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

[Mr Zoat]

8th February
22:14 GMT

I dismiss my giant orange arrow construct as the nervous gordanian refugees get moving. They'd taken cover in what appears to have been a pre-takeover karnan fortification, and swiftly had any further line of retreat cut off by the slave uprising. I can only assume that the fleet didn't atomise it because they want to keep it intact for cultural reasons, but there were karnan regular troops heading this way before they got word from the Supreme Commander that the war was going on hold for a little while. Getting the mob to pull back to allow the gordanians to retreat took the officer in command a little while, but with the assistance of a small orange light show from me they were eventually successful.

It's the same story more or less across all of Karettah. Whatever reservations Gaharrugh has about further dealings with the gordanians he appears to be genuine about this part. Travelling at night will be slow going for the gordanians-.

My ring blinks.

"Yes?"

Guy's face appears, his expression torn between frustration and amusement. "Paul, why did I just get a call from Green Man 'bout you taking over a planet?"

"I don't know. Probably because he needed to refer his question to someone, you're in the Honour Guard and he knows that you know me."

"Are you takin' over a planet?"

"What would I do with another planet?"

"Come on, Paul. Don't try pullin' that shit with me-."

"No, I'm not taking over a planet. The karnan puppet navy the Crown Imperium's been supporting is trying to retake Karna and I'm trying to bring about a negotiated settlement."

"Thought you were gunna talk t' the Spider Queen."

"I'll.. get there. But I wanted to check on my maroonees first, then I went to Tamaran, and… You know, Karna. Come for the catgirls, stay for the brutal world-spanning war."

"Did you do somethin' t' make that happen?"

"Destroying Citadel Complex led to gordanian infighting, which may have resulted in the karnans deciding to invade. Personally, I think that letting the gordanians fight it out would have been a more sensible thing to do, but the karnans saw an opportunity..."

"Right. And you want to let some a' them get outta town because..?"

"Most of the gordanian clans are willing to surrender, but a few aren't. I want to have voluntary exile as an option."

"Uh-huh. And you wouldn't be settin' them all up t'get killed, like you did with those Citadelians?"

"Uh… Well, the Crown Imperium isn't a party to the negotiation, so there's nothing to stop them killing the exiled clans the moment they leave Vega. But the Crown Imperium is pretty obviously trying to establish a presence in Vega now that the Citadel is gone. With Amalak and Co. in the border region I doubt that they'll do something which would risk riling them up." I shrug. "Given what they've done I won't exactly be sorry if they get killed, but that's not my main objective here."

"An' I guess there's too many t' maroon them."

"I'm negotiating the surrender of people with a lot of hostages and strategic weapons. I'm not even going to imply that I'm planning that."

"You gunna keep an eye on them?"

"The karnans and Imperials are going to do that. And I'm sure that Green Man will as well. I've already promised them that I'll handle it if they make a nuisance of themselves."

"Right." Guy looks away a little, thinking it over. He nods to himself, then turns back to me. "I'll okay it on one condition."

"And that is?"

"Green Man gets access t' Vega."

I shrug. "I'm not stopping him. Given what the Guardians did with Larfleeze and the psions I'm not going to help him establish himself, but I won't just throw him out." I frown. "Doesn't the Guardian treaty with the psions still hold?"

"I'm hopin' we can talk tha Guardians outa it. Or catch the psions breakin' their end now you're takin' their toys away from 'em."

"I'll keep an eye out. Can I tell the Gizzard Spikers they can go?"

"I'll tell Green Man I think it's okay. That's all I'm doin'."

"Fair enough. Thanks, Guy."

"Don't forget tha spiders."

"Next thing I do. Illustres out."

I lower my hand and look around again. Gordanians on their way, karnans staying where they're supposed to…

I transition upwards, stopping high enough in the upper atmosphere that I can see pretty much all of the continent. The cease fire is… Holding. I'm not expecting it to hold perfectly, but they're… Doing a reasonable job so far. The gordanians are heading towards the pick-up points…

I transition to the other side of the planet. Ships are sending their cargo shuttles down, and scared karnans are being escorted towards the landing fields. Given that most of them don't live particularly close to the landing fields and that the gordanians don't have a huge number of civilian transportation aircraft available there's a certain amount of shuttling back and forth. But… They do appear to be holding up their end of the deal.

Communications…

Jamming has been discontinued. Official communications are unencrypted and limited to permitted topics.

Unofficial communications?

Primarily short range personal messages.

And I suppose that if the karnans were going to kick off about that they would have done so by now.

…

I'm a little surprised that I got this far without mentally altering anyone, but I'm not going to look a gift-horse in the mouth.

Hm. I wonder if any of the people who read my book will make decent candidates? A quick look around didn't show anyone with the desire-channelling instinct required. Even Kalista and Pren were more green-blue than anything. I suppose that until recently Vega has made it so easy to indulge in the self-indulgent forms of avarice use that the sort of people I'd like to recruit haven't really had a chance to come to the fore.

Jarko's going to hate the idea of being surrounded by Crown Imperium territory. I should… Drop in, and make sure that no one is going to do anything unfortunate. Amalak probably won't care. If anything, I imagine that he's relatively well positioned to take advantage of an increased level of die-off amongst the old school raiders and pirates. Particularly if them being driven away from Vega causes more of the surrounding polities to retain his services. The Queen's position… Don't know.

Alright, itinerary. Visit Jarko last, because I suspect that he'll want to make a big deal of it. Guy's going to be watching the Spiders, so they're the next stop. Then Emana, because that could explode and I'd rather get ahead of things this time. Amalak after that.

I give Karna another scan. Things are still much as they're supposed to be.

Hang on. Do I actually need to be here? Sure, I need to be here when the actual hand over starts, but… I'm just hanging around now. I'm not seeing any signs that anyone is planning to betray anyone, Gaharrugh and the Council were genuinely accepting this…

It shouldn't hurt if I disappear for a little while.

I raise my right hand to my forehead and focus on the desire network of Strand-Captain Fhomalhopos. And… There he is. Feels like he's in the general vicinity of their Control Nest. I should get a general idea of how the treaty is panning out before I meet with the Queen.

I step out

 

[Mr Zoat]

8th February
22:18 GMT

and

back in, surprised Spider Guild members scuttling back nervously. I'm on an… Open-plan bridge, on a space station of some kind. From the rough-hewn walls I'm going to assume that they built it into an asteroid. Not a normal Guild practice, but I suppose that they did rather have to hit the ground running with regard to their treaty refit commitments.

"At-will teleportation?" Fhomalhopos steps off his dais, though given how Guilders move it looks more like he's flowing. "Is that new, Orange Lantern?"

"I've learned it since I last left Vega. How have you been doing?"

He makes a rasping-sigh noise. "Busy dealing with the constant nagging of our new partners. I decided to rush our first dock rather than build the entire generation in a more efficient manner in order to satisfy them. Dealing with inefficient alien egotists isn't something I thought would be part of my job… But as the Queen commands."

"No big problems?"

"We're making ships and guns for people I instinctively believe should be our enemies. Beyond that, nothing worth talking about."

"So if I took a look in your refrigerators..?"

"The meat would genetically match various people, but it's all cloned from tissue samples. It is no longer practical for us to kill intelligent prey."

I shake my head. "Why..? Did you do it in the first place?"

"I'm not sure." He comes level with me and stops. "A combination of our distant ancestors' primary source of food also being intelligent and thus us never really developing an instinctive aversion to the practice, and the social conditioning of growing up in a society where such things are normal. Of course, we are having to cut down on the usual manifestations of our dietary habits now. It will be interesting to see whether they survive more familiar contact with other species."

He turns his head around to take in his subordinates and makes a rasping-click noise. Slightly crouched in shame, they return to their work stations.

"What can we do for you?"

"I'm checking up on you. And I want to speak to the Queen."

"She is.. not directly involved in this work. I will be happy to show you anything you like." He gestures to the doors. "We have even modified former holding pens into places for humanoid entertainment."

"The two requests weren't dependent. I want to speak to her regardless of what I find here."

"She cannot presently leave her current environment. Is your environmental shield sterile?"

"Yes."

"Then you will be able to visit her." He flows past me and heads for the door out of the room. "Would you like to interview our current guests?"

I look around, staring through the rock and metal surrounding us. Guilders are distinct enough from humanoids that I can tell the difference easily enough. Ring?

Scans are unimpeded. Multiple members of local irregular groups present. None significantly injured or in distress.

Which matches with what… I'm… Seeing…

I tilt my head slightly at-. Really? I mean, consenting adult sophonts in private, but really?

"No, that's… Fine. Are you having any trouble with the other Guild Nests?"

"Some have made representations. Offers of aid in exchange for our virtual enslavement. We have passed on all so far."

He accelerates and I float behind him as we pass through another door and down a corridor.

"Strand-Captain, if there are any problems emerging, it would behoove you to make me aware of them now, while I can still do something about them."

"Oh?" Three eyes rotate my way. "You didn't say that you were acting as a guarantor for our agreement. Has something happened?"

"The karnans are in the process of reconquering Karna."

"Yes?"

"As you may remember, I dislike pointless slaughter."

"What I heard from Amalak's people about your treatment of the last Citadelians suggests that your dislike is not universal."

"No, it's just not overwhelming. For example, if you'd told me that you were eating slaves, I would have overcome it."

"It would be impractical to get enough." A couple more of his eyes focus on me. "And impolitic, given that they would be the same species as our business partners."

"I suppose that's an adequate reason."

He enters a code to open the door, granting us access to a short section of corridor to the next door. They're both reinforced, designed to form seals in the event that part of the station becomes decompressed. The door we just passed closes firmly before the next one begins opening. The wall on the far side is transparent, giving anyone looking a clear view of a colossal space within the asteroid.

Fhomalhopos scuttles out and gestures towards the scene on the far side. There are eight ships of various classes and in various states of assembly parked around the edge of the interior space, work crews of Guilders and robotic drones visible all around. Using them to judge scale… Not huge ships, but certainly not tiny.

"We're working on the ships of some of the more vocal officers here. Small ships will be serviced in more conventional space docks. Commodore Amalak is 'giving' us some of his older ships to allow us to accelerate our dock-building program."

"Thoughtful."

"I thought that it was admirably rational, given that we would primarily be using them for him. Would you like to see them?"

"And there weren't any explosives or monitoring devices in them?"

"Bombs, no. Monitoring devices, yes. We left them in place. We would not be so foolish as to do anything we wished to keep concealed where they could easily see it, and their presence may reassure him."

"And are you doing anything you wish to keep concealed?"

He wiggles his mandibles.

"Strand-Captain Fhomalhopos, I want this region peaceful. I'm not exactly going to be impressed-."

"We do not plan to initiate martially aggressive action. It would be foolish of us to do so. If you wish to know more about our plans, you will have to speak to the Queen."

"That's something else I want to ask you about. Why do you even have a Queen? Shouldn't the title be Guildmaster or 'Hive Father' or 'Hive Mother'?"

His eyes wheel in all directions. Discomfort and embarrassment. "Those who would have ruled this Nest were killed in transit. We do not believe that the people who killed them even realised who they had killed. The Queen took over organising us after that point."

"Alright, but what is she? I know perfectly well that female Spider Guilders don't usually look like that."

"That is something which you will have to ask her as well. I-." He touches his collar for a moment. "Ah. It seems that she is ready to receive you."

 

[Mr Zoat]

8th February
22:23 GMT

"Have you..? Had something done to your carapace?"

The Queen is… Bigger than she was when we last met. Both all-around larger and chunkier. Not that I can really make an aesthetic judgement; I have no idea what Guilder standards of beauty are. But my comment is based upon the fact that her outer surface appears to be a good deal more smooth than it was when we parted company. I mean, she was smoother than the others last time we met, but now it looks like she's had it sanded and buffed.

She appears to have decided that meeting me doesn't require armour, though I'm a little glad that she's wearing other clothes. Currently she's dressed in loose dark green robes, standard Spider Guild fashion modified for her unusual physique. Her clothing is accessorised with… Bracelets? Anklets? Made of intricately carved bone. She's standing in a depression in the floor much like when we first met, though her throne-pit here looks a good deal better built than the relatively slapdash affair of her spaceship.

"Yes." Her forelimbs are in constant motion, entering instructions on the computer console in front of her while her eyes are split between the monitors and me. "I felt that having some of the irregularities in my chitin smoothed might make me seem less fearsome."

"It-." I look her over once again. I suppose… If I'm being entirely honest… "I do prefer the look, but you're a giant spider. I think that non-fearsome might be out of your reach."

She nods jerkily, the gesture clearly not coming naturally to her. "That is true, but I wanted to reduce the effect as far as possible. I am pleased that you like it."

Two of her eyes roll back and an attendant scurries closer to-.

"Oh, I'm… Sorry. I hadn't realised that you were laying. I can come back later."

"That will not be necessary." One eye tracks the attendant who takes the egg and moves it over to a diagnostic unit, then begins giving it a health check-up. "Or practical. I am laying constantly. Stopping would require that I undergo extensive biological modification."

"If you're sure."

"I am. And in any case, I am glad to see you again." There's a quiet… Scratching noise, as her inner mandibles flex against one another. "You were the first alien with whom I had a civil conversation, and without you my entire Control Nest would have been destroyed. Have you decided what it is that you want from us as repayment?"

"No, I'm just checking up on how things are going in my absence. The Strand-Captain painted a fairly rosy picture."

"The pact is being observed by nearly all parties. Early on a few ships tested the willingness of Amalak and Jarko to defend us. They were destroyed and their crews killed."

"And is there anything you're unhappy about regarding the arrangement or how it's working out?"

"I want to negotiate for passage to neighbouring worlds. It is not a pressing concern; we are too busy building ships for other people to build ships for ourselves. But once that part of our pact is fulfilled, I want to be able to trade information and materials without going through either of the other parties."

"That sounds reasonable. I'll talk to them about it."

"And I will be further in your debt. I-" She makes a quiet hissing noise as another egg leaves her body, this time from the other side. "-am a little nervous about what you may ask of us."

"I.. am curious about a few things, if you don't mind talking to me about them?"

"You asked why I look as I do."

"Yes. Speaking purely for myself, I think I prefer you to normal Spider Guild females-" Two attendants rotate some of their eyes my way so they can glare at me. "-but your structure is a little unusual."

"As you have no doubt deduced, I have been extensively modified. The Hive-Fathers who founded this Control Nest wanted somewhere to study self-modification away from more conservative Guild leaders."

"Is it a taboo subject?"

"There is no formal ban. But there would have been a degree of disquiet if their desire to modify us quite as extensively as I have been became more widely known, and in the Guild such disquiet usually results in the offending party being quietly killed."

I run my eyes over her opisthosoma. "How did they do this? I didn't think that Guild biotechnology was advanced enough to perform modification of this degree."

"They were able to acquire genetic material from species related to our ancient forebears. They took different paths, but were still compatible in certain respects. Their data allowed me to be created."

"Were they trying to recreate your whole species in your image?"

"Since they are dead, I will never know for certain."

"Didn't they tell you anything?"

"I was intended to be used to rapidly populate their Control Nest. Since they did not want me discovered, I was on board one of the ships of the first wave to arrive here."

"That makes a certain degree of-." I look around the room. The early stages of Spider Guild expansion are usually handled purely by robot. "Are these..? All your children?"

"Almost all. That was how I was able to obtain political control."

"They deferred to you as their mother?"

"No. I altered their minds in-ovum to respond to my scent and shape. It would hardly be practical for me to establish parental bonds with so many."

I nod. "And those who weren't born to you?"

"Accepted things or died, either killed by our local competitors or killed by those who were loyal to me. I have no future in Guild space and would have no future under a new Guildmaster. My choice was to dominate or die."

"Fascinating." I can't be sure of course, but I think that she's telling the truth. Which means that there's no way that she'll risk calling in reinforcements from the rest of the Spider Guild. "Are you making any more like you, or are the rest of your children reproducing conventionally?" I frown. "And aren't you going to have problems with genetic variety?"

"I do not know all that my fathers and mothers did about bioengineering, but within my body I carry genetic material from many. I can make children with little genetic relationship to one another. In the interest of security, I have made them more similar to normal members of their species."

"But not completely."

"No. I have made small improvements to every part of them. They are stronger, tougher, more resilient, more intelligent and their senses are more acute than those who are not modified by me. More radical alterations would require changes to their outward appearance that would risk triggering a conflict with the rest of the Guild."

"Hhm. How good are you at alien genetics?"

"I am an expert in molecular biochemistry. I cannot create aliens within my own body, but I could create zygotes of any species whose genetic information I can study."

"And modifications to existing individuals?"

"I can do that, though there may be side effects in some species."

"Would that be a service you were willing to provide to your current treaty partners?"

"Modifying aliens is not taboo. If they are willing to have a member of the Spider Guild make modifications to them, I am happy to provide the service."

I nod. "I'll talk to Amalak about it. As for what you can do for me…" I take another copy of my book out of subspace and hold it out to her. "This is a guide on how to be a successful Orange Lantern. I would be interested in talking to any of your people who can master it."

 

[Mr Zoat]

8th February
23:02 GMT

Emana is burning.

There are small fires burning in a hundred locations in every major city. In space, slain satellites drift in uncontrolled orbits, the lights on their hulls flickering and dying. More than a few ships too, though most are merely crippled before either their assailants are targeted in turn or the boarding teams arrive.

Fortunately, no one's been crazy enough to perform orbital strikes yet. The consortia are 'sorting things out' amongst themselves. At ground level that mostly amounts to small strikes against one another's holdings, data breaches, blackmailings, targeted assassinations and bribes. Individual companies which make up the consortia may be liquidated by force or financial manipulation, folded this way or that, bought or bid for…

I have records of the last few Branx Corporate Wars, but I think this is the biggest yet.

The government of Emana appears to be sitting it out, which considering their position is the only sane thing for them to do. Officials are doing their best to calm things down and limit the damage, but… At times like this there isn't a lot they can do. The High Conciliator appears to be… Talking to a regional governor. Providing reassurance and encouraging him and his staff to bunker down and wait for it to blow over.

I wait for the call to finish and then

step out

and reappear in front of the now inactive screen.

The High Conciliator regards me for a moment.

"I was wondering if you might turn up. Are you here to gloat?"

"Would it help if I did?"

"Nothing will help in any practical way, but I might feel better if I had someone external to blame."

"How did the mess out there even happen?"

"Things have been tense since you destroyed the Citadel, but we had a negotiated exchange of powers lined up. All of the major consortia-alliances had agreed in principle… Then some.. little.. snap-horn speculated a little too hard on a synthetic currency and the economic knock-on effects triggered… This."

"I'll admit that I'm not exactly choked with guilt, but that all sounds like it wasn't my fault."

"No, I suppose that it isn't. Would you like a drink?"

"Would you like a drink?"

"Auron, yes."

"Then it would be impolite of me to make you drink alone."

"Hm." She hauls her not-inconsiderable bulk out of her office chair and lumbers over to a cabinet. "A full-on corporate war. I didn't think that I'd see one in my lifetime."

"How long do you usually go between them?"

"There isn't a set interval." She pulls out a decanter of a translucent yellow and two glasses. "The last one happened just before Tamaran fell. At the time they were-" She pours herself a full glass, takes a quick look at me and then pours me a finger. "-our last trading partner to still be resisting Citadel domination. Those who traded with them wanted us to take a more supportive position, those who traded with the Citadel were in the ascendance…"

She puts the decanter and glasses on a small tray and carries them back to her desk. I generate a construct chair and sit down opposite her.

"Now, the first corporate war, that was interesting." She takes her seat, setting the tray down on the desk and then passing a glass to me. I take it from her and nod for her to continue. "Someone… Probably the psions, started handing out faster than light drives like it was a bankruptcy auction. A great many of our larger corporations decided that moving to places… Planets in some cases, without Emana's 'restrictive anti-business laws', was in their best interests."

"Wouldn't the set-up costs of new colonies more than-."

"Not if someone else is paying the transportation costs. A lot of the time, the new colonists funded themselves, and the psions -or whoever- were paying for the ships. So, whole cities disappeared overnight, some of Emana's most profitable industries were no longer paying tax… The government more or less collapsed. We still don't really have an army."

"I've yet to see a successful corporate state."

"Oh, we weren't one. But it took about… Fourteen years to break down. Because it turns out that having legal remedies to the abuses of power by the powerful does a lot to defray social unrest. With that gone, their new corporate contract-holders-." She leans forward. "Read 'slave owners', could do whatever they wanted. Until the unrest resulted in a series of socialist revolutions from people who were tired of dealing with that shit. They won in some places and lost in others, and where they lost they did enough damage to make the settlements unprofitable and where they won they swiftly went after the places where they lost."

I smile. "And let me guess: the corporations appealed for government aid?"

"I'm not sure what they were expecting a basically defunct government to do exactly. But… Faced with the potential for bloody slaughter, my predecessor managed to negotiate a settlement. Of sorts. He reached out to the most stable worker groups and most sane management cliques, and… Found common ground. The war burned out, and a new normal was agreed upon. Consortia are a good deal better behaved now, and about a fifth of them are still run as cooperatives."

"I didn't know that."

"'Shares for the people'." She takes a drink. "We teach the period in schools. Our little attempt to remind would-be corporate titans that worker protection laws don't exist to protect workers from managers. That if you push people too far they snap."

She reaches up and takes hold of both of her horns for a moment.

"One.. stupid.. fake currency. And there's nothing I can do."

"What exactly is your job?"

"Picking up the pieces when other people have finished being stupid. The Citadel's gone and it isn't coming back."

"Also, the karnans are in the process of taking back Karna."

"A mass uprising?"

"A fleet the Crown Imperium has been sponsoring for just this opportunity."

"I respect someone who is prepared to invest long-term." She takes another glug, then stares helplessly at her glass. "I'm just annoyed that Amalak of all people is managing to make the transition we're so obviously failing to. I would have thought that a jumped-up pirate would… Flail around violently instead, and at least some of our consortia would have had the sense to put feelers out. As it is the.. Meat Barter clan will probably come through this with more of their infrastructure intact than we will."

"Wasn't it part of your job to make sure that happened?"

"No, it's part of my job to remind our corporate leaders that they should be doing it. But telling people they should take a hit in profitability now to create a contingency against a situation that will probably never happen is something of a hard sell."

"So, what, they don't-?"

"They have insurance." She splutter-laughs. "As if any insurance provider could cover this."

I take a sip of my own drink, mentally-. Oh. Actually, that's not too bad.

"What do you want out of this?"

"We need to pivot our society. Probably execute-. I'm sorry, I will need to recommend that the continual existence of certain individuals is 'contrary to the legitimate business interests of the people of Emana', which amounts to the same thing. Then direct people to forge links with… The karnans, because there's no way that they have the facilities to support a fleet of any size with Karna. And Tamaran, they went dark suddenly so that was you?"

I nod.

"I saw images of the state of the place. Trade there. At-cost, because we're trying to build an image of ourselves as a business partner before one of the people the Citadel and psions alienated decides to take their wrath out on us."

"But what do you want?"

"I want to alter our society so that nothing like this can ever happen again. I want to force people to overcome their 'see-grab' instincts and take long-term factors into consideration. And once the fires are out I'll be able to. I'm just not sure what I'll have left to work with once my people are prepared to listen to me again."

I nod and finish my drink before fabricating a copy of my book and sliding it across the desk to her.

"You might want to take a look at this."

 

[Mr Zoat]

9th February
01:27 GMT

Amalak waves politely as I appear in front of his desk.

"The Queen told me that you might be heading this way. Do you have a book for me as well, or is that a… 'Special friends only' thing?"

"While it's true that you're not my type, I don't see any reason not to give you a copy." I fabricate another copy and deposit it in front of him. "Please bear in mind that this does not make you a member of the Orange Lantern Corps or entitle you to a ring at any point."

"No, but it will be fascinating to learn more about you." He picks it up and flicks through it. There's a very small smile when he spots that I've written it in his native language rather than Interlac. "While I can hardly complain about the way you've dealt with me, you'll understand that your sheer power makes me a little nervous."

"Quite understandable."

"You left the Queen a little while ago." He puts the book down and regards me curiously. "Busy day?"

"The Branx are in the middle of a corporate war. I did some firefighting. Then I checked up on Karna again."

"How's their war going?"

"You knew about that?"

"I could hardly miss the karnan war fleet passing through my… Patrol zone. I tend to keep an eye on the Imperials, just in case Oswin decides that he's no longer prepared to accept the current state of affairs."

"The balance of power is sufficiently in their favour that the gordanians are suing for peace."

"And the karnans are lis-?" He nods. "Ah."

"Friends don't let friends meaninglessly slaughter one another. Speaking of which, things alright between you, the Queen and Jarko?"

"Much to my surprise, I haven't had any trouble with the Queen at all. Jarko… Some of his people make nuisances of themselves sometimes, and he feels the need to publically rail against my retaliation… Nothing of substance."

"And how is your business going?"

"Quite well. The… Minor pirate groups are already starting to drift away from Vega, but the threat from the Crown Imperium more than makes up for it as far as my clients are concerned."

"How big a threat are they?"

He waves his right hand in a gesture of uncertainty. "It's a matter of scale. Pirates might steal a few things or kidnap a few people. Oswin wants to conquer these worlds outright and incorporate them into the Crown Imperium as his personal duchy. Which would mean waves of Imperial colonists, marginalised locals-. Most importantly from my point of view, the government officials who are paying me would be thrown out and the military officials I'm working with would be shot. We're all building up, and without raids to fight off I don't have to worry about actually taking casualties."

"Is a fight with Oswin inevitable?"

"Hm." He looks pensive for a moment. "I would be astonished if it doesn't come to blows eventually, but if Vega stops being a safe harbour… He would have trouble getting backing from the court. Empress Clryssa isn't stupid, she'll be keeping watch-."

The door to the office slides open and Miss Gozzi walks in. Her expression doesn't shift out of neutral as she sees me.

"Keeping watch to make sure that he doesn't start anything. You remember my adjutant, Vran Gozzi?"

I nod politely to her. "A pleasure to see you again."

She nods back, but doesn't-.

"Oh, ask him."

"Orange Lantern. Were you able to recover Vril Dox Two?"

"Yes, and the Dominion won't be submitting tenders for prison contracts anytime soon."

"And you have given him a power ring?"

"I made him Clarissi, so, yes."

"A clone of Vril Dox is in command of a Lantern Corps."

"We're keeping an eye on him, but he really is very good at what he does."

"Yes, I am aware of that. All coluans would be aware of that, if the majority of the population were capable of being aware of anything."

"Would you like to meet him? Would that put your mind at rest?"

Her eyes narrow very slightly. "Coluan minds are never at rest."

"You do have holiday time which you've.. never used." Miss Gozzi looks at Amalak, a very mild expression of surprise and betrayal on her face. "It's unwise for an organisation to be completely dependent on any one person, and I'm sure that we could survive without you for a day."

She turns her head to face me. "Orange Lantern, on your homeworld, is there a great historical tyrant whose name evokes fear and hatred even to the current day?"

"Yes, Adolf Hitler, though since I can work out where you're going with this I met his clone last year and he's a rather nice chap. But I was just trying to put your mind at rest about the whole 'Super Hitler' thing; if you don't want to meet him then.. don't meet him."

She turns her face back towards Amalak. "Commodore, what were you discussing before I arrived?"

"Orange Lantern shares our concern that Admiral Oswin might do something prejudicial to our interests."

"It is near-inevitable. The more important question is whether he will have the support of the Crown when he does."

"Would it be productive for me to have a word with anyone?"

"Do you know anyone in the Kranaltine court?"

"I had a minute long conversation with Chief Minister Rikane last time I was in the Crown Imperium. Does that count?"

Miss Gozzi nods. "Yes. Chief Minister Rikane is the highest non-royal official in the government of the Crown Imperium. He would be an excellent person to open communication with."

"Have you-? "

Amalak nods. "We get a member of Admiral Oswin's staff."

"Okay, I can schedule that in. I have a request to pass along from the Queen."

Amalak frowns mildly. "Alright. What is it?"

"It seems that she's an expert on bio-augmentation. She's willing to offer you her services."

"That's…. Interesting." He briefly makes eye contact with Miss Gozzi. "It's not really our focus but I can see the use for that sort of thing. And what does she want in return?"

"Trade access to the worlds in your defence pact."

"It's not a defence pact as such." He smiles. "Technically, they're my employers. But… I have no principled objection. I assume that she wants an escort thrown in?"

"That depends on how safe it is."

"Hm. A crew who would actually defend a Spider Guild ship… Yes, we can just about manage that. I'll contact her directly to sort out the details."

"Thank you." I raise my right hand to my forehead. "Commodore. Miss Gozzi."

 

[Mr Zoat]

9th February
01:34 GMT

The rehabilitation centre on Rilsomtine has very visibly been upgraded. More staff and better social facilities, and I think that the rehabilitatee housing has been upgraded as well. Mylissa frowns at me as I use their link to the Imperium's communications network in an attempt to contact the Chief Minister.

"Yes, he came through on his offer of funding, but that doesn't mean that we're in regular contact."

"Do you know who Green Lantern Green Man usually gets when he calls the palace?"

"No, I don't."

"I suspect that it's someone more important than a Third Undersecretary." I glance her way. "How's Felicity been getting on?"

"As…" Mylissa shakes her head. "Well.. as could be expected. She's very social, likes to make people happy, and has.. almost no life-goals beyond making the people around her happy."

"Has she asked after me?"

"She did after you left, but she accepted it when we said that we didn't have any way to contact you. I've…" She looks away nervously.

"Yes?"

"The.. karnan fleet is supposed to have left-."

"Karna has been largely reconquered. The only ongoing conflict now is what form the gordanian surrender will take."

"I.. don't think that you're supposed to have told me that."

"Neither Supreme Commander Gaharrugh or the Imperial Navy Attaché made any request that I not share the information. And I'm not governed by Crown Imperium law anyway."

"I am."

"Then you better not tell anyone. Not that I think it will matter. No one is coming to help the gordanians. Certainly, no one with spies here."

"What about Amalak?"

"Couldn't care less. Same with Jarko and the Spiders. The Citadel Alliance was the Citadel and its hangers on. Everyone who wants to survive the Citadel's fall is reforming, and Amalak was always more of an opportunist than an ally."

"That-. That's.. not-." She glances at the nearest information terminal.

"No, well, you do live in the Crown Imperium, which has a vested interest in lumping all of its enemies together whether or not they're actually part of the same group or not. Please tell me that Admiral Oswin doesn't own the local news broadcaster?"

"I don't think so?"

"Alright, simple version." I generate a map of Vega and the territories bordering on the Crown Imperium as they were prior to my arrival. "Citadel and Friends controlled here." I colour Vega, with the major planets marked. "I freed Tamaran and blew up the Citadel." The Citadel marker vanishes and the coloured area evaporates. "No party was strong enough to take the Citadel's place, so while the Citadel's former allies cooperated between themselves they were only going to get weaker."

"While that was going on, the alliance I brokered between the pirate groups and the Spider Guild was bedding in. Now, the pirates weren't allied to the Citadel, Vega was just a convenient place for them to do business." I mark the Control Nest, Asryx and the region where Amalak operates. "Other pirate groups operated in the area or flew through it, but none of them really had territory there. The Spider Guild arriving caused all of the other groups to gang up on them, and they lost their entire navy before surrendering."

"The Citadel and its navy took no part in that war, because they knew that if they did they'd have a Green Lantern taskforce coming down on them. The branx took no part in it because their interests weren't directly threatened. Some gordanian clans were involved, but not the ones which were closely allied to the Citadel, because the ones which were closely allied to the Citadel had no motive to risk themselves. Since the Spider Guild's defeat and the Citadel's destruction Jarko has become less piratical because his losses in the war meant that he couldn't risk it and Amalak has expanded his legitimate private security work because suddenly the area has little special appeal to pirates and it serves his interests better to be seen as legitimate. With the Citadel and -more importantly- Larfleeze gone there's a good chance that Green Lanterns will regain access to Vega, and in any case visiting pirate groups aren't guaranteed the same old safe harbour."

"With me so far?"

"A reasonable summary." Chief Minister Rikane's face appears on the communication system. "Though Her Imperial Majesty's government would appreciate it if we were able to make the announcement of the karnan victory without it being spoilered."

"Chief Minister-." Mylissa bows in his direction.

"Miss Raul. Would you please leave the Orange Lantern and I alone?"

She straightens slightly. "Of course." She rebows and then backs out of the room, the door closing behind her.

"She was right, you know. Data management laws in the Crown Imperium are most likely harsher than what you're used to."

"Do they apply to foreign diplomats?"

"Not allied ones. Otherwise, some do."

"Am I an allied diplomat?"

He smiles pleasantly. "I certainly hope so."

"Do you have a problem with me negotiating a settlement on Karna?"

"No, but I would rather have had a little more notice. The original plan was for the karnans to be supported by the Imperial Navy and so achieve a crushing victory. We were.. still hopeful that they might win an outright victory, but with a little time to prepare we can put a spin on it. I suppose that the civilian casualties would have been very great if they'd fought it out?"

"Yes, very."

"Then there we are." He sits back slightly. "Ultimately, it isn't critical to the security of the Crown Imperium whether Vega becomes civilised purely because of our efforts or only partly. Our primary foreign policy objective is to stabilise our borders, not conquer Vega."

"And your secondary objectives?"

"Well…" He fans out his hands. "There are so many. An end to piracy and slavery, naturally. Partially to protect our own citizens and partially through moral concerns. I regard the Imperium as an architect of civilisation. That is the moral justification for our actions."

"So you wouldn't want to annex a civilised region?"

"That… Depends what you mean by 'annex'. Certainly, we have had civilised worlds petition to join the Imperium before and will most likely do so again. But forcing ourselves on them, no, of course not."

"So how do you explain Asryx?"

"That was before my time. Asryx was… Ideally, supposed to give the condemned and transported a chance to rehabilitate themselves through labour. They-." He looks decidedly awkward. "They and their descendants were supposed to become full citizens once their world was developed enough to admit to the Crown Imperium. But… The Court became… Somewhat divided…"

"The Court had an attack of fascism."

"Something like that. I'm not proud of it, but… A man in my position must sometimes be realistic about what can be achieved. You will note that I haven't pushed to invade Asryx, despite having good evidence that its new ruler supports the very barbarian forces I have dedicated myself to expunging."

"If they re-entered the Crown Imperium voluntarily, would you grant Jarko the title of Marquis?"

"Hehahahaoh my. Heh." He realises that I'm not laughing. "My word, are you serious?"

"I brought Amalak, Jarko and the Queen together, because I also regard myself as an architect of civilisation. And sometimes being an architect means that you must convince foundations to remain erect in the middle of a swamp before you can build anything truly beautiful. Amalak is worried that Admiral Oswin might do something self-interested and plunge the area into war. I'm here to find out what assurances both sides want and are prepared to offer in return."

"I see. I think.. perhaps that we should meet in person."

 

[Mr Zoat]

9th February
03:01 GMT

The courtier opposite me fidgets as I pointedly create a clock-construct showing the amount of time I've been here without seeing Chief Minister Rikane. I don't look at it; I just let it make its own statement. Initially, I tried engaging her in conversation, but apparently she's been ordered not to talk to me. At first I assumed that such orders would be limited to politics, but no. I tried asking her about Crown Imperium fashion trends and how my formal robes would look, at which point she politely informed me that she couldn't talk to me about anything at all.

I'm not inactive; I'm adding a short section on imperialism to my book… Which might well cause a schism in a century or two-. No, no it won't, because by the combined wonders of bribing the God of Death and septophobia-reinforced orange light biomancy I'll still be around to sort things out.

Hm.

I wonder if I could talk Hades into reconsidering the waters of the Lethe requirement for reincarnating? Or at least making it temporary? Plenty of religions allow people to reclaim past-life-.

The door finally opens and I dismiss the clock construct as I turn to greet Chief Minister Rikane-.

And Empress Clryssa, apparently. She's wearing a surprisingly simple green dress, ornamented only by a gold… Tiara type thing which frames the upper part of her face but has only a thin circlet component to keep it in place. I perform a shallow bow in her direction.

"Your Imperial Majesty."

"Master Lantern. What a surprise it is to find you here."

It-? Ah. The courtier who had been keeping me company is already out of the door, closing it firmly behind her. Of course. A 'chance encounter'. Good job I watched The West Wing, or I'd be jolly confused right now.

"Not an entirely unpleasant one, I hope?"

"I share that hope." She proceeds past me to a position at the head of a small table that.. I now realise doesn't fit in with the room's decoration at all.

Rikane nods politely to me. "Master Lantern."

I nod back. "Chief Minister. It seems that I must apologise for intruding upon you."

"Think nothing of it. Please, be seated."

He takes position standing to the right of the Empress, leaving me the seat a little way down the table to her left. Of course, I could create a construct chair and sit somewhere else, but… That would be petty. This woman does run an empire of a not-inconsiderable size and sophistication, and does at least a reasonable job of it. And it's not like the Thanagarians wheeled out the High Mor to meet me.

I sit, and smile politely as I wait for the Empress to decide how we start.

"I recognise that your robe means that you are a member of the Honour Guard of your Corps, but I am unfamiliar with the design which runs down it. Those members of the Green Lantern Honour Guard who have visited us wore plain robes."

"It's my full rank insignia. Since it fell to me to establish a tradition, I felt that something which indicated both the wearer's rank and most notable spiritual achievements would be helpful in allowing someone unfamiliar with the individual to know certain things about them."

"Spiritual achievements? Are you a priest?"

Lanternism isn't all that popular in the Crown Imperium. The people having to live next to the Guardians' dumping ground has rather worked against it. Nonetheless, the Empress would naturally be familiar with Light Priests. Which reminds me: I really need to visit Karax at some point and make sure that they're not having some sort of religious implosion. And maybe bring Guy along.

"It depends on how you're using the term. I serve the Ophidian directly and give spiritual advice to my fellow Lanterns, but I don't lead acts of worship."

"And what is the Ophidian?"

"Each colour has a great elemental being associated with it. For the Green Light of Will, that is Ion. For the Orange Light of Avarice, that is Ophidian. Until a little over a year ago, she was trapped on Okaara by Larfleeze, the one you might know as The Beast. She's… Part of why I'm here, actually." I fabricate my updated book. "Given what Larfleeze did to this region, I feel partly responsible for making sure that it gets normalised. It's not practical for me to stay here myself, but I've been looking for someone local who could take an orange ring." I put the book down on the table and slide it towards her. "This is a guide to the beliefs and practices necessary for someone to be a capable Orange Lantern."

Rikane nods and comes around the table to pick it up and then walks back. "Thank you. I will ensure that it is circulated to appropriate people."

"The High Conciliator of Emana, Supreme Commander Gaharrugh, Commodore Amalak, the Chief of Blood Flecks clan and the Queen of the local Spider Guild Control Nest all have copies. While I'm not restricted to one Lantern… I don't see any benefit in choosing Lanterns who will spend all of their time arguing with one another."

"I… See. Perhaps if we move the conversation onwards?"

I nod. "Certainly. Amalak and the Queen want peaceful coexistence. Amalak is-" I glance at Rikane. "-reasonably civilised, and he's recognised that it's no longer advantageous for him to treat with the pirates who made Vega their trading centre."

"Amalak is a slave trader."

"Amalak owns no slaves. Those he bought can pay off their cost to regain their freedom. It isn't fundamentally different to debtor-servitude as it exists in the Crown Imperium. He did of course deal with slavers, but that's true of just about everyone in the region. They didn't have much choice."

"They would rapidly gain one if I ordered Admiral Oswin to secure the region."

"They have a choice already. The distance is not great, any who wished to petition you to join the Crown Imperium could do so. Instead, they're more comfortable to pay Amalak for his security services."

"I am not surprised, when they lie under his guns."

"Are you sure that's why? Because it seems that would be relatively easy for a diplomat or intelligence operative to check."

"And his less popular pirate allies?"

"If you want them dead, then I'll include that in the demands list. But are you sure that you wouldn't rather that he give you their itinerary so that you can ambush them?"

The Empress stirs slightly at that. "Would he really betray his business partners that easily?"

"He knows which way the wind is blowing."

"I'm not sure that metaphor translated properly."

"No one likes pirates or slavers, any more than they like asset strippers or currency speculators. They can only survive if powerful people arrange things so that they can survive. The Citadel Empire is gone, the Branx are having a Corporate War which the Citadel-aligned consortia can't win, and the Citadel-aligned gordanians are going to be killed or sent into exile. The support structure is gone. Amalak knows that just as well as I do. That means that his primary revenue sources are the people employing him for protection, not the black market dealings he has with the pirates. The only questions are: do they get smart and stop coming or does someone kill them, and do they get killed by their former victims or an external power."

"And Jarko?"

"Jarko's in a tight spot. He can't fight your navy directly, and his ability to fight you indirectly is going to take a hit. On the other hand, you can't hold Asryx."

"I think you underestimate our navy."

"I think you underestimate how much everyone there hates you. You can destroy what naval units they've got and land troops, but it will be the bloodiest occupation you've ever seen. Soldiers on the planet won't be able to move for snipers and concealed explosives. And their friends will be attacking every weak point they can find, as opposed to what they're doing now which is stick to their own territory and impose taxes. If you really want the place, you'd be better off coming to terms with Jarko directly. But I honestly don't think it's worth it."

"And the Spider Guild?"

"Killing them results in the next Control Nest along sending a fleet because they can't be seen to allow that sort of thing to happen. The local Control Nest doesn't have a fleet and couldn't threaten you even if it wanted to. And if you want to check any of that, I'll be happy to escort a diplomatic party."

The Empress inclines her head slightly. "You have given me much to consider. Are you able to remain on the planet while my ministers and I discuss the topic?"

"I'd be happy to."

 

[Mr Zoat]

9th February
12:43 GMT

My physical surroundings fade into meaninglessness as I extend my awareness into the Honden. While I don't precisely need to come here in order to view an individual's desires in detail, I hope… I twist myself and the representation of the place, and… I can view groups of people in terms of their interlocking collective desires. Or -more accurately- reach a place from which every other part of them is absent.

Not 'what does the Empress want'. What does the Court want? What does the Crown Imperium want?

Are their desires currently irreconcilable with my own?

Ah, I see that Crown Imperium propaganda has made Amalak and Jarko the faces of the region's piracy. A little awkward for those in charge. It would require a degree of about-facing for them to openly treat with either of them, and… The more idealistic Imperials would resist because it would mean that vile people were 'getting away with it' and the expansion-minded Imperials wouldn't like it because it would mean accepting a definite border in that direction. I'm.. not seeing a total opposition to an unoccupied border region, but-.

"Oh, are-? You busy?"

And back in the room. For a moment my body looks like a wire frame construct, only… The rest is there, but… Pushed.. back? Faded into the background, perhaps. Then the orange fades and I'm left with my material body and the baggy trousers and dashiki I was wearing. The sleep did me the world of good, but now I'm reduced to hanging around the palace. Yes, I can keep an eye on Vega from here if I have to but I was sort of assuming that the Empress and Co. would be deliberating and coming to a conclusion relatively quickly.

The man watching me curiously from the edge of my circle is… He looks like a human superhero. He's wearing a blue skin tight costume with a yellow star insignia, though the shepherd's crook he's carrying is a discordant element. His costume is further accessorised by yellow bracers and swimming goggles, though those are currently pushed up to rest on his forehead.

"Oh, not especially."

Prince Gavyn. The Empress's brother and heir apparent. Narrowly avoided summary execution after his father's death, something Crown Imperium tradition apparently mandates when a new monarch ascends to the throne. Did some superheroing in a place which doesn't really have a tradition of that sort of thing, becoming a scourge of pirates and corrupt courtiers alike.

A decent bloke, as far as I know. Not entirely sure why they've stopped trying to execute him. Maybe they had an attack of good sense?

"What can I help you with?"

He looks out of the window of the quarters the Empress was kind enough to provide for me, taking in the early morning light. "If you're not occupied, I thought that I might show you the capital? Do you ride, or do you prefer to fly?"

"I usually teleport." I stand, switching to light armour. "I have been meaning to go back to flying more, but I'm afraid that I don't want to leave the palace in case her Imperial Majesty wishes to speak to me."

"Oh yes? Something about Vega, isn't it?"

"I'm trying to persuade her to radically change her foreign policy regarding the region between the Crown Imperium's border and the Vega Trench."

He nods, smiling. "Because Amalak's not half as bad as we've been telling everyone he is, and Jarko has so much popular support that the only way we'll ever get Asryx back is to make him governor."

"Among other things."

"So what's your interest?"

"Civilised behaviour is in everyone's interest. And… I'm a little concerned that I'm becoming too accustomed to killing."

"Killing in general, or killings you perform yourself?"

"Both. After I destroyed the Citadel, there were a handful I had as thralls. I… Put them in front of some automated guns and then removed my control. Most of them charged me and died when they remembered that I used my control to have them aid me in destroying Citadel Complex. I could have left them under my control. I could have marooned them. I… Didn't."

He shakes his head. "I'm… Sorry, but I'm not sure why it bothers you. If you were unaccustomed to killing, I'd.. offer some reassurance about the.. necessity of it. But it's clearly not that."

"It's more the fact that it doesn't bother me. Killing a person is a big deal. So while I can see the utility of being able to kill people without feeling bad about it, I don't want to become too used to it."

"I don't think I've killed enough people to have become that accustomed to it. Then again, I grew up knowing that fighting and enforcing justice with lethal force would be one of my roles in Imperial society. Whereas you've been a Lantern for..? Two years, your book said?"

"I'm sorry if this is a sore point, but didn't you know that you were going to be killed-?"

"It's…" He shakes his head. "My father was in good health. Past his prime, yes, but fit and well. I expected to have decades more. Time enough to make my mark. Perhaps even die nobly without forcing an executioner to dirty their blade. And Clryssa could have been killed, leaving me as the heir."

"Why do your people do that?"

"To prevent civil wars. There was a period in our history when… Different members of the dynasty routinely fought it out when their royal parent died. It used to be the rule that the rulers should only have one heir, then the royal family was assassinated, so… Now there's a spare."

"If you're trying to talk me into giving you a ring-."

"It would probably make the royal court more comfortable, but... Clryssa has to marry at some point, and it would probably make things easier if I wasn't around. Not that she doesn't love me, you understand, but-."

"There's a cultural expectation that you're a threat, even if you wouldn't ever do anything in that direction."

He nods. "I've tried to avoid being open about my views on… Anything, to try and avoid looking like I'm trying to undermine her in any way. Taking a commission in the navy or marines is out because that might make it look like I'm trying to gain support in the military." He taps his staff on the ground. "This was a lot easier when no one knew who Starman was."

"So you want a role? A job?"

"I'll take what I can get. And I'm sure that my wife would like me out of the house and back to doing something useful."

On a practical level, he's not a terrible choice. Him joining the Corps would allow me to set his terms of reference, but the Court would accept his reports from the regions he was monitoring. He grew up in a civilised region but is aware that it is far from perfect. But I can hear it in his tone, in the lack of an orange light resonance. He doesn't want this. Oh, he might have decided that it's for the best for all concerned, but-.

Huh. A curious thing to be on the surface.

My eyes narrow. "Prince Gavyn, what are you afraid of?"

"You did just say that you were afraid that you were finding killing too easy. Forgive me for being a little-."

"It's not that." I'm having trouble seeing details. It's all… Blurry. Something someone who knew certain advanced mental or spiritual techniques might pull off. The Crown Imperium doesn't have a native magical tradition, there were maybe a handful of Euphorian magicians off their planet when the shield went up… "What are you hiding?"

"I don't know-."

I reach out to Karna, but… No, no, everything's still there, the mass of conflicting desires for conflict and safety. Gordanians and karnans don't feel all that different, not when viewed with such imprecision. Alright, then what-?

And then I suddenly know how Obi-Wan felt when Alderaan was destroyed. Like a.. chunk of colour just vanished, a particular way of viewing the universe, or wanting. Where was it where was…

It.

"I see."

I'm too late, but I raise my right hand to my forehead anyway

step out

and then look down upon the now-molten surface of Wombworld.

 

[Mr Zoat]

9th February
12:48 GMT

The ships arrayed around the planet are still firing, but at this point… There's no point in trying to stop them. Everyone on the surface is dead. I can see a handful of points of yellow light from what I presume to be heavily shielded bunkers, but… The attackers aren't pushed for time. And… You don't put regular civilians or experimental subjects in bunkers like that. If anyone deserves this it will be the people there.

A few more lights go out as my jaw clenches and I take a closer look at the ships doing the firing. The ships closest to me-

"New Vega Alliance fleet to Orange Lantern."

-are Crown Imperium vessels. Markings indicate that the group is comprised of nearly all of Admiral Oswin's command, plus.. all of their fleets apart from the Home Defence Fleet. And those ships… Those belong to Amalak. A smaller flotilla have hulls decorated with the design that shows their membership of the Jovial Marauders. Another detachment is made up of the ragtag group of ships that the Omega Men have acquired over the years.

"New Vega Alliance fleet to Orange Lantern."

And ships from Emana. And from those worlds neighbouring Amalak's territory that still maintain their own fleets, and from Vega's numerous minor powers and-.

"New Vega Alliance fleet to Orange Lantern."

**Illustres to Adam Blake. I would like an explanation, please.**

No response. Oh, come on, a single mind in space should stand out well enough for him to-.

**Yes, it does, but I had to explain what you are doing to my fellow commanders. They're somewhat concerned.**

Concentrated fire on one of the oceans finally breaks through the clouds of steam to puncture the planet's crust beneath, the planet's mantle explosively venting into the upper atmosphere.

**I'm still waiting for an explanation.**

**You weren't here.**

?

**People aren't that complicated. It was a matter of initiative. You destroyed the Citadel and then left. The fate of Vega was left entirely up in the air and there wasn't anyone with the status to bring people together.**

**So, what, this-.**

**I'm not complaining about what you did, Paul. But you left, and Vega had to forge ahead without you. And this is what happened. That peace you thought you were trying to broker? I did that four months ago.**

**And did the psions forget to protect their home from telekinetic faster than light travel as well?**

**As it happens, yes, though that isn't what you want to-.**

**Where's Koriand'r?**

**She was attempting to recover some of the psions' slaves. Unfortunately, there wasn't really time to mount a serious rescue-.**

Of course there wasn't. I look-. I transition downwards as far as I can and then generate an armoured construct wedge to force my way through the airborne rock, ash and superheated steam between me and the faint glow of Koriand'r avarice. There's a surge of light from my right as one of the ships high above me tries firing again, though what they think they're hitting is anyone's guess. There's too much stuff in the air; energy weapon hits will disperse through this mess without doing much to the ground beneath it.

"Illustres to Lantern Koriand'r, stand by to be relieved."

I brake and erect a construct bunker to shield Koriand'r and the… Handful of people she's holding from the superheated water and rock around us. She looks at me in relief and what was left of her shield-bubble fails completely.

"Thank you."

"Where are you taking them?"

Five Tamaraneans, eleven dredfahlans and a changraylynian. A tiny fraction of the number they would have been holding.

"There is a ship from Changraylyn above us. Their people refuse to fight, but they will take refugees."

Ring, scan.

"Okay, got it. We can-."

My construct judders and the rescuees cringe in fear as.. a railgun round strikes us and then rolls off the shield into the churning mass!

"Illustres to fleet, the next idiot who shoots me gets a positron beam in their reactor! I am NOT in the mood."

**Admiral Oswin is confirming your instruction. Is Koriand'r alright?**

I look her over. **Appears to be. She's got a whole seventeen slaves with her.** I smile at them. "Nothing to worry about. We're heading up now."

And up we go, slower than on the way down. There are pockets where the material in the air has been converted to plasma by the bombardment. My constructs are strong enough to take it, but I'd rather avoid them anyway.

"Lantern Koriand'r, once we're out, will you be able to escort them to the ship?"

"Yes." She flexes her left hand and her environmental shield flares as we leave the atmosphere. Such as it is. "I will gladly see them to safety."

She recreates her shield bubble, and since we appear to be out of danger I allow my own construct to fade away.

"I will speak to you once this operation is over."

She looks mildly puzzled, but turns and flies her charges away.

**As I was saying, there wasn't time to rescue them all. The psions have been working on reverse engineering Dominion mass transit portals. They were planning on relocating to another safe area.**

**They thought that the dominators would take them in?**

**Could we have this conversation face to face? All of the commanders are on Admiral Oswin's command ship.**

I step out

and reappear in their war room. Admiral Oswin is leaning back in his chair at the centre of the table's arc, looking rather pleased with himself. Komand'r and Blake seated to his immediate right while the place to his left is occupied by an okaaran warlord I know works for Amalak.

"Orange Lantern." Oswin's smile broadens. "So glad that you could join us."

"Was there a reason I wasn't told that this was in the works? And no-" I turn to Blake. "-Blake, the fact that I wasn't prioritising it myself isn't an excuse for not giving me a one minute call by power ring."

Oswin shrugs. "What business is it of yours?"

"I made it my business when I came to Vega. How many ships did you lose attacking the psions' orbital defences or from their ground-based weapons? Do you really think that the two Lanterns I assigned to this region are the sum total of the force I could call on?"

The Okaaran looks at me curiously. "You are not troubled by our planetary cleansing?"

"I'm troubled by it in the sense that it represents a sub-optimal resolution, and one that could easily have been avoided if someone had called me. Based on the force available to you I recognise that it wasn't a terrible solution."

Komand'r looks pleased, though Blake merely looks thoughtful.

"Though I should make you aware that the continuing presence of the psions was the only thing keeping the Green Lantern Corps from returning to this region. Green Lantern Green Man."

My ring blinks, then a construct of the man appears in front of me.

"The psion species is now either extinct or near extinct. These people would like to talk to you about it."

 

[Mr Zoat]

9th February
Who even cares?

"Hey, Orange."

I continue staring moodily at the clouds of Karna as they sail beneath me.

Guy sits down next to me on the lump of defence satellite hull I dragged here from the Wombworld. I suppose that we may as well call it something else, now. I'll vote for 'Sheol' if anyone bothers talking to me about it.

"Kind of a shitty way t' end tha day, huh?"

"It's only midday. If I can stop the karnans and gordanians killing each other I'll…"

I'll what?

"I won't feel completely terrible about it."

"'least it wasn't tha Queen causin' trouble."

"You ever.. have a planet killed on your watch?"

"Well…" He shrugs. "When you're on tha Honor Guard, every planet's parta yer watch."

I turn my head and glare at him for a moment.

"Had a crazy AI turn a planet inta paperclips one time. I mean, we evacuated it before it killed everyone, but I still got a ringside seat at a whole world getting' 'maximised'."

"To be clear, I don't care about the psions dying at all. They were every bit as bad as the citadelians."

"Yeah? What about their kids?"

"Psions are vat-grown from tailored genes. Then they get raised by other psions. As a technique it's not-. It wasn't quite as reliable as what the citadelians did, but it was pretty close. That isn't like the gordanians, where they're just 'martial' and 'aggressive'. There aren't any non-mad scientist psions any more than there were non-warrior citadelians."

I turn fully to face him, crossing my legs as I do so.

"The Guardians changed their minds that quickly?"

He nods. "Logic, right. No point holdin' up yer end of tha treaty when tha other guys 're all dead."

"Did the 'New Vega Alliance' okay it?"

"They didn't complain too loud."

"Is someone going to kick Gretti into doing his job, or is Green Man handling it himself?"

"Wouldn't mind kickin' Gretti, but with tha Vega Alliance workin' on the pirate problem… Or, y'know, not causin' it so much, I'm not sure he needs help."

"I could have helped them do this better."

"Yeah."

"Dox would have loved training our Lanterns against the psion defences."

"Kinda cold."

"The psion civilisation was evil, but it was a relatively small and contained evil. I'd rather we discover the problems with our training here than against the Reach." I exhale. "If they'd actually talked to me, I'd have been delighted that they'd-."

I feel an impulse from down below.

"Excuse me."

I send a tether down, then yank, a surprised karnan woman with a simple laser weapon appearing in front of me.

"Put the gun down."

"Wh-? What?"

"The gun you were about to fire. Put it-."

She focuses on me. "You're protecting them? After what they did to my family, to my-."

"I'm protecting the ceasefire that is preventing millions more people dying. Once Karna is at peace, you are free to pursue your personal vendettas without my intervention, but until then I will not let you make the situation worse. Now put down the gun."

She hesitates, then releases it and I let it float away into the void.

"Thank you."

A flash of orange and she reappears at ground level.

"Ah, that they'd sorted things out without me."

"That was new."

"Only good thing about this trip. I knew Blake was intelligent, but-."

"No, I meant grabbin' people off the ground like that. How'd you pick up on that, anyway?"

"I can search large groups for particular desires. You should be able to do something similar."

"Heh. Nice." He idly looks down at the planet before returning his attention to me. "So what you got goin' on next?"

"I'm making sure this bit goes alright, then I'm… Going back to Earth. I'm going to try putting Doctor Roquette in touch with Leonard Snart, she was having problems setting up cold fields for her nanofabricator… Unless you think there's something else I'm missing?"

"Nah. 'less you think there is?"

"They're working together more or less rationally. I could stick my oar in, but I'm not feeling any pressing need to." I shake my head. "Would you mind looking after this for a few minutes? I need to go and talk to Koriand'r."

Guy nods. "Think I can handle that. Keep tha kitties from shootin' the crocs, right?"

"Close enough."

I step out

and reappear on Changraylyn, a handful of grey-skinned melted-waxwork-looking locals looking around before they go back to ignoring me.

"Lantern Koriand'r, do you have a moment?"

The priest she was talking to bows and then walks away, leaving Koriand'r and I alone.

"You are unhappy."

"Yes, yes I am."

She nods solemnly, walking closer and… Hugging me? I instinctively hug back, but I'm.. not sure why she's doing th-.

"I used my ring to find as many of the psions' prisoners as I could, even as the fleet began firing upon the planet. It showed me them dying whenever their cells were hit." She sniffs. "I was not skilled enough to save even a fraction-."

"And that's why I'm annoyed. Koriand'r, why didn't you call for aid?"

"You gave us these rings and charged us with protecting this region. I did not want to let you down further by calling for help."

"Koriand'r, I don't care about that. And neither should you. What matters is creating a decent civilisation, providing succour to the good and making sure that the bad can't hurt the good. The whole reason why we have a Corps is so that the parts which are faced with more opposition, the parts which are having a hard time, can get help from the rest. You feel bad calling for help? Lantern Ragnar would feel that he was being lazy because he missed out on the fight. This job doesn't just require that we put our bodies on the line, but sometimes our pride as well because the outcome for the people in our care is what matters most."

I pull back slightly, looking her full in the face.

"Do you understand?"

She nods. "Yes."

"Okay. Now then, since the 'New Vega Alliance' has things planned out so well, where can I make myself useful?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Earth 12
6th February 2005
09:01 GMT

Six of the world's most powerful people sit around a table, carefully avoiding making eye contact with one another.

Martian Manhunter is martian, so the lack of eye contact doesn't have quite the same significance for him that it does for his human colleagues. Superman is kryptonian, but as he grew up around humans he's internalised their body language and his says that he's 'uncertain' and 'ashamed'. Flash-.

"Soooo…" He looks up and then sweeps his eyes in a circle around his friends. "Are we gonna talk about what happened, or just sit here 'til-"

Diana's jaw tightens, and she slams her right fist into the surface of the meeting room table. Hard enough to dent it, but not break it. Flash notes this and feels oddly pleased. A couple of years ago, that wouldn't have been the case.

"-Bats shows up."

"Alright." Green Lantern nods. "I'll go first, since that guy was obviously a Lantern."

Martian Manhunter's brow moves in a gesture that might be an approximation of a frown. "I was unaware that power rings could be made in colors other than green and yellow."

Flash nods. "Yeah, what's up with that?"

"When the Guardians threw Sinestro out of the Green Lantern Corps, he went to a planet called Qward. Gave them everything he knew about the Corps. In return, they made him a knock-off power ring out of a material called 'qwardamite'."

Flash snorts. "Really? That's what they called it?"

"It works well enough. I suppose there could be an orange material that works in the same way, but if there is then I've never heard of it."

Manhunter bows his head slightly. "For our purposes, it is enough that it exists. It would be more productive to examine how he defeated us."

Hawkgirl exhales sharply. "You wanna go first?"

"In my case, he forced me back into phase by using the matter disrupting effects of your Nth metal mace. I believe that I noticed a power ring construct of some kind attached to it."

She nods. "Nth metal doesn't usually do much to phased targets. If you add a big enough generator it'll damage just about anything, but the kind of power you'd need to-." Her face twists into a rictus of rage. "He nearly blew up my mace!"

Flash winces. "How bad would that be?"

"I don't think that Thanagar will give me another one!"

Green Lantern shakes his head. "How big would the blast be?"

"We would have been vaporised." Her eyes flick to Wonder Woman. "Most of us. Wonder Woman might have survived."

"What about-?" Flash caught himself and looked at his despondent kryptonian colleague. "Ah, you feeling okay, big guy?"

"Completely fine." He nods at Manhunter. "J'onn, you were saying?"

"Once my phasing ability was disrupted, he bound me with a chain that was designed to prevent me from phasing through it and placed a device which suppressed both my telepathy and my telekinesis on my head. I tested the strength of the chains and found that I could not break free."

Manhunter turns his head slightly to indicate Wonder Woman, whose right hand is still clenched into a fist.

"He put up a force field I couldn't even damage. Then there was… Some sort of energy discharge, then I could barely stand."

Green Lantern nods. "I recognised the force field he used. It's called an 'inertia shield'. It's used by the terminans for crash-protection during space ship crashes. It'll soak up any kinetic energy you throw at it."

"How do you break it?"

"You don't. Lantern Corps records are pretty clear. You could use an energy weapon or a gas to bypass it, but kinetic energy won't work."

Flash smiles. "Hey, looks like there are problems you can't solve by punching them."

"Or by-." Wonder Woman visibly bites down her reply, and Flash decides that maybe he should be a little less flippant about this. "How did he beat you?"

"I.. don't know." And he really didn't. Sure, he fought people who could keep up with him or slow him down before, but that was like… "Every time I started to move, I just… Stopped. I kept trying, and it.. kept happening."

Hawkgirl frowns. "Where did the ice come from?"

He had started getting cold. But he'd been frozen in a giant block of ice when he raced Superman around the world. Vibrating out of that had been really easy. So, what..?

"Vibrations." He sits up a little straighter as he realises. "Heat-. Heat makes molecules vibrate. Did anyone see if he was pointing some sort of gun at me?"

Green Lantern and Superman nod, and Green Lantern generates a small, weird-looking gun construct. "Like this."

Flash's eyes narrow. "It looks.. kinda like a cold gun, like Captain Cold uses." His eyes widen. "That's what he was doing! He was using it to reduce my kinetic energy to zero, or.. close. I mean, I don't know how he was shooting fast enough to keep hitting me when I started moving again-."

"It's possible for someone to speed up their brain with a power ring." Green Lantern shakes his head. "Mental impulses travel faster by ring than they can along nerves. I can't do it, but I know a few Lanterns who could. If you weren't moving at full speed, that might have been enough."

"Well, that's one mystery solved." Flash looks puzzled. "I wonder why the ice guys I fight haven't ever tried that?"

"I'm glad the people I fight haven't tried using gold kryptonite." Superman shakes his head. "Green kryptonite hurts, but I can usually avoid it. I can't help wondering if his Justice League knows that he knows exactly how to take them all down."

Green Lantern looks at his belt. "Does the radiation shield he made for you work like he said it does?"

Superman nods. "According to STAR Labs, it works just fine. And he was right: this would have been really useful to have a few years ago. It's a lot easier to wear than a lead suit, that's for sure."

Green Lantern nods. "I know what he did to beat me. I just don't know how. Every time he shot my shield I couldn't hold it together, and I couldn't call back my ring before he grabbed it."

Wonder Woman nods. "I still want to know why I was so dizzy."

"A sonic weapon." They all look around as the door closes behind Batman. "Something designed to affect your sense of balance. Since you can hear normal volume sound, your inner ear can't be as tough as the rest of you. He noticed, and took advantage."

Hawkgirl moues. "Just what we needed: Batman with a power ring."

Flash leans forward as Batman takes his seat. "Not like you to be late for a meeting, Bats. What was the hold up?"

"I went to meet our version of the Orange Lantern."

A few eyes widen as he puts a profile up on the monitor.

"Peter Wynne, thirty eight, a British national. He hires supervillains and helps them find legal uses for their skills."

"Oh, hey, I've heard of him." Flash points at the screen. "He got Lenny and James jobs!"

"Yes. He also has an orange power ring."

Green Lantern frowns. "I don't remember seeing anyone like that flying around."

"It's almost completely out of power and he doesn't have any way to recharge it." Batman reaches into his utility belt and pulls it out. "He also didn't notice when I switched it with a fake. Green Lantern, we need the Guardians to analyse this as soon as possible."

Green Lantern picks it up with a construct hand and brings it over to him. "Sure, but what happens if he tries to use it in the mean time?"

"We'll return it when they're finished, but we can't take the risk of being so unprepared again."

Superman frowns. "You think we'll have to fight him again?"

"It doesn't matter. We have an enemy whose abilities we don't understand. Every vulnerability he exploited was one any of the League's other enemies could have used. We were lucky that he didn't want to kill you, and we can't afford to rely on luck."

Hawkgirl nods. "So what do you suggest?"

"I plan on asking Mister Wynne to join the League as a consultant, in order to examine League operations for weaknesses which we haven't noticed. Everyone has vulnerabilities, but when the world is depending on us we can't afford for our enemies to know ours better than we do."

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th November 2010
15:18 GMT -5

Diana looks on with mild puzzlement as I leaf through her photo album.

"It would help me if I had some idea what you are looking for."

Group photograph from nineteen fifty one… Alan's smiling, but… Magnify… Hm, the picture quality is too low for me to be certain… I continue flicking through, making sure to record the images and the dates.

"Pictures of Alan."

"Alan's own collection is larger and in better condition than mine."

"Yes. But if I asked to do this with his collection he'd ask why I was interested."

"Are you saying that my interest does not present the same problem?"

"I fully intend to talk to Alan about it, but I'd like to have a solution to the problem before I do. Or… If there's no problem, I don't need to bring it up at all."

She waits patiently for me to give a helpful answer as I move on to the album from just before she went back to Themyscira. From the.. composition…

"You took these yourself?"

"Jay taught me. You'll have to excuse the blurring."

No, but it does mean that I probably won't get anything else useful out of this. Alright then. Ring, combine this with what we got from Mrs Hunkel and Mr Garrick…

Ah.

I take a holographic projector out of subspace and arrange the images in chronological order.

"While it may not be readily apparent to someone who grew up on Themyscira, Alan looks a lot younger than a man his age usually would. And he started looking younger recently. Looking at the photographs of him I've been able to find, it looks like this isn't a recent phenomenon either. His appearance is basically unchanged for all the time he was in the Justice Society and then he suddenly-" I point to a picture. "-enters middle age when it breaks up."

"That could be explained by him exercising less. Or by the stress of what happened to Rose."

"That would only explain the changes that happened then. Not all of the other ones." I sigh. "By comparing his cycles of rejuvenation and decay with.. everything that was going on in his life… As far as I can tell, it depends on whether or not he was regularly recharging his ring."

Diana's gaze grows a little distant, perhaps trying to match what I'm saying with her own experiences. "I.. see."

"And now he can't recharge. I mean, you've seen him change, right? Compare-" She's nodding. "-how he looked when I first arrived to how he looks now."

"And what do you intend to do about this?"

"Giving him back his personal lantern wouldn't work because it's the wrong colour. There wasn't enough green light energy left on the Maltusian ship to make much difference. Which means I need to talk one of the local Green Lanterns into letting him recharge from their personal lanterns."

Diana looks dubious. "Hal was clear that the Guardians were forbidding members of the Green Lantern Corps from allowing Alan to recharge using their equipment. I doubt that-."

"Yes, but if I don't ask-" I begin returning the albums to their shelves. "-I'll never know. And since the next best option is working out how to tap into the green light directly, I'm hoping that I can talk them into moderating their position."

5th November 2010
19:40 GMT -5

Hal shakes his head. "No can do, Orange. The Guardians were real clear about it."

I nod. "But if you could, would you?"

He frowns. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I hold up my hands in a pacifying gesture. "I'm not trying to start a fight. And I'm not.. asking you to throw your career away and flat out defy the Guardians. That wouldn't do Alan any good. I just want to make sure that if I did wangle an exception, you would be willing to let him use it."

"Of course I would!"

I nod. "In that case, I need two things. I need you to tell me exactly what the Guardians said, and then I need everything you have on Green Lantern Corps rules and regulations."

Hal's still frowning, but it's more thoughtful now. "The rules and regs? What for?"

"Guardians like order, but they've run a Lantern Corps for millions of years. I doubt that they've done that by deciding things on a case by case basis, but I suspect that the rules are immensely flexible in order to incorporate all of the different mindsets the different species they've worked with possess. If I can find an argument based on existing Corps rules, they'll probably accept it."

"O.. kay. Ah." He looks away for a moment as he tries to remember. "'This.. Alan Scott is not a member of the Green Lantern Corps. You may work with him or not as you see fit, but he is not to be treated as different from any other citizen of your homeworld.'"

I narrow my eyes slightly. "Nothing specific."

"Ah, no, but we're not normally allowed to share our rings or lanterns with anyone. And… The rules and regs are about a million pages long. I think it's only people like Salaak and.. Sinestro, who've bothered reading it. You sure about this?"

"Alan will die if I don't. Hit me."

He shrugs, then raises his right hand. "It's your brain. Send."

A ball of green light leaps from his ring to mine-.

Grgh. Ring, organise. Find me something useful.

Compliance.

Oh yes.

"Got it."

"You.. got it? That's it?"

I got a massive headache, but… "Non-emergency civilian aid. Outside of the emergency situations designated above, members of the Green Lantern Corps are authorised to use Corps resources in order to provide medical aid to those in their Sector or to such others as they may encounter in the performance of their duties, restricted to technological devices at or equivalent to devices available in the society in which aid is being provided."

"Yeah? And? Humans can't make lanterns."

"We don't have to, it doesn't matter. Okay, this means that you can use a dermal regenerator anywhere where they have dermal regenerators, but if you go somewhere where they don't then you can't but you can still use construct-splints on broken bones or use construct-needles to sew wounds shut."

"Okay?"

"Ra's al Ghul claims to have created the first Lazarus Pit in the fourteenth century, and Batman's investigation confirmed that that's probably true. That means that you can use Green Lantern Corps equipment to provide aid equal to something which can cure death, because in theory any human could get access to it."

His face stills.

"You can literally fly anywhere in this Sector and bring back any medical technology you can legally acquire and release it for public use. You can't sell it, allow others to profit directly from it, explain how it works yourself or spend more than… Ah, 'a reasonable amount of time' doing that rather than working on law enforcement, but you can do it. Since 'Corps resources' explicitly includes your lantern and ring, you can let Alan recharge so long as him doing so isn't 'prejudicial to the wellbeing of life and order in your assigned Sector'. I don't think that some of these rules were written with Earth's particular brand of madness in mind. Oh! Got another one."

"Another..?"

"Another way to let Alan recharge. It's from the section on the remuneration of 'mentors, aides and assistants'. You're allowed to hire people to assist you in your work, or benefit from relationships equivalent to what would exist in your society if you were not a member of the Green Lantern Corps. Humans have had apprenticeships for as long as we've had jobs, and sidekicks for nearly as long as we've had superheroes. If Alan agrees to tutor you, then you can class him as an 'auxiliary instructor', which doesn't let you do more than pay him. Except, since you're both American, and it's 'in keeping with local custom' for Americans to receive healthcare provision via their employers… The rules explicitly don't differentiate between insurance and direct provision. You're obliged to make sure that he receives it. Which, again, includes the use of Corps resources because in some places you have to let your weapons tutor try out your weapons as part of a coming of age ritual."

Huh. That wouldn't work if either of them were from somewhere with state-provided healthcare. That's the first time America's backwards attitude has come in handy for anyone.

Hal looks at me dubiously. "And you think the Guardians will buy that?"

"Can't know until you ask. But I'd be surprised if it didn't work in the short term. Are you willing to give it a go?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Conqueror's Moon

10th February
08:01 GMT -7

"While I'm perfectly happy-" I try to avoid frowning as Sunset attaches one of her experimental thaumic flux detectors to my forehead. "-to assist you in your work, I was rather under the impression that you'd cracked the whole-" Another goes on my right shoulder. "-alicorn transformation thing."

"I… Think I have."

Another sensor goes on my right hand, then she holds out another while looking at my bare chest.

"Um."

I alternately tense and relax my left and right pecs, and she moues.

"Could you… Like, not do that?"

"Has someone started finding bipeds attractive?"

She looks away, trying not to squirm. "Circe… Had a.. talk with me. Adom… Was.. there."

She's actually blushing. It's adorable.

"You know?" I take the sensor from her and stick it on myself… Myself. "You should write a paper on the subject. There are so many humanoid species around the place that your experience as a quadruped is rather interesting, from a social psychological point of view." Hm. "Nudity isn't sexual on Wilson, is it?"

"It might be in some places. Not in Equestria. But I know it is here."

"On Apokolips, it means 'I trust you enough not to wear armour around you'. That's a big deal, but it's not always sexual."

"I think I'll stick-" She passes me the box containing the rest of the sensors and I obligingly begin attaching them as well. "-with magic. Wait." She frowns. "You walk around people who don't wear armour all the time."

"Yes, but I have thirty years of memories of that being normal. At most, it makes me feel like I'm living on a weirdly friendly planet. It's actually quite nice. Even when I was on trial for murder… Everyone in that court room was my friend."

"Huh." She frowns. "I.. suppose that makes sense. I keep thinking that I need to be on my best behaviour, because… Big, formal events are the only times when ponies wear clothes like this."

"You're completely free to wander around naked if you want."

"Yeah… I… No. I tried that with Circe, and it was just… Awkward. And it makes my teats uncomfortable."

"You could just wear a bra. Since you're going back home in a couple of months… Might be worth getting used to again." She looks at me sceptically, and I fan out my hands. "Alright, you don't have to." That's all of the sensors. "So what's this about?"

She stands back, folding her arms across her chest. "I think I've worked out alicorn transformation. Everything I know about thaumaturgy, mathematics and Equ-. And Wilsonian magic-" I smile and nod approvingly and she rolls her eyes. "-tells me that I'm right. But… Newtonian physics works well enough over a small area. There could be something… Something I don't know about that I'm not taking into consideration. Celestia's a lot bigger than Cadenza and her mane and tail shimmer-."

I nod. "And that shampoo is probably really expensive."

"I tested her shampoo when I was eight. It's not her shampoo. It could just be her age, what happens when the higher magic levels in her body keep building up, it.. could be something about her link with the sun… I don't know."

"Could it be a spell?"

"Ah… It could. Celestia's really good at magic." Another eye roll. "Allegedly. And when she realised exactly why I wanted to study her she forbade me from studying her, which made doing it really difficult. It's possible that she used a glamour I couldn't detect, but… I don't think so. I'm mostly worried that there's something more that I don't know about because the evidence for it is hard to detect."

I nod. "A reasonable concern. So what's all this for?"

"I want to study your god-powers. Given how you've described the process of getting it, it sounds like the closest analogue to getting a cutie mark or becoming an alicorn. And since-. Actually, are you going to Awaken Persuader?"

"Not any time soon. I'm actually curious if a human can trigger the process without someone external forcing it."

"You do know that she doesn't answer to her name when she's got her armour on?"

"Refuses to, or literally doesn't recognise it?"

"Neither's exactly healthy."

I shrug. "I don't even remember my juvenile name. If she's close to making a breakthrough on her own, that might be part of it."

"That… Just seems…"

"Cruel?"

"Irresponsible. She's a crazy murderer who you're encouraging to become crazier."

"I'm encouraging her to acquire skills in a profession she loves. You've spent time with her when she's in Elise-mode, haven't you? How does she seem to you?"

"Weirdly… Happy? Even with all of the bruises."

"There you go." I give the sensors a quick check. Everything in place. "So what exactly do you want me to do?"

"Just… Do whatever it is you do. I'll be recording it-. Or… Trying to, anyway."

"Trying to?"

"What you do isn't like normal magic. When I tried this with Circe I couldn't get a clear reading, but I'm hoping that's because of all the regular magic she uses. Since you don't use other forms of magic, it shouldn't be such a problem."

"Okay." I pick up a plasma lance from the ground next to me. Should be simple enough.

It's a simple device, fuel, battery, the magnetic 'rifling' system which keeps the cloud of charged particles going where the shooter wants them, coolant to make sure that the rest of the gun doesn't melt and the mass of the body of the gun. But as I impress myself upon it that rapidly stops being the case. Now it's a tool, an instrument by which my territory can be defended and expanded. A symbol of the power of my legions and the order they bring, its fire scourging those who oppose me from the universe. And those manufacturing centres which produce it are evidence of the industrial power of my realm, the purpose I bring to the lives of all those who give of themselves to me.

"Getting anything?"

"Kind… Of..? I don't think that it's… Big enough." She fiddles with the crystalline array which she's using to aid her sorcery. "Can you try something over a wider area?"

"Yes, but the effect will be much smaller."

I don't bother mentioning that I'm effectively… Not mind controlling, but certainly mentally influencing people. I can cow peoples' spirits but I'm not going to be doing that here and now.

"I'm really more interested in how what you power up links to you than I am in the exact mechanism. Once I'm an alicorn I'll have all the time in the universe to learn to do this for myself. I just need to make sure that I don't need to learn it first."

"Alright." I put down the gun, now simply a gun again rather than an instrument of my will.

Hm.

I close my eyes and reach out across the Challenger Mountain facility, feeling the weak shimmers of essence of each of the genomorphs and the more substantive resistance from Knockout's own divinity. She has accepted me as her overlord so I can bend her-. Ah, she feels it. And in any case her nature isn't actually opposed to mine. In another part I feel Mortalla's weaker soul, her nature far more… Synthetic. I'm not sure what Desaad did to make that happen, but I don't think he did it with a Father Box's aid. While she doesn't appear to be aware of what I'm doing, her nature isn't opposed to mine either.

I spread my awareness to every corner of the facility.

Sunset's device beeps, and she smiles.

The First Brick.

And then it explodes.

 

[Mr Zoat]

10th February
08:11 GMT -7

Sunset brushes off the remains caught by her lab coat's protective enchantments.

"Oooooohhhh… Kay. I think I know what the problem was."

I nod as I scrape the burned remains of the last sensor off my left arm. "And what was that?"

"You used your god-powers on the area the sensors were in. And on the sensors themselves. And on me."

"You didn't specify-."

Sunset leans towards me, her right finger outstretched. "You haven't conquered me."

"Sunset, you're a vital part of my research and development infrastructure. Conquest isn't about-. I'm sorry, isn't just about destroying anything in your way. It's about all of the mechanisms which make that destruction possible in the first place." Hm. "I wonder what would happen if we gave Celestia a book on plasma physics? I mean, your people don't even have radio telescopes yet."

"How much time have you spent planning what you're going to do in Equestria?"

"Um." Lie mode. "Oh, not long. Oh." I frown. "You're okay with me coming, right?"

Sunset looks away. "Eerrrrrr…"

"Oh, come on."

"Look, it's-. I'm fine with you being there, I just-. This is my thing. You know? Me making my big return and proving Cel-everyone wrong."

"I quite understand. You making your mark, showing off what you've learned and turning into an alicorn in Celestia's face takes precedence. But… Don't you think you'd find it satisfying if you demonstrated the value of your research to your fellow ponies?"

Sunset gives up on trying to get anything from what's left of the sensors and levitates all of the fragments into a thaumically isolated disposal unit. "I… Suppose… I'd find that satisfying. Doing something Celestia wouldn't or.. maybe even couldn't do. Do you have any ideas?"

"The stories you told me about your nation's history involved small groups of heroes fighting monsters against the odds. How capable is your regular army?"

"They're not." A g-promethean walks in with a new tray of sensors and hands them to her. "Thanks." She goes to hand one to me and then stops, frowning. "Wait, I didn't call-?"

"God-power."

"Mn." She hands them to me one at a time and I start attaching them again. "Raw magical power is the main thing that makes a fighter useful in Equestria. There's basically nothing that Princess Celestia can't overpower. All the most powerful pegasus ponies end up in the Wonderbolts; they're the best fliers, but they're trained as show-fliers rather than warriors. The strongest unicorns are usually the magical talents like me, and because Equestia hasn't had a real war in almost a century I don't think any pony in my generation took battle magic as a speciality. Plus, since we get cutie marks when we're young…"

"A pony would have to be a natural battlemage from foalhood."

"Right." She nods. "And earth ponies struggle to hold weapons, let alone fight effectively. Hooves and mouths aren't as good as hands for manipulating things."

"So: weapons ponies can use. Some sort of saddle-mount? A cadet system for pre-mark foals, and… Magic training for earth ponies?"

"Which doesn't exist yet."

"Not in Equestria. Didn't you say that the three tribes migrated there from somewhere else?"

"It's a story; I wouldn't take it too literally."

"But I've got boom tubes. If Equestria hasn't ever checked back on the old homelands, there could be all kinds of forgotten stuff back there."

"The story says that everyone left, and that was over a thousand years ago at least. Even if it's true, I doubt there's anything left but ruins." She checks my placement and then steps back again. "Ready to go again?"

"Yes, but what do you want me to do differently?"

"Try… Reaching further away and… Use less power?"

"Alright, I'll give it a go."

Not… Really something I've got much experience with. Usually, using as much power as I can is best. Hm. My link with Lynne is usually fairly low power, but… It's there all the time and I'm not sure that it would really register properly.

Hmmm…

Who have I shaped?

I feel Kon-El as he sits in a classroom in Happy Harbor.

Beneficent Oversight.

I can.. feel the difference as he focuses harder on his work, on the teacher, distractions fading from his mind.

In Dakota City, Edwin Alva's lawyers are working on ways to impede Doctor Metcalf's newfound freedom.

Be Humbled By My Purpose.

And suddenly their own outlined arguments feel inadequate and nonsensical, a confidence that they could tie him up for months at least evaporating.

Freedom stands on the bridge of a warship, his eyes focused on-.

He knows. But there's someone else-.

My vision shatters.

"Uhg." That was.. odd. "Was.. that helpful?"

"It.. was. What happened at the end there?"

"Not sure. Mother Box, where's Scott?"

"Ping."

So not on a-. No, of course not. So what the heck was I seeing? "Sunset, what do your readings say?"

She studies her device for a few moments.

"I.. think your 'god power' works by rearranging local magic fields indirectly to produce an effect. But you're not using local magic to do it. I.. think I just got a look at the Source."

Heh. "I doubt it."

"No. Really. I think it's treating the universe as one high-intensity magic field, even those places that are actually thaumically weak. I don't… Even know how that could work."

"Does it help with 'Project: Alicorn'?"

"I won't know until I analyse the data in detail. What did you do, exactly?"

"Buffed Kon's learning ability, debuffed Edwin Alva's lawyers and I was going to have a go at buffing Scott, but something… Interfered."

"Well…" She creates an illusionary image, wiggly lines which are… Probably.. has.. something to do with local thaumic resonances. Honestly, just as I learn one of her graph formats she changes it to something else. Disadvantage of someone working on the cutting edge, I suppose. "This is what it looked like when you were warming up."

It's not really a peak, but there's a more defined shape to it.

"This is the second part."

The shape's different, but the structure is similar. Me, I suppose.

"And then…"

The third section starts similar, then.. there's another shape. And then… My shape… Doubles… Blurs..?

Another me. And Scott on a ship I now recognise as thanagarian.

"I.. think I need to check up on Earth 50. Now."

 

[Mr Zoat]

10th February
08:19 GMT -7

"So this pattern is… Another 'you'?"

Sunset scurries along behind me as I stride in the direction of my 'reinterpretation' of the portal generator Mr Wayne 50 used to break me out of gaol last year. It hasn't been a high priority. My work here and on Tamaran keeps me more than busy enough without worrying about parallel universes as well. I only really built the thing in case… Lynne ever wanted to go back. Some day. Perhaps to visit her grandparents, or… Other relatives? I'll have to look into it when I'm there.

"Probably."

"Didn't you say there was another version of you in this universe?"

"Yes. But I don't know that he's from here originally. He could be Grayven Fifty. Heck, I'm not sure that this universe is really the one I originally came from, so he could be Sixteen and I could be… Something else."

"So your god-power can go from one universe to another without a portal. That's… Fascinating."

"Don't get too excited; I think that's to do with how we're linked to the Source. I doubt that alicorns work in the same way." I stop as the Apokoliptian technology built into the bulkhead confirms my identity. "Though… It could be because Scott came here, and… Our souls touched…"

"Do you think he'd mind if I scanned him?"

"You can ask."

Though… Huh. Okay, Scott and Barda know I was faking. Fakingish. But the rest of their team probably don't. So I either need to get a message to him that the others won't pick up on, or link up with the remaining Lords again and get an update from them. That.. sounds more sensible, actually. And it will be nice to see them again, see how they're getting on.

There's a chime from the bulkhead and I demand its obeisance.

"Could this take me to Equestria?"

"Theoretically, yes." I lead the way through as the door opens. "In practice, you should probably avoid it. Scouting out destinations using this technology is highly inefficient, and it wouldn't transform you back into a pony. Plus, it's purely technological, with none of that useful 'sympathetic resonance targeting'-"

"That's not what it's called."

"-that magic transportation systems tend to have. And we don't have Equestria's coordinates."

The bulkhead seals itself behind us, and a half-dozen types of defensive and obscurative fields reactivate. I really don't want relatively casual parallel universe travel being a thing. I remember in… Ex Machina, where a man from a parallel universe tries to warn the cast of the dangers of immigration and they all write him off as a deranged Republican. But I remembered an episode in series one of Sliders, in which a parallel universe version of Quinn Mallory slides the entire population of his Earth to another Earth. Going from six billion people to twelve billion people in an instant causes total social collapse and mass starvation. It's not that the Earth can't support twelve billion people; it certainly can. But Human civilisation can't, not without a lot of time to build up.

Plus… Well. I might need an edge at some point.

My version of the device -which is even now going through its warm-up sequence- is a highly modified boom tube. I didn't realise until I tried building one for myself, but the one Batman 50 built uses a stupid amount of power and has to be activated very slowly. The main reason they had to make do with me is that they literally couldn't open it again. Of course, that wasn't a problem when his word was law and he could take whatever he wanted from the US power grid… Anyway, using a boom tube makes it work better with all of my other New God technology and cuts down the power requirements to something a little more manageable.

I'm also planning to use this to give myself the ability to re-enter Equestria as a biped if the pony thing doesn't work out.

Ping.

Alright, whereabouts to go-. Wait.

"Sunset, are you planning on coming with me?"

"Yes?" She shrugs. "I need to get a look at other New Gods, and find out what happened with you and the other Mister Miracle."

"Fine, but I don't know what conditions are like on the far side, I'm a known would-be alien conqueror and you're not properly equipped."

She frowns. "What do you mean, 'would-be alien conqueror'? You said that you'd met them before."

I regard her in puzzlement. "Did you actually read the mission report?"

"No?" She shrugs. "Wasn't that where you picked up Lynne?"

A-ah-h. "Okay, I'm happy to have you along, but you need to read the file and you need to get some armour. I helped their new global-tier super team gain acclaim by going full alien hamlord conqueror, so we can't expect a positive reception."

"Aren't you going straight to your brother? Their version, I mean."

"No, I need to get the lay of the land, first. For all I know my alter-ego has already invaded their Earth. And he probably can't let anyone know that my attempt to take control of America was less than authentic without damaging his credibility."

"Okay." She nods. "I've got.. protective spells on my lab coat. But… Yeah, I suppose it's not a good idea." She frowns at me. "Are you going to go like that?"

"Of course not." I take a charm out of subspace and put it on, my appearance shifting to that of an unremarkable human man. Won't fool another New God, but should work against most mundane forms of detection. "Now, off you trot. I'll contact you once I'm prepared."

She nods and takes a step back as the-

BOOM!

-boom tube opens up. Now, that.. should open up in the Chihuahuan Desert, so there's not much chance of me being spotted. Still, need to move quick. I jog through the portal as Sunset tries to work out how to magically hack the bulkhead door that can only be opened by a New God.

Be interesting to see what she comes up with.

And… Out again, the boom tube shutting off behind me. No local response… Yet. Well, if Grayven 50 is invading, he isn't invading here. I strongly suspect that a planet that has been attacked by Apokoliptians repeatedly over the past decade will have boom tube detection equipment, so I should relocate reasonably quickly.

Sinestro?

Under my illusion, my armour glows yellow.

Lantern Grayven. I see that we have returned.

We have indeed.

Nearest settlement of any size is… Las Cruces. Can't use hush tubes from here, boom tubes would risk drawing attention. Low level flight it is, then. I rise a short distance off the ground and begin flying north.

Sinestro, while you were active around here, did you have any contact with my alter-ego?

No, though from what I heard he would have made a reasonable yellow ring user. He supposedly shares your virtues without your moderating influences.

Hm. Begin passive interception of local communications. Is Grayven Fifty here already?

It appears not.

Good show. Give me the status of the Lords and Stormwatch.

Nothing recent about the Justice Lords is being openly discussed. Stormwatch are still active, and while I cannot determine how representative a sample I am receiving they appear to be reasonably well regarded.

A detailed examination will have to wait until we reach Las Cruces. Internet cafes are still a thing, aren't they?

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th December 2004
20:54 GMT -6

I ignore the sound of military jets overhead. That isn't the first time they've flown over the town, and other warplanes have also been flying a search pattern around my entry point. Someone definitely picked up on my entry, though they didn't spot me specifically. I… Could pick a fight. I doubt that they've got radion weapons-.

Lantern Grayven, I've warned you about that sort of thinking before.

Alright, but statistically. And I've got you. I could grab a pilot or two, follow the trail up the chain of command…

The waitress puts a mango milkshake down next to me.

"Thank you."

I pick up the cup and suck on the straw as I locate the local Wikipedia-analogue and start reading. I'm having a little difficulty with the keyboard as my glamour doesn't actually alter my size. But if I hold my hands close and have Sinestro trigger the keys, it should pass muster.

Lords, Lords…

Ooh, lots of citations needed. Looks like there's been a bit of an edit war here. Ugh. No, the information presented here is worse than what they let me copy from their database. Maybe if I look at their individual pages? Kal-El… Is believed to still be in his Fortress. Batman hasn't been seen-. Ah, apparently he managed to avoid detection by any member of the public last year. John didn't, and there are a few possible sightings…

I open a superhero fansite I remember from my last visit. Confirmed sightings… Most of the ones listed for him have a note saying that it could also be Rayner, which… Yeah, okay, their constructs are the same colour and John's got enough sense not to let people confirm that it's him. One alleged sighting of Diana since the Lords' break up… Possible. Nothing on Shayera, J'onn is almost certainly still on Mars-. Important point is, they haven't been captured or killed.

Stormwatch… Ah, Kara In-Ze has switched to a black and yellow costume, the 'S' of House El replaced with what looks like an inverted 'A'. In kryptonian society, yellow meant 'synergy' or 'cooperation', while black meant 'it doesn't show the dirt'. I… Assume that she's trying to separate herself from Kal-El's 'brand'. I've got no idea what House Ze's emblem is. I suppose there's no reason why it couldn't be an inverted 'A'. Apparently, she's making her home in Metropolis these days, though it's been a little while since anyone's seen her out and about. Huh. Maybe she went with Scott to wherever he went?

Actually, the colour scheme puts me in mind of Adom.

The others seem more or less the same. I'm not going to risk looking up William Batson on a public computer, but-.

Oh.

They kept the youths.

Stretch, Brute, Char and… Metallica. Lynne's fellow inmates are now… Sidekicks? Wards? Of Stormwatch. I'd be curious to know whether they have civilian identities. Thinking.. about it, I suppose that they're not much younger than Kara. Certainly, they're older than William. I… Honestly haven't given them a thought since…

Hm.

Do.. I.. look up mys-oh who am I kidding?

Ah, some good pictures. Little bit of video… Sound quality's a bit patchy. Maybe I should see about taking public speaking lessons? Nothing public about another version of me or any more recent sightings, so my alter-ego isn't on Earth yet. Scott and Barda said that they went to meet him… But they don't have the same formal relationship with Earth's governments that the League back home do. At least, they didn't when I left. They certainly wouldn't be obliged to report a rampaging Apokoliptian warlord to the general public.

Thanagar, what do people know about them? Do people know-? Hm, several sites mention that the device which was going to destroy the Earth was intended to transport their fleet, but there doesn't appear to be anything concrete about exactly what happened to them afterwards. Or the people they were attacking or being attacked by.

I suck down more of my milkshake. It's so nice to have proper plastic straws and not those weird paper ones.

Ugh. Getting in contact with Stormwatch would be so easy. Ring-to-ring communication with Rayner, ultra-high frequency message to get Kara's attention… I've got Thanagarian communication protocols which should let me communicate directly with their ship. But it's still a sub-par option. My disguise will not stand up to examination by Scott, Barda, or Zatanna.

Find the Lords…

Richard could probably get me back in touch. And I suspect -quick search, yes, he's still around- that Timothy could as well. Richard… Might buy 'I want to make sure that my brother is alright', but it's probably best not to risk it. Alfred Pennyworth-. Oh. He's dead. Shiera didn't really have human friends outside of her team mates, John spent a decade off Earth as a Lantern and rather fell out of contact…

Themyscira or Mars? I did give J'onn some long ranged communication equipment when we last spoke, but there's no guarantee that the Lords will be responding promptly. On the other hand, Themyscira doesn't even have that. But at this point Diana 50 will have either gone totally mental or she'll have sorted herself out. And if she's wigged out completely, that's probably worth knowing about as well. Not that I think it would come as a surprise to Batman, but I don't want to get blindsided by a desperate demigoddess.

Al.. right. Nearly time to get moving. Does Stormwatch have an e-mail address? Well, there's the name of a press agency. It's better than nothing, I suppose.

Dear Stormwatch, nice to see that you're all doing well. Thought I'd stop by to make sure that my alter-ego wasn't making a nuisance of himself. You know how to get hold of me. Yours faithfully, Grayven 16.

Yes, that should do it. I down the rest of my milkshake, pay at the desk, and step outside. Using a boom tube out in the open risks blowing my disguise since it can't be reconfigured on the fly. But there's a convenient alleyway, and a quick construct will prevent the security camera from reporting my presence. Around the back, no one looking-.

Lantern Grayven, an… Alternative, has arisen.

Oh yes, what's that?

A mining ship called the Hockalint is broadcasting a distress call not far from this system. They appear to have tripped over a vein of unrefined Nth metal.

That's worth grabbing, but I'm not sure how it helps.

It seems that the Lords are trying to regain their humanitarian credentials. They answered. The source is a dumb drone, but the transmission appears to be recent.

Heh. Teach me not to over think things. I take off my ward.

Fine, open a boom tube to wherever the Hockalint ended up. I'll lend a hand, if the Lords aren't already finished.

Very well.

Boom!

Arms confidently folded behind my back, I stride through the portal-

-and jerk my head back as a powerful white-blue plasma bolt burns past my face!

Armour and what? I rise into the air as some sort of mobile anti-air platform opens fire at a target above me. It's.. Shayera, who's ducking and weaving-.

The fusion cannon on my right arm fires, blasting through the force field and armour protecting the AA emplacement and incinerating both the gun and the crew. I shoot upwards on my aero discs, a construct shield soaking a smattering of plasma bolts fired by the attacking infantry.

Shayera slows her movements as I approach.

"Grayven?"

"Hey there. Feels like it's been months. Who are-?"

A flight of thanagarian soldiers rises up out of the jungle.

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th December 2004
21:03 GMT -6

Heh.

Heh. He-.

No, no, wait, I've been here before.

"Just in case, these guys don't have radion-?"

"Which Grayven?"

"The one with the-" I hold my right fist in her direction. "-yellow ring? The one who fixed your bones? Grayven Sixteen?"

She nods, and lets out a relieved breath.

"This is what's left of the Thanagarian Resistance."

The flight of soldiers grow closer. Seven of them, armed in the same way as the marines I killed when I overran the bridge of the Thanagarian Mothership.

"This many? I think I know who wins the title of 'Best Grayven'. But seriously, radion weapons?"

"They haven't fired any at me."

We both smile. Ah…

"And why are they shooting at-"

The first soldier swings his mace through my construct, smashing it asunder as he continues his upwards charge.

"-you?"

She brandishes her own mace. "How about we deal with them first?"

"Alright. Are we taking them alive, or-?"

She dives, viffing in the air to take hold of the shaft of the first soldier's mace with her left hand in order to turn aside his swing while her swing takes him in the unarmoured flank. There's a crack as the entire lower part of his torso skips sideways while still being tenuously connected to his upper torso and legs.

…

Okay, I can work with-.

"It's the Praetor!"

Again?

Lantern Grayven, I would be less quick to complain about how your enemies hand you victory.

Fine, I can work with this. My fusion cannon construct shrinks slightly as I refine the confinement beam to create more precise shots. Shayera meanwhile uses her first opponent's corpse as a temporary shield to block shots from the rest of his squad then thrusts it at the gunman on the left. He struggles to stow his gun to catch his late colleague, giving Shayera the room to turn her dive into a swoop and mace him in the side of the head. His nth metal helmet takes the blow reasonably well, but he falls bonelessly out of the air a moment later as she follows up with a smash to his right wing.

And then I fire, shooting the gunman on the right through the neck and neatly severing his head from his shoulders. And another and another. The remaining three get a clue and turn to flee, dropping face first towards the forest canopy, madly flapping for it.

A mechanical claw construct constricts the lead soldier and yanks her back towards us, the others slowing for a moment to look on in horror, and as such being too distracted to evade Shayera's diving swing.

"HhhhhhhhhAYAH!"

I wince slightly, then dismiss my fusion cannon as my new victim comes closer.

"Hello there." I smile politely. "Did you send a fake distress signal?"

And she's panting in terror. Un.. productive.

Shayera takes a moment to check that her falling former compatriots are really dead and then flies back up towards me.

"What brought you here?"

"I think that my brother might have done something unwise regarding my alter-ego. I wanted to make sure that he was alright." I gesture to my prisoner with my right hand. "You want this one for anything?"

"Not right now, but keep her with you."

"Alright, so, bring me up to speed."

"The other Grayven won. The ships we sent back reached Thanagar just in time to pick up escape pods from the Thanagarian fleet as the gordanian fleet took up position to start landing troops." She looks around. "This planet is on the edge of what used to be the Thanagarian Empire. It was being built up as a staging area before it was abandoned due to the war starting. They've been using it as a base of operations."

"So… No 'Hockalint'?"

She smiles ruefully. "You caught that too?"

"And your response. Jolly generous of you, considering."

"Beats going stir-crazy on the Watchtower."

"Are any of the other Lords here?" I look around, bringing my goggles out of subspace. Ah. There's definitely a subterranean base here, but it's shielded against New God technology and I can't get a clear look. No other troops are approaching our position. "I was hoping to have a chat."

"Diana's here somewhere. We were separated when they sprung their trap."

"Diana's back with the team? Is that… Entirely…"

"She didn't do anything the rest of us didn't. And.. she's… Changed more."

I frown at her and scan the surrounding landscape. "The lack of explosions and plumes of earth was a bit of a giveaway there. Are we hanging around or going back to Earth?"

She crosses her arms. "We're not leaving Diana."

"I didn't mean-."

"Lantern Grayven, a Thanagarian Command Carrier has just entered orbit. You may wish to take cover."

I raise my left eyebrow. "The fighters will take minutes to arrive at best, and its primary weapons aren't good at penetrating an atmosphere."

Shayera frowns. "I didn't know there were any Command Carriers left. Apart from-."

The sky blurs, trees explode into pulverised chips around me as I'm slammed into the ground! Through the clouds I see the glow-

"Warning: will detected."

-of someone-. Of Rayner using a construct to attack Shayera while my head is violently turned from left to right and back again by someone pounding on my faceplate.

I create an inverted pile driver construct in the ground beneath me and fire it, sending me hurtling into the air and knocking whoever that was-. Ah, Batson. Off me for a moment before he turns in the air and blurs after me.

But this time I'm ready. A sonic cannon combined with a vertigo inducer forms on my right hand and fires. Batson's eyes widen and he's forced to evade, his flight slightly unsteady as the intense sound wave tears a swath through the forest below us. Another construct releases a cloud of noxious gas around him, but he seems-.

"That won't work again, Grayven. And I can cope with the sound!"

"Then I suppose I'll have to do this the old fashioned-"

I take a purple death ray out of subspace and shoot him with it.

"-way."

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th December 2004
21:07 GMT -6

Batson is fast-.

He winces and tries to evade the beam but it's light speed. His best logical option-.

I raise a construct shield and hold it over my head as he flies underneath me.

"Shazam!"

The lightning bolt strikes, shattering my construct and hitting my body. My armour soaks most of it but I feel an uncomfortable tingling in my left arm. Why are my.. constructs this.. weak?

Fear. The thanagarians are either dead, flying away or staying back, and Batson's got the Courage of Achilles. I'm not scaring him, I'm not scaring Shayera and I'm… Probably not scaring Rayner.

Sorry, Sinestro.

My construct gun vanishes from my right arm and a new one appears on my left. It looks… Slightly more solid than its late yellow counterpart, which I suppose will have to do.

And Batson's looping back so shield over my head again.

"William, why are we-?"

He flies underneath me and then changes direction to fly up underneath me! As soon as I spot his intent I try to evade but he's actually pretty quick. He grabs my legs-.

"Shazam!"

Conductive cables!

The cables appear, running from my shield to Batson himself.

"Huh?"

Then the lightning hits, blasting down from wherever the Wizard's lightning comes from and pouring into my shield. The shield lasts a fraction of a second, but the lightning is mostly redirected around me and into Batson.

Owowowowowow.

And now Batson isn't grappling my legs so much as hanging off them, opening his mouth-.

Gag him.

By your command.

"Shaumpf!"

I wreath him in orange chains and then pull him up so that our eyes are level.

"You should really talk to the Wizard about that weakness. That could get you killed."

He glares, but it turns out that the most righteous youth on the planet just isn't very good at actual malice. He looks like a grumpy puppy or something.

"No, seriously, that's your main form of ranged attack and all someone needs in order to end you is a copper wire. Now, if I take the gag out, are you willing to have a civil conversat-?"

A hammer construct hits me in the face, knocking me back in the air as it flies around and comes at me again!

"Mister Rayner, it's poor form to-"

I draw the Sword of the Fallen with my right hand and stab the construct in the head, causing the construct to shatter.

"-take advantage of the fact that your opponent doesn't want to kill you!"

"Oof."

Rayner's construct wall of American football players shatters under Shayera's assault, his follow up brick wall construct failing a moment later. That's the thing to do with Green Lanterns: don't give them time to focus. Keep them off balance. For a low-will high-creativity type like Rayner it should be particularly effective…

Right… Up until the point where Shayera smashes his rib cage in and kills him because her mace doesn't have a stun setting. Need to stop this before that happens.

I turn my attention back to Batson. "I'm going to remove your gag. Don't say 'Shazam'. Okay?"

He looks back sullenly. "M-mrurh."

Dismiss.

"Why did you kill those people?!"

"Can you narrow it dow-?"

"The thanagarians!"

"You mean just now? Because they were trying to kill Shayera. And probably me. You have realised that-."

"You're the Grayven from January, not the Grayven from Thanagar. Wisdom of Solomon. But did you need to kill them?"

"Strictly speaking, no, but keeping them alive seemed like an unnecessary risk to Shayera's safety. If you try and kill someone, you lose the right to complain about them trying to kill you. And anyway, they sent out a fake distress call. That's very illegal in most civilised regions. So yeah, heard a distress call, came here, got attacked."

"Why did you come here?"

"There was a distress call."

He regards me sceptically.

"And I wanted to link up with the Lords who'd signalled they were responding, and I was interested in the nth metal ore. Honestly, I was just expecting some miners. Is there any chance you could call Rayner off so we can go our separate ways?"

"You tried to take over America!"

"And I saved millions of lives while getting hit by a nuclear weapon your 'totes legit' president shot at Washington. I really do think that you'd have to be rather unreasonable to bear a grudge about it." I look upwards towards where their ship is settling into low orbit. "The only reason I'm not gagging you, grabbing Shayera and boom tubing away is that I want to make sure that Scott's alright before I leave."

"Mister Miracle? Why wouldn't he be?"

"I was practising with my god powers earlier and when I tried empowering him I got interference.. probably from your Grayven."

"Um, we dropped him off on Thanagar."

My eyes widen. "Okay, I know he's good at escaping stuff, but another me isn't going to use X-Pit style traps and tricks. He's just going to carry out an orbital strike on the area Scott is in if he feels that his authority is being undermined. Scott isn't even bullet proof. What the hell did you leave him on occupied Thanagar f-?"

"We're trying to evacuate refugees because the other you is using reprisal attacks to keep control of the thanagarians."

Ah heck. What exactly happens if the God of Conquest wins a god-fight with the God of Freedom? Nothing good, I'm sure.

"Fine. I don't object to that and Shayera is probably all in favour." I look around. "Are we good now? Can we call an end to hostilities?"

"Can I turn back?"

"I don't know, Batson. Is Kara in a position to blindside me yet?"

"Ah…"

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th December 2004
21:23 GMT -6

I ignore the thanagarian refugees shrinking back from me as I scan Kara In-Ze, while she glowers feverishly up at me.

Richard looks at me impassively. "So what's wrong with her?"

I lean forward slightly. "Have we been visiting our hermitage-dwelling foster-brother?"

"Yes. He needs.. to know someone still.. cares."

Richard looks concerned. "Are you saying that whatever the Justice League did to the Lords is infectious?"

"No." I shake my head. "But Kara breathed in a little of what I did to Kal-El to make certain that his powers never came back."

Richard blinks in surprise, while Kara just closes her eyes. I hold out my left hand and generate an image of gold kryptonite's molecular structure.

"When I visited him I introduced a small amount of gold kryptonite dust into his farm."

"I offered to help out."

I nod. "And I imagine that your powers have been waning ever since. Unreliable flight, perhaps? Stuttering heat vision? Disease vulnerability is a slightly surprising-."

"Is it permanent? Can you help her?"

"Sure. No problem. At this point, her natural force field is so weak that it isn't interfering with my rings at all. Then she'll just need some sunlight and she should throw off the rest of the flu herself."

I stand there for a moment, waiting-.

"So are you going to do it, or just stand around all day?"

"I am.. prepared to offer my services as part of a wider cooperation agreement, certainly."

Richard's eyes narrow. "What… Kind of agreement?"

"Stormwatch will cooperate with me until my brother and sister in law are safe. Then, I will peacefully return to my own parallel."

"I don't think they're in any special danger, so sure."

"And Ms In-Ze will take me out to dinner."

"What? / "What?"

"It seems to me that she is the one most likely to be carrying some lingering frustration towards me relating to our previous encounter. I think that getting to know me socially will help to counteract that. And she'll owe me personally for fixing her up."

"You said all you wanted was to make sure that Mister Miracle was alright."

I roll my eyes. "Well, if you want Kara here to have a mystically enforceable unpaid debt to an alien god, by all means-."

"Just.. do it."

I smile. "As you will. This shouldn't hurt."

I reach out with my left hand and remember how much fun I had during our last meetings. Not exactly a deep relationship, but I do genuinely want her healthy again. Orange light pulses out, the kryptonite in her system being reduced to its component atoms. Hm. Extensive organelle damage. It's irregular, she should be able to regain a portion of her exotic abilities almost immediately, but… Undesirable. So I repeat what I did with Kal-El 16 and give her a full restore. And that nasty virus and a few of the side effects…

I step back half a pace as she sits up. "How do you feel?"

"Better." I raise my eyebrows and look expectant. "I hope you like takeout. Cheap, quick to eat takeout."

I smile back. "Oh, it's the company more than the food. What's with the new costume?"

"I didn't want to wear Kal's colors anymore."

"But they're not Kal-El's colours. They're the colours-."

"Colors of House El, I know."

She gingerly floats herself off the bed and onto the floor, using her flight to bear her weight until she's certain that her legs can manage it.

"Which means that -however much of an arse he's become- they also represent generations of other people who mostly lived up to their ideals. Like Bur-El, who invented the telescope to better calculate tidal patterns, or Shu-El, who-."

"And Pir-El, who blew up four cities and killed their entire populations in a pointless war, and still got a statue made of him."

Oh she's just a treat.

"So is that House Ze's emblem?"

"No, we're not a noble house. It's…" She looks away. "The logo for my dad's favorite chariot polo team."

"As good a reason as any." I raise my eyebrows. "You know, you could just make it your house emblem. I doubt anyone would complain. Or I can. True, it would be in the Apokoliptian peerage, but-."

"Why are you-?" Her eyes widen and she puts her hands on her hips. "You're annoyed I stopped wearing the costume you made!"

I shrug. "I thought the colours looked better on you. More upbeat. The black's just-."

She blurs forwards and up, floating just in front of me with her head a little above mine. "How I dress is not-" My smile broadens. "-your con-." Her face freezes for a moment. "Are you getting turned on by this?"

I nod my head to the left. "Little bit. You're just so spunky. Hey, do you want to-?"

"Dick." She leans around me. "Why are we still here?"

"Well, Kyle's still tracking down Wonder Woman and finding out what the thanagarians using the base are doing. But if you're feeling better you don't have to stay in the infirmary."

I raise my left hand. "Grayven to Lantern Rayner."

"Green Lantern here. Oh, it's-. What?"

"Are we dropping off the refugees yet?"

"Can you put Nightwing on?"

I shrug and generate a body construct for him to use.

"The thanagarians are mostly the survivors of their attack on Earth, with a few others they've picked up around the place. They aren't all that interested in taking on civilians, and… I'm… Not sure they've got the resources for it, anyway."

"What about the fake distress signal?"

"They thought Hawkgirl betrayed them to Grayven. They wanted to trick her into investigating."

I raise my right hand to my mouth. "She didn't! She was barely alive throughout that whole thing!"

The Rayner construct glances at me while Richard nods. "Did you find Wonder Woman?"

"She's why I had such an easy time getting in. Are we making some sort of deal with the Lords as well?"

"We might have to. And.. this was a humanitarian mission. I don't know about you, but I'd feel bad about discouraging them."

"Yeah, okay. Are we giving them a ride home? The thanagarians blew up their javelin."

I shake my head. "No need. I can open a boom tube."

Kara frowns. "Hold on. If they can't take the refugees, where can we take them? They're not going to get a very friendly welcome on Earth."

Richard shakes his head. "It's our only option right now." He walks over to a wall-mounted intercom and activates it. "Barbara, set a course for Earth. We'll leave once Kyle's back on board."

I smile at Kara as I open a boom-

Boom!

-tube down to the surface.

"Pick me up at seven?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th December 2004
21:35 GMT -6

Boom!

"Don't those things come with a suppressor?"

Shayera swoops through the boom tube and lands in the empty hangar, myself and Diana walking through at a more sedate pace behind her. She's not wearing either the traditional leotard of the Wonder Woman nor the old body stocking thing. Rather, she's just wearing normal Themysciran guard armour in what I'm assuming is an attempt to visually separate her new self from her former self. Or maybe not; it does cover more of her skin than the leotard. Maybe it provides better protection.

"I can build quieter ones, but not at a man-portable size."

Diana… Has been avoiding my eyes. A radically out of character development, both in Universe 50 and Universe 16. I should probably sort that out.

"Ah, Shayera, why don't-" She looks around. "-you go and tell Batman that you wrecked his ride. I need a quick word with Diana."

Diana tenses, and Shayera's eyes narrow slightly. "Alright, but if I hear fighting I'm coming right back."

"Of course."

She regards first me and then Diana for a moment, then flaps her wings and heads for the hangar door. I wait for her to pass through it and for it to close behind her before turning to Diana.

"So. You appear to have regained your divine abilities."

"I-. Yes." She meets my eyes, showing a little of the resolve I was expecting.

"Did you apologise to your sponsors?"

"Not.. at first. After you-. Even after you left, I still couldn't.. bring myself to accept that I'd made a mistake. But I couldn't keep living like that. So I went to the shrine where the Wonder Woman's equipment is kept and bound myself in the Lasso of Truth."

Ooooooooooh. Not only would that compel total self-honesty, but it's… Basically re-enacting what Herakles did to Hippolyta.

She sees my expression and nods solemnly. "It is no easy thing to confront all of your assumptions about the way things are and have your self-deceits torn away. You were right. Batman.. was right. And I am ashamed that I let my pride prevent me from seeing it sooner."

"And your powers came back afterwards?"

"No. My powers came back after I apologised. To my mother, to Captain Philippus… I asked Batman to let me use the Watchtower's communications systems to let me apologise to the world."

I nod, then step forward and lay my right hand on her left shoulder. She.. doesn't really respond.

"While I doubt that anyone else really cared, I respect the level of humility that shows, and your determination to do better."

Her eyes flick up to meet mine for a moment, then return to facing downwards. Yes, I suppose… Something like that, you don't just return to the status quo ante bellum. Still, it's a good sign that she's here. Depending on what my alter-ego's gotten together, we may well need her strength.

I lift my hand off her shoulder. Now is probably the time to pick up Sunset.

Diana takes a step in the direction of the exit. "Batman should be in the command centre. I can show you up."

"Would you please excuse me for just a moment first? I need to pick something up from my own base of operations."

"Ah. Yes?"

"Mother Box, open up a tube to the Mountain."

"Ping."

Boom!

I step through.

10th February
09:02 GMT -7

"Hey, Sunset-."

"Hah!" The door between the parallel universe portal and the rest of the Mountain… Opens, and Sunset punches the air, pale blue light glowing around her hands. "Got it!"

"Um."

She turns around to face me, smugness fighting with irritation in her expression. "Did you lock me in on purpose, or did you just forget that you reengaged the lock?"

"Oh, that was totally intentional. Good work." She inclines her head slightly and raises her eyebrows. "Come on through and I'll introduce you to people."

"I'll need my equipment."

"You can get it after I've introduced you. You can't know what you need until you've gotten a feel for the magics of the place."

"I.. suppose." She walks past me through the tube. "Just don't lock me in a parallel universe for half an hour."

26th December 2004
21:38 GMT -6

"Sunset, this is Princess Diana of Themyscira. Diana, this is Sunset Shimmer, my magical minion-."

"Not his minion."

I look at her sceptically. "You are literally my minion. I pay you, you do work for me. That's pretty much the definition of minion."

"No, minions are entry level labourers and thugs." She crosses her arms across her chest. "I'm a skilled professional heading my own department. That makes me a lieutenant. At least."

I turn back to Diana. "This is Sunset Shimmer. She's a lieutenant. At least."

"Hello, Sunset Shimmer."

"Are you a demigoddess like our Diana? Can I study you?"

"I.. suppose that I am. And… What do you mean by 'study'?"

"I'll let you two get acquainted. Mother Box, boom tube to command."

Ping.

Boom!

I stride through, arms held wide.

"Let joy be unbound, for I have-."

"Grayven!"

John glares at me as he keeps rocking a construct cradle, in which lies…

I amble closer as the infant looks up at me.

"Three hours, getting him to sleep."

"I am most terribly sorry." I make eye contact with the baby. "Hello, tiny human."

"Nmmrarmarn."

The baby wiggles its arms in my general direction and closes its eyes again. I crane my neck in John's direction.

"Yours?"

"Mine and Shayera's."

Hm, not seeing any wings. Not that I know enough about human-thanagarian hybrids to know whether that's typical or not.

"What's his name?"

"Rex Stewart. Rex Grayven Stewart."

…

"I can be available to babysit at very short notice."

 

[Mr Zoat]

11th February 2012
04:34 GMT

And… Bit more decorative-.

No, no. Any more fretwork and it's just going to get covered in whatever the local moss-analogue is. Simplify it… Yeah. Hades always struck me as the practical sort of god.

**Very Greek.**

I glance back as Blake floats down behind me. I create a construct psi-shield.

"I'm a Hellenist."

He looks at me for a moment, and then bows his head. "Alright, out loud it is then."

"I'd appreciate it. I'm not feeling especially trusting right now."

"Why Hades?" I stare at him, and he gives his head a small shake. "It's on the wrong planet if that's why you built it."

"Neither the karnans nor the gordanians have a God of Death. A lot of people died without funerary rites. Not only can that be deeply unpleasant for the departed, the arcane side effects of spirits remaining in the material world can be dangerous for the people who remain." Oh, right, he left before-. "The existence of the soul-."

Blake nods. "I knew Lance Gallant. I know the sort of power the dead can possess."

"Lord Hades likes to be kept busy. Hopefully, we can come up with a way to lure the unquiet shades of Karna here, and into his care."

"You've met him in person?"

I nod. "Several times."

He frowns faintly. "Hm. I'm curious. What made you convert?"

"I used to be an atheist. Then I received unambiguous evidence that souls, gods, and all that sort of thing exist. At that point, picking an afterlife services provider seemed like a sensible plan. Are you religious at all?"

"No, though I.. do respect your pragmatism. I originally came to Vega because I heard of X'Hal and wondered if she might be like me. Someone who -by pure happenstance- became a more advanced specimen of the species that bore them."

"Even the psions don't know what the psions did to her."

"It was why I came here. It wasn't why I stayed."

"Alright, fine, polite small talk done. I can't believe that you didn't consider the idea that I'd be willing to provide additional support. And you know how I'd think about a request in a place like this better than our non-human friends. So what the heck were you thinking by not calling me in?"

He nods. "I certainly considered it. I don't know precisely how skilled most members of your Corps are, but assuming that they had a slightly more intense training than the princesses, my estimate was that a force of fifty Lanterns would have reduced the deaths on our side by perhaps ten thousand. And you can add to that another thousand or so test subjects from the psion laboratories. The cost to you would have been between two and four Lanterns, though I agree that your commander would have most likely considered it worthwhile to give the rest field experience."

"And it would have cost Vega…" Heh. "The 'New Vega Alliance' its founding myth. Outsiders coming in to fix the problem."

"And building trust. The next few months will involve building the relationships between the parties involved. That sign of unity and power will bring Vega's minor powers into alignment."

"Did you run calculations on the lives saved in the long term?"

He shrugs. "That sort of calculation just isn't possible. There are far too many unknown variables. But knowing what I do about history -human and alien- I strongly suspect that it still works out for the best. Unless you move the Orange Central Power Battery here, or leave a major garrison fleet to do what the Alliance is doing right now."

"And what is the Alliance doing right now?"

"Ending the Branx Corporate War by eliminating the Citadel-aligned consortia. Then all that's left is a show of force in front of anyone who might be thinking of carrying on in the old way."

"And by eliminating..?"

He shakes his head. "They're not psions. I doubt that we'll have to kill all that many. But the consortia will be broken up and their remaining assets appropriated by their government."

"I didn't think that the Branx had much of a central government."

"And that's one of the things we'll be changing. Ridiculous concept."

"And the Spiders?"

"What about them?"

"I killed the citadelians and I won't mourn the psions. I like the Queen."

He shrugs, shaking his head. "She's keeping to the terms of the agreement you thrashed out last year. And no one wants to incite an attack by the rest of the Spider Guild. No, I imagine that she'll do her utmost to make herself invaluable in the coming years."

"And the gordanians?"

"A fight here might have been useful, but I think we can make your peace work in the long term."

"Heh. Hm-uh." He raises his eyebrows. "It's just a bit strange for me, being on this side of the conversation. I'm assuming that you'll be sticking around to oversee things?"

He nods. "I think so. Sorting out a mess like Vega, that's a job that might actually keep me occupied. And I meant what I said about Earth. There isn't anything… Anyone there I miss."

"Anything? I think I'm going to need to keep track of Koriand'r and Komand'r a bit better. If there's something you want me to pick up for you..?"

"Food, mostly. Bread made with actual wheat, coffee from actual coffee beans. Bacon from a pig."

I wave my right hand. "Write me a list. I'll bring a shipping container."

"That's… Surprisingly generous. You're not at all angry?"

"No, I am. I don't see a point in throwing a strop over this. Ferrying a few home comforts is a small price to pay for keeping in touch." I bow my head slightly. "But really? You couldn't have explained this ahead of time and let me use a small squad of Lanterns to hit the Wombworld prisons? It's not like people around here don't know me."

"I considered thousands of variations of the plan, a sizable proportion of which involved you to a greater or lesser extent. Ultimately, using foreign Lanterns would have generated additional political uncertainty which would have claimed more lives than your involvement would have saved."

Everything I know about Adam Blake, learned from records on Earth and Tamaran, tells me that he's being honest. On Earth, he was very much on the idealistic end of the superhero spectrum. In Vega he learned ruthlessness, but not… It seems unlikely that he'd kill a thousand innocent people to carry out a personal revenge.

But I'm still angry.

I'm still angry.

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th December 2004
23:47 GMT -6

"Hng."

I come to the end of Batman's clearly written and logically structured report on what's been happening since my last visit. The United States 50 is pursuing the same moderate, sensible policy relating to superheroics that the United States 16 is, with the added bonus that SHADE's agents are already used to working under the government's aegis. Other countries are… Well, they've been building up their superhuman development programs ever since the Lords vanished. Even Europe, which back on Earth 16 more or less follows the American laissez faire model, is leaning on superhumans with vigilante inclinations to join the police force if not the military.

China's.. about the same. I somehow suspect that they were actually pretty okay with the Justice Lords taking over America.

I frown.

"Batman, did anywhere approve of the Lords taking over America?"

"A number of countries expressed their support in the immediate aftermath of the summary execution of Lex Luthor. No one wanted a nuclear war."

John shakes his head. "No one with any sense, anyway." He looks a little uncomfortably at Sunset as she sets up a laser drone to project a circle on the floor around him. "Why exactly are you doing this?"

Sunset smiles brightly. "I'm trying to learn how to become a god. I want to get as much data as I can from people who've been empowered by different forces."

"Uh.. huh."

I give him a mild frown. "Have the Guardians been in contact about your empowerment?"

"No. I don't even know if they-" Sunset's sensors glow a faint green, prompting her to give them a puzzled frown. "-know. I've been making a point of avoiding the Rayner kid, so he can't confirm how I'm still using the green light."

I nod. "And how are you doing for resources?"

"We're.. managing. Losing the Javelin will make things a lot harder until we can build another." I raise my eyebrows. "We've been using it to mine asteroids for raw materials. The Watchtower has a foundry which we can use to fabricate what we need to keep things running."

The door to the meeting room opens and Shayera strolls through. "Are you up to date yet?"

"More or less. Never thought of you as an engineer."

She glances at Batman, then shrugs. "We can't just order everything from WayneTech anymore. Or the US space defence budget."

"I think I can help you out here. My Lex Luthor is building starships based on Theodore Knight's designs."

John frowns. "Luthor?"

"Ours is a good deal more rational than yours. And I'm keeping an eye on him. I can have a few dozen cosmic converters brought through in a.. day or so. Ship designs and parts should be simple enough, including a luminal drive. It's a bit different to the warp drives you're used to, but I'm sure that you can adapt." Aaaah… "Actually, I can offer you people to fully staff this place again. There's a synthetic species working for me-."

Batman inclines his head slightly. "The genomorphs."

I nod. "Right. Hm. I'm happy to Awaken you, though if you're anything like Batman Sixteen you'll turn it down. Without that, there's no point in using New God technology… Other than hush tubes? They're the silent version of boom tubes, perfect for stealth insertions-."

Shayera smiles. "And not waking the baby."

"Heck, if you want…" I shrug. "I suppose you can't really spend time on Earth, being former super-dictators. But there's no problem with you spending time on my Earth. You look different enough from our versions of you that I doubt that anyone would spot it."

"I thought the-" She glances at Batman. "-power requirements-."

"Batman building that portal with human technology was amazing, but I use Apokoliptian technology. It's a little more advanced. Still not exactly cheap, but that's what the cosmic converters are for."

Batman nods. "And what do you want in return?"

"Any information you have on my alter-ego. And possibly your help if Scott is in over his head."

Shayera nods and presses a button, causing a screen to appear displaying the region which Grayven 50 controls. Pretty decent going, actually, and far enough away from Apokolips that he doesn't need to worry much about interference. Did he set up there before or after Darkseid's death?

"How long ago did your Darkseid die?"

"Four years ago."

"Do you know how long ago he had New Gordane settled?"

Shayera shrugs. "I saw the same intelligence reports from Hro's command ship that you did. We never found out when it happened because no one was looking that way. The first Thanagar knew about it was when the ships that usually guarded that part of space disappeared. And given the fact that he uses boom tubes, he wouldn't need to move his people by ship."

Batman regards me impassively. "How would you do it?"

"I'd pick a world that was inhabited but primitive. I'd settle in a reasonably empty area and set up widespread farmlands and schools. Nothing planetside is easier to mine than asteroids but my people would need somewhere to live."

John frowns. "Why not set up somewhere uninhabited?"

"Gordanians aren't the best farmers. The locals would be a source of labour, and because they'd benefit from improved technology they probably wouldn't resent being gradually folded into the new civilisation. Gordanians don't breed all that fast, and-."

John raises his eyebrows. "You think he could walk in there and the natives would just accept it?"

"He'd just need to find a settled group that had farming and make a deal. Plus, I assume that he has the same god-voice that I do. If he conquered them, he could use that to ensure that they stayed conquered as long as he treated them with basic decency."

Shayera presses another button, and we get a close-up of the surface of Thanagar. "He's not doing that on Thanagar."

"No, he is. There." I point. "Lizarkon auxiliaries. Almost certainly locals. Given how unified and militant the thanagarian population is… My ability isn't outright mind control, it's a constant mental nudge. Someone who hates him isn't suddenly going to start cooperating, and he's the only one who can do it. But with all the dead in the war, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the lizarkons now represent an outright majority of the population. He can put a few community leaders into positions of power, give a gordanian clan chief governorship until a local has proven themselves worthy of the role, and his powers will make a neutral party inclined to go along with him."

"And what about my people?"

"If he hasn't killed them all yet then he probably isn't going to. Multi-generational re-education programs? Or…" Oh dear. "Did your Thanagar have the Equality Plague?"

She shifts awkwardly. "Yes."

"That.. might do it. There's no obvious reason for him to have a conflict with Queen Hyathis. She doesn't have any reason to cure it a second time. His god-name might well let him act as Lord High Equalizer. Heck, he might accept Hyathis' vassalage and give the planet to her."

Batman's eyes dip for a moment, then he looks at me. "How does that affect Earth?"

"If he has to stay around to hold the planet, Earth could be safe for decades. If he's able to speed that up… Earth's quite an attractive prospect."

He looks around at his colleagues and nods. "Then we need more information. You'll have our help."

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th December 2004
01:21 GMT -6

Boom!

The tube opens once more and Jean walks through, a new g-goblin at her side and a gaggle of g-elves, g-trolls, g-dwarves and g-gnomes following on behind them. This one has Ixy's open and youthful face as opposed to Jean's more matriarchal cast. The new one is also a little broader and has a noticeably increased amount of muscle mass. The effect is… Interesting. While Ixy was clearly designed to look like a young girl, Dubbilex an elderly man, Ecksey like his athletic younger brother and Jean… Like a combination of my female grandparents combined with Mrs Bale from As Time Goes By. This one is more androgynous.

Which must be a deliberate decision on their part. I mean, yes, genomorphs don't reproduce sexually and have no interest in introducing the capacity to their species. Even if most people refer to Dubbilex and Ecksey in the masculine and Ixy and Jean in the feminine those aren't biologically accurate descriptors. They just assume them to fit in better with the sexually dimorphous species around them. So either they've decided that they don't want to fit in that way any longer, or they're testing this out, or… They don't think that the g-goblin getting assigned here needs to fit in like that.

"Mister Grayven. Mister Batman." Jean nods politely as the boom tube closes behind them. "This is the newest g-goblin, Mito. I believe they will be able to meet your organisational and labour requirements."

Mito.. themselves, bows from the waist, then straightens. Ah, this one has a more substantial tail as well. I wonder why?

Batman regards them impassively. "Do you have a lot of experience?"

"I was literally decanted earlier today." They blink. "However, I have been given access to the memories of all other g-goblins. I have Ecksey's knowledge of space station maintenance, Jean's knowledge of household management, Ixy's knowledge of human social interactions and Dubbilex's breadth of experience." They blink again. "They in turn have access to information and insight provided to them by over a hundred thousand genomorphs. I am perfectly capable of meeting your expectations."

"How soon can you begin working?"

Mito's horns glow for a moment, and the other genomorph types disperse. They then pull a datapad from a pocket and begin typing. "Fabrication of the more substantial parts is already in process. We will begin analysing the current structure of the Watchtower now in order to assess the most effective way to implement the upgrades. Assuming that we are granted access to all technical data, we will have a work plan available to you within an hour."

Batman nods. "What happens to the other genomorphs if you are injured or killed?"

"You will have to either wait for a new g-goblin or accept reports either nonverbally from a g-dwarf or telepathically by a g-gnome. Since we took control of our own creation, new genomorphs of all types have had modifications made to their cerebral structures which allow them to function more effectively if they are deprived of contact with the Genomorph Entire. All genomorphs can understand spoken English, though there will be a decrease in efficiency as they will find it harder to coordinate."

"I see." Batman gestures to the closest computer terminal, where a cluster of g-dwarves are waiting. "I'll enter your people onto the system now."

"Thank you."

Jean watches as they join the g-dwarves, then turns her attention to me. "Do you require anything further, Mister Grayven?"

"No, thank-."

Shayera smirks faintly. "Do genomorphs do babysitting?"

"Certainly, though so far we only have experience with older children. And development of the g-lamia has stalled somewhat due to lack of utility."

"What's a 'g-lamia'?"

"Genomorph phenotypes are named after mythological creatures, their name prefixed with a 'g'. Lamia was a figure from Greek mythology who ate children." Shayera frowns. "As a witticism, it would have been more effective if you knew that in advance."

I clap my hands together. "Excited to be heading back home?"

Shayera looks at me, then looks away. "No."

"You could use the opportunity to introduce John to your family? Assuming that they're still alive, of course."

"I'm an orphan." She exhales sharply through her nose. "Which is just as well. If anyone recognised me on Thanagar they'd try and kill me."

"Really? The only people who know you came down on Earth's side were Talak's crew, and I doubt that they've had the chance to spread the knowledge. Everyone else would just know that you'd been sent on a long term mission. You must have a few personal contacts to draw upon."

"I spent my whole adult life in the military. I doubt any of them survived."

"Ah." I look away. "Sorry. I feel like a heel now."

Her right hand clenches the handle of her mace, causing the head to crackle.

"Why didn't they just ask for help?! Gah!"

I shrug. "Why didn't they come to terms with Grayven earlier?"

She grimaces. "Surrender?"

"That's probably what the gordanians did. Aliens can't join gordanian clans. Grayven would have had to conquer one and convince the survivors to abandon tradition… Which he could use his god-voice to do. Then he'd have to either conquer other clans by force or talk them around. Probably both. Depending on when this happened and what was happening on Apokolips, he might have been able to draw on other resources, but based on what we saw and Thanagarian Empire records… I think he might be the only Apokoliptian involved. Point is, the very people who serve as his generals and governors bent the knee and benefited from it. He offered the Thanagarian Empire the same deal several times. They just didn't take it. Ever. If they had, I can't see any reason for him to treat them differently to how he treated the gordanians."

"We have pride."

"Yeah. You also don't own your homeworld any more."

"Grayven doesn't own his homeworld either."

I regard her sceptically. "Would you want Apokolips?"

"I don't know. I've never visited."

"You… Haven't been keeping an eye on it?"

She rolls her eyes. "And how exactly would we do that? With our one human-built faster than light ship?"

Oh. Yeah.

"Alright, well, it's going to be a while before Batman and Mito have this place ready to support the hush tube we'll need to sneak onto Thanagar, and I've got a date tonight. How about we have a look around Apokolips first? See how they're getting on in Father's absence?"

She hefts her mace-. "And make them think that 'Grayven' is threatening them?"

"I was thinking more that we kill anyone who looks in danger of getting things organised, but… Sure, we could sic them on my alter ego if you like. I'm guessing… Virman Vundabar, Granny Goodness and Desaad require most attention. Virman will have the best conventional weapons, Granny the best warriors and Desaad the most sophisticated technology."

"Granny Goodness mind-controlled Superman a few years ago. He killed Darkseid in revenge, but I don't think he managed to kill her."

Hm. "My conquest aura should let me… Influence a faction if I slay their leader. Granny's Furies might be useful for attacking Thanagar, especially if we're trying to start a war between them."

"It's all the same to me. Why don't we run it by John and Diana and then decide who we're crushing first?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th December 2004
01:58 GMT -6

Boom!

I look up as I stroll through the boom tube out onto the surface of Apokolips. The map I have of Apokolips 16 doesn't quite match-. Doesn't match at all, really. I.. think that's the Tower of Rage over there, but they don't appear to have ever fully rebuilt it from when the upper levels were destroyed during Superman's climactic fight with Darkseid 50. And the vast plaza around it where armies once marched to display Darkseid's power has been torn up by the treads of thousands of dragon tanks and blasted by the fire of a million weapon blasts.

"Intruders!"

A… Hunger Dog armed with some sort of primitive power axe leads a charge by a rabble of militiamen.

"For Granny Goodness!"

Shayera takes to the air beside me. "I feel almost bad for them."

"Actually… Yeah."

I hold up my right hand and lift them off the ground with a series of yellow bonds. Plenty of fear on Apokolips. A couple make a token effort at struggling, but the rest drop their weapons and cower as much as their restricted movement will allow them.

"Fighting these bottom-feeders would be an almost-embarrassing waste of our time." I fold my arms behind my back and take a few steps forward. "Scum of the Armagetto! I am Grayven, son of Darkseid. You have until the count of ten to find me someone worth killing or I throw you at the walls in the hope that someone important investigates." Heed My Commands!

I release my hold and watch for a moment as they scurry away.

"One!"

"I better get a good fight out of this, Grayven."

"Two! Why? You got to fight those Thanagarian soldiers."

"Exact-"

"Three!"

"-ly. They were other Thanagarians."

"Four! So fighting your evil countrymen isn't fun, but fighting mine is?"

"Fun for me."

"Five!"

A piercing, shrieking… Growl, pierces the air, prompting both Shayera and myself to look upward as a flight of stub-winged parademons launch themselves from a nearby defunct chimney and take to the Apokoliptian sky. Some have.. some sort of halberd, while the rest are contented with just their claws. The swarm of them flies up into the sky, circles around-

I generate a pair of anti-aircraft autocannon constructs. "I'll take the five hundred on the right. You take the five hundred on the left."

"I want five hundred and one."

-and dives for us, shots from the few with the wherewithal to aim their haft-mounted blasters pattering off the ground around me. Shayera flaps her wings and surges into the air as I generate a construct gun shield and I open fire, yellow bolts flying into the oncoming flock. My first target is hit, my shot punching through his abdominal armour and into the engineered flesh beneath in a spray of purple blood. The flock responds at once, those stubby wings which don't provide much in the way of speed apparently granting them surprising aerial agility. I calculate an angle to maximise my odds and then change the angle of my guns, firing through the space where the parademons are the thickest as-

"HhhhhhhhhAYAH!"

-Shayera viffs around an outstretched halberd blade and batters a parademon around the jaw with her mace. It jerks in the air, dropping its weapon in shock as the mace's energy discharge pulps flesh and pulverises bone. It's a testament to their resilience that his entire head isn't obliterated, but as it wallows stunned in the air she performs a small swoop and slams her mace up into the-. Not the jaw so much as the exposed palate, then brings it down on the top of its head.

Yeah, looks pretty dead to me. Only five hundred to go.

I draw my daiklave-

"ReeeEEEegh!"

-and swing it through a parademon who dives at me, claws extended. He attempts to parry my swing with his claws, and has them sliced off as a result. He lands, dumbly staring at the bleeding stubs of his severed digits for a moment before I create a fusion cannon construct on my right forearm and shoot him in the head.

My flak cannons are doing reasonable work, wounded and maimed parademons dropping out of the flock as they focus on evading rather than closing the distance. I see they've got some self-preservation instinct, then. Which is making Shayera's job easier as they stop focusing on her and she starts striking at their wings. Three parademons dive for me from different angles and I sidestep, bringing my daiklave around in an arc that neatly intersects with their flight paths. The wonderful thing about a blade like this is that I barely have to aim; there's no need to aim for the weak spots in their armour when neither their armour nor their flesh provides significant resistance. So long as I can move my arm I can kill-

Make Me Happy

-any…

As one, the parademons turn to face me and then dive at me. Ah, someone's paying attention, then. Mother Box, boom tube to a mile away.

Ping.

That's at once frustrating and mildly pleasing. Alright, fighting. Need momentum. With so many parademons coming right at me my flak cannons are killing them far faster but-.

I swing my daiklave through a parademon and turn aside to try and deflect its corpse's momentum. Partially successful, but the speed and mass of its torso still impede my-.

A parademon grabs my sword arm. Another endures a slice through its shoulder well enough to grab my legs. I fire my fusion cannon through the flock but one of the quicker parademons manages to sink its claws into my construct and destroy it. Another attaches itself limpet-like to my face, roaring at me in an attempt to distract me. The world around me darkens as more and more parademons pile onto the heap above me, until my vision is reduced to the snapping snarling fangs in front of me.

Heh.

Parademons are far stronger than normal humans, but they're still… Augmented strength, rather than super strength. Spider-Man strong rather than Thor strong. Or Venom-Buster strong rather than… Well, me strong. Awkward as this position is, it's really no more awkward than normal humans doing it to Superman, or trying to tie up a normal human with a reel of liquorice. But my hope is that if I look like I've been bested that Granny will stick her head out in order to make a start on my 're-education'.

I take a moment to relax and then go limp. The only risky part here is that Apokoliptians probably have forms of aura-reading that I'm not familiar with. A defeated God of Conquest would feel rather different to one biding his time… But maybe they'll chalk that up to arrogance. As long as I avoid actual god-speech-.

There's a shift in the mass above me, the parademons getting orders and moving in a more controlled way than what their usual instincts instruct. The area around my face gradually becomes lighter as the height of the pile decreases, though the number surrounding me remains more or less the same.

"So who do we have-" The last parademon moves aside, and a face covered by a black and silver mask looks down at me. "-here?"

I smile. "Lashina. Is it my birthday already?"

"Grayven?" She smiles back in what looks like genuine pleasure. "I didn't know you were back on Apokolips."

"Are the parademons yours? I don't mind being tied up, but they're a bit more butch than-."

"Outa the way. Granny wants him now."

Lashina shrugs, and her position above me is taken by Stompa, who raises her right boot.

I may have misjudge-.

Stomp!

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th December 2004
02:02 GMT -6

Owfuckingfuck!

Stompa raises her boot again and takes a look at me.

"Huh. Think I'm losing my touch." She lifts it a little higher. "Oh well."

I brace with my feet and thrust my arms upward out of the parademon huddle, some losing their grip while others frantically try to hold on. I grab her foot and twist, causing her to lose her footing and fall on her arse.

None May Conquer Conquest.

Then I shove my arms out to the sides, yellow light thrusting the parademons off me! I trigger my aero-discs as the two Furies scrabble back. Now that the parademons are in one convenient location and appropriately fearful, I hold my hands out to either side and project cutting beams into the parademon pile. Parademons dead or cringing, I calmly fold my arms behind my back.

"Where's Granny?"

Lashina readies her ribbon-whip while Stompa gets her feet back under her-.

"And where's the other-?"

Surprise!

Claws! Claws scraping my cheeks as a weight lands on my shoulders! I feel them bite in as I form manacles and clamp them around Mad Harriet's arms before lifting her off me and dangling her before me. My facial wounds… Aren't healing particularly quickly. They're shallow enough that they should close up almost-.

Mad Harriet bends, kicking out at me with both feet. She.. really doesn't know when to stop. I wonder how Granny keeps her under control? I idly lean back slightly, catch her ankles at the apogee of their swing and then gently push them back down.

Then I float forward and backhand her across the face hard enough to break my own construct and send her flying to the feet of her colleagues.

"Is that it?" I look around, my face a pantomime of sadness. "Is this what Apokolips has been reduced to? Mindless, aimless charges into prepared positions?"

Shayera swoops down and floats just behind me, the head of her mace covered in off-purple scabs where she struck before its disruption field could fully re-establish itself.

"Even my gordanians could manage better than-."

Something hits me in the chin, snapping my head backwards as I feel another impact to my abdomen. Environmental shield and armour soaks most of it, but I'm still sent flying upwards before-

Two red dots.

-a series of impacts focusing on my face and chest. Fuckingfah! Construct armour!

It forms, and I see a half-second of black-red blur before it shatters and -I raise my arms to protect my face- the strikes start again. Alright -agh- it's kinetic impacts, create a kinetic barrier-.

There's another strike and the barrier triggers-. It's supposed to appear for a moment and then fail, but for some reason it's staying active. My attacker's right fist appears to be… Stuck..? In it. Said attacker is dressed in black, red and silver armour of Apokoliptian design not too dissimilar from my own. Silver boots, silver gauntlets, shoulder and neck guards and a silver helmet with a t-shaped visor. The rest is black but for the red tron lines. They're also short-. No, young. Assuming standard pattern humanoid development I'd say that they're younger than Lynne.

A boy or girl this strong and fast? I can't think of any-.

Two red lights appear behind the visor, then I get to see the construct generating my kinetic barrier melt for an instant before failing completely as the kryptonian child turns his eyes towards my bruised and bleeding face!

"Good, child! Kill this disobedient boy for Granny!" Pain Begets Loyalty.

AAAAAAGHHgold kryptonite radiation!

…

Graaaghh! Mirror!

The stealth heat beams coming from his face hit my construct and are deflected-

"Agh!"

-back into his eyes, causing him to drift back slightly in the air and cover his face with his hands before he recovers and returns his attention to me. Alright, fine, radiation didn't work on Kara last time, bit silly for me to think it would work through fully enclosed Apokoliptian armour.

"Finish him!" Remember the Lash!

Okay, problem. His armour protects him from kryptonite radiation. Red sunlight might work, but his armour is fully enclosed. And I'd rather not kill a child if I can help-.

There's a blur, and small legs wrap around my neck and strong arms grip my head and I feel the pressure constricting and turning! Okay, actually in danger now. Open fire!

Six drone weapons drop back into phase and open fire, death rays and blasters hitting my assailant in the back-.

And he's gone, and-. Two of the drones vanish from my awareness as he moves faster than they can track. Ugh, Apokolips: this child won't be a part-timer like Superman, he'll have been trained in his powers since birth. Constant exposure to pain and Granny's conditioning-. Where is the old hag? The Champion's Challenge.

Mad Harriet might be crazy, but that doesn't let her just ignore a concussive head trauma. She's down for now. Stompa isn't fast or agile enough to hit Shayera in an open environment and is punch-drunk from repeated Nth metal mace strikes and Lashina-.

I block her whip strike with a buckler construct and then hit her in the chest with a full-.

"No!"

Jghh! I feel my armour crack, and my spine with it! I'm knocked flying across the Apokoliptian landscape by the force of the strike! But at least I can feel this injury healing. I take control of my flight and warp back towards my opponent, feeling slowly returning to the lower part of my body. He's stopped to check on the staggered Lashina, curious. Now, what else works on kryptonians?

Ultrasonic blast.

The air shimmers with the force I'm putting into it, and I have to grab Shayera and shield her to prevent her falling out of the air.

"Aaarghh."

The kryptonian boy grips the side of his helmet, knocking the weird panel ornaments off as he does so.

"Did you know they had a kryptonian?"

Shayera shakes her head. "Where did they get a kryptonian from?"

"Kal-El was here for weeks. They might have cloned-" Lashina looks at him with genuine concern. "-him. Though I'm not sure why he's not an adult."

Still, we've done what we came here for. Granny will now think that Grayven 50 is gunning for her. Mother Box?

Ping.
I Stand Triumphant.
How about now?

Ping.

Good show.

"Vulture, we're leaving." Shayera nods. "I see that Apokolips isn't even worth my time."

Boom!

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th December 2004
18:59 GMT -5

Kara stares at me.

"Who are you and why are you in my apartment?"

"I know I told you to pick me up at seven, but I thought-"

Her face hardens and her fists ball. "Grayven."

"-that since I didn't give you a number or a forwarding address it really made more sense for me to come to you." I point to where the amulet makes it look like my face is. "Like the glamour?"

"Uhh." She gives me a brief once-over. "Beats being seen with you in public."

"Great! How do you feel about children?"

"What?"

"It's breakfast time in my home parallel, so my children are waiting for the most important meal of the day. If them eating with us will totally-."

"You have..? Children?"

"Yes. Didn't.. Scott say?"

She looks at me with an air of cautious suspicion. "No..?"

I frown. "What did you think happened to Lynne?"

"Who's 'Lynne'?"

Wait… Ah. No, she wasn't there for that bit, so if Scott and Barda didn't mention that they were handing Lynne over to me… So where were they keeping her before that, in their own home? All Lynne told me was that Scott and Barda looked after her. I just assumed…

"The telepath SHADE were using to broadcast the Anti-Life Equation? They were keeping her with the four who ended up joining Stormwatch?"

Kara shakes her head. "Why is she with you?"

"Scott and Barda handed her off to me."

Her eyes widen and she lifts slightly off the ground. "They did what?"

"Handed-." I raise my right hand to my forehead for a moment. "Okay, I think you're missing out on some rather pertinent data."

"Yeah I think so too."

"Anti-Life exposure caused serious spiritual damage to Lynne, far in advance of what Director Todd or the other children got. In order to fully repair her I gave her a portion of my soul to.. patch over the hole in hers."

She turns her glare down for a moment. "Why?"

"Because I hate the Anti-Life. I really, really hate it. If you haven't.. grown up with it, I don't think you can understand. The way it constantly leaches off your soul, saps your drive to build anything."

"You tried to take over the Earth."

"As I said at the time, I believe that I can run the planet better than any currently existing government. Destroying the place is the last thing I'd want to do."

"Did you already take over your Earth? Are you trying to collect the whole set?"

"By proxy, one or two failed states. I'm influencing a lot of others. But none of them had government agencies trying to use the Anti-Life. When a human military dictator takes power, they last… What, maybe fifty years? When a population is infected with the Anti-Life, that's it. They will never love or hate, experience joy or sadness… They're just.. not… people. That's what the Anti-Life is, what it does. It's why Darkseid likes it so much."

"Who's your dad."

I shrug. "I didn't pick him. Heck, my mother didn't even pick him."

"Ah..?"

"Desaad grabbed some human woman, wiped her mind and altered her to look like Kalibak's mother." I shrug. "So if you're trying to link me to him you're not going to get anywhere. And anyway, Darkseid has four sons. Three of them hate it and the other hates everything."

"Oh." She frowns, not quite looking at me. "So, that's Lynne. You said 'kids'."

"There's an Atlantean girl I'm fostering, and a group of vampire-succubus hybrids I picked up on an island."

"A-. Are they safe?"

I nod. "They are now that they're fully medicated and properly fed. Though I'd appreciate it if you didn't bring it up with them. I.. really emphasised the importance of them taking their medication, and the younger ones have developed a bit of a complex about it. Which is good, because it means they won't eat people any more-."

"They ate people?"

"They were starving. They had no access to other food that they could eat. And they ate their mother and older siblings. If I hadn't picked them up they would have eaten each other until only the youngest was left. It's not something they can control-. Well, maybe they could have learned to eventually, but with their parents dead there wasn't anyone to teach them."

"Um." She blinks, then frowns. "Wait, wait. How did they get Lynne to you?"

"What, Scott? Upgraded boom tube, same as I used to come back again."

"And that was… How long after you left?"

"About a month? They went to see your Grayven first, which was a bit of a mistake. I assume that things were a bit busy here at the time?"

"They… They didn't even tell us that you weren't our Grayven until-. And you'd already recovered from the nuclear bomb?"

"Yeah. Sure. Couple of days in the mana infuser and I was right as rain."

"I don't-." She shakes her head. "I don't understand. You tried to take over America, got hit by a nuclear weapon, escaped… You were fine a few days later. Why didn't you try again?"

I shrug. "You seemed to have things in hand. I might have been a bit pessimistic in my assumptions. I can admit when I'm wrong. That was part of why I decided to soft-pedal things on my Earth."

"No, no wait." She sinks to the floor, not looking at me. "I know Batman got in contact with Dick after you came through."

"Yes?"

"You attacked the Thanagarian ship after you found out that the President had been replaced."

"Not wanting to get into a constitutional argument, more or less."

"You already visited Scott and-. No." She looks at me. "No."

"Glad that's cleared up. Breakfast?"

"You-. You were faking?"

"Faking?"

"I thought it was weird someone gave Eliza a vial of speed formula right when-. Was that you as well? And you've got a power ring, so you could have called Kyle."

"I did call Kyle; the Thanagarians were trying to blow up-."

"I… Can't… Believe-." She takes a moment to compose herself. "Why did you abandon your spy?"

Huh?

"What spy?"

"Corporal Guy Gardner."

"That was the man in the Stryker's Island facility? The one who tried using this ring-" I raise my right hand. "-on me?"

"The man who opened the vault for you."

Eh?

"Kara, I'm nearly as strong as you are. And I'd demonstrated that I could open boom tubes. Having the vault 'opened for me' saved me maybe ten seconds. Besides, I'd only just arrived. Even if Corporal Gardner had been willing to sell out, I hadn't had enough time to locate him and make him an offer."

"So why did he do it?"

"If.. I had to guess, because at that point he knew that your other weapons were worthless and wanted to get something that might actually work just in case you didn't reach the island in time. And he nearly did. If I hadn't recognised him from his alter ego on my Earth I could have lost that fight." I frown. "Wait, what happened to him?"

Kara looks rather uncomfortable. "He was.. sentenced to.. life in prison."

I snort. "Not to tell you how to do your job, but you might want to get him released."

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th December 2004
19:42 GMT -5

Aelia looks askance at Maeve and Mary as the two of them focus on their mobile telephones to the exclusion of all else. Mary is looking up pictures of me from Earth 50, while Maeve is looking up historical events to try and see how they're different here. My namesake is trying to keep his three youngest siblings contained by talking to them about the book they're reading for their English class. Bethany-

"Are you dating Daddy?"

-is doing a surprisingly good job at making Kara uncomfortable while simultaneously convincing her that this represents the real 'me'.

"Ah? No. No, this is just.. breakfast."

"Are you an alien? Are you a superhero?"

"Yes, I'm an alien and yes, I'm a superhero."

I was curious to see what the response amongst locals was when Supergirl turned up with my family in tow to a local diner. It's actually been more than a little muted. One person came up for an autograph, but she was clearly doing it for her young daughter. Everyone else… We're getting the occasional glance, but that's about it.

"What's your superhero name?"

"I'm Supergirl."

"Oh, like Superboy! Is Lex Luthor your daddy too?"

Kara stares at me. "What?"

"Our version of Bizarro. Lex had a company called Cadmus create a young man using a combination of his and Kal-El's DNA. Fortunately, he takes after his other biological father and his adoptive mother."

"Is he crazy like Bizarro?"

"No no. Perfectly rational. His… The first full-clone of Kal-El Cadmus made was afflicted by an intense, constant rage, but M'gann and I fixed that."

"So is Superman your daddy?"

Oh, Bethany is a treasure.

"N-. No. We're.. friends."

She looks around awkwardly as she says it. Hm. I suppose that it's rather different, having been a superhero associated with America's first formal oligarchy and then a paramilitary soldier. People don't ask for autographs from members of their dictator's family, and I doubt that they ask for soldiers' autographs all that often.

A bell chimes as the restaurant door opens and Richard walks in wearing civilian clothing: blue shirt, jeans, and a leather jacket. His eyes sweep the restaurant, but the most reaction my party gets when he realises that Kara is with us all is a blink. Kara meets his eyes for a moment and then sags the slight sag of someone caught doing something mildly embarrassing by a work colleague. She awkwardly waves her right hand and he walks over.

Richard's eyes are on me as he approaches the head of the table. He's trying to place me but is clearly coming up short. I know that Zatanna's on his team, but perhaps bound spells aren't really her thing? This glamour is pretty cheap as they go. Someone like Richard should probably make a point of getting his hands on that most basic part of a countermagic suite: illusion-defying glasses.

"Hey, Kara. And… I don't think we've been introduced?"

"Good evening, Richard." His face freezes as he recognises my voice. "No, I don't think we have. I've done some work with your father."

"… Seven. And…" He looks around. "Did you kidnap a middle school class?"

"No, they're all mine." The door to the female toilet swings open and Lynne emerges, recognition flickering in his eyes. "Did Scott tell you about Lynne?"

"He.. said that he found a home for her. I didn't realise he was talking about you."

"'fraid so. Oh, update on Apokolips: the civil war is still going on and the whole planet is getting wrecked, which is terrible in humanitarian terms but is probably quite good for Earth. Ah, but Granny Goodness has picked up a kryptonian child from somewhere."

"How dangerous are they?"

"If I took my glamour off you'd see a face covered in bruises, and I only just got back feeling in my left leg."

"Where did they get a kryptonian-?"

Kara's eyes widen. "Lashina."

I nod. "Yeah, she was there. Seemed to have some sort of rapport with the child."

"Kara?"

"When.. Kal was mind controlled into thinking he was Darkseid's son, he.. was.. dating Lashina." Her gaze grows somewhat distant. "God, I don't even… Should we.. tell him?"

Richard frowns. "Wait, aren't they different species?"

I shrug. "Lashina might be able to make it work using domain powers-. Actually…" I hold out my left hand and fabricate a pack of kryptonian oral contraception tablets then pass them to Kara. "Humans… As a result of living in a high magic environment can also bypass some incompatibility issues, so-."

She snatches it and shoves it into her handbag.

"You're welcome."

"The point is, Kal's got a child he doesn't know about growing up on a hell planet."

I smile faintly. "Under Apokoliptian law, Granny Goodness gets custody."

Richard holds up his right hand. "This is-. Yeah, okay, this is a problem we'll have to deal with. But what we're dealing with first is that Mister Miracle missed a scheduled call in." He looks at me. "Looks like you were right."

"To be.. completely fair, there are good reasons why he might have missed it. Including allowing himself to be taken captive. He got away from Granny Goodness' Orphanage plenty of times, but since he had no way off the planet he ended up going back. Until they finally stuck him in the X-Pit." Maybe I should lend him the Sword of the Fallen, let him stab the-? No, he'd never go for it. "What's the protocol?"

Richard shrugs. "We go get him back. But we've only got one ship, and their fleet is on alert for us."

"So you need a way to sneak in quietly?"

"Yeah, and I don't think your boom tubes are gunna cut it. Even if the sound doesn't give them away, the other Grayven's gotta have ways to detect them."

"Yes." I nod. "That's why I've got a team building the silenced version on the Watchtower. I'm not about to leave my brother high and dry." … "And I guess we could pick up Barda too."

"Mister Miracle didn't say anything about a silenced version."

"Father didn't really want Scott to amount to anything. They were just trying to turn him into another near-mindless soldier drone. He didn't get what you'd call a complete education. And living on Earth, he didn't really have any reason or opportunity to study the technology."

"And you did?"

"No, I stole Desaad's Father Box, which had all his records. I mean, I had a pretty good education-. Hey." I turn to Kara. "When you haven't just eaten, remind me to tell you about the time Desaad gave me a sex education lesson. See, he had this anatomical specimen-."

Richard leans towards me. "You can get us to Thanagar?"

"Sure? The work should be finished soon. You just need to get in contact with your father and plan out the mission."

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th December 2004
21:14 GMT -5

"Hey, you're not dead!"

Eliza Harmon smiles up at me, vibrating faintly. She's learned to build up speed and apparently remain at normal speed, to anyone who isn't specifically looking for it at least.

I smile back.

"Hey, neither are you! Brave, still wearing the Flash's ccccccoooooollllll-"

For a fraction of a second she frowns, and the rate at which she's vibrating slows.

"-lloooooouuuuurrrrrssssss."

"Ttttthhhhaaaatttt-."

I lean down quickly. "Hah! Got you."

She suddenly stops vibrating. "You-? Ah, damn it! I didn't-"

I reach behind my back and start removing the 'kick me' signs.

She smirks. "-get you to go through the portal with those on."

I look a-. "'Nuke me'? Really?"

"How'd you spot those?"

I point over to the other side of the embarkation area, where Batson is covering his mouth with both hands and is heroically failing at stopping himself laughing.

"Bi-lly! You gave me away!"

"Hahhah! That's great!"

"Look." I take a heavy breath, closing my eyes for a moment. "I decided to contain that nuclear blast in order to prevent the rest of you getting incinerated. 'Kick me' signs are fine, but if you want to joke about the nuke, maybe I'll decide to just shield myself next time and let the rest of you handle the blast yourselves."

"Yeah-. Ah-. No, don't do that."

"Thought not."

"I didn't realise.. you did it intentionally."

I frown. "Why the heck would I intentionally trap myself in a shield bubble with a suitcase nuke and a killer robot?"

"I dunno." She shrugs. "People make stupid decisions under pressure."

"No, the stupid bit happened a moment later when I got angry enough to shut down my construct armour and started evaporating. The decision to protect you was deliberate."

"Okay but, um, why?"

I lean down and condescendingly pat her on the left cheek with my right hand. "Because you're just so adorably helpless and pathetic. Like a little puppy. With one leg."

Batson's face falls, and I roll my eyes.

"It's not a real puppy, Batson."

"No, but it's a total mood-killer. And." He looks awkwardly away for a moment, then straightens up and looks me full-on. "Thank you for stopping us getting nuked."

"You're welcome. You I'll happily shield again, though I would suggest that we all strive to avoid situations where that's necessary."

Batson smiles at me, then looks pointedly at Ms Harmon. She looks puzzled for a moment, then she gets it. "Aoh-! He was trying to conquer America!"

"And that would have been a whole lot easier if he'd let us die. He didn't. Not everyone we fight is a total monster, and we should always be encouraging them to listen to the better angels of their nature. And one of the ways to do that is thanking them when they do something good." He gestures to me with his right hand.

"…" She rolls her eyes slightly. "…t-hanks."

"Ah, and I thought I was going to get to watch a puppy getting nuked today. Good puppy."

I pat her on the head, but my heart's not in it. I sniff, quietly, as she turns and walks away. I did a good job picking those two.

The door to the embarkation room opens, and the rest of Stormwatch walk through. Richard, Rayner, Zatanna and 'Katar'. No, no, Katar, he's had it legally changed. It's not like the original Katar Hol whose memories he copied had a unique name or anything. Heck, if one thanagarian chose to model themselves after another back on Thanagar 16 it would be considered a profoundly respectful gesture. Not so much if an alien did it…

"Alright, everyone. We've got a plan."

Richard glances at Rayner, who generates a film projector construct which shines a.. full colour image of the city of Enndupar. Back on Thanagar 16 that.. was the centre of Thanagar's entertainment industry. It technically still is, though government censorship is increasingly encouraging creative types to work from the colonies. Here? I'd guess that it was the same before my alter-ego took over.

Now? Pass. Apokolips doesn't really have an entertainment industry, and I've never bothered to find out if the gordanians do.

"This is Enndupar, which is the last known location of Mister Miracle and Big Barda. Scans-" Various markers get added to it. "-show this is where-" He glances at me. "-the other Grayven has stationed troops. Enndupar isn't a high priority target like Thandalar so there aren't all that many."

Katar's jaw clenches, and he shakes his head. "Because there don't need to be."

Rayner creates a second projector, showing ooooooh. That's a big ship. And that's a big ship. And that's a really big ship. My alter ego appears to have been doing a lot of rationalising with the gordanian fleet doctrine. Several gordanian battleships-? No, command carriers, are in orbit around Thanagar, showing the signs of having been augmented with Apokoliptian technology openly on their hulls. Around them are their escort assault ships as well as dozens of flights of attack craft: fighters and gunships.

And sitting in pride of place directly over the capital is… Hm, it's actually slightly smaller in terms of volume than the gordanian battleships, though I'm sure that its mass is far higher. An actual Apokoliptian battleship. Grey hull, tron lines everywhere and… A prow-mounted hyperblaster. An honest-to-the-Source faster than light weapon. How did he even get-?

"Grayven?"

"That's an Apokoliptian battleship. It's probably about as deadly as the rest of his fleet put together. And it will have a fleet-scale boom tube generator." Um. "Not saying that it's a priority or anything-"

Richard shakes his head exactly once. "We're not helping you steal the ship."

"-but it would make our lives a lot easier if we took control of that ship. It's almost certainly where the other Grayven is, and being Apokoliptian he's not going to have a captured New God held too far away from him. And he'll be using its systems to project his divine essence-"

Eliza grins. "That sounds dirty."

"-across his entire fleet-"

She grins more. "That sounds dirtier."

"-to ensure that all of those beneath him please him in performing their duties with the utmost vigour and enthusiasm."

Eliza raises her hands.

Richard looks at me. "And you're sure that's where they are?"

"No. I'd say… Forty percent chance? If it were me, I'd dump him somewhere with a boom tube blocker so he'd be stuck there. My own ship where I'd have to personally aura-suppress him would be a distant second as far as preferred options go. But I like him and this Grayven doesn't. There are also things he could use him for that would help him hold Thanagar, and those would require close proximity."

"And he couldn't do those somewhere else?"

I shrug. "Sure. Anywhere where he's in complete control, surrounded by tonnes of Apokoliptian technology and close to Thanagar. So unless he's really rushed construction of a facility on the ground… No, if that's what he's doing."

Richard nods. "Okay then. Here's what we're going to do."

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th December 2004
21:21 GMT -5

"…still say-" I point my right arm at an automated gun turret and fire a fusion beam at it, burning metal and detonating the power cell. "-that we should call this 'Plan Gorkamorka'."

Kara uses her heat vision to stencil a section of metal wall in the side of the prison camp, which Batson grabs and uses to snowplough eight of the lizarkon garrison into their own barracks before folding it around to trap them there.

"Why would we call-" A marksman in the guard tower hits her with a focused plasma beam. She ignores the hit and stares at the gun, melting the metal of the containment chamber without puncturing the plasma bottle or battery. The sniper drops it and scrambles back at once. "-it that?"

"Because it's a perfect combination of-"
We Are Assailed!
"-cunning and brutality!" That wasn't me. An automatic system, or… Apokoliptian technology here, he'd feel it. I'm not totally sure how it works. Rally to My Flag.

A wing of gordanians with flight packs shoots over the blasted remains of the old thanagarian defence silo, weapons at the ready. Then they spot me and freeze in bewilderment. United, Divides.

Ball and chain constructs appear around their left legs, causing them to plummet to the ground. A group of air stewardess constructs then appear and with a smile neatly pluck their guns out of their unresisting hands.

I should probably take a look at their.. gear at some point. See if my alter ego has learned anything about how to make New God technology easier to use for people who aren't New Gods. It would certainly help me with sprucing up the Watchtower if John wasn't the only one who could use the upgrades.

"No one else knows what it means!"

One frustrated glance at me, then she rockets into the sky to intercept.. a fighter squadron flying in from Thandalar. Pretty good response time.

Eliza appears in front of me, dropping numerous examples of Apokoliptian technology on the ground in front of me as she does so. "This what you want?"

"Yes, thank you. Good fetching."

I float them up so I can get a better look at them. Nothing particularly outstanding, they're mostly just the bare minimum he needs for expanding his awareness. I begin constructing an aura disruptor, ignoring the explosions as the fighters lose their fight with Kara and collide with the ground. Kara drops down a moment later, the sorry-looking pilots held in her hands by the collars of their jumpsuits.

Pff. Superheroes.

While I'm only really trying to attract Grayven 50's attention by doing this, I'm.. a little… Concerned. I don't know how my own spiritual force will measure up to his. He's been a fully empowered New God for… Some time. And the volume of his territory is greater than mine. Even if I'm generous and count all of Vega thanks to the Orange Lantern Corps' hegemony. And I'm not completely sure how there being two of me will affect things, particularly with him having far greater personal experience of this sort of thing. He actually grew up on Apokolips, while the only person I've had to practise on has been Knockout. And with her officially working for me she doesn't really resist.

If anything, she seems to enjoy being subjected to…

Yeah.

The main internment block shakes as Batson takes out a wall, and then the thanagarian internees stream out and towards where Eliza is sticking a metal bar through the hush tube portal to mark out where it is. I'm not exactly sure what made the other fellow send these particular thanagarians here. Military personnel -the few who survived the conquest- are housed at a far more secure facility.

Sinestro?

They appear to be lower level officials in regional government and their families, Lantern Grayven.

Yes, he'd already decided to do away with existing power structures but he'd need someone to administer the thanagarian areas. Presumably he was holding them here until things were stable enough for a re-education program. And now they'll be guests of Queen Hyathis, the only person we could think of who both wants thanagarian settlers and could organise a food supply for them at short notice. I doubt that they'll appreciate it, but hostages can't be choosers.

Alright, area unconquered, and done in the style of Earth-based superheroes rather than a rival warlord. While Team Morka are busy trying to hack local computers and find people to interrogate, I think that Team Gorka's brute force effort is now ready.
Plant the Standard.
My own yellow light flows into the device, but there's no other visible effect of my arcane declaration of intent. Ah, but of course. I'm reading as near-identical to the other fellow. There's no harm in planting your flag on land you already unquestionably own. I need something a little more relevant, something that directly challenges the current overlord.
Challenge the Hegemon.

Currents of power and intent jerk and jangle, twisting into alignment with my God Name. Like ripples generated in the surface of a body of water by a propeller touching the water, I can feel my impetus spreading outwards, gradually mixing and fading into the network of other patterns of arcane energy already residing here. There's none of the resistance that there would usually be, at least at this stage. Thanagar has nothing like the strength of background magic that Earth has, and the ripples simply aren't… Distinct enough or invasive enough for Grayven to feel yet.

Of course, if he weren't here… Whoever had hegemony would begin finding their works disrupted, their personal authority suddenly less unquestionable. Power lies where people believe it to lie, after all. I'm not sure exactly what it looks like; I haven't used it much myself. I don't want Tamaran to be propped up by one alien and on Earth it… There would be risks I don't want to bear, and simpler and more legitimate-seeming techniques I could use instead.
Lead from the Van.
Almost makes me want to pick a place and…

No. No. What was that? Ah. Ah, I see. The.. layers Grayven 50 is using to build up his influence. I haven't seen this before. With Apokolips, the whole place is just so overwhelmingly WRONGWRONGWRONG, and none of my other New God contacts have put the.. time into the places I've encountered them to achieve it. And because our natures are so similar, I'm susceptible to... Blowback.

But then, so is he.

Lead from the Van [relates to] Challenge the Hegemon.

I watch my colleagues, the people I led here, finish escorting the former prisoners through the hush tube in opposition to the Hegemon's designs. I stand on an enemy-held planet under an enemy fleet and spit in my foe's face because I love my brother and he'd get all mopey without Barda and because I wouldn't even think about leaving this to someone else. I MUST be the one to make this challenge.

The two strains of my God Voice wrap around one another, spreading together and reaching further into the network. What else-?

Moved by My Design.

Oh, that's not even hard.

Lead from the Van [relates to] Challenge the Hegemon [relates to] Moved by My Design.

We're here because I brought us here. My work with Sunset, with the Lords and Stormwatch, my familial ties, my drive to involve myself in events. That same drive that led me to lead this assault, to challenge whatever ruler stands in opposition to me. Even this team came together because I wanted them to.

Another shift in the networks, this one over a far larger area. And I can feel it begin to undermine other related parts of my/his nature, aligning them to me rather than him.

"Stand by, team. I think we're-"

ALL SHALL KNEEL!

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th December 2004
21:25 GMT -5

"-about t-to…"

All Shall Kneel [relates to] Moved by my Design.

A legion unseen kneel as the Hegemon-. I… I'm holding out my arms and acknowledging their fealty and.. I'm kneeling my-.

Like heck I am.

When we wound up the Light Mark 1, the Justice League mistrusted me and had found my plan distasteful. But they went along with it, because they had no better alternative and knew that the results of not doing so would be worse. I aided Jonathan and in return I am now considered a friend and valuable government advisor. I aided the Chinese and the same happens. And with the Light Mark 2 I am reshaping the world without any brutal displays of dominance.

…

Being made by me personally. And yet, my personal legitimacy increases without significant resistance. My ego is not so fragile that I need everyone around me to abase themselves before we do business, and I'm confident that they will come around to my way of thinking about things eventually.

All Shall Bow in Time [subverts] All Shall Kneel.

"Grayven?" I'm dimly aware of Kara floating next to me. "Are you okay?"

The network didn't completely shift away from me, though the strangely dissonant desire to kneel before myself did.. make it somewhat unclear who and what was taking precedence. I suspect that my alter ego knows that he's being assailed by another New God (or New God equivalent) but doesn't know their particular nature.

"I didn't expect this to be easy."

No immediate counter strike.

Challenge the Hegemon [subverts] All Shall Kneel.

Because naturally, if I'm challenging then I'm not kneeling. Or being kneeled to. My reach across the metaphysical realm of this planet is growing broader, if not stronger. And… Then I'm feeling the breadth of the region of space this Grayven has occupied, an… Impression of settlements and shipyards, workers and warriors all labouring both for themselves and for Me. For My empire. Dimly, I am aware of places where this is not happening, but they are small in comparison to the vast areas that are.

Beneath My Contempt [subverts] Challenge the Hegemon.

Because you're not really 'challenging' if the challenge isn't substantive.

And I can't argue the point. This isn't intended to be more than a feint or a raid. I came to him, he didn't come to me. On the other hand, if he's bothering to make an effort then I'm clearly not beneath his contempt. But… None of the counters I can think of really fit me. There are plenty of Divine Truths that could be spoken to counter that by Scott… Even by John or Diana, if they knew how to do it.

Hmm.

I remember killing Savage with little difficulty. I remember the League's bizarre attitude to Nabu and Klarion and their failure to predict that I might take active issue with it.

Attack Complacency [undermines] Beneath My Contempt.

"Grayven, Nightwing says the fleet is moving."

And suddenly we're worth dealing with. I doubt that he'll want to use his ships to carry out orbital strikes, but…

Flies Trapped in Amber

Wait, what? That felt different, and… Entirely unrelated to conquest. And weaker. It coils around everything, weakening the whole network because the idea that I'm in an invisible prison is something that no version of Grayven could possibly tolerate.

And yet, it's working. I can feel the results myself and I'm forced to consider: am I working in accordance with someone else's plan here? Could Grayven 50 have made a specific plan for this? No, it felt… More general. Like… People in general are trapped. It… Did he do something to Scott to make him say that? Or is there a New God of Unfreedom I don't know about? With Darkseid dead there's probably some metaphysical room opening up.

I… Again, I can't think of a counter I could-. I mean, against Scott I'd have all sorts of things about how most people with freedom keep doing all the same things they did when they didn't have it, but against the statement that everyone is trapped permanently… We're all connected to the Source, and… I haven't yet confirmed that there isn't a Divine Plan for each of us. I know that Destiny's book is a thing and that a few people have ducked it…

Ah, fuck it. If all that I've done hasn't broken me free by now then I can just work at it some more. I know that it can be done. Being trapped isn't inevitable.

Drive to Overcome.

"Found my brother yet?"

"Not yet." Rayner's got some sort of radar construct and he's waving it around. I'm reasonably confident that he knows what he's doing. "But I'm getting a whole lot less interference. Keep doing whatever you're doing."

Invisible Chains / Chains Willingly Embraced

The metaphysical landscape twists, all that I thought I'd claimed reverting and strengthening as-. They combined? That's a thing? Ugh, I was right: he does know more about this stuff than I do. Perhaps I could just directly-?

Uh, no no no no-

"Grayven?"

-no. How can I-? Okay, another Conquest-God, and from the sounds of it someone who downed a bit too much of the Anti-Life cool aid. I'm not supposed to be trying to directly fight either of them, just-.

I look at my left hand, my armour and device already picking up the orange glow. Not.. sure if this will work, but what the heck?

Assimilate.

…

Nothing. No, of course, but how do I..?

Oh-. Fiddlesticks. I know full well that the Ophidian is in the Central Power Battery on Tamaran. I'm trusting Controller Hannanan to keep her under control. But she's a spiritual being I have a connection to who is one with the orange light. She should be able to bridge the gap… In theory. But: parallel universe. I could use my domain-powers to rein in an elemental nominally under my control anyway. The one here..?
Grasp the Nettle.
Ophidian. Ophidian.

My ring sparks and I feel a horrible force pulling at my metaphysique. I try.. pointing it at the power that is like mine in the local energy systems and it starts.. pulling at those as well.

Slap Down the Impetuous-.

The voice sounds like the gnat!

And the pressure's… Off. Mostly. And I feel the orange light permeating the local systems but whoever the gnat was, sounding like him is clearly enough to make the Ophidian come after you a little harder. Larfleeze, maybe? Not like I heard him talking. But it looks like Grayven 50 and whoever the other voice was weren't expecting-

"Got 'em! They're-. Oh cr-."

Boom boom boom!

Huh?

I lose my connection to the metaphysical and to the Ophidian as a blinding light gagh! I shield as a gordanian destroyer drops through the atmosphere and opens up with its main gun. Okay, between Rayner and myself the barrier is holding, now if-.

Legions Undiminished.

Our shields fracture, and everything-.