Initiative

27th August
05:38 GMT -5

Note to self: don't try looking into the soul of a man made of clay.

I collapse into my chair on the bioship, close my eyes and press my hands against my temples. When we confronted Clayface in the storm drains I thought that taking a look would be useful for intelligence purposes. It wasn't as if he was an immediate threat to anyone down there. One blast of orange confusion later and I recovered just in time to get slammed against the walls. That didn't hurt, but it did distract me from the fight until my team mates were downed, at which point they became my priority.

Taking on Clayface without specialist equipment isn't a great idea, but once my mind stops spinning I should be able to put something together. I am slightly worried that this version appears able to take on additional material; he was leaving blobs of mud around the place but wasn't any smaller afterwards. Why were we even engaging it? I thought Batman said that he just wanted us to track it?

The only vaguely coherent thing I got from that ill-advised use of Ophidian's Eyes was a series of fractured images of a woman I recognise as Talia al Ghul. In this timeline she and Batman broke up about a year ago. Since this version of Matthew Hagen works for the League of Shadows, he'd probably know her. Not sure why she was the only thing I could see, I usually get some kind of narrative and an idea of the way the target thinks about things.

"-point of putting on a clean costume when I'm not fresh?"

"Oh, Wally, you're always fresh."

I open my eyes.

"At least you have a clean costume."

Cleaning duty it is, then. I raise my left hand.

"Yeah, an old back-up! No stealth mode! It stinks!"

Ring, sort them out before my headache gets worse.

A beam strikes Wallace right in the lightning bolt, and a wave of orange disintegrates all of the residual clay. Next, it hits Kon, where it removes a lump of the caked on mud before disintegrating the rest. The removed blob floats over to me.

Ring, analyse.

Substance contains Aluminium, Oxygen, Silicone, Hydrogen, Iron, Magnesium, and various other elements. It is clay, and matches the chemical composition of local clay.

"Thanks Oh El!"

I rub my forehead with my right hand. "Don't worry about it."

Anything special about this clay?

Observed phenomena have no basis in conventional chemistry.

Right, right. Of course, the problem there might be me. I keep thinking that clay shouldn't be able to do that. I remember that the comics had a load of different Clayfaces, but the only origin I remember is the one from Batman: the Animated Series. Some sort of beauty product, wasn't it?

"So what do we do about the creature?"

Robin has never encountered Clayface before, so Hagen must have been transformed sometime between his last encounter with them and now. I doubt Robin would remember him though; he and Batman tend to go through henchmen rather quickly. I only know his former face because I made a point of looking him up.

"Batman wanted us to track it."

Well remembered, M'gann.

"Why settle for that? Okay, sure, it got the drop on us. But now we know its tricks!"

:-|

Kaldur, slap Wallace for me would you?

"Yeah! We split up!"

:-[

Kaldur?

"Then whoever finds old 'Clayface' radios the team."

Wait, what? Why is Robin-?

"We converge and kick some clay-butt!"

!-[

Kon, we're going to be having a talk about this.

"What do you think, Aqualad?"

"What? Oh. Yes… It seems we have a plan."

}:[

"Oh, we most certainly do not!"

The clay sample I was analysing moves aside as I rise out of my chair, and land with some force in the front of the ship.

"Are you seriously saying that you want to attack Clayface using exactly the techniques that just failed. He cannot be meaningfully hurt by kinetic force. And you think splitting up will improve our chances!?"

No sound. They're all looking at me, though.

Think calm thoughts.

>:[

I point at Wallace.

"Kinetic force."

I point at Kon.

"Kinetic force."

I point at M'gann.

"Mostly, kinetic force."

I point at Robin.

"And unless you've changed your utility belt load out without telling me, kinetic force! Now, does anyone have any ideas for fighting a thing made entirely of clay that are actually sensible?"

Stunned silence.

Oh, Kaldur's woken up.

"Could you track it with your ring?"

"No, because it's got exactly the same chemical composition as Gotham mud-"

I bring my clay sample to float in front of me, and wave it at him.

"-and Clayface can change his shape at will. No constant unique physical characteristics."

He looks down for a moment.

"Is there something you would like to suggest?"

"As I see it, we have two options for fighting it. We can bake it hard, or we can try and mix it with so much water that it can't maintain its integrity."

"How would we do that?"

"Can you use your water bearers to force water into it?"

"Possibly. But what is to stop it simply reforming?"

"Not much. I'm hoping that it needs a certain amount of clay in one place in order to think complex thoughts. But for my preferred option, Robin-"

I shift my attention from Kaldur to him.

"-do you know where you can lay your hands on some thermite at short notice?"

He grins.

27th August
06:18 GMT -5

"Well, hah, that could have gone better."

Directly in front of me, the hard baked form of Matthew Hagen makes no response. Behind him, my reinforced anti-radiation shield bubble doesn't quite block out the sight of my fallen team mates. A quick check shows no serious injuries, then I ignore them and focus on the shield.

My gun construct is still up. On one level I know I don't need it; Clayface is baked. But the primitive parts of my brain are rejecting out of hand the idea that the huge mud-man who TPKed my team can't hurt me, at least until they've seen its blood.

I double check my armour. Still good. I mean, I wouldn't last long enough to know if it wasn't, but still.

What little plan we'd had was abandoned nearly as soon as we got to this warehouse. I hadn't seen this version of Clayface shapeshift, but apparently it was good enough at it to get the drop on all my team mates. I tried to scoop it up into a construct bubble, but it was able to exert colossal pressure and I couldn't hold it. Kaldur got slammed into a wall and I was faced with a choice between letting it out into Gotham, or using one of my shouldn't-use-in-an-inhabited-area constructs.

Maintain the shield. Maintain the shield. Everything will be alright if you maintain the shield.

"Orange Lantern."

Batman's behind me, outside the shield. It might be that he's just that sneaky, but I don't think I'm paying attention to much else at the moment.

Clayface is really big, up close.

Maintain the shield.

Not all that much bigger than Flinders, really. I think it's the obvious inhumanity that's getting to me. I mean, even after his transformation Flinders was obviously a functioning organic being.

"Orange Lantern."

"Sorry sir, did you say something? I'm a bit distracted."

"Is the creature neutralised?"

"Far as I can tell. No activity of any kind. And if it were magic, it'd still be going for me."

"Drop the shield. I'll take it from here."

"Sir, I'm compelled to obey your orders but I'm going to have to respectfully suggest that you reconsider that one."

"Your reason?"

"I was in too much of a rush to calibrate my attack properly. I'm not sure exactly how much gamma radiation I hit him with, but if I dropped the shield Gotham would probably melt."

I'm not looking at him, and I'm not going to split my attention to analyse his expression under his mask. He doesn't say anything for a moment.

"You are able to maintain the shield?"

Fuck yes.

"If I couldn't, we'd never know about it."

"How much radiation escaped before you raised the shield?"

"I put the shield up first. With both of us inside it. Probably why I'm a bit-" I jazz hands. "-at the moment."

"Have you been exposed at all?"

"No, 'cause this much gamma? There's no such thing as a little exposure. Look, I should.. I should probably take him somewhere. D'you mind if I drop him off on Ganymede? It's nice this time of year. Well, actually it isn't, but no one's using it and if I release the radiation there then it shouldn't hit anything inhabited in sufficient concentration to do anything."

"That sounds like a reasonable precaution."

Next to the wall, Kaldur starts to pick himself off the floor. I look up.

Okay, it's just glass. I can cut through it and lift it out of the way, no trouble.

Up we go.

I rise gradually, taking a chunk of floor with me. I had to put the shield under the ground as well, otherwise it wouldn't have worked. Of course, that means I'm stuck with Gotham warehouse floor until I get to Ganymede. Do I take a chance and transition it there? No, far too risky with something like this.

I project a clamp construct from the top of the bubble shield and attach it to the skylight. Next, a cutting blade from the side slices an ovoid just a little wider all around than my bubble.

Maintain the shield.

I rise up through my hole. Normally I'd take the time to reattach the window, but that bit of roof looks solid enough. I'll just lay it down there. Okay, accelerate.

With nothing else to think about I look down at the city as it appears below me for a few minutes before being concealed by the clouds. I know I instinctively think of Gotham as a shithole, but having actually had a look at the place, I think my accusation may have been premature. Or maybe it's that nowhere could be as bad as comics Gotham and still function, so this place looks good in comparison. The crime rate is high, but it's United States high, not Mogadishu high. The formerly unchallenged crime syndicates were either destroyed by Batman -though Harvey Dent got Falcone himself- or shrunk to a shadow of their former might. Commissioner Gordon hasn't quite cleaned up the police department, but without a safe source of money and a corruption friendly working environment Gotham's shady police have decided that now is the time for sensible men and women to be honest.

Above the cloud layer now. Nothing to look at but Hagen's face. I don't understand how he functions. It's actually possible that he is still alive in some way. Is he aware, like this? There's nowhere for light or sound to go, but then, there wasn't when we fought him and he seemed to manage.

I killed him.

I killed him.

Oh, I could justify it. I think on balance it was probably the right thing to do, given the situation. And he was certainly trying to kill us, if a bit clumsily. But I looked into the mess that they'd turned his soul into, then an hour later I intentionally hit him with enough gamma radiation to sterilise the northern hemisphere.

I just killed a man.

I don't really feel bad for him, but as I leave the Earth's atmosphere I get this weird feeling that I've violated some sort of rule. That I should expect some sort of retribution. Did Batman have a way to stop him without that level of force? I didn't try freezing, would that have worked? Alright, when I get back, find the schematics for Leonard Snart's cold gun.

Would they consider him to have been alive? There was nothing I could point to, no brain waves or heart beat.

I don't know.

Is he going to wake up, once the radiation dissipates? Reliquefy, or whatever? Create a body of Ganymedian mud, and rampage around the place in total isolation?

I'm not using the Eyes on him again.

My current speed would be deadly in an atmosphere, but in space it's fine. Shouldn't take me more than twenty minutes to reach Ganymede orbit, then maybe another twenty depositing him safely onto the surface.

I need to find out why this happened.

27th August
14:43 GMT

I ended up putting him on a rise in the centre of an impact crater. There's a certain grandeur to it, and he'll get an unobstructed view of both sunrise and Jupiter-rise. Don't know if he'd have cared about that. I didn't say anything before I left. Not like I knew him, and the best I could come up with was 'Matthew Hagen, lived as an arsehole, died as a shit'.

But she did. I've had the Justice League files on Talia al Ghul since I started with the team. I've had Batman's personal files for less than an hour. Fortunately, despite their relationship, it's all business. He's got a fair bit on the League of Shadows' internal structure, but I still can't work out why Hagen and Talia would even know each other. She's their business manager, for goodness sake. Sure, she's attractive, but the only coherent thought in someone's mind after they get turned into a thing? No. There's something black in these lentils.

I'm standing on the Rue Volney watching her through the windows of the small restaurant where she's having coffee with a man. I don't recognise him from the League's files, but a quick internet search matches his face to that of Efraim al-Tauib, suspected financial fixer for one of the Niger Delta's more mercenary paramilitaries. I'm a little curious about how he even got into France. He definitely has an outstanding international arrest warrant. On the other hand, his face is fairly bland, and I could well believe that he's got a decent fake passport. Double check dental records and genetic codes against known relatives… yep.

I'm wearing a suit. Not my standard one with the orange trim, just plain black and white. I found a high class shop that would accept dollars, then waited while they phoned my contact at the US Treasury. He's been getting quite a lot of those phone calls, but given the amount of money I made them for virtually no work on their part…

Anyway. There's no way Ms al Ghul can escape, but I'd rather not cause panic in the centre of Paris if I can avoid it. I also don't have any evidence against her that would justify me handing her over to Batman. Looks like two bodyguards… no, three. Two at their table and one on his own at the bar. Can't tell whether they're his or hers, but they're carrying pistols and knives and wearing stab proof vests under their shirts. That can't be legal here.

Hmm. Lunch rush hasn't started yet. Walk in, or wait outside? An image of Mister Hagen's kiln-hardened face forms in my mind as I decide in favour of the former. I still feel resistance in my own mind. I'm breaking a social convention, intruding on their personal space in a public place. But it's becoming increasingly apparent to me that nothing will happen as a result. What was Hyperion's line from Supreme Power? 'If I choose to go to any of those places, exactly who's going to stop me'? Something like that.

Check both ways, cross the road. Check that the shield is up and on minimum. Step aside with a smile as a couple of well dressed women leave the restaurant, then push open the door for myself.

I assume that the Shadows know what I look like. A description at least. I've avoided asking Jade about exactly what they know on my last couple of visits. I don't want her to think about it as a choice between two adversaries, largely to avoid her making the choice I don't want her to make due to her contrary need to defy her critics. I take in the room like a clueless tourist while the bodyguard facing the door scans me for a moment and then ignores me. Guess I don't register. Maybe the people of this parallel are just really bad at facial recognition?

There's an empty table one place in from the window from them, and I amble over to it, vacant smile in place. I turn my back to them as I pull out the chair closest to them, and a firm hand is placed on my right shoulder. I turn around, smile still in place and eyebrows raised in unspoken question.

"I'm sorry sir, but Miss Head values her privacy quite highly. Would you please take another table?"

"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't-."

I put my hand on the side of his arm.

Pithing Needle, ShockCrown.

The Needle construct locks his nerves to keep him upright as I deposit him on the available chair. I run an orange thread under the floor to keep him in place. A person who knew exactly what to look for might notice it, but this thin and in this light it's practically invisible. Next, I turn my eyes to the target table, step over and take a seat next to Mister al-Tauib.

"Hello there, Miss al Ghul, Mister al-Tauib."

She goes still. I turn my head towards him. He looks stunned.

"You're under arrest, by the way."

I turn back to Talia just in time for the guard opposite to lean across the table and strike the base of my nose with the heel of his palm. I don't feel a thing through the shield, though I imagine he'll have a bruise in the morning. A thread behind him ShockCrowns him and drops him safely back on his seat.

"I will admit to being a little disappointed, Miss al Ghul. I had been under the impression that you only mixed with the better class of criminal."

"I don't know who you think you are-."

I turn back to him. "Oi, yer rumbled. Learn to lose with dignity."

"You can't just-."

ShockCrown.

He slumps.

"Yes. Yes I can."

Ah! We have eye contact! Talia's expression remains neutral as she stares at my face.

"Miss al Ghul. You appear to have developed a hole in your schedule. Do you think you could possibly fit me in?"

Ring, monitor the fuck out of her.

Compliance.

She takes a sip of her coffee.

"You do not believe that the oppressed peoples of the Niger Delta are sufficiently 'high class'?"

"Oh please. He's paymaster for a group of opportunistic mercenaries who'll proclaim any creed if the money's right, and they have no ideology beyond 'let the devil take the hindmost'. I'd respect them if there was an actual liberation struggle going on."

Looks like she's decided not to start screaming. The guy by the bar is aware that something's off, but he hasn't moved yet.

"Who are you and what do you want?"

"I, am Orange Lantern two eight one four. And I want to talk to you about Matthew Hagen."

Her face doesn't move. "I don't know anyone of that name."

"I'm afraid that your brain activity says otherwise. Looks like memory.. and emotion." I frown. "Ooh, intense emotion." Friendly smile, singsong voice. "You'll feel better if you tell me."

A tiny change, the slightest grimace, and she turns from me to look forward. "Matthew Hagen is dead."

I raise my eyebrows, and lean forward attentively. "Really? He seemed remarkably mobile for a dead man this morning."

Added tension along her jaw.

"I told my father that sending him to Gotham was a mistake."

27th August
14:48 GMT

"That would depend on what he was trying to achieve. The foyer of the Wayne Foundation may never be the same again." I nod my head to the side. "I don't consider attacks on charities to be high class, either."

She's allowing herself a little more expression. Looks like she doesn't, either. "I told Father it was beneath him."

"Sounds like business as usual to me."

"He usually accepts his losses with more grace."

Is this about Doctor Roquette?

"Which particular loss was this retaliation for?"

A tiny hint of a frown. I wonder if she's had Botox?

"The satellite launch at Cape Canaveral."

"Your father sent a man made of clay to kill your ex because he stopped a satellite launch?"

She narrow her eyes.

"That, and because Father was killed."

"Temporarily. And, really? A giant laser in space? That's silver age supervillainy right there."

A frown. I guess she isn't a comics reader. Or maybe the silver age didn't happen here? Or maybe it happened in real life instead?

"His plan was perfectly sound. If Batman had not intervened-."

"Then one of the Greenies would have destroyed the satellite in orbit. Or Superman would. Or me. Or one of the dozen or so armies that can hit targets in orbit. Realistically, he'd have got, maybe, one city. At most, two, if they were close together. But I'm not here to talk about Ra's al Ghul's deranged supervillainy."

I roll my eyes at 'deranged'. Talia curls her lip into a protosnarl.

"So, anyway, ambush fails, and we-both-know-who-but-I'm-not-saying-it-out-loud survives. So far, so typical. What I don't understand is why a professional killer just,-" I shrug "-walks off. Hagen didn't exactly seem focused on the mission. Plus I'm kinda curious how a baseline Human becomes a giant clay monster."

"If the attack was stopped, why not ask Hagen yourself?"

"Because I killed him."

She's taken aback. "He is dead? You are sure?"

"As far as I could tell he's permanently inanimate. I hit him with enough gamma radiation to sterilise the northern hemisphere, then dumped him on Ganymede. I couldn't detect any chemical changes and he wasn't moving… so, yes. Sure as I can be."

Her eyes move off me and she blinks, twice. Brain activity says emotion again.

"Now, I've.. I've never killed someone before. I don't know exactly how you were involved, but the only thing he could think coherently was your face, and I'd really quite like an explanation."

"Matthew Hagen attempted to use a Lazarus Pit to cure his cancer."

"The Pit did that?"

That doesn't match anything in the comics.

"Yes."

Hard to tell, but I think she's telling the truth.

"Father decided to make use of his new form."

Might be true? The ring's lie detection function just isn't good enough to tell how much of this is true, and I doubt that I could intimidate her as I did Kadabra.

"So why did Hagen give up?"

"Perhaps the changes to his body damaged his mind. I have no interest in speculating."

"I'm still not hearing anything to explain why he was thinking about you."

"Then you will simply have to leave disappointed."

Time for a new approach.

"Alright, so explain it to me: even if the satellite could have worked -which it couldn't- what exactly was the point in killing all of those people?"

"The objective was to remove the surplus part of the Human population."

"You think cities are surplus? Do I need to point out where your clothing and jewellery were manufactured? Or where the satellite itself was made?"

"The Earth can survive without those things."

"Until the next alien invasion, when no one has any advanced weapons. Or an asteroid impact, when we've got no spacecraft. Or a plague when modern medicine's bitten the dust."

"Manufacturing can be done on a smaller scale. Mass industrialisation unavoidably poisons all ecosystems, including the ones Humans depend on."

"I remember your father saying something about people born today having no idea about what clean air smells like. And he has a point. Thing is though, there's normal, sensible solutions... And then there's supervillain solutions."

"You cannot argue with the efficiency of an orbital weapon strike."

"Not if you're a megalomaniac, no. If Ra's al Ghul really wants to improve the situation, why doesn't he… I dunno.. encourage off-world colonisation? Or improve access to education and contraception to women in third world countries, something that's proven to reduce birth rates? Why? Because he's just another stupid supervillain so in love with his own ego that he couldn't make a good decision even if it killed him. And worse than most of them, because if it did kill him he'd just get up again!"

"You will show respect!"

"No, I won't. It's stupid, the whole idea's stupid."

Ring, genetic scan, match to parent and siblings.

Compliance. High probability matches; one living parent and one living sibling.

"I reckon this is why your sister left, you know."

She opens her mouth to respond, then stops herself. "I don't have a sister."

I raise my left palm so she can see the sigil of the ring. "The ring says otherwise. I mean, how old's your father? You've probably got loads of relatives around the place."

Ring, just in case I'm wrong, what's her sister's name?

Nyssa Raatko.

Nearly remembered it right. Not bad for an average quality comic I read over five years ago.

Get her address, and put it on a card.

Compliance.

"Distant relatives, perhaps. But Father would have told me if I had a sister."

"Not if she hated him because he left her and her entire family to die in a Nazi concentration camp. Can't risk you thinking for yourself. Here-" The card appears. "-her address. Look her up." I shrug. "Or don't. See, the actual reason you and Batman didn't work out? It's not 'cause he's a big softy and can't cope with your father's harsh but necessary methods. It's 'cause your father's a nutter."

I stand, floating Mister al-Tauib with me. No need to disguise my presence any more.

Medium armour, increase shields.

And now everyone's looking. I meet the eyes of the other bodyguard and smile. He turns back to the bar.

Now, where do I drop this guy off in France?

27th August
10:02 GMT -5

I was pleasantly surprised by how on the ball the French National Police were, but it still took more time than I wanted to pass Mister al-Tauib over to them. They weren't unreasonably difficult about the whole superhero thing, but I got the impression that their standard operating procedures didn't cover the situation. Fortunately, they let me write Orange Lantern as my name on the forms and accepted the Themysciran embassy in New York as my main postal address and primary phone contact. The captain who ended up dealing with the situation said that he wasn't sure whether or not I would be called to testify. I said that if they wanted me it wouldn't be a problem.

I'm now high in the sky off the west coast of Ecuador, spying on Ra's al Ghul himself. I'm not seeing any particularly high level of alert, so either Talia hasn't been in touch or they don't think that I'll follow up. The island he appears to be living on is guarded, certainly, but the man himself appears to be taking a walk through a dojo running a morning training session. A large bald man, who I assume to be an Ubu, follows shortly behind.

I'm forced to wonder exactly how proprietary Batman is about his villains. I'm not planning anything one of the raw power Justice Leaguers couldn't do. I mean, that's an assassin training facility for goodness sake. I'll give Batman a dump of all of the information I've scanned from their electronic and paper records when I get back.

Why am I here? Ra's sent Hagen to kill Batman, and possibly a large number of other people. Revenge probably, but Talia's brain waves and Hagen's soul suggest there was more to it than that. I might never know what. Thinking about it dispassionately, killing everyone on the island would probably be a decent solution. I'm reasonably confident I could do something to Ra's he couldn't get back from.

But the others wouldn't see it that way. And I need them more than I need to know that I made a correct utility calculation. There must be some reason why Batman's left this place intact, right?

But I don't want to just fly back and present my report yet. I've never liked the fact that foot soldiers bear the brunt of their master's decisions. If killing one government official prevents a war, surely assassination is far more moral than killing hundreds of soldiers who believe that they are simply doing their job? Surely the execution of a convicted criminal is more moral than a chance killing on a battlefield?

What can I do to Ra's that will actually make him suffer for his action? I might have made Talia doubt, though I think that's a bit optimistic. Maybe I should give Nyssa some warning? But there's one thing I can certainly take that will hurt him.

I can't just tell the ring to find a Lazarus Pit. I don't know what they look like here, and there are any number of things on that island that could be the Pit.

But I know one way to make them show me.

The railgun forms alongside me. An upgrade on my original attempt to make a construct version, this converts the ring's power far more efficiently and uses tungsten slugs with iron jackets for projectiles.

Ring, adjust for movement. I want to get Ra's and only Ra's.

Compliance.

The gun shifts slightly.

In my mind's eye I see flight path projections, impact estimates and timelines. I'm aiming at his head, and as the projectile will pulp him and keep going I can't risk hitting someone else on the way in or out.

In theory they could see me, but I'm a small orange light in the sky some distance away with the sun at my back.

The construct hums, and I unnecessarily suppress the sound.

From killing someone in the heat of the moment to killing someone because I decide they deserve it all in the space of a day. I suspect that he'd be proud of that.

Kill him.

There's a sharp crack, and I see that Ra's' head has been obliterated. Some of the people near him appear to have been hurt by flying chips of stone, but I've achieved my objective. Guards run around and the Ubu picks up the intact part of Ra's' body while trying to spot where the attack came from. He says something, and a wall of Human shields gather around him.

I track him as he moves through the buildings to what I assume is Ra's' own home. Eventually, he gets to the lower part of the structure. The Pit itself is a sarcophagus like structure, quite unlike the large pool I had been expecting. Ubu gently lowers his headless master into it, being careful not to touch the roiling liquid himself. Then, he stands well back and waits. None of the others followed him into the inner sanctum. Interesting.

I have no idea how long this process will take. I set the ring to monitor the condition of Ra's' corpse, and begin designating nonliving targets for stage two. That takes about a minute; the number of things worth hitting that don't have people right next to them is rather low. After checking that nothing in the general area is likely to spot me I take a book out of subspace. I was disappointed to learn that Terry Pratchett doesn't exist here, but by some strange quirk of fate Charles Stross does, so I picked up a copy of The Atrocity Archive.

By the time Ra's pulls himself forth from his alchemical bath Bob and Mo are visiting Amsterdam. I remember that emerging from the pit causes temporary derangement, so it isn't surprising that Ubu keeps his distance. After staring wildly about for a few moments Ra's seems to get his thoughts in order, and Ubu approaches to hand him a towel.

Search parties have already scoured the island and found nothing. The ring no-sells radar scans, as well as something more sophisticated that appeared to scan for gravity distortions. I scanned that right back, and moved it to the top of the targeting list. I'm not going to level the island, but I do want to put everything breakable out of commission long enough for Batman to decide whether or not he wants to destroy the place completely.

Alright, the area around the Pit is clear. I transition to high above the island and recreate the railgun. My first targets are the boats and aircraft. Those can most readily be destroyed from above. While I'm up here I'll also take a few shots at the unoccupied portions of Ra's' house. Then, FTL transition to a position on the east side of the island for skimming targets where I can't risk over-penetration due to the proximity of League of Shadows henchpeople. Not sure if this Ra's is less patriarchal than the comic version, but a good proportion of the people getting ninja training on the island are female. I want my projectiles to arrive in a staggered pattern; while there aren't any technological weapons down there that can hurt me, there might be magic based ones.

I myself will be going in through Ra's' roof. It's a solid enough structure, but I'm a Lantern.

Ring, plot FTL jumps and shot trajectories.

Attack plotted.

Execute.

Flickers of sky and island and the hum of the gun, and then I'm directly above Ra's roof.

RazorWedge. Down.

Rubble explodes around me and the ring notifies me of the success of my other strikes. Four seconds and I'm in the target chamber. A slam as I close the sarcophagus. A whine as my cutting constructs free it from the stone floor in which it was embedded.

Subspace it.

I got transport and communications. They could swim for shore, but for the moment the island's a prison.

Ring, plot course for home.

Course available.

Hmm. Doubt it'll matter, but…

I withdraw Mister Crock's plasma crossbow from subspace and fire it repeatedly at the floor next to the hole where the Lazarus Pit used to be. I then return it to subspace before lashing out at the surrounding walls.

Execute FTL transfer.

27th August
10:36 GMT -5

I exit FTL over the North Atlantic Ocean, next to the hangar entrance. I take a moment to breathe the sea air.

What's going to happen now? Killing Mister Hagen isn't a minor mistake; it's a breach of a fundamental part of the way in which the League likes to operate. Both being ejected from the team and being arrested are very real possibilities here. For a moment I consider simply flying away. No. This is my home, my team. I'll argue my case, and see what happens.

The uncertainty brings the now into sharper focus. I fly along the cliff to what M'gann calls our back door and transmit my access code. The fake section of rock slides aside and I enter the mountain.

"Attend?"

"Hello Teekl."

I crouch and rub her head. She leans into it.

"Finished telling the mountain who's in charge?"

"Tunnels patrolled. Excessive water."

She rubs against my knee.

"I'm pretty sure you can dry yourself by wanting to be dry."

"Excessive. Water."

I run my right hand down her back and scratch the base of her tail.

"Okay. Who else is here?"

A mental image. Kon, slumped in front of the television. M'gann, standing in the kitchen. I'm not sure Teekl has linked names to faces yet, or if she can even do that. There's also a vague impression of Red Tornado, she's not sure where he is and he doesn't smell like a person to her.

"Happpppyyyy."

"Come on you." I pick her up and hold her against my shoulder. "Let's go and be sociable."

Since Batman isn't around I'd like to talk to Kon and M'gann before contacting him myself. Put off the evil hour for a little longer. Something I should do before that, though. I need to check on the rats.

Wallace confided in me that he may have slightly overstated how happy Mister Allen was when he gave himself celerity. As a result, I suggested that we approach Jay Garrick for help with examining the effects of his formula on the Human body, rather than Mister Allen. He sounded fairly positive about the idea, but said that he didn't want to say yes or no without talking it over with Wallace's parents and uncle first. He did let me scan him, however. Mister Garrick isn't noticeably faster than Wallace, but interestingly he doesn't have Wallace's metabolism issues. Wallace got a bit excited about that, until Mister Garrick and I pointed out that altering him on the basis of such a small sample would be a bad idea.

Since there aren't any blood samples of either Wallace or Mister Garrick from before their transformation, the only places I could get a before and after would be either from Mister Allen or by using the formula on someone new, which I am extremely reluctant to do. Wallace jokingly suggested putting a request for volunteers in the Flash's fan club newsletter, but I said that laboratory rats would be a more sensible option, at least to start with. We spent an evening turning one of the more remote rooms -I think it used to be a secure containment room, which is about right- into a testing lab, complete with lab rats, rat run and a program to make the lights simulate the solar cycle. The whole thing should have automated feeding and cleaning, but I like to check on them every so often just to make sure.

Both hands on Teekl I press the door release with my right elbow. This shouldn't take long.

Oh.

"Good afternoon sir."

Red Tornado is taking in the rattery. He's presently facing the runs on the far wall, and there's a work surface with computer terminals between us. The run extends the whole edge of the room after I remembered some modular rat runs that used to be sold in the supermarket my mum shopped at when I was little. Always wanted to stick together a huge one, and now I have.

"Orange Lantern."

I put Teekl down on the work surface. She sits, looks around the room, sniffs, then starts licking herself. I have told her that she doesn't really need to do that anymore. Maybe it's instinctual to the point that she can't learn not to do it?

"Batman has informed me that he wishes to speak with you."

There's a slight mechanical creak as he turns from the rats he was studying in order to face me.

"Immediately, or should I just tell him I'm here?"

"He did not imply that it was urgent. I will inform him of your presence."

Right.

He starts walking around the room, his head pointing forwards. His schematics show that his cognition systems are located in his head, rather than somewhere sensible like an armoured box in his chest.

Ring, confirm status of the rats?

Rats and rat habitat within required parameters.

"If you don't mind me asking sir, did Batman give any indication of what he wanted to talk to me about?"

I step aside as he reaches the door. Teekl jumps down, and then we follow him out.

"He did not mention a specific topic, though I would imagine that he wants to speak with you concerning your mission this morning."

Maybe I'm asking the wrong person about this?

"Sir, I made an error in judgement during the mission, and I'd like.. some sort of indication, whether I'm a bit in trouble, or a lot in trouble."

"He did not seem angry when the team returned. That said, he may simply have been concealing his emotions."

Teekl looks at me, then walks off down a side passage.

Thanks Teekl.

"Urp, I should.. probably go and recharge the ring. Please let me know when Batman would like to see me."

"Of course."

Ring, plot course and execute.

I don't even notice the transition. The door's in front of me, and I push the button to open it.

Ring, remove my boots and socks.

When I first got here, the floor was bare metal. I spent a good chunk of my second day bringing it up to the standard of somewhere I would want to live. The deep shag carpet is pale grey with an orange Orange Corps sigil in the centre, and I relax slightly as I scrunch my toes in it. Unlike M'gann's room, mine doesn't have a rock wall, just more metal. I thought about covering it or painting it, but I couldn't decide on a colour, and in the end left it as it is. The bedding got replaced with something more 'on theme', and eventually I was able to replace the feather pillows with decent quality foam ones. Those were a pain to find. I also reconfigured the shelving, taking out most of what was here and replacing it with quality wooden pieces, and making room for my coin chest.

Storing things in subspace does take some power. It's not a lot, but it seemed to me that it would be a good idea to minimise what I stored rather than loading all of my possessions into it. Walking around money goes into subspace, but the majority of my coinage is in here.

I keep my lantern in the box Alan used to use. I altered the outer panels so that they have the Orange sigil displayed in light wood on the sides, rather than the monotone dark dyed wood it used to have. I walk over to the table on which it rests and open it, taking hold of the lantern's top right handle. I pull it out and put it on the table next to the box, then step back and extend my left hand.

Looking around, I'm starting to think that I may have taken the sigil theme a bit far.

I'm trying to remember what the actual Orange Corps oath is. I haven't actually tried using it, as I don't appear to need to. Maybe I should? Lantern Jordan's oath was personal to him, and I can't think of anything which would summarise my thought on my duty in four eight syllable lines. I can just about remember the first line. Think I saw it on a website. Deviantart? Not sure.

"This is my power-"

The treasures of civilisations, fallen ages past. Bones stripped of flesh and marrow. Vast serpentine eyes-

I yank my hand back, slip, and fall onto the soft carpet.

!Very bad very bad!

I pick myself up.

Did I just see Larfleeze's cave? That can happen?

I guess it's not my power after all.

I open my hand again, and hold it out to the lantern.

Ring, standard recharge this time.

27th August
10:42 GMT -5

I hear the sound of chopping before I reach the kitchen. M'gann's slicing onions on the granite table. There's a bowl of slices next to her, and another bowl of whole tomatoes. She's on dinner duty today. Wonder what we're having? Starting this early.. some sort of stew?

"Hi M'gann. Where's Kon?"

She looks around, and her surprise turns to joy.

Um. Wow. That feels nice.

"Paul! Where have you been?"

"Um. Ganymede. Paris. Ecuador."

"You went to Paris?"

Eh?

"Briefly, yes?"

"What was it like?"

"I wasn't.. really.. sightseeing."

"Oh. Well, what were you doing?"

"Finishing the investigating into Clayface."

Her face falls slightly, and her eyes flick to the side.

"Oh. Um, Kaldur said that you beat it."

"Him, and I killed him."

Her eyes go wide, and she blinks heavily. "Killed?"

I shrug. "As far as I can tell. I hit him with a lot of gamma radiation. Baked him hard." I sit on the air, crumpling. "I mean, I don't understand how something.. someone.. like that works. He might.. still.. be alive, but…"

M'gann floats level with me, puts her arms around my shoulders and rests her head against the side of mine. I lean into her.

**How.. did he get the drop on the rest of you?**

**He could shapeshift. Not just change his outline, but change his mass and color as well. Once we split up he took on the appearance of other members of the team.**

**But you're telepathic. He couldn't think like them, could he?**

**No, but I don't scan other members of the team. Kaldur was very clear that it isn't acceptable on Earth.**

I pull back slightly, and she releases me.

**On the basis of this fiasco, I think we should reconsider that policy. I'll.. talk to the others about it. If I'm still here.**

She recoils slightly. **Why wouldn't you be?**

**! You weren't meant to hear…** I pause, and marshal my thoughts. **M'gann, I killed a man. That isn't something Batman can just pretend didn't happen.**

**But he was trying to kill us!**

**Not the point. We're supposed to be better than that. Than.. them.** I shake my head. **A Green Lantern in my position would already have been recalled to Oa, and their ring would have shut down pending a review of their conduct. I don't know what Batman will decide to do, but a slap on the wrist doesn't really cover it.**

She keeps looking at me for a moment, then gives a shallow nod.

I stand back on the floor.

"Red Tornado's gone to let Batman know that I'm back. Um.. where's Kon got to?"

"Oh, heh, um, I sorta had an accident when I started cooking. Tried to pile everything I was going to cook with on top of him. I mean, 'Hello Megan, Conner's not telekinetic', just didn't think. Stupid."

I make a winding motion with my hands.

"He ended up covered in milk, and eggs, and, well, he went to take a shower."

That should be funny, but I'm just not in the mood.

"Well, I'll just-."

"Would Orange Lantern please report to the Mission Room."

Red Tornado's voice.

My eyes drop to the floor, as every possible justification for my actions swarms my mind at once. The Butterflies in my stomach have turned rabid.

I raise my head and meet M'gann's eyes. "Excuse me." I turn, and walk toward the corridor.

"Good luck!"

I stop. That's not-.

I shake my head.

Plot route and execute.

I'm in the centre of the training area. Red Tornado steps away from the main console as the zeta tube glows into life. I stand to attention.

"Recognised, Flash, zero, four."

What?

He walks out of the tube at an easy pace, uniform a brilliant red. I haven't had any direct interaction with the Flash. Does he want to talk about the Garrick Formula? It's the only thing I can think of.

I've relaxed slightly as he makes eye contact.

"Orange Lantern. Abra Kadabra handed himself over to the Central City Police Department yesterday evening. Anything you want to tell me about that?"

I blink. This is the end of the week I said that he had, but Clayface… No, Hagen, it got pushed out of my mind. My mental gears screech.

"Yes sir. I tracked him down after the mission in Salem. Er, made him an offer and gave him a week to think about it."

His eyes narrow slightly, and he crosses his arms. "What kinda offer?"

"His greatest desire is to learn magic. I said that if he handed himself in and served his time, I'd find someone to teach him. For as long as he stayed straight."

"And if he hadn't handed himself in?"

"His most advanced camouflage technique had already failed to stop me detecting him." I shrug. "Wouldn't have taken long to find him again."

"What made you decide to do that?"

"Punishment isn't sufficient for supervillain rehabilitation, because they identify more with their identity as a supervillain.. than with normal society. The only way I could think of to get around that was to offer him something he really wanted. With a little luck, this way, you wouldn't have to fight him again in three or four years."

"So you want to rehabilitate supervillains?"

"Yes sir."

He leans back, and smiles. "Wonder Woman teach you that?"

Um.

"Not.. exactly, sir. That was really more Lantern Gardn-."

"Recognised, Batman, zero, two."

27th August
10:46 GMT -5

I tense immediately, eyes locked directly on the zeta tube.

Flash notices. "Come on, Bats isn't that bad."

Batman walks out of the tube. He takes in the Flash, Red Tornado and me. The Flash takes a step back as Batman approaches to standard debrief distance and then stops.

"Explain to me why you thought it was a good idea to use high levels of gamma radiation against a target in my city."

Not exactly what I thought he'd start with, but I've got my defence prepared.

"I don't have.. erm, I haven't practised with many constructs that I thought would have much effect on a being made of.. undifferentiated clay. The Gamma Cannon was the only reliable one. My practice sessions.. um, in my practise sessions, that was the highest output I'd tried to contain with a shield. Since I wanted to stop the target immediately, I decided that was the appropriate power level."

"What was the probability of the shield collapsing?"

Huh?

"I'm not.. um, negligible? I can maintain a shield of that type against equivalent force more or less.. well, the longest I've actually done it is about an hour, but in theory, if I exhausted a full ring charge-"

Ring?

At standard levels of avarice expressed by user: eighteen hours, twelve minutes, fifteen seconds.

"-just over eighteen hours. Against my Gamma Cannon specifically I've only ever tried holding it for about fifteen minutes, but the shield itself is exactly the same."

"Why gamma radiation?"

"Because it offers better penetration than alpha or beta radiation, and I wanted an invisible lightspeed method of attack."

"Where have you practised using it?"

"Titan."

He nods slightly. "Acceptable, but try to avoid using it in inhabited areas in the future."

What?

"Of course sir."

"What happened to you during your first encounter with 'Clayface'?"

"I attempted to use.. to look at his desires to gain some sort of idea about how he thought, and what he was trying to do. What I got was a confused mess, and.. I think.. the feedback stunned me for a few moments. By the time I was coherent again Clayface was counterattacking, and I was more interested in protecting my teammates than in attacking him."

"Did you gain any useful intelligence?"

"The only thing I could clearly see was Talia al Ghul's face."

He doesn't react. Am I missing something?

"You did not approve of the initial plan for the team's second encounter."

"No sir."

"You continued to dissent after your team leader gave it his approval. According to the mission reports I've received from Robin, Kid Flash and Miss Martian, you were quite forceful."

"Yes, sir."

He wait for a moment. I'm not sure what he wants.

"Explain."

"They wanted to spread out, and then attack Clayface physically once he revealed himself. Spreading out isn't a good idea against a protean life form... It's pretty much an invitation to get ambushed, and.. we already knew that kinetic attacks didn't do any lasting damage."

"Why did you decide to disregard my orders not to engage the creature?"

"If we were going to be in close proximity, we needed some way to hurt it in case it detected us again." My eyes trail along the ground. "I'd... I'd probably have preferred a slightly less assertive pursuit."

"Your intent was to locate the target, and use Robin's incendiaries to bake it solid."

"If… Yes sir."

"What went wrong?"

"I'm not.. sure. I've only just got back, and I haven't had a chance to talk to everyone yet. The team.. spread out.. I think.. further than I'd suggested. Clayface was able to rapidly ambush each of us in turn, until it assumed Robin's form to attack Kaldur. At that point I was able to temporarily trap him in a bubble construct, but he was strong enough to break free. He slammed Kaldur into the wall, and then turned his attention on me. At that point the Gamma Cannon was the only thing I was reasonably sure would work."

"You were unable to hold it in a force field?"

"That's correct sir. I'm afraid.. applying pressure with a construct in that way.. isn't something I'm very good at yet."

I remember having the same problem with that school bus on the bridge in Metropolis. Maybe I need to practise abstract shapes as well? How often is that going to come up?

"I'll mention it to Lantern Gardner for your next training session."

"Thank.. you.. sir..?"

He turns away and starts walking toward Red Tornado.

!Don't say it!

"I expect your full written report by sixteen hundred hours, though based on past experience I doubt that will prove much of a challenge for you. Kaldur has decided to take a leave of absence from the team-."

!Don't say it!

I need to say this. It's just going to hang over me otherwise.

"Sir… Sir.. I just.. killed a man. Isn't that a bit more serious than my next training exercise?"

He stops, and turns around. "You're referring to the creature?"

"Yes!"

"Orange Lantern, my plan for dealing with it involved disrupting its morphic resonance pattern. I hoped that doing so would paralyse the creature, but it's entirely possible that forcing it to lose cohesion in that way could have destroyed it permanently. Were you able to identify anything analogous to brain waves?"

"W.. no..?"

"How would you describe the physical condition of the creature when you left it?"

"Well, between the gamma radiation and the absence of pressure there wasn't any water left, and his body was mostly ceramic. He certainly wasn't moving…"

"Given that you don't know how it could be alive, how can you be sure it was dead?"

"Because I pumped a massive amount of gamma radiation into it?"

"Why would that be more dangerous to a creature made of clay than incendiaries? Or a device which made it impossible for it to hold its body in shape?"

Oh.

He steps up to me, and puts a hand on my shoulder.

"Orange Lantern, the fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as a nonlethal weapon. Any of the things we could have done to the creature to stop it might have resulted in its death. Tomorrow, you can go back to Ganymede, pick it up, and bring it to a secure research cell at STAR Labs. If we're fortunate, it can be revived."

Batman's being reassuring. This is weird.

I nod, my whole body tingling.

"Yes sir."

27th August
10:51 GMT -5

I'm not sure how to phrase my next question.

He removes his hand.

"Sir, can I ask? Have.. you.. ever..?"

"Killed someone?"

I can't meet his eyes.

"To the best of my knowledge, no, I have never directly killed someone. However, I have left people with permanent damage, both physical and psychological, and there have been occasions where it was impossible for me to assess the level of harm someone I fought had suffered. If you include indirect deaths, then yes, by my actions people have died who would otherwise have lived."

"How.. what do you mean by..?"

His eyes narrow, but I don't think that he's annoyed. He's remembering. No. Reliving.

"During my second year I attempted to apprehend three youths who were about to commit a robbery. One had a handgun, but I assumed that he wouldn't fire while his friends blocked his line of sight. I was mistaken. He panicked, and emptied his magazine in my direction. I was able to save one of his colleagues, but the other bled to death."

I nod. "Thank you sir."

"I'll follow up on the creature's point of origin myself, and I'll keep you informed of my findings."

"Sorry, um. That won't be necessary, sir. I've already done that."

His head tilts slightly. "Explain."

"Well.. I wanted to know why that had happened. Why I'd needed to kill him. And since the only lead I had was Miss Al Ghul, I went looking for her."

"Were you able to find her?"

"Yes. I used the images you and Robin took from your encounter at Cape Canaveral, combined with a partial DNA sample I took from an old blood sample I got from pier seven of the Gotham docks. Your report on the assassination attempt against Senator Stevens mentioned that she was injured there, and since the facial scan was giving me a lot of false positives…"

"Go on."

"She was in Paris, and as it turned out she was meeting with a man named Efraim al-Tauib. I.. didn't take the time to find out what it was about. Probably should have done, but it wasn't my focus and-."

Batman has his forearm raised, and is scrolling though his computer screen until an image of Mister al-Tauib's face appears.

"I received notification of his arrest an hour ago."

"I handed him over to the French police once I'd finished talking to Miss al Ghul."

"How did you approach her?"

"She was in a small restaurant. I scanned three bodyguards with small arms, nothing that could threaten me. I put on a normal looking suit, walked in and sat down at the next table, and one of her bodyguards came over and asked me to move. I put my hand on his arm and used a construct to paralyse him. I put him in my seat, then walked over and sat down in his. The other bodyguard tried hitting me, so I paralysed him, al-Tauib started making noise, so I paralysed him as well."

"Did anyone notice you doing this?"

"There was a third bodyguard at the bar. I think he noticed that I wasn't supposed to be there. No one else reacted, but I wasn't scanning their brains or anything, so maybe they were just keeping their heads down? The guys I paralysed were still upright, and the construct was covered by their clothing."

He nods. The Flash is covering his mouth with his right fist.

"So, um, I asked Miss al Ghul about it. She tried lying, but I was scanning her brain, so she gave up after her first attempt. His… Clayface's name is Matthew Hagen. She told me that he was a Shadow who tried to use the Lazarus Pit to cure his cancer."

"Do you believe her?"

"I don't know her well enough… The scans told me that she probably wasn't telling an outright lie, but.. I think there was more to it. Her emotional response was too strong, but I didn't have any real psychological levers I could use to get her to tell me what was really going on. She said that Ra's sent Clayface after you in revenge for you stopping his satellite launch. I'll put the full transcript in my mission report."

Another nod.

"If you want to follow up, she's in.. Monaco."

I raise my hands in a praying motion, then part them, showing a street scene with Talia walking along a pavement. I tilt my hands, and the view pulls out, showing her position within the principality.

"Looks like someone's doing the extra credit assignment."

The Flash -is it The Flash, or just Flash?- steps up and has a look at the image, before turning his head to Batman.

"Want me to pick her up? Shouldn't take more than a few seconds."

"No. I'll follow up myself, later. Orange Lantern, this is good work."

I wince, inwardly and outwardly. "Sort of.. haven't finished yet, sir. I… I didn't think my scan of Miss al Ghul's brain would be admissible in court. Thought I needed.. you know, hard evidence."

"I doubt that part of the investigation would come to court. Security cameras at the Wayne Foundation recorded Matthew Hagen's attack, and that should be enough to convict him. If a Shadow gained access to Ra's al Ghul's Lazarus Pit he's undoubtedly increased security-"

I wince again.

"-and as he rarely allows others to use it we shouldn't need to worry too much about attacks by clay cre.. clay people, in the future."

I am very aware of what I've got sitting in my subspace pocket right now.

"Um…"

Batman is looking me straight in the eyes again. "You have something else to add?"

I hold my right arm out to the side.

Ring, the Pit. Carefully.

Interestingly, it doesn't emerge in one go. Rather, an orange rectangle moves through the air, revealing more of the Pit as it passes. Completely moving it to normal space takes about seven seconds.

Batman looks at it. He doesn't double take, but I think I noticed him clench slightly. He steps away from me to take a closer look.

I shift my weight nervously from foot to foot, and search Flash's face for a clue to how badly I've messed up. I think I stunned him.

He notices. "Is that..?"

"Yes sir."

"You stole..?"

"Yes sir."

"When you want extra credit, you don't go half way."

"No sir."

I'm having trouble reading his expression through his face mask.

Batman lifts the lid. The green goo is still there, but it isn't glowing as brightly or bubbling quite as much as it was when I first picked it up. He lowers it again, then stalks back over to me.

I'm not having any trouble reading his mood.

"Tell. Me. Everything."

And he's looming over me and oh shit.

"Now."

27th August
10:55 GMT -5

"Um. I was able to use my scan of Talia's DNA to locate Ra's himself. I was assuming that he'd have a Lazarus Pit set up where he was, or.. or.. at least where his base of operations was. He was on a small island off the coast of Ecuador, there was a training facility, some research labs and manufacturing, housing… A mansion I assumed was his."

"Did they see you?"

His voice is tighter, his relaxed tone from earlier completely gone.

"No.. er, I don't think so. I was miles away in the sky, and I kept the sun behind me. The ring kept their radar from picking me up."

"How did you identify the Lazarus Pit?"

My heart sinks. He isn't going to like this.

"I scanned everything, but I didn't know what the Pit looked like other than that it was a smallish body of liquid. Certainly didn't think it was a sarcophagus. Um. So, knowing that Ra's himself doesn't just.. hang around it, I realised that the only way I could locate it for certain would be… um…"

No getting away from it.

"I shot him in the head with a rail gun. Tungsten round. He died immediately, no significant collateral damage, and his ubu transported him to the Pit. His resurrection took about two and a half hours. Once he left the area around the Pit, I marked targets.. transport vehicles that could be used for evacuation, communication links, servers, that sort of thing.. and fired on them all while I smashed down into the mansion myself. Again, I don't think they spotted me. The rail gun construct isn't that noticeable from a distance, and all the strikes other than the one I made directly were tungsten projectile strikes, not orange energy beams. I was visible for maybe a second over the mansion before all the dust and rubble got in the way, and I think everyone was a bit busy checking the perimeter after I shot Ra's earlier. Urp, so, cut the Pit out of the floor, put it in my subspace pocket, came back. That was about twenty minutes ago."

"Could they have tracked you?"

"Don't think so. I destroyed their radar and gravity detection thing in my initial volley, and I was travelling faster than light. Didn't notice anything else."

"Did you kill anyone?"

"W-."

"Other than Ra's, did you kill anyone?"

"I.. no, of course not! I fired specifically to avoid injuring other people. Sir, I got into a state because I thought I'd killed a career assassin who was trying to kill me at the time, I certainly wasn't going to murder their technical support team."

"Show me the exact location of the island."

Map.

The first image is a bird's eye view of South America, with the outlines of countries and a gyroscope marking the location of the island. Then, it zooms in to show just the Ecuadorian coastline, the island, and lines of latitude and longitude. Lastly, it zooms again and shows a bird's eye view of the island. I can see tiny people working around the sites I hit earlier.

"Flash. Go."

There's a red afterimage as he runs straight into the wall, passing through it with no resistance. Batman's stepping away from me.

"Batman to the Justice League. Orange Lantern has located the headquarters of the League of Shadows. Rendezvous at Flash's coordinates. I want everyone who's available on this one."

He turns back to me.

"You."

I have his full attention.

"Staaaay. Here."

"Yes sir."

One last look at me and he's striding toward the zeta tube with Red Tornado.

"Recognised, Batman, zero, two, Red Tornado, one, six."

A flash of light and he's gone.

…

That went a lot better than I was expecting. I think… Yes, I definitely overreacted about Mister Hagen. And I don't just mean my attacks against the League of Shadows.

When he said 'stay here', did he mean exactly here, or in the mountain? I'm starting to hate imprecisely worded instructions.

So, given that I can't move, what I am going to do now?

Ring, open communications with the kitchen.

An orange screen appears in front of me.

No, properly.

A holo-emitter materialises from subspace and replaces the all orange screen with a colour one. After a moment M'gann's face appears on it.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, yes I am. Batman said that we couldn't be sure that I'd actually killed Mister Hagen.. um, Clayface, and that given his unusual physiology anything we could have done to stop him might have killed him anyway. I don't feel.. entirely sanguine about it, but I think he's right. Oh, hi Kon."

Kon is walking past the monitor when he hears me, then stops and walks toward it.

"Hey Paul. Where you been?"

"Ganymede, Paris, Ecuador. Completing the investigation into Clayface. Stealing Ra's al Ghul's Lazarus Pit."

I swing the screen pick up around so they can see it, then swing it back to me.

"You did that without me?" M'gann nudges him with her elbow. "Without us?"

Actually, that was pretty dumb. M'gann would have been really useful when I was talking to Talia, and having Kon watch my back might have been a life saver.

"Um, no. Yeah. I should've got you. I just didn't think about it when I started… I was just thinking about finding out why I'd needed to kill Clayface, it didn't occur to me to bring anyone else in. I'm sorry."

"Well, don't do it again."

"I won't. Um, look, is Kaldur around? I should probably let him know what I've been doing."

M'gann bites her lip. "He's.. gone back to Atlantis for a little while."

Oh. Leave of absence. Right. "Oh. Did he say how long for?"

"No. Just that he needed to clear his head."

"Huh. Okay, if he's not here and Batman knows about it, I suppose it doesn't matter."

"Recognised."

Huh?

"Green Lantern"

Guy?

"Zero, five."

Oh dear.

27th August
11:01 GMT -5

Lantern Harold Jordan of Space Sector 2814. Pointless tiny green mask, green upper with black patches which make it look he's been sweating under his arms and the dye's run out. White gloves, and a white circle in the centre of his chest with the Green sigil on it as a convenient 'shoot here' sign. Black leggings and green boots. How much hairspray does it take to keep his fringe curled like that?

At least Lantern Stewart has the sense to wear an armoured uniform.

I tried selling Guy on the idea, but he's of the view that anything that can pierce his shield would probably go straight through any Earth-made armour too. When I suggested plundering his ring's database for extraterrestrial armour designs he told me that he wasn't sure he was allowed to. What sort of leash do the Guardians have them on?

Maybe he'll go away if I ignore him.

"So, Kon, how's the mission report coming?"

"Ugh. Slowly. Could I have a look at yours?"

"No. Quite aside from the fact that there were bits you saw that I didn't, report writing is a valuable skill to learn. And, I haven't actually started it y-."

The holo-emitter flies out of my hand as a green clamp takes hold of it and pulls it over to Lantern Jordan.

"He'll call you back."

It shuts down.

"What the hell?"

"Batman wants me to make sure you don't do anything while the Justice League deals with the League of Shadows, and phone calls count as part of 'anything'. Plus I've been meaning to talk to you for a while now."

"Batman already ordered me to stay put. All I was going to do, was write my mission report and carry on reading old case files."

As he walks closer, I can't help it. The edges of my armour plates glow as my nerves cause my environmental shield to reinforce.

Alert. Lantern Jordan is attempting to access ring database.

"Knock it off."

Jordan winces, makes a fist with his right hand, then unclenches and clenches it a couple of times. Feedback? I'll remember that.

"Okay, maybe that was the wrong approach."

"Yes, yes it was."

"I've still got questions for you."

"I'm not going anywhere."

I think he's trying to size me up. "Where'd your ring really come from?"

"I. Don't. Know. Did you even attempt to check my origin point, as I suggested?"

"That part checks out. But it doesn't explain how you came through with a ring when you keep saying things like that don't exist where you're from."

"I don't know that they don't exist where I'm from. I just hadn't seen one. Look, any Maltusian successor species could have forged it, as could the Qwardians. Larfleeze has a massive pile of orange rings in his cave; the Guardians already know that."

He crosses his arms. "What makes you say that?"

Ugh.

"Look, if the Guardians didn't brief you properly, it's probably because they don't want you to know."

"How do you know what the Guardians want? You've never spoken to them."

"No, I'm not doing this. I'm not going to talk to you and risk giving out information prejudicial to my Corps. The Guardian's desires and mine do not align."

He walks… Oh, he's actually going to walk behind me. I'm not going to risk moving my feet and I refuse to twist around.

"Alright then: you killed Ra's al Ghul."

"Yes? I knew he'd get up again."

"Killing someone with a power ring isn't supposed to be possible. Why didn't your ring shut down?"

"Because it's not full of Bobblehead malware. The Book of Oa's rules are abstractions of parts of your ring's programming, which orange rings don't have. Why did you think Alan was able to kill people?"

His footsteps stop. "I've read the Justice Society's records. Alan's never killed anyone."

Let's pretend they'd actually have recorded something like that.

"Did you read the All-Star Squadron's records? Because I assure you, during the Second World War? He killed people. Not many, and never without good cause, but he did." While he's here, I might as well ask… "Actually, while we're on the subject, how come you never offered to repair his ring?"

"He's not a member of the Green Lantern Corps. I had to argue with the Guardians before they'd agree to even let him keep his lanter-."

Oh.

I hold up my left hand, smiling, and generate a sigil on the back of my hand.

"They can't be too happy about what I've done with it. But, hey, thank you."

"Don't. Thank me. By killing a man in cold blood you've shown that you have no understanding of how a Lantern is supposed to behave."

"He got up again! And if you really care that much, why didn't you track him down years ago? My scanning abilities can't be that much better than yours."

He starts walking again. "The Lantern Cor… The Green Lantern Corps has rules about Lanterns using their rings to control the planets under their protection."

"What? How does that count?"

"The League of Shadows is big enough and old enough that according to Corps rules it counts as part of Earth's political system."

"Seriously? Do they let you do anything?"

He's completed the circuit and is now back in front of me.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous the universe is to somewhere like Earth? The Green Lantern Corps exists primarily to stop interstellar war, to stop more advanced civilisations conquering and destroying primitive ones like ours. And if being part of that means I have to agree not to try and decide for myself exactly what my homeworld should be like, then I'm okay with that. It may not seem fair sometimes, and I don't expect someone whose Corps is devoted to serving its members' interests first and foremost to understand, but the only way we can operate is by maintaining trust. And we do that by staying true to our moral standards."

"Moral stan… Alright Lantern Jordan, try this: when Abin Sur -your predecessor- died, he left behind a widow and a son. Did you visit them to pass on your condolences A, immediately, B, after the conflict which resulted in Lantern Sur's death was resolved,-"

His face hardens.

"-C, after you finished basic training,-"

"You've made your point."

"Don't think I have, you're still standing here. D, a few years later when you were in the area on another unrelated matter, or E, you still haven't. Mmm?"

27th August
11:19 GMT -5

Bud-dum bom.

Mission report's finished.

Bud-dum bom.

And I've had a whole FUCKING hour of this.

Bud-dum bom. Bud-dum bom.

Not a word, but he's still throwing that-

Bud-dum bom.

-FUCKING green ball-

Bud-dum bom.

-against the sarcophagus.

Bud-dum bom.

Focus. Focus. A lot has happened-

Bud-dum bom.

-and you need to meditate.

Bud-dum bom.

"If I give you a useful piece of information will you please STOP doing that!?"

Bud-dum.

He's sitting on a green chair to my right, facing the sarcophagus. He swivels it around.

"I'm listening."

"They've got ten months."

"Who do?"

"The Bobbl-… The Guardians. I swore a magically binding oath that I'd stay in this system and follow orders until then. After that, I'm heading straight to Maltus, so they've got that long to start a dialogue with the Controllers. The Controllers will want the Orange Central Power Battery, and I know where it is."

I've also recorded that information somewhere Alan can find it, just in case. I don't want to risk the plan getting nobbled by a visit from The Corpse.

"They don't have it?"

"If they had it, I wouldn't be the only Orange Lantern outside of Vega, would I?"

"You told the League that you worked for the Controllers."

"I do. I'm keeping their ring, so I accept their authority, but I've never been in direct contact. Though, if you want to give me their e-mail address..?"

"So where does this 'First Lantern Larfleeze' fit in?"

"He's the guy who stole the Orange Central Power Battery. He's been using it as his personal lantern ever since."

"Shouldn't that mean you work for him?"

"Something doesn't become yours just because you steal it."

"When did this happen?"

"No. You've had your useful information. Besides, the Guardians already know that."

"How could the Guardians know-."

"They're the ones who said he could keep it. They even agreed to leave him to it, as long as he stayed in Vega."

"Okay, I know that's a lie. Green Lanterns are barred from operating in Vega by the Guardians' pact with the Psions."

"Go to the border, point your ring at Okaara, and tell it to scan for the orange light of avarice. I wouldn't tell you a lie you could easily disprove."

Respect to him, he actually pauses to think about that one.

"Why would the Guardians cover that up?"

"The Guardians are billions of years old. You think in all that time they haven't done lots of things they're ashamed of, things they don't want becoming common knowledge?

His eyes narrow.

"Like what?"

Sector 666 is the obvious thing, but I don't think this is the time. Besides, I might need to damage his will at some point. Perhaps I can help someone with this.

"Lantern Raker is a prisoner on Apokolips. With no ring charge he can't leave. The Guardians know full well that he's there. Do you see a rescue?"

He holds up his ring for a moment. Is he talking to it?

"There is no Lantern Raker."

"And who edits your database? Go there, and see for yourself. Might want to make sure you've got a way to leave without a ring though. The Guardians can remote deactivate you whenever they want."

He turns his head away from me, shaking it. Let him disbelieve. I remember what happened to those poor bastards the Guardians betrayed to Lady Styx with that ability.

Ball?

That wasn't the ring's voice. That's Teekl. I have a quick look around the room, trying to work out where she is.

She's standing on the wall above Lantern Jordan's head. I mean, at right angles to the ground, sticking to it with her claws. I don't think he's seen her.

Throw ball? Play?

Bom. Bom. Bom.

He's bouncing it.

Teekl, take the fucking ball.

There's an orange blur as she hurls herself off the wall, grabbing the ball at the bottom of its descent and rolling across the floor with it, tearing at it with her teeth and claws.

"Hey!"

"Hahahehehehe."

Jordan looks at me. "What do y-?"

He's staring at my left hand. Ah, he knows what it means when there's a construct around but the ring's not glowing.

"How are you doing that?"

"The Bobbleheads really didn't tell you anything, did they?"

He opens his mouth to pursue that line of questioning. I raise my hands to stop him.

"The ring calls the ability 'Identity Theft'. I think of it as assimilation. I point the ring at a living thing, state the command, and the ring turns them into an enduring construct. As far as I can tell, Teekl there-"

Lantern Jordan deletes his ball. Teekl spends a frenzied moment searching for it, then decides that, yes, it has indeed gone. She rolls to her feet and daintily starts licking her left front paw, ignoring both of us.

"-draws power directly from my personal lantern."

"You can do that to any living thing?"

"I haven't practised, for obvious reasons. But, as far as I know."

I nod.

"It's slow, though. Not much use in a fight. I think it only worked on her because she didn't want to be Klarion's familiar any more."

Lantern Jordan dismisses his chair and kneels down in front of Teekl, and reaches out slowly with his left hand.

Teekl stops licking herself, sniffs at him, then expresses her displeasure.

Jordan pulls back gingerly, stands up, then takes a step away from her.

Her eyes are still fixed on him, and she's still growling.

"Could you call her off? That's kinda creepy."

"Teekl's pretty much independent of me. I'm afraid you're stuck with it."

27th August
12:57 GMT -5

"It's just banter, honestly. He's a nice guy once you get to know him."

Jordan raises an eyebrow at this.

I finished my meditation while Teekl kept him transfixed. She wandered off after I finished. Maybe she was drawn here by my need to shut Jordan up?

I think I need to start bringing other people into my personal projects. Kon and M'gann were right; I should have involved them in the investigation. I'll talk to Kaldur about my ideas on anti-magic wards next time I see him, and I want to push Kon on the mental trawling thing I first thought about when I realised how much of a disconnect there was between what he knows and what he's been imprinted with. Maybe M'gann showing him her true… Sorry, her 'Martian' form, would help that along?

"He's always had a chip on his shoulder about getting his ring after I got mine."

Jordan's sitting on the sarcophagus. I'm still standing in place.

"That's not where the chip comes from."

"Well, where does it come from?"

"That's kind of personal to him. I mean, it would probably be good if you knew, and it didn't take me a lot of effort to find out. But I don't think it would be right for me to tell you. Besides, if I remember right, you weren't exactly first pick either."

Jordan crosses his arms. "What d'you mean by that? The ring chose me."

"Yeah, because Abin Sur edited the search criteria because he was dying and wanted to have time to explain things to the person it chose. The only reason Guy didn't get it was because you were closer."

"Did Guy tell you that?"

"You're wearing the ring; ask it."

"I don't need my ring to tell me that Guy's full of b-."

"Recognised, Batman, zero, two, Wonder Woman, zero, three."

I straighten up, arms straight down. Jordan stands.

Time to find out how badly I messed up.

Batman leaves the tube at a measured pace, Diana just behind him. I don't see any damage on him… I mean, I had been assuming that they'd level the island, but Jordan wouldn't let me check their progress.

Just in case…

Ring, scan for injuries.

Compliance. Batman has significant bruising to the right shoulder, arm and torso, as well as numerous other minor injuries. Diana is unharmed.

"Hey, what did you just do?"

Jordan spotted that? Interesting.

"Medical scan. Sir?" I catch Batman's eye. "If you want I can get rid of those bruises for you?"

He doesn't say anything. Guess not then.

Diana has a wry smile on her face. If I hadn't seen the expression before I'd probably have missed it. So, I'm not in the dog house? Or maybe I am, but Batman told a really funny joke just before they got in the tube.

I wonder if he'll say I can move before we start?

"At thirteen oh eight today the Justice League, acting on your information, attacked the League of Shadows facility on Infinity Island."

Guess not. Infinity Island. Even sounds like a supervillain base.

"At the present time, the facility, and all remaining personnel, are under Justice League guard pending the arrival of the Ecuadorian military."

Whaw. I mean, good, but whaw.

"Was Ra's there, sir?"

"He was not. Several other notable members of the League of Shadows' leadership were also absent."

Magic based teleportation, maybe? We really need a thaumaturgist on the team, and I don't think that Cornwall has the knowledge base. But why wouldn't they evacuate everyone. Finite power?

"The damage you did to their base, combined with the disappearance of their leadership, made our attack as easy as could be expected."

Go.. me?

"However, with their databases and records destroyed, by you, it will be very difficult for us to capitalise on this success. League of Shadows assets in the field will go into hiding until the leadership can re-establish itself in a new safe haven."

I wait for a moment. I really don't want to interrupt him, but he seems to have stopped for the moment.

"Um, sir? I was there for over three hours."

I make a small shrug.

"I took a copy of everything. Electronic and paper records. The only reason I haven't put it on the Justice League database yet is that it'll probably be a very large file, and I wanted to talk to you about it first."

He does nothing for a moment. Then, his face tilts slightly and he makes eye contact with Diana. She raises her eyebrows slightly.

Then he's looking straight at me. It's neither hostile nor friendly. Perhaps distant?

"You are certain that you got everything?"

Um..?

"If they had some sort of magic based storage system, then no. And I didn't scan stone carvings… Or people's memories. But otherwise, yes."

His head bows, slightly. He's still facing me, but I don't think that he's looking at me anymore.

"I will prepare a dedicated secure server. We will need to move on this quickly. The police will want access both to you and your data once the civil investigations start."

"I didn't have a search warrant, sir."

"There are.. internationally accepted procedures for getting around that. That was part of why the Justice League accepted a UN mandate in the first place. Given the number of countries in which you will likely be called upon to testify, it is fortunate that your ring has a universal translator."

He hasn't shouted yet. That's good.

"Make no mistake: despite what they've lost in resources and manpower, the League of Shadows will recover from this."

I wonder…

"Ring, locate Ra's al Ghul."

"Ra's al Ghul not found."

What?

"And adapt to the situation, if a little faster than I was expecting."

Oh, not good.

"Ring, locate League of Shadows member, codename 'Sensei'."

"Sensei not found."

So not good.

"Orange Lantern."

He gets my full attention again.

"I am not happy with your clear lack of forethought. Even though your ring lets you take certain shortcuts, preparation for an attack of this sort should have involved planning for any reasonably probable aftermath. The logistics needed to follow up on your success. While I understand what motivated you, it would have been far better to leave the facility in place and use your data intercept abilities to monitor their ongoing activities. Even with the database you've recovered, a sizable proportion of their fully trained field agents will not be found."

I nod, slowly. He's right. My focus was too narrow.

"And I am also not happy that you felt it appropriate to kill Ra's al Ghul, even temporarily. Nonetheless, a major blow has been dealt to the League of Shadows as a result of your actions. A great deal of their support infrastructure has been removed, and once we follow up on the data you procured their financial strength will be reduced as well. Furthermore, without a Lazarus Pit,-"

We both look at it for a moment.

"-Ra's al Ghul will be keeping his head down until he can create a replacement."

I wince slightly at 'head'.

It's strange, a little like one of those annoying quiz programs on television where they drag out telling the contestant whether they were right or not. I've heard Batman talking, but I genuinely have no idea which way he's going to go with the bottom line.

27th August
13:00 GMT -5

"This is a major victory, and completely validates our decision to bring you into this team."

I shudder with relief.

"Thank you sir. Sirs."

"I don't expect you to be able to plan an operation of this kind at your current level of experience. However, should you feel the need to do something like this again, I will expect you to conduct yourself with a good deal more care."

I nod.

Batman turns away and walks toward the zeta tube. Diana smiles and steps forward, both hands on my shoulders.

"Next time, talk to a League member about it first. That's why we're here, to offer the benefit of our experience."

"Yes sir."

"Recognised, Batman, zero, two."

"Do you intend to put the Lazarus Pit in the trophy room?"

"I don't think the room's big enough, sir. Really, I was hoping that someone on our side could use it for research. Try and find out how it works? I don't know if Mister Zatara knows about alchemy..?"

"Very well. Green Lantern, would you mind carrying it?"

A green aura extends directly from his ring. I've just about trained Guy not to do that.

"Paul, Alan told me that he'd like you to visit him this evening, if you have the time."

"Of course. Did he say what it was about?"

"Something about old photo albums..?"

Oh, heck yes. "Excellent. I'll tell him I'm coming."

She nods. "I'm still needed on Infinity Island. Be well, Paul."

"You too, sir. Oh, sir!"

"Yes?"

"Batman ordered me to stay here. As in, right here. Could you possibly..?"

She bites down a chuckle. "Orange Lantern. Direct order. You are free to go."

"Thank you sir."

She turns, and walks over to the zeta tube. Jordan starts to follow, but slows as he gets close to me.

"You were right, you know. It was D, and it should have been C."

"I shouldn'ta said that. I was just trying to score points. But, look, you need to investigate the other stuff."

His eyes flick down for a moment. "I'll... Think about it."

Then he starts walking again.

"Recognised, Wonder Woman, zero, three, Green Lantern, zero, five."

I stand there as the light fades, then gingerly check that after this much time my legs still work. Yep. Okay, time to put my resolution into practice.

Ring, kitchen.

I appear where I left, three and a quarter hours ago.

"...Justice League today. While no information has been released to the press, the size of the military build up..."

Kon swings his head around, then presses a button on the control box and the news broadcast goes mute.

I see the island.. Infinity Island. I think the picture is being recorded from a helicopter, while the reporter stays on dry land. The news channel is cutting back and forth between the two, with images of the military mobilisation forming the backdrop of the reporter segments. The woman on the screen gestures at something, and the on-shore camera tries to focus on something in the air. It takes me a few moments to realise it's Diana.

"Is this..? Did you do this?"

Kon looks a little stunned.

"Urp, turns out? Power rings are very good at finding people who're trying to hide. Once I told Batman there was a League of Shadows base there, he called the whole League in."

"And they're just.. gone?"

"That base, yes. The Justice League is very good at bringing overwhelming power to bear on targets they know about. We won't know how badly the Shadows are hurt until Batman starts following up on the intelligence I gathered."

He sags slightly, and turns back to the screen.

I walk around to the settee and sit down next to him.

"I already apologised for leaving you out. With Kaldur taking a break and the League.. clearly occupied, I doubt there'll be any team missions for a few days. But there are a few things I'd like us to look into."

He snorts, still not looking at me. "Bet none of them are a base full of ninjas."

"I'm afraid not. I actually wanted to prioritise tracking down John Constantine. That guy Diana and Donna couldn't find?"

"What's so special about him?"

"He's intelligent, cunning and ruthless. In terms of practical utility, he should be capable of using the Helmet of Fate. And maybe providing me with some sort of protection against magic."

Kon frowns. "You never said how you got rid of the rest of Klarion's spell."

"There's a guy in Cornwall, name of Robert Marrack. I read up on his magic related abilities, then asked him to try fixing me. I'm actually planning on trying to persuade Batman to let him join the team."

"You can do that?"

I shrug. "Won't know until I try. Don't see any harm in asking."

He leans back into the settee. "So, do you know where this wizard guy is?"

"No. Probably somewhere in London. There's a few people we could try talking to who might respond better to normal looking people than to Wonder Woman."

"Couldn't you just scan for another Shadow base?"

"Sorry. Tried. They've found some way to avoid the ring's scans."

He exhales moodily.

"Kon, intelligence gathering is important. I badly mishandled the attack against the Shadows because I didn't think the consequences through, and I nearly died fighting Klarion because I didn't prepare well enough."

"Fine. But, next time you find some ninjas-?"

"Fetching you will be the first thing I do."

27th August
20:34 GMT -5

"Yeah, I was still at the 'wearing it around the house stage' when I'd had mine for as long as you've had yours. Course, couldn't really get away with wearing it in public. Not, given its size."

Alan hadn't realised that I wear the ring pretty much all the time.

"Was that ever a problem? I mean, you were living in Gotham."

The table in Alan's dining room is covered in photo albums and case files. Black and white shots, mostly posed group shots and crime scene photos, with the occasional newspaper clipping and mug shot thrown in for interest.

"Yeah, but I lived in the good part of the city. Lower crime rate. Well, less street crime anyway. And my identity was a secret. No reason for anyone to target me. Heh, though ever since you showed up I've started wondering how many people were just humouring me."

The ring's scanning images and text, creating a database that I'll upload to the Justice League when I get back.

"Is Diana wearing culottes in that one?"

"Huh, yeah, actually. A lot of people think she wore skirts, but can you imagine flying in a skirt that size?"

For a moment I remember what Supergirl flew around wearing in the comics. Fortunately, all of the super women I've seen here are realistically proportioned. That would have been one weirdness too many.

"Did she really used to perm her hair?"

"Almost everyone on Themyscira has straight hair. I suppose it was her teenage rebellion stage."

I'm looking at a picture of a seventeen year old Wonder Woman. Her bustier had a different design back then. A different model, perhaps? Or maybe the armour was added later, and that really is just clothing? She never told me what she took with her when she left Themyscira.

Alan takes a sip from his glass. Two.. fingers? Of Scotch, with ice cubes.

"So, this is the All-Star Squadron period, right."

"Uh huh."

"Who came up with that name?"

"Oh, someone in the War Office, I expect. Originally it was just going to be there to coordinate us, y'know, super heroes. But a lot of us guys were getting called up, and then the Office of Strategic Services found out exactly how advanced the Nazis' arcane technology research had gotten… Well, it actually started handling combat deployments and suchlike."

"And they were okay with women being on the team."

"Funny you should ask; I actually got a picture of… Where is it...? Ah."

He flicks through a couple of pages, then points one out.

"Diana's holding a guy up by his ankle? Was he a German agent or something?"

"That's General MacArthur."

"No way."

"Honest to God. I got first question at every one of his press conferences in exchange for not publishing it. Think this is the only copy left."

Unreal.

Fun though this is, the actual reason I'm here is a bit more serious. None of these files are on the Justice League database, and given how long some supervillains can live -to say nothing of inherited abilities and technology- we need this stuff. I'm not sure whether or not Diana kept records back then, but I rather doubt it. A power ring can turn thousands of man hours of transcribing into the work of a few hours, but I'll still need to index the stuff.

"So, your mission reports are in…"

"Er, that one, I think."

I float up the indicated box. I'm not going to read them all here -that would be a waste of time, and fairly antisocial- but I do want to scan them with the pictures from the same period.

I stand up, and shuffle through while scanning, trying to get an impression of what they're about. Printed war department forms, covered with borderline illegible handwriting… Ah. I think the ring just turned it.. no, made me able to read them. Useful stuff. About two thirds of the way through, the texture of the paper changes. Not seeing any names I recognise, I shove the other reports out of the way and try and work out what the rest is.

There's no cover. The handwriting's different. There's some chemical formulas… What I think are medical records…

I carefully pull them out. Alan takes a look.

"Huh. Forgotten I had that."

I put the pile down in front of me, and begin going through them, trying to find some sort of explanation.

"What is it?"

"Well… You remember when we first met, you asked me where I first saw super powers?"

"Yes?"

"Well, after the All-Star Squadron stopped Hugo Danner's attempt to conquer Brazil with his 'Children of Dawn'… That was a bad business. They were children, you see? The formula -his father's formula- only works on children in the womb, and I guess he didn't want to risk waiting 'till they reached eighteen. Not that that would have been much better."

"How did he get them to work for him?"

"I've honestly no idea. None of them spoke English or Spanish. I suppose he found an isolated tribe or something. He said they called him 'Man-God', so perhaps it was religious reverence? Anyway, they pretty much tore up the military units that first tried to stop them, but by the time they reached Rio…"

He shrugs.

"Same thing that happened to the Indians. No resistance to White Man's diseases."

"Did any of them survive?"

"The Brazilian military took Danner himself, but it destroyed him, when his followers died. I remember hearing that he killed himself later. None of the children.. mm, teenagers, I suppose you'd say now, who took part in the attack lived. Jay and I, and a fellow named Doctor Robert Crane, we wanted to make sure he hadn't just left the really young ones behind, make sure no one was going to carry on his work."

He shakes his head.

"Never found them. No satellites or infra-red tracking in those days. But we did find what we thought was Danner's main base of operation, and laboratory. His papers. I just wanted to burn the whole place and have done with it, but Jay and Bobby argued that there wasn't anything wrong with the research. I mean, they were all volunteers, but it was like what you said happened with Clayface this morning. I'd just seen a thirteen year old girl damn near cough up her own lungs, I wasn't thinking rationally about it."

I feel floaty.

"You're telling me, you've got Hugo Danner's research notes."

"Nm, a couple of boxes worth. Jay didn't know what the long term effects of his own formula were going to be on him… 'Course, turned out he was fine. I don't think anyone's looked at them in decades. Forgotten I even had them."

The guys who wrote Bruce has a Problem didn't quite get it right, but there aren't many ways to give someone super powers that are reliable and don't have major side effects. I remember reading in Seven Soldiers, where Alix is in hospital and the doctors comment on how many admissions they get from people trying to improve themselves and failing. That happens here. Not quite enough to be a major problem; it's hard work to make a serious effort at it, and most people with that sort of ability either realise that it won't work, or get it right.

"Would you mind terribly if I took a copy?"

"'Won't be much use to you. Danner and his father both tried it on adults. Doesn't work."

No, but I have a power ring and a room full of rats. If I can understand the process, there really isn't any reason why I wouldn't be able to give everyone on the planet his abilities by inducing the change myself.

I could do that.

Would Alan be on board with transhumanism? Probably not. From his perspective it might sound like metahuman fascism.

Wait.

Kon.

Part Human.

Would it work on him?

"Metahumans happen. I… I wouldn't have a problem with people being able to choose to make their children as strong and tough as Hugo Danner was."

He looks me in the eye as he thinks it over. "I… I'm not sure that's a good idea. You and I, we chose to use our rings. Jay chose to use his formula on himself. It's not the same as a mother making the choice for her unborn children."

"Parents make all sorts of choices for their children, and it's not as if they'd have to be superheroes, or join the army. They'd just.. have a few extra abilities. And anyway, that would be years off."

"Uuhmm. I suppose. Alright, take a copy, but be careful with it."

"Because criminals might try and get hold of it?"

"No, because it doesn't have FDA approval." He widens his eyes. "Some laws aren't worth the trouble to break."

27th August
23:09 GMT -5

"I don't recognise this one."

I've been saying that a lot. I thought my knowledge of DC history was fairly good, but I've never heard of most of these people. I think Alan's enjoyed talking about them. Mostly. I think a combination of Scotch -he's about half way through the bottle- and me bringing up the Danner business has given him a slight morbid tinge, as he's made a point of mentioning how each of them died.

Not many superheroes from the forties left. It's basically him, Jay, Diana, Red Tornado and Wildcat, and two of them are immortal. No. Ageless. He thinks some of the others might still be about, they weren't all particularly close.

"That's…. Danette Reilly. Firebrand." He waves his right index finger. "Uhh, the second one. She said the second one. I don't remember the first."

I don't remember her at all.

"Nice woman. Took a bullet for Jay in forty five."

I'm going to assume fatally.

We're looking at a book with some larger formal photographs. Mostly whole group shots in costume, though there's one of Wildcat, Jay and Alan in normal clothes in a bar.

"I remember that one. Johnny took it. He always said we didn't spend enough time together outside of, y'know."

He points at the page opposite; a full roster of the Society at its peak.

"Is that.. Johnny Thunder?"

"Nice to know not everyone's forgotten about him."

I wait for it.

"Died three years ago, after his…. fifth stroke? He sorta recovered from the first. Second sent him to a nursing home." He swirls his drink around, staring at it. "After his third, he didn't recognize me anymore. 'S. 'S nasty way to go."

Ring, is he okay?

Alan Scott is not in serious danger of alcohol poisoning. However, he would be in breach of local law if he attempted to drive a motor vehicle.

Duh.

Okay, new book, new page. Ring, find me the one in which Alan's smiling the most.

An album in a box on the far side of the room is acquired and lifted over. I close the one we had been looking at and push it aside as the album the ring selected lands.

"Hm. Don't recognize this one."

Sounds promising. There's got to be some good memories in here.

The first picture shows a much younger Alan with a group of other men, standing next to what look like a pile of railway sleepers. There's what looks like a train depot in the background. The date at the bottom is September 17th, 1937.

"Huh." He pulls the album over to him. "Took trains all over Connecticut with those guys. Uh, let's see, Cliff,-" He points. "-Derek, Saul, Joe, Eugene, Cedric, Donald, Morris and Jesse. Derek was my coal man, and Morris was my conductor. Christopher Keppler was the name o'the guy taught me to run it. Er, he's not in this picture."

He flips forwards a couple of pages. I catch sight of a picture of him with an older man and woman. His parents? Another picture, labelled 'Gotham, 1940', of an apartment building.

Then he stops, and exhales.

Looks like an office staff photo. I take a quick look at the names at the bottom.

Fuck.

Rose Canton is at the end of the line, arm around him.

Fuck.

She didn't even work there! She had a plant shop, didn't she? Something plant related? When she wasn't crazy?

He turns the next few pages. Some sort of tissue paper pockets with letters inside.

The next photograph is of the two of them at a restaurant.

Another intake of breath, and Alan pushes the album away a little. We sit in silence for a couple of moments.

I'm rubbish at things like this. I've no idea what to say. The woman he loved, the woman he married, had a serial killing alter ego. I risk a look sideways. He just looks dazed. I reach out and put a hand on his arm. That seems to bring him out of it a little. He breathes in, a little raggedly.

"It was horrible, what happened to her. I'd fought.. well, you know. The other woman."

A pause, while he gathers his thoughts.

"Attacks, some planned, some random. Even after I finally caught her, I didn't realize… Not right away. R-. Rose told me they were sisters. Since she clearly.. clearly needed psychological help, Diana was able to get the judge to send her to their.. to the Amazons' rehabilitation centre. The ring made it easy to visit. Think… I think she was the only one there who got visitors. Two years she was there, no relapses. We got married a month after they released her."

It was her. The investigation, the closing of the Amazons' prison. They happened because of Thorn Canton.

"After she… Did relapse, I knew that she couldn't ever be released safely. They built a.. an isolation unit on Paradise Island for her. She stayed, even after the rest of the prison was closed down. I kept visiting, but it was always Thorn, never Rose. She used to taunt me about it. She finally died, still cursing me, about twelve years ago."

I have no words. I can't even think anything.

"If it hadn't been for Jay and Joan, I don't know what I'd have done. They really are the best friends a man could ask for."

He seems to recover a little.

"Y'know, Donna thinks you're a fruit."

Whu?

"But, when Diana told me about how you stuck up for Superboy, and with what you said at the barbeque, it reminded me about how Jay stuck by me."

He pauses for a moment.

"I mean, it's fine if you are a fruit, it's just, I know that two men can love each other without it being..."

"Alan, Kon's two months old. Even if I was, no."

"Right. Right."

I'm not sure I should ask. I know Green Lanterns are tenacious, but…

"You kept visiting her for fifty years?"

"Yeah."

"That... That must have been…"

"Horrible? Yeah, it was." He shifts slightly in his chair. "Jay… He sorta tried to talk me into stopping, once. But I'll say to you the same thing I said to him. I never gave up hope, even after…"

Another deep breath.

"Love doesn't conquer all. You can't.. can't keep loving someone who does nothing but curse you, and spit in your eye. But I always hoped that there'd be some way to free the wonderful woman I once fell in love with."

"I'm… I'm so sorry."

He stares at his drink for a moment, then puts it down next to the album.

"It's funny. You were saying earlier how you wear your ring the whole time, 'cept when you're on the crapper? I only.. only started keeping mine charged again after Rose passed on. Only started keeping it with me when Johnny died. I was actually starting to think about…"

He shakes his head.

"Doesn't matter. When you showed up, I actually thought you were here to kill me. Before you said you wanted to buy it, I was this close-" He holds up his right hand thumb and forefinger. "-this close to just diving across the room and taking my chances."

"Alan, I was never-."

"I know you weren't. I know you weren't. Let me finish. You give me something new to hope for, you understand? 'S why I wanted you to have my lantern, why I tried to browbeat Diana into taking you on. Why I want you to be the best darn super hero you can be. And if there's anything else you need my help with, you just ask, yeah?"

His core desire. When I looked into his soul with the Ophidian's Eyes.

Legacy.

Me.

Challenge accepted.

28th August
08:28 GMT -5

What is this crap?

Kon's hands are over his ears. M'gann's wincing.

"Paul, why are we listening to this?"

"John Constantine used to be in a punk band called Mucous Membrane. This is the only song they recorded that I've been able to find a copy of."

Kon turns to me as he hunches his shoulders. "How is this supposed to help?"

I'm not too sure myself, now. "Help us get into his head a bit?"

M'gann looks incredulous.

She's in her 'Megan' shape, and I've persuaded Kon to put on something other than his 'S' t-shirt. Just a plain black one with blue jeans, but it's a start. We're in the bioship, heading for London across the Atlantic.

I didn't get much sleep last night. On the plus side, I can now confirm that I don't really need it. After his speech about how he felt about me, Alan became noticeably more upbeat. He was even willing to carry on going through his personal album with me, and he was able to smile at some of the happier memories.

And once I got back to the mountain, I couldn't stop thinking about his surprising vitality. I know that in the comics there was some sort of pocket dimension thing, and temporal manipulation, which together explained why a group who fought in World War two could be alive and vigorous in the modern era. But Jay looks like a ninety year old. Ted Grant -Wildcat- could pass for seventy, but that's because he's just about the most muscular old person I've ever met. Alan looks half his actual age.

The only time I remember something like that happening in the comics was while he had the Starheart as part of his body.

His lantern was leaking. His ring visibly leaks.

I checked the photos. Until Rose died, he looked more or less his chronological age.

After she died, he started looking a little better. A little more colour in his hair, and I doubt he started dyeing it.

After Johnny died, the effect is much more pronounced. A little over a year, and you'd think one picture was of the other's son.

While Rose was alive, his strongest emotion was hope. Once she died, it was will.

He was forcing himself to keep going, and his focus on willpower made him younger.

And I took his lantern.

He can't recharge.

He's going to die.

To distract myself from dooming my mentor I started work on the Danner Formula. A couple of pregnant rats were removed to a smaller enclosure and given an injection of transmuted formula. The internet says that rats gestate their young for between twenty one and twenty four days, so I've got about four days before I need to start assessing whether it worked or not. I had the ring track the changes in their body tissues. Something's happening, but my knowledge of biology isn't good enough to understand it precisely.

I haven't told Kon yet. I don't want to raise false hope in him, but I'm hoping myself. Larfleeze was weak against hope because he hoped to be rid of the orange ring. I've never had that problem.

"Okay, Diana didn't get anywhere talking to his sister. We're going to talk to a man called Francis William Chandler. He's Mister Constantine's closest friend, and if anyone knows where he is, it'll be him."

With something other than the horrible caterwaul to focus on, Kon gingerly takes his hands away from his ears.

"Why didn't Wonder Woman try him?"

"I only found out his real name after that mission. I'd only ever heard him called 'Chas' before that, and you can't find someone on company records with a nickname."

Kon makes eye contact with M'gann. She turns to me. "So, how do you want to do this?"

"If we tell him that we want to see Mister Constantine, he'll put his guard up. A lot of people have tried to get at Mister Constantine through him over the years. It'll work better if we ask him to pass on a message. I'll pay him as well. Kon, I'll have my shield on minimum, so I'll need you to be alert for attack. M'gann, try and scan for Constantine himself. Don't attempt a deep reading, there's things in his brain no one should see."

Kon crinkles his nose. "So we're just coming here to talk to one guy?"

"No. I've got a list of addresses to try, and there's some pubs we can ask about him in. And we could, you know, look at the sights."

Kon slumps. Try harder.

"If that doesn't take your fancy, there's a giant prison camp in the Gobi desert full of metahumans we could take a look at?"

Now he's looking at me full on. "You mean, like Belle Reve?"

Mercifully, the song finishes.

"No. In China, they don't like metahumans running around freely. When their abilities manifest, someone from the Standing Committee on Metahuman Affairs pays them a visit to explain how it's their patriotic duty to offer their services to the state. If they refuse, a man named Captain Fang Zhifu comes to see them."

I generate a life size image of his current appearance.

"His codename, is August Captain In Iron, and he is China's greatest superfunctionary. Strength, endurance, and unshakable conviction. Not sure what that staff thing does."

Kon studies the image.

M'gann looks horrified. "He kills them?"

"No, not usually. He makes the offer again. If they refuse, he beats them into submission, then gets them transferred to the Gobi desert prison. It's amazing how being stuck in a desert with no contact with your family and no hope of release makes people reconsider the offer of work."

I checked this all thoroughly. His kill count on 'collection' jobs is surprisingly low, considering. I doubt he'd lie on an official report; his contempt for almost everyone came through really clearly.

"I can take him."

"Kon, picking a fight with him would mean picking a fight with all of China. China has a seat on the UN Security Council. They, sanction the Justice League. Disturbing though this is, nothing illegal has happened here. I'm more interested in this man."

A new image.

"This is Yao Fei, known in Tibet as Accomplished Perfect Physician. He went to Tibet as part of the Red Army. I'm not completely clear what happened, but the next mention of him in official records lists him as a defector."

I hadn't remembered that he'd killed a monk before he was empowered. Might make him a harder sell to the League.

"At some point, he gained superpowers, including sonic attacks, flight and healing, and started acting against Chinese interests in Tibet. He eventually handed himself over after another superfunctionary -the Socialist Red Guardsman- took a monastery hostage, and announced that he'd kill them if he didn't. He's in the desert camp now."

I remember him working with the Great Ten. Something different has happened, and I need to know what and why if I'm going to get him a place on the League.

"The camp doesn't look exceptional from the outside. We need recordings if we're to prompt the League into taking action. My aim here is to do something that will see conditions improved, and-"

I make eye contact with both of them in turn.

"-I think the way to do this is to convince the League that the Physician deserves a position on their roster. That would increase China's prestige and give them a voice in the League's decision making, while for him it would mean that he doesn't have to spend his time enforcing the Chinese government's will. Plus, the League's kind of overloaded with Americans at the moment."

Kon frowns.

"You think the League don't know about this?"

"China's got a lot of prison camps. And you're proof that the League doesn't know everything."

28th August
19:27 GMT -5

Still no Constantine. Chas said that he hadn't seen him for a few weeks, but he took my money and the phone number I gave him and said he'd pass them on. M'gann said that he was telling the truth. The number goes to a payphone in Happy Harbour to which I've covertly added an answering machine, which will alert me if anyone actually leaves a message. A couple of the publicans we spoke to knew of him, but they hadn't seen him recently either.

The camp in the Gobi is much bigger than I expected. I'd scanned it before, and I knew the population size, but seeing it up close is very different.

I had to use the ring to deal with their sensors. They have a gravity sensor that is very similar to the one the League of Shadows had, and the bioship's stealth system only works for light. Not sure whether that's just what gravity sensors look like, or if they trade with the Shadows, or if the Shadows stole it. The latter is probably more likely, but these are the people who worked with a giant egg in the comics.

I asked M'gann to scan Yao Fei, so we'd have some idea what his mental state was. He felt it, though, and asked who we were. After a brief introduction he told us that he had chosen to stay in the camp because they are kept short of medical practitioners, and in any case some of the metahumans have nonstandard physiologies that would be hard for anyone else to treat. He thanked us for offering to bring the camp to wider attention, but suggested that releasing the information to the general public would most likely be counterproductive.

M'gann said that his mind was 'echoey'. I don't remember him in the comics well enough to begin to suggest why that might be.

I'm sitting up on top of the mountain, watching the sun go down. Never really been one for that sort of thing, but I've got time now. Maybe all time, if the ring has really nixed my ageing process. M'gann wanted to talk to Kon about something before dinner, and hinted that I should absent myself for a little while. Not sure what that was about.

Okay. Need to speak to Batman about Robert, and need to do more work on Yao Fei. Constantine can wait.

I hear a faint noise, a foot slipping on the loose soil as someone tries to climb the mountain.

"Ah! Friggin' bushes…"

That's not Kon's voice.

The League never said what we should do about regular trespassers. It would be easy to throw him out, but that would rather give the game away about the mountain being in use. Hmm. I'm in my regular clothing, and the ring's barely glowing. Could I get away with claiming to be the gardener? I don't have the appropriate ID, and I imagine the League are fairly hot on that for their contractors and employees. I can't pass as local. A tourist, trying his luck? Give it a go, I suppose. If I tell him they let the dogs out at eight…

"Bastard mountain…"

I hear a couple of groans as he pulls himself up the rocky patch on the south western side, and in the fading light I shuffle round to see who it is.

And then my shield goes up and my armour goes on.

John Constantine. Sting lookalike in a trenchcoat and a blue suit, wheezing like a man who smokes thirty a day and just tried to climb a small mountain.

Next time, I'll remember about scrying and divination magic.

I get up. He glowers at me.

"You…" He leans against a tree, panting as he points at me with his right hand. "You're the little sod.. who convinced me sister.. that the flamin' Justice League are after me."

For a moment, I'm dumbfounded. I gape, and blink stupidly. "No I didn't!"

That wasn't clever. Get it together.

"That's not the bloody impression I got! Wonder Woman asking after me. Christ!"

Pause. Prepare.

"Mister Constantine, a man named Kent Nelson had disappeared and you were one of two people we knew he wanted to talk to. You were never under suspicion of anything."

He stares at me for a moment. He's still out of breath.

"Would it help if I phoned Misses Masters and told her this?"

"Nelson… Nelson… Rings a bell…"

Okay, this is John Constantine. He almost certainly knows, and is fishing. But if I want him to trust me…

"Formerly Doctor Fate, late of the Justice Society."

He finally catches his breath, and pulls out a cigarette. "Yeah? And what'd he want to talk to me about?"

"Taking on his job. On my recommendation, actually."

He squints. "Y'what?"

"Doctor Fate was responsible for this.. magic.. tower.. thing, in Salem, plus a Helmet containing the spirit of a Lord of Order named Nabu."

"And he wanted me t'have it?"

"Um, no. He wanted to investigate you, and maybe offer it to you." I shrug. "Since he's dead, it doesn't really matter now."

"Depends. How'd he die?"

"Lived over a hundred years, then got hit in the chest by a bolt of red lightning thrown by a Lord of Chaos named Klarion the Witch Boy."

He sucks in his cheeks. "Him, I've heard of. So, who got the Helmet?"

"No one."

"Might wanna watch that, chum. Magic artefacts have a way of turnin' up when it's least convenient."

"Oh, we know where the Helmet is. But from the way Mister Zatara reacted when I mentioned your name, I doubt it'll go to you."

He shuffles a little when I mention Zatara's name, then lights his cigarette and takes a drag.

"So what you're saying is, my sister got scared out of her mind 'cause Wonder Woman didn't bother giving her a proper explanation, looking for a man I've never met, over a job that isn't available any more?"

Um.

"Basically?"

He turns, takes another puff, and looks down the slope. "Right, sod it then, I'm off."

!Protection!

"I.. have a job for you. If you're interested."

He takes a step towards the edge, and looks down some more. He seems less eager to leave than his tone suggested.

"Hear me out and I'll carry you down?"

He stands still for a moment, then turns around. "What is it?"

"I'm got a bit of a problem with magic. Some types of spell, I just can't block with this ring."

"So, what, you want some kind of protective charm?"

"No, I can buy things like that wholesale from Atlantis. But I seem to remember, some years ago, you made a Demoness impossible to detect with magic."

"How the hell did you hear about that?"

"I wasn't going to recommend you for a job like the one Mister Nelson had in mind without checking you out first. Now, would that ritual work on someone without a soul?"

He scowls. "Who'd you sell it to, you stupid berk?"

"No one. I come from a parallel universe with no magic. No magic, no soul. No soul, no magic resistance."

His face relaxes a little. Contemplative. "Thought finding you was a bit easy."

"Though, since you bring it up, how much would you charge for a copy of that nifty book on demons you've got? In this job I'm bound to run into one eventually."

He sucks his cigarette into an inferno, then walks over to me and sits down, legs over the edge. "Think you better tell me the whole story first."

2nd September
09:07 GMT -2

I try to push all thought of the truly horrible thing my alleged team mates have done to me out of my mind as the man who introduced himself to me as Sephtian closes up shop. It's a slow day down here on the outskirts of the Shayeris central business district, and apparently I warrant his undivided attention. I hadn't appreciated before exactly how many Atlanteans diverge physically from the Human baseline. Sure, Kaldur has gills, but I'd sort of assumed that was the norm. Not so, as I now realise.

Sephtian looks like a cross between a Human and a Manta Ray. Most of the skin I can see is grey-blue, and he has flaps of flesh running down the sides of his head in place of hair. Another pair of fleshy protuberances line the sides of his mouth like a thin moustache. His nose is flattened against his face and his eyes look solid black. Unusually, he's wearing loose fitting robes -most Atlanteans seem to prefer tight fitting and minimalistic clothing, probably due to the pressure at this depth- and I think I might have caught sight of a thin tail when he turned away.

There was some sort of attack on the capital a few days ago, so I changed from my standard armour back to my civilian clothing. I don't have any equipment which would allow me to survive at this depth anyway, and magic and arcanotech weapons are common enough that I'd be nervous about employing any strategy other than 'run away'. I asked the ring about FTL down here, and it told me to trot on.

"Soooo…" Sephtian arranges himself on the chair opposite me. "Don't get many surface dwellers in my shop. In fact I.. I can't remember last time I saw one in the city."

"Getting here's a bit tricky for most of us."

"So I'd imagine. I.. don't recognise the spell you're using. Some sort of environmental barrier? You're clearly not wet."

I hold up my left hand, ring toward him. He shifts his head slightly, and pulls his hands into his chest.

And I get a sensation like someone's yanking my muscles around under my skin.

"Please don't do that."

"Abyssal.. depths, whatever happened to you?"

"I came here from a parallel universe. I don't have all the right parts."

"Clearly." He takes another look at the ring. "That's a power ring, isn't it? Our king sets great store by his Justice League; I've tried to familiarise myself with its members."

"Yes. I can block or disrupt conjured attacks, but less tangible forms of magic do a number on me."

"Yes, I suppose they would." He fans his hands. No webbing, I notice. "So what can I do for you?"

"To start with, I want a personal ward. Strongest you have immediately available. I don't have any local currency, but I'm sure we can sort something out."

He blinks, and nods. "Most likely."

"Then I want to talk to you about a custom job. A ward stronger than anything its size that has ever been created before. And once we've got a design that works, I want twenty of them."

"Well, I'm not sure-."

"By the end of the year."

He blinks heavily, then fans his arms. "It's nice that you have such faith in my abilities, but in all honesty that sounds like a commission that would be well beyond them."

"Actually, I suspect that you're the only person in Atlantis who can do it. See, I was reading through some of Kaldur's schoolbooks… Kaldur'ahm? Aqualad?"

Three small nods. "I am aware of him."

"He's got an essay you wrote, on amulet smithing. See, on the surface, we don't have magic education as part of our normal curriculum. You tell someone like me that smaller enchantments are proportionally more powerful than larger ones, and I get interested. I couldn't follow the proof, but I did follow the experiments. You had good results."

He leans forward, and makes a praying gesture with his hands. "The Sephtian Proof, yes. It's true, but the difference isn't that great at sizes it's practical to create. At best, if you gave me two years, I could make something maybe four times as effective as something you could buy off the shelf, and at an astronomically greater cost."

"But how much of that do you need to do?"

"All of it, that's the problem. The reason why I'm not a very rich man, heh. There are no steps you can skip."

"That's where you're wrong."

"Oh? How so?"

"A power ring isn't a weapon, it's a tool. I can create any object, any material, any shape you want. All of that tedious work with fine wires to get the sigils you need to bind the spell? Done in a couple of seconds."

His eyes widen slightly.

"I can also make them smaller than you could make by hand. The greater the density, the greater the-."

"Greater the effect, yes. With that out of the way…" He shakes his head, fins flapping. "From two years to maybe four months, and I'll reduce the price if you make me more blanks than you want for yourself. But before new year? No."

"I haven't finished yet."

"Huh, don't let me stop you. You've already been worth my time." He smiles, making an effort not to show me the inside of his mouth. "The proof was just a formalisation of things artificers already knew, if less precisely. I never expected to do much serious work with it."

"How much of the spellwork do you need to do?"

"Eeeerraaaaah. I could bring in other practitioners, but the cost jumps up and we'd probably get in each other's way."

"How about if they were students? Good enough to copy what you were doing, but not qualified in their own rights."

"Cheaper, certainly. But you've still got the same basic problem."

"What if the artefact consisted of a large number of smaller pieces, each enchanted individually then integrated?"

"No, it wouldn't work. The slightest difference in the spells themselves and they'd just disrupt each other."

"What if there were a master resonance effect-."

His eyes grow distant. "Effect on the workshop itself. As long as the spells were basically similar they'd tend to form in pattern, and because at the size you're talking about they'd be so weak anyway…"

He goes still, not looking at me. For a moment I wonder if he's fainted. Then he orientates on me again. "That could work. I'm.. not sure about the timelines. I'm assuming that you were thinking along the lines of lots of students, not a couple of apprentices?"

"We do it all the time on the surface. Interning, we call it. Most of the time they don't even get paid."

"Uuuuu, slavery is illegal in Atlantis, but I think I can keep the cost down." Another pause. "What, exactly, did you want this amulet to do?"

"Absorption of arcane power, constant effect. I realise that even if it was as efficient as your figures say it should be, there'll be some wastage, but would it be possible to make it recharge itself from what it absorbed?"

"There's a couple of things… You'll lose some effectiveness in a head to head fight. But if regular maintenance would be difficult... I don't know. I need to start.. work on this." He rises. "Right now, let me get the pendant you wanted. The woefully out of date pendant like the ones that all of my competitors use. Woefully out of date. Hm-hmm."

Ring, gold.

Twenty of the larger coins from my initial foray to the asteroid belt appear.

"I understand that high purity metal is pretty valuable down here. Is this going to be enough to get you started?"

"Hm? Yes, certainly. Hard to smelt to high purity gold underwater. Best we can do on any sort of scale is about ninety eight point seven percent, and that imposes some fairly severe limitations on the amount of arcane power it can bind. That's one of the reasons why King Orin is trying to increase our very limited trade with the surface. How pure?"

"One hundred percent."

His neck twists back to look at me at an angle that wouldn't be comfortable for a normal Human.

"I think I'm going to like you."

2nd September
11:40 GMT -2

I really should have thought that through better. Their capital was just attacked by outside forces. Obviously they'd be on high alert.

And I hadn't bothered to get an entry visa.

The cell I'm sitting in is about one and a half metres by one and a half metres by two metres. The front is solid translucent water, like Kaldur's water bearers when he makes a solid shape. It isn't cold, but it resists when I push it. Interesting how magic takes the place of technology. I'm not sure what the walls are made of. It's purple, and slightly luminescent.

The charm Sephtian sold me is on a chain around my neck. It's made of silver metal and looks like a wishbone, with the two prongs pushed past each other. Since I was cooperating and didn't have any visible weapons the guards didn't give me more than a cursory search. Presumably they made the same assumption about my orange aura that Sephtian did.

I've no idea what the penalty is under Atlantian law for the sort of trespass I've made. If it's a fine then I should be out of here as soon as I can plead guilty. If it's a bit more brutal then I'll just have to forcibly extricate myself and plead my case with King Orin. He seems to be a reasonable chap.

One nice thing about this is that I've had uninterrupted peace in which to meditate.

My RingHUD indicates that people are coming down the corridor. I think I'm in the local police station equivalent rather than a proper prison, but I didn't see anyone else when they brought me in. Alright, who is..? Ah.

Kaldur and someone in a slightly fancier uniform than the regular guards step in front of the screen. The new guard has purple skin and tentacles where his legs should be. I smile guiltily and do a royal wave with my right hand. Kaldur says something to the guard, and a small portal opens in the screen.

"Orange Lantern. What brings you to Shayeris?"

I sag slightly. "Shoppiiiinnng."

"You have picked a most unfortunate time to do so."

I step up to the barrier, keeping my hands where they can see them. "Yeah, spotted that. Look, how much trouble am I in here?"

"That.. depends. The phrourarch needs to ask you some questions."

"Sure, no problem. Happy to help."

Kaldur steps to the side a little, and the guard comes to the fore. Since his title didn't translate I'm going to assume that English doesn't have a direct equivalent.

"Why did you come to Shayeris?"

"Shopping."

"But why have you come here, specifically?"

"I have a vulnerability to magic. I wanted to buy a protective charm, and you can't get those commercially on the surface. So, I went to see a guy named Sephtian, and bought this." I pull out the charm on its chain.

The guard's eyes narrow slightly. "That is a powerful ward. Far stronger than would be necessary for personal protection."

"Lets see how far you get with two shards of elemental chaos shoved through your chest, then."

His eyes widen slightly.

Kaldur sighs. "Please try to understand his concerns. Poseidonis was attacked by soldiers loyal to Black Manta. We were able to fight them off due to our use of combat sorcery. Protective magics such as the artefact you now possess represent a threat to our ability to defend ourselves in future."

Oh, come on.

I make a gesture of appeal. "I was shopping! It was for sale! Sephtian didn't mention any restrictions or anything. It's strictly for personal use and not resale. I'm sorry that I didn't think to pick up an entry visa, but the only way this-" I jingle the pendant. "-would go anywhere near Black Manta is if I was fighting him."

The phrourarch makes eye contact with Kaldur, who nods.

"Kaldur, you were there. You know how fast Klarion was able to take me down. I'd be a fool to leave such a glaring weakness. And you know that there's no way the guards could have brought me in if I hadn't let them."

That earns me a scowl from the phrourarch, but Kaldur nods again.

"Release him."

The phrourarch stiffens, and then makes an action with his hand just outside my field of vision. In response, the rest of the barrier collapses. He pauses, gives me a 'I'll be watching you sonny' look, nods respectfully to Kaldur, and then swims off down the hallway.

Kaldur watches him go, then turns back to me. "I am sorry for the questioning, but my king asked me to come here to speak with you. I could not show favouritism in discharging my official duties simply because we are friends."

I smile. "Of course. Don't worry about it. Look, what's the fine for not getting an entry visa?"

He shakes his head. "There is no fine. While visas are issued to make it easier for invited guests to interact with us while they are in Atlantis, there is no law which requires you to possess one. Few surface dwellers are capable of reaching here, so no law has ever been needed."

"Oh."

He starts swimming slowly down the corridor, and I follow him.

"Soooo… How's the leave of absence going?"

He doesn't immediately answer.

"I.. was made aware that I was not focusing properly on my responsibilities to the team. Batman felt that returning home would help me clear my head."

"Has it?"

"I believe so."

I don't really want to do this, but it needs to be said.

"Batman's got a mission for us. We'll be heading out either tomorrow evening or the morning after. Are you going to be back by then?"

"I am uncertain."

"Kaldur, that wasn't exactly a social enquiry."

We stop swimming. We've reached a balcony with a good view of the city. With no need for people to walk on the ground, buildings here have entries at all levels. With no light reaching us from the sun, they don't bother with windows. Bioluminescence everywhere.

"It was M'gann's idea. If you're not back, I'm… They're putting me in charge of the team. For that mission at least."

His eyes drop for a moment. "Congratulations."

"No, not congratulations. I want you in charge. Unlike you, I don't have the skill set to do that job." I exhale heavily. "But I'd rather develop the skills than go through another mission like Gotham, you understand? I thought I'd killed Clayface."

Kaldur nods. "Has he recovered?"

"STAR labs say there's some activity. We won't know for a while yet."

He moves over to lean on the balcony railing. I follow, giving him some space. "I should not have cut myself off from my home. Perhaps, if I had not…"

"Speaking as someone who can't go home, yeah, that was a bad idea."

He turns back to me. "I believe I have resolved my.. difficulties. I will be returning to the mountain tomorrow."

"Glad to hear it." I usually only feel like this with Kon, but it seems appropriate. I swim a bit closer. "Y'know, if you've got a problem, you can talk to us about it, right?"

"Thank you for your offer, but I believe I will be alright."