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

[Mr Zoat]

27th December
07:39 GMT +3

"You didn't.. have to come with me, you know." Donna glances my way as we fly over the orchard and head towards Lord Hades's palace. "Not that I'm.. trying to get rid of you or anything, but it is Christmas."

"World-ending catastrophes don't get put on hold because it's the holidays."

"Do Americans actually call it that?"

"What-? The.. holidays?"

"Yes. I had assumed that it was one of those anti-political correctness straw man things, but I've actually heard people doing it."

"It's.. just what I call it?"

"Okay, but-." I take a breath as we swoop downwards to the entrance, the undead on guard duty raising their right hands in greeting. "Donna, I… Struggle to pass up opportunities to mock America-."

She opens her mouth, hands covering her cheeks in mock astonishment. "You do? I'd never noticed that."

"It's just something about you-. Actually, did you have to sort out your citizenship stuff after you found out where you came from?"

"Did I actually, or, legally, should I?"

We land and walk inside the building.

"Both?"

"I still have a secret identity. Donna Troy was born in America, and explaining that I technically maybe wasn't would be a lot of work for no real reason. And everyone assumes that Troia's an Amazon anyway."

"Even after they hear you talk?"

Donna shrugs. "Diana speaks English without a Themysciran accent. Why shouldn't I?"

"Oh, I suppose… Ah, anyway, my point was going to be that there are other holidays and it wouldn't be the huge celebration it is if it wasn't the main annual Christian festival-."

"Didn't you used to be an atheist?"

"Yes, and that meant that I had to, for example, reject the seven day biblical week cycle. You would not believe how hard being theologically obliged to use a ten day week made things."

That gets a faint smile. "Right…"

"But calling it 'the holidays' is actually a-?"

"What are you doing here?"

Melinoë stares at us both from a short distance down the corridor, her hands on her hips.

"I died."

"The line is that way." She points down the corridor behind her, then turns back to me, frowning. "You don't feel dead."

"I got better. I'm here to make a formal complaint."

Her eyes narrow. "About not being dead?"

"About the whole process. I was assured in no uncertain terms that being a Hellenist meant that my soul would come here. It didn't."

"What?!"

"I know!"

She wheels and stalks down the corridor away from us. "This way."

Donna and I follow her at a jog, catching up with her just as she reaches the doors to Lord Hades's throne room. Which she proceeds to shove open, revealing the court within.

And the first thing I see is Ted Kord, blinking in confusion as Lord Hades finishes attaching him to Erebos.

"Huh? What?"

Lord Hades turns away from his newest resident and marches back to his throne before turning and seating himself. A functionary passes him a scroll and he has a brief glance at the opening passage.

"Theodore Stephen Kord."

"Yeah?" Ted turns to face him, then glances left and right in a frantic attempt to work out where he is. "Where am I?"

"You are in Erebos. I am Hades, King of the Dead." Lord Hades looks down at him, a sympathetic expression on his face. "Would you like to take a moment to order your thoughts? People often find it helpful."

"Ah..? Thanks?"

"Minos, would you be so good as to go over things with him? I believe that my daughter wishes to speak with me."

"Certainly, sire." An older looking but still vital man walks over from the advisor's area and beckons to Ted. "Now, are there any family you would like to speak to at this time?"

"Melinoë." Lord Hades raises his hands in greeting. "Pavlos! Donna! Approach! What business brings you to my court?"

We approach, and Ted does a double take as we make eye contact over Minos's shoulder. "Paul? What's going on?"

"Karrien Excalibris killed you. We're working on fixing it."

"Okay? Great? Ah…" He returns his attention to Minos. "I don't… Think so? Unless you're telling me otherwise?"

"Father, Pavlos died."

"Two in one day? That's a little unusual in this era. Do you mind waiting until we've finished with Mister Kord, or do the two of you want to throw dice for it?"

"I'm afraid that I've since been restored to true life, my lord. I won't be troubling you in your judicial capacity for a little while yet."

"You died, and yet left my realm?"

"Not precisely, my lord. I was resurrected without coming here."

"It must have been remarkably swift, then. Usually, a shade would come to us within a day or two."

"My lord, before this turns into one of those cross-purpose conversations which I know you find tiresome… I died, and my soul did not come here. It went somewhere else entirely."

Hades stands suddenly, his normally placid countenance filled with a sudden rage.

"What?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th December
07:44 GMT +3

"My lord, a little under three months ago I visited a site sacred to Earth's monotheistic religions and stole a fruit from it. When a representative of the site's owners confronted me about it, I admitted my guilt and offered to make recompense. Having seen what I had done with the fruit, the representative stated that he felt that my use of it was a good thing, but that he would need to consult his superiors before he could give me a firm decision."

I start pacing a short circuit in the middle of Lord Hades's throne room.

"Two days ago I received that decision. The earth was surrounded by a burning cage and I was sentenced to death. Along with anyone who aided me. The original representative was cast out and set on fire for daring to advance a position which was in line with his superior's general directives but turned out to be contrary to his superior's actual view on that particular matter."

"I healed him. I decided not to die, and endeavoured to fight the force sent after me. And… Though my allies wrought a great toll upon them, I was killed. Multiple sword strikes-" I create a construct image showing… My own death. I don't shudder, but it does make me feel distinctly uneasy. "-severing my arms, impaling me through the chest and setting me on fire. I wasn't aware of it, but according to witnesses my attacker also stabbed me through the head."

"I died. And I did not come here."

"Instead, I went to the Silver City, and was placed inside one of their… The illusion generating devices they use in an attempt to convince people of the righteousness of their god. I broke out, spoke to the locals, discovered that they'd all been deceived by one of their number and his allies and was eventually able to persuade them to resurrect me."

"My lord, I am… Not good at faith. I've been an atheist since I was old enough to realise that adults could be wrong about things. Even when I came to this world where gods clearly do exist, I didn't see that fact as.. relevant to me. It wasn't until I became a citizen of Themyscira that I… I began to think about what that meant for my life, the way I should.. live. And while I embraced Eris as my particular patron, I have paid homage to all of the major gods and.. several minor ones."

And what a waste of bovine bones and fat my sacrifice to Zeus turned out to be.

"My lord, if there is something I have done to offend you or the other gods-" I raise my right hand and wave it left and right. "-other than the obvious things I've done to offend Zeus and Apollo, then I apologise. Please, let me know what it is, that I may make amends. But if it isn't something that I've done, then…"

I stop, facing Lord Hades and looking him directly in the eyes.

"My god, why did you forsake me?"

"I did not. Though my brother has made representations to me concerning your eventual fate, I-" Oh dear. "-had a mind to judge you fairly. What was the nature of the being who slew you?"

"He was an angel. Significantly enhanced above the normal limits of their theurgical power by the magics of the souls of imprisoned theurgists."

"Where did you make your stand?"

"The province of Labyrinth in Hell, just outside Masak Mavdil."

"If you died in an afterlife other than this one, that might have resulted in you being trapped there. Certainly, it would have caused you some delay in arriving here. It should not have resulted in you going elsewhere. Whatever crimes you might have committed against them, it was for me to judge you and for them to make representations to me."

He steps down from his dais.

"When Donna came here looking for you, we all assumed that you had not in fact died. Now that I know what the reason for that was, I will be making extremely strong representations to the Silver City upon this matter."

I bow. "Thank you, my lord. After recent events I have far more faith in your judgement than in theirs."

He nods. "Understand that I will ask them about the fruit which you mentioned. It is my experience that people oft underreport their own culpability in such matters."

"Entirely reasonable. It was a magic fruit."

He nods again. "I will send word by Thana when I have their response."

"Thank you." I glance at Ted, who appears to have calmed down somewhat. "On a related matter, my friend Ted was killed during the angel's attack."

"Do you wish to witness his judgement, or make representations on his behalf?"

"Before I left the Silver City, I secured an agreement that the angels would resurrect anyone they killed. Clearly, if Ted is here then they will need to come here in order to discuss the matter with you."

"They have sworn to resurrect him?"

"Sworn? No, merely agreed."

"Still, that improves my negotiating position considerably. Good work. Hm." He looks thoughtful. "I assume that you would like to avoid going anywhere but Erebos next time you die?"

"In all honesty, I would accept here or the Orange Central Power Battery. This is the best afterlife I've seen, but I have a particular attachment to my Corps."

"Oh, I take no umbrage. I can well understand the desire to continue to oversee something you have created, even as a shade. Still, if you wish to ensure that you will come here, there is a spell I can perform to bind you to Erebos."

"As you do your dead?"

"It would not be quite the same. I am offering you no power. But upon your death it would bring you here, or notify me if it was disrupted. I am mindful that you were not able to come here, and I would seek to better fulfil my duties."

"I thank you for the offer, my lord. But… My spiritual setup is unique. I am… Hesitant to agree to this unless I could be completely sure that there would be no adverse effects, either on me, those around me or… You." He nods. "If I am not asking too much, could you please write a description of the spell you would use? While I do not believe that I know anyone who could cast it, there are Atlanteans who could understand how it works and judge the risk."

He thoughtfully strokes his beard with his right hand. "Yes. Yes, I would be interested to hear their thoughts, regardless of whether you avail yourself of my offer or not. However, I should see to my guest first. Mister Kord?"

"Yeah-? Ah, my lord?"

Lord Hades regards him for a moment, then bows his head with a quiet chuckle. "You weren't expecting to come here, were you?"

"Ah… No..? It's… Been a while since I went to church, and… I did host a hephaesteia… Tech expo thing. And I said prayers and… I mean, I've always liked technology." He blinks. "Huh."

"At least you went to the right place."

"It's just… I was kinda… Hoping to see my parents, and I'm pretty sure they're not here…"

"The Silver City have long been against such contact. I will demand that they change that position during our negotiations. But, once you are alive, you are free to worship as you choose. I would merely caution you to be aware of the consequences of your decision."

Ted nods emphatically. "Yeah, I-."

There's a flash of light as an angel appears.

"1:1 Oh king of Erebos-." The angel sees me and stops talking.

Lord Hades grins for a moment, then walks back to his throne and sits down with an air of nonchalance. "Is there something I can do for you?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

29th December
9:16 GMT -8

"That's, ah… That's a bit of a complicated one."

I lean back slightly in my chair, mildly pleased that the studio managed to get one that met my requirements without being prodded. The G-Dwarfs have been… Not nagging me exactly, but repeatedly shuffling television offers to the top of my in tray for a while now. And given all the good work they've been doing in answering my fan mail, I felt like a bit of a heel for not cooperating. So here I am, sitting in the main studio of a minor religious affairs specialist broadcaster for a program which normally consists of pop-theology: inviting minor celebrities on to talk about the role of faith in their lives.

I may be a little more than they were expecting.

"Firstly, you need to understand that on the galactic scale, atheism basically doesn't exist. But then you also need to understand that I'm using 'atheist' in a very specific way. I'm referring to someone who has no belief in any higher power at all, and such a belief is very uncommon."

My interviewer nods. "So religion isn't something species grow out of."

"Not in the long term. It's not uncommon for there to be a bit of a dip following the discovery of the scientific method, because… There's suddenly an alternate set of answers for the 'Just So Story' parts of the local faiths."

"Ah, I'm sorry. Just so?"

"A collection of stories written by the British author and poet Rudyard Kipling. Amusing but nonsensical explanations for why parts of the world are the way they are. Elephants having trunks because something pulled on their noses very hard and stretched them out. In the mythological.. context, the equivalent would be the ancient Kahndaqi belief that the sun disappeared from the sky at night because the sun god was going through the underworld. At a certain point a civilisation gains the ability to demonstrate that such things are objectively untrue, and that can undermine the rest of the theological political establishment. The… Structure of the religious hierarchy."

"But, at the same time… That civilisation stands a good chance of having actually encountered a higher power. To pick a.. local example, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Sikhs believe in a single benevolent omnipotent creator god. But, all but the most close-minded will acknowledge that Wonder Woman has dealings with something, and that those beings have great magical might and are not human. Most worlds inhabited by intelligent beings will.. generate a god or two, given sufficient time. Earth has.. hundreds, each of whom might reasonably be considered a 'higher power', at least… Compared to most humans."

"And then there are… Sufficiently advanced aliens." I smile. "And I'm not talking about me here. Although I.. do actually have human worshippers now. There are.. also people who worship Superman, something I know he finds really uncomfortable. Probably the example of this that is most notable on a galactic scale is the worship of the Green Lantern Corps."

"The G-?" Mr McCay blinks in surprised. "The Green Lantern Corps? That's a little surprising."

"Oh no, it makes a lot of sense. The Green Lantern Corps has been around for at least a million years. They have a mandate to go out and do good in the universe. They have a clear and consistent moral and legal philosophy. A lot of places have stories of encountering Green Lanterns preventing environmental disasters early in their history, and then they get out into space, meet other species and compare notes… And it turns out that there's a great benevolent order of space heroes looking after everyone and everything. Or they encounter them when one of their own heroes is recruited, is brought to Oa and meets other heroes just as noble."

"Only a few places worship the Lanterns themselves. The Guardians of the Universe -the people who run the Corps- are considered to be minor divines in more than a few places. The largest purely Green Lantern Corps focused religion actually worships the green light itself. After the people of the planet Karax were saved from being eaten by the Spider Guild, they… Over time the practitioners of their main religion increasingly identified their concept of the divine with the philosophies of the Green Lantern Corps, and the light which empowers them."

"Things like this are why atheism basically doesn't exist. There are any number of more powerful beings out there. Refusing to believe they exist when you have good evidence that they do is simply… Foolish. Instead, what you get are materialists. People who believe that there's no… Fundamental difference between 'higher powers' and lower ones, merely a difference of power. What I find particularly amusing about it is how painfully logical such philosophies tend to be about moral utility."

"What do you mean by that?"

"If a normal man or woman dives in front of a bullet to stop it killing someone else, they are performing an exemplary act of self sacrifice. There are few acts more worthy of praise. On the other hand, if someone bulletproof like me does it, we're not really sacrificing anything. If I step in front of a regular bullet I probably won't even feel the impact. Rather than being an exemplary act of self sacrifice, it's merely a good deed. To that way of thinking, the more powerful you get, the more you have to do to justify praise. So the.. Guardians for example are worthy of respect not because they can crush planets as an act of will -and they can-, they're worthy of praise because of their constant and selfless acts on behalf of the people of the universe. They're not praising power, they're respecting actions."

"To that philosophy, anything that wanted people to directly worship it had better either be doing a lot of good in a non-self-serving way, or actually require it to accomplish a particular thing. An omnipotent being is of no interest to such a philosophy, because it would be trivially easy for it to do anything, and as such there is nothing it could do that would be worthy of praise. On Earth, the most notable group who have this belief are the sorcerers of Atlantis. They deal with spiritual beings on a regular basis, but almost all profess no particular religious faith."

"And what do your people believe?"

"My people…" I look away for a moment, my eyes running down the edge of the backdrop's scaffolding. "That's… Tricky. For the most part, those among my species who are aware of such things believe in a single divine power which runs throughout the universe. Precisely how that power is… Imagined varies from place to place. On New Genesis, they… Generally think of it in much the same way monotheists on Earth think of their god: a benevolent, unifying force for good in the universe. It isn't… Always considered to be responsible for the creation of the universe, but that belief isn't uncommon either. Obviously, they don't place any particular significance on the prophets of monotheistic faiths from Earth, but I imagine that you would find the generalities of their religious practice broadly familiar."

"Then you've got my own dear homeworld, Apokolips. And… The name? I've been assuming that it's a coincidence that it sounds like the biblical word of the end times, but given when that bit of the bible was written and the fact that I know that my father visited Earth about four thousand years ago it's entirely possible that the event got named after us. On Apokolips there's a split -and I've got no idea what the numbers on each side are- between those who believe that the Source -that's what we call it- is morally neutral and primarily motivated to make things 'interesting' so that it can learn from the rest of us, and those who believe that it is an essentially mindless energy, and ascribing any sort of agency to it is foolish."

"What makes this particularly significant in our society is that aristocrats like me… Connect to it when we come fully into our powers. On the New Genesis side, their ruler Highfather Izaya the Inheritor claims to have actually engaged in two-way communication with it, but… On Apokolips that claim is generally treated fairly sceptically. My grandfather tried something similar, with a bit less prayer-and-contemplation and a bit more brute-force-and-ignorance…" I face-shrug. "It didn't work out too well for him."

"Which possibility do you yourself believe to be true?"

I raise my arms high in an exaggerated shrug. "Don't know. I wasn't raised in a faithful environment. My father is the Apokoliptian God of Tyranny, and utterly rejects the idea of people bowing to anything but him. Since I.. expanded my education, I've tried reading up on the studies my grandfather performed… There's nothing conclusive. Across the universe, certain very selfless people can manifest similar magical -theurgical- power spontaneously, and when they do it… Feels like the Source. But that.. could just be mechanical."

"Other species have saints?"

"Pretty much. There are actually… Temples around the Source Wall dedicated to their lives. There are so many now that a pilgrim can spend their entire life walking from one to the next… Even taking into account the ones my grandfather destroyed."

BOOM!

Mr McCay can't quite help but jump as the boom tube opens.

"Now, last time I went anywhere near the Source Wall I ended up nearly being absorbed into it. I think my.. family have a bad reputation. But I have arranged for you to meet a temple leader from the temple with the best view of the closest part of the Source Wall to Earth. Don't worry, they've got high-quality translators, you'll be able to talk to them quite normally."

"And when they show you my grandfather's body… Wave for me, would you?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January 2012
8:11 GMT -5

There's a soft sound of displaced air as someone lands behind me.

"So… Are you just gunna stare at it all day?"

"No. Not all day." I turn around to look at Artemis and we smile at each other. "I just want to… Soak it all in."

She rolls her eyes as she walks past me and opens the Gotham zeta tube entrance. "It's just a training session, Paul."

"It's my first training session back. I want to get-."

"And aren't you going back to the other side of the galaxy, like, tomorrow?"

"Dox was kind enough to extend my leave slightly. Day after tomorrow. Apparently, he thinks that coming back from the dead will impress the delegates."

"Are you..? Really okay with all that?"

"Heh." She frowns slightly as I shake my head. "I read a Dungeons and Dragons fanfic a while ago, where one character remarked that he would rather die than lose a level. Because coming back from the dead just required a little gold and a high level cleric to fix, whereas level loss was permanent and required you to earn the experience all over again." I smile in what I hope is a reassuring way. "I don't like being caught unprepared. And I hate losing irreplaceable equipment. But-."

"You died, and you think the worst part was losing your sword?"

"I'm alive again now but the Sword is gone forever. Where would I find two demons as powerful as Second and Third to make another one?"

Neron would be a reasonable choice, if we ever find him. But I don't think even he has their level of power. And none of Hell's other worthies come close. That leaves… Trigon, maybe? Yeah, let's not.

"Would you really want to?"

"I'd like to have the option. It was a really great sword."

She shakes her head amusedly. "Since this is such a big day for you, do you want to go first?"

I close my eyes and smile beatifically. "No, I'm just going to stand here for another minute or two. You go right ahead."

"Okay, Weird Lantern."

"I love you too, Arrow Girl!"

"Recognized, Artemis, B zero eight."

I see the light flare from behind me closed eyelids as my rings respond to my desire for authenticity. I know it's just walking through a zeta tube, and it isn't like I haven't seen the team since I got back to Earth… It's not even as if I haven't worked with them during my extended absence. But I haven't been part of the team.

I step forward, my eyes open.

"Recognized, Orange Lantern, B zero six."

"Decided to grace us-" Beryl ducks under Tula's kick and then closes in. "-with your-" She sidesteps a punch and counters with a shot to the diaphragm, making Tula wince but not hitting a pureblood Atlantean hard enough to wind her. Beryl's eyes widen slightly as she realises her mistake, but she can't back up quite fast enough to dodge Tula's elbow and staggers back from the glancing blow. "-presence, have you?"

"I felt that I had deprived you for entirely too long."

Tula waves, then returns to a guard position. Hand to hand combat has never been her focus, so like me she hasn't spent much time training in it outside of the mandated lessons. At least, that's how it was when I left. Looks like she's decided to improve a little.

Artemis watches her movement for a moment, then turns her attention to Beryl. "Is everyone here already, or are we early?"

"Cornwall won't be here until this afternoon." Beryl steps in, then out again as Tula jabs at her. She then punches the side of Tula's extended arm, drawing a hiss. "Kaldur wants a word with you both before the meeting."

Both? I glance at Artemis, but she just shrugs back. I could understand him wanting to have a word with me, but if he wants to talk to Artemis as well it must be something not relating to my extended absence.

"He say what it was about?"

Beryl… Somehow manages to get Tula off-balance enough to trip and spin her, causing Tula to end up hitting the floor face first with a thud. Beryl steps back as Tula pushes herself up.

"No. Just something for senior members."

This time Artemis looks at me and I shrug. I wonder where the cut-off for 'senior' is. I'd.. guess Artemis, as everyone else either lacks field experience or hasn't actually been with the team all that long…

Gosh, it's only a year and a half.

I follow Artemis out of the training area and down the corridor towards the lift, and she slows to let me catch up.

"So… Are you gunna move back in?"

"Mmmmno, I don't think so. I might give my room the once-over just to make sure it's habitable in case I have to…" I shake my head. "Jade asked me to move in, so I'm actually going to be living in Gotham."

"Isn't she going to be on… Ah… Maltus?"

"It's cheaper than paying someone to house sit, and more secure than subletting."

"I guess-." She stops, then gives me an interrogative look. "Have you told Batman that you're going to be living in Gotham?"

I grin, and she shakes her head.

"You have to tell him. You went through all this trouble to get back on the team. This is the worst time for you to be hiding things from him."

I sigh. She's not wrong.

"Okay, I'll…" I frown. "Is he coming here today?"

"Only if he actually has a mission for us."

"If I haven't seen him by the end of the day, I'll send him a message."

She keeps her eyes on my face to make sure that I mean it, then turns away and walks into the lift. I get in after her as she presses the button for the meeting rooms.

"So how come you're not teleporting?"

"What, and leave you on your own?" She gives me a demi-shrug. "While I was in the Silver City, it was brought to my attention that I don't really know what the… Consequences of certain things I've done are going to be before I've done them. I don't know what the form of teleportation I've been using does to me… Or if it… Does anything to the people around me."

"Is that… Something we should worry about?"

"I don't know, that's the point. I mean, if it hasn't done anything yet then it's probably not a short term threat. I'm going to try and talk a Controller into coming here to check everyone just in case, but… I'm going to curtail my usage, just in case."

"I guess that makes sense."

The lift doors open and we proceed out, Wallace sticking his head out of one of the rooms.

"Hey, beautiful! Looking good!"

"Hey Wallace." I look him over lasciviously. "Not looking so bad yourself."

Artemis shoves me into the wall.

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
8:17 GMT -5

"Hey, look who's back."

Richard grins at me as I push open the door to the meeting room, construct ice pack on my head. Artemis spots it, then gives her head a small shake, breath hissing dismissively through her teeth. M'gann smiles, Kon nods and Kaldur…

Kaldur stands, and holds out his right hand. I dismiss my construct and shake it.

"Welcome back."

"Thank you for having me back." We release our mutual grip, and I step back to occupy an empty seat. "What's on the agenda?"

"In essence, what your return means for the team."

"It was only six months. You can't have forgotten what working with me was like that quickly."

Kaldur's eyes dip for a moment as he shakes his head. "The original purpose of this team was to give young heroes the opportunity to work independently from their mentors, and to hone their skills under the tutelage of the entire Justice League. You were to be the program's first graduate-."

"Except for Roy-. Ah, William."

Kon looks unconvinced by Wallace's technically accurate claim. "He went on two missions with us. And one of those was just him trying to work out which one of us was the mole."

"Regardless of the particulars of Roy's status, it is Orange Lantern who presents the problem."

I nod. "Because I'm not joining the Justice League soon, if ever."

Richard raises his right eyebrow. "Do you actually want to, Oh El?"

"… Not really."

"Then we have a problem. I am uncertain how much a League member can teach you. Lantern Gardner has been clear that you train together as equals, and Lantern Stewart has stated that he learns more from you than you do from him."

"There's always more to learn, but… Yeah. And…" I look over to M'gann. "I'm pretty sure that M'gann is a better shapeshifter and telepath than Mister J'onzz."

"Stronger? Yes." She nods a little reluctantly. "Better? No. He's got so much more experience than me that he can apply his power much better than I can."

Kaldur nods. "The team takes part in missions because there are things which cannot effectively be taught in the classroom. As the team gains new members, there will increasingly be things which they need to learn for the first time which we do not."

Richard nods. "You think we should start teaching classes?"

Kaldur nods. "And perhaps act as mentors to those young heroes who do not have mentors of their own."

Wallace nods. "Yeah. It can't be healthy for Cornwall to be getting taught magic by a dead guy."

"The uniform is perfectly clean, and he's a disembodied spirit. No risk of disease transmission at all. And only a small risk of boggarts."

"No, not healthy as in disease. I mean that he doesn't know how modern technology or society work. He doesn't know what superheroes are supposed to do."

I nod. When I last asked about it, Rob said that Mr Marrack Very Senior was fairly hands off about that part of his training. I'm not sure if he can't adapt due to being dead, or if he just thinks that it's something Rob needs to work out for himself.

Artemis gives Kaldur a.. slightly hard look. "So we're getting new recruits."

"Batman strongly implied to me that we would."

Wallace swivels his head to glare weakly at his closest friend. "Roooob?"

He raises his hands. "I can't say anything. If I said: 'even if I knew who they were, I wouldn't be allowed to tell you' then you'd know I knew, even though I hadn't said that I know. And you'd know that I knew if I said that I know but couldn't tell you what I know. And even if I said that I didn't know, you'd still think I knew!"

"Osiris. Amon."

Wallace jerks his head back around. "Wait, Batman told you?"

"No, but it isn't that hard to deduce. Amon's a nice lad, Adom admires the League, and I imagine that Batman would prefer him learning post-industrial age heroing from us rather than bronze age heroing from Adom. Plus, the fact that his social circle is a bit limited would make him keen on signing up."

Richard smirks. "Didn't you say that the League had too many super strong fliers, Oh El?"

"I said it had a disproportionate number of super strong fliers, to the detriment of team flexibility. Of course, once they get over a certain number they can use tactics which rely on it. And Amon also has enhanced speed and intellect."

M'gann turns to Kon while simultaneously enveloping his left hand with both of hers. "Do you think Kara will want to join?"

Kon gives his head a small shake. "She's not really.. into it. I think she finds the whole thing really weird. Krypton didn't really.. have superheroes."

"Huh." Wallace sits back a little. "I kinda thought being a superhero was just part of being Kryptonian."

"Traditionally, Els are scientific researchers. Kal-El grew up on Earth. Kara Zor-El grew up on Krypton, so she's a lot more… Traditional."

"Yeah, but she's still super strong, super fast and has laser eyes."

Richard shrugs. "I don't know, Wally. She's also got tons of knowledge from growing up in a space age civilization. She'd probably find it a whole lot easier to use that than learn about how Earth's laws work."

"Ac.. tually…" Artemis frowns. "I think she should think about coming here even if she doesn't wanna be a superhero. Robin, you remember how hard it was to learn how to use super strength, right?"

He nods ruefully. "Yeah, me and every thug and rooftop in Gotham."

"Superman grew up super strong, but she didn't. Is she.. breaking stuff?"

Kon shakes his head. "No, but she is being really careful. Superman suggested she try learning self defense, but she just said…" He shrugs. "'What's a mugger going to have that could hurt me?' And she's got a point."

"Zatanna has informed me that she would like to rejoin the team." Everyone looks at Kaldur.

Richard frowns slightly. "She didn't say anything about that to me."

I don't look at him.

"Her father no longer requires her care, and…" Kaldur looks at me, and after a moment everyone else's gaze follows his.

"What?"

Artemis rolls her eyes.

"Look, I didn't tell her to leave, and I didn't encourage her to come back. She's-."

Artemis nods sarcastically. "Yeah, I'm sure you coming back had nothing to do with her decision. And I'm sure the fact that Jade's gunna be on the other side of the galaxy for months didn't have anything to do with it either."

Ahhh… Shazbot.

 

[Mr Zoat]

2012

2nd January
8:28 GMT -5

"…po-ssible, but unlikely." Richard and I lag slightly behind the others as we make our way to the training area. "Flag Sergeant Pushkin is a career soldier in an elite military unit. The minimum age the Rocket Reds are taking anyone is twenty five, and they'd be top flight officers and elite soldiers. There aren't… Rocket Red Juniors or anything like that."

"Sure there are." He raises his left arm and activates his holoscreen, displaying… A video of patriotic Russian school children wearing power armour made of painted cardboard boxes while Sergeant Pushkin watches in admiration. "See?"

"I think they're a little young for us."

It was nice to learn that he'd made the cut. Quite aside from the fact that it probably means that the Russian government isn't going to nag me about it, the League are going to have an easier time operating in Russia and its allies and can count on a slightly friendlier reception from a permanent member of the Security Council. In a few years they can promote Robert, then it will just be a matter of finding a French superhero worth including.

…

Four out of five isn't bad.

And.. of course, Justice League membership should be about expanding the League's capacities, not about national representation. But Sergeant Pushkin does increase the League's capabilities with his ability to effortlessly hijack nearby machines. His armour and weaponry aren't terrible, but they're not anything other League members can't do better.

"And the other three new League members don't have partners."

"Excuse me." I fold my arms across my chest. "Alan most certainly does."

Richard grins as we enter the training area and fan out, facing the zeta tube. Canis is sketching something while Beryl watches and Raquel tries to tell him to stop. Tula and Garth are standing so that their shoulders are touching. Let's see: Robert sent his apologies and Donna's back at college. Not sure where Roy is, and if Zatanna's rejoining she isn't here as yet.

"Isn't he kinda your sidekick?"

"He's got about twenty years' experience on me. So, no."

Beryl's head snaps around. "I thought we weren't allowed to use the-"

"Recognized, Rocket Red, two six."

"-'s' word."

Sergeant Pushkin marches out of the zeta tube, helmet under his left arm and smiling broadly. "Hello Justice Youth!"

There's a.. slight hesitation from the assembled members of the team, a marvellous diffusion of responsibility as no one wants to be the one to tell him that we're not actually called that.

We really need to pick a name, don't we?

"I am Rocket Red, but you can all call me Dmitri."

Kaldur finally steps forwards, holding out his right hand. "We are pleased to meet you, sir."

There's a slight flicker of hesitation before Dmitri shakes his hand. Not completely sure what that's about-. Ah. He's confused about the discipline. When people not entirely familiar with America's superheroic tradition hear that they don't run their… Our organisations with military discipline, there's a slight tendency to assume that we act like slobs when not in public. He's been to at least one Justice League meeting and I know for a fact those are nothing like as formal as military briefings. And yet, here we are, lined up to greet the 'officer' who was prepared for… A Scout troop or something. But we're also- Canis stows his sketchpad somewhere. -not as disciplined as officer cadets. Our costumes aren't uniform, our lines aren't straight and we're not all shouting 'yes, drill sergeant'… Which means that he's not sure either way.

"Please, it's Dmitri. I have no command authority over the team!"

Kaldur.. looks like he isn't completely comfortable with the situation either. "Do you have a mission for us, sir?"

"An assignment, yes. I am afraid that you will not be fighting the forces of evil today."

The training area's holoscreen lights up behind him, showing images of last week's fight in Heaven.

"As you know, winged humanoids of a species associated with Christian mythology attacked the Earth last week. At this point the Justice League is aware of all of the locations where they focused their efforts."

The pictures shrink, a rotating globe covered in red dots replacing it. Some of them… Ambrose escaped, but he was fairly peeved at me until I rebuilt his house. Ted said that he expects a fight with his insurance agency even though he can categorically prove that KordTech New York's destruction wasn't an Act of God. Looks like they nuked Aleister Crowley's holiday home, which is probably a good thing. Skyros didn't have any working telephones after what the angels did there, though I'm not sure what they were hoping to achieve. As far as I'm aware the First hated the place, precisely because of its historical significance.

"Some of these sites, there are clear reasons why they would be targeted. They have long histories of occult practice, or are… Home to strange monsters." A wide cross-section of red dots turn green. "But that still leaves us with many which do not have such histories or inhabitants. You will divide these sites between yourselves as you see fit, and investigate them."

Kaldur nods. "How long will we have?"

Dmitri grins. "Until something explodes!"

His joke falls… Somewhat flat. Though I suppose that he has a point. This is a fieldwork task with no obvious opposition. Unless something does explode, we could keep working on this until we have a solution. And once something does explode then it's probably too late for it to matter.

"Ah… That is, as long as you like. Local authorities will be investigating as well, but you have expertise and access to resources which they do not have."

There's a brief round of pings as my team mates' computers receive data packets on the locations. I tap my ring and grab a co.. py.

I frown. The heck were they doing on Ayers Rock?

"I have just a few more things to say before you may begin your work. First, I am your commissar for the week!"

Out of the corner of my eye I see Tula turn her head slightly towards Beryl. "Commissar?"

"I will encourage you in your work and sing uplifting patriotic songs!" He grins even wider. "But only if you are very slow, yes? Also, those of you who live here will have great pleasure of having me do the cooking. Best thing about not living in backside of Siberia is that we get decent food. Second, your old team mate Zatanna will be rejoining you, as well as new team mate."

"Recognised, Zatanna Zatara, B zero nine, Starfire, B one eight."

Starfire? What's she doing here-?

Zatanna strides through the zeta tube exit, wearing… Not her Sororitas armour, but a slightly armoured version of her old stage magician costume. She's also carrying her staff. She smiles at the team, then walks around the group to.. stand between myself and Richard.

Then-.

Ah. The individual I know as Red Star strolls out and stands at ease next to Rocket Red.

"Hello! I am Starfire! I will look forward to working with you all!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
8:39 GMT -5

Raquel has been shooting Mr Kovar puzzled glances since we sat down. He finally picks up on it, straightening up in his seat and looking directly at her, his face impassive.

"Yes? Is there something I can do for you?"

"What do you.. do, exactly? 'Cause I've been keeping up with foreign superheroes and I've never heard of you."

"I have not been active as a superhero. There is no reason why you would have heard of me."

And his head goes back down to reading the League's compilation of reports of the whole 'Sky On Fire' event.

"So… Why are you on a superhero team?"

"Because I want to be a superhero. Russia does not… After the collapse of the Soviet Union, our training systems for new superheroes have not been as good as they were. Many Russian citizens with powers join the mafia or radical political groups. America has the longest tradition of any country of producing superheroes. Therefore, this is the best place to continue my training."

"So you've been training. Who with, Rocket Red?"

"No, in the Zhukov Air and Space Defense Academy in Tver. I am not a.. qualified officer, but I have been trained combat and tactics."

"You a pilot?"

He hesitates slightly. "I am.. trained to fly light aircraft, fighter aircraft. I am not.. ace pilot. Is not.. useful, with my strength."

"You can't fly yourself?"

"Ahh…" He glances aside, smiling slightly. "Yes, but… Not very fast. I prefer space ship."

"You fly rockets?"

"No. My father… Worked on secret projects. Analysing alien technology for government. Some was.. not good for human body." He shrugs. "Some was very good for human body. Project produced a ship of.. many parts. Some human technology, some alien… Works better for me than for anyone else. Like the Chinese with their Immortal Dark Man." He smiles faintly. "Only my power does not eat me."

"Technically, his doesn't eat him either. The Durlan technology just causes his molecules to lose cohesion with one another. The ship doesn't consume him."

Mr Kovar nods. "I will remember that, sir."

"I'm.. not actually 'sir'. I was the team second in command, then I resigned."

"You are not an officer in the Orange Lantern Corps?"

"No, I-" I nod. "-am. But unless you join the Corps, or the Darkstars, or Legion, you still don't need to call me 'sir'."

"I was.. being polite. What should I call you?"

"Up to you, really. I'm fine with you using my name, Orange Lantern, Oh El… You can call me 'Illustres' if you want, but I'm not used to people using that title yet."

He nods. "I.. don't actually know your family name."

I sigh. "No one does except me, and I haven't found a way to communicate it to anyone."

He stares at me, his eyes widening slightly. "You are serious? It was in the file about you, but I thought it was joke."

"Not a joke-. Not a joke from whoever wrote the report. Possibly a joke from whoever's doing it to me."

He frowns. "That is very strange."

I shake my head. "Compared to magical mind control starfish, it really isn't." I wave my right hand, expanding my holographic screen. "Okay, so unless anyone has a better idea, I think we should start with the one in Liverpool. That's got John Constantine written all over it."

Raquel nods. "Your magic guy, right?" She tries to bring up his file, and… All that's there is basic biographical information. "Ah…" She closes the file and opens it again. Same result. "Didn't this..? Used to be a whole lot bigger?"

Oh, that's interesting. I call up the file on my own screen, then apply my ring to it. Yep, it's not a permissions thing. Not unless Batman's gotten a whole lot more paranoid and significantly upgraded his equipment.

"Huh. Never actually seen the results before…"

"What, the League getting hacked? 'Cause this isn't supposed to happen."

"John's got a ritual he uses to wipe out people's records of him. Written, electronic…" Be interesting to find out... "Ring, what have you got?"

A two dimensional construct screen appears… With the full file. Score one for alien supertech. I flick my left ring finger at the screen, returning the contents to the League.

"Looks like it doesn't work on power rings, and if you remember the file then human memories are safe."

"I'll send a report to Batman."

"Yeah…"

Hm. I know this file was still intact when I left Earth. Which means that he probably performed the ritual more recently… I'd have to check when the League upgraded their arcane defences. Prior to becoming a Lord of Chaos John wouldn't have been able to brute force a decent ward. These days? Possibly.

"Anyway, an angel attack in Liverpool is something I suspect that he would have been involved in. Which means that I'm probably the best choice for looking into it."

"Other than, maybe, an actual wizard." She smiles in a way which looks decidedly sinister. "Why don't we ask Zatanna?"

"Yeah." I nod. "And maybe Beryl. That will make dealing with local authorities easier."

"Oh. Ah, I thought you were trying to avoid her."

"No, no, Zatanna… Is a good friend of mine."

Mr Kovar frowns faintly. "Is there problem?"

"After her father was possessed, I made a point of being extremely supportive. We did a lot of the research which resulted in the lich's destruction together, spent a lot of time together…"

His frown deepens. "She is fifteen?"

"Yes! Why don't more people remember that?"

"Ah." His brow smoothes. "So you did not-?"

"No. I have a girlfriend, we're perfectly happy together. I like Zatanna, but I'm not romantically interested in her. I have told her that."

He nods. "But she is fifteen, and likes you. We could ask either Aquagirl or Tempest?"

"No, she's probably a better choice. And I don't want her to think that I'm abandoning her." I glance at Raquel. "We agreeing on Liverpool?" She nods. "Okay, I'll ask them to join us."

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
8:46 GMT -5

Beryl glances up from her computer, messages sent to the appropriate people in the Liverpool police. "How exactly are we getting there? The zeta tube only goes as far as London."

Zatanna frowns. "Paul can just transmit us there."

"I'm… Trying to ease up on doing that."

She frowns, puzzled. "Why?"

"Because… When I spoke to Boss Smiley, he pointed out that I've been rushing.. certain things without knowing the results. I know orange light exposure alters the way people think, and I've been… Cavalier about it."

"Oh. Then how about I put a spell of protection on everyone first?"

"Um. " I glance at her staff. "We also didn't-."

"This?" She raises her staff slightly, and I nod. "If you really think it's a problem, I can just cast it without using it."

Mr Kovar looks back, his eyes moving from me to Zatanna. "Is there a problem? We can use my ship if it is necessary."

Raquel raises her eyebrows as I trigger the external door and we walk up the ramp to the exterior. "You brought it with you?"

"The Director…" He looks a little uncomfortable. "Knows that the Justice League is not entirely comfortable with government-backed, non-American superheroes. To reduce this discomfort, I and Rocket Red are to be supported to the fullest extent possible. I may be recalled, but ship is assigned with me."

Raquel stops. "Is it in the hangar?"

"No. Would not fit." He looks at me. "Ship is in upper atmosphere. Should I call to it?"

"Please do." He nods, and taps his earpiece. "Does 'fullest extent' mean that I can study the ship in detail?"

"Eah..?" He thinks for a moment. "Yes, but only for League purposes. Not to share with other governments." He glances up. "The ship will arrive in two minutes."

"I was more thinking about making sure that it was safe than replicating it." I shake my head. "Last time I suggested getting the League a self-defence fleet I was politely turned down."

His jaw tightens slightly. "The League's mandate does not include being the Earth's military."

"No, but it does include fighting off alien attacks. Which is quite hard to do when you're not allowed military hardware. There just aren't enough space combat capable metahumans to handle the job. And of course, no country's military is allowed to put weapons in orbit."

He folds his arms across his chest. "You think that is foolish."

"Heck yes. The treaty was dumb when it was signed -the US and the USSR both knew that there were aliens with the ability to reach Earth- and it's even dumber now. Your ship; is it really just cobbled together parts of recovered alien ships?"

"I would not use that word, but…" He nods. "Most of the critical systems were salvage."

Something occurs to Beryl. "Was that the ship Russia was using to search for Ocean Master?"

He nods, his body posture relaxing slightly. "Yes. It is not agile, but it is fast and reasonably well armed. I have performed several search and rescue missions with it. But I would not have wanted to attempt to attack the water monster with it."

Ring, scan for the ship.

Compliance.

At least I can detect it. It's a grey half-ovoid with some truly huge thrusters at the rear. Yes I imagine that has a pretty decent turn of speed. There are.. odd gaps between the armour plates. Salvaged? Or… No, they needed the space for the shield emitters, sensors and gunnery. I can already see parts from the technology of at least two species… Other parts that are relatively common could have come from anywhere.

Raquel regards Mr Kovar curiously. "Why'd you pick 'Starfire'?"

"I did not pick 'Starfire'. My superiors selected it based on the codename of the original research project. And the fact that no present or past superhero has used it."

"They say why they picked it?"

"There is… There are problems with many symbols of old Russia in modern Russia. The.. government does not like using symbols of the communist era, the sickle or the hammer. A-" He looks down at his t-shirt. "-star is generic enough that it is acceptable. And-" He holds up his right hand and red light crackles around his fingers, a white ball forming over his palm. Looks like… Unstable plasma generated from air molecules. I wonder if he powers it himself or draws power continuously from his ship? "-I can make things burn."

"I'm afraid you're not entirely correct about no one else using it."

He turns to me, eyebrows slightly raised. "A British superhero? I am surprised they did not check."

"No." I generate a construct image of Koriand'r. "My joint first recruit into the Orange Lantern Corps is called Koriand'r. Her name literally translates as 'starfire'."

Zatanna takes a look at the construct and quietly splutters. Beryl glances at Zatanna and smirks quietly to herself.

Mr Kovar looks her over. "Is she likely to come to Earth?"

"Not.. to work on an ongoing basis, but she'll probably visit at some point."

He shrugs. "I have not been officially announced yet. The name might change, but if she is not on Earth then it will probably stay. I have-" He eyes the statue again. "-question about the team."

"Go ahead."

"What are the rules on-" Ah. "-interpersonal conduct? I am used to military environment, but this is not military."

Zatanna turns her head aside, hiding her mouth behind her right fist.

"There… Aren't any formal rules. You're expected to behave in a professional manner when working, but other than that the only real.. issue is the age difference. Robin joined the team at fourteen, and-."

"I do not wish to date Robin."

Zatanna snerks.

"Okay, yes, good. But you should understand that there are a range of ages represented on the team."

"Yes, I will be aware."

There's a wailing sound in the air, quiet but growing in volume.

"Where are you planning on living? There are rooms in the mountain-."

He nods. "I am used to living in barracks. The mountain will be fine."

There's a woosh of displaced air, and the cloud cover condenses in a sudden brief downpour. His ship is about three kilometres above us, having reversed its direction in order to use its own thrusters to slow down. Movement arrested, it descends towards us, car alarms triggering across Happy Harbour.

"So, ah…" Raquel points up at it. "That doesn't come with a stealth mode, huh?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
15:52 GMT

Mr Kovar's eyes are constantly in motion as we head down Duke Street, taking in everything we walk past. Looks like the gentrification hasn't quite made it this far. There are some buildings which are clearly recent additions: metal balconies, large double glazed windows and areas painted white to break up the sheer red-brown of the brickwork. Others are plain brick, and half of those have their windows boarded up. Stripped for their eventual demolition or simply fallen out of use, I wonder?

The warehouse where the British heroes and I fought Dark Druid's victims a little over a year ago is quite some distance from here. No real reason why it might have drawn the attention of angels; the place was thoroughly decontaminated, both conventionally and mystically. Instead, they attacked an apparently random block of flats and burned off the entire top floor. Though it was evacuated, the fire didn't spread. They weren't attacking the residents, there was something particular about whatever was up there that offended them.

"Have you done much travelling before?"

"Yes, I have travelled across much of the planet."

"Just zoomed over it, or actually stopped and had a look around?"

"No, I have not visited. May I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"I hear you in Russian, but the others speak to you in English. How is this happening?"

"What language are you speaking at the moment?"

"English. I need practice."

"Power rings have a translation system. As long as my rings are charged-" And.. I need to check whether or not Krona's ring actually has that feature. "-then anyone who hears me will hear me in their first language, and I'll hear them in mine."

"Ah. I knew the power rings had translation, but I thought it was only… For your hearing."

"No, not just hearing. It does writing and body language, too. Extremely useful when dealing with non-humanoids."

Except when you're not looking at the right part of their body, of course. If I'd been able to look the Queen in the face while I was…

I push open the doors to Uncle Joe's Café and walk inside. Not a lot of people in here at this time of day. One man is nursing a coffee in a window seat, a copy of The Sun laid out in front of him. A large bald man with an impressive moustache is cleaning one of the tables, and he turns around as he hears the door open.

"Fuckin' hell. You Orange Lantern?"

"Yes." I hold out my right hand as he puts down his cloth. "Pleased to meet you."

"Not going t' make a giant cake or nuthin', are yeh?"

"Wasn't planning to, sir, but one never knows when a situation will arise that calls for it."

He shakes my hand somewhat cautiously, then jabs his right thumb at the counter. "You want somethin'?"

"I would like to speak to Ms Spatchcock, if she's availab-."

"ANGIE!" He turns his head in the direction of the serving hatch. "BLOKE 'ERE FOR YAH!"

I hear stomping.

"It better not be John Bloody-" A woman emerges from the kitchen doorway. "-Constbloody hell!"

"Actually, it's mostly ash. Though they are redecorating. Do you have a moment?"

She looks at the bald man, who shrugs and then returns to his cleaning. "This way."

She leads the way back into the kitchen, steps out of the way for Mr Kovar and me to pass, then firmly shuts the door behind us. She takes a moment to size me up.

"John talked about you."

"He mentioned you a couple of times as well. Congratulations on surviving. A lot of his friends don't manage that."

She stares at me for a moment. "I heard the angels demanding you hand yourself over-." She looks away, shaking her head. "No, everyone heard."

"It got sorted out. What interests me is why they came here."

Her eyes widen. "How'd you know about that?"

"The top of a block of flats got burned off, it wasn't exactly sub-."

"They visited me. That bastard Constantine put something in me blood. So they had to get rid of it."

"I.. assume that they weren't gentle."

She folds her arms across her chest, rubbing her upper arms. "Felt like being set on fire, and I've been weaker ever since."

"Would you like me to make sure that you're healthy?" She nods, and I give her a scan. Hm. "Nothing much wrong, though if you're feeling weaker it's probably the result of arcane damage my rings can't detect. Knowing John…" Marvellous. "A few years ago he was given a blood transfusion from the demon Nergal. It made him… Demonier. Stronger, tougher, nastier. Filled with self-loathing. More than normal."

"And the angel got rid of it?"

"Probably. A magic-using colleague of mine is currently examining Elster Tower. I can ask her to give you a once-over as well if you like."

"Elster Tower. Not surprised they torched the place."

"Misery, suicide, and a few murders. Still unsolved. John stopped off here and they got worse… Then stopped. Which is his usual pattern. Why did the angels go there?"

She shakes her head. "They needn't have bothered, it's getting torn down…" She thinks for a moment, trying to work out whether to tell me. She's got a good enough grip on her emotions that I can't easily see… "There was a witch. She and her sons were murdering people, and she was… Doing something with the bodies." I nod. "John and me got her, but we didn't stick around for the police."

"John's never been very good at tidy resolutions. She and her sons died at the time?" She nods. "And their flat?"

"Left empty. I think John did something to make sure of it."

I nod. Wouldn't be too hard for him to make people forget it was even there if he put his mind to it. But actually clearing up the place would have been quite out of character for him.

"Thank you for your help."

"Make sure I'm not about to catch fire again and we're even." I no-. "Do you know where he is?"

"No. I haven't spoken to him for six months."

She mulls that over for a moment.

"It's not that I'm worried. But I think John Constantine is a man who wants keeping an eye on."

Not like I went looking for him immediately after he told me not to. But perhaps I could start looking for him a bit more actively?

"I think you might be right."

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
14:32 GMT -5

"…moral distinction between killing someone by using magic to stop someone's heart and just shooting them? Or stopping someone's heart and conjuring a fireball?"

I don't find Zatanna's cheerful response to Mr Kovar's question on magical ethics in any way strange, but I think that he was expecting something a little more… Conventional?

"I… Had been told that certain types of magic… You could not stop using them?"

Zatanna's eyes move to her staff for a second. As do mine. "I.. guess if you decide that you want to kill someone… You're always going to know that spell... And if you keep making enemies, you're more likely to be in a position where you want to kill people in the future." She shrugs as we walk down the slope into the training area. "Demons like it when people get addicted to making deals with them, but with demons it's them who do most of the work, not the one summoning them."

"…agreed to help him."

Richard and Robert are at attention in front of Diana and… A woman I don't recognise. A woman who I assume doesn't feel the cold, because that is not a winter costume.

"Good afternoon, sir. Another new recruit?"

"Ah, fuck you-" The woman raises her left middle finger at me. "-asshole."

"I'm.. afraid that I'm in a relationship at the moment..." I move my eyes from her to Diana, eyebrows raised in hope of an explanation.

"This is Mister Joseph Hamill. He recently had an encounter with a device which we believe may have been created by a mad scientist: a round yellow device-" She makes a circle with her hands about twenty centimetres in diameter. "-this size, with a dial like that found on a rotary dial telephone."

Raquel raises her eyebrows. "Damn, girl."

Ah. That makes a little more sense. I never read any comics where the H-dial was the focus. One with Alan where someone stole it to prevent Father Time researching it, and I… Think there was one with the Metal Men. Powers of dubious utility, often combined with radical physical transformations…

"Ah. That makes a little more sense."

"Etta called me after he was apprehended breaking into the Themysciran Embassy. I have confirmed that his version of events is largely true. Unfortunately, his transformation was a…" Diana looks at… Mister Hamill and he… She..? Tries to fold his arms across her chest, only for her breasts to get in the way. Yes, I can see how that could happen. "Traumatic one, and he lost hold of the device. It fell into the Hudson River."

I nod, then turn to Mr Kovar. "Starfire, how waterproof are you?"

"Pressure does not trouble me, but I still need to-"

"Gniyonna ecived, raeppa ni ym dnah!"

"-breathe."

Zatanna holds out her left hand, violet mist swirling around it for a moment before evaporating to reveal…

Zatanna frowns and holds up the device. "Anyone.. know what this is?"

"Yes, I hadn't realised that they kept it." I take it from her. "Red Arrow and Artemis played a prank on me with this last year. Plug it into the Mountain's communication system and it makes the internal communications system play 'God Save the Queen'. Quite annoying, but not what we're looking for."

Zatanna looks at Mr Hamill. "Did you.. get a picture or anything?"

She shakes her head. "No. I thought it was a.. kids' toy or something."

"Gnimrofsnart laid, raeppa ni ym dnah!"

Another cloud of violet mist and… An actual baby's toy. It does have a phone dial, and… Pressing the large plastic buttons changes the pictures. Huh. I think a small child would probably find that f-. Ah. LexCorp. Never mind then.

"Raeppasid." The toy vanishes in another puff of mist as Zatanna shakes her head. "Maybe if I had a better description?"

Mr Hamill shrugs, and if I needed any confirmation that she wasn't wearing a bra with that costume I now have it. "I was just playing with the dial. I wasn't even really paying it any attention."

"Do you have a picture of what you looked like before your transformation?"

"What, you think I was walking around dressed like this when I was a dude? Alla my stuff vanished when I transformed." She looks down at herself and grimaces. "Do you-?" She looks at Diana. "Do you have any, like, clothes I could borrow? I don't.. really…" She makes a vague cupping gesture.

Diana keeps a completely straight face. "I don't believe that I own anything in your size. Orange Lantern?"

"Sir?"

"Would you please act as Mister Hamill's tailor? I would also like you to attempt to assess how powerful the device has made him."

"Sir."

"Robin, I would like you to investigate the device. Mister Hamill found it on a building site, but he has no idea how it got there. I would like to find the device, but as Orange Lantern is fond of pointing out…"

He nods. "If someone could make that dial thing once, they could do it again."

"The ability to reliably give superpowers to people is something of grave concern to the world." She looks pointedly at me. I clear my throat and dip my eyes. "If the person who made it is a criminal then they need to be stopped. If they are a legitimate researcher, we need to find out how the device left their custody and encourage them to improve their security."

"You got it."

Diana looks at me for a moment, then smiles with… Embarrassment? "Which of you has seniority?"

Richard and I look at each other for a moment.

"Well, technically, Aqualad then Miss Martian, but I guess since they're not here..?"

"I was gone for six months. He does."

Diana nods. "Very well. I will leave Mister Hamill in your care-."

Mister Hamill pulls a face. "Wait, with the sidekicks?"

"You aren't in any danger, Mister Hamill, and we have no evidence of a criminal conspiracy. These young heroes are perfectly capable of performing an investigation."

"And I did once spin the moon around." I shrug. "Just saying."

Mister Hamill holds her gaze for a moment, then bows her head. "God, I'm… I'm sorry, this whole thing's got me so stressed out…"

Beryl pulls her neck in slightly. "Yes, being a woman. Dreadful position to be in."

"That is alright." Diana lays her right hand on Mr Hamill's left shoulder. "We are trying to help. Please cooperate with them."

Mr Hamill nods. "Yeah, yeah, I will."

Diana nods, then turns around and strides towards the zeta tube, Mr Hamill's eyes firmly affixed on her posterior.

"Robin, can I borrow Squire? I could use her intelligence and.. knowledge of female attire."

Beryl smirks. "Oh, I know nothing in my wardrobe would fit him."

"Okay. Everyone else, we're heading for New York."

I smile at the inadvertent transsexual. "Mr Hamill? Please come with me."

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
14:46 GMT -5

Mr Hamill presses her breasts together, trying to get them to sit comfortably in her newly fashioned bra. An expression of discomfort on her face, she looks at Beryl.

"Are they supposed to be like this?"

Beryl stares at her for a moment, then pointedly pats her own modest upper chest with both hands. Then she holds her hands out to the side, palms upward.

"Normally, breasts that big would spell a lifetime of back pain and make it difficult to buy clothes. Women with augmented strength don't really have the same problem-. At least, the pain part. Clothes can still be tricky. However, I.. don't know any women quite as well-endowed as you."

"Look, I'm-. I know what I look like, but I'm a guy, okay?"

"Mister Hamill, if you were still a guy we wouldn't need to find you a comfortably-fitting bra. You were a man and want to be a man again, but at present-."

Beryl raises her left eyebrow at me. "Most transsexuals prefer to be-."

"I'm not a fucking tranny! This-! This.. stupid dial thing did this! I had a cock! I was happy having a cock! Now my girlfriend doesn't even recognise me! Fuck. I don't recog-."

I get about a half second of notice of white electrical discharges crackling around her hands before white energy blasts outwards from her! Beryl throws herself backwards as I raise a construct shield, electricity slamming into it…

In a way which doesn't make much sense as my construct isn't conductive…

"Ohshitohshit…" Mr Hamill looks down at her own hands in horror. "Shit. Sorry. I didn't-. It just goes off."

"Squire?"

She picks herself up and dusts herself off. "No harm done."

"And none done here." I take a quick look around the rest of the test area. Some damage, but that's what it's for. it's certainly nothing compared to what happened during my last spar with Kon. "So don't worry about it. I'm an empath. I know you didn't mean to do that."

"Fuck." She takes a moment to calm herself down. "You know, once I realised I tossed that fucking dial thing off the bridge, I actually flew right home without meaning to. Like my powers just decided to take me somewhere I'd feel safe or some shit."

Beryl nods. "Far as I've been able to tell, lots of powers work like that. I don't know whether it's traumatic events which give people powers, or they just find out they have them when they experience one. There isn't actually all that much good quality research."

"So, what, it's just gunna do stuff?"

"Well, that depends. There's usually a learning curve… You've just grown what is effectively a new limb. You don't know how to control it. With training, that will change."

She shakes her head. "But I-. I don't wanna-."

"Right. And if we can get the dial back and work out how to make it turn you back, you won't have to worry about that. But if we can't, you can be sued for criminal damage if you accidentally destroy something, so you're probably going to need to get some sort of training."

"Right." She slumps slightly. "No, no, that makes sense. No way I can afford to just blow up a car or something."

Beryl's computer chimes, and she activates the screen. "Robin's speaking to your girlfriend now. She's still a bit bewildered. And… Apparently, you're paying for the window."

Mr Hamill bows her head slightly. "Heh. Yeah, I guess I-." her head jerks back up. "But she knows I'm me, right? She said that?"

Beryl nods. "Robin's got an honest face. Plus, you know… Justice League."

"Great! Now I just gotta convince the guys at work, and.. the DMV."

"There's actually a form for that. 'Notification of Radical Physical Transformations'. You fill it in with witness statements and before and after pictures, and we send it in to the Department of Health and Human Services. They'll sort out your driving licence, passport-"

"I don't have a passport."

"-or whatever other documents you need."

"Though I suggest that you wait a couple of days. The form was written on the assumption that the transformation would be permanent, and if we can turn you back-."

Her eyes widen. "Wait, you mean if you can't turn me back in a couple of days I get stuck like this permanently?"

I raise my hands helplessly. "I can't detect any externally-applied energy keeping you like this. As far as I can tell, the transformation was a one-off event. You are now this, but you're not becoming more this because you stayed like this for longer."

"Robin's sent a picture."

I glance at the screen. Richard's message consists of a series of framed photographs on a chest of drawers. A woman with short orange hair and a burly man with short black hair. Beryl holds it up so that Mr Hamill can take a look. "Could you confirm this is what you usually look like?"

"Yeah, that's me. Can I.. talk to her?"

Beryl winces slightly. "She filed a crime report about the 'break in'. And she's still a bit shaken up. Might be best if you let Robin finish talking to her first. And sorting things out with the police."

"How can I break into my own apartment?!"

Beryl smiles. "Through the window, apparently. Legally, you can't break into your own apartment. Or rather, you can, and it's legal. But 'some crazy woman who could fire electricity' could break in."

"Though if it helps, it's not actually electricity, it's highly electrified plasma."

"What's the difference?"

"Electrical discharges earth themselves through the path of least resistance. Plasma can be directed at a target."

"So..?"

"Don't try powering any devices using your ability. And don't assume that earthing yourself will stop the discharges." She nods. "Now, based on those pictures you appeared to be a man in good physical condition. Do you know how much you can usually lift?"

She shrugs, shaking her head. "I'm a construction worker. I haven't been to a gym since high school."

I n-. "Squire, has Robin contacted Mister Hamill's workplace?"

"Ah…" She checks her computer. "Cornwall Boy did."

"Ah fuck." Mr Hamill puts her right hand on her forehead. "That guy's a total ass-wipe. I'm shitcanned for sure."

"I'm sure we can sort something out. If you'll please come this way?"

I lead her over to the dumbbell rack, and gesture to the middle weights. She nods, bending down to pick a couple up. She gives them an experimental lift.

"Feels pretty light."

"Your current musculature is far below what you had before your transformation. You're starting with those in case you've gotten weaker, or if your strength comes from an unusual source like a temporary biological force field." I generate construct dumbbells for myself and demonstrate the technique. "Please lift them as I do. We'll do ten repetitions, then move you on to a higher weight."

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
15:32 GMT -5

Mr Hamill towels herself down in a decidedly unfeminine way while Beryl performs some calculation-. Yes, she just shoved the towel up her cleavage. Should I draw her attention to that or not? What would Ash do?

…

No, probably not. That would just make things weirder for her.

"So?"

"Technically, you're not superstrong."

"Huh?"

"You're very strong, but you don't quite meet the threshold for being superstrong."

Mr Hamill wrinkles her nose. "Okay, so, am I bullet proof?"

Beryl's eyes narrow slightly. "Being bulletproof isn't a factor of strength."

"Sure, but if someone's shooting at me I'm gunna be more worried about how tough I am than how strong I am. I could punch a guy out before this happened."

"Okay." Beryl points. "Stick your hand under the pneumatic press over there, and scream when it starts to hurt."

Mr Hamill blinks. "What?"

"We test strength because it's a lot easier to test than toughness. But the only way we've really got to test your toughness is to hit you with things." She draws a taser baton and presses the activation button, causing a spark to jump from one electrode to the other. "How about electrical resistance? Since you've got some sort of electrical power, you might be more electrically resistant than usual." She beams. "Wanna give it a try?"

"So, ah…" Mr Hamill pauses briefly while she tries to work out how to move the conversation away from that topic. "How strong am I compared to the Justice League?"

"Yoouuu're about as strong as Hawkman."

Mr Hamill looks disappointed. "The bird guy?"

"The winged alien with gravity-warping metal running throughout his nervous system, who has muscles about four times the size of yours."

Mr Hamill raises her right arm and flexes her bicep. "I guess. So I'd get stronger if I worked out?"

Beryl thinks for a moment, then turns to me.

"I don't know. If your body is working like a normal human body, then yes. Though.. obviously, whatever your muscles are using to make you that strong might not work like that, and you'll need to use very heavy weights to get much effect. On the other hand, if your body is some sort of projection while your actual body was-" Whoops. "-dematerialised-."

"Dema-?" Her eyes widen. "You think that fuckin' thing killed me?"

Beryl winces slightly.

"It's possible that your actual body is in storage in the device, while what you're in now is essentially a projection."

"What?"

"Have you ever watched Star Trek?" She shrugs. "You know the transporter?"

"The beam-me-up thing?"

"Yes."

"So that dial thing kinda beamed me up?"

"There's a gap between 'dematerialisation' (when the person being beamed disappears) and 'rematerialisation' (when the person being beamed reappears) during which they're being transmitted from one place to another. It's possible for the machine doing it to delay it, so they're basically stuck in the computer until someone presses the button again."

"Oooooh." She smiles, nodding. "I get it! Like that episode of Stargate where Teal'c got stuck in that dial thing!"

…

"Yes. Which does raise the interesting question of whether your mind is in the device and you're remote controlling this body, or if your mind has been transferred into the body, or-."

Beryl frowns slightly. "Orange Lantern? Is that really important?"

"It would give us a better idea of the inventor's capacities…" She keeps looking at me. "Okay, no."

Mr Hamill is frowning deeply. "I guess if this is just a.. projection or whatever, you can't just change it back into me without the dial." She looks at me. "Can you?"

"If I had a sample of your DNA and a few more pictures, I might be able to transform you back into you… But there would be risks, and I'd really feel better about it if we could have a look at the dial first."

"Can't you just try changing something small? Like.. my hair, or something?"

I glance at Beryl, who shrugs. "Can't see why not. Course… Just because I can't see why doesn't mean some mad scientists didn't come up with something."

If we can't find the dial, I suppose that asking the Sivanas to take a look is an option. Though that would increase the number of people who know that I'm still in contact with them…And might result in Mr Hamill getting possumised…

I shrug. "You're an adult. As long as you understand that I can't guarantee results without side effects, up to and including the change being made permanent, it's up to you. Want me to try?"

"Ahhh…Permanent like permanent-permanent?"

"Mister Hamill, this time last week I was dead. Weird things happen. Not to most people, but I'm afraid you've tripped and fallen into the twilight zone. Some people who make things like this are well-intentioned researchers who took things a bit far. Others are mad scientists doing crazy things for the sake of it. I can't think of any good reason why anyone would add something to a device like this that would react to me changing your hair colour after the initial transformation occurred… But I don't really understand why someone would build something like that dial in the first place, and it certainly isn't impossible that they did."

"Ffffuuuuuck." She sounds more depressed than angry. "And if you don't know what's gunna happen, you don't know if you could fix it afterwards. Right?"

"Right. Though… In the spirit of transhumanism, this form does have several advantages over your old one, and you might not want to be so quick-."

"I don't have a dick!"

Beryl raises her eyebrows. "That's the worst part?"

"If I looked like another guy, it'd be weird and I'd want to change back but…" She gestures to her breasts. "Look at this shit. I can't even close my eyes and pretend I'm still me."

"But have you considered the advantages?"

"Nothing makes up for not having a dick."

"And if you can hand on heart tell me that you've never watched lesbian pornography, I'll agree that that's the deciding argument."

"Huh." She considers for a moment. "No, no, I have…"

Beryl sniggers quietly. "Should I leave you two alone for this bit? Because that's not a problem for me."

Mr Hamill shakes her head. "No, Amy… I don't think she'd go for it. She's, like, totally straight. And this isn't even a butch lesbian body where I could wear a strap on and she could sort of pretend or something."

I think Beryl's starting to crack up.

"If you're sure?"

"It's not that I don't get where you're comin' from? I mean, if I wasn't with Amy and it was just temporary… But I am, so… Yeah, no." She looks at me curiously. "You saying you would?"

"Change my sex in exchange for superpowers?" He nods. "Depends what powers? But, yours? Yes, I think I probably would. Flight is really great fun, stronger and tougher than a baseline human…" I nod. "Yeah, I'd take that deal. Squire?"

She tilts her head to her right, supporting her cheek with her right hand. "Oh God, you think I'm one of the boys."

"Would you?"

"Become a bloke..? For superpowers?" She looks both of us in the eyes. "You seriously want..?" We nods, and she rolls her eyes. "No, because if it's that easy to give someone powers I could probably work it out myself."

"Ah, that's not an answe-."

"Robin to Squire."

Beryl smiles in relief. "Squire here. Go ahead."

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
15:39 GMT -5

"…Electro Lass, A Five Nine."

"'Electro Lass'?" Mr Hamill half-turns to stare at the zeta tube with a look of disquiet. "The fuck is that about?"

With the destruction of KordTech New York, the usual zeta tube station has ceased to be. I'm a little more saddened about that than I thought I'd be. While most zeta tubes are tucked out of the way to keep them from being staked out by the paparazzi, the KordTech one was both isolated and afforded a good view of New York City. Even though it was just as easy for me to get here by ring, I'd sometimes use the tube to get here because I liked taking in the view for a few moments. And now if they even include a tube in the new design they'll probably put it in a bunker underground.

I don't know. Maybe… John is all about the journey rather than the destination. I've been more of a destination sort of person. If I'm going somewhere, it's because I want to get there and do the thing. But… Maybe that's one of the things I should take away from this whole 'being dead' thing. I used to fly for fun, now I mostly do it when it would be inconvenient to walk.

"Just in case you decide you don't want everyone to know about your…" Beryl points her right hand at her head and lowers it, indicating Mr Hamill's transformed body. "Changes."

She shakes her head. "We wrap this up in a couple a' days an' then I'm drinking until I start to find this funny. What's the point in trying to keep it secret? Not like-." She pauses for a moment. "I mean, y'know, no disrespect or anything-."

"Superheroing isn't for everyone."

"And being one takes a bit more than getting powers."

Mr Hamill looks at her for a moment, then switches her attention to me, grins and points at Beryl with her right index finger.

"I'm familiar with the sentiment, Mister Hamill, but Squire actually does have a superpower." She lowers her hand. "And I'll caution you to be aware that you're probably not bulletproof, and if you're not bulletproof then you're not bulletproof in the country with the largest number of privately owned firearms in the world. Superpowers aren't a fix-all."

"She does?"

Anyway, the Embassy still has a zeta tube, so that's where we appeared. I lead the way out via the delivery entrance, a couple of tourists stopping to take pictures as we leave through the gate.

"Sure." Beryl triggers her kinetic belt and rises off the ground. "You alright to fly yourself home, or do you want us to call a taxi?"

Mr Hamill hesitates for a moment, thin strands of plasma forming and discharging around her body. Then there's a flash as she shoots into the air in a semi-controlled fashion, and Beryl and I take off after her.

"I'm not sure most people count 'improved inductive reasoning' as a superpower. That said, I'm pretty sure you know something about this… Whatever it is."

"It grants superpowers and causes physical transformations. Look for outbursts of superheroic activity with multiple superheroes who aren't seen together and are… Poorly trained."

"Already done. And sent to Robin. Not sure it'll be much help, though. America's got a lot of badly trained superheroes, and the statistics I'm using aren't exactly reliable. It's 'improved reasoning', not 'magical guesswork'."

She turns, flying backwards while I keep an eye on Mr Hamill. Fortunately she's sensible enough to stay high enough that her momentary lapses in control aren't resulting in her hitting anything. She's actually got a pretty good turn of speed.

"It wasn't you, was it?"

"If I had something like that, it wouldn't have fallen into the hands of an uncontrolled test subject."

"But you've heard of it before."

"I've tried tracking down all sorts of schizo tech. There was a.. rumour about a shapeshifting superhero in Colorado during the sixties who had a dial, but I wasn't ever able to confirm its existence. If I had, I'd have researched it myself. I don't even know what it looks like."

She folds her arms across her chest. "And you didn't mention this because..?"

"Because I've got stories about hundreds of devices whose existence I couldn't verify and didn't know anything useful about it?" I shrug. "John Constantine once sold a fake magic clock to this American millionaire and there was this one serial killer who thought he had the body of the infant Anti-Christ in a box…"

"Did he?"

"No. He had a rat. That was eating him. Because he went mental, stuck it in a box and taped it to his chest. I mean, I'm glad I caught him but the undead corpse of the Anti-Christ would have come in really handy last week."

"Hm. And how exactly would Jade feel about you using the dial to 'explore your feminine side'?"

"While she's on the other side of the galaxy doing Darkstar training? Not a lot?"

She nods, turning around to face her direction of travel once more. "You were trying to put him at his ease."

"It worked with Jade. People can get a bit stunned when they have to deal with superheroes at close quarters-."

"But if you play the lad they think you're one of the guys. Not a crazy snake monster."

"I'll settle for 'not a crazy cake monster'."

"And he calmed down a whole lot. Which also means that he's less likely to blow a hole in a wall again."

I frown. "Again?"

She points and oh. The flat Mr Hamill.. shares? With Ms Miller, is sporting a hole in the wall to the master bedroom. Mr Hamill is head downward-.

"Ur-gh."

Still working on his landings, but she managed that with a stagger rather than a collapse so it seems like she's learning. Okay, I think that was a window, but he took out some of the surrounding brickwork as well. I think I can handle that.

Mr Hamill walks around to the balcony door and reaches down to her right pocket for her keys before remembering that she's not wearing her own clothes. She knocks on the door instead.

"Am-? Amy, honey?" Her voice deepens as she tries to affect her original male voice. "You home?"

Squire lands beside her as she sort of fidgets nervously, not quite able to stand comfortably-.

Ms Miller opens the door. Mr Hamill's face lights up and she takes a half-step forward… Then stops when Ms Miller shrinks back slightly.

"Amy, those sidekicks told you I'm me, right?"

Ms Miller nods, her eyes alighting briefly on Beryl before moving up to take in me.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know, you're just… Kind of a lot to take in right now."

"I get it? I get that? This is.. pretty weird for me too."

I try to tune them out as I finish patching up the hole. Good as… Better than new, if not quite up to the standard of what I did for Holly. Still, I do prefer it when innocent bystanders don't have to suff-.

"You..? Joseph.. Hamill?"

I turn back to the entrance of their home as a couple of uniformed police officers walk up. Mr Hamill smiles.

"Yes, Joseph! I didn't think the paperwork would go through that qu-."

"You're under arrest, ma'am."

"What?"

What?

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
16:23 GMT -5

"Thank you, detective."

I smile politely, then open the door to the interview room where Mr Hamill is sitting… Pacing in a state of agitation.

"This is bull-!"

I raise my hands, and she cuts herself off. I nod and smile in thanks, then turn and close the door.

"Mister Hamill-."

"On top of everything else, I gotta get a lawyer now?!"

"Good news: I'm a lawyer."

She stops, frowning. "What? Is that some sort of.. superhero sideline thing?"

"Sort of." I gesture to one of the chairs with my right hand. "Would you like to sit down?"

She shakes her head a little, but pulls out the indicated chair and slumps into it.

"Both presently existing Lantern Corps are run by members of a species that originated on the planet Maltus. They're a very old species, and.. more than a little arrogant. Now, because they went pretty much everywhere in the galaxy before the species living there now -including ours- even existed, they… Say that they have a prior claim over the territory. They're generously letting us use our own worlds for now, but they claim the right to intervene as they see fit."

"Sound like a bunch of pricks."

"It's a.. posture. And most places are very happy to have Lanterns around. But, one of the ways this 'universal jurisdiction' manifests is that they consider themselves authorised to practise law anywhere. And once they started hiring people from younger species to work for them, they extended that to Corps officers as well. As a result, I can practise law pretty much anywhere in the universe. So right now I'm having my ring feed me everything I need to know about American criminal law, and it's giving me a bit of a headache. So."

I pull out the chair opposite and sit down.

"The two men you're alleged to have assaulted."

"They literally told me that they robbed a place. They said they thought I was a supervillain! They were trying to hire me!"

"And I believe you." I make a point of maintaining eye contact for a moment. "Do you remember exactly what they said?"

"Ah… Guy with the bag didn't say nothing. Guy at the front… Ah… Said I was… A long way from Gotham… Tried guessing my superhero name, and… Asked if I was a bad.. girl…" She frowns. "Huh."

"Huh?"

"I'm not like a total knuckle-dragger or nothing… But-." She focuses on me. "If you were working with your shirt off and some chick whistled at you, how would you take it?"

I shrug. "I know I look good. I'd find being whistled at.. a bit odd, but if it was just a one-off thing I think I'd smile, and.. maybe pose a little. I mean, if I wasn't fighting a supervillain at the time or something."

"Right, see, I always figured I'd do the same? Never happened, but…"

"But?"

"He was leering and shit, and he grabbed my tits."

"That makes things legally simpler."

"I don't know what I'd have done if some chick did that to my actual body… Some chick who wasn't Amy-" She smiles. "-'cause I've got a pretty good idea what I'd do there. Know what I'd do if a guy did it… So I guess that's equality for you?" She shakes her head. "Grabbing a chick's tits. I mean, who the fuck does that?"

"Apparently, Mark Bardon, arrested on suspicion of eight counts of breaking and entering and presently in hospital with electrical burns."

"Is-? I mean, is he gunna die or something? I was just trying to shock him…"

"The police weren't willing to say. But since I have a power ring, no, he's not going to die. He'll be completely fine in a few weeks. You did less damage than you would if you had shot him."

Mr Hamill pulls a face. "Bastard. So what the hell am I here for?"

"He claims that you blasted him with lightning and took his money."

"His money?"

"I… Suggest that whether he stole it first or not doesn't help your position unless you immediately returned it to the person you believed to be the lawful owner."

"Okay, yeah, I guess… But what the fuck was I supposed to do? My wallet disappeared when all my clothes did. And Amy didn't believe I'm who I said I was."

I nod, sitting back slightly. "Okay. You weren't carrying the money when you entered the Themysciran Embassy. Where did it go?"

"I stuck it out the way on the roof of the next building."

Ring…

Item located.

"Okay, good. Did you spend any of it?"

She shrugs. "I bought dinner…"

I nod. "Okay. I'll get the bag and hand it to the police. Generally they're prepared to overlook minor offences when something sufficiently weird is going on, but I would encourage you to tell me now if you hit anyone else, or… Did anything else that might constitute a criminal offence."

"Ah… I mighta damaged Dan's truck when I changed." She shrugs. "I didn't really see…"

"Anything else?"

"No. Just… On the truck, transformed, flew home -you know about that-, ran into the guys on the roof, kinda wandered around for a bit, got something to eat, wandered around a bit more, then… Went to the embassy."

I nod. "Alright. Now, going back to your encounter with the two on the roof. What were you doing when you first encountered them?"

"Amy… Took pity on me. She gave me some of her clothes when I left, but they didn't.. fit..?" I nod. "I was trying to get them on anyway. I guess I heard them coming up the fire escape, but I didn't really notice until… What'd you say his name was? Mark? Until he started talking. The guy with the bag stayed back until I blasted Mark, then he shot me a couple a' times-."

"I'm sorry, shot you?"

"He didn't hit me." She shrugs. "So I blasted him too. He alright?"

I sit back. "The police only arrested Mark. Since he wasn't on the rooftop, I think we can reasonably assume that he recovered somewhat. Finding him should serve to keep the police occupied, at least. Now, the detective overseeing the investigation wants to conduct an interview. Obviously, I'll be here to offer advice, but these are the key points as I see it. You were attacked and acted in self-defence. You did take the money, but there were extenuating circumstances and it's going to be returned. And you don't intend to take up vigilantism as a hobby. Okay?"

She nods, and I get up and head for the door.

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
17:03 GMT -5

"…just finished up." I look around to watch Mr Hamill and the detective check the contents of the bag against a list of the property reported stolen. "Any luck with the search?"

"No, not yet." Zatanna sounds a little disappointed. "Though on the plus side, the bottom of the Hudson has never been cleaner. I supercharged some Atlantean water purification spells so we could see to the bottom, then I tried levitating all manufactured objects... I don't even know how some of this stuff got here."

"I'm sure that the Department of Health will be very grateful. Did you find any Star Conquerors?"

"If I was being mind controlled right now, would I tell you about it?"

"Probably not."

"No, no Star Conquerors. Starfire's looking around the bottom in case the dial is immune to my spells, but it doesn't look like it's here."

"So either the current caught it, or someone else has already picked it up."

"Probably. I mean, we can't know for sure until we actually find it, but there isn't much else we can do here."

The detective nods and starts putting the contents of the bag into plastic evidence bags. Mr Hamill looks a little happier.

"Any thoughts on reversing the change without it?"

"I'm pretty sure I could transfer the change onto someone else."

"That sounds like just-."

"Except that then Mister Hamill would end up with their face. And no superpowers. And I'm not sure what would happen if the dial ever turned off. I might be able to set the spell so that it just undoes itself, but if it turns out that the dial does what it does by magic then the spells might interfere with one another."

"Best case scenario?"

"He gets his body back and whoever volunteered keeps whichever body they prefer. But the worst case scenario involves both of them getting mashed together."

Ah.

"I.. don't think I'll put that to Mister Hamill. Is it magical?"

"I don't think so. The problem is that there are plenty of ways to conceal magic, and I don't know if I'm good enough to punch through it or work around it."

Someone else shares my scry ward pain.

"I've been trying to work out ways to track it down indirectly. No luck so far."

"Understood." Mr Hamill looks hopefully at me and I give my head a small shake. "Any other leads?"

"Before this happened he was working on a demolition. A small apartment building got burned down and the owner decided they'd rather clear the site and build something new than try and repair the damage. Robin thinks that the dial must have been owned by someone who got caught in the fire."

"Seems reasonable. Any evidence there was a mad science lab there?"

"I'm not an expert, but the rubble just looks like rubble to me. Nothing magical, anyway."

"No, that would be too easy. What's everyone else doing?"

"Starfire is helping Robin go through the rubble, Rocket and Cornwall Boy are checking the banks downriver and Squire's doing background checks on the residents. Are you finished at the police station yet?"

I make eye contact with the detective. "Are we finished for now?"

She nods. "Mister Hamill, don't leave town. We'll want to speak to you again once we've found Mister Bardon's partner in crime."

Mister Hamill nods. "Wasn't planning to."

The detective nods, and Mister Hamill head my way.

"Yes, we're finished. Where does Robin want us?"

"Just a sec…"

Mr Hamill reaches me, and I nod in the direction of the exit. She walks past me, relaxing slightly as she moves away from the interrogation area.

"Hey Oh El. Squire said you'd heard of this dial before this happened?"

"Nothing reliable. But, yes."

"I need you to go to Littleville, Colorado." I nod. "They haven't computerised their local newspaper back issues yet, so I need you to go through them to try and find anything you can about this 'dial'."

I wave at the police officer manning the front desk as we pass, getting a nod in return as Mr Hamill heads out through the front door.

"Anything in particular?"

"Ideally, the secret identity of the original user. But even just a picture of the dial would give us a better idea of what to look for."

"Assuming it's the same one."

"Even if it's an earlier version, it'll at least let us narrow down what sort of thing we're looking for."

"Rightyoh. Do you want me to bring Mr Hamill to you, or take her with me?"

"Zatanna.. said something about you not wanting to move people around any more?"

"Until I can get a Controller to actually examine what happens to people when I do that, yes."

"How long's that gonna take?"

"Maybe… Two weeks? I can take her if you think it's essential…"

"No, that's okay." I jerk around, eyes widening slightly as I see Richard straightening up behind me, smirking as he does so. I hesitate for a moment, them lower my left hand. "I wanna see if Zatanna can use him to track the dial better."

I nod. "Mister Hamill-."

"Yeah, I heard." She holds out her right hand and I shake it. "Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it."

"Thank me when you're a man again."

"Keeping me out of prison will do for now. Okay, kid-" I smile faintly as he turns to Richard. "Where now?"

I fly upward, aiming to get a decent distance between myself and the ground before transitioning. And, yes, I'm probably being unnecessarily paranoid, but it's only a few seconds and it's only for a couple of weeks.

Ring, set course for Littleville, Colorado.

Compliance.

And transition.

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
15:09 GMT -7

Littleville's grown a little since the sixties, though it's still not exactly densely populated. The largest industry in the area is farming, though they also still have the heavy manufacturing that made the Thunderbolt Syndicate's attacks possible. Quite a lot of the American Army's old 'specialist' weapons used to be built around here, borderline mad science machines that were never reliable or cheap enough to make it into mass deployment. But as electronics improved and became more reliable, the local plants weren't able to adapt to the new reality.

Still, while the legal facilities explained the illegal expertise and equipment, there isn't anything in the records I've been able to access which explains the presence of a device that can actually grant superpowers. Some of what happened could have been explained by sophisticated tools or power armour, but the vast majority simply can't.

Ring, anything out of the ordinary?

Low level exotic energy residues detected. Locations largely overlap those of reported fights between local superheroes and known exotic weapons. No other significant anomalies detected.

Fine. I transition to a point three kilometres above the town library and then descend at speed. And every time I do that I wonder how much of a risk it actually is. I know that transitions leave a residue that can be traced. The problem is that for the first time since the original glow experiments a colour other than green is being used en masse. I know that the Guardians chose green due to the fact that it causes minimal mental alterations. John's ring didn't have any records of them studying the side effects, but… Having a Lantern flying around a Space Sector and generally not picking more than one per world per generation would minimise the problem anyway. And most of them didn't have the raw power that I do. And I know that they generally don't use-

I trigger the kinetic belt to arrest my descent, landing lightly to the surprise of a handful of townsfolk. I smile and wave politely before proceeding inside.

-several techniques that I do.

"H-hello?"

My smile broadens as I make eye contact with the librarian. "Good afternoon, sir. I'm looking for copies of the town newspaper, nineteen sixty five to nineteen seventy, if that's at all possible."

"Ah, sure. Any.. particular reason?"

"I'm trying to track down your local superheroes. I mean, I imagine they'd all be fairly old by now, but there are any number of up and coming superheroes who could benefit from their experience."

"Those crazy guys from the sixties? I always thought they were probably government agents. Hey, Pat!" He comes out from behind the desk and waves down one of the aisles. "Gotta take a guy to the records room. Cover the desk for me?"

"Sure thing."

"It's this way."

He leads the way up an internal staircase and along the landing to a door marked 'Periodicals'. He then gets out a key and unlocks the door.

"We're getting some kids from the local college to scan all this stuff onto computer and index it so's people can actually find things. But a lot of the originals are real delicate."

"How far have they got?"

"Nineteen fifty." He pushes the door open and shows me inside. "Of course, they're working on plenty of other publications as well. Used to be a couple of major print factories in Littleville, so that's a lot of magazines." I bow my head as he leads me over to the racks containing the carefully protected newspapers. "Ah, sorry, I guess that's not going to make your life much easier."

"Oh, the life of a superhero."

He walks over and turns the wheel to open one of the interlocking stacks. "You'll probably want to start in here-."

"No, thank you, that's fine. Ring, scan."

Compliance.

"You.. don't need to look at them?"

"My rings can scan and sort them faster than my eyes and brain." Though not instantly, with this many paper copies to go through.

"Find anything helpful?"

"Not yet."

There are a few appearances listed here that I didn't already know about. Checking the area covered… Within easy travel distance of plenty of places where whoever was doing this might live. I'd have liked to see if the neophyte superhero always headed straight from his… Or given that I already know that the dial can change a person's sex, her home. But since this was very definitely before mass camera usage, there just aren't enough pictures for me to work with. Whoever this was, they weren't all that bothered about public acclaim.

I wonder if..?

"I don't suppose that anyone has made a compilation of photographs made by private citizens, have they?"

"Not that I know of. Why are you looking for this stuff now, anyway?"

"I have reason to suspect that the device which granted them their powers has reappeared. I want to ask its original user or users about it."

"Well if that don't beat all." He edges towards the door. "Hey, I might know someone who could help with that. Should I give them a call?"

I nod. "Please."

Okay… Police reports are on an electronic database, so if I compare response times that might give me an idea of travel distances.

"Been a while. Let's see… Four six seven seven six seven."

Cross-referencing police reports with newspaper reports… No, there's not much more here than-.

**Who has the dial?**

My construct gutters as I stagger under the mental force! I look around and-.

A floating brain a metre across shielded by a telekinetic barrier, pink and white cables running across its surface and into a pulsating organ on its underside.

**Who has the dial?**

Space between us bends as its shield narrows and bwugh! I'm sent flying through the wall, my environmental shield flickering at the force of the impact! I take control of my flight before I can hit anything else, heavier armour appearing around me from subspace and construct armour covering that. Looking back at the wall of the library I see the brain float towards the hole, another fluctuation in its telekinetic shield grabbing the brickwork and making a circular section explode outward.

"Please evacuate the area-"

I stick a construct barrier in the way of the flying detritus, blocking it before it can hit anyone.

"-in a calm and orderly fashion!"

With the debris blocked, people in the surrounding area come to their senses and start running away just as fast as they can. I suppose that it's been so long since a super fight happened around here that the locals have lost the instincts for bystander survival.

I return my attention to the brain as it floats out of the now enlarged hole.

"Who are you?"

**I am the Scintillating Psionist! Give me the information I want or everyone here dies!**

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
15:15 GMT -7

"You're the what?"

Wait. Someone with superpowers and a stupid name suddenly appears. Was.. the librarian whose name I didn't get the guy all along?

**I am the Scintillating Psionist and you will respect me!**

Pale pink lights shimmer under the skin of his brain and-. People stop running, their bodies locking up.

**Answer my question!**

"Okay. No need to do anything hasty."

Neural chaff grenades as a possibility, but against a non-standard neural structure I can't be confident they would work. And the few nonhumanoid telepaths on record are noted as being able to do things with their abilities that humanoids flat out can't. Star Conquerors couldn't function with humanoid minds, and M'gann's abilities have come on in leaps and bounds since she stopped restricting herself.

Worse, I don't know what would happen to the people he's connected to. There are ways to accidentally fry people's brains when you're hooked up like this. To say nothing of the neural programs that he could have inserted. Doing things like that should take years to learn, but whatever else the dial does it appears to give at least some people an intuitive understanding of what they can do.

"I don't know who has the dial. The last person I know of who had it was so surprised by their transformation that they accidentally threw it off a bridge, and we haven't been able to find it since."

The 'Scintillating Psionist' considers this for a moment.

**Reveal your mind to me!**

Selective revelation is possible against a humanoid telepath. Or at least I could stick my barriers back up if something untoward was happening. Against a being like this… I don't like my chances of pulling something like that off.

"Why?"

**I want the dial!**

I squint. No, no you don't. You want something, but it isn't the dial.

"Okay, if you have some sort of documented proof that it's your property, I'll return it to you just as soon as the current user has disconnected themselves."

**Unacceptable! Who dares to use the dial!?**

"They didn't realise what it was. And they very much want to stop using it. They didn't mean to offend you, and I'm sure they're very sorry about the whole situation."

**The dial is useless while they use its power!**

That's a relief. We don't have to worry about a mad serial killer getting hold of it or something.

"Then you've got every reason to want them to disconnect willingly, haven't you?"

**I will have the truth from your mind!**

"Looking into my mind wouldn't show you the difference between false memories and genuine ones."

I take a hologram projector out of subspace and… Create an image of Mr Hamill's current form, taking care to alter her facial appearance.

"The woman in question came to the Justice League looking like this."

Another wave of colour passes under the brain's… 'Skin'. Any observable-?

I spot a woman who had been frozen between steps regain at least some ability to move as she looks up in growing horror at…

Ring, what is the librarian's name?

Local government personnel records list him as 'Jonathan Dow'.

Jon Do-? Really. How long has he worked here?

Approximately thirty years.

Fair enough, then. The woman looks up at me for a moment, and I make an urgent 'push away' gesture with my right hand. She takes the hint and starts creeping away from our confrontation, and I notice a handful of others doing the same. Good. I don't know what sort of range Mr Dow has, but if they can get out of it then-.

**I can't find her!**

Everyone freezes again, and I don't think it's from fear. How much range does he have? A telepathic life form of that size… Star Conquerors with brains that size were proved to be able to operate across a continent…

"Yes. The dial grants powers at random, doesn't it? I found it had several curious interactions with my rings. I did wonder if it was perhaps due to transformed individuals not being there in the conventional sense."

**Where is she?!**

"Mister Dow-."

**I am the Scintillating Psionist now!**

"Scintillating Psionist, why do you want to know where she is?"

**So that I can recover the Dial!**

"And then what?"

**That is not your concern!**

"Scintillating Psionist, I'm perfectly happy to return your property to you, but I can't in good conscience give you the location of someone you're simply going to attack. If you would like to accompany us during our search, we'd be happy to have you along. And as I've said, if you can prove that you own the dial then we will return it to you."

**Give! Me! The! D-!**

"Oh God, Jon, what have you done to yourself?"

A woman stares out from the hole in the wall in horror. That would be… Patricia Birchall, the other librarian.

**I am completing our mission! The Dial belongs to the Master!**

I check, and a portion of the crowd are once again trying to make themselves scarce. Okay, good. He isn't facing my way but… Yes, I can feel the weak telekinetic field he's using in place of sensory organs. What do I do? I could try suppressing his desires, but I don't know if he'd realise what I was doing. And frankly his desire network looks weird.

"Jon, it's been decades-."

**That doesn't matter! I can't live like this any more!**

Ring, can we… Analyse his current physiology?

Analysis complete.

Oh great, even my ring isn't sure how that thing is functioning. Okay, assume that a lot of the work is offloaded onto whatever dial he just used… I just need to shut down his telepathy.

"Jon, just-. Just use the dial again, and we can sort this out."

Reconfiguring neural shock generator, ready filament-based area evacuation.

Compliance.

**You're just distracting me.** The brain turns back in my direction. Is the telepathy direction-restricted? **TELL ME WHERE IT-!**

I trigger the generator.

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
15:18 GMT -7

**Grgrlulgrlur.**

The Scintillating Psionist lists in the air for a moment, and everyone it had been holding in thrall legs it. Then its telekinetic field starts fluctuat-shield!

My orange barrier expands, forming a dish-shape to protect the town as the telekinetic barrier leaps outward! My barrier is shoved away, the upper third where the force was concentrated cracking and break-.

"Ah!"

Part of the telekinetic blast went into the library! Ms Birchall dived to the side in an impressive display of athleticism for someone her age, but the floor is collapsing beneath her-.

**Kuh-kuh-kuh-kuh.**

Another telekinetic surge, this one grabbing objects at random. I watch two cars get squeezed to wreckage-.

Ring, read patterns of activation and improve the suppression system!

Compliance.

**Uhhhhhhhh.**

There's a momentary increase of the force on my armour, but the kinetic shield soaks it. Then the telekinetic barrier around the Scintillating Psionist fails completely, and the brain drops-.

Flight aura!

I catch it before it can splatter against the ground, another construct extending into the building and propping up the floor Ms Birchall is standing on. She nearly trips as it falls an inch onto my supports, but then steadies herself-.

"His dial!"

Because there's an off-switch, hopefully.

"Where is it?"

"You didn't-?!" She turns around, frantically searching the wreckage in the library for any sign of a dial.

I raise my hands, dismissing all constructs except the ones keeping the Scintillating Psionist off the ground and unconscious before sending out filaments to grab the rubble and pile it neatly in the street. Or as neatly as possible, at any rate. No, no… I really hope that wasn't it, as if it was then it's been crushed-.

"There! There!"

Ms Birchall points frantically at a small, dull grey object. I grab it with a construct and pull it up as I float towards her.

"How do I deactivate it?"

"Do you know what he dialled?"

Ah… "Four six seven seven six seven."

She shakes her head. "Horror. No wonder he wouldn't listen." She takes the dial from my construct and holds it out to me. "He has to dial it in reverse."

I glance at the Scintillating Psionist. "He doesn't have hands. Is there another way?"

"These versions don't have the power to maintain the transformation indefinitely. Can you keep him unconscious for an hour?"

Theoretically, yes, but long term neural suppression can do all sorts of unpleasant things to a person. "I'd rather avoid it."

"It doesn't have to be voluntary. If you can just press it up against him, that should work."

"His external surface is part of his brain."

"Injuries disappear when we change back."

"How long does turning back take?"

"A few seconds."

Right. I-.

**Mrugh-ugh?**

The telekinetic shield momentarily re-establishes itself, breaking the link to my flight aura. Then it disappears again, the Scintillating Psionist falling towards the ground! Aura back o-!

There's a pulse of telekinetic force, sending the unconscious brain upward into the sky! Shit, okay, that… Cable doesn't appear to be plugged into anything vital. I fly up until I'm alongside him, hold the dial as close to him as I can and then yankanddial!

The telekinetic surge stops almost immediately, so I extend a flight aura around everything but the end of the cable. Seven-! Fuck, the rotary dial! I can't make it go back to neutral faster! Neural activity… I don't know enough to monitor him effectively, but I don't think he's dying. Six, and a painful wait. Seven. Seven. Some of the cables are pulsing worryingly. I hate not understanding-. Six. I… Think he's having some sort of stroke. No, can't stop now.

Four.

The shift is immediate, the image of a disembodied brain shrinking and fading as the image of an adult man grows and solidifies. Two seconds pass and the man is all that remains, his eyes blinking as he adjusts.

Ring, stop neural suppression.

Compliance.

Binding my newly human guest in construct chains, I float back towards the library.

"I would appreciate an explanation, please."

Ms Birchall nods. "The man you were looking for is called Robert Reed. He's-. Well, he doesn't live around here any more."

"And who are you?"

"We're-. I suppose you'd call us clones. We were… Grown from tissue samples taken from.. transformed heroes. Neither of us were ever able to manifest powers, so we were kept around for other things. Spying, mostly."

"By who?"

"One time, Robert needed to be in two places at once. He used the dial to make two of himself, but… One of them was evil. The evil side went its own way, and… Created us."

"And new dials."

"No, the ones we use are far weaker than the original."

"Is he still around?"

"No, they merged back into Robert Reed decades ago. But we're still compelled to obey our master's last orders. He wanted the dial back."

"You seem to be managing."

She shakes her head. "It's been a long time, and I don't know what I'd do if I actually saw the.. bedamned thing."

"Do you have any way to locate it?"

She shakes her head. "We wouldn't be here if we did. We came here because it was our only lead, and since we didn't have anything better we settled down… I thought we were out."

"And your dial."

She hesitates. "I-. I've got it, but I can't give it up. I'd-. I'd try and kill you, I'd have to-."

"Okay, just don't try and use it." She nods gratefully. "So who would have a way to track the dial down?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
18:18 GMT -6

"Sounds like you're having more fun than we are, Oh El."

"I somehow doubt that."

The Central State Hospital actually has some fairly nice grounds, thought I notice there isn't anything planted in them that would make hiding easier. My two 'guests' look increasingly nervous as we get closer, but there shouldn't be anything to worry about. I've already sent off the paperwork required for them to gain legitimate legal existence, and Robert Reed is supposed to be a model inmate.

Ninety nine percent of the time, anyway.

"No luck finding it, then?"

"Not yet. We found the guy who had it before Mister Hamill. He was a small time hood before he got the dial."

"I think I missed that intelligence report. Shouldn't a new supervillain-?"

"He just committed a few thefts, Oh El. He kept it low-key enough that Batman didn't make it a priority, then he got into a fight with his henchmen and handed himself over to the police. We actually knew about the guys who had it before him. We didn't know that they had something like the dial; my best guess was that Captain Chaos was a shapeshifter."

I nod. "Did he have any way to track the dial?"

"No. And I don't think any of the recent users will, either. Kid Flash is going to drop in on Christopher King to see if he knows anything, but based on the fact that he hasn't been active as a superhero since Infinity Inc. broke up, I doubt he'll know anything."

One of the orderlies waves to me, and I turn and walk in his direction. "I suppose they could just dial until they hit someone with 'find the dial' powers."

"I don't know, Oh El. Robert Reed and Victoria Grant both ended up in secure hospitals. I'm not sure that using the dial is all that healthy."

"We'll know more when we get the chance to examine it. I don't suppose there's been a sudden unexplained increase in superheroes anywhere?"

"Not that I've noticed. I've got Beryl watching the superhero fan sites just in case. We actually saw your fight in Littleville before you reported in."

"I'm not sure I'd call that a fight. More of a talking down." The orderly walks back inside what appears to be a glass-fronted day room and bends down to say something to a shrivelled man in the loose-fitting clothes of a long term resident. Robert Reed is only in his early sixties, but for various reasons he looks like Alan at his worst. "I'll talk to you if I find out anything."

"Ah, Oh El? I'm not making this an all-nighter. Unless you and Zatanna come up with something, we're just.. not set up for wide area lost property searches."

I nod. "You're right. Have you told Mr Hamill?"

"I've told him I don't think we'll find it just by looking. But we couldn't afford to just ignore something this powerful even if he didn't need it to change back."

"True."

"Catch you later."

I nod, lowering my hand as I walk through the exterior door and into the day room. "Mister Reed."

"Yeah." He looks up, tiredly. "That's me. I hear someone found the dial."

"Someone did, then it went to someone else, then someone else again…"

He shakes his head. "I didn't ever want to let that thing go. How the hell did so many people get it so fast?"

"Enquiries are still proceeding. Ah…" I look him over. "Are you..? Alright?"

"Compared to what?" He shifts position slightly, arms folded on his lap. "I spent a decade simultaneously as a superhero and a supervillain, then I got merged back together. And I was fine for a little while, just being me again. And then…" He takes a deep breath. "The transformations influence your personality. You're still.. you, but you're a little bit them as well. Wizard was completely selfless, but at the same time he was obsessed about working indirectly, or not clueing other people in that he was around. Sometimes I forget that I'm not him, and… That's okay, because he hated hurting people."

"And sometimes I forget I'm not Master." He takes a couple of deep breaths, looking away from me. "Those are the bad days."

"We don't have to talk about the Master-" He turns his head back to me, frowning. "-if you-."

"Yeah. We do. I might not know where the dial is now…" He shudders. "And thank God I don't. But I can still kinda feel where other users are." He leans to his right to get a better look at Ms Birchall and Mr Dow. "Who are you?"

Ms Birchall glances at Mr Dow for a moment, then returns her attention to him. "You don't recognise us?"

"If you're someone Wizard or Master met…" He shakes his head. "They keep me medicated so I don't start thinking like those two again. I wouldn't recognise you."

"You…" She trails off, staring at the man before her. "You -Master-you- made us. Do you remem-?"

His face falls a little. "The clones. I-. No, no." He closes his eyes for a moment, taking another deep breath. "No. Master created so many… I didn't think there were any left he didn't kill."

"He told us to find the dial. We've.. been.. living in Littleville since…"

Mr Reed shrugs. "It's as good a place as anywh-." His eyes widen. "Oh God, you've still got the Horror Dials." Ms Birchall nods, holding up both hers and Mr Dow's. "You haven't.. used them, have you?" Ms Birchall shakes her head while Mr Dow nods. "Shit. Those, those…" He shakes his head again. "Don't use those."

"Mister Reed, where did they come from?"

"Wizard and Master both had the ability to make dials. Knock-offs of the original, but they still worked. Master preferred powered clones, they were more… Controllable."

"Do you know how to make them? Or where the original came from?"

He shakes his head. "No, no. I mean, I might be able to work it out if I really concentrated on their memories…" He shudders. "No. And I never knew where the original came from. It was… It was just there."

"Do you have any way of finding the original?"

"The dials give you the tools to do the job. Whatever that is. You talk to Chris?"

"One of my colleagues is."

"Take him to roughly where you think the dial is and get him to use his." He shakes his head. "It's the… That's the best I can do."

"Do you think he'll get a dial-finding power?"

"I once beat up a gang as a walking pinball machine. The application isn't always direct, but it ought to give him something he can work with. Or failing that, if someone else picks it up, he'll be able to find them just as well as I could."

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to help us search yourself?"

He shakes his head emphatically. "I can't-. I can't become Master again. I can't risk it. You don't know how many people he killed-." He starts crying. "God. He just told them to walk into an incinerator and they did it!" He looks up at Ms Birchall and Mr Dow. "I'm sorry, but this… This is where I need to be."

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
19:43 GMT -5

"…sorry, Mr Dow. I didn't think-"

The decidedly peaky-looking Mr Dow tries waving it off. "It's fine."

"-that airsickness… I've never had that problem before."

While not transitioning should minimise the potential effect of orange light pollution, flying normally at high speed apparently has other risks. Bird strikes aren't a problem-. Not for me anyway. Just have to hope that none of those were endangered. But a badly airsick clone spy… Didn't think about that in advance.

"What are the two of you going to do if you actually..? See the original dial?"

Ms Birchall shakes her head. "I don't… Seeing it shouldn't do anything. We were created after the dial split, and we weren't there when it got put back together. We've never seen it before, not even a photograph."

I nod. Even if Master had something to work off, mental programming shouldn't last this long without reinforcement…

"So I'm forced to conclude that Mr Dow's attack was something he chose to do?"

"Ah, well, we're still conditioned to be obedient. We didn't-. He didn't have to-."

"It was the first sniff I'd gotten in thirty years." Mr Dow doesn't exactly look chastened, but… I sort of get where he's coming from. "It was my purpose. I could… Stop thinking about it, but when it was right there…"

I stop the construct plane in the air. "If this is going to be a problem-."

"Mr Reed isn't exactly Master, but… I think he counts-. God, I knew those people." He shakes his head, looking down. "I was just-. Dial the number, then-."

"It's not called a Horror dial for nothing. You used it nearly as often as I did."

"I'd… Forgotten."

"And for someone who hasn't used a dial before?"

Ms Birchall shrugs. "Master didn't have any use for pacifists. Since we were spies, we needed to be able to live with people without going on crazy rampages like his successful subjects did. But he wanted us to be able to fight, without… Holding back, even against people we knew."

I nod. Always a risk that if you live among people you'll start to see them as people.

"So… The Horror Dial bypasses that. It pushes everything out of your mind. You're rational when you activate it, and… You're still rational, but…"

"You suddenly weigh things differently." They both nod. "Has talking to Mr Reed relieved you of the need to keep hold of your dials? Because to me they sound like something that no one should have access to."

"We went… Thirty years without using them. And we have concealed carry permits."

"Alright, let me put it this way. Mister Dow, what you did is a criminal offence. And with the Injustice League, Klarion and Fawcett City, a lot of places have been strengthening their anti-supervillain laws. Since no one suffered any lasting physical harm I don't think that they'd push for a death sentence, but I strongly suspect that you'll be spending the rest of your life in prison for multiple counts of mind control. Alternatively, you can give me those dials, I'll lock them away, and then I'll have a word with some people."

They both look decidedly sombre. For a moment neither of them says anything, then Ms Birchall pulls out the dials and holds them out.

"Thank you."

I put them in a pouch -not going to risk subspacing them- and resume our journey, descending towards the current location of the rest of the gang. They look up as we land on the promenade.

And that's Christopher King, looking remarkably normal.

"Hey, Oh El." Richard steps forward, giving my guests a once-over. "Mister King says he can't feel it."

I turn to my guests, eyebrows raised. Mr Dow shakes his head while Ms Birchall shrugs.

"Orange Lantern?" Mr King steps forward. "You saw… Bobby, didn't you? Is he doing okay? He hasn't answered my calls in years."

"No. No, not really." I shake my head. "Sorry, I sort of assumed-."

"I'm not family and he doesn't like-. Didn't like being reminded of the Dial. Especially after what happened to Vicki." He sighs. "But if everyone's out of ideas, I'd rather find it before someone takes it joyriding again."

"Zatanna, these are-" I pull the two dials out of my pouch. "-Horror Dials, made based on the original design. Would they help?"

She shakes her head. "I already tried with Mister King's dial. Whatever they are, something's protecting them from my magic."

Raquel looks somewhat sceptical. "What exactly are the odds of the dial giving you something you can use to find the other dial?"

"I've-" Mr King shrugs as he pulls out his dial. I tense slightly, watching to see if Mr Dow or Ms Birchall lunge for it. No, no reaction at all. "-got no idea. It usually gives me something I can use, but this is a lot more specific than a random fight with the Master's goons."

"I don't suppose you can just enter 'find dial', can you?"

He turns his dial so that I can see the face-. It has four letters, 'H', 'E', 'R' and 'O'.

"Bobby's Wizard personality didn't want any chance that we'd misuse it or dial something we weren't supposed to."

Mr Hamill clenches her fists in frustration. "I still say I should try using that to turn back. I just gotta dial 'hero' again, don't I?"

Mr King shakes his head. "Assuming it still works the same, you gotta dial 'oreh'."

"Huh?"

"It's 'hero' backwards. And honestly, given the crazy stuff these dials can do, I wouldn't risk it."

Richard looks up at Mr Hamill. "How about we try it if Mr King's dial can't find it?"

Mr Hamill droops. "This whole day's sucked. I just want it to be over."

Mr King looks at him sympathetically for a moment, then raises his left wrist. Looks like his dial is built into his wristwatch. Now that's worrying. The potential for concealed usage… "Okay, here we go with attempt number one. 'H-E-R-O'."

There's a faint white-yellow glow as Mr King recedes and another figure comes to the fore. Some sort of… Bizarre parody of Sherlock Holmes, complete with deerstalker-mounted magnifying glasses.

"Super Sleuth, master of mysteries and concluder of conundrums!"

He takes a moment to look himself over.

"Which would be great if we had any evidence to work with, but the first deduction I'm going to make is that if no one knows where it went there aren't going to be clues in human behaviour and you've already searched all of the reasonably probable locations for it to wash out. O-R-E-H."

Mr King reappears and redials.

"H-E-R-O."

This time he gets a.. vaguely animalistic alien, with.. antennae and blue skin.

"The Transphasic Tracker. This should work! Okay, I'll need to head back to the bridge, then I should be able to follow exactly where it went!"

My team mates look at one another in confusion. Raquel shakes her head.

"What'd he say?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
20:11 GMT -5

"How the fuck did I get it on a boat?"

Richard tilts his head to the side. "You did say you weren't paying attention."

There's a brief flicker of light as Christopher 'Transphasic Tracker' King uses his own dial to regain his usual form. And hopefully, the ability to speak English.

"So… Ah..?" The security guard who let us into this container yard looks a little awkward. Yes, we have every legal right to be here without a warrant -and the right of Justice League affiliates to pursue schizo tech without one has been tested in court- but it's a decidedly odd event, costumes are cheap to fake and he doesn't recognise most of us. "You kids about done here?"

Richard nods. "Yeah, thanks. Alright, let's-."

Mr Hamill walks up to Mr King, clearly barely restraining his desire to grab the dial. "Can I just use it right now?"

"Mister King? Would that cause any sort of problem?"

Mr King shakes his head. "No, as.. far as I know, all the problems people have had is with turning into things, not turning back. Here." He holds it out to Mr Hamill. "Remember, it's-."

Mr Hamill snatches it with both hands and turns the dial with his right forefinger. "O. Fuck, how did people used to make calls like this? R… E… And H!"

Electro Lass fades away, replaced by a… Man who looks somewhat sweatier and less well-shaven than the figure in the photographs. He breathes hard for a moment, then runs his right hand over his face while the left is still clamped down hard on the dial. His right hand continues down, checking that his mammaries have gone, that his belly has returned and that his-.

"Dude."

"I'm back!" He pulls his right hand free and raises it in exaltation. "It's me, I'm me again!"

Richard smiles. "Then our work here is done. You planning on keeping-"

Mr Hamill thrusts the H-Dial towards Richard so fast that I see him tense to block or dodge.

"Fucking take-"

"-that-?"

"-this fucking thing the fuck away from me."

"O-kay." Richard takes it from him. "If you insist."

"Kid, this has been the most fucked up day of my life and I'm not drunk enough to laugh about it yet. I wanna forget I ever saw that fucking thing."

I take a small bottle I picked up on Tamaran out of subspace and hold it out to him. He looks at me sceptically for a moment.

"Momma told me to never accept presents from strange men, and buddy? I hate to tell you this-."

"Mister King is teetotal and everyone else here is underage."

"Score." He flips the cap off the bottle and sniffs the contents. "What's it made of?"

"Alien nuts." … "Well, mainly nuts."

"Pf, aliens." He throws his head back and necks…

Um. Ring, there isn't anything in there that-.

While inadvisable, there is insufficient alcohol in that bottle to kill a healthy adult human male.

"…ludicrously powerful superpower-granting artefact." Richard cautiously holds the H-Dial up as Mr Hamill wipes his mouth and nods in appreciation. "Mister King-."

Mr King holds up his hands defensively. "I don't even use the dial I've got. After what happened to Vicki and Bobby, I think you should lock it in a vault somewhere and melt down the key."

Leonid shakes his head. "Dial should be studied. Reed and Grant used Dial for several years, and fought many battles."

Richard shrugs. "That's up to the Justice League. Unless someone has a reason to use it right now, which I don't think-."

The dial starts turning.

Richard's face switches into neutral. "Mister King, has that ever happened before?"

It keeps turning, then stops at M.

Mr King shakes his head. "No, no, it doesn't turn itself."

"Fuck this." Mr Hamill heads for the entrance of the yard at a sprint.

Richard takes a firm grasp on the dial and inserts his thumbs into the holes in the dial. His Danner Formula enhanced fingers hold it for a second, then the dial resumes its motion. A.

He thinks for a second, then throws the dial to me. I catch it in my right hand.

"Oh El, get that away from populated areas. And don't be holding it when it stops turning!"

Chihuahuan Desert it is, then. I shoot up into the air, then transition-

2nd January
19:14 GMT -6

-to a place a reasonable distance from the roads or the stands and where's the dial?

2nd January
20:14 GMT -5

I dive and catch it before it can hit the ground. Oh dear. I turn in the air and rocket towards the Atlantic as the dial reaches S. M-A-S, with a version of the dial that can spell out anything. Hey, maybe that explains Mr Hamill. Maybe he didn't dial 'hero' but 'woman' or 'boobs' or something. If that works, this could be a major benefit to those amongst the transsexual community who aren't brave enough to go under Cranius's knife. Just need one of the limited versions per person.

That's the coast, no Atlantean cities near here, shipping… A reasonable distance away. I'm actually going to have to find time to build… Maybe not another Ice Fortress, but… Some sort of fortified facility for things like this. I don't think that Jade's flat is really appropriate.

Even if I could fit a decent workshop in that room she was using as a dojo…

And T. Not too surprised. The Master was actually a major supervillain for years, and today proved that they never did find all of his holdouts. If anyone had some way of remote controlling the H-Dial, it would be him.

"Orange Lantern to Robin. Unless this thing goes off like Tsar Bomba, I'm far enough away. Has someone checked Mister Reed?"

"According to his guards, he's in his room, not doing anything."

E.

"We've got M-A-S-T-E now. One more letter and we'll have a guy who can clone supervillains back. If he gets access to modern cloning technology-."

"Your friends from Littleville say that the Master didn't have any physical powers himself. The Flash is running that way now. If Mister Reed turns back, he won't get very far." There's a pause, and a sigh. "Tell me you're not still holding onto it."

"I-."

"Because you turning into the Master would be far worse than Mister Reed transforming."

Yeah, he's right. I create a construct bubble around the dial and send it high into the air just as the rotor reaches 'R'.

"Sending it on its way now. You might want to-."

"Mister King isn't wearing his watch."

I nod. "Sensible. It's reached 'R' but hasn't-."

My construct is annihilated in a sudden explosion of exotic energy and brown mist. Another construct catches the burned remains of the H-Dial as it falls toward the sea. Material composition… Same device, as far as I can tell.

"I think it was a self-destruct. If we knew anyone who knew how these things worked I'd suggest having them take a look…"

"Bring the remains back anyway. Robin out."

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January
20:15 GMT -5

Y.

The man moves his hands away immediately, then takes a couple of paces back just to make sure. The runes inscribed on the plinth shimmer faintly for a second, the brown mist rapidly eating through the sympathetic link generating segment, but…

The broken dial vanishes, and the intact one appears.

"Ha!" He grins, his head tilting back. "Hoo! And here we are!"

Here. H-ear. Hey-yah. Not hur.

Uh, really? He knew that occasional bursts of free association would be a problem with his neural augmentations, but flashing back to his early elocution lessons really isn't that big a deal.

Deal, not dilly or daal.

And hey (not hee), at least the language teacher had spotted the structural similarities quick enough (not enoo) that they didn't try teaching him English (not Engsh) as a new language.

"This is the device?"

Circe doesn't sound all that impressed, a pale purple layer of protective magic covering her as she steps towards it. He doesn't feel like he needs to chase her off his -and it is his- device. No, the wire-. No, line he fed her about losing all other powers when the dial is active will do that. Might even be true. And it's not like he has a problem with other people using it. Using it's fine. It's not using it that pisses him off.

He nods, peeling the gloves made from Robbie Reed's skin off as he does so. Cloned skin, obviously. Getting access to a potentially insane supervillain in a secure mental institution was possible but frankly far too obvious for something like this.

"Uh-huh."

"Such a…" She frowns as she picks it up. "Small device."

"So are power rings. Souls don't weigh all that much, either."

Not eith nor eez.

And wow wow that's a lot of penis jokes he just didn't make. Why had he spent all that time studying memes again?

Oh right. Boredom.

"And it can grant you any boon?"

"In theory. In actual fact, if you don't want a blunt instrument it's kinda hit-in-miss." No, no. He shrugs. "Hit-and-miss, hit-or-miss. You don't always get quite what cha' want."

She peers closer, the device shimmering faintly once more. Probably doing some sort of magic probe thing. He'd read up a whole lot on magic since his arrival, but… Ancient magic users like Circe didn't seem to operate within the usual limitations.

"Where did it come from?"

He throws his hands up in the air. "Pfffffff!"

A minor glare, hostility without effort. "Don't be a dullard, Nylor."

"I don't know." Not ownt. Not nuh. "My guess was that the Reach put a whole lotta metahuman genetic samples in there and pressed 'blend'. But that doesn't explain the robots."

Though given the madness generally associated with metahuman physiology, who was he to say that there couldn't be someone who spontaneously turned parts of themselves into mechanisms? Cybernetics, yes, power armour, certainly, integrated nanotechnology and flash-fabrication, sure. But flat out turning bits of themselves into machinery? No one immediately sprang to mind, but he'd be the first to admit that his records were decidedly incomplete.

"My magics can't detect any human tissue." She sets the H-Dial back on its plinth. "Though there are of course ways to shield such things from sorcery. And it would be such a waste to dis-."

No. "No." No. He picks it off the plinth with his left hand and gently strokes it with his right, careful not to actually turn the dial. "No."

"-assemble it." She actually smiles at his behaviour, a surprisingly genuine gesture that is still a rarity after he lured her away from her comfortable isolation.

"You want a dial, you can get one of the ones someone else uses."

Orange Lantern getting those two fascinatingly named 'Horror Dials' was… Nugh. At least he'd either use them or study them. Not as good as them coming here, but… A decent second place. But… Frustrating. Tracking down the few surviving Master-created supervillains had yielded… Interesting genetic samples, but…

Even with modern techniques. Even if the manumitted genomorphs were willing to mentally program a new generation of clones. Which they weren't. But even if they were… Faking years of life was hard. The truth would probably drive them to rebel, and… Denying them the mental flexibility they needed to do that would make them as useless as the Master's originals. Metahuman cloning was too expensive to be used for disposable weapons. Genetic editing of existing adults was a possibility, but not… Reliable. Get someone with the skills and loyalty required, and… Well, few people stayed loyal after being turned into monsters.

But a dial. A dial that could be turned off. And on. If someone got turned into a monster, who cares? Just turn the dial again, no more problem. And a little cloned skin resulted in remote activation and deactivation-.

Hm.

"You broke the link, right?"

Circe nods. "Entirely."

He doesn't put a glove back on, but wraps part of it around his right forefinger before dialling. Y-R-E-T-S-A-M. Reed, he actually respected. Kinda. The man-. The boy had used the dial to do a lot of good. Kept a lot of idiots from destroying valuable infrastructure. And he went crazy before he could realise that the cleverest thing he could do would be to study the dial, so he got a pass there.

Almost.

"I'm not convinced that I could not replicate the Dial's transformation effects with magic."

He didn't smile. Circe didn't tolerate men making jests at her expense. "Can you travel through time?"

Circe's gaze hardens, but she appears willing to take the question at face value. "A little, with difficulty. I accept that in that one regard the powers of the Dial's maker outstripped mine. Though of course I would not burn to a cinder by doing it."

"That was kinda my fault. Gotta a.. bunch a'… Not so great powers. Rigged the odds. Worked, but…"

"Is it completely random?"

"Maybe? Like I said, you get something useful. But, could be random."

"So it is less useful than my magic."

"Circe, if I could get you-in-a-box, if I could give someone magic like you? My first choice. This…" He holds up the dial. Not… Exactly as he remembers it, but a lot has happened. "You gotta admit, it beats your beastmen."

"I could beat my beastmen, if I had cause to. I simply haven't had a requirement for more than they can offer." She regards the dial curiously for a moment. "Do you intend to keep it for yourself?"

"Yah-huh." Close enough. "I wanna study it using decent equipment. An' I got a whole bunch a' volunteers."

Superpowered private security might be a grey area, legally speaking, but it was a highly profitable one. And asking security-vetted people to raise their hands if they're interested was far safer than grabbing people off the streets or something dumb like that.

"Not planning to use it yourself?"

"Please." He scoffs, with face and voice. "This hasn't ever been about me."

"Well said." The third member of their gathering suddenly comes to life, his blank gaze becoming piercing. "To paraphrase what a very wise man once said, ask not what your world can do for you, but ask what you can do for your world." Then he smiles, recruitment-poster-come-to-life inhumanity becoming notably more human. "But if you can get rich at the same time, then why not?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

3rd January
21:38 GMT -5

"Hey, Lantern!" Mr Hamill waves at me from his bench. "Over here!"

I nod, and make my way across the interior of the bar. When I get to within non-shouting distance, he indicates his co-drinkers with his bottle.

"This here's Mike-" An overweight Caucasian man. Solid looking arms, though. "-and this is Dan." Trim black man with a thin moustache.

"Good evening, gentlemen." I nod to them both, then sit down next to Mike. "I'm Orange Lantern."

Mike chuckles, shakes his head, then pulls out his wallet. He extracts two ten dollar notes and passes one to each of his companions. "I ain't even mad. This is crazy."

"No, just unusual. Mister Hamill-."

"Ah, call me 'Joe'."

"Joe, how are you feeling?"

"I haven't drunk enough of these to find it funny yet, but I'm definitely getting there."

"Okay, but before you do… No lingering side effects that you've noticed?"

"Nope. Just a regular Joe." He grins at his pun. Yes, not too far from finding it funny. "But… I don't know if it's the dial or whatever…"

"Yes?"

"Maybe… If I knew before I turned it on that I could turn it off… Maybe I coulda got more out of it."

Mike looks at him with an expression of disbelief. "You just got done saying that you hated the whole thing."

"Yeah, yeah, I did." He takes a drunk from his bottle. "'Cause I thought I was stuck like that. By the time I got the dial back all I could think of was turning if off. But if I'd kept hold of it at the start… Coulda been fun."

Dan shakes his head. "Fun..?"

"Fly around for a bit, look down on the whole city… Maybe the whole world. Maybe prank a couple of people…"

"Joe, please, if you ever encounter devices like that in the future, just hand them straight over to the police or to the Justice League."

He makes a gesture of appeal. "What's wrong with having a little fun? I wasn't going to hurt anybody."

"The problem is that while the dial is fairly user friendly, an awful lot of artefacts like that very much aren't. I'm very glad that this turned out okay, but…" I shake my head. "The vast majority of uncontrolled exposures don't work like that. I've… Been to hospital wards-."

"Okay… Yeah, I guess… God knows I wouldn't want to be stuck like that."

Dan nods. "Don't play with matches, railroad tracks or super weapons, got it."

"Hey, ah…" Mike leans forward. "Joe didn't say what happened to the dial."

"Our best guess is that it self-destructed. It's actually pretty common for supervillains and superheroes to put stuff like that in their technology."

Mike frowns. "Then why didn't it go off before?"

I shrug. "Joe said he was turning the dial randomly. We know that he entered 'hero' at some point, because that was what turned him back. But it's perfectly possible that he dialled something else first."

"Oh." Joe winces. "Ah, sorry?"

I shake my head. "Don't worry about it. Even if that is what happened, it was clearly an accident. And the dial doesn't have a legal owner."

"So…" Mike gesture towards me with his beer bottle. "How about them other dials?"

"Once I knew what I was looking for, tracking them down was a lot easier. Or… At least, tracking the ones which aren't immune to ring scans."

"What about the ones that are?"

"How would I know about it if there were any?"

"Huh?" He frowns, then gets it. "Oh, yeah."

"We're going to keep an eye out for sudden bursts of superpowered activity by multiple individuals… Or rather, we're going to be aware that it could be due to a dial rather than a team. And we've sent out a message to all police forces with a description of every version of the dial that we're aware of. But short of binding Mister Reed with Diana's Lasso of Truth there isn't much more we can do."

"You..?" Mike shrinks in on himself slightly, then presses onwards. "You need any ..? Volunteers for testing them dials?"

"Not at this stage, but if you're interested I can pass your details on."

Joe frowns in incomprehension, shakes his head and makes a lower gesture of appeal.

"What? You said if you'd known you could turn it off you'd'a had some fun with it first?"

"Well, yeah…"

"And it doesn't usually turn guys into chicks, right?"

"Most people who have used it on record either retain their original sex or are rendered sexless. And everyone on record has turned back physically fine."

"Then there's basically no downside."

"That's.. not.. completely true. There have been instances where people in powered states have shown radically different behaviour to what they showed in their unpowered states. We're not sure why, but it's something to consider before signing up."

He nods.

"Joe, before I go, there was one other thing I wanted to talk to you about."

"Yeah? What?"

"Several of my colleagues have commented to me that -while you were transformed- it was inappropriate of me to refer to you in the feminine, as she rather than he. I don't believe that you directly stated a preference, but… I don't have a great deal of contact with people in your position."

"Buddy, I don't think anyone's been in my position." He frowns. "Wait, is that what that Squire chick was talking about?" I nod. "Huh." He strokes his chin with his left hand. "Is that a tranny thing?"

"The way different cultures deal with sexual identity varies with-."

"Wait, they think I'm pissed off about that?" I nod again. "Shit, man, you helped me get my body back. I don't care about… I mean, I guess I was a woman? Like… Not inside, except, like, literally. 'Cause… I actually transformed, it wasn't an illusion or whatever." He stares at his bottle for a moment. "Man, it is too early in the evening for this. I was a woman…"

He brightens up slightly.

"I got it! If that dial had put my mind in Wonder Woman's body, I'd be Wonder Woman, right?"

… "Sort of."

"And Wonder Woman's a woman. So I guess… 'Electro Lass' could be a woman without Joe Hamill being a woman. So I guess I was a woman but I wasn't exactly me. Does that make sense?"

"It probably makes as much sense as anything else anyone has said on the subject." I stand. "I hope you gentlemen have a pleasant evening."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Field Trip

3rd January
10:22 GMT -7

"…just wrong."

Sunset gestures at the whiteboard, several parts covered in Atlantean notation.

"See, they're treating the system as neutral or even hostile to the power trying to move it, when it actually-."

I nod. "They're not rewriting the magic systems, they're just nudging their bounds slightly, and that's far more energy-efficient."

Her pen drops from her right hand and her mouth falls open slightly. A short distance to my right, Circe covers a chuckle with a cough.

"You… Understood… What I was saying?"

"The equations may have been a little over my head, but this isn't anything any street magician-"

I glance over at John, who raises his cigarette in salute. Pretty sure those are illegal here, but if getting around no smoking laws is all he's using his abilities for…

"-worth his stubble doesn't know. Plants naturally grow, and if you give them a bit of a nudge they'll grow faster. But that doesn't mean that you can suddenly make them grow pipes, even if the volume and material composition are the same."

"Right!" Clearly pleased by my non-idiocy, Sunset moves to a different portion of the board. "So, my tests clearly showed that, on average, Earth Ponies were only slightly less magically strong than Unicorn Ponies or Pegasus Ponies."

Councillor Endor frowns. "And why is that? If you are all one people, each tribe breeding freely with the others, surely one tribe's strength should be the strength of all."

"I'm not sure. And I didn't get to test all that many ponies before Celestia made me stop, so it might just have been a problem with my sample. But… I've got an idea."

She starts to pace.

"Unicorn Ponies use thaumokinesis constantly throughout our lives. It's actually pretty unusual for one of us to move anything with our mouths once we're out of diapers. As a result, even Unicorn Ponies who don't work with… 'Pure' magic all that much will gradually build up their strength. It's the same with Pegasus Ponies: even if they don't do weather work, they still fly, and exercise their magic in that way."

He shakes his head. "But if Earth Ponies work the land…"

"I was testing ponies in Canterlot, our capital. We've got gardens and a couple of parks, but the nearest farmland is at the bottom of the mountain, around Ponyville. If Celestia hadn't stopped me I'd have liked to test Earth Pony farmers to see if the results were any different." She shrugs. "But that's beside the point. The fact is, now that I've had a chance to look at the spells floramancers on Zerox use, it's clear that even if Earth Ponies are generally weaker, they should be able to produce greater observable effects than they do."

Circe nods at the equations. "To what degree? You seem to have an awful lot of unknown variables in there."

"I'm not… Sure. I can input the values for Earth or Zerox and get different figures, but I don't have any basis for assuming that the magic of Equestria works in the same way."

"Ah, yes." Councillor Endor smiles warmly. "The Dream Constant."

"The what?" / "You've found it?"

Sunset looks at him in puzzlement and her mentor in astonishment. Councillor Endor's face drops a little.

"Well… No, not as such. I mean, we know it exists-."

"I could have told you that millennia ago."

"Ah." Sunset raises her right hand and shakes it back and forth. "'Dream Constant'?"

"It's a bit… Ah… Theological?"

Sunset shakes her head. "Ponies don't have religion. When your ruler controls the sun it's hard to imagine something more powerful. And even then, it's only by degrees."

Councillor Endor blinks heavily several times, then leans forward. "I'm sorry: controls the sun?"

"Brings it up in the morning and lowers it in the evening. Or maybe she just nudges it around a bit. Or maybe it's all some sort of projection, I don't know. She does the same thing with our moon."

"Idjuh imdja abahbah…" Councillor Endor tries to get his thoughts in order. "One does not 'nudge' a sun. Even accelerating the planet's rotation would have… Countless side effects on.. on weather-"

"We control that."

"-tides, magnetic fields… On many worlds animals navigate using those."

Sunset ponders his response. "That would explain Winter Wrap-Up. But if that were the case…" She shakes her head. "I watched Celestia raise and lower the sun hundreds of times. She always took the same amount of time. If Wilson were orbiting the sun at any speed the amount would change depending on the point in the orbital cycle. Wilson would have to be stationary… And I can't think of a heliocentric model that would naturally lead to that."

Circe frowns mildly. "Those sound like more assumptions-."

"I can't check anything until I get back." She face me. "Grayven, can I have a satellite network? I need to find out how my home system works."

"If you ask Celestia politely if she'll explain it to you-" She grimaces. "-first, then yes."

"Maybe I'll just make my own." She returns her attention to Councillor Endor. "What were you saying about dreams?"

"Not dreams. Those are but the fractured images our minds retain from our somnolent touching of something indescribable. The root of magic, the raw nonsense that is the underlying structure of our calcified universe. It's where our ability to manipulate the universe in certain ways… Comes from?" He closes his eyes and shakes his head. "That's a dramatic oversimplification, but it is in essence-."

"Chaos." Sunset looks like she just found half a maggot in her apple. "You're saying that magic comes from raw chaos."

"No, no, it…" He shakes his head. "There are far better people than me for explaining this. Just-just take it that it is a world's relationship to the Dream that defines how certain deep magic elements work."

I nod. "The presence of the minds of dreamers and thinkers tames the plasticity, causing some things to be easier than others. By the time you get… Closer to the corporeal, it's hardly chaotic at all."

Councillor Endor frowns at me. "I rather had the impression that New Gods assigned responsibility to the Source for such things."

I shrug. "I think that the New Gods of New Genesis do. On Apokolips, it's… Not really an article of faith in the same way. I think Father prefers it when people think it comes from him, but with actual practitioners that would simply cripple their ability to learn."

"But if we can get back to the point?" Sunset folds her arms across her chest and waits for a moment. "If we assume that my revised calculations for the application of magic 'work' are even remotely accurate, Earth Ponies should be able to do a lot more than they can."

"So… Some sort of giant Earth Pony conspiracy to keep food prices high?"

"What?" Sunset frowns. "No, that's absurd. Aside from the fact that only a minority of Earth Ponies work on commercial farms, that would require them to keep it secret from non-Earth Pony husbands, wives, parents and children. And Alicorns have the magic of all three tribes."

"Alright." I lean forward slightly. "So what do you think it is?"

"I… Don't know. Maybe the Great Migration really did happen, but the techniques for channelling Earth Pony magic got lost along the way, and… Never relearned. Or… Maybe it just never got found out, or ponies thought it was part of their special talent and not something teachable." She lowers her arms. "But that's why I should become an Alicorn. If Celestia hasn't done anything about this waste for a thousand years, someone who understands magic needs to. And that someone is going to be me."

 

[Mr Zoat]

3rd January
21:45 GMT

"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me."

The Red Martian opposite me doesn't say anything. I wonder if this is-. Oh, right.

"I'm sorry. If you're trying to speak to me telepathically, I instinctively block-."

Her shape begins to shift, moving away from the broad chested, long armed and short legged natural martian form to something more like Mister J'onzz's first attempt at looking humanish. "Is this better?"

I shrug. "That's up to you. Your appearance doesn't bother me, but you'll probably find it easier to communicate with me with a standard humanoid vocal system."

"Your telepathic block is quite impressive." Got the form but not the body language, I see. "For what reason did you develop it?"

"Self defence. There might not be many telepaths on Earth-" Or Apokolips, actually. Plenty of people who can get into your head, but surprisingly few classical telepaths. "-but given my power and position, I can't afford to leave a glaring vulnerability."

"Martians who wish to shield their thoughts sometimes do so by altering the structure of their brains."

I smile politely. "Not all of us share your species' protean nature. It's true that many humanoid species have techniques for shielding their thoughts which involve mindless repetition of facts or ideas, or training themselves to adopt alien thought patterns on the same brain, but I prefer my approach."

"I myself have some experience with combining magic and telepathy. But I do not believe that any martian handles it in quite the way that you do."

"Ah, yes. My people can learn to manipulate magic as you do, but we also have a more… Instinctive form. Our souls naturally form certain shapes, and within that we can draw upon our own reserves of spiritual strength to manifest particular effects. If I might demonstrate?"

"Yes."

I take a thick iron bar out of subspace and create a clamp construct at either end to hold it up. Next, I take two Apokoliptian cleavers. One I hold out, the blade just above the bar. Through the second I exert myself. Will To Conquer!

Then, without pressing them down, I allow the blades to rest on the metal. The second passes through with almost no resistance, while the first barely has a chance to make any impact at all before the bar falls.

"That is interesting. I have never felt anything quite like it."

"That's why I'm here." I return my demonstration aids to subspace. "Earth… There are many more magic practitioners on Earth than there are on Mars, but they are still only a tiny fraction of the population. I've… Already sponsored a school, but that is an institution for neophytes, to give the ignorant a basic level of education. For true discovery to happen…" I shrug. "My hope is that by bringing together educated magic users from multiple traditions, I might bring about a sharing of knowledge and experience which will bring everyone forward."

"You are right. Few martians study magic."

I nod. "I… Realise that you only teach Red Martians, but I had understood that your pool of potential students had dramatically increased recently."

I was fascinated to hear from M'gann that someone on Mars had found a way to remove the Maltusian lock. She wanted to know if I was responsible, but while I'm not sure how I would have responded if directly asked to remove it, in this case I'm totally innocent.

"No. It has not."

"But there are so many new Reds…"

"A White or Green who shifted their colouration to red would not be admissible. The same applies to these… Social radicals."

I bow my head. "Very well. I freely admit that I know little of Martian society."

Though obviously I know you're all a bunch of racists. Wouldn't it be nice if I only had to deal with the nice parts of a civilisation?

"So you wish for us to meet with human users of magic?"

"Oh, not just human. I've got a fellow from Zerox, a couple of people from Euphorix-" I did briefly consider inviting Kalista, but thought better of it. Alonzo was perfectly happy to extend our cooperation agreement to cover magic users. "-and a young woman from Wilson, as well as representatives of several different Earth traditions."

"Traditionally, we do not teach those who are not Red Martians."

"You wouldn't be teaching rank amateurs. You would be sharing knowledge with your contemporaries. Of course, if you consider this unacceptable, I will understand. Our forum will be poorer for your absence, but we will persevere."

"This is a novel situation." She rises off the ground and triggers the stone ring on one of her office walls, a portal to another part of the monastery briefly opening for her to float through. No idea if she's flying by magic or telekinesis. On the far side she waits for me.

Hm.

Mother B-.

Ping!

No, it's part of my approach to encourage her to think of us as equals.

Ping.

The hush tube opens and I stride through, appearing next to her. She appears to take this in her stride, shutting down the ring as Mother Box shuts down the hush tube.

"Do you know what the purpose of this monastery is?"

"No."

She gestures to a work area where another Red Martian is very carefully removing soil and stone from… Something.

"At some point during our pre-history, life dwelt on the surface of Mars."

"I know. I was part of the group which recovered the records."

"In places, small pieces of those forms of life were preserved, either in fossil form or mummified. Sometimes, enough of their genetic structure remained whole for biologists to recreate them. In other times, we must resort to more arcane measures."

The sample cleaned to his satisfaction, the martian cleaning it grows two extra pairs of forearms and gestures. Yellow.. light.. swirls for a moment as the sample… No. No, the sample isn't coming back to life. I read about this. They're manifesting the universe's memory of the plant, with its remains serving as a focus. Fascinating.

"It is our hope that we will one day be able to restore our world in full using such techniques."

Apparently happy with the twisted root that his magic has created, the martian begins planting it in a large earth-filled pot.

"I don't know for certain that my colleagues can help with that, but I suppose that if you don't ask you'll never know."

"I suppose that you are correct. I will agree to an initial meeting, on the condition that we host it. There are concerns relating to ritual purity where the arcane sites of other cultures are concerned."

"Is that… Going to be a problem going forward?"

"No. If the meeting is productive we can prepare the ground at future meeting places ourselves."

Hm. I think that everyone I would be bringing is capable of making their own arrangements regarding breathable air…

"That shouldn't be a problem. How about the security arrangements?"

"Even in fractious times, monasteries have always remained inviolate. The upstart Whites will not risk alienating those whose support they seek by assailing this holy place. And if they did?"

Her body shimmers in a way I remember from the pictures the team took of the Burner.

"We do not limit our studies to the magics of plant resurrection. Your allies will be quite safe here."

 

[Mr Zoat]

3rd January
20:12 GMT -5

I look around the circle. "So how much was she bullshitting me?"

M'gann slumps, and J'onn doesn't look much happier as he activates the table's holographic display. "There have been significant instances of civil unrest in all Martian cities."

An image of Mars appears, covered in markers showing the locations of cities. Most of the markers are the 'X' I associate with the Manhunters, each one split in colour between red and white. A handful of others are marked by a red circle surrounded by a gold ring. M'gann's eyes widen as she takes in how bad the situation has become. On my right, Ghia'ta's eyes dart from marker to marker, clearly astonished at the level of societal decay. On my left, Komand'r looks almost… Irritated?

J'onn points to the globe. "Red indicates the degree of government control, and the extent to which society continues to function normally."

I nod. That only gives a rough idea, but it looks like the central government has lost control of about a quarter of each city. On average; there's quite a range. The capital is about nine tenths red while other places are up to two thirds white.

I point to a red sun emblem. "What are these?"

"In most places, White Martians are reacting against centuries of sanctioned oppression. They have legitimate grievances, particularly now that we know our true origins. It was my hope that once the initial shock has died down all parties might reach a negotiated settlement. Martian society would have to change, but it would survive."

He presses a button and the image of Mars shrinks and moves to the side, images of a group of White Martians taking centre stage. Um. I can just about tell them apart. There are very slight differences in build. But the most notable feature is that they all wear the red circle emblem.

"These are members of a terrorist group called the Hyperclan. White Martian agitators in favour of violently overturning the Red Martian government and establishing a White only government have used that name for a significant period of time. In the past, they have limited themselves to occasional assassinations, but with the current break down in civil order they have begun acting more openly."

He points to a red circle.

"The Hyperclan is now in control of these cities. My ability to give you further information is limited, as there is no Manhunter presence inside of any of them. The last refugees to leave Kriglo-" He points to one of the red circles. "-reported that they killed every government official, but allowed the rest of the non-White population to evacuate. However, when Xan'Xie fell to their control, no such evacuation was permitted."

I nod. "Hostages?"

J'onn bows his head. "That is my hope. The Hyperclan are known to be the most extreme part of the White Rights movement, but it is unlikely that the majority of their new recruits share their fervour."

I have a quick look for their home city of Mel'dilo'rn. Hm. A mere thirty percent unrest, give or take. Though given that they have mixed colour couples…

"Put it in… Human terms for me. How badly are White Martians treated?"

M'gann shakes her head. "It isn't.. uniform. Different cities had different levels of oppression. I just thought that… Knowing where we came from would reduce prejudice, not set off a civil war!"

"M'gann…" I shake my head. "If a civilisation oppresses people, it really shouldn't be surprised if they rise up in violent revolt. I'm confident in my own mind that something like this was inevitable."

She nods reluctantly, clearly unconvinced. "Some.. cities are like Apartheid South Africa. Whites are banned from going to some places or taking some jobs by law. In other places there aren't laws supporting it, but it's still very unusual for White Martians to work in certain industries."

I nod. "And your government is theoretically a meritocracy but in practice no one who isn't Red… Who wasn't born Red can occupy the higher tiers."

She nods again. "Something else I thought would make people happy. I don't know a single natural Red who can cope with fire as well as I can, but apparently I still don't count!"

"So… You're complaining that your people's racism doesn't work in your interests?"

"No, Grayven, I-." She glares at me. "That isn't funny."

"No." Komand'r leans forwards. "It's revolting. Is this what becomes of peoples without an external enemy? They simply turn upon one another?"

I smile wryly. "Amongst humans, the mere establishment of a group at some level is enough to cause outgroup discrimination. Formalised oppression is a little more unusual."

"Should I expect this obscenity from Tamaranians in future?"

I shrug. "Probably not. You had rivalries between demesnes after the Citadel conquest, didn't you?" A small nod. "Societies under stress fracture along previously extant lines. With Tamaran on the rise, I doubt that you have much to worry about. Which is not to say that you shouldn't be sure to involve people from all regions in the restoration."

A slightly more definite nod. "As you did when you recruited your Lanterns."

"The point wasn't to establish.. quotas. To make everyone equally involved. But I did want to ensure that everyone had some stake in things." I gesture to the image of the Hyperclan. "This is what happens when a group has no stake, no way to improve their position and someone who is very clearly to blame."

She frowns at J'onn. "What are your military doing about this?"

"Little. The Manhunters are more frequently deployed as police than as soldiers. Naval assets have been deployed to contain the Hyperclan, but this sort of civil uprising is… Unprecedented. And since we are not certain how their more… Exotic abilities function-."

"Wait." I frown. "Wait. You come from a species of telepathic telekinetic shapeshifters but they've got something else?"

"Yes. A wide variety of abilities, not unlike those of metahumans. I would like to know whether or not the Light had any contact with them."

I shake my head. "Not as far as I know. It would rather go against their ideology… And there wasn't an obvious 'face' for it. Not impossible, though. Certainly, there weren't any operations I was aware of that involved the use of martian operatives." He nods. "So to return to my original question..?"

"She did not lie concerning the sanctity of the monastery. Members of the Hyperclan delight in violating the taboo against attacking Red Martians. But the majority of demonstrators in the city you are visiting are far more peaceful. It is unlikely that you will be troubled."

"And the school trip?"

He dismisses the image of the Hyperclan and brings up an interior view of the city of Mel'dilo'rn. "The school you selected has a mixed population, and is located in a city which has historically been less colourist than many other places. There have so far been no violent demonstrations near it." He sighs. "However, I would advise that anyone who visits does so with an armed escort, and that you are prepared to return them by boom tube at short notice."

I nod. I wanted to introduce some of the Center's older children to their martian contemporaries, to broaden their horizons and perhaps to give Doctor Williams access to better teaching techniques. The martians have actually systematised that sort of thing, while he's been forced to puzzle things out as he goes. I'll… Have to check that everyone and their parents understand the potential risks.

"J'onn, what is your government doing to resolve this?"

"There have been negotiation attempts. But the disunited nature of the opposition means that there is no one person with whom negotiations could be undertaken. I am… Concerned, that the situations will deteriorate to the point that the ruling council will order an attack. If that happened, even if it was successful, Martian civilisation would never recover."

No. It wouldn't. "Ghia'ta, how good are your telepath baffles?"

"I can prevent a telepath of Miss Martian's ability from detecting my presence."

I nod. "Good. This… Is a Martian internal matter. However, a bloodbath isn't in anybody's interests. Take a look at the cities the Hyperclan have taken over." She nods. "Don't report on their defensive measures, but do report on the general conditions within."

"I understand."

"Thank you. So, J'onn, who in your government is pushing for what?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

6th January
09:02 GMT -1

I perform a shallow bow. "I do apologise for my tardiness, Lord Cyprian. Ghia'ta wanted to go over a few things about the trip…"

He shakes his head, smiling as he politely dismisses the issue. "Not at all. We're less… Time-fixated down here than I've learned that some people on the surface can be."

I nod, extending my right hand to Mortalla. "I believe you met my mother at our first summit?"

"Lady Mortalla." A shallow bow, which she nervously mirrors. "A pleasure to meet you again."

"Likewise, my lord."

And he's spotted that she isn't comfortable being the focus of attention and has turned back to me. Yes, someone beat their rivals for the number two job for a reason, didn't they?

"There was no difficulty in securing a meeting?"

"Securing an actual appointment was a little trying. But once the Primate actually met with me she was quite open to the idea. Has Venturia selected its representative?"

He nods, his smile broadening. "Yes. For the first time in my career, I've abused my authority in order to secure the position myself."

"Are you.. sure..? I rather assumed that the initial meeting would be made by a lower ranked official."

"If you met the Primate, that hardly seems fair. The initial meeting at least should be carried out by a highly placed government official, but one who can meaningfully comment on what they are seeing. The only reasonable alternative would be one of our archmages, and the Venturian State College does not have so many skilled researchers that we can afford to send them off on foreign junkets. For a simple three day visit I really am the best choice."

"I'm sure that you know the Queen's mind on the subject. How is… Work progressing on the North African problem?"

"Reasonably well. Constructing our associate's forward operating base created few difficulties; we're well used to managing the transition from air to water here. One or two people on our side expressed disquiet about the people we were working with, but I don't believe that they're a security risk. One or two of his… Crew were clearly unhappy to be working with Atlanteans, but… He handled the disciplinary issues which arose in a satisfactory manner. I'm not sure that we're ready for… Combined operations yet."

"And Adom?"

"An… Interesting man. Far more public-spirited than I imagined that someone from that era would be. We've been providing him with intelligence while he makes his own attacks. The… Mercenaries tend not to employ heavy ordnance, and I believe that they are appreciating having a man of his strength watching their back."

I nod. "And Manta himself?"

"I'm sure that he's curious. So far he hasn't made any overt efforts to breach our operational security, but he's an intelligent man. At some point he's going to work out that he isn't working with a dissident group, and he's going to want answers."

I nod. "Not unreasonable. I don't like keeping my operatives in the dark, but I think I'm going to want that employer-employee relationship to bed in a little before I change things."

"Probably wise. He has been an independent operator for a very long time. I doubt that he'd bite the hand that feeds him for a momentary advantage…"

"I'm honestly more worried about spooking him. I'm not exactly known for my easy-going attitude to supervillains."

"Hm. Well, in the Atlantean context, there is a historical precedent for that sort of thing. I would have to check to see whether it was still legal in Poseidonis, but…"

"Yes?"

"As you know, it is the Venturian position that Atlantis is a collection of city-states. During more… Fractious times, cities or alliances of cities occasionally made war upon each other. For the ruler of Poseidonis, acting as ringmaster occasionally… Put them in a position where it was politically expedient to pardon various parties who had been affiliated with losing sides and had turned to banditry. They would foreswear such methods, accept a geas enforcing that oath, and then serve the High King or Queen for whatever task they had in mind."

"Has such a pardon been issued in recent times?"

"Not to my knowledge. Which is why I would have to have someone check. And of course, such a thing would be purely within High King Orin's gift. I doubt that he would pardon a group who worked with his treacherous brother for Venturia's benefit. And… Frankly, if we had that sort of political capital we would have better things to spend it on."

I nod. "Thank you. I appreciate you bringing this option to my attention. Is there.. anything else we need to discuss?"

"Ah… The trade delegation has been a success so far. Your man Luthor has been quite forthcoming, and I'm given to understand that he's having little difficulty in selling the low grade arcane artefacts we've been shipping."

"There's a certain excitement for unique products. I would caution you not to assume that it will last, however."

He shakes his head. "I never assumed that it would. But by that stage we should have a better idea of what they can actually use." He smiles slightly cruelly. "I.. have.. so enjoyed being able to set the import and export conditions for our fellow cities."

"You may wish to be a little careful, there. Push them too far-."

"I do realise that -coming out of isolation as we are- it would be unwise to alienate the other cities… But it is nice to have the high ground."

"I was more concerned that they might finally decide to take the initiative themselves and come to a similar arrangement."

He raises his eyebrows, staring at me in disbelief. Then he chuckles. "I think, Lord Grayven, that you vastly overestimate the initiative of the other city states. Aside from Poseidonis, where High King Orin forces the matter himself, we're mostly having direct dealings with merchant companies on the export side of things. No, I'm not worried on that score."

"I'm glad that you're taking full advantage of the opportunity. Is there anything further I can do?"

"Do you know whether Senator Knight would maintain President Horne's policies towards us should he win this year's election?"

"I haven't.. asked. But I suspect that if anything he'd be more enthusiastic. He has a record of agitating for greater defence spending, and… America spends little to nothing on arcane defence. Jon would wait until the Joint Chiefs forwarded a proposal. Though if you want me to set up a meeting with General Lane..?"

"Not immediately, but…" He nods. "Yes."

"Consider it done."

"Thank you. Now, please, this way."

He leads the way out of his private meeting room, down a hall and into a richly decorated living area. A well-dressed Pureblood Atlantean couple are quietly conversing on a sofa while a young Pureblood girl plays with a small pool of water, her magic pulling it this way and that, parts alternately freezing and evaporating. The adults rise when they see us approach, and the girl returns her water to its basin before taking position just before the adults.

Lord Cyprian steps aside, indicating them with his right hand. "May I present my son, Vespasian, his wife, Flavia, and their daughter Aelia."

I bow, slightly deeper than is strictly required. But it brings my head down to the level of Aelia, and I take the opportunity to give her a friendly smile before straightening up.

"Pleased to meet you all. This is Mortalla. She'll be directly responsible for seeing to Aelia's welfare."

Flavia nods. "Your majordomo?"

"My mother. Naturally, I believe that she's very good at raising children. Being Apokoliptian, she also makes a reasonable bodyguard, though naturally I have specialists for that as well."

Mortalla walks past me and kneels down next to Aelia. "Why don't you show me what you were doing with that water?"

Aelia looks upwards, and after getting a nod from her parents leads Mortalla away to look at it.

I bring my hands together. "So let's go over the details."

 

[Mr Zoat]

8th January
10:52 GMT -7

I smile, extending my right hand towards Mr Ardeen. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

He smiles back. "Likewise, Mister Grayven."

He releases me, and I extend my smile to his daughter. "I suppose that it's actually a little odd that we haven't run into each other before."

Imra shakes her head. "You're… Busy saving the world and things like that." She shrugs with… Feigned nonchalance? A little odd… "And Rifle's a pretty safe town."

True. Especially now. I… Really don't know how frequently the parents of American High School students would usually meet. I rather missed the part of Lynne's life where she would be dependent on me for lifts to places or require constant oversight.

"Very little of what I do saves the world in the short term." Hm. I give Mr Ardeen a quick scan, but he reads as a regular human man. "But if you're ready to depart..?" I gesture to the hush tube opening with my right hand.

"Yes!" She picks up her bag, stands on her tiptoes to kiss her slightly surprised father on the cheek, then strides through the opening.

"Mars, huh?"

"I realise that bringing a martian teacher to Earth would have been better, but martians don't really have the human adventuring spirit. It took me a while to find a place prepared to do this."

"No, it's just…" He gestures to the hush tube. "People casually going to Mars. I didn't think I'd see it in my lifetime."

"It won't happen with purely human technology for a little while yet. You heard about… Lex Luthor's spaceships?"

"Sure, I could hardly miss it."

"I need to talk to the… Martian government about that. Alienating the system's other native sophont species would be a poor way to start."

"Ah… Yeah. Good luck with that."

"I'll have your daughter back by five."

"Okay, I'll see you this evening."

I nod, wave goodbye with my right hand, then head through the hush tube after Imra. As I emerge into the 'embarkation room' I immediately spot Lynne helping Imra with her space suit. The pressure in the Martian caverns is high enough that humans could endure it, but it wouldn't be particularly comfortable. Plus, an actual suit allowed me to include armour, a personal force field and a 'security recall' short ranged teleporter. Having checked the report J'onn gave me, I don't think that there's much risk, but… I'd rather be paranoid than have to explain a dead child.

"Hey, Mister Grayven."

Lucian Crawley waves at me with his right hand while trying to sort out his collar with his left. Ah, looks like his shirt is getting in the way of his suit's neck ring.

"Looking forward to seeing Mars, Lucian?"

"Ah… I guess? I'm mostly looking forwards to meeting some aliens."

I tilt my head a little to the left. "Sorry to be such a disappointment in the alien department."

"Um." He stops moving. "S-sorry?"

"No, no, nice to know that I'm fitting in so well. You need any help with that helmet?"

"Ah…"

"I'll get it." Lilith Clay walks up to him and sticks her hands inside his-

"Hey!"

-collar. I… Vaguely recognise her name as belonging to a minor Teen Titans character. I.. think. I don't know if that version is similar to the one who exists here or not. She's a classical telepath who also experiences precognitive images. As far as we can tell those aren't magical in nature, so it's possible that she's somehow calculating them based on information data mined from the minds of those around her.

Which is interesting. There was a story in Temps about a scientists who studied superpowers, who expressed the belief that precognition was misdiagnosed telekinesis. A mind would dream up an image and then make it happen. The issue came up when an insurance firm refused to pay out on a life insurance policy until it was demonstrated that a boy who foresaw his father's death hadn't caused it, intentionally or otherwise. It would be fascinating to study, but she only attends the Center part time in order to learn how to keep her abilities under control.

Have to talk to her about the Department of Metahuman Affairs. The contracts they've been offering telepaths are pretty generous, even at the entry level.

April and May Marigold finish checking each other's suits, their helmets firmly in place. Jean's horns glow for a moment as she tugs at each part in turn, then nods, satisfied. She and a small horde of G-Gnomes and G-Elves will be accompanying the group, all with their own specialised suits and weaponry. The telepathy of the Genomorph Entire should be significant by martian standards, but I doubt that Jean's telekinesis or the physical abilities of the G-Elves would matter much during a confrontation.

A boom tube opens, and Ghia'ta steps through with a Green Martian close behind her. The children immediately turn to stare at the school's representative as she shifts to a slightly more human-seeming form... Huh. It's not bad for a first attempt. Basically J'onn in drag with a blonde wig.

"Hello, children."

Pretty close to being a copy of his voice, too. Though I do appreciate her not just assuming that everyone was fine with telepathy.

Doctor Williams smiles and approaches her. "Welcome to Earth, J'en. Is everything ready at your end?"

"Yes, we are prepared. Is everyone ready to depart?"

"I believe so."

Sinestro?

Yes, by some miracle the human youths have managed to correctly don the most idiot-resistant space suits I have ever seen.

Really? The most idiot resistant?

Be proud, Lantern Grayven. Most species prefer to improve their habitats rather than go to the lengths which you have. Those who must use space suits generally lack the technology to create something this sophisticated.

Score one for me. I wonder if there's a Guinness Book of Galactic Records or something?

No. There isn't.

I clap my hands together. "Alright, if everyone's ready, please follow Miss J'en and Ghia'ta through the boom tube. Have fun!"

They troop off, Lynne turning to wave before falling in beside Imra and Doctor Williams making use of his suit's flight system to avoid slowing everyone down. In the span of a few moments they're through, and the tube shuts down.

Now the second party. I turn and walk over to them. The two from Euphorix quite sensibly brought their own suits with them, but from Circe's reaction I get the impression that they're a level or two below the rest of the party. "Are you ladies and gentlemen sure that you don't want a space suit?"

Councillor Endor shakes his head. "This isn't my first time away from Zerox. I'd be a poor magician if I couldn't maintain a comfortable environment for myself. Larissa?"

Circe shakes her head. "I know you mean well Grayven, but really. Would you like one?"

"I'm a little more physically resilient than you." At least, more resilient than 'Principal Larissa'. "But very well. Lord Cyprian? Sunset?"

He shakes his head and she rolls her eyes.

"Alright then. Let's be off."

 

[Mr Zoat]

8th January
18:30 GMT

"…appear to be enjoying themselves."

I watch from the gallery as Councillor Endor makes a gesture, dirt flaking off a fossilised plant while leaving the basic structure untouched. He concentrates for a moment, then as I witnessed before a natural plant comes into being. He appears rather tickled with it.

My escort, a female Red Martian by the name of S'yrra who serves as Prelate J'emm's deputy, turns to face me.

"You do not wish to join them?"

"I have innate magical abilities, but I'm not a caster. I don't have the same interest they do." I turn away from the scene below. "So. You received my message about Xan'Xie?"

She hesitates, then slowly leads the way away from the arcane research area and in the general direction of the exterior. Unlike most Martian structures, this monastery is not inside a cavern, generations of spellcraft protecting it from the harsh conditions of the surface.

"Yes. I was relieved to hear that the majority of the population is unharmed."

"Is it really that surprising?" I raise my eyebrows. "I would have thought that a telepathic species would be slower to go on murderous rampages than a mindblind race like the humans."

"With the Hyperclan leading them, we were prepared for the worst. The Manhunter Marshal seems to have been planning an immediate counterattack based on the assumption that a slaughter was occurring."

I nod. "Naturally. Giving White Martians the opportunity to demonstrate that they're capable of running a government? That would do more to undermine Red hegemony than mere murder. Still, I'm interested in what you think of all this."

"I am uncertain. I agree with Prince J'emm that the oppression of the White is morally indefensible, though I do not believe that civil insurrection is the correct way to prevent it."

I nod-

-and smile. "So how many White Martians are there in Mel'dilo'rn's government?"

"I… Believe that some of our clerks are-."

"And how many White Martian Prelates have there been before now? Before the uprising?"

"None, but that does not-."

"Seems like violence was the way, then. All that 'patient' stuff clearly wasn't working. I mean, if even Mel'dilo'rn didn't have a flipping White 'Minister for White Affairs' or something, what hope did they have anywhere else?"

"You support their cause, then?"

"I wouldn't go that far. I mean, I'm sympathetic, but that's not really what causes the situation to affect me so strongly." I snort. "Frankly, this sort of event comes from the sorts of social stress that a competent government should be able to deal with before things got to this stage. It's not so much that I support the uprising as that I hold the Planetary Council in contempt."

"The information released by M'gann M'orzz could not have been predicted."

"No, but so what? If someone proved to the humans that their species had been altered by aliens in their prehistory, this sort of thing would not happen on Earth as a result. You shouldn't have based your entire social order on something so easily disprovable. And you shouldn't have left a resentful underclass with no way to improve their position."

"Is that how your people manage their affairs?"

"Hah! Oh, good one." I shake my head. "No, Father's just better at oppressing people than you are. Have you considered the use of some sort of memetic infection? Having studied what the Guardians did to your ancestors, you should be well aware of-."

"No! That… Thing was disgusting!"

"And yet the legal suppression of White Martians never aroused that sort of passion in you."

"They are not the same-."

"They're exactly the same! The only reason why the Red aristocracy exists at all is that infestation. A lingering reminder of the apocalyptic monsters your species used to be."

"I am not like that thing."

I nod. "No. You're not." When she got angry, she became spikier. No flames, though. "I see that you haven't had your own programming removed."

"That isn't why. I would never become so bestial. I have trained in the self-control techniques necessary for a Prelate. I have not yet mastered them, but such degeneration is unthinkable."

"Alright. Do you..? Want to get rid of it?"

"I don't know." She turns away, looking out of an opening in the exterior wall at the barren Martian landscape. "No one knows how it works."

"What." I frown. "M'gann didn't share that memory?"

"There are no Lanterns on Mars." Her head half-turns my way. "Unless this is your doing?"

"Oh heck no. I'd never be this inefficient." Though that is an interesting question. "The local Greenies don't have the skill… Has Thaal Sinestro ever visited Mars?"

"Who is that?"

I raise my right hand slightly, holding my yellow ring towards her. "The only other man in the universe with one of these." But would he have the skill for something like th-?

If he studied the problem with local assistance, certainly. However, I can detect no trace of yellow light here which cannot be explained by your presence.

Good to know. Anyone I'm forgetting about?

A Weaponer could instruct an Anti-Green Lantern to do it, though I doubt they would bother with something so subtle without a significant inducement. You have alluded to knowing of other colours, but I have no direct experience with them. If I were investigating the matter, I would seek to eliminate magic as a possibility first.

He's probably right. The only Green Lantern I can remember doing anything so sophisticated was Lord Malvolio, and I can't think of any reason for him to act covertly either.

Lord.. Malvolio? Lantern Grayven, have you been holding out on me?

What, because I don't share every myth and rumour? I thought that if there had ever been a human super-Lantern you'd be the one telling me.

The Guardians did not share everything with me. And after seeing how compatible humans are with New God soul-manipulation techniques, I'm curious as to whether they ever attempted anything similar with the green light.

Yes, that is-.

"No such being has visited M'arzz."

I nod. "Alright. I know the Sorcerer Priests don't teach non-Reds, but have any other-."

The exterior shield flares into light!

 

[Mr Zoat]

8th January
18:35 GMT

"Any other students of the arcane?"

S'yrra stares at the barrier with obvious concern and I feel something move within the structure of the monastery.

"An attack… Here?"

"Oh, it's better than that." I smile. "The uprisings are focused on cities, and are largely being conducted by their dispossessed residents. We're some distance from any of the cities here-" A part of the barrier is visibly pulled back, while local atmospheric pressure remains the same. Someone knows what they're doing. "-and Whites still hold these places in high regard. Which means that isn't a mob of protestors." Plus I can see one coming this way. Useful things, these goggles.

"Hyperclan."

"Almost certainly. And since I'm going to assume that a place like this has a decent magic barrier, I will repeat-."

"Good deduction." A white martian in a long white robe pinned at the neck -inasmuch as they have a neck- by a red circle brooch phases in just in front of us. "Grey? Are you slumming-"

S'yrra's eyes flare for a moment, and the new martian briefly hesitates before becoming partially translucent.

"-it with a new skin tone?"

Sinestro, status of my guests.

The Euphorians and Miss Shimmer just left through a hush tube. Circe, Cyprian and Endor are staying.

Their skins, I suppose. "No, I'm not a martian. I'm actually visiting from Earth. If you saw M'gann's images, I should have been in some of them."

"I don't watch that sort of thing. Rots the brain. Though I do appreciate not being afraid of fire any longer."

"Not making yourself Red?"

"Why would I wanna do a thing like that?" He holds his talon-fingered hands out to either side. "I don't have a problem with being White. Reds and Greens have a problem with me being White."

"Because without the Guardian programming your natural colour is red. You're only white now because that's the colour you're choosing to make your skin."

"I don't have a problem with the Guardians either." He drifts slightly closer. "Maybe they created this situation, but… They weren't the ones saying I couldn't go to a proper school, that my parents and grandparents and all my brothers and sisters couldn't either. That's all Reds and Greens, and I know they don't think I'm Red now."

S'yrra backs up slightly as he comes forward. "You are a murderer and a terrorist."

"Murderer, yeah. When you fight the people who make the rules, when you kill for the cause… Then you're a murderer and the people on the other side are totally legitimate even if they kill just as many. But a terrorist is someone who tries to create political change through fear and intimidation. And I've always tried to bring about political change by killing people." He switches his attention to S'yrra. "I'd like to kill you. But my boss wants an audience for this. Head back to the main chamber and I won't gut you right now."

Sinest-. No, never mind. I can see her fear.

"The sorcerers of this monastery are more powerful than anything you have faced before."

"I'm happy to kill you right here, Red."

"I will aghhh!"

She collapses, clutching at her head.

"Stupid worm. We knew they'd be too proud to get their heads fixed, so we're broadcasting the image of a roaring fire." The clansman returns his… His? Coin toss… Her attention to me. "So what about you? I've never killed an alien before, but if you're here…"

"What's your name?"

"L'atroma Z'orr. Oh, and you weren't lying-" She taps the side of her head with her right hand. Telepathic contact. "-about being an alien. Are those humans?"

"Amongst other species." I bend down, pick up S'yrra as gently as her convulsions will allow, then nod. "I will accompany you, Missus Z'orr, but you should understand that Martian internal affairs are only a tangential interest of mine. Unless you or yours directly attack me or mine, I'm inclined to let you fight it out."

She waves her left land in the direction of the corridor, and I start walking. Hm. Telepathy, shapeshifting, in theory she could do that molecular destabilisation thing the Burner did… Some sort of enhanced phasing. Nothing I'm not reasonably confident I couldn't take. But my main priority here is protecting my guests.

"This is one of the most off-limits places for White Martians. We get called into centres of government sometimes, but I'm the first White to come here in… A very long time. Funny place to be if you've only got a 'tangential interest'."

"I'm interested in magic. Who else was I supposed to as-?"

"Stop."

I stop, half turning towards my escort. "What-?"

The corridor in front of me is pulverised, dust exploding in all directions! The torn and bloody remains of a Red… Well, I'm guessing a Red Martian, are slammed into a wall and pinned there as another White Martian wearing black and gold armour flies after them to admire their handiwork. They turn to me, eyes glowing-.

"Careful, N'Rixot. This one's cooperating."

"The Red he's carrying-."

The dust around -coin toss- her swirls and then explodes with electricity!

"gYYAHGH!"

She flies away, shifting shape to minimise her surface area as a Red Martian sorcerer priest flies through the gap. He-. Ah, just call them all 'he'. He gestures, and the dust takes on the form of some sort of electrified wurm and flies after N'Rixot. He then turns our way, L'atroma lunging forward with her claws out-.

A piece of the wall turns into a hand, grabs the priest and throws them back the way they came.

"I seek a meeting with the Primate."

The sound… Seems to be coming from everywhere. L'atroma freezes for a moment, then gestures down the hole. "Head down that way."

I comply, floating down through the torn floor and wall. Below, in the entry chamber, I see a hulking great White Martian who appears to be taking his cues from the Durlans. Great slabs of metal appear to have been integrated directly into his body, along with pneumatic drivers, some sort of… Electronic sensor array and a couple of force field generators. Next to him is a far slighter figure, another White Martian who is affecting a more humanoid appearance. He's wearing a green body stocking and red cape, and where the others wear a red circle insignia he wears one comprised of three blue diamonds.

Portals open around him, electrical discharges blasting at him! And… Bending, merging together to form a crackling ball just to his left. The rock around him shifts, and the Red Martian who came down here a moment ago emerges unconscious from the ground.

"If I am not granted a meeting, I will kill this one and then proceed inwards."

A diffuse cloud of dust rises up from the floor in front of him, forming the outline of a Martian.

"Petty sand wizard, there are magics here you cannot comprehend. This act of brutishness will do nothing but reveal your cause for the savage narcissism that it is."

"Sand wizard? I'm sorry, I'm a little behind on the modern vernacular." He turns to my escort. "L'atroma, is that supposed to be an insult?"

"Yes. She's saying that your learning is shallow."

"Ah." He turns back to the projection. "I am Karmang. I foolishly taught the principles of sorcery to your distant forebears. And I am here to reclaim what I gave to you."