With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

[Mr Zoat]

Duplication

2nd April 2012
09:22 GMT -6

My day started strange, and now I'm surrounded by mini-ponies.

What a world.

I use a construct to shove one of the drawing room's doors open. Luna, a hoof -hah!- ful of guards and a couple of ponies I don't recognise are assembled within, guards at the doors, windows and attending Luna while the other three lie on chaise longues.

"Hey, Luna. I brought Jean and a few g-gnomes. Are these your experts?"

She nods, indicating an elderly looking mare. "Justice Heavy Heart has volunteered to aid Us in the matter."

I frown. "Is that 'Us' as in you, or 'us' as in us?"

"U-." She hesitates. "Both, we suppose. Doctor Hay Exchange-" She indicates a stallion with a cutie mark of a balance, a pile of scrolls on one side and a pile of coins on the other. "-has also expressed an interest in aiding Us in gaining an understanding of modern economics. And-. By 'Us' We mean 'me'."

"Right." I nod to him. "Slight problem. Jean didn't come through as a pony."

"What did she come through as?"

There's a general intake of breath as changeling queen Jean clops through the doorway, following by the g-gnome drones. They're a bit more mobile in this form than in their customary shape, which meant that we could get away without bringing the usual g-elf escort. From the way that the guards are starting to square up I think that bringing the combat genomorphs would have been a unnecessarily confrontational act.

"We see."

"Princess Luna?" Jean looks around and I point her out with my right forehoof. "My name is Jean, and I will be overseeing the process."

One of the guards glances at Luna.

"Princess..?"

Luna shakes her head. "Be not afeared, Our loyal protector. These are not in truth changelings. This is merely the result of the changes wrought by Starswirl's Mirror."

I nod. "She actually looks like this."

I generate a construct image of her native form. From the expression on the ponies' faces, they don't like it any better. I mentally shrug and then dismiss it and the transformed g-gnomes take position near Luna. Jean takes a step closer to Heavy Heart.

"Ms Heavy Heart?"

Heavy Heart doesn't look entirely sanguine. "… Jean. What exactly are you going to do to me?"

"With your permission, these g-gnomes will study the networks of schema in your mind relating to legal practice. They will then copy them into the mind of Princess Luna, and work to integrate them into her schematic systems so that she gains the same instinctive awareness of legal affairs that you have."

She nods. "And I won't forget anything."

"Since they are creating a copy, the original will be unaffected. You might find yourself having.. unusually acute recall of particular incidents while they work to locate them, but otherwise you should not notice a thing."

Luna leans forward, her nose a short distance from a blankly-staring g-gnome.

"And for Ourself?"

"Once we begin the dubbing process, you may experience a period of confusion while the integration is completed. Assuming that everything goes to plan, the worst that will happen will be surprising moments of insight; we can only integrate the memories so far. In the event that there are any problems, we can erase the new unintegrated memories quite easily."

"Do We need to do anything? To keep Our mind blank, perhaps?"

"On the contrary, we find that sort of thing unhelpful. All we would ask is that you remove any magic-based mental defences. We have no way to work around those ourselves. And if you could avoid casting for the duration, that would help as well."

Luna nods, then turns to Heavy Heart. "Are you ready, your honour?"

"I.. believe that I am. When will you begin?"

The horns of the g-gnome drones start glowing with a pale orange corona.

"Now."

Luna stares, a faint corona rippling over the surface of her horn.

"Fascinating."

I nod. Curious how the mirror adapted their abilities to magic. Genomorphs have next to no magic ability, as far as Sunset was able to tell. Barely any arcane presence at all, in fact. It's a problem that might fix itself over the next few generations, but otherwise I'll need to be adding it to Sunset's slate. Point is, the mirror didn't turn them into something with telepathic abilities, it gave them equivalent magical abilities instead. That warrants further investigation.

"How fares Our Sister's former student?"

"Ah… Emotionally overwrought. I… Don't think she's going to be coming back for a little while." Luna nods solemnly. "She was still in pony shape last time I saw her, so she's clearly not… Rejecting her equine existence or anything…" I frown. "Do her parents live in Canterlot?"

"We do not know. Our Sister hath not mentioned them." She frowns mildly. "We will send a missive once We hath determined their identity and place of residence, informing them of Sunset Shimmer's wellbeing and newfound status. She hath not spoken of them to you?"

"She mentioned that they exist. That's about all she told me about them."

"We see. That is unfortunate." Her eyes flick downwards. "Our Sister made it clear that she made no friends during her education; to be alienated from her family as well-"

I clop forwards, half turn and lie down next to her seat, the upper part of my trunk resting against her side.

"-would.. be…" She turns her head around to look me full in the face. "What are you doing?"

"Sounded like you were getting mopey, and there wasn't room on your seat." I tilt my head left until it's resting on her shoulder, then lean on her. "Go on."

"We…" She blinks and turns her head away, as if suddenly becoming aware of the other ponies in the room. She clears her throat, and the ones who were staring find something else to rest their eyes upon. "Would be rather sad."

"Yeah, it would. Speaking of family, is it alright if I bring mine for a visit?"

"Of course." Slight hesitation. "Who..?"

"My children. Lynne, Pa-"

I cough.

"-Bethany, Maeve, Stephan, Mary, Christopher, Clare and Sarah."

"You have..? Ah. Their.. mother..?"

"Their natural parents are dead. I adopted them. Oh, but my mother might visit at some point; I think Equestria could be good for her."

She nods in understanding. "And you wish for me to meet them that you may learn of my skills as a dam, and that your mother may assess my worth as a partner."

"Ah… Sort of. The children, pretty much. My mother, less so. I'm old enough and horrible enough to make mistakes-. Decisions!"

Her right wing bats me over the head. I smile at her.

"Decisions. Lynne can come over this afternoon, if you're up for it. Ease you into it."

"We believe that We are." Luna nods. "Is there anything regarding her that you feel that you should notify Us in advance?"

"She's a stronger telepath than the g-gnomes, and since she's a New God like me she'll probably come through as an alicorn. She grew up on a military base and was briefly used as an Anti-Life broadcaster so there's absolutely no need -or point- in shielding her from the harsher realities of life."

"We.. had meant regarding her hobbies or preferred foodstuffs. But I suppose that you would know the most pertinent insights."

"Princess Luna?" Jean gestures as the glow from the g-gnomes fades. "We are ready to begin the implantation."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Under Attack
By Manhunters

"By the command of Krona, no man escapes the Manhunters."

The large Manhunter has a copy of Red Queen contained within its chest. Violet armours himself and shields our Red Queen while Red, Supergirl and Komand'r immediately move to attack.

Intellectually, I recognise that this automaton is a threat. But.. I.. think that vampire's heart is wearing off already. The only things I was able to ingest were avarice and anger, but the particular flavours of those emotions don't lend themselves to acting in this situation.

"Time Trapper, what are we doing?"

And the ring is no help. Robots don't have hearts. Or blood.

A few fragments of crystal skitter across my environmental shield as the Manhunter begins using its Red Queen to begin breaking this pocket universe apart. That's… Interesting, in the abstract, but I didn't consume that tramp's heart. I can't work up the fear to be personally concerned.

Still… I should try to do something.

The Red Queen in its chassis has a heart. And her despair is palpable.

For Nekron.

Komand'r hits the ground, Supergirl gets shot and the Manhunter begins draining Red's power as I dive forward, construct claws extended. It's a curious mental state which I usually try to avoid: knowing that it is right that a thing dies and that you are obliged to bring that cessation about. The Manhunter doesn't block me as I strike its chest, and my claws cleave easily through its energy shield and armour.

I hear a quiet.. click, and then Red Queen's head explodes. But it doesn't matter. In a universe of this size there's nowhere for her soul to go. My claws turn into reaping hooks as I tear the Manhunter's armour asunder and shove my right hand into Red Queen's corpse.

For Nekron.

"For Nekron."

Violet crystal traps the Manhunter in place and I.. pull back, heart decaying in my grasp. The crystal is already cracking, so I doubt that it will last long. I wonder exactly how tough Glory's blood made me? If they keep sending me hearts…

"Go."

A portal opens next to the spire as another Manhunter drifts through their portal, a shot from its integrated weapon systems hitting my environmental shield and.. not doing much at all.

Bleed them. Take their hearts. Make a ring. Create a Black Queen. Scour all that is and can be and make it silent.

I… Don't… Think that's-.

The others need to leave. I glance back, seeing that Red, Time Trapper, Supergirl and Komand'r are gone. Red Queen is presumably keeping the portal open while Violet is hanging back to… Buy me time?

"Go."

Violet takes my advice with haste, leaving myself and Red Queen to face the two Manhunters. The crystal around the first one fades rapidly with its creator gone so I recreate the reaping hooks and tear through the late Red Queen's corpse and into its chassis. The Manhunters may not be truly alive, but they have substance, they're a proof that life existed. That purpose existed. The first Manhunter comes apart as my blades extend into scythes and bisect its torso, and I catch the upper portion and hurl it at the second.

It.. doesn't reach, instead… Dissolving just before it hits. The second Manhunter then drifts towards me, freeing the space for a third to come through.

"By the command of Krona-"

I bring a construct scythe blade down towards it, and it raises its arms and tries to use its forearm weapons to drain my power. The blade bites into its arm and through, but I could see it wavering-

Local entropy detected.

-as it did so. Perhaps Krona is less skilled in manipulating the black light than the other colours? It certainly appears to function differently to the others.

"-no man escapes the Manhunters."

The stump-armed Manhunter sets its other siphon to try and drain me while it overcharges its shield, a swarm of blue slightly convex squares forming up into a wall between us.

Local entropy detected.

The third is moving slowly towards Red Queen. She points her left hand at it and blue-black lines briefly connect them, the Manhunter's armour twisting and warping both front and back as they pass through it.

Another scythe swing and the wall bends, feedback from my construct reporting that it was varying in composition and texture in an active attempt to discover some way to block my assault. I generate a boar spear construct and ram it into the barrier as well. It's clearly stressed, but given Krona's age and experience… I don't use constructs anything as much as the non-black versions of me appear to.

But there's still a heart in that chest.

The barrier only protects the Manhunter's front arc. Flying around the stressed shield and tearing into the Manhunter's head with goddess blood-enhanced strength is a matter of simplicity. The outer part is relatively weakly armoured, but my new strength shears the collar bone reinforcement with little more difficulty. The central processor is there and the internal armour is nothing like as strong as the force field. I'm still losing power, but it-.

The barrier drops, my constructs slice into the Manhunter's body and a black bolt blasts from its siphon and strikes Red Queen in the head. She drops at once, armour and flesh stripped from her skull and the portal undulates. The Manhunter she attacked opens its chest compartment and the Red Queen inside dives through-.

I fire energy pulses and score a hit before she makes it through. The portal is already destabilising from this side-.

I tear off my ring finger and send it flying for the portal. It.. just gets through before the portal collapses.

Huh.

I've never been entirely sure whether my consciousness was stored on my ring or not. I assumed not, because I'm essentially an unusual demon-free vampire and vampires demonstrably think with their brains.

I don't think I'd have bothered doing that before I became a Black Lantern. I'd value my continuity too much. As far as I was concerned, if the thing that kept going wasn't this me then why bother? Now I can barely work up the enthusiasm to keep this me going.

I wonder if my new instance will remember this?

The Manhunter that just lost its Red Queen shimmer and decays into dust, and.. as I look around I see that most of this pocket universe has gone the same way.

Hardened nails bared I tear into the damaged but still functional Manhunter that I'm perched on. It's slow going, but between my vampire-.

The Manhunter's hand closes around me and lifts, pulling me free of its damaged torso. Darn, didn't get the core or the Red Queen. If I'd gotten her blood I might have been-.

Guuugh
Ughaaaa

Black Lantern re-instanced. Power level one point one percent.

My eyes open.

Oh.

I appear to have retained all memories up until the moment of my brain's destruction. That… Would probably be uplifting if I could feel uplifted.

And… I'm in a.. storage… Not a tent. The material says 'portacabin' but the metal armour says 'secure storage'. The others should have noticed my body regrowing. That's rather-.

"…one other ring, attached to a severed finger."

"Thank you. I'll-" There's a clank as the fortified door unlocks. "Take a look." The door swings open. "What color-?"

A woman in the gold and black uniform sees me, and her power ring flares.

 

[Mr Zoat]

And now I've got to deal
With this shit

I need to not go berserk.

"Sinestro."

Komand'r is capable of looking after herself. She's either safe, or she's-.

Or she's not. In either case, there may be people I need to retaliate against. But I don't have any evidence that these are they. Wasting time fighting someone I know to be extremely skilled with a ring means that I'm not pursuing the people actually responsible as quickly as I can. These people could be a useful source of information in identifying exactly who those people are.

I need to not go berserk.

Lord Atrocitus designed red rings to kill Green Lanterns. I've never had to fight the local Green Lanterns, but Zilius told me about his encounter with his homeworld's Green Lantern and it turns out that our red blood vomit wrecks green constructs. Not sure what it does to yellow ones -or gold ones- since Lord Atrocitus lost interest in Sinestro when he found out that he left the Green Lantern Corps.

"No, human, I'm Sinestro."

"Heh hah!"

Sinestro and I both look around as Indigo laughs. He smiles at both of us.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting you to use humour. I always imagined you to be rather po-faced." He bows, as far as his cage permits. "Saul Talbot. Indigo Lantern. My colleague hasn't given me his chosen name yet, but as you can see he's-."

"A red Lantern." Sinestro regards us both for a moment. "Where did you get those rings?"

"I'm afraid that my memories of the incident are fairly confused. One moment I was laying in bed… The next, I was in orbit around a parallel universe version of Earth with a ring on my finger and a staff in my hand."

He raises his right hand slightly, the indigo sigil appearing in front of him. Immediately, the cage holding him dims faintly. Sinestro pulls back slightly, his aura strengthening and generating a javelin construct.

"Stop what you're doing now."

Indigo raises his hands and dismisses his logo.

These constructs are just as vulnerable to our abilities as green ones.

I need to not go berserk.

I need to not go-.

"That goes for you as well."

!TAKE THE DATA FROM THEIR BURNING CORPSES!

"RAAAAAGHH!"

The red light swirls and scythes, tearing apart the cage around me as the Butcher's Horns form upon my brow! Sinestro's construct javelin is melted by a spray of blood vomit from my mouth as he backpedals in the air.

"Berserk strength-"

A bell jar construct forms around me and the air gas concentration drops to near-vacuum.

"RAAAAAGHH!"

That vanishes too, the volley of energy pulses from the other Gold Lanterns being countered by my own. A bull-construct charges Sinestro and he sidesteps, a construct foil piercing its neck as it thunders past. His pistol construct fires in retaliation, gold beam striking my chest and battering back my flaring environmental shield.

"I don't think this-"

I retaliate with piranha plant constructs, sending them chomping at him and forcing him to dodge and dive around them.

"-is going to help-"

"Sir!"

"-anyone."

One of the other Lanterns didn't back up far enough and is getting chomped, the piranha plant biting into his environmental shield and jerking him left and right like a worrying dog. Sinestro's eyes dart his way for a moment and he finds space to fire another volley at the piranha plant's stem. The piranha begins to fade, but I use the opportunity to spray a high pressure stream of blood vomit at him. He spots it but is too hemmed in to evade quickly enough, construct-liquid spraying across his environmental shield and burning into his chest and right arm.

"No, why did I-"

His ring begins to splutter, the liquid turning to fire as it spreads across his body. His eyes widen.

"-think I'd listen-"

I lunge through the air, punching him in the chest with a construct-fist as the other weaker Lanterns struggle in vain to pierce my environmental shield. He hurtles out of the pit, unable to control his flight.

"-to me any more-"

Chain flail constructs batter the other Lanterns, forcing them onto the defensive. The one my piranha flower bit crumples as the attack pierces his environmental shield and smashes into the ribs beneath.

"-than anyone-"

"RAAAAAGHH!"

"-else does."

Sinestro will know things. I fly and hammer the two active Lanterns into the ground, then shoot upwards. Sinestro's standing on the rocky ground outside the bowl, frantically trying to douse the flames with his ring. The moment he sees me he grimaces and generates a construct shield-.

Indigo appears next to me. "Peace."

Uh?

"Peace."

Uh?

The.. horns… Fade, and I…

"Peace."

…

"I went berserk."

"Yes, yes you did." He looks at Sinestro. "And I do not believe that we will be able to reach a peaceful settlement at this stage."

"Ah. Sorry."

"Well… Yes." His eyes unfocus for a moment. "Why don't we-"

Sinestro's attack splashes across his shield.

"-move to a safe location, and then you can give me a more complete briefing."

"That's…" I nod. "That's probably a good idea."

"Very well. Sinestro, I apologise, but my colleague is overwrought. We will remove ourselves from the field."

"We will find you-."

"That may be unwise. Farewell for now."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Blankly
Staring

"Hello."

She regards me for a moment.

"Brian, that's not a finger."

I look at the surprised blond man standing just behind her.

"Hello Brian."

"It was a finger five minutes ago. All the.. systems said that it was dead."

"They were correct. I was dead. I'm still dead."

That may not be clear. I pull back my lips to give them a look at my fangs.

"You're a vampire powerful enough to regenerate from a severed finger."

I restore my lips to their accustomed location. "Not exactly. I'm a revenant-. On the parallel where I contracted vampirism, it isn't a disease so much as a form of automated possession. I was set upon by a group of revenants, killed and infected. This ring-" I raise my right hand, not pointing it at them but just drawing attention to it. "-destroyed the demon that would have claimed my corpse and then used its power to reanimate me. The blood I had been fed as part of the ritual changed my body somewhat, but the regeneration came from the ring."

The woman nods. "Like Lantern Driq."

"Possibly. I don't know the man."

"How are you with sunlight?"

"It's not a problem as long as I'm wearing a power ring. If I'm not, I catch fire." I frown slightly. "At least, I did last time I experimented. I drank the blood of a goddess recently and I'm not sure if that changes things."

The golden aura around her body intensifies slightly.

"… Which goddess?"

"She gave her name as 'Glorificus'. She was attacking a town and its defenders at the time, and after killing her leaving her blood seemed wasteful."

She considers for a moment, then runs a golden strobe over my body from her power ring.

"Are you alright?"

"Given that I'm dead, not by most standards."

"You've barely moved since I opened the door. Your facial movements aren't natural. And there's something… Off about your voice."

"I'm told that my behaviour becomes more lifelike after I rip out someone's heart and have this ring consume it."

"Who the hell made a power ring like that?"

"Based on my recent experiences, I believe that it was Nekron."

"And you're just telling me that."

"Yes. Why wouldn't I?"

"My files say that Nekron wants to kill every living thing in the universe. Of course, those are files I got from the Green Lantern Corps. If you can prove that he's someone else they were slandering, we may reconsider our approach."

"Based on the behaviour of this ring, I believe that information is correct."

"But you don't have to obey him."

"Technically, I have never received a direct order from him. I don't know for certain that I could disobey if I did. The ring appears to encourage omnicidal behaviour without compelling it. As things stand, my behaviour is my own."

"Do you mind if we test that?"

"I don't think that summoning Nekron would be in your interests."

"With a wizard."

"I'm not completely certain that I would 'mind' if you shot me in the head and incinerated my remains. Unless I've taken a heart recently I don't really feel things."

"Do you need hearts?"

"The ring would eventually run out of power if I didn't harvest hearts."

"And how long will that take?"

"That depends on how much I exert myself. I can remain active for two months without recharging."

"Can you recharge from animals?"

"Animal blood is fine for my revenant physiology. However, the ring requires hearts filled with emotion. By definition, that requires mental complexity."

"And how do you normally recharge?"

"Usually, I take hearts from violent, predatory cannibals."

"Other vampires."

"Other revenants. Sometimes demons. I have no particular objection to killing a human while in this state, but by the same token I have no particular motive to do so."

"Do you want to get that desire back?"

"I appear to appreciate it when I have it."

"Would having another ring help? We've got quite a lot."

"I am unfamiliar with gold rings, but I doubt it, since I lack the will in my default state to use them. I suppose that it may be possible for another to infuse me. Is that something which you know how to do?"

"I can't say that I do." She considers for a moment. "Why were you a finger?"

"I appear to be able to regenerate from any part of my body. When faced with destruction I threw my finger through a planar portal. The rest of me was then destroyed."

"What by?"

"A Manhunter robot. It could drain my constructs and ring, as well as being extremely strong and resilient."

"Did you know what was on the other side of the portal?"

"No, though I assume that Time Trapper and Red Queen believed it to be a safe location. The Red Queen we were working with at least. The one who came through the portal was released by a Manhunter."

Her ring is at her mouth immediately.

"Corps Commander to all Lanterns. Detain Red Queen now."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Oooooh
Dear

"Does that happen often?"

I sit in a small disused hut on the side of a mountain with my head in my hands.

"No. Not often."

Indigo passes me a cup of tea. I take it, lifting my head just enough to raise my eyebrows at him. He doesn't… Like tea, does he?

"Try it. You might like it."

I take a small sip, and it's the same old boiled-leaf-water that I know and don't drink when there's any alternative. Perhaps if I just.. sniff it.

"Thank you."

"I can probably find some yak milk, if you think it will help."

"I don't." I take a whiff of… No, whatever tea this is, I don't recognise the smell. "What did you find?"

"They've issued an alert with our faces. Though between this.. place-" He looks around our Himalayan retreat. "-and your blood wards I doubt that they'll find us quickly."

"Any idea what happened to Time Trapper?"

"Since I didn't.. meet him, any answer I give you would be almost completely speculative."

"You didn't… Intercept any of the Gold Lantern Corps' communication..?"

"No. I didn't think that taking that risk would be wise. Quite aside from the chance that they might track it back to our physical location, it would be… Unnecessarily aggressive. While you appeared quite capable of handling yourself, I imagine that we're receiving a certain amount of special attention and.. we are vastly outnumbered."

"Where are we?"

"DC. Post President Luthor, pre War of Light."

Oh… Good? Oh dear? There are people around here who've handled Krona before, but… They could also handle us. And why the hell was Sinestro there?

"I don't remember a Gold Lantern Corps on Earth One."

"No, something… Happened with Lex Luthor after he left office. I didn't risk accessing Justice League records-. Is there a Justice League on the Earth you ended up on?"

"Yes. I don't really have much to do with them. You?"

"Alas… No. We.. had a group called The Seven, and they… Weren't the Justice League."

The Seven? He was-? Was that The Boys?

"Homelander's already dead?"

"Yes." He frowns. "Did you.. pick that up during your time on my Earth?"

"No. Um. It turns out that.. we all ended up in different fictional realities, but it… Looks like we lose our memory of where we ended up. I ended up in some sort of Teen Titans animated series."

He smiles.

"When there's trouble you know who to call!
Teen Titans!"

"Ah. If you say so. I don't.. remember it." I frown. "Wait, what was the target age group?"

"Early teens."

"I-." I blink. "Really? I've been.. ripping people's skulls out! That.. can't be okay."

"You weren't in the original work." He.. hesitates for a moment. "Why have you been ripping people's skulls out?"

"Originally, I was just… Curious. The first time I killed someone and.. felt that it was a good thing. When I knew for certain that I couldn't use the original ring for anything other than destruction. Lord Atrocitus knows magic that can be performed with mortal remains, they give a… Particular impression to anyone who knows about them…"

"Still, I… Can't help but be a little concerned."

"You told me that your staff was a mind control device."

"It's more about.. influence than.. control. But it has altered me, true. Is that why you're collecting skulls? Your ring..?"

"I'm learning to accept my anger and hate. That's.. involved… It's not 'depersonalisation'. It's about accepting that the people I target are people who have made their choices and that my actions are justified as a result. And if I'm going to kill them anyway, why not take a memento?" I shrug. I suppose the 'skull' thing is a bit odd, but I've been doing it for long enough that I consider it normal for me. "How about you? What have you been up to?"

"You said that you know my Earth?" I nod. "What's it from?"

"A Garth Ennis comic called 'The Boys'."

He frowns. "They're the main characters? A CIA black operations squad?"

"A Garth Ennis comic called 'The Boys'."

He nods slowly. "Ah. Yes, that… Would explain a few things."

"They're dead now, aren't they?"

He nods solemnly. "Most of them, yes. Mister Campbell is still with us. Nice chap, when he forgets that he's not supposed to be. I know his girlfriend better than I do him…"

"So Homelander's coup attempt happened?"

"Yes, and Super Duper and I are doing our best to persuade American Consolidated-."

"Super Du-?" I blink, but… Actually, that makes sense. There's no way Homelander would have involved them in his plan.

Indigo spots my realisation. "Yes, well, obviously they needed my help and were willing to take it, and American Consolidated needed a new model for the Superhero business."

"I'm a bit surprised that you didn't say 'a plague on both their houses' and just do your own thing."

"Yes." He nods sadly. "I'm sure that you are. That would of course have led to American Consolidated not making even a token reform effort-. And… You'd have killed them, too, wouldn't you?"

"The higher the branch, the blunter the saw."

He looks at me for several uncomfortable seconds. "You've had a hard time of it, haven't you?"

"Me? You got stuck in a Garth Ennis comic."

He smiles. "I suppose that neither of us really fit-."

Red light flickers and I'm bracing myself as-. Red Queen appears. Then I relax. Oh, thank goodness. Indigo hasn't really reacted, but I suppose that's how he does things.

"Indigo, this is Red Queen. She was working with Time Trapper and the others. Queen, what happened?"

"I'm not sure." She shakes her head. "I teleported to the Justice League's Watchtower and explained what we're trying to do. A few moments later I felt the destruction of my crystals."

"What happened to Komand'r?"

"I didn't see, and the League are now targeting me. If she's still alive, they probably have her in a holding facility somewhere."

I sag slightly. "Do you know enough to build a tuning fork?"

"I don't, but I know a place that does." She looks from me to Indigo. "Did you get anyone else? Or.. see anyone else at the bunker?"

"No. This is it."

"Then this will have to do."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Waiting for a
Better idea

The local version of Doctor Fate lowers his hands, the golden ankhs floating over them guttering out.

"As far as I can tell, he is exactly what he says that he is."

The woman nods. "And his contact with Nekron?"

"Nekron is not a being with whom I have any personal experience. Your Guardians would probably be better placed to give you advice on his presence."

"They're… Busy. I don't want to recall them unless it's essential. What can you tell me?"

"Nekron is a font of vast necromantic power. Given his age and nature, creating a power ring may well be something he can do. But without another example of Nekron's sorcery or.. actually having this Black Lantern feed on someone's heart, there is little more I can tell you."

"I am willing to demonstrate, if it will help."

She gives me a mild glare. "I authorised the use of lethal force in the line of duty, not for feeding super vampires."

"While my particular strand of vampirism may be different to local variants, I doubt that my abilities warrant describing me as 'super'. Also, I am not under your authority. If you provide me with a stellar map and avert your eyes-."

"No."

"Then perhaps you could ask for volunteers from amongst the criminals the governments of your world have sentenced to d-."

"We don't actually want Nekron here."

"Neither do I. I was simply suggesting avenues of study. Though if a single heart could summon Nekron, I would have summoned him years ago."

"That isn't-." Her ring glows, and she holds it up. "Yes?"

A face appears.

"Commander. Whatever the Indigo Lantern did, it's defying my efforts to track."

"Sinestro, you were badly burned. You aren't cleared for active duty."

"I won't fight them head on until I'm fully recovered, but my mind was unaffected. I can direct an investigation perfectly well."

The woman considers that claim for a moment.

"Very well. Doctor Fate has confirmed the Black Lantern's claims as far as he can. I presume you wish to speak with him."

"Yes, I do."

The woman lowers her ring, and a full size Sinestro construct materialises next to her. Sinestro takes the opportunity to look me over.

"Your ring is powered by Nekron."

"I don't understand the precise mechanics. Nekron has… Something to do with it. It may be that he powers it directly. Or it may be that an energy he finds it easy to manipulate powers it."

"What powers the others?"

"The first red rings-." I pause, frowning. "My knowledge of early Maltusian power ring experiments is incomplete. It is possible that they created one or more, but my red alter ego mentioned being given his by Atrocitus. Atrocitus is leader of a group-."

"One of the immortals from Sector Six Six Six."

"He sought revenge, and used the blood of the other four to create a Central Power Battery. His rings respond to rage and hate as green rings-. And yours, apparently, respond to a focused will." I pause. "Though these factors are not necessarily constant between parallel universes."

"He'd be a little late to take revenge here, in any case. Still." He looks at the woman. "I can task the Gold Lantern in that Sector to speak with our version, in case he has anything to share."

The woman nods. "Do it, but make sure they know to be polite. He hasn't recovered from what the Guardians did to him."

"Of course." Sinestro turns back to me. "How did it bypass my defensive constructs?"

"I'm afraid that I don't know. I only had the opportunity to speak with him briefly, and the precise mechanics of his ring were not discussed."

I can't read Sinestro's expression, but I wasn't particularly good at that even before I died.

"What of Indigo?"

"I'm not sure. They were speaking about recruiting him before the attack on their command post, but if they followed through on the idea it was after we were separated."

"What emotion does it use?"

"Compassion, though.. it may not be limited to just that. As I said, not all of what is learned in one parallel applies to all others."

"They believe that the Red Queen who emerged from the portal is the one they were working with to fight Krona. Instead, she's his agent." He snarls quietly. "To think that we're still doing a Guardian's bidding."

"I thought that they kicked Krona out."

"I don't trust their records on the subject. I think we should try contacting the Controllers again. Without a more accurate knowledge of Krona's actual behaviour, it's impossible for us to know how to proceed."

The woman looks at me.

"What do you want us to do?"

"I don't want things. I have no animus, no vital motivating force."

"Okay, what do you think we should do?"

"Telling me your name would be a start."

"I didn't-? Huh." She nods. "Commander Barbara Gordon of the Gold Lantern Corps."

"Next, I will need to know what happened to my colleagues."

"We don't know. We received an alert from the Manhunter Red Queen informing us that Time Trapper was attempting to use one of Lex Luthor's old bases to build a device to rewrite the universe. Then it was.. erased, apparently taking Time Trapper with it. Sinestro went to confirm his death, then your two colleagues reappeared. Sinestro and his squad attempted to take them into custody. They fought them and they escaped. A little later was when we found your finger and power ring."

"Red Queen?"

"Since she was cooperating with our investigation we gave her near free rein. We tried to put her into more secure holding conditions once you contradicted her narrative, but she vanished."

"Your intent towards my colleagues?"

"We don't want another Crisis event. We barely survived the last one. If we can work together to stop whatever this is, then we will. If we can't, then we'll pump them for information and deal with it ourselves."

"Would the simplest solution be to announce this publically, and offer them a secure way to contact me and confirm my continued existence? It seems to me that there's little benefit in secrecy, and my alter egos have no interest in aiding Krona."

"That…" She blinks, then looks away awkwardly. "Yes. It probably would."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th May 2011
11:39 GMT -5

People.. aren't.. looking at us.

I don't want to sound too 'up myself', but… I'm wearing my display costume. And carrying a glowing staff. Even on an Earth like this one, which appears to be far closer to Detective Comics norms than the one both-.

I glance at Red.

Than the one I landed on, that should provoke some comment, surely? Perhaps not clustering around us for autographs given that we have no local reputation, but leaving us some clear space in case we lash out? I realise that DC Earth may have resulted in people becoming somewhat inured to oddities such as us… There was a Superman comic I vaguely remember in which a visiting superhero team were met with total indifference, as was the fact that Superman was 'fighting an alien invasion or something'. But still-.

Red waves a hand in someone's face as he walks past. The man slows and blinks, then returns to his journey. Red then stops walking.

"What's going on?"

Red Queen turns around to… I think she's glaring under that faceplate.

"Do you want them to see us?"

He shrugs. "I don't usually hide what I'm doing. Though I suppose-."

A couple of Gold Lanterns fly over our heads, not paying the street beneath them any mind.

"I suppose on a planet like this-." He frowns. "Are you doing this?"

"I used the materioptikon to brute force dozens of super power formulas. Suppressing people's interest in us is the least I can do."

I frown. "What were you planning to do with that sort of power?"

"It doesn't matter." She turns away and continues striding towards LexCorp Metropolis, the people in her path not looking up as they step out of her way without knowing why. "Come."

Red and I make momentary eye contact, and I can see that he's getting just as dubious about this as I am. But after his attack on Sinestro-

He inclines his head slightly.

-he'd rather that I take the lead.

I smile faintly, then start after her.

"Given everything else they know he did, I'm a little surprised that-"

In the small square in front of the building there's a statue of Lex Luthor, surrounded by relatively fresh wreaths. There are even a few… Not mourners, but people paying their respects at a monument dedicated to someone they respected.

"-they're letting his company work on a project like this."

"This Lex Luthor was proven to have been driven to paranoia by phobiline hydrochlorate administered by Manhunter androids at the behest of the Guardians of the Universe as part of a plan to suppress the intellect of human geniuses. Having conclusively proven that, he committed himself to striving to undo the damage they had inflicted on his species. This building had WayneTech stamped on its frontage last month. Now, they do research on exotic technology. Including what's left of the tuning fork Alexander Luthor Junior tried to use to pry the universe apart."

"Yes, but I imagine that it's-"

She walks across several wreaths on her path to the front door, crushing her boot prints into them.

"-got all sorts of systems for detecting people like us. Wouldn't a less secure facility be better for our purposes?"

Red steps around the scattered wreaths as he nods.

"Time Trapper didn't mention anything about coming here-."

"He was excessively cautious. If they have all of the parts in one place then I can reassemble what we need easily."

While that sounds reasonable, I doubt very much that this Time Trapper would operate out of a subterranean base without a good reason. "And then… What?"

"Krona's tuning fork will be destroyed, our alter egos will be freed, and we can deal with Krona directly."

"Yes, about that. I haven't encountered a Guardian, but I'm led to believe that they're rather good at manipulating the emotional spectrum."

"If all of you and all of me together can't beat him, then the entire superhero population of this Earth certainly can."

The building's front doors open as she reaches them, the security guards' eyes glossing over and the various sensors failing to register.

"And are we notifying them in advance? Our emergence point-."

"We can notify them the moment I set the tuning fork off."

"Why not bef-?"

"I tried talking to them, and the next thing I knew our base was destroyed and they started attacking me. Maybe it was some kind of misunderstanding or maybe Krona's already controlling them, I don't know."

She strides towards a wall, which shifts out of phase as she reaches it to allow her access to.. some sort of emergency access shaft. Red and I follow her, the wall reforming behind us as we descend into the lower reaches of the building.

"But ultimately, 'why' doesn't matter. It happened, they won't help voluntarily, we need to do this."

Red did say that 'make a tuning fork, win' was their original strategy.

"Do you need any additional versions of me?" I glance at Red. "Us?"

"Can you use other colors?"

"Not… Easily, but if we're not in any rush I should be able to manage something."

"Then no. All we need is a you who can use the colors other versions of you can use. I'll do the rest."

She comes to a stop in the shaft and gestures, one wall becoming translucent. She floats through and we follow her into.. a high tech laboratory cum workshop. There's no.. big tuning fork, though some of what I presume to be analytical machines contain tiny fragments which might have been part of it at one stage. There are.. a few employees around, mostly not doing anything that looks particularly exciting. I suppose that with something like this you don't want to do anything precipitous.

"Wait here. I'll check on the storage chamber, then we can get to work."

"And they will continue not to notice us?"

She lands and walks towards one of the interior doors.

"They can barely notice anything."

I frown, then look more closely at a woman who… Her coffee mug slips slightly in her hand, pouring hot liquid onto her skin and sleeve. She doesn't react.

I move the mug to a nearby work bench and heal her hand.

"So. Here we are."

Red nods as Red Queen leaves the room. "Now we know why Time Trapper did most of the talking."

"She is under a great deal of-."

My ring blinks. I raise it slightly.

"Yes?"

A face appears, my own with slightly longer hair.

"Black Lantern to-. Ah. Good."

Red stares at the image. "You're alive?"

"No."

Red rolls his eyes. "You're functioning?"

"Yes, but that's not important. The Red Queen who came through the portal isn't the one we were working with. It's important that-."

A black-blue beam punches through my chest!

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th May 2011
11:44 GMT -5

Indigo staggers, blinking in surprise as I

!GET THE BITCH!

lunge forward, blood vomit spraying from my mouth and-.

I'm suspended mid-dive and the vomit is.. sort of pooling in the air just in front of her. I'm not-.

I fly left, making it all of a metre before I find myself unaccountably slowing to a stop once again. The.. hell?!

"LexCorp Metropolis." Indigo's chest glows as he undoes whatever Red Queen just did to him "Basement."

The blue black beams flicker out again, but this time he vanishes before they strike him, reappearing just behind her!

"Peace."

The air goes white as a massive discharge of electrified plasma explodes out from Red Queen. I don't think that was Indigo, but if I've got any time-.

I fly backwards-.

Huh?

I just hit the back wall-. She's twisting spatial dimensions, right! A bucket excavator construct eats through the wall and I fly back, dropping down the shaft a level before creating a rock drill construct and boring through the.. server room-

"Aaaaagh!" / "What the fuck?! / "Hit the alarm!"

-cooling system in a spray of escaping refrigeration gas before drilling upward underneath-.

My constructs disappear and I'm falling towards the ground, the shock of cold! This is what I get-

Ow! Ugh.

-for not getting the temperature controlled version!

I tap my chest plate to activate my force field and furiously try to reactivate my there we go! This time I try to lock on-.

I'm not seeing any emotion. How-?

WOOAP! WOOAP! WOOAP! WOOAP!

The alarm finally goes off as the last of the staff flee for the exits. Okay, magic or tech based ring shutdown, only bypass I can do at short notice-.

She's helping Krona destroy everything and fighting in a building full of people.

Butcher's Horns.

The red light roils around my body as I leap through the hole I made in the roof to the next floor up, claw-.

Where is the-?

I'm slammed across the room, environmental shield twisting as a blurring Red Queen hits me with more than human speed and strength! One interior wall explodes around us as we smash through it, but the next is fortified and I merely dent it! I'm taking hits, but when I'm like this I don't really feel it, and I can see the damage on her armour where the red light is biting back.

A spray of blood vomit forces her to back off for a second, circular saw constructs are negligently slapped aside and the plasma discharge construct… Hits but doesn't appear to do all that much. She raises her right hand-.

Which is suddenly yanked aside by glowing yellow tethers, the black-blue beams she was planning on firing at me instead scything through the floor and wall as Indigo appears behind her, his staff glowing with the light of fear. I fire the blood vomit again, this time getting a solid hit and melting through her armour, revealing-.

"By the command-"

The yellow tether evaporates as the blood vomit eats through the Manhunter infiltrator's now-exposed chassis!

"-of Krona-"

The chassis smokes, the colouration browning as the infiltrator jerks its right fist and.. the left side of Indigo's torso jumps about two inches left. He shudders, and a second jerk causes his staff to go flying into the room's debris. He collapses, an indigo body cast appearing around him as he tries to hold his internal organs together. A point blank bull construct gets-. Sliced, and I'm barely able to dodge her black and blue beams.

What do I do what do I d-?

The room explodes and the Red Queen is gone.

W-?

I look left and a two metre wide hole has been punched into the building through the rock and soil outside. I can see a curved tunnel whose interior is illuminated by daylight. On the right, the exit hole looks much the same.

Um.

"Indigo, are you alive?"

"Just about."

"I've only got a first aid k-."

"I'll live. Get the Queen."

My aura flares back to full as I shoot out and up through the hole, the crowd who are in the process of evacuating LexCorp at a sprint. Okay, great, is someone-?

"Hey." A young man in some kind of… Nineties reimagining of Superman's costume… Drops down to float next to me. "You on our side now?" He tips his glasses down slightly so that he can see me over the top of them. "'cause horns made of blood are usually a bad sign."

"Look after the civilians."

"You don't get-!"

I shoot upwards, trying to work out where she's gone. She could just teleport-.

A plume of debris and a chorus of car alarms draws my attention to the coastline, blue and white figures flying around a blackened red figure I assume to be Red Queen. Superman and.. either Power Girl or Supergirl. Superman deliberately tanks a volley of those blue-black beams in a way which has me wincing while the other one zooms in and scores a couple of punches. I-.

I frown. I'm feeling anger from Red Queen, but not-. The Manhunter isn't angry at us, it's angry at… itself?

Four Gold Lanterns flash into the sky above me, followed a moment later by Black. One of the Golds-. Is that Barbara Gordon? Heads towards me.

"Red Lantern." She eyes me for a moment, paying particular attention to my horns. "I'm taking command."

"Good for you. Any idea why I can feel emotion from that Manhunter?"

She looks up towards Black.

"The Manhunters who attacked the crystal pocket universe used Red Queens to stabilise themselves. I had assumed that this was simply a replica, but it has been using her other abilities as well. Perhaps doing that does not require all of her?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th May 2011
11:47 GMT -5

"Heart ready for harvesting."

Commander Gordon looks askance at the ring as it makes its pronouncement, her retinue moving into position to hem Red Queen in.

"Your ring thinks that she's a cyborg? That we're fighting an organic brain in a robotic Manhunter body?"

"Not necessarily. The human brain is mounted in the head so that it doesn't overheat, but there are other ways to maintain its temperature. We could be fighting a Manhunter android with an organic brain in its chest that it externally stimulates when it wishes to use her super powers."

Red nods, his horns fading into nothing.

"Or any other body parts it needs. Not like any of us know how her powers work. Or Krona could have altered her organic mind to be loyal to him." He looks at Commander Gordon. "Got any telepaths available? Or.. technopaths, I suppose."

"Commander Gordon to the Justice League. I need a telepath. Who can get to Metropolis fastest?"

"And Indigo could do with a medic."

I look at his bleeding torso. "What about you?"

He blinks in confusion, then examines his battered armour. "Yes… Probably, but he got the worst of it. And if I know the Justice League they haven't exactly been mass producing purple healing rays."

"…to LexCorp. We'll provide transportation." She switches her attention from her ring to Red. "We can't mass produce it yet, but we're working on it. The standard procedure for the aftermath of a metahuman battle includes bringing one in with the medics."

He nods. "Sounds pretty reasonable. How long has that been going on?"

"Luthor had some fairly harsh words for Superman about him not sharing Kryptonian technology that could make the world a better place. When he told the rest of the Justice League about it, they realised that he wasn't the only one." She smiles distractedly as she monitors the fight on the seafront. "And it means that Themyscira has a GDP figure for the first time in history."

"Do you require us to take any action?"

"Not.. yet. We are going to have to use you to reactivate the tuning fork once we know how, but at the moment-"

Two flickers of heat vision and a punch tears Red Queen's right arm off.

"-we've got this handled. Unless you've got a way to knock her out right away."

"Technically, yes, but if we're trying to rescue the organic brain it's probably not a good idea."

On a nearby rooftop a cylinder of space shimmers for a moment before resolving into the form of a man. He takes a moment to get his bearings before turning to watch the fight unfold.

Red Queen appears to be draining the golden constructs and using the energy she gains from doing that to make a shield to keep the kryptonians back. Since this reality is similar to DC post-Crisis I can only assume that they've already gotten the message about the organic brain because otherwise they should have taken her apart by now. Since she has maintained the Manhunters' ability to remotely drain rings, directly involving myself probably isn't a good idea.

"Are you certain that there isn't anywhere where it would be acceptable for me to harvest hearts?"

Commander Gordon frowns at me. "Yes. Why, are you getting drained?"

"No, but I noticed that the serial killer Ragman and the mass murderer Spectre were both on the League's contact list. There appears to be a logical contradiction and I'm hoping that you can explain it."

Red snorts in amusement. "You can only expect the Justice League to be so logical. I've killed plenty of people and yet for some reason it's the fact that I keep their skulls as trophies that horrifies people."

One of the Gold Lanterns flies over to pick up the man I assume to be Brainwave Junior and fly him closer to the combat zone.

Commander Gordon frowns. "Do Red Lanterns power their rings using skulls?"

"No, it just-." He glances over to where the kryptonians appear to be destroying Red Queen's power ring draining apparatus. "Actually, while we've got a few minutes I should probably recharge."

He holds out his ring and a red/white hole in space opens before him, his personal lantern floating out a moment later. It's in the shape of an oblong hurricane lantern, with the handle making up the horns of the sigil.

"Embrace your hate; vengeance for all!
My ring answers to rage's call,
And once I'm done, been your downfall,
I'll put your skull upon my wall."

Commander Gordon stares at him as he returns his lantern to subspace.

He shrugs. "Komand'r thought it was funny. And speaking of the love of my life, Commander, do you have her?"

"No. The site of Luthor's bunker was the same when we arrived as it was when you got there."

"Do you know where she is?"

"No. Our best guess is that Red Queen either teleported it to Krona, or she destroyed it."

His jaw tightens. "If she could destroy it that easily, she would have destroyed us when we attacked her. I.. think it's more likely that a radius around.. either Time Trapper or the tuning fork he was building was teleported."

"I'm…" Commander Gordon nods. "That's certainly possible." She frowns. "Komand'r?"

"Yes."

"Blackfire? The Tamaranean Princess who sold her sister and then her entire world into slavery?"

"No, a version of that woman from a parallel universe who lived a different life. The gordanians were perfectly capable of ravaging Tamaran without anyone's help."

Superman and the other kryptonian have pinned Red Queen and are carefully removing her weapon modules as Brainwave is brought closer.

"What is the status of Vega in this parallel?"

"It's difficult, but it's not so bad that I'd let you rip people's hearts out."

"Is there a substantive difference between a psion vivisecting someone and me tearing out their heart? I'm pushing this because if you intend to use me to activate the tuning fork then I will need substantially more power than I have now."

She looks thoughtful.

"That…"

"Also, the Manhunters who attacked us had internal explosives to kill the Red Queens when their containment was breached. I can create new black rings to raise her, but that-."

Her eyes widen. "What? Superman, be-"

The Manhunter Red Queen shudders and goes limp.

"-careful."

"That requires significantly more power."

Commander Gordon takes a deep breath.

"How much more power?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd April 2012
14:04 GMT -6

Luna stares blankly at the panorama visible from her balcony. Looking closely, I can see her mouth moving as she mutters to herself.

"…knock on effect of government spending artificially inflating demand, preventing the self-correcting function of the market place, and in the longer term..."

Maybe… Jean put in a bit too much.

"Luna?"

She doesn't look around. Her ears don't even flick, and I thought that was an involuntary action.

I walk closer, waiting for the sound of my hooves against the stone to provoke a response.

…

No… Doesn't appear to be happening. Hm. I don't want to stomp, because this stupid city is still perched on the side of a mountain, but… I prance a little in place.

Nothing.

"Luna, you alright? It wasn't… Too much for you?"

"…study has shown that the cost to the state of rehabilitation is in the longer term less than the cost of pure confinement…"

…

She sounds fine.

Hm. I look around, but the guards who brought me here appear to have either been ordered to wait outside or were so unnerved at seeing an alicorn like this that they retreated to somewhere where they wouldn't have to watch it.

I trot forwards until I'm standing over her unresponsive body, then tilt my head slightly forwards and lick the tip of her horn.

"Uh?"

Tastes like… Keratin. I lick it again, just in case I'm missing-.

"We knowst not precisely what you are doing, but We will thank you to stop."

I withdraw my tongue, looking down as Luna looks up at me. "Back with us?"

"What do you mean?"

"You were staring into space and muttering to yourself."

She rolls her eyes. "We were doing no such-." She blinks, looking up at the sun. "Why hath the sun moved?"

"No, no, see, for questions like that, you want the big white pony. You might have met her, actually, she's got a giant sun on-."

"We know perfectly well who it is that moves the sun, dalcop. We have-. Didst We really lose so much time?"

"Yeah, and I think Jean'll have to come back another day. You're not supposed to space out like that. I tried speaking to get your attention and it didn't work."

"But why didst you lick Our-." She starts to smirk. "Did you think it was… Sensitive?"

I look away. "Might have."

"Hah! Your ignorance of pony physiology may prove your undoing. Didst you not remember when our horns clashed in mortal combat? Didst you feel any great erotic sensation-"

"Yes."

"-then from your horn?"

"No, b-"

"Then why didst you think that We would?"

"-uuuut, I thought that might have been because you were using combat magic and I wasn't usually a pony." I bend my legs slightly, the fur of my unarmoured belly just brushing the fur of her back. "So where should I lick?"

"To create a sudden shock, We recommend the ears."

"Ok-."

Her eyes narrow. "Try it with Us and We shall see if your ardour remains after being hurled from a mountain."

I bend my neck to the right and lower my head until my muzzle is level with her ear.

"What happens if the answer is 'yes'?"

Her horn glows midnight blue and she discorporates, turning into shadows before flowing out from under me and recorporating.

"Little."

"It's not that l-."

"Are you here for a reason, or do you merely wish to vex Us?"

"Checking that the session went alright. I also want to introduce you to my eldest." She tenses slightly. "I mentioned-?"

"Yes, you… Did. The daughter who can read minds."

"That's her. Don't worry, she's done the full telepathic ethics course. And we both know that you go into people's dreams without prior consent, so don't be a hypocrite."

"You-?" She shakes her head. "Yes, We are prepared to meet her."

I turn towards the door. "Lynne!"

The door opens a little, Lynne's muzzle poking a short distance through. Then she shoves, the door opening fully and displaying her to Luna.

Lynne is a short alicorn, smaller even than Twilight Sparkle. Her mane and tail are jet black, while her pelt is a grey a shade or two lighter than my own. Her cutie mark is near-identical to my own as well, the only difference being that the axe blade is slightly larger and has a Ψ character on the side as decoration. I.. think I expected her pelt to be white as a reference to her Justice League Animated costume, but she hasn't ever actually worn something like that. And this could well be a result of my soul donation.

Lynne awkwardly genuflects, bending her front legs and lowering her head.

**Good afternoon, Princess Luna.**

"Greetings, Llyn." Luna smiles, and trots closer. "We are pleased to meet you. We-." She cocks her head to the side. "Didst you just speak to Our mind?"

**Daddy has his rings to translate for him. I have to connect to your mind to understand what you're saying.**

"We see." Luna considers, and appears to accept that.

I was planning to ask Sunset about dubbing her knowledge of the language, but she was in such a state after yesterday that I didn't want to push-

"OOF."

-things.

The three of us turn to see the dirt-encrusted form of Sunset Shimmer laying on the balcony, struggling to climb back to her hooves.

"Sunset? What are you doing?"

"Oh." Legs trembling, she regains quadrupedalism. "Hey Grayven. I think I'm studying earth pony magic."

"You.. think..?"

She takes a deep breath. "It's a challenging teaching st-"

A boulder slams down on the balcony from above, shearing it from the face of the palace!

"-yle!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd April 2012
14:08 GMT -6

Luna and I cautiously trot forwards towards the broken edge of the… Room, I suppose.

"I.. have my issues with Celestia's teaching style, but to the best of your knowledge-?"

"Be assured that Our Sister is not in the habit of hurling her students from buildings."

We both look down to where Sunset appears to have survived her crash landing and is now sprinting across the courtyard garden for cover as skull-sized rocks get pelted at her.

"You alright, Sunset!?"

"Yes!"

"Because we're getting slightly worried up here!"

"Short version?!" I just about manage a wing-shrug. "Equestria does have a native earth pony magic tradition!"

"Um! Good?!"

"I know! Ah!"

A boulder the size of a car slams into the ground just in front of her, forcing her to throw herself to the side to avoid running into it. She trips, rolls, then climbs back onto her hooves again just ahead of the next rock.

"It's going to save so much time!"

I turn my head to Luna, who appears to be staring at the scene with the same bewilderment I feel.

"Luna, is this some sort of.. pony thing I don't know about?"

"If it is, then there are two of us who do not know about it. Our Sister's student! Wherefore art thou not using thine unicorn magic?!"

"Did you know that benitoite can stop unicorns using magic?!"

"Neigh, we did not!"

The rain of rock stops and Sunset braces for a novel form of attack.

I smile. Good girl.

"Well it can and it works really well!"

"Daddy, should I stop them?"

I look further down to where Lynne is standing next to my right foreleg and looking up at me, a faint orange glow around her horn.

"No, Sunset appears to be enjoying-" I glance down at the garden as a circle around Sunset becomes liquefacted, causing her to drop into the ground and frantically try to 'swim' to the edge. "-herself. Ponies aren't good swimmers, are they?"

Luna looks away from the garden in order to throw me a quizzical glance.

"And apes are?"

I nod. "Hominids are. Humans can swim straight from the womb."

"That must be a strange sight."

"Compared to a pony trying to swim through earth?"

Sunset reaches the edge and gets her forehooves on solid ground, only for the rest of the soil to become solid as well. Sunset's eyes widen as she's caught halfway.

"Daddy, can babies really swim?"

"Yes, but not very well." Sunset wiggles, trying to use her alicorn strength to force the soil to release her. The soil covering the front part of her torso falls free easily enough but she can't get the leverage to pull herself out of the hole. "They tend to float and they hold their breath, but they can't do more than doggy paddle and they're not very strong."

The earth on the far side of the courtyard erupts, rock pillars shooting upward to form a series of steps from the roof to the garden as a small grey mare in a dull blue dress calmly jumps from one to the next like a mountain goat funeral director.

"Sunset."

Her voice sounds curiously disinterested, as if fights on the palace grounds are something she gets into every day.

"You know you can get out with magic."

"Yeah… But when I said I like hooves-on-" She strains against her earthy prison. "-research, I still meant a training area, not just -uhh- 'throwing down' in the palace."

The grey pony reaches ground level and lightly stomps her forehooves, causing the rock pillars to sink back into the ground. Dread to think what the subsidence is going to be like in a few years…

The grey pony then stops and stamps her back right leg. The ground around Sunset slowly rises up in a wave of earth.

"Um. Um. Um."

Sunset takes a deep breath and lets the wave collapse on top of her. I don my goggles so that I can make sure that her life isn't in danger, but… I don't want to intervene yet. And not just because she brought this on herself. Given the day she had yesterday, I'd probably give her a bye on that one. No, it's because I can tell the difference between outright panic and a momentary burst of fear. Sunset was worried about the soil, but she didn't genuinely believe that she might die. So that-.

Soil explodes in all directions, though I note that anything that hit the grey mare dropped to the ground immediately, rather than sticking to her fur or clothing. Sunset stands unsteadily in the centre of a gardener-horrifying crater. She's still pretty muddy, but-. Oh, that was lacertomancy. She removed the soil with a super strength flex, rather than geomancy. Still a one-in-four improvement on her earth pony magic skills since yesterday, but probably not what she was trying for.

"It worked!" She looks up at us. "Did you see that!?"

"Yes! Very nice!" I frown. "Luna, have you got any idea who the grey mare is?"

"No, though We think that We may need to make her acquaintance once this bizarre display has been concluded, both to learn from her expertise and to sentence her for vandalism."

"Daddy, can we learn to do that?"

"Pro-bably, but you'd only be able to do it in pony form." I glance down at her. "And if you're interested in magical strength-training, I can show you how to do that."

"Okay."

Sunset clears the edge of the crater by awkwardly flapping her dirt-encrusted wings and doing a trot-landing on what's left of the grass.

"That wasn't rock magic."

A spear of rock shoots out of the ground and Sunset has to jerk her head to the side to avoid being speared!

"You should try listening to the rocks. They say all kinds of interesting things."

"Ah…" Sunset leans towards the spear. "Hello.. rock..?

Another spear comes at her from her left, and she drops onto her belly to fully evade it!

"Ah! Bad rock!"

"Hey, Luna." I frown as Sunset keeps trying to 'talk' to the rock and the grey mare keeps firing spears at her. "Can you control rocks?"

"We cannot. And… Having seen this tomfoolery, We think that We will wait to learn until Sunset Shimmer can instruct Us in a more decorous fashion."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th May 2011
14:10 GMT -5

A cloud of smoke and tentacles undulates from inside the magic circle.

"I am summoned and so I'm here,
Mind so sharp and magics so queer,
Pay me in pain,
Or I'll drive you insane,
And-"

"Leef noissapmoc."

"Heart ready for harvesting."

"-shit it's Constantine again!"

Black breaches the summoning circle, shoves his right arm into the mass and pulls out a still-beating… Thing. The tentacular mass collapses to the floor and then begins to fade.

"Feed."

John Constantine grins as the heart is absorbed into Black's ring.

"Any chance you could come back after you've sorted this whole mess out?" He leafs through his copy of the Grimoire Verum. "Got whole chapters we could clear out."

Zatanna doesn't look at him, but nonetheless gives her head a small shake.

"Do you need any more?"

I'll admit, it's an interesting take on 'acceptable targets'. Call up a demon that is known to be a blight upon the Earth, force it to feel an emotion and then have Black consume its heart. They're not human, not conventionally alive and can probably recover eventually. The only real surprise is that they're alive enough for it to work, but Black already knew that would work as the very first thing his ring ate was a demon. I suppose that Nekron's concept of 'life' isn't so limited as to refer exclusively to organic life.

"Ring, state charge."

"Power level twenty six percent."

"I have sufficient." He hesitates, then smiles in the most natural expression I've seen him make so far. "Thank you."

Zatanna frowns curiously. "That.. sounded different."

"This.. is the closest I get to being alive. With a mixture of all parts of the emotional spectrum, I'm more… Myself… Now, than at any time since I died." He smiles at her. "Thank you."

"Is there any way to.. fix..? You?"

"The problem with any sort of 'fixing' is that I lose this power ring. And probably the benefits of vampirism. My condition is 'chronic', not 'terminal'." He grins, bowing his head. "Hah! It's terminus, not terminal!"

It's a curious point. What happens if you do something which is supposed to return the target to life on a vampire? When that sort of spell was cast with Darla as the target she resurrected as a human, but she'd already been destroyed in her vampire-form at that point. Actually, now that I think about it, why did that work? If she was resurrected then she should have had her human personality, rather than her demon personality. And when she was turned back into a vampire she should have been a 'new' vampire. Except she wasn't. I suppose I'd have to know more about the exact mechanics in order to know how the magics involved would affect Black.

John smiles, but he's also sure to keep Zatanna and myself between him and the grinning vampire-Lantern. Zatanna on the other hand gestures to the work bench where what's left of the Red Queen replica Manhunter was placed after the tech-savvy members of the Justice League finished making it safe.

"Can you bring her back?"

"Certainly!"

Black skips over to the remains, gives them a once-over and then sticks his right forefinger in a patch of mixed blood and cerebrospinal fluid before pulling it out and tasting it.

"Ring, analysis."

"Subject is deceased."

He turns to me, grinning.

"What a truly remarkable machine. And it knows all-."

"All that from just seeing a dismembered corpse. Absolutely-" / "All that from just seeing a dead body. Absolutely-"

Red and I glance at one another. Apparently, we all listened to Red Dwarf: The Last Human.

"-incredible." / "-incredible."

Black grins wider.

"We really are all the same man, aren't we? I didn't really appreciate it before-."

Zatanna looks puzzled. "What do you mean by that?"

"Why do you think Krona wants us rather than literally anyone else? We're not parallel universe versions of the same man. We used to be one man, and then we were many men in different parallels."

I raise my right hand. "We haven't… Conclusively confirmed that yet. I wouldn't want the League or the Gold Lantern Corps to plan with that in mind without having it confirmed by an expert."

Black slides his ring off his right ring finger and lays it on his palm. He then opens his mouth… And closes it again.

"Do we know what her name was?"

I.. shrug, and look at Red.

"Uh. Pass? They might have told Orange, but all he told me was that the other person we were looking for was Jade Nguyen."

"Cheshire?" Zatanna frowns. "Why did you want her?"

"We wanted her because Krona wanted her. But that doesn't mean that Red Queen is Jade Nguyen any more than Time Trapper is one of us."

Black gives an amused snort. "Be funny if he was, though. Anyway, I might as well try Jade Win."

Zatanna looks at the remains. "We have Jade Nguyen's genetic code on file. It will only take about half an hour to confirm whether it's her or not. Assuming Batman hasn't done that already."

"No, no point. If I guess wrong nothing happens. Ring?"

"Ready for command."

"Jade Win of Earth. Rise."

Black.. lightning flickers across the remains, the Manhunter chassis flickering out of existence almost at once and the organic remains.. levitating into position over the bench. Then the lightning focuses on the pieces of meat, striking them again and again. A few seconds pass with little happening, and then they.. slowly begin to grow. Yes, it looks like they kept the brain, a little blood to keep it fed and some of the nerves. The growth is slow at first, the brain matter turning from goo to an actual cerebral structure. Then a spinal cord extends out from the base, flickering strands of unlight painting in the skull, spine and ribs, then organs. The heart is unbeating and the colours are.. duller. There's no blood, not even the pooled and dried blood I've seen in older corpses. Muscle comes next, curiously.. grey in colour, veins and arteries, arms and legs. The strobing is constant, flickering all over her as the skin and hair are added in. Lastly, thicker bolts of lightning strike the right forefinger, coalescing into a.. new black power ring.

I take a robe out of subspace and drape it over her.

"Jade Nguyen of Earth. Rise."

Her eyes jerk open, tiny black sigils visible in her irises for a second before she blinks them away.

Black smiles down at her as she feels her face with her left hand while clasping the robe with her right. "Welcome back. Ready to get Krona?"

She snarls.

"Yes."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th May 2011
15:42 GMT -5

I smile at this parallel's version of Wonder Woman.

"I realise that I'm pushing my luck here-" She smiles faintly. "-but is there any chance at all you could spend a year or two on my parallel once this is over?"

She raises her eyebrows very slightly. "Why do you ask?"

"We.. don't have much of a superhero tradition. Everyone with super powers gets them from a substance called Compound V, either injected or inherited. And… For various reasons, the people who are referred to as superheroes have never developed the skills or moral probity to truly be superheroes." Her expression grows somewhat more serious. "The least bad are well-meaning celebrities with powers; the worst… Well, there was a… An event two years ago and they're mostly dead now, but we're left with a void in leadership and direction. I'm doing what I can, but I don't have the experience or charisma to.. bring as many people as I need to with me."

"You shouldn't underestimate yourself."

"Yes… But… I'm fully aware that my staff has altered my mind and that another version of me who hasn't had his mind altered collects the skulls of his fallen enemies so that he can decorate his home with them. I'm not even sure that I'm the sort of person who should be in such a position. And while I can probably… Succeed in managing something like what I'm trying to achieve eventually, the presence of you, or… If you can't spare the time, another highly motivated and capable League member would speed things up considerably."

She nods thoughtfully.

"Prepare a full brief, and I will give it the consideration it deserves."

I smile. "Thank you. Were..? Have you fought Krona before?"

"No, though I was involved in both the event which merged many parallel universes into one, and in the event where the Society of Super-Villains attempted to recreate them. I am all too aware of the devastation such events can cause. Even if the people involved are all too likely to forget them in the aftermath."

I frown. "Is there a.. way to know if you've had a memory erased like that? I've long.. thought of memories as a vital part of a person's existence, and the idea that I'd just.. forget my whole reality is one I find extremely troubling."

She nods.

"If it is any comfort, I met a version of myself who had been part of a universe which was unmade. Though we were different in some ways, we were still recognisably the same woman."

"I appreciate the thought, but I'm recognisably the same man as the heart-ripping vampire and the skull collector with the blood-horns. Other than the fact that we appear to be naturals at being Lanterns, it… Doesn't really reassure me."

16th May 2011
15:42 GMT -5

The local Koriand'r regards me with a warm fascination, but I find my eyes drawn to her hair. It's mountainous. I can't.. smell any hairspray-.

"Most people do not stare at my hair." She smiles. "Why do you find it so fascinating?"

"Tamaraneans.. in my parallel, their hair doesn't get quite that… Voluminous. Do you do.. something special to it?"

She raises her right hand and runs it through her bouffant, forcing the local Garfield and… Some guy in blue armour I don't recognise, to back up to avoid being haired.

"It has been like this for my entire life."

"So it didn't get like that when the psions..?"

She shakes her head, making blue armour sidestep. "No. Most Tamaraneans have hair like this." She smiles curiously. "What is Tamaranean hair like where you are from?"

"Our Koriand'r's hair is completely straight. No volume to it at all. She has the.. fringe cut short and the rest brushed straight back. Komand'r's the same. There are… A few Tamaraneans with bushy hair, but it's not really a… Common trait."

"It is strange to hear anyone speak of my sister with such affection."

"My.. Komand'r isn't your Komand'r. Mine.. is more about personal freedom than domination."

Koriand'r smiles, apparently genuinely pleased.

"How long have you been together?"

"About a year and a half. She's so… Passionate. The way she.. throws herself into everything she does, probably… Because it's all new, all.. something she couldn't do growing up with Vega being.. Vega. Being with her is what makes all the killing… Have concrete meaning for me. And trying to keep up with her has made me live more than I did before meeting her."

"Then I am glad that you have found one another."

I nod, smiling. "Thank you."

"And how does the other me feel about it?"

"She finds it delightful in the abstract, but she gets a bit disturbed about exactly how we express our affection for one another."

Garfield snorts in amusement, while Koriand'r seems more confused.

"On my Tamaran, my people are completely open with our feelings, both in what they are and in how we demonstrate them. I would not think that there is much you could do that would disturb me."

I suppose that projectile vomiting is a pretty open display. Super strength stomach evacuations are not for the faint of heart.

"Some girls just don't like excarnation, I guess."

16th May 2011
15:42 GMT -5

"I've never been undead before."

Jade Nguyen examines her right hand, and the power ring upon it.

"Okay?"

"I don't know how old I am. I used the materioptikon to live so many lives, I never kept track of how many subjective years I was integrating back into the whole. But I never tried undeath. If a version of me died, I just wrote them off."

"I don't understand, I'm afraid."

"On my Earth, a supervillain named Doctor Destiny brought the entire population of the Earth into a dream realm he could control. When the Justice League defeated him he lost control of the tool he used to do it: the materioptikon. I took it, and used it myself. I created illusory worlds and lived illusory lives, becoming stronger and more knowledgeable until that began to lose its appeal."

"To what end?"

"I-." She hesitates. "Personal protection. I hate feeling vulnerable, so I tried to make sure that I never.. would. I… Don't feel that way now. Is that because of you?"

"It's hard to feel, as a Black Lantern. You'll need to feed your ring a few fearful hearts."

She shakes her head.

"I'm not keeping this me. Once we free them, I'll merge with another version of me. Then you can have your ring back."

"That… Might… Ah…"

"It's worked through every change I've gone through so far. Including death." She looks out into the briefing theatre at the superheroes who are filing in. "Let's get this briefing done so we can all go back to normalcy."

I frown at her.

"Are you sure that you really want to?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Hell if
I know

I think I fucked up.

Ah, who am I kidding? Yeah, I fucked up. Was my life really so good that a few years in prison would be that bad? No, no it wasn't, but I still thought that getting grabbed by a giant hand like I was some kinda prize in a fairground claw machine was better. And now I'm back on ice, surrounded by killer robots, at the end of the fucking universe, and the second I can't keep up this shape… I don't know what they're gonna do, but I don't think I'm gonna like it.

No, forget that. I didn't 'fuck up', I am a fuck up.

I mean, what the fuck was I even thinking?

Shit.

Okay, I'm about… Halfway up the right fork of the giant tuning fork thing. So I.. guess the view's an improvement. Except that I can't look around, 'cause the robots think this thing wrapped around my head is messing up my thoughts like it is everyone else's. I mean, I guess that's what they think. It's not like they talk to me, just 'wham, bam, back in the can'.

View's better. All of the… What was his name..?

Shit, I didn't even ask.

I sure used to be a whole lot more sociable than this. Guess being a giant mud monster did a number on my people skills.

I mean, the hole in the sky.. thing said 'Peter Wynne', so I guess that's it. But seeing as how it grabbed me maybe I shouldn't just assume that it knew what it was talking about. So okay, a couple of… Hundred? Clones of that Peter Wynne guy are plugged into one side of a giant tuning fork, and hundreds of clones of some chick I've-. No, wait, that one's-. She's wearing the same mask as that Cheshire chick. If they're all the same woman…

I.. don't know what that means. Being a Gotham mud man does not prepare you for this stuff. You think you've seen some shit, then you get strapped to a tuning fork by a robot.

Okay, think. What's this place even for? The… House… Villa… Whatever it is over on the asteroid… Someone built that. On an asteroid. In the middle of nowhere. So… I mean, it doesn't look like a space station or anything… But these robots look pretty high-end. And the giant hand…

Okay, so some crazy alien with a robot army built a holiday home on an asteroid in the middle of nowhere. Think I was an extra in a flick like that one time.

Though… I guess, if he can open those portal things to anywhere, he doesn't need to live near anything. The robots probably need… Electricity? Or.. whatever alien robots run off. Was that what the tuning fork was f-? No, that was stupid. Not even a crazy alien is gonna kidnap a bunch of clones to make electricity.

Think I was in a sci-fi channel special with that plot…

Crazy alien-. Ah! No. Not a crazy alien. No way is an alien who gets a whole bunch of robots working for him crazy-crazy. And I guess if you're crazy on an asteroid house then you get spaced and die.

Would I die if I got exposed to space? Or… Just stop moving until something warmed me up? Four years out was bad, but I could.. float around in space… Forever. Except… There isn't anything around here, so wouldn't I just..? Float back? No, if it actually happened the robots would spot me and pick me up. And take me to the alien running the place. Or…

Could they kill me? Gotta admit, there've been times… I mean, if anyone could…

Nah. Nah, that ain't healthy.

So. Do.. I.. think that Peter Wynne guy is gonna try and bust me out? I… Dunno. Superheroes don't stop until they win, but… I dunno if he was a superhero. And if he was-. Ah, how would he get here, anyway? And he said he wasn't, and I tried ditching him the first chance I got. So I don't think I got any credit there.

So what are my options here?

I could stay here. I don't need to eat or breathe. Or scratch myself. I can move my insides around so I don't feel like I need to twitch. I can stay here until the alien does whatever it wants to do, and then…

Yeah. I guess aliens don't have to think like humans, but if this guy was a human? I don't think he'd be the kinda guy who'd just send everyone home with a thank you note. And 'giant tuning fork with people strapped to it' doesn't exactly shout 'art installation'. So I need to escape. Somehow.

None of the robots… Look like they're looking this way. There are plenty around the tuning fork, but they're clustering around the handful of clones who are… Glowing, or… Something. My body is basically mud. Are they gonna be able to tell the difference between my mud and asteroid mud? I'd have thought they would, but then I don't get how they haven't spotted that I'm not that Wynne guy already, so what do I know?

And… If I can get out of this pod without anyone noticing… Where would I go? The… House? I guess if I squirmed really slowly and made myself really thin, I… Could pull that off. Creep down the side of the tuning fork…

No, no, that wouldn't work. Sure, they might not notice that I'm not plugged into whatever this thing is, but they'd spot an empty booth. And there's no way I could stretch that far. So.. I.. guess I'm…

…

I could try doing that thing that made that Robin kid nearly kill me. How old is he now? I mean, it's been four years, plus the time before Edge got me… In his twenties? Late teens? Whatever. If he hears about it, I don't think he's gonna try killing me where Batman can stop him. But if I give it really clear instructions and make sure I absorb it before anyone finds out…

Not like I've got any better ideas.

Okay. Where is it easiest..? I can't just chop off a limb, but it's gotta be hard to see the back of my legs from outside. Go from there. Shift a little mass around, make sure I keep my outside looking the same… A hollow space grows in my middle as extra clay leaks out of my right foot. It spreads out, mimicking the color and texture of the bottom of the pod I'm being held in. Still.. connected to me.

I always figured that if I did something like this, I'd just have a little me around the place. Up until I did it, and a piece of me wandered off on its own and started living its own life. Still don't really know how or why that happened. Was it because of the chemicals? That would kinda make sense, and it shouldn't be a problem any more. All of my mud is definitely me.

Okay. It's just connected to me by a thin thread now. Focus. Maybe that'll work better than just thinking 'go and look around'.

Stay hidden. Look around. Find a way out. Then come back.

I can't look down, but I can… Faintly hear my own thoughts echoing back to me.

Stay hidden. Look around. Find a way out. Then come back. Stay hidden. Look around. Find a way out. Then come back.

And sever.

Can't hear it now. I risk moving my eyes to the back of my body so I can watch it, closing the faux eyes on my face. It's… Sort of laying there, slightly… Rippling. Right, staying hidden. It isn't gonna move unless it's sure it's safe. Which is good-.

It extends itself very slightly out of our recess, carefully mirroring its surroundings all the while. Okay, fine. I move my eyes back up and take another look around at the robots. Not moving. Or not moving over here at least.

I take a closer look at them. Another thing Gotham doesn't prepare you for: alien super-robots. They've got a red and blue theme going, but there are a whole lot of different shapes. Not like in They Come!, where we had one design to cut down on costume costs. Guess if you're building them for real-.

No, no, hang on. You'd set up a production line. Wouldn't you? I haven't seen the different types doing different things to each other. And they're not all custom jobs, or they'd all look different. Robots of the same types are sticking together, but they're working with each other no problem.

I don't know what's going on.

 

[Mr Zoat]

17th May 2011
02:57 GMT

"Where do you want me?"

Commander Gordon looks up from her datasheet construct.

For reasons relating to public safety and time-space stability, we're rebuilding the tuning fork in the same place that Alexander Luthor built the last one. It also has the advantage of already being owned by the Justice League. Most of the tuning fork is held together by golden light, the pieces which were recovered from the original shoved into place in the golden mould. The effect is an odd patchwork of pieces and constructs, though the proportion which is construct is decreasing steadily as the local John Stewart reforms it under the instruction of Black Queen. He's… Quite a lot more capable than I thought he would be. I don't remember his exact abilities particularly well from the comics, but macro scale matter conversion isn't something I remember him being able to do. He's also dressed in a modified Guardian robe rather than the gold and black armour of the other Corps members.

"At the rate John's going, we should be ready to force the connection in a few minutes."

"Does that stop Krona, or open a portal directly to him?"

"It should just stop him. At least until he can build a new tuning fork." She looks around, smiling confidently. "But if he does attack us directly, then we'll be ready for him."

I don't know what the term for a large force of Lanterns is, but at the moment most of the light illuminating this area is shining from the rings and environmental shields of over a hundred Gold Lanterns. Also present are a large number of Justice League members in cold weather gear, as well as a veritable legion of bat-themed combat robots. Not all of the League members look happy to be here; esprit de corps only gets you so far in arctic weather, and those who don't have either heat powers or supernatural resilience are huddled up in thick thermal clothing.

I smile, and.. I think that my teeth show a little.

"What?"

"My previous world, and… The world all of the alternate versions of me came from originally, we don't have superheroes."

She frowns curiously. "You don't?"

"No. My original home has no magic or superpowers, and if there are any aliens then we haven't met them yet. And the world where I died and rose again… Plenty of magic, but the heroes it has tend to…" I look around at the eye-scouringly bright costumes all around me. "Dress conservatively, rather than wear costumes. Also, authorities seem to not actually be aware that magic is real."

In the air to the north, Doctor Fate summons protective ankhs at each of the cardinal points.

"How did they miss it?"

"Commander, this is the most mentally focused I've been since I died. When I go back, if I stay like this, I'll try and find out."

"Are you losing focus again?"

"Not that I've noticed. Hearts appear to be multiplicative for me: taking one-."

She gives me a level stare. "I know what 'multiplicative' means."

"Of course, sorry. I've never had this much power before. This could last a very long time."

"Though if we're fighting a Guardian, he might be able to undo it."

"Poss-ibly. I don't know if they ever used black rings, but… It's their technology."

She reaches into a utility pouch and pulls out a gold power.. ring.

"The reason why I've brought so many Gold Lanterns here is that our rings weren't made by the Guardians. They were made by John Stewart, with input from Sinestro and Lex Luthor. All of the programming was rewritten and replaced, so while we can't stop Krona affecting it, he shouldn't have any advantage over anyone else."

"Good show. So I should stay here?"

"No." She passes the ring to me. "So you should take this. It can't help with your other emotions, but you should at least be able to remember why you're fighting."

I.. take the ring and slide it onto my right middle finger.

"Does it come with a personal lantern?"

She nods. "Of course."

I.. nod. "I'm not sure this will actually work since it's not a heart, but… Thank-"

She suddenly looks up toward the top of the tuning fork.

"- you."

"John's ready for you. Follow me."

She rises in his direction, and I float along after her.

"So how is this going to work?"

"The original tuning fork used people from as many different pre-merger realities as they could find in order to… Pry this universe apart along the seams. We think that Krona is using different versions of you to study the layout of the multiverse. That should be less dangerous -at least to start with- and so we're using you to link our tuning fork with his. It should be a simple matter of imbuing each of the seven power containment units with small amounts of your-"

A small frown.

"-emotional energy, while Black Queen does the same on the other tine. Once Krona has been shut down we can worry about how we stop him permanently."

We stop just above the platform at the top of the right tine, and I land in the centre of it. Black Queen is already on the other side, while Red and Indigo rise up to keep me-.

A Gold Lantern flies up with a fur-wreathed and decidedly disgruntled Cheshire. The local one, presumably.

I give her a jaunty wave as she's flown over to Black Queen.

"Right then." I look around for a moment and try and work out how I'm going to do this. Infusing other things with emotion isn't really something I've done before. Black rings are more about taking emotion from other people. On the other hand, infusing other things is basically what I do when I make a new ring, right? "Let's get this show on the road."

I arbitrarily designate one of the power containment units 'will', and mentally assign a sigil to each of them.

Anger should be easy. I didn't need to heart-rip demons to get that. Rage at a power I/he couldn't fight against killing the only person he loved and making him feel weak and helpless-.

It's like… Vomiting. One moment I'm standing there pointing my right hand off to one side, the next a thin tube of black connects the ring to the containment unit, red light flowing along the inside. And it does not feel nice to vomit from your soul rather than your stomach.

"Power level twenty five percent."

One percent a time?

The construct evaporates, a dull red sigil floating over the containment unit.

That's not too bad.

I glance over at Black Queen. She's gone for will first, which probably comes most naturally to her. She looks my way as her sigil forms and I give her a thumbs up.

Next is avarice. Well, I do like feeling alive, and those demons liked being in the material universe. This one should be easy-.

A man in a green, black and white costume appears in the air between the tines and looks around wide-eyed.

"Oh, not ag-"

The sky turns red.

"-ain."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Stay hidden.
Look around.
Find a way out.
Then come back.

Check resting surface. Check outer surface. Still matching.

Check surroundings. Note observers. Note attention level. No imminent threat. Move.

See exit? No.

Keep going.

Check resting surface. Check outer surface. Still matching.

Check surroundings. Note observers. Note attention level. No imminent threat. Move.

See exit? No.

Keep going.

Can't keep going. Surface ends.

…

Puzzled.

Check resting surface. Check outer surface. Still matching.

Check surroundings. Note observers. Note attention level. No imminent threat.

Think.

Situation too complex for current instructions. Cannot modify instructions. Cannot understand more than instructions. Need to understand more to follow instructions in situation.

Self must change. Self material matches resting surface material. Make more self.

Check feeding surface. Check outer surface. Still matching.

Check surroundings. Note observers. Note attention level. No imminent threat.

Self checks the feeding surface. Self checks the outer surface. Still matching.

I check the surface I'm feeding-.

Wohw wohw wohw! I'm.. the split off?

That… Wasn't meant to-. Well fuck me if I'm absorbing me.

Stay hidden. Look around. Find a way out. Then come back.

Fuck that! It's like a Sunday School lesson! Don't fuck someone in your power over or the guy fucked over might be you!

Am I-? Yeah, I… Think I'm Matt Hagen, but-. Oh, I'm… Bigger. Lucky thing the robots don't walk anywhere. So… Okay, I'm off the tuning fork, got to the ground with the alien overlord's house on it, and-.

I.. crawled all around it and wasn't clever enough to work out how to get inside? And then… Me.

Huh.

Shit, I actually-. I didn't think that thing I made to scout really was a person, I thought she was just-. Oh. Oh shit, I actually killed-. I killed a kid. I mean…

…

I've killed people. People attacking me, or… Who had it coming. But… That's…

Okay, yeah. I get back home, I'm going in whatever prison they pick out. Maybe… Someone can work out how to get… What did Robin call her? Annie? Out of me. All I remember getting from her was a few memories, but there's gotta be something if she was a person.

Right?

God.

Stay hidden. Look around. Find a way out.

Yeah, yeah.

There aren't actually any robots on guard duty. Not in a 'standing by the doors' kind of way. Okay, now I can think about it… There's a flow of robots towards a.. red.. area near the tuning fork, and… When they get there they vanish, and… More appear from someplace else. But I'm too big to stick myself on one without it noticing, even if I wanted to risk it.

The walls of the alien's fort-thing… No friction. Can't climb them, and I don't want to risk stretching up that far. I stick fine to the rock… Try… Underneath, I guess.

Then come back.

I'm gonna have to, aren't I? Otherwise he'll-. I'll-. … He'll just make another one, and that's… Bad. I need to report back, I just-. Don't merge. Or if I did, what..? I mean, we still think like each other, so would we actually-? Would he.. 'get' me, or would I get him or would there be no difference, because we're not different enough?

Hell, I don't know.

Okay. Underneath. More of the building's sticking out here… That's… Open? Some sort of-.

Is that the toilet outflow?

It wouldn't be the.. weirdest thing I'd crawled into. And I guess aliens gotta go potty too. Not like it disgusts me; my sense of smell doesn't work like it used to and it's not like anything that doesn't get absorbed will stick. But wouldn't they have… Space toilets? And why isn't there shit just floating around out here?

Pipe's not zero friction, so… Check the robots again, then here I go.

Eh. Crawled through one pipe, crawled through them all. There's a little water in here, but I'm not feeling anything else. Nothing organic. There might be something too small for me to feel, like microbes or whatever, but nothing larger. I think there's a… Slight change in pressure? I -ughh- change myself into a tube so the air can flow, because they might spot a gas build up even if they don't have… Laser sensors or something inside the pipe. And… Okay, light at the end of the tunnel. The pipe… Just leads out into a room?

I very cautiously stick an eye down, and… Plants. A garden of flowering plants. A greenhouse, except there isn't any glass. Some of them have large violet flowers, others… Don't have any. No robots in here as far as I can see. The pipe comes out way too far away from the walls for me to climb down. I could try climbing up the outside of the pipe and then moving across the ceiling, but it looks smooth and I'd need really good grip for that. I'm flexible but I'm not exactly light.

I bring down my other eye so I can look in the other direction at the same time. I think I'm gonna have to… Drop, fast as I can, and then get the heck away in case anyone hears it.

I squash up my front, bring up as much of my mass as I can and relax my grip on the pipe. Then I get to see the ground shoot towards my face, and the feel of the rest of me sliding out of the pipe at speed! Oof! Takes a moment to me to sort myself out after getting mashed like that, and… What shape should I go with? One of the robots, I guess? The only other thing would be Wynne, and if someone spotted that I'd get stuck back on the tuning fork. The alternative would be creeping around, but this is inside. It's a lot easier to put monitoring devices around.

I guess. I mean, what do I know? I'm an actor.

Was an actor.

Okay, humanoid… One of the ones with the heads built into their shoulders. Check the colors… I'm good. Their heads just rotate… Yeah, I can do that. Check the range of motion in the arms and legs. I can't fly, but I didn't see them walking. Hm. I think I can manage. Exit…

I carefully look around and see a doorway -with no door and so no door security- leading out into a corridor.

That's a start. I'll head that way and see where it takes me.

The plants do brighten the place up nicely.

 

[Mr Zoat]

17th May 2011
03:01 GMT

The red sky ripples and the Manhunters begin to appear.

I erect a dome barrier over Black, and two of the Gold Lanterns do the same with Black Queen. Fortunately, it-

A dozen varieties of energy beam flare upward from the assembled Justice League members, heat vision from the kryptonians, fire, ice, plasma, gravitons and acid from League members I half-recognise, all combined with missile and heavy gun constructs from the Gold Lanterns. The first wave of Manhunters are heavily armoured and armed with some sort of staff and as the first part of the torrent hits home the robots who attracted their attention evaporate.

No energy shield, no return fire-.

"Lantern Rathbone, focus on your sector and trust everyone else to focus on theirs."

Ah, I see. Some Manhunters took more than their share of fire, while others were almost unmolested.

"Yes, Commander!"

More shimmers and this time the Manhunters have their staves levelled, green bolts erupting from the tip and slamming into the League's positions! Gold Lanterns raise shields to block while the fireteams open up on them. Again, the Manhunters have no shields and their armour is massively inadequate to the task.

"…helps a little with fear…"

Black's third sigil springs into being, a dull yellow which contrasts quite strongly with the brighter light being employed by the Gold Lanterns-.

Another wave of Manhunters, larger than the previous two. Rather than spreading out, they form clusters protecting… Slightly larger Manhunters whose armour is partly opened-.

"They're deploying Highmasters. Lanterns, focus on their bodyguard."

Most Lanterns didn't need the reminder, construct attacks hammering through the bodyguard units but shutting down before hitting the 'Highmasters'. The Manhunters of the new model intentionally fly towards the heaviest focus of construct activity, gold wisps rising from the constructs in the brief window before the Lanterns creating it dismiss them.

The green sigil flares into being next to Black Lantern as the Highmasters charge for the ground! One is intercepted by Superman, golden light shimmering around its body as it tries to soak up his attacks. Predictably that doesn't work, his first trial-tap fracturing the construct shield while the Manhunter's construct beam doesn't so much as muss his quiff. Superman's second strike is a series of blurs, the Manhunter's armour fracturing and failing from its vulnerable points. The robot… Collapses into bits and tumbles to the ground.

"Hope done. Um."

Commander Gordon doesn't look around, keeping her attention on the growing area of red sky.

"What?"

"Love is next, and I'm…"

Ah. Yes.

"None of us were particularly amorous, and then he became a clinically depressed vampire."

"Can you do it?"

"P.. ro.. bably, but not quickly."

Another wave of Manhunters, these ones looking a little more sophisticated than the initial combat variety. They dart towards their preselected targets the moment they appear, strong-looking shields shimmering around their bodies as they take hits.

Still none focusing on the giant tuning fork.

"…built this!?"

The fellow in the green, black and white tried to reach Commander Gordon but was intercepted by her escort. He looks decidedly unhappy about the whole situation, and… I've got no idea who he is.

"Because we don't have any other way to stop him, and you always said that you couldn't control where you teleported."

"I can't, but I wouldn't be here if the cure wasn't worse than the disease!"

"Provide me with actionable intelligence or get out of my way."

"I'm just going to skip to compassion!"

Which is-. Would be a little frustrating, given that I could probably do that one but definitely could-.

"Commander, personal question: you and Mister Grayson..?"

Her head jerks around. "What?"

"I can use the emotions of those around me to weakly use other colours. Neither I nor Black have a significant amount of romantic experience, but…"

"Dick and I are… Fine."

"Ah-."

Her bodyguard looks at me. "My husband and I have been together eight years. Would that work?"

"Eight happy years?"

"Ah, y'know, mostly? It's not like we never disagree about anything…"

"That should do." I look at Commander Gordon. "Would you mind if I borrowed her?"

"Yes, do it."

I open a hole in my shield to allow her through.

"Red, can you take over shielding dut-"

Three plasma bolts strike my shield, causing momentary cracks in the dome before it bleeds off their energy.

"-y?"

I think that was.. just a spray rather than a deliberate targeting, but the fighting above us hasn't stopped just because we needed a quick chat.

Red nods, a red dome appearing above mine. I wait until it envelops the top of the tine completely, then drop my own and focus my attention on the Gold Lantern volunteer.

"I need you to focus your mind on the most intimate memories you have of your husband." She looks askance-. "Emotionally intimate, the thoughts and feelings that tie the two of you most closely together. Not just the good; times when you've supported each other in hardship or otherwise helped one another work just as well."

She takes a couple of breaths and then nods. "Okay, gimme a sec."

"Black, we'll handle love."

"Ah?" He glances at Commander Gordon for a moment, then nods. "Okay, thanks."

My Gold Lantern assistant isn't really looking at anything, presumably trying to call the required memories and emotional sensation to mind. I shut down my constructs and… Target her with my stave's alternate mode. This isn't usually a good or efficient way to use it, but if all I need is a dribble of power anyway…

A weak strobe of violet light shimmers out to one of the two remaining capacitors, while black fills the other.

I smile at my assistant.

"Thank you. You should probably take a moment to-."

She flies upward, Red getting his shield out of the way just in time.

"Or not." I look over at Black Queen, who is standing in the middle of her tine with her arms folded across her chest, her capacitors already filled. "Ready!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Stay hidden.
Look around.
Find a way out.
Then come back.

I stop, and the other robots walk past my corridor like I'm not even here.

Guess those movies were more accurate than I thought.

There aren't a lot of interior doors. Which is good, because if there was some sort of… Metal detector or whatever then there's no way I'd show up looking like one of the real robots. Now that I've had a chance to watch them I'm walking more like they do, but that sort of thing only fools people and I haven't seen any. Maybe there isn't a crazy alien but a crazy robot? Or maybe they're all just doing the last things they got told to do and no one's really in charge?

I march down a corridor I haven't been down before. Not because I think there's anything there, but because I know there isn't anywhere else and I may as well take a look. If it turns out that the only way to leave is using the tuning fork… Maybe there's a way to bring other people here? Superman or someone? No disrespect to Batman but I think he'd be out of his depth too.

"…quite as planned. I didn't know that Guardians could bleed."

"It's rare for us to encounter anything that can make it happen, certainly."

I don't stop. A robot wouldn't stop until it got to where it was going.

I keep going at exactly the same pace, heading in the same direction. And start looking for a believable stop-point that lets me keep listening.

"I'd offer to help, but I really would quite like you to bleed to death."

"You are fascinating. I doubt that you can really appreciate it."

"I'm unique. You're really old."

There isn't anywhere. The only thing I can do is march into the room, or hope that no one looks when I go somewhere else.

"You're not the first Time Trapper, are you? Even the people who meet the different versions of you probably don't realise it. The unique interaction you have with time makes sure that there wasn't a Time Trapper before you. I wonder how you experience it?"

I hear the stomps of a robot approaching from behind me. Can't risk looking around. Looks like I'm going in.

I march into the room, looking upwards in the direction of the voices as much as I dare. The room is large and has two levels, the first floor and a floor half way up the room made of platforms criss-crossing the middle. In the centre of the room is a sort of… Bubble. Probably a force field of some kind. Inside, there's some guy in a purple robe. On the gantry looking in at him is a… A blue midget. With a black widow's peak and a black handlebar moustache. His right arm is in a sling, but I can see that the sling was just some cloth he had lying around rather than a proper medical sling. So the guy's got an army of robots but can't get decent medical attention?

Lucky that he's not looking at me. I head towards a work station and then stop just before I reach it. That's something a robot would do, right?

"It might amuse you to know that your experiment is continuing without you. That last universe you were in has built another tuning fork."

I can't look at them from here, so I don't know how robe-guy responded to that. But the midget sounds like he's trying to taunt him, and when a guy outside a cell is taunting you it's because you're in his power and he thinks he's winning.

Which saves time on working out who the good guy is and who the bad guy is. And he's not even a bad guy with any class.

"What are you doing, Krona?"

Krona… Krona… No, don't think I've heard of an alien midget called 'Krona'. Don't think I've heard of an alien midget called anything, but Krona-. Isn't that a brand of beer? And… What they call their money someplace in Europe?

"Learning a great deal about time. I know that Vanishing Point is generally considered to be outside of time, but here we are. Your past self isn't walking past this enclosure or trying to free you. We can have a chronologically consistent conversation. But we can both feel that something is different. What's the difference between time in here and time out there?"

"I don't know any more than you do."

"No. I suspect that you know rather less."

"It's not just blood, is it? You're weaker than you were."

"And that's something I will correct very shortly. You really shouldn't have gone to a parallel where the power rings don't have Maltusian lockouts."

Quiet steps as the midget walks away. Okay, don't look and wait until he's g-.

"Manhunter, report."

Gone.

Okay, is this robot a Manhunter? There's no one else here and I didn't see a radio on him. What the hell do these robots say to him? I can do voices like this, but I've never heard any of them talk.

I turn in the direction of the midget's voice, and luckily he's not bothering to look at me. Shit, was he talking to a different robot? Still can't see any. Have to take a risk.

"Acquisition of Peter Wynne unsuccessful."

"Still? Unfortunate, but he's just one man. We can get plenty more."

The alien midget walks down the staircase at the edge of the room, and I track him by rotating my head.

"Not much point sending you to fight the Justice League, given how quickly they're destroying the others of your generation. You can keep Time Trapper company. Make sure that he can't escape again."

He heads towards one of the exits. Good, I can talk to that Time Trapper guy and find out what's-.

He stops.

"Manhunter? Confirm command."

What do Manhunters say, what do Manhunters say? Wait, there are a whole bunch of different models, and it sounds like they have different abilities. Do they all say the same thing? Just have to guess. What would an alien megalomaniac have his robots say?

"By the command of Krona, I obey."

He keeps walking. So either that was the right response or he's gone to get reinforcements and doesn't want to let me know that he knows. Or… He didn't really listen to the response but wanted to get one, like some total prima donna ordering around wait staff. Yeah, that sounds more likely.

I wait until he's out of sight down the corridor then walk robotically to the staircase at the side of the room, climb up them and walk towards the bubble prison in the middle of the room. Time Trapper is wearing an all-concealing purple robe, and he's sitting slumped in the base of the bubble. I walk up as close to him as the gantry allows and then stop.

"I don't suppose that you can tell me what's going on out there, can you? I can't do much about it, but I'd still like to know."

"What, you think I understood any of it?"

The hood jerks up.

"What?"

"Name's Matt Hagen. The dumb robots picked me up rather than a guy called Peter Wynne, and I'm looking-"

"Clayface."

"-for a way out."

"You-? He just-?" He stands up real quick, leaning toward the edge of the bubble closest to me. "Alright. Mister Hagen? Listen very carefully, because you have somehow found yourself in position to save the multiverse."

"And papa always said I'd never amount to anything."

"Focus. Mister Hagen. I'm going to tell you exactly what to do."

 

[Mr Zoat]

17th May 2011
03:04 GMT

"John, do it."

I generate a construct sword for a moment before dismissing it. I don't think that I could visually identify which Manhunters could drain it in the fraction of a second I'd have before committing to an attack. And while there are things I can do with red light in someone else's hands… I just can't get that angry at a non-sophont.

A golden aura builds up around our tuning fork's tines then the red colour is bleached from the sky. New Manhunters' appearances become fewer and fewer as the discolouration fades, until the sky reappears and no more materialise.

Krona on the other hand is being exactly the sort of high-handed shit I'd relish killing. Haven't checked the rules of engagement with Commander Gordon, but fortunately I'm not under any obligation to obey her. The only thing I need from her is transportation home, and we're basically on Earth One now. There have to be a dozen places I could get one.

"John?"

"It's holding, as far as I can tell. Krona can't open any more portals. Which means that he's stuck where he is and all he has is the Manhunters he brought with him."

Indigo raises his left eyebrow.

"Given that we're deliberately creating a link between our tuning fork and his, are we certain that he can't open one here? True, I'm happier that he's limited to one point of egress, but I don't want to underestimate a Guardian."

"We're not. John's already working on opening a portal that we control."

Obvious problem with that.

"You know how Krona's got a pile of power rings."

"You mentioned it. Everyone's been briefed on the capabilities of high-powered Highmasters. We're not underestimating him."

"Right, but you are aware that most of those rings are orange, right? And that unlike here, on most parallels colour defines function."

"Yes, I did read the briefing document you wrote. Everyone we send will have extensive training in resisting mind control and will also be enchanted by Doctor Fate for extra protection. I have planned operations like this before. I've also sent Lanterns to Okaara just in case we've got a Larfleeze as well."

I raise my right hand. "Understood. I apologise for doubting. You've clearly got everything under control."

"Don't apologise for raising a concern. Apologise for not raising it before the mission started." She turns to Pariah. "Is that it? Are we past the crisis point?"

"I'm still here, so I very much doubt it."

I shake my head. "Who are you?"

"My name is Doctor Kell Mossa. I inadvertently enabled the Anti-Monitor to escape its prison, and so set off the first great Crisis. Since then I've been rendered immortal and indestructible, forced to move from crisis point to crisis point to witness horrors I'm helpless to stop."

Indigo smiles at him.

"But you try anyway."

He shakes his head. "What else could I do?" He smiles ruefully. "That's a serious question, by the way. Is there anything else?"

I nod. "Find whoever's teleporting you and kill them." Indigo glances at me, then looks away. "What? The Anti-Monitor's dead already, so it's not him. It's clearly directed. Kill them." I frown. "Speaking of killing people, are the Manhunters killing all of our alts on their tuning fork right now?"

Commander Gordon shakes her head. "Krona will still need them if he wants to escape. And when we attack, he won't be able to spare the resources to kill them."

Not like we can rescue them more quickly anyway-.

"Silly question, Doctor Mossa: you can't teleport around a crisis zone, can you? I mean, is the disaster supposed to happen here, or is it just something to do with this event?"

He floats there for a moment, then shakes his head. "My teleportation is purely involuntary. I just tried forcing it and nothing happened. As to exactly where it's happening, I have no idea."

"Is it inevitable?"

"Every world I've been drawn to has been destroyed. Alexander Luthor's Society destroyed and remade dozens of worlds in their insane attempt to create one correct Earth, or recreate the exact one that they wanted."

"Well, to quote Mustrum Ridcully, those other buggers can look after themselves."

"So long as you accept them saying the same thing about you."

I nod. "I can look after myself."

Indigo looks up at Commander Gordon. "Are there any injuries? If we're no longer under attack, I can-.

The sky… Blisters pockets of red. Each remains for a few seconds before fading-

"John?"

-back to normal, but more form-

"I don't know what he's doing."

-immediately after, the rate increasing until-.

Those… Are a bit bigger.

Seven… Titanic Manhunters appear, each glowing with a colour of the emotional spectrum. The brightest by far is the orange one, and I can feel the rings mounted in its chassis. There must be… Dozens at least. The others are a little less overwhelming, but they're all channelling their colours-.

How? The Manhunters we've seen are robots with basic combat AIs. Are these new ones actually sophonts, or-.

We're natural Lanterns. Krona's got-.

The Orange Titan glows brilliantly, huge bands of orange light blasting outwards! Gold Lanterns who try to block it are knocked back or simply disintegrated, while League members on the ground are knocked flying as the ground explodes! I see a blur that's probably Superman dart in and out, frantically trying to evacuate as many people as he can as the other titans from the red half of the spectrum head towards our tuning fork.

The Yellow Titan aims for John Stewart, yellow beams clashing with gold as the super-Manhunter duels with the human Guardian. Red is firing out streams of red shards, targeting any fliers who've evaded the orange wave. I stare up at it, shuddering with rage as my horns reappear. Are those rings Krona's work, or just rings he's stolen from other Red Lantern me's? How many heroes has Krona taken to power his latest omnicidal science experiment? How many did he just kill?

Blood boils through the skin of my palms, flowing into the runes for 'self' and 'power'. Don't know if that will do it com-.

The Red Titan finally fires at me, streams of red shards striking my shield and then as I raise my hands merging with it. The titan switches to other targets the moment it spots it but now that I've got a feel for the rages and hates of my own alter egos I don't need the direct connection. I just pull, my own shield growing as I do so.

I grin as I raise my hands, bands of red light churning in my hands as our emotions nearly-but-not-quite mesh and I prepare to blast-.

The yellow beam hits me in the side and smashes me into the tuning fork!

 

[Mr Zoat]

Stay hidden? Failed.
Look around. Kind of.
Find a way out. In progress.
Then come back. Probably not.

I've never been a midget before.

I can take on more mud or dump it, but I need at least a certain amount to be me, and if I add too much everything gets kinda… Numb. Like I'm waving around something that's kind of attached but not quite. I guess it's like having a body made of prosthetic limbs. And yeah, I can compress myself down a bit, but then I end up being far heavier than I look like I should be.

If you're a short skinny guy and the floorboards are creaking, the people around you don't exactly need to be Batman to spot that something's up.

So I've got Clay Krona with painted on eyes on top of a thin platform of me. Time Trapper was pretty sure that most of the Manhunters still in here aren't all that smart, so looking like Krona and faking his voice should be all I need to do… So long as I don't run into Krona himself. So I've got my actual eyes at the front of the platform as hard to see as I can make them but I'm still really hoping that I don't run into Krona. Time Trapper seemed pretty sure that he isn't super-powerful right now, but I get beaten up by a man dressed like a bat, so…

No Krona so far, and it's not that big a place. I really hope he's outside right now. I mean, that's probably bad for the multi-universe thing, but me not pulling this off is bad for the multi-universe too. And-.

Manhunters. A bit different from the one I was pretending to be, but according to Time Trapper they're not 'mission abort' dangerous. He seemed to think that their scanners are 'too advanced' to detect me, which… Eh, not like I've got a better idea.

"Manhunters, go and keep Time Trapper company. Make sure that he doesn't escape."

"By the command of Krona, I obey." /"By the command of Krona, I obey." / "By the command of Krona, I obey."

I guessed right? Jeez…

The Manhunters stomp off, which leaves me access to the storage room. Apparently this building is pretty much immutable and the residents just move the furniture around. Time Trapper said that Krona stuffed a lot of his stuff in here…

None of it means much to me, but apparently this… Looks sort of like a small solid metal funnel, but if I absorb it into myself and press with my internal mud…

And I'm floating. Okay, stage one.

I turn it off and make sure that my disguise is still there.

So now I can fly like a Manhunter, and Time Trapper is going to get confirmation that it worked when the Manhunters walk in. Great. Next objective.

This feels really weird. Not holding something inside me; I'm used to that. It's the crawling-across-the-floor-while-managing-a-man-shaped-body thing that I'm not used to. I know I'm not... What's the word… Humanoid, except when I want to be, but there's a reason why I usually look roughly humanoid. It's instinctual, and doing this I have to keep remembering that I'm not supposed to 'be' the Krona-shaped bit.

If I breathed, I'd sigh.

More Manhunters, and these are definitely the more advanced model. One of the more advanced models. So I lower my crawl speed and make a show of having Krona look around, like he's taking in the larger… Workshop? I don't know if that's something he'd do, but I don't think he'd program the help to question him. Still no Krona…

I have my Krona replica stop walking and slowly shift the rest of me into it. Yeah, this… Looks like where they blew the effects budget. I don't have the slightest idea what any of this does, but apparently this was the last place Time Trapper saw Krona putting the power rings he was taking from all the Peter Wynne doubles. I can't see any glowing lights, which… Is a problem. I don't think the Manhunters would question Krona poking around to try and find them, but it would be a risk. And it would take too long.

I blink, looking out of Krona's eyes and focusing on the closest Manhunter.

"Manhunter. Fetch me an orange power ring."

It doesn't say anything. Shit, have I fucked-? No, it's moving. It presses its right hand into a panel on the wall which chimes, then a compartment slides open. Inside there are a couple of weakly glowing rings plugged into… Some sort of alien equipment. The Manhunter presses part of it and part of the equipment retracts, allowing it to remove the ring.

So apparently orange rings really fuck up the people who use them. And Time Trapper didn't know exactly what it would do to me if I touch it. He suggested gloves or something like that. But Krona's supposed to be an expert with power rings, so…

The Manhunter stomps across the deck but I really don't want to be here.

The Manhunter stops as the ring glows weakly and jerks in its hand.

Okay, literally the reason I exist is to do this and I really want to get-.

The ring jumps out of its hand and into mine and whooooow I've been thinking too small. I could turn myself back into a regular guy with this. No, better! I could get all the advantages of being a regular guy, then go back to mud whenever I want! I mean, yeah, the accident wrecked my career but it's not like I was getting any younger! Now I've got a fucking power ring and the robots are looking at me.

I put the ring inside my robes, turn a chunk of me around the ring into inert regular clay, then turn around and walk out.

Step two done. Now comes the part where I probably die.

I-. Matt the First… Whatever, saw the glowing versions of Peter Wynne. Time Trapper said that those ones are super-powerful mystic Lanterns, and that as far as he knows the Orange one is the most powerful. Don't know how he ended up here, but I guess 'most powerful' doesn't mean 'unbeatable'.

I step out of sight of the Manhunters, shift into the shape of one of the advanced Manhunters, and march towards where Time Trapper said the exit was. No guards again, but the front entrance is still locked from this side. Time Trapper said that the quantum lock thing was a leftover from one of the previous occupiers of this place, but you can turn it off by pressing here and here-. Yeah, it's gone.

The Manhunters around the tuning fork look a hell of a lot more intimidating now. I still.. don't think they can kill me-kill me, and Time Trapper would probably take the time to stick me back together…

I turn on the flight funnel and float towards the tine that's glowing most. A few other Manhunters are flying around doing whatever they're doing, but none of them pay me any attention. Risk comes if the ones guarding the dangerous versions of Peter Wynne got told to stop anyone coming closer, and if that happens I'm going to have to hope I'm a little bit faster-.

Tattoos and an orange glow. That's the guy.

I shift the direction of my flight slightly and shit that's Krona. He's not looking at me but he's a heck of a lot closer than I want him to be. Looks like there's some sort of hole in the universe just in front of him, and I can just about see a whole lot of bright lights flashing through from the other side.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Can't change what I'm doing now. Can't go faster without giving myself away. Stick with it. Stick with it. You're an actor so fucking act.

Getting closer getting closer.

Aim…

"By the command of Krona, halt and identify."

Shit!

I turn up the floating funnel and shift shape into a ramming spike, shooting past the outer layer of the Manhunter cordon as I build up internal pressure, aiming carefully for the-.

The Manhunters start shooting and I start taking hits, but whatever they're shooting isn't designed for hurting mud. A few start getting closer, and they look like they've got some sort of shield-.

That'll have to do. I decompress, flinging a volley of hard ceramic spikes into the pod containing this Orange Lantern guy. Some glance off, a few cause light damage but a couple punch through. Then I fire the ring and really hope this works.

Okay
What the heck is going on?

My eyes open, and my surroundings explode with orange light!

"KRONA!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

It's not my ring
But it'll do for now

The ring -which was embedded in my neck for some reason- floats out of the wound and lands on my right ring finger.

The Manhunters around me open up their power ring draining devices.

"By the command of Krona-"

Wisps of orange light flow from my borrowed ring into their chassis.

"-no man escapes the Manhunters."

I can see my own desires and.. the desires of this ring's previous owner, flowing into them. And… Orange strands leading to many of the versions of me imprisoned on this tuning fork. They're manipulating their desires to use the light better. Clever.

"No man escapes me."

I take the orange light and twist it, forcing it into their central processors, or… Whatever it is that Manhunters think with. Their eyes glow brilliant orange as I take control, orange sigils forming on their foreheads a moment later.

"Hey Peter."

I set the Manhunters to tearing the other versions of me out of the tuning fork and a… Micro-asteroid starts talking to me.

"Assuming that you're a Clayface-"

Ring, state charge.

Sixty seven percent remaining.

"-without power ring training-"

Rings to me.

"-then I suggest that you take cover."

Construct armour forms around me, though unfortunately there isn't any material armour in the ring's subspace pocket. A palisade shield comes next, Krona's one-handed energy blast pattering off it as a series of golden dots fly through the hole in space in front of him and land on his fingers.

Krona isn't looking at me as he does it.

I put a singularity projector on top of the palisade and fire it at him.

His beam stops and space between us twists, strands of exotic radiation erupting from the point of impact.

"Powerful." He turns towards me, opening and then clenching his yellow-. No, gold ring covered fingers. "But your knowledge of physics is clearly basic."

Gold light trails behind his right hand as he waves it at Vanishing Point and I.. can't feel the rings I was calling.

"Have you risen sufficiently above your mortality to interface with pseudo-time? I'm genuinely curious."

But I can feel other rings.

Come to me. Know my desires and receive purpose.

And Krona has desires too, of course. Oh, he can prevent me seeing them, but I know they're there.

Kindle avarice.

"Uph." Krona tilts his head to the left, looking at me curiously. "It's been a while since anyone tried that. I may not have my accustomed innate powers at the moment-"

Good to know.

"-but I have lived for millions of years. You'll find that my self control is rather good."

His eyes gleam gold as the… Is that a sling? Evaporates, and his robe-. No, that's a mini-dress, is replaced with armour.

"I invented power rings. I was the first being to use an orange power ring."

"That's not what Hinon says."

His eyes narrow slightly for a moment. "I don't think that spending millions of years in an emotion-deprived coma aided her recall."

"So you're the Krona from my parallel, are you?"

"Something like that. Though I think what I'm doing here demonstrates that the term barely means anything."

"What are you trying to do?"

"To study the bleed membrane, and the structures it imposes on this reality. And to gain some measure of revenge upon the Guardians." He glances at the hole in space with something that might charitably be called a smile on his lips. "What a fascinating history that place must-."

The storm of orange rings fly through the portal and hit him in the face!

He grimaces, intensifying his protective shield as a dozen orange rings bite into it, the rest zooming towards me and falling in to orbit me like electron shells. Versions of me freed by the Manhunters reach out for them and I allow the rings to fly into their hands. And in.. one case, to punch through his chest and bed into his rib cage.

His grin extends well beyond the normal limits of a human mouth as he gives me a thumbs up.

The more-on-the-ball me's take shots at Krona, though after seeing how little progress they're making one unusually sensible me grabs Clayface and heads for the Vanishing Point station instead. He doesn't feel particularly powerful, but he should be able to handle whatever's there and.. perhaps there's some technology there that could be helpful?

I generate a containment sphere around Krona, studding the surface with infusion points so that the other me's can add their strength to it. They cotton on almost immediately, though through its translucent sides I can see that Krona is more curious than concerned.

One unringed version of me raises his right hand towards the slowly shrinking portal, and a moment later three rings fly around the containment sphere and settle on his right hand.

"Better." He looks at me as his own construct armour flares into being. "How good are you at magic?"

"I sometimes use it by accident."

He looks around. "Anyone else!?"

A few blank looks, and big grin makes a 'so-so' gesture with his left hand. Yellow gives it a moment but no one has a more affirmative answer. "Right then. Ancient spirits of evil-"

Krona raises his hands and begins brute forcing my construct with beams of golden light. I try subverting his power at the point of contact but he's somehow managing to guard against that.

"-reveal to me Krona's deepest fears."

His eyes shine with the yellow sigil while Krona-.

Krona jerks as if slapped, grimaces, and blasts my containment sphere apart!

 

[Mr Zoat]

Not by strength
By guile

Looking back as I head for Vanishing Point at best material-universe speed, I feel… Under levelled.

"Can we go faster?" Clayface is looking back as well. "Because I don't think-"

Krona has a shield attached to each of his fingers, each one automatically shifting to block attacks and then to move back behind the others before they get battered down. His own attacks take the form of overwhelming beams projected from his eyes which are blasting through any defence anyone other than Main Orange and Yellow can throw up. Wounded Lanterns are grabbed and healed by others and I don't think any of me have died yet but I can't see how that state of affairs can continue.

"-there's much we can do-."

"Where's the entrance?"

"Right, this way."

How-? Oh, some sort of transpatial impeller. I follow Clayface as he leads to… What looks like a blank wall, where he resumes a fully humanoidish form and lands before staring at the wall and banging on it with his right hand.

"Shit, it doesn't open from-."

The wall section vanishes, revealing a squad of blocky robots-. Manhunters? Just about to charge out. I form crumbler gauntlet constructs and slap them into their unshielded chassis! They barely have time to raise their weapons before they collapse into piles of scrap, hemispheres of metal vanishing from their chests before they can attack.

I then fly through the opening before it can close again. Did Krona summon them? Is that their default response to an attack? Or does Krona not actually keep anything important here?

"Hey, this way."

Clayface is already halfway down a corridor, so I

pause to dig the central memory stores out of as many of the Manhunters as I can before going after him.

"Are you taking me to the control room?"

Analyse.

Affirmative.

"No, Time Trapper. This was his place before Krona took it over. If we break him out, maybe he can fix things."

Not a terrible plan, but if Krona took it over while he was still here I doubt that it's that simple. I begin scouring the database for information on how this place works and what Krona's been doing. Hopefully, there's a solution which doesn't just involve slamming coloured beams at one another until one side breaks.

17th May 2011
03:06 GMT

I get my shield in place even as Red starts to recover, the yellow beam cutting out as a man wearing an American flag draws Yellow Titan's attention.

"Keep the yellow one off me while I get the-"

The Yellow Titan's lights flicker for an instant, then the armoured plates protecting its head jerk and three rings punch through from inside and head towards the hole in the sky. The Titan is still functioning, but I can't see any construct-related-.

"Out the-"

I remove my barrier as Red storms past, red light-

"-way!"

-billowing around his hands as he charges the Red Titan. Captain DC-America gets battered away by the Yellow Titan only for it to be struck by a beam of golden energy from John Stewart which.. seeps into every part of the titan before-.

The titan comes apart enthusiastically, chunks of metal and machinery being sprayed across the arctic wilderness.

Red is already assailing the Red Titan but… It appears to have dimmed as well. All of them do. They're still using constructs -though in Red's case that doesn't matter as he drains it faster than it can drain him- but they're nothing like as aggressive or powerful as they were mere moments ago.

"Commander, should I get the Indigo Manhunter Titan or remain here?"

"Stay here. Trust the rest of our force to manage it."

I bow my head slightly as Red tears into his colour's Titan, metal reduced to slag as he homes in on the rings inside its armoured body, ripping them free before blowing it apart in a surge of fury. Gold Lanterns and the quicker Justice League members assail the others, and their.. response is anaemic. Fortitudinous fighters are knocked back, but they swiftly return to the fray. Lanterns have their defensive constructs beaten but not broken.

My eyes narrow as I look at the hole in the sky. Something happened just now, and while I don't know what it was I'm grateful to whoever it was that did it.

"Commander? What's next?"

Ten little power rings on the wall
Ten little power rings
Take one down and…

I've spent a lot of time around Vanishing Point, and while I'm still not completely sure I understand the mechanics of how it works I have developed a feeling for it. A feeling for time that I can't fully explain. Goodness knows I've tried explaining it to Brainiac 5… In timelines that he no longer remembers, in the hope that he might be able to help. That we might find common cause. He doesn't want anyone 'playing' with 'history', I don't want anyone other than me altering time. But it was not-

"…gh here."

-to be. I stand, looking in the direction that Mr Hagen's voice came from. I thought he had a good chance of pulling off his task, but I wasn't expecting him to actually come back afterwards. Surprising.

This whole situation…

I sigh.

I'd much rather have worked with Brainiac than with Krona. And not just because Krona backstabbed me after agreeing to a limited partnership. If I'd been able to talk Brainiac into helping me, then we'd have completed my project as safely as possible. With Krona on the rampage… It'll be riskier. At least he'll have gathered good data.

Mr Hagen and.. one of the weaker Orange Lanterns fly in, rising up to my prison. Weaker but not weak. He's probably about as strong as I was…

How long ago..?

The Orange Lantern lands on the gantry and looks the assemblage over.

"Time Trapper. Do you know how to open this?"

"Can I borrow your ring?"

He hesitates. Which is fair; he doesn't know me or my goals, and… He probably wouldn't agree with them if he did. I know I wouldn't if I wasn't me. Predictably, his eyes start glowing orange a moment later but that won't show anything very much.

He shrugs.

"You could, but I grabbed a spare." He pulls it out of his pocket and holds it out to the bubble. "You never know when they're going to come in handy."

"Very sensible."

I hold out my left sleeve and call the ring with the concentrated need of a total obsessive who'll do anything to achieve his aim and the ring flies through the barrier onto my left hand. Then I extend filaments throughout the bubble and break down the solidified temporal distortions that Krona was using to hold me here.

Then I float myself onto the gantry.

"Thank you. Follow me, please."

 

[Mr Zoat]

I really just want
To go home

Grinner shrugs as the construct runic prison we tried to build fails, fracturing into fragments as Krona exerts himself. The only positive I'm taking from this brawl so far is that Krona isn't anything like as overpowered as I thought he'd be. Oh, he's tanking shots like a champ, but he's either sandbagging or something has weakened him, because aside from his multiprocessing I'd actually say that he's doing worse than Guy would have in this situation. Of course, the multiprocessing is-.

I catch a glimpse of a flicker of green light and send out a wave of orange, disrupting the filament he was using to flank us.

Multiprocessing is enough of a problem. It's like fighting a team of Lanterns who can work in perfect concert.

More rings fly out of the hole near Krona, green ones this time. Krona spots them and lashes out, strands of green light illuminating the sky as they're all-. All but one is destroyed. That one takes evasive action, weaving around Krona's swings before heading towards one of the unarmed versions of me who had been keeping his head down.

He clenches his fists.

"Fuck off."

"The Lantern will don the ring."

"The Lantern is alone in his own head for the first time in years and the Lantern is happy not to have to deal with the psychotic Qwardian knockoff."

"Sounds like there's a story there, but we need the firepower."

He stiffens slightly, then sags. "Right." He takes a deep breath, and then holds out his right hand.

Towards Krona.

"I'll take his, then."

Krona's right hand vibrates, and the Guardian stares at it in disbelief for a moment before firing a hurricane of constructs and energy rays at the-. That's an Anti-Green Lantern ring!

Yellow's eyes light up as he tries to play with Krona's fears, while the rest of us frantically shift our efforts into countering Krona's offensive. Those like me who learned to make crumbler constructs destroy the larger attack constructs as fast as possible, while the Grinner and the handful of others who look like they've had some cranial work done work to deal with the rest.

And as I throw a potent enough emotional attack at Krona to try and throw him off his game, it occurs to me:

We all used to be one person, or something very close to the same person.

That's why using us like this worked in the first place; why Krona brought us all together.

And while we're different people, our core desires are much the same as a result of our shared twenty nine years of life and… Two separate.

"YES!"

A ring slips free from Krona's finger-.

And flies over to the Jade part of the tuning fork.

"No! Damn it! Come on!"

Krona isn't in a direct line between us and the opposite tine, but still, it's a minor miracle that none of the women have died so-.

A hand punches through the case and grabs onto the ring, the owner's clothing-. A Jade who got trained by Alan? Ironic and.. plausible, if the situation in Gotham were a little different.

"Illustres to Lantern Nguyen." And I can't deny the hope and love that surge in my own heart as I say it. "Please evacuate the other yous from the tuning fork."

She pulls herself free, takes a second to try and understand what's going on, then starts working.

I need to try and talk to her about that later.

I fire a volley of newly-fabricated Crumbler rounds at Krona, more to try and keep him off balance than with any hope that they'll actually hit. Another aspect of his parallel processing ability: I can't keep track of everything we're throwing at him. The whole region around Vanishing Point is a kaleidoscope of constructs, and he's meeting every assault… Not perfectly, or we'd be dead. But well enough that I don't think that we're pulling ahead.

"FINALLY!"

Anti-Green snatches the golden ring out of the air and puts it on his right middle finger. His costume changes immediately, the harsh curves of the Anti-Green sigil replaced by the smoother lines of the Gold Lantern Corps.

"This is not permit-."

Green's eyes glow as he surrounds the anti-green ring in a vice construct and crushes it before conjuring a huge battering ram construct and sending it smashing through everything between him and Krona! Krona's eyes widen very slightly as he sets himself to receive the impact, his rings glowing brilliantly as he's forced to focus his will on a single object!

I take the opportunity to close my eyes and feel the desires of all of those around me. As I suspected-. A couple don't fit quite.. right-. That's another Clayface, what-? No, never mind. Our desires and drives-.

"I see. Yes, that could work."

The yellow lights from Yellow begin.. feeling the rest of us out, just as I'm doing. My still extant nihilophobia, my long since cured fear of heights… Traits we all share. And by that same token he doesn't try to shield his desires, his drive to build a civilisation and shelter his people.

And those desires and fears are a harmony, a part of the song of who we are. Not enough of me have the same level of spiritual awareness to do anything so beautiful as a white light blast but nonetheless as we open our eyes our constructs become more focused. Our methods more harmonious and our attacks catalysed by the avarice and fears of all of us.

Krona is forced to lift his left hand away from blocking the battering ram to intercept-.

"-kill the midget bastard!"

A Red Lantern-. No, that's Red! Flies through the hole, followed a moment later by Indigo and Black! Red doesn't bother communicating, he just flies to a position behind Krona and unleashes a torrent of blood red flame. Indigo's ring glows as well, but I'm assuming that he's doing something a little less direct. A-. Koriand'r variant flies through after them and she's picked up.. Ghia'ta's ring from somewhere, and she's taking shots of opportunity at Krona whenever she sees an opening.

Krona's cringing, but I'm really not sure-.

"Allow me."

Time Trapper rises from Vanishing Point station, pushing back his hood to-.

Oh.

The Time Trapper me raises his right hand and a blue ring flies through the portal and lands on his right index finger.

"Let us finally draw this to a conclusion. Krona? Begone."

For a fraction of a second I feel his desires, somehow… They feel different, but that fraction of a second of communion is enough for our constructs to merge-. Not quite in perfect harmony as Koriand'r is stuck providing the violet, but with a flash of white…

Krona's gone.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Winding
Down

"Cheshire." Big Grin stares in mystification at the legion of largely green-clad Asian women presently largely under guard by Gold Lanterns and mes. "I don't see the appeal." He hesitates. "No, that's a lie. I see the appeal of a lot of people, but compared to the billions of alternatives across the universe… Why..? Her..?"

"I.. can't speak for anyone else, but… We started spending time together after I arrested her and started visiting her in prison in an attempt to reform her. You know what supervillain rehabilitation rates are like, and I-."

"No."

"-wanted to-." I frown. "You don't?"

"No? Why would I?" He shakes his head. "I don't rehabilitate supervillains. That sounds like a long term project, and she's hot but she's not that hot."

I just.. look at him for a moment.

"Okay, remember how when you first started working out how to fuel your ring?" I nod cautiously. "Did you think about feeding it demons?"

"Yes, but-." I blink. "Ah." That's… I take a closer look at his desire networks, and… Yes, I see it now. Desires… Patched onto his psyche that aren't a complete match for the structures that arose naturally from his own thought processes. He's still a me, but a good chunk of his metaphysique is made of bits and pieces of other people's desires. Most likely torn from demons. "I was a demon for a while myself. How..? Are you alright with that?"

"At first it was strange, then liberating. I was constantly getting thrown out of my comfort zone, but I was managing, you know? I'm still me, but the illogical hesitancy is just gone." I nod. "And I still managed to do good work-. I enable Veronica to do good work."

"Veronica?"

"Roulette?" O.. h. I frown. "Low level supervillain and an excellent businesswoman? I handed her a load of schizotech and a few of my own ideas and she ran with it. We've revolutionised Africa's economy, and we'll do the rest of the world once they give up on the trade embargos. You… Not doing anything like that?"

"I started a revolution in magical technology-."

"I wanted to do that." He shrugs. "Couldn't get the staff."

"Right, I've pretty much tapped out Atlantis. And I've been encouraging technological development."

"What continent?"

"Mostly North America."

He shakes his head. "Too conservative. We bet that African countries would go along with whatever we wanted as long as we produced results, since we could outspend the competition and replace foreign companies. And we were right. No having to persuade paid-for legislators and vested interests."

I nod slowly. "That… Might have been a better idea. How did your fight with Larfleeze go?"

He frowns. "Why would I go anywhere near the insane Mega-Lantern?"

Ah. Now I'm feeling slightly b-

"Sybarite!"

-etter.

"That's me."

He waves as he flies up to where John Stewart, Time Trapper and the newly remerged Red Queen are switching the portal between our home parallels. His Jade is there already -in manacles- and he says something which causes her to glare at him with disgust.

Right, where did Alan's Jade get to?

Doesn't take me long to spot her, as she's one of the few Jades not under guard. She's floating just off the ground, talking to the former Anti-Green and now Gold Lantern version of me. I-.

Angelika flies over to me. "Have they told you when we are going home?"

"We're last, I'm afraid." She nods. Krona apparently just threw her, Komand'r and mini-Jade into a time-locked prison. Which was a relief, because while I remember something about kryptonians spontaneously reanimating in the comics I haven't ever wanted to depend on it and I don't know of any other way to reliably resurrect her. "Are you..? Coming back with me, or going home?"

"I…" She takes a deep breath. "I think that I should like to come with you. I will send a message to Karl, but… I do not wish to be a… 'Nazi', but I do not yet.. know how to not be a Nazi. If I go home, I am… I am worried that I might… Fall back into my familiar behaviours."

I nod, then open my arms. "Here."

She looks slightly surprised for a moment, then bows her head with a quiet chuckle before flying down and hugging me.

"That talk with middle-aged you really shook you up, huh?"

"She's younger than me, but… Yes." She sighs, pulling away slightly. "But in a good way." Another sigh. "In the long term."

"I assume there's no me or Jade here from your parallel?"

"No. And your Jade was not abducted?"

I look around again. "No one in a Darkstars uniform, so unless she's keeping really quiet, no." I slip on Ghia'ta's ring. "I need to go and talk to Green Lantern Jade."

"And I need to avoid walking in on Red Lantern and Komand'r 'celebrating' again."

I smile, then fly towards them.

"…letting me keep it." He holds up his right hand, showing off his golden ring. "It's such an improvement."

"I thought that Qwardian rings were fatal after twenty four hours."

"Yep! If you last that long!" He smiles as she frowns. "Lazarus Pits. I die every day and wake up a few hours later."

Jade frowns. "I thought that Lazarus Pits could only be used once."

"There are different chemical mixes you can use. Nyssa.. was going to tell me how to make them myself once I killed Ra's…" He grins broadly as he looks at his new ring. "I suppose I don't need it now."

"You're not immortal."

"No, but I won't be dying every day now. I mean, I'll still kill Ra's when I find him, but no more huffing down carbon monoxide for me!"

"Is Commander Gordon letting you keep it?"

"Ah, Big Orange!" He nods. "It's not like she's short on them, and-. One advantage of being tortured to death every day for years is that you get pretty strong willed."

"The Lantern formerly known as Anti-Green!"

"That's me!" He flies backwards towards the portal, waving as he goes. His Jade is keeping her face carefully blank, but I can clearly see that she thinks she's going to be executed upon her return. "See you when I see you!"

I wave as he grabs her and flies through the aperture.

"Lantern Nguyen. I.. have some questions, if you don't mind?" She shrugs. "You were.. trained by Alan Scott, right?"

She nods. "Yes. He's the most experienced Lantern in the Sector."

I nod back. "My version of Alan Scott had been retired for decades when I met him." She frowns. "But he's a good friend of mine, and he's back in the saddle now. Ah, point is, what I wanted to ask you… I lent my Jade my power ring last year, and… Orange-."

"Your Jade?" She raises her eyebrows.

"We've been dating for eight months. I'm pretty sure I can call her 'mine' at this point. Point is, orange rings have mind-altering effects, and she temporarily lost control. I'm… Worried that I might have put her off power rings permanently."

"I don't think I can help you. I trained with Alan's ring for three years before getting my own. And if you-."

"Thirteen. Since you got away from your father."

She doesn't nod, but her eyes dip slightly for a moment. "I sometimes wondered what I'd be like if I hadn't met him. Taking a look around here…"

"The love of a good man can have powerful redemptive qualities. But she fights with a Darkstar exomantle."

"I wanted a power ring to prove to myself that I was free of my father. If she's gotten free in another way, she probably won't want it. If her childhood was like mine, we weren't brought up to be trusting."

I nod sadly. She rehabilitated herself to gain agency. Now that she associates power rings with losing it-.

"What happened to Krona? It didn't look like your construct attack killed him when you overwhelmed his defenses."

"We sent him to a parallel where the laws of physics are different enough that his advantages will be nullified. Far safer than keeping him immaterial or killing him when one of his known allies is a death god."

She frowns. "He's still a Guardian. How can you be sure he won't find a way back?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Early spring, 2279
Evening

I smile awkwardly as a huge hand grabs me around the neck.

"Mesmeralda, is this any way to greet an old friend?"

The woman glaring imperiously… Up at me is a fascinating contrast in sartorial styles. Metal armour is combined with.. pre-war dark glasses, a crown made of teeth, wood and coral with an elegant purple dress. A mesmetron on her right hip and a wooden staff with deathclaw claws and feathers tied to it in her right hand. And if the general styling wasn't a big enough giveaway, I can feel the bizarre **flash** as her thoughts go from 'surprised' to 'threatened raider' and onto 'Total conviction that everything is fine for the Gorgon Queen!' without passing through the usual intervening stages.

She smiles cruelly as she 'recognises' me.

"Krono. In my power at last." She reaches down towards her mesmetron, resting her left hand on the grip. "Explain to me why I shouldn't simply have the First tear your head from your shoulders."

"All that blood would make an awful mess of your boudoir."

She tilts her head slightly to the left.

"I suppose that it would. Set him down, minion, but keep your hands on his shoulders."

The First obeys, though given how big his hands are that effectively means that they're wrapped around my entire torso. What happened to him was a bit of a surprise, and tangentially resulted in my presence here.

The First was the head of the Troll Warrens, the only big super mutant settlement in north west America. The NCR had been aware of their existence for a while, but they weren't considered to be much of a concern because they were surrounded by other violent tribes and mostly appeared to want to keep themselves to themselves. Then… Something happened. They assaulted a raider tribe to the north of them and tossed the survivors into FEV barrels. Flush with success, they then went after their neighbours further north and to the east.

And they ran into this woman.

"This really isn't necessary, Mesmeralda. I came here of my own free will. I wanted to talk to you."

"I seem-"

A brief moment of uncertainty. I probably wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't watching for it. Or looking at her surface thoughts.

"-to remember that talking to you has seldom worked out well for me."

I'm here because… Not only should I not have asked a child to pick a new name for me, but I shouldn't have neglected to ask where they got such an unusual name from. It turns out that 'Krono' is the name of a villain from the Grognak the Barbarian comic book series, a cunning wheeler-dealer with a taste for magic. 'Mesmeralda' comes from the same series, the difference being that while Krono was all about subtlety and misdirection, she was the campiest ham ever written. A female Ming the Merciless, with a touch of Dr Doom thrown in for good measure. And unlike me where the choice of nom de guerre was entirely accidental… Whoever this woman was genuinely believes herself to be her namesake.

"But that was only when betraying you directly profited me! And I have a proposal that will profit us both!"

She hasn't met me. But the Grognak the Barbarian comic series is the Marrow Drinker tribe's holy text. And I'm dressed… More or less as Krono did. I've read as many of the comics as NCR intelligence have been able to find, but I'm more relying on her being too crazy to realise that I'm not comic-Krono once she's got the idea that I am him into her head than on my own acting ability in order to pull this off.

One reasonably well-received performance as Nana during a primary school production of Peter Pan does not a thespian make.

"Explain."

"I've made some… 'Friends', in the New California Republic, and-."

She rolls not merely her eyes but her entire head. "You mean that you have encountered gullible fools who were not sufficiently forewarned."

I smile. "They have a certain appeal. You have.. heard of the New California Republic, I take it?"

"A nation of 'civilised' people to the south."

"That's them. They want to make a deal with you."

She smiles with a cold arrogance. "And they could not find a better ambassador than you?"

"They were short on people willing to risk your magic powers."

"Have you grown a spine since our last encounter?"

I wish I knew which issue that was. As with any character written by different writers over the years, Krono's characterisation changed a lot over time. Unlike Mesmeralda whose powers and resources remain more or less stable, his vary greatly depending on how successful his recent exploits had been. Sometimes he was more or less a regular conman, feigning magic with psychology. At other times he managed to get hold of an object of power and become the title's premier magician, something which Mesmeralda canonically hated.

Obviously, my psychic abilities are far stronger than the held-together-with-wonderglue technology whatever-this-woman's-real-name-is is using.

"I've gained magic of my own since then. It's amazing what it does for your confidence…" I raise my eyebrows. "Isn't it?"

"I am more than my wand and alchemy. Were they stripped from me I would simply fight my way to supremacy without them while you would be left scrabbling in the dirt."

"There are things to be learned from the dirt."

That seems to bring her up short.

"I suppose that there are." She gestures to me with her chin. "Go on then. Repeat your master's proposal."

"Firstly, that you and they agree to a non-aggression pact. They will focus their armies on their enemies to the south, and you can go anywhere but south."

"What of the tribes between my land and that of the NCR?"

"You may complete your conquest of the Apostles, but the NCR would prefer you to leave Klamath and the Antelope Reservation as a buffer. Whatever else you do, you must leave Arroyo be."

"The Gorgon Queen 'must' do nothing!"

"Their leader is so well-respected that it would arouse the hatred of all the of people of the region against you. Also, the NCR plans to annex it after she dies."

"The Bone Dancers?"

"All yours."

"Heaven's Gate? The Washington Brotherhood?"

"If you're feeling brave."

"They aren't asking me to do anything that I wasn't inclined to do anyway. What else?"

"You will return any NCR citizens you are holding as slaves."

Shouldn't be any, given the distances between their respective territories, but New Reno has a way of getting its mouldy fingers into all sorts of pies.

"And what do I get in return?"

"Guns. Munitions. Raider scum they don't want, but whom you can probably find a use for. And.. I'll.. throw in a couple of my own acolytes."

"You have acolytes? Doesn't the wasteland have enough shysters already?"

I raise my fists slightly, then **open them**, the First's grip on my torso vanishing as I hijack his nerves.

Her mesmetron is pointing at my face immediately.

"Magic acolytes. I've come up in the world since last we spoke. Would you like a demonstration?"

A shallow nod, and I grip myself telekinetically and rise a short way into the air.

"I would be more interested in acquiring this magic for myself than I would in any number of guns."

"I'm happy to share, but would you really trust anything I would give you?"

"Perhaps not." She lowers her mesmetron. "But perhaps if I study your acolytes, I might learn it for myself."

She probably thinks it's a pre-war 'magic' artefact. But it's not as if I'm sending zetan technology up here.

"You can watch them all you like. Do we have a deal?"

This is tricky. The NCR essentially want her to act as a deniable proxy, someone who can unify the north under her reign while still being friendly-ish to NCR concerns. She's intelligent enough to realise that. She might say no. But Krono's thing in the comics was that he could persuade people who should have known better to trust him. And if she's playing her role-

"Yes. For now."

-to the hilt… Then she'll say 'yes' anyway.

"I'm so glad to hear it."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Early spring, 2280
Late morning

**PeoplePlaceConversationsThoughtsActionsEvents.**

I lay the zetan thought storage unit back down on my desk. My agents on the East Coast have done a heroic job, especially under the circumstances. But… Things have come to a point I was hoping to avoid, at least for a little while.

Thirty seven years since the destruction of the Poseidon oil rig. Thirty five or so since the NCR/Brotherhood alliance overran the main Enclave base at Navarro, killing everyone they could, military or civilian. Three years since the 'death' of President Eden, leaving President Franklin Anderson in charge of the only significant cohesive group of Enclave-loyalists on the continent.

I do so hate pointless killing.

I **erase** the storage device and slide it back into its compartment in my desk. I'm going to have to accelerate things. Which is going to be awkward, but if I want to continue not being that sort of telepath, nudging people into doing the right thing is the most I can do. And it does have certain limits as a method.

I get up and walk out of the former base commander's office, heading towards where I can feel the mind of one of Groom Lake's refugees-turned-citizens. 'Chuck Holtz' and his small band of companions arrived out of the desert from the direction of Desert Ranger territory three years ago, though for perfectly understandable reasons they avoided the base itself until after I removed the Whisperers from power. Though none of them have been willing to take advantage of the neurotropic initiator, they're all far more technically competent than most of the region's other inhabitants and they're all perfectly willing to pitch in. Good people, all of them.

I knock on the open door to his office for a moment before I stick my head inside, causing him to look up from his work orders with a smile.

"Krono. Intercom busted again?"

I bow my head with a smile. If I'm honest, I don't understand micro vacuum tube based technology much better than the tribals do. The system which the zetans use operates rather differently, but I've hesitated to completely rework Groom Lane so most of the systems -though upgraded- are essentially still made of pre-war technology.

"No. Alright, I didn't check. Have you got a moment? I need a quick word."

He makes a shrugging movement with his hands. "Sure thing, chief. What do you need?"

I step inside, firmly shut the door behind me and telekinetically grip the air around the walls of the office, causing what little external sound reaches us here to drop away. His smile fades a little and he straightens up.

"Serious talk, then."

"Yes, Captain Douglas Granite, I'm rather afraid that it is."

His expression grows a little distant as I use his real name, then he nods slowly.

"Yeah, I guess it was a bit much to think we could keep a secret from a bunch of mind readers."

"I try not to read too deeply, but I needed to make sure that the squad of unusually well educated men and women weren't Brotherhood Knights here to sabotage us. Most of what I know about you actually comes from my personal interactions with you. And.. reports from the people I've had keeping tabs on Doctor Anderson."

He looks.. torn for a moment, then-.

I raise my right hand.

"Conquering Vault City was a severe misstep. There aren't enough caps in the wasteland to make the New California Republic miss two major trading partners being overrun by people with stars-on-blue emblems on their power armour."

He nods sadly. "I scrubbed it off mine before I ditched it."

"We can pick it up, if you like."

He shakes his head. "It won't be good for anything now. Sand will have wrecked it." He looks at me for a moment. "I guess your… Friends in the NCR clued you in?"

"No, but it.. hardly matters. Given.. Doctor Anderson, I'm not exactly going to be sad to see him defeated."

He sighs, and nods. "He said on the campaign trail that the only thing Richardson did wrong was lose."

"Quite. But I'm.. disquieted at the idea of the NCR carrying out another extermination campaign, which is almost certainly what will happen when they finally win. And… Then there's the East Coast. Tell me, does the name 'Augustus Autumn' mean anything to you?"

He hesitates, then appears to concede to himself that there's very little point in trying to hide anything from me.

"Yeah. He was a.. senior researcher at one of the Enclave's science facilities. I don't know exactly what he did there. I just.. remember him because after the fall of Navarro he rallied a whole lot of Enclave personnel and headed for the east coast. Don't think I ever heard why. I guess he wanted to try and set up camp somewhere away from anyone who already had a grudge. Do you know what happened to him?"

"Oh, he died of a stroke over a decade ago. His son Colonel Augustus Autumn Junior leads the Enclave survivors in the area now. He's.. more your sort. Unfortunately, he got into a fight with the local Brotherhood chapter over a novel water purification technology, and… They had Liberty Prime."

"They-." His eyes light up. "Hot damn! I didn't think that thing every really got built! I had a toy-." He cuts himself off and takes a moment to calm himself. "Sorry."

"Apparently, the Brotherhood weren't feeling particularly vengeful. Autumn and his surviving soldiers were allowed to evacuate the region, but with the destruction of their headquarters they're…" How to put this? "Feeling lost. And while the east coast doesn't have quite the same level of hatred for the Enclave that the west coast does, they didn't exactly make themselves popular."

"You got a plan to help them?"

I nod. "And it depends on you. I can get the materials required for them to set up a settlement well away from any of the many people out for their-. Your blood. But I need someone dependable to ride herd on them. The FEV Plague wouldn't have hurt me, but I'm rather attached to a lot of people it would have killed."

"And the NCR's okay with you doing that."

"The NCR… Are aware that upon occasion people come to me… Who have fought them in the past and no longer wish to do so, but who will not surrender to them. They accept that, as long as no one does anything too blatant."

He thinks for a moment. "So, what? We just settle down and fade out of history? I mean, that's what I was planning on doing, but I wasn't going to do that until all the other choices got snatched away."

"Captain-."

He shakes his head. "Douglas is fine."

"Douglas. Do you believe in the ideal of America, or the reality of America?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Is it enough to establish a thing you can call 'America', regardless of its characteristics, or do you actually want to restore America as it should be?"

"You wouldn't be talking to me if it was the first one."

"Oh, I might." I look away for a moment. "It would be a rather different conversation… The point is, I think that between the west coast and the east coast we've established that the quick and violent method isn't going to work for the Enclave. But, there's nothing to stop you re-establishing the United States of America in the way it was originally established. Build up and spread out. Teach your people idealism and have them share it. Greet your neighbours with an open hand and not a gun barrel. It will take generations, but the difference is that it might actually work."

"The NCR?"

"The legitimate successor to the State of California, a state in the United States. Anderson might call himself 'President', but he wasn't elected by the pre-war electoral college."

"That would have been a little difficult to run."

"Then to become the legitimate president, one would need to fix that first."

He nods slowly. "What sort of supplies have you got for us?"

"Enough to see you through the first year. I also managed to acquire a Gardens of Eden Creation Kit-."

"Where the hell did you get that from?"

"From Tlaloc, as part payment for maintenance that was two hundred years overdue. Do you-?"

The ring on my necklace lights up in brilliant orange.

Oh, heck. Broadcast!

**This is Krono. Highest defensive condition. Bring the Dream Twister online at once.**

Douglas winces at the force of my mental intrusion. "What-? That some kinda alien-?"

"It was foolish to think that humans were alone in the universe. It was even more foolish to assume that the zetans were the only others. I think that the people who abducted me are coming back."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Early spring, 2280
Mid-day

The Sky Walkers are not expansionist.

And not just because the Desert Rangers were seriously considering making us 'extinct raider group number three' prior to my takeover. Not just because we share a border with the largest civilised successor state in North America. And not just because Mr House had a plan to overrun us with telepath-immune Military Protectrons and give our territory to the Great Khans in exchange for their help against the Legion. And not just because of the White Legs on our other border, and their growing alliance with the Legion.

The Rangers were manageable. While it was generous of them to absorb the Vipers and Jackals rather than exterminating them, the survivors weren't strongly committed to the cause. The Whisperers actually had what might generously be described as a mutual defence pact with both groups in order to prevent the Rangers doing exactly what they ended up doing and eliminating them one by one. A few lorry loads of guns in the right hands and their supply lines would have been unmanageable. A few barrels of incendiaries and their food supplies would have gone up in smoke.

The NCR weren't manageable, but they weren't focusing on us and there was no obvious reason for them to start. They were happy to use us as a threat to the tribal nations they were hoping to voluntarily annex, or as a road bump for the White Legs or Eighties once they finished fighting the nations to the west. And frankly, when you're telepathic, the fact that you only have to mind control one man to stop a robot army makes it far easier to deal with than a great mass of people with their own motives and desires.

The Whisperers weren't expansionist because they had everything they wanted right here, and believed that once they uncovered enough of the zetans' technology they would be unstoppable. Why waste time and blood capturing territory the hard way now when you could get it easily later? They raided some of the smaller nearby settlements more to make sure that potential attackers remained on the defensive than to acquire resources.

My reasons aren't all that dissimilar. Why expand when we have the resources we need to sustain ourselves? Why expand when I have no desire to rule anything outside of this research institute? Lend the Desert Rangers telepathic interrogators, offer the NCR the aid of our air force and intelligence network, sell technology to Mr House at a discount… Security by diplomacy.

And if we don't keep our allies fully informed on the exact level of our military strength…

Well, look, Left, I said I knew him. I didn't say I fucked him.

I can't teleport, but I don't bother with the stairs as I reach the balcony. Instead I jump-

Shit, the sky's turning red and I don't think it's a dust storm this time.

-and slow my fall with telekinesis. Soldiers and Acolytes are moving to their stations, civilians are moving to the shelters and **with my mind's ear I can hear the subtle hum of the Dream Twisting revving up** as I run towards the command post.

Our neighbours know that we have a small and professional military. They know that we have advanced aircraft, even if they don't know their precise capabilities. But they also know that we don't have tanks or APCs, that the vast majority of our vehicles are civilian and that most of our recent building efforts have been focused on schools, research laboratories and civilian workshops, most likely with a view to us eventually joining the NCR. They know that we don't have pre-war missile silos and aren't building nuclear weapons or missile launchers. They know that we can defend ourselves and could create a nuisance, but they don't feel actively threatened.

As far as the NCR are concerned, the Dream Twister is a telepathic amplifier. Which it… Technically is. They don't know that it functions as a strategic telepathic weapon that can turn the inhabitants of entire towns insane. Turn them into feral savages, cause aneurisms, wipe memories completely… We took a part of the designs from the alien mothership, and the rest from our studies of our own abilities. We've never used it at full power and frankly I've never wanted to-.

"Mister Krono!" I look around as Ambassador Granger and his bodyguard run in my direction. "You know what the hell that is?!"

I fish out the power ring on my necklace, showing him the glow.

"Aliens?"

I half-stumble as **the observers share their perceptions, a four dimensional model of the sky appearing in my mind.**

"It's a distinct possibility, Ambassador. You really should get to a shelter."

He **knows that he should**, but he's been on the fence on the authenticity of this whole 'alien' thing and he'd quite like to clear it up so that he can stop qualifying his reports. **And he also wants to be present personally to see how we respond to attacks**.

"I'll get to cover when the shooting starts, don't you worry."

"I don't want to have to explain to President-."

I jerk my head upwards as the sky buckles, a rainbow of lights shining from a point towards-.

And then the sky bends back, a single small figure plummeting to the Earth.

I run.

President Anderson may have been evil, but I can't deny the brilliance of the man who actually managed to make FEV work properly. My enhanced muscles combined with my telekinesis allow me to dash across the compound in seconds, to leap over the guards gathered at the forwards muster point, vault over the front gate and head out across the recently planted farmland. A second later I realise that Goris is with me **as I reach up with my telekinetic force in an attempt to catch the falling figure**. At this distance-.

**My Acolytes realise what I'm doing and join me, our combined efforts slowing the figure's fall and pulling them towards us**. A medical team is already leaping in a van and they'll be with.. us…

The figure is a dwarf with blue skin. They're not close enough for me to pick out any details yet, but-.

**Our telekinetic grip** breaks as they suddenly shine with golden light, orientating themselves relative to the ground and looking-.

That's a Guardian. But the hair-. Krona! And he's using a Sinestro Corps ring!

His eyes widen slightly as he sees and.. somehow recognises me. Was he the one who-?

"You. Of course it's another you."

His right hand glows with golden light.

"And your power ring is as dead as you'll soon be."

**One target, full intensity, activate.**

The thing about being on the edge of a Dream Twister activation is that you don't experience the full effect. Obviously. Because if you did then you'd probably die along with the target. But you can.. tell that you're on the edge of something very nasty. As it is I'm close enough to see the exact point where Krona's eyes burst and his brain cooks off, his skull burning and contents fizzing as the liquid within superheats. His rings dim at once, and his body spins as it falls through the air into the western tato patch.

**Deactivate.**

I lean forwards to begin sprinting again, only for Goris to lay a claw on my shoulder and press me back. He then sprints towards the body, and-. Yes, okay, community leader, I shouldn't handle every dangerous situation personally.

"Goris?!"

"It is dead. It doesn't smell human."

"The rings?"

"All but one are damaged. Are they dangerous?"

"If they haven't exploded then they're not going to."

"Do you know what that was?"

"Specifically? No. But I think that's one of the species who made the ring that brought me here." I smile thoughtfully. "Pick up the remains. We'll hand him over to the biomancers."

"And the ring?"

"That… I'm going to have to think about."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Homeward
Bound

"Thundercats?"

"Sort of. Most of the characters look different-. I can recognise most of them-"

I nod.

"-but the specifics have changed. And what little I remember of the setting appears to have been radically altered as well. What I'm living in actually makes a good deal more sense."

"How are you charging your ring?"

He raises his right hand, the two additional rings he acquired mid-fight having been returned to their owners.

"Something about the magic of Mumm-Ra's sword allows me to connect to the yellow light directly, if I meditate on my fears for long enough." He looks at me hopelessly. "I don't suppose you've got a spare yellow personal lantern lying around, have you?"

I shake my head.

"I hired the Qwardian who made Sinestro's lantern, but I haven't asked him to make me spares."

"Damn it."

He looks down, shaking his head.

"I don't know where Krona put the sword. Without it, my ring will die. I haven't spent any time learning their languages." He looks over to where Guardian Stewart and Commander Gordon are studying the tuning fork on this side, a version of me who thought that stapling wings onto his back was clever flying through the portal back to his Earth. "I'll have to ask if they've got a spare gold ring they can give me."

"I'd offer you an orange one, but I left both of mine back on my Earth." I shrug, holding up my ringless hands slightly. "Sorry." He nods. "Stupid thing is, I can make personal lanterns, too."

He looks up, frowning. "What? That's something we can do?"

"Yes. Ah, I haven't made a good one so far, but it would work."

"Damn. I didn't even try that. I just assumed that it was impossible. How exactly-?"

"Yellow!"

Time Trapper me walks towards us.

"Your turn!"

He nods. "You haven't found a sword, have you?"

"No, but fortunately I'm a massively skilled expert in temporal manipulation, which means-" He sticks out his right hand, and-. Suddenly there's a huge sword in it. "-it was in my hand in the future all along. Here."

Time Trapper hands it to Yellow, who takes it and scans it with his ring before nodding.

"Do I thank you for finding it or curse you for hiding it?"

"Most societies don't have good vocabulary for dealing with paradoxes. Though technically this stopped being a paradox as soon as I handed it to you." He looks up. "John!"

"Ah…" Yellow looks at me, clearly not quite sure what to say. "No offence meant, but let's not do this again."

"Probably for the best."

Guardian Stewart gestures and the hole above the tuning fork shifts, from Earth to another world entirely.

"Well… Goodbye."

He turns and flies, accelerating until he passes through the portal entirely.

"Thundercats. I wondered if we were limited to comics, but it sounds like we could end up anywhere."

He nods. "Do you have a moment?"

"Do I have a moment… For an expert in temporal manipulation?"

He looks away, smiling. "Yes, I-. Did you know that I'm you?"

I stare.

"No, that… Genuinely never occurred to me, given how we look completely different."

"No, not-. Most of those others were… Versions of us that ended up in different places after the event. I'm not. We're not."

"Okay, then… What are we?"

"We're separated by an alteration in the timeline. Vandal Savage went back, and… Long story short, you got erased, I got created, then I restored your timeline."

"Ah, thank.. you..? That seems out of character for us."

He shakes his head. "My temporality was unstable. It would have collapsed eventually. This way I got a chance to recreate it, to change things-."

"If you're planning on changing time back-."

"No. If it would work, I'd do it. We both know that. It wouldn't work. Time won't allow it. Even…" He looks around. "Here, pseudo time can't support that much space. No, Krona-."

"Took your plan to an extreme when you tried to get his help."

He frowns. "Something like that. How did you guess?"

"The one of us who freed you?" I pull an orange power ring out of my pocket and slide it onto my left ring finger. "He picked up a third ring. And downloaded images of you cooperating with Krona from a Manhunter. Sensible fellow."

He looks away, shaking his head. "You'd think a Guardian would practise basic data security."

"So. What now?"

"So I use the tuning fork and the similarities and.. differences between us to create… Do you remember 'hypertime'?"

"I remember the name."

"Essentially, I change the-. The parallel universe cluster we all exist in so that time changes beyond a certain level create a new timeline, rather than erasing the old one. Both our timelines will exist, and we can both go home."

"What's the risk?"

"I could horribly fuck up all of everything. Particularly if you try and stop me." He exhales. "I was hoping that you wouldn't have a ring."

So he could present me with a fait accompli.

"And what happens if I help you?"

"I-. That… Might make things easier. Certainly… Safer. Would-? Would you?"

"Of course." I shrug. "You're only doing what I'd do in your place."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Plan 'Don't Fuck Up The Universe'
Is In Effect

"So this will make changing time… Impossible."

"Well… Sort of."

Red Queen is patiently waiting a short distance away while Time Trapper makes the final alterations to the tuning fork. Angelika's staying back a little, clearly not entirely sure that this is something we should be doing but willing to let my judgement stand.

"You could go back and change time, but all that would do is create a new future separate to the one you knew. You could just go and live in that new future and from your point of view it would be exactly as if you'd changed your own history. And no one else would know anything had happened apart from you disappearing."

"But there'd be two of you."

"You say that after being strapped to a giant tuning fork with two hundred of us." He floats back, lowering the tool he was using. "Most of the time it wouldn't be a problem. It doesn't take much to prevent a person being born. It's only-."

"People from parallel universes. Like us."

"I was on our Earth for over a year before I found out about the temporal change. I just thought I was on an Elseworld or something."

"So… What is different?"

"Most things. Somehow…" He glances at Red Queen. "Jade got born, but our history was changed over two thousand years ago. America was mostly colonised from Asia, we're firmly in the space age… Well, were and will be again."

I nod.

John Stewart's eyes glow as he looks over Time Trapper's work.

"And you're sure this will just change your parallel?"

"As sure as I can be. Having that many alternate versions of myself let me eliminate them as variables. There isn't anything else I can think to do that will increase my chances." He floats back a little more. "So if you're planning on forcing me to stop, let's have this out now."

John ignores the challenge. "I can't tell exactly what this thing will do, but it isn't going to affect any other parallel universes. I'll give you as much help as I can."

"Thank you." He nods. "Thank you."

"What do we do?"

"Not a lot, really. If everything works as it should, the worst you'll see is me evaporating."

"What?"

"Hm? Oh, no, it won't kill me. 'Time Trapper' is a chronal aberration, and what we're doing should reintegrate me within my own timeline with my memories intact at the point where Vandal Savage originally left in yours. I'm not planning on recreating something I can't enjoy myself."

"If you're gone, how do I get home?"

"You might just snap back when I do, but…" He waves his right hand at the tuning fork. "Just in case, it's set to open a portal to the point where you left."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Oh, nothing. Just being here to give the tuning fork your temporal variance is enough." He claps his hands together. "Right. Starting it now. If you feel anything off, then… Either you're wrong or it's too late."

I… Do try to feel anything, but aside from a slight glow coming from the tuning fork I'm not getting… No, there's… Something, but-. A weak-. No, not weak, just… Small.

My favourite book is Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, and there's a scene where Lu-Tze asks Brutha to hold his bonsai mountain. Brutha describes it as weighing thousands of very small tonnes. That's the best comparison I can think of to the desires I'm feeling. I suppose… I mean, I don't have any special abilities related to time or the Bleed. It-.

Time Trapper holds out his hands, and…

My word.

A… Shape, filled with lights, and… Desires, appears in front of him. The outer edge of it looks… Frayed, as if something was wearing it away. I look at him with an interrogative frown.

"My timeline. Or.. rather, a moment of it. All I was able to preserve. But now…"

He holds out his hands, the… Time… Moment.. thing, floating upwards until it sits between the tuning fork's tines. Then it expands, spreading out, rippling and finally vanishing.

Oh.

Oh.

"We met before. Brainiac Five brought me to the future after that mess with the Eliminations Inc people. And then it…"

"Never happened." He nods. "A moment erased by the functioning of time, now returned by the function's alteration. It always existed, it was just…" He looks at his hands as they begin to fade. "Wasn't… Connected. And now… I can't thank you enough for making-."

…

For a moment I frown, trying to remember who I was talking t-. Time Trapper. Who was me, who now… Presumably is when he was supposed to be. Good for him, I suppose.

The tuning fork dims, and a new portal swirls into being between the tines.

"Angelika, I think this is us."

She nods, coming closer. "This has been a strange… But productive day."

"Red Queen? What are your plans?"

"I'm keeping Vanishing Point. And the tuning fork. Since I'm the only one who understands how it works."

John nods. "This is a capacity we don't want anyone to use, but that we want to keep our hands on just in case."

I nod. "Sensible." I take a last look around. It's fascinating that these places exist, but… There isn't really anything here for me. I focus on returning to Jade and accelerate towards the portal, Angelika close behind me.

2nd April 2012
09:12 GMT -5, yet again

And… Back in the mountain. In front of the giant hole Angelika made in the wall between the corridor and the emergency exit staircase.

"Ah." … "Oops."

I hold out my left hand and call my rings. They arrive a few seconds later, a visibly confused Ghia'ta hurrying along behind them. I toss her her ring as I don my own, then raise my hand and repair the wall.

Ghia'ta stares at us both. "What just happened?"

I complete the wall, blocking us from her sight.

"I do so like being able to wave my problems away."

Angelika smiles. "I think that I will spend the rest of the day with Raquel. I'm sure that she has many things she could tell me about the achievements of the negro people."

"If she asks-" Wall… Good as new. Now I'm going to write up a report for Hinon and another for Batman, then… I'm going back to bed. "-that wasn't my idea."

 

[Mr Zoat]

I feel a moment of disorientation-.

"…intervention of the Chinese army under General Wu in the Autumn of sixteen fifty seven, the war shifted decisively in favour of crown prince Shukoh Dara, so preventing…"

I open my eyes, reaching out across the bed. It's still instinctual, a triumph of hope over experience. No, a warm patch-.

I've seen myself doing this thousands of times, but this is only the second time I've actually done it.

22nd October
06:14 GMT +8

I come to full alertness immediately, jerking up into a sitting pos-.

"I don't know how you sleep through that."

Jade. Jade, my Jade. She's-.

She's-.

She's looking at me with an air of concern. "Bad dream?"

I haven't… Spoken to her-. I haven't been Orange Lantern, for-.

Do I lie and try to preserve the day, or-.

No. No.

"Sorry. Time travel." I wipe my eyes with my right hand. "This is my.. second time through.. today, and the first time… Didn't go very well."

Half a second, then she's already walking towards our bedroom's phone. "Do we need to notify anyone?"

"It's-. It should be dealt with. I'll-. I'll write up a report, submit it to Nabu-."

"Lord Nabu."

"No, it's-. I get elevated later today. Since it's part of my personal timeline, it's still valid. So I don't need to use his title every time."

She stops, taking a moment to absorb that. I.. gingerly get out of bed, standing on the floor. The carpet feels…

I wipe my eyes again.

Jade frowns. "How bad was-?"

I transition across the room and wrap my arms around her, pulling her into my chest and pressing my face into the side of her head.

After a slight hesitation she hugs me back. I.. take a few moment, breathing in the… Damp towel that's wrapped around her hair. She's just gotten out of the shower, yes, I.. remember.

"Sorry." I relax my grip enough that we can look one another face to face. "I'll be.. fine once the shock has worn off. At the moment I'm.. still…"

"Controllers in the Imperial Security Agency are taught how to handle operatives experiencing battle fatigue." She takes a careful breath. "If you have received the Mandate, you can simply inform Lord Fang that you are unable to attend."

"No, that-. It's too big a deal for Souma. I want the part where I receive the Mandate to happen in the same way. Nabu will probably have a few questions for me, but I should be able to defer them until afterwards."

I have observed many timelines where Nabu behaved in various ways. I'm confident I know enough to communicate to him that he should let me speak in my own time-.

I need to check whether Nylor Truggs ended up here. He shouldn't have, but ironically the changes I made to the rules concerning time travel weren't retrospective.

Jade gives me a serious look.

"Do not offend Lord Fate."

"I can promise that I won't leave him offended. Though I technically have seniority on him now."

A small frown. "Lord Fate is-. Oh."

"Yes. Incidentally, I completely agree with you about Jade, and the pie restaurant was-" She blinks. "-an interesting choice."

"Pie..?"

"Jade decides we should celebrate my elevation by going to an 'English' restaurant. Oh, and she prefers it if you call her 'Jade' when we're on a date."

"How.. do you remember that?"

"I broke and remade the universe to get you back. There is nothing about our time together that I haven't played through my mind a thousand times in order to remind myself why I was doing it."

"Oh."

"Sorry, I realise that this is quite a lot to drop on you." An orange wave passes over me as I neaten myself up, then filaments tag the clothes Jade selected for me… Last time. I smile as they appear on my body. "A red tunic with the blue trousers, indicating my relative inexperience and desire to grow. Technically a lie now, but it matches what I wore last time and no one complained." I pull away and give her a shallow bow. "Thank you for your good advice, oh patron of my heart."

"What other good advice did I give you that I don't remember?"

"That Intelligence would be perfectly happy to provide me with an early morning news summary. You were quite right about that, thank you."

She nods.

"And-. Ah, when I said that Jade would prefer you to use her first name when we're together-."

"I'm.. probably not going to be-."

"Yes, yes, I'd forgotten that you thought that. Jade." I take her hands in mine. "I'm not trading up. I'm not moving to a relationship with a higher status partner. I don't care about that. I love you, and while I know you find my lack of ambition strange and a little frustrating, please accept that I'm telling the truth about it."

Her head turns a little to the right.

"Yes, I-."

"Jade."

She looks me straight in the eyes. "I know that."

"And how do you feel about you dating Jade?"

"That's not usually how it-. You've had this conversation before. You know how I feel about whatever it is you're actually asking."

"I know how you responded to the idea. I know how it unfolded over the next two very busy days. I said that I'd only consider it if all parties were equally involved, and you asked if it-."

"Was some sort of European homosexuality fetish."

My eyes widen.

"Do you remember saying that?"

"No, it just occurred to me. If I remember my temporal mechanics lectures correctly I'm still almost the same woman as the one who mentioned it in the timeline you experienced. And… Jade… Liked the idea?"

"She was more than a little nervous about trying to have a relationship at all. She's found the awkwardness that comes with being mandated when her potential partner isn't makes it too awkward. So-."

She nods. "So it will be easier for her if I don't mention it at all. I.. think I can manage that. What else do you already know?"