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

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
21:06 GMT

"Orange Lantern." Athyns sounds like he's in good health, though something of the timbre he had while using the Seeds is missing. Hopefully that's been resolved by… Whatever this civilisation is now calling itself. "What brings you here?"

I hang back slightly as the Ascendants' ships fly in the direction of New Chronos. The damage has long since been repaired, and… It looks like they've expanded the docks. Asteroids have been dragged into near-Minosyss orbit to be taken apart by new orbital stations, and I can detect the network of interdiction fields and detection networks.

"Bit of a problem in Karrakan's system. The Reach attacked, and then Grayven attacked them."

"Thiva?"

Her ships are heading towards New Chronos at high speed. I… Hm. There's one advanced settlement very visible on the surface. I didn't ever find out how good the New Titans' building technology was. It seems to me that they'd probably do what the New Gods of New Genesis do: keep all advanced technology and magic up in 'Supertown' and leave the rest as a primitive wasteland. But it looks like they've decided to actually do something with the local people. That'll be useful.

In a generation or two.

"It is as he says. Everything we built there has been destroyed, and Grayven and the Reach are fighting over Karrakan itself. Grayven has Ascendants among his followers."

"Lantern, while I appreciate your work in reuniting my people, we are not your allies in your war with the Reach."

"I understand that. I'm just accompanying these ships, and I'll clear off if you want."

"Grayven was trading with Sparta. He had Ascendants serving him."

"I couldn't feel their influence myself, but the ships were of a design to require that."

"Thiva, take the ship carrying Grandmother Rhea's remains to the surface at once. We will prepare for Grayven's arrival. The rest will dock with New Chronos."

"Yes, Athyns."

"Orange Lantern, we… I, have no wish to join your war. On any side."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"I have been expecting you to attempt to recruit us."

"The Controllers will feel obliged to Minosyss. This is the first time we've encountered Grayven since his declaration of war. Without us having an immediate need to fight New Gods, they felt that it was better to leave you be."

"Why haven't either of them approached us?"

"Not sure. I'd guess that Grayven already has a… Excuse the phrasing, 'breeding population' of Ascendants, and so doesn't need you, and the Reach… Probably hasn't heard of you. Depending on whether or not they capture anyone on the surface, they may not find out even now."

"But they knew of Karrakan."

"Yes, but… With the L.E.G.I.O.N. ships that have been flying through it, it's perfectly possible that they just knew that we were interested in it."

"I don't think that is why they were there." Thiva certainly sounds dubious. "That was a great many ships for an investigation."

"It would also work as a trap for me. What they did to lock us in the system, that's not what their usual system interdiction devices look like."

Oh. Ring, update Controller Hinon.

Compliance.

"So if the Reach kill Grayven, there's no real reason for them to come here even if they know here exists. If they don't, and you don't ally with Grayven, there shouldn't be any problem."

"And if they decide that they do not want to take a risk?"

"You're not part of the conflict. You could.. call in the Green Lantern Corps. Them picking a fight with you would violate their treaty. If they limit themselves to sieging the system, you could bypass that with boom tubes, or… Just… Not? Did you feel an urgent need to go elsewhere?"

"No. And we will not for quite some time. Having them picket our system wouldn't really impede our work here."

"So that's a perfectly fine result. Of course, if Grayven turned up… He can probably track boom tubes, and Sparta would almost certainly have been sharing information with him."

"What will he demand?"

"I don't know. He was fairly hands-off with Sparta, but he might have expected her to declare her allegiance after she won. Or he might have been satisfied with the service of those Ascendants who wanted to work for him. Or he might just have wanted the Sun Eaters to use against the Reach."

"How much success has he had against them?"

"We don't.. really know. The thing is… N.E.M.O. has incorporated as many of the worlds on the periphery of Reach space as we can. We've been in contact with literally all of them. Grayven's personal followers are gordanians, from the Vega Systems. But they're not going home to recruit new soldiers. So where are his shipyards? Where is he getting raw materials from?"

"The ships of the Ascendants can self-repair."

"Sure, but with no raw materials for the repair systems? And… Major damage? There weren't any reports of him using ships like his Ascendant captains are using before now. Where is he building them? Is he capturing worlds at all, or just fighting like the tau?"

"Please explain."

"N.E.M.O.'s aim in the early stage of the war is to take back worlds that have native populations on them so that we can remove whatever mind control the Reach used on them. If the Reach fleet in the area pulls back, we'll probably let it go because killing Reach citizens isn't our specific aim. For the tau, the objective is the enemy. Grayven isn't trying to save anyone. Yes, he probably wants to take Reach territory and industry, but if he doesn't need it to maintain his current fleet, then he might just be treating Reach fleets as his objective and going after them."

"Do you know what he would do if we went to his aid?"

"No. The gordanians I spoke to seemed perfectly happy being ruled by him, so I doubt that he's a particularly bad tyrant. He might expect you to kneel at once, or he might treat it as a favour."

"How would you take it?"

"Honestly, we'd be happy for Grayven to take the entire core of Reach territory. We just want the bits around the edge so that we can restore them to the species who lived there before the Reach wiped them out. We'd much rather make common cause than fight him."

"Why didn't he agree?"

"I don't know. Maybe he felt like he needed to look strong and independent. Or maybe he plans to conquer us as well. A lot of the species who signed up with N.E.M.O. were fairly sure that Maltus would be treating them like vassals, but they did it anyway because at least that meant that someone had a plan for fighting the Reach."

"Would our position be weakened by aiding him?"

"It will piss off the Reach and eliminate your defence under their treaty with the Green Lantern Corps."

"I need more information."

"It's usually helpful."

"I thank you for your counsel. Please, come to New Othrys. I want to show you what we've made here."

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
21:22 GMT

New Othrys has an interesting mix of styles.

The weapon and shield emplacements might as well have just been ripped off the Ascendants' warships. I see the classical New God tron lines combined with materials… Materials that are easier to produce when you're a technologically primitive but magically powerful civilisation. I wonder if that's something Grayven shared with them or something that they developed based on his guidance? Or something Rhea showed them how to make?

The 'God Buildings' are much the same, but the rest of the city… Reminds me of Themyscira City. Primitive materials used to make something that was planned out far better than a naturally occurring primitive city would be. Wide thoroughfares paved with stone or brick because they can't make tarmac or an equivalent, or can't make it in sufficient quantities or can't make it here. Anti-gravity floaters serve as cranes for the building works while animal-drawn carts are used to move raw materials. Even under the guidance of well-intentioned incarnate gods, it would have taken several generations to make a noticeable change to the lives of the natives using novel technology; even a relatively sparsely populated planet like this just has too many people on it, and too many logistics systems that can be snarled up if you rush things.

"How are the locals taking all of this?"

I hear Athyns exhale. "One group of alien gods are much the same as another. Our beliefs and theirs are similar enough that nothing… New needed to be added to the doctrine we were promulgating."

"'Ours' and 'theirs' in the context being..?"

"The followers of the gods and the followers of Sparta."

"What does your theology look like at the moment?"

"We have demonised Sparta, and accepted the other descendants of Rhea as equivalent to me. With the gods… Not presently available to lead us, we have taken more prominent roles."

"'Not presently available'?"

Ahead of me, the warship I've been following docks with the upper level of the central tower. It clearly isn't a shipyard, and as far as I can tell they aren't bothering to construct ships on the planet's surface.

"This world is thick with magic. And even in death, Rhea's remains will strengthen that link."

"You're going to try resurrecting them using the seeds?"

"Not… Precisely. I heard what you and Melinoë said concerning the nature of divine magic. That they-"

Ah.

"-would-."

"You're going to dump the seeds in the local thaumosphere."

"Yes. The process will be guided by members of the Ascendancy. The aim is to allow their consciousnesses to expand and draw power while still remaining coherent."

"Yes… I mean, in theory that could work. The local thaumosphere is relatively blank, so you could just imprint them on it-. In fact, that should allow you to draw more power into Minosyss."

"I didn't know that."

"N.E.M.O. has a number of magicians in its employ who could assist your study, even without an alliance."

"No party to the war who knew they were here would believe that."

"Then I should be able to find people not a party to the conflict who could help."

"If the Reach have been fighting Grayven, do you think that they have learned to detect boom tubes?"

"Um. Within their own territory? Probably. They give off plenty of gravitational waves that can be detected. Here?"

I have the ring open a map of the region inside my mind.

"I… Doubt it, unless they've got equipment specifically designed to pick it up pointed this way that we haven't detected. On the other hand, I didn't know about their system bottling technique."

"If the thaumosphere comes alive, we will be able to defend this world from any force that Grayven or the Reach will be able to spare. And we will be able to improve this world far more easily than we can now."

"As… Far as I can work out… Even if you don't get exactly what you want, using the seeds in that way should improve your position."

"Are you willing to review our work?"

"I am, but I'm not a practitioner. I can't do much more than confirm that it could work."

"What of the Ophidian?"

"I… Think we'd be able to tell whether it was likely to work in more detail, but the Ophidian has a strong presence herself. We might throw things off just by being there."

"Or you might make it stronger."

A-ah…

"You're really getting to the limit of what I'm competent to comment on. I think that could happen, but I also think it would cause the entire thaumosphere to become Ophidian-flavoured. And Grayven will almost certainly be able to feel that. His flagship's main gun makes an excellent ground-strike weapon."

"Still, I would like you to give me your opinion."

"Alright, I'll do what I can. Where do you want me?"

"Go to the ship."

I fly across the city and up towards the top of the tower. Gunships and a group of Ascendants in raiment that resembles New God armour fly around or wait in the air to respond to any threat as…

Thiva leads the way out of the ship, Ascendant pallbearers carrying a stone sarcophagus in solemn precession. The… Sarcophagus-.

I blink as it seems to expand in my vision, becoming… More. We feel the universe bend around-.

A pallbearer blocks my vision for a moment and I turn away. I think I can see where the stuff about gods building worlds from the remains of titans comes from. I take a moment to obscure my vision and follow on behind the convoy on foot at a respectful pace, shifting from my armour to my formal robes.

Artificially boosting a thaumosphere…

That has potential. I'm sure that there are plenty of pantheons on Earth who wouldn't mind the option to go their own way. If we assigned one to each planetoid in the system, it could really help with colonising the Sol system. Not sure what it would do for other places. Unless we could find other titan corpses? Keeping the truly malevolent ones in Tartarus doesn't seem like a sensible long term plan to me, and Zeus isn't in charge to require their use as batteries any longer. Then there's whatever was happening with that Mother Star. I still don't really understand what it was trying to show me. Does it have enough presence to serve a similar purpose?

We pass through a protective ward around the tower's exterior and then inside into the building proper. The corridor is wide and relatively long, and a cautious scan shows some very heavy duty shield generators in compartments around the walls. Personally, I'd have been inclined to build the vital equipment closer to ground level, but I suppose there might be a New God-related reason for this-.

This design.

Similar stone sarcophaguses are arrayed around the room in a circle, with a central space reserved for Rhea herself. The seeds are placed on pedestals around that bier, with Athyns himself ready to officiate as her sarcophagus is respectfully lowered into place.

We immediately feel the pull as the room becomes more real.

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
21:26 GMT

My eyes immediately move to Athyns, to see if he felt that as well. From the slightly ragged breath I just saw him take, it appears that the answer is yes. And for a moment I have a flashback to the Reaper mission in Mass Effect 2.

'A god - a real god - is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does.'

I don't think that's true, but it never occurred to me to see if the water that once made up Oceanus's body has any anomalous properties. So many fascinating topics, so little time.

"Everyone else felt that, right?"

Athyns has himself back under control, but the other Ascendants are… Small twitches, tensing facial muscles and clenching fists. I don't know their species well, but that looks like physical displacement activity for dealing with stress. For a moment Thiva looks like she's going to respond, then she looks at Athyns for permission.

He nods. "We did. The shape of the world changed."

"I don't know Karrakan society well. How much contact did you have with Rhea's material remains?"

Because in the normal run of things… I mean, if she were a normal woman, Rhea's soul would be in Karrakan's thaumosphere. Unless the place was thaumically dead, in which case it would stay put until it got here. But if her body incarnating made it a manifestation of her soul… Does she just stay… Recumbent? Unalive?

We need to find some minor gods no one will miss.

"I visited them in her temple, once. Thiva?"

"Sparta closed the inner part of the temple off when she took over. This is.. the closest I've come."

She looks around, but none of the other Ascendants appear to have had any contact either. I try scanning through the sarcophagus, but my scan is defeated. Don't know if it was by the sarcophagus itself or by Rhea's magic.

"Okay, I just need to do something before we go any further." I fly back through the entrance. "Back in a minute."

Back into the sky, and up I go. Transitioning somewhere like this -particularly when we're going to mess around with the local thaumosphere- wouldn't be a good idea. But I can fly bloody quick when properly motivated. And as I go I begin using my rings to fabricate a suspended animation pod, manoeuvring thrusters and a new adult clone body for myself. Okay, out of the atmosphere, and looking at my own inanimate face like this stopped being strange after the second time. Add a beacon so that no one flies into it, and my spare ring in case I need to go into action right away. Make sure that it's got the velocity to stay in orbit for at least a few days… Yes, good.

And I fly down, barely bothering to consider my surroundings other than to make sure that I don't cause destructive shockwaves. Back into the building…

"Sorry about that."

Athyns dismisses some sort of holographic display.

"Does your species have an urge to reproduce before going into danger?"

"Ah… More aggressive personality types tend to also be assertive in social situations-. Oh, no, that was just me putting a backup body at minimum safe distance. In the event of my physical destruction there's a good chance that I'll be able to transfer my soul into it." I shrug. "Just in case."

"Can anyone do that?"

"It was a pure chance thing when I did it the first time, and for obvious reasons I haven't practiced. It rather depends on me being drawn to the replacement body rather than the planet's thaumosphere." I frown. "I think there's an Apokoliptian called Baron Bedlam who does something similar, though he can animate a lot more bodies at once than I can."

I nod at the sarcophagus.

"Was that feeling in line with your predictions?"

"We knew that something would happen. We didn't know quite what it would feel like. Still, this was proof of concept."

"You..? Wait, did Sparta explain how any of this worked to anyone?"

Thiva looks down. "Enough to use it or repair it. I don't think that she knew much more herself. She directed us to learn as much as we could and share what we learned, but there… She didn't intend to build anything like this. She just wanted the seeds for herself, to… Prove that she was the most favoured daughter of Rhea."

Our eyes flicker as we try to determine if there was any major… Damage? To the local thaumosphere. We can't see anything, but in our duality we are aware of how limited our facility in that field is. There is something disquieting to that idea, a disquiet we do not feel as the Ophidian or as the Illustres. Should we not possess all capacities? Are we not a universal titan, unlimited to mere planetary thaumospheres as we exist in the orange light?

"Okay, so what's next?"

Athyns gestures to the Ascendants around the room, and they move to take their positions sitting in a meditative posture between the Titans and their seeds. Thiva takes the role of Phoebe, while Athyns himself moves closer to the sarcophagus. I suppose that except possibly Sparta herself he's the oldest and most powerful, so that makes sense.

Tron lines glow and shimmer faintly as whatever magic they're using starts working, and it's like the floor has dropped out from under us, a falling sensation in the pit of our stomachs.

But-. But off-putting as it is, nothing appears to be going wrong. Other… Than the Ascendants corresponding to Hyperion and Theia developing a plasma corona. Huh. And as I look, the others develop coronas themed after their titans as well. Makes sense, though I don't know if that's coming from the seeds or from the corpses-.

I feel a moment of disquiet. I can understand Athyns not really wanting to try resurrecting them, but it… They weren't all narcissists. Arrogant, yes, but they were actual gods surrounded by mortals. They were objectively superior to most of them. But if they were successful in resurrecting some, those would inevitably want to resurrect the rest, and… That would almost certainly lead to another fight. This isn't a terrible compromise.

Athyns lays his hands on the sarcophagus.

"Grandmother."

We feel-. Yes, the whole room, it's becoming… The arcane aspect is being intensified in the purely material world, causing a sort of hyper-reality as the thing and the idea of the thing become one, but it's all around-.

My eyes shoot to the ceiling as we feel something alien to the system appear.

"Athyns, I-."

"I felt it too. We cannot be interrupted in our work. I feel… We can do this. It will be difficult-."

"Who has government authority to speak when you're not there?"

"Talk is free. Pontico has seniority on New Chronus."

"Right. I'll try getting rid of them. Let me know the moment you're finished."

I walk out of the chamber, careful not to step on the tron lines. As I go, normal reality begins intruding, and the disquiet I felt when it started is nothing to what it feels to leave it.

"Illustres to Pontico. Who have we got?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
21:30 GMT

"Five ships, damaged. Cruisers. We were already recalling our patrols."

Ring scans are not entirely reliable at long range, but Pontico doesn't appear to mind me borrowing New Chronos's sensors. New God technology being unaffected by this system's oddities. Reach cruisers, from an inner sphere fleet. Don't know if they're the ones that are fighting around Karrakan, but it seems like a reasonable guess.

"Have you had a chance to go over their combat performance against your ships yet?"

"I'm a physician. And our most capable ship masters are taking part in the ritual. Are you willing to involve yourself?"

"I assume that we shouldn't call Athyns away unless absolutely essential?"

"He is our leader. It must be him who draws Grandmother Rhea's magic into the world."

"Right. Okay. Thing is, as you're not a N.E.M.O. member world, there are certain things I can't do. On the other hand, since you're not a N.E.M.O. member-."

"I heard. We can request the assistance of the Green Lantern Corps."

"And I can get hold of them a lot faster than you can. Do you want me to contact them? They might not be able to get here immediately."

"Their ships appear to be heavily damaged."

"I agree with that assessment."

"Sparta… I prefer being a healer. I don't want to start a fight if I don't have to."

"Perfectly reasonable. Want me to go and have a chat with them while you muster your forces?"

"Yes, I would be grateful."

"Alright. I might be out of contact when I get closer to them."

"I understand. Thank you for trying."

I nod and fly towards the Reach squadron. It's been a few minutes, and destructive as the Absolute Dominion is, damaged and flanked I don't… I don't think it could have destroyed all of its attackers that quickly. And coming here… I should find out how they did that.

Alright, I'm about halfway towards them. If I'm supposed to negotiate their… What's it called when ships are held by a neutral third party? I've never heard of Reachians accepting anything like that, but them being here at all is something…

That's wreckage. Wreckage of one of the Ascendancy ships. That… If it opened a boom tube and got… Overtaken? Jumped?

If there's anyone still alive on there then I should get them off. Getting some sort of intelligence on Grayven's activities would be nice, but if I'm not taking them…

Should be close enough, now.

"Illustres to Reach fleet. Please explain your presence here."

"Illustres. Explain your presence here."

Huh. It is that guy from earlier.

"I'm here because I was invited here by the local government to assist them in a construction project. You?"

"This is a N.E.M.O. world?"

"This is a world that has authorised me -as an independent contractor- to kill all of you if we don't get a satisfactory explanation."

"We will make repairs and then leave. We-."

"N-o. You jumped a group of warships into a neutral system. To my great pleasure, that breaks your treaty with the Green Lantern Corps. You just accidentally started a war that every Green Lantern in the region has wanted since that treaty was signed. And my own superiors will be positively giddy with joy at the prospect."

"We are not invading this system."

"Yeaaaaaah, you are. Maybe you didn't mean to, but taking warships into someone else's space without an invitation is an invasion. If you want me not to inform the Green Lanterns that you've torn up the treaty, you're going to have to do better than 'our bad'."

"… What do you want?"

"Firstly, you will explain how you got here."

"We followed one of Grayven's ships through a portal."

"You didn't know where it was going?"

"Not for certain. I assumed a shipyard."

"And how exactly did you get close enough to it to do that?"

"Short-range faster than light jump as they attempted to withdraw. I believe that the ship's captain was inexperienced."

Possible. If the interdiction systems weren't working… I'm not sure how fragile a system they are on an Apokoliptian warship like the Absolute Dominion. Without me there, and with the N.E.M.O. defence platforms destroyed, they might have been able to do that.

"You appear to be somewhat damaged yourselves."

"Gravyen does not talk to his enemies. We reached his fleet ahead of our reinforcements."

"I take it that he's still fighting, then?"

"That was true when we left."

"Come on, send your sensor logs."

I wait a moment-.

Logs received.

Ah. Yes. Grayven's prow-mounted hyper blaster is a remarkable anti-capital ship weapon when it's pointing in the right direction. When it's pointing in the wrong direction and the Absolute Dominion's manoeuvring systems are damaged, it's irrelevant. And it looks like Reach dreadnoughts are capable of damaging it by themselves. I doubt that they could stop his disengaging if his boom tube generator is still working, but I also doubt very much that he'll want to disengage.

Assuming that these logs aren't doctored to heck, which is a distinct possibility.

"Alright, I've got an offer for you."

"I'm listening."

"Deactivate weapons and slave navigation to my ring. I'll take you in-system. The locals have generously offered the use of their medical facilities."

"We will not surrender to you."

"Didn't I say this isn't a N.E.M.O. system?"

"You did."

"Good news for you is that it's true. Your ships will be held until the conclusion of the war between N.E.M.O. and the Reach, at which point they will either be returned to the Reach government or to the N.E.M.O. occupation authority, whoever won. For you, the war is over."

"And if we refused?"

"Well, in that case, I-"

BOOM!

 

[Mr Zoat]

Earth 534834

8th February 1992
09:32 GMT -5

"…which is all completely legal."

Mr. Schultz doesn't look like he believes me. Though I only know that because I used my ring to look under his mask.

"Okay, but how does that matter to me? Not like I can sell it."

"No, it turns out that the police actually like it when career criminals earn money legitimately."

The Bar With No Name isn't actually the only bar with that name, a name which causes me to metaphorically bite my tongue whenever I hear it due to the inherent contradiction. But in both locales I know about, it serves as a joint drinking den and labour exchange for low to mid-tier supervillains. And it does breakfast, which is nice, because I skipped breakfast in my pre-wedding related… Confusion.

And none of the kitchens in the Genosha resort were open, for obvious reasons.

"Heh."

On the other side of Mr. Schultz, Mr. Myers smirks at his colleague's discombobulation. Mr. Schultz jerks his head around, trying to work out if he actually heard the now innocent-looking Mr. Myers say something that he might feel the need to remonstrate about. Best keep things polite.

"You wouldn't even need to show up in person. You designed your gauntlets yourself, didn't you?"

He jerks his head back around. "Yes."

"Well… Honestly, you could just apply for a patent and wait patiently. Once you've got the patent, anyone can use it if they pay you a percentage. You don't need any further investment so you don't need to negotiate up front investment. On the other hand, if you want me to show your designs to people I know who might be interested, I can do that."

"I don't know. This sounds suspicious."

"Shocker, if I was doing something suspicious, I'd just scan the gauntlets you're wearing now and replicate them myself. I'm suggesting this because I… Think that your talents are wasted in supervillainy when you could make more money legitimately."

"I don't think that's… Plausible."

"Nah, mate." Mr. Myers nudges him with his elbow. "You can do it. I believe in-"

The door bangs open-

"Two steaks, raw and bloody!"

"-you."

-and a man in an orange leotard storms in and doesn't get laughed out of the place, because he would quite cheerfully kill all of them. Most of the criminals here aren't murderers. To be fair, I'm not sure how many of the people he's killed were murder-victims, in the sense that it's not a crime if the government does it.

The barman fishes a plate out from the back shelf and puts it on the bar in front of Mr. Creed Senior. Then he opens a grease-proof paper package and uses metal tongs to move the fresh steaks onto his plate.

Mr. Creed doesn't bother with utensils, and I'm not sure how much of that is an act.

I take out a card with my contact details on it and slide it over to Mr. Schultz. "Give me a call if you're interested, alright?"

He just shrugs, but takes the card and slides it into one of his costume's pockets. I swallow the last of my bacon, put my knife and fork in the at-rest position, pick up my briefcase and walk-. I ignore the frantic head-shaking of Mr. Myers and walk over to the stool next to Mr. Creed.

"Mister Creed."

He stops… 'Eating'.

"You don't smell of anything. No heartbeat. I don't like robots." He turns his face towards me, blood and meat juice covering his mouth and chin. "And it's Sabretooth."

I nod politely. "I apologise. Sabretooth. And I'm not a robot; my force field prevents scent and sound escaping."

He turns his face back to his meal, opting to watch me from the corner of his eye.

"What d'ya-" He bites a chunk out of the meat and I hear bone crunch. "-want?"

"I want to-" I lift up my briefcase and put it on the counter. "-give you ten thousand dollars in non-sequential bills."

"Oh yeah? Who and when?"

"What?"

He smiles. "Oh yeah. 'What?' Like you just wandered up to me with no idea? Just stick the dossier on the bar and get lost."

"I'm not trying to hire you as a hitman. It would be far easier for me to just kill them myself. This is an anti-invitation."

"What?"

"I want you to not be in a certain place at a certain time, and I'm offering you ten thousand dollars to agree. You can be literally anywhere else in the world, just not there."

"Did Wolverine put you up to this?"

"No. But I know that you hate him, and might decide to turn up to try and get the drop on him while he's distracted. Thus…"

I tap the case with my right forefinger.

"What's the occasion?"

"My wedding."

"Hah! You're one of the X-Brats?!"

"No, no x-gene. I'm just a student. So? How about it?"

He chomps down the last of that steak, and then turns fully around to face me.

"And what happens if I say 'no'?"

I take a sharpened iron oval four inches long out of subspace. "Then I shoot you."

"Suuure."

I wiggle it towards his right eye.

"Right through the socket of your right eye. Where there's no adamantium protecting you. It will then go through your brain to the back of your skull, where it will rebound off the adamantium plating and go back through your brain at a new angle. And because adamantium doesn't really bend, it'll keep doing that until your brain is reduced to mush and dribbles out of your empty eye socket. Now, I don't know that you couldn't regenerate from that, but I'm pretty sure that it would completely destroy your short and long term memory. You would have to relearn how to speak. How to control your bowels and bladder."

"And how exactly are you going to do that?"

Ring? Railgun.

The barrel forms over my left shoulder, and keeps forming. I reach up and slide the oval into the end of the barrel and there's a quiet hum as the magnetic field draws it in.

Mr. Creed's eyes fix on the end of the barrel as a cluster of supervillains behind me move out of the way of the now six metre long barrel.

"To be fair, if I hit bone with a gun this big, it would probably liquefy your flesh with the shockwaves alone."

I smile.

"So how about you just take the cash?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
21:34 GMT

"-'m not obliged to defend you from whoever's coming through."

I move to reposition myself so that I'm nearly between them and the opening boom tube.

"Tick tock."

Their ships move, aligning their upper surfaces with the aperture to give as many of their guns as possible an angle on the potential attacker. Of course, any rapid attack would have the ships coming through immediately to maximise their impact and it's been at least twenty seconds now, meaning that-

BOOM!

-they're actually going to come in from the other side and the first-

Two ships of the Grayven-aligned Ascendants come through and open fire on the underside of the closest Reach vessel.

-was just to get their attention.

These ships are a size up from the Ascendants' cruisers, and much like the Absolute Dominion come with a fixed prow weapon. Just a blaster rather than a hyper blaster, but it's a rather large blaster hitting what appears to be the Reach's weaker armour.

"Orange Lantern Illustres to Grayven aligned Ascendancy ships-."

"The Ascendancy was Sparta's failed attempt to lead us. We are New Gods."

Oh that's going to be confusing.

"Why are you in this system?"

"Escorting damaged… Athyns-aligned New God ships back. They asked me to-"

The Reach ships are frantically rotating in a way which momentarily makes me hope that their inertial compensators are up to scratch. Then I remember that they're Reach and I go back to neutral.

"-intern the ships you're shooting."

Their prow guns fire again, and that's one Reach cruiser that isn't going home. Secondary weapons are shooting at the other Reach ships who are only just getting their weapons into position.

"We would crush you."

"Oh, they haven't surrendered yet. Feel free to keep shooting."

"I have no need of your permission!"

"If you keep doing what I want, why should I-"

Each ship points-

I raise a construct barrier.

-a turret in my direction and fires, blaster bolts biting into my barrier.

"-care who gives the order?"

Calculate angles…

I fly fast as my barrier fails, moving so that one ship blocks the other and then a moment later so that one of the other turrets blocks its neighbour.

"So other than killing the-"

Whose fire has intensified as their ships complete their manoeuvring, but stutters as the prow blasters fire again and slag a portion of the dorsal guns on two of them.

"-Reach, what brings you here?"

"Reunifying our people under Grayven's leadership."

Not exactly a surprise, but it does add to the…

"So where's the rest of the fleet?"

"And also killing the Reach."

The Ascendants' New Gods' ships seem to be in good condition, though now the Reach's shots are hitting their shields. It takes a couple of volleys before they get their coordination down enough to actually get anything through, and even then the New God armour doesn't seem to be having much trouble holding firm.

"I don't suppose that Grayven gave you any idea why he refused my offer of cooperation? N.E.M.O. is perfectly happy for him to occupy most Reach territory after the war is over, including all of the really heavily industrialised parts. We just want the outer parts. And that's only so their inhabitants can resettle them; if they decide they'd like to be part of Grayven's kingdom later we're fine with that."

"Then you do not even begin to understand him."

Not… Untrue.

End. Open channel to the Reach ships.

Compliance.

"Looks like you're going to lose. And that's just against these two ships."

"While we-. We delay them, our comrades can destroy the rest of his fleet."

"Think it through."

Frantically manoeuvring makes one prow shot miss this time, while the other manages a upper-side hit that only destroys some of the target's guns. The Reach's shields are really only stopping the smaller turret blasters, and… It looks like the New Gods aren't even really trying to make kill shots with those. I think…

Ring, review targetting data?

Data available.

Yes, they're focusing on the sensors, trying to create enough interference with their weapons' impact on the shield that the Reach aren't able to see out as well. Not a bad approach.

"I raise the issue because if you surrender, that might bring me in on your side. Your chance of survival goes up, while the delay to them remains the same. The only way it's worse for the Reach -and not for you personally- is if they immediately accept it and boom tube back to Grayven. And I doubt that will happen."

The prow blasters score a double hit, overwhelming the shields of another Reach ship and breaking its back. The ship's still somewhat functional, but it's out of control and its shields have failed. The New God ships turns their secondaries on it and begin chewing through what's left of the hull.

"Up to you, of course."

"You will not take us prisoner?"

"Not as long as Minosyss doesn't join N.E.M.O."

"Then… Then we will accept internment here."

"Good show. New God vessels! The Reach flotilla just surrendered to Minosyss! Cease fire and withdraw!"

Secondary batteries turn in my direction.

"Make us!"

"I thought you might say that."

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
21:37 GMT

I talked it over with Mr. Free once, whether there were any weapons which New Gods are particularly vulnerable to. Turns out that the only thing that he and Barda could think of is weapons using something called 'radion', and that it was only used in a handful of places on Apokolips due to the obvious danger it posed to its rulers. According to them they've never even seen one. I've kept half an eye out for one… Maybe add a radion round to my railgun ammunition varieties? But that does mean that railgun fire probably isn't the best solution here.

I make a ship-scale railgun anyway as I dive, trying to keep one New God ship between me and the other while also making it so that only one facing's worth of guns can target me at once. And as a third factor, trying to ensure that those guns also have the option of shooting Reach ships instead. Because while I am going to try and ensure that they survive, I don't like them enough to actually take undue risks with myself and they're the ones who chose to delay.

I load a mage slayer, because that should disrupt the magic they use in extending their soul through their defence systems. But that's not where the main attack is going to come from.

I erect a large ablative shield construct.

"Last chance?"

A ragged volley of blaster shots fly in my direction, but I'm using the ring to calculate the angle of the ship's turrets and even at this range dodging around them is relatively simple. The volley isn't coordinated, and viffing around it isn't hard. They'll improve, or prioritise me once they've seen me actually do something. These ships weren't involved in the engagement when I faced down Grayven, so they may well not be aware of what I can do.

I had wondered if I would be able to destroy the Absolute Dominion by myself. Evading the hyper blaster is easy for any Lantern; it's an anti-capital ship weapon. Its secondaries and flak, enhanced with the strength of Grayven's soul, would be the issue. That and whatever other systems he has, which make it a bit imponderable. But if the main advantage of the ship is its magic aura sustained by its master, well…

I've got a way to deal with that.

I fire a token mage slayer and then fly towards the closest ship at best available speed. A heartbeat later I fire a second token mage slayer, forcing the ship to point their point defence systems at the tiny projectiles rather than fire them all at me. I grunt quietly as both are melted by the ship's gunnery before I can judge how much effect they actually have. The ones that do fire at me chip away at my shield construct, but point defences are designed to do small amounts of highly accurate damage so my construct is merely mildly ablated.

"Tell me, does Grayven have anti-Lantern protocols for his followers? Because last time I did this to Sparta's fleet-"

Gehh!

That's the shield envelope! Looks like the boundary is a little imprecise, ow! And the-.

Turret-.

Move!

Okay, they spotted that I stopped long enough to point a turret at me, and that's where my shield construct went, but now I'm in a position to actually do what I meant to.

Because this shield is 'part' of a being with wants and desires of their own, permeating the ship. Which means that I should be able to-

"-Assimilate-"

-it just fine.

"Identity theft in progress. Four percent complete."

I feel the strength of the shield, and I feel it weaken almost immediately before the ship master… I assume, realises what I'm doing and pushes back.

"Resistance detected."
My Ship Is My Castle!
"Identity theft in progress. Three percent complete."

Which is fine, because apparently that distracts them enough that they don't order more turrets to fire on me, and I can move enough to avoid the one which hit me the first time. Construct armour can deal with the point defence, which… Yes, they're getting measurably weaker as the ship master focuses on forcing me out of the ship's metaphysique and less on the gunnery.
My Castle Is Inviolable!
"Identity theft in progress. Two percent complete."

I feel my self get pushed back a little, as I expected.
I Shall Smite-!
"Consume."

And now their metaphysique isn't just being attacked from my physical location but from everywhere, from itself, the places they believed they were secure, their own mind.

Respect to them, they don't panic, but they clearly don't know what the correct response is. If there even is one. So their power and influence goes down the Ophidian's gullet and-

"Identity theft in progress. Twenty three percent complete."

-out of the ship. Out of the New God's soul, too.

The colour of the hull is changing as well, a faint orange glow shimmering through the area covered by the ship's shield.

"Reach ships, please focus fire on the other New God vessel."

"What fire we have left."

"The alternative is that you take cover behind this one, and I don't think you're that manoeuvrable."

Because he's not wrong. While doing this has weakened the shields to the point where their guns could damage the ship. But I don't trust Reach ships enough to tolerate them 'danger closing' me, and this ship isn't contributing much to the fight at the moment. New God ships can afford to have fixed position prow weapons because boom tubes allow them to reliably bring them to bear, but that means that their other weapons don't have anything like the power. Or default power, because the New God inside can ramp it up by focusing on it.

Usually.

"Identity theft in progress. Forty one percent complete."

"Ship master, strike your colours and I will intern your ship along with theirs."

"Never!"

"Identity theft in progress. Forty seven percent complete."

Because wanting something strongly when someone is using desires to eat your soul isn't a clever thing to do.

Another Reach ship is reduced to wreckage, but it's… Reasonably intact, and I see the faint orange glow of survivors trying to reach the escape pods.

"Identity theft in progress. Fifty nine percent complete. Sixty five percent complete."

"Weapon control available."

I want the other ship destroyed.

Turrets rotate and open fire. Not very well, as the ship master is still trying to fight me, but added to the fire of the surviving Reach ships the other New God ship actually starts taking damage. A slightly lucky hit does something to its prow weapon, and its own turrets start to fire only sporadically as part of the power system is penetrated.

"You will not-"

"Identity theft in progress. Seventy eight percent complete."

"-triumph!"

My ship's guns fire again, this time bursting through the target's shields and slamming into the hull.

"I beg to differ. If you yield-."

"Grayven will scour you from the universe!"

"Perhaps."

"Identity theft complete."

"But not today."

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
21:41 GMT

The second New God ship jerks sideways as the combined fire finally breaks the hull, atmosphere spurting out as the weapons on one side die entirely.

"Alright, Reach ships, move around so that it can't shoot you any more. I'll-."

BOOM!

I brace for combat and reorientate my stolen ship's weapons-.

A squadron of five local ships emerge from the portal.

"Shipmaster Allyn requesting update from Illustres."

"Are you any good at boarding operations?"

"I've never had any complaints."

"The Grayven-aligned Ascendant warship that I don't control is crippled. We can destroy it by shooting it, but it would be helpful if we could capture it without destroying it so that you have something to base your battle cruisers on. And so that we don't have to kill the entire crew. Is that something you're willing to do?"

"How many Ascendants are there on board?"

"As far as I can tell, just the ship master."

"Very well. Do you hear me, cousin?" "Know when you've lost."

One turret rotates and fires a token shot at the leading ship of the formation. It misses.

"We will take the ship. Can you escort our Reach guests back to Minosyss?"

"Wait one. Illustres to Reach vessels. Are you capable of movement?"

"Two ships are crippled and one is a wreck. We will need-."

"The other two ships will power down weapons and make best speed for Minosyss, whereupon they will follow the directions of local authorities. Crippled ships…"

I exert my desires upon-.

I feel it as the construct ship master is destroyed and returns to my ring-. A-h. That's… Some memories I'll sort through later. But his awe of Grayven was very real. He… Ah, of course. Grayven is a lot more powerful than one of the Ascendants. They see him as Rhea's rightful successor because no one else has that sort of power. Nice to see them being consistent about might makes right; offering fealty to one more powerful than themselves as they demand it from mortals.

Hm.

"Illustres to currently-functional New God ship. I just assimilated this ship and its master. Does that mean I'm in charge?"

"No, wretch, it does not. AND WE-."

End.

Ah, well. Let's see. Does this thing have a tractor beam, or nearest-? Yes, it does. Good. Still got the crew, but without another Ascendant they can't override my control. I impose my desire for the ship to acquire the crippled Reach ships, and… Yes. It's drive systems activate and it accelerates gradually towards them.

"I'm sending this ship over to tow them back. I'll clear the wreck myself. Get going."

Precision shots from the Ascendancy ships shoot out the surviving turrets on the Grayven-aligned ships, and-

BOOM!

-they're boom tubing on board to capture the ship. The Reach ships still more or less functional set course-.

"What did I say about powering down your guns?"

"We do not have full control. Some systems are not responding. We could remain here until basic repairs have been-."

"Send out marines, set charges and destroy any guns that won't power down before you arrive. I will leave instructions that you are to be destroyed if you have any remaining guns when you arrive."

Ring, plot route for them.

Compliance.

"Sending permitted route now. If you deviate from it, you will be destroyed. Get. Moving."

I move away from my prize and head towards the wreck. Four escape pods were trying to hide in the shadow of their ship, and I use construct grapplers to seize them and thrust them in the direction of the closest crippled ship. They'll have time to get on board before my ship picks them up.

But the rest.

Ring, try accessing any personal communication devices on that ship. Or just do a general broadcast.

Compliance.

"Reach ship personnel, combat has been resolved in our favour. Your ship is crippled, and I do not believe that it can be made spaceworthy within a reasonable time frame. Please confirm that everyone's in vacuum suits, because I'm going to start cutting you out."

"Chief… Chief engineer. Everyone should be in sealed suits, but they can only repair so much damage. If they're holed-."

"Oh, I'm sure that the blood coating the punctures will make a seal when it freezes." I create a crumbler cutting tool and aim at the closest section with survivors in it. "Cutting now. If you are able to encourage survivors to congregate in easily accessible locations, please do so."

This first section is already depressurised, and widening the hull so I can get in is simple. Looks like this was an engineering passageway, as there's no one in here and it just connects to the inner side of the turrets. Bulkhead door is that way, and there are living people in there. I generate a construct door to maintain internal pressure and then crumble the pre-existing door.

A Reach marine points a… Plasma gun at me, but maintains discipline and lowers it a moment later. The other two.. appear to be engineers. Their suits have some minor damage but I can't see any breaches, and scans of the reachians themselves show no serious injuries. I attach environmental shield to each of them.

"I'll be picking everyone up and flying them to the internment facility on Minosyss. If any of you are wearing power ring-deflecting technology or have such technology active in your part of the ship, I encourage you to deactivate it as it may prevent me shielding you from vacuum or noticing that you are injured. Do you understand?"

"Yes." / "Yes" / "I understand."

"Good show. Attacks upon my person will result in me destroying this ship and killing everyone on board, so if anyone looks like they're going to pick a fight with me, I encourage those around them to smack them over the head with a brick."

"Um, the next section is-."

I crumble my way into the next section, letting the highly energised plasma flail at my construct barrier as I fire a cold gun construct at it to de-energise it. A few organic remains here but no one I can save. The largest concentration of survivors is along this corridor and down a little.

Good. Safe. I send filaments ahead, patching things so that nothing explodes or overloads while we're on board.

Now I have to work out what we're going to do about Grayven himself.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Earth 534834

8th February 1992
10:28 GMT -6

"Now, okay,-"

There's a whum sound as the steel girder flies past me-

"-I can see-"

-and a screech as it twists and doubles back, attempting to envelop me. I drop down beneath it, creating a bat construct and knocking it for six.

"-that you're not pleased-"

Shots of rebar come flying at me next, and I briefly consider that maybe I shouldn't have mentioned railguns last time we met. He just seemed so put out that Professor Xavier hadn't turned up that I thought it might… Jolly him up a little.

"-to see me, but-."

From behind his full face helmet which now includes a gas mask, Erik Lehnsherr glares at me.

"I will do to you what your forebears once did to the Neanderthals."

…

That-. Agh! Okay, he distracted me enough that he managed a glancing hit. Guess he hasn't quite got the hang of aiming with his new technique yet.

"Look, I'm sure you're a smashing bloke, but unless your mutation covers a lot more than magnetism that just isn't possible."

"The extermination of man will not be a swift endeavour, but it will come. History is on our side."

Hang on, I'm in the nineties. Even with all the advanced technology that didn't exist in my nineties, do they not-?

"The modern European man is descended from the interbreeding of neanderthalensis and sapiens. We've both got neanderthalensis genes in us." I smile. "And… While you're a… Perfectly presentable man… For your age… I'm seeing-"

I shoot upwards in the air to evade a large sheet of scrap metal that zooms past me.

"-someone? Ah, Anne-Marie? Rogue? With the green and yellow bodysui-?"

"I remember."

I nod, grinning. "Pretty memorable, isn't it?"

He stops attacking, moving his projectiles into an orbit around both me and him. "If a handful of genes are all that remains of their people, then there is little difference between this and utter extermination. If you marry Rogue, then in all likelihood your children will be mutants."

"Could well be. Honestly, I like the idea of my children having superpowers. Sure, some things -like Anne-Marie's power- can create… Problems, but I'm sure that we can work through it. Pax?"

"What does Charles want with me?"

"An open, honest and peaceful exchange of views, leading to an agreement concerning the utility and legitimacy of violence in the civil rights struggle and the opening of an ongoing channel of communication."

"And he sent you?"

"No, I'm here for completely different reasons. He doesn't-. I mean, he could be tracking us on Cerebro or something, but I didn't tell him."

Except that Cerebro is designed to find x-gene mutants and Mr. Lensherr's helmet protects him against that sort of thing. Which.. means that he doesn't know where we are. That wasn't clever of me.

"Then why are you here?"

"Did you see the adverts for Genosha?" I think he nods. The helmet makes it a little hard to tell. "Long story short, it was a trap to lure in people with super powers there for them to enslave." Several pieces of metal crumple. "Not sure if it would have worked, because I don't think other countries would tolerate them doing that to their citizens, but the X-Men dealt with it anyway. So there are a lot of mutants who don't really have anywhere else to go on the island, and… I was just wondering if you wanted to take a look at the place? See if you can make separate but equal work? There's a bit of a leadership vacuum at the moment."

"A homeland for mutants. I had considered the idea before."

"Ah… More a place of refuge for people with the x-gene in places where they're being oppressed. I mean… I know that having a homeland for Jews hasn't exactly encouraged peace and good will since World War Two, but-."

"Given that Senator Kelly intends to place all mutants in America in internment camps should he win the next presidential election, we may need it sooner than later."

"You.. do realise that even if he gets elected, he wouldn't have the authority to do that, right? It would be completely unconstitutional. Whether people with the x-gene are treated like other people with super powers or as a new species of human, there's no legal grounds-."

"You will find that means very little when people are afraid."

I smile. "Good show! As a British person, I thoroughly look forward to seeing Americans take up arms against a tyrannous government that isn't mine."

"You would fight your own kind?"

"Sometimes, in the face of evil, you have to plead the second. The United States has a constitution that guarantees its citizens certain consideration. If that's ignored, then there's no reason for the citizens to take any notice of any of the laws empowering the people who violate it. And this time I'm not letting the Canadians have all the fun."

"Then why not deal with him before the election?"

"Because at the moment all he's done is be a mouthy git, and that's not worth killing someone over. Even if he tries to pass those laws, I'm not going to condemn the whole system unless it actually gets approved."

"And when it does?"

"They can take Anne-Marie to an interment camp over my cold dead body. Ah, before we drown in negativity, I… Did have something else I wanted to talk to you about."

"What is it?"

"It's… It's a bit awkward. I… None of my friends are married. In fact, you're the only person I've exchanged more than a few sentences with who even.. was-."

"Are you-? Coming to me for marital advice?"

"You have three children. Presumably, you did something right."

The floating pieces of metal stop.

"Three-. What are you talking about? I only have one child, and I sired her for the purpose of creating a strong mutant. My relationship with her mother was purely transactional."

What? Does he not-?

Oh, sugar. I guess… That hasn't happened yet. As far as I know, neither Pietro nor Wanda Maximoff were ever members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, so-. Oh, he didn't know.

"Ah. Congratulations?"

"How could you possibly know-?"

"The ring can scan genes. I don't even need a blood sample. Ah. I didn't-. I've no idea what Magda Lensherr's genes look like, but there are two mutants in Europe who have half your DNA. Sorry, I didn't realise that you didn't know."

He considers that for several moments.

"How old are they?"

"About twenty?"

"That would-." Pieces of metal start dropping out of the air as distraction takes hold. "If-."

He turns away, waving his right arm.

"Leave me. I must consider what you have said."

Well. Cheaper than Mr. Creed, at least.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Earth 534834

8th February 1992
11:55 GMT -5

"Ah… Look… Buddy." The guard at the gate doesn't look unsympathetic, but he's also carrying an assault rifle and I've switched to normal clothing. "Even if there was someone by that name here, without some kind of authorisation I can't even let you make a phone call."

"Okay, so…" Um. "Okay, if I wrote a letter, would that get delivered, if it turned out that there was someone on the base by that name?"

"We check all the letters for explosives and chemicals, and anything that shows up gets destroyed."

"And I applaud your thoroughness, but if it's just pen and ink?"

"Oh, that'd go through. And even if the person it was addressed to wasn't on the base, we'd try and track 'em down so they get it."

He nods in a reassuring way, still smiling, still with his finger about a centimetre from the trigger of his rifle. Sure it wouldn't do anything to me, but it would be unnecessarily confrontational for me to set him off. And it might genuinely change popular opinion on people with super powers at a time when attitudes are… Under stress.

Now, I know perfectly well that Ms. Dane is on the base. I can literally see her in training with… A couple of people I vaguely remember from… Some Marvel comic I once read. Set after… M-Day, I think? Multiple Man threw himself of a building, and something about Layla McGuffin? Can't remember what the team was called, though it is interesting that even while the legislature and executive are pounding the table about 'unstable mutations', whatever part of the military-industrial complex is sponsoring this place is… Well, sponsoring this place.

"What if it was a matter of life and death? Or-. Nonono, not me, not me. Not me." He'd started to raise his gun slightly, though now he's just frowning. "I mean, if a person had particular information about a threat, and wished to relay it to a trusted party."

"Listen… You're not getting in. If you've got some sort of intelligence you wanna pass on, I can get you a number to call? But that stuff won't get dealt with here."

I sigh.

I could just fly in there. In testing anti-tank weapons would break my barrier, but even American military bases don't have those laying around the place ready to go. But… No.

"Alright. Thank you. Sorry for making your life unnecessarily diff-."

"What seems to be the problem here?"

A blonde man in fatigues walks up to the gate from inside the base. I don't recognise him, unlike Ms. Dane who like her boyfriend and fellow ex-X-Man Mr. Drake has pictures in various places in Professor Xavier's mansion.

The guard draws himself up. "Nothing to worry about, sir. The guy's just leaving."

He regards me for a moment, then recognition dawns. "Don't you usually glow orange?"

"It's not compulsory."

"I'm gunna need a little more than that. There's a mutant terrorist known as Mystique, and she's a shapeshifter. For all I know, you could be her."

"That's a fair point." I hold out my left hand, ring glowing. Then I float off the ground. "I don't believe that Ms. Darkhölme can replicate non-physical abilities?"

"That works. What did you want?"

"To speak with Ms. Lorna Dane. Current X-Man to former X-Man, concerning a matter which I believe concerns her."

"There a reason why you couldn't phone ahead?"

"There are elements of the United States government that are a bit down on people with the x-gene at the moment, and I didn't want to say anything that might be overheard."

"That shouldn't be a problem here. I'm a mutant myself."

"Would you mind if I verify that?"

He raises his right hand and… A field of golden plasma manifests around it.

I shake my head. "There are other ways to do that. Do you mind? The ring is perfectly capable of detecting the x-gene."

"Like a handheld Cerebro." He shrugs. "Go ahead."

Ring, show me his DNA. Ah, yes, that's the x-

Partial match found.

-gene-. Ah. Who?

Scott Summers. Most likely relationship: sibling.

I blink. Oh, sometimes you pull a thread and the whole world comes apart.

"I'm… Sorry, this is probably going to… Sound like it's coming out of nowhere, but… Is your name Alexander Summers?"

"It was. I changed it to Alex Blanding after I got adopted. Do you..? Know me?"

"I work with your brother." I find myself smiling. "He thinks you're… You died in the plane crash. He'll-."

"Scott-!" He gawps for a few moments. "Wha-? What d'you mean, he's-. He's not dead?"

"No. Look." I take a team photograph out of subspace and hold it up to the gate. "The big bloke in-"

His hand is shaking as he takes it.

"-the blue and yellow, with the visor. Um. I'm a bit surprised that Ms. Dane didn't mention him, actually. They were on the team at the same time."

"Cyclops is… Ah."

"Yes. Um, do you want his number? I… Think he's probably at the Mansion right now. Did-? Did you know who Cyclops is?"

"Lorna…" He shakes his head, eyes fixed on the photograph. "Lorna called him 'Scott' a couple of times. I didn't-. I didn't think it was him."

"I guess that's understandable."

"I haven't-. I haven't spoken to him for… Not since-."

"Well…" I generate a card with the Mansion's number on it. "Take a moment to get yourself together, and-" I pass it over. "Phone him."

"Right. Ah." He stares at it for a moment, then shakes his head. "We.. can't let you on the base, but I can… Ah. Go see if there's anyone called 'Lorna Dane' inside who's willing to come out here."

"Thank you, I'd appreciate it."

He slides the card into his fatigues, and points his hands downwards and blasts off, falling with style towards the building where Ms. Dane is exercising her powers.

The guard's just sort of staring at me.

"This sort of thing happens a lot in this job. You just sort of learn to roll with it."

"Uh-huh. Don't suppose you're actually authorised to view classified information, are you?"

"I'm not even authorised for a green card."

"Is that legal?"

I shrug. "I'm here on a student visa, and British people don't actually need-."

Ms. Dane flies out of their training room and heads in our direction.

"Don't need visas for short stays. Polaris!"

"Orange Lantern." She shakes her head. "I can't believe I didn't realise that Scott was his brother. Ah, you wanted something?"

"Speaking of brothers, can I assume that you aren't aware of having a half-brother and a half-sister living in Europe at the moment?"

"What?"

"Because I told your natural father and it appeared to come as a shock, so…"

"What?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
21:55 GMT

None of the Reach… Internees, exactly said 'this cell is bigger than my cabin', but I think they were thinking it. New Cronus wasn't built with a prison, and the New Titans only created one when they wanted to lock up notable Minosyssian chiefs to show off to.

On the planet below we can feel the ritual progressing, and a curiosity that isn't mine is rising up within us. Even knowing that it's the Ophidian, I've been feeling a sporadic urge to flick my tongue out at the planet.

The prisoners on my new ship can stay where they are. With my new Construct Lantern now existing within its soul circuitry I can direct it well enough, but that doesn't let me do anything with the rest of the crew. They don't appear particularly eager to speak to me. Interesting that the ship doesn't have manual overrides but does have a crew. A New God would be able to direct it reasonably effectively without one. They wouldn't be able to make repairs… Ah, 'part of the ship, part of the crew'. The New God would extend their power through members of the crew as well as the ship. I'd have to assimilate them as well in order to pull that off, and I don't think that's a reasonable thing to do to them even if they're not legally prisoners yet.

BOOM!

For a moment I tense, then Allyn's patrol flies through with the Grayven-aligned battlecruiser being towed between them.

"Allyn, how did it go?"

"Well enough. No deaths on our side, though several marines will need some time to heal."

"Did you get their ship master alive, or..?"

"Dead. I offered, but he remained faithful." I nod to myself. "What did..? You do to yours?"

"Your people project their souls outwards, through objects made with New God technology. Orange power rings can consume souls and turn them into constructs. Which means that if I can make contact with any in-use piece of New God technology-."

"That's terrifying. To deny-. Deny a soul the peace of the grave…"

I nod. "Yes, and I don't like using it. But it can be very efficacious."

"Yes, I see."

"Look, not… Asking you to give away classified information or anything, just trying to… Get a feel for your society so that I can make our interactions as friction free as possible."

"You wish to gather information… But not 'spy'?"

"Spying would imply that I'm interested in precise industrial or military information. And since there's a good chance that N.E.M.O. will have to fight Grayven at some point, I'd have cause. But no. I'm asking as a Hellenist. It's not supposed to be a theologically complex religion, but there are more Ascendants here than there are gods anyone actually remembers back home."

"I don't honestly think of myself as a god."

"Are you allowed to say that?"

"Who would stop me?"

"Alright, so how do you see yourself?"

"A demi-god. Rhea was one of my ancestors. That is simply a part of history. I unarguably derive certain power from that lineage. But I always thought that being an actual god would be… That they would be transcendent beings. And I'm not."

"How old are you?"

"A young adult. And if you were going to say that what I'm feeling is a normal part of adolescence, then you were going to quote my mother."

"It's more that it's a perfectly normal result of having your entire civilisation upended repeatedly within a short span of time. Though, that too. My respects to your mother."

"If she were alive, I would pass them on."

Ah. "My condolences."

"It was that which convinced me that Sparta was wrong. I could feel her soul leave her body, but not where it went. That seemed like something that a god should be able to do."

"My personal opinion is that there probably isn't any neat cut-off, just different degrees of power. And that power alone isn't a good enough reason to follow someone."

"It is in our society. This technology Sparta-. Sparta traded for. It doesn't just work best when an Ascendant controls it, it also works better when there is an ultimate authority whose power flows through our civilisation. Sparta fulfilled that role, once. Now Athyns does. The most powerful amongst us. And it would feel… Wrong, for it to be someone else."

Oh dear.

"So when Grayven rolls in…"

"We may be able to resist him. He is not one of us. Or his being here may result in Athyns seeming… Lesser."

"Do you know what he's doing right now?"

"Athyns? No. I assume that he is preparing for Grayven's arrival." … "I take it from your statement that he is doing something else? Donning the Seeds once more, perhaps?"

"If you… Haven't been told, then I probably.. shouldn't…"

"No, no, you are correct. Though it gladdens my heart to know that there is a plan. Is it..? Something to do with what I feel-? No, no. I should not ask."

"Does that.. connection to a leader mean that Grayven already knows that we beat his ships?"

"Almost certainly."

Aah. It's unlikely that he'll treat it as being his people's fault, even though they attacked first. They were almost certainly acting upon his orders, and they were attacking Reach ships. And me. So the question is, how much weaker is he after having his ship shot up? What does it take to undermine his magical authority? Loss? Or if it's a more powerful New God…

Not Scott Free. Not Barda. Highfather Izaya, almost certainly. But I haven't had any direct contact with the man. I suspect that Mannheim would, but would just being near to him be enough? I don't… Really want Grayven anywhere near my homeworld, because there's a very real chance that he might point his weapons downwards and fire-. Or would be not want to interfere in Darkseid's field test?

With my new ship, I could open a boom tube back to Earth…

Probably-

BOOM!

-not-

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

It's not-. Not in the immediate vicinity of the planet. Where where-?

BOOM!

There. Some distance from where the confrontation happened-. Because they want to be able to bring capital ship weapons to bear easily. That's… I don't recognise that ship. Small, Batwing-shaped fighters escorting… A very large… Generation ship?

No, wait, that's… That's the Citizenry's mothership. Upgraded with New God technology. Mass-murdering misandrist cannibals.

I guess Grayven was too busy to come himself.

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
21:59 GMT

"That doesn't match the description of Grayven's ship-."

"No, that's one of his allies. They call themselves the Citizenry. Sending file now."

"I have it-. Grandmother!"

"Yes. I suggest a dispersed formation. In the event of an attack, I'll try and intercept the 'providers' at the source, but if they head for the planet you're going to need all the point defences you can get."

"Why would Grayven send… Her?"

"My guess would be 'pressure'. He wants compliance but can't come himself. Therefore, he sends his most godly subordinate."

"Then he has no intention of allying with us honourably."

"Probably not. But on the plus side, we only need to keep her busy until-"

"Uh."

"-Athyns completes his ritual."

"She is attempting to communicate with me. Their… Leader, Astarte."

"My records don't suggest that she has any sort of speech impediment. She's usually quite good at announcing her-."

"Her speech is clear. But from the sound of it, she is unused to speaking to people who aren't her subjects. Or chattels."

"Oh, it gets better. They give sufficiently bloodthirsty women the chance to become citizens. If men they capture are lucky then they might get raped before they're eaten. They really are the worst of the worst, and I speak with some expertise on the subject."

"Why has-? She's confirming what you just said. I didn't ask her, she's… Volunteering the information."

"At least she's honest. 'Why has' what?"

"Why has no one hunted them down and exterminated them?"

"Ah, that's a simple one. There isn't any sort of universal army of righteousness that might be inclined to take that job on. Generally, they pick fights with polities they can beat, and don't leave any survivors. At this point that includes all but the strongest stellar nations. Any allies their target might have are cowed into neutrality, and no one who could is prepared to send the sort of military force that would be required outside of their own territory."

"What about the Green Lantern Corps?"

"Don't have the numbers or the doctrine. They're police. Law enforcers. Not executioners. They're the sort of thing I'd like the Orange Lantern Corps to deal with once the war with the Reach is finished."

"She is demanding that Athyns come and pay obeisance."

And he can't even speak to her without disrupting the ritual. And alright, she probably doesn't know what Athyns looks like so we could send someone else…

"Okay. How can I help?"

"I… Was hoping that you would take the lead."

"I'm not a member of your society and you aren't allied to N.E.M.O.. I'm happy to advise you, but it's not really my place to take the lead."

"I fear we need you to."

"Alright. Illustres to Citizenry. May I ask what you're doing-?"

"Are these 'gods' so craven that they cannot answer a simple message?"

Not Themysciran Greek. I've never heard Astarte's voice, but that's not how I thought she'd sound. Could be a subordinate, of course. I'm not a New God or a woman, so she may see no reason to speak with me.

"What do you think I'm doing? Athyns is a busy man. You can't just turn up and expect him to drop everything to tend to you. Am I speaking with Astarte?"

"She would not deign to speak with you."

"Then imagine how Athyns feels about the idea of talking to her. Why are you here?"

"We are here to see if there is anything of this world worth preserving, or if it will all be fed to the providers. The captain had great hopes for Sparta. I assume that she is dead."

"No, she's being held in a secure hospital. It turns out that constantly lying to your subordinates doesn't exactly endear you to them."

"That is disappointing. Citizens have no need for deceit."

"That's a shame. At least people who are being lied to can claim that they didn't know what was happening, whereas you Citizens all know that you're uncultured raiders who subsist on murder and cannibalism. You have no excuse for your inadequacy."

"I will take pleasure in-"

"Not available."

"-gelding you before killing you."

"I'd threaten your ovaries, but you're not worth the time it would take. What does a man have to do to get challenged to single combat around here?"

"Be a woman."

Ah, now isn't the time for a discussion on the discontinuation of the word 'wereman' in Modern English.

"Fine, that'll take me a few seconds. Anything else?"

"What?"

"I can change my body's structure. I've never used it to become a woman, but if that's one of your requirements I think I'll survive. Is there anything else?"

"As a.. woman, you could challenge a citizen for their place."

She doesn't sound certain. I shake my head inside my helmet. She just stated the official default position of the Citizenry, rather than focus on the mission Grayven's set of them. Astarte's an authority-hog, isn't she?

"In case my scathing contempt wasn't obvious, I wouldn't lower myself to join you. I just want you to leave this system and never come back."

"That is not up for negotiation."

"Says you. All I have to do is challenge everyone on your ship to single combat and beat them."

"We won't stop our mission to entertain you, caitiff."

"I speak for Minosyss in Athyns' absence because I have proven my capability as a warrior. Which you would know if Grayven mentioned the fact that I stopped his ship single-handedly during the one confrontation between N.E.M.O. and… Whatever you're calling yourselves. You might well be able to bypass me, but no one here would have any respect for you if you did. Astarte-."

Ugh. I… Do have a design for this. Alright, best fit. Widen hips, narrow shoulders, restructure face… And the rest. It's more weird than uncomfortable, though I'm going to need to rely on my armour's motion AI until I adapt.

"Astarte, I'm a citizen of Themyscira. I serve Queen Hippolyta, and was apprenticed to her daughter, Princess Diana. So I speak with some authority when I say that they would be horrified and disgusted by how far you've fallen and that I'm confident that there's a special place in Tartarus reserved for you."

"Fight me."

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
22:06 GMT

A-.

Is that a n'avi?

No, no, too many ears and not tall enough. And wearing actual clothes.

The rest of the greeting party are wearing sleeveless body armour and coalscuttle helmets. The bracers have plasma guns mounted on them… Since my scans aren't being disrupted here I can tell they've compromised on the recharge rate in order to keep the peak output high. They're carrying actual guns, which is an improvement on what I was expecting from the sort of civilisation that allows duelling. The armour… Ah, I see. It's using a plasma shield to feign high toughness, a pretty good idea until you realise that the only way their plasma weapons can fire out is if they match the output profile, meaning that their own guns totally ignore it.

And mine could too, if that ever becomes relevant.

Nice that they're pointing their guns at me.

"Hello, future corpses. Are we starting here?"

Mini-na'vi sneers. "The Illustres of the Orange Lantern Corps is a man."

"The Illustres of the Orange Lantern Corps is a Lantern of superlative ability."

"It doesn't matter whether you die quickly or slowly. Prove that you are a woman."

"On the first date?"

They look blank. Yes, I suppose that their culture doesn't lend itself to romance, even between women. Ah, given the likely output of those weapons… Yes, my environmental shield and personal force field should be able to hold out for the 1-2 seconds I'd need to create something more substantial to defend myself.

"Ah, fine."

I step out and reappear just outside my armour, making sure that my rings have a grasp of my motor controls. I feel slightly overbalanced, but otherwise… Otherwise, other than the weird sensation I'm getting from my upper torso and the numbness of my crotch, not that different. I mean, I'm sure that if I left my brain like this there would be a whole lot of behavioural changes… Again.

"There. Happ-"

They point their guns at my armour and fire!

"-y?"

Construct barrier up!

My armour's shield takes the fire reasonably well and the armour is easily able to weather the bleed-through heat and radiation. And then my construct barrier interposes itself, wall thickening around me to protect my armour-. And me. Bit odd that they shot my armour. Sure, it's got systems that I can't replace without getting hold of a wizard, but just killing me would-.

Ah. That might violate their duelling rules.

I spot non-na'vi watch what their guns do to my barrier -very little- before ordering them to cease fire with a twitch of her right hand.

"On my world, we have a saying." I transfer myself back into my armour. "If you come at the king, you better not miss. Are we not doing the duel thing?"

"We are. But we know perfectly well that you're mocking our customs with no interest in becoming one of us."

"So you're not stupid, good. Explain why you shot my armour?"

"You weren't in it."

I shrug. Frankly, relying on these people to have any sense of honour was a long shot, and what she just said sort of makes sense.

"Are you my first opponent?"

"No."

"You mean I'm actually getting Astarte? Honestly, I thought I'd have to work up to that."

"You will."

"Theana?"

A shudder moves through the squad, then not-na'vi motions for the group to move deeper into the ship.

"No. How do you even know that name?"

"I'm actually quite clever. I just thought, 'what would a psychotic bitch with no redeeming qualities call someone she locked in a cargo hold until she ate everyone else there?', and this name just came to me."

Not-na'vi's eyes widen slightly, then narrow.

"You should not talk about the Captain like that. She will kill you for the insults you have already given-."

"Oh, for a moment I thought the offer to join was genuine."

"But now she will draw your death out."

I chuckle quietly. "Are you so craven that you fear death?"

"Death in battle? No. The death she will give you? Yes."

I wave my right arm dismissively, and 'accidentally' smack one of her soldiers across the docking bay and into the wing of one of their fighters. The crumbler effect was turned off so her armour absorbs it easily enough, but everyone alters their position to be a little further away from me.

Good show.

"Can't help but notice that none of you are using New God equipment. Grayven not sharing?"

Not-na'vi… Visibly hesitates. Okay, so she's up to something, though given what she said earlier I doubt that she's going to lie to me. "It does nothing for us that our equipment doesn't do better."

Because they're not New Gods. Fair enough. Astarte should be able to empower it, but maybe she doesn't know how. Or maybe 'helping people' isn't something Citizens do.

"Who am I fighting first, anyway?"

"Armsmistress Aramis."

"She any good?"

"She has over five hundred kills in the arena."

"So..? She beats up unarmed refugees? Is that a no?"

"We allow surviving females a chance to regain their strength before putting them in the arena."

"Oh, goodness me, she actually does. Hah!"

The soldiers peel away as we approach a fortified gateway.

"Beyond here-."

"You know how I haven't asked your name?"

"It is-."

"That's because I don't care."

I activate my crumbler gauntlets and disintegrate the expensive-looking door.

"Through here?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
22:10 GMT

For a moment I experience the disconcerting feeling of having my ovaries clench.

Then I see breasts and realise that it's not Lobo that I'm going to be fighting. Same chalk-white skin, same dark grey dreadlocks and similar musculature. Similar weapons, too; thick metal chains and… A comedically large and poorly-balanced machete-cleaver sword. So unless Lobo missed one, this is a velorpian.

Which means… No shapeshifting, and… Slightly less strong. And there's minimal chance that Lobo himself will barge through the wall. Still not an easy fight, not if I want to keep the fight in this arena, which is only… Fifteen metres across?

"So you're the bastich bitch who thinks she's got what it takes to be a Citizen."

Different facial markings, but the voice is about the same when adjusted for chest volume. Aramis spins her sword around on one of her chains.

Now, as far as I know, the psions never gave the velorpians super speed. Technically. The thing is that sufficient quantities of super strength can sub in for super speed in a lot of situations. So, program… Evasive path. Because I don't think she can fly any faster than that Citizenry flight system will let her, which is a lot slower than she can run or jump.

"If I'd realised that there were people of your calibre here, I might have moderated my tone. I didn't think there were any other czarnians left."

"You got a purty mouth. Shame-"

And then I'm in the air with an aching left shoulder, her sword blade falling to the floor with a 'thonk' as it fails to get a grip on my rerebrace. I'm not sure how it transmitted any force through my defences… Or rather, how it did without tearing my arm off, because there are ways to bypass my defences and if she's using one of them that's what should have happened.

She grins as she pulls on her chain to recover her sword.

"-if something happened to it."

"My mouth isn't in my arm."

"Will be when I'm finished with yeh."

"What?"

"'cause I'm gunna rearrange yeh body parts and stick 'em back together in the wrong places. I'm gunna make yeh a fraggin' modern art exibition!"

"And yet you're somehow less fucked up than everyone else here. Have you considered running for office?"

"Okay, you've reached the end of yeh one dodge banter credit." Program dodge and angled construct armour. "So nows I'm gunna-"

Clang!

I stabilise before I hit the stands behind me, having taken the flat of the blade across my chest. Ring records show… My construct knocked it off true, but shattered before it could just knock it aside entirely.

"-smack yeh around some."

"What's that made-"

Whitefacedownwardpressure-.

CLUNK!

"-of-?"

Uhh!

I hit the ground, cratering it.

Positron bomb.

And then I fly in a prone position, moving out of the way about half a second before Aramis lands from her fists-first dive and doubles the size of the hole I made.

Which explodes.

Because while it's perfectly possible to create a construct positron gun with a power ring, it's also perfectly possible -if energy inefficient- to just restructure some electrons. You can then contain them using a construct rather than a magnetic field like a positron gun would. When the construct is destroyed they inevitably encounter electrons and explosively neutralise one another, which means that while you don't get the 'cut' from neutralising an electron that's part of the target, you get an explosion that's just as big.

And because I don't feel like being her punching bag when she inevitably walks out of the smoke to the cheers of the crowd, I adopt an evasive pattern.

"Heh."

And she walks out of the smoke to the cheers of the crowd, the painful-looking burns on her face and shoulders knitting themselves back together as I watch.

"Tricksy one, ain't yeh?"

Calculating… Use four times as many positrons next time.

Compliance.

"Isn't every drop of your blood going to-."

"Naaaaah. Psions thought that would make us 'dangerously uncontrollable'."

"It may amuse you to know that the psions are extinct."

She perks up slightly. "Oh yeah? Who got'em?"

"I think most of the firepower came from the Crown Imperium, though by the end just about everyone in Vega still standing contributed a little."

"Guess my species is going extinct, then."

"Don't worry, I've scanned your genetic structure. Once you're dead, I can make more of you."

She looks unimpressed. "Now, what'd you have ta go and say that for? Now I gotta kill yeh."

"I don't follow."

"After people started callin' me 'Fembo', and I started killing the bastiches, I got thinking. Keezy mal's got a rep. Powerful rep. So it ain't exactly an insult to get compared to him. And if he's the last czarnian, maybe I could be the last velorpian. Had to kill a few blood-copies, but it's a good gig. And now you-" She points her sword at me. "-tell me you can make more of me?"

"Fair point."

She brushes some carbonised skin off her shoulder.

"So now I gotta make an effort."

X-ionised blades, defensive-

CLANGClunkunk.

-pattern.

The sword blade falls to the ground, having spun after I severed the chain and hit me with the hilt.

Aramis stares at the cut end of her chain for a moment, and there's a collective intake of breath from the crowd.

"That. Was expensive."

Chains lash out in a blur of grey metal, blades sparking and being knocked out of the constructs holding them! I form shields and maser cannons, trying to draw a bead on Aramis while dodging myself. It's a matter of mathematics; we're both moving too quickly to calculate where the other is going so we're calculating most likely arcs and lashing out at that area. I try recovering my blades but they represent fixed targets and so points where I become more predictable and so take more hits.

I wince as my construct armour gives up the ghost, but I can see lengths of severed chain on the ground as well.

Right, fine, new approach-.

I hit the stands behind me with the afterimage of a grey fist in my eyes.

New construct armour, over shield, underground plasma initiator and gamma-

BOOM!

-radiator. Let's see how tough the rest of them are.

Wait, w-?

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
22:02 GMT

Captain Astarte closes the communication channel with one of the local leaders…

Lieutenant Aroeite experiences a moment of confusion. The natural distaste at seeing a man in a position of authority, or anywhere other than the breeding chambers or provider troughs. But Captain Grayven valued them, and…

And she remembered the fight between him and the Captain. The almost casual way he handled himself, the way he didn't treat the Captain as a… No, not that he didn't treat her as a threat, though he did not. The way he treated it as an entry test, such as the Citizenry held for women seeking to join them. Though in their case, letting women in after losing was almost unheard of.

The Captain fell, and… Grayven let her live. Even approved of her skill. There had been many challenges after that, and she had shown them that she was no weakling. For a time she decorated the halls leading to the arena with their corpses, so that anyone who was considering making a challenge would have to walk past everyone else who had tried.

Lieutenant Aroeite wasn't… Sure how she felt about it. She considered herself to have value, and she knew that she would not be able to best the Captain. So there being someone who could beat you didn't make you worthless. That was unarguable. But seeing Captain Astarte, supreme leader of the Citizenry, defeated by someone…

They had stopped being independent after that, and that too did not feel right. Even if it changed little in practice.

It was a shame that the women of the Reach were unwilling to even try to become warriors. Their beetle-warriors at least had the pride to die well.

"Lieutenant Aroeite. You will take a squad of shock troops to the surface and recover Sparta." I Command Here.

"Yes, Captain."

Aroeite's jaw still had a slight click from the blow Captain Astarte dealt her for responding too slowly to a command.

"Did they acquiesce?"

"No. They did not respond at all. I felt their fear as our souls touched, and the one who received it was far too weak to be Athyns. So we will not trouble ourselves with that. Sparta can explain her failure to Grayven. Perhaps he will put her in the breeding pits."

As far as Aroeite knew, Grayven's gordanian and Karakkanian followers did not breed in that way. Perhaps the Captain just found the juxtaposition of the way things should be and how Grayven made them amusing? There was a rational reason for having a powerful male impregnating many women; if Grayven had lost to Astarte he would have been drained by as many women as possible before being fed to the providers.

The Captain puts her hand on the… Sensor device that Grayven had gifted to her. Supposedly, it expanded her awareness of certain things because she was… Like Grayven in some way, and his people commonly used such devices.

Lieutenant Zusen frowns, receiving a message on the ship's normal communication systems. "Captain! There is a member of the Orange Lantern Corps-."

"I know, Zusen." Know My Contempt.

"He is challenging us. Insolently."

"This is where the Illustres fled, then. Accept. Keep him here. Pit him against Aramis. If she falls… Anyone who has been slovenly lately."

"Yes, Captain."

"If the warriors of these people are too pathetic to dare speak to us, he is the only obstacle of any significance. Our sensor masking will prevent him receiving communication while inside this ship, even with his ring."

BOOM!

"Aroeite, go now."

Aroeite lowers her head and charges, gun in hand. The portal feels like nothing, and she raises her gun at once to shoot the first native soldier she sees in the chest. The weak armour gives way at once, metal and flesh burning-

"Yaargh!"

-through the torso, life leaving the body almost immediately. The locals were primitives, and in some places lacking technology led to the people having far greater personal resolve than could be found in other places. But no, a single mortal wound and this man cried out in fear and confusion.

More shots blast out from the rest of her squad, and guard detail of this… Prison, not having time to organise themselves even slightly. All men. All worthless.

Somewhere, an alarm sounds. Perhaps they have portals of their own that they will use to send in more capable soldiers? Perhaps she will get the opportunity to discover why Grayven values them so highly.

"I can hear you! I can feel his touch on your mistress's soul!" "Let me out!"

But first, she has a failure to free.

1st January 2013
22:08 GMT

"Athyns has the Seeds, yes."

Astarte doesn't let her contempt at the mess in front of her show on her face. Dimly, she feels the Orange Lantern defying Zusen, and the churning potential of her fight with Aramis.

"Muuuust-. Must get them."

Sparta was a capable enough warrior, before. Astarte would have gladly welcomed her as a Citizen, once she passed the requisite tests. Seeing Sparta like this makes her glad that it did not happen. Her mind was clearly too brittle for the role if this is her response to a single setback.

Losing to Grayven was humiliating. It made her think of the distant time when she was new to the Citizenry. When she was still weak. She… Vaguely remembers weeping as she struggled through the training exercises the ones who recruited her put her through. Grudgingly, she was pleased at her own response to Grayven's training. In the fanning of the divine spark in her into something greater.

It might be time to try having another daughter.

Open The Way.

BOOM!

After using the Seeds to defeat Grayven.

The strike squad charges through, the slightly dulled sound of their weapons firing coming back a moment later. Aroeite has to grab hold of Sparta's armour to prevent her leaping through the moment the boom tube opened. No, Sparta lives for the information she can give on the Seeds' nature. She will not touch them again or gain glory through combat. She has proven herself unworthy.

Astarte gives the strike squad a moment longer to establish a beachhead and then strides through, blaster and falchion at the ready.

Blood. Burning flesh. It-.

She sidesteps as a plasma beam flies past her, her own gun coming up and snapping off a shot that burns through the Karrakanian's faceplate and into their skull. A fair shot from them, and sound tactical positioning. Lesser soldiers are frequently distracted when moving though the portals, and looking down she sees that at least two of her Citizens fell in the same way.
Choose The Slain.
She makes a note to check whether the soldier she shot survives, and to offer them citizenship if they did. Or the option to sire children before being consumed, if they were male.
"Challenge!"
She snarls as one of the Karrakanian godlings tries to get her attention. "This is battle, fool."

Five Citizens who were not being pressed aim and fire, the godling being blasted off their feet. Interesting that they didn't die immediately. Odd that there aren't more of them. This tower is supposed to be their fastness-.

BOOM

Who dares-?

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
22:10 GMT
Preservation.
Pontico staggers, presumably as a result of the effort needed to block the radiation with his New God armour. I cut it out immediately, flying out of-.

Aramis hits my construct bunker and cracks it, giving me the opportunity to stick a cold zone around her. She draws back her fist and freezes, a thin film of ice covering her body.

Her eyes are still moving, slowly shifting towards me-.

Oh, they're not moving slowly. They're moving at normal speed, I'm just accelerated.

Front rows of seating have burned faces and arms, where their armour doesn't cover. But they're going for their weapons.

"Laaaaannt-"

Rebuild construct bunker around the boom tube aperture, construct cold gun and shoot Aramis again to try and keep her out of the fight.

"-ern, they're attacking New Orthys!"

"Understood."

I shove him back through the boom tube and then fly through after him. We're back on the command deck of New Chronus, and-
Duty
-Pontico shuts down the boom tube before pointing to the holographic display.

"They covertly attacked the prison holding Sparta, and now they're cutting down the garrison. Our strongest Ascendants are occupied with the ritual, and we can't-."

"Understood."

Because they didn't have enough of a reason to focus on me. This wasn't about presenting an ultimatum to the planet or following their normal rules of engagement. This was about getting New God stuff. Or maybe it became that because Grayven wants the Seeds to increase his power? If he'd come to me with a plan for using them to beat Darkseid… I'd have negotiated for him to visit Earth first, but I'd have been on board and I'd have argued his case.

But no. Smash and grab.

"Boom tube me there, and keep me updat-"

BOOM!

"-ed."

Quick fix on my armour's more stressed components, construct armour and construct plasma gun set to bypass their armour and go! I fly through the boom tube and-

PHZP!

-take a respectable amount of fire because Pontico isn't a combat specialist and deployed me directly into combat rather than letting me approach from further away. I evade, generating construct shields to block fire and return fire myself. My first hit melts off a woman's arm, and-. And she doesn't cry out. She just drops her two-handed gun and flies through the air towards me, forearm-mounted weapon charging.

So I shoot her again before moving onto a new target.

A group are trying to cut their way into the ship still docked in the upper part of the tower. Point defence guns are trying to hit them, but they're not designed for people attacking the ship with melee weapons and the Citizens are intelligent enough to stay out of their arc of fire.

I switch targets. From the scans I'm getting of the interior of the building, the Citizens opened a boom tube on one of the lower floors and then attacked upwards-. And that's Astarte, and that's Sparta. They probably don't have any other New Gods, so killing both of those will stop this strike. Might result in their whole fleet turning up-.

New God technology. They've just got Astarte and maybe Theana, though if I remember correctly they don't generally let her out. Which means that they probably have only one ship that can open a boom tube. And it may not be able to do that when its captain isn't on board.

Interesting.

My first shot hits an unexpecting Citizen, bursting through her cuirass and causing crippling burns to the flesh beneath. Strong-willed though the citizens are, when your nerve fibres are literally cooked there isn't much you can do to keep fighting. She drops, quiet croaking sounds coming from partially-fried lungs. Theoretically survivable, with treatment that she might get if the fight is concluded quickly enough.

My second shot hits a Citizen as she turns and raises the thicker material of her forearm mounted gun. My plasma bolt punches through easily and explodes the capacitor before carrying on into her neck. That… That's not survivable. Her jaw and neck have been incinerated and her brain's been cooked.

The rest begin to leave the hull, trying to either close the distance with me or get the hull between themselves and my gun construct.

Come.

Alright, ship's making best time down, and with two ships on hand the point defences should actually be able to defend the exterior of the tower.

Charging Citizen one. I take x-ionised blades out of subspace and wince when I realise that I left the others on the Citizenry mothership. They probably can't reverse engineer the process from a few examples, but that's not a sure thing. Stab through the flesh of her bare arms and into her nerves. The super-sharp nature of x-ionised knives mean that she'll barely feel the stabs, but she can't aim her weapons any longer as her arms fall nervelessly to her sides. Fixable by space age medicine, but permanent otherwise.

Charging Citizen two-. The point defences behind her fire. Most of the shots hit her armour and -without an Ascendant to reinforce them- do nothing, but one hits her upper left arm and burns through the flesh. She instinctively jerks away from the source of the injury, which is why my blades cut her arms off rather than rendering them nerveless.

She drops, the sudden loss of blood pressure from the vigorous arterial blood expulsion causing her to lose consciousness. It's almost beautiful, seen from the air and in three dimensions as she spins around. Like liquid wings.

I redirect my constructs, shoving her onto the tower's upper gantry as I cauterise her blood vessels. She probably won't die, and we can always make her new arms.

Third Citizen-. Already closed the distance. I punch as she comes in with her short sword, hitting her in the face hard enough to concuss her, fracture her nose, teeth, jaw and vertebrae. She joins Amanda Armless on the gantry as I fly up to get a clear shot against the Citizens hiding behind the ship.

PHZP!

Their shots fly past me as I reposition, considering-.

Animals.

I blink as knowledge… That was technically in my head already pushes itself to the front of my mind. Huh. A really nasty fungal spore that will do a number on the humanoid respiratory system. And the Citizenry don't wear ABC protection. I can… Fabricate that.

And I can make it live. Release me.

Don't make me regret this, fungoid. I don't want them dead.

The longer they live, the longer we feed.

As you like.

The fungoid Construct Lantern leaves my ring and lunges upwards through the air, a barely visible trail of highly dangerous spores following in his wake. A moment later and it adds construct leaf fronds to blow it towards the Citizens.

Right, that's handled. Now I can-.
Die.
Astarte's shots catch me straight in the chest, burning through my defences and leaving me gasping for breath!

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
22:13 GMT

And there go my boobs. Chest… Uaargh. Yeah, that shot a nice hole through my construct, force fields, armour and flesh. Heart-. Yeah, lost my heart, as well as a lot of lung and my oesophagus. Fortunately, it looks like whatever the gun fires is a purely straight line thing, rather than crawling though my body to hit every vital organ. So my brain's still fine. Or maybe she doesn't realise that I have one? This armour doesn't have a distinct head unit after all.

I'm falling. Good, playing possum in a situation like this is a reasonable ploy, because if my defences don't work the only thing I've got to fall back on is phasing and that's a lot easier to bypass than the rest.

Ring, image of Astarte?

The armour is clearly a New God riff on what the rest of her people are wearing, with the helmet being replaced with a diadem. New God technology, so it'll probably work fine on the areas it's not covering. The forearm weapons are blasters rather than being plasma-based, which explains why she was able to bypass…

Ugh, Hippolyta's been sandbagging, hasn't she? Is Ares Astarte's father, too? Might explain-.

Right. Regenerate my chest… Yes, just repair, I'll redesign later. Have to evade attacks, rather than tough them out. Restore armour and start dodging at once just in case.

How to actually attack her?

Fungoid, go after her.

"One animal is much like another, as far as I'm concerned."

Where even-? The tower. And I'm going to assume from the fact that she is having to fight the defenders that she can't just blast her way through the New God armour that the Ascendants are wearing.

I scan the lower levels of the tower, and… Yes, a couple of dead Ascendants.

Well, there's no point in wearing armour that I know doesn't work. Construct armour should be able to handle the other weapons. I fly downwards, forming a crumbler ram to crumble a circle out of the wall and slam into the Citizenry's rearguard.

Literally.

It turns out that in addition to properly phased plasma, their armour also doesn't stop crumbler fields.

My construct armour takes fire from the three survivors, and I feel reassured that it takes the hits without much difficulty.

I lash out with filament cluster constructs, and two respond by diving to evade and the third slashes at the cluster coming at her with a glowing short sword. The short sword works best, cutting through about 80% of the oncoming filaments. It doesn't make much difference as I only need one to tag her for a shock crown, but it does to show that evading isn't always the best option as the other two are hit by all of the filaments I send at them.

Right. Take their weapons, send them to subspace. Nerve impulse suppression collar, slap that around their unwisely exposed necks. The version with the anti-sabotage decapitation charge. Now… Yes, they've shut down the boom tube and the next closest squad are several floors up.

I step

out of my armour and grab the two Ascendant corpses. The armour… It's not going to give me complete coverage, but it'll be better than nothing. Muttering a prayer to Hades, I strip the dead of their armour and strap it onto my own body. And… Each of them get an obol in the mouth, which probably won't matter, but is appropriate and respectful, especially if I'm stealing their soul-bound equipment.

And now…

I feel the shape of my desires, the fabric of reality flexing in response to the orange light within me. I feel the networks of desire I'm not even touching respond to my actions, reshaping themselves without requiring my direction. I feel myself partially material and partially in the Honden of Avarice, existing as an aetheric creature.

That… Seems to be working. Faintly-glowing tron lines, and… It's easy enough to move in. Makes my breasts more apparent than the fully enclosed power armour, but…

Just ignore it.

For a moment I consider getting back inside my power armour and using this as an undersuit, but I just don't think it adds anything.

I fly-

Ooh, that's interesting. Flying by ring power feels easier and more responsive. It's like I'm… More aware of the universe around me without specifically telling my rings to feed me that information.

-up the tower, construct armour forming around me. The ship is moving away from the tower, training its guns on the tower but not actually firing. Do the crew know about the ritual? How much of the tower-?

The attackers aren't destroying the New God systems in the tower's structure. Are they-?

There are many more Ascendants on the planet than are in New Othrys. The logical thing to do would have been to boom tube directly into the ritual space, unless they couldn't because it's shielded. With the power boost from the Seeds, Sparta or Astarte could overwhelm the system… Broadcast her power over the whole planet. Or just override anything that might stop them boom tubing out. At the same time, I can't just tell them to wreck the tower because Athyns wants to do the same but for our side.

Astarte is two floors down, battering the last set of defenders between her and her goal, their New God shields barely able to block the hail of plasma coming up at-.

For a second, Astarte locks eyes with me through the wall evade!
Die.
Ow! Right in the-! Boobs again! Armour took it, and… Stayed whole, but it's visibly damaged and I'm seeing the downside of the extra erogenous zones. Stings.

Destructive pulse.

My armour shimmers as the orange bolt fires back along the path taken by Astarte's blaster shot, the woman herself evading it easily with a sidestep she barely seems to think about. Three thousand years worth of experience and this is all she does with it.

Destructive pulses.

I fire a barrage, orange bolts punching through the walls and slamming into the Citizens, bursting apart their armour and flesh.
Die.
Astartes takes another shot at me, so I try to intercept it with my own. It's… Partially successful, repeated destructive pulse hits eating away at her blaster bolt until what hits my armour is barely a fart. Grinning, I focus fire on Astarte and force her away from the staircase, fire from the defenders causing a crossfire. And since they're Ascendants, she can't just tank it on her armour.
Die And Be Damned!
She makes her choice and backs up towards the far wall, letting the defenders hit her in exchange for getting more shots off at me. She's moving her arm around to change the angle, but I'm in the air and moving slightly to intercept a gun that fires more slowly than I do is no real hardship. She's-.

Wait, where's Spa-?

"MINEIT'SMINE!" "MINE!"

Sparta throws the bodies of fallen Citizens at the distracted guards and then throws herself at them. The bodies only block a couple of shots but Sparta doesn't even notice the burns on her skin as she throws herself at them in a frenzy. Astarte switches targets, managing to hit a guard who was trying to fight Sparta off in the head and creating an opening for her. Sparta charges past them, a New God mace appearing in her hand as she assaults the fortified door protecting the ritual space. Astarte switches target again, shooting the wall behind her with a wide beam shot before throwing herself out. I fly into the building, trying to-.

BOOM!

Through the hole in the building I watch Aramis spit out an ice cube.

"Hey there sugar plum. Miss me?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
22:16 GMT

I keep firing, destructive pulses flying through the building towards Astarte.

"No."

I get exactly two hits on her as she tries to dodge while maintaining the ability to shoot back. One hits her torso and the other on her left arm, scarring the armour but not disabling her. Then Aramis interposes herself, shoving Astarte aside and… Just soaking the hits. Her armour is blasted apart and the orange bolts start eating into her flesh.

"That's it! Make me feel-"
Die!
I dodge to the side as Astarte fires another shot, my ability to analyse her actions increasing the longer my ring studies her.

"-pain!"

Really?

The pulses chew through her skin and muscle, but she clearly doesn't care. Her head's tilted back and she's laughing, and… I just can't work up the same contempt for her that I have for Astarte.

In front of me the Ascendants try to hold back the frenzied Sparta. But she's a lot stronger than them, and it looks like a losing battle. The Citizenry rally, careful to keep out of the line of sight between me and their superiors. Raising their guns, they-.

"Last ones."

The Fungoid phases through the floor and opens its arms wide, spores spreading outwards to cover the blindsided Citizens. A few get shots off, but they're poorly aimed and hit only solid armour plates. The rest try to stagger away, but having already taken a lungful-.

Aramis shatters the Fungoid construct lantern with brute force, flying straight through the tower-. And running straight into my crumbler ram construct as I lurch to the side. Ah, she doesn't have a natural flying ability. Without the ability to launch herself off objects with super strength, she's stuck at the same airspeed as the other Citizens. The construct ram smashes through the left side of her face, though for some reason it's more 'mashes' than 'reduced to component atoms'.

And then she turns around and grins, one half normal jaw and the other half bloody exposed bone. I can see the flesh wriggling and writhing as it heals.

"You soft-pedalling me in the arena?"

She lunges, and this time I try a cold gun as I fly aside. She holds out her right arm, letting it freeze completely solid. But it looks like that provides enough insulation to stop the rest of her still-healing body from freezing along with it.

"A woman could take that the wrong way."

And of course the knock-out spores aren't doing anything. She-.

She's slow in the air. I'm trying to keep Athyns safe. As long as I keep both Aramis and Astarte focused on me, I'm achieving that aim.

On the other hand, if she's basically immortal…

I move aside as she lunges again, firing my cold gun at her trunk. Another hit, but she twists and uses her frozen arm to block as much as she can and it's not freezing her fast enough. I can see her bare flesh thawing as I watch. She's grinning-. Or that could just be from the lack of flesh on her face. But I've been lining her up.
Die!
I dodge aside and Aramis takes Astarte's blaster shot right in the face. It tunnels through, into the lower part of her brain and then out of the back of her skull.

I turn around as her body drops.

"Thank you."

I see her eyes flick to Spar-.

She fires at the Ascendants who have just about got their former mistress under control. Two die in one shot, and the blood-maddened Sparta tears out the throat of a third and then lunges-.

WORLD MADE WHOLE

Sparta stops, stunned. My armour… Flares, not with orange light, but… It's as if the orange is forming a corona around something I can't see or feel. Astarte's armour dims and her blaster fails. She looks blank for a moment, then favours me with a look of absolute hatred before turning and fleeing.

Point defence fire from both my ship and the local one sleet through the air, battering her armour. Which doesn't seem to be providing her with the same protection that it was a few moments ago. I form-. I try to form-.

Can't form constructs. I could-.

BOOM!

A shimmering portal appears just ahead of Astarte, and she dives through. She was bleeding from a dozen minor wounds, but I doubt that will prove a-

BOOM!

-problem. I look down and watch Aramis shakily raise two index fingers up at me as she falls through another tube, the hole in her head... Still completely open.

Objective achieved, bonus objective-

"It should have been mine."

-failed. I fly into the tower, looking at the fallen Ascendants. Several are still alive, but without constructs the only way I've got to heal people is the purple healing ray on my power armour. And Sparta's still active and I have no idea what's going through her head right now.
Be whole, my children.
The Ascendant I'm looking at jerks up, the wound that pierced her chest glowing for a moment and then just vanishing. She pats the hole in her armour and then looks up at me for some sort of explanation.

"I believe that Athyns has succeeded. How does the thaumosphere feel?"

"Vital."

The man next to her -who I was sure was dead- staggers upright, spear pointing at Sparta. Sparta doesn't even bother looking at it, just staring at-.

The fortified doors clunk open and Athyns walks down the stairs towards us. He looks…

I wouldn't say like a god. But more like a god than he did a little while ago.

And the others… I can see a small part of the aura the New Titans had around each of them. And for a moment I'm extremely curious about how that worked, but… I'm not a good enough thaumaturgist to decipher it, and it's not my job anyway.

Athyns looks over the Ascendants, who drop to their knees. Nodding, he turns to me-.

"Did the Illustres recruit one of us?"

"No, sorry. Hang on."

And I'm a man again. That was mildly unsettling.

"I thought that if I issued a challenge according to their customs, they might hold off. Unfortunately, I was wrong." I resummon the Fungoid. "We have prisoners in the lower levels. This construct can help you with them. I need to get back into space to make sure that they leave."

"That won't be necessary." He looks up, in the direction of the Citizenry's ship. "I allowed Astarte to retreat, but that is all. The technology they were given by Grayven will not work here any longer. And the performance of our ships will be somewhat better."

"Understood. Do you want me to stay, in case Grayven tries something? Or leave, in case I provoke someone?"

"Neither. You helped us, despite my refusal to ally with you. We will bury the dead, and then we will celebrate Grandmother Rhea's return together."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Earth 534834

8th February 1992
12:13 GMT -7

My point defence constructs shoot down the handful of missiles that are actually on target, ring weaving me out of the lines of travel of the rest.

Ring, get him back on the phone.

In progress.

"Oh, hey Orange. What do you n-?"

"We 'might' be testing some missiles?"

"Yeah. Y'know, it's a desert, Stark Enterprises does weapon testing-"

Alert.

I generate a shield construct as a laser cannon deploys from beyond a camouflaged hatch in a nearby mesa, the brilliant red beam hitting the shield and achieving nothing.

"-around here… Huh."

"I have no particular objection to helping you improve your weapon systems, Mister Stark, but I'm a bit narked about doing it without warning and for free."

"No, I just… Spotted that the whole system's live. It's not supposed to be."

"Do you want me to forcibly shut it down, or are you good to fix it yourself?"

"Ah… I'd rather you didn't write off twenty million dollars worth of equipment, but if you need to. I'll just have to make my investors understand."

"Oh, don't worry. It's not that good."

He sighs. "Yeah, okay. I had that coming. On your-"

My point defence construct fires, hitting the stealth missile's fuel reserve and causing it to ignite.

"-six… Huh."

"Missiles aren't tough. You don't need a laser powerful enough to cut through tank armour to destroy one. Far weaker lasers will do the job, and far faster and more accurately than kinetic flak. The only issues are power, which this ring handles perfectly well, and the computational power to target it accurately in flight, which this ring handles perfectly well."

"What about chaff or flares?"

"Sure, if your battery or computer can't handle it, being able to maybe dodge three missiles is better than-" Ah, that actually is a flak emplacement. I reinforce my armour and ignore it, because my armour is a lot tougher than aluminium. "-nothing."

Shells burst around me, doing a grand total of nothing as the shrapnel fails to penetrate.

"But if you can do lasers, in an atmosphere you effectively just need to know where the target-."

"Where the target is, because you hit it at the speed of light rather than three thousand feet per second. I need to talk to some of our product users-."

"Have you shut the system-" A rather large plasma cannon turret emerges from a bunker in my line of travel. "-down, or-?"

"I can talk and work at the same-" I hear a dull tone from his end, and the turret stops tracking me. "-time. There, clear for approach. What was it you wanted to talk about, anyway?"

"I actually wanted to talk to Mister and Ms. Maximoff, if they're available."

"Ah… Who?"

"Mister Stark, the ring can locate anyone anywhere on the planet who isn't specifically protected against it. And the only things I know block it are some types of magic and some types of alien technology."

"That sounds like a horrible violation of civil liberties."

"No, it's only a violation of civil liberties when the government does it."

"I… Don't think that's how it works. Quicksilver's going to meet you outside. Scarlet Witch will be along in a few minutes."

"Thank you, Mister Stark."

And there's the main bunker, complete with runway, cargo helicopter landing pad and white-haired man in a skin-tight silver and grey costume. I'm a little surprised that Mr. Stark hasn't insisted on something a little more professional, but maybe he wanted superhuman protection more than he wanted uniformity.

I raise my right hand in greeting as I come into land. "Mister Maximoff."

He regards me with a degree of suspicion for a moment. "Were you tracking me all around the world for a reason?"

"Ah, yes. Though strictly speaking, I wasn't tracking you all around the world, I just had the ability to find out wherever you are at any point in time. Point is, I just got back from having a conversation with your elder half-sister, and it turns-"

"What?"

"-out that she didn't know that you exist either. Or who her biological father is. It's all getting a bit soap opera-y, so I thought that I'd stop that silliness and just tell everyone the stuff they were probably missing. I don't know what your phone number is, so-."

There's a sort of glimmer in the air, and… Glam rock Thor appears with a twirl of his axe, Ms. Maximoff next to him. I… Think his name is Sentry?

"Scion of Maltus. I offer you warm greeting."

I blink.

"Thank you. You're the first person I've met since I got here who's heard of Maltus."

"In my life I have walked many strange roads, and forgotten more than many have ever learned. I fear that I recall no more than the name and the image of rings such as you now wear."

Ah. Well, it would have been a bit easy if I found the place through a chance encounter. "Ah. Well, it's still worth knowing."

Mr. Maximoff looks at me for confirmation. "Sister?"

Ms. Maximoff looks at him. "Yes?"

"No, a…" I shake my head. "You both have an elder half-sister by the name of Lorna Dane. You have the same father. His name is Erik Lensherr, though I believe that at other points of time he's used other names."

Ms. Maximoff stares. "Magneto… Is our father?"

"Yes. Given how confused he was when I told him, I don't believe he knew. Given how you both have the x-gene, I expect that he will want to make contact soon-. So you might want to advise Mister Stark to make a suit of non-ferrous armour."

Mr. Maximoff's eyes narrow. "How do you know that? We-."

"I compared your genes to his and noted the fifty percent match. It's not impossible that someone like Nathaniel Essex got hold of some of his genetic material and created you as partial clones, but given that Mister Lensherr was married when you would have been conceived and they were separated when you would have been born, there's really no reason to add more steps to the process."

"We-." Mr. Maximoff and his sister just look at each other for a few moments. "We should talk about this."

"I understand." I fabricate a card with Ms. Dane's home telephone number on it. "You can reach her here. And on an unrelated note, is anyone on your team happily married?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Earth 534834

8th February 1992
15:31 GMT -5

I walk in through the front doors of the Mansion, carefully closing the doors behind me.

Haaaaaa…

I shouldn't complain, but it seems like I helped a few people in some really emotionally significant but practically minute ways. Mr. and Miss. Maximoff have gone twenty years without a father, and if they're working as superheroes -or at least as legal private security officers- then I doubt that they've got anything to gain from actually getting back in touch. I'm sure that Lorna would have worked out that Alexander was Scott's brother eventually, she's not an idiot.

Ah, speaking of. Scott's standing by the hallway telephone, looking a little stunned.

"Good afternoon. Has the team-?"

"That was my.. brother."

His voice wavers slightly as he says it, glasses not pointing towards me. I walk closer and pat his left shoulder with my right hand.

"Bit of a shock, huh?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I'm… We're going to meet up tomorrow. I haven't seen him in… Since the crash."

"Do you know what..? Happened there? I mean, even if you landed in different places, you would have both told the authorities that you had a brother in the crash, right? Wouldn't they have..? Checked?"

"I don't know. But I'm going to ask some people." He seems to come more fully out of his fugue, turning to face me. "Thank you. If you hadn't found him, I might never have found out that he was still alive."

"I'm happy to help, but I… Wasn't actually looking for him, so… I don't want to claim too much credit."

He favours me with a small smile. "It still counts as far as I'm concerned."

"Hey, bit of a shame we destroyed the mutant registration database. If we hadn't, they'd probably have matched you up weeks ago!"

That gets a weak laugh.

"Hah. You could be right." He takes a deep breath. "I never asked, but exactly how far away can your ring detect things?"

"In theory, there's no limit. In practice, it depends on what I'm looking for. Do you have any other brothers I don't know about?"

"No, but… I guess one of the reasons why social services didn't ever put the two of us together is that no one ever found the wreckage. I never got to bury my-. Our, parents." He shakes his head. "I couldn't even tell you exactly where it happened."

"Ah… I could scan for it, but honestly… It… Sounds like it would be easier for you to do it."

I… Double check that I shut the door, then do a quick scan to check my surroundings. Seems safe.

I slide the ring off my finger and offer it to him. He doesn't take it.

"Jean told me about what happens when you lose control with that thing."

"That was the Professor deliberately provoking me. Something like this shouldn't trigger that. Or I can… Try if you prefer."

He nods. "I think that would be best."

"Alright." I slide the ring back on my left ring finger. "On an unrelated note, I don't suppose that you know any happily married couples, do you?"

"Jean's parents? Ah… A couple of guys I knew at the orphanage got married, but I haven't really kept in touch. Why do you ask?"

"I realised that I didn't know any. Okay." Scott's a friend, and while I very much doubt that I'll find anyone alive, this would at least put his mind at ease. "Scan."

Report available.

"Oh."

"Did you find anything?"

"No. Ah. I can't… Hang on."

Ring, in case that's us, scan for matches for Logan.

Report available.

Okay, I'll let him know. That's probably… Important.

"Ah, not… Sure what this means, exactly-."

"You haven't..? Found..?"

"Oh, no, no. Sorry but… No. Ah. I haven't found anything."

"You did say that-."

"No, I checked the range. Unless my relationship with… Logan is much better than I thought it was, your parents… I can't find either remains or living people. If range is the limiting factor, wherever your plane went down would have to be further away than Alberta."

He shakes his head. "No, that's… Too far. But there aren't any bodies, you're sure about that?"

"Their remains might just have been removed later?"

"Maybe, but why?"

"Were either of them mutants?"

He shakes his head. "Not as far as I know. Not all powers are obvious, so that doesn't mean that they weren't, but I never saw them do anything unusual."

"Then I don't know. I'm sorry. I can-."

"No, no, you've done more than enough." He looks away slightly, smiling. "It doesn't really seem real. Look, if there's anything I can ever do to repay you, just ask, okay?"

"Ah, well there was… You and Jean, are you planning to get married any time soon?"

"Why? Are you planning to ask Rogue?"

"Yes. I thought waiting a little while would be better. She disagreed, so I've been flying around to distract myself while I try to work out how to actually propose properly… She hates her parents, but I got her foster parents' approval-."

"'Foster'-? You mean Mystique?"

I nod. "And Destiny. Point is, you and Jean have been together longer, so if you had something in the works, we can just-."

"That's-" He shakes his head. "-not-. You don't need to do that."

"Okay. Um. Any… Suggestions?"

"I was just going to take Jean to a restaurant. What were you thinking?"

"Ah… I half-thought the moon? Only… I'd have to provide the air, because her ring would protect her from the low pressure but it wouldn't let her breathe… And it's hard to prepare a meal on the moon, and the low gravity isn't as much fun when we can both fly anyway."

I look at him hopefully.

"I don't think that… That the exact situation matters quite that much. I think somewhere that means something to the two of you would be better than that sort of… Grand gesture."

"Huh." I nod, fabricating simple gold and diamond rings. "You know, I-. I think you're right. Somewhere… Yeah, okay. I'm going to go and do that now."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Earth 534834

8th February 1992
23:43 GMT +3

Ororo looks up as I approach, standing watch over the floodlight-lit beach. People appear to have mostly tried to get back to their holiday. A quick scan shows that most of the staff have been allowed to return to work… Well, it's not like this was a democracy. Either they didn't have any say on what was going on, or they're intelligent enough to know which way the wind has already blown.

I smile as a group of parents try to keep their curious adolescent offspring away from the remains of a crashed robot.

"Things settled down here?"

"Yes, though we have failed to make any progress on deciding what to do with the nation."

"Is that really our job?" I shrug. "We can ferry home everyone who wants to leave and… Hand over everyone in the government who thought that slavery was a good idea to the Hague or something, but beyond that… Is it our job to impose a particular government on Genosha?"

"It is not. But there are risks which come with overthrowing a government, and I would spare these people its consequences."

"Oh, I know. They don't actually teach us about The Partition of India in British schools, but they probably should." Oh. "Um, funny thing…"

"From the way you are expressing yourself, I suspect that it is not."

"Have I ever told you that you speak really good English? Especially considering your background."

"I think that it would be better if you told me your concern."

"I bumped into Magneto and told him about Genosha. Honestly, he seemed more worried about the fact that he had two children he didn't know about, but… He might end up heading this way."

"And he will do to the unpowered humans what they did to the mutants."

"Not necessarily. There's far less advantage in enslaving baseline humans than there is in enslaving humans with powers. And… It's not like Genosha has been settled all that long. He wouldn't be kicking people out of their ancestral homeland or anything."

"In the future, please avoid passing information about our missions to our enemies."

I nod. "Will do."

She smiles faintly. "In your travels, were you able to find the courage to propose to Rogue?"

"Courage wasn't exactly the problem. But Scott helped me see that I was overthinking it. Do you know where Anne-Marie is?"

"I believe that she has retired for the evening."

…

"Okay, so, I'm not a woman-."

"Please do not ask me for relationship advice."

Yeah, she's right. If she didn't want to wait six months then she's not going to worry about making a decision fully awake. I can-.

Ororo sighs.

"Um, if you want relationship advice from me-?"

"I do not. My powers are tied to my emotional state. Becoming attached to anyone in such a way would put all those around me in dire peril."

"Seriously, your English is amazing. If the superhero things doesn't work out, you should consider qualifying as an English teacher. But I also think that living without attachment is a half-life, and that it's probably something you could learn to adapt to."

"Thank you, but I do not believe that it is worth the risk."

"Becoming a teacher isn't that hard."

I keep a straight face as she stares at me, unamused. I'd make a reference to the Jedi, but Phantom Menace doesn't exist yet so the whole 'no attachments' thing hasn't entered the public consciousness, if it's even a thing at all in canon yet. I don't remember Luke Skywalker hesitating to engage in romance in the old Star Wars novels I read.

"I'll leave you to it. Excuse me."

"Your shift begins in twenty minutes."

I stop in the air, wincing. I mean, fair enough, this is still a mission, but… "What would it take for you to make that an hour?"

"You would have to find another member of the X-Men to provide you with cover."

Hah! Joke's on her. Hopefully. Ring, is Cable still around?

Location available.

Because I definitely saw an 'X' on his costume, and even if he only inherited it from his father I'm pretty sure he'd be willing to help. I-.

Actually, ring? Don't make me appear right next to him.

Compliance.

I appear… Near the prison where they're holding the high value prisoners. Cable-. He's below me, moving his binoculars up to see what the glowing orange thing above him is. I wave down, lowering myself slowly towards him so that he can object or leave if he doesn't want to talk.

He lowers his binoculars and picks up his gun, but he doesn't actually point it at me as I drop to his level.

"What?"

"Cable, X-Man from the future. Needed a break from fighting Apocalypse?"

His eyes narrow. "Something like that. How do you know me?"

"Parallel universe thing. Look, I need an X-Man to police the beach, and-" I point to his collar. "-you count. Help me out and I'll help you out."

He snarls as he looks towards the prison. "This place reminds me of Apocalypse's breeding pens. Every one of them deserves to die."

"People seldom get what they deserve. I'm afraid that they'll probably just get life imprisonment. Also, none of them are going to be in a position to hurt anyone else ever again."

"And you'll owe me."

"I can introduce you to your father's younger self. I haven't tested myself against someone in Apocalypse's weight class before, but I think I can make myself useful. If that's what you want. Food and equipment, to transport back to the future?"

He considers, then nods. "I can do guard duty. But don't tell my father about me. I don't want to erase myself from time."

I nod as I send out filaments. "Transporting now."

We appear on the beach, and I detach my filaments from Cable before flying back to… Her original room. She didn't move, because her stuff was already in here. I land on the balcony and walk into the room.

"Anne-Marie?"

"Uh?" The shape in the bed stirs. "Paul, hun? That you?"

"Yes."

Anne-Marie blinks, then yawns and stretches and my goodness, yes, those are magnificent breasts.

Right then.

I walk to the side of the bed, then kneel and hold out the rings. Her eyes widen and I hear a sharp intake of breath as she becomes very awake.

"I love you and wish to spend the rest of my life with you. Marry me."

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd January 2013
18:14 GMT

I smile at the spokesperson of the gordanians of the clan manning 'my' ship, as well as the prisoners that were on the one Allyn captured.

"So that's the situation. You can all get in the other ship and boom tube back to somewhere where the rest of your fleet can pick you up, or accept internment here for the duration of the war."

"We're going back to the fleet. What about the other ship?"

"Unless you've got more to offer than I think you have, or unless Grayven is actually prepared to agree to a non-aggression pact like I asked him to the first time we met, I'm keeping it."

"That's not for me to say."

"Do you want me to send a message with you, so that I'm the one telling him I'm keeping it?"

He thinks for a moment, then snorts a negative.

"No. Grayven isn't that sort of clan chief. I will tell him directly."

"No? So… What sort of sanctions is Astarte looking at?"

He snorts again, but my ring tells me that it's an 'amused contempt' snort. "I'm gordanian, not citadelian. I don't tell people information just because they ask and no one tells me not to."

"And you're not dead."

He tenses for a moment, then frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Citadelians don't really exist any more. I mean, there might be a few, but they're sterile and I destroyed their cloning facilities. Psions too, though that wasn't me."

"No great loss. Guess Vega's kinda quiet, these days."

I nod. "Nearly civilised. "

"What about Karna?"

"It's karnan dominated, but there are still plenty of gordanian clans living on the planet."

"As slaves?"

"No. The karnans control most of the orbital infrastructure and they've got a bigger fleet now, but the remaining gordanians are free to conduct their affairs with only a few added restrictions."

"Huh. That's nice. We don't get a lot of messages from the clans in Vega."

"No problem. Vega isn't at war with either Grayven, N.E.M.O. or the Reach, so there's no real reason why you can't use a boom tube to visit home."

"Karna's not home for us. It's just where our ancestors happened to come from."

"Fair enough." I gesture to their escorts. "These people will escort you to your ship. It should go without saying, but any perfidy on your part will result in your immediate deaths, and may harm Grayven's future attempts to win Minosyss over."

He makes a mildly submissive gesture. "No, it wouldn't achieve anything."

I smile as he moves back to the holding pen to inform this comrades of the outcome of our discussion. As gordanians, they almost certainly can't tell that anything odd has happened with the planet's thaumosphere. Might be interesting to see how much Astarte actually passes along, as for mischief's sake we included a complete report on their computer. And one from my perspective in the Karrakan system. Wouldn't want him to think that I shot his ship on purpose.

I mean I'm pretty sure that we're going to end up fighting each other, and that this current thing of mostly avoiding each other is due to his plan not requiring that he fight us at the moment, but a little optimism won't hurt.

I

step out,

reappearing next to Athyns on New Cronus. And he isn't surprised in the least by my appearance. Looks like being the man who created this world's thaumosphere gives him a little insight into other people who use it.

"They're off."

"Yes. It will not be enough to ensure peace, but it will enforce the ideal of honest and open-handed dealing in our world's soul. That itself will serve as a defensive weapon."

"In human popular fiction there's a thing called a Justice Field. If you tried to commit a crime inside the area affected, the crime would be done to you instead."

"I doubt that it will be so absolute. Though there is a lot I don't know about New God technology. Would it be possible for us to find a technologist who is from Grayven's people but not allied to him?"

"Usually I'd say 'yes', but we're not in direct contact with New Genesis and my homeworld is being attacked by Grayven's homeworld. If you could lend my homeworld a few Ascendants we could probably put you in touch once the fight is over, but that's the best I can do."

He walks over to the balcony and looks down on Minosyss. You can't see any damage from up here, but the tower of New Othrys was critically damaged. They were thinking about tearing it down and starting again, because while they have access to some advanced technology, molecular reconstruction isn't anything the Titans could do.

"We are not in any position to start a war. Particularly not with people as advanced as Grayven."

I shrug, and fabricate a data crystal.

"Here's a summary. If you feel able to participate, great. If you don't, then you don't. Oh."

I also fabricate a couple of books on thaumaturgy.

"Since your thaumosphere is more active now, you could probably start a native magic tradition. These might help."

"Thank you. You're being surprisingly generous, when there is little I can offer you in return except thanks."

I smile. "If the Reach decide that they won't leave you alone, what will you do?"

He nods. "You would be my natural choice of ally."

"Rather than Grayven. N.E.M.O. is a mutual defence pact with some technology sharing. Help out where you can, and we'll help you in return. If my homeworld was in a better state I'd be able to offer more…"

I shrug.

"It is appreciated anyway. Allyn wanted to speak to you before you leave."

I nod, and

transfer

myself to the docking area.

"Allyn?"

He draws himself up slightly. "What you said before, about there being no one whose job it was to hunt monsters like Astarte down. Is that something that your organisation does?"

"The Orange Lantern Corps is currently focusing on the Reach, but individual Orange Lanterns are free to act on their own recognisance. There are even a few who aren't involved in the war at all, but the Reach are probably the worst people in this galaxy."

He thinks for a moment, then nods.

"What would I have to do to involve myself in this work?"

I pull out my spare ring.

"You have to want really hard to involve yourself."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Counterpunched

6 558 937.M41

"…job."

Tsua'm looks mildly concerned as we walk through the secure biological research facility. Given the nature of what's being studied here, there are a lot fewer members of the Fire Caste than would usually be the case. Instead, internal security is provided by stationary turrets and gun drones, though they're neatly slotted into charge stations or otherwise folded away at the moment. Similarly, the whole place is run by a A.I. with the personality engram of the lead researcher who founded it, an interesting solution to the problem of A.I. friendliness and the novel problem solving difficulties A.I.s sometimes have.

"Your efforts have aided the Tau Empire greatly. I am unused to humans with-"

I smile slightly as she uses the English word without really thinking about it. She can be remarkably insightful at times.

"-your disposition-."

I glance at her with raised eyebrows. "You mean not fanatical converts?"

"I prefer to be polite. I would call them-."

"Mon'gue'vesa."

She makes the choking sound that tau make when they're laughing. "No-." She elbows me in the ribs. "No, I would not call them that, and you should stop corrupting me with such ideas. You… Filthy heretic."

I put my right hand over my heart. "Won't happen again."

"The Empire exalts you above all other humans. You could ask for a world to rule, and you would be granted it. Instead, you ask for trivial things."

I shrug. "I like my work."

"I know that, but the Lar'shi Por'ar'tol are used to humans who are used to… A 'neo-feudal' structure. And yet you do not want land, or trade contracts, nor marriage into-"

I wince. "Please tell me they haven't-."

"-a notable family and no, after your reaction to the concubines they sent last time I was able to convince them that it would not be a good idea."

"Thank you."

That was a bit of a shock. A really… Awkward shock. Because they came from a human world where concubinage was a perfectly respectable profession for a noblewoman looking for promotion, which meant that they were from really well-connected families because Tsua'm isn't joking about how much the Empire likes me. Working out how to turn the women down without getting them shunned when they got home was a lot of work, but not a hard decision to make because they were still nuts.

"The humans of your age were different, I understand. But this is not corruption. Placing industries and peoples in the hands of trustworthy families is a perfectly accepted part of rulership in human society. And I am not looking at you and I know you are either wincing or rolling your eyes." I'm doing both. "It is difficult to rule such a large area of space. Sometimes, it is necessary to use stable systems rather than ideologically pure ones, as well you know."

"Yes, but…" I sigh. "Okay, there are a few things."

"Then tell me what they are."

"I… Can't."

"In the same way that you can't say your name?"

"No. It's… Some things, their nature is affected by how they're given. Like… No one orders fire warrior squads to undergo the bonding ritual, they do it when they all feel that their relationship has reached that stage."

"Of course. I see. Then I must decipher what you want without being directly told."

"I'm afraid so."

"That is marvellous!"

I frown at her as we arrive at our destination. "It is?"

She nods.. in a slightly awkward way because it's not a natural gesture for the tau. She sort of thrusts her head forwards slightly before tilting it. It makes her look a little like a chicken pecking at the ground. "If I can intuit your intention with such precision, then I will be worthy of promotion. I will be much better placed to curb the well-meaning actions of the Lar'shi Por'ar'tol as Por'Vre Lar'shi Tsua'm Raard."

I take a moment to consider the effects of promotion on tau social interactions.

Hang on.

"Is your mother still-?"

"AND WE ARE HERE!" She puts her right hand on the palm reader. "One to access, one to monitor."

"Acknowledged, Alien Psychology Envoy Tsua'm Raard."

Two armoured doors slide open, and she wastes exactly no time in striding through the one to the right. And I receive a reminder that just because tau have less close family structures when compared with humans, that doesn't mean that they don't sometimes get pressure from their parents.

Ho-hum.

I walk in through the left door, which closes behind me.

"Please don protective equipment."

I clench my left hand, construct armour appearing around me.

"Acceptable. The following advisories are to be relayed before contact. The contained specimen has: supertau speed, supertau strength, supertau endurance, supertau senses and tau-equivalent intelligence. Interior weapons are permanently active, and in the result of a confrontation your survival will not be prioritised. Please confirm that you understand."

"I understand."

"Acceptance noted." The interior door opens. "Have a productive day."

"Will do." I walk into the holding room, dismissing my construct armour. "You too."

The room is divided in two by solid bars, with the captive on the far side. She's dressed in clothing that's not really any different to tau casual wear, if a little simplified. The actual interior of the cell is bare… Ah, the tau version of rockcrete, with a small rug to either sleep on or just to keep off the cold floor. The only other object is a commode, and the only hole in the bars is the device for taking waste material out and allowing food in.

The woman herself has brown skin and -naturally- no hair. The ridge crests are relatively small and she's clearly used to avoiding letting people getting a good look at her teeth. Two arms, two legs, skin covering her muscles… You'd almost think she was human. She'd be the picture of good health, too, if she wasn't curled up in the middle of the rug and trying not to shake.

Very nearly human eyes are fixed on me.

"Good morning, Subject Two Five Seven Nine Four."

"F-f-f-f-amily. Why-? Why can't I h-hear them? P-promised…"

"Because we're not stupid enough to put a fourth generation genestealer hybrid somewhere without a null zone." I activate the room's holographic display, switching it between images taken from the facility's various other holding cells. "As you can see, they're alive and well."

The other surviving members of her cult. And not 'her' in the sense that she ruled it. We're fairly sure that she's just a regular neophyte hybrid rather than one of the 'specialist' forms that genestealer cults produce if they reach the 4th generation, but she has seniority amongst those that escaped the Imperium and surrendered to the Tau Empire.

So much that we don't know about genestealer-infected humans. So much we could learn from willing test subjects.

And so much trouble we could get into if this goes badly.

"Now." I smile. "Let's begin with the background."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 558 937.M41

I think back to when I took this footage.

The whole thing was nerve-wracking and unnerving rather than… Dangerous. Tyranid ships aren't known for their agility, but more than that they don't really make use of lightspeed weapons. Sure, they can fire billions of gallons of high strength acid to melt you, or a giant vacuum cleaner mouth to eat you, but if they want to destroy a small target they have to send actual tyranid fighters after you.

So when flying past the capillary towers and over the reclamation pools as the remaining tyranid creatures on the planet ate the last of the world's organic matter and then threw themselves in, the only thing I really had to worry about was a Norn Queen deigning to take notice of me. Which didn't seem very likely, and as far as I can remember tyranid psychic attacks are mostly either short ranged or required the target to be a psyker.

"So, yeah, this is the final stage. I haven't been able to obtain live footage of the consumption process actually finishing, but if you're still here in a few years I'll fly back to.. this planet, and record it for you."

The hybrid is actually crying as she stares at the image of a brood of genestealers waiting patiently for the rippers to finish being reclaimed before bravely stepping forward themselves.

"I take it that you… Weren't aware of this?"

"Father, no..?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm not sure whether or not your Patriarch was consciously 'aware' of any of this. As far as I've been able to tell, while genestealers are capable of reacting to their environment in complex ways, they're not really… 'Intelligent' in the sense that you and I are. It's entirely possible that he wouldn't have ever sat down and thought, 'time to create a load of minions that I'm going to destroy', he'd just have… Once the fleet got into synapse range, he'd have directed you to make reckless attacks to distract the forces of the Imperium, and if any of you had survived then he'd have sent you…"

I point to the holographic image of the suicidal genestealers.

"Like that. As I understand it, some cults regard that as an ascent to some sort of heaven. I haven't found any evidence of that actually happening. Tyranids don't really do individuality. They wouldn't see any value in preserving an individual mind."

"That's all we are? A distraction? For the-? For the Star Gods?"

"Depends what you mean. If you mean 'the tyranids', then they're not really gods. They're a group of species of vaguely insectoid aliens. If you mean 'the Hive Mind', yes. Exactly the same as individual tyranids. Much like other gods, the Hive Mind has a single bunch of strong concepts that are things it does, and no real imagination or capacity to understand things outside of that. You're a way of subverting members of a prey species, lictors are for scouting and gaining information from the brains of enemies, carnifexes are for drawing enemy fire and surviving while other creatures close the distance… Everything has a role. But cultists like you are the only ones who can think like humans. No tyranid warrior would ever experience the existential doubt that you're feeling right now. Oh, I have a question for you, if you don't mind?"

She just keep staring at the hologram, so I turn it off. She stares blankly at the wall for a moment, then slowly turns her head towards me.

She's still crying.

"I know that purestrains…" I generate a hologram. "What did your cult call them?"

"Sacred message-bearers. We would… We would paint designs on their carapaces… On the holy days."

"They infected people via their proboscis?"

"They bring them-." She shakes her head, looking down at the floor. "Yes. The… The.. injection. In the.. neck or chest."

"Not the arm?"

"No."

Huh. Odd. It's basically a virus; anywhere in the circulatory system should do. Does it need to go into the heart or brain to work properly?

"And how long does it take to fully take effect?"

"It… It varies. Some hear the words in a few moments. With others… A day or two."

"Literal words, or just a general sense of rightness?"

"There are… Speakers. Priests who… There were…"

I'm not going to feel sad about a genestealer cult being wiped out. Wonder if the Ichar IV Magus was ever found?

"But nothing from the implantation itself?"

"No."

"And their children are hybrids, who have the most genestealer characteristics?"

"Yes."

"Does that require both parents to be inductees, or is just one enough?"

"I don't know. Everyone I knew had two… Parents, who were Family."

"You can talk to first generation hybrids?"

"Yes. They… They carry the Voice of the Family. The words don't come from their mouths, but we understand… Them."

"And they can reproduce sexually?"

"Yes."

"With other hybrids, or cultists, or… Who?"

"Both. The men could sire more children than there were women to bear them, so they bred with initiates."

"And the women? Could they breed with initiates?"

"I don't know. We bred to increase the generation of the children, so they could disguise themselves better. They needed at least three generations, so…"

"With one parental line, or both?"

"Both for them-. Us, to look as unenlightened as possible. But it was… Difficult. Most of my own children were message-bearers. Others of my generation had to adopt children of the third generation to maintain the pretence. That was better for them, as well. The first and second generations are not good at raising children."

"Can any generation other than purestrains infect people?"

"No. No."

"Mind showing me your tongue?"

She gives me a small frown, then opens her mouth and sticks it out. It's longer and more cylindrical than a normal human tongue, but there clearly aren't any anomalous structures there.

"And you can't transmit it sexually?"

"No. I… Don't think so. I only mated with third and fourth generation…"

"To create other human-looking hybrids or purestrains, who were more useful than first and second generation hybrids."

"Yes. I…" She actually manages to look up and make eye contact. "What will happen to us now?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 558 937.M41

"Well… That depends on you."

"I don't believe that."

I nod, making a dismissive gesture with my right hand. "Alright, not entirely. The Tau Empire's primary interest in this matter is to make sure that the tyranid hive fleets don't come to the Tau Empire. The problem there is that genestealer cultists like you emit a constant warp signal which draws the hive fleets to you. And there's the problem of purestrain genestealers who won't be on board with avoiding doing that whatever the hybrids like you think."

"The tau would… Leave us in places like this, where we can't feel each other. And control our breeding, so that we… Don't…"

"Don't give birth to purestrains. Because you can be surprisingly reasonable, but they… Can't."

Assimilating a purestrain genestealer wasn't actually very hard. Their desires are so focused and intense that it couldn't really resist once I got it alone. But what I didn't realise is that if a Construct Lantern gets destroyed, I get the pleasure of seeing their thoughts. It was bad enough the first time it happened with an assimilated ork; they think like weirdly violent children. It was disturbing, but in some regards relatable.

Genestealers…

It was.. like…

Complete selflessness. And not because they've overcome a sense of self-preservation. It was very clear that they never had one in the first place. Anything other than its task barely registers, and even that just as a background 'this may impact something important later' sort of way. Even fanatical members of the Adepta Sororitas are aware of their own pain. And there's no… Chaos worshippers feel joy when they do something in the service of their god. So do Brood Brothers and Hybrids. But purestrains? No. Nothing. They just move onto the next thing. It's machine-like, really.

"The issue is that we can't build facilities like this on the scale that we'd need to in order to house a decent population."

This cell block is shielded by a single null rod taken off the body of an Inquisitor at.. some point during the Damocles Gulf Crusade and stuck in storage because the tau thought that it was just a fancy walking stick. But null rods are rare, archeotech relics or custom built by the most highly skilled Magi of the Cult Mechanicus. They're in the database as a high priority acquisition target but there's no real reason for them to be used in combat against a species like the tau who flat out don't have psykers.

Psyker technology on the other hand is relatively easy to come by. Every Imperial ship has rooms for navigators and astropaths, and the larger ones frequently have other psykers on board for various purposes. And some have null chambers, because even the Imperium would rather help a struggling psyker than put a bolt round through their head. Time permitting. We had a couple of nicassar psykers help with making sure the whole place would actually work as intended, but they found it too disorientating to give a precise explanation.

Point is, we're never going to get enough for a long term settlement, and even if we theoretically could, it wouldn't be cost-effective. Human-dominated worlds inside the Tau Empire need that technology while the T'au Aun'ar'tol comes up with some sort of rule for dealing with regulating human psykers.

One that doesn't involve cutting off their arms and legs to try and make them dependent on a tau handler, because seriously, I have no idea what they were thinking when they came up with that one. 'We're going to train you to be a psychic weapon, and for step one we're going to make you hate us, because at least that way you'll be motivated'.

"On the other hand, I take it that you're no more interested in having your whole family eaten by the hive fleets than you are in having them wiped out by the Imperium?"

She shudders. "No."

"It's my experience that humans who are citizens of the Imperium tend to… Think about things in religious terms. When you were connected to the broodmind, you saw the hive mind as a… God?"

"It was… More of a superior… Force, or… Presence."

"Right! Now, technically, it is. It's just not one that has your best interests in mind. But plasma reactors don't have anyone's best interests in mind and they're still useful. The warp itself is invaluable for starship travel and interstellar communication while being extremely dangerous. So what we want to do is give you and your people a better general education than you received back on your homeworld. And when you understand a little more about the way the universe operates, we'd like to work with you and your people to find out exactly how your collective mind works. Maybe even use you to track down genestealer cultists hiding out on tau controlled worlds."

"What will you do with them?"

"That depends. Any purestrains will be killed, including any broodlords and the patriarch. Whether individual Brood Brothers or hybrids can be salvaged will depend on them."

"They… They won't. Won't cooperate."

I nod. "Probably not. But we can't have them signalling the hive fleet."

"Their families… My-."

"Their families would be eaten. Just as yours would have been. The issue is their fanatical religious belief in the righteousness of the hive mind."

"Yes. Does-? Is there.. no part of.. us that becomes..?"

"It would be difficult to test, but there's never been any sign of it. New tyranid forms develop as the hive mind responds to the things that oppose it, they don't integrate personalities. I mean, lictors eat people's brains but they don't start acting like them."

"And…" She looks a little like she wants to vomit. "Does the Emperor take the souls of the faithful?"

"Not sure. Psykers who get picked up by the Black Ships but have inadequate willpower to master their abilities get their souls fed into him directly. I'm not sure how coherent they are when it happens. As for everyone else… Maybe? I've been working under the assumption that individual human souls aren't powerful enough to retain coherence after death, but the Emperor's core consciousness is made up of a large group of powerful psykers who used sorcery to bind themselves together so in theory it's possible."

Huh. Both the hive mind and the Emperor eat people. Hadn't really thought about it like that before.

"Look, I'm sure you've got a lot of things to think-."

"Can I-? Speak to the others?"

"Uh. Not right now, but we can sort something out in a few days. I'll make a few files available on the local computer system. You can access it through verbal commands, though for now your access will be limited to a few non-restricted files."

Really basic files on t'au ideology and science. Nothing that could be used as a weapon or to otherwise aid her escape. Lots to encourage her to come to share the tau worldview.

"I'll leave you to it."

I nod politely, turn away and leave the cell. Once out of the cell I enter the other door and walk through to the observation area.

Tsua'm jerks her head around and stares at me for a moment, nasal cleft undulating. Then she starts pulling up facial images on one of the screens and indicates that the AI should analyse them and run a comparison to human baselines.

The hobgoblin-looking individual next to her grins at me, and wiggles 'his' right hand in greeting. Gremlin used to live in a cell not too different to this one, but once he demonstrated himself to be reasonably helpful he's become more of a trustee. At this rate he might well end up joining my team before too long. It's just that given how intelligent he is, any sort of analysis of his behaviour is hampered by the fact that the only comparison we can make is to a snotling.

Not sure what he said to Tsua'm, but it's probably what I didn't want him to.

"You were watching that?"

He nods twice. "Yes, Boss."

"How much was she faking, do you think?"

"Oh, it was deffo a shock." Gremlin scratches his nose. "An' she ain't doin' too well without the rest a' the brood. But its mostly mental. She coulda tuffed it awt enuff t' stand up and speak proppah."

"Think we need to flush the cell?"

He shakes his head. "Nah. Wasteful. Not like anyone really thought we'd just flip the lotta 'em. Keep tawkin', see what falls awt, that's the way."

I nod. "Will do. Keep watching what she does."

Gremlin nods, grinning. "What else 's a brainy boy like me for?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th January 2013
06:15 GMT

I walk through the refectory of the Orange Lantern Corps on Maltus, orange light flowing through my armour and my soul. Those amongst my new comrades in arms who have… Learned to unify their souls with their rings have a distinctly different feel to them than those who merely used them as weapons. But from the lack of interest they show in me, it seems that they do not feel what I feel.

Or perhaps they do, and I am not so unique.

The feel of this world is beyond my experience, as was the soul-feel of the Controller to whom the Illustres introduced me. I never had the privilege of meeting Grandmother Rhea when she walked amongst her descendants, but that is my only point of comparison. It was as if her soul echoed all across this world and beyond.

"Over here, New Lantern."

A heavily built blue skinned and one eyed Lantern looks at me for a moment, then returns his attention to his meal. My ring whispers his name to me

Zartok.

as well as his service history. Part of the first wave of recruits, though not one of those recruited by the Illustres himself.

Disgruntlement.

Zartok doesn't bother continuing to look at me once he has… Made his offer? Issued his command? The Illlustres told me that there isn't a strict hierarchy here, but if I want to enact justice across the universe then I would be wise to pay attention to my seniors.

I imagine that some of my fellows on Minosyss would have trouble with the idea that none of them are Ascendants. For myself, I will learn more about this organisation I have bound myself to before passing judgement.

I walk over to the chair opposite Lantern Zartok and sit down.

"Thank you."

His eye remains fixed on his food, glowing faintly as he pointedly does not look at me. That seems odd.

"The Illustres suggested that I participate in your training. I believe that he wants to examine my own progress rather than aid you specifically… But I find his behaviour hard to judge."

His eye comes up.

"Why did you join the Orange Lantern Corps?"

"My homeworld was attacked by a three thousand year old cannibal warlord. I was shocked at the idea that such evil is allowed-"

His face shows his species' expression for

Irritation.

"-to persist. I had thought that… Bandits would be put down before gaining that sort of strength."

"Is that how it was on your homeworld?"

"No, but everyone from Karrakan knew that our civilisation had fallen far from its height. I had thought that others would be wiser. Better."

"The universe is rife with violence. Though I admit that mass cannibalism is unusual, I suspect that is more due to tradition and taste rather than any great moral distress. Our own Lantern Mother of Mercy routinely eats the remains of intelligent creatures."

He smiles faintly at my expression of distaste.

"Why does she eat people? Why is such a being-?"

Informational.

"Ah, I see you've learned to get information from your ring. You would be surprised how many would-be Lanterns fail to realise that is even possible."

"I…"

It is distasteful, but conveying the souls of the dead to the afterlife in exchange for the mortal remains which they no longer need is…

"That is different from attacking worlds purely to eat their people as the Citizenry and the Spider Guild are wont to do."

"Yes. It is lower risk." He ingests some sort of tuber and then lowers his utensils. "So, you want to enforce a universal code of justice. I do too, though in my case I want to do so because it will be my code."

I nod. It makes sense that someone would prefer the social rules they are accustomed to, rather than the code of another or something intellectual and abstract.

"And what is your code?"

"Whatever I decide."

I frown. "I don't unders-."

"I expected better from a god."

"I don't consider myself-."

"It's not about rules, it's about power. The orange light gives you the power to enact your desires, whatever they might be. I want to conquer and rule. Being the ruler, I will be the one making the rules. It doesn't matter to me what they are, so long as they are mine."

"You're a tyrant."

"Not at the moment. This…"

He looks away.

Discomfiture.

"Situation I am in, is because I did not check my footing before I lunged. Merely wanting something, giving yourself over completely to that goal, is not enough. Even for an Orange Lantern."

He rests his elbows on the table, hands clasped just under his chin.

"So tell me, given what you know about the orange light, how would you deal with someone like me?"

A tyrant who holds no ideal above his own need to dominate others? I'd-.

Suggestion.

An orange… Laser? It's not too surprising that there are weapons that can bypass power ring generated barriers. The railgun rounds that the Illustres showed me would destroy his constructs as well, making it possible for a new Lantern such as I to kill him. A fixed weapon, some sort of ambush-.

He's smiling unpleasantly.

His ring can tell him as much as mine can me. Perhaps more, given his status.

No. If he were a simple-minded tyrant, he would not be able to accept people having authority over him. And yet he does. Why, given his lack of a higher ideal, even basic loyalty?

Because he's checking his footing. He doesn't think that he knows enough to safely advance himself. He's learning, gaining in power, until he reaches the point where he can resume his preferred lifestyle.

Then…

"I would endeavour to convince you that it served your interests to enforce the code I prefer. Because once you have decided to do so, it will become yours, and you will care for it… Even if not for the same reason that I do."

"Yes." He nods. "Good."

He stands.

"Finish your meal, and then join me in the arena. We must pair the philosophical with the practical. I hope that you are just as adept, but I am also curious as to what god blood looks like."

He pats me on the shoulder and then leaves me to my thoughts.

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th January 2013
06:15 GMT

I watch as Zartok waits for his new student in the arena. That's new. When we were first recruited, he wouldn't have been so patient. He would have dragged the new Lantern to the arena, or picked a new sparring partner to kill time until they arrived. Instead, he's actually meditating.

And when I make an effort, I can feel the change in the way in which it makes the orange light flows through him.

When we met, I joined up with him for two main reasons. One, he was the most powerful Lantern in our group despite the lack of training. Two, he clearly had no sexual interest in me at all. Distant third was probably his honesty. Or how easy to manipulate he was.

But what irritates me now is how he's been able to learn what the Illustres was trying to teach him, while I haven't. And what irritates me more is that he's done it without really changing his aims. I pride myself on my ability to think things through logically and dispassionately. I judged him to be a simpleminded brute, and it turned out that I was half-wrong.

I want what he has, but I don't want what he wants.

For a moment I'm glowing, orange light building without any direction. Grood looks up from the bone he's gnawing on for a moment, then loses interest as it fades.

One step above an animal and he understands-. No, he doesn't understand. He intuits the orange light better than I do. When he and Zartok train against one another, they're roughly as strong as each other. Zartok wins because he can think-. And I hate being the weak link.

But being the strongest makes you a target, and I don't want that either.

And there's… 'Allyn'.

Isn't that name of the Illustres' mentor? No, Alan. Allyn.

Standard humanoid. Solid musculature, but beyond that there's nothing physically special about him. His armour has orange-glowing decoration, so perhaps he's using his ring to fortify it in some way? His posture shows that he's relaxed in this environment, but uncertain. He's new, but doesn't have any problem seeing the people around him as allies.

I still can't.

And it's holding me back.

I pull a face. Ring, tell me about 'Allyn'.

This is something that I can do. My ring feeds the information directly into my brain, bypassing my senses and increasing throughput. Before I joined the Orange Lantern Corps I considered getting implants to let me access computers like this, but who could I possibly trust to do the work?

Okay, I get it, I get it. I'm my own worst enemy, as far as getting stronger goes.

And what does the Illustres recommend for dealing with that?

...

What's a psilocybin mushroom?

Huh.

No. Why would he suggest that? Would that work on my species?

Because it gets people out of cognitive loops, and 'yes'.

"…train without a weapon." Zartox makes a staff construct. "Since you're a 'god', it may be that your people have weapons that can compare to power rings, but I suggest that you do as I do to increase your ability to shift flexibly between one approach and another in combat."

Allyn nods. I look closer, and he has a sword which glows in the same way as his armour. Not all that long ago I'd have tried acquiring that sword. But in an organisational structure like this acquiring a new ally is far more useful. While Zartox is distracted, take a look.

Ah. He thinks that there's something about teaching others that he needs to learn to match the Illustres' power. He thinks that it's something that he'll need to do when he kills the Illustres and takes over.

Most gang lieutenants I knew would try and be a little bit subtle about that desire. The Illustres took it well enough. When Zartok showed me his recording of the conversation, it sounded like he liked the possibility.

Sounded like. I've carefully crafted an argument for a particular set of ears enough to read below the surface. No one who accepted their death like he claimed to would have been able to bring themselves back from total atomisation with their ring. He said what he said to encourage a man who wants to kill him.

In the sparring arena, Allyn has made a simple shield and Zartok is firing a pistol at it. While that looks like he's giving him time to get used to actually defending himself, it's clear to anyone who knows him that Zartok is doing it either as an insult, or-.

A beam of orange energy blasts out from Zartok's chest, smashes apart Allyn's shield and sends him flying into the arena wall.

Zartok watches him as he regains his footing, nodding with mild satisfaction as Allyn takes a stance. Usually, new Lanterns who get hit like that get injured. At their level of power environmental shields aren't enough to keep them completely protected. Ragnar hits recruits like this to teach them to heal themselves. I didn't see Allyn heal himself.

"Did you protect yourself, or are you unharmed because of your armour?"

"My armour is fortified by my soul. My ring makes it stronger. I can claim no credit for being uninjured."

"Being prepared does you credit. So many fools step in here believing that a ring is all they need."

Zartok raps his knuckles against his own body armour. The Illustres likes heavy armour, but Zartok was more comfortable with light armour. Something that would block shrapnel and mundane attacks if his ring ran out of power. Officially, the Illustres said to attempt a retreat when a power ring couldn't get the job done, and that backup weapons were there to enable that retreat. But few Lanterns who acquired other weapons without being told to would fail to use them offensively.

"But-"

Zartok interrupts himself with another shot, striking Allyn in the chest and pinning him to the wall. Allyn forms a shield off to his side and then tentatively brings it in to block, and it falls apart like the first.

"-perhaps you would be better served by not wearing armour? Perhaps it would be best if you were really in danger? I will not kill you here, but if I decide that it's necessary for your training then I will push this beam directly through your internal organs."

Another shield appears, this one larger and thicker. He doesn't hesitate to bring it to bear, but it shatters like the second.

"A Scarab Warrior would have killed you by now."

The orange in Allyn's armour wavers as the plates start to give way.

"It seems that I will see your blood-"
Shield of Duty and Reason
A new shield forms directly in front of Allyn, this one possessing the same sort of glowing line design as his armour. His armour brightens too, as his armour holds against Zartok's beam and he steps away from the wall. It's clearly taking effort, but he's managing it, and Zartok doesn't pull his punches by much when he teaches.
Holy Armour
Allyn's aura glows brighter and expands beyond his body, solidifying into armour.

"-after all."

Zartok stops firing the beam and nods, satisfied.

"Better."

"I think I-."

Zartok takes his feet out from under him with a subterranean attack and then strikes him over the head with a glowing orange mace!

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th January 2013
06:34 GMT

Before calling them to attention, I take a moment to assess the pugilists' strength. Allyn has clearly grasped the basics of power ring combat, though naturally Zartok's control and fatigability clearly outstrip his. His constructs are fine when he creates them-. No, good, actually. But they are relatively slow to form and he is attached to them; he does not dismiss them when they have served their purpose but rather allows them to fade as they slip from this mind.

They will serve. I raise my hands to my mouth.

"Lantern Zartok! Lantern Allyn!"

It pleases me to see that neither of them are distracted. Ranged constructs fall silent at once and no new energy pulses are sent across the duelling ground. Both maintain their shields and armour and don't take their eyes off one another. Zartok's people don't end their training duels in quite the same way that mine do, but he-.

Zartok raises his right fist up to his ear, then extends it towards his opponent. Allyn doesn't respond. He doesn't know the gesture and isn't used to looking things up on his ring's database. His own people have no ritual duelling tradition as they've spent too much time engaged in full scale war. When I first heard of it, I thought that it might suit me. Or rather, I would be better suited to it than the peaceful world I was born to.

But it's not all about me.

Ah, Allyn has dropped his construct armour. Not the proper response, but it will stand. In another situation, Zartok wouldn't be above attacking a Lantern who hadn't properly signalled the end of a spar, but he's usually a little more understanding when I'm around.

According to the Illustres, I'm a beef gate.

The term was not explained on my ring's cultural database. Metaphors often don't translate well, if there is no equivalent phrase. In an attempt to understand what he meant, I had the cooks prepare a meal of beef. The taste was fair, but I saw no similarity between it and myself. So I asked him directly. Essentially, he feels that anyone thinking about challenging him would first seek to challenge me, as I am the most available Lantern of rank. Anyone who cannot beat me is not worthy of his time.

Lantern Zartok and I both want to kill the Illustres. Or rather, have both stated that we will. Having reflected on it at length, I don't think that I do want to kill him; not specifically. Beat him as proof of my skill and supremacy, yes. But unlike Zartok I didn't kill my former swordmaster when I was done with my training.

Zartok sneers for a moment, then lowers his own defence constructs. "It is customary to salute an opponent at the end of a spar. Remember that next time."

Allyn responds by raising his fist in a mirror of Zartok's gesture.

"Adequate." His eye shifts to me. "Have you been introduced to Lantern Ragnar?"

"Yes. The Illustres introduced us when I first arrived."

The Illustres recruits the most interesting people. Aside from Lantern Xalitan Xor -my 'beef gate'- none of them have been warriors, exactly, but all of them have had a unique perspective on the orange light. Each have been far more powerful than most of our recruits, and the boy Lantern Sodam Yat is stronger than most recruits even without his ring.

Lantern Zartok glances up as the stands, where his coterie of Lantern Drusa and Lantern Grood sat watching as is their custom. Lantern Grood jumps down to his master's side with a single thrust of his arms, while Lantern Drusa flies more slowly, eyes flickering as she reviews reports from the front lines to try to determine what I want.

A good team. Balanced.

"You have news?"

Lantern Zartok stares directly into my eyes as he asks. He mirrors my stance, neither respectful or insolent but as an equal. But unlike him I have two eyes, and I see the awkwardness of Lantern Drusa as he asks me a question she could already answer.

"Yes. They were hunting for Grayven's fleet. Whatever he has been doing to the Reach, it has roused in them an anger that not even we can equal."

His face twists as he tries to prevent himself feeling rage. "That will not stand."

"No. It won't. For the first time since the beginning of the war, we are sending a team to infiltrate deep into Reach space. If you are willing, the four of you will be a part of it."

"I am a warrior, not a spy."

"You will not lack for targets in the interior of the Reach. You will simply have to combine your wrath with subtlety. The Darkstar squad assigned to the mission will handle any actual spying that needs to be done."

"Not a fleet, then. One of their stealth cruisers."

"A new design. Something that should be able to fly through the Reach's interdiction systems. Until they adapt them."

"Is there a reason why we do not build a fleet of such ships and then charge deeply into their territory in force?"

"Yes." As disappointed as I was when I found out. "Such ships are difficult to build, even for the Controllers. They could have built a fleet in the time it took to build this ship."

Lantern Zartok clearly isn't happy, but he led armies. He knows when a logistical position is untenable.

"Marines?"

I frown. Why would he ask about that? "What for? You aren't expected to hold territory or engage in broad-front combat."

"Then what are we being sent to do?"

"We need to know more about Grayven's fights with the Reach. We believe that we know where they have been fighting, because we know where they moved their inner circle fleet from."

"So their defences are weakened?"

"Not to the point where four Lanterns could destroy what's left. But enough that you won't have to worry about them flooding your area with gravity distortion weapons."

Lantern Zartok nods. "Are you joining us?"

"No. You will work better without me. I would disrupt your chain of command."

He nods again, this time with more vigour. If I had a regret about taking responsibility for training so many other Lanterns, it is that it has not allowed me to form the bonds of camaraderie that I see other Lanterns having. Perhaps if Lantern Xor spent more time here…

Or perhaps I should speak to the Illustres. Another Lantern could take up my responsibilities here, and that would allow me to spend more time in combat. I would rather spend it on his homeworld, fighting the madness that it produces, but… Now is not the time. Anti-Life is not something that a buzz blade can cut.

"I will want to speak to the Darkstar leader at once."

I fire a data packet to each of them, Lantern Drusa's eyes glowing at once as she goes through it. Lantern Zartok will do the same later, when I am not within sword's reach.

I would not kill him, of course. Not outside of a sanctioned duel. He makes me reflect on what I might have become if I had not received my ring. Uncomfortably so.

"I wish you all best fortune. We need information more than kills, but…" I smile. "Neither of us want Grayven outpacing us."

"No. Where is he, anyway?"

"Not anywhere near Karrakan. We recovered some wreckage, but most of his ships escaped the Reach."

"And the Reach fleet? Them appearing behind us would be inconvenient."

Ah. "The Illustres intends to deal with them personally."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th January 2013
08:45 GMT

"Ah, this is going to be so great!"

"Ye-ah." Lotta can be a real downer sometimes. "I've never seen the core of Reach space before. I bet they've got forms of mind control there we've never even seen."

Uh…

"Yeah, probably." She doesn't look happy. "Come on. A few years ago, did you think we'd be doing something like this?"

"Not against a Reach core world. Probably against one of the worlds who signed up with N.E.M.O.."

"Because Grayven would have attacked them?"

Lotta frowns thoughtfully.

"Hm. No. If he bothered fighting the Reach at all, he'd have kept attacking the same places. He's clearly not worried about being caught."

"Or wasn't. I think that system bottle trap they had was for him rather than the Illustres."

She nods. "Makes sense. He's only got one place to go to get more junior gods, and the Illustres has thousands of systems he can go to if he wants to attack the Reach."

"What do you mean, 'if'?"

"You didn't hear? Apokolips attacked his homeworld. I heard he was going to ask for help before Controller Hinon told him about the Reach offensive."

"'Heard' from a reliable source, or is this just a rumour?"

"I got talking to some Lanterns who were at the Central Power Battery when Hinon took his call."

"Yeah, but they might not have gotten the whole thing."

"He's asked for help before."

"When the Source picked a fight with him. I've seen Apokoliptian invasions before. They're not that bad."

"For wiping out colonies too stupid to know not to settle in the Apokoliptian Waste, sure, that's just a couple of ships. The Illustres comes from a crazy death world. They're going to make more of an effort."

"I guess that makes sense. But if it was Khund that was getting attacked, I'd still be here."

"Yeah, but that's Khund."

Hey! "What, you don't like Khund?"

"Phil, no one likes Khund. You're literally on the other side of the galaxy from Khund. The only reason we're fighting the Reach rather than Khund is that whenever the Khundian Empire expands, it has a civil war."

"The Empress is always a total babe!"

I mean, it is kind of a drawback to needing to kill a man to take his wife. The Emperor gets his pick, and then everyone wants his pick. One time I tried explaining it to Tarant, he asked why we didn't just put the women in charge of administration. I said because we need rulers who can fight, and he did this whole… Lecture about the advantages of a permanent administrative civil service that I tuned out. But I think what he was saying is that someone who isn't going to get kicked out every five minutes needs to be around to organise things. Which is why the Khundian Empire is tiny, and why the Reach have been doing basically the same thing and winning for thousands of years.

Wonder if any of the Reach men I've killed were married?

Lotta shakes her head as we take our seats in the briefing chamber. Don't know if the Lanterns are going to turn up. They're basically there for if everything goes wrong, and if that happens they don't need much of a briefing to 'fight real hard'. Some like turning up anyway, the ones who used to be Darkstars or were in the military before they joined up. It doesn't really-.

One of the other doors open and the Lanterns walk in. Zartok's a good fighter. Grood's good at hitting things. Not much tactical awareness. Drusa… Not so great. Not all Lanterns are great fighters and that doesn't mean that they're bad at being Lanterns, but we haven't worked with her so we can't really use her. And the other guy… Must be new. I poke my arm computer.

Who is he?

Oh, one of Grayven's junior gods. Armour looks hoopy, but it isn't a great idea to have a new guy on the rearguard for a mission like this. If the goop hits the fan, we'll need someone who won't get confused.

Zartok takes a seat at the front, because of course he does. Drusa sits at the back, same as me. I try making eye contact, see if I can get some idea what she's thinking, but other than taking note of my position she doesn't reciprocate. New Guy sits next to Zartok, probably following the Lantern who's teaching him. Grood doesn't sit down, just sort of lurks at the side of the room. Other Darkstars file in around them, but no one wants to be too close to the near-animal who eats people.

Doesn't make sense to me. I've eaten people, and they don't react that way to near-animals who don't eat people. I'd get up and sit next to him myself if it wasn't for the fact that I've already sat down and that'd make it obvious that I was making a point.

Ah, looks like Colos is in charge of the mission again. Good. Since we took back Jenuwyne and started resettling people he's really gotten his head back in the game. And he's taking a seat-. Heh, he's spotted Zartok, and he needs to convey to Zartok that we're not working for him but doesn't want to look petty about it.

"Sit down, Ferrin."

Director Jeddigar walks in from behind him, and Colos immediately sits down in the closest chair. Solves that problem, I guess.

And the director's doing the briefing. I mean, sure, this is important, but he doesn't need to be here to deliver a briefing. He's got his hands full worrying about internal security and anti-infiltration work on a few thousand worlds these days. Or at least he should, because if we put all this work into pushing the Reach back and he drops the ball because he decided to micromanage rather than macromanage like he's supposed to, I might decide to marry his wife.

Jeddigar waves at the hologram projector, which then generates a large map of Reach space. Nothing everyone here hasn't seen a thousand times, though the thin sandy yellow line indicating reclaimed space is new enough that it raises a few smiles.

"We knew from our encounter during our first wave of attacks against the Reach as part of N.E.M.O. that the Apokoliptian Grayven was waging his own war against them. And now his actions have given us the opportunity to gather more information on their internal organisation."

A world gets highlighted… Oh, that's a… Little further into Reach space than I thought we'd be going. Not one of their proper core worlds, but only a little way away from that.

"We know that this world was recently ravaged, either by Grayven's fleet or the Citizenry-."

"How?"

Yeah, Zartok doesn't like being reminded that he's not the boss here.

"As has been a frequent problem, we don't have any direct intelligence on the Reach interior. However, we were recently able to acquire unusually detailed indirect information, both from the ship the Illustres captured and from the Qwardians. The Reach had been trying to buy anti-Lantern weapons from them for some time, and we've been able to subvert some of the Qwardians' information-gathering efforts."

Qwardians… Probably more advanced than the Reach. I knew they'd got some stuff… Wasn't just for our Lanterns, I guess.

"Is it reliable?"

"The Illustres managed to perform an identity theft on the ship's captain. We know everything he saw. The ship's sensor logs substantially agree, as do the Qwardian data intercepts."

Looks like Zartok's okay with that.

"In theory, the mission is simple. While the true core of the Reach will have systems to trap your ship, the worlds which you'll be surveying won't. If you get in, look around and leave without drawing attention, you shouldn't have a problem. And if you do, that's why you have Lanterns with you."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th January 2013
07:12 GMT -7

Portal activation detected, Lantern Grayven.

Thank you, Sinestro.

I lower the milk bottle and take a moment to check on the children. It's Saturday, and the children are mostly sorted as far as breakfast goes. I think they're giving me unrealistic expectations regarding the likely behaviour of any children Luna and I have; they're really well behaved. No bickering, no randomly throwing their food across the room, no complaints when the elder take charge of the younger. It's a little sad, but at the same time, a bit of a relief? I'm not sure how I'd cope with this many children if they behaved like normal children. Normal parents can just have one at the start and then wait until they're past the constant attention phase before having another.

"Children, Luna's arrived. I'm just going to pop over to the portal room and escort her back."

Because while she can move around in human-form, she's made it very clear that it's far from her favourite thing. She's fine with the hands, not so much with the bipedalism. Which could be a little awkward, as I had a family sledging day planned and sliding across the frozen Denver countryside isn't something for people not comfortable on their legs.

Mother Box, hush tube.

Ping.

The portal opens silently next to me and I step through, smiling broadly.

"Luna, dear heartttt…"

That's not Luna.

Someone I strongly suspect to be Celestia smiles at me, standing exactly one pace from the portal and quite deliberately not moving another step.

"I'm sorry, but Luna is occupied with affairs of state today."

Quick check with the Mountain's magic monitoring systems… Yep, both her general power and signature match Celestia, and her clothing roughly matches the design of the New God barding I made for her, allowing for the changes the mirror has wrought. And she feels right; there's an established relationship and familiarity there.

"Yes, I… Thought that she would be. That's why this was a… Surprise. So… Was there something that you wanted..?"

"Yes." She bows her head a little and then frowns slightly. Yes, feels odd with a differently proportioned head and neck, doesn't it? "I thought that I should try to spend some time with the stallion my sister intends to marry. And I also wanted to see the world where Sunset has been living."

"That's… Fine. Ah, but why come through the mirror? I know from personal experience that it's a bit tricky to handle the new shape. Especially if you're planning on using magic."

"Because Sunset did the same. For a pony whose special talent relates to magic, losing her horn must have been extremely stressful."

"I think we distracted her with local magic before she could really notice. Ah… I… Take it that she doesn't know that you're here?"

"No. Given how… Tense, my relationship with Sunset is, I decided that-"

"Sinestro, call Sunset."

"Certainly, Lantern Grayven."

"-I wouldn't-. What are you doing?"

"Hey, Grayven. What is it?"

"Where are you?"

"Did you seriously call me to ask that?"

"Yes, Sunset, I care about you, and I get worried when I don't know where you are."

"W-? Now I just feel childish for complaining."

"Yes, that's intended, and it's a sign of your growing maturity that you recognised that without throwing a hissy fit. Well done."

"Ah… Thanks?"

"If I knew where you are, I'd boom tube right over there and pat you on the head."

"Not sure I wanna tell you where I am, now."

"Does it involve Z-?"

"Would you stop with that? Ghia'ta still doesn't believe me. Look, I'm in Venturia. Is that everything?"

"No, Celestia's paying us a visit." Celestia looks quite put out. "Just thought I'd warn you."

"Oh. Does she want to see me?"

"I think she's doing a home inspection. I just wanted to make sure that you didn't just run into her with no warning."

"Okay. Ah. Well. Thank you. I'm… I'm hanging up now."

She hangs up. Celestia still looks put out.

"Grayven, I asked you not to do that."

"Yes, I know. But I considered the thing that torpedoed your relationship with Sunset in the first place: concealing from her information that she wanted. Then I considered if she'd want to know that you were here, realised that the answer was 'yes', and told her."

"I didn't intend to hide the fact that I-."

"Ah-djah-" I point my right forefinger at her. "-djah-djah! That sort of 'from a certain point of view' stuff does not work when you're trying to repair an emotional relationship."

"Then what would you have suggested that I do?"

"Ask me in advance. And… Tell Sunset that you were going to be here, and then let it be her decision whether she approaches you or stays away."

She nods slowly. And awkwardly.

"It doesn't make any difference to your attempt to find out what suddenly having her shape changed was like, but it shows that you're interested in her life and that you respect her boundaries."

"I will remember that in future. Do you think that she would be prepared to stop taking Twilight to cult survivor lectures if I did?"

"Heh-hah-hah-hah-hah!" Celestia doesn't appear to appreciate the joke. "She's actually doing that? I thought she was joking!"

"I think that Sunset originally planned to take her to one. But Twilight wrote in a letter to me that she found it a 'highly informative window on the perils of applying the Magic of Friendship to other species without considering the differences in the way that species thinks'."

"So Sunset's been stuck taking her to them because she won't admit that she only took her to the first one as an insult to Twilight's relationship to you. That's so Sunset. Though I do admire her commitment."

"To dishonesty."

"At this point I think it's its own punishment. Or maybe it's like taking her out to a horror film?"

"I don't think that either Sunset or Twilight find other people suffering entertaining."

"It's cult survivor lectures. The ones giving them are the ones who made lives for themselves after they left. So there's suffering and an uplifting ending. Though maybe we could suggest alternative lectures?"

"I think that would be best. For now, I would-."

She takes a step forward, instinctively moves her arms to the 'walk' position, and falls on her face.