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

14th April
17:45 GMT -6

"…realise this is a silly reason to contact you."

"Oh no, Mister Grayven. It was necessary to test your system and of all of us I am least likely to be distracted from my work."

"Yes, but that's not why I picked you." I exhale, not quite able to look at his screen. Okay, yes, that would make sense. He designed the communication system we Light members use to contact one another for official business, using it to contact him is the logical thing to do in case any problems arise. But that wasn't why. "Ever since our last meeting, I… I can't get the fact that no one knows your name out of my head. It's been bugging me."

"I see."

"I've tried getting the rolls for every university that's had a student from southern France for the last fifty years, I've tried examining your old haunts and trying to get a genetic sample… I even tried going back to Gorilla City and asking the residents-."

"Sacred blue, Mister Grayven."

"I know. They were neither pleased to see me nor inclined to be helpful. Eh, they couldn't really describe you and I wasn't prepared to ease off on my mental defences for them to try showing me telepathically." At least Lynne enjoyed the trip. "So there's really only one way for me to find out left." Well. Other than have Chester rip it out of the Ultra-Humanite's mind I suppose, but there's no guarantee that he knew.

"And what would that be, Mister Grayven?"

"Brain, will you please tell me what your name is?"

He pauses for a moment. "Mister Grayven, is that a Wizard of Earthsea reference?"

Ah? "Sort of. I mean, I don't need you to tell me in order to leave the building."

"You have read it?"

"Yes, while I was on Earth Prime. I wasn't.. massively impressed, but it held my attention at least." I think my dad read it to me for a bedtime story. I may have tried reading it again later, I don't really remember. I've been reading Enid Blyton's Adventure series to Lynne. I don't think she's really.. developed her own tastes yet. That and the fact that we spend most of our time together meant that shopping for her birthday party was a bit tricky. Fortunately, I have a personal shopper with super speed. "Soo… Will you tell me, please?"

"Of course, Mister Grayven. It is Doctor Marcel Durant."

…

"Oh."

"I am sorry if it is not a great revelation. I did not choose my name. I would say that The Brain suits me somewhat more."

"Yeah, I think I agree with you th-."

Lex Luthor's screen activates. "Grayven, I'm-" There's the tiniest hesitation as he spots that the Brain is online as well. "-glad that you're there. We may have a small problem."

"Is it a problem which requires the attention of the entire Light, Mister Luthor?"

"No. In fact, I would have just handed it over to our enforcer."

Hm. "Oh yeah, who is that at the moment?"

"After you killed the last two, the position has remained vacant."

Ah. That. I frown. "Seems like an important job to remain unfilled."

"It will be on the agenda at our next meeting, Mister Grayven. It was decided that it would be best to wait until the new members were confirmed."

"Fair enough. So, what, we'll be deciding between David Hyde and Slade Wilson?" Wasn't really surprised that he extracted himself from custody, though I was a little disappointed.

Lex inclines his head slightly. "They are the leading candidates, though there are one or two others that may be worthy of consideration. Is there anyone you wish to nominate?"

Chester doesn't have the planning skills, Vera hasn't fully acclimatised… I have been meaning to track down Scandal Savage -or whatever her real name is- but I don't have any information on her career. "No, not really. So, why were you calling?"

"One of our secure storage facilities has failed to respond to a check in attempt. Given the nature of what we are storing there, the matter was escalated to me immediately. I dispatched a security detail, and they report that the place is now empty."

"Don't keep us in suspense, Lex. What were you keeping there?"

"Among other things, the exotic remains which the Shadows recovered from STAR Labs during the Roanoke Incident."

"And.. what do they do?"

"It formed the basis of the mind control technology which Mister Klarion used to control the Justice League, Mister Grayven. That, the technology provided by Professor Ivo and Mister Klarion's own magic made for a most potent combination."

"Did wonder where you got that from." I glance back towards the door. I kept one myself, but with everything that's gone on I haven't had the time to study it in any detail. I think the League kept the rest, though I seem to remember Wallace saying something about keeping one as a souvenir. "Do you want me to track down the thief myself? Shouldn’t take all that long."

Lex nods. "I was hoping that you would volunteer your services. I'll forward you all of the information we have been able to gather on the creature."

Yes, and then you'll feel obliged to answer when I ask about the Genomorphs, so that works for me… Wait a moment. "Creature?" I frown. "I thought all you had were more of those mind control chip things?"

"Not all of the creature's flesh was consumed creating those. It showed truly remarkable regenerative properties. That was why we kept studying it."

!!!

"You had a living alien in your possession?"

"We were not able to confirm its origin, Mister Grayven. It may indeed be of extraterrestrial origin-."

"No, I know this species. They're called 'Star Conquerors', and at their peak they mind controlled the inhabitants of three Space Sectors. That fight was the last time the Green Lantern Corps really took their gloves off. Do you know how big the one you got your sample from was?"

"I believe Ocean Master said it was something like thirty meters along its longest axis."

"Okay. Okay, that's.. less scary. If it was one of the really big ones…"

"It is interesting to see you so discomported, Mister Grayven. How much of a threat do they pose?"

"I'll send you my files. The closest equivalent in Human popular fiction would be a telepathic Morning Light Mountain from the Commonwealth Saga. If we can contain it quickly, not much. If we can't, if it makes contact with one of its larger kinsmen, very much. Grayven out."

I cut my connection and send Sinestro's files on the species before heading to the door. Blast, what a crap time for it. I'll need to grab… Eh, Chester's still in no fit state... I'll see if Jean's awake. She and a G-Gnome or two-.

"Master!" I look down at the 'thump'. Miss Amane is genuflecting to me, face pressed against the floor. "I have failed you! Please, forgive me!"

…

…kay..?

Miss Shimmer and Lynne follow along behind her, Miss Shimmer looking more than a little nervous. "We.. couldn't come up with a strategy that didn't just result in lots more people dying."

Miss Amane looks up, tears shining in her eyes. "Master, please tell us what we are supposed to do!"

"Miss Shimmer. What did you come up with?"

"Ah…" She ducks my gaze. "If… We thought that if Linn stunned each war band and Iname killed the leaders, that might be enough to convince the rest to back off."

"I don't see a big pile of heads. Did you just leave them there?"

"But we'd have to kill hundreds of people! And that's not even counting the government officials who covered it up for so long! And that might not even have worked!"

I nod, smiling pleasantly. "Oh, so you were paralysed in the face of-?"

"It wasn't possible." Lynne is frowning slightly, as if she's been thinking hard and has just realised something. "The war has been going on for years. You must have known that we wouldn't be able to come up with the right solution in a few hours."

"I would have been surprised."

"Hey!" Miss Shimmer looks irritated while Miss Amane looks like she just got a reprieve from death row.

"If there even was a right answer. In the real world, there may well not be a good solution. Or if there is, the information you would need to make it isn't available. Deciding that there must be a right solution and refusing to take any action until you find it is a rather daft way to proceed. But a few hours was a ridiculously brief target for me to give you. Lynne, well done for standing up to me. But the three of you need to keep studying. I do expect a solution eventually, and more people die while you delay."

 

15th April
20:17 GMT -5

I smile as Jade opens the door. "Good evening, Catgirl."

She rolls her eyes, turns away and walks back into the house. "Holly and Karon aren't here."

I wince in sympathy as I follow her in, closing the door behind me. "Job interview.. not go so well?"

She stops, but doesn't turn around. "I-." There's a sharp exhalation. "It was a good idea, but apparently they were looking for someone who 'looks a little more intimidating'."

Darn. Jade isn't exactly unwilling to take something minimum wage, but I can well understand that it's a bit of a step down from the sort of thing she used to do. Thing is, she doesn't have much in the way of formal qualifications and she doesn't have anything remotely resembling a reference. I thought 'bodyguard' was quite a good fit… But, yeah, I see their point. Bodyguarding is about keeping the principal safe. A slightly built Asian woman doesn't intimidate people unless she's got a reputation and they know what it is. There are people in Gotham who'd give her that sort of work, but they're all career criminals and probably wouldn't be interested in tolerating her moral hang-ups about doing anything more assertive than guarding.

"This is Gotham. There'll probably be other openings."

"Yeah. Great." She walks over to the closest settee and lithely lowers herself into it. "Guess you heard about me going out with Selina."

I blink. "Well darn. Looks like I misread the situation."

Another eye roll, though this one is slightly better humoured. "Not like that. After working with the League, working out in the gym just doesn't cut it." She pauses as I walk over to sit in the chair across from her. "You're not going to try telling me this violates my parole, right?"

"Not as far as I know." I flick out my right hand. "Don't kill or maim, don't let bystanders get hurt and keep the evidence more or less in one piece and there shouldn't be a Bat-problem." She nods. "New costume?"

"Selina's not a fan of the kimono."

"Gotham's not exactly classy. Not in the sort of places you're needed."

"Plus it's probably better if there isn't an obvious connection between a new vigilante and a recently released ex-League of Shadows operative."

I nod. "Right. Um, look. About... Two weeks ago…" Her eyebrows arch slightly. "It's.. been explained to me… By Artemis… That after you asked about Doctor Blight… You were probably expecting me to…" I make a combine harvesting motion with my arms. "Press my suit. Rather than back off."

"You asked my sister about that?"

"It came up in conversation." And I got away with only a mild ear bashing. "Um. I'm not… Very good at-."

She shakes her head. "I honestly hadn't noticed."

I close my eyes for a moment, exhaling lightly. "Not something I've got a lot of experience with. I just.. took that as you saying 'no', and…"

"Oh."

"I mean, I thought I was making a clear statement of interest, you backed off…"

Her eyes flick away. "I wasn't.. backing off, exactly…"

"Okay, well, I'll.. take that as having your permission to be a little more assertive in future."

"Huh." She treats me to a Cheshire grin. "That'll be fun."

"But in more serious news…"

Sad face. "Aww… And I thought you might have come over while Holly and Karon were out to… Assert."

"N… No. There's a.. situation that's arisen-" Her eyebrows rise again. "-that you not like that!"

"Can't blame a girl for hoping."

"A situation has occurred that.. your particular expertise may be able to help with. Obviously, this is a job, I'd be paying you for-."

Her eyes narrow. "This better not be a pity offer."

I raise my hands in mock surrender. "Wouldn't dare. I'm completely serious. I'm planning something, but I don't have any actual experience-"

"I think I worked that out."

"-with this sort of mission. Oh." I take a ward stone out of subspace and toss it to her. She catches it in her right hand without otherwise moving as I have the ring do a quick scan of the immediate area. I think we're in the clear. "You'll need that."

She looks at the stone carefully. "The only thing… I have experience with… But you don't…"

Killing people, presumably. "Actually, there was a fellow a few days ago-."

"So you don't need my advice on boys?"

An attempt at humour, but her lips aren't smiling. "I'm planning an assassination. Hopefully, it won't-" She looks away. "-come to that, but I need to be sure that I'm prepared just in case. I think I'm covering all the angles-."

"Is this..!" She glares at me. "This better not be some sort of messed up test."

"The Lord of Order Nabu is possessing the body of Mister Giovanni Zatara, and he has no plans to give it up."

Her face creases. "What?"

"Nabu's spirit is bound to that golden helmet. If anyone puts it on, they get shoved into a black featureless void while he gets complete control. Mister Zatara hasn't been taking a leave of absence, he's been a prisoner in his own body since Roanoke Island."

She relaxes a little. "Do the Justice League know?"

"Yes. Which is rather why I'm not going to them… To the rest of them with this."

"That girl, Zatanna. She's his daughter."

"Yes."

She lays there, thinking it through. "Who did you kill?"

"A man named Albrecht Krieger."

Her eyes flick up for a moment. "You killed Captain Nazi?"

"Yes. Of course, killing Nabu is rather more problematic. He's a member of the Justice League-."

She nods. "And we can't risk killing his host."

"Not without a reliable way to resurrect him." Vandal Savage's surviving tribespeople appeared to be my best bet, but I haven't been able to trace them.

"Is that even… Possible..?"

"I believe so. I have a… Scenario in mind. It won't be possible to disguise what we did afterwards, but as long as you're not 'in at the death', we can probably keep your name out of it."

"And if I say no?"

"Then.. you.. forget we had this conversation. I'll understand if you need to think about-."

"I'm in." The look on her face is deadly serious. "Show me what you've got so far."

 

16th April
09:19 GMT -5

"Soooo?"

I look up from the book John got me on Norse runes to where Artemis leans against a nearby bookshelf, looking rather pleased with herself. "So… What?"

Since I definitively eliminated the Kriegers as a way back to Valhalla for the Einherjar, Batman assigned me the task of coming up with an alternative. The Einherjar themselves don't seem all that bothered. Can't say I'm surprised; some of them have been there for well over a thousand years and are metaphorically chomping at the bit at the prospect of being able to fight something else. Presently they're being entertained by some sort of pagan society in Norway, who are delighted to have tangible evidence of the truth of their faith.

"So? You? Jade?"

I return my attention to the book. "Your analysis was broadly correct. We talked about it…"

"And?" She walks towards me. "You two dating now, or what?"

I smile slightly. "We're probably going to be seeing a little more of each other, certainly."

Artemis pulls out the chair opposite me. "And Zatanna's okay with that?"

I glance up and nod. "Oh yes."

I love sophistry. I handed Jade the standard League of Shadows deposit for a well defended high value target and a summary of the techniques we believe can be used to kill Klarion. The folder it's in is warded and designed to self destruct if anyone else looks at the contents, but even so I'm not comfortable having our actual plan written down anywhere. I have been thinking about how to kill Klarion as well; my hate for Nabu doesn't blind me to the fact that he has to go first. Nabu is a reasonable Klarion counter, killing Klarion is a better one. Once Nabu no longer serves any purpose I won't feel that I'm imperilling the world by threatening him.

"Fine. Don't talk to me about it." She looks around the room. "I thought Gardner was supposed to be here at nine?"

"He said 'nine-ish'. Guy's the only local Green Lantern not to have spent any time in the military. Nine-ish doesn't mean 'at nine, unless something comes up', it means 'somewhere around nine, to within half an hour, probably'." I shrug. "Besides, I train with Guy a couple of times a week anyway. I already know everything relevant to the job that he knows. I'm half expecting him to walk in, ask what we're normally doing at this time of day and tell us to carry on with it."

"The only one who wasn't in the military?"

"Two eight one four A-."

"Hal."

Ah. "Oh, okay, I didn't know that you knew."

She shrugs. "He introduced himself when I was in Central City one time."

"Okay, well, he was in the US air force and B was in the marines."

"What about Mister Scott?"

"He was conscripted during the Second World War. He went through basic training before being transferred to work on Stars and Stripes. He's still got the uniform up in his loft, though he said he hardly ever wore it."

"How did he handle the secret identity thing?"

"With difficulty. When he was in boot camp Green Lantern basically disappeared because he couldn't sneak out. Then, he still had to go where he was sent and he could only act in places where his airspeed could take him there and back." I half-chuckle. "Just a good job he wasn't a paratrooper. If he'd been ordered to drop somewhere inside the Nazi control zone things might have become rather tricky." I frown. "What were you doing in Central City?"

"Hanging out with Wally."

"Oh. Hadn't realised you.. did that."

Her eyes narrow. "Seriously?"

"What?"

"I've been going out with Wally for, like, a month now."

I blink. "You have?"

She gives me an odd look. "You didn't notice..?"

"Notice what?" My gaze grows vacant as I try to remember. "You've.. been.. sniping at each other lessssss?"

"Oh.. my God. You must be the least observant guy I know!"

… "Sorry? I guess… You didn't seem to be having a problem…" Weird. "Really you and Wallace?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well I.. can see why he'd find you attractive, but you just seemed to find him annoying. Aside from this hobby we share, I.. don't really see what you've got in common."

"Yeah, I guess we don't. But-."

"Hey." We both look upwards as Guy's voice comes in over the intercom. "Paul, Artemis, unless I'm intrudin' on your 'personal time', get up here. Got a mission for yeh." Artemis gets up as I close the book. "An' if I am intrudin' on your personal time, I'm turnin' the sprinklers on in five."

"That ass!"

"He… Grows on you." I rise to my feet. "Want me to create a zeta tube?"

"No, he can wait while we walk up."

"Buut." There's a flare of orange as I don my armour. "Mission."

We head out of the library and start along the corridor. "Jerk probably wants us to wax his car or something."

New topic, new topic. "How did your mother react to Batman's telling her about the money?"

"She was… Happy." Batman agreed with dividing it as I suggested and he agreed to handle.. laundering it. Unfortunately, most of my team mates aren't going to be able to access the majority of it until they're eighteen. "She sort of started giving me a lecture about bounty hunting and how that wasn't the heroic identity thing I was trying to make for myself…"

"And then?"

"We got talking about some of the bounties Mom and…" Toss of the head. "Went after? We don't really talk about Huntress very much."

"Bounty hunting is a way to make a living while still being heroic. As long as you're careful about which ones you accept."

"Yeah, and I remember you saying Green Lanterns get paid like that. But… She's right. And, now I can definitely afford to go to college, I think I'd rather do something else."

I nod. "Have anything in mind?"

"I dunno. Grandpa would probably like it if I joined the army."

"And your father would hate it, so it has that going for it."

She shakes her head. "I don't.. care what he thinks. Wally's been trying to persuade me to study chemistry with him… I'm not used to having to worry about it. Oh! I was supposed to tell you. Mom's got a new job."

"What happened to the old one?"

"They paid minimum wage. She's working at the gym now. They saw her working out and said she'd be perfect."

"Good for her."

 

16th April
09:27 GMT -5

Artemis pulls ahead of me as we get to the training room, moving at a not-quite-jog towards our double line of team mates. A few absences today, I note. I wasn't expecting Troia, but we're also down a Squire and a Speedy. They might be busy, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that Guy just didn't bother reading the SOP manual for how to notify people when there's a mission.

Guy looks around from the holoscreen. "Arty, Orange. Good of you to join us."

I generate a construct umbrella and -Ring, chemical structure of Artemis' lipstick?- add a few minor decorations to my face and neck.

"Sorry we're late, Lantern Gardner."

He looks… Ooo. He wasn’t joking about having trouble sleeping. Lanterns can go extended periods of time without sleep, but Guy told me that he has that function deactivated after he found out what the consequences of using it too much were. Think he might need to rethink his policy.

"Kinda surprised you were cuttin' class-." His eyes widen slightly, looking at-. Hah! Got him! He blinks and looks away as I dismiss the umbrella. "Uh, whatever. Okay gang, listen up."

Artemis takes up position next to Wallace… Which now I think about it she's been doing… Whaw, I really did miss that. I thought she just wanted to be within slapping range. I join the end of the line next to Kon, Wolf giving me a greeting sniff as I do so. The holoscreen is displaying images of the Starro-tech, the Cure-tech and what appears to be archival footage of larger Star Conquerors from the Green Lantern Corps' last encounter with them.

"Last July an Atlantean expedition to the Arctic found a big one of these-" He points to one that would be about the size of the one destroyed in Poseidonis. "-hidden in the ice. If any of you haven't heard already, these things are flying, telepathic alien starfish."

Wallace splutters in surprise and disbelief. "Alien starfish?"

Guy glances at him for just long enough for him to start feeling self conscious about the fact that the rest of us didn't react. Then Guy returns his attention to the screen and has it play the attack we watched when I spoke to the Greenies about those things last December. "Yeah, everyone says that to begin with, but these things are no joke. Originally, they used ta be pretty small. They'd just mind control animals on their homeworld, kinda like how that weird fungus reproduces using ants." Someone's been watching the Discovery Channel. "The animals would move 'em around, fight predators, whatever." There's a picture of a herd of… Some sort of alien armoured octopuses, most of which have Star Conquerors on their… I'm going to assume that's their face. "Since they couldn't move much on their own on land and there were other things that ate 'em, they weren't much trouble."

M'gann cocks her head slightly to the left. "That doesn't sound too dangerous. But then how did they get so big?"

"Part of their thing was they could use the brain of whatever they got stuck on. Do that to an animal, it learns what the animal eats, what sorta thing's a threat to it, that's about it. Stick on somethin' a bit smarter-."

Richard nods. "And it gets smarter too."

"It was worse than that. Looks like the first intelligent species they ran into were telepathic themselves, so the Star Conqueror that got stuck on one a' them could share its smarts with the rest. We're not really sure what happened next, but a couple a' decades later they'd given themselves a full upgrade." New images appear. "The big ones are Mother Stars. Their telekinesis is so strong they can fly faster than light with it, protect themselves from capital ship weapons and rip things apart. Not to mention their mind control powers."

We get a short clip of one coming under fire from a small flotilla of warships. It's approaching them eye first, the smaller Star Conquerors hiding behind its bulk. The warships open fire with scintillating beams of energy… Which fade to nothing before hitting home. The Mother Star's eye narrows slightly and one ship ceases firing. One tentacle bends slightly and another ship crumples.

"Real bad news. Good news is, we think they're all dead."

Kon raises his right eyebrow. "You think?"

"After the war between them and the Green Lantern Corps was over, the Corps checked alla the systems anywhere near where they'd been and destroyed any Star Conquerors they found. But y'can't check alla space. It's too big. Could be some a' the big ones cooled down and hid in deep space." He shrugs. "Way I see it, if they were gunna make trouble they'd have done it by now."

"The medium sized ones are Star Hunters." The video turns back to showing the Green Lantern fighting two of them I saw last December. "Like the one the Atlanteans found. They actually come in a bunch a' different sizes… Anyway, they're flying weapon platforms. Mostly they use their telepathy t' paralyse people and then stick the little ones on their faces with their telekinesis. They're tough, but once you actually start hittin' them they tend to go down quick enough. The real problem on the ground is the little ones."

More archival footage, this time showing the descent of a small group of Green Lanterns into a city where every citizen wears a Star Conqueror. Thousands of cyclopean eyes turn to track their progress.

"When they're like this, every one has a hostage they can make fight fer them."

"I can't imagine what that's like."

I hear Zatanna mutter, and from the uncomfortable look Ricard gives her it looks like he did as well. Guy didn't.

"They'll know everything the host knew an' since they're all networked together if one's seen you they've all seen you. They don't really have any sense of self preservation; as far as we can tell only the big ones are intelligent on their own."

Wallace nods. "So they're like.. Starfish Zombies."

Artemis doesn't hit him.

"Sure, if Zombies can do all the things they did when they were alive. Watch." A new video appears, humanoid soldiers from the same planet as before taking up position. A Star Hunter moves out from behind a building and immediately comes under fire. It narrows its eye and the soldiers closest to it shudder. The video pauses. "See that? Needed line of sight. These guys are gettin' their nerves jammed." The video resumes, a flight of small Star Conquerors descending from above and landing on the faceplates of the paralysed soldiers, which swiftly give way. "The little claws on their undersides can be reinforced with telekinesis. Rip through just about anything." He makes eye contact with me. "Including constructs." The soldiers flail around for a moment then with precise coordination assault their colleagues with their fists. "They're not using weapons there because they want more warm bodies more than they need the ones they're wearing to stay alive." The images speed up, then return to normal speed, showing the newly Star Conquered soldiers manning anti-aircraft emplacements and firing at local aircraft. "Here, they need the local fighter planes down more than they need the pilots."

Kaldur nods. "Do you believe that we will need to fight these creatures?"

"Hope not." Guy turns off the hologram. "Since December I've been keeping tabs on the Atlantean team who dug out the first one. They've found some biological remains they want taken someplace safe." He shrugs. "I'd say it wasn't anything to worry about, but the Light created Starro-tech with hardly anythin' and the Star Conquerors were notorious for bein' able to regenerate. We're transferin' what we've got to STAR Labs in Gotham City."

Artemis frowns. "Wasn't that were the last piece got stolen from?"

"Yeah, but it got put there in the first place 'cause they've got the best people for checking this sorta thing out. They're workin' on beefin' up the security, but in the meantime I want there to be a bunch a' superheroes on hand in case anyone tries anythin'." He smiles. "And that's you. Your job is to make sure that the samples get to Gotham and make sure they stay there. Any questions?"

"Ah, yeah." Wallace nods. "What sort of size are these samples?"

"Starro slushy, basically. They're being transported in six nitrogen-cooled and heavily insulated shipping crates. Don't think you have to worry about anythin' jumping out at yah."

"Can I just FTL transfer them to Gotham?"

"'Fraid not. The Star Conquerors fought the Green Corps for a long time, and they're sensitive to all kindsa energy and radiation. You understand exactly what happens when you do an FTL transfer?"

"Not.. exactly."

"Then it ain't worth the risk. Any-?" His ring blinks, and he winces as he looks at it. "Ah, heck. I gotta be on the other side a' the Sector an hour ago. You kids can handle this by yourselves?"

Kaldur takes a confident step forward. "Yes, Green Lantern. You may leave this with us."

 

16th April
11:57 GMT -5

I ignore the glowing around me as the rings react to my displeasure at the dilapidated and bird poo covered state of STAR Labs Gotham's roof by performing a tidy up and look out across this part of the city. You know, for a wretched hive of villainy it doesn't look all that bad. I can hear police sirens, but not more than I would be able to in New York at this time of day. No screams, no gunshots, no screeching tires… With Hugo Strange in prison in Louisiana a Doctor Young is running Arkham Asylum and incidents of escape and violence are well down. There are still gangs and the occasional minor supervillain sticks his/her/its head up, but at the moment things are surprisingly quiet.

I tap my communicator.

"Orange Lantern here. Everything calm and peaceful on the roof. Robin?"

"Robin here. STAR's electronic security is actually pretty good."

"Oh?"

"They get supplied by WayneTech."

"Ah. Are you occupied?"

"There's some spyware I need to get rid of and their physical electronic security could use a little work. I'll have done everything I can in about an hour."

"Rightyho."

Wallace strolls over to stand next to me. "Is that really a thing English people say? Or are you just.. trying to make a catchphrase happen?"

I set my communicator to 'off'. "It's an unusual turn of phrase, but I believe that other English people use it."

He leans against the wall surrounding the edge of the roof. "You know you've still got that makeup on, right?"

"Makeup?"

"Yeah, okay, it was kinda funny? But you're overplaying it." He's probably right. Got a few funny looks from my team mates on the way over here, not that anyone said anything. "And I'm not insecure enough to let it actually bother me. No way did Artemis kiss you."

I make a vague gesture with my right hand and the lipstick evaporates. "I'm afraid that I lack your highly refined sense of comedic timing."

"Guess I finally get to teach you something. Hey, I've been meaning to talk to you about-."

"I just.. need to finish the ring around. Then you'll have my undivided." He nods. "Zatanna?"

"I've put wards on each external door and I'm.. trying to work out what the best way to create a ward for the whole building is."

"We need something that will alert us to an intruder.. and something that will block scrying and magic-based teleportation. Anything else is gravy. Don't worry about how long it can last. I'm sure we can persuade Atlantis to send up a battlemage or two to create something really strong if we think it's necessary."

"Okay, I can do that. Call it… An hour and a half?"

"Okay, let me know if there's any problem. Artemis?"

"I've finished the background checks on all of the staff and most of the suppliers."

"Anything turn up?"

"Nothing worth mentioning. The only tie to the Light is that they get some of their lab equipment from LexCorp, and that all looks legitimate."

"Okay, good work. Let me know when you've finished. Rocket?"

"Seven force field emitters in place, eighteen to go."

"Okay, that's-."

"Some of the security guys are getting a bit unhappy about this."

"Once we've finished up you and I can give them a demonstration of how the things work, let them talk it out. For now, focus on getting them assembled."

"I hear you. Rocket out."

"Canis?"

"FTL jammers and teleport jammers in place. And one of the staff is making an obscene gesture at me."

"If it is weak, either kill it or ignore it. Anything else honours it."

"Then I will ignore it. Though… The individual in question is not unappealing."

I tap my communicator again. "Sorry, Kid Flash. You were saying?"

"How come you're not putting up the force fields? Off-loading the boring jobs onto other people?"

"Because I know how to assemble mobile force field generators and Rocket doesn't. Or rather, didn't." I walk over to the surrounding wall and take a look over the edge. Heights used to scare me, but somewhere along the line I lost that fear. Probably all the flying I've been doing. "I've.. been thinking… About my leaving."

"Going to Maltus?" I nod. "But you'll be back, right?"

"I don't know. Hopefully, but I've got no idea what the timeline will be. If they want me to teach classes it could be a year or two before I can get away for any length of time."

He nods thoughtfully. "So… When is it you're leaving?"

"Haven't picked a date yet. My obligation to remain ends on… In the middle of the night on the fifth of July, Eastern Standard Time. I'll probably leave-" Depending on how things go with Nabu. "-a little after that. I mean, heh, I'd hate to go through all the trouble of keeping my oath and then mess it up by working out a time zone difference wrongly."

Wallace gazes off into the distance. "Huh."

"What?"

"Oh, it's just… I knew the team wasn't a permanent thing. Roy's going to want to join the League eventually. Probably Kaldur too."

"And you?"

"I don't know. Unless I can get my Garrick Formula fixed I'd still be the slow Flash."

I wince slightly. "Sorry, I've… Been kind of occupied. How's that been going?"

"It kinda hasn't." His eyes drop to the ground for a moment. "Nyssa's been doing her best, but the knowledge just isn't there."

"Anything I can do to help?"

"I don't think…" Something appears to occur. "Can you give me Rush Hour's number?"

"I can. I'd.. rather check with them first. Why do you want it?"

"We know that whatever the Garrick Formula did to my body, it was alchemical, right? And 'alchemical' means 'making magic with chemicals'."

"Basically."

"Which means my next step is to get an actual magic user to take a look. But since there aren't any super speed magicians around the place they're probably not going to know any more than Nyssa does."

"Not immediately, no."

"But the Rush Hours already use magic to get super speed. If I can learn what they're doing, that might work."

"Might. But we thought that about Jesse Quick. You really shouldn't-."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." He waves me off. "Probably won't. But, it might. So I'm gonna try it."

"Alright. I'll talk to them about it once the Starro slushie is taken care of."

 

16th April
13:31 GMT -5

The large roller shutter door at the rear of the building opens, revealing the heavy goods vehicle carrying our crates. Raquel waves at me from the passenger seat as the driver drives forwards into the loading dock.

Doctor Wilson Farr steps up beside me. He's the head of STAR Labs: Gotham, having worked on any number of highly sensitive projects for various concerns, Batman and Superman being amongst them. "Heh, well, I'm glad that went smoothly."

The roller shutter door closes as the lorry comes to a halt. "Please avoid tempting fate, Doctor Farr." I raise my left hand. "Orange Lantern to team, scanning package now." Standard scan, sonic pulse -which makes both Canis and Beton Brut wince- and gravity resonance scan. Nothing unexpected. Be a bit surprising if there was, but I'm not about to muck this up by not taking it seriously. "Scan shows no abnormalities. Zatanna?"

Outside the observation booth the driver goes to open the door, only for Canis to shake his head and point. Something about the fact that he's sitting on a giant Dog seems to make people more obedient. Maybe I'm overdoing it, but 'no one gets out until we're sure they are who they should be' seems to be a reasonable precaution in a situation like this.

"I can't wait to get started." The other man in here with me is Doctor Silas Stone. He'll be heading the team working on the Star Conqueror material. "It's not every day someone gets to work on an alien life form." He glances at me. "Not in Gotham, anyway."

Zatanna walks around the lorry. From here I can see her lips moving, though whatever she's saying is too quiet for me to make out. Once she completes her circuit a band of blue-white light passes over the lorry, running up from the wheels and coalescing in the middle of the top surface. She taps her communicator. "Everything seems to be in order."

"Thank you. Step back." She retreats to the edge of the room. "Artemis, Robin." Though they're both about as strong as Canis, they look less intimidating. "Rocket, please open the rear doors."

"Ahright anal retentive Lantern."

Artemis and Richard take up station on either side of the door, far enough back that they'll have time to respond to a sudden rush. The rear doors open… Revealing exactly what we thought would be there. Six crates designed to maintain a very low temperature within them.

"Robin, visual inspection."

Doctor Farr gives me a sceptical look. "Is this.. all really necessary?"

"Probably not, but I've seen enough of what Star Conquerors can do to not want to take any risks."

Richard jumps up into the rear of the lorry while Artemis puts an arrow on string. As he enters the code to pop the hatch on one I close my eyes and mentally prod Fatty to peer over the rim of this building's roof. A moment later I get an unobstructed view of the surrounding streets. Nothing out of the ordinary. I could be using a full swarm for this, but I don't think Batman would be best pleased if I started a citywide demonic invasion panic. Unlike in the comics people around here do remember what happened a few episodes ago. I don't like to draw the link, but Fawcett City made it clear to everyone in America that the Roanoke Island incident might well not be a one-off thing. Places and people who used to scoff at magic and its practitioners -heh, 'ancient religion'- are now wising the heck up all around the world. The Atlantean mission to the UN has expanded to a proper embassy, though they aren't having to process a significant number of visa applications as yet. Hopefully, the cultural immersion will encourage the mages Atlantis is renting out to broaden their horizons. Wait, would that phrase mean anything to an Atlantean? They don't often.. see.. horizons after all…

"All clear in here."

"Okay, send in the unloading team."

"We could just.. carry them. I mean, we do have super strength."

"Which is why I don't want you encumbered. You're here to fight off attackers, not rearrange furniture. Besides, there's probably some sort of training course you have to do first or their insurance gets invalidated."

"Okay."

Richard leans out of the back and makes a beckoning motion at the staff member on the forklift truck. Artemis slowly walks out of the way as they put it in gear and drive towards the opening.

"Rocket, you and the driver can get out now."

"Thank you." She smiles sarcastically in my direction before getting the driver's attention and pointing at the door.

Aaaaaahh?

Chubbs sends me a mental image of three people entering STAR Labs' reception area. A bit hard to tell as he doesn't process clothing images in a particularly Human way, but from what I can tell they seem to fit in. Ugh, I wish Teekl had been cooperating this morning. Her mental images are far clearer. I send him a 'keep watching but take no other action' instruction, but now he's set off my paranoia. Outside… The pavement seems a little busier, but I don't know how busy it usually gets during the lunch period.

Aaahh! Aaahh! Aaahh!

Oh, what is it shiiiit! Where there were three Humans there are now three hulking Demons. Ugh, can't tell-. Ring, security camera! The largest is eight feet tall and looks heavily muscled, though with Demons there's no guarantee that mass means what it would to a Human. Its skin is a dull red-brown, with darker armour-like sections protecting its vitals and two sets of curved horns extending from each side of its head. The second has bright blue skin, its head pulled into its torso and its arms and legs stretched out to extreme lengths. The third looks something like a Human corpse, oily black liquid dripping from numerous pins stuck into its skin and evaporating as it hits the carpeted ground.

Right then.

"Kid Flash, Artemis, attack at the entrance."

Doctor Farr's eyes widen. "What do you-?"

I hold up my right hand to stop him as Chubbs observes the receptionist flee for safety, then transition out into the loading bay. "Three Demons, unknown power level?"

"Demons?" Canis grins. "Demons! I have yet to face-!"

"Canis, stay here, guard the cargo. There could be more." Artemis leaps over to me, steadies herself and then gives me a nod. "Transitioning."

We reappear in the corridor leading to the reception area just as Wallace dashes up. "Someone not say grace at lunch?"

I create a railgun and load cold iron rounds, then put construct armour around both Artemis and myself. "Hail Eris, full of chaos."

Artemis notches an anti-magic arrow. "I got yer grace right here."

"Think I shoulda picked up some holy water."

The doors at the end of the corridor buckle inwards as the blue Demon shoves its fingers through the middle and grips them from the inside. I hold up my glowing rune stone for a moment as they're ripped free. Yep, definitely a magic life form and not an unfortunate metahuman. Always best to check. The Demon behind the doorway awkwardly lowers its body to look at us. Huh. It's gained a few extra arms from somewhere. Looks a little like the Oni from Roswell Conspiracies.

"Raaahwrawrwaw!"

Its chest opens, revealing its teeth-ribs, dripping noxious digestive juices and seven prehensile tongues.

Artemis and I fire.

 

16th April
13:36 GMT -5

My round strikes it near the centre of mass -just missing where its spine would be if it were Human- and punches clean through. I experience a split second of fear that the overpenetrating round might hit someone before I see that the larger armoured Demon was in the way. Artemis' arrow hits it directly in the upper right shoulder, the head burying itself in the joint.

"Grahhhgahggahhhh!"

The transferred kinetic force from my railgun round slamming into it causes the Demon's torso to jerk away and Artemis' arrow causes it to lose hold of whatever it was gripping onto with the hand on that arm. It staggers back and Wallace uses the opportunity to dash out into the reception area.

"Lord Satanus, bless my claws!"

My second shot blasts through the blue Demon's left leg, severing it entirely. Artemis' second arrow was a quick hardening foam which erupts within the hole that appears to serve as the Demon's throat, covering its visible insides and thoroughly clogging up its pseudo organs.

It collapses to the floor, deep blue ichor leaking from its wounds. Must be a weak one. Artemis and I advance past it. That should hold it for now, I can get Zatanna or John to interrogate it later.

"Blmvrl."

Wallace is running circles around the large Demon as it slams its huge three-fingered claws into the ground in an attempt to strike him. Were he less experienced in using super speed the vibrations passing through the floor might be enough to cause him to trip. As it is, he jumps, runs along the wall and then rushes back down towards his target. The Demon swings its right arm -another area effect attack, must be one of the intelligent ones- only for Wallace to handplant on the top of its forearm, bounce from there onto its left arm and then dash up onto its shoulder and smash something in its face.

For a moment the Demon just looks confused.

"GRAAAAAAGHHH!"

I can hear hissing as whatever Wallace just hit it with begins to eat away at its head, armoured plates and horn visibly abrading as we watch. The Demon collapses to its knees, clawing at its face. The only obvious result of that is that its upper left horn snaps off.

Wallace precipitates out of the air just behind us. "Essence of Vitriol. Just what a budding alchemist needs when fighting Demons."

The Tar-Covered Corpse flows away from us slightly, careful to keep its face towards us.

"Alright, you." I load a Mage Slayer. "Answer our questions and I send you back to hell not much worse for wear. Refuse, and… Well. Chubbs!"

The 15-rated Slimer wannabe descends from its hiding place near the ceiling, waving its chubby right arm. "Haa-iiy."

The Corpse turns its head to look at Chubbs for a moment, then turns back to us. Can it not rotate its eyes? Does it actually have eyes, or are the black holes it? Face fixed on us, it makes a strange sort of yawny-hiss noise which the ring's translator can't make sense of. The black gunk appears to stop dripping, instead choosing to defy gravity and pool on the vertical surfaces of its body.

"Was that hiss-yes or hiss-no?"

"Orange Lantern?"

Without taking my eyes off the Demon I tap my communicator to respond. "Not a great time, Zatanna."

"Are you certain they're Demons?"

I take a second to review the camera footage of their arrival. "Walked in Human shaped, turned into inhuman monsters with non-functioning physiology. Possession doesn't work like that… Pretty confident. Why?"

"They didn't set off my ward. Anything as magically powerful as a Demon should have done so."

Hm. She's right. "Maybe someone in Hell's been a bit cleverer than usu-?"

The Tar-Covered Corpse opens its mouth and zooms towards us, black filth spraying from its mouth! The creature just sort of leans forwards and flows across the ground, no leg movement required. Artemis instinctively jerks back as the first few droplets splatter against our construct armour and begin eating through it! I erect a construct barrier but that dissolves too as the Demon reaches us. Fine then. I step up as Artemis' anti-magic arrow strikes it high in the chest and appears to be engulfed in black goo, battering ram construct swinging for its abdomen.

"Orange Lantern! More Demons assail us!" "Finally!"

The goo almost completely absorbs the energy of the strike and begins eating away at the construct. The Demon takes the time to hiss again.

"Have fun, Canis. Keep them away-" I turn the battering ram into a railgun and fire a Mage Slayer round. "-from the lorry."

"Pwaghhuhuhh!" The Demon recoils, thick globs of Tar sloughing away from its body as it tries to cope with the sudden power drain. The noise cuts out as Artemis puts an arrow in its throat, though the Demon still isn't going down.

"Zatanna, if reasonably practical try to capture one. Otherwise, stay back. Robin, make sure the civilians are out of the way."

"Already done, Oh El."

The Tar-Covered Corpse flicks its arms at us, inky droplets spraying off the skeletal fingers. I generate another construct barrier as Wallace darts away, the large Demon lying still on the floor groaning piteously in pain as he kicks its exposed flesh on his way past. This time the droplets don't melt, but rather begin to mix in with the orange, darkening it. I abandon construct. Don't know what that was but it didn't look good.

"Okay, fine, you want to be difficult?" I open both palms to face it. "Brand." Thick bars of orange energy slam into the Demon, battering its personal oil slick and exposing more of its ruined flesh. "Artemis, I've got this one. Make sure the other two stay down."

"Right."

"Laaaanteeeeern."

"Oh good, you can talk. Let's start with your name."

"Laaaanteeeeern."

Oh, for goodness sake. The oil is almost all gone now. If I were a better thaumaturgist I'd probably find the way it behaved utterly fascinating. As it is… I'd guess that the oil isn't inherently magical but the control mechanism is? Oh, that's interesting, there's some sort of design scrawled on the Demon's flesh.

Orange sigils form in its eyes.

"You overreach, Laaaanteeeeern."

"Critical power drain detected."

The runes cut into its flesh light up orange in a design that reminds me a little of the ones Dark Druid used in Liverpool.

"My power naow!"

Cut the connection cut the connection!

"Heeyhaaaaagh!"

Not cutting. With two quick hand motions I pull the rings from my fingers and back the heck up. The beams cut off and the Demon takes the opportunity to pose as dull orange oil covers its flesh, sigils shining through the murk from underneath. It exhales and a cloud of orange wafts from its mouth.

I put the rings back on. Rings, what's the damage?

Thirteen percent remaining.

Ooooh poop.

 

16th April
13:39 GMT -5

"Orange Lantern to everyone." I draw my sidearm and point it at the Demon. "One of the Demons just ate my ring charge. This isn't going to be-" Two Arrows of Unmaking strike it in the chest and trigger.

"Raaaaargh!"

"-as easy as I thought."

The Tar-Covered Corpse flows away from us, the two round holes ripped in its chest swiftly being swallowed by dull orange goo. It slaps its right hand against the fallen form of the Juggernaut Wallace melted, and orange strands glow across the brute's skin, matching the runic patterns I briefly saw on the Corpse's own flesh.

Okay, power armour, go for my personal lantern or try fighting like this? Call for help? No one could get here- I note another arrow moving into my field of vision in slow motion- fast enough, at least no one with the necessary anti-Demon skill set. I pull the trigger on my pistol, sending an iron bullet towards the Corpse. Doubt that'll do much. Angel feather railgun round? In situations like this I'm really supposed to retreat but I can't leave Artemis and Wallace in the lurch, to say nothing of all the squishy civilians. Fingers moving in slow motion I pull the trigger again. Disadvantage of polytheism is that I can't just pray to my preferred jumped up Elemental to make the Demons go away. I'd have to get a god with a particular pre-existing hostility.

Wallace runs forwards, another vial prepped. The Corpse's eyes flash orange for a moment and a tar tentacle bubbles outwards from its chest, lashing out at his most likely approach. Wallace jumps, twisting in the air to throw himself over it. Next to the Corpse, the empty pits in the Juggernaut's face that once held its eyes flare orange.

Right.

My power armour appears around me-

Warning, twelve percent remaining.

-and I activate the flight system and phasing.

"Ragh!"

Things move back into normal speed. The Corpse's tentacle intercepts Artemis' arrow while the Corpse itself slides out of the way of Wallace's hurriedly thrown vial. My bullets hit but appear to do no damage. Par for the course, really. Artemis' second arrow -this one an Unmaker rather than a anti-magic arrow- punches a hole in the tentacle and causes the part severed from the Corpse to fall to the ground, where it… Ugh, where it shimmers and vaporises in a decidedly unhealthy-looking fashion. I raise my right arm, construct railgun reforming and a cold gun appearing from subspace. Cold gun is a bit iffy as Demons don't always bother creating bodies from matter, but if Crumblers worked they're probably solid enough to have their vibrations impeded. Wallace is moving too fast for me to precisely track him, but from the way the Corpse's head is constantly jerking and the presence of numerous small but heavy airborne objects I'm going to assume that he's super speed throwing things.

The cold beam hits the Corpse in the chest, coating its epidermis in frost as super cooled whatever-it's-made-of causes the water to precipitate out of the air. The Demon itself actually seems mildly perturbed by this, looking down at itself and making a weird sort of choking-panting noise. The Juggernaut starts to pull itself to its feet, a sort of crystalline construct growth appearing along its forearms. I've been reluctant to use angel feather rounds because I only have a very finite number of them, but I think I've found the time for them.

An Unmaker from Artemis hits the Juggernaut hard enough to make it jerk away, and the detonation causes the orange runes to blink out. I load an angel round and fire it directly at that point.

The round punches cleanly through the Demon's skin and into its pseudo organs.

"Yaaaaaahhh!"

It collapses, flares of gold and black flickering around it as the magics conflict and counteract one another. The Corpse takes one look at what's happening to its colleague and propels itself my way on a plume of orange ichor, mouth unhinged and hissing. I go to dodge, but its oil coated talons still pass through.. me…

Ooh, that feels disgusting. The physical component went through, but I think.. I just caught the edge of its magics and-

Warning, ten percent remaining.

-got drained further. I'm going to need Zatanna to check me out fully after this. Artemis rolls out of the way as the Corpse has a moment of indecision: go for me again when the first attempt appeared to achieve nothing, or try reinforcing its other fallen comrade? I come back into phase and fire the cold gun again as Artemis looses another Unmaker, trying to create another hole in its oil coating. It shudders under the beam's effect but doesn't seem notably disabled. Artemis' Unmaker gouges another break, but the oil covers it once more before she can capitalise. Wallace blurs past, another vial breaking on the Corpse and a patch of green sludge on its back. It doesn't hiss in the way the acid did, but the Corpse flails around for a moment trying to reach it anyway. The bits I froze are stiffer, but not nearly as much as they should be. I can see the heat being leached out of the air from here; absolute zero is bloody cold.

Wallace drops back to normal speed just behind me. "Aim for the green stuff!"

Okay then. I raise my railgun and load an angel round as Artemis hurries around to this side and notches an anti-magic arrow. We fire simultaneously, my shot striking home just ahead of hers. Both finally penetrate the Corpse's outer defences and burrow into its insides.

"Nraaaaooooow!"

The Corpse collapses to the ground, more of its body appearing as the oil streams off and runs across the floor.

Right then. Rings, get my gosh darn power back.

Orange vapour leaps out of the muck and towards my gauntlets. Okay, I'm going to assume that means that the spell binding it is broken. Rings, we got a recording of the rune layout, right?

Confirmed. Ninety percent of image available. Charging in progress. Eighteen percent available.

Good to know.

"Master! Please!" The Corpse claws at the air, presumably begging either its summoner or its overlord. "Aid meeee!"

"Mrrruhhhhmrm." Keeping the rings scanning the Corpse I turn to the fallen Juggernaut. It's shrivelled as the angel round leaches its power, horns vanishing and its grey blood turning… Red? What?

"Ah, Oh El? Is it meant to do that?"

Charge at twenty three percent.

I quickly review the footage once more. The Juggernaut was that one, so… The horns vanish and the hair begins to grow from the top of its head in replacement. Behind me the outer flesh of the Corpse begins to reappear, covering its exposed muscles and bones. The injuries we inflicted are now painfully visible, and from the way the Corpse is thrashing about I'm going to assume that they can feel them now as well.

What?

"Kid Flash, healing unguents."

"But they're De-."

"That's not how Demons work. I don't know what they are."

"Okay, God, ah…" He pushes the woman who became the Juggernaut firmly onto her back, revealing the full extent of her facial burns and the hole in her chest made by my railgun round. He pours the content of one vial over her face as I go to work on the rapidly bleeding puncture, cauterizing and reknitting the damaged flesh. As well as extracting my round. Those things don't grow on trees. My constructs fade once I'm reasonably sure that she isn't going to die immediately. Wallace's efforts on her face have restored it to third-degree-oil-burns level, back from skull-with-some-meat-attached. The eyes are still gone, but that's to be expected. Don't think we caused any brain damage, but it's too early to be certain.

"Okay, next one."

Artemis just stands there, staring in shock as we rush to patch up the Corpse. I use the rings to bring her temperature up… Not sure what happened there, having part of your body at absolute zero should be pretty lethal for a Human but she seems to be getting off with extreme-but-survivable cold. Wallace splashes healing potion on the holes all over her torso.

"A-Artemis to team. The Demons, they're… People. People turned into Demons! Try not to kill them!"

How is this even possible?

 

16th April
13:57 GMT -5

"My God." Doctor Stone shakes his head, stunned at the destruction unleashed in the loading dock. Or possibly stunned by the injuries we just inflicted. Probably best that I not tell him that this sort of outcome is about par for the course when we fight people in our weight class and they won't surrender. All of the former Demons are bound by magic suppression chains and look thoroughly the worse for wear.

Only two attacked the loading dock, but when they bought their tickets in the superpower lottery Hell smiled on them. One was left basically humanoid with a head about three times as tall as it should be and split down the middle. Between the two halves was a black void from which it could fire highly resilient chains burning with hellfire. Richard was dangerously close to getting dragged in at one point before Zatanna worked out how to disrupt the portal. The other resembled a sort of Wurm/Millipede combination, with the added bonus that its partially intangible nature let it both fly and destructively phase through solid objects.

Richard sidles up to me as Zatanna finishes the physical components of the truth compulsion ritual. "So what'd we call them?"

I point to the ones Wallace, Artemis and I fought, generating small constructs of their transformed states. "Oni, Juggernaut and Tar-Covered Corpse. Do you want to name yours?"

Canis decided that it was best to make the portal disruption permanent and darn near stove in their first opponent's head. His Demon form was tough and not all of the injuries they suffer translated back onto their Human forms but the left cheek and jaw are comprehensively shattered. That will take a great deal of surgical effort to stick back together. For the moment, he'll have to make do with Richard and the lab's medic's effort to create a sort of frame around the left side of his face.

And yet, somehow, I couldn't quite muster the desire to fix it myself.

The former Wurmipede is still unconscious from the feedback generated by the interaction between its aura and Raquel's kinetic belt. Raquel was a bit out of it herself, but her I could help.

"Do you think 'Centipede' is too obvious?"

"I think it's taken."

He thinks for a moment, then smirks. "Oh yeah. I forgot about that guy."

"How can you laugh about this?" Doctor Stone gestures at the wreck of the transport lorry. "That creature destroyed the samples! The Atlanteans will never trust us with a second batch, if they can even find one."

"Doctor Stone, the Bio Ship is fast, but it's not that fast. The samples won't get here for another four hours."

"You-! You knew we were going to be attacked?"

"Knew, no. But the obvious time to attack was the moment the samples arrived. Wasn't expecting.. this." None of the scientists or workers were injured during the attack, having all lived in Gotham long enough to know to get the heck out of the way when things start getting weird. Or maybe they just weren't targeted. The ones who entered via reception certainly could have killed the receptionist if they'd wanted. "Thought it was best to spring the attack during the dress rehearsal rather than the real event."

Doctor Stone nods. "I.. suppose. What exactly did they do to themselves?"

"Not sure. Hopefully, we'll know in a few minutes."

"Orange Lantern." Beton Brute pads forwards as Canis hails me with his right hand. "Do you have pencil and paper?"

"Yes… May I ask why you want them?"

He nods, smiling. "The sight of that creature moving through the air has inspired me. Since the fighting is -for the moment- concluded-."

I take an art pad and a selection of pencils out of subspace and float them over to him. "Knock yourself out."

"Thank you."

"Okay." Zatanna stands up and takes a step back. "That should do it. Orange Lantern?"

I nod. "Robin, if you wouldn't mind?"

"Sure. Never interrogated a Demon before."

The two of us walk over to the woman who was briefly the Tar-Covered Corpse. Mary Dey, a college drop out whose previous criminal history amounted to a few parking tickets. Juggernaut had a slightly more jaded past, but the rest had similarly clean records. My physical scans showed no particular anomalies and I couldn’t see any unusual financial activity when I had the ring take a look at their accounts. Bit of a puzzler, really.

"Zatanna?"

"I dnib uoy ot kaeps eht hturt, eht elohw hturt dna gnihton tub eht hturt."

The circle around our subject gleams slightly and there's a faint distortion in the air.

"Poetic. Well then, let's start with the obvious stuff. Would you please confirm your name for the record?"

"Fuck you." Her eyes glaze slightly. "Mary Dey." Her eyes return to normal, then widen slightly. "The fuck was that?"

"Encouragement. It won't let you lie or dissemble."

"You shit sucking-."

"What caused your transformation?"

"Juice." Another flicker. "Hell Juice. I dunno what the stuff is really called."

"Robin?"

He makes a small frown. "Never heard of it. What other names does it have?"

"Ah… Devil Jizz, Dee Em En… I don't know any others."

"DMN? Demon? Who came up with that?"

"Maybe it stands for something? Demonic… Metamorphosis… Narcotic?" Um. "Nectar?"

Artemis makes a face. "And who'd take something called 'Devil Jizz'?"

"These five, apparently. Who is your supplier?"

"I never met him. And when I spoke on the phone he used one of those voice altering things."

"Why did you attack this place?"

"It was jghrh." She visibly strains against the spell. "My chance… To get big. I knew whoever it was had something good going on. I wanted a piece of it. We all got sent stronger Juice so we'd be able to do the job. We got told, wait for the delivery, then make sure it got destroyed."

"Destroyed. Not captured. Curious. Is this the first time you've transformed?"

"No, but it's the first time I've gone that far or become that.. thing. Usually I pick something.. prettier."

"Ever met an actual Demon?"

"No. But I figured, that's what I'd look like if I was a Demon."

"Have you had any other significant contact with the arcane?"

"No. Least, I don't think so."

"Can you provide us with the names of other users and locations where you people congregate?"

"Yrrrrrr… Yes."

"Ah, Oh El?" Wallace raises his right eyebrow. "I don't think this stuff is actually illegal. I mean, it should be, but…" He shrugs.

"As a narcotic? No. But I think I could convince a judge that they should count as 'baleful or sorcerous weapons', and there's a decent penalty for using those. Robin, find out everything she knows. I'll get in contact with the Gotham police."

 

16th April
17:27 GMT -2

Tao crouches reflexively as the explosives vent their fury against my barrier. "They were prepared for us."

I shove the barrier forwards, into the interior of the LexCorp submarine. "No. They're not planning on going back up. They booby trapped the one obvious point of ingress. Ugh, and now we can't use this submarine to get back to the surface without repairing the airlock." The ring shows me the empty corridor. "Clear."

I step forwards, turning to the right. Tao steps up to cover the left. "Surely your power ring would make that simple."

"Making things is much harder with a yellow ring than an orange one." Sinestro, access submarine computers.

There aren't any, Corpsman. Data storage devices have been physically removed.

Damn it. This hunt has been a good deal less fun than I thought it would be. And I've only got an hour until our guests start arriving for Lynne's birthday! For some reason -probably something to do with their relationship with a species that once fought the Green Lantern Corps to a standstill- I can't scan for them, so I've been reduced to doing actual detective work! I got a lucky match on one of the missing researchers from a LexCorp-monitored traffic camera, but from there I was always one step behind. I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised that they've headed to the site of the Atlantean survey expedition that dug out the original Star Conqueror, but… It doesn't make sense. Klarion had to use highly involved magic to control the Starro-tech chips. Okay, assuming that they somehow got exposed to what they were studying despite knowing the risks and the Starro-tech somehow formed a mental network…

"What next?"

"Doctor Robbins, Hush tube. Send in drones to secure the submarine."

"Opening now."

"Tao, we need to get to the dive pool."

"Understood."

I start down the corridugh. Lex's prized experimental next generation submarine isn't quite the glorified sardine tin which modern military submarines are, but it still isn't exactly roomy. Not for someone my size, anyway. But I can't risk transitioning around beings who might conceivably have a way to disrupt it.

"What do you think we will face?"

What indeed. "Worst case scenario, they've freed a large Star Conqueror from the ice and got it up to speed. The mind scrambler I gave you should keep it out of your head for long enough for us to kill it."

"You are not wearing one yourself."

"I was trained by Chester Black. It isn't getting in my head."

"Tell me honestly: do you believe that we can save the researchers?"

"I can't really say. Starro-tech is simple enough to remove. People controlled by actual Star Conquerors can usually recover if they're freed within the first couple of days."

"And after that?"

"Too much of their mind is rewritten. They might learn to function again, but the person they were is gone."

"And why was Lex Luthor studying these creatures?"

Hm. "If you're asking me as an upstanding citizen, I'd say that noted futurist Lex Luthor has made a point of studying any strange or alien technology that he comes across, both to enrich his company and to enrich humanity at large. If they were used in a criminal fashion before the tissue samples his company received came into his possession, he had no knowledge of it. If you're asking me as a member of the Light, I'd say that anything that can mind control the Justice League is something that needs to be studied. If something can control them, it can control anyone."

"Perhaps this practice should be reviewed in light of this escape."

"If Lex had thought to check with the resident alien exactly what he was dealing with, this wouldn't have happened." I pause just before the reinforced doors to the plunge pool. "Wait, did you just make a pu-?"

The doors jerk open, and for a moment my eyes meet the equally surprised eyes of King Orin. Tao keeps his bow down as Orin, Kaldur and the small squad of Atlantean soldiers ready their weapons.

"Grayven. I wish I could say I'm surprised. When my people called for help, I assumed that a surface world submarine was spying on us. Imagine my surprise at finding you on a LexCorps vessel."

"Orin. If only your people had left well enough alone in the first place."

His eyes narrow slightly. "And what do you mean by that?"

"Your people dug out a Star Conqueror." I generate a construct image of an active one. "Did one of the Green Lanterns brief the League?"

"Is that why Luthor attacked my people?"

"Luthor hasn't attacked anyone." That I know of. Recently. "Some of his people got exposed to the Starro-tech and they came here on their own initiative. Or more likely, a Star Conque-."

His right fist slams into my jaw, catching me by surprise. I tip my head back slightly in response. No follow up. I tilt it back down again. "If you were Kal-El, that might have hurt."

"You were studying those things!"

"Do you enjoy being ignorant, or has it simply become a habit for you?"

Kaldur -who has switched back from his Apokoliptian armour to his old blue-and-reds- steps forwards and hesitantly lays his right hand on his monarch's left arm. "My king, the people in the research center are still in danger."

I nod. "And unless you're a much better telepath than your League records suggest. And, have some way to remove Starro-tech…"

I'll credit him at least with not wasting time glaring at me. "Archer, can you breathe in water?"

He taps the upper arm of his bow against his mouth, causing the energy based filtration system I gave him to sparkle. "While I wear this. The water will not prevent me from shooting, though Grayven had intended to force it away from the combat area with his power ring."

Hmm. "The Star Conqueror might have done that anyway. They can function in water, but they usually prefer shallow pools or dry land to oceans."

Orin nods, then stands aside. "You can go first."

I shake my head. "No, the drones go first. Doctor Robbins?" Three drones momentarily drop stealth in the air just above the plunge pool, their weapons visibly trained on the Atlanteans. I smile at their discomfort as I walk towards the pool. "Send them down, would you?"

The drones shimmer and then disappear. Invisible and mindless, they should be able to escape detection. Phased, they won't be affected by the water.

And someone thought that bringing mooks was the answer.

"Atlanteans don't have any special resistance to mind control, right?"

Orin clenches his jaw for a moment. "Several members of the expedition were highly skilled with ice magic. But if Star Conqueror mind control is purely telepathic, no."

I narrow my eyes, focusing on the images from the drones. A simple magic membrane divides the interior of the Atlantean base camp from the Arctic water.

"Celestial Archer." Oh, look at Kaldur trying to be subtle. "Why are you working with Grayven?"

"We are hunting dangerous aliens, Aqualad. I believe that my duty to protect the Earth has higher priority than the.. dispute, between Grayven and the Justice League. "

"Be nice, Kaldur. If he hadn't agreed to help me I'd have had to kill each infected person to prevent the Star Conquerors spreading further." Well, him or Zatanna, but I don't want to cause her trouble at home. "Drones show nothing in the entrance or living quarters. I'm heading down."

I throw myself head first into the water and swim towards the habitat.

 

16th April
17:38 GMT -2

Oh, they had to loot Lex's exotic weapon lab before they left!

Tao's shot misses as I'm forced to yank him out of the way of a beam of purple nothingness. Of course, the Star Conquerors have had access to starfaring civilisations before. I suppose they might just have stolen raw materials and made it themselves. Doesn't really matter now. Kaldur waves his Water-Bearers in an attempt to block a second and again I'm forced to intervene as the beam passes clean through his water barrier. Drones!

Behind their position my drones phase in and fire their purple beams, and… It does nothing. I could have them turn it up, but that risks killing the hosts. I'm not doing that unless I need to. Two of the men being controlled by the Starro-tech turn to take shots at the drones, who are already reactivating their phasing systems. Not going to get a better chance…

"Tao." I surge through the air separating us from our targets, Tao preparing a new shot as I do so. If I get them away from the Atlantean ward-shields-.

"Look out!" Off to my left an Atlantean soldier shouts a warning, gesturing upwards with his right oh fuck off! Shards of ice explode outwards as Facehugger-type Star Conquerors drop from the ceiling of the chamber we're fighting in. I stab upwards with a construct blade as one flies at me, but it twists in the air and strikes the construct with its mouth claws and the construct shatters. I grab one of its tentacles with my right hand and agh! Unable to reach my face, it twisted around and latched onto my arm! Armour's holding, but the telekinetic effect appears to have penetrated somewhat. The red and green eye on its front surface blinks at me as it redoubles its effort to chew off my arm, the two defenders who were firing upon my drones opening fire at me once more.

No matter.

I fly sideways in a jinking pattern while forming another blade construct and shoving it through the creature's eye. I feel it convulse. Were its teeth actually in my flesh it would clamp down, but as it is the only thing holding it to me is its telekinesis and to direct that it needs clear mental function. Keeping my right hand gripped around the uppermost tentacle I grab another tentacle with my left hand and pull.

And the tentacle comes off.

Might I suggest-?

I dig the fingers of my left hand into the eye socket and pull, the Star Conqueror splitting in two in a spray of purple goo. Ugh, right, how did everyone else d-?

And this is why we don't bring NPCs to a PC fight! A Star Conqueror lies twitching at Tao's feet, two arrows through its body which is somehow on fire. I see another fly into the distance as Kaldur swings a water hammer around and Orin is scraping his off the blades of his trident. Three out of four of our escort are now sporting Star Conqueror facials, cyclopean eyes blinking as the Star Conqueror group mind gets used to controlling their bodies. The fourth aims his weapon uncertainly at his colleagues.

"Tao, get the-" An arrow slices neatly through the centreline of the closest, splitting eye and Star Conqueror in two. "-m!"

Right, assume he's got that under control. I draw my Apokolips tech sword and resume my charge, armour construct reappearing just in time to hold off a shot from one of the controlled Atlanteans. Great, the one thing it can stop is on my side. I cleave through the barrier with my sword just quickly enough to shove Lex's pride and joy upwards, another purple negabeam flaring up through the ice.

"Thank you." I drop my sword and gently punch the man in the diaphragm before letting him drop to the ground. And now it's my ggrregh! Other guy shot me and -yep- left cheek carbonised and.. right side of my jaw rendered brittle and notably painful. Another surge and I slam his head into the edge of the ice tunnel.

Ow! I'm going to.. need to have another look at those blasted helmet designs, aren't I? Oh, he might just have been aiming at the only unarmoured part of my body. I don't think Star Conquerors ever encountered New Gods but Lex's people would know that I'm tough. I clean off the goo covering my left gauntlet before reaching up to feel the hole in my face, flicking away the ashen -heh- flesh around the wound. Shouldn't take too long to heal. Subspace the guns.

I turn back to my companions in time to see electricity flare from Orin's trident and stun the remaining Star Conqueror host as Kaldur slashes at another dropping from the ceiling. I stick construct manacles around the two LexCorp researchers and haul them up into the air. "Tao, when you have a mo-" Arrows pass through their chests, emerging on the far side with Starro-tech impaled on the tips. "-ment." I dump them on the ground. "Thank you."

"Stay alert." Orin slices through the Star Conqueror on his armsman's face with a precise stroke. "There'll probably be more of those things, and inside the ice they'll be able to attack from any direction."

"Hey, you." I nod at the remaining soldier. "What's your name?"

"Ah." He glances at his king, who nods. "Martus."

"You dodge yours, or just get lucky?"

His eyes drop to his fallen comrades. Blood flows from the nasty looking holes in their faces where the Star Conquerors bit in, but since they don't try to physically connect with the brain of their host the wounds aren't mortal. With Atlantean biomancy they probably won't even scar. "Luck."

"Good. Stay lucky." I turn to Orin. "Ready to go?"

He nods. "How many are left?"

"Assuming they got everyone who disappeared? Should be another sevente-." The room shakes. "I assume that means that we need to go?"

The five of us start up the tunnel, Kaldur lagging behind slightly as he runs his left hand along the wall. "They are altering the structure of the ice. Trying to free more of their kind!"

Tell the drones to use lethal force?



Ugh, no, not yet. The Arctic has had any number of ground penetrating scans over the years. Even if they're trying to free a larger Star Conqueror, it can't be that big. From the Green Lantern Corps data I acquired, it looks like I should be able to kill one. Probably.

"How many Atlanteans were stationed here?"

Orin glances at me as we accelerate to a run. "Seven, but only two have the sort of power needed to dig through the ice quickly. The rest are here f-." I feel the mental pressure even as he clutches at his head and staggers to a halt. Martus collapses along with him, while Tao is unaffected and Kaldur merely winces. Hooray for being a god.

"That all you got, abomination!?" I attach yellow filaments to Tao and Kaldur and accelerate into the next chamb-.

Ice surges up and envelopes us. It's a metre thick in all directions. Outside, I see most of the remaining researchers -both Atlantean and LexCorpian- standing, watching us. Just above them floats… Is that supposed to be a Star Conqueror? The eye alone is nearly the size of the facehuggers, but that's nearly all the body it has, stubby nubs replacing the tentacles it would normally possess. Guess that's the target, then.

Kaldur's arms shove outwards as the ice explodes off us, a fusion cannon already forming on my left ar-.

"We surrender."

The voice.. echoes. Sinestro?

The floating eye is using its telekinesis to manipulate the air around it in order to speak. You're hearing it slightly before the spoken vocalisation of the others.

Huh.

I allow myself to float forwards slightly. "How stupid do you think I am, Star Conqueror?"

"We do not believe that you are stupid. Our hosts had access to extensive records of your abilities. We have no other techniques remaining. We do not believe that we can defeat you. For our continued survival we throw ourselves at your mercy."

Huh. Wasn't.. expecting that. Alright, kill count zero as far as I can tell… I don't need to kill it for anything it's done. On the other hand, could it be safely imprisoned?



I could.. probably come up with something. "We will remove the hosts infected with Starro-tech immediately, and you will release the others once we have farm animals for you to transfer your drones onto."

The eye blinks. "Agreed."

"Tao-."

"Wait." Kaldur frowns. "Where is the other mage?"

The ice rumbles again and the still-controlled people charge forward in another delaying action as the Star Eye flees further in.

"Suckers."

 

16th April
14:27 GMT -6

I pause, and my audience leans forwards. Mitchel takes a swig of his beer, checks to see if the others are going to say anything and then decides to take the initiative.

"Then what happened?"

I chuckle and shake my head. "About two minutes of total mayhem. Kaldur defended Tao while he shot the Star Conquerors and Starro-tech off and out of people and I chased after the Star Eye as it fled back to the innermost cave."

"Where the other wizard was?"

"The other wizard, and the recently reawakened medium size Star Conqueror. About… Fifty metres.. tentacle tip to tentacle tip? They needed to dig it out, wake it up, bring it up to speed and get it access to the open air. So I dash into the chamber, the Star Eye blinks at me and then boom!" I jerk my hands wide. "The wizard forces all the ice above us to explode upwards!"

"Was the ice not very thick or something? Or… Was that guy just that powerful?"

"The Arctic is one big iceberg. It doesn't actually get all that thick. The Atlanteans had basically built extra ice onto the bottom for their convenience. Those pictures you see on the Discovery Channel of big ice cliffs? Those are all ice over land. Antarctica, usually. It was only about eighteen metres thick total where we were, and only about… Five metres above us? Still a pretty impressive blast, though."

"Then the little one on the Atlantean's face jumps off and gets scooped up by the big one's telekinetic field. The Star Eye generates a really strong telekinetic field to try and hold me still while the big one leaps out of the hole. It actually showed up on satellite. Here." I take a couple of print outs out of subspace and hand them over. The NRO were happy to hand them over in exchange for me explaining what the hell they'd just seen. "Once it was clear the Eye went after it and I went after the Eye, jamming faster than light travel for all I'm worth."

Someone.. whose name I can't immediately call to mind, sits back. "What would have happened if it got away?"

"Best case scenario? Nothing much. It just.. flies away to somewhere out of the way, slowly rebuilding its species using animals. Worst case? Giant Star Conqueror suddenly appears in low orbit and it rains little Star Conquerors. Earth becomes the new Star Conqueror nest world in short order.

"Hold on a sec." Sandra gives me an incredulous look. "If those things were so dangerous, what in God's name did those people think they were doing growing a whole one?"

"I checked their laboratory early on in my investigation." I wiggle my sandwich around for emphasis. "Their precautions were actually pretty good. Thick lead walls, direct manipulation was by robot only, and they cut bits off it if it looked like it was getting too big. Without dedicated telepath blocking technology -which Earth doesn’t have- it was about as safe as it could get."

"Then how'd it get out?"

"Little ones… They're usually telepathic. It's unusual for them to be telekinetic. If I had to guess, I'd say that the fact it was there allowed the big one to connect to the Starro-tech chips they were studying, and nudge the Eye to grow telekinetic nodes and.. throw the chips at the researchers. Anyone outside of the room would only have a few seconds to spot what had happened before the chip would be absorbed through the skin, then good luck detecting it." I shrug. "But… That's speculation on my part. Not only did they destroy the local copy of the surveillance recordings, they also hit the off site backup on their way to the coast, and their memories now are pretty scrambled."

"I still don't see why they did it. If Earth doesn’t have good enough anti-telepath technology-."

"How would you like Earth to develop that technology, if not by studying telepaths?" I shrug. "They were too worried about external attack and not worried enough about a break out. But, the League used their authority to close the whole thing down anyway, so it won't be a problem in future." A decision I wholeheartedly agree with. Lex wasn't exactly thrilled, but if there's one thing the world doesn't need from the Light it's more mind control technology. He can make do with the records I recovered and the memories of the researchers.

"So, ahhh…" Mitchel jabs his beer in my direction. "You won, right?"

"How are the burgers?"

"Ah." He nods. "Pretty good, pretty-." His face pales. "Oh God. Y… You mean..?"

I give them a few seconds to get worried. "No, no." I wave my sandwich dismissively. "Just messing with you." A few nervous laughs. Most people nonetheless return their buns to their plates. Mitchel takes another bite instead. "Seriously though, don't eat alien meat without rigorous testing. There are all sorts of chemicals in the bodies of many aliens that would do a Human a mischief." I suppose… If the Star Eye had actually surrendered, if we could actually trust it, it could have been a major asset. Probably for the best we didn't try doing that. Assimilating it… Ah, well.

"The fight was frustrating… Sort of a puzzle boss thing. Once the big one realised that it couldn't control or affect my brain it tried manipulating my body… Pain sensations, yanking control of my nerves… While the Eye was shielding it with telekinesis or hitting me to try and make me stop jamming the faster than light. Fortunately, they can feel fear so my constructs were getting a boost from that. Still, it was a hard fight until they tried getting cute. The big one turned off my optic nerves while the little one and the Eye tried latching onto my face. Fortunately for me, my ring could tell me where they were and my sword wasn't as easy for them to disrupt as my constructs were."

You're welcome, Corpsman.

"I ended up incinerating the bodies, because that was one risk too far. But! Use fossil fuels responsibly because there could be more of those things hidden in the ice, and if the ice keeps melting-"

"Mister Gravyen, your guest is here."

"-they could get out." I stand, turning my head to look at Jean. "Thanks Jean. You told Lynne?" She nods. "Please see to our guests in my absence." Back to my audience. "Excuse me. I need to.. deal with this. I'll be back out in, like, half an hour."

Mitchel nods. "Take it easy, man."

The hush tube opens and I step through it into the mountain's reception area, waiting for it to shut down before I greet my guest. "Jade, I've missed you so much." I step towards her. "What the heck did Ra's have you working on?"

I hold out my arms to embrace her, but stop when she holds up her right hand. "Grayven, is there something you want to tell me?"

"I got a mountain!" She doesn't look amused. "Also, a daughter. Yes, I realise that it would have been better to talk to you about that first-"

"Yes, it would."

"-but I couldn't have referred it to you on Earth Fifty and there really wasn't time when she turned up here. You did read my message, right? Ra's said that he'd get it passed on."

"I read it. That's why I'm so calm right now."

She's not even slightly calm. "Look, I'm not…"

"And why is she here?"

"Hello Master!"

Ah. "Iname, could you possibly.. keep an eye on our guests?"

She bows. "Yes, Master." There's a blast of air as she exists at speed.

"I've taken her on as a student."

"A girl nearly my exact age?"

"She's younger-." Oh. "Oh, she's not.. by much, is she? She just acts so much younger, I'd.. sort of…"

"With the power I told you I wanted."

"It's not as if I can only give one person super speed." I shrug. "This way, I can check that it works in case you decide you want that rather than teleportation. I'd have been happy to Awaken you months ago. You wanted to wait and I respected that." Wait, she doesn't-? "Jade, she's not a you-replacement. No." She raises her right eyebrow and folds her arms. "No!"

"You do like Asian girls. And I come back to find that you're living with one."

"Yes, but… She's so dependent. She's really doesn't interest me in that way. I mean, I'm living with a Pony girl-."

She squeezes her eyes shut in disbelief. "You're… What?!"

"An intelligent equine turned into a Human by magic." That mollifies her a tiny bit. "And a retired superhero, a British assassin, a bunch of Genomorphs-" I try stepping towards her again. "-and I'm not interested in having a romantic relationship with any of them. I love you. I have allies, some of them are going to be female. I'd rather spend my time with you, but that's not practical given our respective work commitments. That doesn't mean I'm going to start.. knocking boots with the first passably attractive women I meet."

"Okay." She takes a deep breath. "But what about… Your daughter."

I nod. "I also love Lynne, but in a different way. I know I could have handled that better, and if you hadn't been on assignment we'd have been having this conversation weeks ago. You don't.. have to have anything to do with her… At least in the short term, if you don't want to. But she's the only person I know who had a worse childhood than you did. She deserves a decent father and I'm… Well, I'm available. She's… Really.. quite a nice girl..? And I'm getting fatherhood practice in for when -or if- we have children."

"You should have talked to me."

"Yes. Yes, I should. And I'm sorry that I didn't."

She makes a quiet grunting noise, then steps up to me and puts her arms around my chest. "I missed you too."

"Jade, I-."

"So we're going to meet your daughter, and then you and I are going to have a long discussion about exactly what you're doing here."

"Of course."

"Okay." She pulls away slightly. "So where is she?"

 

16th April
18:26 GMT -5

"…got records of him being killed twenty nine times, including being flattened by a rockslide." Richard shrugs as we watch the Bio Ship approach across the Gotham skyline. "I think he said something about getting his power from a meteor, but that doesn't really explain how it works."

"Okay, but he could have got through a rockslide more or less intact, right? I mean, there'd be living tissue left."

"Of course there would." Wallace looks at me askance. "Why, you wanna try completely disintegrating him to see if that stops him?" He smiles. "Throw him into the sun or something?"

"Yes."

He blinks, inclining his head slightly. "You serious?"

"I realise that historians might prefer it if I assimilated him instead, but flying to the sun only takes me a few seconds." As the rest of the universe experiences it. From my point of view it's nearly instantaneous. "And I'm sure that he's been sentenced to death somewhere."

Richard brings up his arm computer. "Actually, I don't think he has."

"Really?"

"You don't usually have a trial after the one who committed the crime dies. We know he's immortal, but when he first started showing up people just assumed that he had some kind of lucky escape."

"Okay, I… Suppose that makes sense. But how does he remember stuff if his brain gets destroyed every so often? He should lose just about everyth-."

Artemis strolls over. "What are you guys talking about?"

"Oh El wants to throw Vandal Savage into the sun."

"Huh." She looks thoughtful for a moment. "Would that work?"

"Since we don't know how his immortality works, we can't know for certain. Klarion said something-" The Bio Ship uncloaks and descends to rest on the rooftop helipad. "-about needing to find his amygdala at New Year after Adom turned Savage into pâté. Savage hasn't ever demonstrated super toughness, and I'm fairly sure that the sun could completely burn up his amygdala."

Wallace frowns slightly. "Exactly how much thought have you been giving this?"

"By definition, madness ends in one of two ways: clarity, or death."

I lead the way towards the Bio Ship as the other half of the team disembarks. Wolf dashes out first, taking the time to sniff me and then run around the rest of my half of the team. Kon's out next, followed by Kaldur. They both look… Wary? I know we decided on radio silence but I wouldn't have half the team on the roof if the threat was ongoing. The would-be Demons were picked up by the Gotham police department over an hour ago, and the only reason it took that long was they had to get special equipment -explosive collars- on hand in case they tried demoning out again.

Warning: Spell Eater temperature rising.

I frown. "Aqualad? Something you want to tell me?"

M'gann exits the Bio Ship behind them, eyes glowing. I feel a slight pressure on my mental defences, but it disappears after a moment. She and Kaldur make eye contact… They're having a telepathic conversation. This is.. odd, though I suppose that when dealing with mind control technology it isn't an unreasonable precaution. Garth and Tula are out next, tattoos glowing faintly.

Wallace exhales frustratedly. "Something you wanna share with the rest of us, Aqualad?"

Kaldur turns back to us. "When we arrived to collect the samples, we were attacked."

"By who? Manta?"

"By the researchers. The samples were somewhat more intact than Lantern Gardner had led us to believe."

"How intact?"

Kon glowers. "I nearly got a Star on my face."

"How did you miss them-" I hold my right hand up to my face. "-being infected? Those things aren't exactly subtle."

"It took us some time to understand, but closer examination showed that they were under the influence of Starro-tech."

"Oh dear." If they can hide that they're controlling people… "But, we've all… Except Canis, we've all had the cure."

He nods. "M'gann cannot hear your mind, or that of Canis. Tempest and Aquagirl's attempts to confirm your identities by magic are being blocked by your amulets."

M'gann steps towards me a little. "Actually, you've been.. blocking me out for months now."

"Yes, after I was nearly killed by a telepathic weapon twice." This.. is tricky. My telepath blocking technique isn't exactly precise. If I let M'gann take a peek there's a risk that she might see something she's not supposed to. I.. don't know where the rest of the team would stand on the subject of Nabu. Zatanna hasn't mentioned anyone else speaking to her about reversing the possession…

Richard steps up. "Wait a second. We were attacked too."

"The Star Conquerors are already here?"

"No, five people using a drug which gave them demonic super powers." He thinks for a moment. "I didn't check them for Starro-tech, though. Could that have survived them turning into Demons?"

"It worked on everything else. But we can't use Cure-tech on everyone."

Kaldur nods. "Perhaps not, but we should give it to everyone working in this facility." He fixes his eyes on me. "After we have confirmed that you are who we think you are."

"Alright." Ring, subspace my Spell Eater.

Compliance.

I walk around Kaldur and hold out my right arm to Tula, subspacing my torso armour. "You'll probably need to touch me to get around my tattoos."

"Alright." She lays both water-covered hands on my bare skin, her tattoos glowing again as she casts… Hm, I don't know, actually. There are a few different spells that could be used for this… Anyway, it's good to know that visiting an Atlantean locale didn't encourage her to revert to that cloth 'armour' she used to wear. I didn't exactly shove her and Garth through the doors of KordTech, but they really needed something mundane -if mithril can be called mundane- to augment their water armo-. "He's clean." She lets go of my arm and turns to Kaldur. "There's no sign of the magics used in Starro-tech."

"Good to know."

Kaldur nods. "We should still check Canis."

"Okay." I nod. "How many doses of Cure-tech do you have with you?"

"Twelve. If we are sending five to your assailants, we will need more. I will contact Professor Vulko while you ensure that the Star Conquerors who assailed us-" Rob wheels out a nitrogen shipping vessel. "-are securely contained within STAR Labs."

 

16th April
18:39 GMT -5

"Do you..?" I look away from where a couple of STAR scientists are directing Kon towards the cold storage room. M'gann looks a little uncomfortable.

"Do I what?"

"Do you have a problem with my telepathy?"

"Not.. really." **Why do you ask?**

**You asked Tula to check you rather than me. And I know that sounds… Really.. petty… It's just that when we first met, we had a really good telepathic rapport, but since Bane and Truggs captured you, you've been… You've been blocking all the time.** She looks away, a little self consciously. **It used to be you'd talk to me like this all the time, and now you talk out loud instead. And even now, all I can hear is the words you're sending to me. I just… I'm just worried that you've… Gone off telepathy.**

Oh. I suppose.. I can see where she's coming from. **Finding that I was so vulnerable was an unpleasant shock, but we've all had basic telepathic resistance training.**

**You're doing more than that.**

I smile at her. **Guess I'm just an overachiever.** But I don't need empathic vision to realise that she's worried that I've gone off her. I.. haven't been neglecting my mountainmates, but I have been spending less time with them than I used to. **And… Also… I came into possession of some privileged information that I… Shouldn't risk getting out. It's not that I don't think you can be trusted, it's just that every extra person who knows-.**

**Is an extra risk. I remember Superman's lecture.** She nods. She doesn't look happy about that, but now that she's got something to pin my behaviour on hopefully she won't continue to think she's done something wrong. **Is it… Something you're going to be able to tell me about? I miss… Feeling.. you.** She blinks. **Okay, that didn't come out right.**

**I understand what you mean.** Really, I can probably ease up on the mental blocks around the mountain after the showdown with Nabu, but if I give me leaving as the deadline it'll be a bit obvious. **I should be able to ease off on the mental blocks after I come back from Maltus.** I shrug. **Sorry, I hadn't realised how much this was bothering you.**

**It's okay. I get that there are some things you can't share.**

**How was.. Canis about.. proving that he was still Canis?**

She rolls her eyes. **At first he wouldn't believe that he could be infected, then Conner pointed out that Wonder Woman got infected and she's tougher than him. And then he didn't want to use Cure-tech and refused to believe that the rest of us had used it.**

**Did he give a reason? I am.. assuming here that he wasn't infected.**

**No, he wasn't infected. He just didn't believe that Human technology could affect him in that way.**

**Neither Star Conquerors nor Klarion are Human.**

**That's what convinced him. But then he said that the place we put it on him itched, and-.***

"Out of the question!" We both look around as Kaldur and Doctor Farr come around the corner. "You have no idea what those.. things could do to us in the long term!"

"Doctor, you will be dealing with a telepathic alien race that has already demonstrated that they have access to this technology. None of us have suffered any adverse side effects-."

"How do you know? Have you conducted double blind trials, comparing the state of health of those who have used them to those who have not? How often do your people have medical examinations? Have your studies been peer reviewed?"

"They.. have not. We have medical examinations each month, conducted by one of the inventors of the technology. She is not yet ready to publish her results."

"Well… Come back once she does."

Bit of a relief to hear someone wanting to stick to what I regard as sane medical practice. I mean, in our case if it hadn't worked as advertised I could have expunged it from our bodies, but at the time it never occurred to me that it could be a problem. Super scientist think tank says 'sure, this'll work, no problem', it just does. I mean, I know the gestalt thing sped things up a bit but they only took a few hours. It's only just occurring to me how daft that was.

Of course, if we're following standard superheroic tropes…

I tap my communicator. "Orange Lantern to Kid Flash. Come in please."

"Kid Flash here. What is it, Oh El?"

"Any reaction to the Cure-tech from the Demons?"

"Couple of them tried saying it was a violation of their rights, but… They didn't go unconscious like the, ah, the other people exposed to it did."

"Oh dear. Right, who's there with you?"

"Artemisss…"

"Right. Anyone else?"

"Ah. No?"

"Kid!"

Oh, give me strength. "Mission's not over yet, lads and lasses. And I've got an unfortunate feeling that it's about to go south rather quickly. Get somewhere with good lines of sight."

"Hey." Artemis' voice has a slight echo to it as Wallace's com picks her up as well. "Why didn't Gardner know that they'd found Star Conquerors in the Arctic? I thought he was supposed to be keeping an eye on them?"

"I don't know. I'll try and get hold of him now." I tap my communicator again to cancel the connection, and then hold up my left hand, palm up. "Ring, contact Guy Gardner, Green Lantern two eight one four B."

The ring shimmers for a moment as it tries to connect. No, nothing. Doesn't mean that there's anything wrong. He could be busy. He could be meeting the Guardians right now. Reasonable enough that he wouldn't want to answer right away. Hm. I never asked him about how his work with the Atlanteans was going. He muttered about babysitting once, but otherwise it was just a job he had to do. He's had his Cure-tech dose, so there's no way that he's been Starro-teched again. On the other hand, he's still vulnerable to Star Conquerors… Ring, any records of Star Conqueror victims having instructions implanted into them?

No records found.

And where exactly would the Demons come in? They weren't infected. The person giving them the drugs may have been infected… Ring, any records of Star Conquerors using magic?

No records found.

Klarion would just release the Star Conquerors to cause havoc. Would the rest of the Light go along with that? Would they be able to stop him? No, no, that would explain the Starro-tech, but not the Star Conquerors. And okay, he could probably have infected the Atlanteans… But the Star Conquerors themselves shouldn't have recognised them as being on their side. They should have tried to facehug the researchers just as much as my team, and they didn't. So, the Star Conquerors must be in control of the Starro-tech. Where did that come from? All of the samples the League had were handed to Batman and then used by William. The only other source is the Light. Would the Light work with Star Conquerors? No obvious benefit to them, and Star Conquerors were never interested in negotiation, even when it would be in their interest. Assume that they're not working together, then.

The Demons were here to destroy the samples. They didn't know why. Star Conquerors working independently, someone trying to stop them? Sort of makes sense, though Lex just phoning me and warning me would make more sense… Except that Klarion hates me. Hm. Can Klarion bind Demons? Probably, it's not exactly hard. Demon infusion potion? Harder, but I suspect that it's within his abilities. Or he might have outsourced…

But if they were trying to stop the Star Conquerors, why attack here rather than the Arctic? Accessibility, I suppose. But we didn't exactly advertise what we were doing. The Devil Jizz users were watching this place in advance. "Orange Lantern to Artemis. Is STAR Labs hiring anyone else to cope with the extra workload?"

"Yeah, a few guys. They all checked out, though. They used to work for someplace called Advanced Research Laboratories, but that got closed down a little while ago."

I look over to where Doctor Farr is stridently refusing Kaldur's request. Would LexCorp have used its own people to make more Starro-tech? No, an officially-third-party-but-in-reality-controlled-by-Lex company? Or research it to try and find a way to make a conventional profit from the technology in the device? So, something went wrong, the staff got infected and the Star Conquerors took over? Possible. "Who performed their interviews?"

"Doctor Farr."

I take a Cure-tech wafer out of subspace and -holding it in my right hand- walk towards the Doctor. "Understood. Stand by." I make eye contact with him.

"Ah, what is it now?"

I smile. "I was wondering if you could help me with-" My right hand flashes out, tapping the Cure-tech onto the side of his neck. Immediately, his eyes glaze and he collapses into my arms. "Aqualad, we have a problem."

 

16th April
18:43 GMT -5

His right hand goes straight to his ear. "Aqualad to team. The staff have been infected by Starro-tech."

"Ugh!" / "Ghr!"

I look around as M'gann slams two security guards to the far wall with telekinesis. Both had been in the process of drawing their guns. Kaldur dons his helmet and draws his Water Bearers. "Take them down. Miss Martian, can you detect-" There's a burst of gunfire from somewhere in the building, which rapidly cuts off. "-their telepathic communication?"

"Klarion used magic when he was controlling them. A Star Conqueror would just use normal telepathy. I.. should be able to." Her hands go to her forehead. "I'll need a minute."

"A trap we could not even recognise! So elegant!" Glad Canis approves, though unless he has something helpful to say he really shouldn't say it over the comms-. "Aqualad, if we cannot slay these revenants, where shall we deposit them? I did not think to bring bindings and my aunt -ugh- tells me that I should not break Human kneecaps."

Kaldur glances at me. "The exotic materials lab has a testing chamber we could seal. And I've got plenty of spare zip ties."

"We will congregate them there, but they are most likely a distraction. Miss Martian is attempting to locate the Star Hunter, and we will need to move immediately once she has."

"Fifty seven people are working here today. Kid Flash and me got seven. D'you want us to drag them to you now, or go looking for the rest?"

"We can track down the remaining infected staff later. It is more important that they are out of the way when our true enemy reveals itself."

"I got nine!"

"It's not a contest, Robin." Okay, let's see if I can get anything on empathic visio-. I create an armour plate construct in front of the door as a.. strange purple beam punches through the thick metal. No, the beam isn't purple. It's.. sort of.. colourless, with a faintly purple aura. My construct evaporates even as I send filaments rushing down the corridor to strike the two scientists carrying the guns firing it, shock crowning them. They collapse, dropping their guns, which hit the floor, sparking and burning. Darn, I wanted to look at those. "Watch out for scientists using their equipment."

"Think we can take a guy with a microscope, Oh El."

"Two guys just shot me with some kind of energy weapon."

"I didn't-. See anything like that-. On their computers." Robin sounds a little distracted.

"Did they bring them in from home? Ah, I got five, by the-."

"Not a competition, Cornwall. And I'd guess not. Maybe the Star Conquerors told them how to build it." I tap my communicator off for a moment. "Aqualad, what was the timeline on the additional Cure-tech?"

"It should be ready now, but we cannot spare you if there is a Star Hunter concealed here."

"Kid Flash could pick up Tula and dash to the zeta tube. I'm assuming that the work is being done in Poseidonis?"

"Yes, but that would not get them to us quickly." He reactivates his communicator. "Aquagirl, attempt to contact Professor Vulko and then have him send the Cure-tech through the Poseidonis zeta tube. Kid Flash, once we have been notified that it has arrived, run to the Gotham zeta tube and bring it here."

"It'll only take a moment."

"Okay, Artemis and I are in the lab. Superboy's here as well. I can make it to the zeta tube and back in about a minute and a half. Two minutes, tops."

Wait, how were those guys aiming without a line of sight? Telepathy? No, that wouldn't-. I notice that the guards M'gann stunned have their eyes slightly open. Shock crown, pithing needle. Their eyes open fully for a second and then they slump bonelessly to the floor. Guy did say that Star Conquerors can share information. Ring, scan them and see if my ring knowledge has improved to the point where I can detect the signs of Starro-tech.

Compliance.

No, not getting anything helpful. I look through the building with empathic vision, trying to pick up any particularly inhuman sets of feeling. Yes, there's-.

Oh. No. That's just Canis.

"So where exactly is this Star Hunter, anyway?" I hear more shots, both through the building and through Raquel's communicator. "Shouldn't it be flying through the skies of Gotham, throwing little stars at people? And can someone get over here and stop these guys shooting me?"

I blink, taking in the whole of the building. "Zatanna, Robin, she's down the corridor to your right."

"Be there in a second."

"I thought your belt made you bulletproof?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't make the guy standing next to me bullet proof and they're just shooting-." There's a bang. "Thanks Robin. I've got a few guys out cold here and the others were just blasting away with shotguns."

"Kid Flash, while you're in the lab, check to see if they were making any more Starro-."

"Already doing it, Oh El. Can't see anything here, and Starro-tech had a nanotech component. STAR Labs Gotham doesn't have a nanorobotics lab."

Kaldur checks both corridors leading away from our position, both with his eyes and with puffs of scalding steam from his Water Bearers. "Starro-tech was created by the Light. We have no reason to believe that they used everything they produced on the Justice League."

"I've thought about it, and I don't see the Light working with actual Star Conquerors. It's too much of a risk."

"Vulko says the Cure-tech will be at the zeta tube in four minutes."

"Acknowledged. Kid."

"I'll set my timer."

Kaldur turns to me. "Then what do you believe happened?"

"People get exposed… Maybe researchers, maybe test subjects. We know there was a Star Hunter in the ice. Why not two? Or more? Maybe they tested it on a telepath? Whatever. If Klarion wasn't there or wasn't managing it full time, could it have been woken up by that? Or… Maybe a piece in their laboratory regenerated a full sized brain?"

"Oh El, are you just trying to let Luthor off again?"

"You don't stay a successful criminal in a city patrolled by Superman by being stupid or reckless, Kid Flash."

Kaldur shakes his head. "At this point it makes little-."

M'gann's eyes flash open. "I've got it! It's in the-!"

With a tremendous booming crash the wall to our right flies apart, bricks shooting right at us! Kaldur and I both throw up barriers to block it and I stick a construct platform under our feet as the floor starts to tip and crumble! As the building starts to subside I get a momentary glimpse of a huge red eye moving upwards through the rubble and metal, before it vanishes in the dust.

Shit! Ring, building schematics. Compare to sonic scans. Construct construct construct! The wall turns orange as the rings light it up in an attempt to prevent the building collapsing any further. A sub-basement, it was in a sub-basement. They must have dug it out and lined it with.. something. Scan for bodies. No one? It must have made its thralls get out of the way. Optics? Yes, there's a Star Hunter in the sky over the building. Still can't scan the bastard thing. This must be how magic users feel about me.

"Aqualad to team! Is everyone alright?"

I tune out the affirmatives as I try and shore up the building. Some rooms I give up on, letting them collapse and crumble into the chasm the Star Hunter left in its wake. In others I fuse brick and metal, taking girders out of subspace to create a stable surface.

There's a loud bang followed by a series of metal-on-concrete clangs. A quick optical check shows that the Star Hunter has torn apart the vessels containing the frozen Star Conquerors with its telekinesis, throwing the containers aside carelessly while its smaller kin recover from their imprisonment.

"Aqualad, if I'm going to stop it getting away, I need to get up there."

He nods. "Go. We will follow."

I abandon my construct, don my power armour and phase through what's left of the wall before flying upwards. The Star Hunter isn't exactly like the ones Guy showed us, but he did say there was a good deal of variety-. Daghh! Its eye focuses on me and I feel the telepathic assault against my mental defences. Less powerful than some of the things M'gann's tried in training, but the Star Hunter doesn't appear to have to focus completely on me to pull it off. Ring, extra psi-baffles. Ah, that's better. Right, railgu-.

The warehouse on the far side of the road collapses as a second Star Hunter pulls itself free.

 

16th April
18:47 GMT -5

Two-? Where did-?

What?

While the first is in the conventional purple and blue colours, the second is far more vibrant. Its skin is a brilliant pink-red colour, with darker red veins of red visible through-.

Starro-tech colours.

While the first has eight small Star Conquerors sluggishly orbiting it, the second has a small cloud of Starro-tech wafers just behind it. It was… It must be grown from what the Light had left over. How… How did they lose control that badly?

**All will be one.** / **All will be one.**

My body locks up as two small Star Conquerors fly at me through the air, teeth first. I'd forgotten they had mouths there. Hacking my peripheral nervous system? Fine. Railguns form on either side of me, a stream of solid iron rounds flashing out towards them. The first few are blocked by a telekinetic field, but as the living projectiles close the distance they get outside the effect area and are torn apart. Ring, secondary nervous system. Analyse how it's controlling me and block.

Compliance. Working.

"Orange Lantern to Aqualad." The second Star Hunter shudders and Starro-tech wafers fly away from the main cloud. Several are fired into the Gotham streets but two are launched at the STAR Labs building. What is it aiming for? "Confirmed two Star Hunters." The staff are already infected and my team is already immune. Does it know that? Yes, it must. If it didn't then it would have fired more. So what was it aiming f-?

**No! My ship!**

Oh shit. For a moment the Bio-Ship drops stealth and I can clearly see the Starro-tech wafers on its outer surface. A moment later they've faded into its hull.

Oh shit.

"They just used Starro-tech on the Bio-Ship." It shudders, then begins shifting shape. "Successfully." The guns I persuaded M'gann to add manifest along the hull as it rises into the air. On the pavements below us the people it managed to hit with the wafers get to their feet and begin running in all directions. "Call the League."

I point my railguns at the first Star Hunter and open fire.

**Kid Flash, go. Everyone else, get outside as quickly as you can!**

Crumbler rounds are intercepted by telekinetic strikes, triggering them before they can impact on its skin. Tried this with M'gann once and she was just about able to pull it off against one round, if I fired at the lowest possible speed and gave her a good deal of space. The Star Hunter is doing it against fully automatic fire. Meanwhile the Red Star is pulling back. The Bio-Ship moves towards its domitor, turning as it does so to hose down the STAR Labs building with plasma fire! I extend a filament to create a shield-.

**Oh no you don't!**

Seriously?! A third Star Hunter -this one somewhat smaller than the other two- exits the STAR Labs building through one of the holes in the wall and takes up position behind me. This one has white skin and-. **M'gann?**

**I can even turn into things Mister J'aarkn didn't have sex with. Ugh, all these lobes!** The Bio-Ship retracts its guns. **But if you think I'm letting you use my ship against my friends, you've got another thing coming!**

The closest Star Hunter narrows its eye slightly and-. My optic nerves, it just jammed my optic nerves. Ring, autofire and bypass.

Compliance.

I feel the railguns fire and a moment later the ring shows me another small Star Conqueror falling to the Gotham streets in pieces.

**Hey Lantern!** A small shower of bricks marks Raquel's journey through an exterior wall. **How're we fighting these things?**

With difficulty. **How does-** I replace one railgun barrage with a destructive orange light blast. **-your belt-** It passes through the area defended with telekinetic fields, but does little more than char the Star Hunter's epidermis. **-react with powerful telekinesis?**

**Like any other foraagh!**

M'gann floats forwards slightly. **Get out of her head!**

**You are not one of us.** / **You are not one of us.**

There's a yellow blur in the streets below us as Wallace leaves the building. Starro-tech infected locals try to grapple him, but he dodges around them with consummate ease and heads for the zeta tube.

Okay, what next? Freezing worked well enough for the Arctic. I take a cold gun out of subspace, only for it to be crumpled into a ball by telekinetic force. Right… Um. Control. Ring, assimilate.

An orange beam is projected from my chestplate and strikes the closest Star Hunter, passing through its telekinetic barrier like it isn't there.

Assimilation in progress. The Star Hunter blinks. Progress negligible.

Negligible? Maybe they have perfect self awareness or something? I stop and switch back to railgun fire. Off to the side of me Raquel recovers slightly while over the road the Red Star manoeuvres itself onto the front of the stationary Bio-Ship, docking itself in the same way the smaller ones do to people's faces. I don't remember anything about them doing that in the Green Lantern Corps' records. The assumption was that they lost the ability as they grew.

**It's going to try and get away! Stop it!**

**I'm on it.** Kon leaps into the air from STAR Labs' front entrance and flies straight at the Bio-Ship.

**Get away? Where are they going to run to?**

**Gardner was right. One of the big ones survived. It thinks it can get to it with my Bio-Ship.**

**Your Bio-Ship doesn't have FTL. If it thinks it can get there before anyone can stop it…**

Kon slams into the Red Star's telekinetic barrier. It doesn't flinch, I notice. Doesn't shake or reflexively close its eye. Which is impressive because -clever techniques and weakness exploitation aside- Kon hits a lot harder than I do. Especially when wearing his Nth metal armour and glowing with the light of the sun. I can see the air shimmer with telekinetic force as the Red Star tries to maintain the barrier.

**Orange Lantern. Try assimilating it again!**

Inside my armour I frown at M'gann. **It didn't do anything.**

**It was distracting it! I can't-! I can't fight both of them!**

She's the expert, and my guns aren't getting anywhere. Assimilate. Assimilate both.

Two beams of orange strike home and the eye of the closest Star Hunter narrows slightly. A stream of bricks floats up from the ground, moving to orbit around it. It waits until it has thirty or so projectiles and then flings them at speed at M'gann. I go to raise a barrier but Raquel is already there, her kinetic barrier easily absorbing the impacts.

Two streams of water blast up from the ground, bending around and sticking to the closest Star Hunter for a moment before flashing as Rob and the Atlanteans use it as a focus for their lightning magics.

Connection lost.

I suppose it's a little tricky for my ground bound colleagues to directly fight against flying opponents-. A small Star Conqueror flops as one of Artemis' arrows pierces it, its protector too occupied by not being electrocuted to properly shield it. Kon's repeated strikes are getting closer to the flesh of his foe. He's stopped trying to ram it and is now using his armour's flight ability to continually press against its telekinetic envelope, reaching out with his hands to try and grip it. Then he's knocked back, the Red Star and Bio-Ship glowing emerald green-

Will detected.

-as Guy Gardner points his ring at us, a Star Conqueror covering his face.

 

16th April
18:49 GMT -5

Jammerhe'sjammingtoowhydidIteachGreenLanternstostopmeaccelerate!

Green filaments flick out from Guy's body, each one striking a point in the air around him and for a fraction of a second generating a magnetic pulse to fire Crumbler rounds out of his subspace pocket at myself and my team mates.

Ring, message to Lantern Salaak. Inform him that Guy is under Star Conqueror control and request that he shut down Lantern Gardner's ring.

Message sent.

Okay. I form point defence laser constructs and instruct them to target the incoming railgun rounds. Travelling through the air prematurely triggers the crumbling mechanism if you fire them with too much power, turning them into purely ballistic projectiles. The Red Star could just have him dial up the power and wreck a good chunk of Gotham. Lucky me it's so mission focused. Or maybe it's just because it doesn't want to distract him from fighting me?

**Mmmmmmm-**

I extend my armour's kinetic shield as the lasers flick out. All burning the Crumbler rounds up completely achieves is turning them into super hot fast moving projectiles, but the Crumbler mechanism itself is fairly vulnerable to being destroyed and once it is I don't have to worry about my kinetic belt being destroyed like the time I missed one during testing. The fact that the barrier locks me in place isn't really a problem. With both Gardner and I jamming neither of us can use FTL and slower forms of movement are too slow to be meaningful.

**-'ggggggggg-**

One laser strikes off centre, nearly missing the projectile. Why-? He's not firing them all at full speed. He's varying it to make interception more difficult. How? Guy's a Green Lantern, under normal circumstances he isn't able to accelerate his thought processes. Does the Red Star know enough about the Human brain to do that for him?

Message rejected as 'unauthorised'.

Oh, now they decide to filter me-!

**-aaaaaaaaa-**

No, Star Conquerors -even the small ones- can parallel process multiple lines of activity. They have to in order to be able to function. But his ring would only accept instructions from Guy, so they can't be being telepathically transmitted from one of the others. Is that why he's not using strong constructs to attack as he usually would? How many rounds does Guy have? Could they have built more?

**-nnnnnnnnn-**

Light runs under the skin of the Red Star, red veins flickering and glowing. Starro-tech has three components: Star Conqueror flesh, nanotechnology and… Magic. Magic's unusual away from Earth, but Kaldur said that the Atlanteans at the arctic research-.

The Star Hunter is being battered by Atlantean magic.

**Kaldur, shut off-!**

The bubble of water and electricity surrounding the Star Hunter ripples twice and-

Mental pathway damage limit reached. Acceleration discontinued.

-my team mates duck and dive as the highly charged water leaps back at them!

"Akh!" / "Aah!" / "Uh."

Garth and Tula are knocked aside as they aren't quite fast enough to avoid all of the water, jerking spasmodically as the electricity ravages their bodies. Kaldur braces himself, his enchanted armour better able to take the punishment as the water freezes around them. My point defences continue to fire on automatic and I'm really grateful that Guy never bothered to learn how to generate Kryptonite radiation. Kon's battering on the construct barrier protecting the Red Star as the Bio Ship tries to pull away.

**-nn, confuse Green Lantern.**

The Star Hunter that was being repeatedly shocked looks more than a little worse for wear. Its Star Conqueror escort were completely destroyed. I can't even see their remains. The Starro-tech that had been floating around the Red Star on the other hand is rapidly growing, the three prongs getting longer, three smaller ones growing between them and a sort of.. eye.. shape, appearing in the subcutaneous circuitry. Klarion was relying on Bedlam when he created those things. Would they be chaos magic or whatever Bedlam itself is made of?

Guy weaves to the side as the Red Star fires red lightning at me from the tips of its tentacles. Two shots miss, my tattoos presumably preventing the targeting part of the spell working. The other three strike my armour and my armour's display flashes a few warning messages before they get soaked by my Spell Eater. Right, the Atlanteans wouldn't have known much about chaos magic in particular. It's trying to come up with something based on general arcane knowledge and just throwing energy at me. And that just won't-.

Graaaaaagh!

Isolateisolateisolate!

Kon drops from the sky, Raquel goes limp and Kaldur drops to his knees as the pain effect kicks in. Direct nerve stimulation. I've had to cut off my own nervous g-gwh. A Crumbler hits my environmental shield, disrupting it and causing me to drop two metres before my kinetic belt kicks in to replace my flight capacity. Then the green aura around Guy ripples and fades. He doesn't physically react, but M'gann must be having some success.

"You think that this hurts, creature?!" There's a blast as a boom tube opens above the Bio Ship and Beton Brut bounds out with Canis on his back. "Try living-" He slashes a small Red Star Conqueror in half with his sword as they pass. "-on-" Brut lands, scrabbling for purchase as Canis dismounts and stabs downwards into its flesh! "-Apokolips!"

Debris flashes past him and the Red Star tries to shove him off but whatever makes New Gods as tough as they are seems to be letting him resist. Guy's shots have cut out entirely as the thing controlling him tries to reinforce its defences. Still need to free him without killing him. I could probably cut off his ring finger, but-. No. There's an easier way.

I fire an assimilation beam at the first Star Hunter.

Assimilation in progress. Progress negligible.

From the way M'gann isn't reacting to the pain projection I'm going to assume that Star Conquerors can't actually feel pain. Its injury probably isn't totally debilitating for it. Even with its eye ruined its brains should be well insulated enough that it can still pick up on what the others are seeing. Wait a second. Given how many are left… I generate a new railgun construct on its far side and fire a small solid slug at it.

**Okay guys, I'm back. Scientists all de-Starroed.** Pain aura's off. **And I think I got all the civilians it hit, too.**

The low velocity slug passes through its body, causing a hole and lots of nasty shock damage. Assuming that its body layout follows the standard pattern I actually took out a telepathy amp node there. I fire again, but it's got its telekinetic barrier back up. Doesn't appear able to do anything else though.

Canis jerks back his sword and thrusts his right hand into the cut he made in the Red Star's flesh before stabbing down again. One of the smaller Red Stars flies at his face and he's forced to hurriedly withdraw his sword in order to intercept it.

And then Wallace dashes out of the still open boom tube and super speed slaps Cure-tech onto the Bio Ship's hull.

And if Guy's shield is that weak… Ring, send a report to Lantern Salaak.

Compliance.

A pulse of orange light leaps from the ring and flies towards Guy. It moves relatively slowly, so I have time to fire a destructive pulse directly at the Star Conqueror on his face. It prioritises the larger attack, creating a small green ablative barrier to protect itself. The message packet hits his ring, and no doubt its horrible formatting will get Salaak's attention momentarily.

Richard's joined Wallace on the Bio Ship as more small Red Stars go for him. He tries striking one with a baton, only to have the Star Conqueror twist in the air and slice it apart with its newly grown mouth. A quick frown and he switches to Crumbler discuses instead. Those are a little more effective.

"Star Conquerors!" What exactly does Kaldur want to say to them? "You are defeated! Surrender and you will not be killed!"

Another pulse of red light from the Red Star and half of the Star Conquerors still around it disappear. Then the green barrier around it disappears. **I yield.**

 

16th April
19:35 GMT -5

"Ah, jeez. Why do I always get roped int' these things?" Detective Bullock stares up for a moment at the two Star Hunters as they float in mid air, bound to anti-gravity generators. The blue one turns its partially recovered eye in his direction while the red one keeps its own gaze on Kaldur.

"Hey, Detective Bullock." / "Good evening, Detective."

He sighs, then turns to Richard and I. "Alright. One a' you wanna explain to me why there's a giant Starfish staring at me?"

Richard nods. "Those straps around its body explode if it tries using telepathy, and we're not really sure what other senses it has."

Detective Bullock stares at him with an air of resignation for a moment, then turns to me. "Orange? Gimme a break here?"

"STAR Labs Gotham is one of a handful of places in the world capable of doing xenobiological research. On behalf of the Justice League we were transporting biological materials here for them to study."

Detective Bullock glances at the blue Star Hunter again. "Kinda… Big. Ah, how smart 're those things?"

"Fully sentient. In fact, these two are probably the two most intelligent things in the city at the moment."

He sags. "Please tell me you don't want me ta put those in Arkham?"

"No, the Green Lantern Corps is sending some people to pick them up."

"Oh, thank Christ fer that. What are they, anyway?"

"Their species is called 'Star Conquerors'."

Detective Bullock nods. "Because they're shaped like stars and they conquer things. Makes sense."

"Actually, their name comes from their ability to conquer star systems. Most spacefaring species don't think of stars as five pointed shapes. Describing a Starfish as looking like a star wouldn't make any sense to them. They'd probably think you were referring to a plasma based life form."

"Okay. Didn't… Know that. So, what, you were transporting 'em and they got away?"

"No, we were only transporting the little ones." Richard nods over to the containment cylinders where eight red and one blue Star Conquerors lie in repose. "And we weren't even supposed to be transporting that. When we set out, we thought it was just frozen cellular residue."

Detective Bullock looks up again. "That ain't cellular residue, kid." Red Hunter is a fair bit smaller than Blue Hunter. Shorter tentacles… In fact, I'm not sure that they have the flexibility to be called tentacles. The core section is smaller too. In terms of total mass I'd say it's about two thirds the size of its original model brethren. And yet, they prioritised Red Hunter's escape. Curious.

"They were already here when we arrived."

"Yeah, that's… That's what a punk says when I catch them just after they threw a brick through a window. Aliens invading Gotham? I'm gunna need a bit more." He suddenly frowns. "Reports said there were three a' them. Where's the other one?"

"That was Miss Martian." Richard half turns to where she's tending to Guy. I already healed his facial wounds from where the Star Conqueror had been holding onto his skull, but she needs to go through his brain to make sure there isn't any Star Conqueror programming left. Finding out that they can leave instructions to be enacted even after they're off a person -including 'come here and put me on again'- was an unpleasant surprise. He couldn't remember when he first got taken, and it'll probably be easier to get a date from the Atlanteans than from him.

"She can do that?"

"Oh yeah. All Martians-."

"No, I mean…" Another look at the Star Hunters. "Turn into other aliens."

"To her, Humans are 'other aliens'."

"Yeah, okay, but Martians look like Humans." Richard and I smirk slightly. "Don't they? Or… Is that just what they-." He shakes his head. "Y'know what? That ain't my problem. Okay, so, you transport the little ones here so they can get cut up, then you get attacked by… People using some kinda drug t'turn into Demons, who wanna destroy them?"

"That was their objective, yes." The Juggernaut -Eric Hardwick- was a little more in the know than the others, but even he had never had direct contact with Satanus. I need to talk to John about the current status of Hell's governance sometime soon, see if we can confirm whether he's actually in charge or not. "None of them knew why they were being told to do it, and none of them could confirm exactly who was telling them."

"Please tell me Demons ain't fight'n aliens in my town."

"Actually, no. They never did fight the aliens directly. Ah, the STAR Labs people all got implanted with alien mind control devices -don't worry, we've given them the antidote- and tried to hustle us out as soon as we'd made the delivery. I spotted that something fishy was going on, and…" I look up. "They tried to make a break for it."

Richard nods. "I'd say we kicked their asses, except I don't think they actually have asses."

"And the Green Lanterns are gunna pick them up?"

"Uh-huh."

Detective Bullock takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. "Any chance this is a federal problem?"

Huh. Not sure actually. I don't think any goods were transported illegally across state lines. Devil Jizz isn't specifically illegal, though the general law… "I don't… Know..? Technically, this is an act of war against the United States by a foreign power, but the Star Conquerors don't have a government… Not any more, anyway."

"What happened to it?"

"The Green Lantern Corps threw it into a star. Two stars, actually."

He sags a little further. "Okay. Well, I guess I better question them. Can they… Answer questions?"

"Yes. That's why Zatanna is drawing those shapes on that tarpaulin." Zatanna didn't take part in the fight after having part of a wall fall on her. Between her spells and the ring she won't suffer any lasting damage, but I think I need to have a chat with her later about leaving her kinetic belt active even if she doesn't appear to be in a conflict zone. "I think she's about done if you want to start now?"

"You got… Questions you wanna ask it?"

"A few, yes."

"Then I'm gunna let you guys go first." He follows Richard and me as we walk towards the Blue Hunter. "What exactly's stopping it messing with our heads?"

"I am, Human lowlie." Canis doesn't bother looking at Detective Bullock. He's been pretty alright about the rest of us, but being polite to normal people is a bit of a strain for his world view. "Apokoliptian technology, designed to explode and incinerate the one they contain should they attempt to use telepathy or telekinesis without the permission of their betters. A single thought out of line and there will be naught left but ash."

"They can't mind control us without sticking one of the little ones on our faces, but they can do various other things… Turn off our optic nerves, trigger our pain sensors…"

"The Green Lantern Corps okay with this?"

"Okayish."

"Then it's fine by me."

Kaldur nods at Detective Bullock as we approach. "Detective. We are about to begin questioning." Bullock just sort of waves his right hand, indicating that it's all a bit beyond him. "Very well. Star Conqueror!" Red Hunter blinks at him. "Can you understand me?"

The-. Oh, that's interesting. M'gann has turned her right arm into a mouth piece. Her telepathy won't trigger the boom. "Yes."

"Oh, that ain't right."

"Where did you send the smaller Star Conquerors?"

"Away."

"Where precisely?"

It blinks twice, and then is consumed by an explosion! I instinctively create a shield as the Blue Hunter goes up as well, but Canis knew what he was doing and the blast is perfectly contained. We stare stunned as the remains are reduced to cinders.

Kaldur stares at Canis, who is grinning in delight at the sight. "Did you trigger the incendiaries?"

"No, of course not. It destroyed itself so that it could not be forced to betray its kin." He nods. "Commendable. Now, I will take my leave. I am sure that your lowlies can handle sweeping away a little ash."

 

17th April
07:23 GMT -7

"That sounds like a total disaster."

Doctor Roquette hasn't got any friendlier since last time I saw her. This is the first time I've encountered her on her own turf, and she's a good deal more self assured. She takes a sip of her second coffee of the morning while waiting for me to explain myself.

"No. A total disaster would have been one of the Star Hunters getting away, or reactivating a Mother Star. Or mind controlling our team."

"Uh huh."

"Fewer people were mind controlled by alien Starfish at the end of the day than were at the start. The two largest, most intelligent and most telepathically capable were killed-"

"I'm not sure you get points for it if they do it to themselves."

"-and we got several important leads on Devil Jizz supply on the east coast." Which is what the rest of the team are doing at the moment.

She grimaces. "Can you not call it that?"

"We.. rather felt that.. any of the other names made it sound 'cool'… I mean, the number of people who'd be interested in injecting themselves with something called-."

She holds up her right hand to stop me. "Fine! Fine."

"So, even though we're pretty confident that all of the remaining Starro-tech wafers got turned into actual Star Conquerors-"

"Who can now use magic."

"-we'd still like to increase our production of Cure-tech a lot. There are only a few laboratories in the world capable of growing Starro-tech wafers and people will notice if anyone starts walking around with a Star Conqueror on their face."

"Unless they just did what they did with Green Lantern."

I shake my head. "Guy lives on his own, doesn't have a normal job and can fly and it was still a risk. If Martian Manhunter or Miss Martian had scanned him or he'd actually had to stay away from his Star Conqueror for a prolonged period of time, the programming would have failed. It was a desperation move."

"And the Green Lantern Corps really couldn't track them down?"

"If the Green Lantern Corps could reliably locate Star Conquerors there wouldn't have been any on Earth. They took the ones we still had in captivity and they promised to look into it, but…" I shrug. "We checked the obvious potential hiding places: Liberty River and its offshoots, Gotham Reservoir and South City Park lake. They're not there."

"Great. Did Green Lantern know I worked on the original Cure-tech?"

"Iiiiiiii'm.. not sure. It was in the files, but he's not the best at doing the required reading."

"Oh great!" She sits back hard against the back of her chair. "Great, now I've got that to worry about as well."

"If you'd like me to help you improve your security here, I'm perfectly happy to do that. I can also leave you a couple of Praexis Demons as bodyguards… Permanently." Wait a second. "Or you could use your nanofog-."

"Current generation Fog only lasts twelve minutes outside a controlled environment! And it's incredibly expensive. I'd never get the University to okay me using it like that!"

"How 'incredibly expensive' is 'incredibly expensive'?"

"About half a million dollars for a thimbleful. And that's not even taking into account all the time it takes to make!"

I frown. "The League of Shadows had you make a nanofog container for them in two weeks."

"No, the League of Shadows read my work and spied on my laboratory for years in order to replicate my work. They only kidnapped me to rewrite the programming to do what they wanted it to do."

"Do you know what happened to their equipment? If you could get hold of it-."

"Yes." She nods. "Someone shot it with a railgun." Oh. Whoops. I suppose… Some of the things they had in storage… "And yes, getting their Fog containment vessel helped a little bit, but it's still a very expensive area of science without any profitable application."

"Your Fog can rebuild things, right?"

She sighs, finishes the last of her coffee and then stands, pushing back her chair. "I'll show you."

I follow her from the robotics office down the corridor and to the nanorobotics laboratory. She scans her key card to open the door to the outer laboratory. "After I got kidnapped, the Dean made some noise about upgrading security. All we actually got before the Justice League destroyed the League of Shadows were a few new keycard readers. Then we were deemed to not have 'exceptional need' any longer."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"What were they going to do against a supervillain anyway?" She walks forwards, towards a viewing window. "The nanotech gets created through here. The temperature and pressure are tightly regulated, there are force fields to keep contaminants out and the nanotech chamber is designed to only be remote accessible but I don't think for a moment that it would keep out a dedicated saboteur."

"How does it actually get made?"

"I came up with the designs and Doctor Raymond Palmer built the first generation of nanobots. After that, each generation have built their own successors."

"So… How many are in there at the moment?"

"Billions upon billions." Her voice is a little less aggressive when she says it. "They're too small to program so all the commands have to be handled remotely."

"And what can they make?"

"Just about anything if they've got the material. They have trouble handling anything much denser than lead and since they can't work on the subatomic scale at all they can't transmute matter. And you would not believe how long it took to convince Homeland Security they can't be used to build nuclear weapons."

"You've got a working nanofabricator?"

"Technically, yes. In practice there's almost nothing it can build that can't be created more cheaply using conventional means. And last month an ass of an ex grad student let a freshman in here and they thought it would be fun to shine a laser pointer at them."

"They're that fragile?"

"Like this? Yes. They're measured in nanometers. Proportionally, it's like you getting hit by a… A fifty kilowatt laser."

"Have you considered using magic to increase their resilience?"

"What?" She blinks, frowning. "No. Why would I?"

"An enchantment designed to protect mechanical devices could be placed in the vicinity of the fabricator and work without actually touching the Fog. And that's just off the top of my head." I tap my right fist against my lips. "I can get you the charm in a few hours, and I've got a power supply I can donate that will generate as much electricity as you want."

"That would… Help."

"I can pay for the increased Cure-tech production, and… There's a meeting I'd.. like you to come to next week. A few experts in their fields… Combining their efforts."

"Um. Anyone I know?"

"Sephtian. Ted Kord?"

"The guy who build the storm control drone?"

"One of our early successes. Normally, a species wouldn't have functional nanofabricators until they're a few hundred years more advanced than we are." I smile at her. "I'd like to shave a little off that, if you're interested."

"I'll… Check my schedule."

 

17th April
09:41 GMT -6

Jade and I watch from the study room door as Lynne and Miss Amane read up on Darfur's history and Miss Shimmer switches rapidly between her latest arcane tome and English and Atlantean Greek dictionaries.

This is… This place is starting to feel like home.

"She's certainly dedicated." I turn my eyes Jadewards without shifting my head. "When I was her age Dad made us do unarmed combat practice against him if we didn't study hard enough."

"Yes, but unlike your father I'm a decent Human being." A slight rise of an eyebrow. "Humanoid being, then. I haven't disciplined her in any way. I'm not sure if the anti-life exposure permanently.. beat the childhood out of her-."

"She seemed okay yesterday. She played with the other children."

"I presented it as a fait accompli and she made the best of it. She hasn't expressed any affirmative interest in seeing them again, she just sort of.. accepts it when I tell her it will happen." I exhale quietly. "It might be my fault. I'm not sure exactly how much of my nature was transmitted when I gave her a portion of my soul, but I am certainly no child."

"What would have happened to her if you hadn't?"

"I don't know. Apokoliptians don't usually research ways to reverse anti-life infections. But… Izaya might have made a better job of it than I did."

"Who's that?"

"Izaya the Inheritor. Highfather. Ruler of New Genesis. He probably wouldn't have spoken to me, but that version of Scott was on good terms with him." It's a distinctly bitter thought. "I seek problems out and fix them, but I worry that in this case I might have been better to.. restrain myself." She smiles. "What?"

"I'm not used to you being in Dad mode." And there's the other thing. "It's only been a few weeks. You can't expect to fix years of abuse so quickly."

I nod, reaching across the hallway to take her left hand in my right, gently stroking it with my right thumb. "I'm sure that you're right. I shouldn't.. get properly worried for a year or so."

"I'll look forward to it."

"Are you..? Sure that you're okay.. with..?"

"With you having a daughter?" She looks away for a moment. "It's not what I was expecting."

"It's not what I was expecting. Though I… I probably should introduce you to my family at some point."

"Including your father, who you described as being like my father, only Kryptonian."

"No, no, he's… He's actually a lot more dangerous than that. I was really thinking of Scott and Barda. I imagine that… Having someone else to talk to about this whole 'New God' thing would be helpful. And they're on Earth…"

"What other family do you have?"

"Two other brothers. That I know about. It's not like I keep track of what Father gets up to. I've never spoken to Orion, actually. He was sent to New Genesis when he was only a few days old. He turned out… Okay, in a partially civilised barbarian warrior sort of way. Kalibak grew up on Apokolips and he's a violent brute. I'd advise avoiding him."

"And your mother?"

A subject about which Father Box -frustratingly- had nothing to say. I settle for just shaking my head. Jade turns her attention back to the girls. "I was thinking…"

"What about?"

"This whole thing. When I left home, if someone like you had been there to take care of me…"

"In Gotham? I doubt that anyone who offered that would have been-."

"Not a pedophile, Grayven. Someone like you."

"Or Batman."

"Cheshire, the Girl Wonder. That could have been fun." She takes a breath. "The point is, once I was sure they weren't playing some sort of game or that it wasn’t just Dad pulling an elaborate training exercise, I'd have really appreciated it. I probably wouldn't have been able to explain it to them… I'm not used to being in that sort of environment-."

I tug gently on her hand, pulling her across the corridor into my embrace. "Hey. This sort of environment."

She rests her head against my chest for a moment, before pulling back slightly to look up at me. "This sort of environment." I'm gifted with a small smile. "It still surprises me. How you can be so big and so gentle."

"I refused to bend to Apokolips' demands on my nature. And I love you. I understand that helps."

"Uhh. If you're going to do that, can you please do it someplace else!?" We look around to see Miss Shimmer glowering at us. "Can't believe Humans go into heat every month." She pulls her tome up in an attempt to block her line of sight to the doorway.

"Ah. Right. Well, we… Do need to be going. Lynne, we should be back by lunchtime. You can talk through what you've found out about Darfur then."

She looks up. "Okay Grayven." And then back down to her book.

Oh well. Father Box, hush tube to Lex's secure meeting room.

Ploong.

The portal opens behind us, and I turn around to lead Jade through it into the LexCorp building.

17th April
10:44 GMT -5

"What was that?"

I frown slightly. "What was what?"

"When Lynne said 'okay'." She thinks for a moment as I look over the room -a sort of relaxed, soft chaired meeting room- and realise that Lex doesn't have a me-weight chair in here. Mildly inconvenien-. "She called you 'Grayven'."

I nod. "She did."

"You introduce her as 'my daughter'."

"Yes, that's-."

"It bothers you that she doesn't call you 'dad'."

A little… "Lynne's father was a man named Cyril Wayland, and by all accounts he was a decent chap. Robin still goes by the name he had before Batman adopted him, as does Troia. They've been with their new families for years, virtually all of her life in Troia's case. Yes, I would like her to call me 'dad', but… I assume that she will once she feels completely comfortable with our relationship."

"Is that why you're so worried that you're doing something wrong?"

"Um. Maybe. Part of it." I make a shrugging gesture with both hands. "She asked to come here, to be delivered to me… Did I accidentally brainwash her? She just felt obliged to come here and doesn't actually want to? I feel the.. rightness of her being there, but I'm older, I have more experience with it. And I feel love for her on top of that."

She reaches up, laying her right hand on my shoulder. "You did the best job you could in a terrible situation. You have nothing to blame yourself for. When I left home, it was a long time before I could trust anyone-." She cuts herself off, looking away. "And she had it worse. I always knew that I could get away, if I had to. She didn't have that. It'll take a while-."

Our heads snap around as the door opens and Ms Graves walks in, just ahead of Lex.

Time for the professional stuff, then.

 

17th April
10:45 GMT -5

I step towards him as he comes fully into the room, my right hand extended. "Lex, good to see you."

The used car salesman smile is firmly in place as he takes my hand. "Likewise." He releases his grip and indicates the soft furnishings with his left. "Please, take a seat."

Heh. "I'd flatten those. Just a moment." High pressure office environment full of stressed people? There we go. The yellow strobes flick out over one of the soft leather chairs, fortifying the structure. "Right." I step away and carefully lower myself onto it. Gives slightly.. and… Yes. "You've got to remember, Lex, I weigh about two-fifths of a ton. Normal chairs just can't take the pressure."

Lex's eyes remain focused on my face while on the other hand Ms Graves' eyes flick uncontrollably to Jade. "I'll be sure to bear that in mind. Now." He sits down opposite while Ms Graves takes up position behind him. Jade remains where she was, hands unencumbered. She's -probably- a better fighter than Ms Graves, but doesn't have any of the personal assistant skills that have made her opposite number the de facto number two of LexCorp. "The Star Conqueror situation."

"The Atlantean study has been indefinitely suspended and the people involved are in hospital. All the Star Conquerors I encountered were completely disintegrated, no organic activity left. All examples of Starro-tech were also destroyed, with all members of the Atlantean expedition and the LexCorp research team accounted for."

He nods. "No records exist which could be used to prove any control connection between that laboratory and LexCorp."

"I assume you know how much Superman wants there to be and how much effort Batman will put into checking."

"I didn't get where I am today by leaving loose ends. Preliminary medical reports-" He holds out his right hand and Ms Graves puts a manila folder into it. "-indicate short term memory loss. They're being discreetly monitored, but I don't think that we will have anything to worry about on that front."

I nod. "The League suffered short term memory loss after we removed their Starro-tech at New Year, and the Green Lantern Corps' data on Star Conquerors confirms that it's normal for their liberated hosts."

"Their medical insurance was provided by a LexCorp subsidiary, so it will be easy for me to keep tabs on their recovery. Should I expect them to suffer any lingering effect of the aliens' presence?"

"You mean, will they identify with the Star Conquerors?" A shallow nod. I shake my head. "No, that never happens. And if the Star Conquerors had had time to fully reorder their thoughts they wouldn't have recovered. Assuming they follow the usual recovery pattern, they'll suffer a short term fugue with associated confusion, then nightmares, before gradually returning to their pre-infestation state. They should have made as full a recovery as they're going to within two months. Though it might be worth having a magic user examine them in case the chaos magic involved in the Starro-tech has some further effect."

Lex nods. "The Justice League has already sent Giovanni Zatara to examine them. Apparently, he didn't find anything." He puts the folder down on a coffee table. "Are there any other Star Conquerors under the Arctic ice?"

I shake my head. "There's no way to tell for certain without melting the whole ice cap. Any Star Conquerors still in there would have almost no metabolic or psychic activity and they know how to shield themselves from ring scans. I've planted some sensor drones and I'm sure that the Atlanteans will keep an eye out... That's really the best we can do."

"And if they appear elsewhere?"

"Yes, we need to talk about that. Lex, I really don't think that further investigation into the Star Conquerors is a sensible course of action."

"We can hardly protect ourselves through ignorance, Grayven."

"Star Conquerors are capable of interstellar telepathic communication. Telekinetic faster than light travel. The one that fled me might just have been trying to get away. Equally, it might have been going for reinforcements, or… My greatest fear, is that it was leaving in order to reactivate one of the really big ones."

He takes a moment to absorb that. "How big do they get?"

"Planetoid size. The Green Lanterns call them 'Mother Stars'. One of those anywhere near Earth, and this planet would be covered in Star Conquerors and that would be the end of Human civilisation. And if I'd been slower or a little unlucky, that could well have happened. Lex, I joined the Light because Humans aren't living up to their potential and I want to make that happen. I don't mind taking risks, either of my person or my resource base, but… For a fairly nebulous possible benefit, you risked everything to study these creatures."

"You disapprove."

"Risk and reward should be proportionate, and losing completely is not acceptable. Lex, I'm your alien guy. You don't have anyone working for you who knows more about this than I do. I accept that when this study started you didn't know quite what you were getting into, but once I fully joined the Light? You should have brought this to my attention."

"If you feel excluded from my decision making-."

"It's not about my feelings, Lex. It's about making effective use of our resources. LexCorp is your thing, I'm not disputing that. I don't.. expect you to share every little thing with me, but when it concerns the very reason why you brought me onto the Light in the first place, surely it makes sense to talk to me about it. Just as a consultant."

His eyes dip momentarily, then he nods. "You make a good point. I'll have a précis put together for you by Wednesday."

"Thank you. There are powers in this galaxy which humanity is not ready to joust with. Someday." I nod. "Hopefully sooner rather than later, but not yet."

"I am in your debt for preventing our reach exceeding our grasp. If there's anything I can do to repay-?"

"Yes, about that. I already know what I want in return." He raises his eyebrows slightly. "The Genomorphs."

"That's a… Fairly big ticket item."

"I don't want to own them. I want to know where they came from." I flick my hands upwards. "A functioning artificial intelligence in the nineteen thirties? Alright. It's surprising, but the circuitry which made it possible existed and a genius like Doctor Morrow could have come up with the programming. Interplanetary teleportation by zeta tube? Again, once you identify zeta radiation, quite possible. But a fully synthetic organic life form? If they'd been… Modified Humans, then I could credit it. They're not. They're novel. Humans don't have the technology to do that, and even if they did none of the Cadmus staff have the outstanding brilliance necessary for them to… Effectively do all the work in their heads. So, where did the original biological specimens come from?" Lex sucks in a breath. "Lex, if you've been raiding alien worlds I need to know about it."

"No, no." He smiles, shaking his head. "Nothing of the sort. Earth has no need to invade alien worlds for research material. Not when so many of them come here."

"Earth has had a statistically unusual number of visitors."

"As a boy, I found them fascinating. After I made my first few million, I began buying up alien artifacts, meteorites… At the start it was just a hobby. Then, Superman moved to Metropolis and I decided to take it a little more seriously."

"I'm sorry, can I just check: you know his name, right? Klarion had access-."

"Kal-El. But, yes, I know that he masquerades as Clark Kent." He chuckles. "It's funny, actually. One of my intelligence analysts correctly deduced his identity years ago using a facial recognition program. I fired her. It simply didn't seem plausible to me, that a man that powerful would choose to hide himself among mortal men." He sits back a little. "I'd apologise to her, but that would rather give the game away."

"So..?"

"My xenotechnology division was set up in order to study the alien materials and technology. Most of it was so badly damaged that we couldn't learn much. On the other hand, one meteorite I came to possess contained a minute fragment of what is now called kryptonite. Other pieces gave my company a notable advantage in several fields. But the one I found most… Puzzling, came from Cerro Galán in Argentina. Most of it was a fairly standard iron-nickel meteorite, but there were tiny grey.. fragments in it that were made of a far harder material. When they were fully analyzed, their physical structure was something like bone, but stronger than anything Human science can create. It took years of painful and extremely expensive investigative work before we could be certain, but it was once part of a living creature. The first Genomorphs were a result of our attempts to clone… Whatever it was."

"The G-Prometheans?"

"It didn't have anything quite like Human genetics, and my employees didn't have a complete organism to base their work on. But, yes, that was where the project started. Genomorph physiology proved quite mutable. The alternate forms are genuinely the work of the scientists of Project Cadmus. But their start.. came from somewhere out in space. And if you don't recognise it, it must have been a curious life form indeed."

 

17th April
15:12 GMT -5

Lex is swivelling his chair around as I approach his office window, his right hand held up slightly to forestall any action from the security team who are charging through the outer doors. I wave my left hand and then raise it to my ear.

Ring, dial.

Compliance.

Lex smiles slightly as the phone on his desk rings. Not that I can hear it from out here. He doesn't pick it up though. Instead, he negligently holds his right hand out to the side while continuing to observe me.

"Lex Luthor's office."

"Ms Graves, pleasure to hear your voice again. Orange Lantern two eight one four here."

"Good afternoon, Orange Lantern. If you can wait a moment I'll see if Mister Luthor is available."

"You know I can see him through the… Never mind." Huh. "Actually, while I've got you." I turn to my right, looking out across the city. And making it harder for anyone inside the building to read my lips. "Have you given any more thought to the cybernetic upgrade I offered you? I've acquired a few new options since I first made my offer."

"Thank you, but I am quite happy with the arm I have."

"But you could be more than happy. And that's what I'm all about: wanting stuff. I mean, look at your boss. He's rich beyond the dreams of ninety nine percent of the world's population, is in charge of a huge multinational company, but does he stop wanting stuff?" I realise that I've floated out of sight to the people inside the office and turn around to float back the other way. "Does he ever say 'okay, I've got enough now, time to spend the rest of my life playing golf'? No, he doesn't. There's always something new to want, and you can want a better arm."

No immediate response.

"Come on." I turn my empathic vision up a little. "I can see how much you'd like to never have to feel that slight.. pull you get when you wake up in the morning and-."

"Orange Lantern, are you trying to buy off my staff?"

"No, Lex. No. I'm trying to give a gift to an attractive single woman. Nothing untoward going on at all."

"Perhaps you could try to do that out of office hours?"

"Oh, please. She takes as many days off a year as you do."

"Amusing as this is..?"

"Right. Would you mind if I came in? I've got something rather serious-" I stop outside his window and turn to face it again. "-to talk to you about."

"By all means. I had the window redesigned to slide open after Superman's first unscheduled-" I phase and float forwards, passing through the window. "-visit. Ah." I lower my left hand and he puts down his phone as I walk around to the 'guest' side of his desk. He swivels his chair back around to face me. "What can I do for you?"

"Had a… Spot of bother yesterday."

"Yes, I heard. Giant.. Starfish aliens? Were you able to destroy all of them?"

"No. Most, but… A few of the smaller ones got away. We're looking, but I'd honestly be surprised if we located them by anything other than pure luck before they choose to reveal themselves."

"That's a little concerning."

"If you know a better way to find them, I'm all ears. But that's… All really tangential to why I'm here. Last time the League encountered these creatures, a scientist by the name of Stirling Roquette was crucial to us developing a way to immunise people against the form of mental control they were using. After the thing in Gotham I went to see her again, and… She had an early nanoforge prototype."

"I'd.. heard about her research. I hadn't realized things were quite that advanced."

"I hadn't either. To be honest, I'd rather stopped thinking about her. She's agreed to meet up with some other inventors of my acquaintance for a brainstorming session. You know, cross fields, see if they can help each other."

"I assume that this will be happening in KordTech?" I nod. "LexCorp wasn't developing anything in the weather control field, so I don't have to try downplaying the significance of his most recent product launch. I was actually quite impressed."

"It's like I told you when we first met. Tiny amounts of magic can improve conventional technology in so many ways… Thing is… I like Ted Kord. I like him a lot. But he's… He's a good engineer. A good scientist. I've seen him in action as a salesman and it's inspiring. He conveys his genuine enthusiasm for the product brilliantly and keeps his spiel to a technical level the audience can understand. He'd be a good project leader. But as a manager? As the head of a company? He's terrible. He's basically had to appoint someone to do the actual CEO work because as soon as something 'cool' comes in he can't resist heading down to the workshop to play with it himself. He tries to micromanage rather than letting the extremely capable people who work for him get on with it…"

Lex looks politely puzzled. "I'm not sure that I can help you with that. Unless you're.. trying to jump ship from your own creation?"

"No. That's the sad thing. I'm not." I sigh. "Because you'd be perfect for it. I look at you and I can see -I'm talking literally here- your desire to use all the tools of capitalism to strengthen the Human species. You're a far better manager than he is… I'd like to be able to give this to you. But I can't."

"Because your peers disapprove of me?"

"Because you're a member of the Light."

Four seconds pass as he regards me. "I'm afraid that I don't know who or what that is."

"Lex, if I could prove anything I'd have brought the police with me. I can't. There's no way you don't know that they exist, and if you weren't a member they'd be a threat to you and you'd be feeding me the information I'd need to destroy them. So you're a member. Maybe the leader, maybe not. Maybe they don't have one." I sigh. "But Savage is a member, and he was involved in that Ice Fortress thing last year. Which means that any technology a Light member gets their hands on would most likely end up getting used for something puerile rather than something productive. The sheer waste of resources used in a failed assassination attempt which -even if it had worked- would only have provided them with a marginal benefit… And I know they were studying Star Conquerors, and it looks a lot like they suffered a fairly critical containment failure. And as a result, we've got a species that the Green Lantern Corps had trouble with loose on a world ill equipped to handle them."

My eyes drift away slightly. "On my home parallel, there's a television series. It doesn't exist here. It's called 'Avatar: the Legend of Korra'. In the setting, there are people who can manipulate the classical elements: earth, air, fire and water. Each of the four ethnic groups have an affinity for one element, and the skills and modes of thought required to use it define their culture. Now, when I first saw it, I thought that anyone from the right tribe could learn to manipulate their element, just by studying the signature martial art. So, everyone had the same potential and it was just a matter of spending the time and effort. But by the time Legend of Korra started, it was clear that that wasn't the case. People were born with the ability or not. Those who had it could learn to improve it, but if you didn't have it, tough luck. So in the city the series is set in, there's an element manipulating criminal syndicate and the police force only recruit element users of one type. And unsurprisingly, that causes a great deal of resentment."

"The main bad guy in series one is the leader of the anti-elementalist movement. He's a water manipulator himself, but his hate is genuine and he can use his abilities to permanently remove the element control abilities of others. Thing is, it never occurred to him that he could use the exact same ability to give element control abilities to people who didn’t have it. Assuming they didn't resist, it would only have taken him about thirty seconds a time. If he'd done that, everyone would have access to all the things that the elementalists could do, and if they chose not to develop those abilities… Fine. But he was too busy hating himself and encouraging others to hate that he never stopped to consider the alternatives."

I return my attention to Lex. "I want the Earth to be able to stand on its own two feet in the galaxy. I don't want it to be dependent on superhumans any more than you do, not ultimately. So: please. Tell me who the Light are. Tell me where they are. I'll go after them immediately. I'll destroy the whole organisation root and branch and destroy any evidence linking them to you. You won't be implicated at all. And then we can work on this objective we share together, without any of those short sighted idiots undermining it the whole time."

"Please."

Lex's eyes shift momentarily to his desk, and then return to me. "I'm sorry, Orange Lantern. I really can't help you."

I nod. I really shouldn't have expected him to… "Okay then." I stand. "Thank you for your time."

 

19th April
10:27 GMT -6

I smile as Guy steps through the boom tube, power ring crackling. "Lantern Gardner. Welcome to my home."

"Hey… Gray…" Guy looks around, as if-.

"Oh, come on Guy, I wasn't going to invite you here and then ambush you."

"Yeah, well." His eyes return to me. "You kinda come with a warnin' label these days."

I nod, the corners of my mouth turned down. "So I should stop holding my breath for an apology from King Orin?"

He frowns. "Apology? What for?"

"I am -effectively- the Apokoliptian ambassador to Earth, and he -the Atlantean head of state- did punch me in the face in an unprovoked attack. And then needed me to bail him out after the big Star Conqueror mind blasted him." Guy tilts his head forwards slightly, his eyebrows raised. "I'm not saying I was expecting flowers or anything, but a verbal acknowledgement beyond a grunt would be nice."

He shakes his head. "Gray, you're a part'a the Light now. You should be grateful he just punched you."

"Oh? I thought the League had principles. Ideals you held to above what an ordinary man on the street might reasonably be expected to do. King Orin punched me because he allowed his passions to override his reason, not because I was doing something for the Light. Heck-" I spread my arms out, indicating the room. "-it's not like I'm hiding. If you want to make an accusation, do it. I turned up in court when my life was on the line. I'd gladly do it for a lesser charge."

"Yeah, that's what Luthor says too."

"And he would. You see, Guy-" I turn, draping my right arm over his shoulder and leading him out of the embarkation room and into the rest of the base. "-being the 'good guy' is rather dependent on you doing certain things and not doing certain others."

He brushes off my arm, but keeps walking with me. "You do remember that time they killed thousands of kids, right?"

"I remember that time Klarion did and they called me in to kill him. You remember how the rest of the Justice League stood around like lemons when Nabu demanded Giovanni Zatara serve as his host-slave?"

"And that time they mind controlled the Justice League?"

"You remember that time we proved that the Guardians of the Galaxy wiped out nearly all life on Mars? And left mind control tech in all its inhabitants up to the modern day?" I glance at him, left eyebrow raised. "Whose ring is that you're wearing?"

"They were tryin' t'do the right thing and they fucked up. It's not the same as doin' it deliberately."

I nod. "Tell me: all that technology I added to the Watchtower in order to prevent a repeat of New Year. Any of it still there?" Guy glowers. "Thought not. I'll be sure to let the rest of the Light know that you're wide open again."

"I ain't on the League. I asked around on Oa and Salaak agreed to upgrade the Watchtower."

I nod approvingly. "Good initiative, Guy. I approve. And I hope that the League do as well." Okay, now to ease off. "While you're here… I realise that it's expected, so I'll ask. If you're interested in switching teams-"

"I'm not."

"-I've got a thing for redheads."

He stops dead, his mouth hanging open slightly in shock. I make a clicking noise in the left side of my mouth and wiggle my eyebrows.

His eyes narrow slightly and his mouth opens and closes silently a couple of times. Then he closes his eyes, shaking his head and chuckling quietly. "Oh, fuck you, Gray."

"Yeah, sorry. Redheads are overrated. Burn too easily." I carry on down the corridor, heading towards the meeting room. "But anyway, I'm sure there's a reason why you've finally taken up my invitation."

"The League wanna know what you're doin' in Darfur."

"Very little."

"If you wan'ed me to believe that, you shouldn't a' used a boom tube."

"But.. some employees of mine have been working there. We were about to do a debriefing. Would you like to sit in?"

"Yeah. Probably should. You know you got no authority to be there, right?"

"What, I don't have the permission of a government that's been a party to genocide for… Five years now? Imagine how that undermines my righteousness. Guy, I stopped going to your meetings because I've stopped being so angry. I stopped being so angry because I don't have to put up with the Justice League any longer. They had years, did nothing, and now sent you to protest my actions."

I reach out and press the door open button set into the wall. The security membrane in front of us fades out, giving us access to the room within. The League may like to use heavily reinforced doors for things like that, but security membranes combine the strengths of physical barriers and force fields without undermining the strength of the surrounding walls by having them slide into a slot. Unlike a force field the membrane will stay functional without an external power source and this one is exceedingly resilient.

"Hello girls." Miss Amane jumps to her feet, Miss Shimmer looks up for a moment and frowns at Guy while Lynne keeps playing with the wrist mounted quantum computer I got her for her birthday.

Just a little more advanced than Richard's.

I stride into the room and plonk myself down in my chair. "Lantern Gardner's going to sit in on this one. Just to find out how badly you've broken international law." Miss Amane is still standing, hands behind her back in an approximation of parade rest. "Iname, you may be seated."

"Thank you, Master!"

Guy's still hovering near the door. "Grayven, how old are these girls?"

I point to Miss Amane with my right forefinger. "Eighteen." To Lynne. "Twelve. And before you say anything, how old was Robin?" That gives him pause. "And…" My finger wavers a little at Miss Shimmer. "Miss Shimmer, how old are you again?"

"In Earth-years? I dunno."

"You're an alien?" She nods. "What planet 're you from?"

"We never really had a name for it. Grayven keeps calling it 'Wilson' and-" Minor glare at me. "-he won't tell me why."

"You don't have a name for it? So, what, you're pre-spaceflight?"

"I'm not sure. That depends on exactly where space starts. But not with spaceships or anything like that."

"Do you know whereabouts your homeworld is?"

She nods. "In a parallel universe." She looks at me. "Am I going to have to explain this every time?"

"No, Guy can put it in a report and then the League will all know."

Guy takes a seat next to me. "What kinda parallel-?"

"I used to be a Pony. A Unicorn. My home country is called Equestria and the majority of-."

Guy leans closer to me. "Grayven, is she-?"

She glowers. "I'm not crazy, and don't talk about me like I'm not here."

"Unless you can think of another reason for her native language to consist entirely of equine noises, it's highly probable that she's being accurate in her description. Also, I was there while her portal was open and her understanding of magic is far more advanced than any surface worlder of her age on Earth."

"Okay. Err…" He looks at Miss Shimmer. "So how come you're Human?"

"The stupid portal turned me into one. I just hope it turns me back when I go through again."

"How're you finding being Human?"

"It's horrible! I'm nearly bald, I can barely feel magic at all, I go into heat every month and I keep falling over because I've only got two legs! Two! And no tail!"

Guy clearly doesn't know how to respond to that.

"Okay girls. What have you been up to in Darfur?"

 

19th April
10:34 GMT -6

"…tested it carefully, and it turns out that just so long as Lynne doesn't keep up contact for more than a few seconds, anyone whose mind she touches recovers after an hour or two."

Curiously, the other two appear to be deferring to Miss Shimmer. I suppose -coming as she does from a planet of magic-using Ponies- she's far more experienced in these matters than either of them. The United States 50's military were trying to train Lynne in these matters but I suppose they didn't get particularly far before she was hauled off by SHADE.

"It wasn't too hard to use your drones to let us target individual warbands, then we could stun them. Once they were out of it, Iname could run through a boom tube, take all their weapons and food and move them somewhere else."

"Which groups in particular?"

"At the start of the war, rebels mostly targeted the government military and the government's militias mostly targeted civilians. But now, they're all pretty bad even if some are worse. So, we hit everyone we could find."

I nod. "And whereabouts were they taken?"

Miss Amane smiles. "I gave the food to the refugees."

"And the weapons?"

"Yes, those too. Just in case."

"That might create problems later, but I can follow the logic." I nod at Miss Shimmer. "Carry on."

"There was one group it didn't work on. They had a dark wizard with them, and he could protect them from Lynne's power." She creases her face in distaste. "He did it with the spirits of people he'd killed. I don't know exactly how his spell worked, but anything she did he somehow made his spirits get hurt instead of the people he was with. He knew we were watching, and he made them visible so we'd know what was happening. He had..." She shudders. "Bodies nailed to wooden pillars around their campsite…"

"Sounds like someone thoroughly in need of a good hard killing. Did you do it, or do you want me to-."

"No, he's dead."

"And how did you manage that?"

"I welded a knife onto one of your drones and made it fly into him at the speed of sound."

Guy's looking steadily more and more uneasy. I -on the other hand- just feel curious. "And what made you do that?"

"Celestia didn't mind me reading stuff on how to fight against dark magic. I recognised the sort of spell he was using. It only works against magic." She glances at Lynne. "And other supernatural attacks too, I guess. From how he looked I think he could probably have survived being shot, so what we did had to technically be mundane while still being very powerful."

"Sensible. What next?"

"They were… They were the worst group. And… We decided that we needed to make an example of some people…"

Miss Amane nods emphatically. "Otherwise they would just go home, pick up more weapons and come back."

"So I destroyed their minds. Permanently."

That's the first time Lynne's spoken in this debriefing. I feel a little concern as I carefully watch her, trying to work out how she feels about that. Obviously I want her to be able to kill people if she decides that it is the appropriate response, but I also want her not to be afraid of her own abilities.

"Okay, and how do you feel about that?"

"I saw the bodies. If I let them go, they'd just kill more people. Wasn't that what you said would happen?"

I nod. "It's what I would have expected to happen."

Guy actually shudders. "Grayven, Lynne, that's…"

"Guy, you got that ring in two thousand and three. That was the year that the Darfur War started. At any point you could have got involved. You didn't. I handed the matter over to three teenaged girls because I had more faith in their ability to resolve it than I did in yours. And they did. Miss Shimmer?"

"Um, well, we… We had some G-Trolls take the bodies down and bury them. That was.. all the fighting groups dealt with. That just left the politicians." She looks down for a moment. "There had to be a lot of people involved in organising it. Probably more who knew what was happening. But there were only three who had international arrest warrants. Iname cut Ali Kushayb in half while he was surrounded by his bodyguard."

Miss Amane nods. "He was the most evil."

"I used the drone's purple death ray on Ahmed Haroun and Lynne-."

Guy's eyes widen. "You gave President Omar al-Bashir a stroke on national television."

Lynne nods. "Yes. I did."

I nod. Hit all the major points there, I think. "Alright. Leave a few drones on observation duty and keep an eye on both what they see and on the news."

Miss Amane smiles, her eyes shining with joy. "Did we do the right thing, Master?"

"By your evaluative criteria of minimising death total while maximising effect, you probably did. I'd have been more overt and argued my point publically, but remaining unseen has its advantages-."

"That's..! That's it?!" Guy's staring at me. "You just had your girls kill a load of people, and you think they probably did the right thing?"

"Nothing can be completely predicted in advance." I gesture and a holoprojector comes to life, flicking rapidly through a series of Sudanese government documents. "Between observation scans and data intercepts, I have more than enough evidence here to convince me that they were involved in orchestrating mass murder. What did you want us to do?"

"If they had international arrest warrants, you coulda grabbed them and handed them over!"

I shake my head. Poor, innocent fool. "Guy, on Earth Prime there was a man named Slobodan Milosevic. He was president of a place called Serbia, it doesn't exist on this Earth. He was charged with being involved in commissioning genocide in nineteen ninety nine and finally handed over to the Hague in two thousand and one. Six years later he died of a heart attack, still a free man, having used every delaying tactic he could to stymie justice. Explain to me the virtue of obeying such a clearly dysfunctional system."

He regards me with growing horror.

"You know… Now I think about it…" Miss Shimmer taps her chin with her right forefinger. "The same thing happens in Equestria. I read up on dozens of ancient evils that Princess Celestia banished or imprisoned, but I don't remember anything about her flat out killing any of them. Which means that eventually they're going to get out. And given that they were bad enough to make Celestia angry enough to do that in the first place… They'll just go back to whatever they were doing. Hurting more Ponies. Which means that the whole thing was pointless. Huh." Her gaze grows a little distant, a small frown creasing her brow. "When I go back, I'll have to ask her about that."

I give her a stern look. "Aaaaah?"

"Oh. Um. And.. try to.. kill them myself?"

I nod. "Better."

"Grayven, this isn't right. They're.. kids."

"No, Guy. What isn't right is the innocent living in fear while the guilty reign triumphant and unimpeachable. I'd hoped that your father taught you that lesson."

He snarls. "Don't go there, Grayven."

"What? He beat you constantly as a boy and the Baltimore police department gave him a hero's funeral. Just? I rather doubt it." I shake my head. "You know Lynne's past, and Iname and Miss Shimmer are both legally adult. They solved a problem no one else was willing to with a minimal level of force. And if you try giving me disingenuous shit about it I'll treat you the same way I did Diana when she tried that."

"And… What exactly do you think is gunna happen now?"

"Girls?"

Miss Amane smiles and activates the holo display.

"…calling it 'a miracle' this morning, as fighting stopped all across Darfur. The reason? Early this morning every single gun vanished from the militias' hands." A picture of refugees celebrating. "Combined with the deaths of the men whom many believe to be the leading architects of this brutal conflict, it seems that this conflict might finally have been brought to a close. As to where this miracle came from, no one knows. The sheer scale of the task suggested the involvement of the Justice League, but they have so far not given official comment."

Miss Shimmer nods, and Miss Amane turns it off again. Miss Shimmer then turns her full attention to Guy. "With everyone in the area disarmed, an African Union or UN peacekeeping force could keep things under control. The Vice President can run the north and the south can peacefully secede. No one could have done this with a body count this low except the Justice League and they didn't want to stop it. So… Yeah. What I think is going to happen now is a lot less killing than would have happened without us." I smile. "Good work girls."

 

19th April
13:58 GMT -5

"Recognised, Orange Lantern, B zero six."

"Hey Paul!" That's a little odd. Ted was waiting for me just outside the zeta tube. The fact that there's a zeta tube on top of the KordTech building isn't a secret secret, but it isn't supposed to be common knowledge. He usually just waits inside the building.

"Good afternoon, Ted." I give his proffered hand a quick shake, and… He's putting his left arm around my shoulders. Okay, now I know something's not right. Behind his back I take my rune stone out of subspace while giving him a ring scan. No magic detected and no anomalies, aside from a slightly elevated heart rate. "Is something going on?"

"Lots of things are going on! We're, we're busy people."

"Okay. Ah, just a moment." I generate a zeta tube construct and then hold my left hand up to my left ear. "Okay Wallace, you can come through now."

A slightly tricky decision, but I think it was the right one. If he does this as Kid Flash then he can use the zeta tube whenever he wants. But -since none of the people we're meeting are on the 'approved for secret identities' list- he can't take his mask off or use any money he makes from mass production of his potions in his civilian guise. The alternative is coming here as Wallace West each time. No problem with people knowing his identity -unless someone tries kidnapping him for his alchemical knowledge I suppose- and no problem with him benefiting financially from his own work.

Unfortunately, that means that he can't use the zeta tube which so helpfully announces his identity to come here, because we can't think of a justification for 'Wallace West, intelligent but basically normal high school student' to have access to the League's secure transportation system. He can get the next nearest tube and run here… Though getting a bus or a taxi would be a better idea. Super speed might conceal the user's identity from everything but ultra speed cameras but the fact that someone is using it is very obvious.

Huh, kind of odd, that. At the moment regular people working out his identity is a bigger problem than supervillains doing it because the most notable supervillains already know.

Anyway, there are only so many times I can 'drop him off' here before it starts to look odd, so he's probably not going to be able to attend the weekly meetings. That and school. But a healing potion has such obvious utility that I couldn't not make this happen.

There's a flare of light and Wallace appears, dressed in the least superheroic way he could manage, carrying a satchel for his computer and a padded case for his samples. He blinks a little theatrically and looks around at the New York skyline, rube-ing it up magnificently. "Whaw."

"Hey there Wallace." Ted removes his arm and walks over to greet Wallace. "Paul said you had a healing potion for us?"

"Mister Kord? Ah, whaw." Wallace turns towards Ted and transfers his carry case to his left hand to shake Ted's hand. This action causes his satchel strap to slide from his shoulder and he scrambles to catch it with the hand now carrying the case. He awkwardly manages it, keeping hold of the strap as he shakes Ted's hand.

Think he may have taken the 'Clark Kenting' lessons a little too to heart.

"Just 'Ted' is fine, Wallace."

"Oh, okay. Um, just call me Wally. Everyone apart from Orange Lantern and my grandma do."

"Alright. I just.. need a quick word with Orange Lantern. Why don't… You take the stairs down. Janine can show you where we're meeting."

"Okay! Thanks Mister.. Ted."

Still giving it the 'innocent high school student' Wallace heads towards the stairs, rearranging the strap on his shoulder and looking back as if he's so totally thrilled to meet Ted that he doesn't quite believe that it's happening. He even does the Clark Kent thing of actually walking into the door because he isn't looking where he's going.

Ted leans closer to me. "Where'd you meet him?"

"Central City. I was at the university, talking to them about Leonard Snart. Pretty much just bumped into him."

Ted frowns slightly. "Doesn't Central City have a 'Doctor Alchemy'?"

"Sort of. The military took his 'Philosopher's Stone'-" And aren't interested in talking about it. Even I'm not sure where they stashed it. "-and his transmutation gun requires it in order to work. As far as we know he doesn't know how to make another Stone-" Though Alan was able to tell me about a couple of its former owners. "-so he isn't currently much of a threat. He used to be a chemistry teacher but as far as we've been able to tell he doesn't actually know anything about alchemy."

Ted frowns. "Name's kinda misleading."

"He originally called himself 'Mister Element'. If it makes you feel happier you can call him that."

"Wait, he wasn't a real doctor either?"

"Ted, you said you wanted to talk to me about something?"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah. That. Okay. Um… Well, the good news is that we managed to build a suit of power armor like yours with the invisibility system. And as far as we can tell, the mind altering effects are pretty minor."

"Good news. Wait, you haven't… Actually put someone in it without-."

"No! No. Well not exactly."

"Ted."

"We were doing test exposures with volunteer college students! We didn't give them power armor. That stuff's far too expensive to build a whole lot of suits for testing."

"Okay… That's a bit more reasonable."

"We did double blind short term exposure tests, they're all wearing monitors like the one's we're using to reverse engineer the Thinking Cap… They're showing signs of increased impulsiveness and a slight increase in aggression, but it's not enough to be worrying and Louis Crandell said that part of the effect only lasts a few months. I want to see if we can inoculate people with low doses before they start using it for real."

"A perfectly reasonable thing to test, but I'm kind of bracing for the bad news here."

"Iiiiit's Bobo."

"Bobo?"

"He's the Chimp we've been trying out some of our non-intrusive Thinking Cap designs on."

"Oh, how's that been going?"

"Oh, good. He can float small objects and create simple sensory illusions now."

I close my eyes, take a deep breath and then open them again. "Ted. Are you working up to telling me that there's an invisible telepathic monkey loose in New York City?"

"We don't know he's loose."

"Ted."

"'Cause, you know… He's invisible."

"Ted."

"I mean, we know he's not in his enclosure, but we're pretty sure that he thinks of the building as 'home' so he probably hasn’t gone that far."

"What did we say, Ted? What did we say, when we first started this?"

"Ahhhh... No mad science?"

"Because our aim is to make people's lives better, improve the lot of the Human species and make enough money that the project is self-funding. What else?"

"You're… Fed up with well meaning scientists creating their own villains?"

"Completely fed up, Ted. Completely fed up." I squeeze my eyes shut again. "At least tell me that he hasn't got phasing or power armour."

"Why would we make power armor for an ape?"

"I don't know. Did you?"

"More of a test frame?"

"For goodness sake!"

 

19th April
14:05 GMT -5

Wooosaaaaaah.

I.. joked -when Ted and I started this- that we'd be lucky if we only created five supervillains doing this. That was why I insisted on detailed psychological screening for everyone who was going to be working directly with our novel equipment. It was why I upgraded his security so much. It was why each project had relatively narrow targets and anyone going off on a tangent was supposed to be reassigned!

NO. FUCKING. MAD. SCIENCE.

I was very clear. Very direct-.

Woosah.

Empathic vision on full, I take a look around the lobby. Nothing unexpected from the people around me and nothing to suggest the presence of an invisible ape. Orange lights strobe out from me as I run a full spectral scan. No, nothing on that either. On to the next location.

Seeing as how Ted's not an idiot, he's had Bobo's handlers leave a pile of fruit in his enclosure. Seeing as how Ted is probably only a little less annoyed about this than me, the handlers are in there combing each other's hair. Ted also tried to find a lady Chimpanzee, but it turns out that there aren't actually all that many Chimps in New York and most places aren't ready to turn them over for honey trap purposes.

Scan the corridor. Nothing.

Blasted Thinking Cap. If it was just invisibility I wouldn't have a problem. A weak omnidirectional pressure beam would reveal Bobo's location quickly enough. The problem is that the Thinking Cap doesn't quite do what I thought it did. After we acquired Dr. Hartford Jackson's research we found out (to my disappointment) that it isn't really a telepathy machine. It's a telekinesis machine. It can mind control people, but it does so in a fairly obvious brute force way and the one doing it doesn't get access to the contents of the victim's mind. The illusion creation function isn't as I had at first assumed a telepathic hallucination, but rather the application of what its inventor called 'mental force' on the environment, altering the properties of light in a particular area and causing false sensory feedback to anyone who touches what the user has 'created'. Oh, and it apparently increases the user's intelligence, which could well be why we're having this problem.

A few surprised faces look around as I open the door to a cubicle farm. KordTech's sales department. A lot of their stuff is special order, contracts being negotiated over a period of weeks to make sure technical reality and user expectations line up. Other stuff is actually kept in stock.

No ape.

And from the looks of things, if Bobo decides that he doesn't want to be found, it's capable of spoofing the ring.

I'm beginning to think that the Maltusians' reputation for paramount technological excellence was somewhat exaggerated.

On the other hand, Ted clearly has a non-implanted version of the technology which works. Yes. That's what I want to take away from this. And -depending on how much effort it takes to use- we might still be able to move into production. Or at least get something useful out of it. Mental illusions are useful, right? Unlike telepathy I'm not sure it's something that will be useful for me… But in power armour for general use, total invisibility would be blooming useful.

"Err, who are you?"

"Orange Lantern two eight one four." Nothing in the accounts office either. "Sorry to have bothered you."

"Is this about that Chimp that got away?"

"Yes, yes it is."

"Good luck."

I give her a polite smile. "Thank you."

Darn it! I'm not an ape behaviour specialist! But both Ted and I want this kept in house if possible and in community if not. I've never met Michael Maxwell or William Glenmorgan who are just about the only people in the superhero business who might be able to help. Bernhard Baker I've rather been avoiding, what with the whole Ambush Bug thing and how fourth wall breaking his comic was. Telepathy's an option, but M'gann is finishing her homework and making preparations for our holiday on Mars. I suppose I could pop by Gorilla City and ask for help, but I've got no idea how Bobo would react to the presence of a larger ape in his territory. Probably not well. Plus, he's been under the effect-.

Ugh.

Plus, he's probably been under the effect of the invisibility generator for a few hours. We're not exactly sure what that does to Chimpanzees, but the original version turned a well socialised laboratory assistant into a violent thief so I'm not all that hopeful. And now I'm remembering the scene in Lawnmower Man where the augmented ape tries to escape from the testing centre…

"Aaaagh!"

Theeeeere we go!

I transition into the canteen just in time to catch a table with a construct gravity plate before it can crush the startled cleaning staff. The front of a vending machine has been smashed in and something is making a mess as it rips into the goods contained within. A hungry and paranoid invisible ape.

At least it can't phase.

The table jerks off my construct and then flies back at me at full force. I create two draconic construct hands and catch it, gripping on to hold it against the force of Bobo's enhanced mental energy. I turn my head to the staff crouched down at the side of the room. "Sir, madam, I suggest leaving while the leaving's good."

They hesitate for a moment, then surge to their feet and sprint for the exit. Right, they're gone, PR restraint exercised. Ring, power armour.

Compliance.

Additional construct hands shimmer into being as chairs, tables and loose debris are hurled my way. Gas or tranquilisers, gas or tranquilisers? I send a filament in the direction of where I think he is and spray out a cloud of blue smoke. And… Nothing. Not even a traceable movement in the smoke. He doesn't want me to know where he is, so the Cap handles the rest. Correct what I thought earlier, that's bloody brilliant.

"Ooowaaah!"

Most of the debris falls from the air and while I can't see Bobo I can't really miss the heavy impact as a large Chimp wearing 'totally not power armour' slams into one of the tables I'm holding. The table cracks in two under the force but I've already interposed an orange hand to prevent Bobo coming through and striking me. Then the weight's gone. Okay, he can't fly with the Cap but he can use his telekinesis to boost his strength enough to do flying leaps. Assuming a slightly awkward fall…

Ah! Of course. I extend a construct to encompass the edges of the room and send orange lights strobing through the interior space, transmuting oxygen to nitrogen. An angry, physically active ape uses plenty of oxygen while the rings can keep me supplied without reference to local atmospheric conditions. Now I've just got to keep-.

One of the halves of the table Bobo jump kicked is suddenly shoved aside and I'm forced to create a construct shield to stop the oncoming ape train. Apes are wrestlers rather than strikers. Strong, but as long as I keep my barrier broad it should-. There's a series of impacts and it starts to crack slightly. It should hold long enough for oxygen deprivation to do its job. Then that should- There's another impact, weaker this time. -deactivate the enhancement he's getting from the Cap, which will give me the time I need to remove the armour, Cap and the invisibility module.

Something bangs on the floor, and I feel the pressure disappear from most of the tables I'm holding. Another bang, then a third, even weaker. Then a sort of gentle thump. I dismiss the floating hand constructs. Ring, add enough oxygen back into the air to prevent complete asphyxiation.

Compliance.

I extend thick probing constructs towards roughly where I think the recumbent ape is lying. They prod forwards gently, stopping when they meet solid resistance. Ape located. Pressure there and there indicates an arm and a shoulder which means that the head is here and this is the Cap. And the invisibility module is here…

A crisp covered and quite dishevelled Bobo appears on the ground in front of me. Time to get him out of this rig and back to his handlers.

 

20th April
08:12 GMT -5

Wolf looks up at her foster father with sad, soulful eyes.

"No."

She whines piteously.

"No. You can't come with us." Behind us, the Sphere rolls up the ramp onto the Bio-Ship. "We tried putting you in a spacesuit and you freaked out." Given how strong she is, it didn't take long for her to extricate herself. "Mars gravity is a third of Earth gravity and we can't breathe the air outside the caverns."

M'gann tilts her head to the side a little. "Um, actually? You probably won't enjoy breathing the air inside them. I mean, you could, but the pressure and gas mix are different to what you're used to."

Kon turns his head back from where he's crouched in front of his pet. "I know. I did the reading." He reaches forwards to rub Wolf's face, and she raises her right paw and lays it over his left arm. Awwwww. Kon sags slightly, then gives her a last rub of the head with his right hand and stands up. Realising that she's lost the argument, Wolf makes a low moaning noise and then lies down to sulk.

Diana looks down at the family pet with a fond smile before raising her head to look at her son. "Kon, you have no need to worry. I will take good care of her."

"Yeah, I know. It's just, this is gunna be the longest we've been apart since I got her."

She puts her hands on the big softy's shoulders before pulling him into a hug. "She will still be here when you return."

"I know. Thanks, Mom."

"It is no trouble at all." She pulls away slightly. "Are you certain that you have everything you need?"

He nods. "Environment suit, check." Essential in order to avoid low pressure assisted autodefecation. Now with House El sigil decoration. "We've got food, water, and I'll probably be sleeping in the Bio-Ship."

"You should be able to eat at least some Martian food."

He grunts softly. "I'll give it a try. Some of us can't shapeshift our stomachs."

"Not voluntarily, anyway."

Diana turns her attention to M'gann. "Please pass on an invitation to your family to visit us whenever they like."

"Oh, I will. Buuuuut I doubt they'll go for it."

"Really? Have you told them that they would not have to endure mental isolation for more than a few seconds?"

"For most Martians, leaving your home city is a big deal. Even if it wasn't actually painful, leaving… Everything behind is definitely a minority interest. Sorry."

Diana nods. "Then I will simply have to find room in my schedule to visit them." She turns to me. "Paul. I trust that you have fully versed yourself in your duties as the prince's chaperone."

For a moment I feel a small worry that there actually is such a tradition. Ring, quick review? "There isn't any such role. Themyscira doesn't have a formal age of consent-" Kon and M'gann avoid looking at each other, their cheeks colouring slightly. "-because everyone's at least two thousand years old and the relationship between father and child wasn't considered important enough to have any particular social custom."

"It was a joke, Paul."

"Oh. Ahhh. Yes. I am fully aware of my responsibilities in observing Kon and M'gann at all times to ensure that their behaviour does not violate propriety, as well as restraining the hordes of amorous Martians who will no-" Diana folds her arms across her chest and waits for me to finish. "-doubt descend upon us upon our arrival."

"Are you done?"

I think for a moment. "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmyes." I frown. "Though, thinking about it, Mister J'aarkn has had three and a half months to spread the word."

M'gann shudders. "I think that's more likely to convince people to avoid us."

"Yeah, but anyone who saw his memories and then sees us is going to think about it."

She bows her head slightly. "And if they do, I'm going to be the one who knows about it."

Kon puts his right arm around her shoulders. "If it gets too much, you could always turn into a Star Conqueror again. I don't think they even have-."

M'gann half turns and shoves him in the direction of the Bio-Ship's ramp. "Okaythanksforseeingusoffgoodbye!"

Diana smiles as Kon is hustled into the Bio-Ship. "So. Aside from preserving my son's honor, what is it that you plan to do on Mars?"

"Introduce myself to the Martian government. Mars is in two eight one four, after all. See if there's anything they need done, what they want to do about the whole Burning thing. See if I can get hold of some military grade Bio-Ship components."

"And what does M'gann think of that?"

"She wasn't keen, then the Bio-Ship caught two rounds of Starro tech. Which it wouldn't if it had defensive telekinetic fields or reactive laser interceptors. As it is I have no idea what the rules on selling Martian military equipment are."

"You could have asked J'onn."

"I did. He didn't know. Apparently it's never come up."

"Paul! We're taking off without you!"

I perform a short bow. "I will return the young prince unharmed on Saturday, Highness."

"Good journey, Orange Lantern."

I transition into the Bio-Ship cabin. The Sphere is just behind the pilot station. Kon has seated himself at the front left and Teekl has curled up in M'gann's lap where she sits on the pilot's chair. As a construct she has nothing to worry about from the Martian atmosphere, temperature or pressure. Not sure what the Martians will make of her, but then I'm not sure what they'll make of the rest of us either. Hopefully, between the White Martian warrior, the Human-Kryptonian hybrid who glows with the light of the sun and the enlightened Orange Lantern they'll be so overwhelmed with the strangeness that they won't bother commenting on her.

I sit down at the front right as M'gann triggers the hangar opening sequence and lifts the Bio-Ship off the landing platform. "Do you mind if we clear Earth's atmosphere before you transition us?"

"No problem at all." I swivel the chair around to face her as she turns the Bio-Ship nose up. "Any particular reason?"

Kon nods. "We haven't really spent much time in space. I think last time was back when you went and hid on the moon and we had to come pick you up."

"Really?"

"Yeah. And… We weren't really in the right frame of mind to enjoy it."

"Um. If you want to stop off on the moon or wherever, we can do that."

"Naah. But it might be fun to float around outside the ship for a little while."

"You do remember that you can fly, right?"

"It's not the same thing."

"Okay, well, you should probably get your pressure suit on then. Because it's not going to be pretty otherwise."

 

20th April
08:26 GMT -5

**What's the view like?**

M'gann's having the front screen of the Bio-Ship track Kon's spacewalk rather than display our front arc. We're well above the orbital plane of Earth satellites here and there haven't been enough launches since I performed my local space laundering last year for us to have much need to pay attention to exactly where we are.

**It's amazing. I can see whole weather systems from up here. I can see where one ecosystem starts to turn into another. You sure you don't wanna come out here?**

**I… Sort of.. had a recurring nightmare for two months after arriving on Earth of the exact situation you're in right now. Martians and big empty spaces don't mix.**

**Oh, ah, I don't have to stay here. If it's bothering you?**

**No, it's okay. We're still close enough to the planet that I can feel that there are minds there. I just don't want to risk turning around and there suddenly being nothing.**

"Would it help if we talked about something else?"

M'gann breathes in then out, giving me a slightly uneasy smile. "Please?"

"Human Resources." She perks up slightly. "Which side do you prefer to play?"

"I think I prefer the Machines? But, Kon's so good with the Ancient Ones that he usually takes them?"

"Okay, well, I prefer Machines too. But you can just play Machines versus Machines if you want."

"I thought that didn't really work?"

"Some units end up without the thing they were designed to counter. There's basically no point in Exotic Energy Detection if your enemy doesn't use magic or Dimensional Shamblers."

"You could still use it to track Ray Projectors."

"Yes, but how often would that come up in a game? That ability just got patched in when the game developers switched it from a strict Ancient Ones versus Machines to letting people play mirror matches." Okay, where to start? I'm hardly pro level myself, but playing against someone who had tactics and strategy programmed into his head before he spoke his first word have given me some insights. "Kon.. is.. much better than me at micro, and not much worse at macro-."

"What are those?"

"'Micro' is the ability to precisely and promptly control individual units. Usually it involves moving one unit around and keeping it alive, like a.. Scuttler that's dodging base defences while gathering information. Or moving a unit away from a fight when it's being targeted by the enemy and about to die, so you keep your force alive. 'Macro' is the ability to keep your economy growing and your production constant. So, Kon is good-."

She nods. "He's good at directing his units but not so good at directing his whole army."

"Basically. He can also be a bit inflexible once he's committed to an approach. When I play against him I know that if I let him play a standard game, he'll almost certainly win. So I don't. I scout early and often, work out what he's doing and work out how to counter that. I've also found that rushing the centre for resources and trying to hold it works pretty well, as long as you're prepared to pull things back when his army appears."

"My scouts usually just die."

"That's what they do. Usually, you have to assume that the information they gain will result in efficiency savings in your unit composition that make up for it. If you see a Goat Temple you know you're going to see a cheap creature rush. If you see a Planar Gate you're going to see fast, manoeuvrable units. A Spatial Beacon and you'll get a magic focused attack. Kon really likes flying units, so I tend to have an anti-air unit or two around."

"Um, you usually make a lot of Drones, though. Why don't you just buy Improved AA Tracking?"

"Because it doesn't do anything else and early game fliers usually die quickly enough to Drones that I don't need it. Sentinels work well enough against huge units, armoured units and dense concentrations of weak units that they'll be useful whatever he does." I think for a moment. "I mean, in the unlikely event that he's gone for a heavy Night Gaunt harass and you've got lots of Drones and Enhanced Combat Cogitation already researched it might just be worthwhile, but it's not going to come up very much."

"What sort of mix of units do you think I should use? I usually try building a few of everyth-" My face creases up. "-ing?"

I have a flashback to my efforts at playing Age of Mythology. "Don't do that. It's hard enough to use two or three units type efficiently together. Fifteen or twenty will just be a mess. They all work better when engaging in particular ways which the others don't and… Most people just can't coordinate them all well enough. Plus, you're trying to counter what your opponent is doing and a lot of them won't do that."

"Okay, so, what units are good for scouting with?"

"Early on, Drone for the Machines and Night Gaunts for the Ancient Ones. Later on, Scuttlers and Dimensional Shamblers."

"Why not use Gaze of Yog-Sothoth? It doesn't cost much."

"Because to get a decent scout with it you have to keep your screen and cursor still over the thing you're looking at and that's always time you don't have to spend. You're got too much to do early game-" I hear the air move as the Bio-Ship's newly grown airlock cycles. "-and too much will be going on late game."

**Okay, yeah.** Kon strolls into the Bio-Ship's cabin, taking his helmet off as he does so. "Guess it wasn't that interesting."

"Okay, if you've got that out of your system…" Kon shrugs and sits down. "M'gann, how far away from Mars should I deposit us?"

"Patrol ships don't usually go more than thirty kilometers from Mars' surface. We.. should be okay appearing ten thousand kilometers away."

I unfocus my eyes as the ring shows me Mars space. "I'll take us out near Phobos. Get a nice view of it-" M'gann's and Kon's expressions both look a little vacant, though they're both looking my way. "-as we come in."

M'gann gives me a slight shake of her head. "It's.. just an ugly lump of rock. Once Martians realised-" Something flickers across Kon's face. "-that we couldn't go too far from other Martians we stopped travelling there." She stops talking for a moment or two. "I don't think we even went there as many times as Humans have been to your moon."

Silence again, and slight facial tics… "Okay, I may not be able to listen to your telepathic communication, but I am-" Kon looks away a little sheepishly. "-feeling a little excluded."

"Ah, well-."

"It was my idea." M'gann looks like she expects to be scolded or something. "I thought… If I got you talking about something, I might be able to… Hear you. Your mind. Just a little! Like I used to, before… Truggs…"

"Sneaky." The view outside the front screen doesn't exactly 'jump' as black with stars is pretty much black with stars, but there's now a dim lump of rock in it as well. "Clearly, I've" **underestimated how much this is bothering you. I'll… I'll try easing up on the blocking. While we're here. But I'm going to have to ask that you don't poke back, okay?**"

She nods, smiling.

**Okay…** Um. Hm, this is actually a bit tricky. **[The game begins and I send instructions to the Harbinger to begin work on a Harvest Node.]**

 

20th April
08:32 GMT -5

The dim red blur I know to be Mars is slowly getting larger in the centre of the front screen.

**Can you feel them yet?**

M'gann nods, her eyes a little unfocused. **I've been able to hear them since we arrived.**

Kon looks curious. **What are they saying?**

She blinks, refocusing. **Oh no, I can't hear individual words. At this distance it's more like a background noise. I probably won't hear anything until we're a good deal closer.**

**Do you want me to apply the booster rocket constructs?**

**Ummm… Not yet.** She looks down for a moment, then up at Kon. **You realise… The Martians on Mars aren't going to be pretending to be Human. They're mostly going to look like [picture of default Martian physiology].**

**Yeah, I remember. And if any of them ask why I'm thinking about an ancient Martian made of fire, I tell them it was a horror movie.**

**Are we going to have any trouble getting in?**

**We shouldn't.**

**That doesn't sound very definite.**

**We don't have any laws against bringing aliens to visit. But.. that's-.**

**Because no one has ever tried.**

**Yeah. But everyone on Mars knows about Uncle J'onn, and we know what Humans look like from his first visit back after the zeta tube picked him up.**

Kon frowns slightly. **Earth had spaceships before he went back.**

**Not ones that could get to Mars reliably. Uncle J'onn sent his first message back using zeta beams.**

**I'm not sure I'd want to try getting from Earth to Mars in an Earth-built spaceship now.**

**Wait.** Kon blinks. **If Manhunter sent a message from Earth to Mars back in… When was it?**

**Nineteen fifty eight.**

**Why are we still taking a ship fifty years later?**

**Because -if you don't have a terminal at the far end- zeta tubes are hideously inaccurate. Mister J'onzz sent hundreds of messages out like a shotgun blast in the hope that someone would pick one of them up. He couldn't even put a beacon on them that someone on Mars could reliably detect because Martian communications technology runs on organic telepathy and he couldn’t replicate that with fifties Earth technology.**

M'gann nods. **The patrol ship only found it because Uncle J'onn rigged the message pod to release an electromagnetic pulse on a wavelength the patrol ships could pick up.**

**Okay, but the League could put a zeta tube on Mars now, right?**

**Yeees, but you know how big the machinery needed for the zeta tubes the League uses on Earth is?** He nods. **Interplanetary travel using the technology we use now requires much bigger machines which use lots more power. Because the Martian technology base is so different to the Human one we can't easily make an organic zeta tube terminus.**

**So? Use Human technology.**

**We could, but we'd have to have a team on Mars full time in order to maintain it. And we'd have to have the power source imported, and they'd need either an air supply or more likely a full Human-friendly habitat. Communication from Earth by radio would have a delay of between six and forty four minutes, depending on what part of the planetary alignment cycle Earth and Mars were in. So, that's two huge zeta tubes that you have to send there at great expense by rocket.**

**Two?**

**In case something went wrong with the first one and it couldn't be repaired on site. It takes a long time to get from Earth to Mars by rocket even when they're close together, and we've got another year and a half until that happens again. They can't get replacement parts locally because: Martian technology. And if you want them to make their own they'd need all kinds of additional workshops and mining facilities.**

**You brought us here.**

**Yes, but if we're assuming that I'm available full time… Why bother with a zeta tube anyway? We're taking the scenic route here so Mars has time to see us coming. I could have just plonked us down on the planet's surface.**

**But you could set it up, right? Then they'd just have to keep it supplied and they could do that by zeta tube.**

**Yes, that's possible. But other than keeping the zeta tube existing, what are they doing? There's no trade between Mars and Earth. We can.. just about eat their food and they can eat ours, but the sort of zeta tubes that would be involved need so much power that it wouldn't be possible to trade a high volume of items. Data transmission is easy… Except-.**

**The technology base is too different for us to use theirs or for them to use ours.**

**Yep. Can't even send them television. Getting a few more Manhunters sent through on detached duty might be useful, but other than that?**

**What about diplomacy? Or.. defense?**

**At our current level of technology we'd have to go a long way out of our way to offend Mars, and Martians hate going that far away from other minds too much to want to come to Earth. Mars has space capable warships, but we can't borrow them because-.**

**The crew can't leave Mars.**

**They could function near Earth, but you really don't want to fight an invader near your planet. So, in summation, it could be done, but no one wants to enough to actually do it.**

**And… That's assuming other Martians even want them here.** M'gann shrugs. **Uncle J'onn worked as a policeman, and he didn't really see Earth at its best.**

**And that's leaving aside whatever other Martians have picked up about us from Mister J'aarkn.**

**I'm…** M'gann blushes slightly, her eyes momentarily flicking to Kon. **Really not looking forward to explaining that one to my parents.**

**Earth: sex and violence plan-** M'gann stiffens and her eyes glow. **-et. What?**

"A patrol boat has seen us and is asking me who we are. I'm just talking to them now."

I look over to Kon. "Excited to meet the in-laws?"

"Not really. I can just about tell male Martians from female ones but I don't think I'm gunna be able to tell M'gann's mom from her sisters. If they even come."

"My family back home had enough trouble when we tried to fit ten of us around the table for Christmas. I've got no idea how M'gann's parents manage with thirteen girls and seventeen boys."

"Staggered pregnancies." M'gann's eyes stop glowing. "We live a lot longer than Humans so there's no need to have all your kids at once. Most of my brothers and sisters are adults now. When we get home there will probably just be my parents and younger siblings." She looks over to me. **Please take us in. [An image of local space and Mars, the approved flight path clearly marked.]**

Orange light flows through the Bio-Ship, creating large gravity impellers on the rear of the ship as Mars begins growing rapidly in front of us.