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

11th January
17:38 GMT +2

"How about we start with a na-?"

"RAHHHHHHHEHHHHHHHHH!"

The individual currently pinned to the wall makes a spirited attempt to tear themself free, yanking back and forth against their bonds.

"With a name."

Their eyes focus on me, and open their beak-mouths to vomit forth a new wave of fiery breath… Which splashes harmlessly against my armoured faceplate. Still, that's going to make asking questions difficult. Hm.

"Zatanna, the fire breathing isn't part of the same spell that makes them invisible?"

"No, that's biological. Turning it off would probably kill them." She turns away. "Aqualad? Zatanna here."

I nod, and begin fabricating heat-resistant muzzles for all of them as I reach forward and physically force its mouth shut, holding the beak closed with my right gauntlet. As I do I watch the effect on my environmental shield. At least the binding charm is stopping whatever they were using to bypass my constructs. I'll need to attach them to the others as well.

"As you've probably noticed, you are pinned to a wall and unable to escape."

"RAHHHHHHHEHHHHHHHHH!"

"If you don't behave yourself, I'm afraid that it is very likely that you will spend the rest of your life muzzled and in prison. However, I would much rather negotiate a solution with your people which allows everyone to get what they want without further theft or bloodshed."

"RAHHHHHHHEHHHHHHHHH!"

Muzzle complete, I slide it around the mutant gnome's mouth and lock it in place. They immediately open as wide as they can, pushing against it. They can open up a little, but no chemical fire comes forth. Right, good.

"Look, I know perfectly well that you can understand me. You can't escape by force and you can't intimidate me. The only way for you to improve your position is to say something intelligent."

The gnome just glares at me. Okay, I tried.

"Inspector?" He looks around, mobile phone pressed to his left ear. "I'm going to suggest contacting the dangerous animal people as well." He nods. I've really got no idea whether or not Romania has a prison which can hold gnomes. But working that out isn't my j-.

"You will all burn!"

I turn back to our prisoner. "Ah! Words! Well done. Is there any particular reason we'll burn?"

"Because you'll be on fire!"

"And where is the fire coming from?"

The mutant's eyes swivel as it tries to assess its surroundings. Two non-overlapping fields of vision. It can't see anything directly in front of it. That suggests prey animal, whereas the teeth suggest predator. "From Mistress!"

"And what is your mistress?"

"Mistress is great dragon! She will burn all the lands of man!"

"Shit in the rain! And get the Defence Ministry as well." Inspector Gherea glares at our prisoners. "A fucking dragon, apparently. Yes. How the fuck would I know?"

"Does your mistress want something from the lands of man, or is destruction its own purpose?"

"Worship her! Fear her! Flee in terror and be eaten!"

"So she's hungry?"

That would make sense: a giant reptile would require a large amount of food which wouldn't be readily available in a region as heavily settled as Europe is now. No wild herds to prey on at all. But if she's intelligent, then we could probably negotiate an arrangement whereby she could buy meat. Or living animals, if she prefers. And if she's gone undisturbed for hundreds of years its not very likely that she's living anywhere anyone is using. I'm-.

No, no, getting too optimistic. This is going to turn into another big pointless fight, isn't it?

"I would like to bribe your mistress not to come to my town. Where should I take my offering?"

"Give it to me. Let us go. We will tell her the name of your town."

"It's called 'Westham'. One word. It's on the south coast of England. And I think I'll keep the rest here, just in case you decide to betray me. And in fact…"

I pull out a rune stone and hold it out towards Zatanna, who has just finished her talk with Kaldur. She smiles and nods. I then return my attention to the muzzle, making a show of checking the attachment. A few improvements to the material composition…

"Others like you will be able to melt this off, but it's far too strong for you to remove with brute force."

I press the stone and a simple radio transmitter into the front top of the mutants beak, where… He? Can't see. Then another quick alteration to the material to make sure that it will remain in place. I give the assemblage a quick rattle, then step back, turn away and fly over to one of the smaller windows and open it. Zatanna waves her right hand and the bonds around that gnome mutant fade, dropping it to the floor. It glowers at us for a moment and then bolts for freedom.

Inspector Gherea walks over to stand besides me. "That was a tracking device, yes?"

"Yes." Ring?

Radio signal is being received.

"I'm a little nervous about letting that.. Gnome? Out in my city."

"The thefts have all been peaceful to date. This is-." Oh. "Ring, check for unexplained fires occurring on dates matching the thefts."

"Matches found."

"Narrow for matches with known magic users."

"No matches found. However, records on the residences of minor magic users are extremely limited."

Marvellous. I watch the gnome as it leaps from this building onto the next and then scurries out of sight. "I'm confident that it's going to report our actions to its mistress, if only to get backup."

"Invisible, fire breathing backup."

"Backup that would have existed anyway, that we can locate by following it."

"I'm not saying that it was the wrong call, but it's my city that goes up in flames if something goes wrong."

"Why do you think I gave it somewhere else to attack?"

"Westham is a place?"

"No. And hopefully looking for it will delay them." The gnome didn't appear to be moving all that fast… Dolmen Gates, natural ones. If it has access to them, it could reach its destination very quickly. Also, free Dolmen Gates, if they can be made compatible with the Atlantean version. Right. "Zatanna, what's the rest of the team doing?"

"Checking that the other thefts were by the same people. So far they all have been."

"Then we've got nothing to do until the police arrive or the gnome reaches its destination. Ms Vadim, do you have anything else on gnomes or dragons?"

 

11th January
23:41 GMT +1

Finally found it! Disguised as a simple ring of mushrooms near a menhir in the mountains near Altford, my rune stone lights up whenever I bring it near.

Zatanna nods, smiling. "It's been used recently. So either this is where he came through, or other gnomes have been using it."

Amon frowns. "Would it not make more sense to have their gate inside their warren?"

Zatanna shakes her head. "This design only works at specific sites of geomantic significance. They couldn't put it inside the warren."

"I need to wheelbarrow someone about that global thaumic mapping idea. How strong is this site?"

Pink mist wafts around her fingertips. "It's much weaker than the Mountain. I doubt this ring goes outside Europe." I nod. "What do you mean by 'wheelbarrow'?"

"Pick it up and push it to where I want it to go, because no one else will."

"We could do that."

"Hm?"

"Together."

I nod. "True. The team is supposed to be about training people to use their powers, and we've got enough magic users and fliers that we could probably make-" She's looking at me in the way people do when I've missed the point. "-a decent… What?"

"I meant, you and me. I've got the time now, I could use more practice flying at high altitude, and I've been studying the spells involved."

"Ah, yeah, sure. I'm planning on visiting Thanagar for a few days next week, but unless Hinon needs me for something I don't have any other plans."

She beams at me. "Great!"

Amon looks up into the sky. "How long until the bio-ship arrives?"

Ring? "About half an hour."

With evening having arrived in the US, Kaldur thought that it was only fair to ask whether the rest of the team wanted to take part. I barely got to the end of 'dragon' before virtually everyone volunteered. Except M'gann, obviously, because being around a huge number of invisible, fire-breathing mutant gnomes is a bit much to ask of a pyrophobic martian. She's going to be staying in the Mountain while Beryl pilots the Bio-Ship.

"Do we know how big this dragon is?"

"No. Fae dragons are supposed to keep growing indefinitely, but they can't exist on Earth at that sort of size. They can't get enough magic to make a body that big function. The largest dragon we've got… Semi-reliable records on was about two hundred metres long, nose to tail tip. But when I say 'semi', I mean a woodcut illustration made based on a description in another book I haven't been able to find."

"So this dragon could be bigger?"

"Based on those few commonalities in various European accounts from the period when dragons flew around here, my ring's calculations on bone and muscle stress and quantities of magic Atlantean biomancers use when creating novel life forms, I don't think it could be longer than a kilometre."

"That's pretty big."

"That's the absolute largest I think it's worth preparing for. I suspect that it's actually smaller."

"And is it thin or fat? The Chinese usually show dragons as being very thin, but most Europeans show them as being like giant winged iguanas."

"Assuming that European sources have accounts from people who actually encountered dragons in their history somewhere, I suspect that those are more relevant. But I don't actually know. Is the Wisdom of Zehuti telling you anything?"

"At the moment it is just telling me how much a creature like that would need to eat each day. That is a lot of cows. And it would produce a large volume of dragon shit. Unless.. the magic.. deals with that?"

"Hopefully the magic deals with that while the dragon is hibernating, otherwise this is going to be the smelliest mission we're ever been on."

Amon smiles, nodding. I wouldn't smile if I'd just been told that and I was the one with enhanced smell.

"Paul…" I turn my attention to Zatanna. "You haven't mentioned.. Jade lately..?"

"She's joining the Darkstars. They're the reconnaissance and sabotage arm of the Maltusian military…" I shrug. "She's on Maltus for training, then she'll probably be deployed to the Reach side of the Periphery."

"So… Have you..? Broken up..?"

"Oh!" I shake my head. "No, no. We're just.. having a long distance relationship for a while."

"How long is a while?"

"That depends on how the war goes. If Dox wants me around more and we get assigned to the same front, the distance won't be all that great. And… Didn't your dad go on tours while he was dating your mother?"

"I..? Think..?"

"It's not.. ideal. Obviously I miss her-" Zatanna blinks, shuddering slightly. "-being around… Are you alright?"

"Oh. Yes, it's just… Adrenaline, you know?"

Yes. Of course.

Shit. Well, clearly both plan Directly State That You're Not Interested and plan Ignore It Until It Goes Away have failed me. And as much as I'd like to blame the Star Sapphire… It's not as if she wasn't highly attached to me before she started using it full time. After this mission's over I'm going to have to try Honestly Talking About Our Feelings. Maybe ask Diana first? She's got tonnes of experience of getting rid of unwanted suitors.

"Aqualad to Orange Lantern."

"Go ahead."

"Since we are confident that there are no arcane protections on the outer part of the warren, I think that it is best for us to carry out reconnaissance on the outer part of the structure before the rest of the team arrive."

I nod. "Rightyho." I raise my eyebrows at Zatanna, and she raises her staff. When the mists fade we're standing next to Kaldur and a clearly agitated Canis. Brut actually bares his teeth at us for a moment before he gets our scent. Leonid is somewhere above us, watching out for low-flying dragons and ready to intercept them. "Who gets to go first?"

"I should." Canis's mental stress clearly hasn't helped him comprehend the human custom of personal space as he leans down from his saddle and stares into Kaldur's face. "I am the most physically resilient, Mother Box will allow me to detect the gnomes and I will recognise any truly valuable pieces of art before they can be harmed."

"It may come to that, but we will begin by performing reconnaissance, not by attacking. Zatanna, are you able to conceal our approach?"

She nods. "I can prevent them seeing, hearing or smelling us. But if any of them are sensitive to magic, I can't stop them noticing what I'm doing at the same time."

He nods. "Very well. You and Orange Lantern will take the lead. Canis, Osiris, you will follow. Be ready to support them if Zatanna's spell is disrupted."

Canis tenses, but controls himself and nods in reluctant agreement.

Kaldur notices. "In the event that we are forced to fight our way in or out, you will be our vanguard."

Canis nods, slightly more happy, as Zatanna raises her staff once more.

 

11th January
23:48 GMT +1

I look around the warren's antechamber. The walls are carved into the stone of the surrounding mountain, but the floor and steps downwards are made of cut stone blocks mortared into place. Mortar implies a level of technical sophistication I wasn't expecting; more powerful fae would just make the rock flow in accordance with their whims in a continuous piece. Those mutant gnomes could have used their breath to partially melt the stone to stick the bricks together… Perhaps it was made while they were regular gnomes. Or perhaps only a small proportion of the population was changed? I don't have an advisor on the habits of the fae. Maybe… Other John..?

Amon looks around. "No guards."

Zatanna nods. "Their first line of defense is secrecy. If someone found their way in here by accident, they don't want to reveal exactly what it is right away. A random hiker would probably take a look around the entrance, assume they found some old tomb or something and then leave."

I nod. "And then the gnomes' own magic would prevent them remembering exactly where they found it."

"Exactly." Zatanna smiles. "The gnome soldiers will be further inside, somewhere they can ambush us."

I nod, starting my way down the steps. Zatanna's concealment spell is making the sound echo oddly. "Or their magicians. A disappearance or a body would provoke a search. Someone turning up a few days later bereft of their wits is a reminder not to mess with the wee men."

Zatanna starts to follow me, only to stop as Canis finally pierces the illusion covering the warren entrance. An all-senses illusion, you actually feel like you're trying to walk through rock until you come out the other side. Whatever he felt, Canis actually seems to have been calmed down by the passage. A novel experience, perhaps?

Zatanna and I return our attention to the stairway, and I walk down just ahead of her. It's about a metre wide by… Two tall, and there's enough of a curve to it that someone at the top wouldn't be able to see a light at the bottom. From the way they were scrambling around I assumed that the mutant gnomes would be at home on any surface, but I can't see any claw marks on the walls.

We're just out of sight of the entrance when the steps become noticeably steeper. And… Again, given the size of the gnomes I would have expected the steps to be smaller, but I'm comfortably putting my feet on them. Was this built so that larger fae creatures can use it? Or for the occasional human? Could be part of the disguise. There aren't records of gnomes working with other fae on an institutional level. Still, hobgoblins are a possibility here, and those things can be savage.

The stairs level out slightly as we come to the first interior chamber. Zatanna and I can see in the dark, but a dim lighting gleams from lanterns on the walls containing bioluminescent insects. The ironwork of the lanterns looks old, and the misshapen pieces of glass come in a range of colours and thicknesses. Not their own work. A little further in and oh my.

The larger cousin of the mutants we encountered in Ms Vadim's office towers over us in the vaulting space. Ill-fitting armour is strapped in place about its torso, and it's carrying a thick-hafted axe in its right hand. Ordinarily I'd say that either of us could take it without much difficulty, but given the exotic effects which the smaller ones could conjure I'm not so certain. Plus, this is the logical place for an ambush. There should be-.

Zatanna points and I nod. Yep, half a dozen or so more lurking just out of sight of the exit in the lee of stone support pillars.

"Are those weapons enchanted?"

"I can find out if you want me to, but…"

"Never mind then."

I cautiously move around the room, taking note of their positions. They're basically lurking in a series of cubby holes, nine, ten… Three passageways leading off, but one only leads to a… Break room? There's a fire pit and.. bones. Scanning is a risk, but the bones don't look human. Choice of two, then. Empathic vision constrained by the spell, so… That one.

At least that explains who is using the large steps. Though those large mutants don’t look like the sneak-thief types. Whoever's running the place must be keeping them back. Are they older? Elite warriors? Can they only empower a limited number? The one I interrogated didn't give the impression of being particularly intelligent, but I wasn't really seeing it at its best. No.. chatter between the guards. Limited intelligence or faultless discipline?

The passageway I selected takes us down further, the opening at the far end taking-.

Oh…

It looks like they hollowed out the interior of a mountain down here. It actually reminds me of Hades' palace, classical style stonework in a dingy environment. Colossal stalagmites have unglazed windows cut into them, while other structures are a combination of carved stone and stone blocks. The actual interior walls look… Yes, those are melted. I think I can see the glow of insect lanterns through some of the windows, but the majority of the light is coming from large orange-yellow crystals hanging from the roof on long iron chains.

And the people! Regular gnomes lurk in corners and archways, only moving in the open in groups and even then their motions are furtive, as if they're hoping not to draw attention to themselves. Clothing appears to be limited to leggings and pointed shoes, though one or two appear to have acquired hats. The smaller type of mutant gnome is also evident and the regular gnomes are clearly backing away whenever they encounter one another.

Take over? Using or creating mutants from the.. general population? But the mutants aren't the majority. The other gnomes could just leave… Except the mutants could probably track them. And gnomes don't have a reputation for being fighters. Thieves and saboteurs, certainly, but not fighters. So they can't get away, can't resist martially…

I wonder if they'd be willing to work for me? Assuming we.. deal with whoever is making the mutants. Honestly, the more I see the less I think this is a dragon. Even in the legends regarding intelligent dragons, I don't remember anything about them being able to fleshcraft their servants. Crazy gnome wizard? Crazy human wizard? Possibly with a dragon to scare the rest into compliance? Grabbing a gnome and interrogating them looks like a sound option, except that if grabbing gnomes was easy everyone would be doing it.

"We need to go deeper. Having any trouble with the spell?"

"Okay." Zatanna nods. "And no. I don't think they're trying to use magic in here."

Alright, that staircase should take us in the right direction, and it's wide enough that we shouldn't have to push past the locals.

"Is there a reason why we're not flying down?"

"You're not doing it in order to minimise your magic expenditure-."

"I have my kinetic belt."

"Which might reveal our position if it takes a hit while we're using it to fly." I glance at her. "I'm probably being excessively cautious, but we're not really under any sort of time-."

A wind rushes up from the depths. I suppose a place like this must have some sort of system for refreshing the air. I certainly haven't seen any plants. Still, that sort of thing should result in unusual air currents and heat gradients that someone should have spotted, in this part of the world anyway. That could be something I could offer the gnomes as part of a settlement: Atlantean air purification-.

Zatanna has attached herself to my left arm.

I turn my head left, looking down at the top of her head. This would be a catastrophically bad time for us to have a relationship conversation. I don't think for a moment that she'd be unprofessional enough to actually… Press her suit here.

"Zatanna?"

She points and I look as one of the normal looking gnomes on a nearby platform staggers, clutching at his head. His neighbours react with obvious fear scampering away even as the mutant variety stalk closer.

"I want you."

What? Okay, yes, I could see Zatanna becoming more assertive in her efforts to seduce me, but just stating a desire as a demand is out of character. I half-turn, reaching across myself with my right hand to hold her in place as I free my left arm.

"Zatanna, what's going-?"

The spell concealing us evaporates in a puff of violet mist!

 

11th January
23:55 GMT +1

"Zatanna, we need that spell."

I'm glowing, she's-. Shit, she's not glowing-glowing, there's just so much orange in her right now that it looks like she is to me. Did I..? Miss this? No, the supporting structures-.

She points the head of the Staff of Love at me. "Love me."

I don't.. feel anything happen. My spell eater isn't even getting hotter.

"Zatanna, please, talk to me. I think you're being influenced by an external-."

The gnome who was clutching his head comes upright, the front of his face projecting forwards and spurs forming on his forearms as he mutates. Something in the air. A few regular gnomes have noticed us, but they're just retreating rather than raising a hue and cry.

"Evol em."

Warning: spell eater temperature increasing.

Zatanna staggers slightly, and I instinctively reach out to steady her with my right hand. She takes it with her left, then holds up her staff with her right and stares at it in confusion. "Why didn't-? Oh."

"Something's altering your desires. You need to cleanse yourself-."

She grins manically at me as the newly mutated gnome throws back his head and exhales a puff of flame. "No I don't. Ezigrenys!"

"Zatanna, I'll be happy to talk to you about this-" Violet light crackles around the Star Sapphire before flowing down her arm and… Merging with her orange glow. "-when you're in your right mind."

"Oh, I'm in my right mind right now."

Pale violet phantasms materialise out of the air around us, intercepting a wave of the smaller mutant gnomes. Some move immediately to grapple while others dissipate around their opponents' fire breath before pulling themselves back together. Any regular gnomes who hadn't already fled are doing so now, and I can see reinforcements for the mutants heading this way.

"I've been in love with you for a year."

"I know. And I told you-."

"That you didn't think it was appropriate. And that hurt… But after a while, I just realised how noble you were being."

"I'm glad, and I'll be happy to talk about this-"

A shower of rock rains down from the roof as Amon punches his way through!

"-after we've dealt with this situation. Amon, what are you-?"

"I'm going to fight the villain." He grins somewhat maniacally. "Isn't that what we're here for?"

Oh.. dear.

Boom!

As Amon flies down as fast as he can I hear the faint echoes of the boom tube as Canis appears… Somewhere off the main concourse.

"Orange Lantern to Aqualad." I try to take a step away, then realise that my feet and shins have been enveloped in violet crystal. "Something's affecting our team mates' minds."

"I-. I am aware. I am afflicted also."

"Orders?"

A mutant gnome leaps down from a nearby stalactite, claws spread wide..! Only to be annihilated by a violet bolt from Zatanna's staff.

"I.. regret… I cannot-."

"Understood." I try applying a little more force to the crystal, to no avail. I almost certainly could break away…

"Did you know that the Star Sapphire talks to me sometimes?"

"No. It.. wasn't supposed to do that."

"Oh, it's not controlling me." She smiles in a way I suspect that her altered mindset thinks is reassuring. "I just cast a few spells to try and find out…" She frowns. "Hang on a sec."

She turns, stamping the butt of the Staff of Love down on the ground. Violet light radiates across the stonework, shards of… Razor-edged crystal impaling the first wave of mutant gnome reinforcements. Blood pours forth from their brutalised torsos, their arms impotently flailing at the translucent spine in a frenzied and futile attempt to free themselves.

Zatanna's going to feel horrible about that once she comes to her senses. And I need to stop her. I really wish it hadn't come to this. I reach out for her desire netw-.

"That didn't take you long." She looks at me sceptically as a barrage of violet beams force the unskewered mutants to take shelter. "But after everything you said about protective equipment, did you really think I didn't come up with a way to stop power rings altering my mind?

While inconvenient here, it could be useful for the Orange Lantern Corps if it worked on the wearer.

"Well done."

She smiles, genuinely pleased at my compliment. "Thank you."

"But while I'm perfectly willing to discuss the specifics of our relationship, I'm not willing to do so with you when you're so clearly under an external influence."

Zatanna blinks, then turns to frown at the Star Sapphire. "No, I'm not going to freeze him in a giant block of crystal! How can he marry me if he can't speak to the priest?"

Oh no, she's gone full Silver Age. Ring, armour.

Unable to comply. Subspace pocket unavailable.

I'm not. Letting. Whoever is doing this. Control-

The crystal around my legs shatters as my environmental shield flares!

-Zatanna. Armour.

Compliance.

"Starfire to Orange Lantern. What is happening?"

"Some sort of mind-altering gas weapon. Stay high and wait for the Bio-Ship."

"Very well."

"Zatanna, if you're serious-"

"Deadly."

"-then we can talk about this once the source of whatever is affecting your mind has been dealt with. Which is probably below us. Can we do that?"

She puts her left index finger to her chin. "Can we talk and fly?"

"Yes?"

"Okay then! Let's go!"

 

11th January
23:59 GMT +1

"…what Jade's got that I haven't."

Zatanna casually creates a violet barrier to block a barrage of fire blasted at us from the mutants occupying the tunnel Amon just flew through.

"Jade was an independent adult at the point-" I fire iron railgun shots blindly through the inferno, disrupting it for a moment. "-at which I was looking for a relationship."

"That sounds like a-" Zatanna waves her staff, another wave of violet crystal shards erupting through the rock. While that does reduce the quantity of fire coming our way, the crystal is melting rapidly under their ferocious attack and it doesn't actually appear to have killed a meaningful number. "-weak reason, just picking whoever was available at the time. How does she help you?"

The simple answer is 'she doesn't', but I don't want to risk encouraging her. "She helps me maintain perspective on what I'm doing."

I trigger my armour's phasing system but-. No, the rock is enchanted to prevent that. I might be able to phase through the fire… I load a phasic round into my railgun construct and fire it through a gap in the crystal formation. Monitor progre-. No, destroyed while phased.

"And she has sex with you. Is that what this is about?" She glances upwards. "Incoming."

We both fly to evade as three of the larger type of gnome mutants land on our platform, a translucent barrier appearing at the edge as they land. Fire billows from the mouths of the two furthest away, while the closest swings at me with a heavy chain! For a split second I generate an inertial dampener construct and use the resulting sudden change in my momentum to jerk back as the metal links gouge the stonework in front of me, then fly -the chain is held in the mutant's right hand- left and open fire with iron slugs. I hit it in the chest several times, resulting-. Minor wounds which heal almost immediately.

The big ones are super tough as well as super strong.

If it's biological super toughness like the Danner Formula then I can wear them down. Except that I'm sure there are more coming and I strongly suspect that it's actually magical super toughness, which will keep going so long as arcane power is supplied to it.

"No! That's not why!"

I dismiss the railgun and switch to a cold gun, going for height to evade my opponent's fiery breath as it recovers its chain. Move to the side slightly and aim for the head… No effect at survivable levels, turn it down all the way…

The gnome tosses its head slightly in irritation then swings its chain through the air at me, forcing me to evade.

Magic resistance to temperature change. Marvellous.

"I'm sixteen in-" Runes flake off the axe of one of the mutants as Zatanna flies to stay out of its reach, evaporating into violet smoke. "-three weeks!"

"Not the point!"

Switch back to railguns, load crumbler rounds, fire tho-.

Flames surge over my armour and I move to evade. Not penetrating yet, which is good, but the smaller mutants are climbing up the sides of the platform. Ugh, it's like late game Mass Effect: we're too tough to hurt each other. Mage slayers. Aim, wait for a -.

Bwouff!

I'm slammed into the ground by a giant.. club. Bypassed my kinetic barrier. Armour.. took it-. I fly along the floor as the large mutant who took the swing lifts it for another shot. Okay, first target. The first round hits it on its right middle finger, provoking a flinch and-.

And I'm dodging again because there's more fire. Alright, that's it. I load iron rounds again and fire at the smaller mutants on full automatic. Clearly lacking their larger cousins' toughness they go flying off the edge or fall to a bloodied heap on the ground. Great, breathing room.

Zatanna swirls her staff, gathering up.. fire, and condensing it into an incandescent ball over her head. "You like fire? Here."

The air howls as the flying thermodynamics violation slams into the chest of the axe-wielder, burning straight through armour and skin and exploding! The mutant collapses, falling backwards onto the stone floor. Somehow it's not dead, but there's clearly a limit to how much heat they can take.

Warded against cold but not heat. Unfortunately, Leonard Snart's weapon can't be used to excite molecular vibrations, only stop them. But a fusion gun should be able to do the.. job…

The surviving smaller mutants are scarpering. Okay, not going to complain. My first fusion shot hits the club-wielder on the right hand, burning through both the fingers and the haft of the weapon. As its weapon falls from its grip it tries to close the distance with me, a blast of flame blocking my movement as its fist comes around. I raise my arms into a guard as I recharge the fusion gun, taking the hit and being slammed into the ground… Which triggers my kinetic barrier because the floor isn't enchanted with attack spells. The mutant opens its mouth to breathe fire again but I fire first, melting the right side of its face down to the bone.

"RaaaaaGH!"

It staggers away, clawing at its face. And this is why I don't use fusion weapons! They're slow to fire and unreliable! Railgun, mage slayer, at the eye, fire.

The round punches through what's left of the eye and-. Its… Head.. shrinks, the remaining flesh.. now looking more like that of the regular gnomes. Ah, that's… Useful to know. Arcane transmutation changes one thing into another, but certain types of shapeshifting can be reversed just by removing the source of the change. Of course, we still need to actually find that…

The remaining large mutant backs up towards the corridor we were attempting to breach, the smaller mutants who were preventing us apparently having fallen back already. It's adopted a guarding posture, and isn't trying to press us. Zatanna flies over to hover next to me.

"Because if the age of consent is different in Britain-."

"Themyscira. Also, I'm not that shallow. Having sex with Jade was.. just a part of how our relationship developed, not why I got into it. Please don't think it was about that." I sigh. "I think the spell which is turning the gnomes into mutants is a constant effect. Can you nullify it?"

"Yes, but I can't counter the spells on all of them. So why can't it be a part of how our relationship develops?"

"Because, firstly, you're not in your right mind, and as I've said, I'm not even-."

"I haven't only just started feeling like this."

"I know. Then you've got-" I can hear air moving again. "-the age difference-"

"Four years?"

I wince inwardly. "-which is significant at our age, and the fact that our society defaults to a monogamous model of romantic relationships."

Okay, that… Doesn't sound like an air pump. The large mutant before us squeezes back into the passageway. We could attack, but I've got a nasty suspicion-.

And then the dragon flies up from the void below us.

Glowing orange, with a power ring around its left horn.

…

Shit.

 

12th January
00:03 GMT +1

Huge blasts of air from the dragon's wing beats slam into us as it comes to a relative stop, hovering in the void a short distance from our platform. Far more air is being moved than its wings could actually move, and it still shouldn’t be enough to keep something like that aloft. Zatanna staggers back a few steps before creating a violet shield around herself. For its part, the dragon watches us impassively, head craned down slightly and mouth slightly open. With the orange glow from its environmental shield it's a little hard to tell, but I think at least part of the light coming from its face is from its internal fires.

I suppose I should have expected something like this. I called the rings towards me. Naturally, some of them would reach Earth. And these gnomes clearly have magic which could prevent me feeling it, if I was even on Earth at the time.

The ring is only glowing dimly, though whether that's because it's on low power or because the dragon isn't using…

League of One. The comic where Diana hears an oracular pronouncement implying that the Justice League will die if they fight something in Europe, so she takes it upon herself to chase them off before confronting it herself. I… Don't remember how she won. And I'm pretty sure the dragon didn't have a power ring.

Oracles. Whose patron is Apollo.

…

If it was just my safety on the line I'd say 'fair enough'.

"Lantern."

No, come on, what was the dragon's name..?

"Lantern Karfang."

I can't tell where the dragon is looking. Its eyes are blank red ovals mounted just above its fat muzzle. Its field of vision must be quite limited. I remember it speaking in the comic, but a creature that size and shape shouldn't realistically-.

"Who are you, you puny insect, to interrupt my slumber?"

But who needs realism when you've got magic and a power ring?

Zatanna steps forward toward the centre of the platform.

"Zatanna Zatara. Are you in charge of these gnomes?"

"They serve and worship me as their ancestors once did."

"Then you're under arrest."

The dragon's wings still for a second.

"What?"

"Then you're under arrest." She pauses before glancing my way. "How do they Mirandize people in Switzerland?"

"You don't need to do anything until you start interviewing."

"You wish for me to stop?"

Right. She probably isn't familiar with modern police procedures if she's been down here for hundreds of years.

"Essentially, yes. Your servants have committed a number of crimes-."

"I care not for the petty laws of man."

"Even if the irritation humans cause you if you don't follow them is more than the irritation caused by simply following them?"

"Do not think to confuse me with words."

"If you get what you want and we get what we want, isn't that better than no one getting what they want?"

"'Want'. I have been thinking about that a great deal, of late." Her eyes narrow slightly. "You have two rings like mine."

"Orange power rings. I would be happy to include tuition in their use as part of any settlement."

"If I took them from you then I would have three."

"And no way to restore their power when they were depleted."

"The spirit of the ring whispers to me. It speaks of other rings which I might collect."

"If you could find them before running out of power. It's an unnecessary risk. Why snatch and grab what is yours for the asking?"

The next wing beat is slightly harder, raising her up in the air a little.

"You know so little of dragons."

Her mouth opens-

Okay, talking didn't work. I fire orange lasers at her eyes and crumbler rounds directly into her throat.

-and she exhales green gas..? Ring, chemical analysis.

Unable to comply.

Magic, right. She doesn't flinch at either the lasers or the crumbler rounds, and I can't see them doing any damage. The gas… It isn't damaging the stone we're standing on, and while it is penetrating my environmental shield it isn't piercing my armour. A glance sideways shows me that Zatanna's protective spell remains inviolate.

No idea what that was supposed to do. Don’t worry about it. Can't see the dragon's desires and I don't want to risk ring-calling my own Corps to death. I dismiss my laser construct and load mage slayer rounds even as the dragon closes her mouth and cuts off the ga-

Zatanna points the Staff of Love, and purple crystal builds up around the Lantern Karfang's wings. She sort of hack-snorts in surprise as the motion of her wings ceases and she falls for a second before clamping onto the edge of our platform with her fore talons.

"Impudent-"

Zatanna re-aims the staff.

"-sow!"

Lantern Karfang's mouth glows ruddy red for a moment, then a film of violet crystal forms over-.

Not going to work. I fire mage slayers at each of Lantern Karfang's eyes and I run at Zatanna, grab her and fly up then down and left. Karfang's fire disintegrates the crystal over her muzzle, roaring towards where I looked like I had been heading.

"Zatanna, can you-"

Karfang turns her head my way and I evade by closing the distance, getting behind the arc her head can easily turn in. Mage slayers at the eyes did nothing, so I try destruction pulses instead.

"-remove the barrier-"

And nothing again and this is some bullshit! Karfang physically can't breathe fire on me from this position, not without risking her position on the platform's edge. She's maintaining the near miss, however, and that will eventually harm me. She tries shifting back slightly and her talons start to lose their grip. She traverses and I maintain my relative position.

"-around the platform."

"Nearly-"

Karfang's wings snap free in a shower of violet crystals-

"-got it!"

-just as the barrier fails and I rocket towards the entrance!

 

12th January
00:06 GMT +1

"I will burn-"

Karfang flaps, desperately trying to gain height as we head for the exit. She might be capable of moving at a decent speed, but it looks like there's only so much that magic can do as far as acceleration goes.

"-everything your wretched-"

Why isn't her ring helping her? Flying is a fairly basic function. Even if she didn't know that rings did that before she saw me-. She saw me. She now has a better idea of what rings can do. Unless it's already out of power, which would be nice.

"-kind has ever-"

Pride. The same reason why I still look basically like myself, rather than the most handsome male model ever. And why my penis is entirely unaltered. A dragon would be proud of its ability to fly and its magic, it would probably hesitate to-.

"get back here!"

An orange construct chain wraps itself around my legs. My continued flight pulls it taut a second later, Zatanna gasping quietly as she feels the sudden deceleration and spots the cause. I keep pulling, forming a railgun construct and loading a crumbler round as I do so. Fire, and flare my environmental shield to increase the power my rings are putting into flight-

Beneath us, a section of vertiginously suspended bridge explodes upwards, shattering over Karfang's head and shoulders as she flaps after us!

-aura as the construct chain shatters. I begin rising again immediately, the burst of fire Karfang throws my way lapping at my heels.

"Orange Lantern to Superboy."

"Superboy here."

"We have a dragon with a power ring. Also, some sort of airborne environmental contaminant. Environmental shields and spell eaters all around."

"Got it. How big is the dragon?"

"About one hundred and fifty metres total. She also ignored everything I threw-" We come to the uppermost platform and I change direction, heading for the entrance tunnel. "-at her, so there's something else going on as well."

Into the tunnel, and I generate a construct vault door to cover our retreat. She won't be able to fit through here-. I haven't seen any sign of her being able to change her size, the tunnel isn't big enough to fit her and however strong she is this is a lot of rock-.

There's a tremendous crash, and a moment later my construct door fails as magic-enhanced draconic fire races up the passageway behind me!

"Erif Pots!"

The fire freeze-frames behind us as I fly through the illusory barrier and into the open air. Bio-ship over there, Kaldur… Kaldur in a meditative posture on the ground, eyes closed and hands clasped together in front of him, but I can see the orange light surging within him, held in check by his intense concentration.

Karfang doesn't appear to be flying through the side of the mountain, so I descend, Kaldur's eyes unsteadily blinking at me as I set Zatanna on the ground.

"Zatanna, can you remove the effect-" I take an environmental shield out of subspace and attach it to Kaldur's armour. It's a basic, fragile, limited battery life thing but it should filter out toxic gasses. "-of whatever Karfang was breathing on us?"

"I should be able to…"

A violet aura surrounds Kaldur's head for a moment and he gasps, his violet-glowing eyes snapping open.

"Aqualad." I regard him cautiously. "You back with us?"

He takes a couple of breaths, then nods. "Yes. I believe that I am."

"What were you experiencing?"

"It was… As if the world existed purely to give me what I wanted, and that nothing but satisfying my own desires mattered." I get a momentary look at exactly what it was he wanted. "It was all I could do to resist." He glances up as the Bio-Ship descends, then looks back to me. "I believe that I have gained a better understanding of what it means to be an Orange Lantern."

"Maybe. But Orange Lanterns learn to stay functional when they feel like that. If you're interested in training-" The Bio-Ship comes in to land, Wallace dashing out immediately. "-to do so, I'd be happy to make time for it."

"You.. saw." I nod. "I would not have acted-."

"You didn't act. But ignoring your desires indefinitely isn't a good idea."

He nods-.

"Hey, Zatanna." Wallace comes to a stop just in front of her. "You ran into a drag-." He blinks. "Are you okay?"

"Perfectly." She comes over and wraps her left arm around my right. Just as Artemis steps out of the Bio-Ship. "I'm exactly where I want to be."

"O…" Wallace gives me a puzzled frown. "Kay..?"

"Something Karfang did altered people's behaviour. I wasn't affected but the rest of our team were."

"You can't fix-."

"I don't need fixing. I don't want anything I didn't want before."

He hesitates for a moment as the rest of the team leave the Bio-Ship. Robert's with them, but he hasn't been studying metamagic. Doctor Balewa is a far better choice for undoing this. And I'm pretty sure that she'd violently resist efforts to change her back now.

"I'm sure that we can talk about it after dealing with the dragon."

Wallace doesn't look happy, but he decides not to push it. Artemis gives me a pointed look, but stands at ease to wait for instruction. Empathic vision shows Beryl still in the Bio-Ship while Richard, Kon, Raquel and Robert form a semicircle around us. I blink as I realise that the Sphere has accompanied them, and it shifts into its flying bike mode. And all of them have environmental shields and spell eaters, good.

Richard smiles. "You found a dragon, Oh El? Thought you said it wasn't gunna be a dragon?"

"I may possibly have been slightly wrong. One dragon, one hundred and fifty metres in length and in possession of an orange power ring with at least a partial charge. The dragon is intelligent and invulnerable to anything I threw at it."

"Okay, that's-."

"In addition, it has an army of mutant gnomes, and Canis and Osiris were caught in the mind altering gas and haven't reappeared. I'm not that worried about-."

Kon's head suddenly turns towards the mountain. "Does the dragon have a way out of the mountain?"

"I didn't see any tunnels big enough."

"Because that rock's getting-"

The side of the mountain explodes!

 

12th January
00:09 GMT +1

"-hot."

I raise a construct barrier as chunks of rock rain down around-

"Starfire, Superboy, engage the dragon." Kaldur makes momentary eye contact with Kon. "Make certain that it does not leave the area,"

-us. Kon leaps into the air. He's wearing his Nth metal armour and while that's got a ridiculous melting point it isn't sealed or insulated. I designed it to resist physical impacts, not gas attacks. Of course Leonid doesn't even have th-.

A fat blast of red energy illuminates the night sky and slams into Karfang as she pulls her way out of the hole she just blasted! She gets battered back for a moment, then takes a firmer grip on the rock and drags herself free. Up in the sky I can just about make out Leonid pointing his fists in her direction, mind completely focused on his target. He cuts out a second later and Kon slams into Karfang's head at full speed! She's staggered, but as he flies on past she's able to point her head at him and exhale a fat column of fire at his retreating feet. It briefly envelops him, only to be battered back as Leonid fires another crimson blast into her mouth.

"Zatanna, will you be able to remove any enchantment which has been placed on Osiris or Canis?"

"I don't know. The Power of Atum should make Osiris resistant to magic. And Canis should ignore anything not related to artwork."

"There's probably all sorts of artwork down there. Give a race of kleptomaniacs a few hundred years they're bound to pick up some good pieces."

"Are you able to feel their location?"

I close my eyes for a moment, then shake my head. "No, sorry."

Karfang flaps, trying to get into the air. The Bio-Ship flies upwards and opens fire on the left wing while Leonid shoots the right. The wings shudder, then she interposes glowing orange shields between herself and her attackers. Kon lunges in and smashes the shield on the left into fragments, then pulls back before she can burn him again so that the shooters can maintain their bombardment. Karfang jerks her left wing back into her side with a snarl.

"Artemis, Robin, take the Sphere. Kid Flash, go with them into the gnome warren and find Osiris and Canis. Try to avoid contact with the enemy. If you can persuade them to return, do so."

They nod, the Sphere flying closer to allow Artemis to jump into the rear seat while Richard takes the front. Artemis directs the Sphere into the air, heading for the entry point which Karfang just created while Wallace dashes into the warren entrance.

Karfang takes Leonid's blasts on the chin for a moment, then flaps hard, ignoring all incoming fire. Beryl directs the Bio-Ship's shots to her face in an attempt to blind her. I can't tell whether it works or not, but it doesn't stop her flapping. Kon lunges in once more but Karfang twists, maintaining her lift while moving her wings out of his flight path. Kon takes another blast of fire as he pulls out and Karfang ponderously lifts into the air. Fortunately, she's too distracted to notice the Sphere flying down into the mountain behind her.

"Cornwall Boy, can you drain magic from the dragon?"

"Maybe? I need to be closer."

Kaldur nods. "Be careful. You are not so resilient as Superboy or Starfire."

"Yeah." Robert nods as the winds around his body pick up. "I know."

He takes off at a steadier rate, going for height as much as closing the distance. While he should be able to drain a fae creature's magic it appears to work best at close range, and thus encounters the problem of physical teeth and mostly chemical fire.

"Zatanna-."

"Heads up, Aqualad." Wallace's voice comes in over the radio. "There's a whole bunch of… Gnomes? Heading your way."

Raquel rises off the ground, heading for the entrance. "Gnomes, great."

Kaldur looks at me. "How far from Altdorf are we?"

"About four miles."

He nods and lifts his water bearers into a guard position, one forming a shield and the other a mace. "Then we will have to prevent them leaving. Zatanna, make sure that we can see them."

"The gnomes down there didn't use the invisibility." She lifts the staff. "But I suppose it doesn't hurt to make sure."

A wave of violet mist covers the ground between us and the entrance, prompting Raquel to increase her h-. I attach a filament to her and transition her back as Karfang sends a gout of flame our way. Kon and Leonid are taking turns to pound her face but that's just irritating her. I'm not seeing any of the injuries a big lizard should take from being punched by super strong assail-. Ooh, they managed to time it so that they hit her from opposite sides at the same time.

"Raaarwgh!"

"Superboy, Starfire, focus on distracting her so that Cornwall Boy can get closer."

They respond immediately, Kon going for her tail while Leonid punches her on the nose before backing off. She snaps at him and then opens her mouth to breathe fire, but he's already backing out of range. Unfortunately, he doesn't take into account exactly how fast she can move once she's airborne. One flap and she moves forwards at a speed that's frankly unrealistic. Leonid tries to evade, but she opens her jaws and cranes her neck to bite down on his legs! He winces slightly, but apparently she's tougher than she is strong. After a moment of trying to pull free and failing, he pulls himself up into a hitting position, jams an arm into each of her lower nostrils and fires!

I create a railgun construct and load a mage slayer round as Karfang shudders, not actually hurt but definitely off-put. Something about shooting her nasal cavity doesn't trigger some part of her invulnerability. Because she can still smell? Is she immune to her own body? Whatever it is, splitting her attention between biting through Leonid and remaining in the air means that she fails to notice Robert drop down behind her head.

"What-?"

Raquel back up slightly as the first mutant gnome sprints out of the tunnel, spitting fire as it comes. She puts up a kinetic barrier, juking to the side to avoid getting roasted. The gnome runs straight into the barrier and is brought to an immediate stop. It huffs fire again, trying to burn the energy barrier with its flame. Others are already dashing out after it-.

"I'm not the only one with a barrier, y'know!"

Right. Controls are a bit awkward compared to a power ring, but I can still extend the version built into my armour. I spread it out, trying to cover-.

One of the mutants shimmers, and a violet mist marker dives through the barrier. I track and fire, my mage slayer hitting it in the centre of mass and bowling it over. Some.. other mutants follow its example, but others content themselves with scrabbling fruitlessly against an unyielding surface. Track fire, track fire, track fire.

"Are you..?" Raquel looks down, decidedly discomforted. "Killing them?"

"Not yet. Broken bones and internal bleeding. Disabling and painful, but not lethal."

"Okay. Just…"

"Ah." Track fire. "You read about what I did on my holiday."

"Yeah."

"Don't worry. I'm on Justice League rules of engagement." Realising that they're not getting anywhere, the mutants start to back off. "Though those are a little more flexible than is commonly-."

A giant mutant charges out of the entrance, runic claymores in hand!

 

12th January
00:11 GMT +1

Raquel's eyes widen. "Hu-?"

My first mage slayer hits its left hand, causing a slight shift in its flesh before its fiery breath obscures it. That.. means that the effect is ongoing rather than transitional. If we shut the spell down they should turn back completely, rather than being stuck as what they are. Optimism, that's the tick-.

A rune-encrusted sword spikes through the kinetic barrier, a slight electrical discharge from my armour's internals and Raquel dropping out of the air as her belt gets fried demonstrating the ineffectiveness of our technological solution. I sigh, transition her behind Kaldur and myself and then back up, forming a fusion gun.

"Got a backup-" The large mutant barrels forwards, the smaller ones following in its wake. "-weapon?"

I form defensive construct shields around the glowing fusion gun, point it at the mutant's left shoulder and fire as Kaldur sweeps his right water-bearer forward. Some damage to the shoulder and the smaller ones are knocked-

I jerk myself back in the air as the claymore swings at me.

-back. Kaldur alters his aim and fires a torrent of near-freezing water into the large mutant's mouth. Agh.

"They're immune-" The mutant turns its head aside, spluttering and choking. "-to cold but that works."

Raquel hesitantly raises a pistol… Ah, a low lethality terminan sidearm. Some sort of low-grade neural pattern disruptor if I remember correctly. Nothing like as flexible as her kinetic belt, but it might affect th-.

Karfang collapses out of the air to our right, just about managing to turn it into a run as she bashes a furrow in the ground. Leonid takes the opportunity to push her jaws open and free himself while Robert is sent flying, just about stabilising himself as she lumber-flaps herself back into the air.

Two more shots from my railgun as those smaller mutants who dodged the worst of Kaldur's attack surge forward again. Three fall as my shots strike home at the same time as Raquel pulls her trigger. Another giant mutant surges out of the tunnel only to be staggered by a blast of red light from Leonid. Minor burns now cover its face, so… With his energy output… I shoot it in the neck with my fusion gun, the brilliant white beam burning through the outer scales and causing it to collapse, choking and clutching at its neck.

"Aqualad to Robin." Another giant mutant-. This one has an enchanted shield. Let's test that. I fire mage slayers, which.. don’t appear to reach the surface of the shield as its wielder barrels forward. "We are holding." A shot from Raquel causes it to lose its footing for a moment, but it barely stumbles before righting itself. "Have you found them?"

Leonid shoots after Karfang, accelerating-. Ah. He hits her right where I imagine her genital slit is, both fists striking the thin scales. She clearly feels the impact, but doesn't appear any more injured by that than by anything else we've done. He's forced to roll aside as she sends a sheet of flame along her underside, then she turns in the air to head back towards us.

At least Altdorf is safe.

"Yes, but we've got a problem."

Kon checks on Robert, who brushes him off before flying to intercept Karfang as she flaps back in our direction. I jog forward, a construct exoskeleton appearing around me as I slam into the shield-carrying mutant. It blocks my counter-charge with its shield and shoves me back, breathing fire over me and trying to claw me with its right hand! In return I take x-ionised knives out from subspace, form solid protective constructs around them to shield them from the fire and stab them around the shield!

"They're fighting each other."

Raquel backs away, taking shots as she goes. Another large mutant comes up on my right only to get another face full of water, which turns to ice a moment later.

"Why?"

Two of the knives are turned aside by its armour, but four others find flesh and slip easily through the scales.

"Grawgh!"

Its own attack lightly cracks my construct armour, forcing me to bend my legs slightly to absorb the force. I slide the knives sideways, the pressure against me falling off slightly as the blood pools on the ground beneath us. I press off from my legs, shoving it back as I pull my knives free.

"There's a big crystal-."

"Cornwall to Aqualad."

I glance up. Robert is.. doing something to make Karfang's fire flow around him rather than frying him.

"Go ahead."

And the next mutant is wearing full magic plate. If we survive then handing that stuff over to Sephtian could prove to be a major boon-. And… Do I have to show it to Venturia as well? We slam together, a claw construct from me… Fuck, failing to get any purchase on the armour of its sword arm. The blade comes down, cleaving through my construct armour and into my-.

"No."

Glowing violet armour? The new armour holds, and the mutant struggles to pull its sword free as I stab it in the eye socket with my x-ionised knives.

"It's a lich."

"Explain."

It doesn't fall back. Instead, it pulls its sword free and slams it back down. I sidestep, and the sword bites into the rocky ground.

"It's using a spell granddad told me about."

I jab knives into the joints in its gauntlets, but the protective magics turn them away. Okay, mage slayer-.

A club hits me in the side as another large mutant makes its way past my current opponent and hits me.

"They put their soul into an object. It means their body doesn't interact right-"

I'm knocked over for a moment, yanking myself back with my ring to prevent the follow up strike hitting me.

"-with the world. We can't hurt her without-"

And back on my feet-

"-destroying it-"

-and shooting a mageslayer at the hand holding the club to weaken the protective spells and stabbing into the gauntlet.

"-or undoing the spell."

"AAAAagh!"

It doesn't quite lose its grip, but as it strikes me the pain combined with the force of the blow jars the weapon from its hand. As a result the strike is far weaker than it should have been. My armour is damaged, but not in a disabling way.

"Robin, describe the crystal."

"It's about twelve feet by four by four. Pale pink. It's glowing, and Canis-"

Railgun from behind, shoot the armour in the middle of the back, stab-. No, didn't work.

"-is defending it."

"Why?"

Shoot the off-hand, stab until it can't hold-. Stab the mouth as it tries to breath fire. It coughs, uncontrolled fire bubbling from its mouth and nose. Good.

"He says it's beautiful."

"Kaldur, if we have her phylactery-."

"She may be willing to negotiate. Cornwall Boy, speak to her."

"Oi! Dragon!"

 

12th January
00:13 GMT +1

Redirect railgun to point at the left sabaton while it's distracted, fire, stab between the lames, grab the dropped club with both hands as it limps, plant feet and swing!

The club hits it in the left shoulder, the armour's protective spells failing and the armour itself crumpling as the mutant is knocked away and falls to the ground! Not sure of the exact extent of its injuries, but I think it's disabled.

"Wretched boy!"

The club isn't disrupting my violet protective cover so I rise off the ground and lunge at the next closest mutant. Out of the corner of my eye I see Kaldur and Raquel similarly engaged.

"We've found your phylactery."

My swing strikes the next mutant on its shield, which unlike the armour of its predecessor takes the blow from my new club. It retaliates with a stab from its sword, which I side-.

I sidestep and immediately sidestep again to avoid the stab from the spear-wielding mutant just behind it. Their bulk means that they aren't great spear-fighters but I'm going to have to expand my awareness slightly. The smaller mutants are surging around again while my railgun is focusing on the joints in the larger type's armour. Raquel is saying something to Zatanna, who looks like she's mostly ignoring-.

Another spear-stab, and I dart back to avoid it.

"And?"

Mage slayer to the shaft of the spear, where the head is attached. Stab. No, dagger destroyed. Swing the-. Angle awkward, mutant breathing fire again. Move to the side and stab the mouth.

"We can't hurt you. We can just kill you, but-"

Jaw closed too fast. Mage slayer the teeth, stab the gum.

"-we don't want to. Surrender."

Mouth opens stab then-.



Fuck it.

"Going lethal."

Stab upwards. Sword mutant falls, brain pierced. Swing club push corpse back towards spearmen. Turn swing strike spear break it.

"Die!"

Drop and fly under shield at ground level swinging club. Leg broken move sideways avoid stab. Fly up swing club down crush. Turn parry spear shaft with right arm mage slayer opposite sabaton stab.

"Robin, destroy the crystal."

Extend railgun forward fire at gap between vambrace and gauntlet stab. Slice. Arm disabled bleeding heavily. Club to the head. Club to the head. Club to the head.

"On it."

The large mutants back away. Pick up spear in right hand, club in left, grant ring computer control of arm movements. Move right slicing spear through three smaller mutants. Injuries disabling or fatal.

"No, I am."

More mutants current techniques inefficient allies have atmospheric protections. Deploying thioacetone gas. Advance. Enemies stunned. Swing club into shield, stab spear at gorget. Throat pierced, withdraw.

"Robin, the dragon is returning!"

Mutants oncoming. Stab at eye, mage slayer to sabaton stab fall back. Fly right swing club. Stab spear knocked aside drop swing club. Mage slayer to gorget stab.

"Pulling out now. Canis!"

Mutants shrinking slightly. Armour impedes movement. Evasion less relevant as they lost the ability to grip their weapons effectively. Disabling strikes at armour joints most efficient. Fire stab fire stab-.

I lower my weapons as whatever mutagen was affecting the gnomes stops affecting them. Several lie bleeding and unmoving around me, the spell not ended by their deaths but by the…

"Is Lantern Karfang dead?"

"Yes."

I take a purple ray out of subspace and toss it to Raquel, who fumbles her initial catch but keeps hold of it. "Cornwall, if you've got a moment, please help remove their armour."

I walk over to the closest gnome, a stick-thin, child-sized figure. There's a slash through its chest where I hit it with the spear. Fae physiology isn't well recorded. Once they die their bodies tend to either break down or turn into something that shouldn't work. This one is still just alive.

Ring, analyse blood.

Chemical analysis complete.

I fabricate as near a match as I can, knowing that without magic it probably won't work properly. Normally with this sort of injury the correct thing to do is to not transfuse, as that raises the blood pressure, interferes with clotting and causes internal bleeding. But in this case my new patient is dropping to non-survivable levels of blood loss. Construct clamps hold the wound open, construct surgical arms knit the severed parts of… Whatever those organs are back together, short bursts of purple healing ray nudging the magical physiology into repairing itself.

"Zatanna." Kaldur nods Raquel and the newly landed Leonid in my direction, passing his supply of healing potions to them. "I need you to accompany Superboy inside the warren and find out what is wrong with Canis-."

"No." Zatanna stands next to me, watching as I close the wound and move onto the next gnome. Dead, dead… Ah, yes, I remember this one. None of the wounds are fatal, but they'd be blinded and crippled. "Paul's more important."

Point to point only.

Compliance.

"Kaldur, she's affected by the same thing that affected you. She's just focusing on me rather than what you were focusing on. I strongly expect that Canis and Amon are affected by it as well."

"Understood."

"Orange Lantern to Osiris."

"The dragon is dead! I had to fight through a dozen dragon gnomes to reach its inner sanctum! It was the greatest battle of my life!"

"I heard. Well done. But we're worried that it put a death-curse on you. Did Adom teach you how to increase your magic resistance?"

"Hah, yes! I will-."

…

"Robin to team. Osiris just collapsed."

"What is Canis doing?"

"Trying to put the crystal back together."

Next to me, Robert walks up behind Zatanna and puts his hands on her shoulders. She starts, then collapses, the Staff of Love falling from her hands. He catches her and then carefully lays her on the least blood-covered bit of ground he can reach.

Robert looks at Kaldur, who nods. "I will send Cornwall Boy down to assist. Try to keep him calm."

"And don't touch Karfang's power ring. I'll be down for it once I've finished here."

"Okay. Robin out."

 

12th January
19:42 GMT -5

"Welcome Zatanna Zatara. Welcome, Orange Lantern."

A decidedly worried-looking Giovanni Zatara is standing in the Shadowcrest smoking room as I carry his recumbent daughter through. She's still out of it from Robert's drain spell, but she appears to be sleeping normally. He makes momentary eye contact with me and then takes her from me.

"Wohs em tahw si gnorw."

"The dragon Karfang had some sort of mind altering orange power ring powered airborne chemical spell. Cornwall Boy-."

"Drained her reserves, yes, I see."

"The spell created a certain mental fixation. She was willing to counter it on others, but one of the things it did was convince the user that they are fine, and she… Wasn't cooperating."

He nods. "I.. have encountered situations like that before. Against a creature such as an ancient dragon, it would be unreasonable for me to expect your preparations to be perfect. She will be fine in a day or so." He frowns slightly. "What has become of her staff?"

"Yeah… I need to talk to you about that. And.. her, actually."

He nods slowly. "Please, go down to the living room. I will join you after I have put Zatanna to bed."

I nod and he turns and walks out of the room, heading for the bedrooms. I follow him out, then turn and head down the stairs. This is very far from the first time I've been here, and I notice a.. few differences. A vase of fresh flowers-. No, two. A newspaper on a rack besides a leather recliner. Giovanni's chair. And a half-drunk mug of cocoa on a side table.

I sigh quietly as I take a seat on the settee. This is going to be awkward. But it's not going to be awkward until he gets back, so I may as well do this now.

I raise both hands, the late Lantern Karfang's ring on my left middle finger, and my personal lantern appears before me.

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

Streams of orange light connect the three of them to my lantern, and I watch them begin to glow brighter as they recharge. Should I introduce myself to Mr Machin this evening? I'm pretty sure that he'd take it in his stride, but… This isn't a ring I'd want anyone in the Corps to use. If I concentrate I can hear the would-be Citadelian Emperor who believed that the bar on travel to the Forbidden Forest of Weeds didn’t apply to him. When I recruit someone I'd like to have a ring on hand which didn't obviously mark me out as an evildoer.

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

I lower my hands as my lantern returns to subspace. Have to ask Hinon if she's made any progress on turning these things back into people. I'm not sure that I'd want to return a high ranking Citadelian to Vega, but I don't think that eternal torment is a reasonable punishment for any crime. At the very least we could execute him.

I look up as Giovanni walks into the room. He smiles faintly before taking his seat.

"Is the situation in Switzerland under control?"

"Kaldur and Robert are talking things over with the surviving gnomes. They're pretty shaken up. Apparently, Karfang started by eating their leaders. I left once the injured were healed."

He nods. "It would be interesting to see a gnome warren. I have read about them, but it is another thing entirely to walk through their halls in person."

"I think Kaldur intends to pass the decision on whether to notify the local authorities over to Batman. I suspect that the gnomes would rather return to the status pro bellum, but since they were living as petty thieves I don't think that's a good idea."

"No, that is something we should try to avoid."

"Might be a useful alternate source of Dolmen Gates…" I shake my head. "But I.. didn't come to talk to you about that."

He nods. "No."

Where to start..? "The jewel on the top of Zatanna's staff-."

"Is the Star Sapphire, yes, I know. One of the first things I did when I regained the capacity to use my own magic was to make sure that the spells binding it worked as well as Zatanna told me that they did."

"And..?"

"I couldn't find any weakness." He hesitates. "Was it..? John Constantine's work?"

"Ah, no, no. Myself, Professor Sephtian and Io. Ah, you haven't.. met her, she's one of the palace blacksmiths on Themyscira."

"I see."

"Using it as an external power source dramatically increased the amount of power she has at her disposal, at the cost that she has to be focusing on those she loves at the time." I sigh. "The problem there is that while we were able to avoid the Star Sapphire flat out mind controlling her, we-. I didn't take into account more subtle things."

"Such as?"

"It's been talking to her. Trying to talk her around to Zamaron philosophy. I only found that out today… But, perhaps more importantly, having to focus on love to use the Staff resulted in her.. focusing on the emotion pretty much full time. Specifically, her love for me."

"Mm." He looks away awkwardly for a moment. "Yes, I… From the way she spoke about you, I had thought…"

"We… Were the only people on the team who knew what we were doing, we were working closely together… With.. you absent she came to depend on me." I shrug awkwardly. "I told her on New Year's Day twenty eleven that.. I didn’t think that a romantic relationship was appropriate, I didn't… Change that position. But we put the staff together in late February and… Between learning to use it and the stress she was under…"

"She grew attached to you anyway."

I nod. "I… Thought that… Given that I'd turned her down that… She'd get over it. Particularly after I left the planet." I exhale. "But that hasn't happened. And my starting a relationship with Jade hasn't put her off either. Today… Today was the result of Karfang getting a mind altering spell past her defences, but her behaviour didn't come out of nowhere."

"What did she do?"

I shake my head. "I'm taking her effort to mind control me into leaving Jade as a plea for help. Robert's got the Staff, and it's going in a warded case in a.. location she can't get to just as soon as I get back. Giovanni, I… I don't know how to handle this."

"No, I don't suppose that you do." He leans back, bows his head and rubs his forehead with his right hand. "You can see people's emotions, can you not?"

"Yes. But that doesn't mean I know exactly what the resulting behaviour will be or how to… Control it."

"No, no, this… Situation is the result of a great many people making poor decisions. You intend to discuss this with her when she awakens?"

"Yes. I like Zatanna, but I don't love her. The only question is how blunt to be. With you back, I can afford to be blunter than before… If that's a good idea..?"

He sighs. "I think, in this situation, that would be best."

I nod and get to my feet. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

 

13th January
08:08 GMT -5

I walk up the path to Shadowcrest. If Zatanna's not up by-.

Incoming communication.

I take a holoprojector out of subspace. Answer.

Jade appears, dressed in a Darkstar exo-mantle. She looks calmly at me as I smile.

"Sorry, I'm not.. dragging you away from anything important, am I?"

That gets a minor eye-roll and a head-shake. "As strange as it sounds, I actually like hearing from you. What's going on?"

"Are you..? Getting on alright with the other recruits?"

She turns the camera at her end a little to the side, and a mauve-skinned humanoid in a Darkstar uniform performs a sort of double-fisted salute. I raise my right hand in a wave.

"We're tutoring each other."

"Not having any… Problems?"

"None I can't manage." Ah, how do I-? "A few have commented on my relationship with you, but they're mostly… Curious."

"Without wishing to intervene in your new career-."

"I survived Dad. I can survive a hazing." Her eyes narrow slightly. "What are you calling about?"

"There was an incident with Zatanna."

She blinks. "Someone mind controlled her into finally coming onto you."

"A dragon, yes. I wasn't-. To be clear, we weren't ever-."

"You weren't ever dating, you think she's too young for you and the only reason why you spent so much time with her was because of Nabu."

I nod.

"And it appears that the Star Sapphire was talking to her. I.. called you because.. I think this is the sort of thing I should keep you informed about."

"From what Artemis said, I should be more worried about you hitting on my Mom."

"Yes-." She smiles smugly. "By which I mean-."

"She's an adult, and Zatanna isn't. I don't actually think that you're going.. cougar-hunting."

I smile. "And I mean no disrespect to your mother when I say that. Because if I was-."

"I'm sure she'd be relieved to know that she was your first choice."

"If she doesn't know already. I mean, I go jogging with her and Artemis most mornings now, and her-."

Her face loses the air of humour. "Getting awkward."

"Sorry." One of the great things about communicating like this is that empathic vision doesn't work and I'm forced to respond to outward cues like a normal person. "So I'm going to go and tell a hero-besotted teenaged girl who's been under the influence of a mind control dragon and a mind control alien love crystal that it is never going to happen."

"Would you?"

I frown. "Would I what?"

"Before we got together. If she was older."

"If she was older, I doubt that she'd have become quite so dependent. But… Maybe?" I shake my head. "No, not while we were still working on Nabu. And the Star Sapphire would have made me uncomfortable about it. Maybe afterwards?" I frown. "Wwwwwwwhy?"

"Just curious."

"If you want to know about all of the women I struck out with before-."

"Like my ex-landlords?"

"I didn't 'strike out' with them. I politely declined." I shake my head. "Anyway, that was what I wanted to tell you. And that I miss you. And that I love you."

She smiles faintly, her head bowing slightly. "I love you too." She glances off to the side. "There's a rumour going around that Orange Lanterns aren't allowed to feel love."

"A rumour, or do I need to talk to Dox?"

"Just a rumour."

"Good, because it's stupid, but not so stupid that I couldn't see him doing it. Orange constructs are given strength by avarice. By want and need and desire. Intense impulses of love disrupt that, but I doubt that it would come up much in combat."

She raises her eyebrows, smiling faintly. "You're saying I make you weak?"

"It's not a problem for enlightened Lanterns, as I'm sure that you and Tora are glad to hear." I glance at the door. Nice as it would be to put that off, it needs to be done. "Jade, I need-."

She nods. "Go. I'll talk to you later."

I nod, and return the hologram projector to subspace. Then I sigh, and walk up the path to the front door. I raise my right hand and knock twice on the door. A few moments pass, then Giovanni opens it and then steps back.

"She's in the living room. I will leave you alone."

"Thank you."

He nods, and I head further into the house. Zatanna looks up as I walk into the living room and then looks away, her hands on her knees balling into fists as she sees me.

"Zatanna-."

"I'm-. I'm sorry I tried to mind control you." She's cringing. I hate seeing her like that. "And-."

"Zatanna." She looks up again, her eyes watering. "I don't care about that. But I do care about the fact that I haven't been clear enough, and it's having an adverse effect on you. You are my friend. I like you. I do not love you. I love Jade." She nods jerkily. "And that isn't. Going. To change. Am I being completely clear about this?"

"Y-yes."

It would be nice to apologise for being this hard on her. But at this point I can't risk saying anything that moderates the point I'm making.

"And I'm going to be avoiding you for a while. Not because I hate you, but because this isn't healthy for you. And the Star Sapphire is going in a very secure place."

Another jerky nod, her head remaining bowed as she sniffs.

And I turn around and leave the building.

 

13th January
Probably
And it's too early

I awaken to find myself rolling onto my front, into the warm hollow left in the mattress by..? Veronica, yes, I'd know the scent of her perfume and sweat anywhere. I may be perfectly capable of waking up instantly, but there's something enjoyably indolent about just being able to lie here while my faculties boot up. I close my eyes, breathing in her pillow. But.. indulging that drive would deprive myself of what might be the best part of my morning.

I raise my right shoulder and turn, looking over the duvet to where my… What's the term? Primary paramour, is bending down to recover her clothes, displaying her arse to its best advantage, bare but for the tail of her dragon tattoo. She hears the sheets rustling, and turns her head just far enough to confirm that I'm actually awake.

"Are you working today?"

Oh, it is delicious to watch her move around the room, her perfectly sculpted body taut and taunting, utterly confident in her nudity. But she gets snitty when I just stare at her.

What… Am I doing today? No, my sleep-fogged brain isn't suggesting anything. Best just bunt.

"Probably. Are you working right now?"

She picks up her knickers and then checks her hanger-hung dress, running her eyes over it to check for tears or dried fluids. Finding nothing, she deigns to look me in the eye. "Now, I'm going to shower, then I'm working."

"As you will."

"Our company isn't going to achieve its performance targets if we stay in bed all the time, Sybarite." She adds her underwear to the hanger then turns away to walk towards the en suite shower. "Do I need to check your diary for you, or are you actually going to wake-"

I transition myself right in front of her, naked and good enough to eat.

"-up."

She nearly walks into me but gets her hands up, pressing them against my chest to stop herself.

"Nothing I do is time-sensitive, you know that. But if it buys you half an hour, I don't mind-."

She exhales somewhat sharply as she walks around me and pushes the bathroom door open. I knew she was.. driven when I first sought her out, but I'm… A little concerned…

"Veronica, you are..? You know that our continued cooperation is in no way contingent on you fucking me, right? If you're.. unhappy with-."

"You sought me out for my business skills. This is the schedule I need to keep to do the job. Do you want me to stop doing the job?"

"No, of course not."

"Then don't take it so personally." She reaches into the cubicle and turns the shower on. "I enjoy our time together perfectly well. It's just not the only thing that gives me satisfaction."

I nod. "Understood."

She steps into the cubicle, and I turn and walk out of the bathroom and towards the apartment… No, the suite's main windows. What a way to start a morning. But that's the point, isn't it? Wake up in space with nothing but the pyjamas on my back and a power ring… If your starting resources include 'power ring', you're not exactly under equipped, are you? Rather, you're somewhere completely new. No one has any expectations of you, you haven't entered into any agreements which bind you. You can do whatever you want.

I walk over to the… It's ridiculous, really. To the button which pulls the curtains back. If I'd actually followed through on my initial impulse to speak to Alan Scott when I first arrived, things might have gone rather differently. As it was, pretty much tripping over an incubus mid-hunt provided me with a perfect opportunity to try plan B first.

I press the button, the curtains smoothly retracting and revealing a panoramic view of the Nairobi National Park. I find it mildly amusing that this pinnacle of luxury is literally called The Pinnacle. Not exactly imaginative…

The whole thing has turned out that it works pretty well. So far. Once I was sure that eating demons was a viable way to fuel the ring, I implanted it in my chest to prevent myself being separated from it and to make it harder for potential enemies to work out where my power actually came from.

I etherealise, floating past the window and out into the morning Nairobi sunshine. Plenty of work for a high-end super… Super person in Africa. And plenty of grateful governments happy to sign off on schizo tech research and development. Which is where Veronica comes in. Someone like Ted Kord or Bruce Wayne would rather gallivant around in a primary coloured costume than knuckle down to the real work of fixing the planet. Luthor has that distracting Superman fixation, Alva… Doesn't even bear thinking about. Veronica 'Roulette' Sinclair on the other hand has a delightfully pure motivation: money.

With no stake in the energy supply market she was perfectly happy to manage the development of Theodore Knight's cosmic converter as a new form of civil power generation. With no stake in Africa's existing political setup she was perfectly happy for me to violently dispense with the most violent and corrupt parts, and perfectly happy to forge links with the beneficiaries of my purges. With no stake in the pharmaceuticals industry, she was perfectly happy to use xenotechnology to massively undercut the continent's major suppliers. With-.

I'm naked, aren't I?

Huh. No, it's no problem. I'm high enough up that I doubt anyone can-.

"Sybarite. Did you forget something this morning?"

I turn slightly to my left… And smile at Wonder Woman.

"That's right! I was going to nag you about the purple healing ray again today, wasn't I?"

"You expressed an interest in pleading your case once more. Should I come back when you're…" She runs her eyes over me, then returns them to my face, where she gives me a look of mild matronly disapproval. "Better prepared?"

I shrug, and fabricate a pair of swimming trunks. "There. Now we're equal."

She appears to decide to let that pass. "You have insisted -repeatedly and emphatically- that you should be given access to the design specifications for the purple healing ray. Why?"

"Because it's exactly the sort of amazing technology I'm making it my business to ferret out, and because you're clearly not using it. I'm perfectly happy to give whoever invented it full credit, but it needs to be put into-."

Her face hardens slightly. "Are you aware that you're trying to mentally influence me?"

"A bit or a lot?"

"That isn't an answer."

"I don't think I mind control people, but I have noticed that they can seem a bit… Agreeable, sometimes." Her eyes narrow slightly. "And if you can honestly tell me that you're not using your demigoddess powers to tell whether or not I'm being honest right now, then you can berate me for it."

"While I might be prepared to trust someone with the use of the purple ray, your personal conduct -using your abilities to affect my judgement- does not lend itself to such faith. To say nothing of all of the people you-"

"Ah-."

"-are reputed to have killed."

"But it's convenient, isn't it, for certain people to disappear in a way not at all attributable to the Justice League?" She regards me levelly. Maybe taking a picture of Vandal Savage flying into the sun was a bit much. "How about we spend the day together, so you can have the opportunity to better assess my character?"

 

13th January
Morning
Early… Ish..?

"…of the seventeen court cases for sexual harassment."

"I thought that you might bring those up. And I'll tell you what I told the jury: I'm not an employee. I'm an investor and sometimes a consultant. Even if I was an employee, one member of staff flirting with or hitting on another member of staff isn't against our code of conduct and God this is boring." I gaze at her despondently as we continue drifting over the Nairobi skyline. "Did you really come all this way to hassle me about my sex life?"

"Ordinarily, no, but yours resulted in you spending time in court. That is something I am concerned about."

"Acquitted on all counts, because it turns out, hitting on someone and being happy to take no for an answer is not a criminal offence, and if you're asking me then you know that already. Come on, there's no point asking me a question when you already know the answer, what are you hoping to get out of this?"

"To get a better impression of you as a person."

"Princess, I'm shallow as a puddle! I didn't decide to call myself 'Sybarite' by accident."

"You would not be the first hero to disguise his nature."

"Oh, like a reverse Batman? Libidinite by night, corporate crusader by day? I wouldn't have time."

"So you say. But you would not have relentlessly requested access to a device which few outside Themyscira have heard of if personal gratification was your sole concern."

"Yeaaaaah… No. There's a gap between 'true altruism' and 'basic decency'. As far as I can see, the only reason for someone not sharing that technology is if they were deliberately sabotaging the human species."

"That is a strong statement."

"And you know that I mean it. I mean… I'm not a nice guy by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just a… Guy. But if someone was on fire right in front of me and I had a bucket of water in my hands… I'd throw it."

"And I imagine that it would help the recovery rate of the participants in your gladiatorial contests."

An obvious reference to one of Veronica's older business, Meta-Brawl. Which was actually only illegal due to the ban on metahumans participating in professional sports. But that ban wasn't in force on Madagascar, and it turns out that satellite and internet pay-per-view exist. Really, Veronica just needed a little investment and a slightly more international range of attractions in order to make a go of the thing. Not that she spends much time running it now, but it still turns a profit and I hear that some criminal gangs are using metahuman 'champions' to settle disputes there.

People are such fascinating creatures.

"And in boxing matches, Penultimate Fighting Championship… Mountaineering…" My usually detached demeanour momentarily vanishes. "Car crashes. Stabbings. Major chirurgery. Jack Knight wasn't this difficult and his stuff was designed to be weaponised."

"I see you've stopped playing the fool."

"I like.. enjoying myself. I hate being serious. Life is to be enjoyed. It's just-" I wave my hands around my head. "-you should be doing that why aren't you doing that is there a reason you're doing that I don't think there's a reason why you're doing that. I don't want to have to care but I have to care, because…" I wave my arms at her instead. "Gahh! The world needs things other than people in costumes hitting each other! Anything outside an actual doomsday attack, car crashes still kill more people than supervillains by far. Why am I, of all people, the one pointing this out!?"

"I couldn't have learned that you felt like that by studying your public profile. Despite your outburst, it actually improves my opinion of you."

"So can we have it?"

"I still have other-"

"Ohcomeon!"

"-other concerns."

"Like what?" Hm. "If it's about all the supervillains Veronica hired, they're committing a lot less crimes now."

She nods. "I am aware of that. I was talking about the source of your power."

Hmmm. Normally I'd just shrug that off, but… Nascent Truth Goddess, so that's not an option. "What about it?"

"Doctor Fate has told me that you reek of demon magic."

Oh yeah, that. Giovanni Zatara steps down from the Justice League the day someone starts wearing the Helm of Fate. Do they really think that's fooling anyone?

"Well he reeks of mothballs."

"Do you use demon magic?"

"As I understand it, no."

"Are you a demon?"

"Aaaaaaaahh… I don't.. think so? I didn't start as one, but things get a bit fuzzy after a while."

"Then how do you explain it?"

"I power myself by eating demons." My rib cage splits open, my chest cavity glowing orange as it chomps at her before closing. "My first was an incubus, which may have impacted my subsequent behaviour a little. And if you'd like a demonstration of that…"

"That would explain your libido."

"I don't know. I mean, you're hot, but I wasn't practising for a year and a half just for you. I don't actually have that much experience with super strong women."

Tuppence insisted on turning every assignation into a test of strength. She called it off after I ate a malumi and could handle her without burning power at a ludicrous rate. Apparently she likes her men on the verge of panic.

"I was referring to you consuming an incubus."

"I don't know. I've eaten more demons since, and my behaviour didn't change afterwards. And anyway, I don't see it as a problem." It's a bit of a risk, but I create a glowing orange sword in my right hand. "Does that feel demonic to you?"

She holds up a small stone marked with an ankh. The mark shimmers gold for a moment, but doesn't otherwise react. She checks it, then nods.

"If you were to be granted use of the designs for the purple healing ray, how would you use it?"

"I wouldn't. I have no head for business. Veronica would." I frown. What was it..? "We work on high volume production, since any country who deals with us risks a trade embargo and we need to be able to completely replace other suppliers. We won't be trying to create artificial scarcity-. Or rather more artificial scarcity."

She nods slowly. "I.. will.. want to see her business plan and consult with my mother before I agree to anything. But I am at least willing to continue exploring the matter."

"The business plan, the sex, or both, because honestly-."

"The business plan."

 

15th January
08:59 GMT -7

Daniel Hall and I watch as his parents and his reincarnated grandfather work on their spaceship in their driveway, neighbours and people driving by doing their best not to look too obvious in their rubbernecking.

"How..? Do you feel about all of this?"

He shrugs. "I dunno. Mom and Dad pretty much gave up being superheroes when I was born, but this stuff was always around the house. Guess I thought it was like their 'hippy phase' or whatever."

A section of the ship's exterior armour comes free, Lyta catching it effortlessly as it falls and setting it on the ground. Interestingly, the powers the Erinyes granted her mother and which she inherited aren't actually dependent on her either pursuing the guilty or being generally vengeful. Ironically, the fact that she can lose control if she does behave like that positively incentivises her not to.

Hector clambers out of the rear hatch, looks briefly at me and then to his wife. He's wearing a slightly updated version of his old plate armour Silver Scarab costume. With his mother restored to life and… A mid-life crisis in full swing, he swapped out the solid plates of the original for smaller plates held in place by a tough silver-coloured fabric. At least he's not wearing the weird insect mask at the moment.

"Lyta, could you pass-?"

She hands him the orichalcum sheet they're using to replace the Nth metal alloy which the ship was originally designed to use. As far as we can tell it won't make much difference, at least not to its regular flight. The faster than light drive was wrecked millennia ago, to the point that we're not sure if it was destroyed on impact or by whatever put the ship onto its collision course with North Africa in the first place. The Nth Metal we're extracting from the removed hull pieces is being used to rebuild the systems Hector scavenged for the Nth metal to build his Silver Scarab armour.

"Thanks. Dad?"

Mr Cantrell brings a thanagarian molecular bonder to bear, a muttered prayer-incantation to Ptah just audible over the hum of the device.

"That's weird, though."

"Meeting your paternal grandparents?"

"Grandma and Grandpa being younger than Mom and Dad. I mean, I get it, they're reincarnated… But it's weird."

"Yeah, it's a funny old world. Not interested in joining in?"

He shrugs. "I don't know anything about Thanagarian engineering. I'm a history major." He pauses. "It's been interesting, talking to Grandpa about Ancient Kahndaq. You don't usually get primary sources for stuff like that."

"And..? Your grandmother?"

"Grandma was an alien. She's fine talking about her other lives, but she still says she didn't get-."

"I was an outsider on Kahndaqi society." Ms Parker walks out of the house, a tray of drinks in her hands. "I can tell you what I saw, but I didn't really understand it like Khufu did." Unlike her previous incarnation's son but like her daughter-in-law, she's dressed in normal clothing. "Are you here to drop off more metal?"

"No. Actually, I was wondering if you were interested in taking a trip to Thanagar."

"Oh." She puts her tray down on the garden table. "Any special reason?"

"Thanagar doesn't know anything about magic. You do, and they're looking for someone with that knowledge whom they can trust. And I need to head over that way anyway, and I thought that you might appreciate a chance to visit… I suppose it's not 'home' anymore, but… The old homeworld."

She frowns. "No one on Thanagar uses magic."

"Except the Seven Devils."

She lets out a sudden exhalation which sounds like the beginning of a dismissive laugh. Then she spots my expression. "You're serious."

"Yes."

"I've talked to Shayera and Katar a few times. We're not sure if I'm from a parallel universe, the future or the past."

I frown. "If it's time travel, shouldn't you be able to tell from historical events? The Equality Plague alone was a big deal."

"What do you know about King Henry the Third?"

"Nothing." I raise my left hand. "I can find out really quick..?"

She shakes her head. "If I come from before the Equality Plague, I wouldn't have heard of it. If I come from after the Plague, I'll only have heard about it if it was still considered important in my era. I could tell you all kinds of things about Henry the Third, but I know next to nothing about the history of South America."

"What about their technology?"

"They haven't been too keen on letting me see that."

"Do you..? Are you up to date on modern Thanagarian politics?"

"I know that the planet is governed by a military council. It wasn't in my day, but I'm afraid that Chay-ara wasn't really interested in political history. I don't know when one form of government became another."

Huh. I had been assuming 'future', but now I'm leaning towards 'past'. "I'm sorry, it's just that the Plague, and the resulting confrontation with Hyathis is such a big part of Thanagarian modern history. I'm struggling to think of how it could have happened without you knowing about it."

"How many Crusades were there?"

I nod. "Fair enough. I suppose it could happen."

"Or maybe not at all. I remember one of the scientists who was on the ship with me saying that the drive might open a portal to a parallel universe. At the time I thought it was one of those 'one in a million, theoretically possible but practically impossible' things." She shrugs. "But that could be what happened."

Which would be pretty interesting for me…

"So… Are you interested?"

"Of course I am!" She turns back to the ship. "Simon! Paul wants us to visit Thanagar!"

Mr Cantrell turns off the bonder, and a moment later appears in the cockpit. "The FTL system is still busted, and I doubt the Other Hawks will lend us theirs."

"I can build faster than light drives myself, you know. It probably won't perform quite as well as the original, but it'll function. Particularly since you're stripping most of the Nth metal out of the outer hull."

"And…" Daniel looks at me, then at his grandmother. "You know he's a Lantern, right grandpa? Towing spaceships is something they do."

"Oh." Mr Cantrell looks at Ms Parker. "Khufu did always want to see Chay-ara's homeworld."

"And what do you want?"

"I want what you want. Thanagar was your planet. Even if this isn't the right Thanagar."

She nods. "Can we get the ship ready by next weekend?"

"Ah… If Paul doesn't mind helping out..?"

"Happy to."

Hector drops down from the side of the ship. "We're coming too, right? I've wanted to visit Thanagar since I was a boy."

"Oh no." Lyta holds up her right hand. "I've read about modern Thanagar. I'll be staying here."

"Oh. Okay. Daniel?"

"I don't speak Thanagarian, Dad. And I can't fly."

"Okay then." He looks at Mr Cantrell. "Just me then, I guess."

His reincarnated father looks around the cockpit. "Be a bit of a squeeze, but if we're just using this as a taxi service… Sure."

 

15th January
13:37 GMT -5

I knock on the door of one of the offices KordTech New York is temporarily working out of. Ted is rushing the construction and keeping as many people working as he can, but some of the arcane engineering simply can't be done anywhere else. The company's insurance policy allows him to effectively give anyone who can't go back to work a year off with pay -something I suspect that his insurance provider is seriously regretting- but Kara appears to be happy with a computer and an office.

On her own.

"Kara?"

"Come in!"

I push open the door as she turns back to her monitor.

"I see you've fully embraced isolationism."

"What?" She looks up again and I fan out my hands to gesture to the room. "Oh, no, it's just that-"

"Empath."

"-I…" She sags slightly.

I walk across to her desk, generate a construct chair opposite her and sit down, leaning forwards. "Talk to me, Kara."

"Did.. Kal..?"

"Kon, actually. It came up when we were talking about Match."

Her eyes dart away. "He needs a different name. How do you think he'd feel about Mon-El?"

"I think he'd feel that it was displacement activity. Kara, why are you living in the Fortress? If you want something that reminds you of Krypton I can-."

"Could you..?" Her eyes come back to my face for a moment. "Switch to English?"

Ring.

Compliance.

"Is this okay?"

She nods, then looks away again. "I don't.. want to be reminded of Krypton." I frown. "Kal's Fortress isn't what Kryptonian houses look like."

"I know, it's a prefab or a military bunker."

"I'm not… Krypton's gone. I know that. But…" She pushes her chair back, stands and then slowly flies over to the window and looks down on the street below. "You all look so much like us. Sometimes, when-. Someone.. talks to me, and it takes me a moment to remember why they're not speaking Kryptonese."

"Given how much of the spectrum you can see now, don't we look different?"

"If I'd spent any time under a yellow sun on Krypton you probably would. And… Honestly?" She turns around, pulling a pendant out from under her blouse. She opens the clasp and.. reveals a lead inner surrounding a small piece of gold kryptonite which causes her to drop to the ground. "Batman made it for me while I'm learning to control my powers-."

"I could make a device to filter the sunlight to block the wavelengths which give you powers. It would be safer than carrying a radioactive rock around with you."

"Then how would I get vitamin D?" Ah-. "That was a.. joke." She closes it. "I keep my 'powers' off most of the time-"

Ring, detailed medical scan. Is she causing herself long term damage?

"-because hearing and seeing.. everything-"

"I could make something to-"

"-is too much, it's too distracting."

"-reduce that."

The results of my medical scan appear in my brain. Unlike green kryptonite which will give you cancer if you get enough exposure, gold kryptonite barely interacts with organic bodies at all. Though she's not otherwise unwell, the predictable reduction in organelles has occurred in many tissues. While short term exposure just stops them working, she's actually killing them across large parts of her body. Not every one in every cell, but after a certain point…

"Kara, I strongly advise you to stop using that. If you keep using it, it will no longer be safe for you to ever be exposed to Earth's sunlight."

She nods, her attention returning to the street. "What about if I keep it on permanently?"

"That will kill you more slowly, but those organelles are a functioning part of your body. They work all the time, not just when you charge your powers."

"Okay." She turns back to me, pulls the chain over her head and bunches it up in her right hand. "I wasn't.. actually trying-."

"It's risk-taking behaviour, Kara. Not just being human-level squishy, but carrying around a piece of radioactive rock."

I hold out my right hand and she passes it over. Subspace for you.

"Okay, new plan."

"Hm?"

"I suggested that you could use your higher maths qualifications here. I thought it might help you find a place in human society, but clearly that's.. the problem. You fit in.. too well. And also not well enough."

"If-" She shrugs. "-you say so."

"This weekend, a few friends and I are going to Thanagar. And while thanagarians do look like.. kryptonians with wings, about a quarter of Thanagar's population are lizarkons, which is a species of humanoid reptiles. Now, we both know that your father wanted to send you to Xudar…" I shrug. "Perhaps he was right, and being somewhere with more advanced technology would be better."

"I don't.. think it's that simple."

"And then there's socialisation. Did you study art on Krypton?"

"No. Kryptonian aesthetics was more about function than-."

"Perfect. How do you feel about starting now?"

"I don't…" She shakes her head. "Know?"

"You said that things were too familiar. I'm hoping that things becoming a little more unfamiliar will help. Also: Thanagar?"

"Are you going to let me say 'no'?"

"Maybe. Are you going to?"

"I…" She looks back at her monitor. "When, exactly..?"

"Either Friday evening or Saturday morning, all being well."

She bows her head slightly as she thinks it over. Then she looks up. "Okay. Yes, I'd like to go."

I beam. "Excellent. Now, come along. We've got to visit the Hawks and get a cultural briefing pack."

"Right now?"

"Yes."

"But-. Okay." She nods. "Let's go."

"One thing first." I walk up to her, wrap my arms around her and pull her to my chest. For a moment she tenses. "When you feel like this, don't keep it to yourself. Alright?"

She relaxes. Slightly. "Okay."

 

15th January
15:49 GMT -6

"A.. duel?" Kara frowns at me as we fly over St Roch in the direction of the rebuilt residence of the Hawks. "Are you sure that asking her to come is a good idea?"

"We need someone to introduce us. And I'm sure there are visa requirements that-."

"I meant… Are you sure that it's a good idea for you to be the one who asks her?"

We land, and I pat her on the back. "Why do you think I invited my meat shield along?"

I head towards the door as she frowns at my back. "I won't be back to full toughness for.. hours."

"It's a joke, Kara." I ring the bell, though I'd be astonished if they didn't already know that I'm here. "And it's months, not hours. You've caused significant organelle die off."

"Oh, I-. Oh."

"You didn't notice.. any difference in your flying?"

"Not.. really. Once I learned to fly well enough that I wasn't a risk to nearby buildings, I… I've tended to walk."

"You don’t get… Stopped in the street? People don't recognise you?"

She shakes her head, her hair briefly falling over her face. "No. Many people on Earth wear the sigil of House El. In a.. way which.. would actually be illegal for aliens on Krypton. I don't think people recognise me as Kara Zor-El. Which…" She brushes her hair out of her face. "Which is not to say that people don't stop me to.. talk to me."

I nod encouragingly. "Making friends, that's good."

"Friends-? No, I mean… I get hit on. Usually, fairly crudely. I had thought maybe that was how humans did things, but I asked around the office and apparently I'm just an 'asshole magnet'."

"Oh. Um, sorry." What single non-arseholes of roughly the right age do I know? Gosh, it's all… Team members, Atlanteans she's almost certainly already met due to working at KordTech… The Sivanas? No. "If you-."

The door opens and Ms Hol stands before us, mace at her hip. Which is progress, I suppose. "Orange Lantern. Kara Zor-El. What brings you here?"

"I'm finally getting around to taking that trip to Thanagar. Hawkman One, Hawkgirl and Silver Scarab are repairing their ship for interstellar travel, I'll be picking up Lantern Dul and Kara let me twist her arm into coming as well. Are you interested in a trip home?"

She regards me carefully for a moment. "Who is Lantern Dul?"

"Orange Lantern Paran Dul. She's doing the same job as you: keeping tabs on dangerous aliens and reporting back to Thanagar. Only she drew the short straw and got assigned to the Reach. I think she's more than due some time back on the homeworld."

"She's thanagarian?"

"Yes. But since she's posted further away, she has even less contact with Thanagar than you do. I doubt that she's up to date on the relevant protocols."

Her arms tense slightly. Irritation with someone not present. "Then why is she going at all rather than doing her duty?"

"Because everyone they sent with her died and she's been on her own for years." There's a slight change in her posture. Thanagarians expect a lot from their long term operatives, but they're not supposed to be stationed somewhere without any friendly contact. Especially the ones on long distance postings. "And because the Orange Lantern Corps didn't exist when she was dispatched and she needs new orders."

A nod. The gesture still doesn't appear to come completely naturally to her, but she has been on Earth for eight years. Unlike Lantern Dul or the members of the Blades of Alstair, she knows human body language.

"Do you want me to write you an introduction?"

"Lantern Dul has mentioned to me that the government of Thanagar is concerned about magic. As a result of your time on Earth you are your species' leading… Government-loyal expert on the issue. I strongly suspect that your superiors would appreciate having you on hand to consult when I offer them my aid."

"Do you know why the Thanagarian government has an interest in magic?"

"A combination of your report on the human use of it, your historical contact with the Seven Devils and your conflict with Queen Hyathis."

She stares at me for a moment. "You hired an Alstairian mercenary company."

"No, Tamaran hired an Alstairian mercenary company. And they would still have hired them if they'd been High Council-affiliated rather than Hyathis-loyalists."

A slight tremor in her wings as I refer to followers of Queen Hyathis as being the loyal ones.

"We received word that Hyathis is undertaking a major shipbuilding effort."

"There's a four-way war going on in her home system. It would be more strange if she wasn't building ships."

"These are a new design, different to anything she's built before. And we know full well that you visited Alstair shortly before she started. What are you playing at, Orange Lantern?"

Huh. I suppose the people of J would share the Dominion computer specifications with their new trade partner, wouldn't they? And with that… All sorts of design opportunities open up. And it might let them bridge the gap between the technology of her thanagarian subjects and the platforms she commands.

"I needed Green Lantern Medphyll's help, and thought that improving his planet's technology was a good way to warm him up to the idea. Since I was doing a post run for the Blades anyway, I raised the idea of an information exchange with Queen Hyathis. She approved it and sent a guy."

"We think she's planning a new attack on the Thanagarian Empire with the information you helped her get. If she does, millions of thanagarians will die."

"Because… The Thanagarian Empire totally wouldn't invade Alstair if it thought that it could?" I shrug. "And can't come to peaceful terms due to… What was the reason again?"

"Self-determination."

"Yeah, I do know how much self-determination alien residents of the Thanagarian Empire get. Especially when compared to the alien residents of Alstair." She doesn't really react. "I'm not Thanagarian. I have no obligation to your government. Out of my desire to improve technology and make sure that your government doesn't do something stupid while fixing its ignorance problem, I've offered my assistance with this matter. You don't have to accept… But you probably should."

More deliberate staring. "Earth to Thanagar is a four week journey each way at my ship's best speed."

"Unless you're being towed by a sufficiently capable Lantern. In which case it's.. maybe half an hour. Come on, you can try pumping Ms Parker for information on her ship's primary drive specifications again."

"Maybe I just don't want to spend time around you."

"Reasonable enough, but ask yourself this." I lean forward, smiling. "Do you really want me to be on Thanagar unsupervised?"

Her face goes a little blank, then she leans back into her house.

"KATAR! WE'RE VISITING HOME!"

 

17th January
19:02 GMT +1

I look around the entrance to the Altdorf gnome warren, which is now an armed camp. The Swiss military do not dawdle when they're informed that the only thing preventing a dragon roasting their cities-. Ah, towns, was a group of teenagers. Not a single superhero in the country, but they have conscription of all able bodied men and a very high standard of training and equipment.

And they're towering over the poor bewildered gnomes whose isolation has been permanently violated.

To be fair, the soldiers aren't being dicks about it. Batman's message to their government was extremely clear that Karfang was responsible for the mutants, and that the threat of violence was what kept the regular gnomes in line. And they're accepting that as true. They aren't lashing out, they're being polite to the gnomes and now that they've firmly established that there isn't an ongoing threat they're scaling back the military presence and bringing in civil servants.

But the reason why they're bringing in civil servants is that the gnomes are being issued with identity cards and all of the related paperwork that comes with modern nationality. Because while Greece can't claim Themyscira due to the threat of divine intervention, absolutely nothing was going to stop the Swiss claiming the interior of a mountain that is already part of their country.

And while they're not blaming the gnomes for the dragon, they aren't exactly happy about nine hundred years of petty theft.

I think there are citizenship classes in their future. Interestingly, I think this means that once they're finished Switzerland will have the largest official non-human population of any country on Earth. Certainly in terms of percentage of the total population they're leading by a mile.

"Orange Lantern?"

I look around as my escort approaches, trailed by an awkward-looking gnome. He's wearing breeches, a smock and pointy toed shoes, and is cringing, hands rubbing each other in nervous activity. His skin is a pale earthy-brown, wispy black hair sticks up from the top of his head, his ears are pointed and extend to be level with the top of his head and most weirdly of all his eyes are solid black.

"This is Elmen. He's.. sort of in charge."

"I'm not." The gnome straightens up slightly, though he's still only a metre tall. "It's just that everyone else is less in charge than me."

"What happened to the gnomes who were in charge?"

"The dragon ate most of them. The rest were amongst the first to be transformed and had longest to grow. Um. So you and the witch girl probably killed them."

I nod. "I'm sorry for your loss. Our original plan was to sneak in, but Zatanna was affected by Karfang's breath and… The plan no longer seemed important. We also didn't know that Karfang existed until she showed herself, and we didn’t know how to bypass her invulnerability until she'd already broken out of the warren."

Elmen nods, still downcast. "No one knew what the dragon could do. If we'd known what she could do we wouldn't have woken her up. We remembered that she was strong, and forgot what her being strong meant for everyone else." He looks up at me. "The gnomes who survived fighting you said you healed them the instant they started turning back. A lot more would have died if you hadn't, so… Thank you. I'd be more effusive, but it's all just so horrible."

"I'm sorry I killed as many as I did."

"Were you affected by the dragon breath?"

I shake my head. "No. But between what it did to my team mates and how powerful it made the.. mutant gnomes, I couldn't… Pull my punches."

"Mutant?" He frowns. "Oh, drakunomes, we call them drakunomes." I nod. "And… They attacked you. I know they were.. powerful. I'm grateful that you could afford to leave any of them alive." He turns to look at the military camp. "What a mess."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Can you turn back time?"

"The best information I have is that altering time is a very bad idea. But no, not easily."

"What do we do, what do we do?"

He sniffs as if only just withholding his tears, and wipes his right hand across his eyes.

"I understand that you generally haven't had much direct contact with humans to date. Is there an.. extra problem I'm not seeing?"

"We can't… Cope with it. Laws and rules. Machinery. All the bits that make humans human and us not. We're creatures of flesh so wrought iron doesn't hurt us, but we can't understand… We've got piles of bottle caps because they're shiny and piles of credit cards because we like the colours. They're… Status symbols, not… Currency. And now… We can't live like gnomes-. We can't be gnomes any more. And I don't know what to do."

"In the old days, when you lived under Karfang and her kin. Did you collect trinkets then?"

"I don't know."

"Did the drakunomes fight for the dragons?"

"Yes." He looks a little puzzled. "You saw them."

"But you regular gnomes didn't. If we assume that the drakunomes in the old days behaved a lot like the modern ones did, that's very different to regular gnomes. At some point in the past, your forebears stopped acting like drakunomes and started acting like gnomes."

"Did they?" He slumps, shaking his head. "I suppose they might have."

"So you know that your people are capable of change. Even major change."

He looks a.. little less dejected. "Really?"

"Believing that you can is better than believing that you can't, isn't it?" He nods uncertainly. "Do you have a concept of trade?"

"We have a concept of making a trade. I-give-you-thing-you-give-me-thing?"

"Can you make dolmen gates?"

"Ah… Yes? Not just anywhere, but… Yes?"

"Can you make big ones?"

"It would take a while."

"But you could do it?"

"I've seen one big enough for a cart and two draught horses."

"I believe that skill would be very valuable for humans. Would you be prepared to use it in exchange for other things?"

"I couldn't make many."

"I mean 'you' collectively. The gnomes of this warren."

"I don't know."

We look at each other for a moment. "I'm afraid.. finding things like that out is part of leading. Did the late leaders of your warren do things for the community as a whole?"

"Well… Yes."

"Then I'm afraid that someone needs to step forward, and since everyone else has stepped backwards, you need to get on it. The essence of trade is finding something someone else wants, and dolmen gates are valuable."

"Okay, but… How does that work?"

I nod, and generate a zeta tube construct.

"Recognised, Dubbilex, A Six Zero."

"I believe that my colleague can help you with that."

 

19th January
19:02 GMT +1

"…not expecting any visitors from Mars in the medium term." Queen Clea's expression makes it clear that she isn't sure what to make of the situation. "Which is a little disappointing, but I suppose that they have more immediate concerns at present. Is there any chance that they will join us in the future?"

I shrug. "Impossible to say. The situation on Mars is… Salvaged, but those Sorcerer Priests who are prepared to work with King J'emm-" Technically inaccurate, but actually pretty accurate. "-are busy removing the Guardians' restrictions from each other and their fellow citizens as a show of good faith. And the rest are either isolating themselves or hunting for Karmang. J'emm doesn't place any blame on me, and has stated that he would like more contact with Earth…"

"But nothing concrete."

I shake my head. "No. And.. he rebuffed my offer of help with the restriction removal, either personally or by hiring human magicians."

Circe arches her right eyebrow. "Would it be worth my time to go hunting for this… Karmang?"

"No." Adom leans forward slightly. "I understand the position of King J'emm. It does not do for a ruler to appear too tied to foreigners. His task now is to convince people that they are safe from Karmang and from one another. There will already be suspicion at his survival of the attack which slew his peers. Grayven retaliating for an attack against his person is one thing, but for J'emm to be shown depending on foreign aid to hunt down a criminal would undermine him."

I nod. "I tend to agree. Unless you or-" I look at Richard. "-Richard could do it so easily that we could say we were just being good neighbours or if he threatens Earth… I'd say 'no' for now."

"A sorcerer even older than myself?" Circe shakes her head. "I doubt that it would be easy."

Richard removes his glasses and looks at the left lens for a moment. Then he pulls his handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and wipes it. "I'm rather… Out of the criminal-killing business. Unless no humane alternative presents itself. Has Karmang been seen since your exercise in capriccio geology?"

"Not by anyone in communion with either the Martian government or the White Rights movement." Richard stops wiping and looks at me. "And I haven't spotted him either."

"Then if you'll excuse me, I think I'll give it a miss." His handkerchief returns to its pocket and his glasses to his face. "Entertaining as it might be."

I nod. "Very well. And in any case, in my analysis, there's little risk to Earth. Little extra risk, I should say."

Lex's monitor blinks. "I have concerns about members of one of their more violent extremist groups acquiring spacecraft. The Earth is the only other inhabited world in the region."

I shake my head. "I see where you're coming from, but while the Martians have 'spaceships', they don't have faster than light travel. And given their need for strong telepathic contact, their ships would have to undergo a major refit in order to incorporate animation suspension units, and.. then they'd be sitting ducks for the entire journey. I have sensor nodes throughout this system, and unless they have an unusually skilled magic user who also has the capacity to endure the absence of other conscious minds I don't think the risk is significant."

"Unt zhe zeta rays? Or teleportation?"

Circe shakes her head. "Planet to planet teleportation is exceedingly hard. Merely seeing us use it wouldn't be enough without a sound grounding in the theory behind it. And naturally I have already placed wards around the Earth to inform me whenever anyone travels here using such a technique. It's quite distinctive."

I nod. "And it would be very difficult to generate zeta rays with Martian biotechnology. If someone did, we would have less warning, but my sensors should detect that as well." I look around. "Any other questions on the subject of Mars?"

No one replies.

"Very well. On to happier news, then. Richard." He makes a demi-bow from his seat. "Congratulations on your appointment."

He smiles. "Yes, I got your bouquet. And-" He looks around the semicircle. "-those of our other colleagues as well. And I'm proud to announce that so far none of my fellow Justice League members have died on my watch."

"Glad to hear it. Keep up the good work. Adom? Your new accommodations meet with your satisfaction?"

"It is a little extravagant. My tastes are somewhat simpler than those of leaders of the previous regime." He smiles. "But the location is excellent."

"Black Manta's people performed as expected."

He nods. "They are capable men. They cut communications to the Heliopolis Palace as directed. No alert was sent out before I entered the building, nor during my attack. The criminal pretenders who ruled my country are dead."

Lex's screen blinks again. "While there is a certain clarity in hanging their bodies from the walls, I feel obliged to point out that… For the international media, the optics were… Not ideal."

"That image was for domestic consumption. I want my people to see that my justice is swift and absolute. And given the trade embargos which Kahndaq is under, I do not believe that my purification of government will worsen life within my country."

I nod. "How is the power consolidation process going?"

"Slow but steady. Your g-gnomes have been invaluable in allowing me to divine who is worthy of their office and who is not, who is criminal and who is merely misguided. Those parts of the country furthest from Cairo were most eager to treat with me. Central government officers were a.. little slower, though that was mostly due to them going into hiding."

Clea raises her eyebrows slightly. "Is there any danger of a civil war?"

"Any senior army officers who might have felt inclined to fight me have already been dealt with. So long as I provide strong and clear leadership, it is now only a matter of time."

I smile. "Good show. Let us know if you need any further support. Once things settle down, I'll start working on President Horne." He nods. "Circe?"

She smiles. "I've managed to retain the services of a number of ex-SHADE employees." I shift uncomfortably in my seat. "Though a little… Frustrating, it has allowed me to create a curriculum more appropriate to the needs of law enforcement officials than the general one I have produced for trainee magicians. Mister Constantine has been surprisingly helpful in creating practical exercises."

I sit back slightly. "SHADE?"

"They've already been cleared of any wrongdoing. Formally, at least. Understandably, their host organisations aren't best pleased with them."

"Then I'm glad that they've found a new home. When will you start taking students?"

"I've started casual demonstrations already. Classes for law enforcement officials are being filled now, while I envisage our first students of the arcane will begin attending over the summer. Unfortunately, the American public are simply too ignorant of magic for it to be worth trying to teach anything beyond the most basic lessons. Once I know whether any of the summer school students have any promise, I'll know what sort of teaching schedule to create for the next scholastic year."

"Unt for zhe regular subjects?"

"I'm… Torn. Clearly, few parents would be prepared to send their children to a school which teaches magic and nothing else, but by the time they reach college age it's a little late. I suspect that I will be spending years teaching police during the day and adolescents at night, at least until a generation with some skill reach college age."

"We have a school in Aberrance. We could… Extend zhe day? Zhey study science unt mathematics wizh us, unt magic wizh you..?"

"Thank you Cranius. That is a most generous offer, but it's simply too early for me to commit to anything. How is your own work doing?"

"Zhe first generation wizh zhe enhanced liver are doing well. No side effects, no rejections unt zhe poison unt disease immunity works as intended. General Lane has been most effusive in his praise. I am already designing new bio-augmetics based upon zhe demands of zhe market, unt Janus is meeting wizh zhe insurance companies regarding offering our product to zheir customers."

I nod. "Excellent news. To finish up then: Lex's first factory is nearing completion and LexPower have finished transitioning over to cosmic power generation. Their share of the energy supply market in the US is nearing sixty percent, and will probably reach eighty before the end of the year. Doctor Metcalf's team has completed designs for the corvette and destroyer vessels, and work will begin on building the first generation of ships early next month. Work is still ongoing on the plans for the battlecruiser, and I doubt that construction will begin much before August."

I smile. "All in all, I'd say that things are going pretty well. Any matters arising?"

 

19th January
13:34 GMT -6

I stroll back towards the living area of the Mountain. I'm spending the evening with the children, overseeing and participating in the play of my brood. I hadn't really thought about it in these terms before, but a definite drawback to having a lot of children isn't just that you don't get as much time interacting with each of them individually, it's that… Well, they don't need you to play with. They've got each other. With Lynne we bonded over a lot of shared activities early on, but the others… Okay, the hybrids are used to making their own entertainment, but I don't feel…

I'm not being fatherly enough. No, I'm not being daddy enough. Certainly not to the younger children.

Which is a problem, because the US Presidential Election is getting into gear. Senator Knight was the Republican Party's only viable candidate, having wormed his way into being the opposition lead on the metahuman-related legal reforms President Horne pushed through on a tide of popular and governmental support. Which is good for him, except that that same popular support resulted in the Democratic Party rubber stamping Horne as their candidate and there's barely any clear air between them on the issue.

Knight's been trying to describe his desire to boost military spending as an 'anti-supervillain' measure, but even Jon saw that one off. The press conference where he was asked about it actually got quite a lot of coverage. Being Horne, he didn't just throw a condescending sound bite at it as a more polished political operator would. It was clear as he blinked in bewilderment at the journalist who asked the question that he could barely comprehend a link between the two ideas. In the end, him reciting sections from a briefing document General Lane gave him on the effectiveness of modern American firearms against high-end supervillains was a far more effective counter than anything more straightforwardly derisory.

My personal favourite part was where he said 'while firing ten times as many rifles at a guy who's immune to bullets does achieve ten times as much, that's still ten multiplied by zero'.

And I think the country is with him on this one. Jon's handling of the whole Klarion mess has earned him a good deal of respect, especially with people who aren't normally Democrat-voters. On the opposite side of the aisle, Knight's unfunded spending commitments and spotty record on social issues don't have anything like the wide-ranging appeal he'll need in order to win. But because of my impact on American politics and my closeness to the incumbent, I'm being asked to do more public appearances. And if I want my agenda advanced, I'll have to do at least some of them. Which means less time for the children.

Anyway, I've got a couple of hours until school ends. I can accept a few interviews, read up on the subjects… Maybe have Jean throw some awkward-.

The door to the living room is open and Magnificus is sitting in the middle of the settee, staring at the television. He's wearing silk pyjamas and a furry purple dressing gown, and is sort of.. slumped. He doesn't look around as I enter the room and sit down in my accustomed chair.

He looks a bit rough. And he hasn't moved since I left.

"Doctor Sivana? Are you.. well?"

"While it's true that Danner enhanciles are not by default significantly more resistant to disease than the average person, I assure you that father ensured that both myself and B-." He closes his eyes for a moment and slumps a little further. "Beautia received immune system enhancing genetic… Sequences, genetic expression triggers and inoculations."

"That.. wasn't exactly what I asked."

"Father is…" He sighs. "I can't.. face.. working. Today."

"You're not seeing-?"

"No, that.. creature isn't back." He breathes in and out. "But my mother, my brother and my sisters are still dead. For Father, revenge is motivation enough. For me, it-. I'm not as ruthless as he is. And…" I see him make an effort to turn his head my way. "The creature attacked me.. before I.. heard. About Venus. Using psychological weaknesses I already possessed. Those haven't repaired themselves just… Because it's gone."

"You knew about those weaknesses?"

He nods, looking away again. "My.. preferred.. technique for dealing with it… Them, was to work to acquire legitimate renown. To develop technologies with market applications, as Father did before he.. went… Before he became a criminal." Another slow inhalation and exhalation. "But… Some days, I…"

"You're depressed?"

"Yes. Not… Bipolar-depressed. There's no manic cycle. Father wouldn't have.. tolerated the relevant genes any more than he would have tolerated disease susceptibility. It's just…" He closes his eyes slowly and then opens them again. "I can't…"

"If you want to.. talk about it, I'm here. Or I can.. get a professional, if that's better?"

"I'm jealous-. I was jealous, of Thaddeus-. Junior." He shakes his head. "It disgusts me.. now, but…"

"Without intending any disrespect to your late brother… Why?"

"Mrn." He breathes in and out again. "Father is an excellent.. teacher. But.. you've.. seen him." I nod. "I learned more about science, engineering… Even economics at home than I ever did at school. What I didn't do was play.. catch. Or.. anything physical. Beautia and I would… When we were on holiday, we'd.. run cross county or.. swim out into the middle of the ocean…" He chuckles quietly. "But while Father was very good at setting us intellectual challenges, we never really had any.. physical ones. And then… Despite being nearly two years younger, Thaddeus and Georgia were able to work at the same intellectual level as us. And then… They'd been designed to be mentally quicker. They're both-. They.. were both.. more intelligent than me. And.. since.. my.. satisfaction-. I was most satisfied by intellectual achievement, that was a…" He slumps back again. "I didn't resent them, but I wished that Father had done for me what he did for Thaddeus."

"You'd give up your strength, toughness and.. at least fifty years of life expectancy?"

"My strength isolated me socially, and I never really did anything with it. My sense of.. self-value is tied up in my intellectual achievements. And extending a human life isn't that hard. You can buy basic senolytics commercially, and Father hasn't stayed as spry as he has through good diet and exercise."

"So… Um… Just so I understand… You're unhappy because you consider your intellectual achievements to be insufficient, despite all of the commercial applications of the circuitry fabrication techniques you invented and pioneered. And the fact that you're a physical Adonis doesn't make you feel better…"

"I.. know how it sounds. This is why I didn’t.. talk about it."

"I can't even call it a First World problem. It's a Zeroth World problem. People would quite literally kill for either your intelligence or your strength." Hm. Ah! "And while it's not something I can really relate to, I believe I know someone who can."

Mother Box, hush tube to wherever Sunset is.

Ping.

I get up and walk through the hush tube to… Sunset's laboratory. She looks up from her computer as I come through. "Grayven? How did the meeting go?"

"Pretty well. Sunset, I've got a problem for you."

She perks up slightly. "You found a new magic artefact you need me to analyse?"

"No. A friendship problem."

The perk vanishes, and she shakes her head. "I don't handle that kind of problem."

"Well, either today you do… Or you can start paying rent."

She huffs. "Fine." She gets up and follows me back through the tube.

Magnificus doesn't turn his head as we reappear, but he does move his eyes our way.

"Sunset, this is Magnificus. He's depressed because he feels like an underachiever due to his IQ being a mere two hundred rather than two twenty. Magnificus, this is Sunset Shimmer. After her superlative display of magic talent in early childhood attracted the demigoddess ruler of her nation to select her as her personal acolyte, she got so annoyed about the focus of the curriculum that she decided that she would rather storm off to a parallel universe with just the fur on her back rather than put up with it for a couple of years, graduate and then study whatever she wanted."

"I feel that the two of you have a great deal in common, and I'm going to leave you to talk about it. Have fun."

 

20th January
20:01 GMT -5

I look around at the eager-. At the faces of my team mates. And at Mr Hol, who is lurking in the background having said that he's interested in getting an alien's perspective on his society. Ah, my first lecture. Kaldur did say he wanted senior team members to take a greater role in teaching, and after he saw the amount of time I was spending on reviewing information on Thanagar I suppose that it's only natural that I was volunteered. At least they look a little more attentive than they did when Major Adams gave his lecture back when we first started. I don't.. think that Thanagarian culture will ever become an important part of a team mission, but I suppose that you never know.

Kara's come along as well, and I only had to niggle her a little. Zatanna hasn't, which...

Yeah.

I dim the lights with a thought, and use the lecture room's hologram projector to bring up an image of the Milky Way galaxy.

"Thanagar."

A green line points to it. And -given the scale- about fifty other systems which are sort of nearby. I open a new window and bring up a slowly rotating image of the world itself.

"Population four point eight billion sophonts. Leading exports: farming equipment and computer equipment. Leading imports: agricultural products and art. Government type: military oligarchy. Politically unified, and the capital world of the Thanagarian Empire. Perhaps most relevant to us, it's the homeworld of Hawkman, Hawkwoman and.. Hawkgirl, in her original incarnation. It's also the largest and most powerful stellar nation in our region of space, having six colonies with populations of over half a billion as well as twenty smaller colonies, and a total military strength greater than any other stellar nation until you reach the Crown Imperium near Vega."

A blue line appears, pointing to Kranaltine. At this scale they look like they're pretty much next door to each other, though the distance is actually much greater than that. Thanagar quite pointedly isn't expanding in their direction, though whether that's because of the Crown Imperium or because they don't want anything to do with Vega I have no idea.

"That's pretty important, because it means that they're the largest major stellar nation near to us."

A yellow line, again almost right next to the other two.

"According to the testimony of Nylor Truggs, they end up conquering the Earth some time in the next five hundred years. They're expansionist, militant, and not exactly shy about conquering nearby systems and settling worlds that already have someone living on them."

Given that the idea the Blades of Alstair had of working as mercenaries for training purposes wasn't exactly novel, it's a little hard to tell exactly how big the Thanagarian military actually is. There's essentially no dividing line between private military companies that get conscripted in times of war, and state military groups which sometimes take external contracts. That's why I gave short shrift to Ms Hol's complaints last year when I did an assessment of the League's ability to fight Thanagarian 'corporate security'.

"Thanagar's population is split between two species, with no other group having statistically significant representation. The largest group are the dominant-" I gesture to Mr Hol with my right hand. "-bird-winged humanoids, commonly referred to as 'thanagarians'. The word 'Thanagar' itself comes from an older form of their most widely used language, Quarish, and means something along the lines of 'defensible home base'. They make up about two thirds of the population, and virtually the entirety of the government is drawn from their species."

"The remaining third is comprised of lizarkons."

I generate a construct image of what looks like a standard issue dinosaur man.

"The name sounding like the English word 'lizard' is a coincidence. The actual etymology of the word indicates that it come from an old Quarish word meaning 'from the ground' or 'restricted to the ground'. As you can see, they don't have wings, which put them at a fairly major disadvantage when competing with the thanagarians."

Though it's more than that. Without Nth metal throughout their bodies, they're actually weaker and -despite the scales- less resilient. They also were far slower in developing Nth metal based technologies. Early fights between the two groups were painfully one-sided. Never let it be said that diabolism doesn't pay.

Raquel frowns. "Quarish is a bird-thanagarian language, right?"

"It's spoken by pretty much everyone on the planet these days, but it was originally a small 't' thanagarian language."

"So it's not what they call themselves."

"It is these days. Standardised compulsory education, all government communications and all official records are in Quarish, and in some cases it's actually illegal to put them in other languages. Plekesh -the second most common language- only really survives because it's common in the older colonies, but again, their populations are virtually all small 't' thanagarian."

"So the.. government is stamping out their culture?"

"Oh yes, quite deliberately. Since the current form of government seized power, there's been a deliberate effort at social engineering. The lionisation of the military, universal national service, standardised everything, the requirement for at least ten years in the military for anyone who wants a senior government position and the generous grants given to demobbed soldiers who want to move to a colony. Part of that comes from how they came to power in the first place, and the rest is from the sheer social trauma the Equality Plague caused. Essentially, they want near total social unity and they feel the best way to get that is to force a monoculture."

Raquel realises that all eyes that aren't on me are on her. "What's the Equality Plague?"

"The Equality Plague is… The historical significance it has in their culture is roughly equal to the scope of the First and Second World Wars on Earth. Essentially, the plague itself was… Probably an engineered disease which eroded a sufferer's sense of self as well as creating a low level telepathic field between all sufferers. Thanagarians and lizarkons alike had no resistance to it, and it infected the entire planet about… Seventy years ago. Sufferers lost all personality, all personal drive and gained the ability to transfer skills and memories between them. The result was near total societal collapse, as people literally couldn't know who they were or which of the memories in their heads were their own."

"As a result, there were a massive number of deaths and the world was taken over by an individual calling himself the Lord High Equaliser. He ruled for about nine years, before being killed by a strike force of uninfected thanagarians from one of the colonies." Probably. Commander Andar told me that Queen Hyathis led the attack herself, and while that's possible -the colonies were in negotiations with her at the time- I haven't been able to find evidence from the colonial side that she was involved. Which doesn't mean that she wasn't. "Of course, that didn't cure the disease, it just removed the one man the infected instinctively obeyed. The colonies were trying to find a cure, but they weren't having much luck and people started dying again."

"That's when Queen Hyathis of Alstair enters the story. At this point the situation on Thanagar was pretty desperate and the colonial authorities were looking for help anywhere they could get it. Hyathis claimed that she could cure it, but in return she wanted Thanagar's territory to be added to what she already controlled. The colonial authorities agreed, and she got to work. Alstair's sophont life forms are plant-based, and Hyathis is very good at floramancy. Everyone on Thanagar got a injection of cultured algae, and she used that to remove the disease from their bodies. The total time from the first cases of the disease to the cure was about eleven years."

"In the aftermath… A substantial number of thanagarians weren't all that happy to find themselves part of the Alstair Empire. While the exact proportion is.. pretty much impossible to find out now… As in, if you question the official line on Thanagar you will get arrested. What is agreed upon is that Hyathis took possession of the Lord High Equaliser's fleet, crewed it with thanagarians who were definitely loyal to her, and then returned to her home system with the intent of conquering her immediate neighbours. While she was away, there was a revolt -again, it's hard to get reliable numbers on exactly how big it was- which resulted in a military junta coming to power. Every Zaredian in Thanagarian space was killed -along with a lot of loyalist Thanagarians- and the new government was able to build up their defences enough that Hyathis couldn't recapture Thanagar. They're still technically at war, though there hasn't been any direct armed conflict recently."

"Ah…" Wallace glances back at Mr Hol. "You get arrested for… What's the official version?"

"That only a tiny coterie of traitors ever supported Hyathis and that she probably created the plague herself to extort Thanagar's compliance."

"And… Is that true?"

I shrug. "At this point, it's rather difficult to say."

 

21st January
14:32 GMT

Lantern Dul floats in interstellar space a short distance from her current stop on the Orange Lantern Corps Goodwill Tour. From the looks we were getting as we headed into orbit I'd say that she was at least reasonably well received by the locals, who to me looked disconcertingly like a cross between crabs and lectors.

Sometimes being able to interpret non-humanoid body language is weird.

"Got everything you need?"

She blinks slowly at me, the thanagarian equivalent of a puzzled frown. She's wearing… Slightly heavier armour than she wore to the conference. Not sure whether she's used the time since to put it together or if she didn't consider it necessary. Heh, but now she knows me better. One mace, two side arms, one glowing ring…

"I mean, no personal effects? You mentioned that you weren't the only one assigned to your original mission. Among humans, we would customarily return their personal effects to their next of kin."

"We didn't have much. I left everything with their bodies on what's left of our ship." She notices as my eyes widen. "Almost all thanagarians are materialists. None of them thought what happened to their bodies after they died was important."

"Um. If you give me the coordinates I can pick the ship up and return it to Thanagar." I place my right hand over my heart. "My oath to Gaea that I will not access its data storage or perform detailed scans of the ship or of its contents."

"Why? What do your people do with the remains of dead spacefarers?"

"My people go into space on rockets. We don't have enough spacefarers to have a tradition. Water warships that sink are left alone, but that's on a living world. In.. space… Take it from someone who's died, that's.. not a good place to leave them."

"You believe that their souls are trapped there forever."

"I don't have enough magic researchers to task them with studying the process in detail, but based on what I know…" I nod. "It's a distinct possibility."

She regards me sceptically for a moment, but apparently decides that there's no harm in humouring me. "I'll refer your request up my chain of command."

I nod. "Thank you. Now, for the journey to Earth we've got a couple of options. I can teleport us-" I raise my right hand to my forehead. "-there instantly, but Hinon tells me that unless your control is excellent you could risk physical and psychological damage." I lower my right hand. "I could get around that by suppressing your mental activity or connection to the orange light, but those options have their own problems. Alternatively, I can fly us there, which will take a few hours, or create a large zeta beam emitter construct to send you there in a few seconds."

"If your people have controllable zeta beam transportation then why do you still fly in space with chemical rockets?"

"We'd use zeta beams for that too, but we've only recently got the power generation capacity to keep them running. And of course we can't go anywhere safely without a receiver station. As it is, it's a fast but expensive way for getting around one planet, and… Not very useful otherwise. I'd basically be firing you at an upgraded version of the zeta beam generator invented… Fifty seven years ago. It's still the only one configured for long ranged travel."

"And it's safe?"

I nod. "Tested it yesterday. The people studying it are quite enthusiastic about getting a live subject through."

"Zeta beam."

"Rightyho."

I fly away from her to give myself space, then generate the large interstellar zeta tube. Not just the actual tube bit; even with it looking more like Dr Erdel's original version than the more streamlined modern version that part still isn't particularly large. I've also got the exotic radiation generating equipment, the generator and the capacitors. And a cartoony-looking control panel with one of those u-shape levers you can wrap your fist around, because why not?

I wrap my right fist around it. "Ready?"

"Yes."

I pull the lever down. The interior of the construct glows for a moment, then Lantern Dul is gone.

One. Two. Three…

"Illustres to Lantern Dul."

"I've arrived. I'm heading to Officer Hol's place of residence."

"Good show. I'll meet you in orbit."

I dismiss my construct, focus on Mr Cantrell and raise my right hand to my forehead once again.

21st January
07:34 GMT -7

I appear a mile or so above his house, then move my right hand to my right ear.

"Call Richard Grayson."

"Compliance."

A few seconds of dial tone…

"Hey."

Not 'hey, Oh El'. Which means that he's not 'Robin' at the moment.

"How is she?"

"Not… Great." He breathes out slowly. "And not just because of you. She's having nightmares about what happened to the little people in Switzerland."

"Yes, I'm not surprised. I'd have tried saying something, but I was more worried about her staff. And I didn't want to sound too sympathetic in case I inadvertently gave the impression that my rejection wasn't entirely earnest."

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that. She's pretty convinced."

"You've… Had contact with people who've done.. things under the influence, haven't you?"

"Yeah. Nothing.. quite like this. I'll.. keep visiting her."

"Has she-? She could talk to her friends about it. Her.. normal friends. Her identity isn't a secret-."

"This isn't really something most people have a whole lot of contact with. I'm not sure if they'd actually help or… If they'd get scared off."

I nod sombrely. "Any ideas?"

"I do actually know a good trauma counsellor. I'm going to talk to Zatara about arranging a meeting."

I nod. "Switzerland was quite a bit… More than she is used to. That might well be for the best. Though… If they ask why she started using the Star Sapphire in the first place-."

"Then she'll just have to tell them."

"I suppose she will. Thank you for talking to her."

"Hey, what are friends for?"

I hang up and lower my hand. Oh, hang on. I hold my left hand out in front of me. Ring, call Hinon.

Compliance.

Her face appears, floating over my ring.

"I'm heading to Thanagar. Do you want me to get you anything?"

"No." She doesn't bother actually looking at me. "I should be finished with my survey by the time you get back. We can talk about it then."

"Alright. See you when I see you."

She looks up, frowning. "That's a tautol-."

I hang up, and fly down towards the Halls' garden.

 

21st January
14:55 GMT

Light from the Halls'-. Late.. Halls..? They're not called 'Hall' any more and they're not married, and I can hardly call them 'the Hawks' when I'm about to visit a planet of hawk people. Old Hawks? Whatever, their short range teleporter lights up and deposits Mr Hall into space. He turns his helmeted head around and raises his right hand to hail me.

I smile and wave back. "Seals holding?"

He shifts his arms and legs around to test his mobility. The Nth metal lets him fly under his own power far more easily than gas thrusters would, though it's still not completely instinctual. Completing his test, he taps his belt to activate his radio.

"Confirmed. No leaks, movement good." He floats back from the ship slightly. "Beginning a visual inspection of the ship exterior."

With the ship's shields set to low power, I can see through the canopy as Ms Parker makes eye contact with her son and raises her right hand in acknowledgement. Naturally I checked all of this before we left the ground, but it's sensible for them to get into good habits, and I'm not surprised that Ms Parker née Chay-ara taught him to do it that way.

"Orange Lantern to Hawkwoman. We have made Earth-orbit. Ship looks good." Orichalcum might not do everything Nth metal can, but it serves just as well for hull plating. I'll keep recording what it does so that I can report back to Hephaestus and Vulcan about it.

"Yes, we watched your ascent. We'll be with you in.. two minutes."

I turn and look back towards the horizon. Yes, I see them. The contrast between the two ships is interesting. The forward sweeping wing design is a point of commonality, but in the case of the modern Hawks' ship it's clearly a functional wing, designed to be able to keep the vessel flying through lift when the main booster is active. With the Halls' ship, the design looks more decorative. Its wings would allow it to undergo a controlled crash, but it's designed to be kept aloft purely by Nth metal flight systems rather than the mix of Nth metal and conventional space aged engineering.

I suppose that the Thanagarian government didn't want too much Nth metal ending up in alien hands just in case something happened to the Hawks.

The new ones.

"I see you. Lantern Dul, do you want to transport your ship, or shall I do it?"

"The aim is to get to Thanagar as fast as possible. You are far faster than me."

"Very well. I'll warp us there once you arrive." I turn back to Mr Hall. "Silver Scarab, is the hull in one piece?"

He looks my way. "Silver Scarab, huh? Guess it goes with the costume." He turns his attention back to the hull. "Looks good. No warping, no sign of heat build up or cracking. No sign of escaping gas. Dad?"

"Confirmed. Internal sensors show green across the board."

"Sorry, do you.. not want me to call you Silver Scarab?"

"I don’t know. I haven't been Silver Scarab for over a decade. And it's not like I'm hiding my identity from anyone, least of all Mom's side of the family."

"It's been seven thousand years. I doubt we'll meet any of my relatives. Not without a gene clinic doing a comparison."

"Do you remember your original family? Your first incarnation was a while ago."

"I… Think I do. I can't promise that I'm not confusing them with one of my other sets of parents, but they were the only ones with wings."

"Have you..? Either of you, told your current parents about this?"

Mr Cantrell lets out a huff-laugh. "Yeah, we did. Mine aren't sure whether I've gone crazy or not, and Joe and Megan Parker are pretty sure we have."

"Mom was happy that we're getting married, at least."

"We've spent more of our lives married than not. The only question is, do we have a church service or get Adom to marry us?"

"Shouldn't we ask Rama? We do reincarnate, after all. And anyway, if you're thinking of Kahndaq in the old days you know full well your people didn’t have a marriage ceremony. Dad will kill us if we have a civil ceremony."

"Mom? Dad? Can I come back on board?"

"Oh! Sorry." There's a flicker of light as the teleporter activates once more.

"So was that a 'no' to Silver Scarab?"

"Yeah, Hector's fine. And are you sure you're not still married?"

Through the canopy I see Mr Cantrell and Ms Parker look at each other. Mr Cantrell shrugs. "We did die, son. I'm pretty sure that's an 'honorable discharge'."

"Marriage law hasn't really kept up with the impermanence of death. Though I suspect that Lord Rama would either say that you should marry other people in order to move towards spiritual liberation, or that you've already demonstrably transcended the wheel and so are married permanently regardless of what face you wear in any particular life."

"Wait, if Kahndaq didn't have a wedding…" Mr Cantrell sits back in his chair. "No, you're right, it didn't… But we had a ceremony. I don’t remember every detail-."

Ms Parker smiles fondly at him. "That was because you left them up to me; your beautiful winged bride from the heavens."

"That was a Thanagarian ceremony?"

"Why do you think you wore your wing harness?"

"Oh! No, you're right, I remember now! And we had an argument because I didn't want to disturb their bodies…"

"Ah… Dad? What bodies?"

"The other thanagarians, the ones who died during the crash, or… Just after. Chay-ara thought the Kahndaqi reverence for the physical remains of the dead was… Bizarre."

"I've had dozens of lifetimes to get used to it now."

Hector takes his mask off, clearly not understanding what they're talking about. "Alright, but why did you need them for the wedding?"

Mr Cantrell shrugs, his wing harness moving as he does so. "Son, I'm human, and unlike your mother I always have been. Where did you think these wings came from?"

…

Huh. I suppose that makes sense.

"You cut-? They're from one of the other..?

"Where did you think I got wings that let me fly?"

"I thought it was the Nth metal in the harness! And.. birds. For the.. feathers!"

Ms Parker shakes her head. "We were active as Hawkman and Hawkgirl for seven years before we found where Adom put this ship after Hath-Set murdered us. Finding our bodies to reclaim our grave goods was far easier."

"Speaking of… Any luck finding this generation's Hath-Set? I realise that reincarnation takes some of the sting out of being murdered, but I'm sure you'd rather avoid it."

Mr Cantrell shakes his head. "Helene Astar and Rajak Darkraven are both dead, we checked that. Which is in line with what usually happens." Hector's jaw tightens at the mention of the people who murdered his parents. "Whoever's coming after us, it's someone new."

"Of course, if you stay on Thanagar long term… It won't be a problem."

"Huh." He and his fiancée look at each other. "I suppose it wouldn't. That might be worth considering."

"We'll see how things go. I'm going to get more of Chay-ara's memories back when we start visiting places, but I've been human longer than I've been thanagarian."

"Illustres."

I look around as the Modern Hawks' ship matches our velocity, raising my right hand in the direction of the command module. Alright then, Thanagar that way.

"Stand by for warp. Warping in three, two one."

Orange light shines and space bends.

 

21st January
15:21 GMT

The thanagarians don't -officially- have the technology for blocking Lantern faster than light travel. They… Probably have it unofficially, because they can't possibly believe that the local Green Lanterns -an insectoid from Staphis and six-armed humanoid Polarian- won't step in if they try expanding their empire again and they're not stupid enough to be unprepared for that. Plus, they know we're coming, and despite my dealings with Hyathis I doubt that I've antagonised them sufficiently that they're prepared to test any device they have on me.

Probably. They might have decided to try it if I'd affirmed my alliance with Hyathis to Ms Thal. That would have been stupid and probably resulted in Dox putting Hyathis on the throne after the Orange Lantern Corps had annihilated their fleet, but if superhero-Earth has taught me anything it's that powerful people are prone to very… Limited thinking.

Still. They don't have any easy way to get hold of arcane lore without someone like me ferrying information and personnel around. I'm fairly confident that my first trip will be unmolested. The second one… Eh.

"Orange Lantern to all passengers. We will be arriving at our designated emergence location shortly. Check your programmed course and IFF and prepare for transition to normal flight. Warp ends in three, two, one."

The orange glow around us fades as space remembers its proper texture, a new system around us, a new planet… Just about visible in the black eternity, and… Quite a lot of ships. Two command carriers with… About a third of their attack craft complement deployed. Two squadrons of three of their military reconnaissance ship to each command carrier for a total of twelve. Those are fast, lightly armed and armoured scouts, designed to probe enemy defences and report back. Their stealth systems are also good enough that I doubt that the two ships I just towed here can see them. Cruisers of the Thanagarian Empire's two favourite configurations are also plentiful: a light carrier for patrol work and a gunship for anti-capital ship attacks. There are a few battle cruisers as well, but the Empire favours speed and agility over staying power. Battle cruisers are things they send when patrol ships encounter something that needs a little more gun, not something they've built a doctrine around. And a little further back I can see the tenders: heavily armoured and shielded fuel carriers for replenishing the fuel burned when the warships use their full combat power, and the farm ships they use to keep the tens of thousands of naval personnel fed with food that doesn't taste like cardboard.

Because you do not want to be the officer in charge of a ship full of mace-wielding thanagarians who've been eating cardboard for a month.

"Ms Thal, are we being honoured or intimidated?"

I hear a snort from her, but it's Mr Hol who answers.

"In thanagarian culture, there isn't much difference."

"Alright, but am I supposed to honour them by generating a construct fleet? Should I have brought Lantern Mother of Mercy with us?"

"Sir, that might have been… 'Too much' honour."

"Tut tut, Lantern Dul. Adopting alien cultural practices?"

"Incoming communication."

"Answer."

My rings generate an image of a stern looking male thanagarian. "This is General Hro Talak of the Pride of Thanagar. Please identify yourself."

Oh. Him. I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised. If I remember his appearance in Justice League Animated correctly, he's an ardent nationalist who values alien races very little. But… Given what I know about the culture of modern Thanagar, I suspect that his attitudes are actually pretty normal. I wouldn't expect him to start something without both provocation and orders.

"I am-"

Ring.

"-Paul-"

"-, the Illustres of the Orange Lantern Corps. I believe that we're expected."

He regards me impassively for a moment, then nods. "Identities confirmed. Operatives Katar Hol, Shayera Thal and Paran Dul are to proceed to the Vengeance of Kalmoran for debriefing. You and the four from Earth will take your pre-approved course to the foreign ministry in Thanaldar. You will be met by Ambassador Darl Klus, who will be handling negotiations."

Leaving aside the obvious fact that Kara isn't from Earth, that part was more or less what I expected, but...

"I'm sorry, I thought the plan was for your operatives to be on hand during the negotiations and for the debriefing to happen.. later..?" He doesn't look impressed. "I wouldn't want your ambassador to be unfairly disadvantaged because he was ill-advised."

"A senior intelligence analyst became unexpectedly available. These things happen. In any case, negotiations will not begin until tomorrow. You are to be taken on a cultural junket first."

"I suppose your government wouldn't want me to think that Thanagar was all warships."

He hesitates for a moment. Is he wondering if I'm insulting him and his, or trying to decide whether that would actually be preferable?

"Indeed. Pride of Thanagar out."

Both of the ships are already in motion, the League Hawks' ship towards one of the front-mounted launch bays of the right Command Carrier, while the…

"Ms Parker, Mr Cantrell, does that ship have a name?"

"Yes." / "No."

"Hector, sounds like you're the tie-breaker."

I begin flying after them, and notice as two squadrons of attack craft move away from their patrol route to escort us. And… Yes, I can see orbital and ground defence installations acquiring us. A pretty normal way to treat relative unknowns flying towards your capital city in a ship whose precise loadout you haven't been able to confirm for yourself.

"They always used to call it 'the Hawkship'."

"We can't call it 'the Hawkship' on Thanagar. That's ridiculous!"

"That wasn't the name I meant."

"But that's what we called it when-. Ooh!"

I politely turn aside some of the Thanagarian Defence Network's more intrusive efforts at scanning me. A couple of the vehicles in our escort are definitely using non-standard sensor packages. Nothing that's dangerous to me, but whoever that 'senior analyst' is they're not missing a trick.

"Care to share?"

"In our first lives, when I thought Chay-ara was a fallen goddess, I -Khufu-I- called the ship 'The Chariot of Horus'."

"Sounds like a fine name to me."

"It's a bit overblown. It isn't even that big. I just couldn't imagine what else it could be. The biggest vehicle I'd seen at that point was a wooden sailing barge."

"If Horus objects we can always change it."

I look towards the planet as it grows, my own acceleration matching that of the newly christened Chariot of Horus. There's a police cordon around the air corridor we've been instructed to take, but it looks like the locals are just working around it rather than hanging around to rubberneck. No reason to believe that our arrival has been widely trailered. It's quite possible that only a small portion of the government and military know we're coming.

I'm rather looking forward to learning about an alien culture from the aliens themselves. You just can't learn how a people see themselves or how they want to be seen by pillaging a database.

 

21st January
17:31 GMT

I don't know what I was expecting, but I'm pretty sure this wasn't it.

A young thanagarian woman dressed in an even-more-impractical-than-normal rendition of the Thanagarian military uniform is currently singing her heart out to the obvious enjoyment of the thanagarian -and the suitably armigerous alien- great and good sitting at the surrounding tables. Her dancing is energetic, and incorporates her wings with both gestures and short aerial sections to emphasise her athleticism. I've got my rings recording the whole thing, and I… Think I'll send a copy to Ms Parish once I return to Earth.

The song itself… Personally, I found that hearing the words in English just messed up the rhyme schemes too much, so I instructed my ring to stop translating it. And then -because Quarish uses.. very different sounds to English- I was stuck listening to what sounds like the most metal screeching fit ever. I actually found myself chuckling because of the dissonance between the upbeat popular music instrumentals and the caterwauling coming from the singer. It's not unpleasant or anything, but as with a lot of alien things I'm finding it decidedly odd.

Ambassador Klus leans in as the performance comes to an end, his surviving eyebrow raised in a distinctly non-thanagarian gesture of enquiry.

"What do you think?"

The singer makes a thanagarian bow gesture, head and wings tilted back, as thanagarians and longer-serving aliens pound their tables. I give mine a couple of bangs too.

"I think that to appreciate the song I would need to understand the language far better than I do. To.. my ears, the lyrics and the music didn't quite… Match?"

The singer strikes her left palm with her right fist, then heads back off stage.

"Next, she's going to be performing a song.. inspired by the music of the aboriginal population of her homeworld, Havania. You might find that the tone matches your auditory range a little better." I nod. "Do you know the planet?"

"I haven't visited. I know it's.. one of Thanagar's 'old' colonies. Slightly unusual in that it's controlled by a hereditary aristocracy."

"That sort of thing wasn't too unusual back when it was founded, though we've moved to a more individualistic system since then." He sits back. "Thanagar itself is heavily militarised, but I don't want to give the impression that militarism is all there is to know of thanagarian society. Music is a far more palatable cultural touchstone for many of our alien guests."

"She didn't come all this way just for me, I hope?"

"No, she's touring Thanagar at the moment. If you'd been a hundred days later you would probably have missed her entirely."

"She's clearly quite talented. What's her name?"

"Bleez." He frowns as I start spasmodically blinking. "Have you.. heard of her?"

"Yes. Yes, I-" Bleez returns to the stage, her new costume even less conservative than the last, and her.. entire body painted pale blue. "-hhhhhave."

"I suppose that on your travels-."

"No. No. Um. You are aware that Earth has a good deal more magic use than…"

"'Any' would be more than Thanagar. If you're building up to claiming something you think that I will think is impossible, you needn't worry. I've been fully briefed."

"I'm a citizen of the country of Themyscira. We have an.. oracle. Some time ago I.. read a… Book. A winged woman named 'Bleez' with skin that colour featured."

"That's just a fashion statement. Quite popular on some of the colonies, though it's never caught on here. And what did this prophecy say about Bleez?"

She begins singing, notes starting low and having an almost hiccupy quality to them. Each is held and sustained at a perfect pitch for several seconds. There are no words, she's simply using her voice and lungs as an instrument. The 'aboriginal' inhabitants of Havania -read, the native population now marginalised by the dominant thanagarians- are raniform amphibians. If she's matching their vocal range-.

And then she starts dancing. The martial gestures of the thanagarian song are replaced with gentler, sinuous motions as she twists and bends and maintains the notes. I've got no idea how she's breathing.

"It mostly concerned how she behaved after some fairly traumatic experiences. Tell me, would you consider Havania well defended?"

"It's a mature colony. There's a defence network and a picket fleet. It's not up to Thanagar's standards and the locals have opposed further militarization. They have no need to fear raiders, though I suppose.. if there was a serious attack which took us by surprise..." He shifts in his seat as the.. astonishingly… Weirdly beautiful sound flows over us. "Illustres, if you know about a threat to the Thanagarian Empire or its citizens-."

"Sinestro. Thaal Sinestro. At some point -I don't know when- he takes a Lantern battlegroup there. The planet supposedly gets ransacked. Bleez is taken as a concubine by one of his men."

"Sinestro is no longer a Green Lantern."

I open my hands and draw his attention to my rings. "They come in several colours. Sinestro's followers supposedly will use yellow rings."

"I.. see."

"Though obviously we'd both rather prevent the issue ever coming up. To the best of my knowledge he's a Corps of one at the moment." Unless Dox has given him ideas. "Though just in case…" I take a card out of subspace, draw a yellow sigil on it and pass it over. "This symbol? Don't trust it."

"What does it represent?"

"Sinestro's Corps, Sinestro himself… And fear. According to what I read, Sinestro's initial line up will be comprised of psychotic criminals, the sort of people who delight in the fear of their victims."

I really hope none of that stuff happens. I take a moment to listen to a complicated series of note changes… I think I could grow to like this… And take a look at Ms Parker. She's… Frowning. Ah, she doesn't recognise any of the music. That's… Unfortunate. Hector, Kara and their minder have already left to do some sightseeing. I'll have to play a sample to Kara later and see what she makes of it.

"Do you know how reliable these prognostications are?"

"No. To date, most of them have been somewhat true. I've.. flown halfway across the galaxy and found someone exactly where I thought they'd be more than once. Other things are only accurate in broad swaths. And some are almost totally inaccurate, or just don't mention particular things."

"Is there anything else Thanagar needs to worry about?"

"The Seven Devils. Onimar Synn regaining corporeal form is very bad. I'm usually against state restrictions on religion, but I'll make an exception there."

"And the others?"

"I'm afraid that I'm not familiar with the others."

"I'm an atheistic materialist myself, but I read up on our mythology to prepare for this meeting. Ichthultu.. supposedly, taught our people how to farm. Thasaro was described as a violent scourge, but also as one who taught his followers the virtue of strength, and the militant ethos we embrace today. If such beings do exist, can you say for certain that it would be wrong to trade with them, as we do with alien races today?"

I shrug as the song comes to an end. "No. I've treated with strange beings before. And I worship the Olympian Goddess of Chaos. I suppose the only insight that I've got to offer is that it is exceedingly unwise to call up anything you can't put down. Or to make a pact with no way to enforce it."

Another round of table thumping, and as I actually liked this one I put a little more effort into it.

"Sound advice. Would you like to meet Bleez? That's the end of her set, but there are other-."

"Yes. Yes, I would, please."

 

21st January
17:42 GMT

"What did you think?"

Bleez is.. smiling at me. From what I.. dimly remember of her pre-Red Lantern life in the comics, she didn't seem exactly joyful. And yet I can clearly see that she's doing something she loves: singing and performing before an audience.

"I'm afraid that to human ears, lyrics in Quarish don't translate particularly well. I did like your last piece-" Her smile broadens slightly. "-and your dancing… Choreography and performance was most impressive."

"Thank you. And I know about-" Shaky wing jerk. An eye roll equivalent. "-the Quarish thing; it's like our language uses a whole different register to every other humanoid language."

"I think it could work for an English-speaking audience, but you'd need different instrumentation. The relatively soft, pop music sound is just too much of a clash." I take a small Thanagarian data storage device out of subspace and load… A cross-section of Earth's music onto it. "As I understand it, thanagarian performers don’t usually have much to do with alien music. I hope that it's a norm you'll continue to subvert."

I hold it out to her, and she takes it with obvious eagerness. "Thank you. I don't really have anywhere to put it in this costume..." She carefully clips it onto her… Belt? "My manager will love it if I can break into alien markets!"

"Earth doesn't really have a market for alien music. A.. kryptonian released a good chunk of their historical musical archive a few years ago and it just sits on our data network."

"Anyone perform it?"

"Not to a big crowd. I think there have been.. small scale attempts to reproduce it."

"Well that's the problem! People aren't going to get excited about a recording. Do your people.. trade with Krypton?"

"Krypton exploded about forty years ago with the loss of virtually the entire species."

"Oh." The wrists of her wings twitch towards her face, an acknowledgement of a faux pas.

"Three.. survivors have made their home on Earth, and one of them released it. He's not much of a musician." And since he grew up on Earth, probably wouldn't play Kryptonian instruments even if he was. I'll ask Kara if she's interested in that sort of thing, because while Karsta might I have no desire to intrude on her any further. "But no, before that happened we didn't."

"Do you have a copy of that?"

"Ah… I.. never bothered recording the whole thing, but…" I transmute another storage device. "Here's some of it."

She attaches it to the other side of her belt. "If they… The survivors want to commemorate their world, they should do a… Whole expo thing. Displays on their art and culture, examples of their technology… Maybe have a few people live like they did and record the whole thing. You need to get people interested in the culture before anyone will be interested in the music for itself. They need to understand the context for what they're hearing."

I nod. Despite Kal-El being a major hero, there isn't really much interest on Earth for Kryptonian culture beyond buying t-shirts with his 'S' on them. Thanks to me there's more interest in Themysciran culture these days, but Diana's most ardent admirers would have struggled to name a single piece of Themysciran music before I jollied the theatre company into touring. Actually, that applies to Thanagar as well. The Hawks have been around for eight years now, and I don't remember any cultural data release. Or any interest in one. Same with Mars.

"I don't recognise your uniform. That is a uniform, right?"

I glance down at my robes. "Official clothing, certainly. I'm a member of the Orange Lantern Corps."

"Like the Green Lanterns, only orange?"

"The rings work slightly differently and we're more a military than a police force, but… Yes."

She leans forward slightly. "Are you recruiting? Or have you already recruited someone and you're here to train them?"

"Lantern Dul is already receiving training, but she's not assigned to this region of space. She hasn't actually.. been back to Thanagar for years, that's one of the reasons we made this trip. The other is because my-" I gesture to where Ms Parker and Mr Cantrell are talking to.. a thanagarian I don't know. "-colleagues are able to provide information to the Thanagarian government relating to something that's worrying them."

"Like what?"

"Magic. They're worried about Hyathis' exotic threat potential, so they're here to offer their services as consultants."

"That's… Kind of a big deal. Shouldn't there be more guards around?"

"They're accomplished fighters, I'm a Lantern and we're on Thanagar, a short flight from the main city garrison and under its home defence fleet. There's only so safe you can get before it starts getting absurd."

"I suppose you've got a point. So… Why are you here?"

"I'm just a glorified taxi service at the moment. My top speed is far faster than anyone else's, and I can bring passengers. And while I know a good deal about magic, I wouldn't expect the Thanagarian government to trust me. Um." She looks at me expectantly. "This is… Probably something of a personal question, but… Is your mother nagging you about getting married?"

"Yes! You have no idea how annoying it is! I tried saying 'mother, I'm focusing on my career right now, can't it wait?' and she's all 'you are the great granddaughter of Prince Yiiqi and my sole heir, you must marry and have children right now'. The main reason I'm on this tour is so I can get my manager to pretend I'm working whenever she calls to try and introduce me to some.. baronet's son or something." She blinks. "How did you know that?" She leans in again, looking at me expectantly. "Are you like a spy? Are you spying on me? No, are you trying to groom me as an intelligence source?"

"Ah-. No, just trying to verify.. information I'd heard from elsewhere."

She pulls back slightly. "She didn't.. put you up to-?"

"No."

"Not that you're, you know, unattractive-."

I raise my eyebrows, then create construct wings and fan them out. "I'm gorgeous. But no." I fold the wings behind my back as she blinks at me. "I've never met your mother. My species uses magic for all sorts of things, not just for controlling plants. One of the things we do with it is… Seeing the future, with… Varying degrees of reliability. And one of the things that got seen was your mother entertaining a.. suitor to whom you were not well suited."

"So your species' prophets say I should focus on my career?"

I suppose it.. keeps her away from home. That way there can't be a Lantern Bleez. "You could interpret it like that. Although… An equally valid reading would be that you should pick someone yourself because her suggestions are all terrible."

"That's true. They are. Ugh, they're just so backwards. I mean, we have legally defined citizenship tiers, why do we even need slaves!?"

…

"Quite. Um. Have you.. been on Thanagar long?"

"Not that long this trip, but Mother and Father used to bring me here every year to make sure I grew up as a 'proper lady of the nobility'." She looks at me speculatively. "Wanna help me do something that would really burr her feathers?"

 

21st January
19:37 GMT

"A slum."

"Downside."

I look around through the gloom. Thanaldar is built on top of a mountain, but there's only.. so much space. So as the city grew they had to expand down. Except thanagarians literally use 'down' as an insult. So that wasn't acceptable. Their solution was giant stone or metal-reinforced concrete blocks, building support beams on the surrounding land and then putting platforms over them.

Or not, in places. Some sunlight reaches them down here, though from what I can see the majority of the light comes from lights plugged into power stolen through holes bored up into the world above. There's some wind, but so little that the air is stale and…

"Dare I ask about the sewage?"

"Oh, the city doesn't just dump raw sewage down here these days. A few centuries ago the smell started reaching the towers, and there was a big drive for better treatment plants."

"And do those treatment plants take sewage from down here as well?"

"Ah… Probably not?"

Urge to help Hyathis rising…

Under all-concealing cloaks of cheap fabric we walk along reasonably clear streets. Bleez had a costume of hard-worn clothes which… Probably wouldn't allow her to pass as a local under close examination, but should hold up to a cursory glance. Not the clothes themselves, those are more or less the same as what the locals appear to wear. The problem is Bleez herself. She's clearly far too healthy, tanned, calm and confident to actually come from somewhere like this.

Though she has changed her posture somewhat, and I can see her checking her surroundings more than she did before we came down here. That ability to blend in suggests to me that this is far from the first time that she's visited.

A group of lizarkons glower at us from a alleyway between… I'm not sure what to call it. Gentrified slums? There's an official access point to the upper city not too far from here, and a sizeable proportion of the locals commute upwards to work. The people living in this area aren't the poorest of the poor. The structures are solid if not exactly decorous, and-.

I look up as a police patrol flies overhead.

And there is a substantial law enforcement presence.

"Why do you come down here?"

"The music. Upside people just like.. military stuff, you know? 'Glory to the Armies of Thanagar'! And I sing that better than anyone, but it's just all the same, you know? And… Mother wouldn't ever look for me here."

"Is it safe?"

She points up as another patrol flies over. "You can only make things so safe. But this whole area? All the patrols fly through here on their way to their official routes. The dangerous places are nearer the edges."

"Really? I'd have thought that the fresh air would-."

"Paul? It's Kara. Are you there?"

"Sorry, just a moment. Yes, Kara? What can I do for you?"

"I think we're in trouble."

Ring, location. Oh. Great. The locals are used to fighting in three dimensions. Kara and Hector are looking down the barrels of an uncomfortable number of guns, and gang members with wings are ready to interpose themselves if they managed to dodge those. Hector hasn't been active for long enough that I'm half-convinced that he changed his costume because his old one no longer fit properly, and Kara isn't a fighter.

"Kara, you may not be back to full power yet, but you're still kryptonian. Most of the weapons they've got can't-."

"They have Nth metal weapons. I don't want to kill anyone!"

Right…

"Bleez, two of my colleagues took a wrong turn so I'm afraid that we're going to have to cut this short. Are you alright getting-?"

"Do you want to kill the people threatening them?"

"Not.. as an end in itself."

"I know how the people around here talk. I know the gangs. I'm your best chance of not turning the place into a flashzone."

Empathic vision.. could guide me, but she might be right. I take hold of her left hand with my right and transition us into a empty… I'm not sure whether I should call them roads or not. Path? Whatever it is, I can hear noise up ahead. Rhythmic. Intimidating. And… The roof here is fairly all-enclosing and many of the locals can fly. Simply trying to flee isn't necessarily an option.

Under my robe I don my medium armour. Filaments would be the easiest way to extract them. But in low light conditions that might be spotted. Thanagar-natives have faster reactions than humans, and I'm not completely sure that I could extract them fast enough. Instead, I burrow filaments through the ground beneath us as we walk.

"This is… Bladebat's territory. He's just a thug. Did your minder give you any local currency?"

"I have fungible goods."

"Cringe, act like you're intimidated and offer to pay him off."

"Understood." I march in the direction of the noise. "Kara, I'm close by."

"M-hm."

Doesn't want to be overheard. Right. Two winged shapes on the building to our right, watching us. Shouldn't have seen us appear, but thanagarians have sharper ears than humans. They might have heard something-.

"Paul, those are… Man-Hawks. They aren't interested in money. They're cannibals. They cut off people's faces and wear them as an intimidation technique."

"Hey!" A pair of lizarkons turn into our path and head in our direction. "You come this way, you can pay toll!"

I make a show of ducking my head. "Yes, yes, of course. But, ah-." One draws a small particle pistol while the other has a pair of Nth metal knives. Minimal threat. "My.. friends..? They're up ahead and I'd-. I'd like to pay for them as well?"

"Show hands!"

I turn my rings so that the sigils are facing away from my palms, then hold my hands up. Bleez does the same. The knife-armed lizarkon takes a couple of steps closer for a better look. They have pretty good low-light vision, but unless they've somehow received a full intelligence briefing they're got no idea who-.

Filament lost.

That's… A minor problem, but something I should expect in a technologically advanced civilisation. Construct-effects are disruptable, and I'm sure there are all sorts of areas the Thanagarian military doesn't want Lanterns poking around in their capital.

The lizarkons step aside and gesture for us to advance, making a point of showing their teeth as they do so. I don’t smile, I don't nod, I just cringe a little more and scurry onwards.

 

21st January
19:42 GMT

Hector and Kara have been backed up against a wall, part of one of the giant support pillars holding up the city. Over their heads, scaffolding is built into the side of it, extending all the way up. I suppose that explains why they were noticed: that's probably the local's source of electrical power. This isn't one of the 'nicer' parts of downside. Confronting the misadventuring duo are six lizarkons armed with a variety of weapons, including Nth metal melee weapons. Not.. a.. bad place to loot, if this turns into a fight. There isn't enough of the stuff to build anything much, but the Nth metal trades for stupid amounts of money on the interstellar markets.

The leader of the group looks around as our escorts enter the small… Plaza? I doubt that this place was planned so much as left like this, but the word fits. Gun-lizarkon scurries forward while knife-lizarkon remains just behind us, close enough that if I was thanagarian he could stab me before I could fly away. Probably wise: there is locally produced body armour that can stop these weapons, but Nth metal would make a mockery of it.

"That's Bladebat."

The hat-wearing reptilian strolls in our direction, the fingers on his cybernetic hands retracting and being replaced by curved-edged knives.

"Meat want pay Bladebat? Maybe Bladebat take from hides."

"I don't want any trouble, Mister Bladebat sir. I'd.. just like to.. pay the toll for myself and my friends..?"

Kara looks relieved by my arrival, while Hector's faceplate obscures his expression. Okay, so what am I seeing here that disrupted my filament? Bladebat's cybernetics aside I'm not seeing anything especially sophisticated. The guns are a couple of generations old, and probably 'fell' off a military quartermaster's truck at some point. They're not wearing force fields. I try again-.

Filament lost.

What's doing that?

"Meat's friends make trouble. Meat pay big toll."

Ring, any obvious filament generating objects around here?

Nth metal powder is able to disrupt constructs. Area does not appear to contain Nth metal powder in the required quantities.

Downsiders use more physical currency than upsiders. Precious metal, of which I have plenty, and since its use isn't 'official' forging or.. striking, since the metal content is the same? Anyway, it isn't a crime. Problem is, while I have an approximate idea of what pre-digitisation prices were, I've got no idea what a hostage-taking warrants. Too little and he might stab me, which would be inconvenient as the whole point of this mummery is to resolve this quietly and peacefully, not with me beating his crew senseless with orange constructs. Too much, and he might decide to see if he can get more, because I'm seeing a lot of orange from him. Though… To be fair, it appears to have grown from desperation rather than naked greed, which is why I don't feel like being harder on him. Compared to the average Citadel officer he's not even really all that bad. It just happens that he's the bad in front of me.

"Ah… I'm not sure I can afford-." Weekly wage for someone in the hard currency era, adjust for inflation… I pull my right hand into my robe and take the combination of metals out of subspace before turning them into the required coins. "Is this.. okay..?"

I hold the newly minted coins out towards him, and he changes his left hand back into a hand to grab -ow- them. No, that's fine, just a little blood. I pantomime twitching in pain, but I can't tell from his expression if he noticed or cares. No, no real sense that he enjoys people in general suffering around him, and I'm already being meek enough to satisfy his desire to dominate. Bladebat checks the coins, running a blade across a few to check the hardness of the metal. They.. probably look a bit new, but since the value is tied to the price of the metal that's not necessarily a problem.

"What?" His attention's back on me. Cowed, not curious. "This is not enough!" Naturally. "Upsiders come to break our property, pay off with this?"

"I-I doubt very much that they were breaking anything, Mister Bladebat. We don’t-. We don't know the area. I'm-. They're very sorry for intruding-."

"Cost more, yes!"

Ah, alright then. Back into the sleeve, pull out half again-. I spot a Man-Hawk move into position above us. Hm. Not.. sure how intelligent they are. They're clearly altered from the thanagarian physical norms, and the lighting here is just about good enough to see the humanoid faces they've plastered over their own avian visages. Weird. Thanagarian materialism means that they don't see taking trophies from bodies as anything other than 'unhygienic', or perhaps 'irritating' when it makes identifying a body harder.

"Is this.. better?"

These coins are snatched, a few more scratches… A closer look inside him suggests that he is indeed satisfied. He might make-.

The movement is sudden as he punches me in the solar plexus, but not so fast that I can't double over to prevent him feeling that he mostly hit armour. He steps back, blade-hand switching back to fingers.

"Get out. Come back, Bladebat not so friendly."

The guards surrounding Kara and Hector lower their weapons slightly, and the two of them walk-. One snaps his jaws at Kara, who -taking her lead from me- makes a show of being alarmed. But the group lets them go. Alright.

Another Man-Hawk takes up position above us. And… Weren't there guards up there when I scanned it the first time? Yes, yes there were.

"Mister Bladebat sir? Are your-" I point at the closest Man-Hawk. "-friends.. letting us go too?"

"Friends?" He sounds genuinely mystified. "Just-" He looks up. "-go."

There's a brown blur as a Man-Hawk dives onto him, blood-

Secrecy over then. I bring my full power armour out of subspace and add construct armour for myself and Bleez.

-spraying out as it tears into him. One of his faster-acting subordinates takes a shot with a particle pistol. It hits and.. does no damage I can see. Then another Man-Hawk lands on the shooter with a screech.

And-. I can't look inside them. I suppose-

Hector raises his forearms and fires a blast from his forearm-mounted electrolasers at the second Man-Hawk. It staggers sideways a pace before reorientating on him and screeching again, which… Actually, yes, the flayed face does make it more intimidating.

-that might explain what happened to my filament.

"Kara." Another Man-Hawk dives at Bleez as the one which killed Bladebat leaps back up into the sky. Faster than it should be able to by muscle power. Nth metal, then? Sustained solid slugs from a railgun construct knock it aside and it slam into the ground. "Heat vision."

The Man-Hawk which killed the shooter leaps at me, talons outstretched! I take an x-ionised sword out of subspace, sidestep and slash, carving through its left leg and the left side of its chest. Solid slugs not achieving the desired results. Switching to crumblers would be good, but I'm not sure that I want the thanagarians to know I have that capacity. I form another railgun and have it track a Man-Hawk that has yet to make its-.

The Man-Hawk leaps and I shoot it repeatedly in the head. The leap turns rapidly into a tumble, and-.

And Kara flies up and punches it. She's not back to full power and it appears to have more than thanagarian toughness, but the difference between her force and its resilience results in a loud crack as it bends around her right fist and then collapses limply to the ground. Hector takes two shots at his opponent and then closes to punching range, his left fist smashing off the creature's stolen face and driving it back. A somewhat clumsy slam down with his right fist appears to stun it, and he flies back as it swings its wings at him.

The lizarkons have made themselves scarce, beams burning into the air as they fire at the Man-Hawks who are pursuing them. I wrap construct chains around the one Hector has beaten down, feeling it as something about it resists the orange light. Not strongly enough to break the chains if I exert myself, but I add metal chains anyway.

"Everyone alright?"

Kara nods stiffly, looking down at the Man-Hawk she struck as it tries to move the part of its body still responding to its brain. Hector nods as well, watching the sky for new threats. And Bleez-.

Thanagarian patrolmen drop out of the sky, their weapons trained on each of us!

 

21st January
19:45 GMT

"Drop your weapons!"

Same issue with the thugs. Their ranged weapons aren't much better, while their melee weapons are too good to take risks with. Ring, can we transition yet?

Transition unavailable.

And if my teleportation is barely Controller-safe, it certainly isn't regular people-safe.

I raise my hands and create submissively-folded wing constructs on my back as the thanagarian police fan out to shoot the downed Man-Hawks in the head.

"I'm sorry officer, but we literally can't. Silver Scarab's weapons are built into his armour, as are mine. And Kara's are built into her face."

A Man-Hawk dives from its perch on the support pillar, aiming at the lead patrolwoman. Guns are raised as soon as it moves, but it jinks and rolls to avoid their shots. I hear a muttered curse as the patrol begin lowering their guns to switch to melee-.

I sigh. If we're not trying to keep them alive…

I raise my hands and hit it in the chest with a destruction bolt. The front half of its chest vanishes around the point of impact, the bolt losing power as it spreads through the creature's flesh. Still makes quite a mess-.

The blasted corpse hits a wall and then falls back. Hm. Nth metal -the patrol point their guns at me and I ignore them- armour on the Man-Hawk. Looks… Thin, though. My destruction bolt punched a hole through it, and then annihilated a broader chunk of flesh behind the hole. And the bones-.

The leading patrolwoman steps between me and the remains. "Orange Lantern. You are not supposed to be here."

"I am here to learn about Thanagar's culture. These Man-Hawks are fascinating. Are you aware-?" A patrolman near my left shoulder in what probably looks like it should be a blind spot raises his mace. Without turning I raise my left arm and point at him. "Don't be an idiot all your life."

He doesn't lower it, but he doesn't raise it any further. I take out a runestone and point it at one of the now-dead Man-Hawks. A weak glow.

"Are you aware that the Man-Hawks are either created by magic or able to use it?"

"It's not my job to ask questions like that."

"Then find me someone whose job it is and get them here! The whole reason why the Thanagar Empire is tolerating a Lantern in its capital is that it wants my help with magic. And look at that!" I point to the corpse of the Man-Hawk Hector was fighting. "Local magic use. I can't help fix a problem if I don't know what the problem is."

"Wait." She flaps, rising into the air and… What, she's just hovering there. Communicating with someone out of eavesdropping range? That's not-. She vanishes as a teleporter activates.

Hm. Thanagarians have teleporters, but they're power hogs and not exactly quick. While there are species who use unsafe teleportation techniques for the sake of expediency, thanagarians take the time to do the sort of proper target acquisition that doesn't result in passenger pâté. That means an in-person report to someone important. Someone already knows that something squirrelly is going on.

But since there's no one between me and the Man-Hawk I partially disintegrated… I walk towards it, making a beckoning motion with my right hand. "Kara, how much has your vision recovered?"

"Enough that I don’t really want to use it staring at… What are those?"

"Man-Hawks." Bleez takes a couple of cautious steps closer, but doesn't seem any more eager than Kara. "Monsters that live down here."

"I don't suppose that you know where they come from, do you?"

"I think they're supposed to be some kind of alien? People down here usually try to avoid them."

"Silver Scarab?"

"I didn't bring my crime scene kit with me, but I'll take a look."

He sounds.. a little too into this, but I need someone more familiar with Nth metal use than me. And I don't feel like getting out of my armour with argumentative thanagarian police officers around. He grabs hold of the body and turns-. The part of the shoulder he was gripping tears free of the body and he stumbles back a pace before dropping it and taking hold of something better connected. He then turns the body over and takes a look at the armour.

"Badly made. I've seen Mom work Nth metal. She'd be embarrassed by this. Heck, I would. Too thin to be anything other than an ablative anti-handgun layer."

"Could the Man-Hawk have made it?"

He looks and notes the lack of forelimbs. The talons on its feet appear to have some grasping capacity, but… I generate a construct and try flexing them. They're for snatching prey, not for fine object manipulation.

"Maybe? If they could get hold of it. All I can really say is that it isn't converted military gear. Hey, didn't you make Nth metal armour for Superboy?"

"Nth metal heavy plate. He looks like a medieval European knight when he puts it on. It doesn't look anything like what a thanagarian would wear."

"Hm. The bones… They're reinforced. Some kind of metal, and I'm going to guess that it's Nth metal."

Kara frowns, still clearly revolted by the situation. "Don't.. thanagarians have that?"

"Trace amounts, maybe. These bones survived Orange Lantern's energy pulse, which normal thanagarian bones wouldn't. In thanagarians, the Nth metal is more noticeable around the nerve endings. Which I.. can't find."

Alright. Assume this creature is thanagar-native and has some evolutionary history in common with modern thanagarians… I generate a construct cut-away, showing the likely locations of the Nth metal structures which enable their flight and augmented physiology.

"Thanks."

"Wouldn't-?" I think Kara's looking despite herself. "Couldn't they do this with bioengineering?"

"While I'm sure the thanagarian government has attempted to augment its soldiers with Nth metal, any information relating to that sort of project would be highly secure. And the thanagarian military is competent enough not to let their failed projects loose. Though it.. would explain the faces."

Bleez does a passable horror heroine face. "What do you mean?"

"Maybe it's not an intimidation technique. Maybe they want their 'real' faces back."

"U-uh-h."

"I mean, you called them cannibals, but aside from the face-taking is there any hard evidence that they're-."

"Found.. something." Hector yanks his right hand out of the carcass, and bloody lump of.. something in his grip. "Does this look like a nerve cluster to you?"

Scan. "Yes. It's larger than it should be, assuming that used to be a thanagarian. That would explain the aerial manoeuvrability. But not why-."

The Thanagarian teleporter activates again, returning the patrol leader and a short, balding thanagarian in red clothing.

"Orange Lantern." His eyes flick briefly over the scene. "We need to talk."