professor Xavier, but sometimes…" I shake my head. "I read an article once where the author demeaned a charitable foundation set up by a famous actor. The actor in question was paralysed after falling off a horse, and the charity was for people with spinal injuries. The author said that campaigning for something that will improve your own life isn't really charitable, and went on to compare that to an actor he admired who spent time and money working with a charity he supported which didn't do anything relating to him or his life."

"Okay? So you don't think he'd have done anything about mutant rights if he wasn't one?"

"He talks-. No, to be fair, talked, about x-gene mutants like they're a different species. He doesn't do it so much since I pointed it out…"

"Really?"

"You've got to remember that him and Magneto used to be good friends. They don't really disagree on the situation, just the best solution."

"What's Magneto's deal, anyway? I don't see how going around destroying things is supposed to make people like mutants more."

"He grew up in a Nazi concentration camp." I shrug as Peter's eyes widen. "He thinks a race war is inevitable, because he lived through one, and this time he wants to be on the winning side. If you ever see someone from the Friends of Humanity, just imagine the armband has a swastika on it and your family name is 'Goldstein'."

"Okay… But has someone pointed out to him who he sounds like when he calls mutants 'the superior-'."

"Yes." I nod. "Yes, I did. Do you want to guess what his response was?"

"Ah…" He raises his eyebrows. "'But I'm right'?"

I smile broadly. "You heard it before!"

He bows his head for a moment. "So what was that about Professor Xavier?"

"He still fairly clearly regards x-gene mutants as a natural… Group, separate from people without the x-gene. And as if talking to someone from the same time and place as you is the same as.. international relations between two potentially hostile countries."

"That's… Pretty weird. I haven't thought of myself as… Part of a different culture since I-" He looks around, but no one's paying us any attention. "-got mine."

"Right. I mean, I joke about being the team's token baseline human, but you don't see him inviting anyone with powers who doesn't have the x-gene coming to study how their powers work, and that's after me prodding him about it for years."

He smiles for a moment, and then takes on a more serious expression. "I guess… Kids… It's something I should look into before… Before something else bad happens. I have to work out how to stabilise myself at least."

I nod. "It's a sensible thing to do, and I'll pick the Professor's brain to see if there's anything he can do to help once he gets back."

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th May 2013
14:54 GMT +2

"Behold. My kingdom."

I look around the savannah, and a Thomson's gazelle looks back for a moment before returning to grazing.

"Metaphorically, or..?"

"No. I em being quite literal." Dr. Balewa steps down off the rock he was standing on and sets off across the plain. "It has been thousands of years."

"Right, but…" I float after him. "You were a top tier magic user. Surely you could create something that would last?"

"Why would I?"

"Most people like the civilisation they grew up in. Doubly so if they're the ones who made it, as you did."

"So I should maintain it in its exact form forevah?"

"Well… With room for growth…" I scan through the ground, trying to see if I can find any archaeological remains. Not… Much. "So what happened?"

"I do not want you to confuse yourself. While I was eh skilled magician, any Atlantean student of today would best me."

I blink. "Really?"

"Did you think thet I had learned nothing in the thousands of years since then?"

"Sure, new skills, but you must have been… Better than that?"

"Modern thaumaturgy is a modern science. They learn things in school thet were unknowen to the greatest scholars of my youth."

"It was supposed to be a centre of magic learning."

"Yes." He smiles. "And we had a great deal to learn. But power…" His smile fades. "Power, thet we had."

He keeps walking, two gazelles pausing to observe his progress.

"Come! You have more questions."

I nod. "Kor was unique as a source of magic learning. What happened to it?"

"What do you think happened?"

"It didn't expand and take over the world… Or even the continent. There aren't… Myths or legends about the place in Africa, just other places that have a long history with magic. We're not standing in the middle of a giant-" Quick scan to check… "-crater here."

"And so?"

"Civil war?"

"Yes! Yes. Eh war without a victer." He stops and raises his right hand. "Ah. Yes. Here."

The air in front of us shimmers and a… A large.. building shimmers into-. No, it's an illusion. It looks like… Stone? Marble, white marble with strands of gold running through it. It's… Big… But not that big. And I see fountains, and that's notable in a place like this… But again, in absolute terms…

"Eh palace fit for eh retired American dentist."

"I think the dentist would want plumbing. So…"

"So. Eh civil war. But you must understand first how we taught. Would you like to guess?"

"Personal instruction?"

He nods happily. "Magicians from here and from elsewhere taught and learned from one another, end their students learned from them in turn. And how do you think that we kept records?"

Paper wasn't invented for thousands of years. Papyrus sheets..? But everything would have to be written individually… Clay tablets? Stone? Did they have slates to write on with chalk…

No, wait, magic.

"Some sort of arcane creature bound to your service?"

"Sometimes. Mostly, we did not. If they were worth teaching then they would simply remember eet."

He holds out his right hand and a… Walking stick appears, the wood straight and painted black, symbols carved in a spiral around the sides. He holds it up, running the fingers of his left hand over the carvings.

"This was as far as physical records went. Eh minor aid to memory." He turns around to face me. "End so, the civil war."

I close my eyes for a moment. "No written records, masters were competing for acolytes, and when they died there… Weren't any records. Because it was all in their heads."

"Those acolytes who survived lived with magic that was weaker then thet of their masters, but strong enough that they were welcomed wherever they travelled. But without a centre of learning, their knowledge nevah grew, only stagnated and decayed."

"And… What were you doing, while that was happening?"

"I went for eh walk." He shrugs. "I left the throne to my son. I did not intend to rule forevah. You know how I feel about things like thet."

"So how did Atlantis get involved?"

"Foreigners had no interest in who ruled Kor, only in what they could learn before returning home. I… Think thet they played up our knowledge to impress their countrymen."

"So..? It's all..? It's just you? You're the only special thing to come out of it?"

"No. No, of course not. You have noticed the power of my descendants. And the masters of Kor were strong. Powerful. But they allowed their pride to be their undoing."

He opens his right hand, and the staff floats for a moment before decaying into vapour. A moment later the image of the palace does the same.

"Perhaps thet is a lesson-. Ah."

He bows his head and turns back to where the palace image is fading to reveal… A man in a hide skirt, a necklace of fetishes around his neck and… Part of the right side of his body appears to be made of clay.

Dr. Balewa doesn't seem unduly troubled, but I don my armour. "You are dead, man of Kor. What business have you with the living?"

The animated corpse considers for a moment, then snarls and thrust his arms into the sky as the land leaps to respond!

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th May 2013
14:58 GMT +2

I fly up and left, a giant grasping rock hand shooting past me!

"Friend of yours?!"

Dr. Balewa raises his right hand and the fist falling towards him crumbles to dust. Then he dives aside as another punches through the soil behind him!

"Perhaps, once!"

The fist that missed me stops and… Hardens, losing animation and becoming-

Another fist shoots out of the side of it, grabbing at me. I slash at its forearm with an x-ionised sword-. Can't penetrate, it's reinforced with magic, dodge!

-just another rock.

Alright, conceptual level geomancy. Impressive, but he's using physical actions and I've seen the same thing from Rama Kahn. It's not quite the same as Rama Kahn was given the authority to do it by the spirit of his state while this man is doing it manually, but in terms of shock value-.

This man was able to do this thousands of years ago. He was swinging these fists against people with flint spears.

Dr. Balewa places his hands on the ground and… Water precipitates upwards, surrounding him like a bubble. A moment later a fist slams down, and… The water doesn't move at all while the earth of the fist is suddenly saturated with water. The fist falls apart in sodden clumps around him as he rises to his feet and dusts his costume off.

"Do I offend you, man of Kor? Do you know me? Or do you simply walk the ground-"

A hand comes out of the ground to grab him, but it fails to make an impression on his water shield before the fingers slough off. Another fist rises up behind him, stone hammer in hand, and swings down to flatten him. The hammer hits and cracks into pottery shards while the hand liquefies and falls into a pile of mud around him.

"-of your death?"

"You didn't check? Even once?"

He glances up at me. "These things are not always immediate." He then turns back to where the wizard is standing on a short stone pillar. "Tell me your name."

"Ged."

His voice sounds surprisingly normal. He has a strong accent, and I assume that's what the original Korian accent sounded like, but other than that it could have come from a human throat and not that of a magical super-zombie.

Dr. Balewa's eyes narrow for a moment. Then he shakes his head. "No, I do not remember you."

"I was born long after you left, King of Kings. I saw the final fall of Kor, though I did not long outlive it."

"You do know me, then?"

"Yes. I thought that the stories were merely self-aggrandisement, yet here you stand, radiating the essence of life."

Is this some sort of 'test your might' thing? Did he want to see if Dr. Balewa was worth talking to? That would make sense for a magocracy, but if he can feel his power anyway-.

The dust isn't settling.

"I know that I cannot kill you, but I think that choking you under the Earth for a few lifetimes will satisfy me."

"What made you rise?"

"She was surprised that I could still speak. But her people are learned, and I cannot criticise her mastery either."

"A person? A wizard? You were raised-. Who did this?"

I'm not completely sure that he can control the dust, but I'm getting a little concerned. I mean, yes, jaw, jaw is better than war, war, but I imagine that a magician of his era might need a little while to build up to something big.

"Someone who respects me."

"You were peaceful beneath the Earth. Do you hate me enough to walk again?"

"I do not hate you, King of Kings. I just know that this is your fault. We would have followed you, but you refused the authority that went with your power."

Dr. Balewa sighs. "There is more to existence then the accumulation of power. There is more to creating eh better world than crushing it to your will."

"Choosing to do nothing is still a choice, King of Kings. But, my words are not enough. Perhaps-"

Because of course, who raises just one super-zombie?

"-my fellow masters can make you see?"

Some tear their way out of the ground. Some rise easily, leaving the ground undisturbed. Others appear in bursts of fire or gusts of air. And one-

"Ah!"

-steps out of the water surrounding Dr. Balewa on the inside of his shield and grabs him from behind.

Mage-slay-grugk!

Uh-h.

Ring, check status.

No impairment detected.

Then why does it feel like-. Oh right, magic. Spell-Eater… Not detecting anything? It's not getting hotter-.

A magician with a blank face and hands and feet enveloped in fire leaps up, arcing above me and coming down towards me with his right fist cocked!

Railgun.

It doesn't-.

Feed-.

FGAAAGH!

Burning pain across half my-! Body!

Feed-.

No! Expert in fire magic! Eating fire when he's right there is probably a bad idea, but they're not thaumaturgists! I

step out and hold myself in the Honden of Avarice… Ew. I can see the bond of intent and injected desire that is attaching the spell to me. Can't tell exactly what it does… But it doesn't look like something that belongs to a long dead Korian magician. So the first one said that… Whoever raised them was surprised that he could speak. Clay zombies, but the earth wizard's magic could work with clay. So he had his own will. Did Henry King? I saw genuine anger but I didn't look closely enough to know whether it was truly his or not.

I'd like to spend more time examining it, but Dr. Balewa needs my help. I pluck the desire from myself and leave it floating in the middle of the 'room', unattached to anything. I'll take a closer look later. With that done I aim for Ged's desires and

step back in, railgun loading mage-slayers and aiming at the back of his head!

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th May 2013
15:01 GMT +2

I fire, and his body turns to stone a fraction of a second before it hits! The round has enough kinetic force that the statue's head explodes, fragments of stone-.

Being neatly tided away into subspace because I can spot patterns.

The withered husk of the water wizard drops to the ground as Dr. Balewa staggers out of his own shield, water splashing over his body as he loses control of his spell. A zombie wearing a lion's pelt charges him next, muscles rippling and claws sharp. Dr. Balewa recreates his staff to block the first swipe as he sidesteps around the charging lionman-.

And he's forced to call up a wall of… Grass? To block a blast of fire from the fire magician who hit me.

Speaking of which, Wholeness Rightly Assumed.

Compliance.

The zombie wizards are forming a rough circle around Dr. Balewa, but those furthest away from him are beginning to orientate on me instead. One opens his mouth to-.

I hit him in the roof of the mouth with a mage-slayer round, breathing a little easier when his head explodes… Into clay, but at least his body collapses.

"Doctor Mist! Orders?!"

A stone palm shoots out of the ground beneath him, causing him to drop to all fours! Fingers close around him to crush him, before stopping as he brings his own magic to bear but a flying wizard is already on-site and is pulling the air away from him! I fire a trio of railgun shots at the wind wizard but-. Something happens with the space between us and… Three bullets fly past the target on either side.

That's surprisingly sophisticated for the era…

Fine. I'm fairly low on mage-slayers, but I need to talk to Queen Artemis again anyway…

Full auto into the zombie crowd.

An antelope wizard leaps out of the way, that fiery wizard blasts out of the way on a plume of fire and the path-splitter goes in two different directions and dodges out of my cone of fire, but the rest start taking hits. Hits to the 'meat' appear to cause it to revert to clay with ancient fragile bones sticking out of it, but hits to the body or limbs don't seem to kill them. 'Kill' them. Several hit the ground-.

I jerk to the side as a gorilla wizard slams his fists down onto the ground where I was standing. Target the head and fire and-.

The round undulates in mid air, hitting and knocking the apeman back without nullifying the magic animating him.

One of these people is a metal wizard, great.

Retask railguns. One on the wind wiz-.

The wind wizard falls out of the air as Dr. Balewa waves his staff at him, and I can see the air distort as he pulls fresh air into the low pressure area.

Track them falling and fire and boom, there goes their head and-.

YYIIIGHYYHHH-guh!

My bones snap and then get shoved back into place by my ring and-. Oh, of course, auto-aim spells probably weren't invented in their day. They all know how to aim manually! Railguns target the one with the bone-fetishes and-.

And half my visual field vanishes as he crushes… Some sort of monkey skull, in his right hand while his left points right at me.

Heal and railgun, THANK YOU.

His skull explodes, and my eye orbit flows back into place. I'll leave that eye as a construct just in case they've got an eye wizard as well.

The gorillaman is coming back around so railgun and load-.

Supply expended.

And that's why I don't usually use full automatic. Fine, x-ionised slug, target the head and fire.

Compliance.

The shot hits and punches through but he keeps coming, and the clay sort of… Oozes back over the neat hole in his forehead.

Alright, no flesh, these are bone and clay. Resonance frequency of human skull bones?

Frequency of target 1122 hertz.

I dart left to dodge a swing and block a plume of fire with a construct shield tied to my spell-eater, which is finally starting to make itself useful.

Sonic cannon.

Compliance.

Fire.

The gorillaman's false flesh ripples as I put enough force into the attack to peel it back, the clay flying away in places and reverting to its default state. A moment later enough of his face has been flensed the bones in the front of his skull become exposed, cracking and fragmenting-.

CRACK!

The bone loses integrity and crumbles, the wizard collapsing onto his chest a moment later.

Antelopeman drop-kicks me in the chest, but it's mostly physical force and my inertia shield can soak it. I grab him with an orange claw construct, slam him to the ground and apply the sonic cannon to his head. This close I feel the woom and see the dust shoved aside as the antelope skull crumbles and then his does. Again, the wizard goes limp once I'm finished.

"Doctor, please respond."

I glance up as-. As two fire wizards bombard him with white hot elemental fire. He gestures, and the air bends around him and redirects the fire at… Not sure what that wizard does, but the fire completely consumes them.

"I em well!"

Alright, thinning the field. As long as none of them get back up again, I think we can clear them up without too much-

I deploy construct chains and lash them around my body as I think it, just in case.

-difficulty.

And I hit someone.

I turn as Ged looks at the clay arm my chain construct is embedded in. Then his body roils, hard earth and stone expanding to turn him into a war golem. Which would be easy to deal with if I had any mage-slayers left.

Try the sonic cannon.

Compliance.

The clay ripples weakly but doesn't fall apart, because he can hold it together with magic just fine.

Fine. Dismiss constructs. Not like I get anything out of fighting him myself.

I turn and fly towards the pyromancers, replacing my sonic cannon with cold guns. Two shots-. Yes, good, no more fire wizards, and I send a couple of regular railgun slugs into each of them to make sure they're shattered.

"You are both skilled in your arts."

I turn back to Ged, trying to work out what the most efficient way to kill him is.

"And you will not fall here. I was deluded in thinking-. I will see if she has a better idea."

His golem body… Petrifies, and goes still.

That's a problem, but for now we've got zombie wizards to put down.

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th May 2013
15:12 GMT +2

I watch as Dr. Balewa gestures, and the ranks of bones sink beneath the earth.

"Er…"

"I have placed wards. They will not rise agaiyn."

"Ah, I assumed that you'd do that. It's just…"

He regards me dubiously. "I would not recommend planting explosives. This is a wildlife reserve now."

"So no one's going to be digging?"

He bows his head slightly. "Please do not plant explosives." He closes his eyes and then turns his head towards me. "You have already-."

"Just because it's sensible, that doesn't mean that I've done it."

"Thet, I know."

"I was actually wondering if you wanted to know if any of them were related to you."

"I was not eh chaste man. I would not be surprised if most of them were, to some degree."

"Then I won't worry about it." I sigh. "I don't suppose you know how to fix my railgun rounds, do you?"

"No. I have been trying to learn Atlantean magic, but it is not my focus."

I don't miss my shots often, but going full automatic against people with exotic dodging techniques resulted in a grand total of three misses. One hit a rock and deformed, so that's two usable mage-slayer rounds left.

"I did a soil analysis. They were made from the same clay that Henry King Senior was repaired with."

"I em not surprised, but it is good to have it confirmed. Do you know where it came from?"

"Right here. Do you think it was Ged?"

"No. He said that they were reanimated by someone else."

"And you think he was being honest?"

"He may not heff been, but he was honest about theh reanimation spell coming from elsewhere. I could feel the shape of it."

"Okay, good. Any clue where it came from or who the caster was?"

"Thet I do not heff. I would know if it I saw it again."

"How are you at passing through unearthly realms?"

"It is my job."

"I caught one of the spells that the fire wizard hit me with, and I'm keeping it in the Honden. Are you going to be alright if I bring you there?"

"Yes." He nods. "Yes. As I said, it is my job. And I em quite good at it."

"Okay." I hold out my left hand. "Make your preparations, and then whenever you're-" He takes my hand immediately. "-ready-. Okay. Here we

are."

That's interesting. Dr. Balewa isn't… Orange, or obscured by a spell that's keeping him separate. Instead, most of him is faded into the background with glowing white lines which look… A little like an aboriginal Australian design.

He looks around for a moment in a mildly interested fashion, and then focuses on the spell.

"Hmm."

"Does it mean anything to you?"

"Why did you put it here? Wouldn't you usually feed its power to theh Ophidian?"

"It struck me that if I drew the power into my tattoos, he might have been able to set my soul on fire."… "Is that possible?

"Ehhh... It would not be simple to convert theh spell, and he did not know your nature. I would heff guarded against it were it cast at me, but I do not think thet you needed to."

"I'll bear that in mind."

"It is interesting." White strands extend from him and coil around the spell "Unintelligent undead cannot cast spells. Even intelligent undead thet I heff met have been limited. Without a normal connection to the Earth's magic energies, it is not possible."

"I know that from personal experience. So… Something was using them as a reagent? Or… Focusing aid? Casting spells through them?"

"Just because I know thet it is true does not mean that it is true. Ged… Surprised me."

"Because he's undead and using magic?"

"I suspect thet he menaged a partial transubstantiation. I em not certain thet he is truly dead."

"How much of a threat is he?"

"With cities as dense as they are now? He is far more dangerous then he was when he was eh man."

"Do you think that he knows that?"

"No. But I will not bet their lives on that belief."

It looks like whatever he's doing is… Teasing bits out of the spell, unbinding it, which… Well, he couldn't be able to match the signature anymore, but I assume that he learned enough that at his level of skill he can just remember it.

"What are you doing?"

"If I em correct, and the clay-clad bones we saw were vectors for the magic of another, then there should be something of the magic of the original wizard who formed them."

I smile. "And you didn't get that while we were fighting them?"

"I was occupied. Or did you not wonder why you did not explode in theh first four seconds."

"I didn't, not after you spent the whole walk here doing your contemporaries down. But if that was you, thank you."

"Theh brute force magics they use are harmful to certain people. Magicians ken be harmed, but would usually know how to shield themselves. You cannot, and you saw how they struck you through your wards and sigils."

"Alright. I apologise for my gibe."

"I do not say this for my ego. I say this because I do not want for you to die. You know that I do not like 'superhero' as eh concept. I appreciate that though you wish to alter society, you do so as a normal man might. It is an unusual display of restraint."

"It's because I want to see how things go. Fiddling around with complex systems can make all sorts of thing go wrong."

He nods with a small smile, then dismisses his spell.

"I believe that I have a trace. Let us see what we find."

 

[Mr Zoat]

30th September 1995
21:23 GMT -5

"…that we put a sign on the roof for fliers and climbers, and make sure that the drop-off point has one as well." I modify the construct image of the upper levels of the mansion with what I have in mind. "That way a potential student won't risk being disintegrated."

Scott nods. "That looks like a good idea. I honestly hadn't even considered that a visitor might not just use the front door."

"Well, to quote Blade, 'Some Mother Hubbards are always trying to ice-skate up hill'. Though his.. usual reception probably doesn't help."

"I always assumed Spider-Man was a mu-." He stops himself, and I smile, and while I can't see his eyes his head tilts in a way which makes me think he's seeing me smile, and then he smiles a little too. "An x-gene mutant."

"You just wait until I prove it's not a mutation. Everyone on the planet's going to look really stupid."

"So what you're saying is, he's a mutant and we're not."

I nod. "Yes, if he described himself as a mutant, I wouldn't argue it."

He nods as he goes back to reviewing the security recordings. "How did that happen? Did he get bitten by a radioactive spider?"

"We're not sure how radioactive it was."

His head jerks back to me. "I-. I was joking. Radiation can't just give people powers."

"Not usually. But the Empire State University was working on something called a 'neogenic recombinator', which was.. designed to transfer genes from one creature to another. The spider got hit during a demonstration, then bit him. And, er… A giant pulse of gamma radiation is what turned Doctor Banner into the Hulk, though… He probably had an underlying abnormality that was supercharged by the radiation, rather than acquiring it from the radiation whole cloth."

"Is it still in use?"

"The recombinator?" I shrug. "Well, secret identity; he can't just walk up to the people who made it and say 'you should really be more careful with this'. On my, um… My original Earth, experimentation with human chimeras was illegal, but that was just foetal experiments. We didn't have any way to do something like that to adults."

"Chimeras?"

"Creatures with physical parts from different species. The mythological chimera had a ram's head next to its main lion head, and a snake's head and body in place of a tail."

"Did that get banned because someone actually did it?"

"I don't know. It wouldn't shock me, but… My original Earth doesn't have superpowers. It has glow-in-the-dark mice with human ears stuck on their backs. And the ear didn't even grow there: they had to stick it on later. Human chimeras wouldn't have superpowers either; they'd just have huge health problems if the foetuses were viable at all."

"Spider-Man got superpowers."

"I suspect that's something to do with the differences between this reality and my home reality, rather than it actually making objective rational sense."

"I suppose you got lucky that our reality is so similar to yours. Oh, Alex wanted me to ask: what did you tell Multiple Man?"

"Why didn't he just ask Mister Madrox?"

"Because he didn't want to talk about it."

"I know that I'm not a doctor, but I still think it would be a fairly huge violation of his privacy if I just told people about it."

Scott nods, obviously trying to work out how to balance the conflicting desires of his brother and his friend. "Is it dangerous?"

"Not to anyone else. It's an aspect of his power that he hadn't considered before. But it wouldn't be a risk to any of his-." Oh. Oh dear. "He's not a blood donor, is he?"

"How would I know?"

He might be. He might be.

"So… With a lot of powers, what 'counts' can seem a bit arbitrary, right?"

"Okay, I guess that's true. I don't know why it's ruby quartz specifically that blocks my power."

"And Anne-Marie can't drain trees, for example. Mister Madrox can create and absorb copies of himself. But what counts as a copy? Is a severed arm a copy? Is a cancerous growth something that could get absorbed?"

Scott nods. "Or a pint of blood in someone else's body. Alex needs to know that, and so does the base's doctor."

"I mean, that wasn't what the actual issue was, and I like to think that no one's stupid enough to use blood from people with powers for non-autologous transplants unless they've tested it really thoroughly."

"My blood's fairly normal."

"I'd still be worried that there were a lot of small differences that blood banks wouldn't think to test for between abnormal blood and baseline blood. Not all of the changes the x-gene makes are outwardly obvious. Um. But the actual problem Mister Madrox has is whether or not his power would register any of his children as being part of him."

Scott tenses.

"Oh.. God, that's horrible."

"Yes." I nod. "It might not be a problem and I can go back and test it with tissue samples tomorrow, but I thought I should warn him about the possibility as soon as possible. And while we're on the subject… About… Your decision not to have children."

He exhales and turns away from the screen. "I'm not saying that you're irresponsible to be doing it. I'm sure you can keep your children safe from just about anybody. But I'm not sure I could. And even if the mansion was completely safe… Which it isn't." I nod. "I'm not sure what kinda quality of life they'd have."

"Either the Friends of Humanity dies down to the level of a normal hate group… Or people aren't capable of learning to be better and I go and build a colony on another planet, I guess."

"Can you actually do that?"

"Not quickly. I'd have to either find a compatible planet, or find someone who can walk me through the process of terraforming somewhere. And then there's soil microbes and things like that. It's possible, and I'd consider it as a major… Failure if things got that far." Hm. "Do we want to actually go after them?"

"How do you mean? We can't just attack the Friends of Humanity."

"America has strong free speech laws, but despite the constitution a lot of places have laws against weapon ownership, and obviously assault is illegal. So we investigate them. If we can come up with watertight cases, we can try and make sure that we get district attorneys and judges who are prepared to do their jobs without fear or favour like they're supposed to. If we lose cases, then we appeal it upwards, and force superior courts to either rule our way or openly and blatantly violate the law themselves."

He nods. "And what then?"

I give him a shallow smile. "It's probably best that I don't tell you."

"Alright." He nods slowly. "That sounds like a good idea. Can you find a few places where they're breaking the law and let me know? I'll talk it over with the Professor when he gets back."

I nod. "Can do. Unfortunately, I don't think it'll be a short list."

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th May 2013
12:44 GMT -2

"Are you sure that you're alright?"

We're… Very deep here. I'm not sure if this is an ocean trench or something the Atlanteans dug out, but it extends far below the normal seabed.

"With theh spell I em using, if I was not 'alright', you would know because of theh 'squish'."

"But you're not depending on just one spell, right? There's a good chance that any defensive spell here was made by an Atlantean-."

"I fear thet given your origin it would be in poor taste to ask if you ever taught your grandmother how to suck on eggs. Perhaps I should ask instead if you are relying on your ring?"

"No, my armour's rated for this depth, and I've got an emergency teleport system set up in Bir Tawil. I'm not trying to insult your knowledge or power, I'm just aware that you're not completely used to operating as a superhero. Or working with other people a lot. In a life as long as yours, a year really isn't all that long."

I pick my way around what was either a magma vent or a lump of rock designed to look like one.

"Most years are not so long. This year, and the one before it?" In the augmented vision my ring provides, I see him smile. "Even the days are memorable. I could tell you more about them then I could the last century."

"Really? I'd have thought that decolonisation would have left an impression."

"Not really."

"Two world wars?"

"Most of theh fighting was in Europe, or theh very north of Africa. Apart from eh few foolish attempts to gather objects of magic power, which I stopped."

"Foolish because Wolf Krieger wasn't on your level?"

"How many just objects do you think thet there are?"

"I don't know. A few? Adom's necklace and Isis's necklace would have been available back then, and Isis's necklace didn't have any protections other than big piles of rock."

"And eh lack of legends concerning its location."

"Nabu's helmet? I found their old burial chambers."

"Nabu could guard himself."

"No he couldn't."

"Theh people fighting had eh handful of wizards of note, and those were focused on fighting one another. Theh explorers were minor magicians or grave robbers. If they did not heff a clue, they would not find anything."

"Have you ever considered writing-?"

Dr. Balewa stops, studying a rock mound in front of us.

"I belief… We are here."

"Here being..?"

He raises his right hand, and… An illusion peels away from the rock, showing a… Giant glowing rune. I think it's a signature rune, a marker point for binding other spells, rather than one that does something itself. That doesn't really explain why it's here.

"Any ideas?"

"Mm."

Probing it, right. I do a slightly more detailed scan of our surroundings, but it's just rocks and deep sea creatures.

"Ah."

I roll my eyes.

"Yes, I belief thet I understand. It is eh part of the great spell which brought Poseidonis to theh surface."

"How did that work? I mean, I was never really clear how an entire continent 'sunk', but I'm even less sure how it went back up again. The amount of magma that would be required to support it must be huge."

"I was not there, though I deed feel it. I… Suspect that the bedrock it rested upon was moved to another realm. And theh land above could not float."

"But Atlantis was the biggest authority on magic in the world. I mean, wasn't it?"

"In terms of knowledge, certainly. In terms of power, their unwillingness to make pacts with spirits limited them in some ways. Eh trade they willingly made, but not one without drawbecks."

"Do you know who did it?"

"No. But… I know that thes was not made during the last six months. Thes is much older."

"If you had to guess..?"

"It is impossible to say with accuracy. Pe'haps five thousand years?"

"That's Queen Gamemnae's work, then."

"Thet would make sense. She is supposed to have raised theh city too."

"Did you ever meet her? You were around-."

"No. They seldom came so far south as I lived. And you know thet I do not care for demigods."

"So… Okay. Did someone use clay from here for the reanimations?" Rock scans suggest 'no', but, magic. "Were they using this magic to disguise their own? Is it some.. spell of hers?"

"I do not know." He waves his hands to reset the disguise, then turns back to me. "Do you know where we could go thet would heff records of her work?"

"Atlantis remembers her as a menace and a tyrant. I don't know if they have any written records and I doubt that they'll be super-eager to share. That leaves Mister Hall, Teth Adom and Rama Khan."

"And I suppose that only Rama Khan would have objects which she touched with her magic."

"Maybe. It's been five thousand years. He was a young man back then. I'm not sure how much of it he remembers but he might have some knickknacks lying around."

"We should speak with him first, then. But… First…"

He looks around for a moment, and the ground… Shimmers.

"Just in case someone comes back here."

"Right. India, then."

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th May 2013
13:46 GMT -1

Jamie shakes his head. "So how rich is he, d'you reckon?"

Stevie snorts. "Rich enough."

"No, no, like… Seriously."

Richie frowns. "What, you think he can't pay us? Not very heroic?"

"No, I mean… Okay, it's not a massive amount of money-."

"It's not bad." Stevie shrugs. "Not for a few days work. More'n we made robbing places."

"Yeah, I know that. It's…" He knows that he's struggling to put it into words. A 'C' at G.C.S.E. means that you can read and write, not wax lyrical about matters of social philosophy. "He just agreed to pay it, right?"

Richie clearly isn't following. "You're the one who talked to him."

"Okay, yeah, he did. Enough I'd agree, but not enough to make me suspicious."

"He didn't know about the clay zombie things either. And all we did was sit there with the martian starfish and the hot fishgirl."

Stevie looks incredulous. "'Hot'?"

"You know what I mean. I'd do her."

"She probably spawns, weirdo."

"But if we can return to the point…" Jamie glares at the other two, particularly given that they're on the topic that made him decide to stay above the water. He might not be much of a scholar, but he can look up 'do sharks have penis' on a search engine. Might not be a problem if they turned into dolphinfolk or something… Robbie definitely kept his penis when he turned into a seal. "He didn't actually ask us any of the stuff he wanted us to find out."

Stevie isn't following. "Yeah?"

"So he's just paying us, and it's so little money to him that he doesn't care if we actually do the job or not."

Richie stops swimming. "So we can just go home?"

Jamie shakes his head, reaching out to grab Richie's dorsal fin as he passes and giving it a tug to get him moving again. "No, he's gunna remember eventually-. Or one of his friends will. Besides, I'd feel like a total prat if we turned around now. The point is, he didn't care."

"Right." / "Right?"

"So how rich is he?"

Stevie makes a show of giving it some thought. "One of them… Playboy millionaires with a secret identity?"

Jamie snorts. "Everyone knows his name."

"But what if he's got a different name?"

That-. Jamie blinks. "He can do that?"

Stevie shrugs. "If he's got a secret secret identity, why not? Not like Superman flies around telling everyone his name's 'Martin' or whatever. Or.. he.. would, if it wasn't Martin?"

Jamie could feel a headache coming on.

"The reason I'm wondering is, I'd rather do this for a living than be a binman. You two?"

Richie winces. "Dunno. This looks like something that could blow up in our faces, y'know?"

"And how is this-" Jamie angles his swim a little more towards the ocean floor as they approach an undersea cliff. "-going to blow up in.. our…"

Huh.

Stevie comes up along side him. "Our faces? We could find oooooooh."

Richie takes in the scene without speaking. Then he tries swimming backwards, then remembers that he can't, then he settles for quietly crawling backwards. Stevie and Jamie share a glance, then follow him.

"Fuck." / "Fuck." / "Fuck." / "Fuck." / "Fuck." / "Fuck." / "Fuck." / "Fuck." / "Fuck."

The three take a moment, and then exchange looks, silently promising to leave this part out of their reports.

That was a lot of zombies.

Richie breathes in slowly. "So-."

The other two glare at him.

"So there's all wizards, right."

The other two try to peel pack the panic obscuring their memories.

Jamie… Yes. He saw them all working on a glowing… Thing? It wasn't one of the… Three? Runes that he actually knew, but they were all pretty intent…

"Yeah. So now we know where the bodies all went."

Stevie frowns. "So why didn't the priests spot them? Isn't that, like, their one job? 'Make sure the corpses don't walk away'."

Jamie shrugs. "Guess after a thousand years of them not walking away, they just thought it wasn't gunna happen."

Richie frowns. "Did they look..? Like, fresh to you?"

Jamie… Can't really see it. But… "No. But they smell a bit… You know."

They both nod. They did know. Turning into sharkmen changed a lot of things, including the sort of thing they instinctively thought of as being food. Rotting meat? No problem. But it smell/tasted different to fresh meat. And then it got older, and…

The clay zombies didn't smell old. Not completely fresh, but freshish. Jamie didn't know exactly how long that meant, especially not under water. But… Atlantis had magicians for ages. If they turned them all into clay zombies, they'd have…

Uh…

Way more than that, anyway.

So, freshish corpses, mixed with clay, swimming around and doing magic.

His pride -the same pride that got him repeatedly turned into a sharkman and sent to a young offender's institution for eight months- makes him… Hesitates to flee. Retreat. The shark in him smells something not unlike food, and he knows that the Sha'ark got… Something out of eating that telepath. But that's a hoard of magical zombies, plus whoever's controlling them.

Time to leave.

"Alright, I think we've earned our money, hey?" The other two give him an awkward nod. "Let's get back to Nanauve and tell the king. This is…"

Richie and Stevie nod. "Yeah." / "Yeah."

They opt to crawl away a little further, even thought there's no sign that the zombies noticed them. Then they hug the sea floor in an attempt to make themselves harder to spot.

Not a terrible idea in most situations. But as it turned out? Completely useless here.

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th May 2013
09:56 GMT -5

"No, Miss Zatara. I haven't seen anything like that."

Zatanna frowns as she flicks through a tome purporting to be from ancient Atlantis, cell phone floating next to her right ear. Which isn't a great description because it could be anything from a few hundred to a few thousand years old, or even older. And that's assuming that it wasn't a medieval European wizard using the name for advertising.

Paul likes visiting people in person when he wants to talk to them, but she didn't really need to visit Sanderson when a simple phone call would do. And unless Morpheus did give him a vision of what was happening, there wasn't… Much point in getting him involved.

"Is that something Morpheus would send you a vision about?"

"Oh, he sure would. It's usually small scale violent crimes or just about anything involving the Dream."

"So why do you think he didn't send anything this time, he just doesn't want you involved?"

"People being in a trance doesn't prove that what happened involved the Dream or Dream-related magic. It could be hypnosis, or mind control, or it might even be a result of sleep deprivation."

And this chapter is on… Atlantean raiding parties attacking coastal towns? Ugh, would it have killed someone to add an index to this stuff?

"Wouldn't that count?"

"No. Dream isn't-." He pauses, thinking for a moment. "He doesn't consider himself obliged to people. He gets annoyed when people use his realm improperly, but he doesn't care about little things and he certainly isn't interested in proactively protecting people. I don't think he'd make a point of telling me just because something was preventing people from sleeping."

"Can you feel it when someone uses Dream-magic, or do you just get visions?"

"I can feel Dream sand. Things from the Dream that enter the real world usually do so using small amounts of it they've found, and magicians can trade for it. But I'd have to be close to it."

"What about spells?"

"I.. don't think so. I mean, I haven't yet. It's not very common, so it hasn't happened very often."

"Okay."

"I'm.. sorry I can't be more help…"

"No, that's fine. I wasn't sure that it was something to do with the Dream, but I needed to make sure. And now we know that it's not, we can cross that off our list."

"In that case, I'm glad that I could help."

Oh, that's not-.

"Ah, yeah, thanks. Speak to you later. Gnah pu."

The cell phone turns itself off and floats over to a side table, slotting itself into its charging cradle as she focuses on the book. Because this part is supposedly a copy of an older scroll which…

"Etalsnart."

Which was a recording made for the Kahndaqi archives of negotiations between Teth Adom and Queen Gamemnae about Atlantis's borders and their military cooperation. Ah… Lot of stuff about kingdoms that don't exist anymore… And-.

Huh.

They knew that she raised… Part of Atlantis-.

Another Zatanna walks in, a book on magical uses of clay floating next to her.

"Found anything?"

She shakes her head. "Not unless we think they're all golems."

"Do golems have body parts inside them?"

She grabs the book out of the air and shows her a page. "Apparently they can."

That's a.. lot of intestine.

"No, that's-"

She nods. "-too specialised. Those were mass produced. I don't think whoever did it made them one at a time."

She nods, agreeing with herself, and… Thinking that maybe Dad was right about spending more time with the girls from school. But when you're the best magician in your age group, who else are you going to do research with?

"Sanderson says that it's probably not the Dream."

"I don't suppose they just conjured huge amount of clay and propped Atlantis up on that?"

Could..?

She shakes her head. "Normal conjuration couldn't make that much and opening a portal that big to the Plane of Earth would have set off every detector the League has and knocked out every magician on the planet, including us."

"Unless Ahri'ahn is actually strong enough that he can conjure that much rock."

"If he was that strong it would be easier to just make Atlantis fly or something."

"But he's trying to restore it to the way it was. Even if he could make it fly, he wouldn't want to."

"So… What does he want to do?"

She glances back at her own book. Apparently, Queen Gamemnae used prisoners as slave labor, which isn't too odd. But according to the official Atlantean history, they weren't criminal-prisoners so much as anyone who disagreed with her. Which isn't strange for human history but was against Atlantean tradition. And if she hadn't had people who supported her then she wouldn't have been able to rule.

"Everyone knows that he made the spells that remade normal humans as Atlanteans. But even after all this time we don't know how or why the Sinking happened."

She nods. "So he didn't reverse it for the good of Atlantis. He reversed it because it was a personal insult. Because he couldn't stop it."

"Maybe. But it's not like anyone else really cares if Atlantis is on the surface or not. The only people who'd really object are other Atlanteans."

"That's got to annoy him."

She frowns. "It's been thousand of years. He can't be mad at them for not caring about something their ancestors went through."

"Or he could be really mad about it."

She raises an eyebrow. "Mad enough to attack his own people with zombies?"

"They didn't really attack his people. Just us when we started looking into it. I don't know-."

The communicator beeps, and they both look at it.

"Egrem." / "Egrem."

She takes a moment to calm herself from the shock of having two sets of slightly divergent thoughts running on her brain… And then they integrate, two sets of memories integrating perfectly by her magic and the flexibility of the human brain. Then she picks up the communicator.

"Zatanna."

"Hey, Zatanna."

"Oh, hey Megan. What's up?"

"Cornwall Boy's friends found some clay zombie wizards. They were working on a rune but no one here recognises it."

Zatanna nods. Strange that Atlantean wizards would be working on something that other Atlanteans didn't recognise… "I can take a look?"

"Sending it now."

An image appears on the screen… She must have drawn it, because it's not a photograph, which means that she can't be sure that it's exactly right. She looks around the library for a moment, and at the whole section on runes and sigils from hundreds of different cultures.

No.

"Tahw si siht?!"

The stacks rumble for a moment, then a single slim book flies out and lands in front of her, open at a page… Yes, that's the rune.

Oh.

"Apparently it means something like… 'Joy'."

"Oh. That doesn't sound so bad."

"Forcing people to enjoy what you want them to is a pretty successful form of mind control. I'll read up on it and tell you more later."

"And I'll get King Sha'ark to put a strike force together. I'll let you know how it goes."

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th May 2013
20:41 GMT +5:30

"…you click on this-"

I can't help but smile as Dr. Balewa and I are led into the… Classroom? Office space? Where Prince Jivan is showing Rama Khan how a computer works. I'm getting flashbacks to me doing something similar with my grandparents.

"-and the program opens up."

Rama Khan nods indulgently. "I see. And this teaches you things, does it?"

"Yes, Grandpa Khan! You can learn just about anything you want about anything! Pick a subject! Anything at all!"

He glances at us for a moment, then goes back to looking at the screen. "Jarhanpur, of course."

"Ah, well, there's not much about us." He brings up a search engine and types the word in. "Jar-han-pur."

He presses 'enter' and a number of links appear, though no images at all.

Jivan frowns. "You should let people come and take pictures, so people know what we look like."

"Why would I want people to know what we look like?"

Jivan rolls his eyes before turning to face his tutor. "Because everyone does it! Not doing it is weird."

"Ah." Rama Khan nods. "Of course. How silly of me."

And at that point Jivan notices that we've been escorted into the room. He jumps off his chair and runs over to us-. Over to me, smiling broadly.

"Orange Lantern! And…" He looks blankly at Dr. Balewa. "Um."

Dr. Balewa raises his right hand and briefly causes us all to be enshrouded in fog. "I em called Doctor Mist."

Jivan tries bending so that his head's outside the mist while his body is still inside to see if he can still see himself. Then he looks up at Dr. Balewa. "Are you a wizard?"

"Yes, I em a wizard." He clenches his right hand and the mist vanishes, and Jivan's attention is momentarily drawn to the armoured rakshasa who moved up behind Dr. Balewa the moment the mist appeared. "But I em afraid that we are here to speak to your… Grandpa."

"Is it about something important?"

"Yes, it is."

"Like Atlantis coming out of the water?"

Dr. Balewa nods. "Yes, thet exactly."

Jivan looks back excited at 'Grandpa Khan' as he walks over, a more serious expression on his face. "Are you going to be a superhero again, Grandpa? Are you?"

"No. But it seems that those who are superheroes wish to ask for my advice." He gestures to a.. mat laid out on the floor nearly. "Please, sit, and I will give you what advice I can."

I walk over, lower myself down and… Sit, legs crossed. Dr. Balewa adopts a more relaxed position next to me. Rama Khan's matches my own posture, though I note that his joints seem a bit slower to bend than mine. He did say that he expected to start aging now. Jivan joins us too, sitting next to his mentor and carefully mirroring him.

"Jivan should hear this, as part of his education."

"Did you know that Doctor Balewa is actually older than you?"

Rama Khan looks mildly surprised. "Is that true?"

"I established the Kingdom of Kor, though I heff preferred more modest positions since then."

Rama Khan nods respectfully. "Before it fell, it was a centre of magic learning. I believe that Queen Gamemnae mentioned it as the source of Atlantis's magic tradition."

Dr. Balewa shakes his head. "No. They surpassed us long ago, even before her reign. Orange Lantern appears to be of the opinion thet you should have invited me to join your team."

"I'm not saying they should, I'm just saying that it would have made sense."

"Had we known of you, we may well have done. But we did not have these-" He angles his eyes at the computer. "-all-knowing machines. There could have been a dozen heroes of note within a short distance of our borders and we would not have known of them."

"That's why you need pictures, Grandpa. How can people tell you things if they don't know who you are?"

Rama Khan lays his left hand on his heir's shoulder. "Very well, Jivan. We shall have pictures. I will speak with Adom and Adrianna about-" Jivan sort of twitches, then controls himself. "-how it should be done."

"Not to blow my own trumpet too hard, but I did public relations for Adom while he was getting himself situated. Or I can recommend an agency."

"Thank you, but that is not why you are here."

"We were wondering if you heff any objects imbued with Queen Gamemnae's magic. The magics which heff been used to raise Atlantis appear to be based on theh system which she used, and I wish to know how safe they are. Or if you know in detail how her system worked, then I would be pleased to hear it."

Rama Khan looks increasingly concerned. "What is happening?"

"We are not certain. At the moment, we want to gather as much information as we can. In particular, we heff been attacked by animated corpses whose bodies are partially restored with clay."

"And we're not sure if Ahri'ahn is being suspicious or is just a man out of time. We'd have gone to Adom, but given what happened to him I was pretty sure that he wouldn't be able to help."

"Restored with clay?"

I glance at Jivan… And then take out a hologram projector and play the part of the fight where I sonic blasted the gorillaman.

"Like that."

"That is a spell that I could do. I would not, as it violates the cycle of samsara, and I could only use the soil and dead of Jarhanpur, but it is within my power."

"Do you recognise it, or do you simply understand how it could be done?"

"No, I know it. I taught it to Gamemnae myself." He looks awkward for a moment. "I was not as devout in my youth as I am now. I thought that… Since her people had no respect for the cycle that it was not a bad thing. Or that was what I told myself. She was very beautiful, and powerful."

"Were you married, Grandpa?"

"No. If she had not been a queen in her own land I would have asked her." He sighs. "And I would have been a fool."

"And why-?"

"She murdered our allies. Sela, Anointed One and Tezumak died so that she could take their power. She would have murdered the rest of us as well had the spirit of Jarhanpur not showed me her treachery." He sighs. "I do not know why. But I do know that it was not a spur of the moment decision. She had planned it for some time. If my mentor had not been dying and so required me to return home more frequently, she may have killed me as well."

Two out of three were total monsters, but it was still a pretty unpleasant thing to do.

"I have a small charm which she gave to me. You are welcome to it, if you believe that it will help you. I would only ask, for my own peace of mind, that you tell me what her involvement was when your investigation is concluded."

I nod. "Thank you, and certainly. One last question. Where did you put her body?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th May 2013
09:22 GMT -6

I did not want to come here ever.

As far as I've been able to tell, the Aztecs only narrowly lose out to the Dahomey in the contest for being the most evil functioning pre-20th century human civilisation ever. Then the socialists happened and I'm not sure exactly how the two compare, but as a superhero and a space soldier it's sobering to realise that if they existed today fighting them would be worth my time. And it's sobering to remember that they were killed not by Spain but by their neighbours with a little Spanish guidance because they were demanding a tribute of human sacrifices from them and everyone hated them.

Really, the best you can say about them is that they genuinely believed that the human sacrifice was necessary to replenish the gods, as opposed to the Dahomey who just did it for fun.

Dr. Balewa has gotten ahead of me, and my environmental shield is dimming.

"You did not recover theh armour?"

"No. No one knew exactly where it was, and I certainly didn't want to draw anyone's attention to the magic power of ritual sacrifice. Plus it's not even that good."

"There is nothing to be gained by lying. I can see the disgust written on your face."

"I was justifying my decision strategically. I'm not denying that I hate it. The League of Ancients weren't heroes in the modern sense. Not as a group. Some of them would pass muster, but…"

"I understand your disgust at Tezumak, but why do you so dislike the others? Including Rama Khan and your friend Teth Adom."

"Remember how I went off on one at the League after I killed Nabu?"

He makes an expression of earnest enquiry. "No, it has entirely slipped my mind."

I sniff. "I understand that slavery has been normal for most of human civilisation. Adom's Kahndaq had slavery. Fine. It would be completely unreasonable for me to condemn them for something that was completely normal. I might judge them based on how they treated their slaves, but that's it. But Tezumak's people raided and murdered by the bushel and the other members treated him as a fellow noble hero. Sela was… I can't think of anyone like her in the modern era. A super powered berserker who fought and killed for fun and only joined up with the League for better fights. I suppose you could argue that it was better to keep her inside pissing out than outside pissing in, but I think that killing her would also have served perfectly well."

"And the others?"

"Anointed One was raised by the Is-. By the Hebrews before the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed. Back when they were genocide-happy, and all the rules that came from Moses were just polite suggestions. They probably weren't objectively much worse than everyone around them, but that's not saying much when everyone around you is like that."

"And you will not excuse the others for working with them as you will not accept the Justice League tolerating Nabu."

"Y-es. And you heard Rama Khan; he was regretful that he didn't warn them soon enough to save their lives, not about any of the other stuff they got up to."

"It was a long time ago."

"I consider Adom a friend because he's reformed. Mister Cantrell and Ms Parker retained their current life's morals when they got their memories back, and since they're not exactly the same people regret is superfluous. But I'm marking Rama Khan down."

"Have you considered that he believes in reincarnation?"

"So? That just means that he was fine with his comrades in arms being reincarnated as dung beetles for their cruelty." I look down. "Have you found it yet?"

"Yes. Still… I em interested in what you think of me."

"If I didn't think you were a good choice for the Justice League you wouldn't be on the Justice League. Any crimes you committed were at the dawn of civilisation, and you wouldn't repeat them. As far as your attitude to superhumans goes, I.. mostly agree, which is why I've been trying to get other people to do things rather than just building a city of the future myself and inviting the new Eloi to live in it."

He frowns faintly. "Who are the Eloi? That was a proper noun, I think."

"Read 'The Time Traveller' by H.G. Wells. Or watch the films; they explain the concept reasonably well."

"I will. Still, you are the one who used it."

"Human pets, beautiful but incapable of caring for themselves." I pointedly look down. "Can we go?"

"The area is still solid rock. For the most part. It may be easiest if I go alone."

"Not unless there's an excellent reason. Going alone is not a good idea. I can phase or teleport to you once you arrive."

"Then follow me."

He shimmers and fades, and I wait.

When they killed Queen Gamemnae they wanted to make sure that it stuck. So they opened a cavern in Tezumak's city and sacrificed her to the Aztec gods. I really hope that it's still there, but I know perfectly well that the Aztec afterlife was a mess during the Anti-Life period and that just about anything could have happened. Of course that doesn't explain why we're dealing with Ahri'ahn rather than Gamemnae, unless he's a clay zombie or she's using an illusion or… I don't know. We're not reenacting the Obsidian Age storyline, not entirely, but if King Orin has been turned into some sort of water elemental…

Maybe Robert could find him? Or at least check.

And why would he get turned into…

Authority. He's the king. If she killed him and turned him into a clay zombie, he wouldn't have the authority any longer. Then Artur inherits, and then… Ah, Atlantis isn't strictly hereditary, so I imagine that Queen Mera would take the throne? I suppose she just decided that this way was more efficacious.

And there he is. I

step out and walk towards the white glow,

emerging into a-.

Construct barrier up as the cloud of ghost crows swarms towards me, link the barrier to my tattoos and-. Yep, they're hitting a good deal harder than actual birds, but it's nothing that I can't cope with. Can't immediately see Dr. Balewa and something here is throwing off my scans.

No prizes for guessing who the problem is.

"Manitou Raven, I don't know what you think we're here for, but we just want to make sure that Queen Gamemnae is still dead. I know that you can hear and understand me."

He doesn't respond, if he's even here. He… Isn't immortal, or rather he wasn't in the comics. He just used an existing rift in time to skip the intervening time to the present. Don't know what happened here-.

A pair of glowing eyes appear in the flapping cloud of birds in front of me.

"She is gone. Slipped the bonds of the fallen gods."

"Right. We're working on that. If you like, I can take you and Dawn to Teth Adom's home while we plan the next stage?"

"He lives?"

"A great deal has happened, and lashing out without knowing the whole story isn't going to help anyone." I drop my barrier and hold out my right hand. "So how about it?"