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

[Mr Zoat]

23rd July 2013
08:39 GMT

Roy looks towards where Supertown stands out like a wart against the verdant forest below. "Is that actual gold?"

"I didn't check. Probably not, but once you get matter transmutation technology gold isn't really anything special."

"I wasn't thinking about the cost. It's just… Gaudy." He turns to Arisia. "Is this some sort of space thing?"

She looks a little confused for a moment. "No, we..? Don't cover buildings in gold on Graxos Four." Something occurs to her. "Except-. I think some places around the equator use gold film to reflect light away from their windows. But not for decoration."

Roy look towards the local star, probably working out the amount of sunlight Supertown is likely to get. Yes, that's not why. "How about other planets?"

"W-. I haven't been to all that many planets, but I haven't seen anything about other planets having gold buildings in my planetary database."

Donna shakes her head. "Is this really important?"

"Different species perceive colour and shape differently. Understanding why the New Gods of New Genesis coat their buildings in gold might reveal something fundamental about their psychology."

She throws me a quizzical look, and I manage to keep a straight face-

"Snrk."

-for a good ten seconds. It gets a chuckle out of Roy and Arisia as well.

"No, it's probably… Either someone made their buildings gold when they first got the ability to make all the gold they wanted, and now it's tradition… Or the gold thing is incidental and it's just a facet of New God technology that we can't perceive."

Donna nods. Okay, we're well inside the atmosphere here…

"Roy, flight systems?"

"Finally. All systems green." I release our tether, and he's flying on his own. "Thank you."

"Okay, I'll drop you from orbit next time. Your inertia belt system should let you survive."

He thinks for a moment. "I know you just said that 'cause I'm whining about being a passenger, but-."

I nod. "You actually want to try skydiving in power armour."

He tries to shrug. "Eh."

"I'll drop you when we go back to Earth." I slow to a halt. "Alright, this is it. Troia, you and Lantern Rrab have Supertown, Arsenal, you're with me." I clench my left fist. "Connect." My rings and Arisia's ring start glowing faintly. "If we get interrupted, that'll stop. Direct communication every half-hour."

Three nods, then Roy and I peel off while Arisia and Donna fly onwards.

"Alright, now-."

"If they react badly to us showing up, retreat. If they complain about my armour, check for threats and then get out. I got it."

"Good show. New Gods have a sort of.. magical translation assistance so you shouldn't have any trouble understanding them-."

"But the armour's got a translator program for a bunch of alien languages just in case, I got it. Seriously." I nod. "Were you serious about the woad?"

"No."

"Uh."

"Woad is a plant native to Earth. It isn't cultivated on New Genesis. You won't recognise many plants here, though the underlying evolutionary logic which gave rise to Earth plants still applies so you might see a lot of things which look a bit like plants you're familiar with. Eating them is probably safe, but you should make sure that I'm around before consuming just in case."

"Right. Uh…"

"I don't have files on Primitive culture, but based on what I know about tribal societies in temperate environments it's entirely possible that they haven't discovered shirt technology yet."

"Okay."

"If that's what you were working up to asking about."

…

He sighs. "I need a girlfriend, dude."

"Even though I can assume female form, I'm-"

"Huh?"

"-taken."

"No, that-. Wasn't what I meant. Ah. Arisia. Is she..?"

"Other than the slightly off skin colour, she's basically human. Physically and culturally compatible. She's going to want to move back to Graxos Four when her training is over, but that's only in the Sector next door so the travel time isn't that bad."

"Okay, but you know her better than I do."

"Well, yes, and if you want me to tell you her tells for what construct she's going to make then I can certainly do that, but I've only really interacted with her professionally."

"But don't you know what everyone around you wants?"

"I can see what they want, and-" I make a point of looking at him, and when he doesn't complain… "-if you're looking for normalcy then you've completely missed the boat. But I generally don't share what I know with other people due to respecting their privacy."

"I-. No, that's fair."

"Also, she's got a massive crush on Lantern Jordan."

"Huh?"

"That's not a privacy violation; she's not exactly subtle-."

"But he's her teacher." I give him a look. Come on, we were both teenaged boys, don't be a hypocrite. "And like, twenty years older than her!"

"Twenty two, to be precise. Ah. Have you seen the Disney film 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'?"

"Yes?"

"Esmeralda was sixteen. Want to guess how old Phoebus the Guard Captain was?"

"Twenty two years older than her?"

"About that. So it's not a lost cause, and I think that Jordan would thank you for trying because he finds it creepy too… But it's not that weird that she'd find a mature man attractive."

"Okay. You got any better suggestions?"

"Ah. Catwoman's single?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th August 2000
09:39 GMT

Senior Agent Blaze shudders as we appear next to the standing stone circle closest to Dublin.

"Sir? Are you alright?"

"Aye… Jus' takes a little gettin' used to, oi'm tinking."

"Sir, there isn't much data on what happens when banshee are exposed to power rings. Sir Percival told me that he was always careful in case something that advanced… Accelerated things faster than human technology."

"Oi already went t'rew the Iron Death once, t'ank you very much. Oi'm not likely to forget how it goes."

"As you will, sir." I step forwards, runic entry token raised, at the same time as she rises off the ground. "Ah."

"Put that awey." She raises her hands, the standing stones glowing in response for a moment and then… We're inside. In an adjunct to the main chamber, rather than the garden where I appeared the first time. Probably why she wanted to take the lead; she can actually control where we go.

I follow her as she leads the way towards… Where a small group of three banshee are doing something to a crystal growth. "Is that something that I can learn? Is it something I should learn?"

"Oi've got no idea and no, definitely not."

"Alright. Can I ask 'why'?"

"When uther type o' energy run threw the system, it throws all the energies out of alignment. Oi dread t' t'ink what yewer ring would do to it."

That's a fair point. "But there's no problem with me bringing the ring or lantern through?"

"There hasn't been up 'til now." The three banshee we're heading towards turn away from what they were doing to face us. "Where's Queen Mab?"

The blue-haired one smiles faintly. "You'd do better askin' yon squire about that."

The green-haired one nods. "Moit be gettin' a new princess out 'f it, if we're lucky."

Senior Agent Blaze looks mildly annoyed at the third member of the group. "Bláthnaid, 're you going t' give me a straight answer, or are you goin' three fer three in bein' unhelpful nitwits?"

I wince. "I think I… I worked it out. She's seeing Sir Percival. Um. Possibly amorously."

Bláthnaid… Smirks. "She had a daughter by him. And they've been apart a while." She looks pointedly at Senior Agent Blaze. "You've not been lettin' yers run around on his owen, I hope?"

"Nick c'n look after hisself. Is Sh'rain about, or is she visiting with her..?" Senior Agent Blaze's mouth shifts awkwardly for a moment. "Fahther."

"She's oot, checkin' on some o' the standing stones we haven't been able t' get at fer a while."

Senior Agent Blaze sighs. "Please tell me she's not on her owen."

"Niamh's with her. She'll no' be in any danger."

"So who's in charge 'til they get back?"

The three look at each other for a moment, and then smile smugly.

Bláthnaid shrugs. "Yew? That's how it was last time, and the Queen hasn't made a new Will."

Senior Agent Blaze scowls. "Jus' tell me where Sh'rain and Niamh are exactly."

"You'll not be wantin' t'see Mab then? Could be educational, with you having a new mate."

Blaze… Actually blushes faintly. "I'll not be needin' that kinda education, thank yew very much."

I awkwardly raise my right hand. "Sir, do I need to be here? This sounds like it could be personal."

Bláthnaid smiles... Hungrily. "Could be fer both a' yuhs. Now we're not so worried about hidin' awey, plenty o'bahshees will be lookin' fer mates o' their own."

I raise my eyebrows. "Are you reopening communications with your homeworld?"

She walks closer and… Takes hold of my lapels. "That wasn't really where I was goin' with that."

I regard her flatly. "My home has every modern convenience known to man. It would literally drive you insane."

"Moin doesn't, and yew c'n teleport back to America."

"That's… True." I look Bláthnaid over. Lilac hair, generally pleasing form, superpowers… "Alright then. Dinner? I can pick you up at six, local time?"

She blinks, while her two friends grin at her. "Huh?"

"I don't know what banshee courtship is like, but communal eating and conversation are good standbys amongst humans." I take her hands from my lapels and gently raise them to my lips. "If you're willing."

She blinks, pulling away slightly. "Ah…"

Senior Agent Blaze loses her patience. "Sh'rain. Where is she?"

Bláthnaid backs up a step, retrieving her hands and turning to Senior Agent Blaze. "North. On th' coast. Near the Giant's Causeway."

"Roit." Senior Agent Blaze turns away and walks purposefully back towards the standing stones. "Let's get gowin'."

I follow on behind her, briefly turning back in Bláthnaid's direction. "I'll see you tonight!"

She nods awkwardly, while her green-haired friend gives her a shove.

Senior Agent Blaze gives me a mild glaring. "What was that in aid of?"

"Her or me, sir?"

"I t'ink I know what she were aimin' fer. I thought yew'd have more sense."

"Banshee menfolk may be content to stammer and stutter when a woman shows interest, but that's not really how humans do things. The Alliance is responsible for policing all alien populations but since she's not the subject of an investigation there's no conflict of interest. Is there a problem that I'm not seeing?"

"Oi had t' submerge myself in human society fer a long time t' understand it. She hasn't. She isn't goin' t' have the sloitest clue."

"I know." I smile. "It's going to be fun. And honestly, getting a grasp of the average banshee's grasp of what's going on is probably going to be more useful than your own unusually insightful view." She raises her eyebrows. "Other isolationist communities are going to be in a similar position, and a lot of our work will be with them."

"We'll be back t' shootin' vampires before too long."

She's going to have a fun time when Alliance Personnel Resources gets around to writing a racial equality policy. But I should phrase it diplomatically.

"Oh, I don't think so, sir. I don't think that Chairman Dorn will allow anyone who embarrasses him or weakens his negotiating position to survive the experience. He's making too much money."

She huffs dismissively. "He'll show his true colours soon enough."

"I believe that his true colour is green, sir. I don't suppose that the Giant's Causeway actually has any significance, does it?"

She shakes her head. "Not as far as oi know. If the titani were throwin' rocks at somethin', it's not there any more."

"Good show. Then let's hope this is simple. Oh, and if there's any advice you can give me about courting a banshee female, I'm all ears."

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd July 2013
08:47 GMT

I push a frond out of the way as we march through the forest towards the last place I saw a Primitive settlement.

…

"Are you alright? You haven't said anything."

"I was just… Thinking. Wasn't she..? Dating Batman?"

"Yes. Ah. She might want you to chase her over the rooftops a few times in lieu of a more conventional date-."

"How..? How old is she?"

Hm. "What's a polite way of saying 'don't worry, she's not interested in a long term relationship'?"

"I don't think there is one. But… Going back to how old she is..?"

"I don't think you're supposed to ask a woman that. Older than you, certainly. She's pretty hot, though."

"… Yeah… That… Wasn't really what I was thinking about."

"You..? Weren't thinking about how hot the woman with the big breasts in the skin tight leather is?"

"I kinda am now. How about-. Girls our age?"

"Lantern Taranna is about our age. I can put in a good word. Zatanna's single… I think."

"You've got Lanterns our age?" I look at him, raising my left eyebrow. "I mean, other than you?"

"She's not even our youngest recruit. Her adopted daxamite brother is about five years younger."

"Why would you recruit someone that young?"

"He needed to get off his homeworld quickly and he had the right mindset. We're not sending him out to fight the Reach, but he's still doing a lot of good work in the reconstruction arm of N.E.M.O.. And between his power ring and his own toughness, he's more resilient than most things he's likely to bump into."

"How tough is he?"

"Daxamites are basically mildly mutated kryptonians. They absorb a wider variety of wavelengths but get hurt by materials with a high attenuation coefficient as a result. So, very tough."

"Does Superman know about them?"

"Yes. But they're Luddite isolationists with a Kryptonian space age planetary defence system. Visiting would be… Awkward. And the only daxamite woman I even slightly know is Lantern Yat's mother, and… She doesn't like aliens. And she's married. And she sent a giant monster after me."

"No, I… I wasn't thinking about it like that."

"I get that response from some women."

"How about Zatanna?"

"No, she's never sent a giant monster after me."

"Do you think I've got a shot?"

"You have many shots. Your weapons are powered by energy drawn from a bleed torsion generator and stored in ultra-high density capacitors."

"With Zatanna?"

"No, of course not." He splutters. "Zatanna is a young woman, not a gun. She has neither a ray emitter nor any sort of projectile delivery system-."

He stops. "You're messing with me!"

I snigger quietly. "Of course I'm taking the piss, genius."

"A-HAH!" He grins as he starts walking again. "I wasn't sure if it was that or you were just really autistic!"

"I think someone would have spotted it if I was that bad by now."

"Yeah, I guess." He smiles broadly inside his helmet. "So, do I?"

"I don't know. My personal relationship with Zatanna is somewhat complicated, but you're a reasonably attractive and heroically inclined young man and I'd say that you've got as good a chance as anyone."

"Oh? Did you two date?"

"No, we fake-dated while we were plotting against Nabu. And she wanted to date but I thought that would be taking advantage inappropriately, and afterwards she got a bit obsessive for a while, but.. she got over it and we're perfectly happy as friends now."

Almost certainly. I mean, I missed that that wasn't what was happening the first time, so I could be completely wrong.

"How 'obsessive' is a bit obsessive?"

"Fairly obsessive."

"Is that a red flag, or..?"

I consider answering 'only to cowards', but I think I should take this more seriously.

"She was using the Star Sapphire. I don't know if you-."

"I was there when Green Lantern talked to Green Arrow about Carol Ferris going crazy. I know exactly what it can make someone do."

"It wasn't quite that bad, but-. We got rid of it. Sent it back to Zamaron. She's fully recovered."

"I dunno, dude. That still sounds like a red flag."

I shrug. "No red flags with Taranna. She's a delightful person."

"But she lives on the other side of the galaxy."

"I could offer her additional tuition. Earth has actually decayed to the point where I could justify bringing a support Lantern or two to help with things."

"Maybe I could just..? Call her first?"

I nod. "I'll get her number once we get back to Earth. Oh, ah, her species is fairly standard humanoid, but she's got cybernetic eyes."

"Like..?" He makes a curving gesture over his eye orbits.

"No, no, regular size. But they're very obviously not-"

"Uuuuuugh."

"-organic. Double time."

We jog through the jungle towards the source of the moan, fronds whipping past as we burst into the clearing containing the Primitive's village-.

And the open air sanatorium it's become.

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd July 2013
08:51 GMT

A handful of people -all human-looking- are moving around, offering water to those laying on blankets on the ground. It looks like the disease induces a fever, so they're not covered in anything-.

And I see one of the people doing the ministering cough, indicating that they're infected as well. Some have an oddly patchy rash, raised areas of skin that are red in colour. Coughing and wheezing indicate an airway obstruction but it doesn't sound phlegmy. One elderly woman who has people clasping her hands is shuddering-.

I transition forwards, taking a purple healing ray out of subspace as the people around me recoil in alarm.

"Orange Lantern Two Eight One Four, I'm here to help."

A.. slightly dazed-looking man stares at me. "What-?"

He sounds slightly hoarse but doesn't have any other overt symptoms.

"I'm an Orange Lantern. I was coming here for something else, but I'm happy to provide aid. This-" I hold up the healing ray. "-is a healing device from my homeworld. May I try it on your patient?"

"It-." He and the woman holding the elder's other hand exchange a glance. "It looks like a gun."

"It turns out that shape is very practical." I point it at my own face and pull the trigger. "See? Harmless."

The old woman gives out a pained moan. "Dying. Not going to-. Make it worse."

"Grandmother-." The man nods. "Do it."

I turn the healing ray around and fire it at her chest. My current patient looks like she was well-preserved. As a New God I've got no idea how old she actually is. Since she's a Primitive she might be her apparent physical age, or she could be thousands of years older.

Heh. I remember an advert I saw… Many years ago, about cultural differences. A couple of male American teenagers watched an attractive woman walk past in a bikini, and one commented that in Europe, going topless was common in some places. Practically the law. His companion found the idea rather appealing. Then the scene switched to a beach in Italy, where a couple of male Italian teenagers winced and averted their eyes as a rather rotund Italian woman stripped down. One said to the other; 'In America, they have to leave that on. It's the law.'

"Madam, is that any better?"

She blinks, struggling to focus. "A little."

"Is it any easier to breathe?"

"Lantern." Roy approaches me from behind, deploying his own healing ray. "Should I offer that?"

I move the ray's beam up to my patient's head as her breathing appears to ease. Purple healing rays can't cure diseases, but they're good at treating symptoms.

I glance at the woman on my right. "Ma'am? Could you please escort Arsenal to the most critical cases?"

She stares at me for a moment, then her gaze drops back to her elder.

"Or find someone who can?"

The old woman's eyes focus on her. "Do it, granddaughter. They can hardly make the situation worse."

"Are you well, grandmother?"

"Better than I was."

"If you could tell me where it hurts?"

"Everywhere. But my chest and head are the worst. Is this a cure?"

"No, just a palliative. I'm just treating the symptoms. I didn't realise that New Gods could get ill."

"We're not immortal. Just very tough."

Her granddaughter waves at a…. Yellow-skinned snakeman who.. is just about the only person here not in tribal dress. Which given that most of them have pale skin makes me feel a little awkward. "Sserpa, these aliens have medicine. Take Arsenal to the worst affected."

He slithers a little closer and makes a beckoning motion with his right hand. Roy nods and follows him towards a group who are coughing almost constantly.

"Head clearer?"

"Yes. Thank you."

I move the beam to her right arm-.

"Don't bother doing that. I don't need my arms or legs to live. Help someone closer to reuniting with the Source."

I turn to the man and play it over his head. "Sir, please let me know when things become clearer."

"I feel… Clear."

"Sir, if you could please try to be a little more helpful. Allowing yourself to deteriorate helps no one."

"No, no, dizziness is the first stage. I've got days before it gets bad. And it doesn't get better. I'll be fine for a few minutes and then I'll start losing focus again."

I move down to his throat. "What sort of provision do your people have for disease outbreaks?"

"The forests of New Genesis are a wonder of natural remedies. But nothing we know of works. We can't even relieve the symptoms!"

Odd. They should at least be able to make an anti-inflammatory.

"I don't suppose that you have anything like a microbiology laboratory?"

"No." He shrugs, clearly confused. "It shouldn't be necessary. This isn't a forest as you may have on your world. This is a wonder of the Old Gods; a natural cornucopia of foods and remedies."

Just not for whatever this is. Or perhaps there is a cure here, but the disease spread too fast. "Have you considered consulting Supertown?"

Three sets of eyes glower at me.

"I know that you don't have good relations, but are relations so bad that you're willing to die over it?"

The old woman scowls. "We have had no contact with anyone who has not been here before. No new plants or animals have been sighted. Supertown is the one place this may have come from."

"I doubt that they care enough about you-" I turn off the beam, getting a nod of gratitude from the man. "-to create a disease to target you, especially as it could infect them as well. Next most urgent?"

He stands, beckoning me to follow him. "This way. And there is no one else that it could have been."

I follow him across the camp towards a primitive looking building. "Apokolips? Bugs?"

"The bugs have even less ability to create something like this than we do. And if Apokolips has such a disease then they would use it on Supertown before us. And we keep watch for their Boom Tubes."

"Ships?"

"None have landed. And if they have, we have not met their crew."

"Alright. I'm not a physician or virologist, but I'll do what I can to help. Who do you have in-?" I step in after him, seeing…

Of course. The children wouldn't be immune, would they?

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th August 2000
09:55 GMT

Senior Agent Blaze glances back at me as we fly over Northern Ireland, a mild frown on her face.

"Sir?"

"Oi'm not used to being paired up with someone else who can fly."

I nod. "As far as I know, it's just the two of us. May I ask you a question?"

"You just did. But you can ask another too."

"Do you want to visit the banshee homeworld?"

She thinks for a moment, then shrugs. "Can't say I really thought about it. Even if Queen Mab was willin' t' get everyone together just to open a portal, if would be one way. And oi wouldn't know anyone there."

"Ah. No. Since Sir Percival was able to give me the relevant star charts, I'm perfectly capable of flying there myself. It's not much more effort to take passengers. Since Earth's banshees are at peace, I was thinking of offering… I.. don't know how to phrase it… Advertising? Amongst the people of your homeworld for additional colonists. A few males, for example."

"We don't need 'em. Humans work perfectly well for siring the wee ones. Why'd you think Bláthnaid was showin' an interest in yew?"

"I thought she was trying to establish dominance. Do… Most banshees on Earth have human fathers, then?"

"Some o' the younger ones. Mab has a banshee sire. Oi never asked the others."

"You?"

She shrugs indifferently. "My mother never said. I would have said 'yes' 'til I found out who Sh'rain's sire was. Now oi jus' don't know."

I'd be fascinated to see the effect on her D.N.A.. Comics and Star Trek have encouraged me to assume that the result of a fertile human-alien pairing would be a hybrid, but I haven't seen any real difference between Senior Agent Blaze and the elder banshees. I suppose it could be more like asari, where the partner is used to induce parthenogenesis. Or I suppose that banshee could be altered humans themselves, with their exotic abilities engineered into their bodies by a smart virus… So it wouldn't matter whether one or both parents were banshees because the foetus would be infected either way.

Unfortunately, reading a person's D.N.A. with a green power ring is a bit more difficult than that, so…

"Have you considered having your genetic code analysed? Obviously, nowhere on Earth has any records of male banshee, but if your father was human we could narrow down which part of the world he came from."

She frowns. "Oi hardly t'ink that matters."

"Well, it could be a little awkward if it turns out that he was one of Senior Agent Logan's antecedents."

"That doesn't seem loikly. We didn't leave Ireland all that much."

"The Irish Potato Famine was a hundred and fifty years ago, and that caused a significant wave to emigration from Ireland to America. The name 'Logan' is Gaelic in-."

"Oi know it's Gaelic." She rolls her eyes at me. "My mother didn't have me a hundred and fifty years ago."

"That statement could be taken two ways, sir."

"If oi'm not tellin' Nick me age I'll certainly not tell the likes o'you."

"Sir, according to him, Sir Percival is pushing a billion. All the centuries he's been on Earth are the proportional equivalent of me spending an hour at a café. And if Her Majesty doesn't mind that, I doubt that you've got anything to worry about."

"Oi'm not worried. It jus' shouldn't matter."

"If you're hiding it, then it clearly matters."

"Oh? Want to know how old Bláthnaid is, do yeh?"

"Sir, we haven't even been on one date yet. You and Senior Agent Logan have been together for far longer. Though I admit, I am curious as to whether she'll duck the question in the way that you do."

Her eyes narrow. "Oi t'ink oi loiked yew better when you talked with yer hands."

I smile, tap both index fingers against my chest and then tap the tips against each other.

"Psh."

And there's the coast, and… Senior Agent Blaze is turning off and descending towards… Yes, there it is. The circle of stones is clearly broken, but I can see the faint glow as Sh'rain and her attendant conduct their repairs, gradually reforming the stone and… Whatever else their magic requires. Ahead of me, Senior Agent Blaze takes a moment to observe their progress and then changes direction from towards them to straight down.

"Best not surprise them. That's delicate work, so it is."

I descend, landing lightly on the ground alongside her. "Is there any significance to this location?"

"Oi don't t'ink so. But standing stones make the land feel… Better."

"Feel better to banshees, or is there a tangible effect on plants and animals?"

"Why would it matter?"

I shrug. "I was just thinking that integrating banshees into Irish society would be easier if there was something your people could offer in trade."

She folds her arms across her chest. "Loik all those vampires you convinced t' join the Alliance?"

"Ah-. The principle's the same, but I'm not sure that would be safe for banshee, considering…" Hm. "Though I suppose that sticking standing stones in isolated places might make keeping in contact with the more isolated extraterrestrial populations easier. Particularly those who aren't willing to trust the Alliance yet."

"Maybe they're happy where they are."

I nod. "They might be, but banshees used to live in a far wider variety of places. You can't be the only one interested in the rest of the world."

She snorts. "I t'ink yew'll find oi can."

"So I should take dinner to Bláthnaid?"

She hesitates, carefully watching the build team as the rock repairs itself faster and faster as they near completion. "Y'could try takin' her to a cabin in the woods. A restaurant in a town's a bit o'a risk."

"How about an isolated service station along a motorway? It's not exactly fine dining, but it would be a change of pace for her."

She gives me a sidelong glance, but looks slightly amused. "Feelin' cheap, are ye?"

"No, just… Like you said, I don't want to overwhelm her, either with industry or strangeness."

"Oi'd say you've got.. five seconds."

"Huh?"

"Four seconds!"

Hair's up eyes glowing fuck! I armour up, grab her and fly towards the standing stones!

Sh'rain and her assistant have their hair up too, though they look a bit more functional. They raise their hands for a moment before they confirm who I am and lower them again.

"Three seconds!"

Grab them-

"What'd'yeh t'ink yer doing!"

"Two seconds!"

-armoured globe and head upwards-

"One second!"

-as a big robot appears, crouched over the standing stones.

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th August 2000
10:00 GMT

It's kneeling, arms planted on the ground before it. Humanoid, three long omnidirectional fingers, two glowing eyes arranged vertically-.

"You can let us go now." Sh'rain glares at me rather sharply. "We can all fly."

"I apologise, Your Highness." I dismiss the construct holding them slowly, just in case they haven't got their flight… 'Ready', or however it works. Looks like they do, and while Sh'rain pointedly looks away from me in a mini-strop, her escort give me a grateful nod.

Senior Agent Blaze on the other hand is staring at the robot. "A cyclops?" She frowns. "How did that get there?" She turns slightly to her friend. "Sh'rain-."

"Oi didn't know it was there!"

Blaze looks at her sceptically. "Really, now."

"Oi didn't! Oi was just repairing the circle! Why would any banshee have anything to do with that… Thing?"

She watches it not move for a moment. "Green, is it alive?"

I deploy a construct sensor array, which… Isn't anything like as good at the ones my orange alter-egos are wont to use because I actually had to memorise the structure of the thing, but I can at least manage to pick up on thermal and electromagnetic output.

"It has power, but unless its insulation is really good it's low output. About a two-hundredth of what the two in Greece were estimated to have."

"Is it dying?"

"No, if it had a radioactive leakage that was damaging its internal components I'd be reading a higher output, not a lower one. My guess it's that it's inactive."

Sh'rain frowns down at it. "We can see it's inactive. It's not moving!"

"I mean that it doesn't have orders. It hasn't received an activation signal. And if that's the case, then this is a useful opportunity to-" I look towards Senior Agent Blaze. "-either study their technology, or… Maybe give the titani back one of their robots and say 'thank you'?"

Senior Agent Blaze gives her head a small shake. "Or it could jus' be wakin' up."

I nod. "Perfectly possible. I.. believe that our estimate on the activation time on the two from Greece was a few seconds, but given that this is a different model I suppose that the time required could be much longer. What I don't understand is why it appeared when the stones were repaired."

"Mab kept some minotauri bounty hunters caught up in the network. Oi've never heard of it done with somethin' that big." Senior Agent Blaze activates her communicator. "Sh'lainn to Alliance Headquarters. We've got a bit o' a problem here." … "About a hundred metres tall, but it's sittin' down." … "Yes, you probably should."

I glance at her. "Getting the Director?"

She nods. "Aye, probably. Oi don't t'ink we've a transport big enuff f'r this."

"Maybe if we borrow the entire banshee population of Earth and they all lift together?"

Sh'rain snorts. "Maybe you pick it oop. Yer the one with the magic ring."

"Yes I could-" I nod. "-do that, but given how heavy it probably is, the slightest lapse in concentration would result in it falling on whatever we were flying over. And if it activates, it might well decide not to cooperate."

Her escort points at it with her right hand. "Is that supposed t' be Fionn mac Cumhaill?"

I shrug. "Not precisely, ma'am, in much the same way that your species isn't quite like the banshee of human myth. And goodness me it feels weird saying that to you."

"Why?"

"I'm used to humans knowing nothing about the non-human sophonts on Earth and those sophonts knowing so much more. To see you surprised about one that was stored in your own standing circle network seems a little strange."

Sh'rain glares at me. "Oi'm telling you the truth! Oi didn't know it was there!"

"And I fully accept that you're telling me the truth, that's why it's strange." She calms down a little, though she still looks suspicious. "I doubt very much that the banshee of all people are working on war robots. You don't have the capacity and it would drive you mad."

The escort looks at me quizzically. "We know about the vampires because they're why we came here. The titani left before we arrived on Earth."

"Ah." I nod, turning to Senior Agent Blaze. "So you're less than three thousand five hundred years old."

She frowns, slightly distracted as she waits for the Director to get back to her. "Why do you want to know?" … "Do you have a bet goin'?"

"Most of the Alliance does."

She eyes narrow. "Who started that?"

"Senior Agent Fitzpatrick. And the git placed his own bet last, which means if you're thirty two or younger then he takes the pot."

"Hmpf."

The escort looks mildly amused. "D'you not know how old she is?"

I shake my head. "No. I mean, Dorian said that she said something about being in favour of the steam engine, but was that the aeolipile from the first century? The first steam pump from the seventeenth century? The first steam train from the nineteenth century?"

Senior Agent Blaze looks mildly offended. "Well, it wasn't the first one!"

I nod. "I'll give Doctor Petrovic the bad news when we get back."

"How old did-!" Her head snaps away. "Director. It's a titani cyclops." … "Yes. Oi'm not sure yet. Oi t'ink Mab locked it away in stasis and it got let out by mistake, but she's…" She glances at me. "Busy." … "She's seein' Sir Percival."

I lean closer to Sh'rain. "Spent any more time with your father?"

"You know oi have." She frowns in confusion. "Yew'r there f' the lessons."

"I mean, socially."

"No? Why would I?"

I.. wince slightly. "Because he could have a positive influence on your life? He is-."

"Oh, oi know." She looks… Slightly pleased. "Oi'm looking forwards t' havin' a little sister."

I.. had rather assumed that Mab would be a bit old for that, though I suppose that I've got no idea whether or not banshees even have menopause. "You might end up with a brother."

"Don't be daft."

"… too close, but this is a tourist area." Senior Agent Blaze looks around. "Oi don't think we can keep it a secret. And oi'm not sure we should, not if the Alliance is serious about bein' open and honest." … "You could, but oi t'ink Agent Green can manage that if it comes to it. Alascano would be more important."

If only so that we could have someone here who could work out how to reliably turn it off. And if I've understood what I half-overheard correctly, I can put up a simple barrier and encourage people to stay away from the giant war robot.

I turn my scanner to the surrounding area, and… Yes, there are people heading this way. One man is pointing binoculars at me-. I wave back at him.

"Roight. Unless somethin' changes-."

The cyclops's eyes flare as it surges to its feet and stomps towards the shore, the angular rocks which make up the Giant's Causeway glowing for a moment before-.

Before reforming into a land bridge between Ireland and Scotland, which the cyclops proceeds to stomp across.

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd July 2013
09:25 GMT

"I appreciate that it's only a palliative, but it should hold off the symptoms of the disease until you can come up with something better."

Aarden nods as he takes hold of it. "Thank you, Lantern, Arsenal. Without you, my people would be dead or dying."

Arsenal nods, looking away from the earnest New God slightly bashfully. "No problem. We don't exactly follow the Prime Directive."

Aarden look at him blankly, then shakes his head. "I have no idea what that is. Did you really violate your people's most fundamental laws to aid us? Are you an outcast now?"

"Ah, no, sorry. It's a-. Sorry."

Aarden moves his gaze from Roy to me in the hopes of an explanation.

"Few members of my species leave our homeworld. 'Prime Directive' is a reference to popular fiction, in which the United Federation of Planets has a very strict policy of not intervening in the cultures of non-members. We -on the other hand- are free to intervene as we like."

He nods. "For which we are all grateful. Are you the Lantern assigned to this Sector?"

"No, the Orange Lantern Corps does not currently have a Lantern assigned to this Sector."

"Then..?"

"Darkseid Anti-Lifed our homeworld. We-."

His face falls. "Then you have my deepest condolences."

"No, it's fine, we got rid of it, but it looks like someone is messing around with the abandoned New God technology-" He looks a little blank. "-and we wanted to check that you haven't had any disappearances."

He shakes his head. "I don't think so. I have been more worried about the dying than whether someone had vanished."

I nod. "Please check. And we should probably look around the area anyway, in case someone fell ill while they were out hunting."

He nods. "We sent people out, but by the time we realised how serious it was, we were all feeling the effects."

"And please remember that we've treated the symptoms. We haven't cured the underlying-" Roy realises something and reaches for his utility pouches. "-condition."

Roy pulls out a healing potion and holds it up. "Would this work?"

Huh. The alchemy involved doesn't just heal injuries, but encourages the proper function of the body through magic. New God are highly resistant to disease by default, so…

I shrug, looking at Aarden. "It's a healing potion. It was designed for my species, but the magic involved should work on yours perfectly well. It doesn't cure disease but it might boost your immune system to the point that you can overcome it yourself."

He nods. "What is the chance that you are mistaken?"

"I-." I frown. "Arsenal, as far as you know, has Canis ever used one of those?"

Roy shrugs. "I don't really spend much time with him. Hey, can this disease affect us?"

"Your armour's C.B.R.N. resistant and I've got an environmental shield. And since we're not New Gods, I should just be able to remove the disease from our bodies if we do get infected."

Aarden looks confused. "Why not use your ring on us?"

"Your metaphysical presence interferes with construct formation. There's probably some… Horrible torture device from your ancient history that would weaken your resilience to the point where I could, but I've got no idea what it would be called or where to find it."

Aarden shakes his head. "We don't torture people here. If you want that sort of machinery, you'd need to visit Supertown."

"Or Apokolips, presumably."

"The last time Apokolips attacked us, it was with an army of soldiers riding on dogs." I wince inwardly on Canis's behalf. "Before that, giant insectoid monsters. Their descendants still live here, though they've calmed down a lot. Neither are diseases. You are right when you say that we are resistant to them; Apokolips undoubtably has disease weapons, but I have never heard of them being used against New Gods."

I nod. "I have no records of other New Gods using our healing potions. It shouldn't cause an adverse reaction, but I can't promise that."

He nods, taking the vial from Roy. "Do you have more?"

"I have enough for twenty doses stored in subspace. Arsenal?"

"Five more."

Aarden nods, and downs the potion. He then blinks in surprise. "I was expecting it to taste worse."

Roy nods. "The guy who made it had a bad experience with bad-tasting medicine. He didn't want anyone associating him with that sort of flavor."

"I can understand his… Huh."

"Problem?"

"I can feel it innervating me. Our medicine works in the same way."

"Huh. Would you mind if I took some samples back? Kid Flash would love to analyse them."

"Of course! That's the least we can do! But I will warn you now: our plants seldom grow well on other worlds."

I nod. "I'll pass that on." I turn to Roy. "Arsenal, please join the search parties. And keep an eye on the people with you. We don't know how this disease responds to repeated purple healing ray exposure."

"You think we might be healing the disease?"

"It doesn't work like that with Earth diseases, but this infected New Gods. I don't know for certain. Keep an eye out."

He nods. "Right. What are you doing?"

I wave my hands, a construct laboratory bench appearing. "I'm going to be trying to analyse the disease directly. If it's on a database somewhere, then I can fabricate a cure. If not… Then I can send a message to Earth and see if anyone has a better idea."

He nods. "What about Supertown?"

We look at Aarden, who shifts uncomfortably. "I agree that they have no reason to use an artificial disease on us. But they are one of the few who could." He shakes his head. "I do not want to involve them until we have no choice."

"Then that's what we do."

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd July 2013
10:24 GMT -7

"Ah, Grayven?" Starlight looks up at me in surprise as I trot into her office. "I didn't know you were visiting today?" She smiles awkwardly, but less awkwardly than she used to so I'm calling that progress. "Is this a surprise inspection?"

"Oh, no, I just…" Uh. "Are you aware that Sunset Shimmer has been taking Twilight Sparkle to cult survivor-" Starlight flinches. "-meetings? Was that a 'yes'?"

"No… But… How does that work, exactly? The.. cult thing, I mean."

"Well, humans aren't herd animals in quite the same way that ponies are, but they can be… Ah, 'brainwashed' into herd-like obedience by people who know how to manipulate certain instinctive behavioural patterns. But it's not unbreakable, and if people who are heading in that direction can talk it through with other people who've been in the same position, it… Helps."

"Huh." Starlight looks thoughtful. "I didn't know Princess Twilight was interested in human psychology. Do you.. think they'd mind if I tagged along?"

"Ah-. Probably not? But Sunset was taking Twilight because she feels that Twilight has a cultist-like reverence for Celestia that's not healthy for her, so she's encouraging her to meet people who've been in a similar position. I don't think Twilight's.. really picking up on that, but it.. gets Sunset out of the house and socialising and that's the main thing."

"I've never been a cult member before-. But I suppose the entire pony species' obsession with special talents is pretty similar."

"Not exactly, because there's no charismatic leader-. But we're getting away from the point. I went to Twilight to talk to her about it, and we got onto the topic of her opening a school-."

"Like Sunset's magic school in the human world?"

"No, it was some sort of friendship theology school. Point is, it came up that she never formally graduated from Celestia's school, so-."

Poof!

I turn my head, immediately spotting the somewhat-frazzled Twilight, the flash of her teleportation fading as she jerks her head maniacally around. I raise my right forehoof in her direction.

"Twilight-!"

Poof!

And she's gone again.

Hurr.

"So she's gotten a bit scatty, and I thought I'd be here so that Celestia can shout at me without having to travel to Ponyville. But in the meantime, I thought that I'd check up on you."

She nods. "So you do want a status update on my projects."

"No, I mean… Heh, if anyone should be aware of the folly of treating someone as being purely a repository for their special talent, it's you. I respect the work you've been doing, but I don't want to chain you to your laboratory."

She frowns. "But I like my laboratory. I'm making progress fixing things here."

"You mean…. You're exercising your special talent and doing nothing else."

She draws herself up, takes a deep breath, and then sags slightly. "I… Guess..? But until I can fix… Whatever it is that stops ponies learning things after their special talent gets removed, I can't just get rid of it."

Oh dear. "Troubleshoes still struggling to pick up new skills?"

She sighs. "Yes! I should have known it wouldn't be so easy, but the moment I saw his cutie marks removed and he started being able to walk across a room without destroying it, I thought I'd… Arrived, you know? And then I started doing the cognition testing-. Just as you suggested, and it's virtually impossible for him to learn new skills. And I'm comparing to how he learned things while he still had his mark. We even gave it back to him to make sure it hadn't damaged his brain, and he immediately went back to being able to learn normally. And yet, unmarked foals can learn new skills without cutie marks just fine."

I nod sympathetically. "I didn't think you'd be able to solve the problem in a few months. I assume that it's not just him?"

"No, I was able to replicate my findings with my other volunteers. I'd.. like to find out what it feels like for myself, but I can't take the risk of losing my special talent in magic. It's just so-. Frustrating."

"Oh? Do you want to get rid of your special talent? I didn't think it came with a downside."

She sighs. "I know it will make using magic harder, but I'd feel like I'd earned it, not just been given it by… Chance, or-" She waves her right forehoof. "-however it works. And I don't know what having this special talent is preventing me from doing. Just because it's not as overt as Troubleshoe's sabotage, that doesn't mean it's not happening. And I wouldn't even know about it."

I nod. "I suppose that if the reversals so far haven't had any adverse effects, you could just increase your staff."

She slumps against her desk. "I wish. Do you know how rare pure magic special talents are?"

"Given that there's a whole school for gifted unicorns, reasonably common?"

She shakes her head. "Most students have a magic-related talent. Having somepony have a talent in all forms of magic is really rare. Unheard of, actually." I frown. "Twilight only actually knows less than a dozen spells. Most of her most impressive feats are using really strong thaumokinesis, magic blasts or the Elements of Harmony. I'm a technically better spell caster, but I struggle a lot with research and theory. My special talent wants me to learn by doing, which is fine for me but doesn't let me explain what I'm doing to other people, and… Can result in me just repeating other ponies' work without realising it."

"What about Sunset?"

Starlight nods. "She's the closest I can think of to a theoretical 'pure' magic talent. I haven't noticed any weaknesses, and she sure hasn't mentioned having any. But does that mean that she actually doesn't, or just that she isn't noticing it?"

"Alright. So how about getting someone who can cover your weakness." She winces, averting her gaze. "Problem?"

She loosens her muscles, breathing in slowly, holding, and then breathing out again. "You.. said that ponies are herd animals. Do you know what pony herd structures are actually like?"

"I know what primitive pony herd structures are like on Earth."

"It's.. probably the same thing. And you're… Research shows that ponies instinctively see the Princesses as a cross between 'mom' and 'lead mare', and I'm pretty sure that I'm instinctively seeing you as 'herd stallion'."

"Ah, no offence intended, but I consider my relationship with Luna-."

She blushes, recoiling. "I don't mean like that. I mean, I instinctively feel safe around you-"

I shrug. "I'm glad-."

"-which is irrational, but-." She huffs. "When I was a filly, I used to do research with a guy called Sunburst. He was way better at theory than me. And then… Some things happened, and I haven't seen him for a while."

"I learned from Sunset that I should enquire what 'some things' are in advance."

"What? Oh, I got angry about him getting accepted into…" She looks around. "This school, when I didn't. That was when I started realising that there was something wrong with cutie marks."

"But… You're a magic talent. Why didn't you get accepted?"

"You can't apply before you get your cutie mark. He got his before me. And I… Probably could have applied a few months later when I got mine, but at that point I was too focused on overcoming the system to want to."

"Alright. Write a letter to him and offer him a job. The worst that can happen is that he could say 'no'."

"It's just… I haven't spoken to him since… Which, okay, wasn't the most sensible thing to do. It wasn't his fault that he got his mark when he did. And his parents probably didn't even ask him before they sent the application in. It's just… It's a bit awkward."

"Do you want me to come with you and hold your hoof?"

She opens her mouth to reply, then closes it again, looking thoughtful.

"Maybe a little?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd July 2013
09:38 GMT

Huh…

"Lantern? Have you learned something?"

"It's not intelligent."

The old woman frowns at me. "Why did you think it was intelligent?"

"I didn't." I look up from my microscope construct. "I'm an Orange Lantern. I'm primarily a military officer who dabbles in police work and philosophy. I'm not a physician. I can clearly see the disease. It's a single cell organism. I can even decode what its D.N.A. should allow it to do. What I can't understand is why what it should be doing is clearly not what it's actually doing."

"Because you study the corporeal and mundane, Lantern."

"No. That's why I said 'it's not intelligent'. My capacity to analyse the arcane is far weaker than my ability to analyse the corporeal, but I can do it. I know that more than the physical exists, and I can say with certainty that these cells have no desires of their own. I don't know why they create the symptoms that they do. I don't know why your people aren't able to resist it. And I-."

"I may."

"You may..?"

She nods towards the microscope. "Let me see."

I stand aside, and she takes my position, staring down the magnifier.

"Most of our people were born down on the planet's surface. But in my youth I dallied in Izaya's mighty city."

"Is that where you learned medicine?"

"You are from a primitive world, are you not? The Guardians were fond of recruiting from such places."

"Define 'primitive'. Earth's technology is highly variable."

"You were hunter-gatherers, once. Then your kind taught themselves farming and some of your people began to settle in place, ensuring that their food supply was reliable but experiencing a plethora of new problems. Consensus replaced by the reign of god-kings, the accumulation of waste encouraging the spread of diseases, sedentary life promoting physical weakness and the brief struggles of bands of wanderers replaced by true war."

"I know that pattern has been replicated on a thousand worlds. More, most likely."

"And the primitive people they left behind?"

"Almost everywhere they were conquered by the better organised and more prosperous civilisations that actually built things. There are subsistence farmers in a few places, but true hunter-gatherers hang on only in the most isolated places."

"And you have contempt for them."

"I have contempt for that way of life. The people I treat with as I find them."

"And you have contempt for us. You see us as them, only worse because we can see the shining city in the sky and actively turn from it."

"That's a non-unfair way to describe my feelings. Treating this disease would be far easier with the technology of Supertown."

"Is there nowhere on your world where people from cities have returned to simpler ways of life?"

"South America, effectively. Though I don't know what the long term effects of that choice will be. They might be able to replace chemical and technological medicine with magic, or they may simply accept the higher rate of death. Is that what you did?"

"After the fall of the Old Gods, New Genesis gave us much. But some always sought more."

"I wouldn't ever criticise someone for seeking more than they have. But Highfather Izaya has the Source's approval. He isn't violating any fundamental covenant."

"There is more to fundamental magic than upholding your end of your bargains."

"It's natural for change to create new problems. That doesn't mean that stasis is the correct route."

"We 'Primitives' did not choose stasis. The eldest of us knew that life and walked away from it. We cast aside what did not serve us."

"Then… Good luck fixing that disease without what you walked away from."

"If it was Highfather's people who created it, the problem is not that we stepped away. It is that they did not."

"You can't control how other people behave. Not unless you've mastered the Anti-Life Equation."

She jerks her head around and stares at me, perhaps trying to deduce how I even know what that is.

Finding nothing, she returns her attention to her work. "I would advise against thinking about such things too readily."

"It's not that I want to. But Earth spent a month languishing under its effects. Many people died, and others lost themselves to it."

"And you avoided it?"

"No, not really. I'm just a hard target. Anti-Life is a lie, and I've trained myself to recognise that instinctively."

"Even those who maintain a sense of themselves after they are exposed, the taint can linger-."

"And when we purged the Earth of it, I was at ground zero. That should have dealt with any lingering influence."

"How did you purge it?"

"The combined power of seven different power rings used together on the focal point of the infection. Though according to Canis, the form of the Anti-Life we experienced is incomplete."

"Apokoliptian dogma."

"I suspected, but I can't prove it either way." I tap the microscope. "Learned anything?"

"It is as I feared. These cells are merely a vessel for a greater power, a manifestation of corruption. Its nature-."

"Is contrary to yours, so it bypasses your defences. So, what, we can't cure it?"

"It can be cured, once we have a better idea of its fundamental nature so that I can find something contrary to that."

"And how do we find that?"

"There are several approaches which we could pursue. But your best path leads you to K'Zandr the Oracle. We must know the origin of the disease, and if it is artificial then the ones who spread it will be long gone."

"As a Themysciran, I'm well used to the idea of consulting an oracle prior to a heroic mission. Just tell me where to find her."

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th August 2000
10:04 GMT

"It's headin' fer Scotland. We're going t' need backup."

It's extremely impressive to watch, actually. Some of what were… Clearly erroneously identified as naturally occurring basaltic prisms are more or less in the right place. The bits chipped out of their exterior rise out of the water and return to their proper place and they shift up or down in order to make a level platform. What's a lot more dramatic is that the sections of the path that had fallen apart completely come flying out of the water from… However far they've travelled. They just float up, water cascading off of them, then slot themselves back into the floating platform. Perhaps even more impressive is the large parts of the Irish Sea that are foaming as the sunken parts rise up as well.

I look to Senior Agent Blaze. "Can I assume that we never tested those?"

"If Rinaker knew there was a cyclops here, the Alliance would have been all over this place decades ago."

The cyclops clomps in the direction of Scotland, uninterested in us or in the dilapidated state of its path.

Map.

A three dimensional image of the revised terrain appears before us. The cyclops isn't moving quickly, but Scotland's not all that far away.

Sh'rain looks it over, then relaxes. "Oh good, it's leaving."

Senior Agent Blaze shakes her head. "We don't know where it's goin' or why it's goin' there. Fer all we know it's going to get t' Scotland and then turn roit around."

Sh'rain doesn't appear troubled by the idea. "Then we destroy in when it does."

I awkwardly raise my right hand. "Sir, I think-."

"You c'n go and bother Mab. Just… Knock on the door loudly."

Sh'rain's eyes widen slightly, then she focuses on Senior Agent Blaze. "Can we no' deal with it ourselves? It's not that big. And doesn't metal not like gettin' exposed t' seawater?"

Senior Agent Blaze considers her friend for a moment, her hands on her hips. "Is there somethin' you'd be wantin' t' tell me, Sh'rain?"

"No." She holds her gaze for a moment, then sags slightly. "This circle wasn't on th' list t' get repaired. I thought Ma didn't think it was worth the bother!"

"Oh, great. Did y' no' think she might have a good reason t' leave well enough alone?"

I wince slightly as the two of them square off. "I'll be leaving now."

I move away before focusing on movement and the flow of the landscape beneath me, causing me to pull away even as Niamh looks longingly at my back. Yes, having the boss's daughter get into an argument with the police is pretty awkward, isn't it? But they need to stay there just in case the cyclops turns violent.

Fortunately, Ireland's not that big, and I'm landing just outside Sir Percival's home a few moments later. Shateera and Sheenta are standing in a nearby copse… Out of earshot. They look up at me but don't otherwise react to my sudden appearance.

Now, what's the best way to do this? Since he's a Maltusian, he'll feel it if I scan… But if I need to interrupt him anyway… Scan-.

Two humanoids heading for the door-.

"Ah, there you are, boyo!" Sir Percival smiles as he walks out, Queen Mab just behind him. She looks… Awkward? Irritated? She masters herself before beckoning her bodyguards over. "I was wonderin' if you'd be havin' something to do with the noise up north."

"Sh'rain was repairing standing stones and accidentally let out a cyclops."

He raises his eyebrows. "That's not what you'd be calling a small accident, now is it?"

"Compared to what, sir?"

"Where might it be headin'?"

"It fully restored the Giant's Causeway and is heading for Scotland." I turn to Queen Mab. "Your majesty, why was it there?"

"It was making too much noise."

"Um. When you say 'too much-'?"

"Electromagnetic radiation." She looks towards the village. "There's so much now that I barely notice it, but in those days the output that thing had would give me a headache. And it was only a matter of time until one of the humans realised that it was a machine and not a fomorian."

"Which… Might have spurred on human technological development."

Queen Mab draws herself up haughtily. "Which was the last thing we needed. Even here I can feel the electromagnetic fields buzzing at the edge of my senses."

I raise my right hand and generate a Faraday cage construct around us.

Mab blinks. "Oh."

"Better?"

She gives Sir Percival a rather sharp look. He shrugs awkwardly. "Aye, well, I could do that too. But last time we were together it wasn't really necessary."

"I'll thank ye to remember in future."

He looks at me, a faint smile on his face. "You're getting me in trouble already, boyo. I'll remember that."

"Sir Percival, Your Majesty, we have a titani robot heading for Scotland. Do we know why it's going there?"

Sir Percival shrugs. "Looking for Benandonner, I'd be thinking."

Queen Mab nods, as if that explains anything.

"Sir, ma'am, that doesn't explain anything. Who or what is Benandonner, are they likely to still be alive, and what's likely to happen if they're not there?"

"Well." Sir Percival strokes his chin for a moment. "I'm not an expert on titani weaponcraft, but I doubt they'd make something that would give up easily."

I nod slowly. "So it's going to walk all over Scotland. Do you think it's been programmed not to step on people?"

He nods. "Aye, well, I doubt it'll step on people, but it's database might be a little out of date."

"So it won't recognise anything more recent than three thousand five hundred-. Wait, no, it was after the arrival of banshees on Earth. Three thousand years?"

Mab looks mildly distasteful. "And a lot of good it was."

Sir Percival spots that I'm getting impatient, and lightly pats Mab on the arm. "You'll be remembering that the last shadoen invasion was thirty five hundred years ago, and the anti-fleet weapon the titani built flattened Atlantis with the blowback." I nod. "Well, it turns out that it didn't destroy all of the fleet. A few o'them made planetfall. Benandonner… I'm not sure that was its name, but he was one o'them. A big fellah, if I remember rightly."

"Dead?"

"Titani robots don't give up until they've gotten their target. But this one might be a wee bit confused. It didn't exactly go quietly into the fae, and…Ah. We had t' bash it over the head a few times."

"You two?"

"No. No, that was Caoimhe and me. A bit o' a present for Mab here."

"So can we just shove it back into the… Into the fae?"

"Ah… Yes… If you can stop it moving for a wee while. It's not invincible, just rather tough."

"Okay. I think-." My ring blinks. "Excuse me. Yes?"

A construct image of Senior Agent Blaze appears, looking a little frazzled. "It's started shooting. Get back here!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th August 2000
10:08 GMT

I appear, wincing as a brilliant beam of white light lances out from the cyclops's upper eye towards-. Senior Agent Blaze, who is focusing of frantic evasive flight. Construct palisade shield, construct armour… Huh, that feels familiar. And scan. Where is-?

Sh'rain's being dragged south by her bodyguard, clearly unhappy about leaving her friend behind to fight the giant robot. Objectively the correct decision. Nearest Alliance aircraft are back at headquarters, and they're not supersonic so there's no chance that they could get here in a tactically useful timeframe. We can probably call on the British military for support, but I'm a little worried about what the lower eye-.

The cyclops's head swivels towards me and-

Reinforce!

-pulse-fires with its lower eye directly at me, which fortunately involves shooting at the strongest part of the shield construct. Senior Agent Blaze charges up her hands with a gout of… I think it's plasma? Which she throws at the cyclops's neck, doing… No measurable damage.

And the thing about banshees is that despite their ability to chuck plasma around at will they're not really any stronger or tougher than humans, and she's not even wearing her lightly armoured field uniform because this was supposed to be a diplomatic mission-.

"Sir, get behind the giant glowing shield!"

She glances in my direction for an instant, ducks under another giant beam from the cyclops and then rockets in my direction, taking one last shot at its lower eye as she flies past. It doesn't seem to be particularly good at tracking small objects and certainly doesn't try to turn away to protect its eye… Because it didn't need to. She didn't damage it.

Banshee blasts are pretty nasty if you're an unarmoured human, but even an unarmoured vampire can take a hit or two and keep moving.

She's nearly to me when its head locks onto her, and-. She's not going to-.

I dart forwards, interposing the shield-. The lower eye fires-. She ducks around the edge of the shield, but it isn't as thick there and while the first hit gets blocked the second hits the weakened construct-

It's not weak, it's fine, it's immutable.

-and punches through!

"Ah-!"

Lower the shield!

I get the thicker part of the shield in the way again, replacing the failed parts with something thicker. Then I put a platform under Senior-.

"Oi'm fine!"

I glance down to confirm-. "You got shot, sir."

She rises up besides me, knife cutting away the material of her skirt so that it doesn't.. stick to the burn. "Oi've had worse."

Field trauma training suggests that it's not immediately crippling, though it's going to hurt once the adrenaline wares off. I reach into subspace and pull out an antiseptic spray. Those are safe for banshees, though painkillers… Nothing strong enough to immediately stop that hurting is safe for either banshees or combat zones.

"Here."

She takes it with a nod, pulls the remains of her skirt aside and sprays the burn, her face creasing up in pain as she does so.

The cyclops doesn't fire again, its head rotating back to its direction of travel as it continues its march north west.

"Sir, what happened? What set it off?"

"It didnae loik the look o' me." She checks her injury once more, then passes the bottle back. I subspace it. "Learn anythin' from Mab?"

"Yes… Ah, to be clear, it didn't have a negative reaction to Sh'rain?"

"No?"

"Bit of an odd question, sir, but how closely do you resemble your mother?"

She frowns at me. "What's that got t'do with anything?"

"She and Sir Percival were the ones who stuck it in the stone circle. It may well have pre-registered both of us as active enemies."

"Oh." She shakes her head. "Oi don't remember her that well."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Then maybe just the fact that it remembers being hit by a banshee-."

"No, it didn't attack Sh'rain. It did single me out." She sighs as she watches its back. "Oi hope y' don't think I can stick it back in thur."

"Might have been nice. My best bet is ducking under its crotch, grabbing it with a construct from outside of its arc of fire, and then flying it into space."

"What's wrong wi' that?"

"I don't know the effective range of its main weapon. If I put it into low orbit, it would have line of sight to about a fifth of the world. If it's programmed to destroy the shadoen before preserving humans -and given what happened to Atlantis, I'd guess it is- that would be a significant risk."

"Alright. We'll just have t' follow it, then."

I reduce the size of my shield and head after the giant robot, Senior Agent Blaze following me under her own power.

"What did Director Logan say?"

"He's contactin' the British government. Oi don't know what their planes can do against it…" She looks down at her own clenched fists. "But oi'm comin' up a wee bit short."

"We could ask if Dorn could spare a spaceship?"

She clenches her fists. "Or we could not. What's the hardest you can hit somethin'?"

"I haven't focused on combat with heavily armoured targets. As I said, I could try lifting it. Just hitting it… Pretty hard? The problem is that if I focus on hitting it as hard as I can I'm not going to be thinking about evasion."

"Oi-." Her head jerks, and I get a beep in my ear as I'm included. "Director?"

"Not yet, but in the future, who knows?" I can hear the smile in Senior Agent Fitzpatrick voice. He's found his role… Somewhat reduced since the Alliance embraced openness and transparency. He took a promotion when just about all surviving Alliance agents got one due to the sudden influx of new personnel, but the organisation just doesn't need a creative and quick-witted professional liar at the moment. "So what's this I hear about a giant robot?"

"Sir, a titani cyclops is currently walking from Northern Ireland to Scotland in order to pick a fight with a shadoen we're pretty sure died thousands of years ago. We're not sure how much of a threat it is to anyone, but we do know that it doesn't like Senior Agent Blaze and I."

"What, did you tell it your name was 'Nobody'? Because that's racially insensitive."

"Sir Percival and her mother are the ones who shut it down before."

"Huh. Okay, do you know what the shadoen it's looking for looks like?"

Senior Agent Blaze shrugs. "I don't but I suspect that Sir Percival does."

"Okay. Okay. Then I think I got a plan."

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd July 2013
11:02 GMT

I stride through the shallow stream, finally getting close to the caves where K'Zandr lives. This part of New Genesis appears to disrupt ring scans, and… Surprising an elder New God is probably a bad idea. Especially when the inhabitants of Supertown come here from time to time. It would be rather bad luck for Orion to be here seeking spiritual guidance at an inopportune moment. This way, if she's any good at that whole oracular business she can shoo him out before I get-

Clickclick.

-there.

Yes, I heard that, but I don't want to go around this garden world just shooting up the place. There are plenty of animals who have learned to be cautious around New Gods, and I look similar enough that-.

A green blur explodes from the bush! I use my armour's flight system to lunge backwards, narrowly avoiding-. The green shape uncurls, a muscular insectoid revealing himself, mandibles-

Clickclick.

-clicking at me.

"Hello? Can I help-?"

He leaps at me again, curling midair like… Sonic the Hedgehog, but slower. I sidestep again, but this time just as he passes me he uncurls, handsprings and then redirect himself towards my new position in such a display of athleticism that for a moment I feel like I should clap.

Instead, I just move around him.

"Can I help you?"

He stands in a combat crouch, glowering at me. "You can die!"

"Yes, that's true. Done it twice. Second time was better. Perhaps I should have asked, 'why are you attacking me'."

He clicks twice, and since I'm not getting a translation I assume that's either a nervous tick or… Punctuation?

"Disease. The poison of the gods! Spread to my people!"

"Oh. Right, yes, no, easy mistake to make. I'm not a New God. I'm human. We look similar, but metaphysically we're far weaker, and we don't have the same connection to the Source."

He clicks twice again, studying me carefully.

"Look the same. Can't smell. Strange powers."

Ah… I guess that a bug wouldn't know what Lanterns are.

"Okay, just a-" I subspace my helmet. "-moment."

"Still look like New God."

"Thank you." And environmental shield off. Huh. Colder than I thought it would be. "How do I smell now?"

Two clicks, his head tilting slightly to the left. "Like salt and liquid waste. Not like New God."

"Yeah, my species sweat dilute urea. It's-."

He clicks twice, recoiling slightly.

"It's perfectly normal for us. Do New Gods smell like that?"

"No." He makes a sort of rasping noise which again doesn't translate… So it's a throat clearing… Or perhaps a roar? "So I will keep hunting."

"Why? What's happened?"

"Disease. Foragers sicken. Cannot forage. Warriors endure. Disease comes from New Gods."

"No, the Primitives on the planet's surface are suffering too. I just finished treating their symptoms before coming here."

He clicks twice, looking around. "New God is here."

"A wise New God, who can hopefully give us some ideas on how to cure the disease."

"I do not trust the New God."

I shrug, putting my helmet back on. "I don't either, but I don't have any better ideas on how to cure them. Do you?"

He clicks quietly to himself for a few moments. Though… Do the bugs have the same sort of link to the Source that the New Gods do? Because if they don't, then I might be able to remove the disease… Possibly?

And why does this guy look like a giant insect? I remember the Foragers from the comics. The first one was an adopted New God and the second was a pink-skinned human with antennae. Is this..? Like the zeta tubes..? So much since then has lined up with what I remember that the differences catch me out.

"I am Mantis. Warrior. Hunter. Killer. Not healer."

"Where I come from, we do say 'specialisation is for insects'."

Two clicks. "Yes. I am specialised."

"I'm not. So why not take my lead? Come with me, and you'll learn anything that I do." He clicks uncertainly. "You can always kill me later."

Two clicks. "Yes. Accept."

I smile. "Good show."

His head tilts further to the side. "Show?"

"Ah… In context, 'the outcome was beneficial'."

"Not beneficial yet. Lead. I follow."

Alright, he's not that dangerous to me anyway… I finish wading across the.. stream-.

"Are you suffering the symptoms yourself?"

Two clicks. "Not yet."

"If you do, let me know."

And there's the cave. Maybe it's my adopted Themysciran heritage, but I feel a bit off doing this with my rings and full armour. This seems like something where I should ritually disarm myself. Going fully armed into a Hellenist temple that wasn't in your own city-state would be a dodgy one in Ancient Greece, and a hermitage even more so. On the other hand, there are monsters and insectoids around here and I doubt that a seer who couldn't defend herself would last this long.

"K'Zandr?! I seek your wisdom!"

No response, but in the Hellenistic tradition there wouldn't be either. You have to brave the cave to prove that you're worthy of their wisdom. And it's only a cave but it's only a New God cave. There could be all sorts of things in here.

I smile.

I really am never going to have to worry about my life being boring, am I?

I stride down the slope into the cave, Mantis just behind me.

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd July 2013
11:09 GMT

"I had thought-" The voice emerges from a cavern at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel is just too short to walk upright, while not short enough to force me to crawl. It's also made of something which resists phasing. "-that you were told last time that you shouldn't just walk!"

It's her home, I suppose. I scan -a small chamber with one old woman in it- and then attach a filament to Mantis before transitioning us both forwards-

"I-."

-just in time for her staff to hit me on the top of my helmet.
Rebuke of Wisdom
"Ow."

I reach up to rub my head as she turns away from me to stare at Mantis-. I'm still wearing my helmet. Which doesn't appear to have been damaged. And my environmental shield and inertia shield are still active. And while New Gods are uniformly stronger than their muscles suggest that they should be, those muscles are an approximate guide to how much their strength is a part of their divine nature. Someone built like a pipe cleaner in the way that she is wouldn't be strong enough-.
Rebuke of Wisdom
"Ow."

Oh, it's New God magic bullshit. That makes perfect sense.

"Hades already told you that you shouldn't keep people waiting just because you think you should walk."

I frown. "How did you see that? You shouldn't be able to see me."

She swivels around from Mantis and golly gosh she has not aged gracefully at all. "I can't. But I know everything around you. I can see the waves you make."

"Hm." Hard to do, but certainly plausible. I wonder if there's a way-.
Rebuke of Wisdom
"Ow."

"You came here for a reason, human. A cure for the disease."

Two clicks from Mantis. "Yes. A cure. For the disease. What is it?"

"First, I need to explain why your peoples are afflicted." She cranes her neck towards me, staring into my eyes. "To understand your role in this."

Ah. "Is it because I messed with Orion? I know that red rings can be spiritually corrupting, but I don't see how the knock on effect would be a disease epidemic."

Mantis glares at me, clicking. "You caused the disease?"

"I didn't think that I did, but if Mistress K'Zandr is about to tell me otherwise then I may be mistaken."

She hobbles back towards the room's central pool, leaning on the staff held in her right hand and waving her left hand at me-.

"I get enough of that from Controller Hinon. Just tell me."

She scowls at me. "I live on my own in a cave and I get a visitor once a century. Let me have some fun."

"Hang on. You're a New God. This isn't a false personality like Hinon uses to let us short lived species communicate with her. This is the real you."

"Yes, I get to live honestly. And if you want to skip the ceremony-."

"You want to skip the ceremony. You told me that I shouldn't walk for the sake of reverence. So this is irreverence."

She turns back, regarding me for a moment. "Fine. Watch."
Traumatic Revelation
"What w-?"

The world vanishes, and a-. Ugh, that-. Anti-Life. How it felt from inside the network. But this time I'm.. outside, watching it, looking at the nodes which I know to be broadcasters… And the smaller ones representing the City Bosses and… All the people who resonated and were taken in by it. And… The world itself, drifting towards ruination and union with the soul of Darkseid.

I look for myself, because I should be visible, but I can't see-.

Then the light comes, radiating out from a point in the network-. Washington, I recognise the positioning of the broadcasters. And the light is rushing out through the network and purifying-.

Wait. Why did-?

The background sort of… Wobbled? Feedback of some sort? I suppose that I shouldn't be entirely surprised, given the amount of power we threw around to make that happen, and…. Given what happened, it would have been prohibitively difficult for any Earth-based magician to detect it beyond 'yes, a lot of stuff happened'.

The wobble… Stops-. No, weakens as it spreads out-.

Aaaaaah. What did that do? I try to pull back from whatever this vision is, but it.. doesn't work and I don't want to force it. Okay, so-.

The point of view changes, and I get to watch as it moves through the universe, and… That's Apokolips, and it doesn't appear to make the worst place in the universe any worse, and that's New Genesis where it… Parts of the place… Wobble? And some wobble harder than others, and some of them sort of.. vibrate…

"Fine. Fine. Something happened here as a result of-."

And the wobbles are… Gone? No, wait, something-.

Eyes open-.

And I'm back in the room, Mantis making menacing scraping noises at me.

"Something happened here because we removed the Anti-Life from Earth. Fine, I'll cop to that. But that didn't show me what it was, or how it relates to a disease that can infect New Gods and insectoids."

"Weren't you paying attention. The eyes."

"Yes, they were very ominous. They also aren't a disease."

She makes a quiet grunting noise in the back of her throat. "Do you know what an Old God is?"

"It's what Canis calls the second most powerful class of arcane lifeforms which arose from my world's thaumosphere. Powerful, and with human-like intelligence."

She shakes her head. "Those aren't Old Gods, though I see why an Apokoliptian would make that mistake. Do you understand what makes us New Gods?"

"You're physical beings with extremely powerful metaphysiques keyed to a particular concept."

"Yes. A material equivalent to the beings your species worships. An Old God is similar, though more like the primordials who sired them."

"They exist as flesh?"

"More or less. And in almost all cases they should be referred to in the past tense."

"And I woke one up."

"No. Not fully, or all reality would know about it. But he stirs, and even that has effects."

…

"I can't analyse the disease because it's not a disease. It's part of his body. Alright, so I need to either kill him or send him fully back to sleep. How do I do that?"

She rolls her eyes. "If I knew that, do you think I'd bother talking to you about it?"

…

"No. I suppose not."

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd July 2013
11:31 GMT

Aarden looks disconcerted as Mantis and I walk into the Primitives' settlement. "Is.. that a bug?"

"Yes. His people are suffering from the same disease. Given the physiological differences between your two peoples that should be impossible, but it turns out that it might not be a disease organism in the strict sense."

He actually looks relieved. "Clearly, the oracle has given you a powerful vision. If-."

I nod. "Instead of just telling me, yes. I've got an idea for a cure, but it'll be slow going and uncomfortable."

He nods. "We will endure. What need do you have for me?"

I nod to a stone bench. "Sit down."

He chuckles, shaking his head. "I am steady as a mountain. I do not need-"

"You've been infected by a solution of an Old God's body tissues."

"-a-." He looks at my face to determine whether or not I'm playing some sort of joke. "An..?" Realising that I'm not joking, he makes a clenching motion with his right hand.
Support Me
The ground behind him buckles, extruding a seat of stone. He sits down heavily, gazing sightlessly ahead of himself. "An Old God."

"I haven't seen it directly myself, but that was what Ms. K'Zandr said."

"Such a thing could corrupt our connection to the Source…" He nods. "And that is making us ill."

"Something like that." I generate a construct dialysis machine. "So what I'm going to try and do is assimilate the cells without assimilating the rest of you."

"What is 'assimilate' in that context?"

"That's where I turn things into constructs."

"For how long?"

"About a hundred trillion years, give or take."

"So it's permanent."

"Well, we won't know for certain for a hundred trillion years, but probably. Now, if I start assimilating you by mistake, that's not a problem. I-."

He looks disconcerted. "It is a problem."

"I can just stop it. You don't become a construct until the process is fully complete."

"And if it is completed?"

"That's… Bad. So far I've only seen one person assimilated where I wouldn't have killed them if assimilation wasn't an option. He acts like himself for the most part, but I'm not sure if that's because he's still alive in a sense or if the ring's just best guessing how he'd behave and making the construct do that. But if this is a viable treatment, then I can remove the contamination matter from the bodies of everyone here, and then Mantis's colony, and then go looking for the source of the infection."

"What if we become reinfected?"

"Well, it should be possible for me to check your food sources. I already know that it's not in the air, so a few scans of your farms or hunting grounds should let me find it."

"And the Old God?"

"Hopefully, it'll go back to sleep. Failing that, some sort of telepathic sleep-inducer?" I nod to the machine. "Ready?"

"Yes."

Two x-ionised cannulae pierce his arm, a small amount of cloned blood being added to the mix as blood flows out of his artery and through my filter. Detect the right particle… And… assimilate.

Identity theft in progress. One percent complete.

"Have you begun?"

"Yes. Ring, announce progress."

Identity theft in progress. Two percent complete.

"Are you feeling anything?"

Aarden frowns. "A pinch, but nothing else."

"Okay, good, let me know if you feel anything else."

Two clicks from Mantis. "I will go next."

Ah…. I give him a quick scan, and there's appreciably less resistance than from Aarden. Shouldn't be any harder. "Alright, I think I can manage that. Though I can't completely guarantee that it will work in exactly the same way. Particularly given that your metaphysique is weaker than a New God's, so you'll be less able to resist if something goes wrong."

Identity theft in progress. Three percent complete.

Aarden looks curious. "Do the bugs have a connection to the Source?"

"I have no idea. Mantis has a stronger metaphysique than the average human, but anything else is outside of my area of expertise. If you need to know, I could call in an expert?"

"No, that won't be necessary. I had assumed-." He looks awkwardly at Mantis, who is quietly clicking to himself as he watches the blood purification process. "No, I suppose that was unfair."

"What's unfair? I knew that the New Gods of Supertown don't like them, but I don't remember hearing why."

"Their forebears come from Apokolips. They were sent here as living weapons. For a long time our hunting parties worked together with warriors from Supertown to destroy them. But if one of them can stand here and not lash out at everyone then they must have gained some degree of restraint."

"Mantis?"

Three clicks this time. "I am not hungry."

"That wasn't-." My ring flashes. "Excuse me." I hold my left hand up to my ear. "Orange Lantern, go ahead."

"Paul, we have a problem."

"Hello Lantern Rrab. Is it a disease outbreak? Because I'm working on that."

"No, there is no disease. But the people here are going crazy! They're picking fights with each other over every little thing and they're laughing about it!"

"Apparently, an Old God is stirring in its sleep. Down here that's having a knock on effect on people's physical health. Perhaps it's affecting their minds up in Supertown?"

"That.. is possible. But how do I stop it?"

"Have you tried a telepathy jammer, just in case?"

"Yes. It didn't work."

"Then, try to stop them doing anything permanent, and when I deal with the Old God it should subside. I can-."

Identity theft in progress. Four percent complete.

The ground around us begins to shake!

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd July 2013
11:36 GMT

Construct seismograph says… It started to the south, towards the sea. I could try and get another bearing to narrow down the exact location of the hypocenter, but I'm… Filtering a man's blood here.

Identity theft in progress. Five percent complete.

"Lantern Rrab, we just had an earthquake and I'm a little tied up. Could you please come to the surface for a moment and find out where it started?"

"Should I bring Troia with me?"

"Use your judgement. There shouldn't be anyone who can easily hurt her up there-. And the blessing of Metis is custom designed to undo mental alterations."

"Right!" Her face vanishes.

I-.

Her face reappears. "I forgot! Arisia out!"

And she vanishes again. Because Jordan's been trying to teach her communication discipline, even if it's a little obsoleted by power rings.

Identity theft in progress. Six percent complete.

I turn to Aarden. "Do you get a lot of earthquakes around here?"

"No. None. New Genesis is a garden world."

I nod. "Yes?"

"I mean, it was cultivated by our forebears to be as pleasant a place to live as possible. Its ecology and structure are artificial. It has next to no seismic activity. That shaking is more likely to have been an Apokoliptian attack than anything natural."

I suppose that Apokolips didn't just go on hold because we fought them off…

"I assume that Supertown will deal with it if it was."

"Normally, yes, but if they are… If something is twisting their minds, they may not do so."

My ring flickers as Arisia sends the first bearing. It's from the west of here.

"What sort of weapons do you have?"

"Our innate powers. Beyond that, simple bows and spears."

"Are Apokoliptian raids a regular thing?"

"Not large ones. I can kill dog soldiers well enough, and we know these forests well enough that those who cannot fight can disappear."

"But, ultimately, you're dependant on Supertown."

His eyes narrow slightly. "You… Don't like the way we live, do you?"

"I can see the disadvantages. But I'm not the one who has to live with them."

Identity theft in progress. Eight percent complete.

"How is it on your world?"

"We have all forms of life from remote hunter-gatherers even more primitive than you to post-industrial megalopolises. We don't have any true arcologies yet and it'll be a while before we can colonise other planetoids, but…" I raise my left ring slightly. "My masters have experience with literally every form of society that's ever existed, and trialled most of them themselves."

Arisia sends another bearing, this time from the east. Triangulating the times and intensity puts the most probable location… Right along the wall of the continental shelf. Based on the speed of the waves through the ground…

Whatever caused the quake happened exactly when.. I started-

I construct-grab everyone as another shake rocks the settlement.

-assimilating the cells inside Aarden's bloodstream.

"Okay, we might have a problem."

Aarden and Mantis both give me a funny look.

"Another problem. The earthquake started when I started assimilating, which means that the Old God might possibly-."

"Stop at once."

"Yeah." I dismiss the construct. "I thought you might say that. Ah. Okay, I'm going to go and check-." K'Zandr lives in a cave. "Check on K'Zandr, and then check on where that earthquake came from. I'm still not entirely sure what I'm going to do about the Old God, but I'll come up with something when I get there."

Aarden looks concerned. "That does not sound wise."

"'Something' might be 'hand the whole matter over to Highfather', so it's basically what you'd do. Don't worry: I don't intend to engage a high-end arcane life form unless absolutely essential, and so far a being in that class has only killed me once."

"You.. look well for a dead man."

"Thank you. You don't look bad for a terminally ill man." I pick up my purple healing ray. "Mantis."

He clicks… Once.

"I can give you this." I offer him the ray. "If you use it on members of your hive who are ill, it should fix their symptoms. Alternately, you can come with me so that you can report back what I've found."

"I will do both. Others have followed my pheromone trail. I will give the ray to them. Then I will go with you."

"Alright. We'll also be picking up a colleague of mine." I reach out, putting my right hand on his left shoulder and transition us to the edge of the Primitive's clearing. "Alright, how-?"

Mantis click-hisses, and a mound of earth bulges up in the ground. Mantis tosses the healing ray to it, and a green limb reaches out and grabs it. Mantis clicks twice. "Healing tool of the gods. Take to All-Widow."

The other insectoid waves, then the arm vanishes in a spray of earth.

Right, next thing. I transition us to K'Zandr's cave. "K'Zandr! Are you alright?!"

"Neither these stones nor these bones break easily. Get on with it!"

I nod, and transition Mantis and I to a cliff top overlooking the sea closest to where the earthquake originated.

"Orange Lantern to Arsenal. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, and I got some good news. Looks like I won't need you to build me a ship."

"Oh? Are you planning on staying?"

"No, I found one. Looks like it was made on Earth, too."

I study the water for a moment, but while it appears choppy it doesn't appear to be getting more choppy. In that case…

"I'll be with you in a moment."

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd July 2013
18:40 GMT -7

I look up at the cup of arcane force that's been placed over my head for a moment, and then look down at my captor.

"Your Highness! How can I help?"

Shining Armour trots a few paces closer, his guards forming a perimeter around us. "You can tell me what you said to my sister."

"Your highly strung, highly neurotic sister."

"Yes."

There are a lot of things I could say, like he must know her well enough to know that this is just something she does from time to time. Like the time she set up a closed temporal loop because she set up a closed temporal loop.

Boom boom.

"I pointed out that she never technically graduated."

He winces. "Oh no."

I raise my forehooves. "Look, I know that threw her into a loop, but she was already talking about setting up her own school when I got there so the crazy juices had clearly already started flowing."

He looks puzzled. "A.. school?"

"Teaching friendship. So perhaps 'seminary' is a better descriptor?" I reach out with my right forehoof and tap the barrier. "Would you mind?"

He regards me levelly. "My sister has been teleporting cross-country non-stop since she spoke to you."

I nod. "Have you considered ketamine? I have drones preloaded with it."

"I'm not drugging my sister. She'll calm down. We just need to give her some space."

"R.. ight, but teleporting while exhausted sounds like something that could go very wrong, so maybe we should dart her for her own good?"

He looks down as he considers it. "Is the dosage safe?"

"She's an alicorn, so it's hard to know what the correct dose is, but by default it's enough to rapidly knock out a regular pony. We can increase it if that doesn't work."

"And it's not addictive?"

"None of the other ponies I've darted have come back for more, so I think we're okay with a single dose." I regard him curiously. "This can't be the first time she's done something like this."

He looks mulish for a moment, then shakes his head. "It's not, but it is the first time she's done this since she became an alicorn."

I nod. "And got earth pony endurance and an increase in her mana reserves, right. She isn't going to wear herself out."

"Not quickly." His horn glows as he dismisses the bubble around me. "Okay, send your.. drones."

Update target priorities.

Done, Lantern Grayven. I'll let you know when she's recumbent.

Thank you, Sinestro.

I nod to Shining Armour, who sighs. "Thanks. Why are you in the Crystal Empire?"

"Did you meet Starlight Glimmer when you were in Canterlot?"

"No…" He frowns thoughtfully. "Wait, isn't she the pony who thinks that special talents are evil?"

"It's a little more complicated than that, but basically yes. Well, she's having a bit of trouble with her research and wants to hire an assistant and it turns out that one of her old friends is living up here. Apparently, that's the dynamic they used to have in the town where they grew up. I offered to go with her, she wanted some space…"

I shrug.

"Thought I'd go for a walk while the two of them caught up." I look around. "Nice place you've got here. Very… Shiny. Suits you."

That gets an eye roll, but he's a little less tense than he was.

"I didn't ever thank you for dealing with Queen Chrysalis. Cadence and I have both been sleeping easier knowing that she's never going to threaten us again."

"Not a problem. Happy to help. What do you think about the changes in the guard training regimen?"

"You mean, the way Tempest Shadow threw out everything I ever did and completely replaced it?"

"Yes." I nod. "That."

"Ah… Well, she has a point about Equestria not having fought a conventional war for centuries. I mostly oversaw guards being trained for what they actually do, and we didn't have a weapon development department. Having seen what she's been able to do, and… Having read the reports the other officers wrote after the Changeling Invasion… I.. probably should have looked for someone like her to help us improve the moment I got promoted to 'Captain'."

I nod. "It would have been a start."

"Hey, don't sugar coat it for me."

"No, I don't-. The Invasion would have been an inciting incident. If you'd stayed on as captain then you'd probably have started fixing the problems I identified. I can't blame you for not having my experience of warfare, and I'm sure that your efforts here have been better."

He nods. "Mine, and the mercenaries I hired. The yetis like the weather, and the Dream Valley ponies are fitting in surprisingly well."

I nod. I'd say that he'd do as a mid-level officer. If it came to a war I'd back Tempest Shadow over him for command authority, but he seems to be a good deal more competent than the fools who replaced him. "How's Cadence doing?"

"She's taking it easy. We just found out that she's expecting."

Ah… Might be a problem if the foal isn't an alicorn… Plus, I doubt that Equestrian obstetrics are much more advanced than their general level of technology…

"Want me to take a look? I've got access to medical technology centuries ahead of anything on Equestria, and it'll be good practice for me."

"Practice? Oh, are you and Princess Luna trying for a foal?"

"Not yet, but we will once we're married. And while I'm familiar with human pregnancy, there are probably a lot of issues specific to equines that I have no experience with. And…"

Ah, I shouldn't-.

"And-?" He understand the implication. "They might be an alicorn."

"Or they might not be. It's an issue either way. Of course, they might be a pegasus pony like their mother started as, or a unicorn like you."

He nods solemnly. "I guess it's better to know."

I nod. "Mother Box, hush tube to the palace, please."

Ping.

The aperture opens with barely a whisper, and I trot on through. Shining Armour follows a moment later, then stands aside to count his escort back home before dismissing them.

"Okay, lead the way-."

Poof!

"SHININGINEEDACHARACTERREF-."

Psh!

The stealth drone delivers its load directly into her neck. The dart hits home, then glows for a moment as she pulls it out.

"Huh. That's interest-."

Psh.

The second one hits her in the torso, and her eyes roll back into her head as she falls to the floor.

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd July 2013
18:46 GMT -7

"…and honestly, after Sunset disproved the whole 'Friendship is Magic' thing-"

I feel a slight dampness on the back of my neck, and realise that Twilight is drug-induced coma-chewing my mane.

"-I'd have thought that she'd take the opportunity to re-evaluate."

Shining Armour glances awkwardly at me as we head towards Cadence's office. "Are you sure you're alright carrying her?"

"Oh, pish. I'm partially responsible for introducing her to existential dread and recreational narcotics. The least I can-"

"What?"

"-do is carry her around for a bit. Oh, yeah, I… Heh, so did you hear about the talk I did where most of the audience panicked and fled the auditorium and I had to have them darted so that they couldn't injure themselves in their panic?"

"I…" He squints slightly as he tries to remember. "Think.. Twilight mentioned it…"

"And then there was the thing where she didn't realise that the Pinkie Pie clones had an internal life, and the thing where the Cutie Mark Crusaders became alicorns… What was the fallout from that?"

"A whole lot of parents started nagging Sunset Shimmer to do the same to their foals, and Tempest Shadow had to double the guard when they refused to believe that she had a good reason not to."

Hah! "Well that's got to be just about the most ironic thing ever."

He chuckles quietly. "I know. I'm glad that Cadence and Sunset are getting along now, but when we started dating Cadence told me a whole lot about the things Sunset used to do…"

"I honestly haven't heard that part of things. I mean, I know that she was rude and abrasive, and I understand why she was like that even if Cadence obviously didn't deserve it. But no one's told me about anything else she did. Was there more to it?"

He nods slowly. "She once teleported into her room while Cadence was out, moved all her stuff into travel suitcases and then teleported the suitcases to the front gate."

"Ah."

"And added red dye to her shampoo. And replaced her feather grooming oil with glue."

I frown. "Huh. That.. sounds like something that would have triggered Celestia to intervene."

"She did." He sighs. "But she treated it like a misjudged joke, rather than what it actually was. It did make Sunset ease up… Well, more pretend that Cadence didn't exist."

I nod. "And given that Cadence had been uprooted and brought across the country to Canterlot, that sort of rejection would have been all the more damaging. I appreciate that it doesn't justify anything, but do you understand why Sunset did it?"

"Jealously and envy. She saw Cadence of 'stealing' Princess Celestia from her, on top of her being an alicorn when Sunset wasn't."

"And what sort of person would be afraid of something like that from someone as agreeable as Cadence?"

"Someone really insecure."

"Yeah. See, you're thinking those are characteristics she used to have that she's grown out of."

"Actually, I was giving you the credit."

"Well, thank you, but that's not it." I snort through my pony-nose. "Honestly, it's like Celestia went through a list of things not to do with a vulnerable foal and tried to tick them all off. All I had to do was get her away from the palace."

He frowns. "That.. can't be right. The Princess wouldn't-."

"How many foals has she brought up? Until Luna returned, how many equals did she have? How many friends-?" Oh no. I've just realised that I may well be Celestia's closest friend, and I don't even like her. "Does she have? She took an attention-starved filly into the palace for being good at magic, and then got confused when said filly became completely fixated on doing the thing that got her the attention she'd been denied for her whole life."

"I.. suppose I.. could see it happening." He blinks and shakes his head before knocking lightly on the door before us. "Okay, just let me explain that you're here first."

I nod. "Don't want to drive her to premature labour. Oh, quick question. How old is she?"

"Ah…" He frowns distractedly. "Actually, I-."

"Come in!"

He shakes his head and pushes the door open just wide enough for him to enter.

Sinestro, do you have any experience with obstetrics?

I have a full medical database for every species the qwardians ever dissected, in addition to what I acquired from human data networks. I also worked with Lantern Brin on several occasions.

I was just wondering… You've never said anything about wanting to visit Korugar, either in your universe or this one.

What would be the point? They rejected me. I can better achieve my objectives by working with you wherever you go.

What about sentiment?

What about it?

I suppose. A moment later Shining Armour pushes open the door and beckons me inside. I trot in, smiling politely at the expectant mother. "Cadence! You're looking gravid today!"

Because she really does. She's almost as round as a normal pony.

"Grayven." She waddles closer, pregnancy bulge wobbling. "I didn't realise that you were a doctor."

"I'm not. I cheat. Sinestro?"

"Scan complete, Lantern Grayven. What would you like to know?"

Cadence and Shining Armour exchange a glance, and he's the one who replies. "Are they healthy?"

"I don't have a baseline-" A construct image of a late stage foal foetus appears, and I note the horn and wings at once. "-for an alicorn foal, but I can detect no deformities or distress."

Shining Armour blinks. "An..? Alicorn?"

I nod. "Looks like. I imagine the idea of an alicorn just being born would be a bigger deal if Sunset hadn't already decoded ascension. Though if that's how it usually goes, it is going to create an interesting demographic issue as more and more ponies ascend." Hm. "Shining Armour, given that your wife and daughter are alicorns, is there any chance that you've reconsidered your position?"

"I…" He glances at Cadence, who stares at him pointedly. "I guess?"

"Neat. I'll get her to pencil you in. Unless you'd rather have Twilight-" I twist my neck around to glance back at where Twilight is sleeping off her medically induced coma on my neck. "-do it?"

He considers her current disposition for a moment.

"No, that's… Fine."

Cadence stares at the construct for a moment, and then at her own swollen abdomen. "Do you have any advice?"

"Focus your magic training on earth pony magic for improved endurance and magic resistance. Oh, and get a hermitage built."

She frowns in puzzlement. "What..? For..?"

"Your foal's nursery." She gives me a mild frown. "Normal foal surges are bad enough, but you're having an alicorn. They'll have massively increased raw power and arcane stamina and none of the control you already had when you ascended. It won't be safe for them to be around other ponies for years, and magic nullification strong enough to contain them might cause them permanent harm."

Her frown deepens. "Still…"

I throw up my wings in exasperation. "Alright, but if your foal blows up your capital and vaporises half of its population, don't come crying to me."

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd July 2013
11:42 GMT

Mantis rasps disgruntledly as we appear in front of Roy and the serpentine New God, crouching behind a patch of shrubbery. Roy nods and points towards… A camouflage net.

Why a.. net?

A hologram would be a better disguise… If it was going to be viewed from one direction, and the user was confident that no one with precision electromagnetic sensors was around because holograms can be detected. Magic-. We're on New Genesis. The world's thaumically active, so while magic would work, the use of it would almost certainly get picked up by someone. So they.. go low-tech, and that covers it from casual observation.

Why didn't Supertown detect it? Who owns it? Why did they come here?

"What makes you think it came from Earth?"

"I recognize the camo netting. It's NATO-standard."

The ship has landed on a patch on bare rock at the bottom of a cliff, next to the trees it's using as cover. A thin ribbon of water is flowing over the cliff nearby and flowing in a thin stream next to the ship. I can't see any defences or defenders.

Odd.

"You want it?"

Roy lifts his right arm a little, then stops. "I mean, it's a starship, so, yeah."

Construct armour, heavy armour and scan in detail… I throw out orange filaments which punch through the outer cases of the dozen sensors scattered around the clearing and subvert them. And… That looks like it's it. Genetic traces in the area… A lot of New God animals. No tracks.

Ah…

"Is there a problem?" Roy looks mildly concerned. "You're the toughest guy-."

"Just me being over cautious." I fly at a moderate pace towards the vessel. "Ahoy the ship! Orange Lantern here!" Something moves under the camo netting. "Anyone-?"

Brilliant yellow bolts blast out from the hull! They have no difficultly at all in tracking me, but… Construct armour seems to be holding. I could attack the ship, but I am fairly intimidating and I don't want to overreact.

Instead I just fly closer. Construct armour getting mildly abraded, but not to the point where I'd actually be worried.

"Anyone home? This is jolly unfriendly!"

The guns stop firing, the camo netting having partly burned off to reveal parts of the hull. It's gold, and I think that's a figurehead on the prow. Okay, that-.

The turrets are glowing-.

Construct thrusters throw me to the side as beams of golden energy roar past me, cutting through the trees behind me and slicing a swath through the forest!

Not progress, then!

The turrets start charging again as construct scissors slice through the remains of the netting, revealing the art deco ship, a sort of strange cross between a galleon and a submarine. The turrets… An effort's been made to make them fit in with the style of the rest of the ship, but they clearly don't. A later addition to an unarmed ship? So I could destroy them without feeling too bad about it-. Except that if they're a later addition they might have skipped surge protectors, or there might be an explosion in the capacitors and I don't know for certain whether there's anyone on board or not.

Entry hatch seems to be on the top-.

I dart up, another volley of high powered shots shooting past me. Not designed for anti-attack craft work then. Or anti-Lantern fire. The dorsal turrets take a shot when they have one, but a simple thruster construct pushes me aside and then there's the hatch. Construct grapple, twist-. Locked. Electronic, or-? No, manual. Lock pick construct-.

And dodge.

If there was someone on board they'd be taking off or calling for help about now.

Click.

Open the hatch and inside-

Bztzap!

-and I take one last shot to the face from the interior turret, which… Visible power cable. Snip that, and use a construct to siphon power just in case-.

That's cosmic energy. I thought the shots looked familiar. The owner's using Doctor Theodore Knight's technology. Which is notoriously safe, and… One of the few competitors that my Bleed torsion generator has as far as modern electrical generation goes. Definitely from Earth, then, because there are no records of that form of power generation from anywhere else that I've got records for.

And… He wouldn't have built in a self-destruct, but if the turrets were added…

The interior looks a little like a first class train carriage from a century ago. The furniture is carved wood and richly upholstered, but the sleeping area and galley are tiny. The control computer is…

Is that a Mother Box?

Ping.

"Ah. Well, good. Do you mind me taking control of the compu-"

Theodore Knight appears in front of me and swings at me with his right fist!

"-ter?"

It-. Goes through me, because it's a hologram. Why-?

Distraction. I shove filaments through the outer casing of the ship's control system and grab…

What the heck is this? Half of it's some sort of Babbage engine, and-. Okay, that's the modern bit, take that. And… Reset the user permissions…

The Theodore Knight hologram flickers, then appears to relax, theatrically mopping his brow. "Thanks. I thought I was going to be stuck like that."

I peer at him. "You're not Doctor Knight. He died years ago."

"Ah." The hologram nods. "I didn't know that, but I guess it's been long enough that I shouldn't be surprised. I'm a computer program designed to think and act like him."

"Pleased to meet you. What are you doing here?"

"Here? Couldn't tell you. But I've been stuck flying Vandal Savage around ever since he brought this ship out of mothballs and I'm sick of it."

I sigh. "He's not dead, then?"

"He's immortal."

"Yes, but sometimes that doesn't stop them being killed if you're really thorough." I sigh again. "Do you know who I am?"

"You said 'Orange Lantern'. Is that anything like Green Lantern?"

I nod. "Alan Scott is one of my mentors, and a good friend."

"Do you know what my son Jack's doing now?"

"He retired from being Starman to look after his children. Aside from an emergency six months ago he mostly just runs his shop. Okay, how about you tell me what you're doing here, and I'll fill you in on everything else?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th August 2000
12:37 GMT

There's a pained expression on my face as I look up from my work and towards Senior Agent Blaze.

"Sir, I don't have as much experience as you do with Senior Agent Fitzpatrick's plans. Um."

We both look around at the… Frame we're building.

"Is this..? Typical?"

Senior Agent Blaze sighs. "Oi can't say I've paid him much attention before."

"I'm hurt, Sh'lainn." Senior Agent Fitzpatrick walks closer at ground level as the last… Parts, are unloaded from Alliance biohazard transportation caskets. He takes a look inside one of them and checks it off on his clipboard. "At least I get an 'I can't believe that actually worked' from Nick."

Senior Agent Blaze huffs. "It hasn't worked yet."

He looks up, grinning. "Okay, but remember: when it does, it's 'I can't believe that actually worked'."

She rolls her eyes while I consider said plan. "Sir…" I'm not even sure how to address this. "Isn't this a waste of shadoen body parts? We can't have recovered that many?"

"Eh, the lab's already done what it can with these-" He sticks his pencil in one container and pulls out… I think that might be brain matter? "-bits and pieces." He takes a sniff, grimaces, and drops it back. "The whole ones were too valuable to lose, but this stuff's basically useless for anything else."

"And the cyclops can't tell the difference between living tissue and dead tissue?"

"No-." He taps his nose with his pencil, then drops it as he scrabbles for a tissue to wipe off the shadoen possibly-brain goo his just got on himself. "No nose. And they aren't all that clever. It got visual scans, heat scans and it might have a D.N.A. scanner, but it can't smell decay."

I suppose I didn't see an opening for an airborne chemical analyser.

He gestures up to the Frankensteinian crime against nature that Senior Agent Blaze and I have been working on.

"So if we make this look kind of like a big shadoen..?"

I nod as I stitch together some of the new parts. "Then we can control where it goes. But we still need a way to destroy it, or put it back into stasis."

"Why?"

I frown, briefly glancing at Senior Agent Blaze who looks just as puzzled as I feel.

"Because it's a giant war robot?"

"Right!" He finishes cleaning off his nose and then crouches down to carefully wipe down his pencil before picking it up. "So what's it here for?"

"To destroy its target..?"

"Right! And once that's happened, what do you think it's programmed to do?"

Ah..? "Wait for a new target?"

"Right! And since we got all the shadoen on Earth, it should just stand there and wait."

"Um. Right. Just one problem, sir?"

"Yeah?"

"If it's got a D.N.A. scanner, what stops it detecting the shadoen corpses at Alliance headquarters?"

"About six feet of TEMPEST shielding and a really big ocean." He shrugs. "I mean, honestly, if it tries walking to the U.S. from here I think that's job done."

Senior Agent Blaze and I look at each other with more concern.

"Y' didnae bring Nema along, did yeh?"

Senior Agent Fitzpatrick sags slightly. "Nah. She got promoted, then the new boss stuck her on V.I.P. escort. She's taking some guys from the D.o.D. 'round an Intracom factory right now."

"Sir, did-?"

Alert!

I look up in the direction the cyclops is coming from. "Sir, I'm afraid that we're out of time."

"Okay." He turns around to the team of technicians and engineers we've been working with. "Pack it up, people! Leave the shadoen goo here, clear out everything else!"

And he promptly clears out himself, leaving final preparations to myself and Senior Agent Blaze.

"You'd best clear off as well, sir. If it's registered you as an enemy, it might decide to pursue you even after its primary target is destroyed."

She nods, looking me over carefully. "'re yew sure you can handle this?"

"There are no certainties in life, sir, but I've got the best chance." Check distance. "Sir, it should be in range in-."

"Two seconds!"

"Yes, it-."

Eyes white, hair wild, shove and get in the meat suit!

"One second!"

Grab onto the support struts, keeping the glow concealed as much as possible, manipulate the forearms into grabbing the shadoen plasma cannon and leap!

The brilliant ray of energy flashes past me and bores into the hillside I was standing on, throwing up-. A rain of baked clay and carbonized plant matter. I raise the plasma cannon to fire while doing my best to replicate the scrabbling motion of the shadoen. Since they never landed we only had recordings of two examples of them walking, but-. I'm getting it.

My earpiece buzzes.

"Y-?"

"One second!"

I leap again, the cyclops's second shot missing as the beam slashes across where it thought I'd be running. My own shots take longer to hit, and-. Upper torso and head, no visible damage. But that's fine, I don't want to destroy it, just make the fight realistic and then get out.

"One-"

Leap and a slight redirect by using the ring's flight ability-

"-second!"

-and the beam slashes through where I would have been if my leap had matched the previous two.

I scurry towards a copse of trees for concealment, deciding not to shoot. It's not distracted by me shooting it so there's no point until I've got a better shot.

"I definitely have its attention, sir."

I change my vector and a beam impacts in the centre of the copse, throwing chunks of burned tree in all directions.

"I believe that unless something major changes, I can complete the mission."

I hear a male sigh. Senior Agent Fitzsimmons?

"You had to-"

The hillside to my left explodes, as-. A second cyclops pulls itself free of the rock.

"-say it, didn't you?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

15th August 2000
12:41 GMT

"Sirs?"

"Guess.. that's Benandonner then. Well, okay, guess you can just-"

"One-"

Small leap, let the shot go past me now that I'm on level ground.

"-second!"

And it does but from behind as the new cyclops takes a shot!

"-get outta there."

Wait. The shadoen were happy using biotechnology, but they didn't just use biotechnology. Their ships were recognisable, if more advanced than anything Earth had seen before. That second cyclops… It's… Patched up with shadoen technology.

"Not sure I can, sir."

I make my meat container scrabble away from both of the giant robots as fast as I can. It could be a problem if the pure titani cyclops stops to consider why a cyclops rebuilt by the shadoen would shoot at a shadoen, but if they'd just start shooting at each other-.

The shadoen model raises its hands, burning red beams blasting from each of them and… Hitting first cyclops directly in the chest.

"Okay, that was underground for thousands of years." Senior Agent Fitzsimmons sounds puzzled. "How come they didn't destroy each other back then?"

"The myth don't say one killed the other. In some versions, Fionn mac Cumhaill tricked Benandonner int' runnin' awey instead."

Cyclops 1 takes a shot at me, but aborts it rather than swinging the beam at me. It then gives the other cyclops its full attention and starts marching closer.

"Sirs? What do you want me doing?"

"He's your sidekick, Sh'lainn."

"Oi'm t'inkin' about it."

A beam from Cyclops 1 hits Cyclops 2 in the shoulder, causing it to stumble back slightly. Cyclops 2 then returns fire with its undamaged arm, hitting Cyclops 1 in the chest. I can see the armour melt and crack where it hit.

"Sir, might I suggest that I wait for one to win and then finish them off? Perhaps keep things balanced?"

Cyclops 1 takes a shot again, hitting the same arm as the first shot. The armour is visibly molten now, the material making up its muscles increasingly visible beneath. Cyclops 2 charges its other hand to fire again, only for the lower eye of Cyclops 1 to shoot the charging aperture and cause a misfire. Electricity arcs around that arm, Cyclops 2's head dipping down for a moment to examine itself.

And then it looks up and charges!

The first two steps are awkward, clumsy, almost like it's falling. But once it gets some momentum it stabilises, bounding-

Cyclops 1 tries to shoot it in the leg it's balanced on but misses with its upper eye. The lower eye hits and makes it stagger, but Cyclops 2 recovers as its second leg goes down-.

Its armour is regenerating, techno-organic plates sliding into place over the wounds.

I take aim, a green target reticle appearing in my field of view. Targeting the weakened part of Cyclops 2's arm I fire. A hit, and the arm parts company with the torso and falls to the ground.

"If they're jus' here t' fight each other, why don't y' use yer ring?"

That's… Not a terrible point. But…

"Because they might be sending reports back to a central computer, and I don't want titani artefacts in general to register me as an enemy."

Cyclops 2's torso undulates, plates of something that looks like shadoen carapace extruding through the outer armour around the torso. It pulls its remaining arm back, letting the new armour soak the incoming eye blast.

"What titani artefacts?"

"Whatever artefacts there are that we don't know about."

"Yer Master fought it alongside my mother."

"I'm a little taller than him. Sir, if you're trying to give me an order-."

"No skin off my back if y'don't use it."

"Sir, your senior rank isn't just an official permission to give me orders. It's an outward sign of your experience and proven judgement. If it is your view that I should use the ring, then I will do so. This isn't an ego contest. I trust your judgement, and will take no umbrage."

But in the meantime, I aim at the first cyclops, right on the chest where the second one hit it. I need to move position to get an angle, but I think-.

The first cyclops ceases its advance and takes a step to the side as the crab-shelled shadoen model enter melee ranges and slashes with its claw! The first awkwardly raises its hands but it clearly wasn't programmed with close combat in mind. The claw sinks into the torso, cutting through the armour and into the interior mechanisms, the light in its lower eye fading immediately as.. some sort of interior liquid begins dripping out of the wound. The claw appears to be stuck however, and Cyclops 2's efforts to remove it are met with failure as Cyclops 1 charges its remaining eye.

At the last moment Cyclops 2 tries to twist out of the way, throwing its whole body into the action. It turns a point blank shot into a partial hit, the beam burning through the side of Cyclops 2's head and out the back!

Alright, target the breach in Cyclops 1's armour and fire. Hit! And Cyclops 1's eye flickers as it tries to line up a second shot, something in its internal mechanisms failing. Good. And now run across the landscape, trying to draw a bead on the gap in Cyclops 2's head. It'll take a few moments to get into position, but as long as it doesn't-.

Explosions erupt from the robots! I stumble to a halt, trying to work out where they-. Overhead. Three F-35s, each with an empty wing hardpoint where an air-to-ground missile used to be. There's a second flight incoming from the south, this one comprised of Harriers. The first three are showing American markings while the second are British. I see the moment the British planes release their missiles, all hitting Cyclops 2 in the side of its torso a moment later.

"Sirs? Did we request assistance from the military?"

"No." Senior Agent Fitzsimmons sounds just as confused as I feel. "We told the British and Irish governments what was happening. Guess they decided to join in. Without telling us. Ah, is it working?"

Examining their structures…

"A bit? I-."

Cyclops 2 points its remaining arm at the departing Harriers-.

Aim and fire!

My plasma bolt hits him just as it's about to fire, breaking its containment field at the optimal moment and causing a blowback which wrecks the forearm! Now aim at Cyclops 1's chest wound, which.. does appear to have been made worse by the missile impacts-.

Cyclops 1 manages to get enough power to its weapon capacitors to fire another shot into Cyclops 2's cranial cavity. Cyclops 2 goes limp almost immediately, collapsing to the ground. And then I fire, my plasma beam boring into Cyclops 1's chest and knocking it to the ground.

I wait for a moment, but there's no further activity-.

Then the planes hit it with missiles again.

I wince inside my shadoen-meat-covered frame. "Sir, this feels like it's about to become an inter-agency mess."

"Sure does! But don't worry. I'm proud to say that out of the thirty seven inter-agency sausage-measuring contests I've caused, I've come out ahead in twenty three! You just head back to the starting line and hand that thing over to the bio-containment team and leave this mess-" He points his right thumb at his chest. "-to me!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd July 2013
11:51 GMT

Damn it.

"So Vandal Savage has been using this ship to pootle around the universe, but this time it's just a team of fishmen."

The holographic projections blinks. "'Pootle'?"

"'Move in a leisurely manner on a trivial journey'."

The hologram nods. "I'm not exactly sure about that. He's had my main computer locked out of just about everything it wasn't hardwired into. Once I stopped talking to him he didn't seem so worried about it."

Roy turns away from his examination of the ship to look at him. "So are you a copy of Theodore Knight, or just a very intelligent system, or what?"

"And there's a slight disconnect between the decoration and any computer system advanced enough for 'hardwired' to have meaning. What's going on with that?"

The hologram looks thoughtful. "I'm not exactly sure how intelligent I am. I was supposed to be a natural language interface, but Vandal Savage integrated a Mother Box into the ship's control systems-"

Which explains how they got here.

"-and I think… I've gotten more mentally complex since then."

"Right. We're gunna need to-" Roy glances at me. "-check that?"

Dr. Knight looks puzzled. "What for?"

"America passed a fairly large pro-A.I. rights Bill a few years ago. Anything that looks like treating a mentally sophisticated A.I. as a slave is very illegal."

"Treating a mentally sophisticated human as a slave is pretty darn illegal too."

"Yes, but it's easier to get away with doing it to something that looks like a mainframe. That's why enforcement is enthusiastic."

"I guess that makes sense. As for the ship, well, most of it was designed and built by a fellow named Herman Moll back in Eighteen Ninety Nine."

I boggle, blinking rapidly. "Eighteen-?"

"I was impressed when The Shade showed it to me."

"Wait. You-you, or the original Theodore Knight."

"Heh." He nods. "The original. He added a cosmic converter, and a few other systems once the space program started up. It flies like a dream."

"I'm glad to hear it. Do you know what the fishmen are here for?"

The hologram shakes his head. "I'm sorry, but until just now I could only see what happened inside the hull, and they didn't talk much while they were in here."

"Can you send them a distress signal?"

"I might be able to use the ship's Mother Box to 'ping' their communicators, but that doesn't guarantee that they'll come back here. They might just make a boom tube and walk away."

"Wouldn't that annoy Savage?"

Roy grins. "Hah!"

"Something funny?"

"Yeah, we were-" Roy nods. "-talking about whether or not you need a ship if you've got a way to travel faster than light without one."

I smile faintly. "I suppose that Savage likes travelling in style. Chance that the fishmen are something to do with the earthquake that started off the coast?"

Roy shakes his head. "No bet. Should we call in Arisia and Donna?"

I shrug, looking at the hologram. "Did the fishmen show any sort of superhuman abilities?"

"One had wings, which is pretty unusual for a fish. They looked strong, but other than that I couldn't tell. Oh, and one had a surfboard."

"A fish with a surfboard." He nods. "I'm… Going to go out on a limb and suggest that Savage isn't sending his best. I'll send the others a message, but I think we can handle this."

"Is this armor watertight?"

"Oh, yes, completely."

"And the flight system-."

"Works fine underwater, yes. Your positron ray will as well."

"But plasma and laser won't. Well, how about we try luring them out, then follow them underwater if they…" He grins. "Don't take the bait." I don't grin. "What?"

"I'm being oversensitive. It's just… I just feel a bit uncomfortable about making fish puns with fishmen."

"Will said that you jumped to your feet every time the British anthem came on that time him and Artemis rigged up the Mountain's speaker system."

"I did, and that's fine, I can make jokes about myself. But… I know plenty of Atlanteans, and-."

"Okay. Okay, I get it."

"I mean, if you're fine with it then I can make jokes about you..?"

"The bow, the armor or the red hair?"

"Your choice."

"Surprise me."

I nod. "Will do. Doctor Knight, please send the alert. Arsenal, please take Mantis and the serpent fellow-"

"Sserpa."

"-to-. Really?" Roy nods. "Well, if he can make fun of it, maybe it is alright. Take them into a concealed position on the side of the ship away from the sea. I'll be in the air. We give them… Half an hour? And if they haven't-"

"Taken the-."

"-turned up, we'll go looking for them."

"Got it. Hey, Doc? You know where Savage has been hiding out?"

"Sorry. Like I said, I only had awareness of the inside of the ship. I couldn't see out."

"And… Would you be okay working with me once this is over? I've always wanted a spaceship."

"I dunno. What's in it for me?"

"Everyone knows that you're the first ever human spaceship? You get to be a superhero again? And I can build some sort of module if you want to move around outside."

"Who can make a module?"

"That sounds like something I could live with. Now go get ready, and I'll send the signal."