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

17th November
08:23 GMT +8

Green Arrow unslings his bow while looking over the targets. "Hm. Bit mundane given all this build up, but I'm game." He looks up at Tao. "How are we scoring this?"

Tao looks at me a little uncertainly. "I had thought that this was to be a demonstration. I did not think that we would be competing."

Green Arrow smiles. "Yeah, keep telling yourself that. Artemis, you want in?"

Artemis looks at the targets, at Tao, at me and then back at him. "Ohh no. I know a set-up when I see one."

Green Arrow moves his right hand to cover his heart. "Your lack of faith wounds me, Artemis. Right here."

"Mister Zatara." I gesture to Green Arrow who's already putting his first arrow to string. Should I tell him that that's an inefficient technique? No, this is a test of accuracy, not speed. He should do whatever he's most comfortable with, and anyway I'm not sure the fast shot technique works with his trick arrows. "Subject one, 'Green Arrow', real name.. nominally classified, thirty two years of age. Baseline Human. With no significantly debilitating injuries he's at his physical prime. Began studying the use of the bow when he was.. nineteen, I believe?" Green Arrow turns his head my way and nods once. "And has continued to train himself since, using the criminals of Star City as target practice. For this demonstration he'll be using simple point arrows and a conventional recurve bow with a draw weight of around fifty kilograms."

He pulls the string taut and then relaxes it a little, limbering himself up. "One hundred and one pounds."

"Forty five kilograms."

"Sounds a lot less impressive like that."

Black Canary smiles as she shakes her head. I just roll my eyes. "Forty five thousand grams, then. Though the majority of his experience is in precise, rapid, short ranged shots his skill in other areas is advanced enough to put him in the top ten.. probably top five archers on the planet."

"Oh yeah?"

"I wouldn't have bothered asking if it wasn't a reasonable comparison."

"No, I mean how come I'm not number one? Or-" He nods at Tao. "-two, according to you?"

"I judge Shado's skill at long ranged and indirect fire to be superior to yours. Malcolm Merlyn has demonstrated the ability to shoot out individual organs." I incline my head towards Wonder Woman. "The Amazons Aella and Dessa are noted for their skill with the bow amongst a race who have had three thousand years to gain experience with primitive weapons. In fact, I would say that of the top one hundred archers in the world at least eighty five are Amazons."

"Really?" He looks at Black Canary. "Maybe I should visit sometime? Show those ladies how to really handle a s-." She pokes him in the ribs. "Hey, kidding!"

"He's about as good as baseline Humans get. It is also worth noting that Green Arrow hasn't practised in this environment before. The shape of the valley and the temperature of the rocks can create difficult air currents-."

"Please. I work in a city!"

"Perhaps the trees, then? I.. think that's everything. Oh, for this demonstration no artificial aids.. sights, anemometers, externally applied enchantments.. will be in use. Loose when ready."

Green Arrow loosens his neck, draws and takes aim at the first target. "How big're those targets?"

"One metre twe-" There's a thwack as his first arrow strikes the first target dead centre. "-nty." Bull's eye on the one hundred metre target. Tao doesn't look around.

Green Arrow notches another arrow. "Are we taking it in turns, or what?"

I make a dismissive gesture with my right hand. "Take a shot at each target. There's no hurry."

His second and third bury themselves in their targets' centre. Fourth is a little off-centre, though still within the bull's eye. Green Arrow tilts his head to the side. "See what you mean about the air currents." He notches his fifth and takes noticeably longer to aim before loosing. Dead centre at two hundred metres. Despite myself I find that I'm being impressed. I mean, it's a pointlessly outdated weapon and all that but he's bloody good with it. He looks up at Tao. "Worried yet?"

"No, sir."

"Oh really?"

"May I say, I consider that it is a privilege for me to compete with you."

"You may."

Tao frowns. "I beg your pardon, sir. I have been learning English for only a short time. I do not believe that I understand..?"

"Ah, don't worry about it." He draws his sixth. "This is where it gets interesting..." The distance is enough that we can actually watch the arrow in flight. Thwack! Right on the black line between the inner and middle rings. "Aaah." Two hundred and twenty five metres and he's disappointed? I'm impressed that he can hit the damn thing at all. There'd be a delay in me hitting it from here with a construct! I mean, that's what laser projection constructs are for, but still. He notches and draws another, now completely focused on his task. Shoom.. thwack. Blue, outer circle. He takes a moment to breathe before slowly drawing another arrow, notching, drawing and taking aim. The arrow is visibly pointed away from the target now. Another careful breath and he looses. Thwack. Inner red. A hit at two hundred and fifty metres. Should I call the people at the Guinness Book of Records? His eighth arrow is drawn just as slowly as the seventh. He aims, looses and.. it moves past the target to break on the vertical wall of the mountain. "Uuh. No do-overs, right?" He lowers the bow and rolls his shoulders before taking out a new arrow. "This next one's about three hundred twenty yards, right?"

"About that."

He takes a couple of deep breaths, notches, draws, aims and looses. As he does I find that I actually rather want him to win. I mean, it'd be pretty terrible if he did, but... My goodness. Outer blue at three hundred metres. Ring, that wasn't us, was it?

Negative. No assistance was provided.

I suppose.. over that sort of range the factors that he can't properly predict mount up. If he took five more shots at the same target he might not get any more hits.

"Last one." He's smiling as he looks at Black Canary. "Kiss for luck?" For a second her eyes flick over the rest of us before she walks up to him and lightly presses her lips to his. They stay together for a moment and then she steps back. "Well, now I've really got to hit it." He takes out another arrow and looks it over critically. He runs his right index finger along the shaft and the tip then checks the fletching before holding it up to stare along its length. Finding no imperfections he notches, draws and takes careful aim. Three hundred and twenty five metres. He looses, all of us staring intently at the path of the arrow as it flies towards.. and over the top of the target. And the mountain.

Whoops. Ring, transfer! I appear on the far side of the ridge, an orange aura extending from me in all directions. The arrow slows to a stop as it flies towards me and I pick it up with my right hand before transferring back and returning it to its owner. He takes it with a slight wince. "Eight hits out of ten, the furthest at three hundred metres. Perhaps you are number two after all, sir."

"Haven't seen number one yet." He looks up at Tao once more. "Well, 'Celestial Archer'? Still think you can do better?"

"Would you please step back a little, sir?"

"Ah, okay?" He and I both move back towards the pavilion as Tao closes his eyes. He takes a single arrow out of the quiver on his back before closing a flap over the top of it.

"Subject two, 'Celestial Archer', real name Xu Tao, sixteen years of age." His eyes open. "Augmented Human. Began studying the use of the bow when he was fourteen and more or less fell over the Celestial Bow of Yi." His eyes flick down and his lips tighten. Is he embarrassed about it? "Was conscripted into the Great Ten in two thousand and eight after a brief period of independent operation. His augmentations are a gift from the goddess Chang'e, the widow of his bow's former owner. Please note that unlike me she was able to fully charge his soul grafts almost immediately. The Celestial Bow -if I understand correctly- is an arcane weapon with an infinite draw capacity. Superman could pull on it without being able to overdraw it. Celestial Archer, begin when ready."

He bows his head slightly, eyes narrowed, arrow resting loosely against his bowstring. He's still sitting facing us with the targets behind him. He starts leaning forwards, overbalancing. As he falls to a right angle with the rock face he pushes off, spinning vertically and horizontally as he does so. I can't even track it as his arrow disappears, his body twisting to bring his legs back underneath him as he bends his legs slightly to absorb the impact. He straightens facing us and then gives his audience a shallow bow.

Green Arrow looks puzzled. "Okay, but.. what..?" He looks at the first target. His own arrow has been shot through the middle. "Oh, trick shot is it?" He smiles. "Pretty good. Now lets see you do the res-." Black Canary lays her right hand on his shoulder and points to the next target with her left hand. Another of Tao's arrows has split his. He blinks and then takes another look at Tao's quiver. Yes, still closed. His arrow at the third target has similarly been split. In the fourth, Tao's arrow is firmly placed at the centre. Fifth is split, then centre, centre, centre, centre and centre. Green Arrow gapes in astonishment. "But-! How did-!"

Zatanna points at Tao while looking at her father. "See Dad, totally safe. And amazing!"

"To perform many shots with one arrow is one of the advanced techniques I am able to perform." Tao shifts his weight to his left leg. "I.. have not offended you, I hope? You have been an inspiration to me."

"If you're still not convinced sir, I set up some targets on the ridge line over there." I point out across the valley. "Celestial Archer could pierce them with little difficulty."

Green Arrow and Artemis both turn around and try and get their heads around the idea. Tao shifts his weight to his right leg. "I... I am sorry?"

Green Arrow waves at him. "No, no... That's.. that's fine." He turns to look at Black Canary. "Maybe we should have kissed for longer?" She pats him on the shoulder.

Artemis takes one last look across the valley before walking up to an increasingly uncomfortable looking Xu Tao. "You got any plans for the rest of the day?"

He leans back slightly. "Um? No?" He looks at me for direction, initiative not being encouraged amongst the Great Ten. I point at him with my right index finger and mime sniggering. He looks back at Artemis. "Is there something that you want to do?"

 

17th November
16:37 GMT -5

I breathe in as I take a look around the living area. "It's a bit of a fixer upper. Are you sure about this?"

Miss Robinson smiles as she nods. "I've lived in plenty worse."

I shift weight from my left foot to my right. It always makes me a little uncomfortable when she says things like that. I mean, I know that her life's been really hard but every time she says or does something which shows she thinks it's normal-.

"Why're you glowing?"

"I am?" I look at my hands. Yes, I am in fact glowing. "Um, sometimes when I want something really bad but don't quite know how to get it the ring just sort of 'builds up'. It's nothing to worry about."

"Rrrright..."

"Will Miss Chase be joining us?"

"Ehh, she's got work 'til later." She sniffs. "Oh, finally, the smell's gone." She walks towards one of the damp-rotted windows. "Thought I'd have to leave the windows open all winter." She pulls it closed. "Why'd you call her that?"

"What, Miss Chase? She told me that's what her name is."

"Her name's Karon." She walks along to the next window. "No one calls girls like us 'Miss'. Seriously. Are you secretly, like, fifty or something?"

"... I'm eighteen. Would you prefer I called you something else?"

"What's wrong with Holly?"

"Nothing's wrong with Holly, I just didn't want to make assumptions. I can call you Holly."

"Oookay then." She looks at me like I've said something weird, then gives the second window a tug. It sticks for a moment and then it comes free, thumping closed. "If it's not 'cause you're fifty, is that just how English people talk?"

"I've.. been brushing up on my diction since coming to America. I think I've.. maybe taken it a bit far."

"Y'think?" She rubs her arms. The central heating isn't working yet and she didn't want to put the fan heater on while the windows were open. She's wearing two hoodies and she's still cold. "Are you planning on sticking around?"

I flap my hands in the direction of the door. "I can.. get lost if you want me-."

"No! I just need to go out and get a few things." She puts her right index finger to her lips and taps them twice. "Think I can probably trust you in here on your own."

"I'll.. put a vacuum around.." I take a look around the room again. "Or dust pan and brush or.. something."

She makes an amused snort and smiles at me. Compared to most things I've been doing a little light home improvement is practically a holiday. With the ring ambient temperature isn't something I really worry about, though after leaving the Fortress in the arctic circle I've given serious thought to incorporating heating elements into my armour. The trick is getting a battery that can take the strain for long enough, and working out whether incorporating the extra point of failure is worth it in the handful of situations where it'll matter.

"Okay, well, I'll be back in about a half hour. There's beer in the fridge."

"W-."

"You don't drink, do you."

"N-no. No. Um. I don't."

She's giggling as she walks towards the door. "You're a real one-of-a-kind, you know that?"

"Thank you?"

She closes the door behind her with a rattle and I wince slightly as I have another look around. I can well understand her wanting to be out of her old flat but I sort of assumed that she'd just rent somewhere nicer. True, this place was dirt cheap considering the location, but that was because three people were ritually murdered here and after twelve years the estate agents just really wanted it off their books. 'A bit of love' isn't really going to cut it. Damp, rot in the wood, three different flavours of mould... I'm not sure she wouldn't be better off just getting it knocked down and then rebuilding. I mean, it looks nice. Ish. If you stand back a bit. And if she pulls it off she could resell for a large profit...

If I'm helping, I'm helping the whole way. I jerk the ring downwards and Fatty falls out onto the floor. He lays there for a moment before slowly floating himself upwards without moving from his recumbent position.

"No food?"

"Fatty, I realise I may regret saying this, but you are aware you can take more power from the orange light, right?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Fatty, this house belongs to a friend of mine. She's had a rather hard life to date and I'd like to make it a bit easier. To do that we need to make the house structurally sound. We leave the decorating to her but we're fixing everything else." I take a breath. "It's time to Disney up in this bitch."

Orange gossamer fairy wings form on my back and an orange wand appears in my right hand. And I'm surprisingly okay with that. I give it an experimental wave across the far wall and orange light splurges from the tip, cleaning brickwork, mending wood and drying plaster. Maybe I could work this into... No. Another wave fixes joists and floorboards and adds a layer of instantly drying varnish. Years of dust explode from the rug, colours suddenly as vibrant as they were when it was first woven.

"Fatty, see what you can do about any residual spiritual energies from the murder."

"Food?"

"Sure, eat all you want. Last thing Gotham needs is more psychic filth around the place."

He claps his chubby little hands together excitedly, a disturbingly broad grin spreading across his face. A second later he's gone, an orange trail heading upstairs in the direction of the room in which a brain damaged vagrant tortured a family of three to death before stabbing himself through the eyes.

Fucking Gotham.

No, not thinking about it. Another wand twirl replaces the cracked and dirty windows with sheets of clear diamond and replaces the rotten frames with a hard synthetic wood-like substance. I grin as a light wing flap takes me into the air. Add a bit of life to those settee cushions. Repair the ceiling rose and dust the ornate light fitting. Fuse and earth the electrics. Double wands! Vacuum cleaner constructs roar as I send them shooting throughout the house, floors, walls and ceilings. Defur the insides of the pipes and add carbon nanotubes for strength and because I can! I put the drip-catching buckets in the loft into subspace as I straighten and clean the roof tiles, transmuting new ones to cover holes where they've fallen away. I swing the wands with wild abandon, everything that makes the house anything less than Holly deserves evaporating before my need. With a clunk the boiler starts up again and I hurriedly create thermostatic controllers in every room. Could change it to run on electricity instead of gas but I think I'll leave that for Holly to decide. Swinging the wands upwards I spread the orange light upwards to the first floor. I'll have this place in tip top shape-.

Someone knocks on the door and I suddenly remember myself. Fiiiine. The wings fade away and the wands evaporate. Boring filament bound constructs continue the repair work as I drop lightly to the floor and head over to the door. Is Karon back early? Doesn't seem likely but I haven't looked up her workplace. Holly hasn't asked me to keep our association a secret but it would probably be best if I wasn't obviously Orange Lantern just in case. Another knock. Right, right. I stride to the door and reach for the latch. Should I use the chain? Not like I need it but a normal Gothamite probably would... Nah. It's a good.. ish.. neighbourhood and I'm fairly physically imposing. I should be able to get away with it. Turn the latch and open the door.

And blink.

Hello, Ms Kyle.

 

17th November
16:53 GMT -5

She blinks at me in surprise. "Oh. Hello." She's wearing a pale yellow blouse, light brown jacket and brown trousers and she's carrying a brown paper shopping bag. I was pleased to learn that despite what television tried to teach me the Americans are in fact intelligent enough to know that shopping bags need handles.

"Good afternoon. Can I help you?"

She leans back slightly to check the house number, then sizes me up. I've made the switch from my summer vest to a dark grey dress shirt but my ring crafted musculature is still fairly evident. "Where's Holly?"

"She just popped out to get some stuff. Do you want to come in and wait for her?" I point my right thumb at the room behind me.

Another look. Is she checking me for weapons? Catwoman's checking me for weapons! Eeeeeeee! "And, who are you?"

"Oh, don't worry about me, I'm just here to burgle the place, you'll barely know I'm h-."

The first blow strikes me in the neck. It doesn't hurt but I'm knocked back into the house by the surprise. I hear a bang as the bag drops and the second blow strikes me across the eyes. I turn my head away from it instinctively. A baton? What? Oh no... Another strike to the head then what feels like it was supposed to be a heavy punch to the groin. When I don't react she dives past me, rolls to her feet and takes a stance.

No, stop this before it gets any sillier.

"Ms Kyle, I'd like to apologise for what was clearly a.. very badly misjudged attempt at humour. I'm Orange Lantern two eight one four, and-."

"Prove it."

Agh, damn it, it's just like when Diana told me to say something to prove the ring could translate! I've only been doing this four sodding months... I drop my hands to the side and rise into the air in a flare of orange light. She relaxes slightly and lowers the baton. "Also, if it helps my case I totally think you're better for him than Talia is."

"What?"

"No? O.. kay. Iiiii'll stop listening to rumours then." Darn it, I totally ship those two. "So!" I drop to the floor, smile and clap my hands together while being careful not to move towards her or do anything else that could be taken as aggressive action. "What brings you here?"

She looks over at the bag. "House warming present."

I wince. "Wasn't.. breakable, was it?" I turn around to look at the bag. I can't see anything leaking. "I'm really sorry about.. um.. just sounded a lot funnier in my head."

Keeping her distance slightly she walks around the room to recover her bag. "Just some groceries."

"I can unbruise fruit!"

"It's just cans and boxes." She squats to pick it up. "You can unbruise fruit?"

"I like bananas being at a very particular ripeness. It seemed like a useful thing to learn."

She opens her mouth to comment, then dismisses it with a shake of her head. "I'm going to put these in the kitchen."

"Alri- ohwaithangonaminute!"

Too late! The anthropomorphised orange vacuum cleaner drives through the opening from the kitchen, stops in front of her, looks at her for a moment, beeps and then takes a sharp left turn and drives up the wall, refreshing the paint as it goes.

I should probably have removed the construct before it did that.

Ms Kyle looks at me in bewilderment. "Had a.. bit of a Disney.. fairy godfather thing going on. They're not actually.. you know, intelligent..."

"I thought the house looked a little different." She watches it go for a moment and why have I still not got rid of it? It vanishes in a puff of orange. Ms Kyle looks at me for a moment and then carries on to the kitchen.

"It was that or.. basically rebuild the whole thing."

"I told her she should get a survey done first." She slows as she gets into the kitchen. Oohhhhh. I.. marbled? I think I might have got a bit carried away. It looks nice but I should really have run this level of change past Holly first. Ms Kyle walks to the closest work surface, puts the bag down and starts unloading. "So why'd you do it?"

"Enchanted, I think? Or maybe Beauty and the Beast? I mean, I work for an Amazon so subverted gender stereotypes just go with-."

She sighs and sags her shoulders slightly. "No, not that. Why did you give Holly the money to buy this house?"

"It produced the best outcome for everyone involved. What, should I have beaten her up and sent her to Blackgate?" I shrug. "What's the point in that?"

"Fairy godfather, huh?"

"Hey, I rock the fairy wings." She looks at me with an amused frown and I recreate the glowing butterfly wings and wand. She snorts and shakes her head. "Um, on a slightly more serious note..." I generate a construct of just prior to my first meeting with Holly. Ms Kyle watches her start her run up, spot me and lose speed, barely making the leap. "I made another badly judged joke about not helping her up here. She.. kinda freaked out." I let it continue playing as I haul her up and she pulls out her knife, first waving it at me and then at the picture. There's some posturing, then she puts the knife down. "The next bit still worries me." Holly's posture gets less angry/scared and more defeated/scared. She pulls off her hoodie again, and then her t-shirt. We both watch the shock on construct-me's face as he covers his eyes. I dismiss the image. "If I'm taking on a problem… And I'm in this.. all the way... I'd like to know how big it is. How bad things have been for her. Why she thought.. that was.. what I was looking for."

Ms Kyle nods. "You said something that sounded like a threat, didn't you?" I face the floor as I nod. "She was never a prostitute, as far as I know. Not in the sense of having sex for money, but.. for runaways and street kids there's.. often a coercive element. You need food, you need a safe place to sleep.. need to feel safe at all." She looks away, her gaze becoming distant. "They need affection, which state institutions just don't provide. Not in Gotham anyway."

"Do you have any..? I'm not really.. trained for this. Is there anything in particular I should do? Or not do? I don't.. don't want to be a-" I grimace. "-coercive element. Or look like or.. be thought of as a coercive element."

"I.. think you're doing alright. I've tried to look after her, but my life isn't exactly-."

"You're Catwoman." A degree of caution reappears in her countenance. "Irregular hours, uncertain payoffs, not exactly an ideal role model. Um, no offence."

"None.. taken. You don't seem concerned..?"

I shrug. "While I don't want to diminish the negative effects of theft on a society.. a few high value items being taken from very rich people doesn't really change much. Plus, acting against you would harm my relationship with Holly." She looks a little sceptical. "Ms Kyle, each week I visit a friend of mine in the Gloria McDonald Prison on Rhode Island. She.. was.. a career assassin. She hasn't been convicted of murder but I know full well that's probably because she's good at covering her tracks. And I don't care. I can neither change the past nor raise the dead. But, I can try and persuade her that there are better ways to live.. and help her pick one."

A wry smile. "You have a soft spot for damsels in distress?"

"I'm also visiting two men in Belle Reve. Don't.. think.. Thomas would like being called a damsel..." He's actually attending classes. Took a while to talk him into it. A lot of draughts games with the board projected onto the transparent panel between us. He doesn't appear to be finding the tuition rewarding as yet. He might have attended school for longer than Jade but I don't think he was paying that much attention to the teachers. I was pleased to learn that despite going back to India Doctor Munro still phones him and Tuppence twice a week. "They need help I don't think they'll get from anywhere else. Anyone else. I guess.. maybe I do?"

"Hm. Well, I don't think Holly has any particular panic buttons. Just.. keep doing what you're doing now." She smiles, and opens a wall cabinet to start loading tin cans in. "And you're right."

"About what?"

"I'm far better for him than Talia is."

 

19th November
16:31 GMT -5

I try to keep my intense dislike of telepathic intrusion suppressed as Mister J'onzz and I stand in the formless void. Oh, he says that in this state he can't hear what I'm thinking and I've kept my ring-based defences up as much as I can but I can perceive a thing which he can't. This simply won't work unless he has access to my senses and that requires some connection. In the real world the two of us are sitting down a short distance from M'gann while Mister King and Lantern Jordan monitor the three of us. Nice to see that he learned that lesson from last time.

"Father Box. Show the man."

"Ploong."

Three pictures shimmer into existence in front of us. The first is a cut-away of a Martian in their default form. The second is an artistic representation of M'gann's mind, her network of thoughts. Mister J'onzz will get more out of that than I do. I mean, I can sort of feel what different bits do but I'm much less familiar with the use of his telepathic sense than he is. The third is the best image of emotional-spiritual systems I can come up with. I'm.. finding.. that I am getting something of an instinct for certain spiritual resonances, one not tied to the ring or to Father Box. I don't have the words to describe it. I'm not sure that English does. A sort of fuzzy.. mental feel? An inadequate description, but the best I can manage. Low level psychometry? Perhaps I am indeed becoming a New God. Won't that be fun. There shouldn't even be much risk of the real Grayven hearing about me until I'm a little better positioned to defend myself.

"As you can see sir, it has almost no physical presence at all." I make a beckoning motion with my right hand and the image of the Martian's head is enlarged, the outer surface peeled away until we can see the brain. "But, if we look at the arcane layer..." The mess of M'gann-shaped colours surrounds us. Reminds me a little of tie-dyeing, except... "You see here? This band of green? The way it binds this patch of yellow?" I look over at my co-worker. Mister J'onzz narrows his eyes and for a moment I get a disorientating burst of feedback as he probes the irregularity using my enhanced awareness. "Now, if we switch to the mental layer..." All I see is a neural network, but again I magnify it to show positively tiny attachments of green and yellow.

"They seem so tiny."

"Their presence doesn't need to be particularly large. I am a little surprised at the Guardians utilising the light of fear in this way, but they know far more about it than me."

"And there are no physical signs at all."

"If there were, it would have failed. Martians are shapeshifters.. but you're also telepathic. Do Martian mothers commune with their children in the womb? Because as I understand it that's all it would take. The slightest mental or spiritual contact-."

"I've seen enough."

Aaaand back in the room. I blink as I adjust to the separation and real environment. Uuugh. I either need to avoid spiritual travails like that in future or train in them because I feel rough as vulture sick. Mister J'onzz floats to normal head height before unfolding from his cross-legged sitting position. Mister King winces slightly while M'gann and Lantern Jordan just look curious.

"J'onn? What happened?"

It's then that I notice that Mister J'onzz hasn't landed. His arms are at his side and his fists are clenched. I don't know Martian body language but he's probably been on Earth long enough to have adopted Human expressions and he looks bloody furious. He floats over to just in front of Lantern Jordan.

"It is exactly as he said. I witnessed bands of green light forcing her mind, her very spirit into patterns they dictate."

Jordan raises his hands defensively. "Hey, hold on J'onn. I'm sure the Guardians wouldn't have done this without a good reason. If it even was the Guardians in the first place."

"For making my entire species afraid of simple exothermic reactions?! They have violated our most intimate psychic links with this abomination! What possible excuse-?"

"Actually sir, I might be able to answer that." Mister J'onzz turns to look at me. He appears not to have noticed how much his outburst is disturbing M'gann, who's staring up at him wide-eyed. I haven't bothered getting to my feet myself. "What does the Martian species know of their ancient forebears?"

"The Martian environment is not kind to archaeological remains on the planet's surface. Much of our ancient history is lost to us. What are you implying?"

"The Guardians are ancient. Some of what I've read suggests that they are a branch of the first sentient species in this galaxy. If the records of ancient Mars are lost they may well have involved themselves before that time."

"Wait just a minute there." Jordan turns his attention to me. "I'm not going to stand by while you accuse the Guardians of doing something like this without hard evidence. Altering the minds of an entire species goes against everything they stand for. John and I already asked them about it and they said they had nothing to do with it."

"Oh p-lease Lantern Jordan. Do you really think a people as old as the Guardians don't have any number of things they'd rather not become common knowledge? Do you really think they've never made a single shameful mistake? When next you speak with them ask them for the real reason why nothing lives in Sector Six Six Six. Ask them about the war with Apokolips which cost the lives of most of their Corps, and whose resolution had them abandon First Lantern Raker Qarrigat as a trophy for Darkseid." The ring might have no data on it but Father Box was only too happy to boast of Darkseid's glorious victory. More fear-aura hypertech than yellow body armour but it was fairly conclusive just the same. "Ask them about the Corpse, their little band of black ops murderers. Ask them of Krona, of Parallax, of the robot Manhunters, of the Anti-Monitor, of the Psions. Why they handed the first four green rings over to the first Green Lanterns without providing them any training whatsoever. And when they've finished soiling themselves at the idea of another being knowing about those things, ask them about Larfleeze and how they threw the Vega Systems to the Beast."

"That... How would you know any of that?"

I speak slowly. "I. Have. A. Father. Box. If you don't believe me, feel free to go to Maltus and check. Heck, get yourself some space armour and take off your ring and I'll send you to Vega. Or Ysmault, if you feel like living dangerously."

"Those worlds are off-limits."

"How convenient. Mister J'onzz, I don't know what your forebears did to earn the Guardians’ ire but I can remove their taint from M'gann." And that's true. I don't know, not for certain. Since I'm not suicidal I have been checking and as far as I can work out the mechanism which allows Martians to communicate with their unborn can also impose forms of thought upon them. If Burning Martians are a thing here.. or were a thing, then their offspring would have been so overwhelmed by the ferocious mental states of their parents that they would always have come out as Burners themselves. M'gann on the other hand is a well-socialised individual surrounded by us. Would the Burners have been as they were because they carried with them the thoughts of their presentient ancestors? It sounds like it makes sense and it would mean that the Guardians altering them was probably the only way to turn them into the civilised people they are now. Buuut, they don't leave their caves. They haven't colonised or mined off their planet, despite having the technical capacity to do so. There still isn't any sort of permanent diplomatic presence on the only other inhabited planet in the system. The Guardians’ modifications might have all sorts of knock on effects. Why have they just left it there?

"I would rather that you performed the procedure on me. If there were any unintended side effects-."

"Then it would be better that the Martian with medical experience was unaffected and able to offer aid. "

"You could bring someone here from Mars. Under the circumstances I am certain that many would offer to make the journey."

"Do you think any Martian doctor could keep that secret? Do you really want to incite a worldwide panic on Mars? Besides, I don't think I like you enough to want to help you enough to use the ring on you. M'gann,-" I turn to her. "-how about it? Do you feel like becoming the first Martian in recorded history not to fear flames?"

She looks down as she thinks about it. "I'm not sure. I mean, what if something goes wrong?"

"Then I'll reinstate the block. This is actually far safer than what Zatanna's trying to persuade Mister Zatara to let me do to her because I can fully reverse it. I'll be monitoring you constantly and at the first sign of something going wrong I'll intervene."

She looks at Mister J'onzz and then back to the ground. "Would it hurt?"

"I can't think of any reason why it would but I can't answer for sure without having performed it on anyone first."

"O-okay." She looks up at me with a small smile. "I want you to do it."

"Mister J'onzz? No objection?"

"None."

"Excellent. M'gann, hold still a moment."

"What exactly-?"

Orange cables extend from my hands and plug into her head. She looks alarmed, but since I can interact with the lock directly it doesn't take more than a moment to finish her liberation. I dismiss the cables. "There. Done. Do you feel any different?"

"Nnno. Not really." She waves her right arm and generates a second forearm for a moment. "My shapeshifting-" **-and telepathy-** "-feel the same as normal. Are you sure it's gone?"

"Let's find out." I take a ceramic bowl half filled with copper chloride powder in methanol out of subspace and hold it out. Mister J'onzz turns away. "Ready?" She nods, clearly scared of being scared. The compulsion must be quite unpleasant. I fear things myself, but nothing so common as fire. "Ring, ignite."

"By your command."

There's a whoosh as the fumes over the bowl ignite. M'gann flinches but almost immediately steadies herself, staring wide-eyed at the flames. "Well? What do you think?"

She continues staring, transfixed as the flames billow in front of her. "I think... I think it's beautiful."

 

22nd November
10:51 GMT -5

"So this is where you grew up, huh?"

Robin's standing on the bank of Westham village pond, looking across the water. Teekl's sniffing the bushes and Fatty's floating overhead.

"Well, in a manner of speaking. Used to come for walks around here, though I.. stopped bothering as I got older."

"When you said you came from a parallel universe I thought it would be.. y'know, different."

I turn to look at where Wallace is sitting, on the short wall dividing the pond-area from the path.

"If it had been very different I wouldn't have survived coming into your universe. On the other hand, if you tried mixing up the Garrick Formula here you wouldn't get very far. Don't even know if your speed would work." M'gann and Kon are sitting on the bench, arms around each other with Wolf sitting on Kon's lap. I completely missed that Wallace didn't know they were seeing each other. Not that I noticed until Kon told me, I suppose. "Thanks for doing this, M'gann. I... It's really nice to be able to see it again."

"No problem. Oh! Can we go and see the castle next? I've never seen an English medieval castle before!"

"You know it's.. more or less the same on your Earth, right? Aside from where the Ophidian and I changed all the signs?"

"Well.. yeah..."

I snort and smile. "Of course we can. Come on, the best route takes us past a church that's more than nine hundred years old. That's about four times older than the United States."

They get up to follow as I lead the way down the road. Shame the others couldn't be with us but Zatanna's school doesn't break up for Thanksgiving, Artemis had been rather letting the homework pile up, Kaldur's doing something with King Orin and Robert clearly isn't getting out of school for a colonial celebration. I'm rather pleased with the way he's been coping with the training. He thinks that with Black Canary's focused training program he should be able to go for his judo brown belt some time before Christmas. He told me that he picked judo because he thought he'd mostly be fighting people much weaker than himself and wanted to be sure that he knew how to take them down while doing as little lasting damage as possible. Canary told me that she plans to introduce him to Brazilian jiu-jitsu because that isn't the case any more.

Some of the buildings on Westham high street shimmer uncertainly. The ones which have changed ownership or that I never paid much attention to. Spoils the illusion a bit but I do have clear memories of-.

"Robin, Kid Flash, Superboy, Miss Martian, Orange Lantern. Report for mission briefing."

I turn back to look at my team mates and shrug. M'gann smiles at me apologetically. "We can always come back later."

I nod, then my eyes snap open and I push myself upright. Lilos! So much better than those weird bier things Mister J'onzz had for us during the exercise. Around me my team mates are taking a moment to collect themselves. We took over one of the small side rooms like the one Black Canary used for the team's counselling sessions. Shoved all of the furniture to the sides of the room and then stuck down the lilos. I swing my legs over the side and rise to my feet before returning mine to subspace. Robin's already heading out of the door while M'gann helps Kon up.

Wallace looks at me as I subspace everyone else's lilos. "What d'you think it's about?"

"Not sure. No advance notice again so it's probably something fairly immediate."

"Think he might have found that Dark Druid guy?"

"Maybe, but I don't think he'd pass that on to us. Given the Security Council discussions on dealing with worldwide supervillain attacks I'd have thought that the League would handle him themselves. It's more likely that it's something to do with Kahndaq."

"You took down Black Adam easy enough last time."

I frown. "Why would he send us against Adom?"

"He's trying to take over a country."

"He's trying to overthrow a brutal military dictatorship. He hasn't even said that he wants to take over afterwards." It's odd, actually. The Sinai Peninsula has now become a de facto independent country with a newly formed governing council operating out of the city of Shiruta on the peninsula's tip. Adom has shown repeatedly that he easily could tear the government apart manually. I'm really not sure what he's waiting for.

Wallace pats me on the shoulder. "When you've been doing this as long as I have, Oh El, you learn that when a guy with super powers picks a fight with the police in broad daylight, nothing good is gonna happen."

I tap him on the chest with my left hand, putting his costume on him from subspace. My own armour materialises a moment later. When we're not in a rush Robin prefers to sort out his own gear. Kon.. I have actually sort of come up with a work around for Kon's armour but I want to save it for his Christmas present. Finally got around to taking a look at his solar suit and I'm fairly sure I can adapt it for a slightly up-armoured version. Won't let him fly of course and its brilliant white is intrinsic to the design but I can transport it in the ring. I plan to start prototyping later this week, some time after my visit to Sephtian. Bit of a shame I don't have another Kryptonian to try it out on.

"Hey, uh. Y'know, normally? Alan spends Thanksgiving with Jay and Joan. Have you talked to him about it?"

"No. I mean, Thanksgiving's an American thing. I don't really know what's involved and I don't really feel any connection to it." I think for a moment. "You're probably right though, I should..."

"Why don't you bring him here?" I look around at M'gann's beaming smile. Wonder why she's so cheerful? "Uncle J'onn doesn't really do anything for Thanksgiving either so Conner and I were going to cook Thanksgiving dinner here."

Kon nods. "I already invited Diana."

"Um, okay. I'll suggest it." He'll probably love it, actually. Seeing what we've done with the place since his last visit and meeting the team. Maybe I could suggest to Artemis and Paula that they might like to come along as well? Does Paula have clearance for something like that? Zatanna.. yeah. Not sure exactly what she's got to be thankful for right now but they don't celebrate it in Italy either. "When is it again?"

Wallace looks at me as if I've said something completely bizarre. "How can you not know-?" I create a small Union Jack construct between us. "Oh. Yeah."

"You don't have Thanksgiving in England?"

"No. I always thought of it as a purely American thing but the ring's telling me that several other countries have similar celebrations. My primary school used to get involved in the church's Harvest Festival but I haven't really thought about it since I left. Er, are you going to want me to do anything for it?"

M'gann leans into Kon as he pulls her closer. "We're good, thanks." I keep my face still. He has come on in leaps and bounds since we first met but Thanksgiving dinner for a large number of people sounds like a fairly large undertaking. I'll check on the fire extinguishers after the mission.

"Okay, well, if you need anything, just ask."

M'gann glances up at Kon as we come around the corner to the training room. "We could use some help getting vegetables." Batman's standing near the main display. He has his personal computer out and appears to be talking to someone. He looks up for a moment and then back to his work.

I nod. "Light speed delivery at your service." Wallace rolls his eyes. "Soil to table in about two minutes over the cooking time."

"I'll make you a list. Of course, we'll need to know exactly who's coming first."

I nod again as we all start straightening up for the Bat-briefing. "I'll get hold of Alan after the briefing."

 

22nd November
11:08 GMT -5

Batman brings up the first two holo images as Robin joins the line up. That's the thing about being around Batman: we're all so used to him being in charge that we ended up just standing here for ten minutes while Robin went to the equipment locker, checked his gear and walked to the training room. Once we got into his general vicinity chatting or.. I don't know, a quick game of construct table tennis just seemed completely unthinkable. Even Teekl and Fatty have more or less lined up, with Wolf sitting on Teekl's head and watching the proceedings attentively. It wasn't even like he'd started giving us orders or anything.

On the left hologram is the face of a slightly overweight Arab with a moustache, beard and receding hairline. Just to his right appears a map of the Middle East with the familiar country of Bialya highlighted, along with its western neighbour Qurac. Since the flag behind the man is the same as the one on Qurac I'm going to assume that he's the sultan, king or president. I don't remember hearing much about Qurac before but I suppose it's like Missus King used to say back when she did supply teaching: you don't learn the names of the well behaved children.

Then the legend 'President of Qurac Rumaan Harjavti' appears below his face. Ring? Oh, quite good Human rights record, corruption levels reasonable, actually democratic. Sort of like Kuwait back home I suppose. It was mildly Soviet aligned during the Cold War -more because Britain had given it rather a hard time during the colonial era than any particular Communist belief- and as such actually managed to keep its oil production nationalised. Second highest Human Development Index score in the region. Just a bit of a shame about the location.

"Rumaan Harjavti is the democratically elected president of Qurac." Thank you Batman, we can read. "Harjavti-" There's a chime as a new window opens, showing a video clip of President Harjavti shaking hands with.. Bruce Wayne. Hm. I think I can assume that his reputation is accurate then and not merely the result of really good information control. The clip is taken from GBS and appears to be from the end of a news conference at the presidential palace in the capital, Dhabar. "-has been praised as a fair and wise leader, a humanitarian."

"Surrre." Wallace leans towards Robin and cups his left hand around his mouth. "Any friend of Bruce Wayne's."

"But five days ago Harjavti aligned himself-" Another window pops up with a headshot of our least favourite Middle Eastern ruler. Still bugging me that I haven't been able to find out her real name. Could be nothing but she must have put some effort into having it covered up if I can't find it, and why would she do that if it wasn't important? At least we're not dealing with the alien insect version. "-with the dictator of the neighbouring nation of Bialya, Queen Bee." Not like any of us would forget who she was. We were all on the last Bialya mission.

Kon snorts. "Not a fan."

Batman's gaze is level and calm. "Few are."

Pheromone based mental manipulation. Nothing my environmental shield can't see off easily enough, though if we close to short range I might have to extend it over any thralls she's picked up. If by some miracle I couldn't just knock her out right away. As powers go it's useful for subtle manipulation but surely by this stage it's like Succubae in the Salvation War, where the only way anyone will negotiate with them is in a heavily air conditioned room or with a gas mask on. Plus, she's ruling a blooming country. It can't leave her much front line time.

"But Harjavti suddenly backs Queen Bee's baseless claim that Qurac and Bialya were one nation in ancient times, and has announced that the countries will reunify in two days at a ceremony in Qurac."

I frown. They probably were, if you go back far enough. Their current borders are largely the work of British and French cartographers with not much attention being paid to local ethnic boundaries. I don't think this Earth really has a Kurdistan problem but the lines on the map were drawn by much the same people. On the holo map the two country outlines merge together under the Bialyan flag. Ring..? Ah. No reliably authenticated document shows the two countries unified in a way which excluded other territories. Sometimes conquerors got the whole area, sometimes the border lines went all over the place. The last time the whole of both countries were unified under a single ruler was in the fourteenth century under Timur the Lame. Even Queen Bee doesn't try and claim succession from him.

A new holo window opened showing President Harjavti making an announcement, flanked by four rough looking sorts from the Quraci... That doesn't sound right. Quracian? From Qurac's military. "After the ceremony, I will step down-" Oh my goodness, that's a Queen Bee stained glass window behind him. Fricking stained glass window. "-as president, so that our rightful monarch -Queen Bee- may rule." The shouting from the crowd makes it clear how they feel about this transfer of sovereignty. I'm still stuck on the window. That's some Doctor Evil level stuff right there.

The scene shifts to Queen Bee's press conference in her capital, Al-Qawiyah. "I laud President Harjavti for unifying our peoples, and I will gladly come to Qurac to be crowned sole leader of our nation."

Ring, were they both speaking English?

Affirmative.

Odd. Why would they do a press conference primarily directed at their own people in English? Wouldn't the local Arabic dialect make more sense? Also, I'm sure I've heard Queen Bee's voice somewhere before. Just can't quite put my finger on it...

Wallace tilts his head to the side and narrows his right eye. "And the Quracis are okay with this?"

Yes, Wallace, they were jeering with joy.

"Hardly." The press conference window closes and a new one opens, this time showing a demonstration. Protestors are carrying lighted candles and banners. Three of the four I can see are in English. I guess they realise that the only countries likely to intervene are outside the immediate area. "They're well aware of the brutality of Queen Bee's regime. But Harjavti has censored the press,-" A still image of protestors shouting at what appear to be riot police. "-silenced all legitimate protest-" Police readying grenade launchers. "-and invited the Bialyan military into his country to enforce martial law." Protestors flee as choking clouds cover the street. Sort of reminds me of Iran back home. And if there's one thing the world does not need, it's another Iran.

"Queen Bee has to be controlling Harjavti. Doesn't she have the power to enthrall most men?" I doubt Robin's right. Doctor Jones would be a more obvious choice. Rulers of entire nations can't just turn up in places without a huge fuss being made. And her control isn't permanent. If she's not reinforcing it...

"And some women. But not long distance, and we have confirmation she hasn't left Bialya. Something else is at work here."

"Wouldn't Simon Jones be the most likely suspect, sir? Assuming he's recovered from his meeting with M'gann and-" I look at my cat. "-Teekl."

"It's a possibility. Your job will be to determine that for certain. Orange Lantern."

"Sir."

"You're team leader."

Ah. Guess we're not voting on it ourselves this time. I nod, plans already forming in my mind. If Doctor Jones is in Qurac then travelling to Bialya and having M'gann read the plan from Queen Bee's mind would be the easiest optio-. Ow. I give Kon a look as I rub my shoulder where he just punched it.

Wallace makes a gesture of appeal. "What about Aqualad?"

"Busy with King Orin. He said before he left. Sir, may I ask: why hasn't the Quraci parliament impeached Harjavti?" I vaguely remember a similar incident in South America. I don't remember which country it was, but the president tried to hold a poll on extending term limits before he reached the end of his own limit despite the fact that the constitution specifically prohibited that. He was impeached and removed from office by their parliament and ended up taking shelter in the embassy of one of his allies.

"They tried. Bialyan military units stormed the parliament building. The entire Quraci parliament is currently under house arrest."

"The Quraci military?"

"Without orders from the president they can't legally take action. The choice of whether to try and work with them or not is up to you." I nod. "Any further questions?" I give a slight shake of my head. No one else says anything. Batman nods. "Team dismissed."

 

22nd November
11:13 GMT -5

Batman walks off in the direction of the zeta tubes as the rest of the team looks at me. Ooh that's weird. "I thought we might mix things up a little by actually staying covert on our covert mission this time so: Teekl, sorry, but I think a large glowing cat would be too much of a give away." She flares her nose and looks away from me. "I'm going to be sticking Fatty in the ring. Do you want to get in the ring?" She rises to her feet and without looking back walks off in the direction of the living area. "Thought not. Fatty."

"Food?"

A Ghostbusters trap construct appears on the floor beneath him and sucks him in before dissipating. "K-. Superboy, you've spent more time with the Sphere than me. Do you think it would want to accompany us?"

He shrugs. "Maybe, but it doesn't have any weapons."

"Recognised, Batman, zero two."

"My thought is this: nothing the Bialyans have deployed in Qurac is a threat to either you or me. We'd laugh off rocket propelled grenades and heavy machineguns. But if they've continued dealing with Apokolips since our last visit..."

Robin nods. "They could have all kinds of stuff."

"My database on Apokoliptian weaponry is woefully incomplete, even with the information Big Barda and Scott Free have provided to the League. Neither of them really had access to the planet's full arsenal. I doubt they've given Queen Bee a Mekkanoid or a squad of Parademons, they'd draw too much attention. But they might have handed over a Techno-Seed or a Hell Spore. If we start seeing alien technology I'd like to have someone on hand who can tell me what I'm looking at." I think about that for a moment. "Or at least beep at me in an intelligent sounding way."

Kon nods. "I'll get her."

"M-. Miss Martian, how do you feel about going mind to mind with Doctor J-?"

Wallace makes an exasperated gesture. "Can't you just call him Psimon like everyone else does?"

"Yes, but I'm not going to. The fact that he has a silly pseudonym is not what makes him a threat; the fact that he's a telepath, telekine and a doctor of physics is. Having had a look at his thesis-" The abstract anyway, the main body was scarily above my level. "-it's quite possible that he was the one who managed to make contact with Apokolips in the first place." I tilt my head to the side. "That, and the fact that it lets us make Indiana Jones jokes."

Wallace starts, ponders with his right index finger tapping against his chin and then slowly nods. "Good point, well made."

M'gann shuffles. "I.. don't know. Henry and I have mostly been practicing telepathic illusions, not direct mind to mind fighting. I mean, I should be able to stop him doing what he did last time but I'd really find it easier to stop him spotting us in the first place."

"Exactly what can your illusions cover up? Do you think you could scan someone he was controlling without him noticing?"

"Maybe. If I concentrated."

That gets Robin's attention. "You really think Harjavti's being controlled?"

"Controlled... I'm not sure. Even someone like Doctor Cizko struggles to completely control someone who's more than about thirty metres away and not have them look like a zombie. And.. if Doctor Jones was around the President all the time Batman would have had a picture of him. If Doctor Jones is running the Quraci end of the operation it's more likely that he's inserting a series of compulsions and leaving the President to his own devices most of the time. So, two basic choices: go to Qurac and scan President Harjavti to get confirmation, or go to Bialya and try extracting the information from Queen Bee."

Wallace makes a show of counting us off. "Oh El, I'm counting four guys here, and unless you wanna tell us something we're all in the 'most men' category. Going up close with Queen Bee doesn't sound like a smart move."

"Pheromone based mind control is easily blocked by power ring environmental shields. Or an airtight costume with a gas mask. Besides, Miss Martian wouldn't have to get close to scan her and would be invisible. Only real problem with it would be if Doctor Jones was near her and picked up on the scan."

Robin shakes his head. "And if he is we're surrounded by the entire Bialyan army. Your ring hasn't been all that reliable at detecting things lately."

"That's the problem. But there's ways around it, and data mining Queen Bee's brain could have all sorts of rewards."

"Um..." I look at M'gann. "If Queen Bee's spending a lot of time around Ps-. Around Doctor Jones, it might not just be him who could pick me up. Do you think she's had the same sort of telepathic resistance training you've all had? I mean, if she's really that controlling..."

"That's a good point. If she spots it, or if she's got New God detection equipment, things could get dicey. So, Qurac instead?" Nods all round. "Right. I should be able to scan the presidential palace for Apokoliptian technology from a distance. Assuming there's nothing suspicious-looking we can bring the Bio-Ship in under stealth. Ideally, Miss Martian will be able to scan President Harjavti without exposing herself." Bad brain bad brain! "Once we know what's wrong with him we can decide what to do next. If he can be freed easily we can assist Quraci forces in expelling the Bialyan military units from the capital. If Doctor Jones is around I would very much like to collar him. If Harjavti's down for the count the next in the line of succession are the Vice President and the Prime Minister. They're under house arrest. They'll be our next stop; break them out, get them to the palace and then remove the Bialyans."

"What if he's.. y'know." Kon looks away to the side. I hope he's not this nervous about contradicting me. "Not being mind controlled?"

Robin holds out his right hand, palm upwards. "You heard Batman, Superboy: Harjavti wouldn't do something like this under normal circumstances."

"There's more ways to influence someone's behaviour than mind control. Doesn't seem likely that he's been bought..."

Robin brings up his computer. "His closest family's his daughter. She hasn't been seen in public for weeks!"

"So we'll need to locate her as well. This is all-" I flick the fingers of my right hand back and forth. "-pretty fluid based on what we find on the ground. I mean, if it turns out they've Justified the entire Quraci army or something we're going to need a major rethink. Okay, erm, anything else anyone wants to bring up now?"

"Ah, Oh El?" Wallace raises his right hand. "Justified?"

"Oh, that's where they play you the Anti-Life Equation and turn you into Darkseid's willing slave." Worried looks all around. "But don't worry: he's usually more possessive of the Anti-Life Equation than that. I really doubt he'd let a mortal like Queen Bee use it."

"Oh." Wallace appears to be reaching for a response. "Good."

"Right then. Robin, got your flight belt?"

"Never leave home without it."

"And, um. Your suppressors?"

"I'm.. keeping them with me, but I'm not wearing them. Took a while but I've pretty much got the hang of being super strong."

Wallace nudges him with his elbow, then winces and rubs it. "Wonder Woman gave him an intensive course."

"Kon, get your armour and Sphere. We'll see you in the Bio-Ship when you're ready."

 

22nd November
11:19 GMT -5

I watch as Kon and the Sphere come out of the elevator and head towards me. I'm standing just inside the Bio-Ship's rear hatch. We're not really in a rush; once we clear the hangar I'll transition us to the Eastern Mediterranean. It'll be.. twenty past five in the evening there. By the time we've completed the flight rush hour should just about be over. Transitioning right to the Presidential Palace is doable but I haven't quite learned how to use the near-invisible filaments I now use for my own transfers on objects the size of the Bio-Ship yet. Anyone looking would know that something had happened even if they couldn't precisely spot us. The Bio-Ship is tougher than a modern plane or helicopter gunship but it can't take heavy fire. All the troops below would have to do is fire upwards with enough small arms and I'd have to stick up a shield to protect it.

Kon's armour is in its carry case. Putting it on here would have been a bit of a delay and he can easily put it on while we complete our journey. In stealth terms it's a wash: he can't walk stealthily while wearing it and he can't blend into a crowd but his flight is silent. I step aside as the Sphere rolls up the steps with a cheerful burble. Maybe we should let it out more? Since no one from New Genesis has come looking for it and with neither Big Barda nor Scott Free looking to head there any time soon the poor thing's pretty much stuck here.

I step back into the cockpit as Kon follows on just behind it. "Soo, first time in charge?" He reaches out with his right arm to pat me on the back.

"First time starting in charge, certainly." He takes his seat at the front of the Bio-Ship and plonks his bag down next to him. Wallace is on the right, Robin the left and M'gann at the pilot station with the Sphere next to her. We're all capable of flying the Bio-Ship at this point but she's still best at it and there's no good reason not to have her do it. Hmm. Feels a bit empty in here at the moment. I walk over to next to the pilot station and put my left arm on the back of her chair. "Miss Martian, please take us up and activate stealth mode at your earliest convenience."

Her hands tilt slightly and I hear the oozing sound of the Bio-Ship closing its rear doorway. The view through the windscreen shows us rising up off the landing pad as the mountain's external doors open. As we accelerate forwards I realise that I'm hovering in what is probably a distracting and unhelpful fashion and… Ah. There isn't a good 'command' seat in here. Need to ask Mister J'onzz how Martian warships arrange themselves. I straighten up and head to my usual seat at the back left.

"Camouflage mode engaged. Time to Qurac, three hours-."

"More like twenty minutes." My orange glow spreads out across the interior of the ship. "Stand by for transition to Eastern Mediterranean in three, two, one."

22nd November
18:19 GMT +2

The sea in front of us flickers and the sun goes out as we pass into night. "Miss Martian, please proceed to the Presidential Palace at best speed. Ring, notify me if anything tries to scan us."

"Setting course."

"Compliance."

"Hey, Oh El?" Wallace turns his chair to the side to let him look at me. He's grinning. I think I know where this is going. "Do you think that while we're here we could.. you know, swing by southern Bialya and take a look at your statue?"

Uuuuughh. I shake my head a little. "It's really not that interesting."

"I think it's interesting. Rob?"

He smiles too. Git. "You don't see giant statues in the middle of a desert every day. S'probably a cultural monument by now."

"Ah." Kon turns in his seat. "I'd like to see it."

"Oh, come on Kon, it's not like you haven't seen me naked be..fore." Darn it. No, Wallace spotted that and snapped his head from Kon to me in rapid succession.

"If we're picking places to go sightseeing-" Thank you M'gann! "-I'd like to stop at the Logan Animal Sanctuary."

For one strange moment I imagine Wolverine running a nature reserve. No, not that Logan. Rings a bell though. What is it-? Oh! Yes, the actress who played Megan Wheeler in 'Hello, Megan!'. Ring, same woman?

Confirmed. The sanctuary is home to Marie Logan and her son, Garfield Logan.

"Of course! A nice wholesome animal sanctuary, what a good idea. And I'm sorry, but a trip to the naked statue's probably not going to be possible. Bialya's military is going to be on full alert once we thwart their coup and I just can't justify the risk simply to assuage your curiosity."

Garfield Logan? Beast Boy! Well I flipping missed that one! Weren't his natural parents explorers or something? There's no Doom Patrol on this Earth, I checked. Having seen Steven Dayton's prescription I hope his mother has a long and happy life. His father..?

Mark Logan, deceased.

Ah. An animal sanctuary in what might well end up being a war zone probably isn't the safest place to live but it isn't as if the Bialyans have any reason to target it at present. Wait, why is Wallace looking at Robin's computer screen and sniggering-? Oh. I flick my right forefinger at the holo screen and have the ring shut it down.

"Alright, where did you get that picture?"

Robin turns to look at me. "After the last mission Batman sent a stealthed recon drone over the site to check for further activity. Couldn't really miss it. You know, ahh… It's a pretty good likeness."

"The ring did the work." I cover my face with my left hand. "Was there any further activity?"

"Not at that site." He taps his computer a couple of times to no effect. "Ahhh…"

Ring, let him.

Compliance.

The screen reappears and I walk over. A glance at the view through the windscreen shows us coming up to the coast. Robin has the computer display a map of southern Bialya. "It looks like they moved their operations underground. Couldn't really get a good look at it, but they had a whole company of army engineers working there." He appears to think of something. "Oh, and they put a desert-camo tarp over your statue. Guess they didn't think it was artistic enough."

"Thank you Queen Bee."

"It took about thirty trucks and a couple of helicopters to get it in place. That's after they stopped trying to blow it up. They were there for weeks."

I chuckle. The whole thing was too ridiculous. "Do you think that if I put another one up near the Quraci Presidential Palace they'll call the whole thing off?"

Wallace appears to consider it. "Might be worth trying."

Kon smiles. "Every time Queen Bee does something to Qurac, she gets a statue."

"She's already got my statue. I'm doing you lot next."

Wallace recoils. "Mmmaybe not then. It is.. heh.. kinda petty."

"Glad we're on the same page. Okay, primary objective: rescue President Harjavti and with him or otherwise, liberate Qurac. Secondary objectives: one, arrest Doctor Jones." I take five power suppression collars out of subspace. "These are set to block his known abilities. Since he's never been in custody for long don't assume they will prevent him doing everything he can do until I've had a chance to recalibrate them. Two, gain information on Queen Bee's other plans. I doubt she'll give up after one failed invasion and I'd like to know what else she has in the pipeline. Three, capture examples of Apokoliptian technology. Quite aside from the advantages we could get by adapting it we will be facing more of it in future and I want to be prepared. " I make eye contact with each of my team mates in turn. "Everyone clear?" Nods all round. "Okay, well, we've got about twenty minutes until we deploy. Anyone want to talk about something not related to giant naked statues?"

 

22nd November
18:42 GMT +2

M'gann's eyes dim and she nods at me. "President Harjavti's mind feels.. clouded. I think he's still all there but someone's made it so he can't think clearly."

I nod and take another look out through the windscreen at where the president of Qurac has been staring vacantly in our direction since we got here. We're still stealthed but at this range the slight distortion around the Bio-Ship should be visible. He isn't reacting at all. "As far as you can tell, is the illusion holding?"

"Well, no one's shooting at us." Her eyes glance down for a moment. "I can't tell, not really. I'm broadcasting the illusion of us not being here just like Brainwave taught me. It should be working but there's no way to be sure."

Wallace gestures at the vacant-looking president. "He's right there. How difficult does this need to be?"

I wave my right hand and generate a map of the palace grounds. "Guards at the gate, guards on patrol, guards-" I peer out the windscreen again. "-on the roof." I zoom the construct in on the palace building itself, making the rooms translucent. "Guards in the foyer and on patrol inside. Where are there no guards?"

Robin nods. "There aren't any guards around the president."

"Bingo. The only one they're mind controlling is President Harjavti, otherwise they'd have the Vice President and Prime Minister here as well. They wouldn't leave him unprotected, so: there are guards there, I just can't see them. Kon?"

He turns his head from where he was staring through the hull. "I can't see them either."

"The rooms immediately adjacent are the obvious places to keep a protection detail. Curtains are drawn so we can't just look in. Can't risk a telepathic scan because Doctor Jones might pick it up. Can't send a construct because they glow. So, we either blitz the place and hope for the best or…" I focus the map construct on the roof. "Robin, this isn't really my field. Do you think you could get into the ventilation system and take a look into those rooms from above without setting off any alarms?"

He looks closer and smiles. "Should be easy enough."

"Right. M'gann, take us up. Manoeuvre the Bio-Ship to block the roof guards' line of sight to Robin's infiltration point."

"On it."

There's a slight push towards the floor as President Harjavti drops below the angle of the windscreen. "Robin, present for you." I take a small pouch out of subspace. "Laser communication relays. Since we can't risk using radios in case they're being monitored you should leave these behind you as you go. Make sure they each have line of sight to the one in front and the one behind, hold this one up to your mouth and press here to talk. The Bio-Ship's hull can detect the laser if it's pointed this way."

He attaches the pouch to his belt and looks at the one I was using to demonstrate. "Wouldn't it be easier just to use a fiber optic cable?"

"In a situation like this it probably wouldn't make any difference, but these can be used across patrolled spaces without having a visible cable hanging out. They also work across longer distances without encumbering you with a heavy cable."

He nods as M'gann completes the manoeuvring. "We're in position."

Robin walks to the open space behind the pilot's station. The hull opens next to him and he crouches then jumps down, landing silently on the surface below us. Him, I can track. He puts the first relay on the side of the building so that we can move position without losing contact. Another goes on the roof next to the duct. Next, I watch as he puts some sort of clamp on the side of the duct and then gets a tool out of his utility belt and starts cutting through. I check, but whatever he's using must be near-silent because none of the guards are reacting to it. Once he's nearly made a full circle incision he takes hold of the clamp with his left hand and carefully finishes it off, lifting the cut section carefully very slightly away. Holding it up, he stows his cutting implement and gets out one of those flexible camera things, feeding it into the gap between the side of the duct and the cut section. There's a short delay as he checks the interior but it looks like he can't see anything worrying. He returns the camera to his belt, pulls the cut section away and gently inserts himself, covering the hole up with the cut section once he's inside. It won't stand up to inspection but to a casual observer it would look as if nothing were wrong. On the construct-map I see him place a relay and then move along the interior of the duct.

"This is Robin. I'm in. Comm check."

"We hear you, Robin."

Wallace tracks Robin's movement on the map. "What do we do if he gets spotted?"

"We smash through the wall and attack them while they're distracted. M'gann, move us back down to level with Harjavti's office."

I feel the movement through the floor but my eyes are glued to Robin's progress. He's into the main body of the building now, placing the relays as he goes. Harjavti's office is on the top floor, looking out across the grounds from a slightly recessed point on the northern side. Assuming that they're more or less normal guards I should be able to transfer Kon and Wallace into one adjoining room and myself into the other. I need M'gann to stay back in order to keep the illusion of us not being here going. Doctor Jones is the one thing around here that I'm not completely sure of our ability to beat. Our telepathic defences are okay.. ish, but they wouldn't stand up to a determined attack. My best defence so far appears to involve accelerating my perception and giving anyone touching my brain a massive headache trying to make sense of what they're feeling.

"Robin to team. Three guys in the room to the east. They're wearing some kind of grey armor with glowing red sections and integrated weapons. No way to tell what it does."

"Plug the relay into your camera."

"Right."

I take a hologram projector out of subspace so that the relayed image will appear in colour. One guard has some sort of chest mounted gun complete with a screen across his face. Some sort of targeting mechanism? His arms are holding handles next to the gun. The second guard has a similar rig but with glowing red bulbs around each of his hands and what look like additional bulbs on each shoulder. The third seems to have drawn the short straw. His chest piece is the same dull grey as that of the other two but is entirely without the red tron lines which presumably form part of the weapons. In their place he has two red.. handles? Throwing weapons of some kind, perhaps?

"Okay Robin, image received. Proceed to next room."

"Moving."

Kon turns to the Sphere. "Well? Do you know what they are?" The Sphere warbles and revves. I'm getting something about.. disc cannon? Seismic something or other? Those don't sound like particularly sensible weapons to employ at close quarters. Kon looks at me then back at the Sphere. "Ah, she says the chest gun fires discs which can either explode when they hit or fly after you and electrocute you into submission. Apparently guards use them on Apokolips to stop slaves escaping. The thing with the four headlights can make solid objects act like liquid. Or just shoot you. It's only really dangerous if both beams hit you at once."

Wallace raises an eyebrow. "They look pretty dangerous. Is she sure about that?"

The Sphere beeps its response.

"Oh. Uuum, dangerous to a New God. She thinks one would probably seriously injure a Human."

"Speaking as the only guy here who's tough as a normal Human, that's the sort of thing I like to know."

"And the little hand weapon things?"

A brief beeping.

"Shock pads. They can generate small force fields and concussive impacts. She says it's all fairly low level equipment."

"Thank you Sphere. And their armour?"

"Tough, but it doesn't cover much of their bodies. We can just work around it."

"Right. Kon, get your armour on. Looks like a direct attack is our best option."

 

22nd November
18:49 GMT +2

"Looks like seven guys this time. One's an officer."

I frown. "Doesn't look like he's armoured."

"Officers organize, Oh El. If he's fighting on the front line he's not planning the fight."

"Sure, I understand him not having an Apokoliptian weapon system but you'd think he'd have decent body armour." Still, not a good situation. No one else in Harjavti's room, but three to the east, two to the west and six to the south. Three seismic disruptors, three disc launchers, three shock pads and two halberd-looking things. Conventional weapons are available too, as well as reinforcements from all over the palace grounds. Two gold bars… Who uses two gold ba-? The French. He's a lieutenant. Probably in charge of palace security. I'm a bit surprised that someone higher up isn't on top of this. Or maybe..? Yes, Desert Lion's insignia on the lot of them but not on the guys patrolling the grounds. They'd probably want to keep knowledge of their elites' 'unusual weapons' limited as much as possible. Bialyan soldiers tend to be loyal but there's no way they wouldn't talk about them amongst themselves and all it would take would be one overheard conversation… "Robin, do your gas and smoke mines come with remote detonators?"

"Yeah, but those face masks might have filters."

"Okay. We need to knock them out as quietly as possible without them raising the alarm, killing Harjavti or destroying the building. M'gann, any luck working out where Doctor Jones is?"

She shakes her head. "He isn't staying connected to Harjavti the whole time. He's just made it so that Harjavti wants to do what he says."

Wallace winces. "Definitely him, though? I still remember the headache from last time."

"My experiments suggest that remaining at high speed should make it difficult for him to affect you. If it really comes to it you can make a tour of the building and knock out the guards who are on patrol."

"Why not just go after him?"

I look over to the orange changing screen I erected for Kon. "In Wallace's case, because Doctor Jones would almost certainly still be able to feel his location and could fire area effect telekinetic attacks at him. He might be able to evade but I don't like using the term 'might' in reference to supervillains."

Wallace shakes his head. "No certainties dealing with these freak-ohs, Oh El. So how we doing this?"

"We can see through smoke, they probably can't. Perhaps the ones with the disc launcher screens? We all have gas masks, they might, they might not. Robin, set up both types of mine over both rooms. Trigger the gas first. Give it enough time to diffuse into the room before smoking the place. M'gann-."

"Oh El? Remember the code names?"

"Oh. Right, sorry Kid Flash. Miss Martian, close as you can to the wall and open a tiny hole in the Bio-Ship's hull. I need to send a filament into those rooms. Once Superboy's armoured up I'll send him into the eastern room. Kid Flash, you'll be in the west. I'll take the south. Robin, I want you in the corridor outside in case of runners."

"What about me?"

"I need you to maintain the illusion and tell us if Doctor Jones scans the area. Once Harjavti's secure and sensible we can hunt him down. Remember, those weapons are ludicrously powerful. We cannot let them get a shot off. Robin, time on those mines?"

"Twenty seconds."

"Superboy?"

A sound of material being tugged on. "Ready."

I dismiss the screen. Wallace lowers his goggles and puts on his air filter as I pass Kon his gas mask. A hole maybe a centimetre across opens in the floor beneath me. In theory it's a risk, but someone would have to be looking directly up at it to see into the Bio-Ship. Closing my eyes I send a filament down and across the short distance to the outer wall. Going through the brick would be a little difficult, but fortunately the window frame is made of much less solid stuff. Once it's in Harjavti's office I run it under the carpet into the room to the east. I can transfer things by FTL without going with them but it does a number on the ring's energy store. Still don't completely understand why, something about 'avarice flow induction in transit'. Just another question for the Controllers I suppose. Next, I loop the filament back through Harjavti's office into the western room, then back into the office and then out into the southern room.

"Mines in position, heading to the corridor."

Under normal circumstances I'd back Robin in a fight against a small number of guards. With super strength it would be even more one sided but for the fact that we can't risk them getting even a single shot off. His smaller frame and stealth habits should mean that he's better able to conceal himself from the guards patrolling on the floor below than the rest of us. I make a beckoning motion with my right hand and Kon and Wallace come to stand close to me. Wallace thinks of something and turns to me with a frown. "What happens if Harjavti gets gassed?"

"Then I wake him up with the ring. If the gas Robin's using had a significant chance of killing someone with brief exposure Batman wouldn't use it." He nods.

"In position. No one in the corridor."

"I'll jam their radios when I attack. Give the gas.. fifteen seconds? Would that be enough for it to take effect?"

"Coming from the ceiling? Ten should be plenty."

"Activate the gas on my mark, smoke ten seconds later. We transition in eleven. Mark."

There's no sound to indicate that the gas has been released. With Robin in position to intercept I can't tell if the gas has worked without creating a construct camera and the risk isn't worth it.

"Smoke in two.. one..."

"Transition."

The flicker is just long enough for me to get a quick snapshot of each room as I drop my team mates off at their targets. The soldiers are still upright and just starting to react to the smoke when they get hit. Wallace is so fast that I actually see him strike his first target before I transition to my own. Accelerated perception. Jam radios in these four rooms only. Block alarms in these four rooms only. Assess. Officer down, soldiers unsteady. Haven't tested my attacks against Apokoliptian armour but their heads are unprotected. The one with the disc launcher is in the process of swinging around, his attention on his screen. Him first. A filament extends from my right shoulder to his forehead. So slowly, but I can't risk changing my perception speed down yet. ShockCrown. Did it work? Yes, he's definitely being disrupted, he just hasn't had time to fall yet. Seismic weapon next. ShockCrown. Shock pads one is in the process of bringing them together and I'm not sure how large the shield effect is. The filament goes behind him and around to the back of his neck before burrowing up under his helmet to ShockCrown him. Halberd starts making a blind sweep with his blade while shock pads two staggers to his knees. Ignore halberd. Two filaments cut through shock pad two's gloves and force his hands to open and drop his weapons. ShockCrown. Halberd's stopped his swing and is pointing his weapon at me. He can see the glow of my environmental shield! Armour and get him! Filaments race with the glow of his weapon. No, the energy build-up's already started. Drain it! Filaments connect to the muzzle and to three points along the shaft before the last two strike his head. He shudders and the glow in his weapon dies. Can't see anyone else. Normal perception.

Uggggh.

There's a thump next to me as another guard hits the floor. I jerk around to see Robin smugly smiling at me, another halberd -there was a second halberd, of course there was a second halberd!- in his right hand. "Miss one, Oh El?" He steps into the room and quickly and quietly shuts the door behind him.

"Yes. Thank you." The door to the office opens and Wallace takes a rushed step through before realising that we've won. I wave my hands to remove the smoke from the air. "Done?" He looks around then nods, pulling up his goggles. "Right then. Let's check on the president."

 

22nd November
18:53 GMT +2

I pick up the recumbent forms of the guards and give them a quick puff of Batman-authorised knock-out gas. They wouldn't be going anywhere while under the effect of the ShockCrown but I'd rather they didn't hear or see anything either. One by one I float them through the door to President Harjavti's office and set them down out of the way. Not sure what happens to them when this is over. If this is a war then they would be handed back to their own government but I'm not sure it is -technically- war. The officer I keep with me, floating just ahead of me as Wallace, Robin and I follow the floating soldiers.

I point a laser relay at the distortion outside the window. "Miss Martian, would you be so good as to join us?"

Kon looks up as he plonks his own still groaning opponents down. "What d'you want done with their equipment?"

"Much as I'd love to spend time adapting it for our use, there simply isn't time. Robin, do you intend to make use of that halberd?"

He gives it an experimental swing. "Nnnn. Don't think so. Somehow I don't think a place called 'Apokolips' uses stun settings."

"Right then. Ring, subspace the Apokoliptian gear…" Five orange tendrils extend from my back and one by one make contact with the required objects, vanishing them into my collection. "And their regular armour, their masks, helmets and side arms. Kid Flash, please draw the curtains. Robin, please lock the external doors leading into the side rooms."

Robin heads into the eastern room while Wallace moves to the window, stopping as he comes level with the president. He looks uncomfortably at him as M'gann comes through the wall next to them. "Uh, Oh El? What are we doing about Harjavti?"

At the sound of his name Harjavti turns his head to look at Wallace. His gaze is blank and expressionless. "Where's my daughter?" He winces, his left hand rising to grip his forehead for a moment before lowering it again. "Where's Psimon?"

That looked like a programmed response. Anything out of the ordinary happens and he requests his programmer. Sensible. "Miss Martian, are you able to remove the programming from President Harjavti without dropping the illusion?"

She bends down to look into the vacant looking president's face. "I won't know until I see exactly what he's done."

"Would that alert Doctor Jones?"

"Only if he checks."

"Take a look. Tell me what you see." Her eyes glow as Robin re-enters and then crosses back into the west room. I take a selection of hand and leg cuffs and gags out of subspace. "Kid Flash, Superboy, please restrain our guests."

Kon picks a pair of leg cuffs up while Wallace pulls a face. "They're unconscious."

"True, but the effect isn't permanent and I'm not sure how long we're going to be here for." He tilts his head to the side and picks up a pair of handcuffs. "Remember, behind the back."

M'gann steps back, her eyes dimming. "What Psi-. What Doctor Jones has done isn't permanent. I think I can remove it without dropping the illusion."

"Do it. Carefully."

Wallace rolls a guard onto his front and pulls his arms back. "Okay Oh El, what's the next step?"

"That's sort of up to him." I nod at the president. "He runs the country after all, we'll be operating at his pleasure. My thoughts were that M'gann could assume this guy's form-" I give the officer a shake. "-and arrange to transfer elements of the Quraci army in to secure the palace. Once they're in place and the president is protected we can focus on hunting Doctor Jones down."

There's a sharp intake of breath from Harjavti. M'gann steps back, her eyes dimming once more. The president looks around in shock. "Who-? What-?" His face curls into a snarl. "Psimon."

"Yes, Mister President. I am Orange Lantern two eight one four and we're here to help. How much do you remember?"

"He was making me give Qurac over to Queen Bee! Peace Envoy! Hah!" He takes a moment to collect himself. "What is the situation in my country?"

"Bialyan infantry occupy the capital in battalion strength, and they're building up near the towns closest to the border. Forces occupying the palace grounds itself are at platoon strength only, and this chap was in charge." I give him another shake. M'gann frowns at me and lifts him away with her telekinesis. "Miss Martian, any data you can extract would be invaluable."

"On it."

"Do you know where they are holding my daughter?"

I bring up a construct map. "Her quarters, under guard." The guards there are perfectly visible to me. Of course, the thing about invisible guards is…

"Are you able to free her?"

"Yes. To be honest, we could probably forcibly eject the Bialyan presence from the country entirely if you ordered it. The problem with that is that they might decide to try shooting their way out. What I'm going to suggest depends on what Miss Martian can get out of his brain." I turn to look at her. "Well?"

Her eyes are still glowing as she searches for information. "He's not part of the guards' platoon but they've been ordered to assist him. I think-" Her outline shifts as she changes shape to mimic him. "-I can maintain the pretence long enough to get your daughter to safety."

Harjavti stares at her for a moment. Then he nods. "Of course. Martian, like the Manhunter."

"Are you going to be able to maintain the illusion from the other end of the building?"

"No, but, to be honest? If he looks in this direction he'll see a bunch of unconscious guards anyway. I can make it look like we're not here but I can't make their brains look like they're still awake."

"Fiddlesticks." I turn to the President. "Any idea where he might be? "

He shrugs. "Somewhere the cameras won't see him. I only see him when he wants to-" He winces and wiggles his right hand at his temple. "-renew his grip on my mind."

"Miss Martian, can you create an illusion that we are in a particular place? Just.. give him an inkling that we're somewhere else?"

"Whoh, that… No, that's far too advanced for me."

I cover my face with my right hand. "We're about to fail stealth again, aren't we?" Robin pats me on the back. "Right. Mister President, please stay here and act as if you're still under the influence. We'll get your daughter to safety before starting our attack on the soldiers inside the palace. Robin, Superboy, remain here. Kid Flash-" I wave my right hand. The fatigues disappear from two of the recumbent guards and materialise -tailored to our dimensions- on us. "-welcome to the Bialyan army."

Wallace's uniform is tight enough that his fatigues go over it but I'm forced to send my armour back into subspace. He looks over his new uniform. "Dude. A little warning?"

"We need to go with Miss Martian in case she gets spotted and we need to evacuate Miss Harjavti under fire. Mister President, is there somewhere we can use to communicate with the outside world?"

"There's a communications room near the hall we use for press conferences."

"All being well that's where we're going next, then." I hold out my right arm in the direction of the door and smile at M'gann. "After you, sir."

 

22nd November
19:02 GMT +2

I pull awkwardly at the straps of the Apokoliptian disc launcher. Most of the weapon folds up into the straps or away on the back but I'm not entirely comfortable having a weapon that I don't understand this close to me. That, and the fact that in order to keep the orange glow from giving me away I've had to put the ring in my pocket. Alright, I suppose I don't really understand the ring either, but while a quick scan was able to give me a rough idea of the controls I haven't practised with it and I didn't really have time to perform a detailed analysis. The control stick armatures fold forwards under the arms, the two circular pads which make up the disc launcher extend over the shoulders to meet at the centre of the user’s chest and extend into the barrel when they meet. The cables to power the thing extend from the sides of the straps -that probably isn't the right word for them given that they're rigid- and the targeting screen extends from the top of the barrel.

Wallace probably made a better choice when he went for the halberd.

"So, what happens if they spot us?"

"Are you speaking Arabic?"

"No, wh-? Oh. Right."

A Bialyan patrol comes around a nearby corner and steps back in a hurry as M'gann walks past. She glances at them and acknowledges them with a nod. I have to assume that she took enough knowledge of Bialyan military practice to mimic his body language.

We've seen guards in several places but none of them have stopped us. They seem a little nervous about us, actually. Would it be worth checking the unconscious guards to see if they've been exposed to Queen Bee's pheromones or even the Anti-Life Equation? Pheromones, maybe, but I don't even know for sure that the Equation exists here and I've got no idea at all how to detect it if it does. Other than, you know, people shouting 'Die for Darkseid!', and it doesn't look like anyone's doing that here.

"If it comes to it, we give Miss Martian a chance to talk our way out while maintaining our cover identity. If that doesn't work, we fight."

He nods without turning his head. We're in the residential part of the palace, just coming up on Miss Harjavti's room now. The corridor opens into a large open.. room? Area? With doors leading off left and right. Both are guarded by two armed Bialyan soldiers and I know from my earlier ring scan that there are a further three guards inside Miss Harjavti's quarters. I might be able to knock them all out but I have no doubt that either the route of one of the patrols comes through here or they radio in to report their status every few minutes. We probably only got away with knocking out the Apokoliptian weapon users due to the separate command structure.

M'gann marches up to the guards outside her room and says something in what I'm going to assume is Bialyan Arabic. The guard on her right nods and gets out his radio. I have a Justice League translator in subspace but wearing it would have risked giving the game away. I'm just going to have to hope that no one wants to talk to me. There's no real reason for them to want to but my left hand is poised to dart into my pocket and touch the ring if it looks like they are going to. The guard says something into the radio and keeps hold of it, awaiting a reply. I take a slow look around but the guards on the opposite side don't seem concerned. Another noise from the radio and the guard lets go of it with a nod and moves away from the door. M'gann gives a small nod of acknowledgement and steps past him, opening it and walking inside.

I wait a moment before following her, Wallace just behind me. The room inside is an ornately decorated living room. To my right a large television screen tuned to a news channel whose name I can't read is showing footage of the Bialyan occupation. The sound is turned right down, not that I imagine I could understand it anyway. One guard directly in front already answering M'gann's questions, one to the right and the other in Miss Harjavti's study. M'gann heads across the room and Wallace and I follow her again. The guard holds up a hand to stop us and knocks on the door. He and someone inside briefly exchange words and then the door opens. The guard outside says something but M'gann ignores him and heads through the door. The guard winces, makes eye contact with me and mutters something at me which sounded like it had an interrogative on the end. Completely guessing, I give a small shake of my head as I walk past him. No shouts of alarm so I'm going to assume that it wasn't a request for a password or anything like that. As Wallace closes the door behind us I think I hear the other guard in the room bark something at the one we just went past.

I'm sure that I just missed a lot.

The study has book shelves, tables, another television and a desk with a computer monitor mounted on it. Miss Harjavti is at the desk, though she doesn't appear to be working on anything. Standing against the far wall is another guard, female this time. Rather decent of them, as these things go.

The guard comes to attention while Miss Harjavti scowls at the three of us. She says something which -again- I don't understand. M'gann takes a quick look around the room and then her eyes glow red. "Miss Harjavti, we're here to rescue you."

Her head jerks back and she frowns. "Olav-? What do you-?"

I quickly look at the guard. Her eyes have glazed over and she's not responding. I slip the ring onto my finger and subspace my face mask, revealing my decidedly non Middle Eastern complexion. "Miss Harjavti, I am Orange Lantern two eight one four. These are my colleagues Miss Martian-" M'gann shifts back to her normal form and waves. "-and Kid Flash." He lifts off his helmet to show the face-covering parts of his mask. "We're here to prevent Queen Bee from taking over Qurac."

"My fa-!"

"Please, keep it down. We've already freed your father. Miss Martian, can you convince the guards that we need to move her?"

"They've been ordered to cooperate with everything I do."

"Glad to hear it. We'll take you to see the President now, then evacuate you to somewhere safe while we retake the palace."

She gets to her feet. "I should stay here. This is my home, and my father-."

"Will be much better off with you out of the line of fire. I'll bring you straight back once the palace is in Quraci control but unless you've got super powers you haven't told anyone about you are presently a liability." She grimaces, then nods. I restore my mask and remove the ring, Wallace rehelmets and M'gann shifts back into the officer's form. "We're heading to his office. Remember, we're a prisoner escort. Look angry and defeated."

Transformation complete, M'gann's eyes glow again and the guard comes back to life. There's another quick exchange in Arabic and the guard doesn't seem entirely happy about events. M'gann raises her voice and the guard straightens up and says what I'm assuming was the Arabic version of 'Sir, yes sir!'. M'gann walks back to the door and I give Miss Harjavti a push in that direction.

M'gann strides ahead as we pass through the living area and out into the hall. The guard who radioed before does so again but it looks like that was just to report on our position. Walking around as if you own the place really does work wonders. Just give her the occasional push and glare at the regular guards and no one notices anything out of the ordinary. Shame this almost certainly wouldn't work on Doctor Jones himself.

Even with the confidence I've started feeling it's still a relief when we get back to President Harjavti's offices. Door shut and locked behind me I quickly spot Robin's gas mine next to the doors. M'gann shifts back and I remove the uniforms from Wallace and myself. Miss Harjavti hurries ahead, pushing open the inner door and running to embrace her father who is similarly overjoyed to see her. Kon and Robin have kept themselves busy by finishing binding the guards, though none of them are showing signs of life as yet.

"…and do not worry, I will be fine." President Harjavti tries to reassure her, but I can only imagine how badly she's been shaken by this.

"Be careful, father." He nods and she steps back from him. "How do you plan to get me away?"

"Oh, that's easy." I stand facing her and put my right hand on her left shoulder. "Transition." She starts as the scenery shifts. "This is the Themysciran embassy in New York. Just tell them who you are and you'll be looked after until we can bring you back."

"New York! That's thousands of miles-!"

"Power rings are awesome. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back."

 

22nd November
19:16 GMT +2

I try not to look up at the air vents as we make our way towards the communications room. Didn't take long to alter a uniform for Kon, though compared to most guards here he's rather broad. Wallace was pushing it, and Robin's far too small for it to be believable.

Eh, he seems happy enough. Crawling around air ducts probably feels like home for him.

The last patrol we passed gave us slightly odd looks but after a harsh stare from M'gann they went about their business. The telepathic illusion's back up and Harjavti's managing to maintain the whole zombified look really well. Qurac has easily enough military power in the area to beat the Bialyans and once they're back in control I can use more assertive methods for locating Doctor Jones. When he's safely in custody either M'gann can try reading his mind or I can try fiddling with his brain a little to make him more inclined to explain what he's been up to and he certainly isn't a member of the Bialyan military. Branding him might work but I've tried it a couple of times since the training debacle and it's a lot harder than the Ophidian made it look. I should probably ask them to commute Doctor Jones' sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole but I'm not exactly sad that he's going to be taken off the board.

We go through the double doors which open into the corridor leading to the briefing room. Through the windows to the right I can see the floodlights the Bialyans are using to enable them to keep watch over the grounds. I wonder-.

Wait. Is that music? M'gann slows as I activate the disc launcher. I'm not about to shoot anyone but the screen will stand out less than the ring. Yes, someone's in there. Doesn't look like Doctor Jones… Don't recognise him at all, actually. I return the launcher to its standby mode. "It's not Doctor Jones. Keep going."

M'gann nods and pushes the doors to the briefing room open. Rows of red upholstered chairs facing the empty podium at the end. No, empty stage. The podium itself has been shoved off to the side and a large projection screen covers the backdrop. A muscular man with short curly blonde hair wearing a purple polo shirt and white Bermuda shorts is sitting in a chair he's moved into the middle of the gangway. Next to him is a small table supporting a large bowl of popcorn and a glass of coke. He's leaning back, watching as Indiana Jones and his father drive a motorcycle out of a crate while some Nazis stand in a boat. That's.. Last Crusade, isn't it?

"Psimon, finally. I was beginning to wonder-" He turns his head in our direction. "-where you'd… Oh." He frowns. "What are you lot doing here?"

We keep moving forwards as M'gann starts to reply in Arabic, only to be cut off by him speaking back in the same language. A moment later he switches back. "-and clearly my Arabic is far better than your English. And your Arabic. Where did you learn to speak, anyway?" M'gann opens her mouth. "No, never mind." He makes a dismissive gesture with his right hand. "If you've been told to take him to the communications room, take him to the communications room. I don't intend to concern myself." He turns back to the film, puts his right hand into the bowl and flicks a single piece of popcorn into his mouth.

M'gann risks a look at me. I just shrug. I genuinely have no idea who he is, but a man watching a film doesn't really mean much for our objective. She, President Harjavti and Wallace continue head over to the doorway to the right of the stage which leads to the communications room while Kon and I take up station by the door.

"Can't you move faster, you're getting in the way!" The blonde man tosses his head. "Oh, honestly." He looks back at Kon and I. "Have you seen this? Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?" And then he lapses into Arabic. And he looks like he's expecting a response and Kon's programming didn't include Arabic. I put my left hand into my pocket and make contact with the ring.

Ring, what did he just say?

Subject said: 'Please tell me you speak English? I though you lot were supposed to be elite?'

The ring even did his voice. Right. I think I can do a convincing Bialyan accent. The alternative would be to have the ring translate what I said into Arabic and that would mean that Kon couldn't follow the conversation.

"Certainly, sir. I speak English."

"Noooo. Not sir, I'm not one of you thugs. You may address me as Doctor."

"My apologies, Doctor. I have been somewhat occupied. I did not recognise you."

"Who could you possibly mistake me for? Oh, don't answer that. Just, move to somewhere that doesn't put you right in the corner of my eye." Kon looks at me and I shrug. No real harm in it. I cross the room behind him and walk towards the front. "When is Psimon getting here anyway?"

"I am sorry, Doctor. I do not know."

He tries crossing his legs, right ankle resting on his left thigh, right foot waving back and forth like the tail of an irritated cat. "Oh, it's no good." He presses a button on a small control pad on his lap. "Were you serious about not knowing who I am?"

Hallelujah! "I am afraid so, Doctor."

"Oh, that's just too much. I've a good mind to-. Ah! Finally. Psimon, tell this ignoramus who I am."

I try to conceal my expression as I follow Doctor whoever's gaze to the rear of the room where Doctor Jones is standing in the shadows, a cloak over his head.

"Was that really Indiana Jones, Doctor Sivana? I'd have thought you'd have put more effort into your mockery."

Sivana? Isn't he that short bald man who Captain Marvel fights? When did he become a buff blonde man?

"You're not worth my A-game. Why are we even here? I was hired for my scientific expertise, not to lounge around a palace while Queen Beatrice annexes her neighbor."

"Take this from someone who has been floating around academic circles somewhat longer than you have: the job is whatever the person providing the funding tells you it is. Besides, I'm sure that you can manage to occupy-" He looks around the room, gives Kon and myself a quick once over and then returns his attention to Doctor Sivana. "-yourself for a few days."

"Certainly, if I could leave the grounds. Or get a better look at those curious-looking weapons your flunkies are using. Why did you want President Harjavti down here anyway?"

Ring on.

"I'm afraid that's not-. Wait. What? I didn't..?" He frowns and looks at us, and then past us through the wall to where M'gann, Wallace and Harjavti are hopefully already in communication with the nearest Quraci military base. "What is he doing?" Sounds like the illusion's holding.

Doctor Sivana smugs at him. "Personnel management problems?"

Do I try collaring him? He doesn't appear to have a radio at hand and muzzling him would be an easy matter. The collar won't necessarily shut him down but I should be able to shield myself. Can't safely ShockCrown him without a better idea of how his brain works. I start feeding a filament under the floor towards him as he flips back his hood and stares harder at the rear wall.

Understanding dawns on Doctor Jones face. Then he smiles. "Hello, Martian."

Fuck it, failed stealth again. The filament rises up behind him, clamps onto his neck and pulls him- "Whow!" -backwards to the floor before sticking the collar around his neck. "Dawh!"

I armour myself in orange as Kon steps towards the unconcerned looking Doctor Sivana. **Miss Martian, we're rumbl-.**

**Nononononono!**

**Oh El, Miss Em doesn't look so good.**

**Have you contacted the Quraci military?**

**Yeah, they're on their way.**

**Robin, keep-.**

Doctor Sivana looks at the fallen Doctor Jones, at my orange glowing armour plate and then at Kon walking towards him. He smiles. "Finally, something interesting!" He stands, then leaps across the room swinging a fist at my face!

 

22nd November
19:22 GMT +2

I get about enough time to think 'what?' before he clears about fifteen rows of seats and lands a perfect haymaker on the front left of my face plate. Instinct beaten into me during long hours of practice with Diana and Kon causes me to immediately move across him away from the blow but it still causes a significant fracture of my armour. He tries to follow up with a jab to my diaphragm but I've recovered enough to have the ring transition me to the other end of the room. I watch him spin around to spot me only to get tackled in the chest by Kon.

"Oof!"

Don't remember Doctor Sivana being that strong in the comics.

**Kid Flash, status of M'gann!**

**Err. She's.. erm, growing? Mutating? I think Psimon messed around with her shapeshifting!**

Or she might be resuming her natural form under stress. She's been pretty clear about not wanting anyone to know what she looks like. I'd rather forgotten about it, actually. **Kid Flash, get the President back to his office. Maintain cover as long as possible. Robin, cover Kid Flash. We'll handle Sivana.** Kon pins Sivana to the floor, legs around his chest and starts hammering punches at his head. Against a super tough opponent who can't fly it's a pretty good approach.

**Wait, Sivana? The scrawny scientist guy?**

**I think Sivana's a more common name than we thought.**

Sivana gets his arms up to block Kon's attacks and Kon responds by grabbing his wrists, pulling his arms apart and headbutting him right on the nose. "Agh!"

Ring, sound deadening. Really can't risk any guards hearing this and investigating.

Compliance.

And start checking the frequencies on Psi… Ugh, fine, Psimon's collar.

In progress. Estimated time to completion, three minutes.

Sivana somehow gets his right arm free and slams a hook into Kon's exposed cheek. It won't cause serious harm but it does lift Kon off him, allowing Sivana to follow up with an upper cut as he surges to his feet. Kon careens back into the chairs, the sound strangely muted. Sivana take a moment to check his nose as Kon gets back up. "That actually hurt. You actually hurt me. I'm impressed."

Looks like Kon's got that under control. **M'gann, talk to me.**

Kon assumes a grappling pose. "Yeah? What makes you so tough?"

"My father, Thaddeus Sivana. Only the best in biotechnology would do for his eldest son. Heh." He wipes what I hope is blood away from the end of his nose as he takes a boxer's stance. "You?"

Nothing from M'gann, that isn't good.

"Kryptonian."

Sivana slowly and carefully starts closing the distance, his eyes fixed on Kon's. "No you're not. No flying? No laser eyes? Anyway, they're extinct, apart from Superman. Come on, tell me."

"Half Kryptonian, then."

They start circling each other. "And the other half is.. Human? I hadn't realized they were even compatible." He jabs at Kon's head. Kon parries and Sivana pulls back before Kon can get a hold of his arm. "Two entirely separate evolutionary histories… No, wait. I've never heard of you and there's no way Superman's old enough-"

**M'gann!**

"-to have a son your age." He straightens up slightly. "Hah! You're an escaped lab experiment!"

The rage is plain on Kon's face, but Diana has taught him self control and he manages to avoid charging his tormentor. Instead, he steps forwards as if he were going to do that then sidesteps around Sivana's punch, locking his arm and using that leverage to slam Sivana's face into the ground.

**No. Please, stop.**

**M'gann, who needs to stop?** Something's still happening to h- Fuck! Psimon! I have the ring yank him off the ground by hooks under his arms. He opens his eyes to look at me and gives me a weak smile.

**Oh, hello.**

Ring, fortify my mental defences and analyse his brain structures.

In progress.

**The Martian's in a bit of a sorry state.**

"Agh!" I take a quick look and Kon's managed to get both of Sivana's arms locked and is having a crack at dislocating his shoulders while avoiding his opponent's attempts to kick him. He's got that well in hand.

**And she's far more interesting to play with than you would be. Psimon says-.**

"How's life with nine fingers?" His eyes narrow. "Teekl kept it as a trophy, you know? I realise that Miss Martian did most of the work beating you last time but I like to think this'll be a team effort."

There's a brief distortion in the air between us as he tries for a telekinetic blast but the collar appears to have already adapted to that. **The hard way, then. Psimon says pain.**

Uguh. Most pain induction is, agh, fairly straightforward to fight off with a power ring. Direct stimulation of the peripheral nerves -like that- can be overcome by simply telling the ring to circumvent them. Ugff. Central nervous system stimulation requires the deadening of all tactile nerves. Mind stimulation is pretty much impossible to stop directly with the ring but can be fought using telepathic resistance techniques or by violently stunning the perpetrator.

**Come back! Please. Please.**

And he's still doing something to M'gann at the same time!

BABUM

No. M'gann is mine to keep. **M'gann, I'm here!** Psimon grins a little wider. Oh, I've had enough of you. And if it goes wrong I can probably stop it before you get totally converted. "Ring, brand."

"Compliance."

**What?** Orange light blazes around his body as the orange sigil begins to form on his transparent brain dome. **What are you doing?!**

"Making you my slave for eternity. You really shouldn't-."

His face tenses and the room goes dark around me. He's no longer in my grasp. Where did he..? Oh, a mindscape fight. Not much I can do against a hostile telepath in here but the branding is still happening. And the collar should be nearly done by now. I hope, anyway.

**Paul..?** I look down and see M'gann below us in full Martian form. Looks.. paler than when she showed me back at the base.

**Miss Martian. You're looking pale.**

**I thought.. everyone… I was so alone.**

**Miss Martian, you are mine. Nothing will keep me from you when you need me. Now, focus. We need to beat Doctor Jones-.**

He reappears and fires a beam of black energy at me from his forehead, right where the brand was forming. I shove both my hands and my need forwards, forming an orange sigil-barrier. His black beam strikes it and sprays off, to his obvious frustration.

**Okay. Okay.** A turquoise energy beam fires from her forehead, forcing him to stop the beam pointed at me and create a bubble of darkness around himself for protection. **Taste your own medicine!**

He manages a smile. **You'll have to do better than that.**

BABUM

Two vast orange serpentine eyes open in the void behind him.

**Alright then. We will.**

 

22nd November
19:25 GMT +2

I shouldn't be surprised, really. I'm still connected to my lantern via the ring, and I know the Ophidian has an awareness beyond its current home. I'm still not sure how much, though, and with no scale here I can't tell how big what I'm looking at is.

**What is that?**

I look 'down' at M'gann. She's stopped blasting Doctor Jones and is just staring at it.

**Oh please. As if I'm going to fall for that. Look out behind you!** He jazz hands for a moment, then smirks as he looks at me. **You don't seem surprised. Has she shown you her true form before? And.. not the Kryptonian? How very sordid.**

BABUM

Doctor Jones' head jerks to the side. He frowns in puzzlement. **What was..?**

**That, Miss Martian, is the Ophidian. The Embodiment of Avarice.**

BABUM

**You, are mine. What's mine is hers. Therefore, she regards you as hers also.**

BABUM

Doctor Jones reinforces his shield and slowly starts to turn away from us as more and more of the Ophidian materialises behind him.

**Doctor Jones tried to hurt you.**

BABUM

All I can see beyond Doctor Jones is the orange glow of the coils of my Embodiment. She's even bigger now than she was when we fought the illusory aliens in the training scenario. I'm going to assume that she understands the false nature of our environment this time.

**He shouldn't have done that.**

BABUM

Doctor Jones finally turns sufficiently to get a look at the Ophidian. **Ahhhhhhhhhhh..!** He throws up his arms as if in a futile attempt to ward her off as her head lunges forwards.

**'s not allowed.**

**Ahhhhhhhhhh…**

Either he's moving away, he's getting smaller, or.. I don't know. The Ophidian appears to be lunging at him and it does look like he's heading into her mouth but she's not getting any closer to either myself or M'gann.

**She can't eat him!**

I tear my eyes away from the site before me. **I don't think this is literally…** I don't know what would happen if she actually ate Doctor Jones here. I'd rather have him cogent to answer questions, though. **Ophidian!** Her eyes shift a little, from the tiny Doctor Jones to me. **We need him alive! If you could possibly limit yourself-.**

Her head turns sideways, mouth coming around, one huge fang piercing Doctor Jones through the chest. He jerks, but there's no blood and at this 'distance' I can't hear his cries. She then violently twists her neck and hinges her jaw back, flinging Doctor Jones off her fang and into the distance. I look down again at M'gann. I can't read her expressions when she doesn't have any but I imagine that seeing the Ophidian is a bit of a shock.

M'gann needs us.

I'm moving through the void until I float with my head level to M'gann's. Yep, White Martian. I know these aren't the psychopathic comic versions and I can't honestly say I'm surprised. I know that she made a big deal of showing me her 'true' appearance after our first encounter with Klarion but I like to think that I'm too level headed to get annoyed over so small a deception.

**M'gann?** She's still staring at the Ophidian. **M'gann!** I put my hands on either side of her face to get her attention and she immediately reorientates on me. I let go and float back a little, trying to block her view of the Ophidian. **Soo, how do we get back to the real world?**

She takes a moment to look around the environment. **I should be able to ah!** The Ophidian, much reduced in size has just coiled herself around M'gann's right shin. **What does she want?** The Ophidian continues moving up her leg, then loops around M'gann's long right arm before leaning out so she can stare directly into M'gann's face. **Paul?**

**Not.. really.. sure. Don't think she's hostile..?**

**Ours.**

I blink, and I'm back in the briefing room. For a confused heartbeat I drop in the air before getting my head back together. There's a thump behind me as Doctor Jones falls to the ground. Sivana's up again, gingerly supporting his left arm with his right as it hangs loose at his side while Kon pulls himself out of the far wall. Sivana watches him, takes a couple of deep breaths and then grabs his left shoulder with his right hand and yanks it back into the socket! "Grraw!" He winces and cautiously tries moving it a little.

**Miss Martian, are you.. in good shape?**

**Yeah, I think so.**

**Are you up to continuing the mission?**

**Yes.**

Ring, show me the guards. Okay, looks like the sound deadening is still working because none of them are coming here. I can't track Wallace while he's wearing the Apokoliptian equipment but Robin and Harjavti look fine. Doctor Jones.. is laying on the ground in a daze. Ring, status?

Brand complete. Collar adaptation complete. No significant injuries.

Maybe we haven't failed the stealth after all. Show me the Quraci military convoy. A picture forms in my mind. Trucks and APCs. Enough to overwhelm the soldiers defending the palace but there'll still be casualties. On the other hand, with Doctor Jones down…

**Orange Lantern to team. Doctor Jones is down. Telepathic communication is now authorised. Miss Martian, Robin. Begin opportunistic ambushes of any guards inside the palace. Co-ordinate between yourselves and do not allow yourselves to be seen.**

**Right.**

**On it, Oh El.**

**If you get seen, let me know immediately. Kid Flash, stay with the President.**

**Right.**

"Doctor Sivana. You're under arrest."

He turns his head in my direction for a second. "By whose authority!?"

"Technically, I don't have arrest authority here but I rather imagine that the Quracis will be only to happy to put you in the cells alongside the Bialyans." I send a construct down and pull up Doctor Jones' shirt just enough to confirm the brand's presence with my own eyes. Yes, and it's far bigger than the one she gave Mister J'onzz. Really need to do something nice for the Ophidian.

"What, after you've tried overthrowing their government? I find that a little hard to believe."

I frown. What? "Why would we need to overthrow the government?"

"Because President Harjavti instigated the union between the two countries and you're trying to prevent it!"

"Harjavti was being mind controlled!" Kon's crossed half the distance to Sivana and looks like he want to carry on their brawl. "No one in Qurac wants to be ruled by Queen Bee!"

Sivana rolls his eyes. "Well, of course that's what they told you."

 

22nd November
19:29 GMT +2

The skin around my left eye twitches. Ring, just check that for me, would you?

Analysis of local electronic communication records until local servers were shut down by presidential order suggests a high degree of popular opposition to union with Bialya.

Thank you. "Doctor Sivana, might I ask why you think he's doing it voluntarily? Doctor Jones is quite a powerful telepath."

He squints at me, experimentally moving his left shoulder. "Are you dense? Do you really think a few thousand Bialyan soldiers could take over an entire country that easily? The Quraci military was prepared for an invasion. Where are they?" About two miles down the road at this point. "And the rest of Qurac's political leaders? You don't seriously expect me to believe that mind controlling a single person somehow negates the entirety of their apparatus of government? All their checks and balances? Is it really that inconceivable to you that maybe, just maybe, they got tired of being America's stooges? Do you even know what happened during the Persian Coup of nineteen fifty three?"

"I realise that it sounds a bit odd -and yes, I do- but that's pretty much what's happened." I float down to stand just in front of him, ready to transfer away if he makes a move. "I thought you said that you haven't been outside of the palace?"

His eyes dip for a moment. "Well, no, but why should I need to? It's not that hard to get a protest together."

Kon looks like he's getting ready to pounce on Doctor Sivana from behind. I make eye contact with him and shake my head. **Superboy, hold off a minute.**

**Why?**

**Because while we almost certainly could beat him in a fight I'd rather persuade him if at all possible. We're here to make sure Qurac stays independent, not pick a fight with everyone we meet.** I hold up my right hand and an image of an elderly Quraci man appears. It's a live feed and he's pacing back and forth. "Vice President Rehan Fadhil. Currently at home under armed guard. Bialyan guard." The image pulls out to show them. Regular Bialyan soldiers, but they probably believe that their orders are legitimate. No one… No, that isn't true. Very few people are the villains of their own stories. Maybe Doctor Sivana thinks what he thinks because that's what the normal soldiers have been told and it sounded plausible to him. I hold out my left hand. "Prime Minister Ahmad Al Thuwaney." A younger, clean-shaven man shouting into the impassive face of a Bialyan sergeant. I spread my arms to the side and display a small orange screen with extracts taken from local message boards. "A brief summary of local opinion on the matter. I've marked the ones posting from Bialya."

"How can I know that's genuine?"

**South Wing's clear, Oh El.**

**Good work, Robin, Miss Martian. Kid Flash, any trouble?**

**No, we're fine.**

"Simply put, Doctor, you don't. I could be making this up, though I don't know the local vernacular and certainly couldn't write this much fast enough. You could go outside and talk to people, but maybe they're stooges. You could wait until we've stopped the take over and walk around.. anywhere in the country, really. And then -assuming they let you in without a chaperone- you could go to Bialya and compare the experiences. I assure you, you'll find in our favour."

"Oh, whatever." He straightens up a little and slightly lowers his fists. "I don't really care how these people conduct their affairs. I was just in it for the alien technology. Do what you like." He looks around the room for a moment. "Ah." He walks a little way up the gangway, rights the chair he had been sitting in when we first arrived, sits back down and puts The Last Crusade back on.

Wh..? I stare at the back of his head for a moment. What..? I mean, if he had what he thought was a genuine invitation, then he might not have committed any criminal acts… Well, I can track him with the ring easily enough. M'gann can work out what he actually knew later. I'd feel stupid starting a fight if all he's done is enter the country without appropriate documentation.

Wonder if Lex would have a job for him?

**Right.** I check Kon over. His borrowed Bialyan uniform looks like it's more or less intact but I give it a quick Orange Beam of Mending anyway. **Superboy, relieve Kid Flash.** He nods and heads for the door. **Kid Flash, Miss Martian, I'm going to need you at the front gate when the Quracis get heeeeere in about three minutes. I'd like to get them inside without shots being fired.**

**We're on it.**

**I'd rather they not be able to identify you but if it's a choice between blowing your cover and people dying…**

**We get it, Oh El. What happened to Psimon?**

I glance at him. He's managed to sit up on his own and is now staring around vacantly. "Uh?"

**Branded, collared and quite out of it.** Wait a m-. "Doctor Jones, how do you feel?"

He slowly turns his head in my direction. He seems to be having trouble focusing. "I'm not sure. A little.. numb, I think..?"

"Are you capable of inducing short term memory loss in the guards on the gate?"

"Aaaaaahhh..? Not from here, but yes… At least I think so. It's all a bit…" He raises his hands to his face and cradles his head.

"Doctor Jones, focus."

For an instant the brand on his chest flares brightly enough to be visible through his shirt and his eyes flash orange. He jerks for a moment and then nods with greater confidence. "Yes. Yes, that should be well within my abilities. Exactly what outcome are you hoping for?"

"I need them to be taken into Quraci custody by the soldiers who will be here soon, ideally without a shot being fired."

"None at all? A little different to what I usually do, but I suppose a change is as good as a rest."

"What did you do to him?" Doctor Sivana has managed to pull his attention away from the travails of the other Doctor Jones.

"I don't think I'm going to tell you. Don't worry, it's temporary."

"Rrrrright."

I never really experimented while Mister J'onzz was under the influence and I don't remember the branding well enough from the comics to make a truly educated guess. It would be really great to have a control technique that didn't turn the other person into a construct and I can't think of a reason why it would be harder to remove than it was from the guy who was responsible for that whole training mess up. Now, what to do about Sivana? I shake my left hand. "Out you come Fatty." This time he manages to stop himself before he hits the ground and floats back around to head level.

"Food?"

I point at Doctor Sivana. "He's got popcorn. Watch him." The Doctor looks decidedly unhappy about the prospect. What, did he think I was just going to give him the run of the place?

"Yay!"

Fatty's diving for the bowl as I help Doctor Jones to his feet. He doesn't weigh a lot. Not much more than Robin-. Well, than Robin did before I Dannered him. A little less than he does now.

"Thinking about it, it may work better if I simply scramble their short term memories rather than deliberately erasing anything. If the Martian assumes the form of that lieutenant and is loud enough and assertive enough…" He nods to himself. "That should work." He taps the metal around his neck. "You'll need to remove the collar, of course."

Yes. Hm. If we're going to go outside with me using the Bialyan uniform as a disguise he can't be seen wearing a large metal collar. How much do I trust him… No, how much do I trust the Ophidian at this point? Quite a bit, actually, and even if the brand isn't doing anything I'm fairly confident that I could reactivate the collar before he can do anything to me. A filament removes the collar to subspace and he rubs his neck before starting towards the rear entrance of the room. I follow on behind him and I can't help staring at him. "You don't.. find anything strange about wanting to defeat your employer?"

"Oh no, not at all. In fact, I'd.. go so far as to say that I can't remember ever wanting anything so much in my life."

 

22nd November
19:52 GMT +2

"…order to avoid further bloodshed I will give all Bialyan military personnel currently within the still independent Republic of Qurac one hour to begin pulling out. If they undertake any further acts of violence towards my people or if after that time they are not heading directly for the border I will unleash the full might of Qurac's armed forces upon them."

President Harjavti straightens himself up a little. He'd been really getting into it, using his arms to emphasise and punctuate his speech. I'm impressed with his delivery, particularly given that it's live and unrehearsed. The soldier operating the camera pulls back a bit to get the Quraci soldiers guarding their President in shot, along with their commanding officer Major Najjar and the newly returned Miss Harjavti. I'm not going to be on camera, though. We're not going to be able to keep our involvement completely secret in the medium term but in the short term I want to keep it under wraps.

"The Bialyan soldiers already in custody will be returned to their home country once this invasion is over. However, the Bialyan agent who masterminded this coup attempt is not a member of their armed forces and so will remain in custody."

The camera pans around to the vacant-looking Doctor Jones. His customary hood is around his shoulders, leaving absolutely no doubt over who he is. With both him and M'gann working on the remaining guards convincing them to leave their posts was easy enough. A telepathic illusion from M'gann causing them to see the approaching Quraci trucks as Bialyan, Doctor Jones making them more open to suggestion and M'gann-as-Bialyan-lieutenant issuing apparently legitimate orders resulted in them handing in their weapons and reporting to the gardens to the south of the palace for a fitness assessment. They were understandably distressed when the telepathic control was removed and they snapped out of it to find themselves stripped to the waist doing star jumps while surrounded by armed Quracis. Fortunately they realised exactly how one-sided a fight would be under those circumstances and didn't do anything silly. The Quracis also maintained discipline, though I'm not sure how much of that was due to me standing there with the ring on hand. I didn't show them the ring, but my decidedly non-Middle Eastern face was on display and President Harjavti had told them that he had been freed by 'foreign allies'. That reminds me, need to talk to the president about Kahndaq before we leave.

"We will be releasing the information he has given us on Bialya's covert operations to the world, so that all will know of Queen Bee's duplicity and evil!"

Doctor Jones hasn't actually given us any information as yet. I'll sit him down and instruct him to start making a list once the situation has stabilised. And once he has, the brand comes off and they can punish him in accordance with Quraci law. I doubt that he'll be able to ever go back in Bialya after this; my brand doesn't show up on the camera footage so it looks like he's volunteering information to us. I hope he knows who's been handling the Apokolips end of the exchange, or better yet can get me a Boom Tube generator of some kind. Or their research notes. I had the ring take a quick look at the Apokoliptian equipment and it can't make head nor tail of it. The scientific data it needs to perform an analysis just isn't there. With Earth tech -even the really advanced stuff- that isn't a problem, but with alien gear it looks like I'm out of luck.

"Remain strong, my people. Soon we will be free of these invaders once more!" He nods at the cameraman, who presses a button and begins moving the camera out of the way. Harjavti turns to me. "There are Bialyan soldiers in the Dhabar offices of each of our major news broadcasters. How can you be sure that message will get out?"

"Power rings do rather trump Human communication technology. This ring hijacked a few satellites to make sure it got broadcasted. I've set them to play it on repeat to make sure that everyone gets a chance to see it."

He nods, thoughtful. "Good. I would hate to have to order an attack in a Quraci city just because the Bialyans weren't watching television at the right time. You are certain your colleagues will be able to look after things?"

"Nothing is certain, sir, but they're faster than anything else available." Quick check…"The Vice President is already on his way here. Mister President, are you sure this is what you want to do?"

He glances at his daughter, then nods. "Yes. With any luck, the hand over of power will be temporary but after the past week I would well understand if the people of Qurac were somewhat sceptical of my abilities. If he had any lingering influence..."

"It would be easy enough to have Miss Martian give you a full MOT."

"Thank you, but… I need to be sure for myself as well. Qurac needs to be sure, and while I have every confidence in your friend's abilities it isn't something the public can see."

I nod. I can understand. I think I asked M'gann three times to delve into my mind after the last Bialya mission to see if there were any other memories floating around that could be recovered. In the end she just told me that no one remembers everything that happens to them and that I was being unhealthily obsessive about it. Wonder if Psimon got anything from that exchange or if they were just wiped? "Very well, Mister President. I'll notify you if the Bialyans do anything unusual."

"Why don't we just ask him what they'll do?"

The Major's staring right into Doctor Jones' eyes. The Doctor isn't responding. Unsurprisingly they find what I did to him somewhat disturbing. Not as disturbing as they found Fatty, who is now firmly back inside the ring. The squad who went to secure the briefing room had a freak out and.. me telling them that he actually was a Demon probably didn't help.

"We can if you want, but I can't promise he'll know anything. He doesn't have any military experience."

We both look at Harjavti, who nods. "Do it."

I hold my left hand palm up at my chest and tap the ring sigil with my right index finger. "Doctor Jones, you really want to talk to us about the annexation attempt."

The sigil on his chest flares through his shirt again and his eyes suddenly focus. "Of course I do. I'm afraid you were incorrect earlier; I wasn't the mastermind. Taking over Qurac is one of Queen Bee's pet projects. She just decided that since I couldn't work on the Apokoliptian weaponry until the new research facility is complete and since she was paying me anyway she may as well get her money's worth."

The major glowers at him. "But you were responsible for the Qurac end of things."

"No, not really. My role was to control Persident Harjavti and to assist in fighting off any counter attack. Bialyan military operations here are under the command of Colonel Jamal."

"Colonel Jamal only entered the country four days ago. You already had the president under your control by then!"

"We already had the itinerary of the people we needed to keep out of the way. Getting hold of a few Quraci military uniforms wasn't hard. Your brother was most helpful."

Harjavti's eyes blaze. "You controlled my brother?!"

"Oh, no. He's been passing information to Bialya for years now."

Harjavti shoulders the major aside and grabs Doctor Jones by the lapels. "You're lying!"

"I'm really not. I never asked why. It might have been money, or power, or-."

"Queen Bee is a metahuman. She can control men-."

"Of course." Harjavti calms down a little and releases Doctor Jones. "He was my ambassador there, while we still had one. It…"

The Major looks uncomfortable. "Mister President, I'm sorry to have to say this but whatever his motive-."

"We have to arrest him." Harjavti nods. "Call him here, say I want to talk to him." The Major nods and walks over to the phone banks to start tracking him down. Won't help if he's fled already but if he's still trying to preserve his cover he'll have to come. The president looks at me. "Orange Lantern, Qurac thanks you. I thank you."

"Mister President, you are welcome."

"I hope that once the Bialyans have left your team mates will return here so that I can thank them in person as well."

"I'm sure that can be arranged, though I'd prefer it if it could be kept quiet. Detailed information about our group is supposed to be secret."

"Of course. If there is anything I can do to thank you..?"

"I can think of one thing sir. How up to date are you on the situation in Kahndaq?"

 

23rd November
06:39 GMT +2

Oh, this is going to be so much fun.

It took a little persuading, getting substitute team leader Richard to agree to let me do this. Wasn’t as if he really wanted me on this mission anyway. I mean, honestly: refusing to let M'gann fly the Bio-Ship through a Boom Tube because it 'hadn't been tested'? How exactly does he think New God ships travel through interstellar space? And that meal he made of rescuing the Logans from the wildebeest stampede; M'gann is easily capable of lifting them both out of the way without the invading Bialyans being any the wiser. But no, we had to stop and get into a fight, and then let the Bialyans flee. If I hadn't destroyed their radios before they got away I dread to think what would have happened. As it stands they'll still report our positions before too long.

That little fact might have been what tipped it over the edge. The sheer magnitude of potential for negative fall out from my suggestion meant that he was pretty reluctant to go along with it but he couldn't stand for the idea that he'd put civilians in the way. To my way of thinking any civilian dumb enough to set up an animal sanctuary on what is basically the pre-Gulf War Iraq/Kuwait border pretty much has it coming. I suppose you can't think like that living in Gotham. You'd end up thinking that everyone had it coming.

And, yes, I did the thing of suggesting a range of logical but unpalatable suggestions to go with it in order for it to seem reasonable by comparison. I mean, forcibly resisting the encroaching Bialyan army is a perfectly valid option. It would fulfil the objective Batman set us, eventually. I mean, one of their officers must know how Harjavti got nobbled, right? And it's not like Batman wants us to find out what happened to Harjavti and then fly home. I can fight an army if I have to, or if we'd gotten a move on I could just have fought the Bialyans already in the country. But it would have been open and it would have been violent. This way, only bad people -which to his way of thinking probably includes me- get hurt.

Plus, it's fun for me.

I sit astride the Sphere's flying trike mode. There's no way I'd fit in either of the passenger seats and she's informed me that while she is capable of adapting her internal layout to accommodate me it's a bit uncomfortable for her and isn't something she's inclined to do when I don't really need it. Mister Tawny once again elected to join me, taking the front seat. I was a little concerned about what would happen if the Sphere chose to engage in aerobatics while neither of us are really strapped in but she made it clear that we won't fall off unless she wants us to.

Good job I can fly without her.

It's still dark in Al-Qawiya as I look down at the lights of the royal palace. There are antiaircraft guns around the palace grounds but with the ring and Father Box working together there's no way they could get a radar lock on us. A quick tap on the visor lets me confirm Queen Bee's presence. Not a shapeshifter, clone, robot duplicate or illusion. She's having breakfast with her Chief of Staff and Principal Private Secretary. There are guards around of course, as well as waiting staff. I'm not seeing anything Apokoliptian, and Father Box should-.

"Ploong."

I'm sorry, Father Box can bypass any attempt by a lesser technology to evade my detection. Unfortunately that particular affinity only works with New God technology; my ring scans can still be fooled by arcanotechnology which it is within the ability of Apokoliptians to build.

What to do, what to do, what to do.

"Sphere, shoot out the wall would you? There's a good girl." She warbles. "Well, of course you can avoid shooting people. If I'd wanted you to shoot people I'd have told you to shoot people."

She revs, and tilts slightly in place. I did offer to have Father Box upgrade her weapons to use mounts that could traverse rather than the fixed mounts she was built with but she said that the idea of interfacing with Apokoliptian technology like that made her uncomfortable. I guess organics aren't the only ones who instinctively shy from the idea of being modified, even when it's in their interests. No negative feedback from M'gann yet, though we're all finding her new habit of striking matches just to watch them burn down a little disturbing. In addition to Zatanna, both Artemis and Mister Queen have expressed an interest in undergoing Divine Awakening. We'll be talking to Misses Crock about it over Thanksgiving dinner. Hopefully seeing Jade again will put her in a good mood. Must remember to get Tao something nice too.

The Sphere's guns clack into full extension on her side pods. She lets out a warning ping and then a volley of glowing blue bolts shoot into the palace's wall which erupts in a cloud of debris and dust. "Good, now take us in, full speed." We're diving down even as shouts of alarm ring out across the palace grounds and searchlights are brought to bear. Far too slow to achieve anything worthwhile against us, but a professional and disciplined display. I approve.

The Sphere slaloms sideways as we reach the dust cloud marking the remains of the wall. Brickwork that survived the shooting is obliterated as we smash through and come in for a landing inside. The two civil servants have already retreated to the rear of the room but Queen Bee herself remains proud and confident, standing just behind the row of heavily armed guards who are kneeling with their weapons pointed at me. Two more guards flank her, standing with guns levelled at my face.

I jump off the Sphere and land with a loud thud. Her targeting is excellent; the wall's gone but the floor beyond it is completely untouched. "I must do that more often."

Queen Bee's eyes narrow. "I don’t know who you think you are, but you'll soon regret attacking my palace."

"Mortal. I think that I am Grayven of Apokolips." She reacts, but it's tiny, a momentary tensing of her jaw and eye orbit. Without the visor I'd never have noticed it. "I think that one of my kind has been giving you weapons. I think you will give me their name." "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do. Was it Vermin Vundabar? This seems to be the sort of thing he'd do, particularly if he knew Desaad was supplying another faction." I take a step forwards and there's a general clacking as safeties are removed and guns are readied. I chuckle. "Shoot, then. Get it out of your systems. Your weapons worry me about as much as a single wind-wafted pollen grain worries you." No immediate takers. "Mortal Queen. Order them to shoot me." "Show yourself and I may forgive your trespass."

A glimmer of uncertainty. If she does it, she'll be doing something I told her to do. It would undermine her authority, doubly so when it failed to have any effect. If she doesn't, then she let me bulldoze her wall and talk down to her without any sort of come back. There are New Gods squishy enough that human-made projectile weapons could hurt them. How is she going to play this?

I grin wider as she draws a pistol from under her own jacket, levels it at my face and fires three times. I don't even bother with the ring's environmental shield and just let them impact my skin; cheek, nose and forehead. My skin is pliant enough that the risk of hazardous deflection is fairly small but far too tough for such a small calibre bullet to graze. "Well, look at you. Aren't you a go-getter? Satisfied now?"

She hands off her pistol to a nearby waiter. He appears to have been rendered paralysed by shock, but snaps himself out of it in time to avoid fumbling a loaded weapon. "Clear the room."

The civil servants and waiting staff leave at just under a run. The guard to her right twitches his head in her direction. "My queen, he-." She gives him a look and he freezes. Then he lowers his gun to the rest position. "Detail, at ease." After a momentary delay the other guards rise and make safe their guns before marching out of the room. Mister Boss Guard clearly isn't happy about the situation, but he won't openly defy his sovereign. He shoots me a venomous look before following his men out of the room.

So. Just the two of us then. Queen Bee nods at someone on the outside of the door and they close it. The visor shows me the guards forming up just on the other side, ready to run in.. and do what exactly? Oh, they mean well. Queen Bee looks me over once more, then moves on to the Sphere and Mister Tawny. Then she steps forwards and sits back down at her place at the head of the breakfast table and takes a bite of her croissant before acknowledging me again. "Have you had breakfast yet?"

Damn. If I'd met her before I met Jade…

I walk over to the table and look at the seat in the opposite position. Could that hold my weight without reinforcement? Best not chance it. I pull it out and sit down as Mister Tawny jumps down from the Sphere and takes up station on my right. With no further passengers the Sphere curls up again and rolls to my left. I look over the table and use tongs to transfer a pain au chocolat onto the plate in front of me. "I'm still on US time, but I never turn down good food." "That offer is time-limited, mind you."

Mister Tawny turns his gaze on me. He was really quite put out that we wouldn't let him hunt the Wildebeest at the animal sanctuary and Queen Bee doesn't appear to be touching the sausages. Lamb, I note. I put down the pastry tong and use the meat tong to flick one over to him. He catches it easily, flashes of fang showing as he mashes it up in his mouth. I smile at him and then return my attention to the Queen. "I'm still waiting for you to answer my question."

 

23rd November
06:44 GMT +2

"And I'm waiting for you to develop manners."

"Hm?" She glances to her left, at the gaping hole I just made in her wall. "Ah, yes. I suppose that could get a bit draughty." A wave of orange light from my eyes passes over the rubble inside the room before moving to the hole and reassembling the wall. I didn't pick up all of it but I'm not exactly short of building material in my subspace pocket. Still, that sort of transmutation usually represents quite a significant expenditure of power. I recharged just before we left, armoured myself by use of the ring, light combat including destroying the radios, long range monitoring… Ring?

Ninety one percent power remaining.

Nothing much to worry about for the moment then. I return my attention to my host. "Better?"

"Barely." Ah, she's looking at the Sphere. "I assume that I have you to thank for Doctor Jones' current incapacity."

So, they haven't been able to restore his abilities. Useful to know, assuming it's true. "Yes. In case I wasn't clear, I take a very dim view of anyone trying to involve other Apokoliptians in Earth's affairs." I pick up the pain au chocolat lightly between my right thumb and forefinger. All that precision control practice I undertook for Jade's benefit has really paid off. I've never really been sure what the 'correct' way to eat these is so I settle for biting a small piece off the corner before returning it to my plate and chewing slowly. My ability to judge textures is still a bit off and there wasn't any chocolate in that piece but.. texture seems good, flavour certainly good, slightly warm… Freshly baked, then? Toxicology reveals nothing suspect. "Very good. My compliments to your baker."

"My soldiers described you as having skin like rock."

"I've had some work done. Father Box has been most helpful." "If you haven't made yourself known to me by the end of breakfast it will be the worse for you."

"Ploong."

Father Box gets her full attention. "An alien computer system."

"A synthetic mind. Fully conscious. With a full database of Apokoliptian technology, even including Desaad's special projects." I close my eyes for a moment, focusing on him. He's walking through some sort of factory complex… Ah, a Parademon genesis chamber. He cringes as he feels me. He hasn't been able to do anything about the brand and he hasn't dared enter Darkseid's presence since he got back. "The Sphere is also fully alive, which is why I felt so revolted by Doctor Jones' actions." The Sphere warbles and I roll my eyes at her. "A part, then. It was in the mix."

"Fascinating. I wasn't aware that your people could be so squeamish."

"I would not leave her in the hands of someone too brutish to understand her value." I reach out to pat her gently with my left hand and take another bite of the pastry. Uum, chocolate that time. Quality dark stuff, too. A bit bitter for me really but I can appreciate it in small amounts. "And don't think I haven't noticed that you haven't answered me yet. I might put up with two hours of waffle from Ra's al Ghul but I'm not that generous where family is involved. Who, is your contact?"

"And if I don't tell you?"

"Then I kill people. I'm not sure exactly how many. Certainly no one who'd had any contact with Apokolips would see another dawn."

"Do you really think that your Justice League masters would allow that?"

"Masters. Hmm." Eye glow to full. "Do not think, mortal, that because it temporarily suits me to play along with their ridiculous rules of engagement that I consider myself their thrall. If I must play a long game in order to stand amongst this world's gods then I will accept that without complaint but that does not mean that we are of one mind."

"You think the members of the Justice League are gods?"

"Their icons and idols can be found in every nation. Their powers outstrip those of lesser beings, their guidance is sought, their protection begged, their natural authority supersedes even that of the leaders of nations. What other title is there for such a man, such a woman, than that of god?"

"The League would never accept that title, or exercise that authority. If that's your 'long game' you'll be sadly disappointed."

"You think I should consort with moronic costumed criminals? Or with international outcasts like you?" I shake my head. "No. I wish to make something of this world, something strong and vital. Apokolips…" I shake my head again. "Too intelligent to trick, too powerful to strong arm. You invite your entire species' ruination for a few miles of desert."

"Qurac is hardly a few miles of desert, and I think your assessment is too pessimistic. If Apokolips is truly as powerful as you say I'm sure that they have more important things to worry about. From what Doctor Jones told me before his.. unfortunate encounter with you, our contact there isn't even that high up in your people's ranks."

"A name."

She takes a moment to take a sip of tea, delaying her response a few seconds just to prove that she won't be cowed. "He never told us his name. In fact, I only met him once. He looks.. human-shaped, but his skin is dull yellow and he has black facial tattoos rising up from his eyes and across his chin."

Doesn't ring any bells. I'll ask Father Box about it later. "How do you contact him?"

"He gave Doctor Jones a beacon after the first time the portal opened. We can send messages and he can use it to open portals-."

"Boom Tubes. They're called Boom Tubes."

"Boom Tubes, then. He can detect the beacon from his side and send materials through."

"What does he ask in return?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" I shake my head. "Nothing. Foolish mortal, when New Genesis found out that Desaad was sharing New God technology far less sophisticated than the Sphere with humans, they sent a squad of warriors to recover it. Your entire army couldn't stop me and I assure you that they would be even less able to handle Infinity Man. You're taking hand-me-down weapons we give to slave overseers -not even proper soldiers- and you're baiting our enemies. He's either doing it for a laugh or-." Or he plans to field test something, once they've got used to taking his equipment.

"Or he's getting information. Qurac, Grayven, is a sideshow. While he watches how we use the 'hand-me-downs' he graciously bestows on us we in turn study them. What we're learning will revolutionise Earth's electronics, power generation and power transmission systems." That's.. actually rather clever. Might even work. I nod. "And what Bialya learns, the whole of the Human race will benefit from."

"I'll believe that when I see it."

"You may be surprised what a small number of like-minded individuals can achieve through.. strategic partnerships." Wait. That… Ra's said something like that. I frown. I thought he was just posturing, but.. if he… "Of course, if we had your assistance, that sort of risk would no longer be necessary. A full database of Apokoliptian technology could do wonders for the Earth, through a.. managed release."

Ah, there it is. The smart pheromones I'd been expecting since I got here. Won't do much to me even without the ring's environmental shield, but I take another scan of it. Might be useful at some point. "I have more faith in your species than to believe that is necessary."

She gives a nonchalant shrug. "Then we will simply have to maintain our current contacts."

"I think not. I will not have others of my kind working here save by my leave and I do not want the Forever Children back. What else?"

"What do you mean?"

"It has not escaped my notice that President Harjavti is behaving in an uncharacteristic manner. Doctor Jones is now bereft of his telepathy. You are here. Since this is your project I can only assume-."

"What does it matter to you how I-?"

Lantern Crock and Lantern Dorrance appear at either side of her, grab her arms and haul her into the air as I patiently look on. Locating Bane's father was a simple matter once my inability to refer to him by his surname started getting to me. Sir Edmund Dorrance -aka King Snake- is presently residing in Hong Kong and the Great Ten have a rather large file on him.

Queen Bee has just enough time to snarl "Unhand m-!" before a construct muzzle appears around her mouth, cutting out her voice. Her eyes blaze as she sees the nature of her captors. Would she know who they are? Crock, maybe. Dorrance, I wouldn't think so.

I casually flick the table aside with my right hand. Cutlery, china, toast, pastries and other assorted knickknacks crash to the floor as I rise languidly to my feet and fold my arms behind my back. "Mortal, you appear to misunderstand how this works." Ring, assimilate. Slowly. Count off at ten percent intervals.

By your command.

An orange corona appears around her as Mister Tawny investigates the sausage bowl. "You have nothing to offer me that I cannot take. That I even condescended to speak to you is a privilege and I will not apply more effort to cleaning up your mess than I absolutely must."

"Identity theft ten percent complete."

"If this process completes you will be nothing, not even a slave. An object of curiosity at best. An extension of my mind."

"Identity theft twenty percent complete."

"Dealing with Apokolips as you are doing, from a position of incredible weakness, would doom the Earth and waste the investment I have put into it. I will not tolerate that."

"Identity theft thirty percent complete."

"If the first words out of your mouth when I release your mouth are not an explanation of how President Harjavti is being dominated then the brief remainder of your corporeal existence will be incredibly painful. Do you understand me?"

She stares fiercely at me for a moment before making the slightest inclination of her head. I dismiss the muzzle. "After learning that Doctor Jones was no longer in a position to assist, our contact offered a replacement. A misshapen lump of a creature, but its telepathic range is incredible. There is nothing on Earth quite like it."

"Identity theft forty percent complete."

"An artificial Apokoliptian telepathic life form. Mortal, your delusions of cunning may have doomed your race. Where is it?"

"We didn't let it out of the research centre. It can only see what we want it to and all of the guards have telepathic defence training."

Show me the facility.

Rocky desert, Bialyan army engineers, military construction equipment, rocky underground chambers. An indistinct figure on a Apokoliptian looking chair. Analyse the Humans… Hah. Glassy eyed and motions mechanical. I watch as one cuts his hand with a trowel and doesn't even notice. Feed the results to Father Box. I need to be sure that my defences will work against this thing.

By your command.

And end assimilation. The aura around Queen Bee fades as I open a Boom Tube to just outside their new facility. I'll need to deal with the Lump, destroy their data, grab the beacon and then I'll need to trash the place. "Insects are worth taking the time to crush. Otherwise, why invent DDT? You think mental discipline will protect you? Hah! Now that this Lump has learned how to deal with Human minds he will seize control of all of you and make this a world of puppets." I walk through the Boom Tube, the Sphere just behind me. "Lanterns, bring her. I want her to see the full extent of her folly firsthand."

 

23rd November
07:14 GMT +2

"Oh, you're joking."

The Bialyans were kind enough to pull out in reasonably good order. Oh, they spent a good third of their allotted time trying to contact their people in the palace and then their superiors back at home but they were packed up and moving out with time to spare. The only thing my team mates had to do was make sure the Quracis lining the route didn't start anything as they left.

The Bialyan units which had taken up position near the border towns didn't move until the brigade which had been in Dhabar passed safely into Bialya. Reasonable enough I suppose; they wanted to make sure that their countrymen weren't ambushed. And now the fall back route of the group below us is taking them directly through the Logan Animal Sanctuary. Four trucks filled with soldiers and two jeeps with three medium tanks leading the way. Nothing we can't take, more than we can take while staying under the radar.

Fiddlesticks.

"We've got to do something!"

I rub my forehead with my right hand. "Yess, M'gann, I know."

President Harjavti was kind enough to offer us rooms in the palace to stay in over night. I suppose I could just have transitioned us back to the mountain but M'gann did want to see the animal sanctuary and, well, us being immediately on hand probably wasn't a bad idea. I stayed up monitoring the situation and making sure no one did anything untoward to Doctor Jones. He's given us reams of material, though the Quracis were far less interested than me in their contact with Apokolips. Even got a description of their New God contact, though it didn't ring any bells with me. Maybe it will mean something to the Frees?

Kon's staring out of the main windscreen. "The Wildebeest are stampeding! We need to get in there!"

I don't really know enough about world politics to know what this will do for Queen Bee. President Horne is far more passive than President Bush was -either of them- and Qurac isn't an ally in the way that Kuwait was back home. Unless she does something stupid like directly attack American interests I doubt the Security Council will stir themselves and Qurac just can't afford to prosecute an aggressive war.

"So close. So close." I look up and have the ring produce a map of the area. "No actual people in the way?"

Wallace looks uncomfortable. "You're not saying we should just sit it out, are you?"

"There was a reason why I didn't want to openly engage the Bialyans. Adom's being about as passive as he can be but he's still getting a lot of negative press coverage. People just aren't comfortable with superheroes getting involved in political violence, even when one side has it coming. If they're just scaring some animals then I'd-."

Robin's got his computer screen up and tapped into the Bio-Ship's sensors. "Oh El? Looks like they're stopping."

Oh no… "M'gann, take us directly over the farm house. Robin, can you tell why they're stopping?"

"No, not… They're sending a truck and a jeep towards the house and the other jeep looks like it's trying to round up the Wildebeest."

Fucking… I sigh. Nothing for it. We're going to need to fight them. I've got a lot of respect for Adom but our League superiors have made it clear that…

Waaait just a moment.

"M'gann. Do you think you could convincingly pretend to be Adom? "

"Maybe. Um, yes, I think so. Why?"

"Because he's been on the news a lot around here and I'm pretty sure those fellows down there know exactly what would happen if they tried to fight him. Everyone, get ready to deploy, but if we can get away with a bluff…"

Robin smiles. "They still won't know we're here!"

"Okay, ah…" M'gann gets off the pilot seat and I take her place. There's a soft squelching sound as her shape begins to change, a strange ripple passing through her body from toe to head as her muscles swell and her uniform darkens. "How do I look?"

Kon looks her over. "Errr… Wasn't he taller?"

Now that I look, I think he's got a point. M'gann-as-Adom shrugs. "I can't make myself bigger when I shapeshift. There's only so much me to go around, and Adom's much bulkier than I am."

"They probably won't notice as long as you don't get too close." I create a construct of Adom's preferred aerial pose, straight backed, arms folded across his chest, feet pointing slightly downwards."Hover in the air like that, close enough that they can identify you. Once they've seen you -assuming they don't just attack you- point towards the far boundary of the sanctuary and say 'leave'. Er, in Arabic, obviously. Don't engage in conversation, he wouldn't talk to them. If you can telepathically encourage them to believe it, even better. If that doesn't work we'll probably have to fight them openly. Superboy, Robin, you're on the tanks. I'll be shielding anything vulnerable looking. Kid Flash, I'll want you to stay at full speed and disarm as many soldiers as possible. Everyone clear?" Nods all round. "Mighty One, go."

M'gann looks confused for a second, then gets it and drops through the floor. Really odd seeing that expression on Adom's face. When he's confused -or at least when I think he's probably confused- he makes a point of looking blank or curious instead. Iron self control. I have the ring create a larger image depicting the situation as I bring the Bio-Ship down to ground level. Looks like Misses Logan and Garfield are taking shelter in their house. They'd probably have seen the broadcast last night so I'm hopeful that they'll just keep out of the way.

M'gann moves fast through the air. Her top speed is quite a bit lower than Speed of Aker, but she doesn't have that far to go and they aren't really watching the sky. The first thing they know about her coming is that she's there in front of them, floating off the ground between the advancing soldiers and the Logans' home. A little higher up than Adom usually floats when he wants to talk to someone on ground level, but if M'gann doesn't know that I'm confident that they don't either. The soldiers closest to her stop immediately. A couple raise their rifles but -ring, facial analysis?- the rest look like they're having difficulty avoiding soiling themselves. The man in the jeep's passenger position -a captain- is shouting something at them, prompting a rapid fall back. The tanks are orientating their turrets on her but keeping in character she looks at them once and then dismisses them with a toss of her head before floating towards the captain.

**Stand by for very rapid transfer if this doesn't work.**

The officer’s body language suggests that he's trying to discuss the matter like what he's doing is reasonable. Adom's activity has been public knowledge for almost two weeks now but it isn't as if he does interviews.

**I don't think he's buying it.**

**I suppose it was a long shot. Stand by, we'll-.**

**No, I can… You've spent most time with him. If I could.. see your memories of him-?**

**My mind is your mind.** I try to relax, thinking of my conversations with Adom and my observations of the way he's been behaving. I've been paying a great deal of attention to the news broadcasts ever since his return to Kahndaq and.. ah yes, there it is. I can feel M'gann reliving it. Odd experience, like having a flash of vivid recollection not really connected to anything else I was thinking about.

"Hey, Oh El, can we get some sound on this?"

"Hm? Oh. Probably. Ring?"

"…smuggling. We're just going to check the place for contraband and then we'll-."

"No." M'gann's doing the thing of not looking at him as she talks to him. That's totally what Adom does when he thinks he's talking to someone beneath him. "You will obey President Harjavti's edict."

"I just can't do that. I have orders. Surely you wouldn't-."

"I stay my hand in Kahndaq because it is my homeland. Even those who oppose me are still my people, and worthy of my care. You, are not my people, and I do not see any cameras." Then she looks at him. "Did you know that in my era it was common to take a defeated enemy's genitals as a trophy in battle?"

The Captain flinches, and there's some uncomfortable clenching in the Bio-Ship as well. I'm not sure that was actually Adom's era... "Ah aaah. I… Of course, Mighty One. Company!" He waves his arm in the direction of the far fence and the soldiers remount their truck with near indecent haste. The tanks start rolling first, having not turned off their engines. The captain's jeep is only just behind and after some frantic talking on the radio the other jeep turns away from the herd to join the retreat. M'gann hovers there with her arms crossed, a somewhat un-Adom like smile on her face.

 

23rd November
07:18 GMT +2

**Good work, Miss Martian. I su-. Mm. Follow them at a distance until they're well out of visual range. I don't want them doing something silly like staying in the area and taking pot shots at the property.**

**No problem.** M'gann peers imperiously at the retreating Bialyans and then flies upwards, staring down at them in the manner of a well fed but slightly bored hawk observing something small and furry.

**Have you considered taking up acting professionally?** Now that I'm confident that we won't immediately be needed in combat I bring the Bio-Ship in to land in a concealed position behind a nearby barn. Anyone inside? One slightly dazed looking Oryx. Can't remember last time I saw one of them. I dismiss my construct and look up at my team mates. "Well, mission's over so I'm not exactly in charge anymore. Do we want to go in as off-duty superheroes or as a lost coach trip?"

Robin raises an eyebrow. "We'd have to be pretty lost."

"Field trip, then? Bus comes back in a few hours? If it really comes to it I can just grab a bus from somewhere."

Wallace shrugs. "I don't really think it's a problem, Oh El. We're in the middle of nowhere out here."

"Alright then." The rear door of the Bio-Ship oozes open. "I doubt the Bialyans can see exactly who we are from this range so.. we.. may as well go out and say hello." I hear a revving sound as the Sphere accelerates down the steps and out onto the grassland beyond. "And I.. didn't think that through properly." Robin smiles at me before following Wallace and Kon out of the hatch. Should I let Fatty out? No, I don't think so. A group of Humans would pass as normal at a distance -as long as I don't glow too much- and the Sphere… Um. Well, optimistically, doesn't look like a threat, and could be mistaken for a piece of equipment. A glowing orange monster midget is both threatening and easily connected to me.

I lever myself out of the pilot seat. **Thank you Ship. Please stay in stealth mode for the time being.** I feel an acknowledgement. I still don't really understand exactly how 'aware' the ship's mind is. M'gann can't even give me something to compare it to as Earth doesn't have anything even nearly equivalent. I sort of think of it as a well trained animal though I know that isn't accurate. Ah well. Time to meet M'gann's idol.

I walk slowly down the steps to join my friends. I tried watching 'Hello Megan' once at M'gann's urging. Apparently the Ophidian and I gave her a DVD copy of the whole run, the pilot and the sole series. I stuck with it, because.. it was 'interesting' in the duck's foot sense, but it really wasn't my thing. Lots of canned laughter and little actual humour, that I could see anyway. Couldn't think of a British series that could really serve as a counterpoint to it. I get a flash of The Inbetweeners and shudder. Nothing I'd actually want them to see anyway.

Robin's leading the way towards the house, Wallace on his right and Kon to his left. The Sphere is trying to get on Kon's left but it looks like he's trying to block it. Beyond them I see Missus Logan stick her head out of the door of her house about a second before a widely grinning Garfield sticks his out lower down. She really does look like an older version of M'gann's Human-seeming form, sort of what I imagine 'Megan Morse's mother would look like. She's watching 'Adom' and the dust cloud marking the location of the Bialyans with concern written all over her face while her son's pointing at us and trying to get her attention.

"Mom! Mooom!"

I suppose… I am sort of in charge. I transition to a short distance away from the veranda. "Good morning Missus Logan. Are you alright?"

"Yes, we're-." She looks at me and frowns. "Who are you supposed to be?"

"Orange Lantern two eight one four. These are my colleagues-" I hold out my left hand in their direction as they approach. "Kid Flash, Robin and Superboy." Garfield looks like he might burst with excitement.

His mother, on the other hand, looks decidedly unimpressed. "And you brought Black Adam with you."

"Er, no? Not exactly. Adom… He's in Cairo at the moment, floating just outside the room the Kahndaqi cabinet are meeting in so he can glower at them through the window. No one can glower like... Never mind. That's Miss Martian, a shapeshifter. I thought it would be better to scare them off than confront them directly. Didn't want to risk making you a target."

"Bialyan 'border patrols' are a fact of life around here, and I doubt they're just going to stop because their coup attempt failed."

"Mom. Uncool."

She sighs. "I'm.. sorry. I should thank you. This is my son, Garfield. I'm Marie Logan."

I shrug and give what I hope is a disarming smile. "I.. know. It's called the Logan Animal Sanctuary.. and.. one of my team mates is a fan of your television work."

"Rather a long way to come for an autograph."

"We were in the area. If you have no objection, I'd like to stick around until we're reasonably sure the Bialyans aren't coming back any time soon."

She sighs. "That's probably a good idea."

"Is there anything we can help with while we're here? You seem to have suffered some damage to your fencing."

"And I've got to round up the Wildebeest before they can run off or injure themselves, nurse a sick Oryx back to health and submit today's journal entry to the national security commission for review before it can be published on the Sanctuary's website."

Robin smiles. "No need to worry about that last one. President Harjavti's first action once the Bialyans started leaving was to cancel the state of emergency."

Wallace nods. "I can round up those Wildebeest for you in record-."

"No. No super speed. Not until we're completely sure we're not under observation."

He wrinkles the left side of his nose. "Guess we can do it the slow way."

"I can probably help with the Oryx. I'm not a veterinarian but I do have the most advanced sensor in the galaxy on my left hand." I hold my palm out facing her. Garfield stares at the ring and I decide to show off by generating a cut away diagram of an Oryx.

Kon looks around the Sanctuary, looking for something. "If you show me where the fence posts are, shouldn't take long for me to fix it."

"Okay, um. Thank you. Garfield, why don't you show.. Superboy?" Kon nods. "Where we keep the fencing materi..al." He's already gone, grabbing Kon by the hand as he leads him to a shed at the side of the house. She turns her attention to Wallace and Robin. "Do either of you boys have a driver's license?"

Wallace stares for a moment, then face palms with his right hand. "Dad, why didn't I listen to you?"

The Sphere warbles, revs, and then unfolds.. into.. some sort of.. giant.. red.. motor trike..? The four of us just blink at it. Robin snaps out of it first. "I did not know it could do that."

Missus Logan points at it uncertainly. "What, exactly..?"

"Alien synthetic intelligence we rescued from Bialya. It's friendly. The trike thing's new to us as well."

"Okay, well, try not to scare the Wildebeest. Orange Lantern? I'm keeping the Oryx in the barn."

I take a quick look in the direction of the now barely visible Bialyan column. Shouldn't be a problem with using the Sphere in vehicle mode. "Lead the way. We've parked Miss Martian's space ship behind there."

"You what?"

"Don't worry, she's currently invisible, there's no way the Bialyans could spot her."

"That wasn't why…" She sighs again. "I'm sure Garfield will love it."

"Um, I was wondering; I thought that Wildebeest were native to the southern part of Africa? Why set up a sanctuary in the Middle East?"

"Oh, well, that's a good question. You see..."

 

23rd November
08:06 GMT +2

"And… That's… Done…"

Drilling for geothermal power is easy when you have a power ring. After we scanned the Oryx and I started to feel superfluous it struck me that it must be rather difficult to keep a place this isolated supplied. Mains electric supplies tend to be a bit iffy in rural Qurac at the best of times and having large fuel tanks in a place the Bialyan military use as their parade ground seems to be asking for trouble. I've sort of been thinking about assisting in implementing geothermal power generation on a wide scale for a while now. No unsightly turbines like wind, no carbon dioxide emissions, no spent nuclear fuel… Not exactly mobile but electric cars have come on in leaps and bounds in recent years. It just feels… I have a power ring and the best thing I can do for the planet is dig deep holes really well?

Anyway, it's perfectly adequate for the Logans’ needs. I'll offer to convert their jeeps to electric before we leave.

"Yahoo!"

I look around as Garfield zooms past on the Spheretrike, arms up in the air. Wallace is at the controls to the rear. I've ordered them to stay close to the ground but M'gann reported that the Bialyans are long gone so I doubt there's any real harm in it. I wonder who designed the trike mode? It doesn't look very practical, having a seat at the front and another at the back like that. It also has that whole bigger-on-the-inside thing going on, and why have wheels when you can fly? Don't know enough about New God engineering to really know what to make of it.

I should probably forward the mission report to Batman. I've just got the 'further action' section to go. Obviously we need to keep an eye on the border area. Should probably ask the Frees to have a look at the Apokoliptian gear we took off the Bialyans. Be nice to know where it lies on the scale of New God nastiness. Oh, I'm going to need to try it out against my armour construct aren't I? It'll hurt, but it's better to know in advance what I can take. Batman might want to take part in interrogating Doctor Jones before I free him from the brand. Spot of luck that Qurac has no specific law protecting against self incrimination. Not sure that anything learned would be allowed in an American court but it could at least guide other investigations.

M'gann confirmed that Doctor Magnificus Sivana was being honest. He really didn't know that this was a hostile annexation, he just didn't bother looking into it in any great detail when the job offer came through. Doctor Jones was going to take him back to their research facility when he'd finished here. The intensity of undirected orange light within him was so strong that I nearly handed him one of the Apokoliptian devices and offered to hire him myself. The only reason I didn't is that I just don't have the facilities to support his work. I think things could go very badly wrong unless we find him an outlet so I took his contact details before he left for the airport under armed escort. I don't know if Lex has a xenotech research project and I'm fairly confident that Batman would blow his top if I helped him set one up. Maybe his alter ego would be interested instead? Or Mister Kord?

**[Surprise. Disappointment.]**

I frown. After reporting that the Bialyans were well and truly back on their side of the border M'gann was giddy with excitement at the idea of meeting Missus Logan. I've.. been getting the occasional 'ping' from her direction since then and I don't think their talk is going quite how M'gann imagined it. I should probably make sure that she's alright. I start heading around to the front of the house. Ring, forward report to Batman.

Compliance.

Missus Logan's standing on the veranda, leaning on the rail and watching Garfield fly around the paddock. She looks around as I approach, coffee mug in hand. "It's been a while since I've had a fan as.. enthusiastic as your Martian friend."

Agh, I knew I should have encouraged M'gann to look at some of her more recent work! "She's not.. being a nuisance, is she?"

"Ah, no, no, not really." She takes a sip from her cup. "I'm sure seventeen year old me would have been thrilled to have fans from another planet."

I point back the way I came. "I've finished setting up the geothermal system and I can.. swap out your generator whenever you like."

"Thank you. That'll really help keep the costs of running this place down."

"I was wondering… The system can generate much more power than you need? And.. you're quite a long way from anyone out here. I.. can put a teleportation device in, if you want." She blinks. "I realise that Garfield probably does one of those internet school things but.. um.. I've never been convinced that.. they can.. really cover the social side of normal school. I could put the other terminus in Dhabar or.. wherever, really."

"That…" She looks at the ground, frowning. "And it's safe?"

"Safer than crossing the road."

"That's kind of a big deal. I'll need some time to think about it."

"No problem. I'll leave my number."

She turns back to the field as Wallace tries a loop the loop, to Garfield’s obvious pleasure. "The news reports say that the Bialyans have completely pulled out. They're not even doing border patrols. Don't know how long it'll last though."

"I rather got the impression that President Harjavti intends to do something about that." I'm not really sure what, mind. I am physically capable of building a satellite weapon network to protect Qurac. As a private citizen I don’t think I'm covered by the treaty which prevents countries putting weapons in space and when I was clearing orbital debris I found that at least three of them have violated that agreement anyway, but that would make them dependent on me and I.. don't.. really.. want that. Also, I don't think it would make the League very happy. Perhaps he's thinking more along the lines of more assertive patrolling of his own?

"The report didn't mention your group."

I shrug. "Probably better that way. The less Bialya knows about us the better, really. Um, is M'gann still inside?"

She nods and I walk past her into the house. Robin's got the news on. Looks like Mister Wayne's here already to publicly give his support to the… Um. Currently suspended? President? He looks around as I come in. "Hey, Oh El."

"Anything I need to worry about?"

"Don’t think so. Not until Psimon finishes spilling his guts to the Quracis, anyway."

I look down the corridor and see M'gann leaning dejectedly against a wall. "Let me know if anything changes. Um. How'd you think it went?"

"We got the job done, no one died." Not actually true, but a mere three deaths in protests like that in this part of the world isn't too bad. He shrugs. "I can't think of anything I'd have done differently."

"Thank you. Oh, don't stay in here all morning. Get Kid Flash to relieve you if you get bored." I turn away and walk down the corridor to where M'gann stands and lean against the wall opposite, generating a sound baffle around us with the ring. "Anything you want to talk about?"

She looks at me, then down the corridor and then at the floor. I'm seeing bent yellow and.. I don't know exactly what that means. "When our minds were linked, you… I know I looked-."

"You're a White Martian, not a Green one." She looks at me with alarm. "M'gann, Martian racial politics mean nothing to anyone on Earth, except you. It’s like the whole pureblood thing with Kaldur; we don't care."

"And.. you're not mad that when I.. showed you, after Klarion…"

**Of course not. You are mine, even if you occasionally keep secrets you don't need to or.. flat out lie to me. [Shrug] Doesn't matter.**

**Um… About.. being yours…**

Ooh! Head that one off. **Not like that. I just mean that I'm invested in you on an individual basis. The Earth's mine but that doesn't mean that I care about everyone on it individually.** "How'd it go with Missus Logan?"

"She's… Not.. Megan Wheeler."

I smile. "Well… No…"

"I feel stupid. Hello Megan, it was thirty years ago! Of course she's not still the same."

"Yeah… Buuut… Megan Wheeler would have grown up by now too. I'm.. not sure exactly what you were looking for, and I'm.. having flashbacks to a conversation I had with Kon a few months ago." Missus Logan's still being much friendlier than Kal-El was. Point in her favour. "Maybe you could.. try.. getting to know her as she is now?" I fan my hand out. "Try asking her about her other work. If you want to have some sort of relationship with her she's right there. If you'd rather have the fictional character… Well, I can leak the series onto the internet and.. you could try writing fan fiction about it. 'Hello Megan, series two', by M'gann M'orzz."

She giggles. "That's silly. Who'd read fan fiction about a series that was cancelled years ago?"

"You'd be surprised."

"No, I'll go talk to her." She smiles at me. "Thanks for listening."

I shrug. "No problem. I'm always here for you."

And so am I.

 

23rd November
23:56 GMT -5

Under the circumstances Richard was happy to authorise a Boom Tube back.

I lower myself to the mountain's landing pad as the Bio-Ship comes in to land, Batman and Mister J'onzz already waiting for us. Batman regards me dispassionately but Mister J'onzz is visibly anxious. We were going to spend some time making sure that the situation on the Qurac/Bialya border was well and truly settled but one of the conditions I agreed to when I removed the Guardians' programming from M'gann was that I'd report any unusual side effects and as soon as they heard what happened during our confrontation with the Lump we got recalled. Complete overreaction.

"Orange Lantern, report."

I fan my hands. "I'm not sure what you want me to say, sir. You already have my report."

"Did you know that would happen?"

"By 'that' am I to assume you're talking about what happened to M'gann?"

"Yes."

Behind me, the Bio-Ship's door oozes open and the woman herself flies straight at her uncle, halting in the air just in front of him. "Look, Uncle J'onn! Isn't it great!"

He flinches. "Ah. Yes. M'gann, this is-."

"I mean, being able to look at fire was nice, but this is amazing." She smiles broadly as she holds up her right hand to stare at her tomato-red skin. That's going to take some getting used to. Better than her turning into a Burning Martian, I suppose. "You should totally have him do it to you as well!"

I shake my head as my other team mates troop out of the Bio-Ship. "I honestly had no idea that Martian.. 'ethnicity' was tied to the Guardians’ programming, though this does rather prove that keeping this to ourselves was a sensible choice." I haven't spent all that much time studying Martian society, but as I understand it the Reds form their civilisation's elite. Their aristocracy. The idea that just anyone could join them -particularly a White- would cause massive social upheaval.

And I haven't worked out how that could help me yet.

I take a moment to look over my team mates. It's interesting, how much more unified we look now that they -most of them anyway- are wearing the Apokoliptian armour I designed for them. Normally a superhero just picks a colour scheme they like the look of -usually a fairly garish one- so any gathering will look fairly uncoordinated. Now, I'm in dark grey with orange sigil and highlights, Kon's in dark grey with red 'S' and trimmings and Wallace is in dark grey and yellow. Even M'gann joined in, shapeshifting her intelligent clothing into an approximate facsimile of the armour I designed for her. Not sure it really goes with her new skin tone, mind. Might need to have a look at that. Only Richard stands out, not wanting anything to do with my offerings. Oh, he tried to spare my feelings by claiming that he was concerned about the weight but come on: he's had plenty of time to get used to it and it isn't as if I'm not aware of the state of our relationship.

"How..?" Mister J'onzz tears his eyes away from M'gann for a moment to look at me. "How did this happen?"

"Though I wasn't present at the time, I understand that the Lump attacked the rest of the team telepathically when I entered the Bialyan research facility." I look at Richard and raise my eyebrows. "Robin?"

He steps forwards. "Orange Lantern sent us a message from the Bialyan research center as soon as he knew what was happening. Apokolips had sent them equipment to allow the-" He glances at me. What, I can't make up silly names too? "-'Lump' to project its mind over long distances. The team went to the Presidential Palace to rescue Harjavti while Orange Lantern went after the Lump directly."

Batman's eyes narrow slightly as he looks at me. "I understand that you took Queen Bee with you when you confronted it."

"If I didn't show her exactly what sort of people she was dealing with she would only have got back in touch with them once we left. She needed to know that she was horrendously out of her depth. I was confident that my telepathy baffles were strong enough to protect us both."

"Your mission was to prevent Bialya annexing Qurac."

"I thought that stopping Apokolips annexing Earth was more important. Bialya's citizens live in paradise compared to the Hunger Dogs of the Armagetto."

Richard holds up his right hand to stop me continuing the exchange. Right, don't antagonise the boss unproductively. "We didn't know exactly what its range was but we found out right away that it was controlling Harjavti constantly. We had to destroy the relay in the Palace grounds to cut the connection. We made it past the Bialyan soldiers okay but when we got to the relay it used the connection to try and control us."

Close your eyes. Breathe in. Count to five. Let it all flow away.

"Was it successful?"

Richard shakes his head. "I.. don't remember. When I came around M'gann had already destroyed the relay, and, well…" He waves at her.

"I knew I had to keep everyone safe. It was pushing so hard against our minds, I just had to push back. I made it but I lost control of my shapeshifting. I expected I'd end up green and bald but I went Red instead!"

Hm. Mister J'onzz obviously knows what Martians really look like. I assume that Batman does, and so Richard probably does. If she really lost control she'd have gone back to her natural form, not to her current red 'Megan Wheeler look alike' form. Maybe the others were too out of it to notice? M'gann certainly doesn't mind being red so she might have kept that when she changed back to her interacting-with-Humans form.

Batman looks over us all. "And the Lump?"

"Returned to sender, sir." I didn't think that zombified Bialyan soldiers would be a problem, even after I found out that their sponsor had shipped in 'the good shit' to arm them with. Father Box simply called them 'blasters', probably because they're the most simple type of proper Apokoliptian weaponry. Precise, accurate and really powerful, they managed a couple of very nasty hits on my construct barriers before I removed them from their owners' hands. Don't really have a use for them yet but I'm sure that something will come up. "Regrettably it hadn't been programmed to obey my namesake and I had a good deal of difficulty penetrating its force field." Nothing wrong with Father Box's information, just a very powerful barrier with no exploitable flaws. "It also had a fear aura generator in case one of the Greenies went after it. Fortunately the orange light is less susceptible to being weakened by fear." Bloody thing still bypassed all of my defences, though. I could turn it down but that still left me with a constant sense that something just out of my visual field was about to attack me. "I was only able to overpower it after M'gann destroyed the Quraci relay. I assume there was some sort of blowback that weakened its concentration."

"Were you able to trace Queen Bee's supplier?"

I generate a construct. "His name is Mokkari. No idea what he's supposed to be New God of. Appears to be a mid level researcher and engineer."

"Status?"

"Father Box was able to track his location on Apokolips using the beacon he gave Queen Bee. He was somewhat surprised to see me." I close my eyes for a moment, remembering his obvious fear when I finally confronted him. He at least knew who Grayven was. "After he gave a full explanation of the nature of his work -which Queen Bee was on hand to hear- I assaulted him-" And branded, but let's draw a veil over that. "-and did a significant amount of damage to his facility. He accepts my authority and is highly unlikely to return."

"He believes that you are Grayven, Darkseid's son."

"He believes I can find him and beat the shit out of him if he tries anything like this again. But yes, he appeared to also believe that I was that Grayven. I think Queen Bee does as well." She also seemed fairly keen on the idea of future cooperation, or rather using the Apokoliptian database in Father Box to strengthen her position. She also sounded like she was coming on to me, but maybe that was just her giving the pheromones another try. Though my initial impression was favourable, seeing the sorts of risk she was prepared to take rather put me off. She has some characteristics I might find attractive were they not paired with suicidal arrogance. She can't act at the level she's trying to and she stood a good chance of taking the rest of us down with her.

Batman focuses on M'gann. "Miss Martian, aside from your color change have you noticed any other side effects from the procedure which Orange Lantern performed on you?"

"No, none at all."

Batman glances at Mister J'onzz. I don't see him respond but Batman nods before returning his attention to the rest of us. "Team dismissed. Orange Lantern, a moment of your time. In private."

 

24th November
00:07 GMT -5

"Computer, secure the room."

Since Batman wanted a private discussion I opened a Boom Tube to one of the mountain's smaller rooms. I suppose we could have gone to Titan or just held our talk in space or something but I'm mindful of the fact that it would be best not to look as if I'm trying to dominate him. There's a hiss as armoured blast doors close at the exits of the room in response to Batman's command and a clunk as the air vents close. Reminds me of the old fire alarm checks at work.

"Secured."

Helpful smile in place. "What can I do for you, sir?"

"You met with Ra's al Ghul."

Hm. I didn't specifically tell him I did that, though I suppose I shouldn't be entirely surprised that he knows. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Information gathering. Sir, I was under the impression that you didn't want full reports on my undercover work."

"When I authorized you to develop Cheshire as a double agent I did so in the expectation that you would maintain a professional objectivity. Instead, I understand that you've been.. 'dating' her."

"Sir, I am aware of your relationships with both Talia al Ghul and Selina Kyle."

He remains still for a moment, and then smiles. Not a dressing down, then. "Then you know that I know what I'm talking about. If she's a member of the League of Shadows she will have committed numerous criminal offences."

"She told me about the worst. But, they haven't dared give her any more high.. illegality missions since she started having dealings with me."

"If she's murdered people then we won't necessarily be able to have her pardoned. She will still be looking at a considerable period of time in prison."

"If the offence can be proven."

The smile disappears. "What information have you been able to extract so far?"

How much should I tell him? I'd known this was coming for a while, and while my knowledge of their operations is far from complete we could organise a mass take down of League of Shadows operatives based on what I currently know. And yet… The way Ra's was speaking, as if he'd had a rethink about his omnicidal campaign. His talk of an invisible hand guiding Human destiny. I had thought that he was either waffling or making an oblique reference to Adam Smith, but then Queen Bee's allusion… "I have a great deal of knowledge of the League's ongoing operations, including training centres-" Infinity Island and some sort of temple thing in China are the only major ones, though there are many smaller dojos. "-and the identities of Shadow officers. However, the cell structure which the 'active' parts of the League of Shadows use mean that there isn't any one membership roster. Even Ra's al Ghul doesn't know exactly how many people work for him."

"Orange Lantern, the mission was to acquire information which could be used to destroy the League of Shadows. From the sounds of it you've succeeded, yet you seem reluctant to complete the mission. Explain."

"When I met Ra's I taunted him about how moronic his ideals were, only to be told that he'd modified his position. He's, what? Seven hundred years old? That's a long time to go without changing your mind. And if he has, why hasn't he spoken to you about it? From all accounts he respects you, and if the main cause-."

"He has."

"Oh." I blink. That was unexpected. Would he have mentioned what I did to Crock and Dorrance? He didn't see anything I couldn't talk my way out of, but Batman investigating is something I'm rather keen to avoid. "Was he as vague with you as he was with me?"

"Probably. But even if something has changed, the League of Shadows is a major criminal organization. If you're concerned about Cheshire's safety-."

"It's not that. Ring, play recording."

"And what Bialya learns, the whole of the Human race will benefit from."

"I'll believe that when I see it."

"You may be surprised what a small number of like-minded individuals can achieve through.. strategic partnerships."

"End. Ra's mentioned the Human race benefiting, but he's always claimed that anyway. He also mentioned partners, then when I heard Queen Bee say the same thing…"

"You think there's a connection."

I shrug, and look to the side. "Perhaps. I don't have much to go on at the moment. I wondered.. when we fought the Injustice League, how such a disparate group of people ever got together. I mean, Napier and Isley knew each other from Arkham, but the rest? They have nothing in common in geography, history or skill sets. It isn't as if Vertigo could place adverts in the classified section. And we know that Shugel was working with The Brain, probably for several years, and yet the Brain was conspicuous by his absence. I'm left with this worrying feeling that there's something going on that we're just not seeing."

"You want to see if Ra's will tell you what it is."

I nod. "Or Queen Bee. If this is a cabal that thinks that dealing with Apokolips is clever I dread to think what else they might do in the name of 'helping' the Earth." Asking Black Adam would be a better option but the League has been understandably reluctant to do anything to Theodore that would effectively remove him from control of his own body and I'd struggle to 'aid' Shazam's former champion without making it obvious that it was me. If only Wisconsin had the death penalty. If only the US Constitution didn't prevent us from just truth lassoing Vertigo and commanding him to tell us everything.

If only I could work out how to do it anyway without anyone finding out.

"The Justice League can't operate in Bialya."

"I might be able to persuade her. I think I convinced her not to attempt to renew her Apokoliptian connections but she knows that I have what she wants. It would be perfectly in character for 'Prince Grayven' to demand more information on who he was being asked to assist. In the meantime, I can provide you with some information on League of Shadow activities-."

His eyes narrow. "You'll provide me with more than that."

"Sir, if you order me to then I will comply, but I would ask you to consider whether or not your databases are Apokolips-tech proof. Or proof against the technology of other alien races that Ra's or Queen Bee might have had dealings with. I simply don't want to risk those parts of the organisation on which I have good information going to ground."

"How long do you envisage this taking?"

"No real way to know, but if I don’t have something concrete by next July I'll assume that they're both bluf- FCHAAAAAGGGH!" Pain! Incredible pain emanating from the ring! I drop to my knees, clutching my left hand. The ring's sparking- No, flashing short streams of red light. Through the agonising haze I try to sense what they are. I'm not getting any feedback from the ring at all. I can't feel anger. What's happening!? Father Box!

Be not. Embrace dominion. Love the yoke.

"Ploong."

I see my connection to Desaad being corrupted. I see his robe torn away, the brand on his mutated chest laid bare. Red beams of light striking it and someone, someone who is more than me, more than I could ever-

"Ploong."

I see his face, his physical face shown in reflected light and the godly face of his inner nature. The mechanics of spiritual suppression and annihilation paired with a rocky grey body which looks so much like mine. His arms are folded patiently behind his back, patient and inevitable as entropy, his head bare on top but armoured around the side and chin in a way suggesting a beard and male pattern baldness while he extends his overwhelming soul into the brand. The beam, the Omega Effect-

"Ring, extinguish the brand on Desaad. Do it now!"

"By by by by your by his by his-."

"Father Box, assist the ring."

"Ploong."

"By your command." The pain vanishes, and I pant in relief.

"Grayven, what happened!?"

"Dar… Darkseid found out about the brand. Ow. Fired an Omega Effect into the brand I put on Desaad." I gingerly get back on my feet, still shaking slightly. "I don't think he wants me on Apokolips any more than I want him here."

 

24th November
11:28 GMT -5

"The time of the Awakening is upon us." I jazz hands. Green Arrow smirks while Ms Lance rolls her eyes.

I'm not usually one for humour in situations like this but my run in with Darkseid has left me more than a little rattled. After a quick and rather frantic check that we weren't about to become ground zero for an Apokoliptian invasion I had to explain as much of the mechanics of what had just happened as I could to Batman. I should probably have been more worried about his reaction but after getting a good look at Darkseid's true divine self I'm not sure any lesser stressor will ever intimidate me again. I removed Mokkari's brand just in case. Hopefully he's still too afraid of me to risk coming back, though I'll have to stay alert. It was still hours until my tremors fully subsided and forget about sleep. Shouldn't matter too much for my purpose here. It hasn't affected the degree to which I want this and the first stage of the Awakening process is actually fairly simple for Father Box.

My whole team are in attendance, Zatanna and Artemis standing slightly further forwards than the others. Only Zatanna will actually be undergoing the process but Artemis was very much impressed by young Mister Xu. We'll be going over the strategy we'll use to convince her mother to sign off on it later. Mister Zatara is close at hand, Helmet firmly on head. He'll be monitoring the arcane components carefully. He was prepared to insist forcefully if I refused, but I readily agreed. This is a big deal for everyone and I want to get it right as much as he does.

Kon's standing next to Wonder Woman. She.. grudgingly.. gave her permission so today will be the last day Kon has any Human or Genomorph biological components. That process will take slightly longer but is far more predictable. Lantern Jordan is on hand to monitor that, and he's been staring at the orange-glowing lantern at my feet whenever he thinks I'm not looking at him. I suppose this is the first time he's seen it. Father Box had a good deal of information on green personal lanterns dating from the Greenies' failed invasion attempt and I used it to fix my own lantern up a little. Nothing major; while I can function as a superhero without it, it would be extremely limiting to be forced to rely purely on Father Box and my slight divine attributes if I damaged it.

Further back Batman, Big Barda and Scott Free are also observing. Batman's here in his team oversight role and he brought the other two in for their New God expertise. They both had a quiet freak out when they first saw me. Barda's eyes are still fixed on me, her right hand caressing the hilt of her Mega Rod. Mister Free's got some sort of scanner doohickey out and is studying it intently. Not sure if he's scanning my volunteers or me. I'm tempted to ring scan both devices but I think best behaviour is the order of the day.

Hm. Only just occurred to me that the League doesn't have a team medic. Have to see if the Greenies are capable of using their rings medically. Or maybe there's a modern era Doctor Midnight I could look up?

"So, ahh…" Green Arrow looks from me to the happily smiling Zatanna. "Who wants to go first?"

"I do!" Zatanna raises her left hand and grins a little more broadly. Mister Zatara's head tilts slightly. I know that he's still not entirely happy about this. He's been back to China to give Tao a thorough scanning and couldn't find anything wrong with the magics used and he certainly acknowledges the practical advantages. Plus, after Roanoke Island he can't pretend that he can ever make Zatanna as safe as he would like through his own efforts. But no one ever wants-.

"I will." He lifts the Helmet from his head and puts it in the crook of his right arm.

"Daaad…"

"Mister Zatara, I don't think that's a good idea. In the unlikely event that anything goes wrong we will need a magic user who isn't being affected in order to deal with it. Zatanna can't fulfil that function for you as well as you can fulfil it for her." He looks down slightly and I think I hear a slight sigh. "I will be happy to Awaken you in a few years once we know better what the precise effects are." He doesn't exactly look happy about it, but he nods. I look from Zatanna to Green Arrow. "Toss a coin?"

"I've got a coin." Zatanna quickly fishes one out of her pocket and holds it out to me. "I pick heads."

"Nooot so fast." Green Arrow takes it from her and looks at both faces. Two heads. "Really? A trick coin?"

Zatanna pantomimes innocence. "Oops. Wrong one."

"Yeah, I'll bet."

I remove one of my own from subspace. "Head's Ploutos, tails is the orange sigil." The Ploutos representation is actually fairly generic but it's not as if he's likely to complain. How many people these days even know he exists? Never really got the hang of flipping coins so I just toss it lightly into the air, close my eyes and catch it in my right hand before pressing it into the back of my left. Both of them watch as I move my right hand away.

"Ooohw."

Green Arrow nods. "Okay, me then. What do I need to do?"

Mister Zatara puts the Helmet back on and holds out his left hand, a corrupted orange ankh forming over it. "Wohs em ylesicerp tahw s'eh gniod."

"Stand there." I step forwards and press my right fore and middle fingers against his forehead. "Divine Awakening." There's a brief flash of orange light and I feel lines of absence attach themselves to his metaphysique, undefined presence radiating away from his core self.

"Ploong."

I pull my fingers away. "All done. Mister Zatara?"

He nods. "Everything appears to be as it should."

"Really? You sure?" Green Arrow rolls his shoulders. "I don't.. feel any different."

"And you won't. Probably not for months. I haven't made you a New God, I've just.. given you extra room for spiritual growth. Now-" I take a folder of paperwork out of subspace. "-this is a list of the things you need to do each week, reports I need you to fill out and a list of predicted developmental milestones and.. a.. shorter list of things which are cause for concern and should result in you immediately contacting either myself or Mister Zatara. I'll want to see you back here at least once a fortnight for thorough scans."

He takes the folder, opens it and flicks through a few pages. "Who knew becoming a god would involve so much paperwork."

"You're very much a Guinea Pig on this one, sir. There are ways to speed it up but they involve the use of further magics and increase the risks in ways I can't properly quantify. We need to understand exactly what happens, which unfortunately for you, means that." I indicate the folder.

"You filling in one of these for you?"

"I was never really a baseline Human. Not by local standards. Zatanna?"

"Go right ahead!"

She closes her eyes as I touch her forehead. "Divine Awakening."

"Ploong."

I take my fingers away and she opens her eyes, looking thoughtful. "I think I felt that."

"You may well have done. You're already aware of arcane forces in a way that Green Arrow isn't. Your folder."

She takes it from me. "Is this something we can.. go through together?"

"Certainly. It would probably be safer if I were able to monitor you more frequently, given your magic use."

Green Arrow grins. "Bet you tell that to all the girls." Black Canary elbows him and Zatanna blushes slightly. Oh, harr harr.

Kon takes a couple of steps forwards. "Is it my turn now?"

I make a construct hospital bed. "It certainly is. Jump up."

He looks at it. "Do you really need that? I mean…" He looks back at Wonder Woman and M'gann.

"Kon, I really wouldn't advise you to be conscious while I do this."

"I kinda.. want to be?"

I close my eyes while I think about it. "I'll have to shut down your sensory nerves as well as your powers." I change the bed for a comfy chair. "Better?"

"Yeah, thanks." He sits and then leans back, getting comfortable. Mister Zatara turns in order to get a better look and Lantern Jordan holds his ring out in my direction.

"Alright then. Power shut down comes first. This shouldn't hurt, but let me know if it does." I hold out my left hand with my palm facing him and dull red light plays over his body while waves of orange from the chair do their best to nullify the charge his organelles already possess. This isn't a quick process.

 

24th November
11:39 GMT -5

Green Arrow got bored standing around so he, Black Canary and Artemis have gone to test his new divinity in Star City. I did tell him he wouldn't see any changes yet. Mister Free gave him a clean bill of health with his scanner and Barda's Mother Box, though he admitted it was really more of an educated guess than based on actual experience. Barda appeared to be quite annoyed that he drew my attention to the fact that she had one, but she doesn't have anything to worry about from me. It simply isn't worth 'acquiring' now that I have Father Box. Zatanna's stayed next to me, while M'gann and Wonder Woman stand on either side of Kon as he pokes his left arm experimentally with his right hand. "I don't feel any different."

I smirk. "Zatanna, would you please pinch Kon?"

He looks at me and then at her. "Er, I don't-." Zatanna reaches over the side of the chair and pinches his cheek. "Ow!" She pulls away with a giggle while he rubs his 'injury'. "Okay, it worked. Wait, would this work on... Y'know..?"

"Superman?" He looks away. "Yes. Actually, since I wouldn't have to sort Kryptonian cells from non-Kryptonian ones it would be a bit faster. Still not quite fast enough to be much use in combat." He nods.

I do have a combat version of course. Spent some time in the lab firing beams of kryptonite radiation at a cloned sample of Kal-El's blood. Getting what I want is so much easier when I don't bother asking first. I'm getting an idea of why it reacts to particular wavelengths in the way it does, though my understanding is far from perfect. Sadly, my attempt to turn Kryptonian organelles into a super solar power plant came to nothing but I have learned to disrupt their functioning pretty well.

"Have you made a decision about exactly what sort of genetic structure you want? As I said, I recommend-."

"Yeah, I… That one. I don't…" He looks up at Wonder Woman. "I don't need to be Superman anymore." Wonder Woman smiles down at him. I haven't spoken to her to find out what she thinks of this. I've no doubt that she'd tell me if she had a major problem. All she did during our last mentoring session was check that I was still going to Guy's classes. I am. We've even started spending time together afterwards. His constructs are noticeably stronger than mine and his actions swifter. Less sophisticated, though. It's a learning opportunity for us both.

"Alright then. If you lean back I'll shut down your sensory nerves."

He gets a little more comfortable. "Do you really need to do that?"

"I'm not completely certain that I do, but I think it would be for the best. Ready?"

"How long will it take?"

Reformatting most of the cells in your body while preventing decay to your mental networks? "I'm not sure. I already have the physiological templates loaded so.. maybe five minutes? Could be less." He nods, and M'gann reaches out to take his left hand in hers. He looks up and smiles. "Ready?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I am."

"Numbing now. Try not to move. Physiological reformatting beginning in three, two, one… Now!"

The red light enveloping Kon is outshone by the intense orange. Running the calculations on Mister Luthor's DNA was far more difficult than finding Kryptonian equivalents. The Kryptonians really knew their genetic sciences. No one individual on file had what I wanted, and I had to decide how close a match it was worth getting. What exactly would the Kryptonian equivalent to lifelong lactase digestion be? Is there one? In the end I focused almost exclusively on genetic components which would minimise the difference in the make up of Kon's neurological structures. I had to mix and match from about fifty different individuals to get what I felt was a match of the desired degree. Took me days but it will be time well spent if it makes Kon happy.

M'gann looks at me with a little concern. "Is it working?"

Change. Become. I look down. "Father Box, progress?"

"Ploong."

Change. "And there's no problem with the mental networks?"

"Ploong."

Change. "Glad to hear it." I look back at M'gann. "See?"

She slowly shakes her head. "No, noooot really."

Change. "Right. Sorry. Father Box says he's fine."

She looks back down at him. "Are you sure? I can't hear… His mind feels strange."

Change. "His mind is currently running on my constructs while I alter his brain tissue. I'm surprised you can hear it at all. Ah, brain's finished. Cognitive overlay removed… Better?" She nods. "Shouldn't be much longer now."

Wonder Woman reaches through the glow to put her hand on his shoulder. "Will he be safe when the process is complete? He's never had to control flight before."

Change. "He's still got no solar charge. Don't worry, I'm going to be bringing his power levels up very gradually." Nearly done. "He'll only have baseline Human equivalent abilities to start with. Did I ever tell you about all of the minor neurotransmitter imbalances Cadmus stuck him with?"

"You told me that was the main source of his anger."

"Miracle he wasn't hallucinating the whole time. There." The orange glow cuts off and Kon blinks up at us. "Done. Feel alright?"

"Um. Yeah, I…" He looks at his hands. "I don't feel… No, wait." He pokes his abdomen. "Did you.. change something..?"

"The Kryptonian digestive system is a little different to the Human one. Don't worry, you can still handle Human food. Now, I'm about to shut off the red light. When I do that, your photoreceptive organelles will start to function at full capacity." He tries to rise from the chair and I put my right hand to his chest. "Wait. I've just rewritten your nervous system, you're not going to be able-." He pushes my hand aside and tries to stand.

He stumbles and M'gann, Wonder Woman and I all go to catch him. M'gann's telekinesis wins, just. He stops still for a moment, then grits his teeth and gets his legs firmly under him, arms spread out to the side for balance. "I'm okay. Let me go." The glow in M'gann's eyes fades but she leaves her right hand pointing at him, ready to grab him again if it looks like he needs the aid. He takes a slightly shaky step, then another. He straightens up a little and lowers his hands to his sides. The Kryptonian nervous system is laid out in a similar way to the Human one but his brain clearly needs a few moments to adapt to everything being just a little off. Slowly and carefully he turns around and meets my eyes. "Okay. I'm ready."

The red aura around him fades as I bring up an organelle activity monitor. Low but rising. "Feel any different now?"

He loosens his neck. "I.. don't think so."

"Let's try magnification first." I take a small screen out of subspace and hold it up. He peers at it. "Your current level of magnification should allow you to-."

Pffff! Two beams of red light leap from his eyes, annihilate the screen, cross over and continue to the far wall which glows white where they strike! They stutter as he blinks and then cut out entirely as he sticks his hands in front of his eyes. "I'm sorry! I don't know how to stop it!"

"Kon." I put my right hand on his left shoulder. "Calm yourself. Relax your eyes. The heat vision didn't activate until you tried using your magnification." He pulls his hands away from his face a little and narrowly opens his eyes. No beams.

"It worked. It actually worked. I can-." He moves his hands back to his sides, looks at the far wall and then lets rip again, melting a glowing red 'X' into the rock before shutting it down again. "I've got heat vision!"

I fold my arms across my chest. "I'll try not to be too offended at you doubting my work."

"I didn't mean it like that." M'gann smiles as she hugs him around the right side of his chest and he hugs her back. "It’s just.. I should be able to do it, and now I can. Wait, flying. How do I fly?"

"Don't look at me; I just stick a force field around myself. Wonder Woman?"

"I'm not sure what technique would work best for you. Try.. looking at the roof and picturing it coming towards you."

"Ah, okay." He disentangles himself from M'gann and tilts his head back. Nothing much happens. Hm. Maybe we should try throwing the bird from the nest?

"I'll give you a start." I grab him around the waist and hurl him into the air!

"Whoah!" He flails his arms, twists in mid air and doesn't come back down. It takes his brain a moment to pick up on what his body's already decided. I watch as his panic turns into joy. He looks at himself and at the rest of us on the floor below him. He doesn't have any control yet but he doesn't seem to care. "I can fly!"

 

25th November
08:54 GMT -2

"Sooo, this is your new workshop." It doesn't really surprise me that the Conservatory of Sorcery has an 'applied' section. I knew they had sparring arenas as well as a library, after all. Sephtian's new work space is a roughly spherical room about twenty metres across with small.. desktops? Projecting out of the external wall from all around, save for the centre of the ceiling and floor where there's a sort of spire thing.

"It will be, yes, it will be."

He swims fully into the room and I follow on behind him. I suppose that underwater they don't have to worry about gravity so much. Someone who wants to work on one of the stations on the upper part of the room can just swim over there and -depending on the buoyancy- stay there with minimal effort.

"How long until it's finished?"

He turns his head to face me at what for a baseline Human would be a very uncomfortable angle. "That.. depends on you. My design for this workspace assumed that the physical components of the spells would be put in place-" A twitch and he turns in the water, hands held against his chest, fingers pointed at me, palms upwards. "-by your ring. It can be made to work without-."

"No problem. Just show me exactly what you want and I'll sort you out."

He breathes in hard, hands clenching, head flaps opening outwards showing me the pale skin at the sides of his head. "This is going to be so great!"

I smile at his enthusiasm. "What does your order book look like?"

"Hmm? Ooh. No, no, finishing your order will very much not present a problem. Thissss-" He makes small circular motions with his hands, index fingers extended. "-should allow us to produce a Spell Eater in less than a day. Once it's finished and everyone's fully trained, of course."

"I.. had a few other things I wanted to talk to you about making. "

"Ah. Mmmmmm. Depends. You'd have to talk to the Queen, really. What did you have in mind?"

Where to start? "Improved magic suppression manacles. We used the strongest Atlantis had on Klarion and he barely took any notice."

"Klarion… Yes, I've heard about that. Shouldn't take long to come up with a design and given the.. the death toll I imagine she'll be amenable."

"How bad was it down here?"

His eyes flick away. "Fewer deaths per thousand than the surface. That's something to be grateful for, isn't it? Psychologically… We thought we were prepared. We're the only nation on the planet that uses magic in our everyday lives. Then-" He fans out his hands. "-a handful of surface dwellers manage that. The first crown project I've got… You remember that water shield thing you made for Aqualad?" I nod. "We're making one for Poseidonis. With.. added features. If it works then the other cities will get them as well."

"Whaw." That's probably the death knell for my worldwide detection network idea, at least for now. "Wouldn't it make sense to build other rooms like this for a job that big?"

"Once the concept is proven, yes. People are.. scared. Radically changing the way they think about arcane technology will have to wait until I can back up our claims." He swims past me back towards the entrance. "Plus, we'd have trouble staffing them. Not that I'd stop anyone who wanted to try on their own. Now that I'm employed under royal warrant the designs I'm working on are crown property and I understand that the Queen intends to make.. some of them at least, publicly available."

Good news. I follow him back into the hallway and then on in the direction of the associated classroom. "Are you teaching here now as well?"

"I have to. I'm the only one with any experience of running this system, though some of the students here were already working part time for me and know how to handle the casting part. Class isn't in session yet but this project has rather caught the imagination of a couple of them. Come, I'll introduce you."

He turns a corner and heads through an archway. The Atlanteans don't seem big on doors. Something to do with pressure, probably. I follow him into what looks like a series of miniature workshops, each bench covered with arcane equipment I couldn't begin to identify. Several different.. wands? And a rune-etched dish of some sort? I wave to La'gaan as he looks up upon hearing us enter. He blinks in surprise and then looks at his classmate.

"Professor, I think I'm having some trouble with-." Lori Lemaris looks up from her work. Looks like she's using one of the wands to lay fine lines of metal onto a metal sheet about the size of an A4 sheet of paper. She stops talking as soon as she sees me and scowls at me. "What are you doing here?"

I point back the way we came with my right index finger. "Finishing the construction work and placing an order?"

"Hpf."

She folds her arms across her chest. Sephtian flicks his eyes from me to her and then back again. "Is there some sort of problem?"

"I don't know?"

She flicks her tail, moving to a higher position in the water. "You don't know? You came to our school after Topo got branded and gave a Purist speech about how we're innately inferior-"

"What?"

"-and you're surprised I'm angry!?"

I frantically try and remember the contents of a speech I gave two and a half months ago. "I don't.. remember saying that?"

"Then what did you mean by 'The full advantages of biomantic adaptation should be available to everyone, not just those fortunate enough to have the right ancestors'?!"

"Exactly what I said! If your ancestors had had the choice at the time of the Sinking, do you think they'd have chosen the fish tail version or the version that left them looking the same?"

"How can you say that! Kaldur's your friend!"

"The version of the aquatic adaptation spell that was used on Kaldur is directly inferior to the Pureblood version. Same advantages, plus gill slits and webbing and faster dehydration on land. There is no situation in which it's better!"

"Kaldur didn’t inherit his adaptations! His dad doesn't even come from Atlantis!"

"So you agree with me? If the Pureblood version had been available don't you think his mother would have wanted him and his dad to have that instead?"

"You just don't get it!"

"Of course I don't! I'm a surface worlder from a parallel universe! Atlantean racial politics means nothing to me. If you're happy having fish-grafts then I'm fine with that, I was simply pointing out that there are disadvantages."

"I'm fine like I am!"

"Unless you want to move on land. Which -fair enough- doesn't come up much around here. Your speed in the water's higher than a Pureblood's would be and your turning circle's better, but-." No, that's not an argument I should-.

"But what?"

I take a breath and make sure that I'm as dispassionate as possible. "Purebloods and.. what Kaldur has, can reproduce with baseline Humans. As I understand it, the Pureblood characteristic even breeds true. Fish graft users like yourself are limited to partners with the same characteristic, so, if you wanted to have children the range of choice you have in a partner goes down from about a billion to a few hundred thousand. Not so bad." I turn to Sephtian. "What are your dating prospects like?"

He undulates. Is that a shrug? "My dating prospects are as good as yours. Well." He looks me over. "Maybe a little worse. If we're talking about reproduction, however, the pool of potential mates is noticeably smaller. Assuming a half plus seven age range annnd no po..lyg..amy, I would have a choice between eight female mantafolk." He gives a thin smile. "I've met five of them. We don't really have much in common."

"What's wrong with the other three?"

"Too closely related to me by blood. Miss Lemaris,-" He turns his attention fully to her. "-the fish graft version of the spell was in wide use at the time of the sinking. The Shark version is so common I'm told they're still using it on the surface. Some of us are not so fortunate. While I am aware of the 'Purist' implications I will state openly that if I was offered the chance to change from Manta to Pureblood -or even to baseline Human- I would be sorely tempted. Aside from reproductive options, emergent flaws in the spellwork in all non-Pureblood versions of the adaptation spells are responsible for dozens of congenital deformities across Atlantis each year. Mantafolk have kept detailed genealogy records since the Sinking and we're still having certain.. problems, finding mates who aren't already related to us. Generation on generation our population decreases, and we aren't likely to attract any new blood."

Ms Lemaris shrinks back in the water. "Oh, I'm-. I'm sorry professor."

"There is no need to worry about it. I am to educate you, after all. But please, we will be dealing with these matters in class. We need to be able to talk about it without people puffing up for intimidation. Mm?"

 

25th November
09:22 GMT -2

"So, what's it like?"

I look up from the arcane circuitry I'm printing on the thaumatorium ceiling. "What's what like?"

The lack of pupils and somewhat different facial arrangement makes it hard to read La'gaan's expression. "You know. The surface world."

The ring cuts out for a moment. About a quarter of the inner surface of what will be Sephtian's main work room has the required physical components for the spell channels. He wasn't joking about taking full advantage of my fabrication abilities, the individual components are so small that La'gaan's having to set up a protective charm as we go to prevent waterborne detritus abrading them. Won't be a problem when the spellwork is all in place but that can only start once we're finished making the anchor lines.

"What do you mean? You came up to the surface for that whole Roanoke thing, you know what it's like."

He looks down slightly. "I saw the inside of your mountain. I didn't get to see the town outside it. I didn't even see the sky, and I only met one person who wasn't a part of your team."

"Huh. Um." I reactivate the ring as I think about how to answer his question. "I suppose the most obvious difference is that it's more two dimensional."

He looks at the orange stroke coating the rocks wall with microscopic gold filament. "Don't you need to concentrate to do that?"

"What?" I turn around to look at where the ring is working. "Oh, no, that's the Greenies, I just have to want it a lot. Once the ring's got the diagram I barely have to think about it at all."

He nods and raises his hands to point at the area I'm working on. "Right. So, how is it two dimensional?"

"We can't swim in air. The ring lets me fly but for the most part when you're on the surface you're wherever gravity sticks you, usually the ground. One of the first things I noticed about Shayeris was that the buildings had entry points all over their surface. Surface world buildings are designed to be entered from.. well, from the sea bed. It's like.. some of the really old buildings here? The ones preserved or restored to how they were before the Sinking?"

"That's.. strange. What else?"

"Less physical diversity, obviously. We've never had to adapt in the way your ancestors did. I mean, there's some places… The people in Aberrance are even more varied, and a metahuman can end up looking like more or less anything. There's a chap in Gotham who looks like he's part Crocodile."

"Is he?"

"He got checked for magic resonance once, didn't come up with anything. Oh, and Ferdinand.. he's the head chef at the Themysciran Embassy? He's like a big baseline Human with a bull's head. Nice guy. Anyway, for the most part, less varied. I suppose if you were just walking down the street it would look a bit like a Pureblood convention, only without the implied racism. Ahhh… Not many magic users but mundane technology is far more advanced."

"I saw the computer you have in the caves. It's.. just a shame I'll never get to see the rest."

I frown. "Why wouldn't you?" He stops charming and gives me what I'm assuming is supposed to be an incredulous look. "No, seriously. What's the problem?"

"I heard that some surface worlders have trouble seeing under water. Are you able to see what I look like?"

"Yes?"

He appears to be puzzled by my lack of reaction. "Would other surface worlders be okay with.. me? Looking like this?"

"Umm. If you just walked out of the sea one day people would probably freak out a bit but if you want to visit I could probably sort something out."

"Really?"

I shrug. "Yeah? I know some guys on the Metropolis police force. As long as you don't mind being escorted around by someone in uniform-. Um, how good are you in air? Kaldur tends to get a bit uncomfortable if the air's too dry and I don’t know-."

"I'm fine." He smiles as he points to the side of his neck with his right hand. "No exposed gills. Can you really do this?"

"Can't think of any reason- oh. Hang on. Do you have a passport?"

"A what?"

Darn. "It's a sort of legal document you need if you want to go from one surface world country to another. Atlantis hasn't really got involved with international conventions so I'm not sure what the legal arrangements would be for you to go there. We might have to-."

"Issue them with diplomatic passports?"

The lights from the ring cut off as I turn to face Queen Mera. La'gaan freezes for a moment and then brings his right fist in to touch his forehead in a salute. I bow my head in her direction as she swims up to us.

"Your majesty." Quick scan. Yep, she and the foetus are both fine.

She smiles at my co-worker. "Planning on skipping school, La'gaan?"

"No, my Queen! Just visiting. After class."

"Orange Lantern, the Atlantean diplomatic envoy to the United Nations had a surprisingly productive meeting with Senator Knight last week and I understand we've you to thank for it."

"Um, yeah. More or less an accident, to be honest. He said something stupid in public, I said something insulting on television and we ended up bumping into each other while we were both trying to do something else. I'm amazed we managed to have a civil conversation, actually."

"I think we can accept this good fortune graciously. Was your offer of an escort restricted to La'gaan or do you think it would be possible for other students to accompany you?"

I glance at La'gaan. "Should be. I mean, probably best to make it a smallish group, at least to start with."

"Do you think it would be possible for Lori or Blubber to accompany you?"

"Difficult." Environmental shield, maybe? No, Blubber still wouldn't be able to move and Lori would struggle. Flight aura? Couldn't last long enough. Flight belts? That's.. possible. "I have some devices that can be used to fly. I'd have to adjust them a bit and they'd have to practise in the air… Can any of them speak English?"

"Ee spreek the English."

I look at La'gaan. "Not quite." He sags slightly. "Much better than my Atlantean Greek, though."

"You're completely fluent. You even have the accent right!"

"Ring translation, I'm afraid. Without it I only speak English."

"Of Kaldur's friends only Garth and Tula are fluent, but Lori and Blubber are both capable of casting a translation spell. They should be able to manage."

La'gaan starts to smile. "How soon can we do this?"

"I'm pretty much booked today and tomorrow. I.. can.. talk to my contact in Metropolis on Monday, and Blubber and Lori can practise with the flight belts whenever they've got the time. Need to be on the surface, of course. They can all breathe air, right?"

Queen Mera nods. "Few Atlanteans can't breathe air. I will contact Ambassador Vallambrosa to make the necessary arrangements."

"We're actually going to a surface city? What's Metropolis like?"

"Ring, access all data on Metropolis."

 

25th November
08:02 GMT -6

"Getting the hang of flying alright?"

Kon and I are walking down a narrow overgrown track in what the maps show as a big white empty chunk of nothing in the middle of Nebraska. Not far ahead I can see the farmhouse. Sun's not been up all that long and there's a chill in the air. Not that the cold really affects either of us anymore. The faint orange glow of a ring-generated sound suppression field surrounds us. Breaking the habit of.. hm, only been a month I suppose. Feels like longer. Anyway, I'm wearing civilian clothing and I was able to persuade Kon to forgo his 'S' t-shirt. I used to find it amusing that cartoon characters always wore the same clothes and now my closest friend is a man who actually does.

"It's going great! It was difficult at first but once I stopped.. fighting against myself I got the hang of it really fast."

I smile. "Glad to hear it. Batman was making noises about benching you until you've fully adapted and I'd really miss you if that happened."

"Could you..?" He hesitates. "Diana says I should practice fighting at my new strength, and-."

"And she wants me to spar with you." Uuuehhhuhhh. "If it helps you then of course I will."

He smiles and then takes another look around. "Why did you want me to come out here? I don't.. see anything…"

"Simple really. I'm not an American, but you are, if only by default. And one thing Americans like is learning about where their ancestors came from. Especially if they were Irish for some reason. How have you been getting on with the archive?"

"It's… Interesting. I've learned a lot about Krypton, but-" He slows slightly. "-it just… I don't want to sound ungrateful or anything…"

"But you'd rather have heard it from the horse’s mouth." He tilts his head to the side slightly. "No, I'm not offended. Anyone would, that's why we're here."

"What do you mean?"

I point over to our right. "If you can do it without setting the whole place on fire, take a look in that field and tell me what you see."

"Uh." He looks, his head tilted slightly to the side. "Plants?"

"What sort of plants?"

"I.. don't know. Just.. plants. Why, is it important?"

"Somewhat. You wouldn't find them anywhere else on Earth. In fact, there aren't many places in the universe where you can find them anymore. They're Kryptonian."

He turns to face me, grabbing my left arm and bringing me to a halt. "What? How can that be? Superman's the only Kryptonian left, except for.. me."

"No he isn't. Did it not occur to you that Kryptonians were a spacefaring race? And yet, everyone seems to think that every single one was in the Rao system when Krypton went critical. What sort of sense does that make?"

He looks around in excitement. "There's another Kryptonian here?"

"Sub Commander Karsta Wor-Ul, formerly of the Kryptonian Stellar Navy. She's been here under the name 'Kristin Wells' since she bought the land during the Great Depression." I generate a construct in her likeness, shifting between what she wore in the few photographs I was able to find and finishing up with her old navy gear. Crystal power armour. I need that. "It's funny, really: Batman nearly rumbled her eight years ago when he started gathering information on Superman. Then, Batman and Superman met and he never thought to follow up on it." I suppose there are enough other fast fliers around the place that he wouldn't automatically attribute the phenomena to a surviving Kryptonian. Unless he did follow up on it and just didn't record it…

"Does Superman know about her?"

"Not as far as I know. And I personally don't think we should tell him. I mean, knowledge of your existence hasn't spread that far but she can't not know that Kal-El exists."

"Wait, the Navy? In the thirties? That was…" He looks aside as he tries to match up Earth and Kryptonian timelines. "Just after the Science Council took over from the Military Council. The database said that the Navy got stood down and everyone who worked for it was sent back to Krypton."

"Except the ones who went AWOL before reaching the naval base on Weghtor." I shake my head. "People who had nothing much back home. Come on." I pull my arm free and we start walking towards her house again. "Funny thing about Krypton at the time was that the military were far more cosmopolitan than the civilians back home. Krypton only ever founded one colony, never really traded with other worlds but the military regularly interacted with other species, and not always in a violent way."

"Wait, not always?"

"Under the Military Council Krypton dominated the worlds around it by the might of its Navy."

"That's not what Jor-El's records say."

I smile faintly. "Jor-El… I rather imagine he was trying to preserve what he thought was best about Kryptonian civilisation. Or maybe he just didn't know. Father Box's records are a bit less biased." And rather detailed on matters relating to war. "I also took the opportunity to scan her records."

"Isn't that private?"

"Kon, she was a member of the Kryptonian Stellar Navy and then she went to ground for at least eighty years. I wanted to know how much of a risk going anywhere near her was. She wouldn't have any reservations about killing an opponent if she felt sufficiently threatened."

He stops again. "Exactly how dangerous..?"

"Imagine a Wonder Woman with a century more experience who can fire lasers out of her eyes."

"Um." He looks up at the house.

"Yeah. But look: I think we stand a reasonable chance of stopping it getting that far just by promising not to share what we know. She should be interested in how a new Kryptonian like you can exist; you're kind of big news. And, if it comes to it, I'm confident that we could beat her in a fight."

"Ploong."

"Ah. We're being scanned. Father Box is making us look like a couple of baseline Humans but she'll know we're here. If you want to leave, now's the time."

"I-I don't wanna fight her, but…" Kon looks up at the house just as the door opens and Ms Wor-Ul walks out. Tough looking leather jacket, blue blouse and denim trousers. Her hair's white but her skin's taut and I'd be hard pressed to guess her age. I dismiss the sound baffle.

"Hey, you two!" Kons beefy and I'm huge and yet she's walking confidently towards us without carrying a gun. That might make a person suspicious. "This is private property." The shade where I'm standing might disguise my grey skin but I'm more or less physically incapable of stealth, especially against a Kryptonian. Quick check. Yep, not a robot or body double. Either she's assuming that the scanner was accurate and isn't bothering to give us a more detailed look or she's a lot more passive than I thought she'd be. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?"

Kon looks stunned so I give him a nudge with my right elbow. "Ah. Hi. Um, I'm, er, like you. Krypton-." She stops and stares at both of us. Ah, that's the check. Ring, strengthen environmen DOOAWHHH!. I go sailing backwards, the bushes lining the road exploding around me! Standard follow up for her would be a hammer blow to send me into the ground so transfer directly up, yes. For a fraction of a second I saw her swinging her fists downwards just above me and then she's replaced with sky. Armour, construct armour. Kryptonite would probably give the wrong impres- and there's the heat vision! Directly in line with my eyes! Good shooting, but not enough to penetrate my construct armour immediately which is all the time you have when I can FTL transfer back down and you shouldn't have taken your eyes off Kon.