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

[Mr Zoat]

14th May
14:03 GMT -5

"She's through here." Doctor Benjamin Stoner leads the way through the corridors of Arkham Asylum.

Harleen looks at our surroundings in confusion. "This ain't tha secure wing."

Doctor Stoner shakes his head. "She doesn't need it. When Batman told us she was 'normalized'… Weeee were pretty sceptical."

"I'll bet."

Euanthe stares at the walls in fascination. I guess that in her newly empowered state she isn't as bothered by the lack of greenery in her immediate surroundings as she used to be. Or maybe the city is just so filled with Green magic at the moment that she hasn't even noticed. The guards were more than a little concerned when a green-skinned woman with plant control powers appeared with us, but after she gently cleared the entrances by 'asking' the plants to move, they appear to have decided to trust my judgement. Now we just have to transport her to every single other building in the city and get her to do the same thing, and Gotham might become somewhat functional again.

"But…" He waves his hands in an almost helpless sort of way. "She just.. sat there. She wasn't completely uncommunicative, she'd eat and.. talk to you if you asked her questions… Y'know, there was an experiment back in the seventies by a guy called Doctor Rosenhan, where people requested admission to a psychiatric hospital and then stopped showing symptoms to see how long it took the staff to work out that they weren't ill."

I think I remember studying that study during my psychology A Level. The follow up study -where they told hospitals they were sending people to them and didn't, resulting in them identifying dozens of 'volunteers'- made me smile at the time.

"Some of their volunteers were inside for two months! Now, I always figured I'd never let that happen to anyone I was working with. But… I think everyone says that. So I figured… Okay. She's not picking fights with the guards or the other prisoners anymore. She's not all that talkative, maybe that's… Because she's shut up in solitary confinement the whole time? So I reduced her medication, increased her, y'know, her privileges…"

"You could do that?"

"Eeeeaaah, there's a decision review process for our 'special' patients. One too many 'hopeful' discharges of people who really needed to be kept inside. And bribes and threats to family members-."

"Yeyeah, I remember."

"But Doctor Young approved it."

"An' she was doin' okay?"

He smiles. "No!" The he realises what he just said. "I mean, yes, compared to what she used to be like. But no, because she still remembers being Poison Ivy and all the crazy stuff she got up to. But that's on the level of something conventional therapy can handle. We moved her into the low risk wing. Honestly, I thought that she'd be out and ready to face the world in a few months."

Sounds like Jeremiah Arkham's blank blackboard can finally have that 'I' drawn on it.

"Then… Well, then this happened."

He pushes open the door to the common room and stands out of the way to allow us entry.

The first thing I notice is that I can hear the Gotham River.

The second thing I notice is that the reason I can hear the Gotham River is that there are some rather large holes in the far wall.

Made by the third thing I notice. All of the plants. The main hole appears to have been smashed through reinforced concrete by the trunk of an oak tree in a way that is quite contrary to its normal behaviour. Hickory trees have taken out the wire-reinforced glass from the room's windows, the more or less intact panes lying on the tiled floor. The trees have expanded into the room, leaves sprouting in a way which makes little sense given how little sunlight they'll get. The hickory trees are bearing fruit, the normal nuts replaced by Swamp Thing's custom jobs.

The fourth and fifth things I notice are Swamp Thing's former body standing in the middle of the room and the orange jumpsuit wearing Doctor Pamela Isley lounging in its arms, one of the fruit half eaten in her left hand and giggling.

Oh. Dear.

She runs her right hand down the side of his vacant head and sighs. Then she notices us watching her and straightens up slightly. "Oh, hello there."

Harleen takes a couple of steps forward. "Hey, Isley."

I notice Harleen tense at the same time as I do. No, no reaction. It looks like Doctor Isley is happy using her Human name. Scans say… None of the modifications Doctor Woodrue made to her body have reappeared. Good.

Isley straightens up a little to find a posture in which she can better look at us. "You're.. Doctor Quinzel, right."

"Uh-huh. You remember me okay?"

"I remember finding you…" She averts her eyes with a small shake of her head. "I wasn't… I found you annoying."

"Guess that explains tha time you tried to choke me t'death with my own hair."

"No." She swings her right leg. "I did that because I hated just about everyone. If you hadn't been there it would have been someone else. That's… Why I hurt a lot of people."

Harleen walks slowly across the room towards her. "And you don't feel like doin' that now?"

"No. I feel… Good." She leans into Swamp Thing's body. "Comforted."

"I didn't think that you and he were on particularly good terms?"

"You'd know." But I'm not seeing any real anger there. "He was in a bad mood, and.. I was clinically insane. And then I wasn't. He didn't just get rid of my connection to the Green, he changed back everything Woodrue did to my body to force me to have that connection. My brain was working properly for the first time in years."

"You shower you should be eat'n that?"

"Yes."

"'Cause I'm thinkin' if it messed you up befowah-."

"My connection to the Green was the only thing that kept me coherent. And now-" She takes another bite. "-ry cn grut bck-" She swallows. "-some of that. I want to know what it's like when I'm not crazy."

"Why did Swamp Thing come to see you?"

"He wanted to give me this chance. The chance to see the Green the way he does. The healthy way."

"He broke into Arkham Asylum to do that?"

"He also wanted to know if I could find his daughter. He didn't really know what Gotham usually felt like and he thought that someone might be hiding her from him."

I frown. Swamp Thing, I feel your pain there, but was this really..? He's not intelligent. Maybe he couldn't get his head around the idea of asking the police or child services? Still… He's got awareness throughout all plant life. Isn't that like Ophidi-me with the construct eyes? Or maybe he doesn't get full awareness until he animates dead plant matter as well?

"So, okay. We need to find Tefé Holland and get the police to release Abigail. Did you give him any ideas?"

Doctor Isley shakes her head. "My connection to the Green is barely there. I'd have to eat hundreds of these things before I could tell him anything.. useful…" She stares in fascination. "Who is that?"

I half turn to see that Euanthe has entered the room. "This is Euanthe. She's a Dryad."

The look of wonder returns to Doctor Isley's eyes. "Oh God."

Euanthe walks purposively towards Doctor Isley. "The Great Warrior wishes you to find his daughter? Then I will aid you."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th May
14:12 GMT -5

"Is this how mosta your days go?"

I think for a moment as the Dryad and recovering mental patient feed each other fruit in front of us, clearly relishing the experience.

"Which.. part..?"

"Somethin' weird happens and you have t' fly all ovah the place t' sort it out."

"No, that's…" I frown. How many of these things have I done now? "Only about once a week. The world can be a pretty strange place, but usually I'm diving in strangeness because I find it fascinating rather than dire necessity."

"There's stuff you find strange?"

"I've been to Tartarus to visit a person made of stone hands. I built a toilet cubicle on the Moon."

She smiles incredulously. "No way."

"Yes way. I'm sure you know about the giant cake…"

"Everyone knows about tha giant cake."

"I've visited cities at the bottom of the sea, flown into Hell and emerged unscathed and a few weeks ago I dumped an unconscious god into a pigsty."

She stares at me for a moment, then shakes her head. "I can't even tell if youwa lyin'."

I chuckle. "I don't need to. I don't think I could make this stuff up."

She nods, eyes momentarily going to the floor. "That why you do it? Fly around, pick fights with guys in weird costumes… 'Cause y' like seein' things othah people don't?"

"No… I don't think it's that. I mean, I could do all of that stuff without the fighting."

She shrugs. "Y'don't need t'have some great big dark secret."

"Those are still fairly popular." Greenery extends itself from the intruding branches and gathers in an approximate circle around the two Green… I can't think of them as Greenies. Greenists? Around Euanthe and Isley. "But in my case it was more mercenary. I needed a personal lantern to charge the ring, the chap who had a spare wouldn't give it to me unless I was getting supervised."

"'Need it'? Wat'cha need it fowah?" She looks down at the rings for a moment. "Most people get buy jus' fine without 'em."

"Until someone turns their city into a forest."

"Okay, but statistically-."

"Yes, I know. Humans aren't good at judging risks, and I'm no exception to that rule. And the sort you have here are so much more flamboyant than we had back at home." I frown. "I don't think that I told you that I-."

"Came heyeh from another universe. No, but'cha told Dana Dearden an' I read her interview."

"Right." My frown deepens. "You know, it's only as I talk to you… I justified it to myself in various ways post-facto, but it… Never really occurred to me not to get it recharged."

"An' alla tha other stuff?"

"Reputation grinding. I wish to change the way Human society works, so I'm doing what I need to in order to ensure that, firstly, there's still a human society here and, secondly, so that people will be inclined to listen to my ideas. Or… At least, that's my current justification. Now you make me think about it, I'm not sure-."

"Wonder Woman to Orange Lantern."

I raise my left hand to my ear. "Orange Lantern here."

"What is your status?"

"Euanthe and…" I look at Doctor Isley for a fraction of a second. "I are attempting to locate Tefé Holland. Any progress at your end?"

"Swamp Thing has yet to reappear, and the Mayor appears set on enforcing the letter of the law."

"The letter of the law says that he's wrong. I made sure of that when it was written."

"The warrant is still valid. It was issued before the Citizenship Recognition Act was signed into law, and Louisiana law has not yet been modified to take it into account. When it goes to court in Louisiana Missus Holland can plead innocent on that basis."

"Yes, but that could take months -or years if she has to go to the state supreme court- and I rather imagine people are going to want Gotham in the meantime. Besides, it's clearly bull-!"

"Frustrating.. though it is, the Mayor and the State of Louisiana have the right to demand that it be followed."

"Then they're welcome to try enforcing it. Look, she's basically being arrested for jumping bail, right?"

"I believe that is why the warrant was issued, yes."

"Howsabout they just pretend that didn't happen? She and Tefé can go back to living in the swamp until the trial, I'll have Mister Tuckman conduct her defence in absentia-" And not do anything pointlessly vengeful like publicly attacking them for being morons. That is sufficient punishment by itself. "-and Swamp Thing can call off his plants."

"I have already suggested something similar. It was not well received."

"What do they think is going to happen?"

"They have requested that I call upon the services of Doctor Fate."

"Then I hope his robes are one hundred percent synthetic and that he hasn't eaten anything-. Does he eat?"

"I have never seen him do so."

"I assume that you've told them that if Swamp Thing decides to make a fight of it -and he would- he'd tear Gotham apart?"

"The phrase used was 'we do not negotiate with terrorists'."

I sigh and roll my eyes. "What's the process for starting a recall election for the Gotham mayorship?"

"Notifying the electors may prove somewhat difficult."

"Alright. I'll let you know if I find anything to-." The leaf circle shakes and rattles. "Oh, hang on. We might have-."

The leaves brown and blacken and fall to the ground. The branches themselves wither and decay and Euanthe and Doctor Isley both stare at them in horror. Euanthe recovers faster. "Pavlos! Burn the infection! Quickly!"

I raise my hands and orange light surrounds and disintegrates the dying plant matter. There's resistance of the sort I've learned to expect from an arcane target. I turn off the orange and… No, still some left. I scoop the wood that won't die up into a construct container and fire a Mage Slayer at it.

Okay, that appears to have worked.

"Problem?"

"Yes, Pavlos." Euanthe looks at the severed limbs of the plant I just amputated. "A great problem."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th May
14:16 GMT -5

Doctor Isley flops back, her breathing rapid and shallow. "What..? What was that?"

"Are you injured?"

She shudders, her breathing-. I transition across the room, a paper bag emerging from subspace and covering her mouth.

"Breathe. Breathe." She gets her left hand up to take hold of the bag. "Euanthe, has the attack stopped?"

"Yes. I was not expecting such a backlash. I believe that someone created some manner of trap to try and slay anyone who attempted what we did."

"Was it Tefé?"

"No. No, it cannot be her. No one who has the connection to the Green that she has could create such a thing."

"Do you know what it was?"

"It felt like oblivion, like drowning in tar. It felt like every spark of life being extinguished and something repugnant continuing in a foul anti-existence."

"Demons or some kind of necromancy, right. Are you still being affected?"

"No. Pamela was the focus of the ritual and her connection to the Green was not strong enough for that.. corrupted magic to continue."

Doctor Isley removes the paper bag from her face. "Okay… Okay… That… That wasn't there before."

"Are you sure that Tefé is?"

"Yes." / "She was…"

Doctor Isley looks at Euanthe for some clue as to which of them is supposed to be answering. Euanthe's lack of Human-compatible body language appears to be throwing her. Hm. I wonder how Euanthe and Danni would get along? With no guidance, Doctor Isley turns to me. "We saw her. At least, I assume it was her."

"It was."

"Then the.. blackness… It came back through the channel."

"Right. Can I assume that you didn't have any sort of cut-out? You were just plugging yourself directly in to the local greenery?"

Euanthe looks almost offended. "Of course. How else should we have acted?"

"Human magic users tend to incorporate defensive measures into their rituals to prevent things like that happening. If you're interested, I can arrange for you to get lessons." My eyes dart to Doctor Isley. "You too, when you're released. Now, where are they keeping Tefé?"

"East, almost directly. Robbinsville, but… I think she was underground. I didn't see much. I could… Probably tell where it was if I got closer."

"Not to worry." I raise my left hand to my ear again. "Orange Lantern to Wonder Woman."

There's a short delay before she answers. "Wonder Woman here, go ahead."

"Tefé Holland located. There's at least one person with her who can use some sort of death magic. I suspect that she is being held against her will. Orders?"

"Good work. I will contact Doctor Fate and request his presence."

I almost suggest assembling my entire team instead… But -much as I hate to admit it- I don't think three barely graduated Atlantean battlemages and two haphazardly trained magicians are really well suited to this situation. I really need to put more effort into finding a magic user in the weight class who we can call on instead of him. I mean, after the seventh of July it won't matter so much and with a little luck I'll have a preferred candidate anyway… I'll ask John if he's got any ideas. Or maybe Eris has another devotee with an interest, or an Amazon who'd like to try Man's magic? Don't know. Problem for later.

"Understood. Should I support him or return to civil assistance?"

Curiously, due to the way the team is set up, my oath is the only thing compelling me to obey her in this situation. The League doesn't generally have the authority to give my team orders, only Batman does. Any other deference the rest of the League gets comes from personal respect and affection. I haven't drawn this to anyone's attention as I don't want it fixed in such a way that I find myself obliged to obey Nabu. Maybe something for my exit interview?

"The Gotham zeta tube is currently too overgrown to function. I understand that you have the ability to connect construct zeta tubes to our network?"

"Yes. Though to be honest, it won't be any harder for me to just fly over and pick him up. Wherever he is. Similarly, I can pick up and drop off my team mates if you think they've beaten the gangs into obedience. Or we can try telling Swamp Thing himself. In any case, I strongly recommend having someone more diplomatic than Nabu just in case this is some sort of strange misunderstanding."

"Do you have any assessment of the level of force that you would expect to encounter?"

"None as yet. And I only have an approximate location. I can perform reconnaissance first if you like."

"One moment."

The line goes dead. Okay, what next? I walk back to the common room door and push it open, ignoring the pistols which the guards point at my face. "Doctor Stoner?"

He pokes his head out from around a corner. "Ah, yeah? Any problems?"

"No, but I might need to borrow her for an hour or so, as part of efforts to pacify Swamp Thing. Is that likely to be a problem?"

"Are you going to bring her back afterwards?"

"Of course."

"I'm… Not sure this is really my decision? I mean…" He looks away. "I… Technically, I can approve someone in minimum security for day release, but only to someone who has already gone through vetting."

"I have… Excellent character references?"

"I.. um, I'm sure you do, but there's a little more to it than that. We have to make sure that no one's fallen under the influence of… Um."

"Rea-? No." I hold my palms toward him. If people were inclined towards rationality today wouldn't be happening. "Okay. Is anyone I know on the approved list?"

"Batman?"

"Busy." And how the heck did he pass a background check?

"Robin is as well, but I guess-."

"No, I can get Robin. And if I do, you can release her?"

"Oh yeah, that'll be fine. But we'll need her back by nine. Ah... That's when we go into lockdown."

"Either that'll be fine, or there won't be a city anymore. So no problem!"

"Okay! Well then… I'll get the forms, you get the Robin!" He smiles, nods, and turns away to hurry down the corridor.

Right. One problem dealt with. Now I just wait for Diana-.

There's a rumble from outside. Then another. And another, slightly fainter.

I'm hurrying back through the door even as the ring shows me Swamp Thing's colossal body stomping down the Schwartz Bypass. "Euanthe, any idea what Swamp Thing is doing?"

"Going to recover his daughter. Was aiding him in that endeavour not the purpose of our actions?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th May
14:20 GMT -5

…

"Yes. Yes. … Yes."

…

AAAAAGH!

My right hand massages my forehead. "But it was to get them back together in the way which best served his longer term objectives, rather than the one which resulted in him rampaging through a city and alienating everyone. Swamp Thing is a wonderful being, but he isn't very clever and sometimes he needs other people to deal with complicated situations for him."

"Your original explanation was unclear."

"Yes… Yes, I now realise that. We're going to try getting there ahead of him. If it turns out to be necessary, are you willing to confront the source of that death magic?"

"The Great Warrior freed me and allowed me to succour on his power. His purposes are mine."

Harleen raises her right eyebrow. "Maybe you shouldn't put it jus' like that when you meet his wife."

"Harleen, I'm going to have to ask you to stay here."

She shakes her head. "I ain't gunna argue. I know when I'm gettin' over my head."

"Right." Ring, location of Robin?

I get an image of Upper East Side. Looks like he and the others are doing a meet-and-greet. A sound move. Preventing panic and the break down of social rules that it leads to is every bit as important as fighting a gang at the moment. Kon's floating above the others still in his party frock, and from the way he's staring north I think I can assume that he's seen Swamp Thing's new body.

Transition.

I appear at ground level, Robin and Artemis immediately orientating to me. "Guys, we have a problem."

Kon drops through the air, landing a short distance from me. "Is that Swamp Thing?"

I wave my right hand and generate a construct image for those of my colleagues who can't fly. I add a scale, and Robin grimaces. "The Schwartz Bypass is already clear of motorists, so all he's doing is crushing cars. When he reaches his destination and tries using that body to fight with that will change."

Richard nods. "Where do you think he's heading?"

"Robbinsville. Euanthe and Doctor Isley were able to locate Tefé Holland there."

Artemis grimaces. "So he's just gunna kidnap his own daughter?"

"Someone near her is using death magic to counterattack scrying attempts. If they're also keeping him from sensing her I expect that he just wants to make sure that she's safe. Wonder Woman is getting hold of Nabu but we suddenly don't have as much planning time as I had been assuming."

Wallace walks closer, draping his right arm around Richard's shoulders. "Y'know, I can still remember a time when all Gotham had was freaks in bad suits. Whatever happened to them?"

"We beat them all. Giant Swamp Thing is our level now."

He nods approvingly. "I like the way you think."

"Everyone got their spell eaters?" Nods from Kon, Richard and Artemis. Wallace and Zatanna shake their heads. "Right. I've got one spare. Kid Flash-" I generate a zeta tube construct. "-go back to base and pick yours up. I'll open up the tube again when we reach our destination."

"Right."

He's gone in a blur of yellow and I shut down the construct, taking my spare spell eater out of subspace and handing it to Zatanna. She takes it a little reluctantly. "I can't cast spells while holding this."

"I know, but -and I say this with the greatest respect- anyone powerful enough to keep Tefé somewhere she doesn't want to be and to keep Swamp Thing out-."

She nods. "Would be more than I could handle anyway."

"Once the fighting starts, just drop it. Okay, we need to stop off at Arkham so Robin can sign Doctor Isley's day release form-."

Richard's eyes widen. "You wanna explain why we're letting a plant controlling supervillain out of Arkham, Oh El?"

"Because she's not insane anymore and she can feel where Tefé is. Finding her will be difficult without Doctor Isley's help." He looks sceptical. "Robin, you were there when Swamp Thing changed her back into a normal Human. It was the alterations that Doctor Woodrue made to her body that made Poison Ivy. Her desires are.. what you'd expect from a normal person who'd been through some fairly extreme experiences and really likes plants. And I doubt that she could wrench control away from Swamp Thing if she wanted to."

He deflates slightly. "I'm so gunna regret this."

"Okay, good. Everyone ready?" Nods all around.

Transition.

Back in the asylum common room Doctor Isley is back on her feet, paper bag neatly folded in one hand. I attach a filament to it and return it to subspace as the sound of Swamp Thing's thumping steps filters back into my consciousness.

Richard eyes Doctor Isley awkwardly and she in turns looks more than a little uncomfortable. "Robin. I.. realise that you're just one of a lot of people I hurt while I was Poison Ivy, but I… I want to apologi-."

The door swings open and Doctor Stoner walks through. "So I've got the forms ready whene.. ver…" He takes in the room's occupants. "Oh, you're already here. Okay, good." He holds out a clipboard in Richard's direction. "Just sign at the bottom."

Richard takes hold of the clipboard and picks up the attached pencil. "I really hope I don't regret this." He signs with a stylised 'R' before handing it back. "Okay, Oh El. Where now?"

Underground in Robbinsville. It's surrounded by sea on three sides. Assuming that I can't scan the target directly… Gotham has large utility tunnels and storm drains… Ring, match the plans with what we can scan. Let's hope our target hasn't been as clever as they think they have.

Discrepancy found.

HAH! 'Oh, he'll never find me if I put up a scry ward'! Sucker!

"Transition in two, one."

We appear next to the main entrance to the Robbinsville utility tunnels. "There's an area in there that's warded against my scans. Doctor Isley?"

"Ah..?" She looks around for a moment, getting her bearings. "Down and…" She points north. "That way." I nod. "Do you want me to come with you?"

"No. While I much prefer your current form to that of your alter ego, I doubt that you'll be much use in a fight. Seek cover." She nods gratefully and backs away.

Thump, thump. Swamp Thing is definitely getting closer. Zeta tube construct. "Orange Lantern to Kid-" He appears through the aperture, wiggling his spell eater pendant. "-Flash. Orange Lantern to Wonder Woman. I'm in position. Is Nabu available?"

"Yes. Do you know why Swamp Thing is-?"

"Miscommunication with Euanthe. Zeta tube is open."

Another flash from the tube and Nabu floats through, stolen eyes staring and unblinking.

And immediately all of the greenery around us begins to rot.

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th May
14:25 GMT -5

Apparently tough bark crumbles away all around us, revealing dry and Moth-eaten wood. Or perhaps Woodlouse-eaten, given that a small horde of them appears to have materialised from somewhere to run over the surface of it, following the wave of death spreading out from our target.

"Vile necromancy!" Nabu's eye holes glow gold as the Lich rises a short distance into the air, a faint gold glow appearing in the air around us. Within the area of his spell the plant life either remains green or evaporates into golden flecks while outside it the plants continue to putrefy.

Hm. Presumably his necromancy is of the non-vile kind.

"Whow." Wallace looks around as the dying wood spontaneously sprouts great fronds of fungus. More insects appear, and I note several Millipedes of types not usually found in this part of America.

Euanthe has moved to the exact centre of the shielded area and has her arms pulled tightly against her chest. She stares around in horror, rather than the mystification the rest of us appear to be feeling. "Wrong. So very wrong."

"Okay." Artemis shrugs. "Creepy, but we kinda need all this plant stuff gone anyway."

"Artemis, that's ridiculously optimistic. No one is going to do something like this out of the goodness of their heart. We're just waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Even as I say it, partially rotten vines and wood are pulled away from us and towards Aparo Expressway. Chunks fall away and some vines snap, but that's an awful lot of dead wood moving under its own power.

Richard looks thoughtful. "Euanthe, can Swamp Thing control dead wood?"

She doesn't respond, too fearfully focused on all of the dying plants around us.

"He can make dead wood alive again. He can't kill it and then control it. I've never heard of a necromancer controlling dead plants before-."

"This is more than necromancy, Lantern." Nabu's hands are glowing, small ankhs on his fingertips. Ah, it seems like he's picked up the 'many small spells are more efficient than one big one ' lesson. "I sense a demonic agent at work."

More Demons, great. "Anyone you know?"

"My bestiary of earthly Demons is incomplete. None I know of are skilled in manipulating plants."

"Nabu, we're here to assist you. Undead demonic plants or freeing Tefé?"

"How can I know that this is not her doing? Your own reports state that her conception was tainted by demonic magic."

"No." Euanthe shakes her head emphatically. "No one who knows the Green could perform this abomination. Their own souls would curdle and die before they could twist themselves so much."

I think we've left Artemis behind. "Swamp Thing used Demon magic to have a daughter?"

"No, he borrowed John Constantine's body and John Constantine has some of Nergal's blood in him."

"So she's John Constantine's daughter. Right?"

Nabu glows brilliant gold and then shoots directly upwards into the sky, staring in the direction the necro-wood is moving. Great.

"It appears that we have a decision." I form a platform under my tea-. My squad, and lift us into the sky.

Oh, that's disgusting.

I can clearly see Swamp Thing's colossal form as it strides down the Schwartz Bypass. Preparing to meet his charge is a.. thing. Dull brown interspersed with dull yellow, a creature made of rotting and cankerous wood stands. Its head is a narrow oval, a lopsided mouth with teeth made of jagged pieces of bark and eye-like holes inhabited by nests of spiders. All around its body a swarm of flies hovers, more and more maggots digging out of its body to the fresh air outside. Down the front of its chest real demonic eyes swivel madly in all directions as the combined elements of the abomination take in their environment. Its lower body is a cross of insect and snake, with insectoid legs made of petrified wood and oozing demonic flesh. Blood, pus and liquids I don't want to try identifying drip from various orifices and Eris preserve me I think it's pregnant!

"Oh God. I think I'm gunna be sick."

Wallace says it, but I think we're all feeling it.

Zatanna gags. "Augh. Is that where the smell's coming from?"

"I hope so, because if it isn't, that means there's something worse smelling around here."

"SWAMP THING!"

And the sound. Damp but strong, rotting but vibrant. I know who it is even before Swamp Thing bellows back.

"Arcane!"

And I remember the Demon, his tormentor and later lover, whom their demonic overseers bonded him to after she enabled one of his escapes. Don't remember her name, but that does go some way to explain how he's back again. Bet Cranius and his mob will start shitting themselves if this gets back to Aberrance.

Kon glances at me. "You didn't bring the Ace of Winchesters, did you?"

"No. No I didn't." I form a railgun construct, load an Angel feather round and take aim. "But this is nearly as good."

Artemis draws her bow, an anti-magic arrow searching for a target. "Where do I even shoot that thing?"

"Shoot where I shoot!" Nabu thrusts his fists forward, the air around them glowing gold. "We will purge this abomination-."

"No, you won't." A beam of ghostly white energy strikes him in the side and sends him reeling in the air for a moment before he teleports, then surrounds himself in a golden shield. I trace the beam back just in time to see Dark Druid stride out onto a rooftop. "You'll die. Everyone in this city will die."

"Foul sorcerer!" Nabu charges his shot, ankhs floating around his forearms in a circle before a brilliant golden beam blasts at Dark Druid's position.

Where it's met by an ectoplasmic barrier. "This is a place of unlife, Fate. Our domain. Inhabited by hundreds of the still living." Nabu blasts him again, this time making his barrier shudder. "Arcane! Cull the living."

The abomination half turns, its arms flying outwards. From them, a horde of demonically mutated insects fly in all directionohshit.

Praexis Horde, get them!

Demonic constructs fly from the rings as I drop us to ground level. "Team, we're going after Tefé. No way can either of those monsters sustain a connection to the Green on their own."

Zatanna looks concerned. "We're abandoning Fate?"

"Dark Druid just surfaced for the first time since Roanoke. What just changed?"

Doctor Isley's eyes widen. "The Green. There's more Green magic in this city than anywhere there's ever been."

"Losing Nabu-" Like this. "-would be bad. Losing all plant life on the planet would be worse. We're going to disrupt his link to it." I transition upwards, target Arcane's womb and fire my Angel feather round before transitioning back down. "Now."

"RRRRAGGH!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th May
14:28 GMT -5

Demonic Wasps fly from Arcane's rotting body, meeting my Praexis Demons in a swirling melee in the air. The Demons are more numerous, grabbing and biting at their far more agile quarry. Still a few get through-

"Yfirup!"

-and in a puff of smoke hurtle out of control to the ground. They're still alive-ish, but the magic enhancing them is gone and they're stuck with giant insect bodies that can't get enough oxygen to function. I give Zatanna a nod as the rest of my team jogs towards the utility tunnel entrance.

"There's no way anyone down there doesn't know we're here, so we're doing this fast and not subtle." I take Zatanna's proffered spell eater, then create construct armour around everyone. "Robin and Zatanna, take the lead. Destroy any magic protections you encounter as you find them." They nod and speed up as Richard throws a crumbler-boomerang at the entrance, destroying it. The access tunnel is straight down, kinetic belts allowing them to just jump down without any concern. "Superboy, Euanthe, Isley, you're next. Superboy-" He glances back. "-look after them."

Euanthe is first to the hole, then hesitates. "I cannot make it grow to-."

Kon puts his right arm around her waist, his left around Doctor Isley and jumps.

Artemis puts an arrow through a demonic Stag Beetle that was running along the wall near us. "You know they're gunna follow us, right?"

Off in the sky above us there's a flare of golden light.

"Giant Demon-Insects in a narrow tunnel." Wallace nods. "Great. Now I wish I'd spent more time on magic insecticides."

I generate a pair of minigun constructs. "Go. I'll be along in a moment."

"Ah, Oh El? I didn't bring my belt-."

Artemis stows her bow, picks him up in a bridal carry and jumps down the hole.

Right. The miniguns open fire as the insect and arthropod swarm keeps coming. I hadn't reasoned it through the whole way when I took the shot, but railgun-aborting Arcane's foetus has done a reasonable job of persuading him to send his minions after us. A Black Sexton Beetle has its wings shredded by my constructs before taking shots to its head. The Praexis should be able to consume the rest before they get into the buildings. Okay, good.

"Hellwraith." The horrible thing shimmers into being next to me. "Consume the demonic magics in anything that tries to follow us."

"Yes, Master."

There's a tremendous crash, and the rings show me Swamp Thing slam into Arcane, wood dust and demonic gunk spraying everywhere. Arcane is clearly damaged by the impact, but he's drawing more mass into him. Like a Nurgle Demon, ripping his flesh apart doesn't really do much to hurt him. Not in any important sense. And it probably doesn't even hurt significantly when compared to what he suffered in Hell. As they grapple I see demonically enhanced Ants scurrying across his body and onto Swamp Thing.

Swamp Thing brushes the first wave off and stamps on them before smashing Arcane's head to dust with a haymaker.

He's got that. I fire off a last burst of fire before flying into the utility tunnel at full speed.

"Eb Edamnu!"

Protocol and role-comprehension. Not being expected to take any part in the fight -if any- at the end, Zatanna knows to put as much effort as is required into breaking down obstacles en route. Using her for face-punching duty is a waste. For more conventional obstacles -I see a white-red glow from down the tunnel as Richard sets off an incendiary- we have a super strong gadget user. Kind of interesting how different it works between solo work and team work. A solo artist has to be able to do some of everything and know when they're trying to operate in an area they literally can't handle. We can afford to have specialists for particular tasks and keep them in that role.

Up ahead I can see Wallace and Artemis. Between super strength and super speed everyone's making good time. Better yet, they're not bunching up. Glad that I'm not the only one who's learned a lot.

"Orange Lantern to Wonder Woman. Nabu's fighting Dark Druid and Swamp Thing's fighting Anton Arcane who's using a body made of rotting wood and Demon. I've deployed the Praexis Demons to fight demonically enhanced creepy crawlies and my team's trying to release Tefé."

"I'll be there in under a minute. Won-."

The sound of wind obscures the rest as she accelerates. Good. Much as I loathe Nabu on a personal level, Dark Druid is a foul offence to life and is thoroughly deserving of the worst beating the League members feel like delivering. Diana isn't as fast under her own power as Superman and I experience a momentary pang of fear as I note that she isn't wearing armour at the moment.

Wallace blurs into motion, shoving Artemis aside and lunging against the wall himself as a giant Mole Cricket falls down from a freshly dug hole in the roof. A half-second later its head is coated in smoke as… Yep, Essence of Vitriol. Bit surprised that he brought it to the wedding with him. Maybe he picked it up from the Mountain? The Mole Cricket collapses, shaking, as its head melts away. Artemis rolls to her feet, an arrow already on string. She launches it at the Cricket's entry hole. The arrow detonates and releases quick drying hard foam into the space, temporarily blocking it to any other insects.

Suddenly I feel my awareness of the local area expand, the last of Dark Druid's wards collapsing. Tefé Holland and some figures who only show up as black are in one of the sections which the plans say shouldn't be there. Richard and Kon are already in the room, a visibly tired Zatanna having dropped back a little.

"Double time."

I attach a filament to Artemis as Wallace dashes forwards and around the corner in the direction of the advanced party. I'm not risking a transition around unfamiliar magics, but we need to get there pronto. Killing Tefé will probably shut down whatever magic they're trying to do here… Although… If it happened here as it did in the comic… I'm painfully aware that Arcane briefly was Swamp Thing, back when he still thought that he was Alec Holland and Arcane offered to give him a Human body in exchange for his elemental one. He might still maintain enough of a connection to keep things going, at least.

I deposit Artemis near the entrance and create railgun constructs. At the far end of the room a young woman is chained to the wall with dying plants.. plugged into her skin. Just in front of her, seven corpses with plants growing around and through them stand in a rough circle around a single man in a priest's habit whose eyes glow with the same off-white light as Dark Druid's beams.

Richard recognises him. "Blackfire." The clearly dead man regards us with a good deal more intelligence than the shambling forms around him. "Can't keep a bad guy down."

"Robin. I do God's work here."

I load a Mage Slayer round and shoot him in the abdomen. It punches clean through his flesh and smashes into the concrete floor beyond. An incendiary arrow from Artemis hits the closest plant zombie, the chemical gel inside spreading out across its surface before igniting. No scream, not even an exhalation as the fire spreads and it and its fellows charge. There's a yellow blur and one begins smoking from Wallace's acid as he runs past to see to Tefé. Richard takes another with a white phosphorus bomb as Blackfire stands. The hole in his body glows the same off-white colour as his eyes and he grins as more of it manifests around his right fist.

"Superboy, get him."

"For Helios!" Kon surges through the air, Helios' pure light shining from him as he hits Blackfire in the chest with both fists and drives him into a wall. The man doesn't yelp or give any other indication that that actually hurt him.

A shambler charges at me, wooden claws shimmering with that same off-white light which I remember from the Invunche in Liverpool. I back up slightly, taking an x-ionised sword out of subspace and slicing off its reaching limbs before smashing it in the chest with a battering ram construct. It tries digging its foot claws into the rotten vegetation underfoot, but a pair of construct blades slice those off as well shortly before an unmaker takes its head.

And the rest of it keeps moving.

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th May
14:32 GMT -5

Awkward. Almost cheating.

"Head shots don't kill. Destroy them completely."

For a moment, every part of my opponent's body glows with orange light. Then not even ash remains.

Euanthe has joined Wallace in ministering to Tefé, pouring his acid… No, that's healing potion, pouring healing potion onto the vines stuck in her.

Richard backs away from his still-burning attacker before throwing a small explosive into its chest. The blast knocks it off its feet, but what's left of it still tries to rise. "They don't burn so well!"

Artemis looses two unmakers, the torso of the vine zombie closest to her vanishing completely and its arms, legs and head falling to the ground. "Disintegration works fine."

"I only brought-" Richard holds up a single boomerang. "-one!"

Kon headbutts the snarling Deacon Blackfire then turns his head back in my direction. "Can we kill undead?"

Blackfire gives up on trying to push Kon off and instead closes his hands around Kon's shoulders, passing through his construct armour as tainted white light flows across them. "Your false god shall not protect you from-."

Kon frees his right hand and punches Blackfire in the abdomen, his left lifting Blackfire up by the throat. The brilliant white light of Helios' blessing flickers for a moment, then pushes back against Blackfire's corruption.

"No, but you're perfectly free-" I push my hands towards another vine zombie and disintegrate it with a beam of orange light. "-to rip off his arms and legs, since they're weapons and his body isn't functioning-"

There's a tremendous crack and Blackfire's right arm sails past me. I stick out my right arm and disintegrate that as well.

"-biologically."

"Lortnoc daednu." I frown, looking around as Zatanna speaks. A vine zombie that had been closing in on her staggers a few steps, then her eyes glow with the same ghostly white as Blackfire! "Ah-agh!"

I transition to her side, another ring blast annihilating the zombie as I press her abandoned spell eater to her chest. She takes a gasping breath, blinking rapidly as her eyes return to normal.

"You alright?"

She grabs onto my hand holding the spell eater with both of hers, trying to get her breathing under control. "That was horrible."

"Energy field larger than your-?"

I get a glare and she shifts her hands from my hand to the spell eater itself. "That's not funny."

"Sounds like you've recovered."

I turn back to my colleagues as the de-limbed torso of Deacon Blackfire thumps down on the floor as Artemis and Richard destroy the last of the vine zombies. More of the off-white light twinkles in the dead flesh of the stumps but absolutely no liquid flows from the wound. He looks around, filled with a desire to end us but with no way to put it into effect.

I disintegrate his severed limbs. "Kid Flash, how's it coming?"

The parts of the vines directly attached to Tefé are momentarily alive once more and Euanthe is persuading them to leave her flesh. "Looking good, Oh El. We should have her out in a minute." He looks around to make eye contact for a moment. "Where exactly are we taking her?"

"The Mountain. I'll make a zeta tube construct. Euanthe, get her into the grove and try healing her. Kid Flash, help her."

"Right." Tefé comes loose, falling forwards into Wallace's waiting arms as the last few vines are pulled from her flesh. She looks.. a mess. Her wounds aren't bleeding much but there are clearly visible incisions into her flesh everywhere I can see.

"Anyone hurt?"

Kon rolls his right shoulder. "Aches where he touched me, but that's it."

My eyes pass around my team mates and they each shake their heads in turn. "Euanthe, any idea what that was doing?"

Euanthe steps away from Tefé's prison as the plants she temporarily resurrected die off once more. She peers at Tefé's injuries and then shakes her head. "She connected the death to the Green. I do not understand the magics involved."

"Right." I generate a zeta tube construct. "Get going."

They walk into the aperture and disappear as Doctor Isley nervously raises her right hand. "Should I go with them?"

"Grateful as I am for your help, you're not going inside secure Justice League facilities for a little while. Stick with us for the time being."

She looks longingly at the portal for a moment, then nods.

Kon walks slowly towards Blackfire's fallen form and lightly kicks it with his right foot. "What do we do with him?"

"Nabu can have him." I put construct clamps around the torso and send it floating back along the way we came. "Let's go. Superboy, take point. Doctor Isley, with me."

Kon nods and strides ahead as Isley comes up alongside me. "What are you going to do next?"

"Help Nabu and Wonder Woman if they need it, clean up the infestation and then talk Swamp Thing down."

Artemis follows Kon, and Robin turns his head my way. "Oh El, what's going on up top?"

I generate railgun constructs and set them to automatic before having the rings scan the combat zone. Bars of luminescent green energy surround Dark Druid as Nabu brings a golden ankh down on top of him. Druid's hood is either thrown back or burned away, his face snarling with hate as he raises his hands and tries to stop the ankh with his own necrotic magics.

The mass that is Arcane's current body shudders as Diana smashes through the front fists first and out of the back in the same way. His body looks smaller than it was before, dead wood sloughing away… He isn't regenerating. He and Swamp Thing are still grappling and from the looks of it the right side of Swamp Thing's body is starting to die off as well. Not fatal, as long as he has space to evacuate.

I watch a Millipede duck around a small group of Praexis Demons and charge through a doorway, only to be blasted back by a group of well-armed civilians. Shoot a demonic creepy crawly enough times and still dies.

"Nabu has Dark Druid pinned and Wonder Woman and Swamp Thing are tearing chunks off Arcane. Unless something goes badly wrong, we've won."

"Um… Excuse me?" Isley makes eye contact with me for a moment before pushing her right hand through the dead vines running along the side of the tunnel. They come apart and fall to the ground. "I think the.. plants are dead. Properly dead, not undead-dead. They don't feel unnatural any more."

There's a twang from up ahead as Artemis puts a couple of point arrows through a mutated Spider.

"Good shot. Right, sweep and clear. I don't want a single bug escaping."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th May
16:43 GMT -5

"I'll pass that on. Hold please."

I nod, letting my left hand drift a little further from my ear and returning my attention to the argument taking place in front of me. After Nabu sent Dark Druid back to… I'm not actually sure. Wherever he put the wizards after Roanoke Island. His tower, presumably. That caused the unlife to go out of the severed torso of Deacon Blackfire so I took a couple of pictures as proof and then disintegrated it. Anyway, he did that and my team went a-hunting while Swamp Thing and Diana battered what was left of Arcane into submission. Then Nabu blasted that down into a vaguely humanoid lump of meat and plant and sent it away to join his partner in crime.

And if he breaks the law on dealing with dangerous but defeated supervillains, that's his problem.

And now I'm in a room with Swamp Thing, Diana, Mayor Skowcroft, Commissioner Gordon and a group of distinctly uneasy looking members of the Gotham SWAT team while they try sorting out what the hell happens next, because the core issue of contention didn't get solved just by us stopping a couple of supervillains doing… Whatever it was they were doing.

"…don't care if you weren't responsible for the giant insects! Your plants still brought this city to a halt, and I intend to hold you responsible for every Gotham citizen who died!"

It's fascinating. I knew full well that Swamp Thing was capable of splitting his attention between multiple avatars but I hadn't realised that he could consciously animate them at once. There's an instance of him on top of Mount Justice ministering to Tefé right now, another down there being all impassive as Mayor Skowcroft shouts at him and there's at least one out in the city.

"How do you… Intend… To do that?"

I'm not even certain that more people died today than die on most days in Gotham. Let's see, the normal death rate is about 140 per day. Swamp Thing stopped ambulances and helicopters, but I was covering for emergencies pretty well and not everyone who calls an ambulance is going to survive. Regular appointments were cancelled, so there might be a few deaths there due to late identification of conditions. Eight people were mauled to death by Demon Insects, but he didn't create those and I'm not convinced that the police who were within their normal response time radius would have helped more than he did.

"You think we can't find out where you live!? How about we add Aiding and Abetting a Supervillain to Missus Cable's charge sheet? How would you like that?"

Gangs were mostly lying low and my more martially minded team mates jumped the few who weren't. There were a few fires, but supercharged by the Green the plants proved remarkably un-inflammable. In fact, there were reports that they would grow to smother fires above a certain size. If that's true then I need to see if I can get hold of one or two examples… But anyway, it will be very hard to link Swamp Thing to any one death that occurred today. Most of the obvious damage is financial, lost revenue and damage to city infrastructure.

"I am… Still capable of… Levelling this city."

Neither are behaving in a remotely sensible way, but one is a plant god and the other is a slightly overweight American of Italian-Scottish descent. The mayor has far less leverage than his opponent. Really, it should be obvious that Swamp Thing doesn't feel even slightly bad for what he's done. If the mayor had any sense he'd just set out what reparations he thought were reasonable and go from there.

Diana smiles pleasantly at both of them. "Perhaps if we could return to the matter at hand? Swamp Thing, do you know why Arcane and Dark Druid were here?"

"I… Do not. I felt the wave… Of death in the Green. I removed myself there to stop it and… To make repairs. When I… Returned to the physical world…" His eyes narrow. "My wife had… Been arrested. And had fled to Gotham."

"Now, that wasn't our doing! We didn't make her jump bail. If she'd just stayed in Louisiana, there wouldn't have been-."

Swamp Thing's body darkens as the green epidermis grows a layer of hardened bark. He glares at the mayor as the right hands of several police officers start drifting to their guns. "She should not… Have been threatened… In the first place! If I had… Not acted, it would have meant the… sickening of all plant life in the world! Your crops dead. Your ecosystems in ruins. And for this, my reward is… The persecution of my family! And for what?!"

"Swamp Thing." It takes a moment, but his face turns back towards Diana. Don't really know how he feels about the daughter of Gaea, but he does at least appear to be listening. And I know that Diana's accepted that he isn't prepared to wait for due process of law. "What happened to your daughter after Abigail was arrested?"

"She… Saw the police… Make the arrest. Waited at their… Hotel room for news. When there was none, she went to… Robinson Park. There, she was… Captured."

Commissioner Gordon tenses the left side of his mouth slightly, clearly not wanting to interject but feeling obliged to. "The paperwork we had from Houma said that Tefé might have been travelling with her. We had people out looking for her, but she wasn't cooperating."

"Why… Should she?"

"Because if we'd had Tefé in protective custody-."

"You believe that you could have… Kept her safe… From Arcane?"

Commissioner Gordon shakes his head. "Of course not, but he wouldn't have had to find out that we had her."

Diana nods to herself. "How did he find out that she was here?"

"I do not… Know for certain. Arcane may be able… To use magic in order… To trace his living… Relatives."

Commissioner Gordon frowns. "Relatives? That thing has relatives?"

"Anton Arcane used to be a Human. He's Abigail's uncle."

"I did not… Study her prison directly. But from the description… Provided, it seems that Dark Druid and Arcane were… Using her connection to the Green in order… To continue their work of poisoning plant life… Faster and over a wider area than before."

Diana makes pointed eye contact with Commissioner Gordon. "If you do not know when Arcane and Dark Druid began pursuing Tefé, could it not be that they fled Louisiana to avoid capture?"

He gestures upwards with his hands. "Then why didn't she say that when we interrogated her?"

"Was she obliged to?"

"Wfuj… No, but it would have been extremely helpful to know. Why?" He shakes his head, not following her reasoning. "Do you think that's what happened?"

"I think." Diana pauses to consider her exact words. "I think that if she had fled her uncle, and did not have the opportunity to inform the authorities in advance, then she has not violated the terms of her bail. She would not of course be expected to remain in a place where she could come to harm or where her daughter might be captured and used to destroy all of the world's plant life."

Commissioner Gordon looks blank for a moment, then nods. "That's certainly plausible."

Mayor Skowcroft screws up his face. "Oh, come on Jim. Obviously if that was the case it would have been the first thing she said!"

"Mister Mayor, are you familiar with the work of General Sunderland?"

"Not-. I mean, I've heard of him, but I don't see-."

"Swamp Thing was one of his victims. Him and his aren't inclined to trust authority."

Technically accurate, though Swamp Thing wasn't involved in the late General's work on the Un-Men. But that's the association Diana wants in his head.

Commissioner Gordon nods, warming to the idea. "And if that were the case, Abigail could be returned to Louisiana under her original bail conditions."

Diana nods. "Or placed in the care of the Justice League. In the event that further attacks of this nature were a possibility."

It's a reasonable face-saver. Mayor Skowcroft's clearly spotted what they're implying. Will he go for it?

"That still leaves all the greenery and the damage to the city."

"If my wife is… Free, then I am prepared to… Remove my plants and restore… Parts of the city which were… Significantly damaged." He leans forward. "Freed. Not transferred from one… Prison to another."

"I can't just clap my hands and make the original charges van-"

My ring blinks and I return it to my ear.

"-ish."

I generate a phone construct and hold it out to him. "Mister Mayor? President Horne for you."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th May
21:53 GMT -6

"And you could jus' get tha President on tha phone."

Harleen and I walk down the main road of Montegut, Louisiana. We have our arms around each other's backs and she's leaning into me. We dropped Swamp Thing, Abigail and Tefé off twenty minutes ago and I am now escorting her back to her home. The right hand and the left hand -or perhaps, this being America, the right hand and the further right hand- are now talking to one another and with luck finding a non-stupid legal solution which doesn't involve picking a fight with the God of Plants. I was pleasantly surprised by how President Horne stayed polite and reasonable throughout the conversation.

"Yes. I mean, it wasn't exactly easy. I had to go through a number of intermediaries, but he told me when Mister Luthor and I were campaigning about the Citizenship Recognition Act that he agreed with what we were doing, and if we ever ran into any sort of trouble getting it enforced we should contact him."

"Rilly?"

I raise my right eyebrow, turning my head to look down at her. Street lighting around here isn't all that good, but I'm sharing the ring's ambient lighting enhancement. It makes her eyes look more than a little bit unsettling. I suppose that I'm used to seeing it in the mirror, but seeing it on someone else… "Why wouldn't he?"

"Jus' never rememba him gettin' excited about civil liberties befowah." She looks thoughtful for a moment. "Actually, I ain't sure what else he's actually done."

"I know he was the third head of state to send an ambassador to Kahndaq after Adom took over."

"I don't rememba hearin' nothin' abowd that."

"Probably didn't want to draw attention to it, given how sensitive America was -and still is- to supervillains. I mean, Adom's not, but that sort of distinction's lost on some-" Television channels. "-people."

"I know you said this sorta thing only happens once a week, but is this how it usually goes?"

"No. Usually our opponents are more violent or more secretive. Swamp Thing was just sort of sitting there and having a halfway reasonable grievance. And if there's any sort of dispute about who gets charged with what afterwards superheroes aren't usually involved."

"How come?"

"We're permitted because we're useful and… As you saw today, there are certain practical difficulties involved in stopping us."

She chuckles. "Yeyeah."

"But most of us don't have arrest authority. Justice League members do, but that's about it. The usual procedure is to hand suspects over to police and then let them handle it."

"You can't make arrests?"

I nod. "I can't make arrests."

She tugs slightly on my arm and we turn off the main road onto a smaller road lined on either side with bungalows. Bungalows on stilts. I suppose that it makes sense, given how low lying all the land is around here. If it floods, who cares? As long as it's less than two metres deep you just have to sit tight for a day or so.

"Lived here long?"

"I was just rentin'." She shrugs. "But, once Waller decided she was gonna keep me on, I decided I needed somethin' a bit more permanent." I nod. "A lotta guys an' gals from Belle Reve live around heyah. It's less than an hour's drive t' get t' work, prices are okay, crime rate's low… 'Course, havin' a buncha people from a supervillain prison livin' here probably helps with that."

"Bit quieter than New York or Gotham."

"I dunno. Gotham was pretty quiet today. An' tha flies can get real bad durin' summah. Oh, this is me."

She pulls away slightly, leading me up the solid wooden steps of her bungalow towards the door. There's a small electric light attached to the wall next to the door and I can see a couple of insects crawling over it in an attempt to reach the moon. I've never really been clear why Americans build houses that are this fragile. If I lived in a place that got hit by tornadoes a few times a year I'd want my home built of solid brick.

Harleen takes her key out of her handbag and slots it into the lock. "Nevah did get t' go flyin'."

"We can always do that some other time."

"Yeyeah, we could." She turns back towards me, then nods. "You… Um. You got any plans for tomorrow?"

"Batman's probably going to want to talk to me about the whole Swamp Thing thing at some point, but other than that, nothing that can't be put off. Haven't managed to put you off the whole superhero lifestyle, then?"

"Heck no. So…" Her eyes dart around, moving from me to our environment. I suppose that since she's not used to built in night vision it must be a little distracting. "I was wonderin'-."

"Hello, Paul."

"Ah!" Oh dear. A hand appears over my right shoulder at the same time as I feel a head against my left arm. What the heck is Eris doing in Louisiana? Harleen stares at her. "Who are you?"

"Didn't he tell you?" Eris' right hand trails across my back to my left side, making only a brief stop off at my bottom and Eris walks forw-. What is she wearing? No, I can clearly see what she's wearing. It's a black leather corset which barely covers her breasts, coupled with black knickers, black leather thigh boots, black elbow length gloves and… And she's carrying a riding crop. "I'm his goddess."

Harleen blinks, backing up slightly. "Uuuuum. I… Um."

"And he recently called upon my services." Eris tilts her head slightly to the right, looking Harleen over and grinning. "Will you be joining us this evening?"

Harleen's mouth falls open, her eyes moving from Eris to me and then back again. She gulps. "Ah-h..?"

I sigh. "Harleen, she's my goddess in an entirely literal and not at all metaphorical -or sexual- way. Allow me to introduce my patron, Eris. The Olympian Goddess of Chaos."

"O-oh." She nods. "Because.. that's.. less.. scary."

"She's actually quite a pleasant woman." Eris brings the keeper of her crop to her lips and licks it lasciviously. "Mostly. Sometimes. Eris, are you actually here for something?"

She grins. "Oh, call me 'mistress'."

"I'm not calling you mistress."

She rolls her eyes. "Oh, fine. That thing you asked me about. I've got a lead."

"The thing…" Oh, the thing. "Rrright." I sigh, then focus my attention back on Harleen. "I'm terribly sorry, but I need to get on this."

Eris nods. "He really does."

"Ah. Okay! Well, I had-. Fun, today?" Her eyes dart to Eris again, who-. Shouldn't be doing that with a riding crop in public. "Ah…" She darts forward, puts her hands on my shoulders and pulls my head down to give me a quick peck on the left cheek. Then with another nervous glance at Eris she backs away, pushing open the door of her house and walking through. Then closing it in a fairly definitive way. I hear the lock turning.

Eris nods to herself. "She seemed nice."

"Eris, this wasn't the best time."

"I know. And you!" She turns my way, flicking me lightly in the chest with her right hand-.

Whow! I go flying through the air! Over the roof of the stilt bungalow opposite Harleen's house and I'm still going! Brakes, brakes? Okay. I stabilise, then transition back down to where Eris is now standing at the end of the road. "What was that for?"

"Sinning."

"What? Eris, you don't even have-."

"You were just going to drift into her bed. After all the nagging from me and after all your high-sounding rhetoric, you were just going to go with the flow." She peers at me suspiciously. "You.. did.. realise that she wanted-?"

"I didn't… Think she was going to proposition me… Now."

"You actually didn't, did you." Eris looks away for a moment. "Wrll. I'll let you off. But I expect you to make an actual decision." She comes a little closer, looking me directly in the eyes. "Take a hold of your destiny."

"Eris, that's my crotch."

"I've already got my destiny." She nods. "Now, come on. I think I've found a way to get that chaos focus you wanted."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th May
22:02 GMT -6

"I'm not sure where you think we can walk to from here that has any chance of-."

The universe around us twists and bends, colours shading into one another as the paint of the universe runs and mixes, swirling in bizarre patterns that I can't quite make sense of. I close my eyes to-. They're still there. Okay, this might just-. No, it's just strange. I unfocus my eyes slightly, abandoning any attempt to follow any one part of what I'm seeing. Treat it like a magic eye picture. Huh. Now I do that it's almost relax-.

I fall face first onto the tarmac as I'm abruptly returned to reality. Ow! Wait, why does this -I push myself up and gingerly feel my nose with my right hand- hurt? My environmental shield should have protected me from a simple face plant. And my nose… No, it's not broken, but it still hurts and I've got dirt and gravel on my face and that.. shouldn't happen.

Eh. I brush the worst of it off with my right hand and look around for Eris-.

This isn't Louisiana. Ring, where am I?

14th May
23:02 GMT -5

Present location is Salem, Massachusetts. Precise location is the last recorded location of the-

FUCKFUCKFUCK I recognise it!

-Tower of Fate.

"He̸h͜eh͢ehé!"

I frantically look in the direction of the laughter. Eris is kneeling in front of a small child. Blonde and.. female, I'm assuming, though too young to have entered puberty. Her clothing is faded turquoise, and it's either a dress that has been cut down to her size or a long blouse or t-shirt that got that tatty through natural wear and tear. On her head is a green knitted bonnet with an orange bobble. The hair which juts out is cut in a haphazard manner, as if some time ago someone stabbed at it with scissors until they got bored and then called it a day. In her right hand she holds a string, and on the other end of that string is a lighter than air balloon in the shape of a fish. She smiles as she sees that I've noticed her and gives me a wave with her left hand.

Then she steps forwards and pats Eris on the head. Eris collapses.

"Hello? I don't think we've met. I'm-" I rise to my feet, fighting against a sudden feeling of dizziness as I do so. "-Orange... Ah. Orange Lantern two eight one four."

"͜Re̛ally̸?̀"͟

"Ah…" I frown. Am I-? Yes, of course I am, why was I-? "Yes." I nod. "Really."

I open my right hand, creating a simple kaleidoscope construct in the air next to me. No, the rings are working, so why does my face still hurt? And why couldn't I remember-?

An image appears in my mind. I'd just got out of the zeta tube in the Hall of Justice, I turned to my right and-.

"You-. You were both there. At the Hall of Justice, before the thing with Kon and the Genomorphs."

"̶Y̧òu͝ ͠n͡ever g̡ave me͡ my c̸a̷k͠e̡."̵

"You never left your address." Eris rolls onto her side, staring at me wide-eyed as she shakes her head. "But I have some in subspace if you want some now?"

The girl beams and nods her head vigorously. Right, fruit and icing… I delete the kaleidoscope construct and turn my right hand palm upwards, fingers raised. A plate appears from subspace with a generous piece of Christmas cake resting on it. I crouch down and hold it out to her. "Here you are. Now…" I glance at Eris, but she seems to be spacing out. "What's your name?"

She lunges for the plate, her mouth w̷iden͞ing b̧eyo̶ńd t̴hé c҉on̡f̨ine̕s ̢ǫf̵ h͞er͘ ͞m͢ơu̕th,̡ ͠r͘i͡n̛gs o͜f̵ vici͘ous҉l҉y ̶sèrŗat̷e̵d ̨tee͘t͟h̸ undùla͠ti͏ng̕,̧ p̸oi͟śe͜d͡ ̡t̴o̶ redu͝c͏e a͡ǹy͟ ̕obje̸c͜t̛ ente̵ring ͘th͠at v̡a͠s̢t m͝a̴w to i͢ts ̨b͢as͠e ̕c̛omp҉o͢nent̵s͞. ͢ A ͏r̷ip̕p͢l̢e, ̶an̕d m͡y̧ ve҉r͘y ey͞e̛s̷ are d̨r̀a͞w̸ǹ ͡f̡u̶r̀t̸h̀er a͠nd furt̕he̡r ̕in̨, ̀p͜a̧s͟t̡ m̡o̢r͢e̵ ̢and m͠o͞r̶e̕ r̡i͏ngs ͡of ̵t̡ee͞th ͢un̷ti̸l̀ beyond̴ all o͞f ͠th͜e ̵teeth,̴ wh҉ere I ̨wơu͝ld̵ expect ̸t̸o͢ śęę ͝he͟r͝ gulle̴t...̵

I͡ ìn͞s̷teaḑ ̶seȩ ͟m͘ysel̵f ͡s̴t͝a̵r̸i͢n̶g ̨b̨ack.

I fall backwards, dropping the plate as I fall onto my arse. She steps forward and neatly catches it as it drops, staring down at me with amusement.

Then she raises the plate to her mouth and takes a perfectly normal bite out of the cake. Okay, using her hands would be more normal, but compared to the Chaos-Wurm…

"What are you?"

She tugs lightly on the string of her balloon, bringing the fish down to the level of my head as she continues to eat the cake. I look the fish in the eyes and the fish looks back.

"I ̶is Sh͏iveri͞n͟g͘ J̨e͏mmy̴ ̢o̵f ̸T̵h҉e̡ ̀Sh̢al͘l̨ow ͠Br͝i̸g̛a̶de̛,̵ ͢an͝d I͘ is a P͡rin̡cęs̷ş of͠ Chao̕s,҉ ̨ąnd͠ I is̷ ̢very ̧im҉p̡ortaņt."

"I'd have hesitated to give you cake if you weren't. Um." I glance at Eris. She just looks back blankly. "Okay? You-" I look up in the direction I know the Tower to be. "-are aware that the Tower of Fate-."

"̵It҉'s̴ ̵no͜t ͞he͝re҉ ̧m̷óḿent͟ari͜l͜y͡. ́ I̵'̡s w͏ant̡s̨ y̕o̡u ̡t҉o̶ t̕ell I͠ ͠w͘h̨at̢ y͘ou i҉s ̛doi̷ng͠.̨"̀

Okay, Eris thinks I can get a chaos focus from… Shivering Jemmy, a phrase which means 'A beggar who parades in rags and tatters in the hope of attracting greater sympathy'. Is a Princess of Chaos the same as a Lord of Chaos? I have no idea what I'm dealing with. But I need a focus from her, and I doubt that Eris would have brought me here for no reason.

I shrug. "I'm going to kill Klarion. I could.. just.. lure him somewhere and stab him with the Sword of the Fallen. But that isn't enough. The bit we've got walking around and making a nuisance of itself is disconnected from the greater part of the Lord of Chaos Klarion that exists in the Realm of Chaos itself." I look from the fish back to her for feedback. "Right? I mean, it seems like you'd know better than I do."

"̢Go̵ o̡n."͢

"But that mass could regrow his mind, or develop an intelligence of its own. And he could just get replaced by someone as bad, and while I'd probably feel a bit better about seeing him dead… That's not why I'm doing this. So I need to deal with that mass and I need to be sure that we get a Lord of Chaos who isn't like Klarion. So… My idea was to kill two birds with one stone. Get someone who could become a Lord of Chaos and use the Human-shaped bit of Klarion to force a connection."

Jemmy looks up from her plate, mouth slightly open, damp raisins and other pieces of cake stuck to her face.

"But to do that, I need a powerful focus of elemental Chaos magic. Eris told me that her apples wouldn't be enough. Which I assume is why she brought me before you."

"You i͝sn͠'̴t̀ very͝ ch͝aoti̸c̀.͢"͡

I nod. "I know. I'm not instinctively a particularly chaotic person. It's just that I look around, and… The existing order is so dysfunctional. It needs to change. The world needs more chaos, and if I'm the person in the right place…" I nod. "Then that's how it is."

"̵Ǹot͟ yo͜u͟ the͟n.̴ W̷ho?"̨

"Eris-" Who has pushed herself more or less upright. "-wasn't interested. So I asked John Constantine."

"Huuuurrrrhh-hahahah! Hehahahahah! RAAHHHAAHHHAAAHHAHHHAH! WOOOHHAHAHAAAHAHHHHAHAHAHH!"

Her body shifts as she continues laughing, childlike form replaced by something more obviously monstrous. Guffawing, she towers over the plaza as a titanic, misshapen figure. A child's clay model of a human brought to life. I've seen far uglier, but the sheer wrongness she now conveys puts her in the top ten things I don't want to see again.

And then the ogreish figure is gone and the girl has returned.

"̵Kl̸ar͝iòn ̢p͡u̸ll͏e͜d͝ ͜I's͟ ha͡i҉r and ̷p̛us͜he̵d͠ ͏I͠ of́f̧ th͞e̶ swi̷ng͡s̀.̷ ͏Yo͠u̸ ͞c̷a͘n hav͟e ͟I͢'̵s҉ fi̛sh҉."

She holds out the string towards me. I glance at Eris again, but she just pulls her head back slightly. Guess she doesn't want to involve herself further. I reach forward and take the string.

The fish deflates, falling to the ground.

"A҉ll ̵you'r̵es.̵ ͞A̕ll ̢doņe̷.̧"͡ She turns and starts walking away. "M҉ake śur͜e ̷you ͝şt̶a̸y͡ ̧iǹter͏e̷s͠t̕ing."

"I will certainly try, oh Princess of Cha-" And she's gone. "-os." I look down at the chaos fish balloon and then at Eris. And then at the place where the Tower of Fate should be. "Eris, can I assume that we need to go now?"

She struggles to her feet and lumbers in my direction. "Yes, yes we do."

I nod and transition us both away.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Escalation

15th May
10:37 GMT -6

"Okay, now, just sort of… Lean forwards a bit?"

Harleen tries to follow my instruction, starts to drift and then immediately straightens up again. I suppose it's a bit like using a Segway. All your instincts tell you that you're about to fall over, despite the fact that that's very unlikely.

I smile encouragingly. "Okay, and again?"

For a second she looks up at me, then her eyes drop back down to the ground. Which is about a metre away. "This ain't easy, y'know. How long did it take you t'learn, anyways?"

"I got the basics after half an hour or so." That earns me a minor scowl. "But, I had been flying with the ring for months before that, so I'd got used to the whole 'being in the air apparently unsupported' thing. Look, it's pretty much impossible for anything to go wrong. Even if you just fall out of the air, hitting the ground won't hurt. The belt absorbs kinetic energy."

"I dunno. That shuwer sounds like somethin' that'd hurt."

I hold up my hands, pull the left ring off with my right hand and then pull the right ring off with my left. I then stow them both in one of the chest pouches in my overalls. "There we go. Just the belt holding me up. Next?"

I flip over, the sky spinning across my field of vision until I can see the ground again. Ugh, that always feels weird when I do it without the rings. The kinetic belt has some inertial stabilising but it's got nothing on a proper environmental shield. Then I shoot forward, accelerating rapidly and boong, ramming face first into the grass-covered ground.

There's a sharp intake of breath from my flying-buddy.

"And I'm fine." Precise manoeuvring with these things is more difficult than large movements, but I twist around while still balancing on my head. "See? No problem."

"Okay." She blinks. "That's a thing."

"You wanna try?"

"I think I'll stick t'normal flyin'."

"Well, go on then."

"Oooooh… Kaaaaay?" She leans forwards in the air, accelerating slowly forwards and upwards. "How'm I doin'?"

"Like a toddler on her first tricycle, but you're going forwards and that's the main thing." I clench slightly, causing my own belt to reverse me back upwards. Then I twist, briefly moving to a position parallel to the ground before accelerating up to Harleen. "Come on! It's really instinctive. Inasmuch as there is a trick, it's to not think about it too much. I mean… You were a gymnast. You didn't think about where every part of your body was the whole time, did you?"

"Okay, but-" She moves her right forefinger into lecture position. "-if this goes wrong you bettuh catch me."

"I won't need to. Unless you fly into a laser or an electricity pylon-" I look around, seeing none of either. "-you're pretty much proof against anything that could hurt you."

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, then leans forwards and jerks her hands back. Immediately she accelerates forward, forcing me to duck and dive to avoid being hit. "Wwaaahhhoooooo!"

I hold my right hand up to my mouth as she rockets away. "See!" Uh. Maybe I should get after..? Yes, yes I should. I assume the position and fly along in her wake as she powers through the sky… Well, so close to the ground perhaps I should say through the air, above the Kisatchie National Forest. She seems to be enjoying 'forwards' well enough, but the tree line is coming up and-.

She looks back. "This is great!"

"Pull up! Pull up!"

"Huh?" She turns her head to face forwards. "Ah!" She leans back, probably trying to stop. Unfortunately for her, the belt interprets that a desire to change direction, so rather than going at about fifty miles an hour straight forwards she's now going fifty miles an hour straight up. "Agh!" She flails briefly in surprise, then calms down a little and gets herself back under control, slowing to a stop about a mile above the forest canopy.

I follow after her at a slightly reduced rate, giving her a moment to get used to being in the air and to appreciate the view. She glances my way as I come up alongside her. "Well?"

"That was… Heh." She's panting, but the smile on her face says 'excitement' rather than 'terror'. "That was pretty great. Hah."

"Okay, next lesson: flying into the ground at full speed."

"Oh no. No." She shakes her head definitively. "That ain't happenin'."

I lean back in the air, lounging on nothing. "Alright. What do you want to do next?"

Another deep breath. "I wanna…" She nods to herself. "I.. wanna talk aboud last night. While I'm still buzzin' with adrenaline an' not.. fellin' self conscious aboud it."

"Okay." I nod. "Reasonable. Eris is-."

"Tha Greek Goddess of Chaos. An' you work fer Wonder Woman so I guess it makes sense, you knowin' her."

"I.. am actually a Hellenist. I do literally worship her."

"But that don't explain what she wuz doin' showin' up at my house, an'… Dressed.. in that."

"How.. blunt do you want me to be?"

She gives me a flat look. "Hey, I'm a counsellor heyah."

"Okay. I asked her to find a particular arcane artefact for me, and the owner was available to negotiate with right then. As to why she was dressed like that, I'm… I've been somewhat reticent on matters of romance and sex. Depending on how the mood takes her, she finds that either amusing or irritating. She dressed like that as a wind up."

"Ooh. That makes sense. I mean, she's still kind of a bitch, but…"

"Yeah." I clear my throat, momentarily averting my gaze. "Also… She wants me to end my reticence… Deliberately."

Harleen frowns, baffled. "How d'ja mean 'deliberately'? Like, you can't fall on someone?"

"No, she means that I have to deliberately choose a particular person, not just… Go with the flow in a way I don't find objectionable. Can you believe that I didn't actually pick up on the fact that you were propositioning me?"

"Oh." She looks more puzzled than offended. "Rilly? 'Cause I thought I was bein' pretty direct there."

"Yeah. I mean, I see it now, it just-. At the time, it didn't…" I sigh. "Okay, did I ever tell you that I'm a metahuman? I don't mean the rings, I mean…" I make a circling motion with my right hand.

"No." She shakes her head. "What, you got a power and power rings?"

"Not exactly. I got my power as a result of the power rings. I'm empathic. I perceive the emotions of those around me as coloured light. Most.. importantly, I see love as violet light. Last time someone propositioned me I knew… Because I could see… Violet. They were interested in me, emotionally… So it made sense that they might want to have sex with me. You… You're not violet. Not even a little bit."

"Well… We don't know each other that well. I mean… If you wan'ed to wait…"

"The question is not.. why I don't. I can or not. My question is, why do you? I'm pleasant company and I'm good looking, but would you be enjoying this flying any.. more, if we'd had sex last night? At the.. restaurant in New York, you mentioned a teacher at Gotham University in the same breath as Doctor Strange. Then you said that you just needed to find a guy who wasn't a jerk. If I turned my empathic vision up, would I see myself filling that hole?"

"Huh." She looks me over with notably less enthusiasm. "Didn't think you were that insecuwah."

"I'm not. I'm concerned for you. Not only do you not love me, there's no flicker that could become true love. You're not particularly libidinous, so it's not just the endorphin release from sex that you're looking for. Why do you want me? Given.. your history… Do you.. really think that another.. relationship with a man is.. a solution? Eris considers going with the flow to be a sin, and I.. kind of see what she means. If you're just looking for the next Strange-."

"Oh, go t' hell!"

She turns face down and drops through the sky, tears leaking from her eyes.

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th May
10:42 GMT -6

"Harleen, I'm very sorry-" She changes direction again, and I keep pace with her. "-but I feel that it's import-" Another jink, another change in direction. "-ant to be open and honest about-."

She stops suddenly, twisting round in the air and throwing her arms up. "Not always! God!" She's breathing hard as she stares at me. "I must have tha worst taste!"

"Okay, no-."

"I'm not lookin' for a Strange replacement! I thawt that maybe a superhero could be a guy I could trust not t' do any a' the manipulative bullshit he did!"

I was intentionally not using-! "I'm not.. trying to be manipulative? I mean, I'm pretty sure that I've never lied to you-" And -let's be honest here- the number of people I've not lied to is pretty small. "-or tried to persuade you to do anything for my benefit-."

"Then what tha hell was that whole 'flicka of love' stuff?"

"Ah." I nod. "May I show you?" She eyes me suspiciously for a moment, then grudgingly nods. "Try to hold still." I send a filament through the air to her, touching it to her neck and interfacing it with her nervous system. Visual cortex… There we are. Swamp Thing might do this by altering Missus Holland's soul, but.. I.. don't think that's a good idea for me. Simple enough to share what I can see.

Harleen exhales suddenly as her visual field is replaced by mine.

"This is how I see the world. See you. And this is… The lowest intensity. See the colours beneath the surface…"

"Indigo and red. What's that mean?"

"Compassion and anger. Indigo is your strongest colour. Usually. I can.. see how annoyed you are by my behaviour."

"Then why'd ya do it? If ya know how it makes me feel, why don't cha just… Not?"

"Like this I only see the colours that bubble to the surface. If I wanted to predict how… People were going to behave whenever I did something I'd have to look-" I hold up my right hand and drop it forwards. Within my visual arc so that she can see me doing it. "-deeper. And I don't like doing that unless I've got a good mission-related reason to do so."

"Deeper. I wanna see deeper. I wanna see what's so obvious t' you."

"You said you were sure that you wanted me to be blunt."

"Show me."

"Alright. Not sure this will come across properly." And I look… Under..? I don't know the words to describe it properly. If they even exist in English. Should probably talk to M'gann and find out how Martians talk about it. Though… I suppose they usually only talk about it with other Martians…

Under the red are threads of different colours leading off towards various other experiences. Standing in Belle Reve as she starts to believe that Strange was responsible, standing behind the door, listening as that woman takes me away because she's not important enough and more vaguely, wisp-images of why why why? And Strange smiling fondly and someone else I don't recognise and her useless lump of a brother-.

"Stop. Look… Look somewhere else."

I see the two of us walking along the streets of Gotham heading towards the wedding and me talking to her after we broke her out of the psychiatrist's office during the second break out attempt and us having dinner in that restaurant in New York and then she's having dinner with Strange-.

"I jus' wan'ed one relationship with a guy that wasn't a total mess." Her eyes stare at nothing as she starts crying again. "Was that too much t' ask?" I disconnect, floating closer as she blinks and focuses her attention back on me. "Was it?"

I… Um. I float right up to her and hug her, my arms going up her back and my hands on her shoulders. Her head rests on my right shoulder, leaning into my head. "No. No it isn't. But… You're looking for any sort of stability. Not for a loving partnership. And that is… Actually… What I want, ultimately. And… In your case… I don't… You know that your relationships with men have generally been unhealthy. I don't think another dominant man is really the solution you need."

"Oh yeah? What do I need?"

"A friend? One you don't need to sleep with or slave away loyally for in order for your life to keep making sense." I shrug. "Today was just supposed to be pointless fun. I wasn't really…"

"We're jus'… Gowin out flyin'… Fer fun."

"Yeah, I… I've been flying with most of my friends… You seemed to like the idea…"

"An' tha weddin'… You didn't even think that was a date, did you?"

"It had a certain date-like quality. But most of the people I might have invited have secret identities and.. so.. can't be seen with me in certain circumstances."

She pulls back slightly. "You shuwer you ain't jus' afraid of commitment?"

"Yes, completely. I have total awareness of my desires. I have no fear of commitment at all."

"Youwa bein' literal, ain't you?" She snorts as her nose starts to run-. I raise my right forefinger, a wave of orange cleaning off her face. "Oh. Thanks."

"Are.. you.. feeling..?" I don't really know to carry that sentence on.

"I dunno. Given my track rec'rd, maybe friends is bettah." She sighs. "So what yeh sayin' is, I need t'be comfortable bein' me befowah you'd even consider havin' a romantic relationship with me."

"No, it's more than that. Last time I was in this position-" I share my own recollection of Holly's inner self at the time-.

"Wait, two girls? Seriously?"

"The-. The point I was making is that… See that violet? Right. That's.. my guide to 'this relationship is a healthy one'. A genuine commitment of… At least one person to another. You've got.. blue and orange, hope and avarice, but that… Looks like it's because you want the world to work a particular way, the idea that that way is right."

"An' whats youwa violet light look like?"

"No idea. I don't know of any other Lanterns who can do what I can, and I've got.. other things that would make looking at me difficult. And just in case you're wondering, no, looking in a mirror doesn't work."

She nods, looking down at the forest below us. "I ain't sayin' youwa right and I ain't sayin' youwa wrong. An', yeyeah, I was more lookin' forward t' the idea of you bein' there in the mornin' than…" She trails off. "Huh. So, youwa turnin' me down 'cause you don't want me… What, bein' dependent?"

"You could put it like that."

She nods. "Sounds like somethin' I should be grateful aboud. But I'm mostly just annoyed." She sighs. "I wasn't expectin' a therapy session either."

"I… Really should have… Come up with a better way to put that."

She folds her arms across her chest. "So. What'd we do now?"

"Well, you appeared to get the hang of high speed flying back there. Why not keep going?"

"I… Dunno…"

"Come on. It's fun. And perhaps more importantly, you're completely under your own control up here." I tilt my head slightly to the left. "Huh?"

"Ahhhh…" She nods, the slightest hint of a smile appearing for the first time since I dropped my little bomb. "Fine. Race yah t' the trees?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

17th May
08:01 GMT -5

"Mister Grayven?" The young man who serves the same role as Charlie did on the West Wing… What was his actual job title? Chief gopher… No, probably something vaguer. Personal assistant, maybe. Anyway, Irvine does that sort of thing around here. "The President will see you now."

"Thank you." I get up from my chair, return it to subspace and follow him in the direction of our meeting room. Obviously I know where President Horne and General Lane are, but I don't mind observing protocol if there's actually some point to it. It's like the chair. Protocol calls for me to wait at the President's pleasure, instead of having me get a call when he's available and opening a hush tube to whenever he is. But I'm huge and threatening… Or possibly just really interesting, so it's bad for me to be standing the whole time because people stop what they're doing and start staring. So I sit somewhere out of the way in a chair I made myself, because I weigh two thirds of a tonne and some of the chairs around here are expensive antiques.

Bit of a palaver, but it makes getting on with these people a little easier. I'm strange, but… What was the line from Nineteen Eighty-Four? Follow the small rules and you can get away with breaking the big ones. Though, perhaps given what happens to the character who said that…

The door we're approaching actually has a keypad and some sort of junior vault door between it and the corridor. Ah, a properly secure room. In fact…

Weak security measure as these things go, Corpsman. Still, this is a primitive species. At least they're making an effort.

Lead lined walls, sound dampening technology and a weak… Sort of force field. Not as secure as the version the Light use but it should easily fulfil its purpose. Ahead of me Irvine enters his code and allows it to scan his iris. There's a 'ping' of approval and the door unlocks. He takes hold of a lever, pushes it down and pulls the door outwards slightly, sticking his head around the door.

"Show him in, Irvine."

"Yes sir." He pushes the door open the rest of the way, holding it open for me. It's a bit of a tight squeeze -they usually have to open both sets of double doors for me to get around- but fortunately I just about fit.

I nod to him. "Thank you, Irvine."

He nods back, then looks over to his boss to see if there's anything else he wants. A slight shake of the President's head and Irvine backs out of the door, closing and sealing the door behind him.

I walk over to the table and take my accustomed seat next to General Lane. President Horne is sitting at the head of the table with his Chief of Staff Adrian Myer on his left. As a foreigner and a… Non-exclusive agent, there are parts of these meetings I'm not privy to. Not many things, and since they include me in most of their discussions I do them the courtesy of pretending that I don't know exactly what they've been talking about when I'm not here. It's polite lies like these that make the world go around.

"Grayven." A thin smile from President Horne. "Good of you to join us."

"Wouldn't miss it, Mister President."

"Ah, Sam's been bringing me up to date on our.. research programs. Apparently.. you.. have some concerns?"

"Well. One of the things I raised with General Lane-" I look at him for a fraction of a second. "-was my concern about Major Zmeck. Now, I understand that you can't recant on his deal. He volunteered, his murder conviction disappears. But…" I shake my head. "Any plans to use him in any sort of public role… To say nothing of having him act as a national superhero… Nothing in his psychological evaluations suggests that he's changed his views or.. behaviour. I would be extremely concerned-."

"As it happens, I agree with you." President Horne nods. "The problem we have is that out of all of the sixty seven volunteers who went through the process, he and Captain Adams were the only people who ever came out. And while we might be able to persuade a similar number of terminally ill patriots to volunteer today, we would still have to wait forty or so years to see any benefit."

I shrug. "That's not going to get any less because you waited. And I really do think that terminally ill is the way to go, rather than condemned criminals. Frankly,-" I glance at General Lane again. "-you've been lucky that he's played along as well as he has. Even someone without a military mindset would be a better option than… Anyone else like him."

President Horne looks at General Lane. "Sam?"

"To be honest, Mister President, I'm not all that keen on continuing the quantum field experiments at all. We still have next to no idea what happens when people get exposed to it. We've no idea why they got the super powers that they did, no idea why they survived when all of the others appear not to have done. We don't even know much about how they do what they do. Frankly, the whole rig makes me feel like some sorta jungle tribesman playing with a nuke."

"And Major Zmeck himself?"

"We're stuck going into battle with the super soldiers that we have, not necessarily the ones that we'd like to. I don't think taking away his privileges would achieve anything useful. But, I see Mister Grayven's point. Having.. his.. identity… Leak… His victim's family are still around. All it would take is one photograph of him in his Human form getting online, and that's the end of any national program we tried to involve him in."

President Horne nods. "Well, that's that idea put to bed. I assume there's no commensurate problem with Major Adams?"

General Lane shakes his head. "Not at all, sir. To be honest, I think it's worth involving him further."

"I wasn't inclined to meddle with my predecessor's decision when having him as a semi-independent agent was working out so well. I don't wanna twist his arm, General. And the final decision is of course yours. But it would be very useful to have a familiar face leading the campaign."

"I understand, sir."

"Alright, moving on. This… SHADE business."

"I'm glad that Grayven brought them to my attention." He points at the holoprojector. "You mind if I..?" President Horne shakes his head and General Lane presses a button. "SHADE runs a certification program for the military… And federal agents and other law enforcement officials." Various glyphs representing the various agencies appear on the screen, the shield and three black stars of the Super-Human Advanced Defense Executive taking the centre. "Anyone who wants to learn how to deal with metahumans attends one of their courses."

"And how are they funded?"

"Essentially, that's it. They don't get any federal money at all. There are costs for their courses and.. they do consultancy work for just about everyone… Public and private." The corners of his mouth turn slightly downwards. "'Private' is where the problem comes in. I've had no trouble getting the SHADE agents-."

President Horne holds up his right hand. "Wait a moment, General. Are you telling me that an agency that gets no federal funding has the authority to empower federal agents?"

"Yes, Mister President. That's exactly what I'm saying. But that's not all. A good many of the agents my people questioned did not believe that their authority came from SHADE. They seemed to honestly believe that it was a paperwork thing… A technicality, while they were really part of whatever outfit they were planted in. That outfit picks up the bill for the staff. But, they send full reports of everything they do up the SHADE chain of command."

"There's a federal agency so secret that even its agents don't know that they're working for it?"

"That's about the size of it, sir. I made it pretty clear that as of right now they work for me, but that only gets me the agents we know about."

The President looks at him with clear disbelief. "And who was in charge of all of that?"

"I honestly don't know, sir. All of their reports get routed to the Pentagon and to a few secure backup servers. The people at the Pentagon are operating under the same conditions as everyone else. As far as they were concerned, they were contracted as civilian support staff who had to technically be federal agents. From there, we lost the trail. We've got data sharing arrangements with certain private third party agencies who do work for us. Metahuman containment, power harnessing, places like STAR Labs who do research on the equipment tech-villains use… Our best guess is that whoever's running SHADE accesses it that way." He sighs. "I've got people working on tracking everything down, but this has been going on for a long time and they've had plenty of time to muddy the water. Cover their tracks. Unless someone from their inner circle issues a command we can track back to them, I don't know if we'll get anywhere."

"God. A rogue agency." President Horne shakes his head. "Alright. Back off, General. No sense tipping.. whoever it is, off. Keep an eye on their people. Let them make the mistake."

General Lane nods. "Sir."

"Well, ah… Thank you, Mister Grayven, for bringing that to our attention. Next item. Supervillain work release."

 

[Mr Zoat]

17th May
08:38 GMT -5

"…realise that it's not what you want to hear, sir, but that's their final ruling." Mister Myers stops himself. "That is to say, that is the informal opinion of the Justices of the Supreme Court. And if it got challenged, that's where it would have to go."

President Horne nods solemnly. "So, we couldn't get the votes, and if we could get them it would just get struck down anyway."

"That's more or less the size of it, sir."

Horne sighs, head slightly bowed. "I was really hoping we could avoid-" He glances at me. "-another situation like Klarion."

I shrug. "Constitutions. Who'd 'ave 'em?"

Myers nods his head to the side. "We could try fighting it. If we got someone really bad convicted before they could hear the arguments, someone who wouldn't be aware of all of their legal routes, I doubt they'd want to order them releas-."

"No." Horne shakes his head firmly. "I'm not prepared to do that. I didn't become President to try riding roughshod all over the Constitution I swore to uphold. If absentia trials are off the agenda we'll just have to come up with something else."

I fan my hands out. "How about… Mobile courts? I could fly a judge and jury to wherever the malfeasant is, they could do the trial opening, then if the bad guy leaves then they've clearly chosen to absent themselves and there's no problem."

"Heh heh." Horne chuckles, nodding. "That's a great mental image, but I don't think I'd want to try whipping votes for the Bill to make that happen. General?"

"I'm not an expert on the legal situation, sir, but things are a lot simpler if we treat them as enemy combatants. If they're not US citizens and they're powerful enough to present a threat to national security on their own, I don't see why you can't issue an order as Commander in Chief that gets around all that." General Lane's eyes narrow for a moment. "That's not to say we're anything like ready to fight some of these people right now, but in five to ten years it could start to look a whole lot more realistic."

Horne nods. "I'm sure that the men and women of the US armed forces would do their best in whatever situation they were called upon. And I might find myself ordering something like that at some point, regardless of what either of us might ideally wish. But that still leaves the question of what we do with people whom we can only hold temporarily, or who are readying for an attack, or who have to be-" He looks at me again. "-lured out of hiding."

"Well sir, have you considered creating a third category? Someone who isn't an enemy soldier or a civilian criminal?"

Horne sits back in his chair, giving General Lane his full attention. "No General, I have not."

"Sir, the laws which govern how we wage war were drawn up from the customs of medieval European nations who didn't have guns, let alone super powers. The sorts of challenge they faced are categorically different from the ones we face today. We aren't talking about the possibility of being conquered by.. Russia or by China. We're not talking about being forced to pay reparations, or accepting some sort of political restructuring. We're talking about people who would be perfectly happy to kill every last American citizen. We're talking about single individuals with no widespread support who can kill thousands of our people for no greater reason than their own sick personal pleasure. Or someone who can seize control of the minds of a body like the Justice League and send them out against anyone they choose. There are people out there who can equal or surpass the destructive power of nations. I don't think that we can continue to apply the same old laws to this situation. We could get a lot more leeway if the rules for dealing with these people were phrased in such a way as to be clear that they weren't being treated either as soldiers of another nation or as criminals."

"No." Horne looks almost… Tired as he says it. "No, General, I will not do that. I appreciate what you're saying and why you're saying it. I need to hear things like that sometimes, but… No. No matter how convenient it might be, that's not a step I'm prepared to take." He bows his head slightly, closing his eyes and touching his left fist to his chest. "Adrian, talk to some people about the military threat option. See what the possibilities are."

"Yessir. Ah. Sir, I'm.. getting some questions about this. People are asking where you're going. It hasn't gotten any real media attention yet…"

Horns opens his eyes. "I'll do a press conference once we've got something a little more concrete. At the moment, this is all just thinking out loud."

"Sir, I'm… Not sure that the House Minority Leader is going to see it like that. And I'm not sure the Attorney General will either."

"I'll brief Brian when we've got something to brief him on." He nods. "But you're right about Caroline. General? Mister Grayven? You have any particular problem with the Attorney General joining us?"

"No sir."

I shake my head. "I don't know the woman. If you think it's a good idea, by all means."

"Alright then. Unless there's anything else..?"

I nod. Hm. While I haven't reached a final decision on my continued Light membership as yet, I suppose that if I were going with my original plan… "There is one thing I'd like to raise, Mister President. Semi.. personal matter, but pertinent to our work. Have you been briefed on the League of Shadows?"

"I know of the organization."

"I'm investigating them with a view to ending them." General Lane raises his left eyebrow. "I have an informant on the inside. I'd like to be able to offer them… Not an immunity for testimony deal. If I missed even one Shadow their life would be over. A pardon."

"I assume that this person is a murderer?"

"Yes sir. There were extenuating circumstances regarding their recruitment and they want to leave, but… They can't. I realise that this is a big deal, and I'm prepared to work to get federal and state police into position to perform the arrests -eventually- rather than just handling the whole matter myself. You can make the announcements, offer information to foreign leaders and leave me out of-."

"Grayven."

"Mister President."

"Stop trying to bribe me. Getting those murderers is more important than my re-election. Don't do anything that makes it less likely that they'll all get caught just to try and make me look good."

"Alright… Well, depending on what stage General Lane's got to, having police, military and local superheroes in position should be perfect for the arrests. I'll be able to inform you better once I know more than I do now."

"Can I assume that your informant would be keeping a low profile after this? I'm not keen on announcing the end of the League if they plan to go on talk radio right after."

"Extremely low, Mister President." Because if I end up making that choice, Jade and I will be off Earth after a brief stop-off in Las Vegas.

"Then I'm prepared to agree. Conditional of course on the League of Shadows and most importantly its leadership ceasing to exist." He looks around the table. "Anything else?" The three of us shake our heads. "Alright then gentlemen. Thank you for your time."

General Lane and I get up first, and I let him be the one to operate the door. Keypad's a bit small for my fingers really. I follow him out into the corridor where he half-turns to me as we continue towards the exit. "You think I came over a bit strong in there?"

"No. He might, but he doesn't seem like the sort to get petty about it."

"No." His eyes crease slightly. "Y'know, when he was standing against McKeon, I didn't really think much of him. No military experience, kinda wishy-washy on defence. Didn't seem like the kinda guy I'd want running the country."

"And now?"

"Not sure I like him any better, but I sure respect him a whole lot more. Of course, him standing by his principles isn't going to make our job any easier, not where these trials are concerned."

"I doubt there are going to be that many. It's really more of a precautionary thing." A couple of White House staffers come around the corner, spot us -or rather me- and back up to let us go past. "I don't think I ever exactly asked you, but how do you feel about this whole superhero.. thing?"

"They're just a fact of life. Personally, I'd prefer it if they had some kinda oversight… You know, like they did in the Second World War. The All-Star Squadron. On the other hand, it makes me proud to be a citizen of a nation where private citizens are prepared to go out and serve their communities like that."

"Does that extend as far as your prospective son-in-law?"

"Heh." He turns his head away, theatrically rolling his eyes. "Ah, that guy. I'm sure not happy about someone as powerful as he is operating on his own recognizance, but I can't fault what he does. And Lois says I'm not allowed to shoot him, so I guess that working with him is the only option I have left. I understand you had some kind of falling out..?"

"Minor operational disagreement. I'm sure that we'll all pull together, when the time comes."

 

[Mr Zoat]

25th May
14:54 GMT +8

That was a fascinating experience. I've never attended a Chinese wedding before, and the obvious divergence from Christian custom -to say nothing of the divergence between the bride's expectations for the day of her marriage and those of her fiancé- are creating what must be a fairly unique set of circumstances.

Hu Guan -which apparently is either Ghost Fox Killer's actual name or the pseudonym she's decided to use- wanted an ultra-traditional Confucian ceremony. Or something very much like it. Some of the characters on the decorations aren't anything from the modern Chinese lexicon and the dress of the members of the bridal party isn't quite like anything the Chinese wore at any point in their history. No idea how they handled the 'getting her parents' consent' bit; I asked and her homeland is supposed to be totally off-limits to outsiders.

Fang Zhifu on the other hand regards Confucianism as a religion, something that he's supposed to frown on. From the way he occasionally glanced at the décor I rather suspect that he would have been happier with a registry office service.

I shuffle forwards slightly as the line approaching the happy couple moves very slightly. Only a few places to go. Lynne's bearing up pretty well, given how dull this must be for her. I'm dressed in a slightly sinicised set of old-style Apokoliptian court robes while she wears a delightful little pink number Father Box and I put together.

And then there's the third party to the wedding: the Chinese state. After all, Fang Zhifu is a major national hero and Hu Guan.. while less favoured in official circles, is a member of the Great Ten as well. Which explains why the decidedly Taoist Temple of Heaven has been closed off to the public for a week and why most of the guests were party officials rather than friends or family. During the ceremony itself the front row consisted of a group who I think were Ms Hu's parents and eldest sister, Mrs Fang and a picture frame standing in for the groom's deceased father, and then about sixty old men in grey suits. The second row wasn't much better, though at least a few of them were officers and officials actually involved in the Great Ten program.

That's actually how I picked out the bride's party: they were the only ones wearing the coloured robes who weren't part of the staff. I wonder what the official party line on her homeland is? Is it like Taiwan, or are they a little more realistic about a city in a pocket universe populated by people who can kill with a touch? Oh, that's the other thing that gives the bride's family away: the lack of exposed skin.

Fang looks good in the white and gold robes. Must be hard to find clothing in colours that work with his complexion, to say nothing of fabrics that won't get shredded by his dermal plating. Hu is wearing a red dress decorated in gold thread and including a frankly ridiculous train which has to be carried everywhere by a small horde of attendants. She looks… Happy, though. Off to the side I see their parents talking politely, while the siblings of the happy couple seem to be far more uncomfortable.

Line's moving faster now. I think that below a certain level, the party apparatchiks just want a photograph of them with the leader of the country's superfunctionary team and don't have anything much to say. Oh gosh, I should really have talked to someone about the diplomatic protocol involved… Anyone important behind me? No, just lower level functionaries. Ah, I'm sure that's supposed to indicate something, but what? I have absolutely no rank in the Chinese hierarchy. Most of these people probably don't know that I'm even involved with the Great Ten project. More than a few probably don't know who I am. Are the people at the front the most important, or are they just the ones with the highest rank and the ushers want to get them out of the way?

"…thank you for your kind wishes, Comrade Governor."

Fang physically can't smile, which gives him a perfect excuse for his expression. He also can't get physically tired any longer, though the way he's holding himself would suggest to someone who's spent as much time working with him as I have that he'd much rather be somewhere else. The Governor on the other hand looks delighted by the situation. Perhaps it's the prospect of going on a work-funded jolly? I haven't spent enough time in China to get any real sort of feel for how popular the Great Ten are in official circles. The Governor performs a short bow, then turns and walks away.

Huh. Taking most of the photographers and journalists with him. Looks like I really was first of the also-rans. An usherette beckons myself and Lynne forwards. Hm. Apokolips doesn't really have much of a marriage tradition. Certainly no one important enough for this sort of ceremony would be expected to do an epic meet-and-greet session afterwards. Meh, they'll probably overlook any minor breach of propriety as long as I'm a polite barbarian.

I steeple my hands in front of my chest and perform a shallow bow. Lynne glances at up at me and copies the action, then straightens as I do. "I understand that congratulations are in order on two accounts, General. Long overdue, in my opinion."

"Do you refer to my promotion or to our marriage?"

I frown slightly. "Both, definitely."

"It is with your aid that the Standing Committee have been able to convince the high command that my.. alterations do not mean that my devotion has been undermined."

'There are no Durlans' may be on a level with 'we have always been at war with Oceania' as far as blatant lies go, but at least it makes a little more sense that the Chinese government doesn't want the fact that there is a task force of hostile metamorphs inside the country to become common knowledge. Officially, his body modifications are the result of an encounter with an alien vessel of an unknown type. While true at the time, they figured out that it was Durlan pretty darn quick when the rest of the investigation team melted. Some people need to know, most people don't.

I hold out my right hand and he takes it in his. There's a flash as someone takes a picture as we shake hands before I turn to his new wife. "Missus Hu." I extend my hand again. "You look radiant." And she actually does. Though I suppose it might just be because this is the first time I've seen her out of uniform.

"Thank you, Mister Grayven." She doesn't move her hand. Unlike the rest of her family, she isn't wearing gloves. I smile slightly, a pale glow coating my hand. Her life draining ability requires skin contact, but even quite a thin barrier is enough to prevent it from triggering. I had considered trying to tough it out with my divine resilience, but then I considered that she could kill Wotan and I'm not completely sure that I'm tougher than him. And dropping dead at a person's wedding is dreadfully impolite. She extends her hand and I rotate mine, raising it to my lips and miss-kissing her knuckles.

I release her hand and motion Lynne forwards. "And may I present my daughter, Lynne Wayland."

General Fang nods politely. "Miss Wayland."

She bows again, a little nervously. "Congratulations, General Fang. Missus Hu."

"Now, my gift to you on the occasion of your wedding." I reach into my robes and take out a small case, offering it to him. "Took a little time, but I believe that I've finally got to grips-"

No, that's fine Corpsman. No need to credit me at all.

Ploong.

Oh shut up, both of you.

"-with the control mechanism which determines the state of your skin." There's a slight scraping noise as General Fang's face tries to move in shock for a fraction of a second before he clamps down on his feelings. "I'm afraid that I have no idea how to restore you -or if that's even possible- but if you attach what's in there to your epidermis, it should grant you a form which -while still metallic- will be a good deal more Human-seeming. Remove it, and the effect ends."

General Fang's head doesn't move. I'm not sure how much is protocol and how much is shock. Given that his first fiancé broke things off because of his transformation there's a pleasant mirroring of circumstances here. "Thank you, Grayven. I shall treasure this."

"My pleasure. And as for your lady wife…" I make careful eye contact. "The matter which you requested that I investigate." Whether they could have children. There isn't any Human tissue left in Fang Zhifu's body, but like all Xeno-Team soldiers he submitted several blood and tissue samples before going on active duty. Her body is sort-of Human with a variety of arcane and semi-divine effects at work on it. There's no way they could have children conventionally, or even with conventional-level assistance. "Prospects look good. Let me know when you wish to begin a more.. practical study."

"Thank you, Grayven. I believe that can wait for a few months, at least." I spot General Fang's eyes as they uncontrollably jerk towards his wife. I doubt that he's bothered by the idea of having children. I suspect he'd just assumed that it was out of the question for them. For him. "My husband and I will discuss the matter."

I nod. "Of course." I bow again. "May your lives together be joyful and prosperous."

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th May
21:18 GMT

"You're new! You're new!"

Ra's actually bends down, balancing on his toes and offering his right hand to the small pack of Tasmanian Tiger pups.

"You're new and you smell weird!"

One of the braver ones edges closer, extending its nose towards the proffered limb before losing its nerve and backing away.

"I never had the pleasure of encountering them in the wild. I visited the last of them as it lived out its last days in Hobart Zoo in Tasmania. And now, here they are once more."

"It was a straightforward enough business, getting a wide enough variety of genetic samples to recreate them. But I should warn you, some of the other projects are not going quite so well."

He nods distractedly as one of the pups nudges another up the bum, causing the nudgee to turn and nip at its muzzle.

"Off! Not dominant!"

"Do you raise them yourself?"

"No, I abducted a small number of African Wild Dogs and they've been acting as foster parents." I glance upwards. "I've got drones on standby so that my work wouldn't be wasted if they.. realised that the pups aren't their own. And there are always Genomorphs around for problems requiring an organic intelligence." Under the direction of the G-Goblin Guan. "Obviously that means that their behaviour will be a bit off, but…" I shrug. "There aren't any better models for their probable-behaviour."

"You could not have had the Genomorphs implant the Dog's behaviours directly?"

"I could." I nod. "But I thought that it would be better to let them grow to maturity naturally, and I don't really have the space to use both techniques in parallel."

"No! Danger! Come away!"

The pup's mother yaps at them from the top of a small hillock, causing them to look around immediately.

"Foolish! Come away!"

And they're gone, dashing across the scrubland towards her while she keeps her eyes firmly fixed on Ra's and I.

He stands in a smooth motion, the faintest glimmer of a smile on his lips. "Neither tame nor afraid of Humans. So far as they are concerned, our civilisation never existed." He takes a moment to watch them go. "What do they eat?"

"The system introduces cloned prey animals at irregular intervals with simple organic computers in place of brains. They mimic some of the behaviours of the creatures they're based upon… Neither the Dogs nor the Tigers appear to notice a difference."

He turns to face me. "And your other work? I am particularly eager to hear of the Caspian Tigers. It pains me to admit it now, but I myself played a small part in them being driven to extinction."

"Bad news there, I'm afraid. I've got a selection of small enclosures inhabited by them-" I gesture towards the wall to my right. "-through there, but I'm afraid that I can't get enough genetic material to make them viable as a subspecies." For reasons I can't begin to imagine, those are Mister Tawny's favourite enclosures. "It may be best to simply accept that and use what material I have recovered to increase the genetic variety in the Siberian Tiger population."

"That is.. regrettable, but I suppose there are limits. How do you intend to handle the reintroduction?"

"Could be a nice ice-breaker with the Russian government. They're the one superpower I haven't persuaded to take me into their confidence… As yet. Otherwise, I could purchase an area of land and set up a sanctuary for them. No need to say exactly how they came to be, and unless a geneticist knew exactly what to look for it would be very unlikely that they'd think anything amiss." Ra's nods contemplatively. "There simply isn't space to reintroduce Tigers back into their former range."

"That is something of which I am painfully aware. Did you know that according to the Washington University the global population may well continue to climb into the twenty second century? It is entirely conceivable that it could reach double its current level… With all of the associated damage to ecosystems that brings. No, attempting to reintroduce them into their original habitat would be a senseless waste of your work."

I nod. That does rather lead me on to a topic I wish to investigate. Before I joined the Light, I gave the matter some considerable thought: which supervillains should be killed on sight and which could be retrained to do something useful with their lives. Of the Light, I rather assumed that Ra's was one of the ones who wasn't worth keeping around, but now? I'm less confident. Though he himself tends to prefer violent solutions to problems, and he's certainly proud… Yes, pot/kettle, but he's proven to be amenable to reason to an extent which his prior behaviour suggested was unlikely. And if I get to a point where I don't think killing him is productive, Brain is happy as long as he has science to do… That just leaves Savage and Mordru. Savage is loathsome, but at least he's rational. Haven't spent enough time with Mordru to really assess him. Aaaaand I'm going to have to, aren't I?

Ah, I'm genuinely torn. Going back to the League means… Okay, I get to associate with my friends in familiar circumstances, but the Light is responsible for any number of projects which will ultimately benefit humanity. The League are already Leaguing just as hard as they can. Adding myself to that won't improve matters noticeably, particularly as I can give them equipment now. And… Not a trivial issue, I find them quite vexing on a personal level. Going independent works, but the Light genuinely can do more together than apart. I just don't have the reach or the expertise to do the job my fellows do. If they're gone, then it won't get done.

No Lex means no LexCorp. It means reduced political influence, it means far less research and development and it means that the societal nudges that come from siting a factory in one place rather than another just evaporate.

No Brain means that we go back to near-Earth Prime timelines for advanced research, rather than the months it takes us now. No one can take things apart and understand how they work as well as he can, as STAR Labs demonstrate with their ever-growing backlog of projects they don't know enough to start, let alone finish.

No Mordru means no widespread reintroduction of magic into the world. There are other people who could do that, but none are good enough at what they do to become a Lord of Chaos.

No Ra's probably means no League of Shadows. As assassins, my people already outclass them. As an intelligence network they are irreplaceable, quite aside from any...

…

I'm an idiot.

"Ra's, do you have any particular investment in the current British government?"

"I have informants in the British civil service, and a good deal of blackmail material on their ministers. It's profitable, but not exceptionally so. Why do you ask?"

"Well…" I smile in what I hope is a disarming manner. "Last time I didn't talk through what I was doing with a member of the Light, Queen Bee died. I'd feel dreadful if anything like that happened again. I hate seeming incompetent."

A slight tilt of the head. I think he's curious. "You intend to act against the British government, then?"

"Yes. Not.. immediately, but in the not too distant future."

"I have Shadows in Britain, but they are not employed in the infiltration of the government. None of my core interests would be threatened by such an act."

I nod. "I would like to purchase your files. And… Offer compensation for the loss of revenue you will encounter when the blackmail material becomes irrelevant."

Ra's contemplates, then nods. "I'm willing to negotiate a price. I am however puzzled. Just what has Britain done that has so enraged you?"

"The Light exists to improve the lot of humanity. Not just through technology, but through social change. But, just as free markets must be tended to by the breaking up of naturally emerging monopolies, so occasionally a state becomes so vile and corrupted that only a thorough purge will solve the problem. Tending to the world's governments to ensure they are doing their jobs is something which I firmly believe we should be doing. And Britain is not."

"Such an intervention as you are proposing is fraught with difficulty. While I will make no effort to stop you, I would express the hope that you have properly thought this through."

"Oh, I'm still in the information gathering stage at the moment. But yes, I am firmly aware of what an attack from the outside does to a state, even if the current government is loathsome. I will take no action until I am sure that I have mechanisms in place to keep the state running, both in the short and long term."

"Removing uncooperative rulers is a field in which I have a degree of experience, Mister Grayven. When you get closer to the time, I would offer my services as a consultant."

"Thank you, Ra's. I may well take you up on that."

 

[Mr Zoat]

30th May
08:53 GMT -5

"Signed…" My pen moves across the paperwork which the Metropolis University's legal department had drafted for me. "And signed." I look up at the President of the University. "Anything else I need to sign?"

"No, no, that's perfectly fine." She coughs, then doesn't quite grab the paperwork from the desk. Still comes pretty close to 'picking up with indecent haste', though. "Since you're one of the trustees you'll have full access to the accounts, and major expenditures beyond normal day-to-day expenses will require majority approval-."

"I did… Read it before I signed it."

"Ofcourse. Of course." To be fair, I did just sign over an awful lot of money. She looks around the room, trying to think of something else to say about it. "I was impressed that you were able to get Mister Luthor interested in our work. LexCorp has made contributions in the past to our science and technology departments, but Paranormal Studies just doesn't attract the same level of interest."

"Mister Luthor lives in a city where a man flies around with his underwear outside his leggings." Her face sort of.. freezes up as I openly disrespect Kal-El's dress sense. I'm wearing a suit. "It's simply that the Centre hasn't had the assistance it needs to really progress its research work. Though I have no desire to insult the work they've done in helping individual metahumans deal with their abilities, that generally doesn't help the Human species as a whole."

"Oh. I'd… Rather got the impression that you were doing this for your.. daughter?"

I shake my head. "I'd have been generous for that alone, but what Doctor Williams and I have mostly been discussing is improving our understanding of the underlying mechanisms for metahuman abilities in general, not just in particular cases. Because -knowing what I know about the wider universe- I can tell you that what you have on Earth is not common. Just imagine if studies conducted here allowed everyone to share the abilities of the few fortunate enough to be born with them."

President Asplund frowns slightly, looking down. "I'm not sure I can. You mean a world where everyone can fly around like Superman?"

"No, no." I shake my head. "Superman's an alien. The only way you could give a Human his abilities is by turning them into a Kryptonian first. But perhaps like Geo-Force?" She looks blank. "Prince Brion Markov of Markovia?" A place the existence of which would bother me more if I remembered what shape Eastern European countries had back on Earth Prime. "If one Human can possess it there's really no fundamental reason why you couldn't all have it." She actually looks a little worried. "Of course, doing it the real-science way instead of the mad-science way takes a good deal of time. But if something's worth doing then it's worth doing properly."

"Well, I can assure you that the Center for Paranormal Studies will definitely be doing it properly."

I nod, smiling. "I'm sure that you're right. Now, unless there's anything else, I'd like to get back..?"

"I… Was… Wondering. Mister… Valjek?"

One of Queen Clea's court mages. Though she's not completely sold on the idea of developing the Greater Azores, she could see no harm in sending one of her people to study the lay of the land. And where better than America's leading magic research institute? "Oh, don't worry, I got all of the work visa stuff sorted out. There won't be any problem there."

"We.. had a few… People… Expressing concerns. Now, I don't share their prejudices myself, but-."

"Is this about magic?"

She exhales. "Yes. Yes it is. With the attack of Fawcett City being only a few months ago-."

"I was there."

"Yes, I… I know. And obviously we don't have to worry about the funding loss any longer, but having a lot of protestors outside the Center might encourage parents to keep their children away."

"The program which Doctor Williams and I discussed would not involve teaching children thaumaturgy." She looks blank. "Ah, the operating principles behind magic. He's here to offer advice on aiding those children who appear to have developed magic abilities spontaneously."

"Wait, spontaneously? That can happen?"

"There was a rather odd religious sect in seventeenth century France who believed that Elementals had no souls, unless they married a Human. The issue of those relationships occasionally manifest abilities relating to their arcane forebear." Which is odd to say the least. It would make sense if the Human half of the relationship was female as the Elemental could use magic to trigger parthenogenesis, resulting in a near-clone of the mother with added Elemental attributes. But the surviving records suggest that the Elementals were female. Ah, I don't really know enough about how Elementals work to know how plausible it is. "And then there are those who more or less fall over a magic technique and can't recognise it for what it is. You have a parapsychic currently here as a boarding student?"

"Yes, but he's never studied magic. Or at least there wasn't anything in his file."

"Magic is a part of this world, inseparable and inescapable. It doesn't go away because you ignore it any more than ionising radiation does. Every Human presently alive uses small amounts automatically, and a few luck into something a little more potent… Just by focusing their souls, by thinking in the right sorts of way. Or, to put it in more mundane terms… You can cut hair without ever having studied hairdressing."

"A-hah. I suppose that's true."

"Look, if it starts to be a serious problem I'll talk to them." That doesn't appear to reassure her. "And I'll ask Mister Zatara to have a word as well." Yes, that worked. "If you have any concerns about magic in general, Mister Valjek is the best person to speak to. That's literally his job, and I'm sure he can do a better job of explaining it than I can." I pause to give her the chance to reply, but that appears to have been sufficient. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to see Lynne before her class starts."

"Oh! Of course."

Father Box, hush tube. No sense deafening everyone.

Ploong.

I turn away from President Asplund and walk through the tube, out into the waiting area where Lynne has been waiting. I know that this place doesn't have a uniform policy for students, but I thought that dressing her in something a little more professional would help engender the appropriate mental attitude. I don't intend to have her do her normal schooling here, but it should help her adjust to an educational environment.

"All ready, poppet?"

"I… I guess I am. You're still going to be here, right?"

"For today, yes, I'll be in the building. I need to talk to Doctor Williams' researchers about the sorts of equipment they want to get to help some of your classmates." I kneel down and put my left hand on her right shoulder. Well, the index finger is on her shoulder. The rest just sort of hang over. "But that's only going to be for today, alright?" She nods. "Okay then. Now off you go. I'll take you home at three."

I lift off my hand and she turns away. Then she turns back and wraps her arms around my neck. I smile and hug her back. After a few seconds she pulls away, smiling slightly nervously, then turns and heads towards her classroom.

"…not even close to being worried, Agent Gallagher, so why don't you make like a tree. And burn to death." I turn to see Miss Selton turn off her mobile phone and… From the way her eyes widen I can only assume that she was so focused on her conversation that she didn't spot me until just then. "Ah. Hey."

"Good morning, Miss Selton."

"Lynne starting today?"

"Yes."

She nods. "Is she going to be here permanently now?"

"I'm.. not sure how long she'll be here for. Probably until the start of the next school year, with weekend visits thereafter. Homework permitting." Hm. "I hate to intrude, but…" I gesture towards her phone with my right hand.

"Government agent. This place was getting funded by his people, so I had to be nice to him. And now it's not, so I don't."

"Glad I could help."

She regards me for a moment. "Lynne said you had other superpeople living with you. Is that so?"

I nod. "Yes?"

"You interested in another?"

I look at her for a few moments. "Perhaps we should have a conversation about that."

 

[Mr Zoat]

30th May
08:59 GMT -5

"I don't remember my parents." Miss Selton moves her fingers over the surface of her coffee cup. "One of the social workers at a home I was living in left my file out one time so I know what they look like, but it was just a photograph. I could probably find out why I got put up for adoption if I wanted to, but-" She raises her right hand and a gout of fire leaps forth. I don't flinch. "-I can probably guess. I've been able to make fire for as long as I can remember and my control didn't use to be all that great. Maybe I burned down their house. Hm." She closes her hand and looks away. "Maybe they're dead, and I'm the one who killed them. I wouldn't have been old enough to know what I was doing… But I think I'd rather not know."

She shrugs. "I didn't get adopted. Might have been because I could set people on fire. Might have just been unlucky. One of my case workers read about-" She looks around the canteen. "-this place, and got in touch with Doctor Williams. I came from Vermont originally-." She slumps slightly. "Least, I think I did. Anyway, I got transferred here when I was eleven."

"How old are you now?"

She looks at me, right eyebrow slightly raised. "I thought you were supposed to know everything."

"I could hack your personal records. I'm asking you."

"Seventeen. Which is why Agent Gallagher's bothering me. My grades are…" She closes her eyes for a moment. "Okay. But there's no way I could afford to go to college even if I could get in. He wants me for some kind of research program."

"Isn't.. this a research program?"

"This is a school. I watch movies, I know what happens to people with powers who go to government laboratories."

"Point of information. I know the man who runs the United States metahuman development program. His name is General Samuel Lane, and I'm reasonably confident that he wouldn't be on board with dissecting people."

"I don't really want to be a weapon either. Just because I can set people on fire doesn't mean I'd like doing it."

All well and good, but fairly useless for my purposes. "Miss Selton, if I did offer you employment, precisely what did you think you would be doing?"

She shrugs. "What can I say? Lynne made working for you sound really appealing."

Awakened, with New God armour… She could be useful. But not all that much more useful than a well equipped lowlie. Her power doesn't make her stronger, tougher or faster. She doesn't have any particularly useful skills… And I don't have any personal obligation to her. "What exactly can you do?"

"I make fire. I usually throw it from my hands, but I can actually make it come from anywhere." She tilts her head upwards and blows out-. A ring of fire, as if she were exhaling a smoke ring. A circle of.. burning…

Sinestro, what the fuck?

A most curious phenomenon, Corpsman. Normally, a fire would require heat, oxygen and fuel. She appears to be able to bypass at least one of those requirements. The heat does not appear to be radiating away from the flame, but when I scan the fire directly it reads as being fifteen hundred degrees.

Stuff like this is why metahumans need to be studied. It makes no sense and yet is clearly happening.

On that we are in full agreement.

Father Box, any ideas?

Ploong.

Yes, I realised that.

"The biggest fire I ever made was a sphere about half a mile across. I can make them hot enough to melt steel, but I have to focus on it to do that. And obviously I can't be hurt by fire myself."

"Can you make it hotter than melting steel requires?"

"I don't know. I probably could, but that wouldn't be safe for anyone nearby."

Hm. Aside from the obvious combat applications there is welding, performance art…

"Can you turn fire off?"

She frowns, opens her right hand and lets fire dance over her palm for a moment before closing her hand and snuffing it out.

I shake my head, then take a ceramic bowl filled with copper chloride powder in methanol out of subspace. I tap my right index finger against the bowl and ignite it. "Can you put it out?"

"Kind of." She holds her right hand over it, the air around her skin flaring with blue fire. Then she closes her hand and the fire goes out, both around her hand and in the bowl. "I can't just turn it off, but I can consume all of the oxygen around it. That puts most fires out."

"Have you considered applying to work with the Metropolis fire service?" She gives me a weary look. "You seem to be reasonably physically fit, you're fireproof and can burn oxygen and so starve fires. You'd have a leg up with the fireproof thing alone."

"I don't know."

"Military or paramilitary work is the obvious application for heat generation. If you aren't willing to do that then there aren't many areas where what you can do is an advantage. What do you like doing?"

"I like using my power. I like not being forced to do things." She turns away, looking out of the cafeteria window. "What I want hasn't really been a big part of my life."

"How about performance arts? Some sort of dance routine which involved your pyromantic abilities?

"Dancing? I don't know how to dance. Not the kind people pay to watch, anyway."

"I might be able to help there. I have in my employ a species of telepathic Gnome-like creatures. If you want, they could implant knowledge into your mind. You could learn the moves of someone who had been trained in ballet since they were three years old, and it would take a few hours at most. A little longer to fully integrate it with your own proprioception, but it would skip an awful lot of learning."

"And what's the downside?"

"The G-Gnomes are kind of creepy if you're not used to them. And you may find them going into your mind disturbing. I know I would, I maintain flawless mental barriers at all times to prevent things like that occurring. Also, you would be quite disorientated during the integration process.

"That doesn't sound-." She blinks. "Wait a second. I could learn anything like that?"

"Anything known to someone the G-Gnomes could reasonably access and comprehend, yes."

"So I could go to college. I'd just need them to teach me math, science and English rather than whatever I needed for a job. If I got straight A's I could get a scholarship no problem."

"I.. suppose you could. I should warn you though: that's a lot of information you'd be taking in. The only two people I know to be taught like that were much younger than you are now. I can't guarantee how well it would work. And -from personal experience- I wouldn't advise going in for further education purely as a way of avoiding making a decision about future employment."

"I want to try it. If there's a risk, I'm fine with that."

"Alright. I'm pretty sure that you pass Gillick competency standards. I'll talk to the Genomorphs about setting the upload up. Anything else?"

"That agent guy I was talking to. Kurt Gallagher?"

"An irrelevance, really. I have regular meetings with both General Lane and President Horne. I'm fairly sure that between the three of us we can slap some sense into him if he bothers you any more." I shrug. "What agency does he work for, anyway?"

"His identity card says 'SHADE', but I don't know who they are."

"SHADE?" Hmm. "Now, isn't that interesting. Tell.. me.. more."

 

[Mr Zoat]

31st May
11:32 GMT -6

I had thought that I'd developed fairly thick skin-.

Heh. I smile a little at my own inadvertent joke.

I had thought that I'd developed a fairly strong stomach. When you stop blinding yourself to the horror of day to day life, when you clean out the insides of blood-soaked aircraft as I did in the aftermath of Roanoke, your capacity for visceral disgust simply stops being what it once was. Things are a bit strange for a little while… Then you adjust to the new normal.

Either that, or you have a psychotic episode.

Turns out that despite everything I can still be unsettled. The files Ra's gave me… This is some next-level stuff. I remember… There was a comic, the style reminded me of 2000AD. There was some sort of parallel universe invasion, and one of the super predators the attackers used would inject stimulants into its victims so that they wouldn't pass out from pain or blood loss as it ate them. Looks like it would have fit right in at the Caligula Club. Ra's -bless his cankerous soul- has really come through for me here. Pictures and video in decent resolution, far superior to what I'd been able to collect for myself. With this, having actual court cases and riding the wave of public horror to get things sorted has become a far more realistic option.

The meat of the investigations is even more interesting. Ra's had his people investigate the Geotroniks matter at the time, though things had already started to settle down before they got involved. Some poor sod called Julian Marrack apparently took the fall for the whole magic-side of that mess, and is currently a guest of her majesty. Seriously, Britain is sufficiently ignorant of what a magic user can and can't do that they bought the idea that a neophyte could cause nationwide rains of blood. As a former-Brit, that level of ignorance embarrasses me.

Wonder what Mordru would think about the idea of opening a school?

I mean, I think it's entirely too hopeful to think that he'd be up for it… Come to think of it, I know next to nothing about his resource base. Something to ask about when I speak to him.

Anyway, having evidence to support my accusations against the current elite is only half… Okay, more like a third of the equation. I've forwarded a list of names to Doctor Robbins and she can share it with the field team. Should narrow down the breadth of the investigation a little. Though… From what I've read, no one senior enough to become Prime Minister post-coup isn't implicated herein. Oh, I might accept a merely moderately guilty person I could control with an offer of a pardon, buuuut… I don't like it. If I'm making a clean sweep, I would want it to be a clean sweep. At the moment, that leaves me with a choice between my old friend the Member for Croydon North for the Conservatives, or some doddering old back bench socialist from Labour who probably shouldn't be let anywhere near the levers of actual power even in a caretaker role. Obviously the former is better… I just really don't want to give it to her. Particularly since I don't know that she'd respond in a positive way to being offered the role and it's something I'd need to plan with the lucky individual. Really, I'd rather offer it to Mister Talbot himself. The caretaker part at least, keeping the government running while the purge takes place. After that I don't really care all that much who-.

"Iname to Master. Come in Master."

I reach over to my desk's intercom. "M-. Grayven responding. Go ahead."

Curious about SHADE's involvement in the Centre for Paranormal Research, I detached Miss Amane from the ongoing mission in Britain and had her spend some time getting to know the children at the Centre. She really does have a wonderful way with people. The fact that she's about the same age as Miss Selton also serves to make them hanging out together seem less suspicious.

"We are being followed by a man with a very bad fake beard."

I frown. "Are you certain that he's not just a homeless person?"

"No, he is too healthy and the holes in his coat are too regular. And it really is a very bad fake beard."

I deactivate the computer I was working on. "Alright. Do you think he's going to try picking you up?"

I hear a giggle. "Master! I do not go with old homeless men or evil secret agents! That is a lewd suggestion!"

"'Pick you up' in the sense of kidnapping you. I don't want you taking unnecessary risks. You're fast, but you're not particularly resilient."

"No, Master. I do not believe so. We are in a public place."

"Alright, carry on. Let me know if anything changes."

"Yes, Master. Iname out."

Hmm. More likely a random agent rather than anyone significant. Still… "Grayven to Manchester Black." No immediate response. I suppose that if he's reverted to UK time it isn't quite-.

"Vera here."

"Chester not around?"

"He's not likely to be up much before midday. I'm not exactly fresh as a daisy meself, come to mention it."

"Completely out of it, or just grumpy?"

"What's this about?"

"I've located a SHADE operative who looks like he might be more in the know than the ones we've encountered so far. I'd like to have my field telepath around to do a little mental eavesdropping, but if he's completely non-functional..?"

"I'll 'ave to wake him up, won't I? Probably best you give him half an hour if you want anything intelligent out of him."

"Late night?"

"Werkin'. Talkin' to witnesses. Not somethin' we can do during the day. They might not be able to recognise us but I'm shuwer they keep tabs on their victims. And their families."

"Alright, give Chester a prod for me. No massive rush, but he needs to be available."

"Right you are, then. Vera out."

I deactivate the communicator from my end as well. Hmm. If this is just routine surveillance then I suppose that I shouldn't be too worried. SHADE -or at least this Agent Gallagher- must have known this was coming. I haven't made any effort to hide my interest in the Centre, so the fact that this might happen should have been on their radar. Or… Maybe it wasn't? If General Lane has forced the pure-SHADE parts of SHADE into hiding then their data-sharing might have been significantly impaired.

Someone assigned to tail a person of interest is unlikely to be particularly important. Would this Kurt Gallagher still be in the area? The tailing agent must have a way to contact his higher ups. If he does then I can trace it with my ring… Probably. Chester can't telepathically puppet people in a way that's even slightly convincing, so that's out. Orange… Uhhhh. Maybe? It would take a more subtle application of power than I'm used to, and I'm not… Hugely keen on using power I can't get back for at least another month…

I look down at the Sword of the Fallen where it sits in the sheath at my waist. Or… I could nip over to Okaara and kill Larfleeze right now, take the Orange Central Power Battery for myself… No. Still feels like losing.

I tap the computer again. "Call General Lane." Given that SHADE firmly lies within his area of responsibility I really should let him know what I'm up to. Is it worth checking in with my fellow enlightened about SHADE? No, I'm sure they'd have said something if I was getting in their way.

"General Lane's office."

"Grayven here. Is the General at home?"

"One moment, sir. I'll check for you."

Ah, the busy life of an éminence grise. You give yourself super strength and within a few months you're reduced to playing phone-tag with your allies. I most sincerely hope that I haven't risen to my level of incompetence…

"Grayven, what can I do for you?"

"I told you that I was taking over funding the Centre for Paranormal Research attached to the Metropolis University, didn't I?"

"That's where you're sending your daughter, right?"

"Yes. It seems that SHADE might have had an interest in the place. One of the students who will be graduating high school next year was being leaned on to sign up with them."

"That's outside their normal mode of operation."

"Quite. I was going to prod them a bit, see what falls out. I have a telepath in my employ…"

"Can you do it covertly?"

"No complete guarantees, but that would be my aim. Obviously, only senior agents are worth overt action against…"

"Did they threaten this student of yours?"

"She firmly turned them down yesterday and now there's someone tailing her."

"Alright then, go ahead. Keep me posted on what you find out."

"Will do. Grayven out."

 

[Mr Zoat]

31st May
12:41 GMT -5

"Seat's taken, fook off."

Chester doesn't even look around as he says it, though I do detect a little pressure on my mental barriers which suggests that he's trying to give me a suggestion. Or an aneurism. Or possibly both. He does have a record of lashing out at bystanders who interrupt his work.

"Yes, Chester, by me."

His head whips around. "The-?!" His eyes widen. "Gray?"

I smile. "What, you thought I only had illusory disguises for yourself and your sister?" A waitress wanders over with a notepad. "Tea, please. Darjeeling if you have it, Earl Grey otherwise." She nods. "Thank you."

Chester has his wits a little more about him as she walks away. "Wot, you not gonna go full ponce an' ask fer a slice a' lemon?"

"I'm trying to be a little more realistic." The work of Queen Clea's finest artisans can't quite disguise me fully. I still weigh two thirds of a tonne, and a sufficiently observant person might spot that objects I pick up move in ways they shouldn't as it tries to work the location of my hands and mouth into the illusion. But I look nothing like the Grey Hulk look-alike contest winner that I am, and I intentionally avoided looking like my pre-transformation self as well. My skin is dark brown, my hair and beard dark and curly and my suit is of a conservative cut. "Any news for me?"

Chester looks me over once more and then appears to shrug it off. "Fook all, cock. No one 'around 'eyeh's thinking about them."

"Ah. I suppose we must have missed him." Bothersome, but oh well. Sinestro, run a quick check would you?

The description was somewhat vague, Corpsman, but I can detect no one obviously observing either Miss Selton or Miss Amane.

A cup of tea in placed on the table in front of me. I look up at the waitress. "Thank you."

She smiles. "Enjoy your tea."

Sinestro, sound deadening.

As you wish.

"Grayven to Iname. If your tail has vanished then you may as well escort Miss Selton back to school. Remain on hand in case of incident."

"Master? He is still there."

Sinestro?

Nothing, Corpsman. Perhaps she's imagining it.

Show me her location.

An image appears in my mind: a map of the local shopping centre with two markers, one for Miss Amane and one for Miss Selton.

"Iname, where is this person relative to your location?"

"He is sitting at a table outside the restaurant opposite the clothing shop we are in."

A second 'window' appears in my mind. I see the restaurant, the people sitting both inside and out… I take a sip of tea. No one matching the description Miss Amane just gave me. But there's a gap where it looks like it would have made sense to put a table. Someone's being clever. Clever worries me.

But.

Whoever it is, they're just observing at the moment. It's worth knowing that they can duck both telepathic detection and power ring detection, but it isn't proof that anything else is going on.

"Grayven to Doctor Robbins. Put the Mountain in lockdown and give me status reports on all of my people."

"Why, what's going on?"

"Someone has found a way to duck my detection and I'm worried where else they might be."

"You wot? I left Vera back in-."

"Chester, panic is unbecoming."

He shoves his chair back, rising rapidly to his feet. "Open up a fookin' portal."

"All Genomorphs have reported in, Grayven. The Sphere is here with me. All bulkheads and energy shields are active."

"Good. Chester, I'm not doing that. They may be under observation, we may be under observation and my unarmed, unarmoured daughter may be under observation."

That gets through. "But we don't even look like us."

"If I can get a magic user then so can the opposition." I take another sip of tea. "Doctor Robbins?"

"Mister Tawny growled and Doctor Williams says he and Lynne are fine. Sunset's in her laboratory. Nothing from Vera yet."

Go or no-go. Go or no-go. In America I can count on government support. In Britain, that very much isn't the case. On the other hand, I feel much less hesitancy about hitting people I might encounter in Britain. Miss Selton told me that Agent Gallagher's people don't usually tail her. Ugh, I don't even know for certain that this person is from there. Of course, if Vera's just gotten into the shower and put the radio on…

I rise to my feet and put a twenty dollar note under my teacup. "Chester, go and talk to Iname's stalker. I'll check on Vera."

Chester strides away in the direction of the bothersome agent. "Yeah, I'll fookin' talk to him."

Nearest concealed location… I walk in the direction of the closest stairwell. Sinestro, show me Vera.

I would like to do that very much, Corpsman. Regrettably, I am unable to find her.

Last known location?

A picture of the house they're renting appears. No sign of damage… Nor of Vera Black or Geoffrey Talbot. Vexing.

Any spy satellites in position to take a look?

Not presently, Corpsman. I would also advise that acquiring one might tip our opponents off as to our ally's location.

They do bug sweeps whenever they return to the house. With the equipment I provided. So either I'll be hush tubing into a combat zone or I'll be hush tubing into a safe spot. I move behind the stairwell and out of sight of the rest of the shopping centre. Father Box, hush tube.

Ploong.

I stride through the portal, actively scanning my new surroundings.

31st May
17:45 GMT

A… Castle..? What?

"Who's this supposed to be, Kipling?"

Two men. One in military fatigues and the other in a trench coat. The military fellow is well muscled with pale skin and short, curly blonde hair. No weapons that I can see. The one in the trench coat has dark brown hair which is slicked back with oil and from the way one of the sleeves is lying against his side I'd say that he has only one arm. He's also wearing a long green scarf.

"This is the person who tried to portal to the target location. The spell isn't selective."

I take a moment to try to make my voice sound unlike myself. "Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?"

The man in fatigues steps forwards. "Major Derek Kelly. And you're under arrest."

 

[Mr Zoat]

31st May
17:46 GMT

Okay, something just threw the hush tube terminus off. Derek Kelly is Chester's former boss and squad leader with the jewel which makes him invulnerable embedded in his chest. And the other fellow… Willoughby Kipling. The arm is a giveaway. Chester didn't know much about him. From the way he described the man, I'd guess either 'intelligence operative' or -given the trench coat- hedge wizard. How best to handle this? My disguise is still functioning, so…

I switch to an American accent, and do my best to mimic an expression of outrage.

"On whose authority? Where the hell am I?!"

"On the authority of the British government, specifically the authority granted by The Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act of 2001."

"I'm not a terrorist! I'm a child psychologist! What the hell is this?!"

Think I've got the American exceptionalist-entitlement thing down. It's so hard to judge…

Anyway, two people and what looks like a solidly built stone room. Nothing about Chester's description of Major Kelly made it sound like he'd be hard to evade. Or drop into a star. The man himself takes a step towards me and I step backwards… No, the hush tube isn't there any longer. Not a huge problem. This is presumably some sort of secure site and I'd have to come here and wreck it eventually anyway.

"And what exactly was it that led a child psychologist to meet a known international terrorist?"

"I don't know any terrorists, you crazy limey!" I take a step forwards, taking care to have a little fear under the outraged affront. "You let me get in touch with the American Embassy right now!"

Bit much? No, I'm going to assume that they aren't going to expect someone in this situation to be entirely rational. It would make more sense in their position to assume that any oddities could be explained by stress. Okay. Sinestro, scan our environment. I want to know where we are.

…

Sinestro?

…

That's.. not.. good. I rub my hands, taking the opportunity to feel my right ring finger. Yep, he's still there. Can't feel any damage… Hope it's temporary, whatever the problem is. If I were on my own I'd just call up the lantern, but that isn't really possible here.

"We aren't obliged to notify your embassy until you've been charged with something."

I cross my arms. "Well you're not getting anything from me until you do."

Father Box?

…

Oh, Humans are fucking hax! They somehow shut down a power ring and a Father Box? I want this technology! Or.. magic. It's probably magic. Okay, door is.. over there. Looks heavily reinforced but I'm strong enough to arm wrestle Kal-El. I shift my shoulders a little… Feels like my daiklave is still there. And -slight movement of my hands- so is the Sword of the Fallen. Would that bypass his invulnerability? Um… No idea, actually, and since his way of injuring me would involve him grappling me and then ramping up his strength Bruce-Willis-in-Unbreakable style until he can actually hurt me, I don't really want to stay within stabbing distance if I can possibly avoid doing so.

"Look, Mister..?"

And I'm actually wondering if I'd need to cover myself in grease to break his hold.

"Daniels. Calvin Daniels."

"We were expecting someone else to come through that portal. If you could just explain how you came to pass through it, we should be able to send you on your way a little quicker."

"I have absolutely no intention of-."

"One person on Earth possesses a portal like that, and his name is Grayven. Grayven is a known associate-."

I frown. "The big grey guy who killed Klarion? He's a superhero, not a terrorist."

"He's been associating with a known super criminal, and we believe that he intervened to rescue him from British police. We would very much like to know why."

"I don't see what that's got to do with me."

"You just walked through one of his portals. He isn't in the habit of opening them at random. This indicates that you have some sort of relationship with him, and that's more than enough to justify us holding you."

"That's just an assertion on your part, Mister Kelly. I don't intend to incriminate myself by discussing the matter."

He advances a few more steps, to within easy reach. He's probably trying to intimidate me, and if I were the civilian I appear to be it might work. He's a little shorter than my illusory shape but a good deal more muscular and moves like a man with a great deal of combat experience. I think he's going for 'reasonable, with a hint of menace'.

Bawhaahaa.

"The right against self-incrimination is a protection extended by the American Bill of Rights and that, Mister Daniels, does not exist in Britain. Now, come on. I'm not asking for much here. Surely you didn't just happen upon an alien portal device?"

Maintain the illusion… I look at his face, then around the bare room, then back to him. "Alright, I… Suppose there's no harm in telling you. Mister Grayven is employing me to help with his daughter. The.. portal.. thing was supposed to send me straight home. I've got no idea how I ended up…" I look around again. "Wherever this is. You people keep your supervillains in the Tower of London, don't you?"

The brickwork doesn't look right for the Tower, but nowhere else comes to mind.

"This is a… Little awkward, then." Major Kelly smiles uncomfortably at me and then turns away. "Just sit tight while we confirm your story and.. then.. we'll let you go."

"Don't you dare pretend you're being reasonable about this! This is kidnapping! I am gunna sue your ass so hard your children get born in debtor's prison!"

"Crown immunity, Mister Daniels. Questioning you was a perfectly reasonable step in our investigation." He walks over to Mister Kipling and the two of them put their heads together. "What the fuck?"

Ah, the joys of enhanced hearing.

"The spell was set up to transfer the terminus of any portal that formed at their safe house to here. There wasn't any way to know in advance who would come through. Just fire a cruise missile at the house and stick this man on the next flight back to the US."

Interesting. If it was him who turned off my technology then he clearly doesn't know that it's happening. I think that can happen… Or maybe it's a property of the room?

"I'm not prepared to authorise anything that overt. Not yet. Our friends aren't keen."

"Then use the Left Eye on him, pump him for information and then dump him somewhere. This isn't complicated. He knew Grayven was a killer when he got involved. I'm surprised you're being this squeamish about it."

Left.. eye..?

"I'm not being squeamish, but there are practical concerns here. Father T-."

"Oh, shit or get off the pot, man. Are we questioning him or letting him go?"

Major Kelly's fatigues rustle slightly for a moment and then he turns around. OBEY.

"Just one or two things, Mister Daniels." OBEY.

"Oh, what now?" I don't think so.

"Are you aware of any action Mister Grayven may be planning or have planned against the British government?" OBEY.

"Ahh… No?" The pressure to obey, to supplicate myself before him continues. But I'm a god, damn it. My metaphysique is stronger than this enchantment. And compared to the Anti-Life…

"Are you aware of any of Mister Grayven's activities outside of public knowledge and your professional relationship?" OBEY.

I shake my head. "No, not really."

Mister Kipling's eyes widen. "He's faking! Praecantatio terminalis!"

The stone around my neck holding the illusion enchantment cracks and falls to the ground, revealing my true form.

Ah well. I draw my swords.

 

[Mr Zoat]

31st May
17:51 GMT
OBEY!
Major Kelly takes a half step backwards. There's no fear, I'm simply too big for him to see all of me while that close.

"Fuck."

Mister Kipling is a good deal less sanguine. His eyes dart towards the heavily fortified door before deciding that, no, he can't make it.

I lunge forward, bringing my daiklave around to slash at Major Kelly's face. I know, invulnerable, but people say that about Kal-El and I know for a fact that he isn't-.

The sword is nearly jarred out of my hand as the blade stops dead the moment it connects with the left side of Major Kelly's face. The man doesn't even move.

Then his eyes narrow, and he smiles. "Incomplete briefing, alien?" He raises his right hand and then moves it across his face, palm touching the edge of my sword and pushing. I…

I try holding it in place as he continues smiling, calmly looking me in the eyes as he pushes. I.. can't. Sinestro. you there yet? No? Fine. I take a half-step closer and he rolls his eyes, putting his left hand out to arrest my motion. My own left hand darts forwards and shoves the Sword of the Fallen into his abdomen.

"Ttttth' fuck?"

His left hand drops as he doubles over, suddenly a great deal less confident. Okay, good. I pull the Sword back before stepping around him and heading towards Mister Kipling. "I want some answers, and an exceedingly good cake."

"Hyaah!"

He shoves his right arm forwards, some sort of amulet in his hand. Thin bands of pale blue light flicker out, washing over me. I feel my daiklave getting pulled away from me towards the small red gem in the middle of the amulet, and I'm going to assume that if it gets there that I'm not getting it back again. There's a slight… Something across the rest of my body, a vague poking, as if something were trying to get a hold of me but not being able to grip... The spell effect. I stopped bothering wearing a ward because my ability to resist external magic with my own spiritual resilience outstripped the defence that a ward could provide me with. But my daiklave incorporates Apokoliptian technology; it should be just as resistant as the rest of me.

I narrow my eyes as he tries wiggling the amulet as one might twiddle an aerial in an area of poor reception. "Informative." Wizard on standby and advanced xenotech mysteriously failing suggests magic based preparation. Which means… All I need to do is push my nature into the daiklave harder. The drive to dominate, to conquer, to tear my foes' works asunder and supplant them with my own!

The tron lines on the daiklave glimmer, and the blue strands from the amulet collapse.

"Oh bloody hell."

"I'm told it varies from case to case." I raise the daiklave. "But I'll happily send you to check unless I start getting some answers." I smile cruelly. "And that ca-."

Arms around my neck! Squeezing!

"Shouldn't have taken your eyes off me, alien."

Fuckingfuckeronmyfuckingback!

Mister Kipling drops the amulet, backing away from me as fast as he can without taking his eyes off me. I stagger right, twisting around and throwing myself backwards against the door to the room. There's a clang, but Major Kelly's stranglehold on my neck doesn't weaken. Alright, not a magic life form and that wasn't an immediate kill-stab. He could still be bleeding out but -eugh- his grip is still just fine. Environmental shield's down, which means that I do actually need to breathe.

I reverse my grip on the Sword of the Fallen and stab behind my back, trying to cut him again. He squirms, trying to keep away from it. I think I'm nicking him, but my own bulk is working against me! I can't get a good hit! My throat's not in danger of being crushed until he can move, but I'm still gasping for air!

I turn, swinging the daiklave through the metal of the door and the stonework surrounding it.

"Kipling! Stop him!"

"Oh, and exactly how am I-" I lean backwards and kick with my right foot, sending the door skidding backwards into the vaguely insectoid guards on the far side and bowling them over. "-supposed to do that?"

"Not going to plan, boss?"

A female voice, emanating from all of the… Robots, the guards are robots, fine. I lunge, grabbing Mister Kipling by his coat and throwing him at them. Another stab and by pure fluke I think I hit an artery in Major Kelly's leg. Blood sprays outwards for a few moments and the man's grip weakens still further. A quick look around the room and-. The amulet Mister Kipling tried using on me. It's on the floor. Doesn't look damaged.

"Whenever you're ready, Dolmann!"

I make it two steps towards where the amulet lays before the first robot cannons into me, jet engine firing from the wing unit on its back. I'm thrown across the room, Major Kelly still clamped around my neck. The force of the impact is nothing like enough to injure me, but it does force me to stop stabbing the bastard. As I fall I clumsily swing the butt of my daiklave around and score a glancing hit on the robot, knocking it aside. Either the pilot or its own AI recognises that they're not on target any longer and they cut the rocket motor as they plough into the wall a little way to my left.

Then my face hits the floor. Gah, gruh! I push myself up onto my knees and immediately am forced to swing the daiklave to cut through another robot. The blade passes through its carapace cleanly, piercing the -bah!- fuel tank, which is immediately ignited by its own rocket flame! I blink, trying to get the burning liquid out of my eyes but not able to drop my weapons to use my hands. Through the smoke I see two more humanoid outlines as-

"Attack!"

-a pair of robots charge through the smoke, riot shields in their right hands and some sort of spray gun in place of their left. I charge, rising from my crouch like a sprinter as the fucker's hands go over my eyes aaaagh!

Can't… Fucking…

I keep going, turning sideways and slashing at where I remember the robots being. I think.. something is coating my left side, but I feel the feedback through the daiklave as blade meets metal. Another slash gah! Turns out… Having someone with super strength fiddle around inside your eye sockets is quite painful! Okay, think I hit the second one there. Amulet should be that way…

I hear the roar of another rocket and slash… Agh! Missed! Something, probably another of the insect robots, strikes me in the chest. I brace and bring my daiklave's hilt down on it, smashing it to the floor and causing another explosion to wash over me. This won't work. Okay, hopefully the amulet is still roughly where I think it is. Need to get there now. I leap upwards, twisting in the air so that my feet meet the ceiling and pushing off while upside down. Half a second later I crash down in what I hope is nearly the right place, stone shattering beneath me and I listen.

Major Kelly swinging forwards over my head distracts me, but I think I heard the noise of metal against stone to my right. Before he can recover his position I slam my daiklave point down into the floor, push him forwards with my now free right hand and slash with the Sword of the Fallen.

"Huuuuuurhhh!"

Wetness and meat fall past my left hand in the Sword of the Fallen's wake, Major Kelly finally being forced to release me. Okay, based on past experience it could be hours until I get my eyes back. Too long to wait. I toss my head, hoping that some of the burning fuel in my eye sockets is shaken free. Then I sheathe the Sword of the Fallen and start feeling around on the floor for the amulet.
Heal.
I can't tell quite how hot the room is, but it should be hot enough to throw off infrared sensors. The fire should also make it impossible to see me normally. Conventional munitions aren't a worry even now; being blinded is a pain and it hurts but it doesn't threaten my existence. I feel an edge-. No, just a stone fragment. Okay, and… That's an intestine.

…

I yank it as hard as I can, then throw what's torn off in my hands towards the other side of the room.
Heal.
I feel around some more. That's robot debris… Not sure if making noise is really a problem here, but ahah, got it! Probably. I stand, sliding my feet around and trying to feel where whatever's left of Major Kelly ended up. The intestine was there and-.

"Not that easy, alien!"
Heal.
OOF! I'm down on my back. I think he grabbed my foot.
Heal.
"Been a while since anything's hurt me, but you can't keep me-!"
Heal.
I thrust what I hope is the amulet in the direction of his voice. "Hyaah!"
Heal.
I feel… Something from the amulet.
Heal.
"Oh, motherfu-!"
Heal.
His voice cuts out suddenly, the amulet vibrating in my hand.
Heal.
I take a deep breath, tasting the burning fuel and smoke around me.
Heal.
Then I rise to my feet and grab my daiklave.

 

[Mr Zoat]

31st May
17:54 GMT

My eyes are shut, but something is trickling down my face. Eye goo? Blood? I don't think it can be rocket fuel; it isn't on fire. The heat isn't really a problem for me… Not yet at least. I might suffer from oxygen deficiency eventually but my insides are nearly as heat-resistant as my outside. My neck aches and I'm sure that if I could see it I would see Major Kelly's fingerprints gouged into my flesh.
Heal.
Fortunately, the pain from my abused neck is being drowned out by… Agh… The pain from my eye sockets. Not at unanesthetised autodisembowelment levels yet, but the day is young.
Heal.
Stay here or get moving?
Heal.
I'm in what I presume to be a castle. One maintained by the British government as a black site. The castley bits of castles aren't usually all that big, so charging out of the doors and smashing my way along the corridors is certainly a viable option. On the other hand, there are almost certainly more robots out there. There may also be regular Human soldiers -only a concern in the sense that killing them might make me look bad- and metahumans of various sorts. I.. am.. in no shape to fight someone in my weight class.
Heal.
I'm not sure exactly how much of the British super-establishment is on board with Project Evil, but… Even those who aren't would probably be on board with assisting in stopping me if they find me rampaging around a secure facility. Doubly so if I'm dripping with the blood of their countrymen. Of Chester's associates, the only one who really worries me is Tri-Man. Super speed and super strength are difficult for me to overcome at the best of times, and.. now… Isn't. Fortunately for me, he has Thundermind's problem of being too much a public figure to be able to disappear for long periods of time. A call has probably gone out, but it'll take him a while to get away from whatever's occupying him and.. then travel here…
Heal.
On the 'stay put' side I've got Father Box and a power ring that are currently non-functional. If I can change that then I can either escape or -my preference- wreck havoc upon the deserving. Sinestro?
Heal.
…
Heal.
Nothing.
Heal.
Okay then. "In blackest day or-. Uhuh-uhuh."
Heal.
I wince, then gasp as that involves putting pressure on the damaged tissue around my eyes in a way they are not shy about sharing with the rest of me. OWFUCKINGOW!
Heal!
Okay. Talking out loud is a no-go for now.
Heal.
The flames… I think they're dying down a bit. I don't remember seeing any flammable material in the room, so it's just the quick-burning fuel, robot remains and… Probably Kelly-remains and my eyes.
Heal.
When this is over I'm going to be on my third pair of eyes! Thirty years I lived with one perfectly good pair but I'm on this stupid Earth for a couple of months-!
Heal.
I stab my daiklave into the floor and check myself over with my hands. Something stuck on the left side of my torso… Maybe on that side of my face as well, but I have no intention of prodding it to make sure. The robots had some sort of glue spray? It's still sticky in places while in others it's set like rubber and.. across my left arm it appears to have been burned and crystallised. Heh. If I could see what I was doing, I could use it to put a protective cover over my eye sockets, but then… If I could see what I was doing then I wouldn't need to.
Heal.
No other injuries in evidence. I pick the daiklave up once more and cautiously make my way towards the door. I'm getting a little short of breath as well. The room.. didn't look well-ventilated. Can't hear anything much from the far side-. I nearly trip as my right foot bumps into something. I crouch down, feeling… Part of a robot, I think. There's no chance I could repair it or use it as a weapon like this, but maybe… I grab hold of something on the chassis that feels load bearing. As a shield, it's inadequate. As a projectile, it's… Better than nothing.
Heal.
I rise to my feet. Okay, door should be about three metres that way, nearest wall should be there. I could just stride out of the smoke looking like a killing machine, but I'm.. just not feeling it at the moment. I swing the daiklave slowly, trying to use the flat of the blade to determine exactly where the wall begins… There. I stop to listen again.
Heal.
Nothing.
Heal.
I swivel my waist, preparing for the throw. One… Two… Three. I bring my left arm around and hurl the remains of the robot down the corridor outside. Then I listen. No shots, no yelps and no frantic scurrying to the side. Either whoever is there is exceptionally well disciplined or the corridor is empty. Right then, best foot forwards. I step to the side so that I'm standing directly in front of the opening. I should be visible now. No, still nothing.
Heal.
I step forwards one pace. Then another. As I pass through the opening there's a slight drop in temperature and an equally slight rise in air quality. Running my left hand along the wall I can feel the lumps of stone I sliced through when I cut through the door's anchor points earlier and that is the door itself. Worth picking up? I crouch down, feeling it with my left hand. It's not resting flat on the floor, there should be a handle… My probing hand encounters a wheel mechanism. That should do for the moment. I heave it upwards, metal scraping against stone as it comes upright. The wheel turns under the door's weight before stopping at its furthest extent.
Heal.
Mm. Very awkward. I'm just about strong enough to hold it in place, but the grip is decidedly suboptimal. No, have to make do. I hold it so that it covers a good deal of my chest, then extend my daiklave like a blind man's stick. Which it literally is, I suppose. Tap, wall over there. Tap, wall there too.
Heal.
With me removed from the field, command defaults to Doctor Robbins. The Mountain itself should be perfectly secure, with both technological defences and with the muscles and claws of the Genomorphs. I may have sent Chester to assist Miss Amane but I'm reasonably confident of her ability to look after herself if it comes to it.
Heal.
The one I'm really worried about is Lynne.
Heal.
The Centre for Paranormal Research isn't a military institution. There are a couple of security guards, but they're there to throw out nuisance visitors or protestors, not fight paramilitary units. Against untrained and unarmed metahumans, walking up to them with a gun and shooting them dead before they know what's going on is a perfectly viable technique. And if they can shut down a Father Box they can almost certainly shut down her telepathy.
Heal.
Tap. Tap.
Heal.
And sure, if anything happens to her then this country can forget about a smooth transition of power as I run through Westminster like a blender… But that wouldn't bring her back.
Heal.
Tap. Tap.
Heal.
Why did Major Kelly refer to me as 'alien'? I mean, yes, I am… Father Box?
Heal.
…
Heal.
Okay, I'm not an alien, but I've been telling everyone that I am and I certainly look like one. Why the heck is that a problem for him? Everything these people know about Apokolips comes from me. Doesn't it? They wouldn't know that they should be worried about an Apokoliptian unless I told them, and if they don't trust me why would they trust my information about us not being trustworthy.
Heal.
Tap. Tap.
Heal.
Maybe he's just speciesist. I mean, alien is three syllables, saying my name would actually have been-.
Heal.
"Hello, alien."
Heal.
I stop, turning my head in what I think is the direction of the voice. "Miss Dolmann." Owowow. Fight through. "Would you be so good as to point me to the exit? I've been kidnapped by men of low character and I fear for my safety."
Heal.
"We're going to get you. You're in a secure facility and extra forces are en route. You can't escape."
Heal.
For a moment, I consider doing the 'I'm not locked in here with you' line. But my throat really hurts. "'Kay."
Hea-. No. I try pushing my essence into Father Box, the resolute unflagging drive to conquer married to the intellect to do so intelligently. Nothing.
Tap. Tap.
Heal.
I start walking again. I wonder if I can sense the magic in this structure? Maybe get some idea of where things are? My magic-sense is pretty much limited to 'there is a concentration of power here', but even that-.

"You're going to die, alien!"
Heal.
"Y-. Yep. You said."
Heal.
I rest the knuckles of my right hand against the corridor wall and try relaxing my grip on my own body. Can I.. feel.. anything..? Ugh, sort of. There's power here, but it appears to be all around in more or less uniform strength. It probably isn't, but the distinction is too subtle for me to detect. Drat. I bring my daiklave back to the ready position and start walking again.
Heal.
Then I hear the roar as another rocket fires.

 

[Mr Zoat]

31st May
17:57 GMT

I turn side on, holding up the door-shield and bracing the metal against my shoulder and left leg. I didn't really get a good look at the corridor when I cut the door free, but I think it was straight-.
Resist.
FSHOOM.
Resist.
The first rocket hits the door, flames exploding against the metal and expanding outwards around the edges. Incendiary? That won't be a problem, then. I inch forwards.
Resist.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Resist.
More air is displaced, but there's little heat. Not sure what that was. Smoke, maybe?
Resist.
BANG!
Resist.
Something strikes me on the cheek. Not.. hard… I bring my right hand around and feel the inside of the door. There's a noticeable dent on my side adjacent to my face. Anti-armour? This door must be pretty darn well armoured to take that. Okay, anti-armour rockets can hurt me, but they would need repeated strikes in the same place to do much more than bruise.
Resist.
Hitting my face right now… That would be bad.
Resist.
I try picking up the pace, but the fact I can't see where I'm going is constantly making me hesitate. I hear another 'fwoosh' and move to the side, raising the door-shield slightly in the hope that if it's another anti-armour rocket it'll hit somewhere else.
Resist.
Instead, there's a comparatively slight impact and then a slight pushing. Don't know what that is. Push forwards-. Ah, there's some sort of sticky material on the floor. Nothing like strong enough to hold me in place but it's slowing my already glacial pace even further as I'm forced to push harder and shove.
Resist.
Some sort of hard foam? More of that glue stuff? No idea. But I think I'm.. past it.
Resist.
Tap. Tap.
Resist.
Okay, take a risk. I accelerate to actual walking pace, daiklave dragging along the wall. Hopefully, when I reach an opening it'll be one on both sides.
Resist.
A different noise this time, followed by a hissing I know indicates a gas weapon. I'm pretty much immune to conventional poisons but I still need air. If all of the air around me gets displaced and I can't get my environmental shield back up I'm as stuffed as anyone else. Faster, then. I accelerate to an awkward jog, my right foot kicking what I think was a gas grenade forwards. After two more steps I encounter it again and this time kick it harder, listening for the sounds of it striking something. Klink, klink, roll and klunk as it stops. Assuming that was in more or less a straight line…
Resist.
This could hurt.
Resist.
I run forwards, trying to judge the distance.
Heal.
"I can see you, alien."
Heal.
The daiklave stops scraping as I try to zero in on the voice.
Heal.
"Let's see how you handle this!"
Heal.
Okay then. I leap in the direction of the voice, daiklave thrust forwards. There's a series of fwooshing sounds from my direction of travel. Someone's dumping their rockets.
Unstoppable!
I can feel the backwash as the majority go wide and the thump as two don't. More than a few people have assumed that someone my size would have to be slow and clumsy. In actual fact, divine aura plus super strength means that I'm pretty darn fast!
Triumphant!
I bring the daiklave around where the voice was coming from, feeling it bite into metal and shear through! Excellent! And… Now I'm falling? The daiklave is still cutting through something..? I strike out with the door-shield, getting a 'clank' sound for my trouble. Okay, something big and-.
Heal.
And that's the floor. I hit it at a fair old clip with no warning to allow me to bend my legs. The brick comes off worse. There's a feeling of space around me but no movement from the air in front of me. I lunge and slash with the daiklave. The edge bites metal and slices through, the slight jarring sensation being easily absorbed by my hand.
Heal.
I have no idea what I'm fighting. Big robot? Mech? Golem? No, not a Golem, I can hear electricit-.
Heal.
Doouf! Something heavy just… Landed on me.
Heal.
"I'm going to kill you, alien!"
Heal.
"Good for you."
Heal.
Still hurts. Okay, she didn't sound particularly shaken up so I'm going to assume giant robot full of missiles. I push upwards, trying to either find an edge or at least push it aside. Risk of self destruct? Eh, it's probably got a scuttling device around the clever stuff but I doubt it has a built in nuke or anything. If it has, it would have fired it. And the rockets activating within their launchers won't do much more than knock me across the room… However far that is.
Heal.
Still, better safe than sorry. I bring my daiklave around and slice at what I believe to be the chest of the probably-robot. The blade passes cleanly through, then I stab it into the stone floor and feel inside the groove with my right hand. Armour… Half an inch thick. Okay, stab with the daiklave, then shove hard.
Heal.
I hear clanks and the shriek of metal against stone followed by a sudden bang. That must be where the wall in that direction is. Okay, so the cell was… That way…
Heal.
"OPEN YOUR GOD DAMNED EYES AND LOOK AT ME!"
Heal.
I could respond with 'TOGTFO', but that would involve talking. And using internet memes as banter is beneath me.
Heal.
I can't hear any 'fwooshes', so I'm going to assume that nothing else is in position to shoot me. Instead I stalk in the direction her shout comes from, swinging my daiklave back and forth in a way which I hope looks like I'm being menacing instead of just trying to stop myself walking into a wall.
Heal.
"LOOK AT ME!"

Door-shield up.

"LOOK AT ME!" / "LOOK AT ME! / "LOOK AT ME!"
Heal.
From different places that time. Okay, either there's three more robots or she's worked out that I'm navigating by sound. My left foot brushes against a decent-sized piece of debris and I stab the daiklave into the ground, dip down, pick it up and turn, hurling it in the direction of the furthest of the voices. One , t-. There's a complex sound, a crumpling followed in quick succession by a smash. Okay, that was most likely a wall-mounted speaker. And… More debris. She knows that I'm not looking…
Heal.
I pick up pieces of debris and throw them in a compass rose, trying to get an approximate idea of the shape of the room. A few dozen clangs and clunks later I've worked out that I'm in a rectangular room about ten metres by twenty. From the sounds of it there are other doorways, but from their placements I'm going to guess that they just lead to other cells. This definitely isn't the Tower of London. Those cells are far more cramped.
Heal.
Clang, clang, clang.
Heal.
Ah, excellent! That sounded like it hit a stair and bounced down a few steps. Sword waving again I head towards them. A bit odd that a room this big doesn't have any furniture, but I think I'll assume that they cleared it out. Nothing… Nothing… Wall. Okay, run the sword along the wall until… There!
Heal.
Heh. I'm feeling rather pleased with myself here. Ambushed, blinded, and I'm still going to get out of this okay.
Heal.
"You're too slow, alien!"
Heal.
She needs a new hobby. Advanced robotics are something I'd like it if Humans did more work on, but if all she's doing is building weapons I think I can live with myself if I kill her. I tap the daiklave against both sides of the staircase. Stone walls, and fortunately not spiralled. Plenty of room for me. Steps are… Okay, feels like the distance is even. I can afford to go a bit faster.
Heal.
"Now you're going to be trapped in here forever!"
Heal.
…
Heal.
…
Maybe I should go a little faster.

 

[Mr Zoat]

31st May
18:04 GMT

"Let me out!"
Heal.
Tap. Tap.
Heal.
Not sure exactly what was supposed to happen that would result in me getting trapped, but as far as I can see it hasn't mat-. As far as I can hear it hasn't materialised.
Heal.
Tap. Tap.
Heal.
The pain in my eye sockets has died down considerably. That might mean that I have eyeballs again, but the pain hasn't gone and it still doesn't… Feel quite right. Think I'll leave it for now. My throat on the other hand feels hunky-dory.
Heal.
"You utter arseholes! Let me out of here!"
Heal.
Tap. Swish.
Heal.
Open air? I swing the sword around a few more times, feeling out the edge of the space. There's an opening in front of my which appears to emerge out of a wall. There's a slight movement in the air, though whether it's from a well-ventilated room or from the outside I genuinely can't tell.
Heal.
Hmm. So, my choices are: one, follow the wall around until I find out the size of the space or two, call out to the desperate-sounding Mister Kipling and have a chat. Jumping towards his voice sounds unwise; he's my only source of input since Miss Dolmann stopped taunting me. And he's nothing like as tough as her robots, far more squishable.
Heal.
"Excuse me, Mister Kipling." I take a few steps forwards, door-shield held to my side. "May I have your attention for a moment?"
Heal.
"Oh, it doesn't matter. What do you want?"
Heal.
"A cake would-."
Heal.
"I'm not getting you a cake! Don't you understand what they've done?!"
Heal.
"No. I'm not even entirely certain who 'they' are. I didn't start any of this."
Heal.
"What do you mean, you didn't start any of this?"
Heal.
I shrug as best I can with both hands occupied. "I though I was going to be fighting SHADE today. I had my lure, I had my people in place… And then one of my operatives fails to report in and the next thing I know, here I am."
Heal.
"Vera Black is a wanted fugitive and her brother is a serial killer! You're planning on overthrowing the government and taking over the country!"
Heal.
Hm. Yes, yes, yes… No. Not even in the short term. Why.. would.. he.. think that? Actually, why would he think that I was planning on overthrowing the government? Sure, I threatened to do that if whatshername didn't buck her ideas up during that committee hearing but that's about as far as I got. How closely have they been keeping tabs on me? Okay, so they might know that I've been investigating things, but Ra's has had people doing that and they don't think he's planning to take over the country. They're just paying him the hush money.
Heal.
"No I'm not. I mean -no offence to your country or anything- but that's a bit small potatoes for me."
Heal.
"Then what are you planning?!"
Heal.
"I'm planning on taking over the planet."
Heal.
"Ha! Then maybe it's for the best that we're trapped."
Heal.
"Not sure I follow you."
Heal.
"We can't get out, you fool! All your plans are for nought!"
Heal.
"No, I got that. What I don't understand is why me becoming ruler of the planet is a bad thing. If you could just… Talk me through the reasoning…"
Heal.
"You-? You want to discuss it?"
Heal.
"Do you have somewhere you need to be?"
Heal.
"I was planning to try and find the wine cellar and drink myself to death, actually."
Heal.
"It's actually quite.. hard to kill yourself in a short timeframe by drinking wine. I mean, spirits, sure. But with wine..? If no one was helping you, you'd probably lose consciousness before drinking enough. You'd certainly lose the hand-eye coordination required to open the next bottle."
Heal.
"I'm going to try."
Heal.
"Alright, fine, but.. my question?"
Heal.
"What's so hard to understand? Mankind does not want to be enslaved to an alien tyrant, to have our home world used as the base for an alien empire!"
Heal.
"Okay." I put down the door-shield, propping it up against the wall behind me. Then I return my daiklave to its clamp on my back. "This is just me, right? I mean, my brother and sister in law were here when I first arrived and I haven't brought any other Apokoliptians with me."
Heal.
"And?"
Heal.
"So: I, the Emperor of Earth, would be an alien. But all of my lieutenants would be Human… All of my military officers, all of my directors of industry and all of my civil servants would be Human. Research scientists: Human. My own daughter and heir: Human. So how exactly is this Empire that is made almost entirely of Humans.. an alien empire?"
Heal.
"What?"
Heal.
"I mean, you're basically saying that an alien can't be Emperor because he's an alien." I take a small risk and frown slightly. "Are you a racist, Mister Kipling?"
Heal.
"J-." There's a pause as he tries to come up with an answer. "No, of course not. But you're still trying to overthrow the British government and it's our job to stop you."
Heal.
"Mister Kipling, if either Father Box or my power ring were working right now I would show you the sorts of things that your government officials get up to, and it would turn your stomach."
Heal.
"Is that enough to justify Black killing our Members of Parliament?"
Heal.
"Four rapists, two paedophiles and a cannibal? Yes, I'd say so."
Heal.
"W-? No, that's preposterous. They can't possible have covered up so many criminal acts."
Heal.
"They didn't. They hushed it up. I've got the evidence. I just wouldn't be able to find anyone to do anything about it. That's why I'm sheltering Chester Black. And preventing him going off half-cocked."
Heal.
"Prove it."
Heal.
"Alright. Unlock my power ring and I will." He doesn't immediately respond. "If you're so sure that we can't get out -and while you're drinking yourself to death I will be making an attempt- then it can hardly hurt."
Heal.
"It-." I can just about hear him sigh. "I can't. I worked the spell I used to interrupt your portal into the castle's defences. Hostile artefacts that it has been applied to won't function while they're in here."
Heal.
"So I can't show you the thing I need to show you in order for you to help me get out until we're already out." I nod. "Tricky."
Heal.
"Oh, no. Screw 'em. I'll help you get out regardless, as long as I'm included in the escape plan."
Heal.
"Oh. Bit of a.. change of heart there."
Heal.
"Thought I might as well put a brave face on a hopeless situation. I'm actually fairly self-interested."
Heal.
"Drinking yourself to death?"
Heal.
"If I go down then I'd take you with me. But -between you and me- I'd rather not go down at all." I hear another sigh. "I mean… Look at that."
Heal.
"Look at what?"
Heal.
"Maybe it would help if you opened your eyes."
Heal.
"Sadly that's impossible. Major Kelly crushed my eyeballs. Could you please describe it?"
Heal.
"You ever see the film 'Labyrinth'? With David Bowie?"
Heal.
"Yes?"
Heal.
"Like that, only made of castle. The man who first enchanted this castle designed it so that it could disassociate itself from reality if it ever became overrun by one of his enemies. It's castle to the front of them, castle to the rear, castle to the up and the down and the round and round. An infinitely repeating mile cubed."
Heal.
"Oh. I'm rather sad to be missing it. Sounds like an amazing visual spectacle."
Heal.
"It's just stone. The problem is that nothing in here can affect the outside."
Heal.
"Can things outside affect.. this..?"
Heal.
"They can turn it off, but they're not going to. I'm sure that I'm perfectly expendable."
Heal.
"But things from outside can come here?"
Heal.
"Some things, yessss…"
Heal.
"Then we may as well keep ourselves busy seeing if we can scavenge parts for a radio from Miss Dolmann's robots."

 

[Mr Zoat]

31st May
18:23 GMT

"Which doesn't help me at all, because I don't know what a germanium diode looks like!"
Heal.
"Okay, that's fine." I nod. Not unreasonably, Mister Kipling's background is in magic -and English literature, curiously- and not electronics. I only know how to put an ersatz radio together because Richard thought it might be important for us to know. "I don't suppose the robots have aerials anywhere on them, do they?"
Heal.
"I'd have spotted that."
Heal.
"Wall mounted communication devices?"
Heal.
"There are tannoys on the walls in a few places. Are they any use?"
Heal.
"Might be. I don't know much more about this than you."
Heal.
"Oh, what good does it do? Do you really think that something as simple as radio waves could breach our dimensional bubble?!"
Heal.
"No, not really. But once we have a working communications device of some sort I can wire in the Transferral Node from my sword and that will allow us to listen in to my allies' communication devices."
Heal.
"Transferral Node? What's that when it's at home?"
Heal.
"Apokoliptian technology. It lets me connect a device to my soul. Did you notice how your amulet thing pulled my sword for a second or two and then lost its grip?"
Heal.
"Not specifically. I was busy trying to plan out my next move."
Heal.
"Alright, well, without that, my big sword is a nasty bit of kit but it's still basically a sword."
Heal.
"What's so special about it?"
Heal.
I reach back with my right arm and take hold of the hilt before releasing the clamps and bringing it around to my front. "X-ionised edge with Nth metal chasing. Nothing sharper or more resilient in the universe, and that's leaving aside the force field disrupting properties. The Apokoliptian construction of the rest lends resilience and resistance to magic and reality warping. Usually."
Heal.
"The spell should have stopped that."
Heal.
"Yes, it did. Fortunately I was able to extend my soul into it and push the effect away. It reactivated at full power immediately." I stab the daiklave into the stone floor. Alright, let's assume that the radio idea is a bust. "Do you think that you could funnel additional raw magic into me?"
Heal.
"Not enough to make a damn bit of difference. The castle is designed to keep all of its magic to itself. It took me months just to work out how to extend the weapon-nullification effect."
Heal.
"Can you reset it? Having my ring and Father Box back would give me a lot more options."
Heal.
"No, it's designed to resist that. Adding, yes. Taking away is a little beyond me."
Heal.
We both spend a few moments in silence, thinking the problem over.
Heal.
"Where exactly is this castle?"
Heal.
"At the moment? I believe it's a semi-stabilized portion of the Dreaming, though I could be wrong. The owner wasn't around to consult when our little company took possession."
Heal.
"No, I mean... Normally."
Heal.
"Western Scotland. Used to belong to a man named Cursitor Doom, but he was declared dead decades ago."
Heal.
"Any way to get in touch with him?"
Heal.
"Not as far as I know." I hear him move. "Not a bad idea, if we get desperate. If there is a way to get a message out, it would almost certainly go to him."
Heal.
"Why would we have to be desperate?"
Heal.
"He wasn't declared dead on a whim. Britain doesn't have enough competent wizards that we could easily afford to lose him. We searched, with means both conventional and arcane. Not a sniffle. What sort of weaponry does your Father Box have?"
Heal.
"None, so far as I'm aware. Why?"
Heal.
"Oh, it just sounded like an odd thing to call a gun. The spell should only affect weapons."
Heal.
I almost ask Father Box if he's been holding out on me. "He has an extensive database of weapons of various sorts. Would that set it off?"
Heal.
"No, or it would have shut off your brain as well. And mine, come to mention it."
Heal.
"Boom tube generation?" No, doesn't sound like it. "Matter reorganisation?"
Heal.
"Probably. If you remove the component that performs that function then it may start working again."
Heal.
"If Himon or Desaad drop by I'll ask them to do that."
Heal.
Hm. I suppose that now is as good a time as any. I hold out my right hand.
Heal.
"In blackest day, in brightest night,
Beware your fears made into light,
Let those who try to stop what's right,
Burn by my power, Prince Grayven's might!"
Heal.
…
Heal.
I wait.
Heal.
No, nothing. The ring's totally dead.
Heal.
"Poetic. What was it meant to do?"
Heal.
"Summon my personal lantern. But with the ring dead, it can't connect to the subspace pocket where I keep it."
Heal.
"And the fact that we're stuck in a pocket universe of our own doesn't help." He's not wrong. "I may have an idea. How much 'communication' has to be going on for your Transferral Node to function?"
Heal.
"No idea. Honestly, it was chancy with a radio."
Heal.
"Does it need to be physical, or would a spell suffice?"
Heal.
"Um. A spell might be better, actually. But I somehow doubt that you're powerful enough. No offence intended."
Heal.
"No, but… We have an intact speaker, we have bits of robot which presumably communicate with each other somehow, and we have a network of spells hardwired into the stones of this place. Given the dimensional nature of the trap, their size is effectively infinite. I hear that large aerials are useful in this matters."
Heal.
"Might be on to something there. Of course, we still need to actually find a way out, but it's a start."
Heal.
"With us trapped here Penny lost access to her drones. We don't have to worry about them attacking us. A few months ago she had me charm a couple of the smaller ones. I don't understand the circuitry but I remember her description of the components. If you cut one open then I should be able to salvage what we need for that."
Heal.
I nod. "Is there a nexus to the spell network on the castle? That would be the ideal spot."
Heal.
"Yes, Doom's workshop. We can set up in there after we get the parts we need." I hear his clothing rustle as he gets to his feet. "This way."
Heal.
Yes, a physical cue to the direction. Very helpful. Ah, fuck it. I have to open them sooner or later. My eyelids stick together as they haven't since last time I had an eye infection. I can feel some parts sticking more than others, and the slight tearing sensation as some of the stuck parts become unstuck. Flashes of brilliant white light stab at my brain through the narrow opening.
Function as I demand!
"Come on, y-. I thought you said Derek blinded you?"

"I undo my own injuries. Slowly." I keep them as near to closed as I can, peering around me. Slight degrees of differentiation appear, brown-grey and… Light brown-grey. "How do they look?"

"Like you had cataracts, then someone stabbed you. Can you see anything out of that?"

"Not much, but at least I don't risk walking into walls." I nod at the moving blob. "Lead on, MacDuff."

"The line is 'lay on'. Lay on, MacDuff. And since we're not charging an enemy it doesn't apply."

"Alright. Lead on Mister Kipling. And remember that I can survive longer than you without food or water."

 

[Mr Zoat]

31st May
18:32 GMT

"What did you actually… Ugh."

I try making out what Mister Kipling is working on. The image is a little clearer now, but I'm a way off getting fine details. "Problem?"

"No, no, done. I don't know how you plan to wire your sword in, but the robot and the speaker are thoroughly bodged together."

"Right." I reach back with my right hand, take hold of my daiklave and spin it before jamming it point first into the stone floor.

"Hey! Less fancy swordplay when you can't see what you're doing!"

"Not an option. I'm the Apokoliptian God of Conquest. When I perform spiritual acts I must do so in a thematically appropriate mode, leaving my mark on the stone." I bend down, feeling along the blade. Open.

"What did you do to Derek? I didn't think anything could hurt him any more."

"See the little sword in my scabbard?" Ah, Apokoliptian technology. The wires exist purely to convey the idea of connection. I detach one from the Transferral Node and then gently feel around for a suitable connection point on the object Mister Kipling has put together.

"Yes. Wasn't that what you used to decapitate Klarion?"

I nod. "It was made to slay the First of the Fallen. Sabbac Two used it to cut off Captain Marvel's arms. I have yet to encounter a creature it can't harm."

"I thought he was invulnerable."

"I don't believe in invulnerability. I was a bit surprised by how much punishment he took-."

"Oh, the Eye knitted him back together after every hit. I was wondering how you finished him off. Stab to the brain as you did with Sabbac? Or was separating his head from the gem enough to prevent further regeneration?"

"No idea. I was blind at the time, so I just used your amulet." I find a suitable attachment point and stand, both hands going around my daiklave's hilt. "Okay, I'm probably going to need your help making this work. Watch what I'm doing and nudge it along if you see an-."

"My amulet?"

"Yes. Is there something wrong with that?"

"Puts us on a bit of a clock, yes. That thing is only designed to keep someone contained for a few minutes. The only reason why he isn't already free is because we're on our own demiplane."

"So did he get wiped or will he reappear the moment we break out?"

"The latter. Give it here, I'll see if I can-."

I shake my head. "I don't trust you that much."

"He'll know I've helped you. He won't consider saving myself to be an adequate excuse!"

"So are you.. going to ask me for sanctuary, or are you just planning on hiding and hoping it blows over?"

"As long as he doesn't see us together I'm sure that I can come up with something. He wasn't expecting me to actually fight you."

"I'll think about it. Now, let's focus on the job at hand." I tighten my grip around the hilt. This is the first time I've tried anything this complicated…

He was right. I can feel the daiklave, the robot parts and -dimly- the castle itself. Ugh, the minuscule nature of this false universe makes me feel unwell as I try to make sense of it. No, no. I'm not the God of Intellect. Think like a conqueror. I stop feeling out the pattern and pull. I have taken this castle! Slain or subjugated its defenders! By Right of Conquest this is my domain!

The speaker crackles slightly as I feel the castle trying to resist. Doesn't feel directed at me in any sort of complex way, just the resistance of any system already in motion.

"Allow me, Mister Grayven. Just a… Little… Alteration…"

And everything snaps into focus. I still don't know what the parts of the system do and I'm not about to try fiddling with them. I might hit whatever it is that is keeping my ring inactive and I might hit whatever it is maintaining this demiplane and dump us into the Dreaming. Or worse, the Bleed. Instead, I try feeling outwards, letting my Conqueror's Ambition run wild. I will take all that is out there! Summon My Vassals!

"…ast as me, but he is far stronger than I am."

My eyes snap open as I hear Miss Amane's voice. Come on, keep talking.

"Iname, the man you are fighting is almost certainly the British superhero Tri-Man."

Glad that Doctor Robbins is keeping things organised.

"A superhero? No, tell me what he can do!"

"Enhanced speed, strength and augmented vision. Don't bother trying to hide."

"Understood."

"And avoid lethal force if at all possible! The last thing we need is a fight with Superman as well."

"Yes Ma'am."

I raise my eyebrows at Mister Kipling. "Anything you feel like sharing at this juncture?"

"Compartmentalisation is the name of the game, I'm afraid. I didn't even know other offensive operations were being planned."

"Mister Tawny, report."

"Tawny?"

"My Tiger." Actually, what exactly does she expect him to say?

"Forgive my taciturnity, Doctor." What? That's.. his voice, but without my ring I shouldn't get a translation. Since when can he speak English out loud? "Fighting giant invisible robots is not as easy as I make it look."

"You have a talking Tiger?"

"Apparently." And how is he working a radio with paws?

"Is Miss Selton safe?"

"Giant robot, so, no. She's not injured, and-. Ah, one moment. Bally blighter's trying to get clever."

I turn my head towards Mister Kipling. "Giant robot?"

"The Brain has a monstrous chassis. I've no idea why they thought it was a good idea to deploy it in Superman's home city."

He's not that hard to distract. Had one or two plans to arrange for that to happen myself. "Giant invisible robot?"

"Presumably they want plausible deniability. Oh, you mean 'how is it invisible'?"

"Yes."

"Technology derived from Crandell's gauntlet. Not really my department."

This sounds like a fight I should be involved in. I mean, I suppose the point of having competent subordinates is that they can fight without me watching over them the whole time… "Do you know where Vera Black is?"

"As far as I know she's still in the house you were trying to get to. With Chester around we were limited to using robotic drones for observation and couldn't risk a strike team being anywhere near the place."

"Would anyone else using a hush tube to get there end up here?"

"Not now, no. Why, did someone come through before you?"

"No." Find My Heir. "How about someone leaving it?"

"Wouldn't affect them."

"Attack a fooking school fulla fooking kids, will yeh?!"

Ah, good. Sounds like Chester's in fine form. And looking after Lynne. Must remember to thank him. "Any idea why your people are going after the Centre for Paranormal Research?"

"None."

"Alright, sounds like my people are managing. Any ideas on getting us out of here yet?"

**Daddy?**

 

[Mr Zoat]

31st May
18:35 GMT

I drop my customary mental shield immediately.

**Lynne!**

"Ow! What are you..?" I ignore Mister Kipling, trying to focus instead on the flicker I feel from the soul now so similar to my own. "That's not going to work. Nothing gets out."

"Could you recreate this place from scratch?"

"… No?"

"Then clearly you don't know everything there is to know about it. Now, where would whatever arcane device is used to bring us back to Earth Sixteen be kept?"

"Earth what?"

"There are parallel universe versions of Earth, ours is Sixteen, don't question it. Where?"

"Ah… Either the Queen's House in the Tower of London or GCHQ. Or, maybe somewhere else. It was in the Tower when I saw it, but that was last year and they might well have moved it since."

"What, Grayven's heeyuh?"

"If he is, he's keeping dashedly quiet about it. LOOK OUT!"

"Manchester Black, if you don't have something useful to say then keep quiet. Mister Tawny, don't shout warnings over the radio. Lynne, what do you mean?"

"You know how he does that thing with Uncle Scott and Aunty Barda, where there's two different types of speech happening at the same time? It felt like that."

"What did he say?"

"I-. I didn't get any words. Just… I felt him."

Okay, good. Getting somewhere.

"How the hell did you do that?"

"I gave my daughter part of my soul. I had thought that doing so might mean that I count as being both here and there. Not that it does a lot of good if I can't get a clear message across."

"Curious. I didn't think that would…" Mister Kipling quietens for a moment. "But that could mean… Alright, if we're isolated from everywhere but the Dream -and that's testable- we should still be able to use that to send messages to the waking world. If we're careful."

"And if we're in the Bleed?"

"Then we can't, but as I said, it's testable. We just have to go to sleep, and I'm already trained in lucid dreaming and dreamstate manipulation. Of course, if we're in the Bleed, and we have no source of additional power, then this place will experience planar collapse once the protective spells decay. In which case we'd be fucked."

"And if we're in a little fold in the Earth's own arcane planes?"

"Thhhhen it will either naturally decay and return us to our starting location -though that could be over a very long period of time- or it could be permanent."

"I might be able to survive the Bleed for a little while, depending on when my power ring reactivates. But still, suboptimal."

To put it mildly. Apparently Desaad actually tried throwing lowlies in a few times to see what happened. He stopped because it didn't produce good data, but according to Father Box his studies suggested that a New God should be able to brace themselves against the raw chaos in much the same way we ordinarily reinforce aspects of ourselves. Sinestro's input on the matter covered what the Weaponers and Guardians knew: power rings can maintain your coherence, but it sucks the energy out of the ring very quickly.

"Do you have a magician working for you?"

"Yes, with contact details for more."

"Okay." I hear his footsteps as he starts pacing. "So, communication is possible. We just need to find a form this place isn't designed to prevent. Keep trying."

"Lynne, this is… Your father speaking. Can you hear me?"

"Have you felt him again?"

"No, not yet. I've tried talking like that before and I can barely do it. I'm not as powerful as he is."

Yet. Communicate My Will! "Lynne, hear-."

"I heard him again!"

"Okay, the trick is for me to be at my most-" Grayveny. "-godly. I have to be absolutely in tune with my domain, but I can get through."

"Morse code! We could try Morse code."

"Lynne's twelve! She's not going to know Morse code."

"No, but Chester will."

"I mean, she's probably not going to know that Morse code is a thing."

"Whatever are you teaching her?"

"I'm trying to teach her how to be a child." I squeeze my eyes shut in an attempt to ignore the visual distraction of blur-o-vision. "Look, I'm connected to the castle's magic networks. Can you make sense of any of it?"

"Even if I could, I don't have the power to-."

"Teamwork, Mister Kipling. You can use me for power. Do not abuse this privilege."

"Very well." I hear the sliding of cloth and a slight bump as he sits down. "Can I just point out the incongruity of trusting me with your soul and not with my own equipment?"

"Heard and ignored. Get to work."

He exhales steadily. "Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao. Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao."

"Was that Uncle from Jackie Chan Ad-?"

"Concentrating here. It's a perfectly viable Taoist-."

"Fine. Sorry." I focus as well, expanding my awareness around My Bulwark. It takes a moment, but after a little effort I begin to recognise the patterns in the infinitely repeating sets of spells. Speak Plainly. And then… It's like they aren't infinite. I see it as one thing in infinite places, each…

That's actually quite beautiful.

"A-hah! Found something!"

"A way out?"

"No. But. Once I took a look at your connection to your daughter, I checked to see if there was anything else similar. And there is."

"Is there someone else here?"

"No, it looks like it's set to trigger automatically. If we're lucky, it's the thing which is connected to the system which triggers the isolation."

"And if we're unlucky?"

"Well… This place does have working toilets."

Ah. "Are there any other such triggers?"

"There are thousands of triggers. But it's the only one which looks like the one you made. It's probably a communication channel of some kind and I could spend the rest of… However long I've got until I die of thirst, trying to make sense of everything else."

"So the choice is..?"

"Unless you can subvert it in some way? Leave it on or turn it off."

Control The Communication!

I feel that part of the magic network become more… Quiescent, but that doesn't tell me what it does.

Answer Your God!

The link shimmers, telling me that it is working just as well as it can. That appears to be the limits of my ability.

"Turn it off."

I feel a slight tug as Mister Kipling uses my connection to cut the string.

"Notice anything?"

"No. Feel anything?"

A vague disquiet that my domain is now slightly smaller. "No. Let me know if-."

And I collapse to the floor as the whole network is yanked away from me.

 

[Mr Zoat]

31st May
18:39 GMT

Ow. Really ow.

"What in the name of unlubricated buggery was that?"

"Ow." Feels like a chunk of my soul just got torn off. What the fuck was that?

"I can't feel the castle! Grayven, get up! Or die!"

"Eh." I plant my right palm on the floor and push myself into a slumping position. "What do you mean 'or die'? How would that help?"

"I could probably survive for weeks if I had your body to eat." I hear him get back to his feet and dust himself off. "Longer if I freed Derek and cut the Right Eye of Zoltec out of his chest with your short sword. Or I could just free him and ask him if he has any way to return the castle to normal space."

My right hand trembles as I attempt to come up to all fours. "That would seem to involve less risk."

"What happened to you?"

"He trifled with things that would not stand to be trifled with."

I don't recognise the voice. Male. Sounds… Older. Upper class, in a BBC Radio 4 continuity announcer sort of way. I orientate my head in his direction, seeing a black blob with a pale strip running from the top down to the middle. "I generally find that trifling is all a matter of who has the bigger spoon. And elbow power."

"Curious. Though I think that I will prove that owning the kitchen comes with the greater advantage."

I don't have time for this. "Mister Kipling, who is-?"

"Doom?" He sounds confused. "Cursitor Doom? But you're… Dead."

"No, merely taking an extended leave of absence. And what, pray tell, are you?"

I frown. Thinking is… Hard. "He's a wizard, given name of Mister Willoughby Kipling. And who are you?"

"As Mister Kipling surmised, I am Cursitor Doom. And you are intruding."

"Not my idea. I was heading… To a house in Berkshire. My portal was interrupted." Wait, why did I just-?

"And your presence here was enough to justify casting it loose from its moorings in the material world and setting it adrift in the subtle realms? What manner of man are you?"

"I'm one who doesn't usually-" I stagger to my feet, right fist swinging in the blob's direction. "-answer questions this readily."

My fist stops dead against thin air. I didn't feel any pressure, nothing to indicate that I'd encountered a barrier. My arm.. just.. doesn't.. move. Eh? Oh, I am not having good luck today.

"Violence. The first refuge of the brute. That does not speak well for-."

"Excuse me, I was kidnapped and had my eyes gouged out while allies of the one who did it attack my friends and family and why am I volunteering information like this?"

"You flooded the mystic energies of my castle with your essence. But you failed to take into account that I -as the owner of the castle- had a superior connection to it. And the castle was more than willing to hand over to me every mote of the power which you impressed upon it."

…

Oh shit.

"You're holding a chunk of my soul." Not an insurmountable problem. A soul is.. after all, basically a magic energy construct. I've still got more than enough energy to keep me going and an hour or two in the mana infuser should top me up to functional levels. But in the short term it's going to leave me weak and…

Oh.

A magic user has a chunk of my soul. That means that he can do pretty much whatever he likes to me, limited only by his own knowledge. Again, there are ways around it, but they mostly involve sitting in a magic circle while your allies hunt down and off the blighter responsible. In a situation like this…

"What do you want?"

"I left the leasehold on my home to an ally of mine, a Mister Crandell. I knew that he in turn had passed it on to a group of specialists in the employ of the British government. I see by the expression on your face that you know what I have it in my power to do to you. I have never been one for senseless violence, but I will have an answer, creature. Who and what are you?"

"My name is Grayven. I am an…" I briefly try to stop myself and my jaw starts spasming as the words try to escape. "A-p-p-pokkkkoliptian New God."

"New God? And what do you mean by that?"

"A god is a purposive arcane energy life form. A New God is flesh and energy both. I am man and god both."

"You came close to subverting the protections I placed upon this castle with brute force. I suppose that there may be something to your claim. What set you at odds with your hosts?"

"They discovered my plan to-" I can't stop but can I steer? "-detain and punish certain criminals in the British government." It seems that I can. Useful to know. "These criminals are well placed within the establishment, and were able to prevail upon Major Kelly to act against me."

"You have evidence?"

"Yes. Lots. Not all of it of flawless providence, but yes."

"And they have no other concerns about you?"

"Apparently the fact that I'm an alien is an issue for some."

"And, ah… If I may, sir?"

"Yes, Mister Kipling? You have something to add?"

"He also became a close associate of the President of America and amassed a group of exceedingly powerful henchmen. He's also a close associate of several known supervillains. There was concern that his influence might not be entirely legitimate, or natural. Aaaand he threatened to guillotine the entire royal family."

"No, just those in the immediate line of succession. Also, what happened to teamwork?"

"I no longer need you in order to escape." I feel him pat me on the right shoulder. "Good team up, chum."

Motherfu-.

"Mister Grayven?"

"My medium term objectives coincide rather well with the President's concerns. I also have a great deal of knowledge he lacks, and that makes me useful. Yes, I give people superpowers. That hardly makes me unique, and I'm giving those under my command direction, guidance and instruction in their use with the aim of serving the greater good of… Everyone, really. I'm trying to persuade the supervillains in question to use their fantastic abilities in more productive ways than simply lashing out at those who attract their ire. It's a work in progress. I don't use mind control as a long term thing; it's an uncomfortable reminder of Apokolips and I don't think that the advantages outweigh the costs. A lot of the royal family are implicated in the misdeeds I spoke of and… It was really more of a threat than a firm plan."

"What did you intend to do with these… People, whom you say have committed grave crimes?"

"Kill the worst, try and sentence the rest as soon as the judiciary has been cleansed of those involved."

"I assume that you don't have this evidence you spoke of on you?"

"I have some. Unfortunately, I keep it stored on my ring and your anti-weapon charms have disabled it. Mister.. Doom. I would be happy to share everything I have with you, but I need to return as soon as possible. My people are fighting for their lives, and with my soul in your hands you have all the leverage against me you need. Please."

"What aren't you telling me?"

"That the very moment the attack against them is over I will attempt to block your power over me."

"And?"

"And then take such actions as to ensure that it can't be used against me."

"And that is all?"

"There are thousands of things I haven't told you, but nothing immediately applicable."

"Very well then, Mister Grayven. We will return to the material world. You will be under my close supervision. I would advise that you not disappoint me."

 

[Mr Zoat]

31st May
18:43 GMT

There's a sharp intake of breath from Mister Kipling. Was that it? My magic sense vanished with my spiritual force and I certainly can't see worth a damn. Father Box?

…

"Mister Doom, I'm going to need my weapons back. We need to get to Metropolis, and unless you can teleport us a boom tube would be-."

There's a sort of fizzing noise from my right side. OHSHITAMULET! I twist around, falling back to the ground as I try and grab it with my right hand. My fingers brush the surface and I flick it away just as quickly as I can.

There's a flickering from the far side of the room where I threw it, then a new blob appears.

"Mister Doom, I would very much like it if-"

"Nice try, alien. But whatever magic makes that knife of Sabbac's work on me, it doesn't stay worked."

"-we could leave now. Please!"

"Major Kelly."

"Cursitor Doom. Thank you for detaining the prisoner. I'll handle it from here."

"Major Kelly, I am afraid that I must question you concerning accusations made in my presence concerning the moral probity of the British government."

He's not…

"No formal accusations have been made, but investigations are continuing. This alien is sheltering a known murderer. Now, get out of my way and let me do my job. What is it, Kipling?"

"I'm not sure that it's the best idea to challenge a wizard in his own castle, Kelly."

"Major Kelly, I am not unfamiliar with the concept of a government conspiracy. Well intentioned as you may be, I am afraid that I cannot simply ignore testimony given to me under truth compulsion. Particularly when the one requesting the handover may well be implicated."

G-uh! "I have no specific evidence which suggests that Major Kelly is personally involved in the crimes which I am investigating. Though Chester's reports do strongly suggest that he has violated various national and international laws at the direction of the Home Secretary in the performance of his duties."

"Did you become a member of a British police or security service when I wasn't looking?"

"I'm afraid to say that I did not."

"Then I'm not going to concern myself with your opinion. Move or be moved."

I hear a series of rapid steps from the direction of Mister Kipling. Then a sort of woosh.

"Regrettable, but he will of course survive the fall. Mister Kipling, do you intend to join us or remain here?"

"Difficult question. I think on balance I'd rather stay. But if you could keep me appraised..?"

"That will depend on the result of my investigation. Mister Grayven? Your… Devices should-"

Ploong.

Corpsman, what just happened?

"-resume their function momentarily."

Ploong.

I know!

Plooong.

Yes, Yes. "Mister Doom, I… I can barely stand. Your magics only require the smallest part of my essence to cripple me completely. Could I please have at least a little back?"

"Very well, but I would caution you against the abuse of my generosity."

I wait for oh, that's better. I push myself up on all fours, then cautiously get my right foot under me and gently push upwards. There's a moment of dizziness and I hold my hands out to the sides to try and improve my balance. It passes, and I'm able to stand once again.

U-uhhh.

Right, quick check. Sword of the Fallen, check. Daiklave… Sticking out of the floor next to a gaping chasm. A gaping chasm whose bottom I can't see. Extra motivation -if any were needed- to be polite to Mister Doom. I pull the daiklave free and attach it to my back. Anything I'm forgetting? The illusion amulet, but that was broken and I don't think I'm in any position to make demands here. Any biological material I left down in the cell should have been destroyed by the fire…

I'm waiting for an answer, Corpsman!

Weapon nullification spell. Father Box, boom tube to the Centre for Paranormal Research in Metropolis. And see if you can do something about my eyes.

Ploong.

Alright. Sinestro?

Even now, your physiology resists me. A three dimensional map appears in my head. Better?

Yes, thank you. Father Box?

Boom!

Cursitor Doom regards the portal without much expression. "A curious technology."

I use Sinestrovision to check myself over. Bit of a mess. One quick wave of yellow and I'm presentable again, my eyes excepted. Doing my best to remain confident-looking I stride through the portal-

31st May
13:46 GMT -5

-and raise my ring to my right ear. "Grayven to everyone status re-"

"Master!"

"-port."

Miss Amane appears in front of me, looking somewhat dishevelled. "Master, where were you!? I was dreadfully worried!"

"Iname, where's Lynne?"

"Daddy!"

I turn, Sinestrovision showing me Lynne dashing down the corridor towards me, with…

Is that Mister Tawny? Yes, must be. The hulking Tiger-Man walks lightly down the corridor after her, his fur glowing faintly golden as it ripples in a nonexistent breeze. I kneel down and spread out my arms just in time for Lynne to run into my chest. We embrace.

And I breathe out.

A few seconds pass like that. I hate not being… Able to react to things.

"Grayven."

I tilt my head upwards in the direction of Mister Tawny's face. "Mister Tawny. That's a new look for you."

"I've been spending some time in the mana infuser." He holds out his right paw-hand, razor sharp claws extended. "A curious sensation. I think bipedalism could grow on me."

"Casualties?"

"We took a few hits, nothing to create a scene about. Tri-Man is being transported to Riker's Island and the central cognition unit of the giant robot is being held by the Special Crimes Unit."

"What about the bystanders?"

"A few broken bones here and there. And various minor injuries. No deaths."

I frown. "No Superman?"

"Busy with something or other."

"The rest of the League?"

"Hawkman got in contact but Doctor Robbins told him that we had things in hand. Apparently there's been a bit of a spate of attacks today."

Behind me, Cursitor Doom walks through the boom tube, which shuts down behind him. Mister Tawny turns his head to look at him, then returns his attention to me. "Why don't we pop back to the mountain for a bit of a note-comparing session?"