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

23rd December
08:12 GMT

"The nicest thing I can say about it is that it's functional."

Not satisfied with using a simple bust-projection, Hinon has decided to use ring telepresence to display both herself and my attempt at creating a personal lantern.

I can't deny that it's crude. I was trying to create something like a classical hurricane lamp, but with Ophidian-scale styling. Instead, I got… A child's clay model which sagged slightly before it hardened in the oven. It's wider than it is tall, the snake detailing looks -charitably- like someone haphazardly wrapped a rope around it and the glow inside flickers constantly.

"What did Kalmin think?"

"I haven't shown him. Kalmin uses empathic storage devices and manipulates light indirectly. I'm a little concerned about what he would do if he learned that direct manipulation by non-Maltusians could achieve this."

"I think that your concern is unwarranted. If anything, I would expect it to motivate him to greater efforts in his studies. "

"Why do you assume that I want to motivate him?"

"Because.. that's how using the orange light.. works best?"

"I thought that I was clear." She scowls at me. "I did not want him in the Corps."

"Are you barring me from showing him?"

"Of course not." She prods the lantern representation. "Do you intend to follow up on this capacity?"

"How do you mean?"

"You aren't the sort to be satisfied with an outcome this poor. Do you actually intend to practise? Are you going to require lessons?"

"No, I was just making a point to the recruits that there's nothing they can't learn how to do, including things they might have assumed could only be done by Controllers. I'd.. like to learn at some point, but it's not a priority for me." She nods. "How was your time with Lantern Scott?"

She smiles. "Oh, I do like him. Why couldn't you recruit more people like that?"

"Because they'd be bad fits for the orange light, and probably wouldn't have any reason to want to fight the Reach. How is he?"

"Perfectly healthy. Not entirely human… I'm not quite old enough to remember when Maltusians first bonded with our symbiotes, but I image that he's something like that. Something more than he was before."

"Any foreseeable problems?"

"That depends on your definition of 'problem', I suppose. He will gradually become less and less like a human male and more and more like a creature of hope. His past will continue to define the way he appears, the way he thinks about himself… I suspect, until he finally dies."

"How gradually?"

"I don't have enough data to reach a firm conclusion. Four hundred years, perhaps?"

I nod, smiling. "That'll do. Anything else?"

"No, that's everything. Enjoy showing off to Clarissi Dox's guests. Hinon out."

The construct disappears. Hm. Alan told me that 'nothing was wrong', but I felt it best to check just in case. I'm.. a little concerned, but… I suppose that the orange light will keep me human for as long as I want to be human. Which given the difficulties involved in wanting something you haven't experienced yet is probably going to be forever. Alan doesn't have that safety net. But then I.. suppose that Diana doesn't either. Greek demigods generally undergo apotheosis at some point…

A problem for another day, centuries down the line. Here and now I

step out

and back into the Lantern sparring area of the… Ugh, the 'extended field duration transport and command capital ship model four production order seven'. Apparently it's shorter in Coluan. Alan's firing crumbler rounds at their barriers as my escorts learn to create ablative barriers with his assistance.

A quick check on the sensor logs suggests to me that Lantern Drusa was already aware of the technique, though she isn't exactly enjoying the feedback the repeated failures. Lantern Dul is holding up better, but her construct usage is noticeably less sophisticated. Rather than just the twenty or so thin barrier that Guy or I would or the ten that Drusa is managing, she's using four regular strength barriers. Which will still go down after one hit but will drain her ring's charge far more quickly. Lantern R-K'rr is only managing three barriers, but they're reappearing after each hit more quickly than those of his colleagues and he doesn't seem stressed by it.

Alan spots me, and lifts his railguns upward to indicate that they can take a break. Lantern Dul's wings are trembling with aggression, her muscles tensed, her fingers tight and a construct mace and a construct sidearm reflexively appearing on her hips. Thanagarian training sessions always include a physical element to prevent recruits hopped up on their version of adrenaline lashing out. She's trying to fight it, but-.

"Lantern Dul. Come at me."

Lantern Drusa floats away from her, Lantern R-K'rr doubles down on his shields and Lantern Dul shoots toward me, her wings, giant mace construct and sneaky pistol glowing orange as she finally gives vent to her desire to lash out! I shoot the mace construct with a crumbler, fire an orange energy pulse at the gun and grab her body with a reptilian claw construct before throwing her into the force fields at the far end of the room. They flare for a moment as she's thrown back and falls to the floor.

"Back with us?"

She gingerly picks herself up, the glow from her ring stable but fainter than her highest output. "Yeah. Yes." She unfurls her wings fully for a moment, gives them a slight shake and then folds them behind her back once more. "Sir. Thank you."

"You're welcome. Lantern Scott, for future reference, thanagarians benefit from involving physical actions in their training. Otherwise they get really stressed out."

He nods. "I'll bear that in mind in future." He turns his head toward Lantern Dul as she walks back towards the other two. "I'm sorry for not taking that into account."

Of course, the Halls were human so didn't have that problem.

"Ladies, gentleman and other, we have now entered the system where the conference will be taking place and we're expected to arrive in around five hours. I thought that now might be the best time to go over my philosophy in relation to orange light use. Lantern R-K'rr has already heard the basics and I believe that Lantern Drusa-" I nod to her, and she remains expressionless. "-has done quite a lot of the required reading."

"While I've known Lantern Scott for about a year and a half, we've only been training together for about a third of that and the philosophies underpinning blue light use are rather different to those required for orange light use. So,-" I turn to face him. "-Alan, you're free to stay or go as you see fit."

He negligently waves his right hand. "I'll take a look around the ship when you're busy with your conference thing."

"Alright then." I sink down, a construct cushion forming under my bottom. "You may sit or stand as your choose. Let's get started."

 

23rd December
08:16 GMT

"What do you want?" I take a moment to make eye contact with each of my students. "That's the most important question, one which every Orange Lantern should consider every day. But it's not the most fundamental question. The most fundamental question is: why does anyone want anything? Why do I, why do you, why does anyone, consider one state of affairs preferable to another?"

"The answer's simple. Those amongst our ancestors who weren't strongly motivated to gain possession of those things they needed in order to survive tended not to. You want food, because your body requires fuel to live. If you don't learn to like food, to want food, you starve to death. You want shelter, because you need somewhere safe to sleep, somewhere to stay warm when it's cold. You want camaraderie because you're not going to be healthy or alert all of the time and a threat could emerge at any time. This programming exists in all humanoid species I am aware of, and most non-humanoid species have something fairly similar."

"The problem comes when a species' sociological advancement occurs faster than its biological advancement. Take for example the desire to eat. In hunter-gatherer societies, high fat and high sugar food is hard to get hold of. Trees only fruit for part of the year, killing animals requires a significant investment in resources… But those are the things which give the one eating them most energy, the most ability to act and survive until an age at which they can raise the next generation."

"But then a species advances to the point where it learns to farm food animals or to refine sugar and suddenly it becomes far easier to get food of that type. A preference for a seasonal food that was necessary to survive through the leaner months becomes a preference for a food which is now available all year around. The result? Obesity. Heart disease. Evolutionary history has programmed people to want things because they needed them, and now they don't need them but still want them."

True of every society I checked, and a quick ring-comparison between technologies and most common causes of death appeared to bear that out.

"There are other, related problems. In my own species, our brains cope best with small communities. About a hundred and fifty people. But our economies encourage us to live in far larger groups; our larger cities can have over a million people in them. Our brains are quite literally incapable of perceiving that many people as individuals, let alone actually caring about what happens to them. But our economy makes us dependent on a huge number of people we've never met. We're forced to interact constantly with people we don't care about. That we can't care about."

"And how is this relevant to you? Simple. None of you really care about this. The Corps' mission, the defeat of the Reach. The talks we'll be having."

Lantern Drusa had been leaning slightly forward, but she straightens up now. Not immediately, not fast enough to draw attention, but she's clearly 'back in the room'. Lantern Dul blinks, her expression still. Lantern R-K'rr's mandibles relax slightly.

"Lantern R-K'rr, your species is capable of a much higher level of social awareness than the vast majority of humanoid species. You genuinely want to repay your civilisation's debt to the Controllers. But despite your interactions with them you have only a dim sense of fellowship with the peoples of the periphery. Am I wrong?"

"Teacher, you are not incorrect. The drives of members of my species make it… We can bond with anyone from our social structure, but they are too far outside it for the bond to trigger. Even those with whom I interact in a routine way are external agents. As with humanoids, it is widely believed to be a holdover from the ancient days when we lived in competing colonies."

"Recognising this about yourself, how do you focus your desires to perform other tasks?"

"In my own mind I relate everything I do to their stated wishes. I desire this conference to be successful because they so desire it. I.. believe that this reflexive reverence comes from the feelings which the greater sexes were supposed to invoke in us. They perform an essential function that the rest of us cannot, and so we are driven to do those things that are needful which they cannot do."

"How do you use that drive when the Controllers have not given you specific instructions?"

"That is.. less easy. As you have implied, the loss of particular worlds on the periphery zone is common enough that I know that it is not essential to prevent it to ensure the Controllers' safety. Nonetheless, the Controllers' desires guide my own, and I have observed that I am able to maintain my average construct strength better than many other Orange Lanterns."

I nod. "How do you intend to develop in future?"

"My current role does not require a great deal of construct power. If a Controller assigns me a clearly defined diplomatic responsibility -even if it is simply as a courier- then I will have no significant difficulty. Considering that as my medium term aim, I am more motivated to ensure our success here. A firm agreement will allow the Controllers to task me with a particular role."

I smile. Glad to know that he did the assigned homework.

"And your skills?"

"It is difficult to know where to focus my efforts. Since I will neither specialise in direct combat or investigation, there are no models for me to draw upon."

"Oh, that isn't true. Seeing the desires of those you would negotiate with is something even an inexperienced Lantern should be able to do. Taking it further… I know I can use my rings to enkindle the desires of those around me. I imagine that being able to do that would help a diplomat."

"Teacher, you are correct. I have not practised techniques that subtle."

I nod. "I'm sure that I can find time to teach you the basics. But be careful when experimenting on your own; you don't want to turn someone into a construct by accident."

"Teacher, I do not."

"We'll pencil that in for after this session. You should be able to try viewing your colleagues' desires while I work with them." A double blink indicates an acknowledgement. "Lantern Dul."

She shrugs. "One mercenary contract is as good as another. And how many Thanagarians get to use the greatest weapon in the universe?"

"If the records I acquired from the Green Lantern Corps are correct, two. Before the Equalisation Plague." She shrugs again. "You're an awful long way away from home."

"I go where the fighting is. Not like I have any special reason to stay home."

I smile, leaning forward slightly. "Lantern Dul, if you're going to lie to me it's going to be a good deal harder for me to help you. I come from Earth, and while I can just about believe that you left before you could be briefed on my world, we have two 'embedded agents' of the Thanagarian Empire as guests. And we do know it."

Her face falls slightly.

"Your Corps officer only personnel file would tell me why you're actually here even if I couldn't see for myself by looking at you. But don’t worry. On Earth, Katar Hol and Shayera Thal are well regarded, and as it's common practice for our intelligence agencies to spend a certain amount of time monitoring our allies we can hardly take umbrage about you deciding that the Orange Lantern Corps bears watching. But motivation is always an issue for Orange Lanterns."

"I-." She blinks rapidly as she tries to reach a difficult decision. "I'm not here to report on the Orange Lantern Corps. When I left Thanagar, my assignment was to monitor the Reach, not the Orange Lantern Corps. The Corps didn't exist at the time."

"Very long term planning. I approve. And since you're here, I should help you improve as well. If only to make sure that the reports which the Thanagarian Empire receives are glowing." Lantern Dul's face reveals little, but the pattern of lights inside her show her confusion. Flashes of fear as she remembers times when she failed to read the room and suffered for it. She doesn't understand. "Tell me about yourself. Why did you accept this duty?"

 

23rd December
08:21 GMT

"It was the most prestigious mission my history qualified me for. The Empire doesn't send people it can't trust away to alien societies for decades on end."

"But on your own?"

She lowers her head slightly. "I didn't start on my own."

Ah. No. I suppose… "I've been meaning to visit Thanagar for a while, myself. If you'd like to make a trip home I'd be happy to help you."

She looks at me slightly suspiciously. "Thank you. I would appreciate that."

"It would be somewhat harsh of me to refuse the Thanagarian Ruling Council services which I have offered Queen Hyathis." From the resulting surge of hate and fear I'm going to assume that she's a committed loyalist. "Considering that the Orange Lantern Corps has no interest in who rules Thanagar."

"The Ruling Council is the leadership of the thanagarian people. Warriors and commanders of proven ability."

"The Ruling Council is the leadership of that part of the Thanagarian people who have neither scales nor symbiotic algae. But that's beside the point."

Though it might end up being the point. Some colonies, those which Queen Hyathis founded, which predate the Equalisation Plague or which have substantial alien populations, are more liberal than Thanagar itself and probably wouldn't be all that concerned with who rules the Empire. But the more recent colonies are militant, mostly or exclusively settled by ex-soldiers and very loyal to the Ruling Council. If Hyathis ever somehow took Thanagar she'd struggle to control them. On the other hand, they don't have much in the way of military shipbuilding so she might be able to get away with just ignoring them.

No, not our problem. Not unless the Reach collapses tomorrow and Lantern Dul heads home with that power ring, which seems unlikely.

"The point is: how do you motivate yourself to fight for a cause that isn't yours?"

"Because I don't want to die."

"Sure. Great for shields and evasion; I used that drive myself. But what more?"

"Not dying means killing the one who's trying to kill you. I don't have a problem attacking with-"

I raise my left hand and generate a construct bunch of flowers.

"-my ring… What?"

I change it to a small ball, then a trumpet, then an image of a Praexis Demon. "And how long does that take?"

"Once the fight starts? A second or two."

"And before the fight starts?"

"A little bit longer."

I nod, then shift my construct back into a trumpet. "Please make a mace, and destroy my construct."

She hesitates for a second, then holds out her right hand. The mace construct forms, but I note that the orange light making it up grows in intensity relatively slowly. There are a good few seconds where it's actually translucent.

"Haarh!"

She swings it downward, and my trumpet is unmoved and inviolate. The mace is nearly knocked out of her hand, but she keeps hold of it despite her surprise.

"I often don't want to fight. If we get into a serious fight during this conference you'll hear in my voice that I mostly sound disappointed that it was necessary."

Lantern Dul swings again, this time making my trumpet bob slightly in the air.

"This isn't a direct result of my bond with the Ophidian. Or my experience, the duration of my exposure to the orange light. It is due to my understanding of my own desires. I want you to be better-" Another swing, to no greater effect. "-Lanterns. I want us to succeed against the Reach, not-. Only slightly due to my pride, but mostly because I consider their civilisation to be an abomination. These aren't.. separate drives, competing drives."

Lantern Dul's mace glows brilliantly as she begins to feel insulted. This time, the trumpet cracks from the strike, then fragments and dissipates.

"Well done. They aren't separate, competing drives. I have one drive; to me the universe just as hard as I can. I didn't care about the trumpet. I cared about the point I was making with it. And that's why it was strong. So, Lantern Dul, I'm afraid that if you wish to improve you'll need to go a little beyond short term survival as a source of motivation."

She nods, dismissing her mace. "What do you suggest?"

"If they are not stopped then the Reach will in time do to Thanagar what they've done to every world they've overtaken. And every world they take makes it more likely that they'll eventually manage to do that. We, here, are the best chance this galaxy has of stopping them. And if that's a little grand, consider that you have a chance to master a tool which no Thanagarian has before you. Let your pride empower you. And if you haven't already, I really do recommend taking up the meditation I described in my initial briefing document."

"I will examine it in more detail, Illustres."

And now the fun one. "Lantern Drusa. Who as far as I can see picked up a ring because it was on offer and you're not an idiot."

She's watching my face somewhat guardedly. And-.

"Good effort, but while telepaths would have difficulty seeing through… That's… Base fifteen planar physics, isn't it? It doesn't do a thing to stop me. You'd need some sort of magic defence. Or complete control of your emotions, and not merely their expression."

"I will remember that." She breathes out, and… Her emotional resonances dim noticeably.

"Oh, good control there. But I'm still a little concerned about your power output. Was I correct in my belief that you took the ring simply because it was there?"

"It takes up less space than the multi-tool, computer, personal force field and gun it replaced. Its peak output is greater…"

"But only if you're motivated. Having reached this, what do you now strive for?" I give her a moment, but she doesn't respond. "Your home civilisation is stuck behind the catagenesis barrier, isn't it? Not enough fossil fuels for widespread industrial development?"

"That is correct."

I narrow my eyes, getting snapshots of her life to date.

"No family since you left. No body language you could understand, no one you could trust. You didn't even need a city." I shrug. "So you work alone where possible, or with mercenaries of proven dependability where not. You value your reputation for practical reasons, no lasting friendships… Just.. surviving. Which is a problem. Tell me, what's a valuable metal on your homeworld? Gold? Platinum? Titanium?"

I raise my hands to the sides and let coins of various metals rain down, clattering to rest on the deck.

"You desire material security because it has served you well so far."

For the first time her eyes leave my face as she can't help but watch the coins.

"But even a moderately competent Lantern could mine out your home system's asteroids in a few weeks. A competent Lantern could transmute enough metal to cover their living expenses more or less indefinitely. Depending on market conditions." I close my hands, cutting off the stream of coins. "You want a thing which you needed but which you no longer need, as my species hungers for the fat giving us coronary heart disease. Without a cause, a.. need of your own, you will not develop further. I strongly encourage you to work at that."

 

23rd December
13:02 GMT

I look over to where Lantern Dul is flying through space a short distance from me.

"You do know that you don't need to face the thing you're flying toward, don't you? That as far as your ring is concerned the direction you're facing makes no difference?"

She flexes her wings. "The nth metal in my wings allows me to alter gravity. I can fly without an atmosphere. And this pose minimises my profile."

"Which is important in an infantry fire fight." I look towards the oncoming but still distant planet. "But if they can hit us from here, the fact that your profile is half what it would otherwise be is.. pretty irrelevant."

"Then I'm doing it because it feels natural."

"Remember what I said about maladaptive thought processes?"

She looks at me for a couple of seconds, then furls her wings and comes upright relative to our direction of travel. She immediately slows down.

"If you're having trouble, you could just create a construct thruster."

Construct wings extend themselves from her back in place of her natural ones, then dissipate as she focuses on her desire to improve her abilities. Her aura flaring, she accelerates to catch up with me.

"Lantern Drusa, you've lived in this region. Any advice you feel like giving me?"

"Make sure they pay up front and in cash."

"I'm not sure that I'm selling. And I'm afraid that we're looking for regular transfers rather than a one-off deposit."

"If they've come here, then they've already decided to agree with you. The Reach are opportunistic. Anyone whose defences are worse than the rest will be targeted first. Unless nearly everyone leaves without agreeing to your terms. If that happens, the Reach will target them first."

"I can imagine the campaign slogan now. 'We had not realised that we had so alienated so many of our neighbours, and we will do everything in our power to correct this oversight'. Followed by all of their neighbours ceasing to trade with them and a massive uptick in pirate activity."

Lantern R-K'rr flies past us, rolling as if to demonstrate to me that he doesn't need to watch where he's going. "No. Too direct. Too blatant. The Reach can afford to stop expanding in this region for a generation or more without it affecting their long term plans. I would expect generous trade pacts. Perhaps even delays in the assimilation of worlds on the far side of the border. The Reach have excellent social unity."

"And the worlds on this side of the border don't."

I can hear the disdain in Lantern Drusa's voice. I think that's the first actual emotion she's willingly revealed herself to be feeling.

I could check, but in the interests of encouraging her. "How far from the border is your homeworld?"

"It's already on the other side. The only reason that the Reach haven't already taken it is that the predicted returns are too low. The economy is too primitive for them to care."

"That sounds a little out of character. It's not as if they've mined out all of the systems they already control."

R-K'rr comes to a relative stop in front of me. "Few stellar empires are 'efficient' in their use of space. The methods which the Reach use for incorporating societies into their empire without breaking their treaty with the Guardians of the Universe work best when the victim's economy has reached a level of complexity beyond what Lantern Drusa's world possesses. I expect that they will begin uplift procedures once the surrounding worlds generate a sufficient surplus."

I nod. "And how long do you think it will be until that starts to happen?"

"Twenty years. Though that could vary greatly depending on what we achieve here. The uplift itself will most likely involve a clique of Reach-affiliated technocrats sharing the benefits of Reach knowledge, and in doing so becoming the dominant political force on the planet. Previously, Darkstars have attempted to disrupt such attempts by supporting nationalist-isolationist elements to allow them to maintain technological parity. We discovered that technique to be unreliable, as the conflict itself drives the societal integration and mutual dependency which the Reach seek."

I nod, looking at our destination. The warships which have escorted the diplomatic transports here will be waiting on the edge of the system. The hosts are Controller-friendly, but several of the guests aren't. Or aren't other-guest friendly. It would only take one Reach stooge with access to the fire controls of a capital ship to do an awful lot of damage, both physically and politically.

A quick comparison between my 'expected' list and the designs of ship I can actually see suggests that almost everyone we're expecting has arrived. About half are already in orbit, while the rest are slowly chugging their way through the interdicted zone under local escort.

"Lantern Drusa, how would you handle it?"

"If the Reach want to waste resources assimilating a world with no industry, let them. It will probably make our lives easier."

Lantern Dul twists to face the ship, where Lantern Drusa and Alan are taking it easy. "How can you say that about your home?"

"Easily. It means nothing to me."

"That's disgus-."

"Orange Lantern, Lantern Dul. If it means nothing to her then it means nothing to her." The patterns of light inside Lantern Dul indicate a complete failure to grok that idea at any level. "Lantern Drusa, it isn't my place to tell you what you should or shouldn't want. But unless you want something, you will permanently be limited to weak constructs."

"I was planning on doing technological analysis rather than front line combat. I don't need high power to do that."

"Because you don't need a power ring to do technical analysis in a safe laboratory. If you have the aptitude, you'll most likely be transferred. From the Corps' point of view, the only reason it's worth giving you a power ring is if you need to work fast or under fire. Otherwise, you might as well join the fleet's technical division."

"Illustres." The ship's communications officer isn't privy to the ongoing inter-Lantern conversation. And to be honest I'm not sure what sort of situation would require that they-. "A small flotilla of gordanian ships have entered the system."

"They're a long way from home. Which clan?"

"'Unending Conquest'. Do you know them?"

Unending Conquest. Doesn't ring any bells, and a quick check of the ring's database reveals nothing. Not that that necessarily means anything. Gordanian clans do break up sometimes, or form as gordanians who've drifted away from their clans unify. "No. And if they're here with gordanian technology then they left Vega well before I arrived there. Were they invited?"

"Not specifically, though this meeting was advertised as being open to all concerned parties."

"If I had to guess, I'd say they were here to tender for mercenary work. I don't see that as being a problem for us. What did Administrator Prigatz say?"

A quiet chime, and a new voice. "I said to ask you. I've never met a gordanian before. But I agree, one more group of mercenaries shouldn't be a problem."

"It's interesting, though. I'll try and find out how they got here."

"No. Leave that for my people. You should focus on impressing our allies."

"As you prefer."

I suppose I should make a big entrance. I wonder what would be most effective?

 

23rd December
13:27 GMT

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and such other variations as nature or nurture have created."

Thick strands of orange light glow from me, fat and shimmering in a way which reminds me of the proton beams from the Ghostbusters films. No, the animated series. I think I.. only watched the films once each, whereas I must have watched dozens of episodes of the series growing up.

And on the far end of each strand is a replica of the capital ship next to it.

A hollow one, of course, but since they're opaque I doubt that anyone other than me knows that. From the gobsmacked expression on her face I'm certainly confident that Lantern Dul doesn't.

"This demonstration of the potential output of an orange power ring comes on behalf of me, the Illustres of the Orange Lantern Corps. In case you're wondering how many Lanterns I have working on this-"

One battleship turns its turrets towards its doppelgänger, and I have my construct copy the action.

"-demonstration, I will tell you. One. This is just me. Two rings, but that's just to extend my battery life."

Leaving the surface of the planet I see a twinkle of extraordinarily focused will. Ah, it seems that Lantern K'ryssma is joining us.

"And while I'm afraid that my colleagues aren't yet as capable as I am-" Okay, who designs a ship with that many crenellations? "-I've only actually been doing this for a year and a half. Part of the compact we're going to try to interest you in today involves giving your citizens rings like the ones I'm using to do this."

Complete, complete, complete…

I fire the construct ships' engines.

"The Green Lantern Corps is hampered in effectively resisting the Reach in two ways. Firstly, they simply cannot make rings fast enough to expand their Corps. We do not have that problem. We have a reserve of several thousand rings, and we're producing more constantly. And we want new recruits. Oh, we'll need you to do a certain amount of psychometric testing, there's no point in us trying to train someone who won't be able to cope. But you have between you a population about fifty million times that of the worlds we've been limited to recruiting from so far. And though there are already hundreds of Orange Lanterns, I want to make that thousands."

"Secondly, their existing treaty makes them powerless to resist the forms of conquest which the Reach is currently using. We don't intend to wait for them to conquer the minds of all those who oppose them."

Lantern K'ryssma slows as she gets closer. She doesn't seem too concerned about me, but Lantern Dul and Lantern R-K'rr warrant a second look. Ah yes. So far no Guardian has taken up Hinon's offer of a tour. And -just a hint of yellow, well contained and controlled- she knows that Guardians aren't immune to assimilation.

"And I assure you that it is very much-" All of my construct ships roll, guns pointed away from anything fragile. "-in your interests to make that you don't either."

Come on, grande finale. And this actually is going to stretch me. Another tendril reaches out.

I need to convince them of the power of power rings relative to the opposition. This is the best chance of realising my objective, of halting the Reach at a border we can reinforce. And I kind of want to show the Green Honour Guard Lantern what I can do that none of hers can.

Our Corps is the best.

And when we pull this off, no one is ever going to forget it.

The last tendril grows larger, flying out into space before generating a Reach battleship construct. Not one of those little cruisers or battle cruisers they send out to the Periphery to 'protect' trade convoys or 'deter pirates'. No. One of the big and terrifying ones they keep back with their reserve fleets firmly in Reach territory because they don't trust anyone but their own species to go anywhere near them. And because they take a stupid amount of resource to build and maintain.

And all of the construct guns that can lock on and fire.

This is just a demonstration, so I'm not actually simulating the exact weapon profiles, shields or armour. If these ships fired at this range in normal combat conditions the battleship's shields would… Well, they'd feel it a bit, but it would have already destroyed them before they got anything like this close. But I think that my simulated hull breaches and internal explosions give a rather better impression.

I simulate an uncontrolled core breach, then dismiss my-

Warning: low power. Nine percent remaining.

-constructs. "We usually encourage Lanterns to create things a little smaller than that." But I'll be fine for the rest of this talk. "My colleague Lantern R-K'rr told me earlier that he's occasionally run into difficulty with negotiators who aren't convinced -despite its words- that Maltus is prepared to pull its weight. This is Maltus pulling its weight. In a few hours my colleagues are going to start talking nuts and bolts with you; the ship designs they want to build, what they'd like each of you to contribute. And I'm afraid that this is one of those investments that will probably never show a profit."

"But it will prevent a rather significant loss. And I'm afraid to say that we have current information on that too. I'll be available later today if any of you have any questions which you wish to put to me personally."

Though now I think about it… Ring, how many people are sending me questions directly right now?

In excess of ten thousand.

I roll my eyes. Eris help us if these people ever get Twunter.

"Thank you for your-"
Conquest!
What was-?

"-for your time."

Ring, end transmission.

Compliance.

"Orange Lantern-"

"Excuse me a moment."

I hold out my hands and call my lantern-. Alan's old personal lantern, not the pile of fail I made yesterday. Out from subspace.

"This is my cause, this is my fight.
Shine through the void with orange light.
I've claimed all within my sight.
To keep what is mine, that is my right."

Orange light blasts out of my lantern and into both rings.

"Charge at one hundred percent." / "Charge at one hundred percent."

Now what was it I felt..?
Conquest!
That way. And in that direction is..?

The ring shows me the gordanian ship. Looks… Most gordanian ships are designed to be places of habitation as well as combat ships. That's clearly a pure warship. Recognisably gordanian, but… Definitely improved. It's… I can't scan it properly, not the interior. But judging by what I can get from the shields and from the look of the weapons… Not quite on a level with our ships, but better than anything else. Interesting. I think I'll need to prioritise them.

I smile at Lantern K'ryssma. "I'm sorry, you were saying?"

"I wanted to wish you success. And to inform you that they want me to examine every agreement you strike in order to ensure that you are treating honestly with these people."

"An excellent idea. In fact, why don't you come back to Maltus with us once this is over? You can see everything first hand."

 

23rd December
16:39 GMT

"Lantern."

That's a fortuitous time-saving. I look up at the trio of large and.. surprisingly well-dressed gordanians in front of me. The two at the back are muscle, but they're clearly 'diplomatic close protection' rather than 'space barbarian'. Their loosely-fitting clothing covers light body armour and their only weapons are side arms. The larger ships that were giving me the headache have remained at an acceptable distance, and their diplomatic yacht looked like something the Eldar would have built.

The man talking to me isn't armed with anything more dangerous than a small knife. Small by gordanian standards, a meat cleaver by human standards. He's also got what are either neural-linked equipment or actual cybernetic augmetics; a metal collar partially disguised by his hood which glows in patterns matched by the stationary ones on his robes and bracers. That's interesting. They require a much higher level of technical sophistication than gordanian clans can usually maintain.

"Ambassador. Pleased to meet you."

I bring my fists together in front of my chest and then extend them towards him. Gordanians do have a formal-polite greeting, it's just rather fallen out of use as Vega became more violent. A slight flaring of his nostrils as the ambassador is mildly surprised but he mirrors my gesture, gently bumping his fists against mine. Between gordanians this is usually done with a bit of force but it looks like he's making an accommodation for the fragile-looking alien.

"I'm afraid I didn't see your name on the guest list. Are you one of your clan's contract negotiators?"

"No. I am Councillor Vayneek. I am the personal representative of our grand clan chief."

The appellation 'grand' implies that whoever it is has conquered other clans and brought them under his banner. Each clan would still have its own chief, who would in turn pay homage to him. "Not seneschal?"

He chuckle-rumbles. "No, no. No one fights our clan chief. I give advice, or represent him when he's busy."

"I wasn't aware that there was a gordanian presence in this region."

"Hm. Well, if you know us from Vega you can understand why we were curious about the Beast of Okaara taking a holiday."

"The Beast of Okaara has been disarmed and is sitting in a cell on Maltus. The rest of us are much better adjusted."

"Ah. Your work?"

"Not my sole work, though I was a substantial actor."

"Then you were the Lantern who helped make the peace conference work." I nod. "Yes, a few members of my clan were on the planet at the time. They reported your presence."

Did I-? Oh, the bar. Yes, now that I think about it, the three yellow line and a white blob emblem does look a little like the decoration Councillor Vayneek is wearing.

"Are you just here to see me, then?"

"We do want better information on you than we presently possess. But, no. Essentially, we're looking for worlds to settle."

"I'm afraid that most of the easily habitable ones in the region have been used by the Controllers for resettling refugees. And when I say 'easily'-."

He makes the hiss-cough noise that gordanians use to signal empathic understanding. "Habitable doesn't mean hospitable. No, we were going to enquire about worlds in Reach space. When you go on the offensive. Who gets them?" Huh. Hadn't really-. "Your Controllers don't seem interested in expanding. Their… Insectoid followers haven't spread out."

Ring, review stated policy?

"Worlds which were previously owned by species under the protection of the Controllers will be returned to them where possible. Worlds with surviving natives will be placed under their care… Once their civilisations have been cleansed of Reach influence."

"As expected. And the uninhabited worlds?"

"In inhabited systems, that will be for the locals to decide. Though given the population fall off that happens when the Reach conquer a place I imagine that they'll be putting mining or.. whatever, out to tender. Uninhabited systems… We don't have a firm view about what should happen to them. That's part of what the delegates to this conference will discuss."

If they're a fleet based clan, giving them a few systems that no one else really wants might be just the ticket. They can mine gas giants and moons, trade their surplus and perhaps build themselves a habitat.

"And further in?"

"Further in?"

"Worlds inhabited only by the Reach themselves. Clearly, they are too technologically sophisticated and too socially unified to be left to their own devices. I expect that your people will want revenge for the Reach's actions toward them. What are your intentions? Total depopulation? Exile? Client status?"

"I imagine that will be up for debate as well. None of the worlds that we would be targeting during early offensives have substantial Reach populations, so I imagine that any survivors would either be imprisoned until the end of the war or exiled back to the Reach proper."

"Is it your intent that there will still be a Reach proper?"

"The Reach covers a very large area of space. Killing everyone in it is impractical."

"Not what I expected to hear from the man who killed every Citadelian in existence."

"I didn't kill every single one. Just most of them. Once they fell below the level at which they presented an unmanageable threat to my allies there was no longer any purpose in harsher measures. Are you asking because you want their worlds?"

"I asked because I want to know whether we'll have to fight you for them. There are… Certain people, Green Lanterns amongst them, who will defend people like the Reach from punishment. As if their.. weakened status meant that the offences which led to the war did not occur."

"It's a tricky question, but to be honest…" I shake my head, and hope that his implant translates the gesture. "That's such a long way off that I imagine that it will be the topic of discussion for a very long time. I'm confident that a consensus will emerge long before we have to make such a decision."

"Whose consensus?"

"The consensus of everyone who agrees to participate in the campaign under the pact that we'll sign here."

"And if a… Non-signatory chose to conduct their own campaign?"

"There are at least seventy places currently fighting against Reach-affiliated traitors in their own civilisation. A few more where paramilitary groups are still active after a Reach take over. If they actually won, we'd applaud them." I shrug. "And if some other stellar power wanted to take a swing at the Reach, they'd be welcome to. Even somewhere like… Apokolips, for example. If two of our enemies want to spend their strength fighting against each other, who are we to stop them?"

"That is reassuring to know."

"Though… Fighting the Reach directly with a… Single clan fleet probably isn't the best idea. If you're seeking mercenary employment-."

"No, no." It's a little hard to tell, but I think he's… Pleased? "Thank you for telling me your position. It is reassuring to know that this campaign will not be marred by the pointless backstabbing that conflicts in Vega so often were."

"I'm happy to help. But -if you're planning any action- please let us know in advance. It would be so much easier if we can coordinate."

"I'll see what we can do."

 

23rd December
18:03 GMT

I raise my eyebrows. "Well?"

Lantern Dul curls her wings slightly. "There are gordanians looking for work, but they're from the subservient clans. They're offering their standard warships for escort duties."

I shake my head. "Pointless. The Reach don't raid, and Lanterns and Darkstars are already annihilating their pirate proxies. We don't need anyone else on convoy escort duty because we won't be using their existing fleets for the assault and the Reach can't declare war on us without violating their treaty with the Guardians. Anyone else?"

"Some minor local private military groups. The only odd thing… Have you heard of the Citizenry?"

My face stills, my lips taking a decidedly downward turn. "A group of exclusively female murder-hobos. They're on my to-do list, they just haven't reached the top of it yet."

"I.. think I saw two Citizens in the bazaar. Their documentation said they were with another group, but they have a… Citizens have certain habits I've come to recognise."

"How?"

"They asked me to join them, once."

"You said no?"

"I'm not a cannibal. And I fight for higher goals than personal survival. I like having people around me I can depend-" She glances down at her ring as it glows brighter. "-u-pon."

"You should spend more time with Lantern Ragnar. I think you'd get on." Hm. I'd rather deal with Diana's crazy aunt sooner rather than later, but… Fifty percent chance that if she's even in the area she's going to attack the Reach to try and recruit female Beetles… And that's a big 'if'. "File a report, but unless we see warships or Empress Astarte herself they're not an imminent concern. Oh, and well done for gaining insight into your own motivations."

She lifts her left hand a little, staring at the ring on her middle finger.

"That's… It? That's all there is to it?"

"How do you mean? You were a part of the Thanagarian military for years. It's hardly surprising that having been born and raised in a heavily militaristic environment you're used to that lifestyle and regard it as normal and appropriate. The Orange Lantern Corps has a cause not contradictory to your core mission or the good of the Empire in a way that some of your previous temporary affiliations might have been…"

"I want to fight for a c-." Her ring surges again.

I smile kindly at her. "Say it."

"I want to fight for a cause, surrounded by people as devoted to it as I am. I don't want to have to watch my own back every moment, I want to know that I can finally depend on the people around me."

"Don't hang around with people if you wouldn't want to die in their company."

"That's… It? I just think about that and now I'm suddenly a stronger Lantern?"

I hold out my left hand and create a trumpet. "Give it a try. Earn your ring."

Her hand's moving before the mace is even fully formed. "HhhhhhhhhAYAH!"

She swings, her mace destroying my construct as she swipes it through the intervening space.

I smile broadly. "Better. And did you feel the difference?"

She looks at her brightly glowing mace. "Yes." She clenches her right fist, construct armour forming around her body. "I did."

"Good show. Try to keep that frame of mind. Lantern Drusa, anything suspicious in the planet's data networks?"

She shrugs disinterestedly. "Dozens of covert monitoring programs. Nothing special. And no indication that anyone's planning anything. I've already send Administrator Prigatz everything I found on their negotiating positions."

"Odd. Do you think the Reach might have decided to just let this happen?"

"It's… Possible. An attack here would force all of the states on the periphery to work together. The Reach usually prefers to conquer with economic or political manipulation. They can't undermine or infiltrate an organisation that doesn't exist yet."

I snort quietly, nodding as I do so. "You're right. I think I just got too used to Vega." Hm. "Everyone on the periphery is briefed on Reach biomodification and indoctrination techniques. If they've slipped something past our filters, then it's too subtle to change overt behaviour. Lantern R-K'rr, anyone acting outside of their usual manners?"

"Teacher, not to a noteworthy degree. Today has mostly involved Administrator Prigatz passing out information for the delegates' consideration. The true negotiations will begin tomorrow."

I close my eyes for a moment, then turn my head in the approximate direction of the Reach homeworld and look at the desires emanating from that direction. I don't get any detail, just a general sense of Reachiness. Not like anything I've felt flying around this city.

"Then perhaps we'll be fortunate. Any chance we'll have an agreement by the end of tomorrow?"

"Teacher, it is doubtful. Do you think that the odds of us being attacked will increase?"

"No, but there's a major festival on my homeworld the day after next and I'd like to be able to go back for it. And my girlfriend's doing her Darkstar entry assessment and I'll have to fly her back… Clarissi Dox finally called me in for something, I don't really want to disappear after a couple of days, but…"

Lantern Dul frowns for a moment, then shrugs. "I doubt you need to be here all the time. And your file says that you can teleport instantly from anywhere."

"True."

I step out

and back again just behind her to demonstrate. "But other members of the Corps can't. I think it would be unprofessional to treat myself as a special case. And while I can teleport anywhere from anywhere, Jade can't. If I got recalled during the return trip I'd have to dump her in interstellar space. And while she's usually fairly understanding I think that would put me in the dog house."

Lantern Dul twists her right wing tip slightly. "Why not ask Lantern Scott to escort her and join her once the festival begins?"

"Because he's a lot slower than me. I don't know how much long ranged ring flying you've been doing, but I've always found it kind of-."

For a moment there's a discordant note in the patterns of desire around us, as if a desperate need suddenly appeared and then vanished again. Too fast for me to characterise it or precisely locate it. That way, but…

"Did any of you feel that?"

Blank looks from Dul and R-K'rr. Drusa shakes her head, her eyes glowing orange as she accesses the planet's communications network. "No reports of anything significant. What did you feel?"

"An out of place desire." I rise in the air and head for the exit. "Follow me. We're investigating."

 

23rd December
18:06 GMT

Flying over the city-. Ring, I didn't think to ask. What's it called?

Youlsi.

Flying over the centre of the city of Youlsi, I get my first look at the native species away from the diplomatic… I think that keep is the right term. Possibly due to local hostilities the buildings appear to be organised into clusters of fortified domes. The city as a whole has defence shields and I can see that quite a lot of more recent construction has happened with only token fortification attempts. But the whole thing suggests a very defensive-militaristic attitude.

Which is fine for our purposes, I suppose.

The locals are lilac-skinned humanoids, differing from the baseline form in the size of their fingers and toes. Their distant ancestors were burrowers rather than tree-dwellers, and their limbs still bear the signs of having been digging implements. Civilian traffic is ground bound or subterranean, and the diplomatic protection gunships flash… Brown lights at us to show that we're clear to depart.

"Teacher, what are we looking for?"

"I'm not sure. Something out of place. Something that shouldn't be there."

Empathic vision shows… A fairly typical blend of humanoid desires. Ah, the other reason for the domes is that low level agoraphobia is pretty common amongst the local population. That explains the broad-brimmed hats and wide awnings.

Lantern Dul's ring lights up as she waves it in an arc. "I'm not detecting any weapon fire."

Lantern Drusa switches from monitoring local news broadcasts to monitoring security feeds. She makes momentary eye contact with me and shakes her head.

Ring, any unusual radiation patterns, or… Anything like that?

Typical patterns for this region not known. No obvious danger signs detected.

"Lantern R-K'rr, what sort of use do these people make of civilian teleportation?"

"Teacher, they make use of large platforms for point to point travel. They use them for bulk intercity transportation. Personal teleportation is virtually unknown."

"How 'virtually' is virtually?"

"The technology is not considered to be safe. Certain government officials have recall devices with which they may be evacuated if they are in danger. Certain wealthy individuals are known to use a similar system. Point to point teleportation is unknown."

"Ring, scan for known teleportation residues and.. magic."

Lantern Dul frowns. "Magic?"

"I know this world is thaumically near-inert, but if something squirrelly is happening magic is a possibility that it's worth eliminating."

"I didn't think power rings could detect magic."

"Orange power rings can assimilate things. Not just people, but-. Lantern Drusa saw me steal Lantern Zartok's construct?" Lantern Dul looks at her and gets a distracted nod. "You can drain energy without using constructs just as a function of the orange light. And once you've learned the feel of it-"

"No unexpected teleportation residues found. No significant 'magic' energy found."

"-you can detect it."

"Tea.. cher..?" All Lantern R-K'rr's eyes focus on me. "'Magic'?"

Lantern Dul nods. "Thanagarians didn't used to believe in it either. Some of my people still insist Hyathis uses plant-based biotechnology."

"And they're not precisely wrong… Any more than they would be wrong to say that the Seven Devils created nth metal with advanced metallurgy. It's just that-."

"The Seven Devils are real?" Lantern Dul stares at me, her eyes locked onto-. Onto my throat, actually. Huh. Her body language has adapted to non-thanagarian humanoids so much that I haven't needed my ring to interpret for me. But that is a thanagarian sign of shock and perceived threat.

"I'm not sure whether 'are' or 'were' is appropriate, but yes, to the best of my knowledge, at some point in Thanagar's past, they lived there. It's a shame there's nothing left of your magic traditions, really."

But that's not what happened here. Using magic to teleport to a place where magic is weak is supposed to be near-impossible. Sephtian seemed to think that it should be possible via the Dreaming, but that no Atlantean thaumaturgist knew enough about the place to even begin to work out a technique. An enchanted marker stone might work, but… Again, not detecting any magic.

"I have something." I turn my attention to Lantern Drusa. "Members of a species who weren't invited to the conference and don't live in this region are inside Yannakaan dome."

"Tourists?"

"No visa was granted and there are no immigration records."

"It's a start. Got a pictu-" She turns her construct-screen around. "-re?"

Ah. Oh dear.

I'll say this for qwardians, they're not body shy. The four hulking brutes with him are mutant-slaves, like the ones I saw when I visited their homeworld. They're actually wearing armour and equipment harnesses this time, so I'm going to assume at least a basic intelligence.

"Dul, alert city authorities. Encourage them to quietly evacuate that dome. R-K'rr, inform Administrator Prigatz. Drusa, with me."

I fly at high speed in the direction of Yannakaan dome. Scanning… No, I can't get them, though under the circumstances I'm sure that city authorities will forgive me hijacking their internal monitoring equipment. They're just walking through the dome's main thoroughfare like they own the place. Well, he's walking like he owns the place. The warrior slaves are just sort of trudging along behind him. The locals are giving them space, but they don't seem particularly worried.

Ring, contact Kalmin.

Compliance.

"What?"

That's not coming from my rings, but it's definitely his voice.

"Kalmin, a qwad-. A q'ardajin party has appeared at the treaty conference. Do you recognise his face?"

Ring, transmit image.

Compliance.

"The clone-slaves are a new model. Varnathon's idea, no doubt. Such creatures have no place in the field. Their leader… He appears to have had further work done, but his name is St'nlli. He was altered by our mastermedics to serve as a spy on your home world, then augmented further once his original mission was completed. The last time I saw him he had mind controlled Lantern Jordan before one of the other Green Lanterns teleported him somewhere in order to remove him from the field."

"What can he do?"

"Superq'ardajin strength, endurance, speed and force manipulation. He can fly at will, and turn the allies of those around him into enemies. It is possible that he has been augmented further. I haven't seen him since that day."

"And his character?"

"Proud and loyal. An excellent warrior. If only he served another master."

"Thank you. I'll see what I can do about that."

 

23rd December
18:10 GMT

The dome is just ahead, and there's still no panic inside.

"Evacuation is in progress. Local police are communicating that they are triggering a staged fire alert."

I nod. "Pass on my thanks."

"Are these men the same species as Kalmin?"

I nod. "Yes. More or less. Qwardians aren't precious about biological alterations, though it's not a particularly popular speciality amongst the Weaponer class."

"I read your report on your mission to Qward." She shakes her head, her environmental shield briefly dimming. "I am not ready to fight Thunderers."

"Qwardians are not a subtle people. When they attack, they do so with overwhelming power. If there were Thunderers here, then the planet would already be covered in qwa-matter detonations." I shrug. "I don't know why they're sending a small force. Kalmin doesn't respect his successor, but I get the impression that he's repositioning his people as arms merchants rather than destroyers and conquerors. I doubt that they're here to shop, but they might just want to sell us guns."

"And if he is here to fight?"

"Since it's just a small group, this isn't an invasion. So he's either here to talk or this is a matter of personal pride. He… Might have been to my homeworld before, but I've never met him. And Maltus hasn't had direct contact with Qward… Ever. I can't predict what he'll do until I talk to him. If we fight, your job will be to corral his escort until I can defeat or kill him."

"Lantern Dul is-."

"Thanagarians are resistant to telepathy due to the nth metal in their bodies, but you and I are the only Lanterns on this planet-." Ah. "One moment. Ring, contact Lantern K'ryssma."

"Compliance."

"Probably the only Lanterns on this planet who are trained to resist telepathy. Telepathy is a really good way of shutting down power rings, even if he can't manipulate our minds in other ways." I look her over as we head toward the nearest dome entrance. "Do you have armour or a personal force field emitter?"

"I'm wearing them."

I frown and-. Oh. A weak plasmic field emitter and some carbon nanotube plates. "Not a good time now, but we're probably going to need to upgrade your equipment sooner rather than later. Ring, armour."

My heavy powered exoskeleton appears around me, my vision wavering for a moment as the pickups stabilise my visual field.

"I prefer subtle-." I go invisible and then phase out. She blinks, then I phase back in.

My ring blinks. "Answer."

Lantern K'ryssma's head appears over my ring as I become visible once more. "Yes, Illustres?"

"A small group of Qwardians have appeared. Their leader is called St'nlli, and apparently he's telepathic. I'm about to confront him. Are you trained to resist telepathic intrusion?"

"No. You should evacuate-."

"Already doing that. If you're available, I'd appreciate it if you'd come to our location and serve as rearguard."

"I will be there shortly."

Someone in uniform -a local police officer- is waving a stream of evacuees away from the entrance we're approaching. I wave, then fly in through the open gates at maximum safe speed. The steady stream of locals parts around me but there isn't really an 'open' space in here, just larger tunnels. Internal monitoring shows me the Qwardians onward and to the left and I'm not just appearing because Qward has known for generations how to disrupt Lantern FTL.

Ring, grab a local screen and transmit.

Compliance.

"Mister St'nlli, what can I do for you?"

I watch him come to a halt and turn to face the public information display. "You can deliver to me the Green Lantern of Earth."

"Which one? There are four."

"The most experienced."

"I can call him, but it might take him a while to get here. Is there something I can do for you in-?"

"You, you are human as well. And a Lantern. I will kill you to draw him out!"

"We're not exactly-" The stream of evacuees falls off as we move into a larger tunnel, and I get enough space to accelerate further. "-close."

"I care not. Tell me your location or I begin killing these simpletons."

He raises his right hand and a wafting yellow energy field forms around it. His immediate surroundings are.. still somewhat occupied. The people there are beginning to leave, but it looks like local fire drills involve people leaving when they're told to and not before.

I generate a railgun construct and load a crumbler round. "Why are you here?"

"I was told there was a human Lantern here." He points his hand at a nearby wall and makes a pulling gesture. His aura immediately jumps to the wall and rips it apart. No one there.

"By whom?"

"It is of no significance. I exist to kill Lanterns! Now-."

My crumbler round covers the intervening distance with a sonic boom, striking him directly in the chest-. And being destroyed by his aura. He looks around, crouching slightly as I reload with tungsten and fire a volley from my position on the far side of the tunnel.

Ring, tell the police to evacuate now.

Compli-

**DESTROY ALL!**

-ance.

Ugh. Not a bad mental compulsion, but between-.

St'nlli bats my shots aside with his yellow aura and leaps from the gantry on the far side of the tunnel, shooting toward me through the air at high speed. Solid shots ineffective. I discard the railgun and form a yellow laser and a cold gun. The laser hits his bare chest and does little while the cold beam-

"Weak!"

-is somehow neutralised by his aura.

Then he punches me, his kinetic energy being easily absorbed by my kinetic barrier. He actually stops dead for a moment, and I use the opportunity to trigger my gauntlet's crumbler effect and slam both palms into his bare chest. His aura wavers for a moment and then turns red-.

I smell myself burning for half a second before I phase, fly left as fast as I can and then phase in, loading phasic rounds into my new railgun even as he turns to face me with a snarl.

 

23rd December
18:13 GMT

Two hits, one creating a breach in his glowing red aura and the second impacting on his skin… To no observable effect. He gestures with his right hand and the aura leaps toward my railgun. Where it touches, the construct melts away into an amorphous blob of orange light, the energy remaining present but losing cohesion.

"Lantern Drusa."

Can't reform the gun, so I just draw the energy back into my rings and fire it at him. No effect. Construct battering ram, no effect. X-ionised-.

He swipes his arm right andagghr. A prickling sensation I know to be the result of my rings nullifying extreme pain is coming from every part of my body, my environmental shield-.

The aura turns yellow as he gestures down and I'm sent flying into the floor of the tunnel! D-AH! My kinetic shield fails to trigger -I think the emitters have been destroyed- and my environmental shield is gone. Re-establish.

"Kill his-"

Construct shield seems pointless, given his ability to neutralise constructs. I phase, dropping through the floor of the tunnel before he can reach me again. Utility tunnel should be yes. I drop phase, take a frisbee-sized metal disc out of subspace and begin x-ionising it.

"-retinue but do not-"

Rock explodes, the side of the utility tunnel facing the main tunnel flying away in the grip of St'nlli's yellow aura. Dust sticks around, so his grip isn't flawless.

"-engage directly. Dul and R-K'rr-"

I dash back, phase again and shoot upward through the rock. I've misjudged his position slightly and rather than blindside him I come out in the corner of his eye. He hurls his avalanche my way as I phase back in.

"-assist the evacuation, then act as-"

The first few lumps of stone are harmlessly stopped or turned aside by my newly repaired kinetic barrier.

"-backstops in case they try to-"

Then the red aura turns back on and I hear a quiet fizz sound as my kinetic barrier fails. I start repairing it immediately, but I'm encased in semi-molten rock before the field can come back up. The external surface of my armour is heating up, but I designed it for this sort of punishment. Approximately speaking. Molten rock isn't anything like as hot as some of the weapons I tested on it.

"-leave the area."

Can't see St'nlli himself, but his slaves have pale desires I can use to navigate.

I step out

and then back in a little way down the tunnel from him as the sphere of rubble he was using to crush me compresses inward. I feel Lantern Drusa move cautiously through cover some distance down the main tunnel with her environmental shield turned well down. St'nlli's bodyguard -assuming that they aren't just porters- are lumbering away in pairs. Lantern Drusa appears willing to do the job, but I suppose I shouldn't expect enthusiasm at this early stage.

"Teacher, I obey." / "Yes, Illustres!"

This time I make four railguns and immediately have them fire a barrage of phasic rounds. St'nlli winces as his barrier wavers, dropping the gelatinous rubble ball and orientating himself toward me. Load an x-ioniser spike in place of a phasic round now-.

"Ah!"

Damn it! He switched his aura back to yellow and dodged aside just as I fired! It doesn't.. look like the Qwardian scientists who modified him found a way to add rapid regeneration to the mix, but the shallow cut to his chest and a slightly deeper one to his left arm aren't even disabling injuries. He's bleeding, but-. Okay, restore kinetic barrier.

He checks his wound, dull red blood dripping from the cut on his arm. "Clever." His aura changes colour to.. grey..? And my phasic rounds stop making an impact. Phase disruptor, but if it's more or less line of sight like the others… Just have to watch the colour. I switch to solid shots-.

He covers the distance between us as I blink, his fists slamming into my newly recreated kinetic barrier twice before he switches his barrier back to red and destroys it! My own clumsy swings are turned aside easily -he's a lot faster than me- and he continues battering me even as I fly backwards, jerking left and right in a frantic attempt to find space-. Yes! He jinked the wrong way! Vertigo inducer!

He flies past me, gripping his head as he slams into one of the balconies along the tunnel side and smashes through it! Restore kinetic barrier again, construct armour, keep the inducer-.

His aura shifts back to yellow as he climbs to his feet, wiping the vomit from his mouth with his uninjured arm. Not affected any more. Fine, program vertigo inducers for remote activation, scatter them around using filaments, switch to… Don't want to repeat myself, try a laser instead but make it look like a railgun. Use a bit more power than the first time since I know it's going to penetrate-.

And miss as he lunges for me again cold field! No good! It looks like the yellow form of his aura doesn't transmit heat! This time he rains punches down on my faceplate, though with his aura still on yellow mode it doesn't do quite the damage his red mode did. I grab his left forearm with both hands as he tries to get a grip, turn the crumble effect up to maximum and wrench it in an attempt to throw him off! He turns his aura red-

**KILL ALL AROUND YOU!**

-and the fingers of his right hand rip through my construct armour and environmental shield to leave melted finger marks on my armour in the second before I remote trigger my vertigo inducers and hurl him aside! He has the wherewithal to go yellow again, but he doesn't get control of his momentum back fast enough to evade my laser construct!

"Eh."

Minor burn, right in the middle of his chest. I pour it on, causing angry welts to appear as the beam moves over his chest. He brings his hands together, lumps of rubble coming together to form a barrier in front of him.

"Progress report."

"Teacher, the dome is completely evacuated. Local military units are on stand by. Do you require aid?"

"No. Drusa?"

"One pair dead. The last pair are returning."

"Good work."

I create a singularity beam projector construct and send it down toward the base of the tunnel. This will go straight through the walls and I don't want to hit anyone I'm not aiming at. Nothing in.. space above us. Military aircraft are keeping low, good.

External. "Mister St'nlli, could I persuade you to surrender? We could use a man of your abilitie-."

His rubble shield blasts towards me, a quick but intense flicker of red turning it liquid! I activate the vertigo inducers at the same time as generating a cold field in front of me and flying backwards away from the oncoming mass. His aura goes back to yellow almost immediately, but as the magma reaches my cold field it flash freezes and explodes! He loses his grip and I take a shot with the singularity beam. I.. think I hit, but between his ring resistance and the-.

"Warning. Antimatter transition detected."

Damn it! I abandon all other constructs in favour of clearing my sight lines, and-.

Ugh! His two remaining henchmen grab me, grappling in an attempt to rip my ring arms off! My armour creaks from their raw power, but they aren't disrupting my constructs. The x-ionised disc I didn't get to use on St'nlli floats up behind the one on my right before lunging in through his neck! His head flies free in a burst of high pressure blood and I palm-punch the slave on my left with my right crumbler gauntlet! His face is burned down to the skull and his grip goes slack, causing his dying body to drop to the ground beneath us.

I look up, but St'nlli has made good his escape.

 

23rd December
19:33 GMT

I see Dox sigh as he flies past me and lands next to the point where St'nlli vanished. He doesn't make eye contact with me, and I'd bet that he didn't make eye contact with anyone else on his way in here. Translucent orange light strobes out from his outstretched right arm, his eyes flashing orange as he takes in the data.

He lowers his arm. "Anti-matter transfer. You can't block those."

I nod. "I don't know how to block them. Do you want me to attempt pursuit? I could use a bit more brute force in a place we weren't using for a meeting."

His eyes narrow slightly as he stares at the wall, his mind clearly elsewhere. "No. It would almost certainly be ship-based, and it would have been moved after he returned. Second and third most likely possibilities involve it being planet-based but abandoned or in a secure and heavily trapped facility."

"Can we stop them doing that again?"

"Yes." He turns away from the site and rises into the air, heading back towards the entrance. I take off after him. "I will notify Administrator Prigatz to add anti-matter transfer jammers to our offer. Send him a full recording of your fight to help him make his point."

"Yes, sir. Do you have any observations about the way in which I conducted myself?"

"You should have used the singularity projector as soon as you determined that he was highly resistant to your railgun rounds, rather than attempted to use x-ionised blade weapons or lasers."

"I thought that it might worry people. The x-ray discharges are fairly distinctive…"

"If we were a civil peacekeeping organisation, you would be right. We are not. We are a military organisation. These people will be far happier knowing that we can reliably kill their enemies than they will knowing that we would put them in danger to keep those enemies alive."

"I had ordered an evacuation."

"Yes." He stops and turns in the air to face me. "Overseeing the training of other Lanterns has taught me that a mildly sub-optimal approach such as what you attempted here is significantly preferable to what most of our Lanterns would have done. I am not.. substantially displeased with how you conducted yourself."

I blink. Gosh. "I will be sure to take your instructions in the spirit in which they are intended."

He hesitates for a half-second. "Good."

"On a personal note-."

"Director Jeddigar informed me before I left that Jade Nguyen passed her assessment. Obviously, coming from a technologically primitive civilisation she will require substantial retraining before she can be deployed in the field. Though her practical experience will save time in other areas."

I smile. I didn't doubt it, but it's good to have confirmation. "I'm glad to hear it, but actually-."

"Christmas." He nods. "Given the positive impression you made today, I see little difficulty in allowing you to return to Earth for… How long?"

"Three days would cover my social obligations."

"Your presence should not be essential during that time. Return here afterwards."

"Thank you, but that wasn't actually what I was referring to."

A faint frown. "What was?"

"You've studied my world. You know that we have a small number of people who can create technology generations more advanced than anything we should have. One of these scientists has asked to be put in contact with you."

"That's hardly efficient. If they wish to trade resources they can do so through you."

"I.. think they want to talk to someone who understands what they're doing rather better than I do. Particularly the really advanced social science stuff." I take Georgia Sivana's communicator out of subspace and offer it to him. "Quantum entanglement based. She built this on her own, and human understanding of practical science-."

His frown deepens. "Is nothing like advanced enough to do that." He reaches out and gently takes it from me. "What is the creator's name?"

"Georgia Sivana."

"The young human female who pilfered your subspace pocket."

"That's her."

"And whom you reported is working with her father and brother on technologies for fighting your species' descendants who will return from the future to harvest your world."

"Yes."

He looks at the communicator for a moment, orange light playing over its surface. "Hm." Eyes locked on the device, he turns and flies away.

Gosh. I think that was my friendliest interaction with him yet.

I take a moment to look around the tunnel. The locals have mostly returned, though the area where we fought is cordoned off by the local military. A couple of Darkstars I haven't met before are assisting the scene of crime analysts trying to make sure that the area is safe. It should be, but I don't really know what St'nlli's auras were made of and Qwardians consider bystander casualties more as a feature than a bug.

But there's nothing for me to do here.

I step out

And reappear next to-.

"Say that again."

To Lantern Dul who is glaring at an unimpressed Lantern Drusa.

"I don't know if you have the mental capacity."

"Lantern Drusa, remind me-" They both turn to face me. "-to include social de-escalation in our next session. Lantern Dul, what you're feeling right now is the consequence of your increased understanding of your connection to the orange light. And not in a good way." She simmers down, her environmental shield dimming slightly. "You know what you want, but you're seeing Lantern Drusa as an impediment rather than a resource. Now… Take a breath."

She ruffles her feathers, closes her eyes and breathes in… And out.

"Consider: is assaulting or berating Lantern Drusa likely to result in her being more willing to help you get what you want?"

She takes another breath. "No."

"Then what is the rational way to pursue your own interest?"

"Push down my pride and take her insults."

I frown. "No? Find something she wants and trade. You have skills she lacks just as she has skills you lack, ring power being the most obvious." Lantern Dul nods. "And Lantern Drusa? Good work." She nods. "I don't suppose that killing them involved you getting any sort of personal revelation about your own desires, did it?"

"No."

I nod. "I suppose that would have been a bit convenient."

"But seeing the way you and St'nlli fought, I'm more motivated to seek one out. I wouldn't have survived that fight by myself."

I nod again, smiling. "It's a start."

 

3rd March 2007
19:33 GMT

"Is that it?"

The woman in all-concealing red armor turns her head toward the crystal pillar in the centre of…

"What was it you called this place?"

The helmet includes a voice scrambler, because this is the one place where she doesn't get a do-over. And having Doctor Destiny discover her real face and name seemed like a very bad idea. Even with everything she'd learned about the way this place worked, she was under no illusion as to who its true master was.

The lower part of his jaw -all that was visible behind his skull mask- trembled slightly. Naturally she knew what his real face looked like. His identity hadn't been a secret to begin with, and his mask was more of a prop than a serious attempt to disguise his appearance. And despite visiting his living body in Arkham Asylum on several occasions, somehow, removing his mask here…

She shuddered slightly, the movement disguised by her armor's shock absorbers.

"The materioptikon. Or more accurately, the nexus of a series of fractures within its structure."

For a moment her mind jumps tracks, the experiences of the facet of herself who spent years living amongst magic users of all shades coming to the fore. And the legends of the Endless.

"The Dreamstone."

"No. Otherwise I wouldn't have named it something else. The materioptikon is my attempt to replicate the power of Dream's own gems. Without the insanity-inducing side effects that come from trying to look into the face of eternity with a human mind."

"I saw the pictures in your file."

In the reality where she joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And the reality where she joined the army. And the reality where she joined the Justice League.

"How did you heal yourself? I doubt that Arkham's healthcare is that good."

"Dream… Morpheus decided that since I wasn't in my right mind, he wouldn't take my ongoing theft personally. He restored my body and mind to the state they'd been in before I started using the Dreamstone… But he didn't take my memories."

"And he let you steal it again?"

"No! Honestly, it's like talking to a-." His jaw clenches again. "If I did something like that, knowing what I was doing… Even death wouldn't be enough to protect me from his wrath. No. Once I was discharged, I sought out the lesser stones and learned to touch the Dream through transubstantial mysticism. And with what I learned I created this."

She steps closer. His head is the only part of his body free of the crystal. There shouldn't be any risk… But she's noticed that she's become a good deal more risk-averse since she gained the ability to avoid most risk.

"To what end?"

"The Dream is the wellspring of all that is. Understanding how it relates to the waking world is the most significant scientific endeavour someone can engage in!"

And in the life where she studied with the sages of the White School she learned the usual outcome of trying to follow that path of study. Most learn nothing, some go mad and a few lose the ability to ever wake.

"I ask again-."

"What else is there? I've done everything a supervillain can. I've been rich, famous, adored by millions… I even ruled the world, for a while. What would I get out of fighting the Justice League for a fifth time? What could I do with this power that isn't simply repeating myself?"

She needs to understand this. "You could win."

"I've won before-."

"You lose in the end."

"Everyone loses in the end."

A flashback to every mistimed jump, every instance of being blindsided. Not every instance of her survived long enough to return here and reintegrate.

"Everything that can be built can be torn down. Every victory is fleeting, I know. I have an opportunity for unlimited discovery, a lifetime of doing what I want, what I love. Constantly learning and expanding."

"The journey, not the destination. But if that's the case, why did you fight the Justice League this time?"

"To bring the materioptikon to full power. It needed billions of dreaming minds to form a connection to the Dream. The actual fight was a distraction, an attempt to convince them that I'd returned to my old habits."

"Why? Why not just be patient?"

"Because there are people on Earth who could detect what I was doing and stop me. As it is, any irregularities created by my work will be written off as a product of what they think I did."

She begins to walk in a circle around his crystal prison. "Why would they stop you?"

"I don't have the best-." He tosses his head as she moves out of his visual range. "Really? Have you any idea how petty-?"

"Yes."

And she really does. More than one lifetime spent in the League of Shadows taught her any number of techniques for psychological manipulation. John Dee needs to be kept off balance. At least until she can secure his physical body.

"I can't very well stop you. But will you at least tell me what you're doing?"

She almost laughs.

"I think I'm having the same problem you did. I've used the materioptikon to live dozens of lives. I've learned more about the world than I ever dreamed I could ever learn. But when I think about doing it again…"

"You've already tried everything you want to try. All that's left is mindless repetition or urge indulgence. I know. I've been there, lived that."

"You said it was best to find satisfaction in doing."

"And it is. If you've lived that many lives then you have at least as much experience of this as I do. Can you think of anything better to do with this power?"

"I could wake up."

"And what would you do in the waking world, knowing what you know now? What could you do, but pick one of the dream-lives you've already lived and repeat it?"

What.. indee-?

There's a crack noise as a portal to one of the current simulations opens. She turns to face it, frowning. That was… Temporal physics. She didn't have a perfect memory, but studying various fields in physics to doctorate level repeatedly had left an impression. Time travel was new, though. She wasn't even sure it was poss-.

That version of her strode through the rift, helmeted head immediately seeking her. "Merge with me."

That was.. unusual. Merging made sense, of course. Anything she learned would be shared with all future iterations, and they were essentially the same person. But except in the event of total failures she didn't usually rush into it. Perhaps this iteration managed something truly unique?

She walked over to meet her, only catching a glimpse of the purple-robed figure behind her an instant before they touched.

"Red Queen?"

A moment of bewildering disorientation as the new/old memories organised themselves…

Then she turned toward her ally, and the solution to her oncoming ennui.

"Time Trapper. I'm ready."

 

24th December
09:21 GMT -5

"Are you.. sure this is how you want to spend your Christmas?"

Thomas shrugs as we trudge through the New England snow towards the sparring area. "Nah man. But if the boys back in Belle Reve fidhn owt all we did wuz go t' some shindig at Ma Sivana's house, my rep's gown."

I thought it was rather nice of the legitimate side of the Sivana family to invite Thomas and Tuppence to spend this Christmas with them. And since it makes the Governor of Louisiana happy and reduces the chance of him being motivated to try pardoning them, Ms Waller was willing to sign off on a three day pass for them both. Heck, she didn't even ask me to guarantee it this time.

I'd have made a crack about turning her into a liberal, but I'm not sure that she wouldn't have changed her mind just to spite me.

"The Sivana household is noted for producing noteworthy supervillains. Even the younger children are wanted for a laundry list of crimes."

"Yeyeh, but Ma Sivana's an accountant or something. I don't think folks gonna see it that way."

"She's.. not an accountant. She's an auditor."

He gives me a blank look, and the ground shakes beneath us. We both ignore it.

"Basically, she makes sure that companies aren't lying to people about how much money they're making or how much money they owe." He's still looking blank. But he doesn't seem irritated about it, which is progress. "Like a parole officer, but for big companies rather than people."

He grins. "Oh!"

"Although given her seniority, it's more like she's a supervisor for a bunch of parole officers rather than doing it herself."

The ground shakes again.

"How'd she meet… Y'know… Ah mean, y'all don't get t'be a parole.. auditor by hanging out with no supervillains."

"They met in college, and divorced when he went full career criminal. He actually tried making money legitimately with his inventions before that."

"That not work out so good? Ah mean, if he finished up a supervillain…"

"It didn't work out so good. I'm still not really sure why; the man's antisocial but his work's brilliant."

Thomas frowns in thought. I wait for a moment.

"That's the present tense."

"Ah. Yes?"

"Abra did this whole tawk on different ways a' sayin' stuff 'cause of when it happens. 'His work's brilliant' means 'his work raight now's brilliant'. Not his work back then."

"I've never been much good at formal English."

"An' alla the stuff you saw on Venus, that wuz old stuff."

"None of it was new, certainly."

His eyes widen. "You been seein' him!"

I keep my face calm. "Do you want me to say something you might have to lie about to Warden Waller?"

"You didn't put him in no prison."

"If I knew a mad scientist, and I was reasonably confident that he wasn't about to launch any random attacks on civilisation, and I had something I needed him to do, I would have no pressing reason to imprison him."

"Y'all got him workin' fer you?"

"I have received certain information-" Tuppence's head appears over the rise a little way in front, and I wave as she falls back towards the ground. "-that the Earth is facing an invasion from the future in the not-too-distant future. Also, I don't really-." Kraft and all of their malevolent minions have all but capitulated on the Cadbury's matter but I haven't bought it yet, and when The Vega Project starts work I'll be an investor rather than an employer. "-employ people. Certain classes of supervillain become exceedingly unreasonable if they think someone is telling them what to do."

"Oochff!"

Donna slams into the rise in an explosion of snow and earth, then bounces before coming to rest just in front of us. She takes a couple of breaths, then pushes herself up.

"You alright there? Because if you want to swap out-?"

"Yeah." She clambers to her feet. "Just took me-. I mean, her punches are usually so clumsy. I wasn't ready for her to actually get it right."

I wait for Thomas to leap to his sister's defence, but he doesn't look like-. Oh, come on. I know she's breathing heavily in sweaty, tight-fitting exercise clothes and she's basically a younger copy of the most attractive woman on the planet, but that's no reason-

She rises off the ground slightly and flies back in the direction of our ersatz sparring arena.

-to stare like an uncultured brute-.

I look at Thomas again.

Ah.

My first instinct is to take the piss. Something about clubbing her over the head and dragging her back to his cave. But… That's a bad idea here. I remember reading the comic where Da Bomb actually tried that with Power Girl… Plus, me taking the piss is just going to push him away.

"I'm not saying that she's out of your league-"

He tears his eyes away as she drops out of view. "Huh?"

"-but she's probably out of your division."

"Ahhh…"

Is he-? Oh goodness me, he's actually blushing. Right, really don't take the piss.

He shrugs, slumping slightly. "Aw, hell man. I know thayet. It was jus'-."

"Yeah, she was suddenly right there." He nods, looking slightly relieved. "I remember the first time I met Wonder Woman. By the time I got to her face she was like-." I raise my eyebrows slightly and tilt my head forward, a placid but mildly amused expression on my face.

He chuckles, nodding. "I don't-." He immediately sombres up. "Doc Quinzel says we should tawk about our feelin's an' stuff?"

"Yes, that's.. probably a good idea?"

"Kissed a girl one time. I didn't mean-. We wuz friends, growin' up? I liked her an' she liked me…" He stands there awkwardly for a moment. "Next day her mouth wuz all bruised up, like someone hit her with a bat. Her folks didn't want her to have nothin' t'do with me."

I nod. "Doctor Munro mentioned having a similar problem."

"But… Girl who's super strong lihk me an' Tuppy… An' ain't Devastation, 'cause-."

I nod. "You don't need to explain that one. Though I should point out that they're technically sisters."

Thomas boggles for a moment, blinks, then shakes his head as if trying to dislodge the image I just put there.

"Aw mahn, that is some bull shit!"

 

24th December
17:42 GMT -1

"Lord Cyprian. Thank you for agreeing to see me."

The somewhat haggard-looking Atlantean Pureblood opposite me nods distractedly. "I must admit, I was expecting a visit like this."

I frown. "Well… Yes. I did apply to meet with a member of your government two months ago." Just before all of that… Time travel nonsense. "I realise that relations with the surface aren't Venturia's priority… At this point I'd rather assumed that you were refusing to meet me."

We're meeting in a drawing room adjacent to the main throne room. Contrary to both my expectations and the style of Poseidonis, the majority of the room is air-filled. Given that Venturia never traditionally had much truck with purebloodism, it's a curious design choice. I mean, there are any number of practical advantages, but if anywhere was going to do this sort of thing I'd have expected just about anywhere else ahead of Atlantis's isolationist southern-most city.

His eyes narrow slightly. "You're not here from King Orin."

"No? Should I be?"

"Ah." His eyes dip for a moment. "No, I.. suppose not. It's simply that I have been expecting a representative of his for some time. Given the work you have done in Poseidonis and the fact that you aren't an Atlantean citizen, I assumed that he was getting in touch obliquely."

"My.. relationship with King Orin isn't as bad as I thought it was, but we're nothing like close enough for him to use me as a diplomatic envoy. Even a back-channels one. If anyone, he'd.. probably ask Princess Diana." He sags a little and I raise my eyebrows. "I hope I haven't made a nuisance of myself. I didn't mean to come here under false pretences."

He studies me impassively for a moment. "No, no, the fault is mine. Your original application was most likely rejected out of hand either by my aunt personally or by a courtier in accordance with her standing instructions. I simply-." He takes a breath. "My aunt died recently."

I bow my head. "My condolences."

"It wasn't exactly a shock… But the subject of the succession is likely to be the trigger for a new round of disputes between Venturia and Poseidonis. Not that that's.. your problem." He smiles joylessly.

"I'm happy to take King Orin a message, but… As a foreigner, I would.. rather not involve myself in internal Atlantean political affairs."

"Thank you." He nods. "I will prepare a missive before you depart." I nod in return and begin to rise, but he holds up his right hand to stop me. "What.. was it that you wanted to speak with me about?"

"Not.. you specifically. Whoever is responsible for your arcane research policy."

"Project approval goes through me at the moment, so I'm the one you need to talk to. I've…" He reaches out with his left hand and indicates a rack of arcane data storage devices. "I've tried to keep up to date with the latest developments, but I imagine that you're more in the know than I am."

"My overview of the projects might be, but I doubt that my knowledge of magic theory is anything like as good as yours."

"Given everything that's happened I'm afraid that it might be, these days. In my youth I was working to become an archmage, but… The needs of the state were… Are, more important than my personal ambitions. I rather imagine that I've fallen behind. I'm afraid that Venturia doesn't participate in research projects conducted under the auspices of the Poseidonis Conservatory of Sorcery."

"Yes, I noticed that. As I said, internal Atlantean political disputes don't matter to me. You don't want to work with them? Fine. But you still have experts of your own, and I came here because I'm hoping that you could perform a separate project for me."

"I'm.. not sure what we can add to the resources already at your disposal."

"I've… Rather overloaded Sephtian's team. They want to do things with what they've already learned and I keep wanting them to do new things. And I value everything that they're doing, but that still leaves me with things I need to learn."

"Such as?"

"The precise structural link between the material Earth, Earth's arcane systems and the Dream."

He makes a sort of cough-laugh noise. "And.. you think.. we know?"

"No, if I thought you knew I'd just ask 'how much?' and we'd negotiate. I know full well that this will be a long term research project. Now, I've read up on previous studies, and it seems to me that they essentially consisted of trying to use dreams as an access point for sensory spells."

"Solo efforts generally involved insanity-inducing trances, and there have been far more of those. But yes, that's how it has been done on…" His eyes look up for a moment. "Three..? Occasions I recall reading about."

"I want to study the Earth's magic fields instead, and try to discern the nature of their connection. I understand that it.. may come to nothing, but it seems to me that if we know that magic originates there, there must be a connection we can… Measure. How much is the Earth's magic changing, how fast, why…"

"I don't believe that such research would be contrary to Venturia's interests. So long as you understand that our government will insist on being kept apprised of the project's progress."

I shrug. "I was going to share it with everyone anyway."

He sits back slightly, frowning curiously. "Why are you interested? As I understand it, your ring isn't in any way magical."

"Are you aware of this system's new planet?"

"I could hardly miss it. Several prognosticators became quite ill when it arrived."

"It's controlled by a member of my Corps named Mother of Mercy. When I met her, to find out whether or not I was trustworthy, she put me in an… Call it an illusion, where all of my desires were realised. And one of the things that it showed me was an arcane device called a Root of Yggdrasil. I know.. using magic becomes progressively harder the further you go from a magic-rich planet, and that was.. the device illusion-me used to bypass the problem."

"But it was not real."

"No. But it got around a fairly major problem we're going to have with arcane technology: if it just stops working when it gets past the moon. So I want to find out whether or not it can be real."

He nod contemplatively. "You understand that we don't have access to many of the amenities that you may have become used to in the laboratories of Poseidonis."

"Lord Cyprian, we haven't even started negotiating on a price yet. If you want unclassified information or technology, I'm happy to provide it. I can't enchant things myself, of course."

His face stills. "You're willing to offer us an arcane forge?"

I nod. "Or several. They aren't classified. In fact, Sephtian has been trying to encourage more people to build them. They're so much more efficient than traditional enchantment."

He nods definitively. "You have my provisional agreement. Please understand that this isn't really something that we can begin work on now-"

"Of course."

"-but once things are settled politically I will arrange a meeting between you and our archmages, and we can discuss the precise terms of our contract."

"Thank you, Lord Cyprian. I will be delighted to work with them."

 

24th December
13:57 GMT -5

Jade takes a moment to attach her translation headphones, then jerks her head from side to side to make sure that they aren't likely to fall out. "Test. Test. Test." She frowns faintly. "I can hear the vibrations of what I'm saying through my skull, but the headphones are only playing English."

"That's the easiest to use model, I'm afraid. All of the others are significantly more invasive." I look her over. "Going in armour is an option. Your exo-mantle has integrated translation equipment."

"I'm going to stick out enough as it is." She checks herself in her bedroom mirror once more. "How do I look?"

"Oh! My heart's delight!
Oh! Lady of such gl-."

She turns her head to glare at me.

"The style is a little outside of Themysciran norms, though not enough to stick out. The colouration and use of pattern on the other hand are radically different to anything that they're used to. I find them appealing, but surface light is so little of what-."

"Of what you see-" She nods, returning her attention to the mirror. "-that I could wear a sack and you'd still love it."

I walk up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her into my chest. "And don't doubt it for a moment." Maybe I could-? "Hm."

"'Hm' what?"

"It just occurred to me that while I could connect myself to your visual cortex to-" She pulls away slightly. "-show you emotions as I perceive them, I'm the one person whose emotions I can't show you."

She turns around, smiling, my arms still loosely draped around her waist. "You're not doing a terrible job." She tilts her head back invitingly, and I gently lower my lips to hers. I don't follow though on my impulse to hug her tighter, because that would crease her dress and earn us a comment from Artemis. As we kiss I close my eyes and probe her with my empathic sense, gazing directly at her love for me and contentment with the situation. I haven't ever been as happy as I am now and I don't think that she has either.

No comment on a good chunk of that being due to the fact that she's confirmed as joining the Darkstars, and as a result we'll be spending a good deal of time apart.

Planning Christmas has been.. interesting this year. The Nguyens got an invitation to spend Christmas with the Crocks, which I thought was nice. The problem is that there's no zeta tube anywhere near where they live. So Artemis would be unable to take part in any emergencies that might arrive over the holiday. Staying in Gotham would make it just the three of them, as they don't have any other family in the area.

I'd rather like to spend the day with Alan and Jade, the closest thing I have to family on Earth 16. The problem is, with Alan pretty much outed and me not having a secret identity us both showing up at the Crock residence or them coming to New York combined with her mother being a convicted master thief and her sister being convicted of being a member of the League of Shadows risks Artemis losing plausible deniability as well. At some point even the GCPD have to pick up the clues. I still think that it's only the fact that she mostly operates at night on the other side of the country that has prevented that happening already. That, and the fact that there's no angle in it for the Light.

So where do we spend Christmas? My ice fortress was an option, but it's totally isolated and not exactly roomy inside. The kitchen is fine if you're just going to be there for a few days, but it's not really Christmas dinner worthy. Plus I haven't prioritised noise cancellation away from the main generator and Jade and I aren't exactly quiet when we're together.

Diana was the one who came to our rescue. Themyscira doesn't really have Christmas, but it's a big deal in the rest of the world and with the increasing (that is to say, some) integration that's starting to happen Queen Hippolyta knows that it would help if Amazons learned a bit more about Christian-orientated culture. Since celebratory days in honour of one god or another are pretty common on Themyscira already, doing Christmas wasn’t anything like as big a deal as I thought that it might be.

I lift my face away just as she starts to get uncomfortable with the fact that she can't check her lines of sight, and from her momentary wry smile I think she knows it. "Is there anything else I need to know about Themyscira?"

"Nothing maj-. Ah, maybe… One thing?"

"How bad?"

"No, not… Bad. Just something to be aware of. You know that Amazon society -even before the exile- was homonormative?"

"I thought you said some of them tried hitting on you."

"They had sex between men and women a couple of times a year during major festivals for procreating. Them hitting on me means that they think I'd be a good sire for their children, not that they wanted to have what you and I would think of as a normal romantic relationship." Ah… "Mostly. I think.. one of them…" I shake my head. "It's now common knowledge that you and I are a couple, so that won't be a problem."

"Uh-huh."

"The problem that's more likely to emerge is that they don't see heterosexual relationships as being equally.. 'significant' to homosexual ones, and they might hit on you. I mean, you're… Really their type."

"I'll try and control myself."

"They also.. might try coming onto both of us together." Jade looks decidedly unamused. "Sorry."

"Unless you're a time traveller, Amazon sex lives aren't your fault." She sighs and looks down by my chest for a moment. "We… Need to talk about… That, though."

"Having sex with Amazons? I didn't think you'd be interested."

"No, not-." She looks up again. "Us. Family. What I'm going to do with this apartment."

I shrug. "I can put your belongings in storage easily enough. Or transport them to Maltus. Darkstar accommodation isn't exactly Spartan. Unless you want to keep it."

"I don't-." She leans into me slightly. "No, I do. This is the first place I've lived in that's actually been mine. I want to keep it."

"You can do that."

"How..?"

"Ask me."

She snorts faintly. "I think when you move in with your boyfriend you're supposed to actually be there."

"I'll be happy to keep the place warm for you, to be in tip top condition whenever you return. Though I might make a few modifications." I shrug. "You know how I get when I think something can be improved."

"Just so long as I can still recognize it."

"Of course."

"And family."

"As I said, I do want to marry you but I don't really think that married life is compatible with being at opposite ends of the galaxy or.. not really seeing much of each other when we are in the same Space Sector."

"The war with the Reach is probably going to take longer than our lives."

"No."

She pulls away so that she can look me in the eyes again. "'No', as in there's a plan to end it faster?"

"'No' as in 'I don't age'. At least, I don't at the moment. But… I have given it some thought. Once we've built up, and invaded the periphery in earnest, there's a… Natural break? Once we take all of the worlds that haven't been fully integrated and resettled. That's going to take.. at least years. But at that point there'll be far less demand on either of our services."

She nods. "Okay. That's… Okay. And what about children?"

"I suppose it depends on whether you want to return to the Darkstars or not after having them."

She smiles weakly. "Not prepared to be a stay at home dad?"

"I'm not-. No… Actually, I would be. But I'm… I'm aware that my behaviour can be fairly…"

"Mn."

"Inhuman. And I'm not sure that having me as the primary caregiver would be.. a good idea."

"As oppose to a serial killing assassin raised by professional criminals?" She exhales heavily through her nostrils. "I didn't ask if you actually want children."

"Honestly, I'm indifferent. But you do, and I won't do less than the best job I can when it comes to getting you what you want."

 

24th December
14:15 GMT -5

Jade looks at the embassy's dolmen gate with the sort of impassivity she usually shows when she's concerned that she might feel nervous and is pre-emptively clamping down on it.

"What does it feel like?"

M'gann shakes her head. "It doesn't really feel like anything. Like.. stepping through thin air."

M'gann is wearing her shape shifting clothing, this time having it assume the appearance of a formal chiton/himation combination. It's mostly blue in colour, presenting a contrast to her chalk white skin tone.

Kon nods. "The first time I went through one, it took me a moment to realise that I'd actually gone anywhere."

He on the other hand is wearing pink. Alright, the outer layer is purple but the tunic beneath is clearly a good deal lighter. Given how basic his actual taste in clothing is, I imagine that it's something that Diana picked out for him. He's also wearing the diadem Io made for him, and every so often he reaches up to check that it hasn't fallen off. Mister J'onzz was wearing something similar right up until he saw that Alan was wearing jeans and a shirt and Diana's in what I recognise as her 'party frock' chiton. Paula and Artemis are actually dressed more like Jade; I don't think that Themyscira has ever seen an Ao Dai before, and-.

Should I have warned Paula that she might get attention of a sort she might not be prepared for? A still-athletic older woman with two physically capable daughters would have been considered a good catch in the old city. Not sure how it.. works now. The sample size of foreign women who visit is just too small. I know I already warned Artemis… Oh, I'm sure that she can take care of herself.

I'm wearing my Orange Lantern Corps robes, because even if being a Themysciran citizen means that I've got to wear a dress then at least I don't have to wear a frilly thing. Sword of the Fallen and Ace of Winchesters, because I'm not an idiot…

Diana looks over the assembled party. "If everyone is prepared?"

I attach a filament to Jade to share my enhanced ambient light vision. Themyscira is eight hours ahead and the sun there has long since set. Even if it is effectively late second spring for them, and… Huh. Which means that the sun must be setting later for them than it is for everyone else at the same longitude. Some sort of… Lensing effect? Or do the Five just heat and light the island with magic and not bother with-.

Everyone's moving, and Jade grips my left hand with her right and gives me a small tug to make sure that I'm aware of the fact just as Diana walks through the gate. As described, there's no flash of light or other indication of arcane movement, just day changing into night a few hours ahead of schedule. After Diana goes Kon, arm in arm with M'gann. Then Mister J'onzz, as -I snigger inwardly- Kon's girlfriend's kyrios, and then the rest of us in the order of our physical closeness to the gate as this is one of the older ones and isn't big enough for more than two people to pass abreast.

24th December
22:15 GMT +3

Diana heads down the steps on the far side of the gate to greet Captain Philippus. There's a small honour guard, but I imagine that they're more here to herd the tourists than anything else.

Yes, Philippus gives the party a quick once-over and then turns away, walking side by side with Diana in the direction of the inner city. The escort fall back a little to allow the rest of us to follow them as a huddle rather than make us march in single file. Kon, M'gann and Mister J'onzz stick close to Diana while Paula and Alan take a moment to look around. I note that he's done what I did and extended a filament to Paula and Artemis.

I lean a little towards Jade as we reach the plaza. "First impressions?"

"They have hoplites on guard duty."

"Three thousand years of isolation will do that to a people. And I meant about-."

"The air. It smells… Fresh. Fresher than I'd have expected for a people who don't have a modern sewage system."

A guard-. Ah, reflective skin, it's Zosime. Zosime comes up alongside Jade on the opposite side to me. "It can get a bit high in the summer. I think that is why the city has gradually moved up hill over the centuries."

"Jade, this is Zosime." Jade frowns curiously as she takes in the metallic parts of Zosime's skin. "Zosime, this is Jade. I've mentioned-."

"Yes, the one whom you love so greatly that you can walk into a Themysciran bathhouse without your virtue being distracted."

"It was clearly marked as the male bath."

Jade turns her head my way, eyebrows raise in amusement. "You didn't tell them about the spider girl, then?"

Zosime grins. "Pavlos, have you seduced Arachne? Are your tastes so bestial that we poor mortal women hold no appeal?"

"She told me it was a spiracle! And thanks, Jade."

Zosime's eyes widen and her jaw drops a little. "You actually did seduce Arachne?"

"As I understand Greek law, as the head of her own household she didn't require permission from-."

"You did?!"

"It was a perfectly reasonable misunderstand-."

"Hahahaha!"

"Thanks, Jade."

"You should be grateful I took it so well."

"But did your Arachnehahaha!"

"We haven't really been back in contact since."

Zosime gets a good enough grip on herself to frown. "Oh, that is poor manners, Pavlos! I expected better! Even in the Old City, a man would remain in contact with the women he accompanied during the Dionysia! You may have sired a son upon her who will need your guidance once he is no longer fed from the teat."

"That-. No, look, she looks like-" I hold out my right hand and generate a construct of the Queen and myself. "-that, we're clearly too physically-"

Zosime's eyes widen and she clamps both hands over her mouth to muffle her guffaws. One of the other guards frowns at her, then gapes as she too catches sight of the construct.

"-dissimilar to…" Why do I even bother?

"I'm sorry, did you say 'son'?" Paula comes up on my right, looking as if she can't entirely credit what she just overheard but can't afford to disregard it either.

"Pavlos coupled with a giant crab-spider!" Zosime points at the why have I still got that. "Perhaps the children would be in the manner of centaurs, but with twice the number of legs? Or perhaps they would have a human lower-."

"Humans and Spider Guilders can't interbreed. And it was a misunderstanding."

Jade nods. "With both hands."

"Both hands?"

"You could see the size of-." No!

"Hahaha!"

Change the subject. Now.

"How's Elpis getting on?"

"She's-. Haha!" Zosime wipes her eyes. "She is trying to pretend that the last few months of a pregnancy are anything but a maddening toil with which women are cursed."

Paula frowns. "I.. thought that only women lived on Themyscira?"

"I-."

"We have no need for other men." Zosime points to me. "We have Pavlos. An entire generation of Themysciran girls are named for him!"

Aaaaaaaagh!

 

24th December
23:21 GMT +3

"Ah… Your majesty..?" I shake my head in incomprehension. "With the greatest possible respect... What?"

Having communicated that Christmas celebrations are mostly small family affairs rather than the more raucous city-wide celebrations the Olympians appear to prefer, we're not feasting on the inner city plaza but rather sitting in the palace's dining room. Unlike on my first visit, only Hippolyta and Philippus are joining us. I suppose that Menalippe and Acantha either thought that it was inappropriate or are spending it with their respective families instead. Actually… I mean, there are other black women on Themyscira, but they're not exactly common. I suppose… Given the events leading up to the Exile there probably are Amazons without living blood relations.

That's a bit sombre.

Queen Hippolyta gestures to me with her goblet. "It seems to me that you are the best person to ask."

"As opposed to Alan, who is a practising Christian? Or-?" I look around the room at the collection of Hellenists, aliens and agnostics I somehow met in the United States of America. Huh.

"If you'd like…" Alan makes a vague gesture with his right hand. "I'd be happy to give it a shot. Or say a prayer..?"

"You are kind to offer, Alan, but I think your listener is in a better position to speak on the subject precisely because he does not share the beliefs of your cult."

I look pleadingly across the room towards Artemis, who smirks at my discomfort and ducks behind her goblet.

"Besides, I am sure that his patron would approve greatly of him being forced to leave his comfort zone at an unexpected time."

"You're almost certainly right there, your majesty."

"And this way, the toll it takes on our crockery is much reduced."

Diana smiles, then leans to her left to explain the comment to Paula.

"Okay. Ah… Christmas is a.. Christian festival commemorating the birth of the son of their god. Who also was that god in human form. The Christian religion didn't really get going in its current form until quite a few years after his death, so a lot of what happened wasn't recorded particularly well or was later amended or mythologised. I haven't put significant time into discovering what actually happened, but what I have learned is that at least some of what is widely believed is untrue."

"But if we're mostly concerned about what Christians believe and not actual facts… The significance of the event is that prior to it, their god -imaginatively called God- favoured exclusively one Middle Eastern tribe. He demanded total obedience to a truly colossal number of commandments… Some of which were pretty reasonable, but a lot of which were really nitpicky.. concerning everything from hairdressing to what order particular food was allowed to be eaten in. New commandments could also be communicated via prophets on an ad hoc basis, including a particular favourite of mine where King Saul was ordered to utterly exterminate a rival tribe and is punished by his god for only killing most of them."

"Their god sounds like a brute."

"That's a pretty fair assessment. Oh, and there's another book in the bible -that's the name of their holy book- where he basically tortures a man for years and kills his entire family to prove that the man is so besotted with him that he won't turn from him whatever he does to him. But, where Christianity comes in is that after he tries living as a mortal man for a while, suddenly a lot of the really vile stuff gets thrown out. Out goes the pro-genocide agenda, in comes pacifism… In theory, at least. Only a small proportion of Christians at any point in history have actually been pacifists, but at least any theoretically know that their deity disapproves of it when they act out."

"The other significant thing that changes is that the franchise dramatically expands. Rather than exclusively favouring one tribe, their god is now perfectly happy to accept anyone who is willing to fulfil the new and drastically reduced number of observances his followers are obliged to uphold. This allowed the religion to reach an audience that wouldn't have been at all interested in the earlier forms of the faith. That's particularly important if you accept the religion's mythical framework, because they believe that a) their god is the only one and b) their afterlife is the only one. Though-"

I bow in my seat.

"-that particular belief has taken a few knocks lately."

Hippolyta frowns slightly. "So what did they think happened to the souls of everyone else?"

"Modern Christians believe that souls are judged upon their deaths, then sent either to Heaven -think the Elysian fields without the option for reincarnation- or Hell, a place of eternal torment inhabited by creatures who thrive on suffering. Depending on exactly which part of the religion they come form, they may allow sufficiently virtuous pagans to attain paradise, or they may believe that not being a Christian in itself disqualifies you. I-" DAMN IT! I should have asked Zauriel! "-haven't been able to check. Before Christianity… I don’t know. Judaism isn't something I've really studied."

"So… What exactly are we celebrating?"

"Christians celebrate the birth of the man who would extend their god's covenant to cover them. As a near-life long materialist, I like family get-togethers and culturally sanctioned opportunities for over-indulgence… Which I don't have to justify because while the latter point is rather contrary to the ideals of the religion, I'm not a practitioner."

"But if you mean why are we celebrating it… The story of Christmas is the beginning of the period of that god's life where he learned what pain and suffering are like when you're on the receiving end of them. And after his physical death, when he could have said 'glad that's over with, now back to the smiting', he actually pushed for a religion that would tone down the violence and never did anything to counteract the peaceful message he promoted while human."

"An important part of Christian moral teaching is that anyone, no matter what they've done, can repent and seek forgiveness. And if they are genuine, then they will be accepted by their god as if they'd never done it. And that might be something to do with all of the people their god either killed directly or ordered his servants to kill-. Another story from their holy book has him drown everyone on the planet except for one family. It's just.. horrible. He was horrible. And having experienced it, having gained perspective on his own vices, he stopped being horrible. Did everything he could to dissuade it, and made it clear that his followers had to encourage and accept the repentance of others."

"Christmas marks a celebration of the first concrete step on the process which led to a total shit of a god becoming a decent god. And reminds us that we can all do the same."

Artemis is trying not to be too obvious about laughing. And failing. M'gann is frowning slightly while Mister J'onzz remains impassive. Diana has closed her eyes and is slowly shaking her head. Alan's face is a wince and Jade sighs, looking away from me.

"Though I should point out that you would probably get a different answer from a Christian priest, and if you're really interested then you should probably ask one."

Hippolyta takes a moment. Her eyes close as she breathes in and out. "You warned me, I knew the likely outcome when I asked a Discordian, and yet I did it anyway. The fault is entirely mine." She opens her eyes as I smile at her. "Has Eris anointed you her priest, or is your arrangement more informal?"

I grin. Any Discordian should be able to answer that one. "Yes."

"Alan…" She shifts her attention to my mentor instead. "Perhaps you could try..?"

"I'm…" He looks my way. "I'm not sure I can top that, but I'll give it a try."

 

..ugh..?

25th December
08:57 GMT +3

Which makes it one in the morning back in Gotham. Of course, I don't have a problem waking up-

Jade's still sleeping body shifts slightly in my arms, and I change my grip to better accommodate her.

-but I doubt that Jade would be particularly amused by me trying to operate on local time. I lift my head slightly and-. Yes, the blackout curtains are in place, good. I relax against my pillow, the scent of Jade's shampoo filling my nostrils as my face intrudes into the area occupied by her hair. Hippolyta's not going to expect the rest of us to rise early, she's well used to-.

Something-. A hand, a left hand, moves slowly over my waist and then creeps up my chest. That's not Jade's hand, the angle is wrong. And-. That's a warm presence behind me. I don't remember-. No, no, I'd remember that. Ring, who-?

"Hey there."

I swallow, and move my face as far away from the back of Jade's head as I can without otherwise moving.

"Good morning, Eris."

"Normally? I'm all for change, but holding a Christian act of worship on Themyscira wasn't the best idea."

"Is that something you absolutely needed to tell me now? Because if it is, thank you, I'll get on that-."

"I only just found out that you're back. Have you been-" Her right arm worms its way around my side and across my chest, missing Jade by the narrowest of margins. "-back long?" The mattress shifts slightly as she uses her grip to pull herself closer-. And those are her breasts. She's naked, isn't she? "Are you avoiding me?" She moves again, this time moving toward the headboard so that her mouth is next to my ear. "Do I make you un-com-for-ta-ble?"

"Not particularly. Though things might get a bit awkward if Jade wakes up."

"Jade's awake." The light of my life pulls away slightly and squirms around, clearly not fully alert but getting there fast. "Who are you, and why are you humping my boyfriend?"

"She's not actually humping-."

"Didn't he tell you?" She leans forward slightly, and as her left breast brushes my ear I can see her grinning. "I'm his goddess."

"Oh. Eris." Jade closes her eyes and tries getting comfortable again. "Is this going to take long, or can I go back to sleep?"

Eris' right elbow plants itself on the pillow just above my head, and I can't really see what else she's doing. "That's it?"

"The only real surprise is that this hasn't happened sooner."

I feel it as she slumps slightly. "I think I'm attention seeking. I was all set up to be his trickster mentor, then he left the planet and -since his tattoos work on me as well-" Her fingers trace the part of the design running over my upper torso. "-I couldn't tell where he was. Kon Heliodoros always tells his god what he's doing."

"A full status update can definitely wait until later in the-."

Jade rolls away, pulls herself out of the bed sheets and climbs out of bed.

"Jade?"

She picks up her dressing gown and slips it on. "I'll be in the next room. Try and keep it down."

Ugh. I shuffle into her now-vacated divot and then turn around to face my-. Yes, naked goddess. "She's going to the other side of the galaxy long-term next week. You couldn't pick literally any other time?"

She affects an expression of frustrated honesty. "I really only knew you were back because one of my other worshippers sent a prayer my way."

"You have other worshippers?"

"Yeah! Thanks to your sterling example." She slides back under the sheets until her head is level with mine. "When she said 'keep it down', do you-?"

"No. As in, I had every opportunity to pursue you romantically, I didn't, and I'm not about to start now. Her permission is irrelevant, I just don't want to."

"Who said anything about 'romantic'?" I raise my eyebrows scathingly and she looks away. "Can't believe you picked the assassin." She looks back to my face, noticeably less amused. "I liked the robot. Someone to never grow old with together. Or the shrink. She seemed fun. Plenty of room for drama there. Melinoë definitely needs to get out more-."

"I wasn't picking a girlfriend-"

"Or Zatanna. You're a patient sort of guy, and you could do all kinds of things together."

"-for you. And I actually wasn't picking one for the practical advantage they could give me."

"She'd-" Eris glances in the direction Jade left in. "-be okay if she pushed you in new moral directions, made you make new contacts… But you've made her boring."

"I'll say it again: I-."

"Wasn't picking a girlfriend for me, yeah yeah." She slumps slightly, and looks at me sadly. "Are we breaking up? I just don't know how to keep you interested…"

"Eris… I can't be all-chaos all the time. I will continue to change the existing status quo, but I don't-. I've never been about change for change's sake. Even when that's boring." I reach out under the sheets with my right hand and put it on her left shoulder. "I'm genuinely grateful for the help you've given me so far, and I'm sure that you'll find at least some of the things I do interesting. Did you see it when I brought those people back from the dead? Or when I became a demon?"

"If you'd told me about that earlier I wouldn't be here now!" She extends her right hand and pushes me gently in the centre of my chest. "Ass."

"You turned up in bed with my girlfriend and I, and I'm the ass? Did you really just come here to 'talk about our relationship'?"

"I wouldn't have said no to expanding your erotic horizons. Either or both of you. I mean, you're only young once, right?"

"I'm young as often as I want to be."

"Which apparently be never." She turns and pushes herself up onto all fours, sliding up the bed to sit on the pillows. "Oh, that reminds me. Zauriel was looking for you earlier, so I told him where to find you."

"Oh. Ah, thank you. Does being told by you allow him to bypass the wards?"

She shrugs disinterestedly. "He's an angel, so I'm pretty sure that he could anyway. I just wanted to speed things up so that he didn't have to scour the whole world looking for you."

"Oh. Thanks. Any idea when he's going to actually get h-?"

There's a flash of light from around the edges of the blackout curtains. I blink, and the light dims. It's still brighter than it was a moment ago, but it's no longer blinding. If that was him then he's-.

Eris leans forward. "Try to stay alive, okay? I get bored easily when you're not around. And that's not good for anyone."

"Will do." I transition across to the curtain and pull it open. Outside-.

Golden fire burns across the sky.

 

25th December
09:02 GMT +3

That's.. not meant to be there.

No warning bells sound from the plaza, though I'm not sure if that's because ringing the bell requires the senior guard to reach it or if this doesn't qualify as an attack on Themyscir-.

Dnnnnnnnnnn. Dnnnnnnnnn.

Okay, there we go. Golden fire indicates angel or pissed off saint. Theurgical magic. So either Zauriel really wants to make sure that he can talk to me, or I've really pissed someone in the Silver City off. No, no, be fair: Zauriel didn't strike me as the 'giant net of golden fire' sort-. Hang on. If Eris only just found out where I am, did he-? I doubt that I'm mentioned in prayers that often. Or at least not in ones which include my current location. I've.. sort of been assuming that the Silver City had a bypass for my tattoos, but it's somewhat theologically interesting if they don't.

I turn back towards the bed. "Eris-?" No, she's gone. I exhale. Ring, anything untoward happening on Themyscira?

A series of images appear in my mind. Nothing… Significant, though the fire is certainly attracting a degree of attention. Okay, armour, weapons, and-.

Jade strides back into the room, her eyes darting from me to the window. "What's that?"

"The Silver City-."

"Heaven."

"That's imprecise, but sort of. If you haven't picked a religion yet, now's a really good time."

She tosses her robe aside. "Give me my armour."

I raise my left arm, ring glowing. "I will remind you that Darkstar exo-mantles are not designed for arcane combat." Exo-mantles can be worn naked, but I include a more comfortable undersuit before bringing out the armour. She takes a moment to check the range of motion as I phase through the wall and fly onto the plaza.

The garrison has already assembled, and Philippus is marching down the front steps of the palace as I land. Her eyes fix on me the moment I appear, and I hold up my hands.

"I don't think I've done anything-."

"You described their god in rather unflattering terms last night."

"People do that all the time! The number one Spanish language obscenity is literally 'shit on God'. And they're all Catholic!"

But I can see where she's coming from. For a Hellenist, making rude comments about a god on their holy day is just about the rudest, most divine-retribution-inciting thing you can do. Doing it on Themyscira, yes, that might even literally be the result.

But come on!

"Look, if it was me then I'll happily take the consequences." Ring, how far does the net extend?

Unable to determine. Based on areas which can no longer be scanned, the planet Earth is enveloped at a height of one thousand kilometres.

Radio signals?

Radio signals are not passing through the barrier.

Well shit, we just lost all Earth's satellites. No GPS. No satellite phones or television. People might actually have to talk to their families over Christmas.

The horror.

Oh, and people in isolated locations without maps might get lost and be unable to contact anyone. That's a problem, but it's not my problem. Even legally. This is the Silver City acting out, and while I'm happy to help slap them down they're going to be taking the blame for any catastrophes which emerge-.

Oh crap, we just lost contact with the Watchtower. Zeta tubes should still work… Up until their next maintenance cycle, at which point they'll try to connect to the Watchtower, fail, and shut themselves off for non-critical travel. Dolmen gates should still work…

I ring scan the one in the lower city. Yes, it still goes to New York. I'll check whether or not the test gates we put in orbit are still working later, time allowing. Next check. I raise my left hand to my faceplate and-.

Nothing happens. I'd complain, but yes, if anyone was going to have a way to block access to demiplanes it was going to be the Host. And I doubt that trying to fly through an area demarcated by kilometre-wide strands of golden fire is a particularly good idea. No getting off Earth, then.

"Orange Lantern to Wonder Woman. Orders?"

"Don't. Do. Anything. Batman is contacting Father Mattias-."

"Which is a good idea, except that I just had a face-to-face with Eris."

"What did the goddess of discord and strife want with you this time?"

"She told Zauriel where I am, and apparently he's heading here. It might be wise if I wasn't in the city when he arrives."

"You told me that you parted on reasonable terms."

"I thought we did, but someone just set near-Earth space on fire using theurgical magic. My guess would be that someone just ruled against me."

"Mount Skybreak should be deserted. Go there and await his arrival."

"Sir."

I rise up off the plaza, and-. Ah. Lantern.

It appears, completely dull and lifeless.

Great. I remove my rings from my fingers and switch over to the kinetic belt's flight system. Can't recharge until whatever the Silver City is playing at stops. I recharged yesterday after coming back from Venturia, so… A hundred and eighty percent? I don't think that brute force would work against the entirety of the host anyway, but it's a pain not to have the option. I could try creating another one, but that would consume virtually all of my remaining power as well as letting anyone paying attention to that sort of thing know exactly where I was. And it probably wouldn't even-. No, if I'm able to create constructs at all then the shut off isn't total.

Don't know.

I've flown over the outskirts of the city, and I angle up towards the mountain summit. There's no way that's a natural formation. An island this size shouldn't have a peak like this. But I suppose that somewhere like this complaining about the gods doing some geoscaping is a bit unreasonable. There are mine entrances at several points, but the only thing near the top is the Temple of Zeus.

…

So I'll be avoiding that. Let's see… Yes, I think that's where they quarried some of the stone. It's as good a place as any.

I accelerate, the mountain drawing-.

GHAAAAAAH!

FUCKINGFUCKFUCK!

I drop out of the air as enough electricity to bypass my armour slams into me, frying both my kinetic systems and the emergency inertial system I added to prevent brick-dives!

Okay. Maybe Zeus looks around his temple as well. Rings-.

GAAGHUhuhuh.

Rings on, heal and shield.

Compliance.

The third bolt of lightning splashes off my construct armour as I fly at all speed for my landing zone. Okay, this is wasteful but my need is great. Filaments grab chunks of rock, assemble them into the approximate shape of a bus shelter and then fuse them together. That should do for-.

Golden fire explodes behind me!

 

25th December
09:07 GMT +3

I immediately create a hemisphere shield between myself and the impact site. The fire isn't dying down, it's-.

Oh shit, there's someone in there! Hardened construct tendrils shoot out, poking the fire with mageslayer rounds in an attempt to drain the magics while I take purple healing rays out of subspace and fire at it. The humanoid figure staggers to its feet, fire covering its surface-. Those are wings, that's an angel. Flames die for a moment as my mageslayers tap it, then reignite a second later. The angel stumbles, burning wings stretching out in an attempt to regain its balance. I send a construct support forward to catch it but the golden fire burns that away. I think it's either trying to say something or to scream, but it either can't get any air or the roar of the flames is overwhelming the sound.

Ah, heck. Rings, try absorbing the magic energy from that fire.

Compliance.

The air glows orange as-. No, darn it! The orange glow is beaten back, the flames positively leaping towards it! What's left? The Ace is no good, didn't bring the Hellblazer with me and the tiny samples of kaahuite I have left over probably won't be much healthier for the burning angel than the flames themselves…

The Sword of the Fallen was made to negate magic like this. But for all I know the angel is working on a solution. Reincarnation as a mortal might be a worse option, and under normal circumstances I'd ask the patient. But here…

I draw the sword, move the dome shield so that it's above me and step forward. The formerly clear sky is darkening but the King of Olympus has either sated his wrath, got a sense of proportions or has decided to turn the cloud into a giant electrostatic generator to build up for a knockout punch…

So I'd best hurry up. The angel staggers a half-step in my direction, and from what little I can see of its face I think I can safely dismiss any notion of this being a trap. I draw the Sword of the Fallen, jog the three paces it takes to reach it and as lightly as I can cut at the angel's chest.

"I'm really sorry about this."

Stabbing it should trigger the death and reincarnation thing, but with a little luck-.

The flames flicker and die down, before dying compl-.

The poor bastard's burned to the bone in places. There's not much left of their wings but the horribly burned patagium, the hair and ears are gone and if they had any genitals before they certainly don't now. The red eyes are still there, whole and unharmed and he lies on his back and quietly moans.

Don't need to be an expert in theurgy to deduce who this is, but just in case… Ring, facial reconstruction.

Compliance.

The purple rays are causing the flesh to rapidly regenerate, but I get a flash of what his face should look like based on the all too visible skull bones and the muscle tissue attached.

"Zauriel. Who will be repenting for this one?"

His silver blood doesn't stick to the Sword, so I slide it back into its scabbard without… Alright, without collecting samples. There are more important things to worry about.

"Lantern."

"That was rhetorical. Don't try to answer until your head is in one piece."

"I misjudged."

"I know, but don't worry about it. I'm an acquired taste. Angelica is coming along great, we dealt with Satanus and-." I frown inside my armour. "What happened to your voice?"

"I misjudged the Mind of God!" Skin… More or less regrown, he gingerly rolls onto his left side before pushing himself into a sitting position. "I misjudged… By His command, the wrath of the Host of Heaven descends upon you!"

"And they decided to use you as a projectile?"

"I am Fallen." His face is a picture of distraught misery. "Oh Lord my God, I have fallen from your grace."

"But look on the bright side: you're not on fire anymore."

"The state of the body is of little significance. All you have done is deny me the distraction!"

"Alright. This is… Clearly not something I can relate to." The purple rays cease fire. No feathers or hair and the cut I made with the Sword of the Fallen is still a bleeding line across his abdomen, but he appears to be whole otherwise. "What happened? And… Do you want some clothes?"

"I.. have eaten of the Tree. I suppose that it is fitting. Hide my nakedness."

Angel imagery… A wave of orange light passes over his naked body leaving him dressed in… It's not like either of us know anything about fashion.

He looks himself over. "It will suffice." He looks me in the faceplate. "I know that you will not listen, but I beseech you to repent your sins before it is too late."

"I'll listen, I just won't comply. What happened? You went back to the Silver City..?"

"I was called before the Four Kings, and I recounted my tale. The King of the Bull Host was intrigued by the concept, while the other Kings felt that your actions warranted a more detailed examination."

I don't really remember anything about the various hosts, so I don't know whose favour I just earned. Good, I guess..?

"The matter was to be discussed at length. Then the Mind of God appeared before us. I was decried as an abomination, and your actions as subversions of the Divine Order. The Mind of God has taken direct control of the Host and has directed them to bring you to the Silver City."

Well. Fiddlesticks.

"So how come I'm still here?"

"If the full might of the Almighty was brought to bear upon the Earth, the Earth would be destroyed. But I assure you, there is no force on Earth which can resist what is coming for you."

"And the burning net prevents me bringing in a force which could."

"All that would happen is that they would die. The wrath of the Almighty is risen in such a way as has not occurred in mortal memory."

"Ah." Not a lot I can.. say to that, really. Sometimes the DM just hates you. "So… Hundreds of angels? An unlimited number? Do they just keep respawning until I… What? Die? Repent? Because if the Mind of God just wants a face to face meeting, I'm perfectly happy to-."

"1:1 Hear me, oh People of the Earth! Harken to my words, for I convey unto mortal ears the commandments of the Almighty!"

The voice booms across the island… Ring?

Recordings indicate that the voice is being heard in all parts of the world in the native language of the listeners.

I turn to Zauriel. "Who is that?"

"That is the one who the Mind of God tasked with your destruction."

"1:2 The human known as Orange Lantern is henceforth condemned by the commandment of the Lord God! Unto death I shall deliver him, as well as any who stand with him, shelter him or aid him! All loyal servants of the Lord-"

Ring, message Ted. Tell him to get somewhere safe. And Hol-.

"-are called upon to aid me in enacting this decree. So say I, Karrien Excalibris, the Archangel of War."

-ly.

Oh… Dear.

 

25th December
09:13 GMT +3

"Not.. that I-." Ah. Even if he's been cast out, he might decide that he's supposed to obey anyway. "Zauriel, I'm going to need you to make a decision right now. Do you work for the Host, or for yourself?"

"I am cast out of the Host."

"Yes, but it's all that you've known for a very long time. I would quite understand if you wanted to try and get back on their good side."

"The Mind of God declared me an Abomination. At best, they would bind me in Hell."

"I didn't say it would be a clever thing to do, just that you might try to. Because it's familiar. Heck… I wouldn't be too surprised if you just transported yourself into Hell and reported for torment. But… As far as I know, you're the only other person on Earth condemned like this. So you're the only person I can work with without making the situation worse. And I need you to choose. Me or God."

Whaw. That.. sounded arrogant even to me.

"I…" He looks lost, which I suppose is a pretty reasonable thing for him to be feeling right now. "You said when we first met that you had thought that I lacked freedom of conscience. If the Fruit.. gave me that, then it gave me a capacity which I have never before had to exercise. I am not good at thinking outside-. I should not question the Almighty but I do not understand this!"

Okay, he isn't carrying a weapon, if he's cast out he probably can't use theurgy any more and I've still got my environmental shield… I send my armour back into subspace, step forward and hug him.

He doesn't.. really react. "What are you doing?"

I pull away slightly, hands resting on his shoulders. "I am both trying to offer reassurance and celebrating the fact that you are feeling something every human with any sort of intellectual curiosity feels throughout their lives. 'Why' finds no answer but you've got to carry on anyway."

"You regard this as 'progress', don't you?"

"No, being marked for death by the Host of the Silver City isn't.. really something I'd call 'progress'. In fact it's.. a rather large impediment to progress." I lift my hands off. "But in terms of your moral awareness, yes, it's progress. What don't you understand?"

"When the Lord God extended his mercy to the whole of the peoples of the Earth, His son gave us a moral framework that we might better guide our charges. I-. I cannot reconcile the commandments of the Mind of God with that framework!" He turns away, fists clenching and relaxing. "The Almighty is omniscient. The failing must be mine. But..!"

"You can't see where it is. Because at worst, I've committed a well-intentioned mistake, and the best way to convince me of that is to patiently demonstrate that with evidence. Because the problem isn't just you. The four kings couldn't see much of a problem with it either."

"We may be mentally inflexible, but we are not stupid. We have the capacity for reason…" He turns back to me. "How could we be so wrong?"

"I haven't heard anything that would lead me to believe that you were wrong. Did this.. mind of god thing explain its reasoning? Or at least its reason?"

"No."

"You can't repent unless you know how you've erred. You can't adjust your behaviour unless you know how you're supposed to behave. Heck, you wanted to become mortal anyway; you'd have needed what the Fruit gave you if you were going to become a human man."

"I know! That’s-. Why! I…"

"What do you want?"

"I could accept my own damnation if I knew what I'd done that was so wrong! But I do not believe that I can accept not knowing!" He takes a moment to calm down. "What will you do?"

"I'm not.. sure. I don't suppose that angels have some convenient vulnerability I don't know about, do they? Other than coming apart at the psychological seams when their god stops making sense."

"We are vulnerable to kaahuite. And we are far from all-powerful. The Lord God has given each of us authority over certain spheres, but outside of those we are quite vulnerable."

"And when you're killed?"

"We return to Heaven and are shaped anew."

"You don't die die."

"We don't live live. We are celestial functionaries. That is all we have."

"Does that ever not happen?"

"Fallen… Like myself, would go to Hell. Otherwise, no."

"So even if I beat Mister Excalibris in a fight, he'd be right back."

"Yes-." He freezes. "No. If he broke faith with the Almighty, he would fall. But I struggle to see how such a thing could happen."

"How about if he killed someone not aiding me?"

Zauriel shakes his head. "I want to say 'yes', but… As things stand…"

"He'd need to directly and bluntly defy your god and that's not going to happen."

"He may be operating under other restrictions. He would not be so foolish as to announce them if he were."

"How dangerous is he?"

"Under normal circumstances, he is a fearsome warrior aided by theurgical magic. Now, under direct orders from the Mind of God, his magic is much expanded. He was the one who..." He looks away. "Burned me."

"So: very powerful, no real weaknesses and even if I could beat him he'd be right back."

"A dismal but accurate summary."

"How about the net? Is there a way to bypass it?"

"One who was superior in the Celestial Hierarchy would be able to overrule the Archangel of War. But that would mean going against the Mind of God, and none of us would do-." His eyes dip. "I mean to say, none of them would do that."

"Hell is still accessible?"

"Yes, but the Archangel of War will not hesitate to pursue you there if need be."

"Does Hell have other exits?"

"To other worlds, you mean?" I nod. "Yes, but those will be sealed as well."

"And the parts of Labyrinth which are outside of Creation?"

He frowns. "Those.. could not be blocked, though I imagine that they will be guarded by lesser means."

"Okay. I'm getting-."

"Wonder Woman to Orange Lantern."

I glance at my ring, then take a deep breath.

"Answer."

 

25th December
09:17 GMT +3

"Paul. Just listen."

I take my armour back out of subspace. One positive in all of this is that the lightning bolts have stopped.

"The Archangel of War is in Israel, near Mount Gerizim. The League will attempt to negotiate with him. If that proves impossible, he will be fought with all available resources. On the assumption that you have a strategy which you don't want to risk communicating to us, we will attempt to delay him for as long as possible."

Ring, don't reply.

Compliance.

"Though I doubt that you need this reassurance, we do not consider his actions to be in any way your fault. No matter how abrasive you can at times be, nothing you have done warrants the threats being made against you and all those who know you. Police are being dispatched to those who are known to associate with you to place them in protective custody until this matter is resolved, and Jade has agreed to remain here."

I breathe a little easier.

"Despite Karrien Excalibris' threats, I would encourage you to avoid violent confrontation with him or his allies until all reasonable alternatives are eliminated."

…

Alright. Since it's you.

"Since we do not know what his precise abilities are, I will avoid contacting you again unless he attacks either you or anyone else. Wonder Woman out."

Nice to know that she was on that immediately. I return my attention to Zauriel.

"Zauriel, do my tattoos work against theurgical detection?"

"I do not know. The lesser theurgical rites which I used could not directly locate you. But it may be that Karrien Excalibris has access to others, or that he is wiser in their usage."

"What magics can you still use?"

"My capacity for theurgy was lost when I was cast down, but my soul is strong and I have millennia of experience with earthly magics."

"Can you soul-carve yourself to gain a ward like mine?"

"N-no. But I could.. replicate it in the short term. Why?"

"Because there are only three logical places for you to go. Where I am, where Shannon Coyne is or.. at a temple or other religious site where you might seek absolution for whatever it is that you're supposed to have done. Which means that as soon as you're detected, he will seek me there."

"I see. I will begin work at once."

"And prepare a spell to communicate with Satanus."

Zauriel begins tracing lines over his torso with his index fingers. Looks like he's ambidextrous. "He may well be willing to aid you, but before the power of the Archangel of War I doubt that he will achieve much."

"I have a gun that fires the essence of anti-creation. Unfortunately it's just a lever-action rifle, but I'm hoping that he can make more. We'll need to go to my fortress to pick up the original first."

"I realise the fact that you are speaking in those terms indicates that you have already decided, but are you certain it would not be best simply to concede?"

"What, say that whoever the Mind of God is can decree the death of anyone they want? No." Zauriel regards me impassively. "Alright. How would you have advised one of your charges if they were offered… Great wealth, in exchange for violently murdering an innocent person?"

"I would remind them that material wealth is transitory while the soul is eternal. But I know that you do not share my moral beliefs."

"I don't.. react well to claims of absolute authority. To… People who use 'because I said so' as if it's a valid argument. It's.. not necessarily a rational behaviour on my part, but there we are. And I'm afraid that in any situation, what I want is what I do."

"The Archangel of War is not known for his patience. If you are not delivered to him shortly I suspect that he will begin lashing out."

"And who would be responsible if he does?" His hands stop moving. "Are you ready?"

"… Yes, I am. And since he has not eaten the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, I am not sure that he can be considered a moral agent."

"I thought that you tried to convince me you all had free will."

"I was not the only angel to speak in favour of your actions. But I am the only one here. Perhaps my error became obvious to every other member of the Host the moment the Mind of God appeared unto us… Or perhaps it is as you had said, and they lack the capacity. In which case the moral agent is the Mind of God."

"Then call me the Ugliest Man. Because I think this has to finish with me lobotomising your god." Ring, plot course to the Ice Fortress which I left over the Atlantic.

Course available.

Okay, between my armour's stealth systems, height, and avoiding populated areas… A straight flight using the kinetic belt is probably best. If I phase… "How fast can you fly without giving away your position?"

"I have never flown without theurgical assistance. And now…" He flaps his featherless wings, generating precisely no lift. "Any other magics I could use in order to fly would reveal us."

"And I'm going to assume that they're intelligent enough to track zeta tubes." Darn. I take a kinetic belt out of subspace and hand it to him. "Put this on. I'll take you up, then lean in the direction you want to move in in order to fly."

He looks a little sceptical, but puts the belt around his waist as I take hold of him and fly us both upwards into the Themysciran morning sky. "Any idea why my personal lantern died?"

"I know no more of the technology than that it exists. The barrier will interfere with some forms of planar travel, so I would imagine that some part of how they operate depends upon planar connections being unimpaired."

That's what I assumed. Maybe I should take it as a compliment that he can't think of anything better? Would have been nice if he had a fix…

Themyscira is a dot in the ocean at this point, and as I look west I can see the curve of the Earth. I turn to look east, curious to see whether or not I can spot Mr Excalibris from here. No. Which is probably a good thing. If he was throwing enough golden fire around to be visible from this far away…

I turn back towards the west, adopt the traditional swimming pose and accelerate, releasing Zauriel as I do so. He wallows in the air for a moment, then gets the hang of basic flight and pulls alongside me as I accelerate. Ugh. My fortress has basic wards, but I never really intended it to be more than semi-secure. The scuttling system is more reliable than the anti-magic system. It does have stealth, but I don't leave it on all the time and having it go active now would make it obvious where I was going.

"You said that Mister Excalibris isn't known for his patience?"

"It is true. He is not. He has an enthusiasm for violence that if exercised for any other cause I would consider to be sinful."

"And now?"

"I suspect that he will become… Piqued, before we reach your citadel. I can only pr-. I can only hope that he still retains enough morality not to kill those whom he is not specifically authorised to kill."

Marvellous. Merry Christmas, everyone.

 

25th December
08:42 GMT +1

Connection made to monitored phone line.

Stop monitoring it. Them, stop monitoring all of them.

Compliance.

We're moving at near the speed of sound, the Strait of Gibraltar a short distance behind us. Less than an hour to the Fortress. A small number of American military aircraft are circling it already. I'm not sure what their intent is, and I can't ask them without falling foul of Mr Excalibris's decree. I don't think that model has a form of detection which can bypass my counter-detection abilities, and I know they don't have weapons which can impede-.

Ring, are they carrying nuclear weapons?

No fission-based weapons detected.

They don't have weapons which can significantly impede me. My fortress's shields are rated as being able to hold against low-yield nuclear weapons, but it's far easier to stop them by shooting them out of the sky than it is to survive tanking them.

Ring, find me news broadcasts.

Compliance.

"…those just joining us-" BBC News 24, well done ring. "-a being describing itself as the 'Archangel of War' has appeared in Israel, and has demanded that the superhero 'Orange Lantern' be handed over to it."

An image of Mr Excalibris himself, close-cropped black hair, stooped, dressed in steel and.. gold..? I'm assuming that it's gold plated plate appears on my mental screen. I was surprised to learn that he has cross earrings. The one on his right is the normal way up but the other is inverted. In memory of Saint Peter, I assume. His wings are midnight blue and he's carrying two swords wreathed in golden fir-. That's where they went!

"Justice League members Superman and Doctor Mist were seen attempting to talk to him a short time ago, but he does not appear to have responded either to them or to local superheroes."

Useful to know that he's still there. The image shifts to-. New York, KordTech. There are a lot of people out on the street at the moment, along with a strong police presence-. Ring, see if you can locate Vandal Savage. If I'm marked for death by the Host, it would be nice to take a few deserving souls along with me.

Compliance.

"Crowds began gathering outside KordTech offices and manufacturing plants as soon as the Archangel of War made his pronouncement. So far, demonstrations are relatively peaceful. The company's CEO -Theodore Kord- released this statement half an hour ago."

Ted stands before a blank white wall-. Yes, it's probably best if no one was exactly sure of his location. "Orange Lantern has done a great deal of work, both for my company and for humanity in general, even before we get into the work he's done with the Justice League. He's the reason why hurricane season is a thing of the past. He's the reason why we don't have to worry about global warming." He looks down at.. notes… I think he's mostly off-the-cuffing this. "So when someone puts a giant cage around the planet and orders us to hand him over… Someone who wasn't here when Fawcett City got literally invaded by demons from Hell..? Karrien Excalibris? Butt out."

"The Justice League have so far not given any indication of Orange Lantern's current location, and contacting him directly has so far proven impossible."

Can't imagine why.

"Vatican spokesman Cardinal Alfonsi gave the following statement-."

Probably irrelevant. I'd ask Zauriel about the relationship between the various churches and their god, but the wind is far too loud, and.. it's somewhat frivolous. If we win I'll have plenty of time to explain things, and if we lose… I imagine that this 'Mind of God' thing will be restructuring the whole mess of monotheistic religions anyway. Ring, let me know if any of Father Mattias's lot give press releases. Otherwise, switch channel.

Compliance.

"…don't know what he's done to deserve this."

"But you're sure he's done something?"

"Well I hardly think an angel of the Lord would turn up because he'd been jaywalking. Let's.. let's look at what we know. This is the man who's been introducing magic and other sorts of Atlantean technology into the US. Now, he may have been doing that with the best of intentions, but the Lord's opinion on the subject of witchcraft is very clear."

"Sure, that might be why, ah… 'Karrien Excalibris' has shown up-."

"Oh, come on! A literal angel shows up in Israel, what exactly does it take-?"

"Yeah, it might be, and you and I can speculate any number of reasons why God might have sent one of His messengers. But at the moment, we don't exactly know what Orange Lantern has done to offend the Lord. A person can't repent unless they know what they've done, and last time Orange Lantern spoke to an angel they parted on… Okay, not exactly friendly terms, but I didn't see a golden fire spreading across the upper atmosphere."

I guess no one thinks it could be a well dressed thanagarian this time.

"If you don't think it's magic, what do you think it is?"

"I don't know… Let's not forget that he's the biggest peeping tom in history."

I start chuckling inside my armour. Okay, I'd.. repent that. It wasn't a lot of fun for me either.

"I hardly think-."

"I'm not saying that's what it was, I'm just saying that-. God didn't send an angel when Doctor Fate fought the Nazis, or when Giovanni Zatara joined the Justice League."

"Then what about him invading the Garden of Eden?"

"God did send an angel when he did that, and they talked it out. Same problem with him being a pagan."

"Okay, I.. think we've taken that as far as-." There's a pause, and my internal screen shows the host freeze, blinking. "Ah, breaking news-."

Ring, what's Mr Excalibris doing?

He's flying tow-. Past Kal-El, over a good part of the crowd, landing in front of a small group of men. One is dressed as a Christian priest while the rest are wearing purple t-shirts with a downward-pointing sword on them. One of them is carrying a standard with a yellow banner with a yellow sword on it.

They're the Tongues of Fire. The paramilitary wing of the Resurrection Crusade. I hadn't realised that they still existed.

…

Okay, that's… Actually not a disaster. I knew they knew how to contact angels, it's hardly surprising that they could get this one's attention. And they don't know anything about me that isn't public knowledge. There actually isn't much about me that is a genuine secret. Unless… Mr Excalibris literally didn't bother to do any research on me. In which case-.

Mr Excalibris turns towards Kal-El and Dr Balewa. He points in their general direction with the sword in his left hand. His mouth moves, but the camera I'm taking this from doesn't pick up what he says. A moment later they both drop from the air, and Mr Excalibris stalks towards them.

Reveal myself or not? Reveal myself or not? It doesn't guarantee-.

Mr Excalibris sheathes his swords and… From the look of it he's shouting something at them. Okay. Not too much longer until I reach the fortress. Once I'm in Labyrinth I can broadcast my location without any difficulty, but until then it's-.

Mr Excalibris picks up Kal-El by the throat and tosses him across the stony ground, before turning away and vanishing in a wash of blinding light. Shoot, I don't know where he is. But if he doesn't-.

Fifteen flashes of brilliant golden light appear in the air around my fortress.

 

25th December
08:46 GMT +1

The lights fade and… Androgynous, blonde, white wings… Classical angels, armed either with sword and shield or spear and shield. Their wings are outstretched but they're not having to flap, and their hair is merely ruffled by the wind instead of being plastered across their faces. Most of their number spread out to form a perimeter around my fortress, with three flying in the general direction of the closest planes.

"1:1 I act with the authority of God on high! This tainted citadel will be purged from existence. Retreat to a safe distance and bear witness to the destruction which comes to all who defy God Almighty!"

Aaaagh… It's more an inconvenience than anything else, but losing the fortress would be a wretch. There's nothing.. truly irreplaceable on board… Except memories… Once I get the Hellblazer I'll say that they're welcome to it. And if they destroy it before that… I'll just have to skip ahead and go to Hell without picking it up. I've got no idea whether or not Mammon can replicate the Hellblazer without an example to work from. I've got the designs and the Ace but I don't know whether or not he's got anyone familiar with Atlantean thaumaturgical notation.

Except… There are far more angels in the Silver City than this. What are the rest up to that I can't see?

Ring, what do the pilots make of this?

"…instructions from command or a bloody chaplain, at this rate. Take no hostile action, maintain distance. And for the love of-." Heh. "Whatever you do, do not lock onto them."

"Yeah, no shit, sir. Maintaining five mile distance. What exactly are we supposed to do if Orange Lantern comes here?"

"I do not know, Lieutenant."

And that makes three of us. Okay, a circle of twelve angels at equidistant points around my fortress-. They're looking upwards, arms raised… Golden light plays over their bodies, then reaches out left and right to form a circle. The other three are-

"1:2 As is written in Deuteronomy, chapter eleven, verse one: 'Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.' The commandments of heaven outweigh any given by mortal rulers. Even if you have no concern for yourselves, then acknowledge the authority of Heaven and depart!"

-are preaching to the US air force. To be fair, if they are anything like Zauriel they probably don't want to kill innocent men and women. But the reward of mindless obedience to a cruel lord-

"1:3 I say again unto you-."

-is a railgun round to the face.

They can't actually die-die, right?

I drop invisibility, generate five railguns, load mage slayer rounds and open fire.

"Holyfuckingshithe's here!"

I don't know if it's the aura of white light or innate angelic toughness, but they're taking several hits-. First one then another drops from the air and then another, bodies battered and white togas stained with silver blood.

"1:4 Foul malefact-!"

Twenty three supersonic shots hit him in the face, one after the other. I see his eyes and magic fade as the twenty third hits and his skull cracks. I'll give them this, they're tougher than demons.

"You could have simply bypassed them."

Three on the far side of the fortress duck behind it, a song that sets my armour and teeth rattling uttering from their lips.

"You told me that-" I thrust upward, getting a clear shot for a second and winging one of them. He hurtles through the air and slams into the fortress's outer shield. "-they got better."

"I weep not for them-" I evade the gold fire which leaps from their weapons, but-. Urgh! My eyes just burst! That.. song it-! "-but for you as you embrace violence and murder so casually."

I consider snapping back with an observation about his master's conduct… And promptly realise that I have killed far more people than the paltry two or three million God did in the Bible.

The lead angel increases his pitch, my railgun volley being disintegrated before it can strike home while they get closer. Fine. Fortress, point defences live.

The outer shield deforms, tiny faults in the containment field causing tiny streams of plasma to leap out. The angels are blindsided, their clothes catching fire and painful-looking welts appearing on their skin. One angel who was heading back from the fighters stops in the air, stunned at the violence of the exchange. More importantly, he stops singing, and a moment later I learn that corporeal angels are vulnerable to cold guns as the fortress opens up in earnest.

"These are-" I switch to energy pulses and lasers as I fall back, getting a few hits in before the song changes frequency. At least my skull has stopped fracturing. "-not warrior angels."

And they're not going for him. Joy. Fine, music is your weapon of choice? Sonic cannons.

My railgun constructs disintegrate, being replaced by sonic lances which fire the moment they're whole. One angel gets his feathers shredded and tumbles out of the chase, but another change in frequency and they're proof against it again. In theory, this is a winnable way of fighting, but… I don't know what they have to do to get reinforcements and I don’t want to wait for that to happen.

I rocket upward, accelerating to my highest safe non-instant speed. The four surviving angels who had been trying to surround me suddenly find themselves following me on a single vector. Right. A little bit-. Photon blast, Sword out and drop.

And they all dodge anyway, fine, accelerate down and swing and got you now fasterfasterfaster! Fortress, open up!

I roll left in the air as the angels abandon whatever area affect song they were using in favour of sonic lances of their own. I viff left, right and cloak-. And see their misses punch holes in the fortress's plasmic field and cut furrows into the armoured outer surface. Gr-. No, it's irritating, but at this point I've pretty much written it off as a loss. Just so long as I get the Hellblazer I can-.

I-.

I-.

Why can't I breathe?

Ring, my lungs feel fine. Are they fine?

Lungs are undamaged.

Any problem with the environmental shield feeding me oxygen?

Mechanism is impaired.

Consume magic.

Compliance.

"2:1 The air's vitality I deny to you. The water's coolness I deny to you."

Up and to my left-. Fuck. I never thought Mr Excalibris would go for a denunciation when he had two perfectly good sword arms.

"2:2 The nourishment of food I deny to you. The peace of sleep I deny to you."

And if I haven't dealt with this by the time that becomes a problem. At least the other angels are backing off. I.. should be able to get to Hell before the lack of oxygen becomes critical.

"2:3. The boon of sight I deny-" And the world goes black. Ring? No, no getting sight back, it seems. Sonic image. I fly into the fortress at speed, slowing only as much as I absolutely need to, "-to you. The gift of sound I deny-" Can't hear and the sonic image is gone as well. Ring, map, get me to the armoury. "-to you."

Compliance.

"2:4 From dust you were made. To dust you shall return."

Oooh cr-.

 

25th December
08:49 GMT +1

My kinetic barrier triggers as I'm slammed into what I'm assuming is the corridor wall. Assuming, as I can't see anything or hear anything and I'm navigating by the map my rings are displaying in my head. Ring keep us going.

Compliance.

No visual or sonic scans, so I'm reduced to sending out filaments to feel my surroundings. The fortress is… Well, it's moving erratically, which with an object this size is not a good sign. Ring, try connecting to a terminal as we pass.

Compliance.

The map in my head shudders and expands-. Ah. A.. bout half of the internal sensors are no longer responding, and the image in my head looks like someone just tore the fortress in half. Since the main generator was in the centre towards the bottom, that's… Gone, so the fortress should be automatically using battery power to perform a controlled crash landing using its anti-gravity system. Except that system isn't really capable of performing its intended function if the fortress has been torn in half. The pieces would.. just overbalance. Plus the secondary damage would probably ruin the power distribution network anyway. I just assumed that if the place took this much damage that everyone on board would either have evacuated or be dead…

Focus. How do I maximise my chances of survival?

Ring, make sure I'm not creating adrenaline or anything else likely to increase my oxygen consumption rate. Or-. Wait, ring, is the oxygen in my blood being used, or has that stopped as well?

Oxygen level in arteries continues to be depleted.

So I.. could just… Scrapping most of my body and just keeping my head and blood is probably worth doing… Except I don't know that Mr Excalibris's next pronouncement won't be 'the Light of Avarice I deny to you', and if he did that I'd just die immediately.

I bounce off the walls and floor again, kinetic barrier taking the brunt of the impact. Based on how fast the fortress was falling and how much time has passed, I'm.. guessing that was this chunk hitting the water. Sinking isn't much of a problem at this point. The nearest Atlantean city is.. too far to get to on the oxygen I have available. And I don't particularly think that leading Mr Excalibris there would be a nice thing to do.

Seconds to go until I reach the armoury. Ring, how..? No, am I still using other chemicals? What exactly has Mr Excalibris done to me?

Food held in stomach is no longer being digested. Chemicals in blood stream are being processed as normal. Waste products are being evacuated as normal.

Would it work if I turned myself into a methane breather?

Unknown. Methane is found in Earth's atmosphere in small quantities. However, the precise extent of the edict is unclear. This ring can transmute oxygen so that it has never been part of the air, yet this oxygen behaves in the same way as atmospheric oxygen. Similarly, the mechanism this ring employs to maintain vitality in space is impaired despite not being related to the air.

How about full robotic?

A fully robotic body would not require atmospheric chemicals in the medium term.

My surroundings rotate as the chunk of fortress I'm in rolls, but since I'm flying blind anyway it's not as disorientating as it might have been. The ring's flight aura presses me against the door of the armoury as it interfaces with the controls.

And my brain?

This technique does not guarantee continuity of existence.

Because the handful of humans who have uploaded themselves weren't exactly the most mentally stable of people, and didn't bother recording the process in anything like enough detail. The door opens and I fly through as the fortress rolls over again.

Okay, need my blood, the rest can go. Give me the equivalent of what Danni has-. Wait, remaining ring power, and how much will this take?

One hundred forty three percent of maximum power remaining. Full physical conversion will require twelve percent.

Do it, make sure to keep my tattoos. And-

A really weird feeling passes through my body, sensory feedback from my extremities suddenly feeling… Off. I'm not numb, I still have full sensation, but… I move the fingers of my right hand, and I can't feel the movement of the skin, the tightening and loosening as it's stretched and compressed. You don't think about what it feels like to have bones until you don't have them anymore.

-get me to the Hellblazer.

Light… Doesn't return, but my ring is relaying an image of what would be there if I could see it through my newly robotic eyes. Surprisingly thoughtful. I fly at the storage locker holding the gun-.

And my vision glitches as the ring detects cracks running across the wall to my left, running in fits and starts across in all directions and accompanied by spurts of water. Huh. Pressure shouldn't be anything like enough to break these walls. I guess dust to dust is a damage over time thing. Fine, at this point I wasn't going to get much use out of this thing anyway.

I open the locker and extract the gun. The ring is best-guessing the colour of kaahuite but it can't quite match the weird… Ooze-glimmer that the stuff has. Probably because it isn't a visual thing but a response to the whole anti-creation aspect of it. But on the plus side, that means that I'm part of creation now. So the chance of me being able to get to an afterlife has increased. The downside being that that's what the people trying to kill me want to happen, I suppose. I load the gun as the water spills past me, work the mechanism… Good.

What next? I've lost track of Zauriel. I have the Hellblazer and the Sword of the Fallen. I have a chance of beating Mr Excalibris, but it's nothing like as sure a thing as I'd like. I'd prefer to go to Hell and work from there, but the oxygen in my blood isn't going to last forever. Which is the bigger risk? Can't tell for sure, but I'd guess the angel literally playing on God mode. For whatever reason he appears to have decided not to make a follow up attack…

How to get to Hell? The nearest portal I know about is near Cefalù on Sicily, but opening a portal right here would be a good deal quicker. A lot of the safety processes I'd normally want are unnecessary; there's no one around I care about and I assume that the surviving angels can deal with it.

The room around me is continuing to fall apart. I'm.. pretty much in the ocean surrounded by an unusually dense concentration of scrap right now. Ring, find 'down' and head in that direction.

Compliance.

I don't know if this is actually helping, but between my tattoos, the water and the wreckage I'm hoping that I'm a little harder to spot-.

"3:1 Malefactors cannot hide from the Wrath of the Most High, nor from his holy agents!"

Yes, because I can still hear him. Ring, any idea what that did?

Increased level of heat detected on external surface. Supposition: the world is now transparent.

My robotic eyes are now just showing me a confused blur, so I deactivate them.

Okay, take us up. Any way to detect the man himself?

Omnidirectional filaments.

Yes, that was the best I could come up with as well. Okay, gun… On a construct-mount because that will be faster than aiming it with my arms.

Oh, and put up a construct telling Zauriel to open a portal to Labyrinth right away if he's still there.

Compliance.

 

25th December
08:52 GMT +1

"4:1 Bow, Worm, before the messengers of the Most High!"

Filaments shoot out to try to locate-.

"4:2 The air itself will reject your foul touch!"

And promptly fade into nothing. Environmental shield is still working -for all the good it's doing- and.. I.. still have no idea where he is, relative to me. In other circumstances I might try to provoke him with banter, but I can't speak without air. Gravity? Winged humanoids don't warp spacetime much, but I can't think of anything else. Ring, make it so.

Compliance.

Tiny distortions-. Given the distance I think those are the planes. Which leaves the rest to be angels. I can't tell from their deployment pattern which is Mr Excalibris himself and which are the regulars. Heck, for all I can tell one of those could be Zauriel.

"4:3 Foul defiler of God's flawless universe, I will-"

Wait, is that it? The Mind of God doesn't like me because I'm not from this universe originally? That would actually sort of make sense. I mean, it would be dumb, but if there was something inherent to my nature that was causing a problem rather than something I'd done then I could understand it!

"-send you to meet our Maker!"

Oh, no, he thinks his god made me too. And one of the gravity distortions is moving my way. Guess this is it then. I target him with the Hellblazer and squeeze the trigger, lever, trigger, lever-. Automate that, draw the sw-.

I'm jerked sideways, something slamming into me. Kinetic barrier.. appears to have been bypassed, but my environmental shield and armour hold strong. No idea where that came from or what it is, but it doesn't appear to be Mr Excalibris as I haven't been stabbed yet. Ah… There's solid ground underneath me. Ring, oxygen remain-? Ah.

Okay, can't use filaments. Ring, fabricate microbots and send them out to build a picture-

Overcome All Restrictions!

-of what's going.. on…

Did I hear-? I blink as my vision is… Partially restored. I.. think I'm seeing by infrared. One.. humanoid, lots of.. vague shapes… None of them look like angels, so, progress. The figure gets closer, and I think… Their lips are moving, maybe? I think my eyes are trying to show me parts of the spectrum I didn't design them for, and that combined with the fact that my brain hasn’t fully adapted to the cybernetics yet is giving me a headache.

The figure stops just in front of me and touches my right vambrace. They then tap rapidly-. Ring, interpret.

Are you alive

Ring, display text: I am alive. I cannot take in oxygen and so converted my body to machinery to extend my lifespan. I need to get to the province of Labyrinth in Hell and to have the theurgical magics working on me dispelled.

Follow

The figure moves away. Don't have anything better to do. Ring, try matching the thermal image I just saw with everyone on your database. Any ideas?

Image resolution insufficient for reliable analysis.

Fair enough. And-. And the location the microbots were reporting as a rock-strewn wasteland is gone, as is the signal from the microbots.

Life Is To Be Lived!

I gasp, newly installed cybernetic lungs humming faintly as they suddenly gain the ability to process oxygen! Still don't know where I am, but at least I'm not going to die right away.

Each Essence Is Precious!

…

That time I definitely heard something. It sounded.. like…

What-?

No, no, think it through. I take the Hellblazer off its construct mount and press both of my rings against the kaahuite segment.

What Is Given Belongs To The Recipient!

And ring scan! Where am-

The towering edifice of Masak Mavdil itself towers above us and demon warriors are converging from all directions.

-I? Okay. And my rescuer is either Scott Free or Doctor Impossible, and since he's actually being helpful…

"Mist-. Mister Miracle?"

"I hope you had a plan for the next part, too."

"More a hope than anything else, really. What have I missed?"

"KordTech New York was.. disintegrated. People started being evacuated as soon as the mob started forming, but… We're not sure how many people made it out. Kord… Didn't."

Damn.

"They were moving in on Themyscira, Mount Etna and Mount Justice before you reappeared. Did you know ab-?"

"No, no, I just wanted to stop them destroying-" I lift the Hellblazer slightly. "-this. How did you find me?"

"I just listened to when Karrien started shouting again."

"There they are!"

We both look around as a thin and long-limbed demon climbs a rock and points us out.

"But about that plan..?"

"This is where Hell keeps captured angels. It marks the point where Hell.. started, where the First of the Fallen came to rest when God cast him out. If there's anywhere the Mind of God's theurgy won't work, this is it. And I've got a.. deal with the owner, but it's not one that the minions know about." Hm. "How did we get here?"

"Boom tubes aren't limited to conventional physical locations. And I was slightly faster than Canis. So about those demo-."

I switch the Hellblazer for the Ace of Winchesters and shoot the closest, who explodes with golden light. The rest scatter, seeking cover or forming a wall of kaahuite shields. Right idea.

"I'm here to talk to either William Hayes or Satanus. I probably can't beat you all, but I can kill an awful lot of you and the Archangel of War is hunting me."

A tremor runs through the host as out of the corner of my eye I see Mr Hayes leap from the middle battlements and fly at speed towards us. He comes to a halt in the air about halfway between us and the shield turtle.

"Harm remembers the It, and with little fondness." Looks like he's been upgraded again. Demonic cybernetics, kaahuite plate and… A cloak made from what looks like Ran Va Daath's skin. "If It has something to say-."

"The Mind of God has sicced the Archangel of War on me. I need to kill both of them, and as much of the Host as necessary to make that happen. Do you think we can cooperate?"

Mr Hayes smiles. "Harm has long wished to taste the flesh of angels. Harm believes that we can make common cause."

 

25th December
08:03 GMT

Demonic sorcerers under the direction of Agony and Ecstasy chant, and portals to the other provinces of Hell open wide. Then Mammon-as-Satanus strides through one to Limbo about a half-second before Neron stalks through the one to Gull, arm in arm with Rosacarnis. He's dressed as a knight, kaahuite plate covered with a green surcoat. She's wearing a dress, runic symbols which hurt my eyes stitched into the fabric. Neron shoots Mammon a look of utter fury, while Mammon smiles politely and waves back. Rosacarnis merely nods, then the three of them head towards Mr Hayes, Mr Free and me.

"Orange Lantern!" Mammon's smile grows as he gets to within hailing distance. "I see that even Hell itself is not free of the havoc you create!"

Behind him, portals widen as soldiers begin marching through. Stercorax rides some sort of demonic insect-rhino at the head of a column of damned souls wearing what looks like grey power armour and carrying long-barrelled guns. Neron's soldiers on the other hand are more orc-like; hulking brutes armed with melee weapons and shields whose surfaces ripple with the power of the demonic spells bound to them. All of which will go dead if anything happens to Neron himself. A third column of mechanical and cybernetic… Things comes through another portal, the wraith-like form of Richard Simpson darting from war machine to war machine with gleeful energy. Other columns emerge from the other portals and move to occupy the positions indicated by the demonic civil servants who came here from Pandemonia with the Twins.

"I do worship Eris, my lord. A certain amount of chaos is to be expected."

Neron looks down at me contemptuously. "You are the one whom the entire Host of Heaven is pursuing? Such a small thing to cause such a great excitement."

I grin. "Thank you for coming, Arch-Duke Neron. I really appreciate it. It's a massive help to me, and I'm astonished at your generosity."

He and Mammon share a look, while Rosacarnis raises her right eyebrow. Breath hisses through his teeth. "We do not do this for you, fool. But handing you over to the lickspittles of the Silver City… Helping them, is inconceivable. Ejecting you amounts to the same thing. And if we killed you, they would simply come for your soul. And for the Host to have the temerity to invade our realm…"

Mammon nods. "The governance of Hell is… In dispute. Even before you slew the First, his power never entirely recovered from his defeat at the hands of John Constantine. There's not even any real consensus on who the forerunners are."

Neron's eyes burn with green flame. "Me."

Rosacarnis lays her right hand on his shoulder. "Calm yourself, your highness. You will have more than enough opportunities to demonstrate your strength this day."

Mammon nods cheerfully. "Which is rather the point. We're all strong within our own domains, but there is no real avenue to expand, to seize one another's territory and claim the Crown of Horns. Any of us who try-" He glances at Neron. "-get our knuckles rapped."

There's a sort of electric buzz as Mr Simpson appears. "It's a giant, demon, cock-waving contest! Whose is biggest?! Who knows how best to roger angels with it?! And who can do it when everybody's watching? Because if there's one thing demons respect, it's killing angels."

Mr Hayes smiles faintly. "Harm has no interest in either the crown or in waving his genitals. Harm is simply here to kill servants of God."

I nod. "You can't rule if no one is prepared to obey you. The lord who achieves the most, who demonstrates themselves to be in the most commanding position, will start getting pledges of loyalty from those who aren't strong enough to make their own claim. That will snowball… And Hell will have a new sovereign."

Mammon nods. "I'd thank you for the opportunity… But then afterwards I'd have to cut off my own lips."

"I don't believe that I've heard of the Crown of Horns."

Rosacarnis waves her right hand negligently. "After the Great Darkness rose, Lucifer agreed to share power with Beelzebub and Azazel in order to restore some semblance of stability to Hell. They both demanded that he forge them a crown to reflect their new status. So he did: one crown, which he suggested they share. Since they couldn't, it was left on a pedestal next to Lucifer's throne."

"Demons not being able to share was how John Constantine tricked the First, Second and Third into curing his lung cancer. It's a pretty big psychological weakness."

Neron's eyes narrow. "Mortals may consider you wise-" I can't help but shake my head. "-but you clearly know little of Hell."

"You guys know that I killed the First, right?"

Rosacarnis looks at me almost pityingly. "The succession is not simply a matter of killing your predecessor. The First did not kill Lucifer, and neither Remiel nor Duma killed him."

"What happened to them, anyway?"

The assembled demon lords look at one another, and snigger. Mammon shakes his head. "Never you mind. Simpson, are the Exegesis Guild going to make a showing?"

He wobbles his head from side to side. "Their mouths say 'yes', their troop movements say 'no'."

Neron's lip curls. "I'm not surprised. They've grown truculent and useless. I'm sure that the First only granted them their charter as a slight to Belial."

Mr Simpson nods. "You'll get no argument from me. I had to leave a good portion of my force behind in case they decide to pull anything, and I know what that does to my chances."

Neron nods. "I believe that it is firmly in Hell's interests that they be put in their place, once this is done."

Mammon nods. "Obviously. Any prince of Hell who won't respond to an external invasion is unworthy of their office."

"What are our chances?"

Neron sneers. "I don't much care what your chances are. But we've all been preparing for this. We've all been eagerly awaiting the day when we can overrun the Silver City and achieve dominion over the Earth. And while none of us were ready for it to happen today, we are more than capable of drowning the angels in their own blood."

"Glad to hear it." I take the Hellblazer off its harness and hold it out. "Would this help?"

Neron rolls his eyes. "A lever action rifle? We're not ignorant savage-"

Mr Simpson's eyes light up. "Oooooooooh. What have you done there?"

"-es." He frowns. "What? The kaahuite? Satanus wasn't exactly slow to attack him with it."

"No, the spell." He gestures. "Look at it!"

Rosacarnis cautiously takes the gun and examines the runes. "I believe that I understand. You're using the kaahuite to link anyone struck by the bullets to the Great Void directly. You humans can be so creative."

Mr Simpson's hands glow. "I doubt we'll have time for mass implementation, but if any of you want to pass weapons to my processors I should be able to replicate it." He looks my way. "This is good stuff, this is. Sephtian's design?"

"Technically, my design, which he checked and his employees enchanted, based on the work of whoever it was who created the Ace of Winchesters." I frown. "He ended up down here, didn't he? Which of you.. got him?"

Their eyes dart to one another's faces, their expressions carefully neutral. Mr Simpson shrugs and Rosacarnis returns her attention to me as Mammon and Neron's eyes meet and neither of them want to be the one to look away first.

"That will also be a matter to investigate once the Host are dealt with."

 

25th December
08:19 GMT

"…avenged yourselves upon those who tormented you, but have you spared a thought for those who so callously decreed that you were worthy of such torments?!" Mammon's soldiers are fortifying their positions or setting up support weapons on the lower curtain wall around Masak Mavdil. Nonetheless, he's taking the opportunity to remind anyone who might think of wavering in the face of angels why they're fighting. "Those who gleefully cast down any who did not bow and scrape before them and their laws! I know that all of you believe as I do, that the current state of affairs is cruel and unjust!"

"Fool." Neron sneers, shaking his head. "Appealing to the damned. It is as if he doesn't want the Crown of Horns at all."

Mr Free looks a little amused. "And you think Hell's government should be of the demons, by the demons, for the demons?"

"No, it should be me." He glances at Mr Free and I, weighing up whether it's worth explaining the subject to us or not. "Those are damned souls without the strength to become demons. They are a breath on the wind. Weak, not merely of will but also of magic. Without that armour, without those weapons, a small group of my skirmishers could outfight the whole lot of them. Even with their… Arquebuses, and with the force their armour lends to their bodies, they are weaker both at range and in melee than my own soldiers."

"And in magic?"

He lowers his eyebrows, then chuckles at me. "The damned cannot use magic in Hell. If they could, they would have become demons by now."

I suppose… Most magic users draw power from the world around them, from Earth's natural magic fields. Those aren't accessible here. They should be able to use Hell's magic… Shouldn't they? Goodness knows that enough people on Earth do. Maybe it's something to do with being dead. Or… No. Neron is ancient. He might just be lying to me, or exaggerating, but I doubt that he'd be wrong.

"You don't feel the need to exhort your own troops?"

"My soldiers will fight when I tell them to fight, kill when I tell them to kill and die when I tell them to die." He looks thoughtful for a moment. "Still: it would not hurt to place myself in the van, to show them by personal example why I am their overlord."

There's a puff of green mist, and he's gone. I catch sight of him a moment later, already passing on orders to a demon identified in the Grimoire Verum as Archfiend Pyrus, who bows his head at once.

"So, you're the God of Freedom." Rosacarnis looks at Mr Free with intense curiosity. "It's strange to feel the power of-. You call it the Source, don't you?"

He shrugs. "I grew up on Apokolips. Granny Goodness wasn't big on theology."

"Ah. A pity. But it is strange to feel the magics of the Source from one without wings. We simply must get together once this matter has… Been dealt with."

"Any idea how long we've-" A blood red bonfire flares up a short distance from us. "-got?"

Mammon's soldiers turn to point a score of ectoplasma projectors at it as Mr Cassidy walks through. He starts to raise his trident and then thinks better of it, whistling as he gets a look at the assembled army. "Should I be worried about how fast you put all this together?"

"When you're an Illustres, you just have to be prepared for these things."

Rosacarnis smiles wickedly as she stares at him. "The Spawn of Nebiros. Have you any idea how many of my agents you've banished back here?"

His right hand tightens its grip on the haft of his trident, while his left waves vaguely. "Like… Ten..? Twenty..? You really want to do this now?"

"Whatever power your sponsor gave you, you are not one of us. And you have made it clear that your interests do not align with.. ours." She stops, frowning, and sniffs. "Why do you smell of the stuff of creation?"

"Ate a fruit from the Garden of Eden. Hey, Lantern-" He turns his head my way. "-I don't think it's working. I'm still finding her attractive."

"Your libido isn't my fault. How are things upstairs?"

"More angels are appearing, and… Excalibris is sending flocks after people like me. We're going to be down a few magicians before this is over."

"Chantinelle?"

He shrugs. "Haven't seen her. But since she isn't exactly a demon any more and she's got the same tattoos as you, she should be okay."

"And Jade? Diana?"

He shrugs. "I don't know. I don't know any Jade, and Wonder Woman doesn't tell me what she's doing."

Yeah, that's-.

"Is that a robot?" He's staring in the direction of a large mechanoid with anti-flier gun mounts. "Since when does Hell have robots?"

"Since Richard Simpson finished his apprenticeship after stealing Nergal's..-" I look at Rosacarnis. "-body. That's how you know him."

She remains impassive. "It's hardly a secret. I found what he and Constantine did to my father utterly hilarious."

I nod. "Remember to keep a watch out for giant rats. Your father didn't get to where he was by not having backup plans."

"Oh. That." She smiles. "I thank you for your warning, but the matter has been dealt with. Permanently."

"I'll let John know when I see him. I'm sure it-."

There's a jagged flare of pink light as Agony and Ecstasy teleport to us. Agony's playing with his barbed wire, but Ecstasy looks down at me in fascination.

"Um. I don't know what you're thinking, but I woke up in bed with two women this morning and so there isn't really anything you can offer-."

"You have met the font of all desire."

"What, the Ophidian?" It's hard to see given how the two of them are glowing, but this close I can see where they're both bleeding from the barbs biting into their skin. "Yes, we're fairly-."

Her eyes widen. "He's coming."

I try not to look at her brother, his erect penis, or the barbed wire snaking around it. "I've always.. thought of the Ophidian as female…" I frown. "Though now that you mention it-."

A blinding flare of white light flashes into existence in the wastelands a short distance from the tower! And the sound-! It sort of reminds me of Zauriel's song at KordTech, only-. Piercing and demanding rather than beautiful or inspiring. Winds blast over the defences as soldiers come alert and ready their weapons. I generate railguns and-. And I glance at Mr Free.

"Mister Miracle?" I offer him the Hellblazer. "I imagine that you could benefit from this more than me."

He looks at it for a moment, then shakes his head. "I'll.. see about countering the angels' song."

"But-."

He's already taken off on his aero-discs, moving to take cover behind the towering bulk of Masak Mavdil. Makes.. sense, I suppose. That's his speciality. I turn to Mr Cassidy. "Do you-?"

"I don't know anything about shooting real guns." He takes a two-handed grip on his trident. "I'll stick to th-."

The sound becomes deafening as the angels arrive.

 

25th December
08:23 GMT

A flock of twelve angels emerge without particular urgency from the portal, coming to a halt above the desolate plane. One among their number wears a golden torc, and he positions himself at the fore.

"1:1 Denizens of this desolate place! Be it known…"

He takes a moment to look at the entrenchments.

"That…"

Mammon smiles, a small runic communicator in his hand glowing for a moment. "Don’t keep me waiting."

The angel backs up slightly. "1:2 Good Lord."

The air between the lines and the angels turns green with fire from the ectoplasma projectors. I lower my rifle slightly as the angels begin to burn, only the two on the far left managing to turn and flee quickly enough to avoid the brunt of the firepower.

"I'm underwhelmed."

Rosacarnis raises her right eyebrow. "Did you believe yourself to be worthy of the full force of Heaven?"

The last two angels have nearly made it back into the portal before Mr Hayes blurs through the air and shoulder barges one of them. I can see his target's outline bend as his bones break. The other survivor turns and sings, and I'm treated to the sight of scintillating white light washing harmlessly off his Daathskin coat.

"Harm does not find It intimidating."

He then drops, grabbing his still-living quarry out of the air before flying back to the air over friendly lines. Local fliers make sure to give him space as he holds his trophy up high, the angel attempting to sing at him with shattered ribs. Mr Hayes shifts his grip in response, left hand on the top of his head and right hand forcibly closing his jaw.

"No." Mr Hayes shakes his head, head tilting slightly to the left as his head gets closer to that of his victim. "No."

Oh.. he.. wasn't joking about.. eating one. I can see the flares of golden fire as the angel's sanctified flesh burns him on the way down, but… He's certainly committed. And I suppose that Aym's indestructibility and Asmodeus's courage help.

"Won't that just weaken him?"

Mr Cassidy grimaces. "I know I'd be pretty weak if someone ate my face. It's like kryptonite or something."

"I mean Mister Hay- Harm. Isn't he using up his magic to keep himself from exploding?"

Rosacarnis shakes her head, watching Harm intensely. "When he seized Labyrinth, I thought that he was someone's stalking horse. At best, a brute of little lasting importance. But I will say without shame that no one else here would dare doing what he is doing. And that everyone admires him for it."

A chunk of shoulder falls to the ground beneath him, a faint gold flame flaring up from the ground where it lands.

"It's always nice to see a happy ending. Why did those idiots just fly into our guns?"

"Even a small flight of angels would be enough to send a disorganised rabble of minor demons running. Even a fell templar like my uncle would hesitate, knowing the price of being singled out. I expect they believed that they could command us to hand you over, or at least intimidate us into revealing your location. But now Hell is unified. Lucifer did not care to do that, the First intentionally avoided it and Remiel and Duma… Could not comprehend. This is new."

"Ah…" Mr Cassidy raises his trident, the head of which is vibrating and glowing. "I don’t think Hell's the only ones who-"

For a fraction of a second I see six burning wheels through the portal. And then ohIdidnotknowtheyhadthose! Six… Spaceships..? In pearl and gold armour fly through the portal, their hulls humming and the burning rings which appear to provide their propulsion spinning around four veins near the middle of each vessel. Each one is about six hundred metres long, and as I watch the points where the wheel meets the spokes glow brilliantly-.

Rays of light zigzag out before slamming down into the densest concentrations of defenders. Neron's raised hands glow green and the bolt heading his way fades into nothing, while his soldiers hunker behind their shields as the sigils inscribed on their surfaces light up with eldritch light. Mammon's troops crouch behind rapidly deployed shields of whatever that silver material they wear is, but while Neron's followers appear to be merely knocked to the ground when struck the vengeful damned are torn apart by direct hits. One bolt fired a little after the rest heads for Mammon-

"Harm thinks not."

-before being intercepted by the brutalised remains of the angel Harm was snacking on. That's going to be a problem, though. Mammon can pretend to be Satanus perfectly well. He's got the intelligence, the cunning and the skill. But he doesn't have anything like the raw magical power. He actually can't survive punishment which Satanus could soak up, and if he starts taking hits-. I do not want Hell unified under Neron.

"I want one." There's a flash as Mr Simpson possesses a heavy anti-air emplacement and sets the autoloader clanking into life. "I want them all!"

"Hm." Rosacarnis studies the flying vessels for a moment as they fire again. "The weakest point in the spell matrix is just behind the prow."

I don't hear Mammon's response, but his emplaced cannons open fire only moments after Mr Simpson's flak cannons, black-flecked green smearing itself across the ships' hulls. Most of the initial ectoplasma volley is turned aside by whatever that humming shield is, but the kaahuite slugs have their intended effect and the barrier visibly wavers.

"Ring." I generate a frame for the Hellblazer, targeting the rear ship. "Gravitic accelerator."

Compliance.

"Fire."

BANG!

I blink, a burning blue line which describes an arc in the air between me and the ship I targeted suddenly appearing, the force of the sonic boom forcing Mr Cassidy to shield his face and plant his feet. I hear it as the song around the ship I hit fails-.

Neron grabs a spear from one of his subordinates and hurls it at the ship I hit. The vanguard of the angel's fleet tries to manoeuvre to block it but the accumulated fire it's taken has damaged its motive wheel and its efforts to turn only cause it to wallow and roll. Neron's spear slams into the front of the ship I hit, biting into its armour and spilling toxic green light outwards across its hull. The spear jerks as Neron's own arcane malice causes it to bite deeper and deeper, the green light on the outer hull forming runes of corruption and consumption-.

The ship's fire wheel fails and the ship plummets to the ground, a plume of dust and stone erupting where its crumpling nose meets the rock. A moment later the spear reaches its target and the midsection of the ship explodes in a wave of green fire.

Neron turns his head in my direction, and nods.

Another ship drops out of formation, the singing shield having been broken down enough by the kaahuite shot to allow the ectoplasma fusillade to melt the front portion of the hull to slag. Another volley of light lances out from the wheels of fire, but clusters of demonic sorcerers behind the front lines raise hands glowing with eldritch fire and send clouds of kaahuite dust up to intercept them. The bolts pass through, the light they emit fading until they strike their targets with a mere fraction of their original power.

"Ring. New targ-"

Angels fly out of the blinding light at speed, their bodies covered in gold-coloured armour and burning swords outstretched as they head for the front lines!