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

24th January
20:40 GMT

Let's… Start with the parts I do understand. With all of these positrons being thrown around, I'm not surprised that primary power appears to be a matter-antimatter reactor. Secondary power provided by a model of bleed torsion generator I don't immediately recognise, but whose functionality is completely familiar. The source for the anti-matter… A minor planar portal, taking trace amounts of matter from the anti-matter universe. Bit of a risk -and it lowers the odds against this being a Qwardian facility somewhat- but not stupid-dangerous. In theory I could scuttle the place by widening the portal a little, but the design looks like it's only supposed to open at the atomic scale and I don't think it can be made bigger. If that's all whoever made this place had, then they haven't been shipping material back and forth.

Alert! Gravity distortions detected!

The generators are arranged around the edge of the central space. Main power is a heavily armoured unit in the centre of the floor, though the actual generator extends downward a way. The level I'm standing on is about a third of the way up the central space. A little above me… Ah. Gravity works a little differently up there. The robot armature globe in the upper portion of the space… Molecular fabricators flicker as parts redesign themselves mid… Whatever they're doing. Attempting to scan…

Error.

Error? What do you mean, 'error'?

Error.

Ring, explain the sorts of thing that could result in you reporting 'error' rather than giving a helpful answer?

Energy forms which defy analysis. Alterations in space-time which affect the systems this ring uses to detect anything. Artefacts which this ring's programming specifically instructs it to report as 'error'.

That better not be-.

Nonsensical results.

If I asked you which this was, you'd say 'error', wouldn't you?

That is the most likely result.

Not seeing any avarice. How about those gravity distortions? Is someone pointing a singularity weapon at me?

No singularity weapon found.

I take another look around. This looks like somewhere that has been left to its own devices for some time. Tiny amounts of dust have escaped the scrubbers and have built up in crevices or places where the limited airflow generated by the atmosphere processors deposit it. Atmosphere means that someone comes here on a regular basis. Or.. did. Because if it was supposed to be purely automatic there wouldn't be a nasty abrasive atmosphere in here, and if it was occupied infrequently they wouldn't bother having an atmosphere in all sections.

But… No, the station that was here was destroyed. This was built since. Why?

Alert! Gravity distortions detected!

Ring, you're not 'erroring' from the gravity distortions, are you?

No. Gravity anomalies are simple to detect and measure. It is possible that this ring reached an error state by attempting to analyse the source of the gravity anomaly.

Because if you could tell what it was then it wouldn't be an anomaly.

Correct. Alert was sounded because the source error.

Fair enough. Any idea what those robot arms are up to?

Armatures are engaged in dangerous materials analysis. Object error.

You can't make sense of what they're analysing.

Conclusion is compatible with observed data. However, confirmation is error.

They're analysing something that is making itself the centre of local gravity… But I didn't notice anything on the outside and… Gravity is more or less normal where I'm standing?

Ring, contact Lantern Stewart.

Unable to comply.

Can't FTL out, can't scan properly, can't talk to-.

I trigger my armour's fracture-pulse receiver. "Illustres to Lantern Stewart and Lantern Xor. Please respond."

…

"Illustres to Controller Hinon. Please respond."

…

Now, if this were a horror film, this would be the time to turn smartly around and leave. Thing is, I don't have anything more dangerous to bring to bear than me. So extra layer of construct armour, gravity stabilisation field, various other 'weird stuff suppression' constructs… What else?

Mm. Might be worthwhile.

FEED ME.

Orange light blazes out across the room and… That was a bit stronger than I thought it was going to be. Ring power… I have the rings display their charge as a dial and as I watch it visibly goes down. Not super-fast, but this isn't something I'm going to want to leave on. Should feed on just about anything… The metal around me is tarnishing. Nothing magic, nothing exotic enough to feed it.

I use my armour's flight systems to get closer to the robotic assemblage. Arms are still moving, none of them are pointed at me, none of them are purely weapons.

The closest begin to shudder as my rings eat their energy, the fabricators failing part way through their reconstruction. When their armatures lose power the devices don't fall down, they fall inwards and there's an audible clang and thump as they hit things on their way down. Or up or whatever. I point my hands at the mechanisms directly in front of me and the entropy effect intensifies, parts falling to pieces-

Which rather suggests that this isn't one of Devlos Ungol's facilities, as I haven't been shot by the internal defences yet.

-and crumpling inwards, giving me a clear view of…

A spherical force field containing a lump of blue metal with a cut segment of yellow cable sticking out of it. All told it would fit in a cube three metres along each side. The ends appear to have been.. fractured? Not cut or melted. Though the surface facing me is smooth. It doesn't appear to actively be doing anything.

Well, that was exciting. No Black Circle logos and no Mr van Wyck means that I've wasted my time. I mean… It's interesting that a chunk of… Machinery? Is doing that, but it's hardly something I needed to see now. And now I'm going to be late for John's attack. I shut down the ring's omnivore effect and drop back down to the gantry below, the robotic arms above me starting to work on repairing the missing parts as I go. I'll stick some monitoring devices in the area and see if anyone turns up. I should.. probably destroy the station as a hazard to shipping. Or at least spend some time destroying those guns so I can come back more easily. Or maybe if I find the central computer? Is it worth taking the time to-?

There's a flare of blue.. flame..? From my entry point and a powerfully built-. No, a humanoid figure in bulky white and red power armour strides through. Ring, sc-.

Error.

Oh good.

"Excuse me-."

The figure looks up, purple energy billowing-.

I'm already moving, construct thrusters appearing as his energy blast burns through the air next to me, scything through the machinery only to whiff on the force field protecting the fragment.

"A Lantern."

Room at the sides. I fly up and past the machinery fragment as whoever this is misses twice more.

"The wrong colour, but I'll take what I can get."

He lifts off the platform, slowly. The energy blasts… I can see space through the shot which missed the force field. I can't fly fast enough to get out of the interdiction area before he can get shots off. He doesn't appear to be a particularly good shot, so I might be able to evade his fire… Sub-optimal approach.

"Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?"

"I am Devlos Ungol-"

I form singularity weapons and fire them.

 

24th January
20:44 GMT

The gravitational distortion is such that I can't really see him, but he's definitely being hit. Though the space behind him-.

"-and did you really think that no one had tried gravity weapons on me before?!"

Ring, map of local gravitational effects.

Map available.

The wiggly lines clearly show the beams I'm firing at him, as if the effect they were having on local light wasn't enough to convince me. But he isn't being distorted, and the effect isn't affecting anything behind him either. Graviton siphon? I mean, I've never seen one -much less one integrated into armour- but this appears to match the description. I cut the beams off and dismiss the constructs and he rises towards the force field below me.

"Have you come to admire it?"

It.. presumably being the object in the shield.

"It's certainly unusual."

Ring, what was he firing at me?

Uncertain. Profile appears to match theorised Bleed-based energy-actualisation weapon.

Ooh. A weapon that spontaneously generates energy by altering the rules by which energy works. That's not fun.

"That fool Starkaðr had no idea what I had when he destroyed this place the first time!"

"Are you saying that device was here at the time?"

"Of course it was. It can't be moved."

I frown. That seems a little lazy. Shouldn't he have checked the wreckage? He'd have to have checked for life signs before attacking… "It is fairly large. And the equipment-."

"No, fool. It can't be moved. It resists every attempt to alter its makeup or location."

"Alter relative to what?"

And… Transmute air into… Pink Flesh Eater? It seems that the people of Tartarath were fairly literal in their description of high-lethality airborne diseases. No point altering the air composition; the filters will just scrub any gas.

"It moves very slowly relative to the nearest stellar objects. The Technons found it centuries ago, studied it continuously until they understood a fraction of its power and then used that knowledge to create my armour."

"Which you promptly used to butcher them."

"No, my revelation didn't happen for several days. And I would say 'massacred' rather than 'butchered'. I didn't plan to eat them."

"I apologise for implying that you did."

"Not because I have a moral qualm about cannibalism. I just wasn't hungry enough to have eaten more than one before the bodies putrefied."

"So mass murder is fine but gastro-intestinal upset? Unthinkable."

He floats up, and I'm careful to keep the force field between the two of us. He stops once he's level with me and settles for watching me across the force field covered area.

"Is this humour?"

"No, this is humouring. I don't know what's going on and I'm hoping that you'll tell me."

"Then why not just ask?" Ah. "If you're anything like the Green Lanterns then I know that you despise me, but did I ever attempt to conceal my purpose from anyone?"

"You accepted conditional surrenders and then broke the terms, so… Yes."

"Does it really count if I did it so often that they would have to have been fools to believe me?"

"Yes. Yes, that counts."

He raises his right hand and has whatever strange energies the Bleed is feeding him… Bubble for a moment. "I'm literally called 'The Traitor' by the people of the entire Sector. My purpose is to demonstrate that ruination and betrayal is the natural pattern for life to follow. If I tell people that I will betray, slaughter and pillage, how have I concealed anything when I actually do it?"

This is not productive. "What is it?"

"The most perfect energy draining weapon ever devised. Even the mighty knockoff the Technons produced cannot compare to the destructive capacity this holds."

"I didn't realise that you were a researcher yourself."

"I wasn't a researcher two hundred years ago. Today, I know that rendering down the universe is not simply a matter of throwing a fleet at a target. Spending decades floating in space with nothing to do but talk to my armour's computer left me with little room for anything else."

"I didn't think your species usually lived that long."

"This is the ultimate armour designed by my species' greatest technologists. If I died too readily then I would hardly be their ultimate warrior."

"Were the people who worked on you really stupid, or just blindly focused?"

"To this day, I have not been able to decide."

My eyes move to the device for a moment. "Where did it come from?"

"I have no idea. When I was fitted with this armour, I saw things. For a long time I thought it was an epiphany about the nature of the universe. Then, I wondered if it might have been an attempt to indoctrinate me by the Technons; one which by their standards backfired horribly. But the first time I saw this armour I felt such a kinship with it… I believe that it was a message from… Something or someone, associated with this armour."

"You're sure that it's armour?"

"What else could it be?"

"A ship's primary weapon? It's far too big for… Most species I can call to mind to wear. And too small for virtually all of the rest. Or it could be a tool."

"No. Something… I know it is a weapon, a piece of armour."

"The voices in your head tell you that?"

"The instincts I've had since putting on this armour, yes. I repaired this facility to try and learn more. So far it defies analysis. Could your ring tell you any more?"

"Not with an initial scan. I think that I'll hand this over to one of our more research-orientated Lanterns rather than try and study it myself."

"You study such devices? Do you believe as I do then, that nothing exists but pain and death? Do you seek to be an agent of universal destruction?"

"I'm struggling to imagine anything that interests me less. I'm a builder. I believe that the future will be better than the past, and I seek to create that future."

The purple bubbles once again rise from his hands. "Then I will kill-."

The wall behind him melts as Mister van Wyck launches his assault.

 

24th January
20:48 GMT

How did he even get-?

Telekinetically-excited flame-flesh leaps for Devlos, who fires a purple bubble-beam at it. The purple energy blasts through with no visible effort and Mr van Wyck is forced to frantically dart aside.

"Come to die, stranger?"

No, no, this location was on charts. It got destroyed once. There are other places he could have found out about it. Interesting that he was able to bypass the interdiction fields, but hardly astonishing. There are so few faster than light telekines that there is a proportionate dearth of countermeasures. In fact, all of the ones on file involve getting more telekines on the other side to work against it.

Mr van Wyck flits around to try and evade the purple beams. Devlos doesn't appear to be putting all that much effort into it, firing just enough to keep his foe in motion. Mr van Wyck attempts to block a shot with a flaming barrier, but that doesn't resist the purple bubbles of doom any better than his attack construct did.

"Are you-? Are you a pirate?"

And Mr van Wyck doesn't know what he's blundered into. Though I suppose that I should take it as a compliment that he attacked the other fellow rather than me. With the air drifting out of the station my attempt at a disease attack is now doomed to fail. Some diseases can cope with a vacuum but none of those are likely to be highly lethal to Devlos. And it looks like his armour is airtight anyway. Would a phasing-based attack work better? Phase through the armour and release the disease before he can trigger an anti-phasing defence?

"I am Devlos Ungol the Traitor! Murderer of billions!"

No, he said that he lived this long because of his armour. There are plenty of ways to integrate medical functions into armour, and most of them would neutralise it before it could kill him. It's sub-Ebola in terms of time-to-kill anyway, I just wanted to put him on a clock. Something that might kill him where the constructs of two veteran Green Lanterns clearly failed.

"But are you a pirate?"

Assuming there's a man in there, and it isn't just an AI patterned after him. Or a remote-controlled drone. The second would be out of character, but the first is a little more likely. And then there's whatever this force field is made of. In theory I should be able to FEED on it, but cocking about with the Bleed is one of those things I've been trying to avoid. Assuming that's even what is going on here.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Effigy."

Devlos fires two more blasts, then turns his helmet my way. "Is this some sort of joke?"

Beam singularities didn't work. But I can clearly see him. I generate a laser construct and fire it directly at his faceplate, but again there's no sign that any energy is actually being conveyed. I switch weapon, but the positron beam doesn't do any better.

"I'm-"

Vertigo inducers? Nothing. Sonic weapon? Nothing.

"-undecided."

Devlos negligently raises his left hand to destroy my gun construct. "What is this? A man already on fire and a Lantern who can barely make constructs? Has this region forgotten me?"

Barely.. make..?

I suppose he was beaten by people using the standard Green Lantern style. Maybe giant construct boxing gloves are the way to go?

A ring of hydraulic ram constructs surrounds him as he traps Mr van Wyck against a wall, construct columns ramming inwards. He jerks a little, then spins his entirely unencumbered arms around and slashes my constructs to orange vapour.

Hm. Did his armour just fail to absorb kinetic force? Or was he not paying attention, or..? Can it only absorb one form of energy at a time?

My one surviving ram hammers down on him again and he raises his hands to destroy it, apparently ignoring the psi-shock grenade I deposit next to him. It detonates and I replace it with another, rapidly creating additional rams with which to strike him and dismissing the ones he blasts at before he can destroy them. His movements are… Slightly less coordinated, but I'm still not really getting the impression that I'm doing him significant harm.

Mr van Wyck takes the opportunity to disengage, flying around the force field and the few remaining robotic arms to join me.

"Who is this?"

"Devlos Ungol."

"I thought he was dead."

"You and lots of other people. How did you find this place?"

"I went to the old Green Lantern's homeworld. Research, like you said. It's public knowledge that he came here so I thought I'd check it out."

Devlos glows purple, and all of my constructs around him fade.

"Is he a pirate?"

"He was the commander of the genocidal fleet the survivors of which became the pirates after he was apparently killed. I don't know what he's been doing since."

"Close enough. How about we try hitting him together?"

"His armour is absorbing everything and his blasts destroy any construct either of us send at him. Are you telepathic?"

"No?"

"Sometimes 'hit them really hard' isn't the solution. Can you make a hydraulic ram?"

"I prefer spears."

"Ragh!"

Devlos unleashes another surge of purple energy, then points our way. Purple arcs shit! I press myself as close to the force field as I can without quite touching it, and Mr van Wyck's flame constructs flare as he tries to dart after me. The shots Devlos sent my way either expend themselves on the force field as they can't quite follow the curve of its surface, or fly past and punch more holes in the hull. Mr van Wyck-

"Aagh!"

-takes a couple of glancing hits, flaming wounds appearing on his right arm and the right side of his mask. Devlos takes the opportunity to try flying up around the force field to get a clear shot at us, the glow around his hands slowly building up again. A recharge time?

"Effigy, move."

I fly down, forming railguns loaded with crumbler rounds and sending a filament in the other direction to try and drop off a psi-shock grenade. Small jet constructs form on the sides of my railguns as he tries to curve shots around to shoot them and I have to thrust them out of the way, but I get a clear shot-

"That fucking hurt!"

Mr van Wyck flies backwards after me, sending sheets of flame around to strike at Devlos. Devlos waves his left hand in their direction to shred them, but that does make it harder for him to shoot my railguns. Filament in place…

I detonate the grenade and begin cycling in replacements even as I move my railguns into line of sight and fire! Crumbler rounds slam-.

Right into a purple energy field.

"A telepathic attack! I wondered what that was!"

He turns his left hand towards my covert filament and destroys it with another purple beam.

"I've adapted. My mind is stronger than your weak weapons! Now die!"

I switch one of my railguns for a larger psi-shock grenade and detonate that.

 

24th January
20:51 GMT

Since he's in full power armour I can't actually tell whether that did anything or not, but I fire off another barrage anyway. Cold gun beams… Hit home, actually, but there aren't any outwardly visible signs that they're doing anything. Next come crumbler rounds and a somewhat hopeful mageslayer. The crumblers cause a very slight discolouration on the outer surface of the armour and the mageslayer does nothing at all.

"Who the fuck-"

Mr van Wyck takes a shot as well, to… No effect.

"-is thi-"

Accelerate.

"-ssssssss-"

Options. Fight or disengage? Destroying the station should remove the interdiction field. But Devlos already rebuilt this place once, and I suspect that the teleporter he used is either built into his armour or can at least be remotely activated. Which means that it wouldn't strand him here and we would no longer know his location.

"-ssssssss-"

I switch the crumblers out for x-ionised needle-tipped rounds and reach out towards the plant life in his body in an attempt to make it grow.

"-ssssssss-"

So killing him here is infinitely preferable. However, at the moment I'm down to my own exotics, the one magic attack I can perform on my own and… What? He's demonstrated that he can't affect the force field around the armour fragment. Touching the observable outer edge of the force field doesn't appear to do anything. Can I teleport him into it?

"-ssssssss-"

I doubt it, but just bringing him into contact with it should be a bit easier. I don’t think that my impact constructs were really driving him anywhere he didn't want to be. What does that leave?

"-ssssssss-"

Huh. Yes, that's…

"-guy?"

The x-ionised needle-tipped rounds spark as they strike his armour, but I don't see any penetrating. I'm getting a vague feeling from the plant life in his body, but I wouldn't want to swear that it's doing what I want. There are all sorts of ways to suppress that sort of technique, not least of which is to be so heavily cyberised that you don't have any plant life anywhere vital.

"Effigy, your FTL is telekinetic, yes?"

"Huh? Yeah?" He raises his right hand to the tear across his face. "Fuck this hurts."

"rAGH!" Another flash of purple and Devlos faces us once more. "Is that it, Lantern? Have you no more tricks to try?"

"Can you move objects other than yourself?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"His attacks destroy-"

Devlos darts upwards and fires another curved barrage. I pull back, throwing up both solid and ablative construct barriers as well as actual armour plates. His attacks burst through them, but his line of sight is blocked for long enough that Mr van Wyck can evade his shots without having them home in on him.

"-everything except the force field. I'm hoping it can nullify his weapon."

"'Hoping'?"

"I wasn't planning on meeting him either. Can you do it?"

"Not with him shooting like that. I need to build up to it."

Alright then. Still backing away from Devlos-

"You'll run out of power before I do, Lantern!"

-I generate new beam singularity projectors. The station has more than a few holes in it, but the armoured superstructure means that it's not in any real danger of falling apart.

Yet.

I fire, beams sweeping across the walls, neatly cutting the station in two. Immediately lights flicker as half the station loses its connection to the main reactor. Which is the one thing I don't want to destroy. Backing up further I get a clear shot at the upper part of the station-

"I’ll rebuild, Lantern. Wanton destruction is the natural state of all things!"

-and fire again. Disconnected parts of the station would be clanging against one another if there was any air to convey the sound. Ring, is FTL available yet?

Space warping is still unavailable. Transition is available.

Great.

So. Can orange power rings feed on Bleed-based attacks, the manifestations of energies entirely novel to this universe?

"I'll distract him, you slam him into it."

"What if it doesn't work?"

"We try something else. Ready?"

Flames coat his arms, and the ones rising from his head billow and waver. "Yes."

Let's find out.

Transition and FEED!

BaBUM

Devlos is firing shots towards where I was as I reappear behind him, orange light shining over him and… Yes, the colour of his armour's external surface is fading. Don't know if it's doing anything to the inside or to the man himself-.

He turns and I jink to avoid his first wild shot. I try directing the FEED effect towards it. Don't.. notice any difference, but I'm not going to tank a shot to check.

Warning: power reserves at 50%.

FEED ME!

Tiny tiny flakes of the outer surface of his armour fall away from the main mass, floating in the near-vacuum as the artificial gravity gives up the ghost.

I want that armour.

FEED ME!

I jink around two more shots, my area effect ability remaining active even as I transition out of the way, my mental acceleration giving me just enough time to evade. Still on a clock as I hit 45%. Any time, van Wyck-.

Devlos gestures and a purple-.

Space twists, flames materialising around Devlos as he's suddenly right in front of me and miles away. Space snaps back a moment later and the force field appears to undulate as Devlos slams into it. He freezes in surprise and his purple shield vanishes.

Not dying? Alright.

"FEED ME!"

His armour shines orange for a second.

"NYYYAAAAAAAGH!"

And I get a brief vision of the man inside as he evaporates.

 

24th January
21:14 GMT

I rotate the urn in front of me. As far as anyone knows, Devlos Ungol wasn't married. Though.. he might have been, at some point before he put on that armour. Records from his homeworld weren't in a great condition after the wars resulting from his empowerment. Given that he was perfectly happy to talk about himself, I imagine that was simply as a result of his personal information being classified when he volunteered and the widespread destruction, rather than any sort of precise cover-up. Certainly, he was never seen with a paramour or offspring afterwards. So I can't depict-.

"What's that supposed to be?"

I can't depict him with the family he had in life. Perhaps a.. shrouded outline?

"A funerary urn."

Obviously I can't wash or anoint his body, and… I never thought to ask what the alternative was when a physical body wasn't available. A wreath I can do, though exposure to vacuum swiftly leaves it brittle. Two Themysciran coins-.

"What?"

I turn my head to look at the clearly bemused Mr van Wyck.

"A funerary urn. When did you leave Earth?"

"Last October."

"Then if you've heard of me, you should know that I'm a Hellenist. The Themysciran funeral tradition-."

"Dude, there's no body. You can't bury anything. And no way's anyone mourning that psycho."

"I know there's no body."

The coins and wreath go into the urn, the wreath crumbling to dust as it brushes the rim of the opening. And I add the handful of organic Tartarathian cells I found in the wreckage of the station. They might not be his, but… I mean… If.. the rest died here… This can be for them as well.

"Souls exist. Ghosts exist. The performance of proper funeral rites prevents the formation of angry ghosts by promptly sending souls to an afterlife."

"Oh, you're making sure he goes to Hell." He shrugs, and I note that the damage to his face has mostly knitted itself back together. "I didn't think you did that sort of thing."

"Does he deserve to go to Hell?"

"Ah, yes? You said his fleet murdered billions of people. And he tried to kill us."

"His government trusted him enough to give him their experimental super armour. After putting it on, he decided to go on a universe-wide rampage. So either they didn't do any psychological screening, he faked it really well, or he-."

"Something was controlling him. Or… Messing with his head."

"It's a possibility."

Most of the tiny fragments of his armour that survived go in the urn as well, then I seal the lid over the opening.

"Or maybe he was always an evil bastard and the armour just gave him the opportunity to act on it. Either way, when I take this to Themyscira then Lord Hades can add him to the docket and find out."

Assuming this works. I don't want Mother of Mercy coming near that… Device.

"Huh."

I use constructs to attach the urn to myself. Shouldn't be any problem just taking it to Themyscira directly. I can ask Hades about Mother of Mercy's request at the same time.

"Orange Lantern to Controller Hinon."

"Any reason for me to stick around?"

"You don't work for me, Mister van Wyck. You're free to come and go as you choose. However, I recently gained a map of pirate hideouts. If you'll agree to put yourself under the command of the senior Lantern on-site, I'll include you in our operations."

"And if I don't?"

"You'll be limited to your own resources, and my own research shows me that the pirates are mostly using sites that weren't discovered immediately after Devlos Ungol's defeat. However, it is your decision."

He thinks for a moment.

"And what about afterwards?"

"I will probably suggest to Lantern Xor that he remain on semi-independent anti-piracy duties. If you have made yourself useful, I would invite you to join him. Your heart appears to be in the right place, but your lack of basic training is going to impede your effectiveness."

"I should probably check with my boss first."

I nod. "There's no real rush, b-."

"What have you done now?"

I smile as Hinon's face appears over my ring. "Devlos Ungol was alive. He's dead now, but his armour was made of something that made it proof against just about everything I could throw at it."

"Do you have samples of the material?"

"Yes, and the device his people copied to make it. My ring is having trouble analysing it."

"Well try harder. Honestly-."

"I'm getting error messages, Hinon. Devlos was using what my ring thinks is a Bleed-based energy-actualisation weapon-."

"The device, describe it."

"Blue metal with yellow cables. It appears to be stationary relative-."

Thirty metres in front of me space explodes in a surge of orange light as Hinon warps to my location, looking around in alarm. She raises her arms and the broken pieces of space station float away to give her a clear path to the device.

She hesitantly lowers her hands. "No…"

"Hinon?"

"Do you know what this is?"

"If I knew what it was, then I wouldn't have called you."

"It's a fragment of the Anti-Monitor's armour."

"Okay?"

She wheels to scowl at me. "Do you not-?" She stops herself. "No, no, of course you don't."

"I know that the Anti-Monitor is very dangerous, but how bad is a single piece of his armour?"

"It's not the armour. None of him is supposed to exist any longer. I thought we were-." She takes a moment to calm herself. "We should destroy this fragment, before the Qwardians hear about it."

"I'm not arguing. Do you need my help?"

"No, I need other Maltusians. Go, go and.. check the other sites. I'll call you back to watch once we're ready."

I nod. "Mister van Wyck, if you'd like to accompany me?"

 

24th January
22:01 GMT

Guy folds his arms across his chest and affects an expression of mock affront.

"What did'ja do this time?"

I look around what was until recently a largely empty region of space, which is now studded with the bright green lights of a Green Lantern Corps Honour Guard taskforce.

"I found Devlos Ungol and a piece of the Anti-Monitor's armour."

He frowns. "Dev-? Oh, him. I thought Abin Sur already killed him."

A faint pulse of orange light flies from my ring to his, and his eyes flash green as he absorbs my recording of the fight.

"Okay, guess not then. But what's with the 'management meetin''?"

He nods in the direction of the armour fragment, where Hinon and Jevek are deep in discussion with Herupa Hando Hu and Broome Bon Baris. Two Guardians leaving Oa is… Basically unheard of in the modern age. A blue-skinned male humanoid whom Hinon told me is Zamaron's representative floats a little further away. I'd like to have a word with him about the 'shooting me while on a peaceful diplomatic mission' thing, but I suppose that the potential reappearance of the Anti-Monitor does rather take priority.

"The Anti-Monitor is bad, very bad. They thought that they'd unmade him-." Is the Anti-Monitor male-? No, don't worry about it. "And it turns out that at the very least a piece of his armour survived. Quite aside from the issue of other people reverse engineering this piece or any other piece that might have survived, it might-."

"The Anti-Monitor might still be alive and kickin', right." He looks over to the Zamaron representative. "That chick looks kinda… Like a dude?" I frown at him. "Not sayin' there's anything wrong with that, just that alla the Zamaron's I've ever met don't."

"I was assuming that he was a man."

"Isn't their whole thing that they don't have any men? I mean… Hal had more contact with them than I ever did, but I sure don't remember seeing any skinny guys in the mission reports."

"I don't know. Last time I went to Zamaron they tried to kill me."

Guy smiles as something occurs to him. "Hey, you don't think he's 'the guy', do you?"

"The guy?"

"Yeah, you know. What they wan'ed Hal for. They don't like men but little Zam-" I close my eyes and bow my head. "-arons gotta come from somewhere, so they get one guy-."

"I doubt it very much. It's more likely he's the son of a Zamaron, and they contacted him to represent them here. He might not have even been to Zamaron. And I very much doubt that Lantern Jordan would have-."

Two flashes of light flare a little way from us as Stewart and Xor appear. Guy and I turn and raise our right hands in greeting as they approach.

"Hey, John. How'd it go?"

"Handed a couple of hundred pirates over to local authorities. Took their ships mostly intact, too."

"Oh yeah? How'd you manage that?"

John pulls a small object out of subspace-. It's a crumbler round. I smile.

"Knocked a hole in their shields with this and then breached their hull. They were falling over themselves to surrender." John crosses his arms across his chest. "I think there'll be a lot less piracy in this Sector-."

"-ridiculously simplistic and superstitious-."

I spot Hinon turn her head and glare Jevek into silence.

"Sector now." Stewart looks over to the five person conference. "We allowed to know what they're talking about?"

"The Anti-Monitor."

"That's the Qwardian God of Destruction, right?"

"Sort of. From what Hinon was willing to explain to me, he was some sort of eldritch monstrosity the maltusians fought a long time ago and was supposed to have been erased from the universe. Only we found some of his armour."

"Illustres, would you be so good as to join us?"

I nod to my colleagues as I float towards them, Guy's mildly reproachful stare following me.

The Guardians regard me with interest, while Jevek doesn't deign to look at me and the Honourable Member for Zamaron is more interested in the armour. Green-. Green? Yes, green wisps of light flicker around his outstretched hands as he tries to get the force field around the armour to respond in some way.

"My Controller. How may I help this august assemblage?"

Hinon raises her left hand, armour fragments floating above it. "How did you do this?"

"Orange light can feed on other energy sources. One of my techniques involves having it feed on everything around me. Once Devlos Ungol's protective Bleed… Shield thing was neutralised, I was able to drain it."

"Drain it of what?"

"Yes."

"What?

"Whatever was there. The technique doesn't require that I understand what I'm doing."

"Something I'm sure you find immensely helpful."

"Given that I was fighting someone who could perform limited physics overwrites, yes, actually."

"Please demonstrate for our colleagues."

"Alright, but you should probably stand back."

Herupa regards me patiently. "We are maltusians. We have been exposed to the glow for longer than there has been multicellular life in this Space Sector."

"Yes sir, you're packed full of nice juicy energy. That's why I'm suggesting that you back up."

He looks at Hinon for a second before returning his attention to me. "It may be that I am unfamiliar with some of the orange light's more sophisticated applications."

He and Broome warp back and raise a-. Ow, a blindingly intense shield. Hinon settles for floating back a little, Jevek watches me blankly and the chap from Zamaron raises a shield of his own.

FEED ME!

Jevek backs up at once, while the Zamaronian looks more puzzled than concerned. His shield fails, and he replaces it only for it to fail again. Then he backs up and recreates it once more. I wonder if I could get through the force field surrounding the armour fragment like-

"That's quite enough, thank you."

-this.

I shut it down, and the maltusians float back together. Hinon gestures at me while looking at the Guardians.

"You see?"

Broome's.. really good at looking creepy. "Yes. We agree that your proposed course of action is correct."

"That being?"

Jevek turns in my direction, his face still betraying no expression. "They wish to destroy this armour rather than study it. The dispute was over whether you could have defeated Devlos Ungol without Effigy. Among other things, we now believe that you could."

"Other than the obvious danger of the technology, is there a reason to destroy it?"

Hinon nods. "While we are uncertain as to how this survived, most of the possible models which we have conceived involve him having a way to claw his way back into existence from any anchor point. This would be one."

"In that case, for what it's worth… I think destroying it is the best plan."

 

25th January
01:32 GMT +3

Natasa nods as she takes the urn from me. "I will ask after the man whom Mother of Mercy spoke of. And I will of course treat this in the same way as I would any other funerary urn, but I am uncertain if this will… If it will work."

I smile and shrug. "I don't think anyone is. But… I don't control that. And I don't plan on re-enacting Antigone."

She turns away to take the urn to an appropriate storage shelf within the Temple of Hades. "Did you consider him to be an honourable foe?"

"No. In the few minutes that I knew him I began to truly detest him. He proudly proclaimed himself to be a traitor. He killed billions merely because he felt that wanton violence was proper."

"Then I suspect that Lord Hades will send him to the Punishment Fields."

"There is some question as to whether he was in his right mind, but… Probably. It's up to Lord Hades. My part is done."

She glances back with a curious expression on her face, then nods approvingly before continuing onwards.

I'm probably making Eris jealous, aren't I? I need to come up with something chaotic. Either that or man up and call it off. Whatever 'it' is at the moment. But the thing about Hades is that there isn't anything I want from him that I don't think he'd willingly give to me now. Having him as my primary deity doesn't get me anything… Apart perhaps from the aid of whatever shades feel like involving themselves in the world of the living, and even that…

Vulcan's unhappiness about being woken up late at night was forgotten the moment I handed him most of the fragments of Devlos Ungol's armour which Hinon was willing to spare. I don't know if they'll discover anything new, but magic is the one avenue of investigation which the Maltusian brain trust probably haven't tried. I've got to deliver the rest to Welsh John, see if his arcanist approach yields any better results.

But for now, my work here is done. I turn and walk out of the temple.

24th January
17:34 GMT -5

John Stewart looks up as I stroll into the bar. Guy notices him doing so and turns around on his chair, makes eye contact with me and waves. Martin creates a flame construct hand to wave for him and Xalitan doesn't really react as I walk over and take my seat. Guy's got some sort of construct book open in front of him, and takes a sip of his beer as he flicks through it.

"What's that?"

"One time, I asked Hal if Guardians ever had dick-waving contests. Guess I just found out." He dismisses the construct and looks at me. "Guardians have ordered me to start doin' research on techniques and stuff Green Lanterns used to do. See if I can recreate them."

"Sounds like you're getting more responsibility."

"Hey, I got to the top and I had to stop and it don't bother me at all. I don't want Salaak's job." He hesitates. "I was gunna say 'not for at least twen'y years'. But I actually don't think I'll ever want it."

"Is that stuff you can do on Earth?"

"I dunno, maybe? Probably be harder without other Lanterns around-." He cuts himself off, then looks around the table. "Yeah. Yeah, you could be onta something there." He leans back, smiling. "Have ta check with Chaselon, but I can probably swing it."

"Good show. Martin?"

"Yeah, I talked to my folks."

"And..?"

He shrugs. "They calmed down. You know, eventually."

I take a moment to check his injuries. The outward damage is completely gone, though I suppose there could be lasting internal damage that I can't see. "Anything from Jevek?"

"Think I'm kind of in the shit for not doing more when we fought Devlos." He frowns. "What was that they were saying about you being able to beat him without me?"

"They think my energy absorption would have worn him down in the end. Personally, I'm not sure he wouldn't have shot me first, so I'm grateful."

He doesn’t look much happier. "It's just… I got these flame powers and I figure… No problems, right? I can block bullets, fly through space, tear giant ships apart..? And then there's this guy and he's just shrugging everything off?"

"There's always a bigger fish."

He frowns. "I'm not fighting fish."

"I mean, there's always someone more powerful than you."

"Yeah." Guy nods. "Like us."

"Guy, can you… Not?"

"Not what?"

"Not Guy."

A breath hisses between John's teeth. "No."

"The point is-."

"The point is, it was your first job an' you had no training. You even know how your flame-thing works? What it can do?"

"Telekinesis? And burn stuff?"

"What stuff? How dense stuff? You got any idea how to disable someone without crippling them? Can you make tools like we do, or is it all burning shapes?" Martin just sort of freezes. "Does your telekinesis have t'be on fire, or can you do the regular kind? You threw Devlos inta the force field thing with a space warp. Can you do more stuff like that?"

"I dunno. I mean, Jevek-."

"Yeah, guy's a prize ass." Guy takes another sip of his drink. "Tell y'what. I need a test dummy, you need training. What's say we meet up tomorrow an' sort something out?"

"Ah… Yeah, okay. Thanks."

And now my student. Who is carefully holding a glass that is almost comedically small in his hand.

"Xalitan? Have you had any ideas about what you'd like to study next?"

"I think I need work. Just to fight, against a simple foe. A fight where I do not need to think, so that I can think on what has already happened."

"John? You need a partner for clearing out the rest of the pirate bases?"

John looks Xalitan over for a moment, then nods. "Sure. You up for that?"

He thinks for a moment. "Yes. I think Paul intends for me to perform the duties of a police officer. But fighting pirates is more like being a soldier. It is not complicated. It is a useful transition exercise."

"Okay. Tomorrow good for you too?"

"No. I will go today. I want to see what will happen to those we have already captured. I will undertake no new strikes until you arrive."

"Fine with me. Could try asking your ring, though. There's a ton of info on there about things like this."

"No. Words are not enough. I need to see actions. To see how real things happen. Not how they should happen."

"I'll read up on your homeworld. See if I can spot parallels to things you might run into around here."

Guy looks around the table.

"Done?" Nods all-round. "Alright, no more work-talk. How 'bout them Stallions?"

 

Encumbrance

Day 63
23:24 GMT +3

"Just to be completely clear."

I look at the…

"Hah."

The 'meddling kids', currently in the cell. Timothy 'Robin' Drake is bound hand and foot in solidly ring-welded metal manacles. No lock to pick or electronics to disrupt. Since I suspect that he's the ideas man of the group-. Ideas boy of the group, I've also given him a gag and a solid metal full helm.

Bartholomew 'Impulse' Allen is contained within a non-Newtonian gel I stole from the Trickster. The second one. The faster he tries to move, the more it resists, and it's designed to shift its molecular composition in response to any attempt to vibrate through it. He's got an air line, but… No, I can't think of any way for him to use that that doesn't just result in him suffocating.

LeTonya 'Cyborgirl' Charles is far simpler to contain. Physically removing parts of her motive systems leaves her paralysed more effectively than any number of chains or force fields. I've left them in a clearly labelled box upstairs so that they can be reinstalled without too much difficultly.

Kara 'Supergirl' In-Ze is being held within a cell lit with red sunlight. The material of the barrier is designed to block kryptonite radiation, and just outside that is most of the green kryptonite I have at my disposal. No risk to her if she stays put, quite a lot of discomfort if she tries to break out.

"This building does not have a self destruct. There are no explosives, gasses or traps of any kind. The absolute worst that will happen to you if you remain here is the mild embarrassment of Batman rescuing you in… Probably less than twelve hours. And if I don't see him moving in eight I'll phone him for you."

"Mrughtuh bluggermurghur."

"I'm sorry, Impulse, I couldn't understand that."

I frown. Misha should have gotten Nyssa a decent distance away by now, but I need to make sure that any superhuman pursuit is focused on me. And I've still got…

Three hours. Shit.

Oh, so I miss a day or two. As long as my corpse ends up somewhere she can find it-.

"We'll find you again." Ms Charles glares at me. "You won't get away with…" I raise my eyebrows slightly as she glances at her team mates, possibly expecting them to clue her in. "Ah…"

"I suggest 'your evil scheme'. It's sufficiently open-ended that it doesn't give me a clue as to what you might or might not know. Though… Since I know that you know that I'm trying to find Ra's al Ghul and kill him, perhaps you can afford to be a little more specific?"

"We know you were working with Luthor."

"I needed to acquire kryptonite from somewhere. We're not particularly close."

The League actually managed to arrest him not so long ago. He got away, but he got away extra-legally and so is cut off from-.

I frown. "Wait. Did you think I was sheltering him?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Goodness me, no. I don't think he knows where I live, I know he doesn't have my number and I'm.. reasonably confident that if he had either of the things I would want in exchange for my help he'd have offered me a deal well before this."

"Either thing? I thought you were pretty much the 'kill Ra's al Ghul' guy."

"My desire to kill Ra's al Ghul doesn't define me." I raise my right hand so that she can clearly see Master. "This does. And while I would quite cheerfully trade it to Lex if I could…" I smile. "No such luck."

Master's been surprisingly quiet throughout this whole encounter. I suppose that fighting such a diverse group gave it sufficient data that it doesn't feel the need to complain.

No further data may be derived from these subjects. The slave-animal will proceed to next objective.

Master, I have three hours left. That isn't enough time to pick a target, make an attack and make an escape.

An image appears in my mind, a wave of high pressure heading directly towards-.

Superman. Superman is coming right here. And that's a lot faster than he usually-.

"Excuse me."

I fly out of the cells, through the now-drained Lazarus Pit chamber and out into the night air. This Superman isn't Flash-fast, but he can motor when the need arises. What does he likely know? That Kara and the other children came here after me and aren't reporting in. I think I can manage a conversation with him before he starts swinging his fists, but… I strengthen my environmental shield.

The slave-animal will plot an attack strategy.

Master, he hasn’t changed since last time. And other members of the League are almost certainly heading this way.

The slave-animal will plot an attack strategy. If it does not, first stage punishment will begin.

Fine… I don’t know, kryptonite? I've still got some, and I doubt that he's become immune to it.

My vision blurs as Master magnifies-. He's flying here in a lead-lined suit. Pretty sure that a power ring can melt through that, and Master is still topped up from my fight with that gas cloud Green Lantern yesterday.

Hm. He should be able to see me now. I fly higher, and-. Yes, he's pulling up as-.

"Where's Kara, Anti-Green Lantern?"

He's glaring, arms folded across his chest in a gesture that… Just isn't as effective when he's wearing that suit.

"Below. In a-" I generate a construct image. "-containment cell, largely unhurt." He looks down, eyes narrowing as he uses x-ray vision to scan the area. A moment passes, then he gets the right building and his face relaxes slightly. "Could I prevail upon you to prioritise her rescue? I don’t actually want to-."

The slave-animal forgets its place.

Owowowfuckingow!



"Are you okay?"

What? I look up from my doubled-over position at his-. He.. looks genuinely concerned.

"No. I haven't been alright since I got here. I die every day, I'm encouraged to pick fights with people who really don't deserve it and Master tortures me whenever I start to disobey, and I don't really see any way to end it. Including death."

"The person who's making Lazarus Pits for you. They're the one who wants Ra's dead."

"A r-." Ugh. "A reasonable deduction. Say 'hi' to Batman for me."

"Look, there are people who can help you."

"No. There aren't."

"I know some people at STAR Labs. Why don't you swing by tomorrow and let them take a look at your ring? See if they can come up with something."

"I-." I frown. "I'm-."

Master? Is that allowed?

Yes. The inevitable failures of the pathetic animals may still provide data relating to this world's technological development.

"Thank you. I would appreciate that."

"What else are you planning?"

"I've got to rebuild a base of operations and make sure you people don't find it again. But I've.. been thinking… Wherever you've stashed Ra's, I'm not going to find him quickly. Perhaps Master might complain less if I fought a wider variety of this world's criminal element."

"If you're planning on killing them-."

"No. No. Not unless I have to. Ra's is a… Commission. I don't-. I hadn't been in an actual fight for decades before I got this-." I wave my right hand at him and sigh quietly. "This isn't what I wanted to do with my life. Can I.. go?"

"Sure." He nods and I being accelerating away. "I'll see you tomorrow."

 

Difficulty

Day 97
21:54 GMT

I grit my teeth against the pain as I watch the Justice League's wake.

Superman's… Dead. And not from an assault from Doomsday or Luthor finally getting lucky. From some sort of energy weapon built into the chassis of a robot built by the local Toyman. I actually.. heard about the attack while it was happening, but I didn't bother flying to Metropolis because… It was five people the League had handled before. And I'm a wanted fugitive.

The slave-animal will initiate an attack.

Haa-h. Owah-agh. Oh, that hurts. But I've sort of gotten used to it. Nearly a hundred days of sporadic torture will do that, I suppose. But there's still a limit, and I don't want to die any more now than I did during that first week. Or make someone else deal with Master.

"Anti-Green Lantern to Green Lantern John Stewart."

Master flickers as it opens a channel.

"Go ahead."

"Lantern Stewart."

"What do you want?"

"To pass on my condolences. Superman was a great man, and he'll be sorely missed."

"You've got a funny way of showing that you respect someone."

"Did you know that he talked STAR Labs into working on my ring problem? After your sidekicks tracked Nyssa and I down, he used the opportunity to reach out to me. To try and.. find a way to free me. That's not something the rest of you would have done. And I… Appreciated it."

"Okay. So why don't you 'appreciate' your way into a prison cell?"

"Because I'd be dead in seven hours. And Ra's al Ghul is still alive. Though if you ever find a way to fix this whole situation I will do my best to hand myself-"

Stage three punishment begins.

"-ughahahahaha!"

"What happened?"

"Master was.. less than impressed.. by my refusal to attack… Aaaaaaagh! To attack the Green Lanterns at Superman's funeral. It's… An even less fun. Ugh. Fun time to be me than normal."

"Hey, GL, can I just use this real quick?"

"Flash, don't play with-."

"Hey, Anti-Green Lantern, right?"

"F-flash. As I said to-."

"Yeah, I heard. But unlike GL I actually looked out of the window."

I look-. Ah. I wave back.

"So why are you up here?"

"I don't think there's a future in… Randomly mugging Green Lanterns for their ring-charge. With the Society of Shadows exterminated I don't really have much to do between deaths. I've actually had time to sleep, which is.. nice, but Master isn't.. satisfied."

"Can't really help you there. I mean, I'm sympathetic and all, but-."

"On the contrary. Master wants a target. You're a man short."

"Ah..?"

"I realise that I'm not.. really what you want. I'm certainly not Superman. But I can't take this-. Eurgh! This level of punishment indefinitely."

"Yeah, I… Get what you're saying. But you've killed a lot of people."

"No one I killed wasn't a serial killer themselves. Lantern Stewart killed while a marine and I'm confident that Ms Hol killed as a Wingman. Is there a moral distinction, or are you merely criticising me because I was very good at it?"

"Ah. J'onn, you wanna field-?"

"What are you suggesting?"

"You permit me to tag along when my assistance is required. I recharge by sparring with Lantern Stewart, or with such other Green Lanterns as want to learn how to fight Anti-Green Lanterns. Master gains data by fighting people you need fought. I comply with League rules of engagement for the duration of our working relationship."

"And what of your pursuit of Ra's al Ghul?"

"I would politely ask you if he's really someone you should be protecting, but the more work you throw at me, the less time I have to spend hunting him."

"That is not reassuring."

"You know my deal with Nyssa. She keeps me alive, I kill Ra's al Ghul. Working with the League won't stop my dying every day. Unless you've been sitting on a fix for the last ninety days."

"We have not."

"So? Do you want me outside pissing in, or inside-. Detaining people with minimal necessary force and handing them over to the lawful authorities?"

"Stand by."

The slave-animal will explain itself.

In-.

Ow. Ow.

"In short, you've caused me so much pain during our acquaintance that the threat of more doesn't have the same impact that it used to! And the fact that these people trip over more weird fights than I'll ever find on my own. Now that I'm resilient enough to withstand the punishment you dish out due to your own short-sighted programming, I can pursue a more rational path."

"The slave-animal does not make policy."

"It looks like I do now! You know full well that if you increase my punishment level I won't be able to f-function! Kill me and fly off? Great, I'll be up and about again in three days maximum, and there's a Green Lantern right there to hunt you down before you can reach a new wearer! I'm doing this, ring!"

NnnnnNNnnNnnNnNNnNnnnnNnnNn!

"…L? AL? Are you still there?"

I start breathing again as my body unlocks. "Yes.. Flash, I'm here. I apologise for my lapse in concentration. My ring is being unusually petty." No, usually petty. I just usually don't deliberately antagonise it like this. "Is there a consensus?"

"I wouldn't say that. But a whole bunch of supervillains are attacking Metropolis right now. So if you're-."

"Understood." I turn towards the planet. Metropolis is roughly there… I start flying towards it. "I'll be there in a couple of minutes. Please have Lantern Stewart feed me information as it becomes available."

"You should probably wait until the rest of us get there."

"I'm not going to rush into the middle and tell them to 'come at me', Flash. But civilians are dying now, and if I die? All you have to do is make sure that Nyssa gets the body."

"Ah, yeah? But you're also a wanted fugitive, and while I think it's great that you're rethinking the whole serial killer thing the police don't know about that."

"Okay, but if the police can't stop the supervillains who are already there… Why do you think they'll be able to stop me?"

 

Difficulty

Day 97
17:02 GMT -5

"Ah?" Mr Lawton looks up from the briefcase he's packing with paper money taken from a cash machine someone ripped open. "Oh hey, you're that guy with the Green Lantern fixation, right?"

A short way behind him, Volcana is sending a torrent of flames into an office block while Star Sapphire is taking shots at something I can't see. Kalibak is lifting a car over his head, presumably intending to throw it at the police forces forming a barricade down the street.

The slave-animal is to prioritise the study and acquisition of the Zamaron crystal.

As you wish, Master.

"I only hunt Green Lanterns in order to recharge."

"Whatever, man." He starts straightening out the bundles of notes to fit them in better. "Go find your own ATM. There's plenty-."

Armour forms around my body as a bolt from Master hits him in the chest, tossing him back and spinning him around.

"Professionally, I hunt assassins."

He recovers and raises his hand-mounted guns-

No useful data is derived from this fight. The slave-animal will engage the Zamaron slave-animal.

-and I fire a small bolt through each gun. He takes a moment to look at his ruined right armature.

"Well that's awkwa-."

I bring a bat construct down on his head. He goes down with a grunt, then groggily tries to rise. I suppose that I haven't really practised non-lethal options. And I'm not carrying handcuffs or anything like that. Master-.

I grunt in disorientation as Master generates a… A nerve jammer construct, a far more complicated device than I could hold in my mind without Master's… Help. Mr Lawton convulses for a moment and then collapses fully. He should be out for… A while, without much long term injury.

Thank you, Master.

"And who are you supposed to be?"

I rise up into the air until I'm level with Star Sapphire. No idea whether or not it's Carol Ferris under there, though the accent suggests not. Was there ever an English Star Sapphire? I don't remember. This one didn't really seem to be an intelligence-orientated supervillain so I've made a point of avoiding her. Under other circumstances, talking to her to discover her background might be useful, but the situation here is that supervillains are rampaging through a city.

I fire a bolt and she parries with a glowing violet shield before firing a beam at me from her headdress. I jink to my right and the beam flies past me-.

I hear the sound of breaking glass. Right, city I'm.. trying to protect. It's a novel thing to have to worry about. The Shadows didn't usually use heavy ordnance like that. She fires again but this time I add a shield to my armour and tank the shot.

"Green Lantern usually manages to fire back. Are you n-?"

I stick my right arm out to the side while my left supports the shield and send a bolt around in an arc. It strikes the side of her headdress-

"Agh!"

-and makes her wallow clumsily in the air, and I take the opportunity to surge forward-.

Lightning crackles around my armour, which insulates me completely from the attack.

"Hey, what gives?!"

I ignore Ms Willis for now and roundhouse punch Star Sapphire in the right eye. Her environmental shield appears to take most of the hit, but she jerks back woozily once more. Two more punches to the head and then I drop my shield construct to grab her around the throat, my right hand glowing as I reach forward-.

Her eyes focus for a moment and the gem lights up-.

I'm flying backwards, though my armour construct is holding against the force of the blast. I reinforce it as I try and catch sight of Star Sapphire, to spot whether she was actually hurt or just playing possum. Master-.

Bwougpf!

Something heavy hits me and then I'm surrounded by fire and pressure. I focus on my armour and on gaining height and I swiftly rise above-.

Kalibak's second thrown car sails underneath me to his evident disappointment. I reach out with my right hand, generate a large hand construct, catch it and slam it down on him! The car comes apart as it hits his head and he barely grunts, and the ignition of the fuel from the petrol tanks apparently doesn't warrant any more of his attention. Okay, I can dodge cars, and this area should be evacuated sufficiently that-.

Bolts of energy slam into my armour, though some go past me into the night sky. Looks like punching her did some good. And there isn't anyone to hit if she aims at the sky. I surge again, moving in a tight arc to a position directly above her, then I surge downwards, construct bat in hand. She spots me, eyes wide, about half a second before I slam it directly into the jewel on her forehead. Her environmental shield wavers and she collapses bonelessly towards the ground, striking the tarmac and rolling in an uncontrolled tumble until she stops, unmoving.

Good enough data?

The abilities of the enemy slave-animal were pathetic.

I drop down, thrust my hands through her blinking environmental shield and pull off her headdress. Her costume immediately begins evaporating, replaced by a white business blouse and calf-length skirt.

And as I look at the Star Sapphire jewel for one glorious moment I imagine putting it on and being freed of Master's influence permanently.

No. I wince as my armour -which apparently had decayed into nothing as I stared transfixed at the jewel- flares back into existence just in time to block the column of fire spewing forth from Ms Selton's hands.

"Back off."

"Her environmental shield is off. I can take this. She can't."

The fires fade, flames limiting themselves to dancing around her fists. "I thought you were a serial killer."

"I'm a bounty hunter. The commission was for 'dead'."

"What, did Metropolis hire you?"

"No. Superman did me a favour. I'm repaying-" She winces. "-it. I assume that you don't-" My construct fist grabs Mr Doe out of the air and squeezes until I hear his ribs snap. "-feel the same sense of obligation."

"No education, no records, and the people who did everything to me got away with it."

"Do they live in Metropolis? Do the people who let them go live in Metropolis?"

"Ye-."

"In any of the buildings you just torched?"

"Ah, probably.. not."

"Then what the fuck are you doing? If you were attacking the actual people you wanted dead I'd get it, but you're attacking people you don't even want to hurt? The fuck is wrong with you?"

She.. doesn't appear to have an immediate response.

"Shut the fires down and maybe I'll forget that I saw you."

Right. Now for Kalibak.

 

Difficulty

Day 97
17:05 GMT -5

Kalibak flares his nostrils expansively as Ms Selton sprints down a side street towards a burning building. His eyes then shift to the fallen Star Sapphire and Mr Doe.

"Pathetic."

For a moment, Ms Willis looks a little less confident. Then she recovers with a jaunty smile, electricity crackling around her fists. "You want first crack at-"

Kalibak's right hand twitches, and a manhole cover embeds itself in the armour covering my face. I surge left across the street and he slams into the space I was standing, the road surface cratering around his fists and the shock cracking the tarmac all around him!

"-him? Oh, guess you-"

Construct shields block the chunks of concrete Kalibak hurls at me.

"-do."

More electricity arcs my way, once again failing to make contact. Didn't she used to be able to control all electronics in Metropolis? No, not important. Weak to water, and any modern city has gallons of the stuff a little way underground in pipes and hydrants. Kalibak-.

His right fist crushes my construct shield and I back up again, an energy pulse fired at his eyes merely making him blink hard as he barrels forward! I create a frictionless construct beneath his feet as I evade once again, and he-

"Ooof!"

-falls on his face. Okay, I think Ms Willis is the larger threat to the city. Master, locate water pipe.

Data available.

I blink, and green lines showing me where pipes lie under the road appear in my visual field. Good show. I fly at Ms Willis as Kalibak picks himself up, surrounding her with a bubble construct before she can transubstantiate.

"Let me out!"

Her eyes go white as her body is surrounded by electrical discharges, turning the inside of my construct into a plasma ball. Which is an apt comparison, because if-

Bullets ping off my construct armour. I ignore them.

-she puts enough power into it the air in there will turn into plasma, and there's a distinct limit to the level of plasma pressure I can contain. Hydrant, hydrant, there! I-. I don't slam her into it hard enough to rupture the metal, but instead use her to block a lump of masonry as Kalibak renews his attack. The construct cracks-

"Yeah! Like that!"

-while I open the hydrant and connect a construct hose to it before sticking the nozzle end of the hose into-

"yAAAAAGHH!"

-the construct bubble. Ms Willis shakes violently for a moment as if being electrocuted, then slumps bonelessly to the bottom of the bubble. Hm. It should be possible to contain her by keeping a small portion of her body in water at all times-. Not relevant. I never found out exactly how long she stayed unconscious for, earthing her just gives her an escape route and given how wildly she can arc I doubt that a Faraday cage would achieve much. Just dump-?

Kalibak slams into my armour!

"And now I have you!"

He grips the construct armour around my head, which immediately begins fracturing! I focus on it, dropping Ms Willis to the floor as I stop focusing on her prison. Water sprays across the street as-

"Rrrrraaaaawhh!"

-Kalibak exerts himself. Okay, Kalibak, weaknesses. Superman. Not helpful. Radion. Master?

Data not available.

Ah… Looks like he's breathing-.

Splitting focus unaided with a green ring is not a good idea, and the difficulty involved probably explains why John Stewart likes to keep things simple. Master?

An image of a suit of Qwardian power armour appears in my mind along with a simple hose.

"Ugh."

Kalibak grunts as he tries to squeeze the now far harder plate armour, his fingers barely making an impression. In the meantime I get the hose construct into position…

And clamp it over his mouth.

His eyes boggle as high pressure water roars down his throat, displacing air as it fills his lungs. My construct over his mouth and nose prevents him from clearing his airways, and while I don't know how often he usually needs to breathe this isn't a matter of just holding his breath. He's got no air in there to hold onto. With growing desperation he gives up on squeezing and just grabs onto the hose with both hands, falling off me and onto the street as he tries to pull it off him. It takes him a moment to achieve his objective, then he rolls onto his front and starts vomiting up water in a frantic attempt to clear his lungs.

So I restore the hose construct, shifting position as he reels back and shooting him in the eyes to try and keep him distracted. Yes… Working. He's still trying to get the hose off but his tugs are weakening. Keep it up…

Kalibak, son of Darkseid, collapses back onto the pavement.

I have Master count a full minute before removing the hose and hoiking him into the air and letting the water run out.

Huh.

I look around. Windows and vehicles are smashed and a few buildings are going to need structural repairs… There are probably bodies in there, but I can't hear any more explosions. If this is all of the supervillains who were taking part in the attack -barring Ms Selton- then paramedics and other aid workers can get in there now.

Master, location of nearest-.

Another round of bullets ping off my construct armour, and I turn to see a Metropolis SWAT team laying down suppressing fire at me while one of their colleagues brings up an anti-armour missile launcher. Looks like the League hasn't managed to reach them. I pointedly raise my hands, construct reaching out to pick up each of my fallen foes in turn.

They fire the missile anyway, but I block it with Kalibak so no harm done.

"Excuse me! Do you have the facilities to hold these people?!"

They freeze in apparent confusion, but I see someone with a corporal's markings activate their radio.

"Maybe I should take over from here?"

I look left-.

"Superman?"

My charges fall to the ground, and I'm only just able to react to get a crashmat construct under Star Sapphire. Superman… Is… Now sporting a beard and.. decidedly barbarian-looking clothing, complete with a sword strapped to his back.

I don't-.

The slave-animal will gather combat data on the kryptonian.

No. I won't.

"I'm a little surprised to see you here."

"The.. League will be here shortly, it was just.. quicker for me. And I.. do owe you for your help. But-" I glance at the police position as Margaret Sawyer cautiously comes forward. "-it.. might be best if I do let you take over." He nods. "I'm.. glad that you're not dead."

"You and me both." He looks around at the damage and sighs quietly. "I don't suppose I could talk you into sticking around to help with repairs, could I? I know you've already paid me back-."

"Yes. Yes, of course. I didn't-. This isn't quid pro quo, when you died… I worked through the pain to.. be able to do this. I don't want to.. go back to.. how I was living. Whatever you need, I'll do it."

He smiles. "I'm glad to hear it. I'll settle things with Maggie, and then… I've got some business to take care of."

 

28th January
07:33 GMT -5

Kon gives him a nervous smile as Match's eyes start to focus, and I notice that his sclera are now white rather than black. I'm a.. little nervous, given what happened last time we had Match in this position.

"Hey… Kon-El." Match blinks in surprise at the sound of his own voice. "I.. know who you are."

"Yeah. We thought it would be a good idea-."

"I attacked you." Match's eyes move away and he frowns. "I think… And-" His eyes focus on me. "-you, you were there."

"Ah… You remember that?"

"Yeah. I don't.. remember why. Oh."

"What?"

"Cadmus messed up with making… Me. So my brain chemistry didn't work right and I was angry all the time. And I.. know that, but I don't…" He looks around at the room rather than the people in it. "This is Superman's Fortress of Solitude. No one.. told me that. So how do I know it?"

Kal-El takes a step forward. "While we were fixing your genetic damage, we thought it would be a good idea to make sure you would know what was going on when you were well."

"Oh." His frown deepens. "Huh."

"You remember anything else?"

Match's jaw tightens. "I remember the tank."

Kon nods, grimacing. "Yeah, you and me both. Anything other than the tank?"

Match's face stills, then he shakes his head. "No. Am I.. supposed to?"

Kon shrugs. "The genomorphs programmed me with a bunch of things. I thought maybe they did the same with you."

Match frowns again, eyes narrowing as he concentrates. "I think… Pictures and… Voices? But it's all… Really unclear. Like a buzzing or.. something."

I nod. "Given your state of mind, it isn't surprising that the programming didn't take."

"What were they programming me to do?"

"Probably the same thing they programmed me for. To be a Superman they could control."

Match blinks again, then focuses his gaze on Superman. "Superman's taller than me."

"For now, but-." Kon cuts himself off. "Jor-El? Match is gunna keep growing, right?"

"Match will continue to grow normally, and will probably grow to be approximately the same height as Kal-El."

"So I was supposed to.. grow into it?"

Kon frowns slightly. "Does it bother you?"

"No, I'm… Just trying to make sense of… Stuff." He looks around our little group again. "Can I get up?"

Kon blinks in surprise. "Ah, yeah, sure." He holds out his right hand and Match cautiously takes it, allowing himself to be pulled into.. a…

Oh… dear. Alright, he's basically a few hours old. I wasn't expecting a great depth of emotional depth. But there's… Nothing. Not even the 'be like Superman' drive Kon had. The knowledge Jor-El programmed him with is… Probably there, but I can't see it because it isn't connected to anything. It's not even at the level of hearing a news broadcast about people you've never met; that sort of thing triggers a weak empathic reaction.

Okay, none of that is a total surprise. Krypton used this system for programming soldiers, not for creating complex, well-balanced individuals. And even for telepathic intervention, creating attachments usually requires there to be attachments first. But as a wise robot in Isaac Asimov's stories once said, people often disproportionately value ideas merely because they were the ones who came up with them. He will come to value things eventually, there isn't a-. No, there is a simple, orange light based fix, but I'm not going to do it unless it turns out that he can't learn to value things.

Kon half-turns towards us. "Do you know who everyone is?"

Match nods. "You're Kon-El, Superboy, but… Brother? We were both made by Cadmus, but you're… Half Lex Luthor?"

"That's right."

Match turns to Kal-El. "Superman. Superhero. Based in Metropolis."

Kal-El nods encouragingly. "That's the Cliff's Notes version, anyway."

"I'm a.. clone of you. Is that… Important?"

Kal-El shakes his head. "It's only as important as we choose to make it. I didn't.. react well to finding out about Kon-El, but I've had a lot of time to think things through since then."

"So it is important?"

"Ah…" Huh. It's actually not making him uncomfortable, he just isn't sure how to answer it well. "Having a child and raising them properly is a big responsibility. And it wasn't one I was prepared to have dropped on me like that, particularly… If I hadn't been there from the start."

"I'm not your son. If anything, I'd be your brother. We're genetically identical."

"… True, but if I had a younger brother your age I'd-." He pauses, probably rethinking what he'd been planning to say. "I'd want to be involved in his life as well."

Match… Sort of nods, as if he isn't sure what to make of the statement. Which he isn't, as what programming Jor-El gave him only explained familial ties in the abstract. His eyes move over to me.

"Paul, the Orange Lantern. Superhero."

"An Orange Lantern, these days. Nice to see you up and about."

He nods, not sure what to make of me. Or… Anything else.

"M'gann M'orzz. Miss Martian. Superhero."

M'gann smiles broadly. "Hi. How are you feeling?"

"Disconnected. Like… I know who you all are but not what that means. Or-. No, it means that I know you from my programming and not from interacting with you, but I don't know… What the difference would feel like."

"Do you want me to show you?"

"Ah… Yes?" He blinks. "Oh, not-. Not with telepathy, not right away. I think I should… Learn how to do that for myself."

M'gann nods and Match turns his attention to Kara.

"Kara Zor-El. Kryptonian. I don't think you're a superhero."

"That's because I'm not."

"Um." He looks around the group again. "I think… Most of the people I know about are. So… How come you're not?"

Kara looks away for a moment. "Because I've only been on Earth for a few months. The whole idea of someone… Being so much more powerful than everyone around them, and using their powers like that… Isn't really something I've gotten used to yet."

"Oh." He considers her answer for a moment, then files it away. "And you're my… Cousin? Aunt?"

"Something like that. Clones don't quite fit normal family relationship models."

"No." Match nods. "I see that. So… What happens now?"

Kon smiles warmly. "Since we actually had time to plan for this, we've got a few different options for you, about where you could live, and go to school… Things like that."

Match nods in a slightly disinterested way. "Okay. So what are they?"

 

28th January
08:11 GMT -5

Kal-El and I watch from the other side of the room while Kon and M'gann use one of the Fortress's holographic displays to teach Match about Earth. Inefficient, of course, but the social interaction is really more the point. Last time I spoke to Dubbilex he told me that they were still doing trials on telepathic education, but that would probably end up being the best thing for Match. Kryptonian clone soldiers didn't get complicated concepts programmed into them, and those who transitioned to civilian life later on were stuck learning things the analogue way.

"This is going about as well as could be expected."

He nods. "He's less assertive than Conner was."

"Kon was designed to be obsessed with you. That part of Match's programming never took."

Kal-El frowns faintly. "Was he different with the rest of you?"

"He was.. obsessive. Frustrated, snappy, because he wasn't getting the attention he was desperate for." I shrug. "But he wasn't fixated on us. That… Earnest desperation you saw, we didn't get it."

He nods. "And what's your super-vision telling you about him?"

"You're asking me that?"

"I can't see into people's souls. Sure, I can see more of the electromagnetic spectrum than humans can, but as far as telling what people are thinking goes, that… Only really shows me whether they're emotionally aroused at all based on how their arteries dilate or contract."

"You can't see their brain activity?"

"A little, but that's even less accurate. I'm not a telepath, and a particular area lighting up can mean a whole bunch of different things. To be honest, I'm better at telling what people are feeling based on the stresses in their voice when they talk."

"I'm seeing barely any emotional light, which is what I'd expect. I'm not worried that he's going to go berserk again, but I consider it likely that he'll continue to be like… This for a while."

Kal-El nods again as Kara walks in from the kitchen with… Some sort of transmuted Kryptonian breakfast pastry in her right hand. Turns out that the Fortress has a kitchen, though without access to the chemicals it needed to recreate Kryptonian food Kal-El had been limited to Earth food until Kara expressed an interest. She looks at Kal-El's face, focusing on his visible bruises. "Are you going to tell me how you got those now?"

"A woman named Karsta Wor-Ul-."

"A kryptonian woman. On Earth?"

He nods. "Yes, though I.. don't know how long she's going to stay."

"How did she get here?! Where did she come from?! If she-. If she survived, there could be-" Kal-El's already shaking his head. "-others..?"

"'Karsta Wor-Ul' as in 'Sub-Commander Karsta Wor-Ul', of the Kryptonian Stellar Navy."

"The.. navy..?" Kara frowns. "We haven't had a navy since before isolationism."

I nod. "Yes. You didn't..? Cover her in history class?"

"My history classes always focused more on ancient history. How our society formed, why we should avoid-" She glances at me and then M'gann. "-aliens."

I nod. "They stopped teaching events and started teaching goodthinkfulness. Of all the sins Krypton was accused of, I had thought that intellectual dishonesty was one it would avoid."

"It wasn't like history was censored. Anyone could take a look through the archives. And you can't teach all of thousands of years of history equally and thoroughly in a few hundred hours. Something had to be the focus."

"And they skipped the events which caused modern Kryptonian society to have the form it did?"

"How would I know?"

Oh. Yes, I suppose.. by definition she wouldn't. "When the Science Council came to power, they ordered the fleet to return to Krypton in order to be permanently stood down. Karsta Wor-Ul was the leader of a group who went AWOL rather than spend the rest of their life on Krypton."

"That was… They've been on Earth all this time?" She takes in the sober expression on my face. "No. Just her?"

"I'm not sure exactly how long she's been here. At least eighty years. She owns a small farm but don't go looking for her." I turn to Kal-El. "Kal-El, did you actually… Talk to her?"

"A little." He sighs. "I know you said that looking for her was a bad idea-"

I gesture to his face with both hands.

"-but I couldn't let an opportunity like that pass me by. What did she tell you? Assuming you're willing to tell me now."

"If she isn't heading off Earth as soon as she can repair her ship now, she's probably decided against leaving. And since you know where she's been living there isn't much point holding anything back."

I look over to where Kon and M'gann are showing Match images of Happy Harbour. I'm.. not sure that a normal school is a good idea, not until his social skills are up to the level of a teenager of his apparent age. Then again, I'm not sure how people have failed to realise that Conner Kent and Kon-El are the same person.

"There were originally twenty or so marines with her. One by one they started getting killed… Which isn't all that surprising, given how unpopular the Kryptonian Stellar Navy had made itself in some places. So she decided to hide out here, on the grounds that the locals look like kryptonians and that the sun is yellow. When Kal-El turned up she decided to stay, as anyone looking for kryptonians would go after him first. But now that people have started to spot her…"

Kara frowns. "Where else can she go with a yellow sun where the locals look like kryptonians?"

"Several of the worlds of the Thanagarian Empire would work. Maybe Tamaran, if she didn't mind using body paint." I look at Kal-El. "Did she add anything when she spoke to you?"

"A long list of members of House El whom she held responsible for the destruction of our species. I didn't realise how small a minority my father was in."

Kara nods. "Oh, definitely. Most people thought Uncle Jor was a crank. It.. took a long time before even my dad was willing to listen when Uncle Jor tried to convince him that Krypton was unstable."

Kal-El shakes his head. "I still can't understand why that happened. Scientific data is reproducible. Why weren't other people able to replicate his results?"

Kara shrugs. "Scepticism regarding scientific reports isn't a phenomenon restricted to kryptonians. Humans have had space flight for over fifty years, and some of them still think that their planet is flat."

"Even so, shouldn't there have been other scientists looking at the same data? The ruling body of Krypton was the Science Council."

"The same Science Council whose main manifesto commitment was to isolation. The same Science Council who shuffled Krypton's alien population off into ghettos. Don’t let the name fool you, Kal-El."

Kara looks away, shrugging. "That… I don't know. If you'd asked me at the time, I would have said that I assumed that other people looked at the data and came to different conclusions. And… Now…" She shakes her head. "Maybe they said that the seismic activity could be explained by.. a natural response by radioactive elements in Krypton's core to our use of.. force fields, or… Our historical use of exotic matter, or... Something. And the Science Council would accept that, because it would be an explanation which fit their preconceptions and it fit the evidence that everyone could see. And Uncle Jor couldn't get better evidence because he was getting frozen out of Science Council assets."

"But, surely-."

"We don’t send people on arctic surveys if they express an interest in seeing the great ice wall which stops the ocean running off the edge. Heck, the people who proved that stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria and not stress couldn't get published until after they deliberately infected themselves. And couldn't get research funding because pharmaceutical companies were doing perfectly well with their palliatives."

Kara nods. "Eventually, people would have come around. When other researchers found evidence that the official model didn't support. But that takes time, and…"

He nods. "Krypton didn't have time."

"To be fair, he probably did sound like a crank. It's easy to see the right answer in hindsight."

He sighs, then looks at Kara. "Any plans for the rest of the day?"

 

28th January
08:53 GMT -5

Barely visible beams of red trace lines through the air, each one striking the centre of one of my target constructs.

"Hah!" Kara slows her flight, smiling as her eyes simmer down. "I hit every one this time!"

I shake my head. "No, you didn't. Also-."

The rock-crusher construct I've had chasing her finally catches-

"Huh?"

-up with her, momentarily enveloping her feet before trying to crush the rest of her and decaying to orange mist as it fails against kryptonian resilience. She watches the mist decay for a moment until she's sure that it's not about to reform, then returns her attention to me.

"You stopped moving again."

"What do you mean? I hit-."

I extend my left arm sideways and make a beckoning motion, reeling in the target I generated a couple of miles away. She frowns as she focuses on it.

"You missed this one."

"How was I supposed to see-? Oh."

"You now have the ability-."

"I know, Kal explained it. Microscopic vision, telescopic vision and heat vision."

"And you can see a wider part of the electromagnetic spectrum. As a civilian, you could probably live your entire life without needing heat vision. But unless you spend the rest of your life with a blindfold, you do need to learn how to focus on things, and how to do so without incinerating them unless-"

She nods. "Unless I mean to."

"-you mean to, yes." I generate a dozen targets around me. "Ready to try again?"

"Can we do it without the rock crusher this time?"

"That was just to give it a sense of urgency, but… Alright."

I send the target constructs out in all directions, making sure that they end up at different elevations and directions. I also alter their sizes in an attempt to throw off her ability to judge the distances a little. Kara's eyes dart around as she tries to follow them, then she squeezes them shut with a wince.

"Problem?"

She opens them again, blinking, and I notice that her pupils appear to be slightly dilated. She blinks again and… No change.

"I think I'm stuck."

"Stuck?"

She holds up her right hand in front of her face, then moves it in and out. "I can't change my focus. I can see things a couple of miles away as if I'm standing next to them, but anything closer or further away and it's just a blur."

"Okay. Um." I fly up to her, looking into her eyes as I do so. This never happened to Kon. Of course, his magnification isn't anything like as good as that of a full-blooded kryptonian, and he hasn't been dosing himself with gold kryptonite on a regular basis... "Okay. Shouldn't be permanent, but I'm going to try scan-"

There's a flicker of red.

"-ning-."

I can smell the burning just as I get my construct shield up, the laser from her eyes deflecting up into the sky!

Kara squeezes her eyes shut. "Sorry! Sorry." … "Are you okay?"

"Yes. May I ask why you just tried to incinerate-?"

"It was an accident! I was just trying to-. Unstick my eyes and I-. Pushed the wrong button!"

Ring scans don't detect any unusual escaping heat from around her eyelids. "Is it off now?"

She tilts her head back and opens her eyes, twin beams of ruby red failing to burst forth from her pupils. She gives it a moment and then tilts her head back down to look at me, her pupils moving normally.

"Okay, let's just assume that was a minor cramp thing and move onto a different exercise." I dismiss my target constructs and generate a brightly glowing punching bag construct, a pale construct bunch of flowers and a construct vase. "For your next test-"

She nods. "Hit the bag really hard, then move a flower into the vase without crushing it."

"-you have to hit the bag really hard, then move a flower into the vase without crushing it." She rolls her eyes, nodding. "I've reinforced the bag so that it should be able to survive a couple of hits. Begin when ready."

"Did-" The bag bends as her right fist hits home before I see her move. "-Kal-" She moves to the flower and barely gets it out of the bunch before it falls apart under her fingers. "-ever do-" She grimaces and hits the bag again. "-things like-" She slows down, gently lifting the flower and nearly getting it into the vase before snapping it in half. "-this?"

"I don't actually know Kal-El that well. Certainly not well enough to share childhood stories."

The next hit is weaker, but the flower makes it safely into the vase.

"I'm a little surprised that you haven't asked him."

"I wasn't that worried about it. I mean, I was, but with everything else… Then… I.. just.. had an off switch. And.. then-."

"Then I pointed out that it was killing you."

She looks awkwardly away. "Then you took me to Thanagar and I killed someone."

"You mean the Man-Hawk?" She gives her head a small nod. "No, you broke its back. The patrol killed it. And given what we-."

She jerks her head back towards me. "They did?"

"Yes. Do you.. want to see a recording-?"

"Great Krypton, no. But.. you're sure?"

I nod. "I watched them do it. The Man-Hawk you punched wouldn't have survived even if you hadn't hit it; one of us would have downed it and the patrol would have finished it off. The only difference would have been that someone on our side might have gotten injured. Kara, have you been… Worried about that-?"

"I felt its bones break under my fist!" I just look at her-. "It really.. doesn't bother you at all, does it?"

"Violence?"

"Killing."

"Wasteful killing bothers me. Senseless killing bothers me. Accidental killing bothers me. Ending the life of someone I have decided to kill?" I shake my head. "No, that doesn't bother me."

"You're a soldier." She nods. "I'm not. I was a mathematics undergraduate. The closest I came to that sort of violence on Krypton was.. walking past a small student demonstration. I'm doing this training so I can learn not to… Break people's spines by accident, not because I want to become a soldier myself."

"A lot of the time, proper training means that you don’t have to lead with your most powerful attacks. If you learned to grapple or strike with lower levels of force -like Kal-El does- then you could avoid doing that even if you were fighting."

She doesn't look convinced.

"But your goal is a reasonable one. Shall we continue?"

 

28th January
09:27 GMT -5

Kara can barely stop herself giggling as we head towards the training room.

"…sound conceited about this, but last time I helped a young woman out like this… Things got a bit-"

"It's okay."

"-awkward, and while you're a perfectly pleasant-."

"You're not my type either."

I stop, regarding her curiously. She comes to a halt a moment later. "What?"

"What is your type? Because I know a lot of people-."

"Ah-. Look. I'm.. not really-" She shakes her head. "-looking for a relationship right now."

"Glad to hear it." Artemis walks out of an adjacent corridor, eyebrows raised in my direction.

"I was offering to act as a matchmaker. Or at least do some vetting."

I get a mild eye-roll as Artemis steps up to Kara, right hand extended. "Hi, I'm Artemis. You're Supergirl, right?"

"No, I'm Kara Zor-El." Kara cautiously takes Artemis's hand-.

"You don't need to be that careful. I've used the Danner Formula. You don't have to worry about accidentally hurting me by squeezing too hard."

Kara smiles, slightly reassured, as the two of them shake hands. "I'm not a superhero. I don't intend to fly around calling myself 'Supergirl'."

"Oh. Ah, okay." Artemis turns to lead the way towards the training room and we follow on behind her. "How did the thing with Match go?"

"As well as could be expected. He was a little.. 'spaced out', but he wasn't violent or aggressive."

"Kon and M'gann are off the active list for at least a week while they help him settle in."

Artemis glances back. "Is he.. gunna be living here?"

I nod. "Yes, though Kal-El's going to be mentoring him rather than Diana."

Kara frowns uncomfortably. "You're not… Going to make him a 'super hero', are you?"

"No. Being a superhero takes training. We can't just… Throw people out there, whatever super powers they've got."

"And he's effectively new-born, and doesn't have the same programming Kon-El did making him want to fight people. It would make sense for him to take part in some of our training, but only in the same way you are. If he wants to join up later, that's his decision."

"And he's going to be educated in the same school that Kon and M'gann attend?"

Artemis frowns. "I thought they were just gunna use the g-gnomes?"

"Probably, and that's Match's decision. It might work out better if he started school next autumn, give him a chance to acclimatise a bit first."

Artemis doesn't look entirely happy with my answer. "But he's physically a teenager. If he doesn't want people to know where he really came from, it's gunna look kinda weird if he doesn't know-"

We walk out into the training room, where Kal-El is waiting for us with the rest of the active team. Richard and Kaldur look around as we come in, while Wallace-.

"-basic stuff."

Wallace dashes up and halts in front of Artemis. "Hey babe!"

"Hey Wally."

I press on as they embrace and Kara flies over to talk to Kal-El. Robert and Beryl are here, as are Raquel, Tula, Garth and Leonid. Canis-.

"Orange Lantern." Kaldur heads my way. "Canis Minor has not returned from Ungara."

"Still?" I would have thought that he would have come back by now. "Is that.. critical?"

"No, but it is difficult to plan for team exercises if I do not know who will make an appearance."

I nod. "I'll head over to Ungara after we finish whatever Superman has for us. See what the hold up is."

He nods. "Thank you. It is most likely that he has merely been struck by inspiration and is spending his time painting or sculpting, but he has not returned to the Mountain for several days."

Roy walks in from the direction of the showers, Wolf and the Sphere close behind. Looks like a full house, then.

Kal-El looks around. "Aqualad, is this everyone?"

"Yes, Superman."

"Alright then." Kal-El calls up a holographic screen as all of us -including Kara- fall in to our accustomed arc. "Last year the Justice League became aware of a effort by a group of demons to sell-" He hesitates, his eyes rest on me for a moment. "-a narcotic based on demon alchemy on Earth." Screenshots from our first encounter with the jizzers appear on the screen. "Since then, police worldwide have been fighting to shut down production and distribution facilities. Unfortunately, the alchemical potions they use can grant the people using them short term superpowers, meaning that they're often more than capable of fighting back."

Footage from a fight in Mexico which occurred while I was off founding the Orange Lantern Corps. A vaguely wolf-like jizzer tears first through members of a rival drug gang and then through a police blockade, bullets… Hitting, but failing to stop it.

"The substance in question was created by a demon lord named Satanus, known to the world as the media tycoon Collin Thornton."

An image of him in both forms appears on screen.

"With his arrest and imprisonment last year-"

And after what happened with The Demon Constantine, Waller quadrupled down on the magic defences and convinced the committee overseeing Belle Reve to authorise a round the clock presence of Atlantean mages. Constantine's alter-ego is cunning, but as far as I could tell he doesn't have much more raw power than the regular version. Or… Less, now, I suppose. So I don't think there's anyone with a strong motive to attempt to liberate Collin Thornton, and I'm reasonably sure that he can't escape by himself.

"-we hoped that the supply would be cut off, or at least reduced. Unfortunately, he had already passed responsibility for that over to one of his allies, a demon named Rosacarnis."

The picture of Satanus vanishes, replaced by one of the ones I took over New Year of the woman herself.

"Usually, a demon lord would play his cards close to his chest. The fact that Satanus was willing to share his knowledge with other demons means that we might not be dealing with a single supply chain any longer."

Which isn't exactly a novel problem. If only one person knew how to make heroin or cocaine the War on Drugs might actually be winnable.

The picture of Rosacarnis disappears, and is replaced a map of Virginia.

"State police in Virginia have uncovered what they think is a distribution network. They've made a series of arrests-"

Images appear on the screen, police leading various people away in handcuffs and in one case standing on guard in the aftermath of their SWAT team shooting a transformed Jizzer dead.

"-but they're a little concerned that they're going to run into harder resistance when they close in on the ringleaders. They've asked the Justice League for help, and that's where you come in. You'll be assisting police departments in Richmond, Midvale and Leesburg with detecting users and suppliers." He turns his attention to the team's magic users. "They've already been granted the warrants they need for using magic-detection spells, so you won't need to worry about whether your tests are admissible in court or not."

A minor grimace from Tula and Garth. They were called to testify on a case a few months ago, and the uncomfortable place magic occupies in the American judicial system gave the defence lawyer an avenue for trying to get their testimony thrown out.

"Your mission is to aid them in the detection and apprehension of anyone associated with the network. Your secondary objective is to see what you can find out about who in Hell is in charge of the supply side, so that the Justice League can try and do something about that side of things."

"Does anyone have any questions?"

 

28th January
09:09 GMT -6

"…feudal, but that's a.. rather dramatic oversimplification."

A slightly more highbrow programme this time. Even though -strictly speaking- Jon won't be the Democratic nominee until September, no one else in the Democratic party has anything like the support that would be needed to remove him. The only real question is whether he keeps Suarez on as his Vice President, and as far as I can tell all of the justifications for having him in the position the first time still apply. The only real alternative is Russell Abernathy, the guy Jon beat for the nomination last time. He'd.. be a business-friendly choice, but I don't see Jon going for it.

Ms Abernathy, my inquisitor and the daughter of the former Vice President, nods. "If it's not hereditary, how does an Apokoliptian join your ruling class?"

"Technically speaking, any Apokoliptian can join the Elite. And someone born to parents who are part of the Elite might fail to Awaken. Or Awaken with a God Name that's… Not impressive or relevant enough for them to hold high office. For example, Father tried to have our God of Art killed because he believed him to be useless. On the other hand, a Lowlie who is capable, lucky and vicious can rise. It's… Similar to American capitalism. It's a heck of a lot easier to be rich and well connected if your parents were rich and well connected, but it's not a guarantee and a small number of people can claw their way upwards."

"Do you have any examples of Apokoliptians who managed to do that?"

"The Art-God's father is the one who comes immediately to mind. He started life as a Lowlie, joined the Dog Soldiers, fought well and survived doing so… My father approved his elevation himself. But…" How to put this? "I don’t want to overstate the similarity. In America, your people need to believe that they can rise to that level. It's the… American Dream, the fiscal opiate of the people. If they were actually capable of comprehending the financial systems around them your country would become socialist just as soon as the revolution was over-"

That gets a small smile.

"-but the Elite don't need the Lowlies. A human general can't fight a war without an army of privates and a legion of non-commissioned officers to command. My uncle Steppenwolf on the other hand is perfectly capable of fighting an army on his own, just as I am."

My fellow interviewee raises his eyebrows at that. "It's a metahuman aristocracy. Ah, oligarchy."

I shrug. "Or you could call it a meritocracy."

He shakes his head. "I wouldn't call it that. How is there merit in… In effectively enslaving an entire planetary population?"

"It emphasises Father's power very well. Look, I'm not… America's leaders in theory run the country on behalf of the entire population. Father doesn't run Apokolips in that way. He runs it for him, and he makes no secret of it. 'Merit', then, is 'traits which aid Darkseid', not 'traits which aid the common good'. Being skilled at something is no guarantee that the person who is so skilled will be nice about things."

"And that's the main difference between Earth's metahumans and the Apokoliptian Elite." Mr Martin looks a little happier now he can refer to things he is more familiar with than Apokoliptian sociology. "Ever since the Second World War we've had superheroes who would have been capable of overthrowing the government if they'd wanted to. The original Green Lantern could have fought an army group, same with the first Flash. And a lot of their friends and allies were nearly as powerful. And they never did, even when the US government let McCarthy spit in their faces."

I nod my head to the left. "Hugo Danner did try and take over Brazil."

"And he was defeated by the All-Star Squadron."

"Which was a government-organised endeavour."

"An all-volunteer organisation which was created for the Second World War. Every superhuman who joined up was a superhero before they joined up. And by the time Danner launched his putsch everyone who was still working with the organisation was there because they wanted to be." He frowns. "And given what the government-run parts of the organisation went on to do, I'm a little surprised to hear you speaking in their favor."

"Oh, I'm not. I'm defending one specific example of overreach. The problem with SHADE -as far as I'm concerned- was that they were able to evade government oversight, not that they were part of the government."

"But they were at one point. If they had been disbanded when the rest of the All-Star Squadron was then they wouldn't have been a problem. Federal agencies have a history of repeatedly going beyond their mandate. The FBI had cannabis banned in the thirties for the sole reason of ensuring that their funding increased, which the government supported and has continued to support ever since even though it knows full well that it isn't dangerous to adults. The campaign of demonisation and racism that was generated by their efforts stymies rational discussion on drug law to this day. And then you've got the CIA's involvement in all kinds of things that frankly make me sick to my stomach."

He leans back slightly.

"Have you got any idea how many people the CIA helped murder during Operation Condor? How many were tortured, and how thoroughly the name of the United States was blackened by its association with South American military dictators and fascists? The effect that taint has on our legitimate diplomatic efforts to this day? I do not and will not trust these people, who want to give the federal government more and more power over people's lives."

"Um. You… Do realise that the Department of Metahuman Affairs is -initially- giving training and official power to people who were already active as vigilantes, yes? I know what the CIA did-"

Because someagency hasn't gotten around to power ring-proofing their servers yet.

"-but do you know how many prosecutions fail because of problems in getting vigilantes to give witness statements, or to gather and preserve evidence properly, or who extract confessions under torture? Because I do. The Justice League is comprised of highly skilled people, but the top fraction of a percent of a job-. Well, not a job, but you know what I mean… They're not representative of what the average vigilante does. Heck, do you know the death rates for costumed vigilantes?"

"Then arrest the ones who break the law!"

"Vigilantism is by itself against the law. Police officers get a lot of training, and yes, they have a sophisticated system to hold them accountable when something goes wrong. Contrast that to a total free for all by anyone who wants to volunteer regardless of their skills and competencies, and who are used to disguising their identities in order to avoid blowback."

I lean back in my chair.

"A lot of the people who have been signing up to DEO courses are well-meaning enough, but the test scores of the ones who think they already have what it takes tell a very different story."

Mr Martin leans forwards slightly. "How does Apokolips handle policing?"

I crease up my face. "Policing? Apokolips doesn't do policing! Father's subordinates are free to fight amongst themselves, as long as they don't disrupt his plans. Individual.. military officers might do investigations in order to maintain order, but that's about as far as it goes."

"It seems to me that -given your exposure to an extremely tyrannical and arbitrary system- you might be a little more accepting of creeping centralization than most Americans."

"It's really more that -having lived in a genuinely tyrannical system- I'm capable of recognising that minor changes in how you administer existing laws aren't the same as that. And if it's a creeping expansion, it's creeping in exactly the same place as where the FBI was established." I hold up my hands. "But okay, you don't want the US government to-"

"The US federal government. If individual states or cities want to make their own arrangements, that's up to them."

I nod. "I'm sorry, the US federal government to take any sort of role in training or directing superheroes. Am I.. accurately characterising your position?"

He nods. "Outside of a major war, yes."

"Klarion killed more people than died in every war America has fought in since the Second World War. He killed more people than America lost in the Second World War."

"It's not the number of deaths, it's the expansion of power. Wars only last a few years, while the DEO is trying to become a permanent part of all our lives. It's not being brought into temporary existence as a reaction to an upsurge in supervillain violence or superhero… Failings."

I nod. "I recognise that I don't.. place the same value on the particular form the separation of powers takes in the American system, but I do think that a structured system offers benefits which you appear to be deriding."

"This isn't Europe, Mister Grayven. We value initiative and individuality here. Presidential paternalism is not the American way."

I stand, prompting both Mr Martin and Ms Abernathy to lean away.

"Then my rebuttal will be in the form of a song."

Ms Abernathy blinks. "We don't.. actually have-."

A construct guitarist appears next to me as a holographic projector appears from subspace, a copy of the stars and stripes billowing into being behind me.

"There's a land!
Far away!
Where men are truly free
No gover'ment upon their backs
They walk in liberteee"

Mr Martin risks a confused smile.

"And they stand upon their own two feet
And live just how they please"

The stars and stripes catches fire.

"'till they get killed in some tribal conflict"

A blue flag with a white five-pointed star in the centre appears behind me.

"Or die of a curable disease!

Somalia! Somalia! Land of libertarian dre-eams!
Somalia! Somalia! Just ignore the scre-eams!
Of the victims of warlords and pirates and gangs!
Gunfire and shelling, explosions and bangs!

It's the way of the future you kno-ow
And it's where everyone who thinks that all governments are bad and unnecessary ought to go."

 

28th January
11:02 GMT -5

The Leesburg Chief of Police -a man named Noah Clayborne- looks a little sceptically at the four of us.

"I don't wanna come off as ungrateful or anything, but I was expecting…"

"Older? Taller? Actual Justice League members?"

"At the risk of sounding greedy… Yeah. I'm not sure I'm allowed to take kids near dangerous suspects. I feel like I should be notifying your parents or something."

Tula smiles brightly. "I'm a final year apprentice battlemage. This is part of my field experience placement."

"Apprentice.. battlemage?"

She activates her water armour, shimmering magic-infused liquid covering her body in an instant. "War machines like those used by surface nations do not work well under water." She clenches her fists, and a forty centimetre blade appears in each of her hands. An instant passes and one freezes solid while the other begins to emit steam as she magically enhances the water's conductive qualities to shift heat around. "When we wish to wage war, we use magic instead."

"So you're like an officer cadet.. or a second lieutenant? Something like that?"

Tula opens her hands, swords merging with the rest of the armour and the water flowing back from her head. "Those positions are… Nearly equivalent."

"Okay, I guess…"

Artemis rolls her eyes. "I can bench press a semi, I'm bullet-proof, and I've fought jizzers, like, seventeen times before. I think I can handle this."

"Seventeen times?"

She nods. "Some guys in Star City tried using it." She pulls an anti-magic arrow out of her quiver. "Had to get Aqualad to pick more of these up. Hey, do you think Angelica would-?"

I shake my head. "Not a good idea. We're trying to arrest people, not burn them alive in golden fire."

Chief Clayborne frowns. "Yes, please don't burn my suspects alive. The Mayor frowns on it."

Artemis-. I think she's frowning too but her mask gets in the way. "Wouldn't it just burn the demon magic out?"

"Not reliably, not if they're long-term users or cultists." I turn to Chief Clayborne. "Superman's briefing implied that we were looking for ringleaders at this stage?"

He looks sceptically at Raquel for a moment, who raises her right eyebrow and folds her arms across her chest. He gets the message.

"Sure hope so. We've had.. some kind of gang around town for a while. I thought it was just.. kids, until a local priest got attacked. A patrol managed to get on-site while the attackers were still in the victim's house, reported that they thought there was some kind of.. big cat inside. It charged them, they fired…" He shrugs. "Guess they got lucky."

"Not necessarily. Though jizzers who get doses empowered by a warrior demon can be extremely dangerous, a dose from a more average demon isn't necessarily going to make the one using it bullet resistant. How big was it?"

He types something on his keyboard, then turns his monitor around. Hm.

"This was taken from the officers' body cameras right after it stopped moving."

Looks… Like a humanoid tiger with horns. No, it's smaller than a tiger would be, and the fur is more brown than orange. Blood is streaming from wounds in its chest and-.

"They shot it in the heart?"

"Yeah, that's what the path report says."

"Missed the ribs, hit the heart-. Anything special about the gun?"

"P Two Two Nine, same as the rest of the force."

"Lucky. Very lucky. But not inexplicable. I assume that it then changed back?"

"It took a few minutes, but yeah." He presses a button on his keyboard and the image skips to a later timeframe. A child-? No, a dwarf, pale skin and black hair in a bowl cut. "We picked up a lot of the gang right away, but the leader slipped out."

"When you say 'slipped out'?"

"The building was surrounded and we had guys watching the roof. He was inside when I gave the 'go' order but he wasn't when we cleared the building."

"Are members of your force equipped with any sort of wards?"

He shakes his head. "No. Ah, well-." He reaches into his shirt and pulls out a crucifix.

My jaw tightens for a moment. "Unless you've had some very special training, that doesn't count."

"Then we don't." He slips it back inside his shirt. "Think I need to add something like that to the budget?"

"It depends on how widespread devil jizz remains. It would probably be worth getting at least a small number."

"A small number?" Tula frowns. "Do your police really not have any personal wards at all?"

"We don't run into magicians all that often."

"It is still a significant flaw in your defenses. How do you know that you do not have frequent encounters with magicians if they can easily cloud your minds?"

Chief Clayborne's face falls slightly. "How long does it take to learn to do something like that?"

"With a teacher, it could be learned within two years. Less than two years if the student had any knowledge of magic before they began studying."

"And you-? Atlantis sells devices to protect against that?"

"Yes, and the weaker versions are licensed for sale to surface world law enforcement organisations."

"Okay, I'll sort something out. But unless you've got something you can lend my guys now, I don't know how we can conduct any kind of operation until they arrive."

I take a small reinforced suitcase out of subspace and put it down on his desk. "This is what my team uses." I open it and show him a dozen latest generation spell eaters. "I'm happy to lend them to you for the duration of this operation."

He picks one up and gets a feel for the weight. "They need any special training, to use them?" I shake my head. "Thank you. Okay, so how do we go about finding these people?"

Tula shrugs, which is an interesting gesture as the armour doesn't move with the shoulders beneath it. "Demon magic isn't hard to find. I will need a quiet space, drawing implements and a map."

"We can sort that out for you."

"I should probably speak to the prisoners as well. I have a degree of familiarity with the demonic."

"That's a little trickier. We can hold them all, because until we get 'Buzz'-. That's their leader's name, Buzz." I nod. "Until we get him it's an ongoing enquiry. But we still need their lawyers here when we interview them."

I nod. "That's perfectly acceptable. If you could contact the representative of one of the more cooperative ones, I can convey them here."

"Okay, fine."

"Artemis, please assist Tula. Rocket, you're with me."

Two nods.

"Hey, look." Chief Clayborne looks at us uncertainly. "This isn't… Is this going to blow up in our faces? I remember what happened in Fawcett…" He shakes his head. "I don't want that happening here."

"Nah, shouldn't think so." Artemis shakes her head. "Most of the time, they've got a couple of fighters and that's it. And if there's anything else?" She nods, smiling. "We can handle that too."

 

28th January
11:17 GMT -5

Raquel frowns at me as the police move one of their suspects into an interview room. Sara Birchall, seventeen years old and dressed like an almost stereotypical 'bad girl'. From all the yellow I can see I think this whole 'getting arrested while your leader legs it' experience has been a real eye-opener. She has volunteered to speak to us without a lawyer being present, which is convenient but not really very sensible.

"So… You, Robin and Aqualad are leading teams."

"Yes."

"Why is it you three?"

"Robin has the most experience of any team member, while Kaldur and I are both military officers. When the team was founded we were also somewhat more mature than our colleagues."

"Why not Miss Martian or Artemis?"

"Despite her age, M'gann is only as emotionally mature as a human in their mid-teens. She also had no experience of combat before joining the team. Artemis… Wasn't in the right frame of mind to lead people. Though she could probably do a passable job now."

Hm. Have to ask if Paula would mind tutoring her.

Raquel nods slowly. "Aren't Tula and Garth in the Atlantean military? Tula said something about their magic being more advanced because they stayed in school or.. something."

"Yes, but they're on the battlemage track rather than the officer track. Their knowledge of magic is far greater, but their studies didn't -don't- focus on strategic or tactical planning. Kaldur's lessons with King Orin did."

"So what do I have to do to lead a team, join the army?"

I frown. "There isn't a formal process, though I… Suppose we could run exercises with different people in charge. Though I would remind you that we are technically all amateurs, and joining the army might actually be a better option."

"So I have to go to officer training school."

I shrug. "Green Two Eight One Four A joined the marines as an enlisted man. These days, there are grants for non-commissioned officers who want to undertake officer training." I smile unpleasantly. "Or if you'd prefer, there are several Lanterns under my command with extensive military experience. I have the authority to order them to train you."

"What's with the smile?"

"The sort of officer who becomes an Orange Lantern is usually from a martial culture, where commanders are expected to lead from the front. The training would be extremely intense, but it would make a man out of you."

She rolls her eyes. "I'm fine being a girl, thanks."

"We might be able to sort something out with the g-gnomes, but-"

A police lieutenant sticks her head out of the interview room and beckons us over.

"-we haven't…" I shrug. "Back to work."

We walk across the room and through the door into the interview room, Sara Birchall's eyes widening as I sit down in the chair opposite her.

"Ah… Hey."

I smile warmly at the would-be cultist. "Good morning, Miss Birchall. I'm Orange Lantern, and this is my colleague Rocket."

"Yeah, I…. I know who you are?"

"Well. I don't like to presume. Now, I need to make you aware that this conversation will be recorded, and that you can -at any point- end this interview and/or request the presence of a lawyer. Do you understand?" She nods. "Alright. Now, I've read your initial testimony, and… Well, I suspect that your general approach of keeping quiet was sensible if not helpful. May I ask why you've decided to become more open?"

"Yeah…" She shifts on her chair. "Buzz… I thought it was just… Fun? But.. if.. superheroes are getting involved… It's way more serious than just smoking pot or whatever."

"Theoretically speaking, making no reference to any one person in particular who may or may not have smoked marijuana, yes, it's a good deal more serious."

"What's he supposed to have.. done?"

"Presently, he is wanted for immigration offences and maleficium."

"What?"

"Since demons are treated as 'human' under the law, communicating with them isn't a crime, any more than speaking to someone on the telephone is. However, the United States places certain restrictions on the ability of people who are not citizens of the United States to enter the country, and most acts of summoning break those laws."

"No, I get-. What's malla.. fictum?"

"Virginia's Puritan founders imported quite a few anti-witchcraft laws from England, and with one thing and another they've never been fully repealed. A variety of types of magic are covered, and the punishments are quite severe. Now-" I take a rune stone out of subspace and lay it on the table between us. No reaction. "-I know perfectly well that you're not a magic user yourself, but I'm afraid that Mister Buzz is in quite a lot of trouble."

She nods sombrely.

"Alright, so let's start… Do you know his real name?"

She shrugs, shaking her head.

"What does he look like? Where's he from?"

"He sounds English? Blonde, short hair-" I wince, and take a picture of The Demon Constantine, Gordon Sumner, Ambrose Bierce and Welsh John out of subspace. "-kind of a thin face…"

I lay the pictures on the table in front of her and push them towards her. "Do any of these men look familiar?"

She looks them over, her eyes hesitating on Mr Sumner for a moment, before shaking her head. "No, he's younger than them. And his hair's longer and.. brighter?"

Lucky escape for Mr Sumner. I return the photographs and rune stone to subspace.

"Did you ever see him perform any acts of overt magic?" I shrug. "Levitation, conjuration or alchemy?"

"Ah… What counts as alchemy? Because -. Ah, I think some of the others might have been… On something?"

"When you say 'on something'-?"

"There was this white powder some of-."

Raquel snorts. "That's not alchemy."

"It might have been! I didn't try it!" I give her a somewhat sceptical look. "I didn't!" She slumps, sighing. "Look, it wasn't like I was super close to Buzz or anything. The.. whole.. group was just somewhere to relax, have some fun. You should really try and find that midget guy or Linda."

"Linda?"

"Linda… Danners?"

"Danvers?"

"Maybe? I didn't really know her either, but I think she was Buzz's girlfriend or something."

Linda Danvers. A young woman I checked up on a few weeks after first arriving on this Earth so that I could eliminate the possibility of her being a kryptonian.

"We'll try and find her. Specifically, did you ever see Buzz hand out any sort of vial or syringe to his followers?"

She shakes her head, and I nod.

"Then in addition to some people consuming narcotics, what exactly was the.. special draw of the group? I mean, was it just a social gathering, or-."

"It was…" She blushes faintly, her eyes dipping. "Somewhere to get away from our.. parents, you know? Try… Things out."

I frown, then take a look-.

I nod.

"I understand completely. Thank you for your help."

 

28th January
11:22 GMT -5

Raquel waits until the door closes.

"You took a look at her soul."

I glance back, nod, then lead the way towards the room Chief Clayborne set aside for Tula.

"Try what out?"

"Gosh, Rocket, I just can't imagine what a group of teenagers from a socially conservative background might want to try out when their parents weren't around. Do you think we should go back and clarify it for the record?"

I can feel her eye roll. "So what does that have to do with that Buzz guy? Did he just like to watch?"

"That's possible. But there are ways to draw magic power from that sort of thing. And ways to use magic to lower people's inhibitions. If he knows enough about magic to dodge a police cordon, he's easily good enough at magic to do both."

"You think he was mind controlling teenagers into 'trying things out'?"

"Easy to explain away if anyone found out about it. But even if he was, we'd never be able to prove it. That sort of magic barely uses any energy. He'd be in more trouble for concealing himself from the police with magic."

"She didn’t mention DMN. He might not be the supplier."

"All sorts of things are possible. If she can't locate anything by scrying we can take Tula down to the building they were using for a meeting place, see what sort of reading she can get. Trying to locate Linda Danvers will be our third avenue."

I learned that her father was on the local police force when I did my initial sweep, but if she hasn't done anything worse than have a boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks I don't plan on embarrassing either of them by sticking my oar in.

"Why not do both?"

"Travel speed. Devil Jizz can make things that are hard for us to fight-. Fight without killing the user, anyway. You and Tula have kinetic belts and I can teleport, but if this 'Buzz' has summoned something and there are also users-"

I push open the door. Artemis nods at us and Chief Clayborne looks up from Tula's water… Tablet? Slate? She appears to be making thaumaturgical notes on it with her right hand while holding her left over the map.

"-somewhere else-."

"We don't split up."

I nod. "Split up further anyway."

Tula's eyes clear as she comes out of her trance, and she turns to look at us.

"Got something?"

"I may have." She doesn't sound convinced. "They're definitely using demonic magic, but it does not feel… The energies involved do not feel like those of the combat demons we have encountered before."

"Okay, so what is it?"

"I think that it is a carnalite of some kind."

Artemis smirks, checks where on the map Tula is indicating and pulls her phone out, while Chief Clayborne frowns. "And what does that mean?"

"'Carnalite', from 'carnal', meaning-."

He closes his eyes, nodding. "We've got a succubus."

"Technically, there are demons that can feed on any overwhelming sensation. There are greed demons who get powered up by people gorging themselves. Succubi are just the most popular for…" I shrug theatrically. "Some reason."

"Can't imagine why."

Artemis holds up her phone. "It's a succubus. That's-" She nods at the map. "-a massage parlour."

"Artemis, I'm a masseur. I've massaged you bef-."

"Not a massage parlour massage parlour. A massage parlour."

Chief Clayborne holds his hand out for the phone. "Can I see that?"

Artemis presses a couple of buttons and then hands it over. Chief Clayborne looks at the place and nods before handing it back. "Yeah, I know the place. We've… Had people poke around there a few times. Never caught anyone in the act-." He looks up at me. "We haven't had any unexplained deaths where it looks like the… Deceased had been… Y'know, drained."

I shake my head. "Succubi can kill when feeding, but they don't need to. Sex demons working in the sex trade usually just leave their partners extremely tired. That way they can get repeat business, and it's far harder for demon hunters to find them. And I know of at least one who's married." Hm. "I know that both 'DMN' and prostitution are illegal in Virginia, but how do you want to handle this?"

He shrugs. "I mostly want to shut down the supply side. If they are using DMN then I don't mind looking the other way this once if that gets us the ringleaders. But you can be sure that we'll be going back there on a regular basis afterwards. If they're actually summoning demons then everyone there gets prosecuted to the full extent of the law, no exceptions."

"Do you have the facilities for containing demons?"

"Ah… Not-. No."

I look at Tula, who nods. "I have binding chains, and I can place spells of containment on the holding cells. If they are within the usual power distribution curve for carnalites then that will be sufficient."

I nod. "Could you put a containment ward on the building from the outside?"

She nods again. "I will just need to direct a circle of water around the area to be warded. It will only take a few minutes as long as you only want me to create a version which requires my constant attention. A lasting version will take longer."

"No, that should be fine." I look at Chief Clayborne. "And if by some freak chance it turns out that they've hired a demon chef or something..?"

"Can't say I really.. like the idea, but… My job is to enforce the law. If they're in America legally and they're not hurting anyone, that's… Really all there is to it." I nod. "What sort of support do you need?"

"A small cordon to keep people back, just in case there's a fight and it spills outside. A scene of crime team to check the place over with Tula. A van for prisoner transportation, and you'll need to make sure that the officers who will be in direct contact-."

"They'll need your magic amulets, right." He nods. "You need a SWAT team?"

I frown, regarding him curiously for a moment. I'm not sure what he thinks they'd do, but I suppose that he's only trying to be helpful. "Ah, no, thank you. How soon can you get that together?"

"Apart from the forensics guys, twenty minutes? Do I.. need to hurry things along?"

I look at Tula, who shakes her head. "I can not feel any particular build up of power. There may be an advantage in waiting until there are more cultists present."

Chief Clayborne nods at me, then marches out of the room to set things in motion.

Artemis shrugs. "We don’t actually know they're a cult."

"I do not know the English collective noun for a group of prostitutes."

"Actually, a succubus could probably survive as a masseuse, even without happy endings." Hm. "I think."

Raquel looks between me and Tula. "If they are using succubus-flavored Devil Jizz, what can they actually do?"

"Enhanced sexual appeal, limited shapeshifting including wings, enhanced strength and toughness… They might have thralled their clients, but I doubt it. I won't ask whether you ladies think you might be susceptible, but do you all have your wards?" Three nods. "Glad to hear it. Let's take a look at the building plans while we wait for the police to ready themselves."

 

28th January
11:58 GMT -5

Midday Saturday doesn't appear to be a very busy time for 'massages'.

"What sort of ward is that?"

Water trailing from her armour, Tula considers it for a moment. "A weak one. I would guess that they copied images from a book without any understanding."

I nod to the police officers setting up a barricade across the road. I get a… Not entirely friendly look back. Why is-? Oh, come on. Angels mark you for death one time and suddenly you're the bad guy! Should have negotiated for a general announcement…

"I'm starting to take that sort of thing a little personally." I blink, the world before me changing colour. "Good job it only blocks my empathic vision. Three… Probably clients, getting an actual massage. One masseuse each, receptionist and two others."

Hm. Perhaps it's a massage parlour and a 'massage parlour'?

"Are you picking up any active magic use?"

"No, none." Her eyes unfocus slightly as she takes another reading of the ambient magics. "I don't think we're going to find a leader or magician here."

"Probably not. But now that we're here, we may as well take a look. It's difficult to use demon magic in America without breaking the law, and at the very least we might be able to scare them off doing anything more with it." She nods. "Please stay here and maintain the ward." I raise my left hand to my ear. "Artemis, are you in position?"

"Yeah, all set up here."

Artemis is perfectly capable of covering the rear exit with glue arrows. I was going to have Raquel in reserve above the building, but that seems… Unnecessary. On the other hand, asking her where she'd prefer to be isn't how things are done.

"Rocket, how much reading have you done on magic use?"

"Ah, some? I don't know as much as you or Tula. DMN never caught on in Dakota."

So I can't really justify her taking the lead here. Maybe next time, then. I mean, given Dakota I imagined that drug trafficking would be right up her street.

"Okay, keep an eye and an ear out. I'm going in. I'll shout if I need you."

"Right."

"Chief Clayborne?"

At the other end of the street I see him raise his right hand. "All set up here."

"Orange Lantern moving into suspect premises."

Out of ingrained habit I look both ways before crossing the road. This mission doesn't call for power armour. Light armour with a ward and a personal kinetic barrier is more than enough. If any crimes are happening in there, the presence of police is going to be more than scary enough without me crashing around.

I push open the door and look around. They've gone for a kind of… Doctor's waiting room aesthetic. The receptionist -a strikingly attractive-.

Hah.

Warning: spell eater temperature increasing.

I head over to the desk as she smiles welcomingly-. No, invitingly at me. The desk and the seating behind it are set up to draw the eye to the receptionist's spectacular cleavage. When her eyes meet mine I surreptitiously fish my rune stone out of its pouch and glance down at it. Weakly demonic. Probably a minor infusion of essence of succubus for a cheap instant makeover and instinctive glamour, which thanks to the spell eater is doing nothing to me. Are people cutting DMN with things now? The version Satanus was handing out when we first encountered it gave far stronger effects than this. Or maybe they don't think that they need it?

"Good morning."

She smiles winsomely. "I don't believe that I have anyone down for a mid-day appointment, sir. If you'd like to book-."

I pull out my Justice League documentation and hold it out. For a second her face falls, then she brightens up and-

Warning: spell eater temperature increasing.

-I'm going to assume that she's trying to turn up her glamour.

"Please don't do that. Justice League operatives aren't susceptible to weak magic. I'd like the arrests here to be as peaceful as possible."

Her eyes water as-

Warning: spell eater temperature increasing.

-she tries turning it up again, her right hand going for her desk telephone. I tag the phone with a filament and move it into my left hand, then take a mage slayer round out of subspace, lean forward and tap the tip of it against her forehead. The tiny runes on the round shimmer for an instant, then her chest deflates, minor instances of discolouration appear on her skin and the structure of her face becomes just a little more asymmetrical.

"When I say 'please don't do that', I'm not actually offering you a free choice, I'm just being British." I put the rune stone and round into an equipment pouch, because the round is now evidence. "Would you care to explain to me how you got access to demonic magic?"

"I-. N-not without talking to a lawyer."

"You do of course have that right. However, if as a result of you withholding information a demonic attack occurs I will encourage the judge to impose the maximum sentence possible. Police officers are waiting outside to arrest you."

I scan her, but I'm not seeing any weapons or vials of DMN and a quick burst of empathic vision doesn't show anything relating to fighting.

I point to the door. "Go now."

With a minor false start she rises, cowed, and walks out of the front door.

"Receptionist disempowered and coming out. Please arrest her."

"Will do. They're definitely using Devil Ji-. Using DMN, then?"

I smile at the Chief's slip. "She was, or something very much like it."

"Okay, I see her." There's a momentary pause as I consider whether I should walk in on the massages in progress or head towards the other people. "You got any idea who came up with that God damned name for it?"

"Me, actually. I wanted something that would put people off the stuff."

He huffs into his radio. "I suppose I can't fault your logic, but have you got any idea what it's like to write that on official reports?"

"Yes, actually, and mine go to Batman." Massage rooms are closer, so I walk towards the nearest. "Heading to the massage rooms."

"The receptionist is asking for a lawyer."

"I'm not supposed to mind control people into spilling their guts unless I have 'clear and direct evidence that they are a party to an imminent or ongoing attack', so I'm afraid that she's entitled."

"Huh. Guess I assumed that you guys could do whatever."

"I couldn't be punished for it, but it would undermine the prosecution. And probably terminate your career if you asked me to without good cause. I would action your request as you're the ranking police officer, but I would strongly advise-."

"Yeah, no. By the book unless there's a smoking gun."

"Understood."

I knock, then push open the door. Another improbably attractive woman, this time with her hands wrapped around a middle-aged man's shoulders. Her patient looks up, frowning in my direction.

"I'm.. sorry sir-."

"Orange Lantern. I work for the Justice League and I'm afraid that you're under arrest." Another mage slayer taps her on the forehead, to much the same effect as it had on the receptionist. "Please leave the building at once and surrender yourself to the police. Sir, you aren't under arrest, but I'm afraid that I'm going to have to ask you to answer a few questions. Please dress and then make your way outside."

"What? I was just getting a massage?"

"And that's perfectly legal sir, but unfortunately this parlour uses demonic magic and we feel it would be best-."

His face falls, and he turns his head to look at his masseuse and then double-takes and scrambles off the massage table, sans towel.

"Dress in your own good time, sir. Madam, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to insist."

 

28th January
12:03 GMT -5

Following the glowing light of my rune stone, I pull-. I apply power ring to the simple mechanical lock keeping a small cupboard in the employee kitchen locked and open it. I then take out a vial of what I strongly suspect to be Devil Jizz and wave the stone-. Yes, yes, that's a somewhat stronger reaction. I replace the vial.

"Samples of Devil Jizz located on site, in kitchen cupboard. Proceeding to offices."

"Understood. This has got to be the weirdest arrest I've ever been part of."

"Really? Seems fairly low key to me."

"…if the other girls want a coffee."

I turn, holding out my identification as a middle-aged woman walks into the kitchen. "Might you be the proprietor of the business?"

Her eyes widen. "Aaahhh…"

Carol Bowen doesn't appear to possess the supernatural allure of her employees. Blue business suit with skirt and a string of pearls, with small touches of makeup to brighten up a face heading into late middle age.

"I'm sorry, it sometimes causes confusion when I do that. You are the proprietress of the business and -having procured a warrant- I have discovered samples of Demonic Metamorphosis Nectar, also known as 'DMN', 'Hell Juice' or 'Devil Jizz', upon your premises, having been used by your staff."

"Ah… Ah… That-. If they were.. doing that, I didn't-."

"Please."

I hold up my rune stone, which glows once more.

"The game is over. The jig is up. And the faster you tell me how you got this stuff and who your sponsor is, the faster I can start helping you deal with the consequences. Demons do not use the American legal system. And most magicians who deal with demons try to avoid leaving loose ends."

I spread my hands out and do my best to look friendly.

"So how about it?"

"I don't have to say anything."

I nod. "Quite true. But when dealing with demons it's not just how much legal trouble you're in."

"Who are you to tell me what to do with my soul? Angels tried to kill you last month!"

"We came to terms. But if a demon has a connection to your soul, they can bypass a lot of the normal resistance people have to magic. It's one of the reasons why magicians who know what they're doing are very careful in making pacts with-."

"C-connection?"

"Yes. I know that popular culture likes to depict.. the whole.. 'selling your soul' thing as something that only takes effect after you die, but actually it.. takes effect almost immediately. Precisely what that means varies from-."

She starts breathing rapidly, her eyes widening as she starts to panic.

"Immediately?"

"Yes, and the effects can vary from simple.. behavioural alterations, to the demon in question flat out puppetting the individual in question. A friend of mine dealt with a rather unfortunate case in London where a-."

"Please-. Please help me, please."

I nod. "That's what I'm here for. So…" I look around the kitchen. "Why don't you have a sit down,-" I step forward, gently take hold of her forearms and direct her to one of the kitchen chairs. "-I'll make some tea, and you can tell me all about it."

Kettle, kettle… Can't see a kettle. I take a kettle out of subspace and… 120 volts… Ring, kettle cable. Direct charge.

Charging.

There's a coffee pot, so I don't dare trust the mugs. Instead, I take a teapot, cup, saucer and a tin of tea leaves out of subspace and place them on the sideboard.

"So. Where did you first come into contact with demonic magic?"

"Some… Some girl, I never got her name, sold me… Sold me some Hell Juice a few years ago. Said it would… Help with business."

"Yes, I'm sure that it did."

"I bought… A few doses, but I guess… She got arrested, or… Something. And then this book got mailed to me. The note said… It had instructions for making my own."

I nod as the water boils, then tip a few teaspoons worth of tea into the pot and pour in the water. Let it stew for a minute or two.

"May I ask about the ward around the building?"

"The book had a lot of descriptions in it, but… Fawcett City happened and I… Didn't want to try anything dangerous."

I turn around. "How exactly are you..? Defining dangerous?"

"Summoning things or sacrificing.. things, or anything like that. Just a… Little magic, to help out the business."

"Did you ever receive a request for payment for the book?"

She shakes her head. "No. I don't know who sent it, I don't know… Why…"

"You made Devil Jizz?"

"That name… Yes, but I didn’t.. call it that."

I nod. "Do you still have the book?"

She nods.

"Okay, I'm going to need to see the book, your ritual space… Everything you've got, so I can work out how big a hole you've dug for yourself."

She nods again, her eyes focusing on the hands curled into fists on her lap.

I turn back to the sideboard, form a construct tea strainer and pour her a cup. Then I walk over to the table, set it down in front of her and sit down opposite her on a construct chair.

"How many people have you given Devil Jizz to?"

"I don't… Twenty… Three..?"

"Can you contact them? There are forms of ritual purification we can use to remove any lingering influence."

She looks at the tea, then raises her head towards me. "Influence. What… Kind of..?"

"Devil Jizz forms a two-way conduit between a human on Earth and a demon in Hell. The human takes on a small part of the demon's nature while the demon gets a dose of earthly magic power. To cut the link, we need to remove that connection."

"And you can… Do that?"

"Assuming all that they've done is ingest Devil Jizz empowered by a regular succubus, yes. It's not even very hard. The behavioural changes might take a while to revert and they'll probably need counselling, but we can do it."

"What if..? What if it wasn't a regular succubus?"

"That depends. What exactly are we talking about?"

 

28th January
12:09 GMT -5

I look at Ms Bowen's… Shrine. The centrepiece is the skeletal remains of a snake with a wigged mannequin head replacing its skull.

"Shit."

"It's just that the book said that she was the Queen of the succubi-."

"How long?"

"Ah..?"

"How long ago did you make your pact with Triskele?"

"A little over a year ago..?"

And the angels went after me in preference to her, for.. reasons. No, reassure her, then stick her in a.. heavily warded box somewhere… What is Triskele doing these days, anyway? I don't remember seeing her last time I was in Hell, and that was a grand mustering of everyone important. I'll need to check, and I suppose that she's a little above Ambrose's challenge rating. Welsh John? Yes, he'll be the man to talk to.

"Then we've got a little time."

"W-what do you mean, a little time?"

I don't want to interfere with this setup. I'll need an actual expert in demons to examine it. I hope that John doesn't mind making a trip.

"Triskele is impatient. She'll give you things, but never for longer than five years."

"So… So I'll just forget everything I learned about magic?"

"No, you'll be pulled bodily into Hell. I don't suppose you remember the exact day, do you?"

"Pulled-? W-? Day?"

I turn away from the shrine and face the clearly terrified woman. "You've done something very stupid, but we might be able to fix it."

I can see the tears start trickling from her eyes. Not regret, just fear, nearly drowning out everything else.

"I'll-I'll-I'll do anything!"

"Good show. That might actually be enough. So here's what you need to do right now: give me the contact details for everyone you've given doses of Devil Jizz to. Get the book, get any of your staff still on the premises to hand themselves peacefully over to the police and to cooperate fully. Now."

She nods, then hurries back up the stairs towards the offices.

I raise my left hand to my ear.

"Ring, call Welsh John."

"Compliance."

Now that I'm inside the building, looking through the walls at the emotional resonances of the other people here is easy enough. Ms Bowen's fear is swiftly shared by her employees, while her own dims slightly as she begins to organise them.

"John here."

"Good afternoon, John."

"Paul. Hope you don't want to take another trip into Hell."

"No, I'd like to avoid that. But I do have a related problem."

"Angels again?"

"An idiot who sold themselves to Triskele."

There's a brief pause. "Triskele, 'Worm Queen of the Succubi' Triskele?"

"That's the one."

"Well, they're fucked then, aren't they?"

"I hope-."

"Yeah, okay, I'm mostly thinking as a street magician rather than the owner of the Tower of Fate, but… Shit."

"Yeah. Do you mind coming and taking a look at what she's been up to?"

"I suppose I better. Where are you?"

"Leesburg, Virginia. If you report to the local police, they'll be able to point you in the right direction. I'll let them know that you're coming."

"Did you know that I'm authorised to use the League's zeta tubes?"

"I.. didn't, but since they're still in cover-up mode regarding Nabu I suppose that it makes sense. They're pretending that you're your predecessor."

"As long as they don't want me to show up to meetings."

"They've got Doctor Balewa for general magic advice. But don't be surprised if someone raises the subject eventually."

"I don't think it's up my street."

"Then say 'no'. But they still need high-end magic users."

"I don't know I'd call myself that. I'm better informed than I was, but I'm not all that much more powerful."

I frown. "The helmet-."

"It's a powerful talisman of Order. And I don't have to tell you how well dealing with Order has worked out before. I'm getting stronger, but it's going to be some time before I'll feel comfortable joining a body like the Justice League."

I nod. "I've been meaning to ask. I've been thinking of you as 'Welsh John'-."

"Despite the fact that I'm not Welsh."

"Do you know how many blond magicians I know? Anyway, if you can just tell me what your surname is, I can-."

"Quinn. It's Quinn. It's a bit funny, actually: I was born in Liverpool and moved to London, the same as Constantine. I ended up leaving rather than settling like he did, but our careers actually have quite a lot in common."

Wait. Does that mean that he's a near-reboot I just missed? A character I didn't read about? They did something like that with Captain Atom when they created Breach, and Ambrose and a man named Willoughby Kipling were Constantine stand-ins. There might well be more I haven't heard of.

That makes a surprising degree of sense. It would also open the possibility of moving him out of Vertigo; a proper John Constantine would be far too unheroic to be put in a television series or film or a mainstream comic. Though they did do that stupid Keanu Reeves thing…

"I.. hope you've got a smaller body count."

"Yes, but I've had more resources to draw on than he has. You know, speaking to a few of his friends, I've actually started to.. understand far better the sort of man he is." There's a momentary pause. "Okay, Leesburg. Got it. I'll be with you within half an hour."

"See you then."

I hang up on him, then connect back into the police and team channels.

"Okay, the woman in charge is surrendering, and she's agreed to talk."

"What did you offer her?"

Chief Clayborne sounds like he's waiting for me to drop a bomb on him. Which I suppose that I am, but not in the way he expects.

"Protection from her own stupidity. She's agreed to hand over all records in exchange for us -by which I mean my team- breaking the pact she made to learn how to make Devil Jizz."

"She was the source?"

"So she says, though we won't know for certain until an expert takes a look at her setup. I've already called him in."

"Is he a priest?"

"No." I smile. "Doctor Fate. You did want a Justice League member."

 

28th January
12:20 GMT -7

Queen Morgan and Circe regard each other awkwardly for a moment. And it's like… The air is thickening as they both reach out to the world's magics, to feel one another's actions and to prepare their own spells to activate at a moment's notice. The world stops flowing as it should and begins increasingly to flow in accordance with their designs. Circe's done a good deal to make up for the power she lost, and from what I feel it would appear that Morgan is in the same weight class as her.

"Circe. You're looking well."

Circe smiles. "Yes, I am. Escaping that infernal prophecy has taken years off." She makes a small gesture with her right hand in the direction of Morgan's face. "Is that mask really necessary? Forgive me if I'm being presumptuous, but I rather assume that if you're talking to me that it's because you require my assistance with an arcane matter?"

Morgan turns her head towards myself and Geoff. "I'm not comfortable parading myself before an audience."

"Then at least remove your wards, so that I can take a closer took without having to overpower them-" Morgan's head snaps back to her. "-first."

"As if you had that power."

I hold up my hands. "I don't believe that this avenue of conversation is particularly helpful."

Circe raises her eyebrows. "And what do you mean by that?"

"While I understand why you're being so… Catty, surely you can appreciate why Queen Morgan is reluctant to reveal her weaknesses to us?"

"Yesss."

"And Queen Morgan, Circe has invited you into her place of work in the spirit of cooperation. Asking a little openness in return is hardly unreasonable."

"It has been… A considerable time since I dealt with an equal in power so openly."

"Then.. you are free to leave. As arousing as I'm finding this grandstanding, there's only so much time in the day."

Circe's eyes narrow. "How, precisely, is this arousing to you?"

I shrug. "What can I say, power and the will to use it are signs of a good mate on Apokolips. I can feel you both reaching out to local mana fields, dominating them, twisting them in accordance with your natures, turning them to your ends. It's… Somewhat distracting." I smile. "But not in a bad way. By all means, keep going."

And then I feel it as they both ease off.

I look down at my crotch. "Sorry, chum."

Circe sighs quietly. "Perhaps if I take the lead?" Morgan cautiously inclines her head. "Though my knowledge has been hard-won over the course of the centuries, my power and vitality were gifts from Hecate. One she could take back at a moment's notice. Grayven advised me to simply renounce her gift, and offered to aid me in getting a replacement for both."

"I thought that you felt weaker."

Circe's face tightens very slightly, but she decides to let the implied slight go. She nods. "It will be some considerable time before I gain in my own right the ability to project the level of arcane force which Hecate's gift provided to me, but when I finally do it will be my power."

Hmm. Oh, that might explain the attitude. I.. think that the two of them have cooperated before, but with Hecate's blessing Circe would have been the more powerful of the two by some considerable margin. And two to three times as old. I don't image that Morgan is the sort to be happy about being overshadowed. Although… As Circe said, her power now is her own. If they actually fought and Morgan lost, it would be a matter of superior skill and not of who had persuaded the Goddess of Magic to give whom a massive unearned boost. That would be a critical blow to the ego.

Morgan tilts her head back slightly. "If you are so glad to be rid of Hecate's boon now, why did you cling to it so tightly for so long?"

"A past suitor of mine granted me immortality without youth as a.. gift. I was desperate to escape from being a frail old woman, and at the time I… Didn't know how to perform the vitality draining spell which you employ. Hecate's boon granted me that escape, and the power to defend myself should my decidedly ex-suitor return."

"I see." Morgan turns her head to take in the room. "And what is… This.. place?"

I smile. "Soft power."

Circe nods. "Indirect control. There's so little knowledge of magic in the world that governments are falling over themselves to benefit from my teaching. My rise will be slow… But I have no need to hurry."

"Why show me this?"

"Because of your insistence that you are the rightful ruler of Britain."

Morgan turns to face Geoff. "Do you feel threatened? Is your grip on power less solid than you hoped it would be?"

"The Conservative and Labour parties are facing total annihilation at the forthcoming General Election. All reliable polling says that we'll have a Reform landslide. I'll be Prime Minister within a month." Geoff smiles faintly. "God help me."

"But not king."

"I still can't grasp why you're so fixated on that title."

"Because it was denied to me by a usurper. Regardless of what you tell me of the changes Britain has undergone-." She stops.

"Have you any idea how often royal dynasties have been overthrown since you retreated into Albion?"

"No." She looks around at us. "That is not what this is about. You wish to make me an offer. You wish for me to renounce my claim."

"You don't have a claim. There are multiple acts of parliament covering the royal succession and none of them mention you. Yes, at one time you could have argued your case, but that time was a very long time ago. That said, I would rather that you pursued whatever outcome which you think that you deserve peacefully than make assaults upon the country."

"What manner of nation is it that gives a claimant the freedom to call for the overthrow of their monarch?"

"The fact that you don’t know is an ample demonstration of why you're unsuited to the office." Geoff pauses for a moment. "We've.. settled things with Buckingham Palace. The succession is being altered so that the people involved with the Caligula club won't inherit. In exchange, the people who were involved won't be prosecuted. The press aren't happy, but they learn to live with it."

"And the new Crown Prince is unwed?"

"No, he's married. But his son isn't. We don't arrange marriages for royals these days. Whether or not he weds your daughter is up to him."

Circe nods. "And even if that option is unappealing, we can arrange for both you and Morgana to gain additional exposure to modern customs. You will have a far better chance of convincing the people of Britain to follow you if you understand how they live in this era."

I nod. "And how to govern a modern country. I'm not convinced that either of you could do the job at present." Carve the Keystone.

"And I assume that you would all resist any attempt at taking the crown by force majeure."

I incline my head. "Naturally. My preference is to resolve disputes peacefully, but I consider resolving them permanently to be a decent consolation prize. No sense letting things fester."

Morgan remains still for a moment.

"You implied that you had a solution to ageing."

I nod again. "One I could share with an ally. Not one I could share with a potentially hostile power. That would simply be foolish."

"I see." She turns her head to face Circe. "Perhaps you could show me the rest of your school?"

 

28th January
12:43 GMT -5

John Quinn as Doctor Fate floats a short way off the ground, levitating the book Ms Bowen handed over at head-. Or rather, at helmet height as he looks through it. Tula has entered the building with the forensics team, in order to keep them away from anything thaumically active rather than to do any sort of examination herself. Demon magic is the one area where the surface world is actually more sophisticated than Atlantis.

The small crowd on the other side of the police barricades grew once the news got around that a member of the Justice League who hasn't been seen in public in over six months had put in an appearance, but it's dropping off now that it's clear that he isn't going to do anything interesting. A few of the police are taking the time to stare at him, but I can't really begrudge them that. There isn't a lot happening, and expecting them to remain fully alert at all times is simply unrealistic.

"Rocket, check in?"

"Rocket here. We're about halfway through the list."

"Any trouble?"

"How do you mean 'trouble'?"

"Are they cooperating?"

"You mean, are they cooperating with the police officers arresting them for soliciting and substance abuse?"

"Yes. Though I believe that the arrest warrant also includes mind control."

"Some of them have kids. One had a boyfriend who didn't know what her job was."

"And I'm sure that they'll be very glad that she's not going to get dragged into Hell." I take a breath. "Rocket, I don't think that laws against prostitution are sensible, saving in that they make profiting from people trafficking slightly more difficult. I have two friends who are former prostitutes. If it wasn't for the demon magic I'd probably turn a blind eye to the whole situation but they're using demon magic so I can't. Also, they were deliberately altering the minds of their clients in order to secure repeat custom."

"Yeah, I get it." She sighs. "Those friends of yours. Who are they?"

"Holly Robinson and Selina Kyle."

"How did they.. get into it?"

"Gotham City Child Services."

"They were running a pedo ring?"

"No, they were just really bad at their jobs. It's not exactly a well-funded department in most cities, and with Gotham's economic decay and graft they never really had a chance. Low educational attainment, no home support, poor diet, no safety…" I frown. "No offence intended to Dakota, but is this sort of thing really novel for you?"

"Icon doesn't think prostitution should be illegal, either. He doesn't think government should have social policy. His 'grandfather' fought prohibition and internment."

"And you?"

"It's not like I don't get that banning it doesn't suddenly give the women doing it new jobs, I just…"

"Okay, you don’t like it. How would you fix it? What do you want?"

"To suddenly give every woman working in the sex-."

"Just the women?"

"Most-. Yeah, okay, everyone working in the sex trade a better education. High school graduate level. And-."

"Do you have good data on what proportion lack that level of education? As opposed to taking it up due to a lack of employment opportunities and sticking with it due to the relatively high tax free pay?"

"No, but I can't fix the whole economy."

"If not you, then who?" I shrug. "Education is an easy enough fix. The genomorphs are looking for volunteers for their telepathic education experiments. If you can get me their contact details I'll put their names down. No charge."

"I don't really know them personally. I'll definitely put out some fliers, though."

"Might be worth asking them what they're paid per hour, so you can work out what sort of employment you'll need to create to replace it."

"And how am I supposed to do that?"

"I don't know. Wasn't Hardware moaning about Edwin Alva owning his inventions? Get him to make something with civilian applications and site the factory in Datoka. Look at it as homework."

"Ah… Yeah, okay. I'll look into it. Anything else?"

"No. I'll check in with you in another half hour. Let me know if you run into any difficulty."

"Got it. Rocket out."

John turns a page. He clearly still has a way to go, but if he isn't shouting anything yet I'm going to assume that there isn't an immediate need to panic. Since there's nothing I can really add to his investigation, I turn away and walk over to where Artemis is talking to Chief Clayborne. She notices me approaching and hurries in my direction to intercept me.

"Yes? Something the matter?"

She makes eye contact with me, then pointedly glances at John. "Did you ever… Check him out?"

"Magicians have ways of confusing their trails. At least some people who'd been where he claimed to be remembered interacting with someone fitting his description. And he's helped me out."

She gives a slight shrug with her right shoulder. "Right. So what's our next-?"

The street explodes in white flame! I throw up a construct bubble around Artemis and myself as white hot fire pours from the heavens! Artemis crouches as the torrent of fire envelops us, anti-magic arrow already on string. I hear explosions as car petrol tanks cook off all around us, and the crash of glass as windows explode!

"Artemis, moving to the police line. Ring, what's happening?"

Artemis nods and we start jogging towards where I hope the police cordon is. Damn it, we haven't evacuated the prisoners yet!

"Incendiary attack launched from above. No prior chemical alteration in local air. Fire otherwise performing as conventional fire. Supposition: fire is conjured."

"Possible, but this would take stupid amounts of power."

A pact with the Parliament of Flames is a possibility, but a magic generalist who could conjure this amount of fire on their own recognisance would have far better ways to kill a few people. It isn't pure elemental fire because that has anomalous behaviours my ring can spot. It isn't divine fire because it's the wrong colou-.

We break through the curtain of flame, the burning wrecks of the police cars in front of us. I can see where the police and civilians have fallen back, convection making the area almost unbearably hot. Several are sporting burns, and a few have been laid down and are being tended to by medical personnel.

"There!"

Artemis points upwards and I follow her finger. Yes, there's someone up there, throwing flame down at us. Magnif-.

There's what looks like an explosion from the figure's location, and the spray of fire ends. Immediately I turn, cold gun constructs forming and shooting the still-burning buildings on either side of the street.

"Aquagirl, status!"

Artemis switches to flame-retardant arrows and joins my cold guns. The street still radiates heat, the air too hot to breathe.

"One severely burned. I'm administering a healing potion. I got a water shield up before anyone else could get hurt."

"Good reactions. Fate?"

A golden ankh appears in the air, John appearing in the air a moment later.

"Fate is well, though I am afraid that the book was entirely destroyed."

Darn it. Temperatures normalised, I cease fire with my cold guns.

"What the hell just happened?"

 

28th January
12:47 GMT -5

"…similar incidents of arson." Kaldur's team has had worse luck than we have. "Cornwall Boy is attempting to determine the form of magic used."

Left hand to my left ear, I look around the blasted street. Mr Quinn is now standing on what's left of the upper floor of the massage parlour, trying to gain a thorough reading on the magics still present in the building. Fire doesn't just burn things. When it comes to magical traces even normal fire has an unfortunate habit of 'purifying' things. The forensics team had already removed samples of Devil Jizz, but the shrine's gone. And I doubt very much that its destruction matters as far as Ms Bowen's pact is concerned, but without a trace on Triskele actually doing anything about it just got that much harder.

"Doctor Fate confirmed my belief that we were dealing with conjured fire. If it's the same person attacking each site, getting a read on the magic will actually be quite hard. He'll-."

"The point at which the conjuration occurred will be the only place where the magic can be felt."

I nod. "The person I saw was about a mile up. Female, and… Either blonde, or they had a fiery corona around their head. Didn't get time to really focus on them."

"Make that another place."

"Robin, what have you found?"

"Someone's burned down a circle forty feet wide in the Shenandoah National Park. I guess that explains why Tempest had trouble finding it. Hold on."

"Orange Lantern, are you aware of any fire-using metahumans in this part of America?"

"No. But I've sent a message to Vincent Edge at the Alliance in case they know something I don't. Flight and fire isn't a particularly rare combination. A competent magic user could probably manage both."

"An Atlantean could not."

"I'm not… Sure. How many Atlanteans experiment with fire magic on the surface? Atlanteans learn enough general theory that I'd be surprised if they couldn't make it work."

"It is not that simple. The magic used to enable us to live beneath the waves makes it difficult for us to use spells associated with other classical elements."

I frown. "Even for Purebloods?"

"If anything, they are affected more strongly."

"Guys, we.. may have another problem. Whoever burned the forest left a message. They.. burned an 'S' into the ground."

"They're not doing the crazy Gotham clue-leaving thing, are they?"

"No, an 'S' as in 'Superman'."

"In a shield?"

"No, on its own."

"The Kryptonian character doesn't just mean 'Superman'. It can be a reference to House El more generally, or in isolation mean 'hope' or 'resurrection'."

"None of those really fit a demon cult."

"Resurrection might. Thana and I have been pretty clear about what happens to someone who dies without making afterlife provisions. There are demons who are prepared to release people from Hell, if the price is right."

"No, that still doesn't make sense. Why would they use the Kryptonian letter, rather than runes or diagrams?" He pauses for a moment. "Can Kryptonians use magic?"

"According to Har-Zod, if they can, no magic tradition survived to the modern era. But he didn't have good information on Earth. We have a far more thaumically active environment than Krypton did. But I don't think that any of the kryptonians on Earth know enough about magic to make the attempt."

"Oh El, how many kryptonians-" I wince. "-are there on Earth?"

"One more than most people know about, but I doubt that they were involved. They wouldn't be this sloppy. And I don't believe that they know anything about magic."

"Could they know someone who does?"

"During my one conversation with them, they were emphatic about not wanting contact with anyone who knew their identity. And as far as I could see, their only real desire was to live out their life in peace. Getting involved with a demon would be radically out of character."

Richard goes quiet for a moment. "Do kryptonians go to Heaven?"

"They probably can, but I doubt that kryptonians are there rather than in their own afterlife at the moment. If someone was trying to resurrect a kryptonian then they would probably have to go to the Rao system and try there."

"I do not believe that there is any purpose in investigating a single symbol burned into the forest, especially when the symbol is so well known." I nod at Kaldur's conclusion. "Orange Lantern, continue to aid the police in investigating the women you have in custody. Robin, do you have any further leads to follow?"

"Yeah, I'm going to see if I can track down the people who came out here. They might just have been here to get high, but if there are any kind of long term effects to being exposed to Hell Juice we need to find them. How's your investigation going?"

"The fires have destroyed any physical evidence. We are now here in case the police require our assistance with combating DMN users."

"And whoever's creating the fires. I'll contact you again if Fate finds anything. Orange Lantern out."

I lower my hand, then fly over to Mr Quinn. Seeing me coming, he flies up toward where I saw our attacker.

"I have found nothing but Aquagirl's magic. I can only hope that the fire caster left a trace I can find."

"If we had to fight Triskele, what are our chances?"

"She slew an archangel in single combat during the War in Heaven. But she has marinated in hellish magic since then. If Angelica is with us, I am confident we will prevail." He stops in the air. "If we can bring her onto the Earth."

"And if we can't?"

Mr Quinn looks down, and judging us far enough away from any listeners he abandons Nabu's speech pattern. "Then we'll have to go back into Hell and talk someone into telling us where she is. Or wait until her deal runs out." He raises his hands. "Now. Let's see if I can talk the light into showing me what that woman who tried setting us on fire looked like."

Golden lights twinkle around his hands, then coalesce in the air in front of him in the vague shape of a woman. He points his hands at it and the image comes more into focus. Shoulder length hair, slim arms and legs, generous bust with relatively narrow hips. More prominent cheekbones than Kara. Midriff-baring t-shift, short skirt, face…

"Ring, search databases for a facial match."

"No close match found."

Drat. "Is that a cape?"

"Yeah."

"Demon hunting vigilante?" He shrugs. "Can you add colour?"

"I'll try."

He rotates his hands, and… Blotches of colour appear over the still sharp image. I.. think she was wearing a female superman costume. The t-shirt is blue and the red blob is in the right place for an 'S'. The skirt is red, as are the boots which Kara wouldn't be caught dead in. Still isn't Kara herself. Was someone.. trying to pretend that Kara was going on a killing spree? That would be stupid if they were. Even Lex Luthor hasn't tried something like that in years. People aren't quite stupid enough to believe that a costumed hero is going to suddenly turn on people for no reason, not when most costumes aren't hard to copy.

Mr Quinn lowers his hands and the image fades. "Good enough?"

"I'll let the police know. Something.. very strange is going on here."

 

28th January
13:02 GMT -5

Frederick Danvers lowers his telephone, shaking his head. "She's not picking up."

I nod. I assumed that something was up when I tried to scan for her and found nothing. "When was the last time you spoke to her?"

He hesitates. "Ah… Three.. weeks ago?" He nods. "Yeah, three weeks ago."

With the number of people we've taken into custody far outstripping what the local police station could hold, Tula and Mr Quinn have taken our suspects to the Fort Pickett National Guard base. Artemis and Raquel are out trying to find any of Linda Danvers's friends who might have dodged the police raid while I try to work out what our next substantive step should be.

"Do you have a regular contact schedule..?"

"We… Don't. My daughter and I don't see eye to eye on a lot of things." His face tightens. "And it looks like I was right about her friends."

"Now now, Officer Danvers. Don't count your chickens until they're convicted. Mister 'Buzz' might simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"I doubt that. I told-."

"Orange Lantern?"

I raise my left hand to my ear. "Chief Clayborne. What news?"

"Someone just phoned in to report a 'burning figure' entering the house where we picked up the drug users. I've got a car on the way, but I don't want to send them in if it's the woman who set fire-."

"No, no. Sensible. I'll get over there now."

"You need backup?"

Mr Quinn isn't Nabu, so I don't want to call Tula away because he might well need the help. Raquel isn't fire-proof, Artemis is-. Her skin, anyway. But if they trip over a jizzer while making their rounds I'd rather have them together.

"No, I'll handle this on my own. I'll call you back if I find out anything useful."

"Alright, if you're sure. Good luck."

I lower my hand and nod to Officer Danvers. "Thank you for your help. I'll let you know when I find out where Miss Danvers is."

He.. doesn't really react, then the universe skips as I transition to the house indicated. Police tape flaps across the broken-down door, but otherwise the place appears to be in a reasonable state of repair. Basic scan shows nothing untoward, infrared shows-. That the place should be on fire. But I'm not seeing any flames…

I stride up the short path and bang my right fist on the wall. "Hello!"

"Fuck off!"

Voice matches Miss Danvers.

"I'm afraid-" I take a step inside. Opens directly into the lounge, which is an interesting design choice. Can't immediately see her. "-that it's sort of my job-" A few more steps inside. Heat is coming from upstairs. "-to not fuck off in situations like this."

"Well make a fucking exception!"

Empathic vision… Shows a mess. Major recent psychological trauma probably. I stand at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. She's in the master bedroom.

"Miss Danvers-."

"What is your fucking-" Stomping feet as she storms out, thrusting the door open and emerging, glaring, onto the landing. "-problem!"

She spots me, and her face freezes. She's wearing a.. shapeless pullover on top of what is clearly a feminised Superman costume.

"Fuck."

"Miss Danvers, I understand that you're in a spot of bother. I'd like to help."

"You don't know anything. This all happened because of you!"

"What all happened?"

"Everything! I was happy, I had power, then you happen and suddenly everyone's looking for demon magic!"

"Stopping demon magic is usually a good-."

"YeeeaghHHH!"

She throws her head back, eyes squeezed shut as a wave of flame passes over her! Her hair -which was short and brown- becomes long and blonde and her chest grows-.

I intensify my environmental shield as the fire caster appears in Linda Danvers's place. She… Isn't looking at me, but is taking the time to get her breath back.

"Vile and maleficent sinner, what den of vice have you brought me to now?"

"That's a slightly-" Her head jerks up in astonishment. "-grandiose way of describing it-."

"You."

Genuine loathing that time. Not sure why, but it's coming through loud and clear. Disassociate identity combined with physical change isn't unknown in metahumans, but that was a little strange.

"I don't believe that we've met, Miss..?"

"I am Noriel."

"I see. From the costume I assumed that you were going to go with Supergirl."

"No, I am Noriel."

We look at each other for a moment.

"Your voice doesn't sound right and I'm not seeing any wings. Plus you tried to set fire to some police officers and I don't think that an agent of the Silver City would do that."

"I must fight every moment to keep this demon's harlot from directing me. And as for my wings, I lost them when you cut me with your accursed knife!"

"When am I supposed to have done this?"

"When you fled from Karrien Excalibris!"

Did-? "Oh yes, I did hit one of you, didn't I? You should know that Karrien was working with Neron and has been cast down for his transgression. And I'm in the clear as far as the remaining Angel Kings are concerned."

"Why should I believe a single word that flows from your excrement-flecked lips, heretic?"

"Why would I bother lying to you? Excalibris beat me using theurgy. You're here because being stabbed by the Sword of the Fallen removed your arcane abilities. You aren't a threat to me, but it looks like you have useful information and I'd like to trade that for my help."

She glares at me slightly less aggressively.

"I mean, how did you even survive?"

"I did not."

Oh. Yeah, that would make sense.

 

28th January
13:06 GMT -5

"Where did you wake up? Was it Skyros? Because if so-."

"No. I awoke in a forest, not far from here. For a time I wandered alone, my connection to Creation's fires taken from me."

"If you don't want your weapons taken from you, don't try murdering people with them."

She raises her hands, fires blooming to life around each of them. "My theurgy may be gone, but as one who was part of the choir which sang the universe into being-"

"I'm more of a-"

"-I am well-familiar with-"

"-giant hand man-"

"-mortal magics, and-"

"-myself."

"-cease your heretical prattlings!"

"No! I don't work for you, I don't work for the Silver City and after you set fire to a street I am under no obligation to treat you as anything other than a criminal." I make a gesture of appeal with both hands. "What was that in aid of?"

"I could see the taint of the demonic upon them."

"This is exactly how Asmodel was able to hoodwink so many angels into joining his crusade of self-aggrandisement! It's all about appearances and not at all about content or philosophy with you people! They were under arrest! We are going to break the pact with Triskele and rehabilitate them! What the Hell have we come to when a pagan like me is more interested in redemption than an angel?"

The flames around her hands go out, her expression vacant. "I… No. No." Her eyes harden. "You did this to me-."

"I didn't do this to you. If you want to get back to the Silver City, all you have to do is repent in full and find a non-suicidal way to die. Once you're back, I'm sure the remaining Kings will find some way to fix you-."

"Guh!"

The fires go out and Noriel staggers. "No, no-."

Her hair shrinks, turning brown as her face restructures itself back into that of Ms Danvers. Who jerks, yanking her hands away from where Noriel was holding them. "Bitch! I'm not fireproof!"

"Ms Danvers-."

"Oh, you couldn't even fry the one person we both want dead!"

"Ms Danvers, I feel that you may have gotten somewhat over your head. And when that happens, the intelligent thing to do is admit to it at the earliest opportunity. Most people don't do that for reasons of ego, but I'm hoping that at this point you're willing to recognise that I'm a problem that neither you nor your… Housemate? Are equipped to deal with. And in a situation like this-."

She draws a small knife from.. somewhere with her right hand, and slices a cut across her left palm. "By blood freely offered-."

My construct manacles pin her arms to the wall behind her, then to the construct I place over the wall when I realise that it isn't rated for any significant strain. A filament evaporates when it touches the knife blade but a small electric shock is enough to make her drop it to the floor. Another pair of manacles pins her ankles while I float up the stairs towards her, a look of what I hope is frustrated benevolence on my face.

"Thank you for the evidence and probable cause, but that really wasn't very sensible. While an angel with-."

"Fuckingshitsuckergraaaaagh-!"

I muzzle her.

"With its full theurgical power intact is a threat to me, one using a human body and with only the earthly magic it can channel through an untrained body isn't. She couldn't burn me if she wanted to, and I've come to realise that -despite my antipathy towards them- many angels are in fact reasonable, rational beings whose ends do not necessarily match my own."

She is not happy about that muzzle. I take a look inside her. Oh, woe is me, my parents don't understand me, everything is stupid, Buzz shows me-.

Ah. Well, at least I know what he looks like now. But I don't think I'm going to get anything useful from Ms Danvers.

Hm. Let's see. What was the inscription John Dee used for this sort of thing..?

Lines and symbols appear on the surface of my constructs, Enochian characters which are supposed to make getting in contact with angels easier. For some reason summoners are much less inclined to call up angels than they are demons, despite the fact that the latter will always try to screw you on the deal. I mean, yes, summoned angels nuked the Resurrection Crusade, but only after they'd had contact with them for a prolonged period of time and after they mucked up a major job. Given how popular monotheism is, it's a little odd that more people don't try it.

Maybe it's an education thing?

Ms Danvers stiffens for a moment, then her… Their hair turns blonde again. Noriel looks around, her eyes focusing for a moment on the symbols on my constructs, then goes back to glaring at me. Since she appears to be the more reasonable half of this duo I remove the muzzle.

"That's curious."

"This is your fault."

"No, I killed you in self-defence. It's either Asmodel's fault for giving you an illegitimate order, yours for following it, or…" I shake my head. "I don't even know. This isn't what happened when the First died."

"Linda Danvers' lover, the demon 'Buzz', found me while I wandered lost and bereft. He performed a ritual, and when next I was aware I was like this."

"The police and my team are looking for Mister Buzz. Might I assume that you're interested in reversing this?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to go back to the Silver City?"

She regards me curiously for a moment. "Yes."

"Do you believe that I want rid of you?"

"Of course you do."

"Then start making yourself useful. How do I keep you dominant?"

"I don't know." She looks at the Enochian characters. "What is this..? 'Welcome'?"

"Atlanteans don't study theurgy. Does Ms Danvers have any particular magical power?"

"She can.. confuse me. Confound my mind, steer me… To an extent. But in her own right she is a minor ritualist."

"Right." I take a set of binding chains out of subspace. "I'm going to put these on you, then you're going to come with me to talk to the police. We're going to find Buzz, and then we're going to separate you, and then Ms Danvers can join her fellow cultists in prison."

I smile.

"And then you can go to prison for attempted murder. Take it as part of your redemption."

 

28th January
13:12 GMT -5

"I am not answerable to human law. Unhand me!"

Officer Danvers stares for a moment at the blonde woman in the female Superman costume and then turns his head towards me. "You wanna explain to me what this is?"

"Your daughter's room mate."

He frowns, then shakes his head. "She didn't say anything about having a room mate."

"Sorry, I'm being poetic. They're literally sharing a body. Or.. something similar to that. Not entirely sure why or how, reversing it is one of the things we're going to be working on."

He blinks. "What?"

"She says that she's Noriel, the Fire of God. A presently-disempowered angel."

"Then why is she-?"

"Assuming that she's not just crazy, because on New Year's Day she tried to kill me. And earlier today she tried to kill a group of suspects, two of my colleagues, four or five of yours and me again. I rather hoped that the whole 'sky is on fire' thing had rather got people out of the 'angels equals good' mindset, but if it hasn't then I'm just going to have to ask you to do your job and take this suspect to the police station."

"If my daughter's in there-."

"She's uncooperative and loyal to the leader of the group probably producing the Devil Jizz, who is her boyfriend. We can't control the shift between the two individuals stuck in there, so I'd much rather leave it set to the one who is being helpful. Once Buzz is in custody, then, if we can't immediately undo the spell, we can sort out a timeshare."

He hesitates then nods, holding the rear door of his car open. "Ma'am?"

She shoots me a venomous look, but enters the car of her own free will. Officer Danvers closes the door behind her before getting into the driver's seat and pulling away.

I raise my left hand to my ear, taking a look at the knife Ms Danvers dropped. My rune stone shows that it's definitely enchanted, though I don't know what it's supposed to do beyond 'something demony'. "Orange Lantern to team. Linda Danvers is in custody. She appears to have been merged with another individual and they're alternating control of their shared body."

"You sure she's not just crazy, Oh El?" Richard sounds more amused than the situation really warrants. "Because that sounds a lot more likely."

"The transition is accompanied by a physical transformation."

"Rose Canton changed physically when she switched over to Thorn."

And produced observable magic effects which her alter ego couldn't. Was she just feeding me a line about being that angel? Was anyone actually watching that fight?

"True, and it's possible, but the individual in question claimed to be the one angel I stabbed with the Sword of the Fallen, and not a lot of people know about that. If exactly what's going on in her head really matters, we can investigate further. In any case, Noriel -that's the name the other individual gave for herself- informed me that Buzz performed the ritual which bound the two of them together. Tempest? Cornwall? Is that something we can track?"

"Ah… We could track her back to the ritual site. I do not know if I could track the individual who performed the ritual."

"Huh. I probably could. Fire magic's not that hard to track. I've actually got more experience with it than anyone else on the team."

"Aqualad, if you wouldn't mind detaching Cornwall Boy? We can make a start on hunting down Buzz."

"I agree. We have not yet encountered enough resistance to justify our presence."

"I'm not complaining." Roy sounds rather pleased with himself for some reason. "The fewer fights break out, the less collateral damage, right?"

"Or they could all be getting ready to ambush us." Beryl sounds just as cheerful, and I find myself smiling at her attitude. "We've only got evidence of one person using Devil Jizz to pick a fight. According to the police interviews, all the rest of them were just getting high off it."

I rise up into the air, looking around with empathic vision to find Robert. As I sight him I note that he's a lot happier with his place in life than he was when we first met. He really likes being on a superhero team.

"Drug addicts are not known for being honest." Leonid sounds less amused. "Is not the demon threat significant enough that we are allowed to use truth compulsion magic upon them?"

"Demons as a whole, yes. But we haven't actually seen any demons yet. Just people using magic. There are dozens of augmentation drugs that dwarf could have taken to murder that man. Heck, Rag Doll could have done it with a knife. It's not really special."

I hear Wallace exhale. "I'd vote for someone who wanted to make truth magic part of police interviews. Y'know, if I wasn't going to miss the election by five days."

"Cornwall Boy, I have your location." I put one zeta tube construct down next to him and another in the burned street. "Transport to a site where Noriel used her magic available."

"Going through it now."

Transit in progress.

"Huh, yeah. Shouldn't be too hard to follow this."

I dismiss the zeta tube constructs, then transition myself to his location. "Cornwall and I will track Buzz down. I'll let you know when we find him. Orange Lantern out."

Robert nods at me, eldritch sort-of-fire flowing from his hands. Then he rises into the air, supported only by his conjured winds as he heads to where Noriel bombarded us from. "Up here, right?"

"Quite correct."

"Appreciate you giving me the chance to do this, but… How come you didn't get Doctor Fate on it instead?"

"Our mission is to prevent the distribution of Devil Jizz. Not to fight Triskele."

"But we could, right?"

"No idea. I can tell you her history and some of her better recorded feats, but exactly what her limits are? Pass. Don’t know. I don't think any fight is hopeless- "

He raises his hands over his head and slowly turns to take in our surroundings.

"-but it isn't a fight we're really geared up for, so I'd rather leave it for Doctor Fate and Angelica."

Or Mammon. I didn't think for a moment that he'd cut off the flow of Devil Jizz, as it's the thing keeping Rosacarnis on-side. But I did think that he'd prevent visible spill over. If Triskele has been bypassing his supply chain, he might be able to justify coming down hard on her. I imagine that Rosacarnis would appreciate getting rulership over the Succubae once she's gone. Or… Really, I don't have.. much of a problem with demon pacts as long as the people signing up know what they're getting into. Triskele doesn't even follow the letter of her pacts, but… If the people using Succubae Jizz got consent from their clients in advance and knew what they were giving their demonic sponsors, that's… Really no worse than most business contracts.

"Okay, those… Those are places we already checked with Aqualad. Did Noriel say anything about where this happened?"

"In a forest. Could be at the 'S'' marked site Robin found, but-."

"Yeah, that's her magic. But there's another place." He activates the holomap on his arm computer and points. "Right.. there."

"Right then." Ring scan shows nothing much at the site. "Transition in two, one."

 

28th January
13:16 GMT -5

Robert floats through what looks like a campfire site, occasionally closing his eyes to better feel whatever it is that he's feeling.

"People were killed here."

"Can you tell how many?"

He shakes his head. "More than one, less than a hundred. The fire's covering everything up."

I frown. The ground is clearly blackened where the fire was lit, but I can't see any other signs of burning. "Where..?"

He lands, laying his hands on the ground. "Contained by magic, probably. I'd guess they cancelled the containment spell then left the fire burning for a bit to cover it up."

"Does your training include necromancy?"

"Nah." He shakes his head. "Dad's not keen. Otherworld's one thing, but messing around with Heaven or Hell is really s-something you have to think about very carefully."

I nod, smiling. "Very carefully."

I've got traces of genetic material from the site, but… Nothing I'd want to rely on in court. Or even in the less formal environment in which superhero investigations take place. The trees provide some cover from the winds, but what I'm picking up could have come from anywhere.

"So I wouldn't want to try calling anyone up."

"That's fine." There might not have been a jump in the murder rates, but that still gives a demon cult some leeway given that Virginia has over three hundred murders annually. "Can you track Buzz's magic with this?"

He stands, shaking his head. "Sorry, mate."

I walk over to him, pulling the knife out of my pouch and offering it to him. "Would this help?"

"Maybe?" He takes it, holding it by the guard with his left hand and moving his right over its surface. "At least one person was killed with this. And-." His eyes come fully open. "Yeah. Got someone. Feels… Like demon magic. And… If this was the murder weapon…"

He kneels, stabbing the knife into the ground and then standing and taking a step back.

"I should be able to get a direction and… Roughly the distance."

"How 'should' is 'should'?"

"Blood and death are powerful ritual components. If he had a shield up strong enough to block it, Doctor Fate would have felt that."

I nod, then frown. "You sure that's not necromancy?"

"I guess it… Kind of is? But no one means this when they say 'necromancy'."

I nod, then raise my left hand to my ear. "Orange Lantern to Aqualad. We think we can trace Buzz. Should we proceed?"

"We have.. located a group of cultists. They are armed, though if they possess any-"

I hear automatic weapon fire.

"-Devil Jizz they have not used it."

"Do you want me to help?"

"This is well within our abilities. Find the leader and defeat him before he can carry out any further evil acts."

"Rightoh. I'll let you know once he's in custody. Orange Lantern out." I lower my hand. "I'll transition us to his approximate location. We'll locate him together and then I'll fly us to him. Stay back and counter his magic as best you can while I take him down."

"Um-. I haven't really.. practised countering demon magic. I can disrupt simple stuff whatever he does, but I'm not… Y'know, Doctor Fate."

"That's perfectly fine. I'm not expecting you to be." I smile. "Not for a few years, anyway."

"Right." He nods, then returns his attention to the knife. "Just got to.. redirect-."

Something flows through the clearing, causing my environmental shield to flicker. Robert shakes for a moment and then gestures north north east.

"That way. About… Ah… Fifty miles? On a road, big road. In a lorry."

Ring, scan.

I step towards Robert as he snatches up the knife, an image of the area appearing in my mind. Interstate 81 is roughly in the right area. No.. obvious gaps in the traffic where something is defying my scans.

"Transition in one."

We appear a mile up, looking down at the traffic. Compare visual image to scan…

Got you.

I transition us again, appearing in front of an articulated lorry and flying backwards to keep pace with it. The driver's eyes are slightly vacant, while-. While my eyes fail to see whoever is in the passenger seat beside him.

Robert swipes his right hand across, and a sudden gust of eldritch wind causes whatever spell Buzz was using to flicker and fail. The driver jerks, blinking as the mental influence spell fails and momentarily losing control-.

I stick a construct around the lorry and rise into the air, stopping once we're about a mile up.

"Mister Buzz, you are under arrest."

The driver frowns, looks right and visibly starts. "Who the fuck are you? What the fuck is going on?"

Buzz's eyes flick from Robert and then back to me. "Easy does it, lads. No need for-."

The front cab of the lorry disintegrates, segments floating in the air as I pull it apart. A large reptilian hand construct grabs Buzz and pulls him free, his legs dangling. The parts of the lorry then flow back together, then I lower it into a lay-by to allow the driver to recover.

"I have corpses, Mister Buzz. A minor brothel madam who somehow found herself in possession of a book instructing the reader in the use of demonic magic. I have a knife and a woman who appears to have been merged with a disempowered angel-."

"Oh yeah." He grins unpleasantly. "Nice work with that, by the way. Howagh!"

I remove the mage slayer round from his forehead and then attach the binding chains to his arms and legs.

"So this is what you actually look like? Curious."

"I've-." He tries to pull against the chains and gets nowhere. "I've always looked like this."

"Originally human? Well, you wouldn't be the only one."

He stares me in the eyes. "Yeah. Bet even you were Human once upon a time."

I chuckle, then shake my head. "Mister Buzz, I am not an impressionable teenager. If you wish to play mind games with me you will have to up your game. Now, do you intend to tell me what you've been up to in Virginia, or-" I hold my left hand out towards him, palm first. "-do I have to encourage you?"

"You allowed to do that?"

"Ongoing demonic threat. Any and all means to prevent loss of life. I'd try and turn it off afterwards, but? No promises."

"Fine-. Fine. This whole thing's been a huge waste of time anyway. I should have cut 'n run when you got away from the fuckin' Host."

"The benefits of hindsight. Now, tell me about the Devil Jizz."

"Oh, that had nothing to do with m-."

I roll my eyes.

"Brand."