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

Earth 534834

8th February 1992
08:51 GMT -5

Guide dog sniffing cautiously at me from her position next to Irene Adler's legs, the woman herself faces my general direction with a frown on her forehead.

"I wasn't expecting to speak with you today."

And though I wouldn't be so gauche as to say it, I was expecting someone younger. Though I.. suppose that with her shapeshifting abilities, it's about as hard to guess Ms. Darkhölme's age as it is Logan's.

"Okay? I can leave if you want." I frown. "Ah. Does you not expecting to speak to me mean that I've got some sort of protection against prognostication or does it mean that I've inadvertently broken the universe?"

"I hope that the universe isn't that fragile." She pauses. "But you being here isn't helping. I know that I'm talking to you and I know nothing about this conversation."

I nod sympathetically. "I feel the same way, most of the time."

"Hm." She raises her right hand to her chin. "I heard nothing as you walked up the path. You might have been walking quietly, but I can hear your feet moving now. And you rang the bell. The other possibility is that you flew."

"The second one."

"Are you here to arrest me? My power doesn't lend itself to combat and I'm an old woman. I'd prefer to come quietly rather than be grabbed by a giant robot."

I shake my head. "Those aren't a thing anymore. And I can't arrest you unless I see you committing a crime right in front of me."

"One of Charles' adventurers?"

"One of his students. A.. mature student, obviously."

"Your name?"

The card's no good, because she's blind. I could add the Braille characters to it, but just thrusting something she can't see towards her seems a little rude. "I work under the name 'Orange Lantern'."

She steps back from her door. "You may as well come in. Try not to make too much of a commotion; I'm too old to keep moving every few years."

"Thank you." I frown. "I.. thought that your ability allowed you to walk around?"

She sidesteps around a hall table, a knob-ended cane lying on top of it. I follow her inside and shut the door, her dog coming forward to give me a few sniffs before returning to its mistress's side.

"It usually does. Anywhere where I will walk, I can look a moment or two ahead and use that to navigate. But with you here, I can't, because as far as my power knows there's no chance of this happening."

I nod. "And so no chance that you'll be where you are."

"Not talking to you." She leads the way into the kitchen. "There are any number of things that could cause me to be somewhere else in my own home."

I nod, glancing at the photographs on the wall. Some of a younger Ms. Adler and Ms. Darkhölme, some of other people I don't recognise. The one that draws my attention is a group picture of the two of them with Anne-Marie. Huh. I don't think she has a copy-.

"You've stopped. You're looking at the photograph."

"I was speaking to Ms. Darkhölme a few hours ago."

"Oh? How is she?"

"She was in good health. I think she's up to something evil, so I'm doing a three monkeys impression until it becomes overt." Wait a moment. "Don't you know?"

"I know roughly how well she's likely to be in a variety of situations. It's not the same."

I suppose that makes sense.

Inside the kitchen the dog walks over to its basket and flops down, watching its mistress. Ms. Adler picks up her abandoned mug of tea but leaves the newspaper where it is. Because she doesn't need to read it -she can't- but she can look into any future where she might read it and read it there.

"Well? What brought you here?"

"I read up on your file in Professor Xavier's records. I understand that you were going blind before your ability manifested?"

"That doesn't mean that my precognition didn't cause my blindness, just that it manifested first."

"If you like, I can give you a brain scan more accurate than anything available to human medicine. If it was a side effect or unrelated, it's easy for me to fix."

"Did Charles finally find a mutant healer?"

"Sorry, I don't have an x-gene. And I can only heal certain people. But in your case it's a service I'm happy to provide."

"And why am I part of the elect?"

"I'm Anne-Marie's boyfriend, and I'm here to invite you to our wedding."

I see the tea in her mug shake slightly, so she puts it down on the work surface.

"I didn't see that coming, either."

"No?"

"If anyone, I was expecting Gambit."

I frown. "Really? He didn't seem like the type."

"It wasn't likely. And you invited Raven."

"And Kurt."

"Kurt-? Did you tell Raven you were inviting him?"

"Yes. She didn't really react, but… I suppose that given how long it's been since she had anything to do with him, that.. may just be awkward for her rather than-."

"I wouldn't assume that." She looks thoughtful for a moment. "How long have the two of you been together?"

"About three months. I wanted to.. wait a little longer. She.. emphatically didn't. Um, Professor Xavier managed to transfer Carol Danvers' personality back into her so that's not an issue any more, and when she woke up she didn't seem to really remember Anne-Marie, so we… Probably got away with that."

"It was necessary."

I raise my right index finger. "It was probably necessary. I understand that sometimes you miss consequences."

"That's true." She nods. "And if I can't see you at all, then everything that I thought I knew about her future could be wrong."

"I love the Seldon Plan, and so does my good friend The Mule. But I'm not going to complain because if you hadn't done that I might not have met her. She might have stayed with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants-."

"It was supposed to be in apostrophes."

"I'm sorry?"

"'Evil Mutants'. A place for those cast out of polite society because they were different and so of course they were evil. Creed took it as a challenge." She shakes her head with a grimace. "I've got no idea what she saw in him."

"Okay, but can you come?"

"Do you have a date?"

"I haven't actually asked her yet. Um. Do you have..? Any advice on..? How to go about that?"

"Oh good grief."

 

1st January 2013
21:06 GMT

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

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

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

"Thiva?"

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

In a generation or two.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, Athyns."

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

"I'm glad to hear it."

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

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

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

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

"But they knew of Karrakan."

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

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

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

Oh. Ring, update Controller Hinon.

Compliance.

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

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

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

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

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

"What will he demand?"

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

"How much success has he had against them?"

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

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

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

"Please explain."

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

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

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

"How would you take it?"

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

"Why didn't he agree?"

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

"Would our position be weakened by aiding him?"

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

"I need more information."

"It's usually helpful."

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