Do-Over

13th August
08:57 GMT -6

I bend my head to the left and try turning to look at my right shoulder. No, no, it's not happening. I can't even feel the G-Gnome it weighs so little, and my neck just doesn't bend far-.

"Grayven!" Sunset strides into the workshop area, a heavy looking satchel over her shoulder. "I'm going to spend the weekend at Zatanna's!"

I give up on meeting the G-Gnome eye to eye and turn towards Sunset. "Sunset, I like to think that at this point we've developed a reasonable interpersonal relationship-."

She puts her hands on her hips, staring up at me in mild frustration. "You told me you didn't need me. You told me there weren't even any decent magic users in the Vega Systems. You can't possibly have-."

"And while Zatanna is in many ways an excellent match for you, I feel obliged to point out that her religion is rather down on same-sex pairings." Sunset cringes and then freezes, a look of delicious mortification on her face. "So make sure to use spells of concealment and sound deadening when her father is-."

"Stop. STOP!" She stares at me with furious incredulity in her eyes. "Where did THAT come from!?"

"While I don't have all that much to contribute to your arcane education, I feel that as your primary adult caregiver-"

"You-you're-you think you're what?"

"-it falls upon me to see to your moral instruction. Since Celestia was making such a hash of it-" She makes an amused snort and semi-nods. "-and your natural parents aren't here-."

And the funny's gone. She holds out her right hand in a Roman salute style. "Stop."

I stop.

"I'm not doing… Anything like that with Zatanna. We're friends. Good friends, who share a common interest. I still don't find Humans attractive like that-."

I tilt my head slightly towards the G-Gnome. "You know that internet access here is monitored, r-?"

She blushes slightly, but rallies immediately. "I was briefly curious. It was a phase. A short phase. That has nothing to do with Zatanna."

"Okay, well, you girls have good, clean and exclusively thaumaturgy-based fun without me."

"I-." She closes her eyes and shakes her head in an effort to throw off me. "That's not why I came in here."

"You can't use my car, you haven't taken lessons."

"I'm trying to be serious, Grayven. I read your files on Vega." I nod. "How.. many..?" She stops, looking down for a moment. "You're going to kill a lot of people, aren't you?"

"Yep. Probably.. like…" I make a gesture with both hands of mildly frustrated uncertainty. "Five..? Million? Maybe twenty? The Psions and the Citadel basically have to go, but neither has particularly large populations. The Gordanians… Yeah, don't know. I'm mostly planning on leaving that up to Michael."

"He eats people."

"Not often. It's more that his mouth is a weapon than a dietary decision."

"Look. I.. know.. Humans and Apokoliptians have a… Different attitude to killing than Wilsonian Ponies, but-."

"No we don't. You don't have Windigo reserves, do you? You don't let Discord out for a day every year. You don't let Nightmare Moon eat a few children every Nightmare Night. You live in an age of peace because in ages past somepony stabbed more than a few very nasty people to death with her forehead spear."

"And how many of those twenty million are going to be innocent?"

Ah. "Like, totally innocent, or.. below-?"

"Grayven." Ghia'ta walks into the workshop behind Sunset, taking in her obvious frustration. "Are you being… You, again?"

I grin. "Hard as I can! Oh, and Sunset wants help asking out Zatanna." Sunset's eyes widen as I stride past her. "Bye!"

"You do?" / "Grayven!"

I upgrade my stride to a jog. I've got to be honest here… At least with myself. This whole Vega expedition thing will be a lot simpler if I leave as many morality pets as possible behin-.

Vrrrrm.

Curses, foiled again. "Sphere." She rolls out of a side passage, frontal lighting section shimmering. "I thought that you were in New Hampshire."

Beep rev chirp.

"Now… Come on. The only reason-."

Beep.

"I did not. I was simply aware of her particular skill-."

Rev rev.

"Fine! Fine. You can come, but it's a planet full of DeSaad fanclones. Hold me back and I will laugh in your…" I point vaguely at her… "Front.. blob… Thing."

Beep.

"Really? Oh, that's actually helpful. Okay, we're assembling in the embarkation room-."

Rev beep.

She turns and accelerates ahead of me, heading towards the chamber where my troops are mustering. And doesn't that just sound splendid. I follow on behind her at a stroll. And… Ugh.

**Jean, checking connection.**

**I hear you, Mister Grayven. I do hope that wasn't too painful?**

**I'll live. Everyone assembled?**

**All bar you and Miss Ghia'ta. And I see that the Sphere has returned.**

**Yeah, I'm-** I glance back. **-kind of hoping-.**

There's a flash just in front of me as Ghia'ta appears. **Hoping what?**

I smile as honestly as I'm able. **Hoping that you were able to give Sunset the tutoring she requires without feeling that you need to rush.**

Corpsman, are these people really necessary?

That actually brings me up short.

Yes, Sinestro. Frustrating as they may by turns be, yes they are.

I can't talk to you when you're like this, Corpsman.

"Sunset refused to speak of her love to me." Ghia'ta drifts along besides me. "I fear that I simply haven't bonded with her as well as you have-"

Ghghahahahaghrhaha!

"-in the time that I have been here."

"I'm.. sure that she'll come around."

The doors are still flapping from the Sphere's passage, but I make a point of stepping heavily into them and throwing them wide.

**My people!** My people!

On the right Michael stands towering over the Redcap-Breed G-Elves and G-Gnomes he's going to be taking to Karna. Given that he basically looks like a Karnan demigod I suspect that he'll have little trouble integrating himself into their resistance movement. That and his absolute lethality. The Redcaps were a side project of mine when I considered the fact that G-Elves are worse fighters in almost every regard than Humans, as they aren't designed to handle guns. A few visits to some perhaps-not-entirely legitimate Martian arms dealers saw me trade some Earth-made laboratory equipment for some rather neat psychoreactive biotechnology. That, and quite a lot of laboratory time resulted in a breed of G-Elf with telekinetically augmented claws and a telekinetic defensive shield. And a nifty red skullcap thing that gives them the ability to actually control their new additions. Like I told Dubbilex: you don't need new breeds, you need to improve the ones you have.

In the centre, Miss Amane twirls her scythe like a demented giggling gothic majorette… Which.. I.. suppose is actually a literal description of her. The Sphere rolls to a halt in front of her and gives her a warble, prompting Miss Amane to stop and crouch in front of her and pat her on the top of her dome. And on the left…

Ahhh…

I walk over and pick up the techno-seed in my right hand, then heft it onto my shoulder as my drone swarm swarms. Since I'm not completely sure what sorts of weapons we'll be facing I made drones capable of countering just about everything I could think of. And Sunset Shimmer's work on the techno-seed is sublime.

I smile at my assembled forces.

**My people. Let's go do some good.**

13th August
09:11 GMT -6

Michael looks through the hush tube just in front of us. "Our target?"

I nod. "The Gizzard Spiker clan were the first clan to sell out to the Citadel. It was that alliance which resulted in the progressive, unified, Karnan-dominated society that used to control the planet being violently overthrown and replaced with the current morass. Even most other Gordanian clans don't like them."

Ghia'ta frowns. "If they find them so abhorrent, why did they follow their example?"

"They were winning." I shrug. "It's amazing how popular that makes an idea."

The Sphere warbles.

"No, one of their few universal cultural prohibitions absolutely forbids using orbital weapons against targets on the surface of Karna. Anyone breaks it, all of the other clans would unify to destroy them. It's actually happened a couple of times." Gordanian data security isn't particularly good, but then neither is their record keeping. Took a while to get corroboration, but it was there. "Plus, a hush tube to safety will be a button-push away."

Michael grunts in satisfaction. "I will see you again with Gordanian blood on my lips and victory in my jaws."

"Go get 'em, Tiger."

He swivels his head my way to sniff at my phrasing, then sprints full tilt into the hush tube. **Hunt!** Hunt!

The G-Elves and their G-Gnome passengers stream through after him, and for a moment I dare to hope that Ghia'ta or Sphere might be going to go with them... After a moment I turn my head towards Ghia'ta and then tilt it in the direction of the hush tube entrance.

"Not… Going to go with him?"

"Though participating in a campaign of liberation in which a negotiated settlement is possible is far more appealing to me than helping you with… What it is that you intend to do, I was sent here to ensure that helping you was not unleashing a great evil upon the universe. As such, I feel that it is my duty to stay with you."

Ah. Well.

"If you insist." The hush tube shuts down and another opens, this time leading to the Psions' planet of residence. Not actually their homeworld; I don't remember where the Guardians originally found them, but they don't have a sufficiently close genetic relationship to anything on it for it to be that place. "Just remember that Psions almost certainly have all kinds of anti-Lantern weaponry and I don't want to have to explain your death to your aunt."

Ghia'ta strikes what looks worryingly like a Sailor Moon pose, showing off her pink crystalline armour to best advantage. "You do not need to worry."

"No." I smile and pat her on the right shoulder with my left hand. "But I like to."

She smiles. Stupid… Morality.. pet.. freeloading people. Mellowing my harsh.

"Okay." I step away from the Warrior of Love and Justice, moving closer to the far more reliable Miss Amane. "Your job is simple. Find where they're keeping test subjects, slaves, vital pieces of infrastructure, things like that. Engage if you have to, take a hush tube out if you're in danger of being overwhelmed. A lot of the Psions you'll be running into won't be soldiers but that doesn't mean that they haven't done enough truly revolting things that they thoroughly deserve being killed. If you're in doubt, use a G-Gnome."

Miss Amane grins that creepy grin of hers. "Do not worry, Master. If you say that it is right to kill them then that is what I will do!"

She spins her scythe and then does a sort of.. back flip cartwheel thing whose effect is such that if I were a male anime protagonist the sight of it would leave me unconscious due to olfactory blood loss. As it is… All it does is worry me. No, no, she's super fast and reasonably intelligent. She should be able to handle herself.

"Give me three minutes, then start your reconnaissance."

Ghia'ta nods while Miss Amane does a bow-curtsey thing. I stride forward-.

And the Sphere zips in front of me and beeps.

"Really? Okay, fine, go on then."

The Sphere unfolds into a configuration I can actually sit in. A bit pointless now, given that I've got two power rings and integrated aero-discs for flying… Maybe I should encourage her to spend time with Lynne instead? None of the girls have flight after all… Problem for another day. I throw my right leg over her saddle and take a grip on the handlebars. "Hi ho Sphere, away!"

My environmental shield intensifies as we shoot out through the hush tube and into the skies of the Psions'… Ugh, 'Wombworld'. I have no idea why they call it that. I'd have left the name in the Psions' own language but the ring translated it the first time I heard it and now I can't unhear it. I had a few test drones fly through a few days ago so I've got a rough idea on the Psion military's response times. In fact… Three, two-

Jam teleportation.

By your command.

-one.

There are three flares of pink in the air about a hundred metres above me, then it briefly rains mashed machinery. The Psion military has a combat drone focus so those were all non-sentient… Eh, Psions, probably non-sentient. I don't have any records of Psions using machine intelligences but they do have the capacity if they really wanted to. Teleportation assault having failed their next step is launching drone transports from gravitic accelerators from the nearest settlement complex, pooosibly with an oversight barge containing actual Psions. Ship-based assault is possible but unlikely; the Psions are far more happy to fire on their world than the Gordanians are but they wouldn't do that for a curious but limited incursion.

Transport detected.

Best hurry up, then. I float the techno-seed out in front of me. Double check.

All systems as per specification.

Mother Box?

Ping!

Excellent. And now the one thing my artificially intelligent accomplices can't check… I pour my soul into the network of enchanted metal which makes up Sunset's contribution. I still can't cast spells worth a damn, but after that mess with Mister Doom I've had Sunset's help training my arcane senses. This… Feels right. I angle the techno-seed so that the solar siphon is pointing directly at the Wombworld's star, then in a single fluid motion remove the suppression charm and throw the techno-seed into the air. The solar siphon attached to it begins shining blindingly at once as it forms a sympathetic link to the star.

Sunset had wanted to become an Alicorn since she was old enough to understand what one was. And with nothing written on the subject of ascension in any book she could get access to and with the one Pony who might have information on the subject constantly trying to get her interested in 'friendship' rather than giving her a straight answer, she decided to try studying Celestia herself to see if she could learn something. I suppose her next step was pretty logical; the sun is a very powerful thing, maybe Celestia used it to trigger her own ascension? So Sunset studied everything she could find on the legends concerning pre-Unification Unicorn mages raising and lowering the sun and moon collectively and then used a bunch of spells whenever Celestia raised or lowered the sun in an attempt to understand the link.

It didn't turn her into an Alicorn -and rather implied that Celestia didn't get any power from the sun- but it did teach her a great deal about arcane solar manipulation.

Solar plasma blasts out of the siphon and begins clouding out the sky as the Brimstone begins to form. Not only will it continue to grow constantly, but it will also shrug off electromagnetic effects like the one I used to shut it down last year. The Psions can probably take it -you don't become the premier mad science race in a region like this if you can't think on your feet- but it will do a decent amount of damage in the meantime and certainly keep their attention focused.

I tug lightly on the Sphere's handlebars, turning her towards the closest Psion city.

Let's make sure he knows which way to rampage.

13th August
09:14 GMT -6

Four, three, two-.

The light from the glowing shape forming in the air behind me flares for a moment and then dims.

"Behold the fallen angel known as Brimstone!"

And while I did try to change that announcement, I suppose I… Get it now, in a way I didn't last December. Big, bold and bombastic is how New Gods work, and there are perfectly sensible reasons relating to spiritual mechanics why the walking sun announces itself in those terms.

Honest.

"My dark master has cast me out!"

"Brimstone!" I turn the Spherecycle around so that I'm facing him. Plasma servitors actually have really good vision in all directions so the fact that from his point of view I'm tiny won't matter. "Attend to me!"

A direct order should snap it out of 'general rampage' mode. Still a bit up in the air as to whether it will actually obey me, but it can't get off-world and virtually everyone here is a Psion, so, no loss.

"Grayven! The son of my dark master!"

Oh, he does remember. Sweet.

"Suzerain of Earth! I will serve you in his name!"

Don't… Remember it being told that, but okay.

"The people of this world are my enemies! In my father's name, strike them down and destroy their works!"

"So shall it be!"

His eyes begin to glow, and I wheel the Spherecycle around before the blinding beams of solar plasma lance out and effortlessly burn through the oncoming drone transports and onwards into the city behind them. A faintly pink energy field flares to life and the plasma batters against it, the generators visibly straining to contain the sun beams. They cut out a moment later as Brimstone begins its advance.

Hm. Let's see. It shouldn't take the Psions all that long to work out more or less what it is that's attacking them. Exotic matter shields are good for general purpose defence but they'll probably try switching to magnetic barriers just as soon as someone with the authority to do so is alerted.

"I am the instrument of justice of a dark and angry god! His terrible swift sword!"

As Brimstone is a man-shaped lump of sun held together by magnets, Apokoliptian technology and magic rather than a flesh being… He's got a surprising turn of speed. Even if its designer didn't give it the ability to fly… And to be honest I think it would have probably been easier to do that than to prevent it. I mean, power rings let their wearers fly by putting a field around their bodies and then lifting it and a.. Brimstone is basically plasma being lifted by…

No, not thinking about it. Anyway, the lack of flesh means that it can move with far greater agility and speed than a person might-

The light is momentarily blocked as Brimstone runs at full sprint over my head.

-assume. This time the lance of plasma comes from his 'mouth', far narrower and more focused than the first bolts. The shield defending the city flares, buckles and-

"Feel now, sinners, the wrath of Brimstone! And let the universe forever be rid of you!!"

-fails, the beam carrying on into a burning… I don't know, some sort of… Oh, come on, an automated workshop!? This isn't a Saturday morning animation aimed at the young by their weak-of-stomach parents! I want blood, damn it!

Ping!

No, it's fine, they don't do their biological research here. The only inhabitants are Psions-.

Ping.

Well, technically-.

Ping.

And you wonder why I wanted to leave you behind.

Ping.

Okay, yes, you're right. That was too much. I'm sorry. But the point I'm trying to make is that-

Brimstone fires again, the plasma slamming into… A magnetic barrier. Quick work.

-I can't destroy repugnant societies without destroying.

Ping.

And look how well that worked out! Uncle Drax is either dead or in a pocket universe, Izaya's wife got murdered and father has gotten further with his Anti-Life research than grandfather ever did with the Source! The universe is actually more imperilled than it would be if he'd drugged father's drink and then stabbed him in the eye socket!

Ping.

I know that, but while I like existing I can't help but think that as far as the universe as a whole is concerned it probably-.

Ping.

Gh-. Did Himon put you up to this?

Ping.

They almost certainly can't. They're not exactly clones, but they mix genes in laboratories, the resulting Psionlings get raised and dehumanised -or whatever you call it- in mechanurseries and then join the labour force in a monstrous society that actually bred most of the species in this region just to perform long term biotech research. It's like… Like DeSaad and Granny Goodness -and here's a mental image spawned from the Anti-Life- had a baby which took over some planet in the Waste and started playing god. More than we normally do.

Ping.

Even if I wanted to -and I don't- I strongly doubt that they'd go for it.

Ping.

Look, can't you just let me enjoy wanton destruction? Father Box wouldn't-.

Ping.

Yes, and right up until that happened we had a connection. I'm barely even looking forwards to this any more. Do you understand what you've done to me? I just sent a giant made of plasma to destroy a city full of robots and 'evildoers' while my colleagues rescue their slaves -and I don't mean slaves in the 'technically-owned-peasants' sense, I mean test subjects for whatever bizarre and depraved experiment whatever Psion drew the long straw feels like performing- and I'm not even going to have fun-.

Ping.

Okay, I'll tell you what. Brimstone is doing really well at the distraction and Sphere and I are immune to magnetic fields. If we can go there and find ten Psions who aren't total monsters, then I'll make sure that the species keeps existing. Ten. Abraham had to negotiate Elion down to ten and I'm starting there. Does that sound reasonable to you?

Ping.

No, I'm doing that anyway. But I can shut down Brimstone, and once the slaves have been evacuated I'll… Come up with something else. Not that I expect I'll have to, mind you.

Ping.

Good. Settled. Now I don't want to hear anything else about it.

Vroom.

I should have known.

Bah.

I turn the Spherecycle around, harness the fear being felt by the organic inhabitants of the city behind me as Brimstone strides through their magnetic barrier and generates a colossal ball of plasma between his hands to generate a booster construct and set course for the next city over as Brimstone superheats the area around him to fry the drone weapons systems trying and failing to harm him.

Bah.

What's the point of mass killing if you don't get to enjoy it?

13th August
09:31 GMT -6

"Alright. You."

The Psion who had frantically been trying to reactivate the gravity sled raises his hands and backs away from the control panel. "Me?"

"Yes."

I heft my daiklave over my shoulder and step over the wreckage of the trailers it was towing. Psions use tunnels like these to transport bulk materials between their cities. Since the city Brimstone is busy incinerating mostly exports machine components, there's next to no chance that any biological sample has ever come this way. Which means -since I want to be completely fair to Mother Box here- that the Psion who operates them has probably had the least opportunity to do evil of just about anyone on the planet.

"I was wondering-." Ah, no. Be polite. "What's your name?"

"Tren?"

"You don't sound very sure there, Tren." I keep walking closer and he keeps backing up until he bumps into the railing. I crouch down so that I'm more on his level.

"I'm sure. Ah, I'm sure."

"Glad to hear it. Now, as I'm sure that you're aware, there's a walking sun up there turning the city to glass."

"Uh huh."

"But you don't have to worry about that, because I need to ask you a few questions and I can't do that if you've been incinerated, can I?"

"You mean-." He makes a sort of rasping/coughing noise. "You mean, like the other guys?"

I look back to where what's left of his late colleagues is lying on the ground. One got mashed against the wall when the carriages jack-knifed and the other bled out when I fired at the train with my fusion cannon.

"To be fair, they haven't been incinerated. But yes. If you answer my questions there's a reasonable chance that you will live."

"O-okay?"

"First question. You're in a desert, walking along in the sand when all of a sudden you look down and see a Tortoise."

"I-it just appeared?"

"It's not really-. Let's assume that it was there all along but you didn't notice it."

"Um. What's a Tortoise?"

"It's a type of quadrupedal reptile native to Earth. It has a heavy shell around its torso which provides protection at the cost of mobility."

"Oh. Okay." The scales around his forehead move. "Is that meant to be a metaphor?"

"Only in the sense that everything can be. So as it crawls forward.-"

"What do you mean 'everything can be a metaphor'?"

I squint. "Really? It never occurred to you that you can stretch a comparison from anything to anything else as long as you don't mind it becoming increasingly nonsensical?"

"Creative writing is really something that aliens do. I mean, I know what a metaphor is, but… Why would I use a comparison if it didn't make any sense?"

"Some species find that makes it easier to understand things if they can compare them to things they already understand."

"Heh. Aliens."

"… Yes. So, the Tortoise crawls closer and you reach down and turn it onto its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping."

"Of course not. I wouldn't have turned it over if I was just going to turn it back again. That would be a wasted effort."

I nod. "Logical. So why do you think you turned it over in the first place?"

"Probably so that it can't get away while I cut it open and find out how it works."

"Wouldn't non-invasive methods be a better place to start?"

"My overseer wouldn't let me take those sorts of tools out into a desert. And if I brought it back a biological researcher with their own laboratory would probably take it off me. No Psion has ever encountered a Tortoise before. Even great scientists like Fon and Tront started their working lives in tunnels like these. If I could bring them novel data, they might take me on as a lab assistant!"

"You're interested in the biological sciences?"

"Of course! We Psions created the whole of Vega civilisation to make sure we'd always have test subjects, and I want to get my slice of it one day! I practise on Morrocks sometimes, and I can keep them alive and whole with thirty needles through them! Most Psions my age can barely manage twenty five. And I do it freehand!"

"Is that generating novel data?"

"No, of course not. Look, you're clearly from an advanced civilisation. You know that the lives of primitive barbarians don't actually matter as much as the data we can get from destroying-."

I bring my daiklave down, slicing him in half.

Ping.

Like I said: mini-DeSaads. And this is just some train driver. Given Psion lifecycles he was probably only nine or ten years old.

Ping.

Yeah, welcome to the real world.

Ping.

Hey, it's up to you, but I really doubt that they'll be any better.

I wave my right hand and the Sphere flies up alongside the gravity sledge I'm standing on, the G-Gnome in the back sensibly keeping its head down. I swing my daiklave through the sledge's control system and then sheathe the blade before climbing aboard the Spherecycle and continuing down the tunnel. Okay, yeah, that guy might not have been representative of his generation, but…

Ping.

I generate a fusion cannon on my left forearm and raise it in the direction of the oncoming drone swarm. Another reason for taking the tunnels is that they're comparatively well protected. The assumption during the design process appeared to be that a city under siege would probably be able to protect its network entrances up until its defences collapsed completely. As such, the tunnel is heavily fortified and only has internal defences at either end as you approach a city. But so they can quickly and efficiently send reinforcements, it has rather good access to their drone reserves.

I generate point defence and barrier constructs. That's the downside of attacking a city with a walking sun: plenty of fear around but most of it isn't directed against you. And I still haven't gotten the hang of making the two rings work together. Fear and avarice just don't.. mix.

The drone pack rearranges itself as they begin their attack. Hyperkinetic smart munitions are fired first, launched from around the corner as soon as the drones get into optimal firing range. I can scan.. most of them. Viral loads won't work on me, poison gas is worthless, pinhead singularity yep shoot that… More conventional munitions start slamming into my construct barriers, which… Appear to be holding as the point defences deal with anything that could kill me easily. A thin mist begins settling around the lower part of the tunnel as one of the chemical munitions pulls the oxygen out of the air, but I have an environmental shield. I could reinforce my construct barricades further, but focusing my desire on the gun seems to be a more productive course of action.

Laser drones coming around the corner… Any… Moment…

Fire.

13th August
09:35 GMT -6

I fire first, a brilliant beam of super hot ions burning down the tunnel. The drones aren't even in sight yet but the explosion as the beam hits the far side of the tunnel sends vaporised… Whatever these tunnels are made of into the drone swarm. The damage from that combined with the fact that the beam heated and ionised the air that it passed through means that the drone swarm that opens up with its direct fire weapons at me is somewhat less devastating than their factory specifications suggest that they should be.

Lasers lance through the air towards me as the Spherecycle starts flying in an evasive loop. Most are still on target, construct shields absorbing or reflecting about ninety five percent and the rest tracing lines across my body armour. Nothing like powerful enough to hurt me. Charge the gun and fire-.

AGH! Right in the-! Ow! Right in the eyes! Technically a vulnerable spot but not vulnerable enough! My construct barriers fracture, their shards flying at the drone swarm with absolute precision as I fire again and again!

Ping.

This is exactly why we don't do it like this! It's so inefficient! Gods do not fight mindless, soulless drones!

A handful of drones survive and fall back. A few of them are the ones with hyperkinetic launchers who expended their ordnance early. The others… Heavily shielded. Command relays or monitoring drones.

Hm.

Grapple.

The clamp construct flies away from me as the Spherecycle stops evading and accelerates down the tunnel. The drones attempt an evasive flight path but construct tethers move at the speed of ring calculation. A drone that's slightly bulkier than the rest is yanked out of the air and there's a crackle as its motor systems overheat and fry themselves. The Sphere fires her onboard weapons at what's left of the swarm as I drag the captured drones back towards us while simultaneously connecting the ring to Mother Box in order to get control of the thing. If this is a monitor drone it should have a connection to a control room somewhere…

Ping.

Good, thank you. Is it two way or are they just monitoring it while the drone follows a pre-programmed behavioural pattern?

Ping.

Use one of their low-grade encryption systems. I don't want them not understanding this.

Ping.

I generate a construct phone handset. "This is Grayven, who am I talking to?"

There's a brief pause as the Sphere hits another drone with her guns.

"I am General Farrn. And you are the short lived alien insect currently scurrying beneath our planet."

I dismiss the fusion cannon construct with a waggle of my arm. "Point of fact, I'm a New God from Apokolips. New Genesis is the place with the Bugs."

"I will bear that in mind. Please remain where you are so that our next wave can locate you."

Mother Box, any chance we can track his location?

Ping.

"While you're getting them ready, I was wondering if you could answer a few questions for me?"

"I have no idea what a Tortoise is either. I do not perform dissections myself. Though I may condescend to spectate when a specialist goes to work on you."

"Alright, not Tortoises. How would you characterise your relationship with the local alien species?" Boast of your conquests.

"Useful brutes and test subjects, often both together. Is that why you're doing this? Altruism?"

"Sort of. I suppose that I have different ideas about the best way to operate a stellar nation."

"We created these species. We created their gods and their goddess. Their lives and civilisations are our property-."

"I doubt that's how the Citadel sees it."

"Even the new breed Citadelians are exactly what it is convenient to us that they are. And when our fleets reach.. Apokolips, I'll be certain to mention your name when I see to the slaughter of your people's armed forces and the subjugation of the survivors."

"Hah!"

"Laugh all you want. That plasma creature is already being brought down-"

Quick check. Ah, some sort of exotic matter projector. It's causing momentary flares of energy to be emitted from Brimstone's body but doesn't appear to be affecting the techno-seed at all.

"-and the tunnels are being sealed and more powerful weapon systems are being activated. And is that a power ring on your finger?"

"Yes. I wasn't sure whether using it in Vega would summon the Beast to wherever I was or not, so I thought I'd start in a place no one would miss."

"We'll be sure to be careful when we take it from your corpse. Though I will offer you a deal, alien."

"Oh?"

"It might be instructive to have your body to study. I will give you time to kill yourself. If you do that I will guarantee that your offspring will be kept alive indefinitely."

The clamp disappears and the drone drops for a moment before a new one appears to replace it.

"My offspring?"

"The small alien in the rear of your vehicle. The resemblance is obvious."

I hold the phone slightly away from my ear as I look.. back at the expressionless G-Gnome. Huh. Yes, apparently all grey people look alike.

"Does 'keeping him alive indefinitely' indicate that you'll be holding him prisoner, or that he'll be put back together every time you dismantle him?"

"Probably the latter, but it's all that you're getting."

I face front again, pressing the phone back to my ear and patting the G-Gnome lightly on the head with my left hand. "Hard luck, little guy."

"A cold and rational approach. I approve. When we take your brain apart we'll try to work out what allows you to think like that."

"I thought that you Psions had already engineered yourselves to think like me."

"There is always room for improvement. The educational phase of our lives may be essential but it isn't particularly productive."

Ping.

Yes, I spotted the implication, thank you. "You spend a great deal of time on ideological indoctrination?"

"Enough. Every single Psion would gladly cut you to pieces, and every single Psion has the intelligence required to solve the problem you and that plasma thing represent. Enjoy your last few minutes of life, alien."

He hung up. Alright, I'm not going to find anyone who fits the 'not totally evil' category in these tunnels. Mother Box, hush tube to that building we think holds their neonate culture laboratories. Let's take a look at what they look like before the indoctrination takes hold.

Ping.

13th August
09:43 GMT -6

"A few years ago now I read a book. I don't remember what it was called, something in the Dune series. Wasn't particularly good, wasn't particularly bad, but what struck me as odd was the author's choice of focus. Previous instalments in the series had been focused on intrigues and battles for control of the planet Arrakis. In the novel I read, the planet was destroyed in a single line as part of an empire wide attack. How? Why? There were any number of possible methods and reasons which.. I would have assumed warranted a paragraph at least, something about how the forces stationed there to defend it were… Betrayed? Outnumbered? Overwhelmed by technological superiority? If the story is about a war, the reader needs enough of a description to get a sense of the war, surely?"

Neither the facility's chief educator nor the three subordinate educators appear to have any comment to make.

"So that you're aware-" A construct image appears in front of me. "-Brimstone is currently in the outskirts of the city he attacked, having bypassed the external shields-" By shoulder charging them. "-fried all of the local combat drones and incinerated the first relief force. Since there hasn't been a second relief force yet, I'm assuming that your top physicists and technologists are examining the telemetry from the previous attempts in order to try and come up with something clever."

"Which means that they're not paying attention to what I'm doing."

I fold my arms behind my back, Darkseid style, and walk over to a nearby observation window. Below, young Psions are lying in baby loungers while educational programs play on the interior of masks covering their eyes and ears. The Citadel goes in for cybernetic data uploads but it seems that Psions eschew that for something a little more low tech. Curious.

"I couldn't help but notice that you appear to have expanded your facility lately. Quite aside from the building work, your records indicate that the most recent batches are considerably larger than past batches." I half turn to face them. "Why is that?"

The senior educator glowers at me. "You're going to die, alien."

"Almost certainly." I nod. "But not today, and not by your hand. Why are you expanding?"

"I will not betray my people by giving an alien invader information."

"Why ever not? Either, I believe myself to be a moral and heroic individual and hence will not attack a non-military target, or I'm a monster and will slaughter your next generation in order to undermine your civilisation regardless of what you tell me. As such, your answer will make no difference to my actions and the most loyal thing you can do is keep me talking. Give people a chance to work out that something is off."

"I'll tell you."

I raise my eyebrows as one of the subordinate educators pipes up. Wasn't expecting that, though I suppose it's true that Psions don't have the same rigid hierarchy that some mad science species have. His superior turns his glower on him.

"You will not."

"Or what? The chance of us surviving is minimal anyway, and he's right about there not being much chance of what we say making any difference to the thing we're actually responsible for. We're resources too. Our creation, education and experience has a value and shouldn't just be discarded."

I nod. "Rational self-interest. Well done that man. So?"

"We're increasing production. Most of the children here will be sent out to create pioneer colonies in order to reduce our dependence on-"

Ping.

"-alien traders for information and test subje-."

"Lying."

"What do you mean, lying? How do you know?"

"I don't, but Mother Box is pretty good at picking up lies." I turn fully back to face them, walk a few steps towards them and crouch down. "Tell me the truth, or my telepathic little friend gets to shred your mind for the information."

He matches my stare for several moments before looking away with a snort. "Everyone will find out in a few days anyway. We finally cracked the technique our ancestors used for making X'Hal and her children. The Citadel has an army of intelligent Citadelians and a fleet prepared for a war outside of the Vega Systems. We're upping our own growth so that we can continue to serve as the technological arm of the Citadel Empire as they expand."

"I had assumed that tales of the Citadelians' simple mindedness were exaggerated."

The senior educator shakes his head. "Trust me, they're not. We were assigned to do feasibility studies on improving their indoctrination uploads. It was painful, trying to get them to learn anything. If a batch of Psions ended up like that we'd euthanize them and execute everyone else involved."

"So, the Citadel Empire expands." I create a construct image of the local stellar region. "Taking the territory of mostly single-world civilisations already in hock to one pirate group or another, then eventually running into the Crown Imperium. I thought that the pirate groups were semi-unified."

"They were." Apparently the chief educator doesn't consider it treacherous to give me information on other people. "Then the Spider Guild tried to muscle in. The Guild lost, but the weak-willed freebooters didn't want to try and take their Nest World by storm."

"No, that could be quite costly for people only interested in fighting for money."

"So they told the Queen that they'd negotiate a settlement, lured her to Rashashoon and shot her dead. The Spiders retaliated and killed the pirate leaders and now the whole area's descended into anarchy. Most of those mongrels will probably jump at the chance to work for the Citadel Empire."

The junior educator snorts. "Which is why any of that is our problem."

One of the other juniors shrugs. "Not that the Citadel needs other people for raw muscle any more."

I smile. "Or other people to do their research and development any more. Not if they're intelligent."

The senior educator rolls his eyes. "They may not be stupid but they're still Citadelians. They don't have the attitude for proper science, or even precision engineering. They'll-"

I raise my right hand and generate a construct shield.

"-need us-"

The particle beam hits my shield, flares of white, blue and pink burning and biting at the construct barrier as the drone projecting it drops stealth in order to redirect power to its weapon. I reinforce the shield and nod to the Sphere. She aims and fires repeatedly until the offending drone ceases fire and falls smouldering to the floor.

"-for…"

I dismiss the shield construct. "Reasonable effort with the weapon but I'm marking you down for the stealth." The one junior who hasn't spoken yet mutters something that might be an obscenity. "Did you think I was wearing these goggles to shade my eyes from the sun? Did you think these power rings were fakes?" They nervously watch my face. "No more talking around the subject. The indoctrination techniques you use on your young; how much direct uploads do you use?"

The lead educator makes an expression of distaste. "None. There's no way to do that sort of thing without compelling their mind states to adopt rigid structures which are completely unsuitable for our purposes. Psions need to be able to reflect on the information they're given in order to integrate it properly."

"And your cultural indoctrination?"

"It happens gradually and rationally. We teach them to value things that Psions have and other species don't. We're better than almost everyone, and we'll eventually overhaul everyone else as well."

That's… Curious.

"Who would you say is… Better?"

All four of them take on an expression of profound distaste. After a few moments pass, the senior educator raises his head slightly. "Your people clearly have advanced technology, and your physical abilities are quite remarkable. But there's only one of you, so either you're few in number or you're enhanced much further than the rest. You may be strong but your civilisation is probably weaker than ours."

Yah-huh.

"Then there are the Dominators, but their social structures are too rigid. We'll surpass them eventually."

"How about… The Guardians of the Universe?"

He shakes his head. "We have nothing but admiration for their science and technology. But they waste their time trying to nursemaid weak civilisations, and that means that their armsmen are too spread out to enforce their will properly."

Hm.

Ping.

No, but it is an opening.

"Thank you, gentlemen. You've given me a lot to think about. I'm going to leave you alive. Continue your work with my blessing." I turn away, a hush tube opening in front of me. "And do try not to get incinerated while I'm gone. I may still have a use for you."

13th August
09:48 GMT -6

Ping.

That was a little quick.

I sit on the Spherecycle, looking through a drone's sensors out of a building that was once part of the facility owned by the Psions' latest stars of biotechnology research. Now, it's a charnel house. And given that the bodies appear to have been torn apart by a long blade of some kind I think it likely that Miss Amane was responsible. Hm, yes. Ghia'ta isn't above killing people, but she stabs or shoots rather than bisecting. Or trisecting or quadsecting or… However many.

Outside, Psion drones, static defences and several of what the Psions call Variable Response Units fire, glow or otherwise radiate exotic energy. VRUs are the first step towards the New God multi-cube, an attempt to fit as much mad science as possible into something you can deploy in the field. Drones on steroids, not all that much more firepower but a whole lot more flexibility. At the moment they're throwing out a weak graviton distortion field. Not powerful, not significantly harmful, but frustratingly good at throwing off hush tubes. Amusing thing is, I think whoever is running them is just 'throwing science at the wall and seeing what sticks'. The modulation is all over the place. A boom tube is still doable, but I'd have to build a proper terminus here in order to be certain we would avoid… Misses.

Mother Box? Any predictable pattern?

Ping.

Fair enough. Keep working.

I take another look around the plaza. There's a bit too much firepower down there for me to want to just charge in and start swinging. I learned that lesson from the Thanagarians, thank you very much. Hitting and running is… Iffy. I suspect that the Psions have ways to prevent Lantern FTL, and if they haven't deployed one yet they will if I hang about. I need to get in touch with my team.

Fortunately, I have a form of communication which the Psions aren't attempting to block or monitor. I reach down, picking up the G-Gnome from the Spherecycle's back seat and then putting him on my shoulder. **Girls? How goes the work?**

**[Brief glimpse of a hurt leg.]** Miss Amane is too earnest for telepathy, really. She doesn't want me to… To think that she can't help me. **Not as easy as when we first arrived, Master. We have freed as many of the prisoners as we can, but some of the vaults are very secure. And… The hush tubes-.**

**Aren't working, I know. How many drones do you have left?**

**I… I don't know, Master. [Shame.] Ghia'ta was-.**

**Fine. You can't do everything. Ghia'ta?**

**[A kaleidoscope of a thousand instances of kindness and fellowship. Training, sparring, talking and debating. The warm oversight of their mothers and the warm familiarity of her friends.]**

I wince. Mental communication with a half-Zamaron completely devoted to love is… Not comfortable. Almost unavoidably I find myself thinking of Jade-

My environmental shield fades to almost nothing.

-every time. When we practised I.. tried to prevent Ghia'ta noticing exactly how uncomfortable an experience it is for me. I either succeeded or she was polite enough not to mention it.

**I set them to automatic. I am focusing my energies on breaching the vault where the remaining prisoners are. Your assistance would be appreciated.**

**Any sign of the princesses?**

**No, Master. Some of the other prisoners said that they were taken for final stage testing, and I assume that means they are in the place behind the vault. I.. tried to walk [shame] through it, but-.**

**Many advanced civilisations have ways of blocking that sort of thing. Do not concern yourself.**

**Yes Master.** Reassured by me, her mental voice picks up immediately. **Is it safe to use the purple ray drones on the Tamaranians? Many of them are not in good health.**

**Probably. Ask for a volunteer. And if you have time, use one yourself; don't think I didn't feel your pain.**

**Yes Master.**

Okay. We need a tube to evacuate everyone, and once the Psions running this place… What did he say their names were? Fon and Tront, yes. Once they realise our exact capacities I imagine that they'll abandon precision and technique and just use overwhelming power to level the place. Probably holding off until we breach the vault, that's rather the point of no returns on their investment. How can I best aid our side? Given that the vaults are keeping Ghia'ta and Miss Amane out I imagine that they'll hold against an overwhelming external attack at least for a little while. Brimstone is.. over the horizon so I can't just ask him for fire support-.

Ping.

Hm. Unsurprisingly, Psions are now using weak graviton distortion fields worldwide. Bothersome. That'll make it rather harder for me to approach them…

Ping.

Yees. But without the power of the Mountain, you're rather -and I mean this in the politest way possible- short ranged.

Ping.

I was rather trying to avoid-.

Ping. Ping.

I smile.

Well. Listen to you.

Ping.

Alright, that's not a bad plan. Haven't practised much using my yellow power ring in this way-.

Corpsman. You've remembered that I exist, I see.

Tell me, Sinestro; are you able to detect the fears of those around you?

Certainly, Corpsman. Are you ready to begin your study of xenopsychology now, or would you like me to provide you with the reading list first and allow you to prepare at your leisure?

I meant, by using the yellow light.

Only when they are at the very forefront of the mind of someone within a short distance of me.

Hmm. Hopefully, the princesses are in that vault. I remember them getting powers via Psion experimentation in the comics, but… It is of course possible that I got here too late and they've been killed. Psions don't generally feel any particular need to be physically present during dangerous experiments… X'Hal was biologically Tamaranian, and from Okaaran myths and those records that survived I've got a rough idea of when she underwent apotheosis -or at least the next best thing- and it completely flattened Psion civilisation.

What would a Psion mucking around with Tamaranian physiology fear more than anything else? Another wipe out, presumably. No, no, he'd have a rough idea what happened last time too, and would have made a point of having a lot of contingencies in place. Psions are rational. Would they be worried about their place in the universe as the Citadel expands and gets its collective IQ into double figures? No. Augmented Citadelian officers are intelligent but they still don't do their own research and development. The Citadel doesn't hire Branx for that sort of thing and I doubt that the citizens of the Crown Imperium will be queuing up to take their place if their state falls to the Citadel.

Oh. Of course.

Why do the Psions even bother with the Citadel? Why do they create legions of drones? What would a Psion who had lived around Citadelians for years have become afraid of that his homebody fellows would not, having never had their comfortable confidence undermined by wider contact with other civilisations?

They'd be afraid of getting punched in the face.

13th August
09:53 GMT -6

No matter how sophisticated we become, the psychology foisted upon us by our evolutionary history stays with us, lurking in the primitive parts of our brain. The surge of panic-soaked adrenaline that allowed Thog the Caveman to wrestle a boar to death is painfully maladaptive where modern combat is concerned, where a clear thought process and patience are more likely to be rewarded.

So, is the facility likely to have a reserve force? Probably not. I doubt that wherever their command centre is it's undefended, but I would be surprised to encounter a force capable of prolonged combat. After all, most of the facility has already been overrun and most of the slaves are… If not free, then certainly no longer confined. How far away would the overseers be? I don't think that the facility is a new build; the implication was that the owner's return to the Wombworld was a recent event but the complex has been here a while. Repurposed, then. A Psion scientist who'd newly moved into his laboratory wouldn't go on long trips away from it, not while there was science to do. They also wouldn't leave in response to a small incursion that was apparently contained, especially if the people carrying it out looked interesting.

So, still around. Focused on the action, but still worried about getting hit themselves. I bring up a map of as much of the local area as I have on file, discounting those locations which Miss Amane has already rampaged through. Psions dig, but they wouldn't have had all that much time to move without being seen… Probable locations there and there, possible places for other locations I don't know about there, there and there.

Sinestro. Show me where they're hiding.

The room discolours as my eyes shine yellow.

I'll do my best, Corpsman.

Nothing from the drones, of course. Those are either nothing like sophisticated enough for emotional resonance or in the case of the VRUs directly controlled by either the two owners of the place or their immediate subordinates. I ignore the glimmers from the slaves and sweep my gaze in the direction of the first potential hiding spot. Nothing there-. No, something. Fear of failing to achieve anything of note. Someone took a stray shot and believes themselves to be dying. Fine. Irrelevant.

Second location. Empty. Third loc-. Ahhhgh.

I stagger for a moment, blinking as I try to-. I see my home ravaged by a deranged goddess, the ancient Wombworld of the Psion's imagining flickering and being replaced with first Earth 16 and then with Earth Prime, the faces of the Psion scientists and engineers being replaced with those of my friends and family. Burning, burning all burning and screaming and running and there's nowhere to run-!

Ping.

And then I see the same thing happening to Apokolips, with Lynne's psychic might utterly humbling Darkseid and all of his court.

I stand upright, patting Mother Box with my right hand.

I knew there was a reason why I kept you around.

Ping.

It seems I was wrong about them being most afraid of being punched. Though that does raise a rather uncomfortable question. Sinestro, did you ever find out where Parallax ended up?

No, Corpsman. I did not. Until you persuaded me otherwise I had assumed that even Ion was a myth conjured up by the more theologically inclined Green Lanterns so that they could associate the green light with a divine being. Why do you ask?

Because seeing desires never had that result. I never found it overwhelming like that. I had rather been hoping that Parallax was safely contained either on Oa or Qward. But if he felt that…

Corpsman, I fear that you're suffering from delusions of grandeur. If my alter ego has been untroubled despite using a yellow ring for… Eight years now? Then I doubt that you have too great a cause for worry.

True, I suppose.

I climb back aboard the Spherecycle as I unsheathe my daiklave and generate a fusion cannon construct. I can't duel with the daiklave when wielding it one-handed but I very much doubt that will matter.

Mother Box, boom tube to that location.

Ping.

No argument this time, I'm pleased to note.

"Sphere, go."

I so often use hush tubes these days that the raw fury of the boom tube takes me a little by surprise. The sound would be deafening to a normal Human in narrow confines like these, and the brilliant flash as it opens near-blinding. And more than that, more than whatever trick the design plays with gravitons, it… Feels weightier in a way the unassuming hush tubes don't.

The Spherecycle surges through the tube aperture and a second later I'm in a storeroom of some kind that has been haphazardly converted into a command and control centre. Psions in light armour turn from their holographic interfaces and optical harnesses to stare at the glowing hole in the air. Fingers moving rapidly over drone control systems in an all-too-late attempt to recall some forces to defend them.

I raise my fusion cannon. Pulse fire only. Mother Box should be-.

Ping.

Will be perfectly capable of seizing control of these computers once their controllers are dead, but the computers need to be at least somewhat intact for that to occur. Three Psions have their chests burned to ash and cinders while a fourth has his head and left arm part company from his body with the assistance of my daiklave.

A tiny personal defence drone shoots me in the left shoulder, the particle beam being effortlessly absorbed by my environmental shield and armour. The Spherecycle pirouettes, annihilating two further drones with her blasters while I shoot a fleeing Psion in the back of his head. Two of the remaining Psions drop to their knees, tossing aside anything that could be a weapon or control device and then waving their hands to draw attention to the fact. I run the last active Psion through his chest -active really only in the sense that he was slower to remove his interface goggles and so wasn't as aware of his surroundings as his fellows- and dismount the Spherecycle, kicking his corpse from my blade and slamming it point first into the floor.

Mother Box, get to work.

Ping.

"And who might you two be?"

"Fon." / "Tront."

"Ah. You own this facility, do you not?"

They look at one another, then turn back to me.

"Yes." / "Yes."

"Good show." I pick up the G-Gnome from the back of the Spherecycle and deposit him on my shoulder as glowing yellow chains wrap themselves around the Psions and hoik them off the floor.

Mother Box, do you have control of the VRUs yet?

Ping.

Good. Use their graviton systems to block the wider area effect version from the planetary defence systems, then open a hush tube back home.

Ping.

They're the reason why the Citadelians are now clever enough to wipe their own arses without a map. They enabled the war that will be starting in a little while and they've been experimenting on enslaved sentient beings.

Ping.

No, not this time.

**G-Gnome.**

**[A-lert-ness]**

**Take everything of value from their minds, then shred whatever's left.**

13th August
09:57 GMT -6

Drones irrevocably sent to seek and destroy Psion manufacturing facilities, check. VRUs keeping gravity as it should be,-

Ping.

-check. Lock the instruction in place, would you? We'll be leaving shortly and I don't have any other use for them.

Ping.

Good show. Hush tube to the biotech labs.

Ping.

And last but not least. A plasma converter appears in my left hand. I give it a quick check and then toss it aside. Mother Box has done her best to erase every trace of data she could access through these systems, but I find that physical destruction pleasantly underlines the matter. That little device will suck in and fuse matter until its containment field is overloaded, at which point the whole room will be incinerated. Should be enough to eat through the first set of armoured walls as well.

I take a grip on the Spherecycle's handlebars and she accelerates through the hush tube.

Slave pens torn apart, dead Psions and destroyed equipment all decorated with a smattering of violet crystals. A small cluster of my own drones are on overwatch but I don't see-

"What is that?"

-the Tamaranians we're here to rescue, who appear to have ducked into cover the moment I appeared.

"I'm the man organising your liberation." Mother Box, boom tube.

Ping.

And Sinestro, scan them for me, would you.

I've seen worse, Corpsman.

Considering what they've been through… Of course, these are the pre-operation slaves.

The boom tube explodes open behind me and Miss Amane precipitates out of the air in front of me even as my mouth starts to open to explain it, beaming at me with the delight of a religious fanatic before her god.

"Master!"

"Iname. The tubes are working again and I've dealt with the Psions who once ran this facility."

She nods. "As expected from you, Master."

That's one of those Japanese things, isn't it? Never mind. I point to the tube with my right arm. "I've got meals, medicine, baths and beds set up for you through there." In the room in which I usually have G-Dwarves answering my fan mail, but draw a veil over that for now. "Get going, because we're not going to be able to hold this position once the Psions pay it serious attention."

They hesitate. Huge and splashed with Psion blood as I am I doubt that I'm a reassuring figure. Miss Amane noticed it too, an almost comical frown appearing on her face as she moves her fists to her hips. "Master brought us here to free you from the Psions! Why are you refusing to let us finish rescuing you? Do you want to stay here?"

There's a brief nonverbal conversation between them, then they emerge from cover and walk towards the boom tube. Though their flesh is mostly intact -I imagine that's the result of the purple healing ray drones- there are numerous cybernetic plugs on severed limbs and empty eye sockets. The cybernetics that were presumably once attached are absent; missing legs are replaced by simple rod-and-spring prosthetics and arms and eyes are not there at all. One man has both eyes missing and is guided by one of his fellows, old and badly healed scars visible on both of them. I don't know much about how Tamaranians age, but I'd guess… They're probably old enough to have fought with Tamaran's navy in its failed attempt to preserve their world's independence. Speaking as the Apokoliptian God of Conquest, I have to say that I consider their efforts to have been bordering on stupidity. With a token tribute to the Citadel they could have maintained their fleets and eventually simply out-produced the Citadel. As it was, they chose pride.

Predictably, that didn't end well.

"Excuse me?"

I look down. This one is younger. With burns rather than shrapnel scars and is shy one arm rather than her eyes. "Yes?"

"The princesses and.. some of the others are in the vault. Can you-?"

"Look a bit of a prat if I did all this and then left without them, wouldn't I?" Let's draw a veil over the fact that I'm mostly here for them, secondly to give the Psions a bloody nose and the other prisoners are third on my priority list at best. I climb off the Spherecycle. "Sphere, reconfigure yourself into something that can conveniently carry casualties. Iname, get the Tamaranians settled in."

Miss Amane dashes through and the Sphere beeps, lands and curls up into a ball as I use my aero-discs to rise into the air. Now, to the vault.

The slave pit was arranged in a cluster of four hemispheres with individual cells built into the sides. From the wreckage and Psion corpses I'm going to assume that the column in the centre was a control post of some kind before my people smashed it. A heavy duty.. 'lid' has been blasted apart and the plasma shield generators still have the violet crystals which destroyed them embedded in them. I fly over a few Psions with the distinct bruise pattern which indicates they died from a purple death ray shot and head in the direction of the glowing violet light.

"For Zamaron!"

Ghia'ta shoves her crystal spear at the vault door point first, a wave of violet energy passing through the material to no apparent effect. Wisps of violet light dance around her as she continues to exert herself.

"Any joy?"

"Not yet."

Odd. She's had time. Psion technology shouldn't be-.

That isn't Psion technology, Corpsman. I told you that you should have consulted with the Weaponers. It appears that the Psions did not share your reservations.

Wonderful. And the walls, floor and ceiling are all made of the same material. Mother Box?

Ping.

Can't boom tube or hush tube, can't hack it, can't easily break it… Knowing the Qwardians qwa-matter would probably do the job… The Weaponers have been fighting Lanterns for so long that I'd be astonished if emotional spectrum-based technology did anything very much…

A hush tube appears next to me and a blaster drone floats through. I lay my hand on its chassis as its gun deploys.

Cast down their fortresses.

A bream of brilliant orange lances out… And achieves precisely nothing.

"Okay, I guess we're doing this the stupid way." I draw my daiklave-.

Ghia'ta frowns. "Wouldn't your god-killer sword be a better choice?"

"Qwardians don't use magic and this vault isn't alive." Almost certainly. "'Killing' it wouldn't make it crumble and cutting through the mass would probably take longer than we have. Stand back."

She floats back, spear held in a guard position.

NONE SHALL DEFY ME!

I take the daiklave in a two-handed grip and swing it into the vault door, the Nth Metal edge biting a good fifty centimetres into the material of its construction before being arrested. I pause for a moment before pulling back, letting the ring show me the state of the surrounding streets. The drones I sent on the rampage have attracted a response but that response isn't coming this way yet.

I draw the blade back for another swing.

13th August
11:11 GMT -6

Infuriating.

Clunk!

Turtling.

Clank!

Psions!

Clang!
I am unstoppable!
Fina-fucking-lly! I drop my daiklave to the side, raise my right leg and kick the section of the door I've been working on, sending it sailing into the room beyond! Ignoring the Sphere's warbles I duck my head and stalk forward into the chamber beyond, raising a construct tower shield to block any potential attack.

Mother Box, seize control of the local-.

Three turrets fade into view, one on the wall to my right, one to the left and one on the ceiling. I move to fortify my environmental shield as the turrets activate. A wide.. turquoise.. wavy aura thing links them to one another for a second and then they fire, surrounding me in that same aura. Okay, doesn't seem to be doing any-?

I'm lifted off my feet almost gently, my movements becoming more and more difficult. And there's a weight on my skin. Not painful yet, but certainly… Strange. I move my right hand up to that I can watch my fingers as I make a fist. It's not so much hard as it is awkward.

Alright, bored now. My victory is inevitable!

My armour surges with orange light as I throw my arms wide, dropping to the ground as I overload whatever that was. The turrets crackle and burn out as I drop to the ground. Mother Box, what was that?

…

Huh?

I look down at my left hip where she's attached to my faulds. Ooh no. Her outer case is cracked and slightly crumpled and her lights are dim. Shit. Ah, Sinestro?

Completely beyond me, Corpsman. I suggest focusing more on current events.

Right. Damn.

"Are you hurt?"

I half turn, frowning as I take in Ghia'ta's concerned expression. "No, but Mother Box is. I don't suppose you know anything about-?"

"That.. was a graviton field. Qwardians use those to bypass environmental shields. It was most likely intended to crush you."

"I am pretty tough, even without the rings." I turn back to the vault and start onwards. Nothing I can do for Mother Box for now.

The first room on the left appears to be a morgue, storage for the slaves they've 'used up' but not gotten around to dissecting. Some have injection plugs in their arms and on their chests. Others look like they've been burned all over, the skin blistered and... Burned from inside?

I drop another plasma converter and then turn away. I know what the princesses look like and they're not here.

The room opposite is the dissection laboratory. Oddly, it seems to have been in recent use but there's no body. Perhaps they'd just finished work on someone? M-. Sinestro, can you access their records?

If power rings could subvert Qwardian systems, Corpsman, our conflict with them would have been far shorter.

Wasn't ring-you made by a Qwardian?

Yes, but he didn't give me unlimited access to all of his systems. He wasn't an idiot.

A reasonable point, but I would have thought that accessing them wouldn'toof!

The fist catches me in the left of my chin, knocking me sideways and forcing me to do a sort of stagger-hop in order to remain upright. What the-? I swing my left arm in a wide arc, trying to hit whoever that was-. No, no one towagh! My face slams into the wall hard enough for me to actually feel a small amount of pain. Something hit me in the back of the head and knocked me forwards. I'm more irritated than hurt. Turn around. Predictably, no one. Okay, the goggles would pick up most forms of invisibility, phasing and shapeshifting. Sinestro, teleportation jam.

As you wish Corpsman, though I suspect that it will not be that easy.

And armour.

"Ghia'ta, be careful. There's someone-." She hurtles past the doorway out of control, cracks clearly visible in her armour.

I don't bother running or changing my posture, I just have the ring drag me into the corridor. For a fraction of a second I see the figure of a man standing there, then there's a faint waft of blue as he vanishes. Sinestro, I thought we were blocking teleportation.

I am jamming most commonly used forms of target acquisition and reassembly, Corpsman. That is not the same as blocking everything.

Can you block some more stuff?

Naturally, Corpsman. But without knowing exactly what we're facing there is very little point. The probability of me selecting at random the form of teleportation which your opponent is using is minimal, and it will drain me at a far faster rate than that to which you are accustomed.

I put my back to the wall, trying to watch both directions. "Ghia'ta? Are you hurt?"

"Only a little." She rises, armour glowing as it mends itself. "Was that a Psion weapon?"

Sinestro, show me what I saw.

A ghostly construct image appears to my right. Standard pattern humanoid, tall… There's a decent amount of muscle there, along with the signs of malnutrition. Details not good enough for scars to appear. No hair on his head… If he's here then he's probably Tamaranian. I suppose it would have been foolish to assume that the princesses were the only ones they experimented o-.

The figure appears directly in front of me, right fist swinging for my face. His skin is a dull red-brown, his eyes glow a dull green and I use my ring to shove myself into him! His fist misses my head by the narrowest margin as I knock him back and then a beam of violet light strikes him in the side of his chest. He doesn't wince as he fades into blue mist.

"Check the other rooms now!"

She's on my heels as I fly down the corridor, then breaks left as I break right. Some sort of bier with multiple radiation emitters pointing at it, a shielded area for the ones performing the experiment-.

I see a tiny puff of blue in the corner of my eye and I'm already yanking myself out of the way as he swings his right fist at me again. I fire two yellow beams from my eyes and he vanishes once more as they hit him.

"He was here!"

No prisoners or information. Next room. I fly back into the corridor-

"Stop!"

-as a wall of violet crystal erupts from the room Ghia'ta was checking. The man appears to have his left arm and leg trapped on the room-side part-. Excellent. I go past that, down the corridor and into the next room on the left. A Tamaranian man-. Yes, it's him. He's suspended in a tank with some sort of neural interface attached to his head. Some sort of psychic projection device? Don't know, don't care.

"Why are you attacking us?"

Killing him would be quickest and safest-

-but…

Sinestro, do you understand this technology?

Not perfectly, Corpsman, but there are only so many ways to control a humanoid brain..

Disconnect him.

A beam of yellow light punches through the transparent force field covering the front of the tank as a new gun forms on my left forearm. I point it at the man's chest. No sense in taking foolish risks.

Sinestro?

Disconnected, Corpsman. But he's had quite a bit of work done. I don't know whether or not his mind is whole..

Have to do. "Ghia'ta, has he vanished?!"

"Yes."

I nod. "Good. Sphere!" I hear her revving, then a moment later she rolls in through the doorway. "Give him full medical aid, but do not take him to the Mountain until we know that he's compos mentis."

She beeps, then unrolls into some sort of vaguely insectoid clamp thing. She floats up and attaches herself to the tank the man is imprisoned in, her lights flickering in time with those of the device. Fine.

I step out into the corridor as Ghia'ta does the same, crystals decaying and flaking in her wake. Only one room left. I lead the way inside, grinning as I see the two animation suspension tanks containing the two women I came here to rescue. Excellent.

13th August
12:37 GMT -6

"Excuse me! Hello!?"

The Okaaran encampment on the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest of Weeds would appear surprisingly deserted to anyone who lacked a power ring. As it is I can clearly see the terrified forms of the garrison as they huddle in the fortified cellars each of the buildings possesses. I'm not sure whether doing that would actually put off a wandering Construct Lantern -much less Larfleeze himself- but I suppose that getting out of sight would give the hider a degree of psychological protection.

"If someone doesn't answer me really soon I'm going to drag someone out!"

My aura switches from orange to yellow for a moment, but swiftly turns back. I suppose… With the Central Power Battery so close, I shouldn't be surprised. Sinestro has been uncharacteristically quiet on this leg of the journey as well. Ah, a camera! I turn to face it and raise my right hand in greeting. Honestly, I thought that Okaaran soldiers had a bit more grit than-.

A trapdoor over to my left is thrown open and an Okaaran male hesitantly clambers out. And given how big Okaarans are it's an almost comical sight.

"Finally, some service!"

His hands cradle his particle beam while his stance clearly indicates that he believes that it will avail him exactly naught. He doesn't even bother pointing it at me as he finally puts his fear aside to face me.

"B-beast. What do you want?"

I frown. "Beast? Oh, yes, that's what you people called him, wasn't it? Here." I toss the slightly soggy sack to him. He fumbles the catch, nearly dropping his gun as well as he momentarily can't decide between grabbing the bag and letting it fall. He pauses, then clamps the gun to his armour before crouching down to pick up the sack. "I think you'll find everything in order."

He opens the sack and immediately relaxes. "Heh. You looking to turn in a bounty?"

"Among other things, yes."

"We don't handle that here." He stands, pulling Larfleeze's severed head out of the sack as he does so. "You'll need to head west about forty miles, there's a bureau in Kasagn that can arrange payment. Who was he, anyway?"

"The Beast."

He looks at me directly, his eyes narrowing. "Fuck you. Yeah, it's all very funny, walking up here with glowing orange armour and scaring the spit out of us, but the joke's had its day."

"Oh, I'm not joking." I raise my left fist so that he can see the sigil on the orange ring around my ring finger. "See?"

He manages not to drop the head, but that's mostly because his hands have locked up, along with the rest of his body.

"The head belongs to a man named Larfleeze who made his home on this planet long before your species existed. He was essentially a sort of insane, super-powerful Lantern. But he was also kind of stupid and didn't have anything blocking teleportation into his cave."

I was a little worried when his eyes opened as I stepped through, but his reflexes weren't anything special and the Sword of the Fallen turned off his orange light abilities as soon as it pierced his skin. At least, I assume that it did given that he didn't use them. I seem to remember that in the comics what he really wanted was to be rid of his orange ring permanently, so, maybe that had something to do with it. Don't know, and.. it probably doesn't matter now.

"I… That's, ah…"

"But I'm going to have to ask you not to check it yourself for a few days. I don't think that I got all of his slaves-" Though I did get most of them. They became quite indolent after Larfleeze himself fell. Perhaps it would have been worth keeping a few for their knowledge, but… I don't think that the potential gains outweigh the sheer horror of keeping someone in that state. "-and there are one or two other items that should be made safe by someone who knows what they're doing."

Like the Orange Central Power Battery. I stared at it in a trance for several minutes until Ghia'ta created a pink crystal around my head. Definitely something that needs careful handling by someone who knows what they're doing with power ring technology. In case the Okaarans -or anyone else- don't heed my verbal warning I left the drones which survived my attack on Wombworld with instructions to shoot dead anyone who isn't on their 'friends' list.

"Yes, of… Course." He hesitates again, then covers the head back up. "I… Once we've… Confirmed that what you say is true, we can authorise payment. I.. have.. no idea how much the bounty on the Beast is. Think we.. kind of assumed that no one would ever claim it."

"That's fine. I'm not in a rush. But I remember a clause about becoming the owner of his property?"

"Oh, yeah, you now have legal title to the whole lot. Whatever's there, it's now yours. Assuming you can hold onto it."

"I am somewhat familiar with the politics of the Vega Systems. Do you need anything else from me?"

"Ah…" He looks away from me in the general direction of one of the shelters. Probably the one where his commanding officer is hiding. "Who.. are you?"

"My name is Grayven."

"And… Your species? Where are you from?"

"Various places." I look around. Still no one else sticking their head out. "Though I intend to spend some time on Tamaran while I'm in Vega." I turn away, walking towards the forest edge. "I'll let you know when you can do your inspection."

Sinestro, connect to the Mountain and order a hush tube.

… Yes, Corpsman.

A hole in space opens in front of me and I step through into the space station the Gordanians were using to enforce their control of Tamaran. I can see three bodies, the armour covering their torsos burned through by the sisters' 'star bolts'. No stun effects here, thank you very much. If Koriand'r or Komand'r throw plasma at you then you get burned.

And speaking of the devil. Koriand'r flies into view, her newly granted solar-powered abilities making her hair look like it's on fire. Green plasma churns around her hands without burning them, a fascinating phenomenon which I will ask to study at some later time when it isn't quite as massively insensitive as it is now. When she seems me she halts in the air and adopts a more upright position. "Is your work done?"

I nod. "Larfleeze is dead, his slaves are at rest. I've got my drones looking after his cave. You?"

"My sister and I have placed the remaining Gordanian slavers in the cages from which we rescued their prisoners."

Quick bit of mental maths… "Not that many surrendered, then."

"If they had wanted us to make efforts on their behalf then they should have treated us less monstrously."

"Oh, I'm not criticising. I said 'do what you like' and I meant it. Is Komand'r around?"

"She is with our prisoners."

I nod. Sinestro, another tube. if you please.

Certainly, Corpsman. Is it too much to hope that you may be planning on offering either of these women yellow rings?

If you know where your alter-ego keeps his reserves I'll consider it.

In front of me the hush tube opens and I step through, Koriand'r floating in behind me.

I seem to remember that you intended to offer me to Miss Nguyen.

I knew her better. And I already have orange rings. But, if we happen across any yellow rings then I will give them due consideration.

Very well, Corpsman.

Komand'r stalks between the cells in the slave holding area, purple plasma crackling around her hands. I'm not sure why the two sisters generate different colours. Logically, the method used to give them both the ability would be the same, so shouldn't it be the same colour? Most of the Gordanians in the cells are either very young or very old. I always assumed that Koriand'r would be the nicer of the two, but I suppose that doesn't mean that she would be inclined to have mercy on the undeserving.

"Princess Komand'r, good to see you again. I have another offer for you and your sister that I'd very much like you to consider."

13th August
16:25 GMT -6

King Myand'r watches me from the settee on the other side of a low-set table. I lean forwards and pick one of the small… Nuts? Seeds? Out of the bowl resting on it. I hold in just in front of my face for a moment, taking it in. It's pale purple in colour and it feels quite tough. I slowly push it into my mouth, chewing contemplatively as I raise my eyebrows in King Myand'r's direction.

Out of the formal setting of our initial meeting he's dispensed with his ceremonial armour. I had wondered about that in the comics; supermodel girl Tamaranian goes around in a bikini. What do the men wear? Because I know how that sort of thing usually goes. It's like: if Apokoliptians are all bisexual then why is it that the only one we ever see being bisexual is the hot female Amazonesque one?

And now I know. Thongs. No double standard here at all. There are thigh boots and a cape and a strange sort of half-mitre hat and a truly colossal beard -seriously, you could lose a sheep in that thing- that is loosely bound into a plait beneath his chin and a veritable bush of red hair exploding outwards in all directions from the top of his head. He very nearly has the physique to pull off the look, rugged without having bodybuilder definition.

I keep chewing. It's got the texture of a hazelnut, but the flavour is… More… Apricot? The oil has a definite fruity tang to it. It's nice. Could be an export market there.

"What do you want with my people?"

Some of that Tamaranian directness, there. I reach forward to take another of these snack things. "What makes you think I want anything?"

"Bitter experience. Tamaran has a wealth of experience with alien warlords." No anger, no fear. Just… Resignation. And crunchy apricot. I reach forwards again and take two-. "Just take the bowl."

"Thank you." I pick up the bowl and deposit it in my lap. "Alright, what do the… The Gordanians get out of it now?"

"Five hundred units a year. Their years, ours are slightly shorter."

I nod. "Okay. And what do you think I'm going to ask?"

He regards my face for a moment. "The optimistic voice in my head says four hundred and ninety nine. The pessimistic voice says five hundred and one."

I pantomime curiosity. "Five hundred and one?"

"A Thalox cannot pull a mountain, no matter how many sticks you give it."

"Wise.. words indeed." I have no idea what a Thalox is. No Apokoliptian or Kryptonian has ever studied Vegan natural history. But having flown over Tamarus the meaning of the metaphor is clear enough. It's a crumbling third world dump. And this is their capital. As they are, they literally can't pay more. "But I'm not going to demand five hundred." He tenses slightly. "I'm going to demand two hundred-" He relaxes slightly, believing that I'm reducing his tribute by more than half. "-billion. Yes. Two hundred billion units." Whatever they are.

His eyes widen, bushy red eyebrows doing their best to hide themselves under his fringe. "Two hundred billion?"

"Two hundred billion."

We stare at each other for a moment.

"Tamaran does not have two hundred billion units, nor anything like two hundred billion. When I was a youth, I was taken to Citadel and shown their treasure vaults as an intimidation tactic and I do not think that they had two hundred billion units. I do not think that I can imagine two hundred billion units."

"I'm not asking you to imagine it." I swallow the oils and try to work out if the flesh has any significant flavour. Slightly.. salty..?

"I can't give you what I don't have."

I nod. Do Tamaranians nod? Koriand'r did, but she might just have been trying to mirror my body language. "So..? You're a king. Presumably your elevation didn't come as a complete surprise. Presumably you had some sort of education in economics. You need to acquire two hundred billion units. How do you intend to go about it?"

He blinks heavily, head pulling back slightly. "It.. would.. require a complete revitalisation of the Tamaranian industrial base."

I nod encouragingly. "Okay..?"

"Educational programs would have to come first. The Gordanians destroyed anything that looked like a school."

"Really?" Accursed space barbarians. Ex-space barbarians.

He nods unhappily. "We adapted. Small classes for primary education, held in people's homes. Apprenticeships for higher education. Our remaining libraries are more secure than our armouries. But there just aren't enough people with the knowledge we would need. And those who have it… A lot of it is just theoretical. Building anything that looked like an industrial base was an invitation-."

"To an orbital strike." I nod. "I'm seeing a pattern. And Komand'r told me about…" I turn my head to the right, looking out of the palace window and across the city to the area where the buildings just… Stop.

"We would have to rebuild our electronics industry, revitalise our transportation… And those are simply the economic matters. Holding the state together during the transition would be extraordinarily difficult with all of the new pressures that would inevitably develop. I cannot imagine that Kalapatt would meekly accept the concentration of knowledge and expertise in Tamarus that the program would require."

I hold up my right hand, my left ferreting around the bowl for more crunchy thingies. "Focus on the economic."

"As an industrial state, Tamaran might be able to pay two hundred billion units eventually, but-."

"No, keep going."

"We were not permitted to keep any spacecraft, and the Gordanians were thorough in their destruction of all space orientated technology. It could take twelve generations before we could build back up to our former levels. Is that what you want? I had assumed that the Gordanians would have mined out the asteroid fields by now."

I shake my head. "They made a cursory effort in a couple of places. Negligible, really."

"Is that where you're expecting us to get it from?" He stops focusing on me quite so intently. "I suppose there might be two hundred billion units' worth of wealth in the asteroids. We never surveyed them in any great detail."

"So if I want to get paid, you'll need a way to spread higher education very quickly, you need heavy industrial equipment and.. maybe a space based shipyard or two?"

"Oh yes. And perhaps if X'Hal is feeling bountiful she could return my brothers to life while she is raining down her blessings. What do you want from us, Lord Grayven?"

I tap the fingers of my right hand against the surface of the table. Some sort of polished stone, I think. "As you are now, you cannot give me anything I want. Therefore, as an investor in your civilisation, it behoves me to assist you in extracting yourself from the pit the Citadel and their Gordanian friends dropped you into. Among my allies are a species who can telepathically deposit information in people's minds. I believe that I can persuade them to make themselves available to you."

"And what do they want?"

"Do you have an island you're not using? I'd like to give them their own world, but I don't have one of those at the moment. An isolated region where they can learn to live self sufficiently would be the next best thing."

"There… May be one."

"Excellent. One problem down. I'm confident I can lay my hands on some advanced equipment… The occasional alien expert or two… To assist with the reindustrialisation. Your daughters caught three ships in orbit, and once we're done with them you can chop them up for parts. Or put them to use yourself."

King Myand'r shakes his head. "The Citadel would never tolerate-."

I look at the back of my left hand, having my yellow ring flare. "Why don't you let me worry about the Citadel? I'm certain that we can… Come to terms."

He takes a deep breath. "Even if you can provide that aid, it could well be generations before we can pay you such a sum."

"My life span is indefinite. And I think that I can make something of this place."

He regards me once more. I suppose he hasn't previously experienced anyone behaving in quite the way I am. "'Make something' of Tamaran?"

"Yes." I nod thoughtfully. "How would you feel about me basing a Lantern Corps here?"

13th August
18:57 GMT -6

Hm. I walk out into one of the courtyards that form part of the palace grounds. That went… Reasonably well. I take another Deca seed out of the bowl with my right hand and put it into my mouth. Then I hesitate. I've eaten rather a lot of these. Okay, in my youth I could finish off a packet of chocolate fingers in a single sitting, but now I'm…

Mother Box, can New Gods get-?

Ah.

Yes.

Well, that killed the mood. I'll get Scott to have a look at her just as soon as I'm finished here. I put the bowl down on the low wall running around the fountain in the centre of the courtyard and take a proper look around. It's a big place, but it's mostly bare stone and I strongly doubt that property or land prices are particularly high around here. It's lit by braziers of burning wood. There should be… I don't know, mosaics or something. A fresco showing scenes from Tamaranian mythology. I'm not exactly Mister Conspicuous Consumption myself, but… Really, if your palaces aren't at least a little ostentatious, how can anyone take you seriously?

You know, I think-.

"You were talking to Father for a long time." I look up as Komand'r descends from the sky, hair billowing around her as if buoyed up by a bonfire. It still strikes me as chimeric; where her sister's hair is a uniform red-orange Komand'r has different tones, orange darkening to brown-amber towards the edge of each curl. As for the rest of her… Her hair is kept from her face by a plain steel tiara, while the rest of her clothing might generously be described as a mini-dress made of blue cloth. Something she owned from before her enforced absence? It's not really traditional Tamaranian fare. Her feet are covered by wood and hide sandals. No stiletto heel, but the back is slightly built up.

"We had a good deal to discuss. And he's.. quite pleasant company." I look her over once more as she lands, her hair falling about her shoulders as she stops exerting her abilities. "Given up on the ring already?"

She turns her nose up slightly, looking back into the palace. "I want my people to see me flying under my own power as a Tamaranian should."

I nod placidly. The wonders of Psion medical research. "May I ask if you have made a decision on whether to keep it or not?"

She jerks her head back around. "Why do you ask like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like the result of the decision is not totally in your power."

I close my eyes, shaking my head. "That is not how I -or the orange rings- work." I look to the side, sighting an open area of the plaza and then wanting a construct-chair into being. I really do get on better with an orange ring for things like that than I do with Sinestro.

Simply a matter of practice and application, Corpsman.

I sit down, taking a moment to get comfortable before looking up at Komand'r. Her arms are crossed just under her breasts, pushing them up and inwards slightly. Her weight slightly more on her right hip than her left, emphasising the lithe muscularity of her physique.

…

No, no, it's not working. Stage 2 is still some way off.

"The ring empowers you to do what you want. To be what you want. Demanding obedience from another ring user doesn't work."

"You think that I would hesitate to do whatever Tamaran needs?"

I shake my head. "Why would I want you to be weaker than you could be?"

Her face hardens, her eyes glow and her hair roils in the air around her head. "You dare call me weak?"

"I did not call you weak. Though purely as a point of information, if I thought you weak I would most certainly dare to call you weak. I asked, why would I want you to be weaker than you could be? If you served me under sufferance your constructs would be far weaker than if you worked with me because you want the same end that I do."

He hair calms slightly, though her eyes still glow lime green. "And what end is that?"

I lean back into my chair construct, relaxing fully and closing my eyes. "A resurgence of Tamaranian strength. I see a.. potential, here, that is not being productively channelled."

"What, you wish for us to become your.. warriors? As the Gordanians are for the Citadel?"

I smile. "Oh, no. I would have fallen beyond all redemption if I failed that badly."

"Speak plainly then. All Tamarus knows that you spent the day negotiating our future with my father. What did you demand as the terms for our new servitude?"

I narrowly open my eyes and hold out my right hand, palm upwards. "If you want an artisan to carve you a stone bench, do you give him a chisel and hammer..? Or… A plasma cutter, or.. whatever Tamaranian masons use? Or do you instead break his arms and legs and put out his eyes?"

"You give him tools, of course."

"Give him tools." I nod. "Princess Komand'r, at my worst, I would recognise that fact. I am the Apokoliptian God of Conquest and the Gordanians and their Citadel masters offend me most profoundly. They have had you under their guns for.. two generations now? And they have done nothing with you."

"They have done many things with me and my sister."

"That is not what I meant. I mean, with your society. They have brutalised you but they have not conquered you. They have not even tried. They have made no attempt to integrate you into their society at all. They have not even attempted to exterminate you and settle your world for themselves. All the resources you possess and they take… Paltry amounts of money? All the things you could productively do for them and all they can think to do is keep you too weak to do any of them. Pathetic, barbaric stupidity."

I shake my head. "No, they've got to go. The whole pack of disappointing failures have to go." I look her in the eyes and smile faintly. "And then your lot can have a go at it instead."

Respect to her, she takes a moment to consider what I'm saying. "With you as our ruler?"

"Though that could work -the Gordanians are effectively ruled by the Citadel Emperor and they've flourished- but… No. I'll be.. around, I have my own interests to serve… But as I said-."

"If we do not want it for ourselves, we would not be able to use your rings as well." I nod, and she frowns. "But you claim to be a God of Conquest."

"There are more ways to conquer a place… A people, than with brute force. I will be a shaping force in Tamaranian society, encouraging it to develop in ways beneficial to me. A more subtle application of my domain than perhaps you are used to."

She stares at me for a moment, then shakes her head. "Even if you could destroy every Gordanian ship in the Vega Systems, you would still have-."

"The Branx, the Psions and the Citadel Fleet itself to deal with." I lean forwards. "The Branx have the best organisation and discipline. The Psions are scientists and engineers with few peers and the Citadel has an entrenched position and excellent fortifications. All together they stand between Tamaran and greatness. So I ask you, Princess Komand'r: what do you want?"

"I want them gone. I want their worlds to burn, their people dead or dying. I wish to place my boot upon the neck of the Citadel Emperor and-" The area around her right hand crackles with glowing purple plasma as she balls her hand into a fist. "-burn off his face for what he has done to my people!"

"We can do that." I nod. "We can do that. What else?"

"Tamaran needs to be stronger." She opens her right hand, allowing the energy she'd built up to dissipate. "I will not tolerate us ever being in this situation again."

"And to do that?"

"Industry. Technolo-" A mote of orange light streaks through the air as her ring comes to a halt just in front of her. "-gy."

"I was thinking of taking some of that from the Citadel Complex's smouldering remains." I raise my eyebrows. "Interested?"

13th August
19:27 GMT -6

Recruitment stage two.

I had assumed that my Corps could limp on without a Maltusian, just staying in the Vega region and recharging directly from the Orange Central Power Battery. Guy told me that he never had any problem recharging from the Green Central Power Battery, and I've never had much of a problem with the orange light's addictive qualities. Personal lanterns would be better and we'd need them eventually, but they weren't a priority.

Having actually encountered the Orange Central Power Battery now, I'm forced to conclude that that isn't a viable option. If the blasted thing could entrance me then I'd dread to think of the effect of putting it on an inhabited planet.

…

Maybe that's a bit much. The Okaarans have had it on their planet for the entirety of their history and while I don't consider their present civilisation as something I'd want to emulate they aren't crazy avarice monsters. But I want to put it in -or at least near- a major city, and that will be rather different to Larfleeze's hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere.

So. While Koriand'r oversees the disbursement of the prisoners and Komand'r reviews Tamaran's census records, Ghia'ta and I step through a hush tube and out into a Maltusian street. Airborne vehicles fill the air above us and tall buildings form a respectful circle around the Controllers' centre of operations, and through windows or just walking around I can see individuals from -quick head count- seventeen different species. Armoured caterpillars appear to be the most numerous, but the partial database I took from Jordan marks several of the others as belonging to species whose worlds the Reach has overrun.

"You're confident that this is the right place?" Because wouldn't that be embarrassing.

Ghia'ta nods, taking in our surroundings without much concern. "Yes. The building was constructed before the peoples of Maltus separated. My aunt told me that she used to visit it frequently."

I take another look around. We don't seem to have set off any alarms… "Remind me: what sort of terms are the Zamarons and the Controllers on?"

"We have little to do with one another. I have never met a member of another Maltusian faction." She gives me a nervous smile. "I am looking forward to serving as an Ambassador between our peoples."

"Well spoken, sister."

I look up as a blue skinned man in red, orange and yellow robes descends from the sky. And why his robes aren't flapping around his face due to air resistance I don't know. I suppose that when you're as powerful as Maltusians are supposed to be little things like that are just beneath you. He lands lightly, smiling at us-. No, at Ghia'ta as he does so.

"Or should I say niece? I hadn't realised that our Zamaron sisters were breeding."

"Niece would be more accurate. I am far less powerful than my aunt or her sisters."

"Your aunt?" He tilts his head slightly to the side. "Aga'po?"

"Yes!" Ghia'ta's smile is almost painful in its earnestness. "Do you remember her?"

"I never knew her well, but I do remember her. Tell me, are you-?"

"Sorry to interrupt-" I'm not. "-but I'm here to speak to the Controllers. Are you one?"

He focuses on me, and I can feel something push against my divine resistance. "And an Apokoliptian." And he looks notably less happy about it. "Curious. Is your maleficent overlord turning his attention in our direction?"

"Don't know, don't care. Controllers?"

"You are aware that the Controllers represent only a minority of the Maltusian population? "

"Fine. Do you know anything about orange power rings?"

"Power rings were never my field of study. You should probably talk to Krona, that was always more his sort of thing."

"I'm reasonably sure that the Guardians executed Krona for trying to look at the alpha event and fucking up the universe."

"Oh." He negligently waves his left hand. "Then try Ganthet."

"Ganthet's a Guardian, I'm an Apokoliptian. If I go to Oa with an orange ring and a yellow ring they'll thank me for my time and destroy them both. And possibly me along with them. They certainly wouldn't help me."

"And Hinon can't help so it looks like you're out of luck. Oh well, never mind." He returns his attention to Ghia'ta. "Do you intend to stay long? There are some lovely parklands to the south of here where we've recreated the original-."

"Hinon who?"

"Hinon Hee Hannanan, and I doubt very much that my Controller brothers would let you see her, especially carrying a piece of the Anti-Life Equation."

"Never heard of her, and if you can get it out of me you'll have my thanks."

He shakes his head. "I'm afraid that isn't my field of study. If you would like-?"

"To talk to someone capable of being helpful?" I turn away, striding in the direction of the Controllers' building. "Yes. Have fun, Ghia'ta."

I hear her sigh. "Grayven, you are being you again."

"Yeah, well, this guy just told me he didn't know anything useful and couldn't help. I've got no reason to waste time on him." Hm. There's been some nice landscaping here. The colours of the leaves and flowers are a nice complement to the-.

The Maltusian man zips through the air to take up station just ahead of me, floating backwards to maintain the distance between us. "They won't let you in, especially if you try treating them as rudely as you are me."

"They're useful, you're not, I have a Central Power Battery."

He stops in surprise, barely managing to drift out of my way as I stride past. "You have a what?"

"The Orange Central Power Battery. It's mine, I own it, but it needs a service. Three billion years, one careless owner. I assume that you're incapable?"

"I don't know enough about the Central Power Battery, no. You would need to speak to Hinon directly."

"Excellent." I take the steps up to the front entrance two at a time. "Then I'll know who to ask for. Thank you for your help, you may be on your way."

He flits ahead again-. I'm not going to get rid of him, am I? "I can take you to her, but I doubt that she'll be able to give you what you want."

"If a leading expert can't make a power ring then I'm never coming back here because you're all totally worthless."

"She's been in a coma for… Let us say three billion years."

"What a remarkable coincidence." I reach the front door and give it a push. No, not moving. Hm. YOU WILL NOT DEFY ME!

The doors explode inwards, granting me access to what looks like a fairly generic-looking office lobby. I smile smugly to myself as I stride inside, two… Oh, that's what proper Controllers look like, looking up. They don't appear to be alarmed. Actually, they look somewhat vacant. Bah, I have the name of the one I want.

"You, purple guy on my left. I'm here to speak to Hinon Hee Hannanan. Which way?"

"Our sister is not here for your entertainment, Apokoliptian. And I-." He stops for a moment, the jewel thing on his forehead glimmering. "Or perhaps I am mistaken. Please, follow me."

13th August
19:32 GMT -6

I look at the Controller lying motionless on the bier. Pinkie, bluey and Ghia'ta have all followed me here, though I'm not really sure why. Guess it's a slow day for entertainment around here. The woman's pyjamas consist of blue leggings and a purpley-red top. Hm. She looks clean, so either they're at least giving her basic nursing care or Controllers don't excrete. I'd have said the latter, but then I became a god and I still shit. Why should they get an opt-out when I don't?

"Great, thank you. I'll get out of your hair now." I reach forward with my right hand, which suddenly encounters resistance. I give the invisible barrier a prod, then turn my head halfway back toward my escort. "Something I can do for you?"

"Our sister may deign to assist you if you restore her." It's the pink one. "But I do not intend-."

"You left her here for three billion years. I don't know what you intended but it's clearly not working."

"She was reduced to this state after forging the ring you now wear."

"One of the rings I now wear. And I'm not giving it back. If you want to keep a thing, don't throw it away." My right hand still can't move. "What?"

"What is your intent?"

"Take her to Okaara, which is where the Orange Central Power Battery is." Actually… "Though I'm surprised that you don't know that. I'm a little fuzzy on the timelines, but the Guardians were still using Manhunters when they approved Larfleeze keeping it and I seem to remember you and them going your separate ways only after the Manhunter Revolt."

"Your knowledge is incomplete."

"Thought it might have been. Still, you weren't exactly straining to help her yourselves. Now, are you going to get out of my way or do I need to become impolite, because I'm pretty sure I could break this barrier if I set my mind to it."

"You would not escape us."

"Yeah, I've seen what happens when the Controllers try picking a fight with the guy holding the Orange Central Power Battery. It didn't go your way."

In the corner of my eye I see Ghia'ta's right hand twitch toward her face before she gets it back under control and forces it to her side. "Grayven-."

"Though if you're really that worried about her -three billion years later- you're welcome to accompany me. Either of you or any of your confederates. I'll give you until I count 'four' to decide. One."

"Grayven, that is not the-"

"Two."

"-way."

"I will accompany the savage, brother." I withdraw my hand and turn to face bluey. "If only to take the Orange Central Power Battery when his reach finally exceeds his grasp."

"Fine with me." I raise my eyebrows at the pink one. "You?"

"The Controllers will tolerate this, under our brother's oversight."

"Glad to hear it." I turn back to the bier, reaching out with both hands… Nothing blocks them as I use my right hand to support her head and grab her around the middle with my left. She isn't Guardian-short, but she's shorter than most people and compared to me she's tiny. Now, how to hold her..? I put her head on my right shoulder, clamping her in place with my right forearm and leaving my left free. "Ghia'ta, you coming?"

"I think that I should."

"Rightoh." Sinestro, hush tube.

Do you intend to ask her about yellow rings, Corpsman?

No. Far easier just to ask the man we already know makes them.

Oh? I had rather gotten the impression that you were abjuring Qward.

Until I am ready. Once I have a Lantern Corps I'll be as ready as I'm going to get. I don't dismiss your advice out of hand.

Glad to hear it, Corpsman. Hush tube ready.

The tube-. Huh. It's visible here, pale violet lines wiggling around the periphery. Alright, I think that the Maltusians are ancient and learned enough that I don't feel cheated by that. Mindful of Hinon's relaxed body posture I stride through the tube and out into the chamber in which I killed Larfleeze.

"Excuse the mess. I haven't had time to clean the place up yet." Hm. I wonder if Tamaran has a central bank yet? I'm going to guess not, but-.

I stop in the air half way towards the outcrop of rock upon which the Central Power Battery rests. They don't have a central bank. I'm…

I'm going to use my university degree for something. I've actually.. studied this. I.. never thought I'd use it for anything.

My goodness me.

I got a two two and I get to actually use it on an entire planet. My sister got a first in forensics and I doubt that she'll ever murder anyone.

There's no justice.

"Grayven?" Ghia'ta is alongside me, looking at me with concern.

I shake my head. "Sorry, got distracted. Right!" I fly the rest of the way quickly, rising over the top of the rock and turning to face the pair of them. The Central Power Battery is as I left it, orange flames flickering all around it. I try to avoid looking inside the interior as I gently lay Hinon down next to it. Hm. It would be easier if the presence of the thing made her spontaneously awaken, but…

I look at the blue one. "I don't suppose you know anything about what happened to her, do you?"

"I believe that my brother might have been minded to tell you, had you been less obstinate."

Ghia'ta raises her right hand slightly. "I can go and ask him-."

"No, it's fine, I can probably work this out myself. Making rings requires orange light, so…" Show me.

By your command.

Huh. It's… Different to the souls of New Gods, but there's clearly quite a lot going on there. Or-. No, when I altered John Stewart 50 I had Father Box helping me. Now I'm just seeing what the ring can show me. Which is very little. I'm not sure if that's just because she's in a coma… No, I've used this on sleeping people before and below the surface they look more or less the same as when they're awake. Never used it on someone in a coma before, and I know that when long term coma patients wake up they tend to have various kinds of brain damage. Would that apply to a Maltusian?

Okay… So… Trickle in small amounts of orange light and hope that the bits I can't see are still there for it to connect to? Uh, no, first, Sinestro?

…

No response. I raise my right hand slightly and tap the ring. It shines weakly, then fades. Have to do, I suppose. Parallax Vision. Yellow lights appear before my eyes, showing me the structures of her fears. Weak, I'm not surprised that they've faded after three billion years, but still there.

"Ghia'ta, can you use the violet light to see love?"

"Yes."

"Would you mind taking a look at Ms Hannanan? I want to make sure that she still has emotional light within her."

She nods, her eyes glowing for a moment. She nods again, smiling. "Her loves are faded, but love still touches her."

"Good show." I slide my yellow ring off my finger and put it in one of my armour's pouches. I don't want to destroy it by accident after all. I then place my right hand on Hinon's chest and my left on the Orange Central Power Battery.

Guh. Keep it under control, Grayven.

"This is my power, this is my might!
I stand alone in darkest night!
With this ring, my foes I smite!
I conquer all with orange light!"

Orange light screams through me, showing me images of avarice and desire from a hundred billion civilisations, each crying out for me to want them need get take them! Oh, no, that's me screaming. I see the orange light pooling inside Hinon, forming shapes-.

I yank my hands back to my chest. That'll do, then.

…

I should have tried that with my personal lantern first, shouldn't I?

…

Whaw, Sinestro must be feeling really bad if he didn't pick up on that feed line.

"Eeuuagh." Hinon stirs, her eyes flickering for a moment before they open fully. Then she sees me.

Her face remains neutral as she considers me for a moment.

"Oh. Splendid."

13th August
19:37 GMT -6

"If it helps, I'm not exactly thrilled at the prospect either."

"Hmpf." She pulls herself into a sitting position, then looks around the chamber. "You've been busy."

"No, that all belonged to the last guy. The one the Guardians let keep the Orange Central Power Battery. I killed him. My name is Grayven and I'm from-."

"Apokolips. And you're wearing my ring." She frowns. "I distinctly remember throwing that into the Bleed, you know. However did you come by it?"

"I'm glad to see that you didn't lose any of your mental faculties during your three billion year nap." I hold out the middle three fingers of my right hand. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Young man, if you want something from me-."

"I just woke you up. You guttered your own link to the orange light and I restored it. From where I stand, I'd say that you owe me already."

"Were it not for the ring which you wear on your finger, I might be inclined to agree with you."

"You just told me that you threw it away. Did you misspeak? Did you in fact throw it away with the intent that it would reach me?"

"I was certain that it would reach someone. It wasn't meant to go to Apokolips."

"In that case, you are to be congratulated. It somehow ended up between Earth Prime and Earth Sixteen and may have played a role in my being returned to my home parallel."

"Prime? What do you mean by that?"

"It's a fascinating place whose structures absolutely don't support magic. Going there the first time utterly destroyed my soul and turned me into a Human."

She frowns. "That shouldn't have been possible."

"As I said: congratulations."

"Hm." She awkwardly pushes herself up, pausing for a moment as she notices the hand I'm holding out to her. She doesn't take it, rising to her feet and theatrically brushing the dirt from her trousers. "So; just what it is that you intend to demand from me while I'm enfeebled from my three billion year slumber?" She looks around again. "And where are we?"

"To answer your second question: we're in the Vega Systems. It's where the Guardians dumped the Psions when they grew tired of them."

Bluey perks up at that. "We were trying to allow them to recover their own culture."

I roll my eyes at him. "Well done. If it wasn't for their stay-at-home habits they'd be the next Dominion by now." I frown. "Ah, the Dominion might not have been a thing when you were last awake. They're a race with a ruling caste of evil scientists."

Hinon nods. "Ah, they've settled down then. I suppose that's progress. And what do you want?"

"Some sort of protective case for my Central Power Battery. It nearly entranced me and I'm a little nervous about letting anyone else anywhere near it."

"Present company excluded, presumably."

"If you couldn't take it you'd be useless to me and I assumed that Ghia'ta's use of the violet light would insulate her somewhat."

"And the hippy?"

Bluey's jaw tightens. "Excuse me, oh sister-."

"You're excused."

"I met him about half an hour ago and I don't really care what happens to him. If the worst comes to the worst I could always turn him into a construct."

"Unless he defeated you, took the Orange Light Fountain and the Entity contained therein for himself and launched an insane campaign of genocide across the universe."

I nod. "Yes, unless that happened. What's a Light Fountain?"

"What that is." She waves her right hand negligently at the Central Power Battery. "The prime connection to the orange light in the material universe. A proper Central Power Battery is the 'protective case', containing the light and making channelling it easier for lesser life forms."

"New God here."

"Yes, and that might explain why you've lasted as well as you have." She glances at the 'Light Fountain' again. "These fancy flames are a sign of leakage and waste, not that Krona had an attack of aesthetic concerns when he made it."

I suspected, but it's nice to have it confirmed. Alan's ring always did the same thing and there's no way that was in good repair. And-. "Wait, Krona? That lunatic the Guardians sentenced to incorporeality for fucking up the universe. He made it?"

"He did what?"

"Broke the universe by trying to look at the alpha event. You'd have to ask the hippy for details."

"The fact that I regard traditional Maltusian factionalism as foolish does not make me a hippy!"

"Oh, that's a shame. But not to worry, I'm sure that I can work with what he's left me."

"And go through and make sure that he hasn't left any sort of control system, because that would really get me down: him turning up and stealing all of my stuff. And some conventional rings and personal lanterns would be nice."

"How many were you thinking?"

I shrug. "I don't know. A few thousand."

She looks decidedly unimpressed. "Really. And what's in it for me?"

"A few thousand Lanterns. Plus you get to sort out a few of the Guardians' missteps in a way that you can hold over their heads forever."

"So these Lanterns will work for me, will they?"

"My Lanterns will work for me, and I may dispatch a proportion to assist my allies. You can recruit your own as well if you want. It's no skin off my nose."

"But you would keep the Central Power Battery."

"Once I destroy the Citadel there will be no significant interstellar power in this region of space. It will be far safer here than on the Reach's doorstep."

"And what does Yuga Khan think of this?"

"Grandfather's been missing in action for nearly as long as you have, and as far as I know father's never been here. And I don't care to serve either of them. Part of why I'm doing this is to gather enough power to ensure my ongoing independence."

"And that Anti-Life fragment in your soul isn't a mark of his favour?"

"He may regard it as such. I do not."

Hinon turns away from me, bending slightly to get a better look at the Light Fountain. "Keeping an entire Lantern Corps going would be quite a big job for me to do on my own."

"Since they're mostly going to be operating locally, all I absolutely need in the short term is the Central Power Battery. I have Larfleeze's ring reserve and can wait on the personal lanterns. Beyond that, the more other Controllers you convince to help, the more Lanterns they get. Failing that, it occurs to me that -properly re-educated- the Psions may have what it takes to aid you."

"A race of deranged scientists?"

I gaze levelly at her, unimpressed. "Sun-Eaters."

"Hmm. Not our finest hour. Still, if they've been a blight on the universe since we abandoned our uplift program… It might be a workable solution."

"Good. You get to work on that, I'll finish preparing the ground." I pat her on the back, and she doesn't move even slightly. Tough old biddy. "I'll check up on you when I've mustered my forces."

15th August
02:17 GMT -6

"It seems that you exaggerated your need for my aid, Mister Grayven."

I hold up both of my personal lanterns, the orange one now blazing as brightly as its yellow counterpart. For so long I've had to ration my recharges to what it could support, its capacitors recharging painfully slowly at times. Eighteen hours to recover a full ring-charge and incapable of storing more than two. Now I have a direct connection to the Orange Light Fountain I'm finally free of that restriction.

"It's hardly practical for an entire Corps to recharge themselves from a single personal lantern, even if it is technically possible."

Though now I think about it… Sinestro, where is your Central Power Battery?

I have no idea, Corpsman. Logically, it would either be somewhere on Qward Fifty or my personal lantern was designed to work without one. Given that I have continued functioning here, I think that the latter is more likely.

Ah, like Kyle Rayner's.

No, Corpsman. Rayner inherited Abin Sur's lantern, which was standard issue. I'm not clear why you would think otherwise.

Whoops. Or is it? No, I can just tell him.

Different parallel universe. Jordan got possessed and destroyed the Green Central Power Battery. The last thing Ganthet did was give an independent lantern to Rayner.

Ah. Clever. No Guardian would tolerate a personal lantern they could not shut down, not unless the situation was utterly dire. But I would not be surprised to learn that they had a plan in place should such a situation arise.

"True, you would need a rota. But it would be manageable."

"Why do you think I've been so abrasive? I assure you, if you were essential I would have been a good deal more deferential. You're my first choice, but you're not absolutely necessary. If you refused, I would try hiring a New God, then a Qwardian, and failing that I would temporarily accept a reduced operating status. But I have to be prepared to issue a point blank refusal if none of those I seek to do business with would offer acceptable terms."

"And all these rings."

And wasn't that a surprise. I distantly remember something about comic-Glomulus pretending to be a power ring, but apparently turning people into power rings is something which sufficiently powerful Orange Lanterns can just do. It certainly makes my 'go it alone' model a good deal more reliable. If I could stomach the act.

Which I probably could.

Ghia'ta steps out of a hush tube to my left, looking at me expectantly. I nod, returning the yellow personal lantern to subspace and following her back through the tube. We appear in a stone corridor near an open air amphitheatre the Tamaranians abandoned after they so conclusively lost their war with the Citadel.

"Any new problems?"

"No, though I do not like how little training they have had. For an operation on such a scale-."

"We should expect fatalities. I know that. They know that. And they volunteered anyway, for a chance to free their people and strike down their enemies." I shake my head. "Orange power rings are exceedingly user-friendly. While I could teach them more sophisticated techniques, the gains we would get compared to the losses involved in leaving the Citadel active mean that it wouldn't be a proportionate exchange. I'll be sending them with drones and they'll have hush tubes, but there comes a point where you have to take events into your own hands. And Tamaran-"

Ghia'ta steps to the side as I shove open the wooden door.

"-has had enough of being controlled."

I stride through the opening, the sound from the stands cutting out almost immediately. No cheers, but I suppose for something like this that wouldn't be appropriate. I take a moment to look around, making eye contact here and there. Then I half-turn and proceed towards the centre of the amphitheatre.

On the day Komand'r was born, for no better reason than spite, the Gordanian 'occupation' force launched an orbital strike on Tamarus, destroying an entire district of the city and nearly everyone in it. The act was fairly efficacious, forever blackening the name of an innocent baby in the eyes of her fellow Tamaranians. But as should have been obvious, she was very far from the only child born that day. Even with Tamaran's population being so much smaller than Earth's, there were tens of thousands of births.

So it really wasn't that hard finding two hundred people born that day who were willing to learn how to use power rings if it meant they got a shot at the people who wrecked their world.

"People of Tamaran! I have a present for you!"

There's a flicker of orange light just to my right, and the newly completed Orange Central Power Battery appears. Along with the woman who created it. Across the seating I see orange rings flicker as they respond to its presence.

"People of Tamaran! Lanterns! Today! Is the last day! On which anyone fears the Citadel! Today! Is the last day ! On which any Tamaranian fears the Psions! Or the Branx, or the Gordanians, or anyone else! Today! Is the first day! Of Tamaran's ascendancy!"

I see their rings glowing at the strength of their desires, and the pulses coming from the Orange Central Power Battery as it responds. I rise off the ground, floating out in front of the Battery with my arms wide. No one shouts, no one even whispers as Komand'r and Koriand'r come up alongside me.

"You know your objectives. You are to strike their fleet mercilessly, killing everyone. Let the suffering of your grandparents and your parents and yourselves be repaid in full this day! Leave nothing! And when you have destroyed your target move on to the next. Do not tarry. The Citadel did not become as powerful as they are by being completely stupid."

They should have a fairly target-rich environment. The Citadel Fleet has been expanding as the Ermanian shipyards complete their next generation of ships, but they are mostly being deployed away from the Citadel in preparation for the beginning of their crusade of conquest. The ships serving as the Citadel's defence force are on high alert, which means that most of the Citadelians who would normally be on the Citadel itself are shipboard and most of the vessels of other races who would normally be stopping off at the Citadel Complex have politely but firmly been shooed away. There will be some -whom we'll be killing- as well as a slave population whom we will be endeavouring to evacuate, but we're mostly looking at a target-rich environment while armed with weapons of untold destructive capacity wielded by people driven to complete mercilessness. I did briefly toy with the idea of keeping the Citadel and using it ourselves, but it's a symbol of such malevolence that I don't think it's worth it.

And it's not as if there aren't other deserving people around here whom we can relieve of their space-based infrastructure. Two hundred and three lanterns can pull better than a fleet of tugs, especially at faster than light speeds.

"Orange Lanterns! Today we fight! Today we kill! Today we achieve victory! Now raise! Your! Rings!"

My left fist punches the air in perfect time with theirs, the princesses at my side copying the gesture.

"This is our power, this is our might!
We stand alone in darkest night!
With these rings, our foes we smite!
We conquer all with orange light!"

A colossal wave of orange power envelops the amphitheatre as two hundred and three rings report their status.

"Charge at one hundred percent capacity."

I grin.

"Jean, open the hush tubes."

15th August
02:23 GMT -6

My right arm is up and pointing at Emperor Damyn as his retinue come to their feet and reach for their weapons, plasma from my forearm-mounted fusion cannon already burning through the air between us to disintegrate his entire torso.

"Goodbye."

I grin as the hush tube behind me shuts down and raise my daiklave. A Citadelian on my left raises a plasma weapon only to be shot in the head by one of my blaster drones, sending him staggering and dropping, his not quite dead body shaking and spasming as his gun clatters to the deck.
Strike them down!
And then I lunge, batting the feasting table aside with my left hand so that it slams into the Citadelian officers on my left and obscures the line of sight of the soldiers on that side of the room. A backhand swing from my daiklave cleaves through the armour of another officer, breaking though into his chest and cutting a bloody slash out of the other side. I get a momentary flash of him vomiting blood as I move on to the next target.
Destroy all rivals!
Another Citadelian, this one with slightly fancier armour. He has enough time to raise his arms into a blocking position, his armour's force field producing a weak translucent shimmer in the air between us. Then my daiklave hits it and it fractures and fades, his forearms tumbling aside as the blade slices through just above the elbows and continues on into and through his neck.
Overrun their defences!
The drones start firing again as the guards recover from their initial shock, blaster bolts punching through helmets, faces and skulls to get at the juicy brains within.
Hack them down!
The third officer has enough sense to throw himself backwards, earning a death from my fusion cannon as I turn my left arm across my body for a moment before pointing it at an officer scrambling to leave the room and firing again. His upper right arm and most of his shoulder evaporate, the force of the blast sending him staggering sideways even as the heat and radiation cook every part his armour doesn't protect.
Hold their redoubt!
I lower my blade and raise my fusion cannon, lending its support to the drones as Citadelians fall all around me. As decapitation strikes go, this isn't going to be anything like as fatal to the Citadel's war effort as it would have been a few weeks ago. Too many smart Citadelians have moved into NCO positions for them to be quite as dependent on clear orders from on high. Still-

The last Citadelian in the room falls to a high powered purple death ray shot to the heart.

-I think this will disrupt higher order coordination quite nicely. Alright. Sinestro, match these armours and cybernetics to our records. Did we get all of the admirals?

No, Corpsman. Only one of these people holds that rank. The rest are most likely the Emperor's closest lackeys.

I nod, taking a few steps in the direction of the Citadel's bridge and kicking a corpse out of the way as I go.

Any of these the new model?

No, Corpsman. At least, I cannot detect any significant difference in their physiology. After a man is dead it is so much harder to find out what he is thinking.

Fair enough.

I stride towards the control centre, drones zipping in ahead of me, light from their weapons fire causing rippling waves of purple and orange to decorate the walls. There are a few screams and roars-. I pause, frowning. No Psions. There's usually one or two around the command section to keep an eye on their leading business partner. Odd. Though… Not an immediate concern.

I stride into the command centre, smiling slightly at the Citadelians dead at their stations. Hrrr. The things I could do with their external defence systems if their fleet was a little further away. Ah well. I raise my left arm, point it at the armour protecting their computer core and fire. The howling blast of hydrogen ions bore through the shielding and metal and incinerate the delicate computer system beyond. Local defence stations can still be operated manually of course, but that will put paid to their higher organisation.

I raise my left hand to my face. "Grayven reporting. The Emperor is dead and the Citadel's bridge is scoured of life."

"Komand'r here. Their teleportation hub won't be teleporting living soldiers this day."

"Nicely done. Move on to your secondary targets."

"Phyrel here. Admiral Zartac is dead by my hand!"

Commander of the Citadel's defence force. There are a few other admirals around, but he had seniority. "Good, but remember what I said about getting pinned down."

"I have not forgotten, and I have not yet had my fill of Citadel blood. Moving to secondary target."

"Koriand'r here. I have… Found something."

I frown. "What, you don't recognise the reactor? Don't worry about it. Just stick a mine on it and retreat. The bigger the explosion, the better."

"No, I recognise the reactor, but… It appears to have only recently been installed and my ring does not recognise the technology of the device it has replaced."

"Forward your scans to Hinon and move to your secondary target. If she can make anything of them we can reconsider."

"Very well."

I want to know and images form in my mind of my Lanterns in action. Four fail to respond; they're either dead or their rings have been destroyed. Power rings provide a massive boost in destructive potential but their users are still essentially rookies. A small squad of on-the-ball Citadelian marines with heavy weapons would be able to shoot them dead through their environmental shields fairly quickly, and the Mountain can't make two hundred hush tubes simultaneously. As to the rest… Vicarious ring telemetry shows me Citadelian ships drifting in space, command crews slain and primary generators going into forced shut down as a result of orange energy pulses.

Good show.

"You. Alien."

I look around. Internal communications?

"Are you addressing me?"

"Yes. You who would attempt to spoil the moment of my greatest triumph."

I take one last look around and then stride out of the command section. I could call for a hush tube, but I'm not under attack and I'd rather leave those for Lanterns who are. "It seems to me that it's very far from that."

"The ships here are barely a quarter of our full strength. Recall orders have already gone out, and you will find the rest of my ships to be far harder targets."

"I was planning on exterminating you people anyway." I shrug. "Saves me having to go looking for them."

Ring, transmit alert.

By your command.

"And who exactly am I talking to?"

"I am a god. An exceedingly vengeful god, upon whose territory you have intruded for the last time."

Really. "I'm from Apokolips. Have you any idea how little that narrows it down?" The voice sounds… Citadelian? Maybe a bit raspy? An old Citadelian? Could be, I suppose.

"Too bad. That's all that you're getting. And when you are dead I will wear your skin as a suit."

I squint theatrically. "Are you hitting on me?"

"Yes, that is precisely what I am doing. Now hold still."

Hold st-?

I dive across the room as the floor where I was standing erupts in a blast of golden light!

15th August
02:26 GMT -6

I roll awkwardly, coming to my feet in a crouch. Sinestro, any idea what that-?

Woophf!

I'm slammed against the ceiling as the floor beneath me explodes upwards, eddies of force running over my entire body and trying to squeeze. The ceiling deforms around me for a moment before the golden light appears to get a better grip on my body, then the deformation stops while the pressure on me intensifies. This actually -agh- hurts somewhat. I've dropped my daiklave-.

In answer to your half-asked question, Corpsman, it bears a more than passing resemblance to certain forms of high level telekinetic assault. Furthermore, my analysis of the patterns of force suggests that-.

Yes, I spotted that.

A ripping force bites into the armour protecting my right calf. It doesn't get very far before diminishing -nice to know that's still working- but I'm sure it will be back. I fortify my environmental shield, the tron lines of my armour glowing bright yellow in response. The pressure is slightly reduced. Okay, how to escape. High powered constant telekinetic attacks aren't something I've spent much time studying as telekines usually use intense one-directional forces or short disintegration bursts. Ah, let's try the gravity thing those VRUs were doing to block my tubes.

If you like, Corpsman. An area about two metres around my body begins to flicker with weak yellow light. Though I am unclear as to why you think- The telekinetic effect stutters. -that would.. work.
I am a god!
I use my ring's flight aura to pull me out of the weakened blast area, landing lightly on the floor and then shutting off the gravity disruptor.

Sinestro, message to the princesses. I'm under attack by a powerful telekine and would appreciate aid. Drones, seek and destroy my attacker.

Message sent, Corpsman. I'm still waiting-.

The telekinetic beam cuts out entirely and I transition to the far side of the feasting chamber before the next one blasts up through the floor in the spot I had been standing. Looks like destroying the central computer didn't completely destroy internal monitoring. Sinestro, get on that, would you?

Narrow yellow beams lash out, boring holes in apparently random points in the walls, ceiling and floors.

Dealt with, Corpsman. Though if the individual in question has telepathic abilities to complement his telekinetic ones they should still be able to launch attacks at your approximate location.

I tap the side of my goggles, checking on the location of my drones. The two that dropped down through the first hole haven't found anything of note as yet -though I can cross a dozen or so Citadelians off the hit list- and the ones moving through the corridors are getting slowed down by soldiers heading towards me.

In answer to your question, the person firing at me clearly didn't know how to improve their attack once they caught me. This implies an amateur, with abilities which are either newly activated or newly engineered. An amateur who was clearly getting feedback but wasn't sure what to do with it.

You used the gravity effect to disrupt their feedback. That's almost clever, Corpsman.

I have my moments.

Now, what's going on outside? New ships have come in, dropping out of FTL almost on top of their compatriots. FTL sensors? No, they'd have to stop to scan. They must have been getting a transmission from Citadel Complex and it's risky even so. Still, I admire the skill that sort of manoeuvring takes. And-.

Three of the new destroyers get into formation around an older cruiser, aim their primary guns and fire-. What?

Lantern deceased.

They're firing on their-. Of course they are, they outnumber us by a factor of ten thousand at least, it makes perfect sense. But to manage a shot like that, they'd-. They're using the other ships' internal sensors to know where to shoot. Automated telemetry sharing? Perhaps, but otherwise that cruiser just gave the Lantern's location knowing that they'd be shot to bits as a result. That's still a net win for the Citadel, but… Whaw.

I raise my left hand to my face as I jog over to where my daiklave fell, bending slightly to grab the grip with my right hand.

Corps wide.

By your command.

"My Corps, the Citadel's reserves have arrived and they are willing to shoot other Citadel ships if they get you as well." There's a.. faint vibrating noise from somewhere. "Remember: you can't kill them if you die first. Use construct armour to protect yourselves. Use your ring's sensors to detect enemy ships moving into position and use short FTL hops to avoid the places they're targeting. If the ship you're on is about to be overwhelmed, use a hush tube. Grayven out."

The noise cuts out for a moment, and then comes back with a vengeance. I can see the loose parts of deck around where the telekinetic blasts came from waving aroundtransition!

I reappear in the corridor a fraction of a second later, scanning my surroundings and shooting out the internal monitor devices even as I start running. I make it to the first T-junction as a cacophonous tearing and smashing noise erupts from the feasting room. Quick scan… Yeah, totally destroyed. The telekine gripped everything and smashed it together in the centre of the room. I'm not.. sure what that would have done to me, but I doubt that it would have felt pleasant. Still, clearly the work of someone not at one with their abilities. Or perhaps they need to charge them up?

There's a flare of light a short distance in front of me and I don't even hesitate to bring my daiklave up. The first Citadelian teleporting in hasn't even fully materialised before my blade slices through his upper torso, my shoulder striking the chest of a second while my scything blade hits anoth-.

Gah!

Gravity disruptor! Cease your vexations!

The yellow corona forms once more and again the telekinetic fields weaken. Movemovemove!

Behind me the corridor crunches down in sections, the sounds of breaking and smashing reverberating through the metal in the surrounding sections. Or possibly those sections relying on this one for their own stability are being broken in turn. Air pressure's staying the same so I don't think that Citadel Complex is seriously holed… Yet. Teleporters. Komand'r wouldn't lie about something like that, and she wouldn't stop smashing or killing until she was certain. With primary teleportation down, the Citadelians should be limited to inter-base station transportation… Unless teleporting in from a ship. So the Citadel Complex isn't jamming any longer… And I can't take advantage of that because I'm not using teleporters.

Someone's being either unusually clever or unusually lucky.

"Koriand'r to Grayven."

A little way ahead of me my drones are just finishing blasting through a bulkhead into… Yes, that's the entertainment district, isn't it?

"Go ahead." Cold gun.

The Citadelian soldiers gathered on the far side of the bulkhead instinctively step back, bracing for my assault. The ones nearest me are in full power armour, protected by armour and force fields and carrying a variety of weapons. The cold gun taking the fusion cannon's position on my left arm tracks from left to right, pale blue light playing over the whole gang of them with the cooling effect turned up to the maximum. Death is instantaneous, power armour insulation not designed to cope with supercooling. The few shots that come back my way are easily absorbed by my armour.

"Hinon believes that the location I uncovered was a containment vessel for an immensely powerful telekine. A Human named Adam Blake took part in Tamaran's attack here during the last war. He was-."

"I know who Adam Blake is." I charge forward, daiklave smashing the Citadelians' front ranks into bloody ice cubes. "Do you have any idea what I've done to piss him off?"

"After so long in captivity, he may not be in his right mind."

Or he could have been reprogrammed. "Understood. Thank you." The rear ranks of Citadelians were somewhat protected from my shots, firing through their dead comrades. The shots hurt slightly, but they're pinpricks. Unless their fleet fires on the Citadel or Blake starts shooting me again, I might well be in the clear.

Then the entertainment district's lights fade as a golden explosion erupts from the centre.

15th August
02:31 GMT -6

Buildings crack, crumble and crumple as the gold light is swiftly consumed by an eye-ache inducing sphere of total blackness. Buildings near the thing are totally consumed, breaking up and being sucked into the void with violent ferocity. Naturally, I have the presence of mind to reinforce my environmental shield as local gravity goes haywire. One g down and about..?

Fifteen, Corpsman. From here at least.

Fifteen towards a telekine who apparently just discovered his ability to teleport with black fucking holes. Detritus -some of it living- flies upwards towards the deranged Captain Comet. No reason for them to wear flight packs inside the Citadel Complex, I suppose. On the other hand, a mere fifteen or so times my own body weight is nothing for my environmental shield and flight aura. In fact, thanks to the rings it isn't even giving me inner ear trouble.

Impressive lack of screaming from the Citadelians. I mean, the ones in full armour I could understand just shutting down external speakers but quite a lot are lightly armoured due to being off duty. I raise my cold gun and train it on the centre of the anomaly…

Sinestro, is it mucking about with space time in a way liable to give me a headache later?

With fifteen gravities? Hardly. A few seconds at most.

Glad to hear it. Any advice? Drones, disperse and fire the moment you have a target.

Shoot true, shoot often, Corpsman.

Ah, fuck it. I swap my cold gun for a singularity beam projector. It's not like I was trying to keep Citadel Complex in one piece anyway. Now, I'm not sure exactly how aware Blake is of his environment when he's doing that -or how much he cares- but I think it would probably be a good idea if I kept moving. There isn't really anything like 'open air' -we are inside a space station after all- but there are open areas between the building clusters. I take off and fly… Normal directions don't really work here… I fly to my right, anticlockwise with Blake as the centre of the clock face.

"Help me! Help me!"

The shouts draw my attention to a building above me, where a Rashashoonian man is desperately trying to maintain his grip on the edge of a building while Blake's singularity does its level best to pull him free. He's seen me and he's doing his best to shout in my direction without risking changing his grip. There isn't anything else for him to hold on to, and certainly nothing between him and Blake if his grip slips.

I can almost hear Mother Box pinging at me without her even needing to be here. Which I suppose was her aim.

Ugh, fine. Sinestro, let me know if Blake starts doing anything else.

As you wish, Corpsman. I turn away from Blake, flying upwards towards the hanging man. Though I would point out that an active battle zone is a poor place for inattention.

I'm not saying that you're wrong. I'm just saying that while it's better to be feared than loved-

I reach the man and grab him around his torso, including him in my environmental shield's flight aura before heading towards what looks like a more intact building.

-you have to avoid being hated. I want the people of Vega to be at least a little afraid of me, but I also want them to regard me as the person they want in charge. And occasionally that's going to mean saving a poor unfortunate-

I check the far side of the door and then hack the lock and throw it open. A handful of… I don't recognise that species, cower on their new 'floor' as I deposit the Rashashoonian man inside and then close the door and return my attention to the Blake Hole.

-like that. Would you have gotten a fraction as far as you did without a history of good conduct?

I don't think you'll have to strain yourself to be better than the Citadel, Corpsman.

No, but-.

Corpsman, something's happen-.

The blackness parts, momentarily giving me a glimpse of a figure in dull, sandy-yellow armour. Then a beam of black-.

Gaaaaghr!

Transition!

I appear downwards and right of my former position, right hand feeling gingerly for the bloody hole in the left side of my torso. Around me I see beams of purple and orange light as the drones open fire, though from where I am now I can't see… That wasn't Blake. It looked like a slightly old Citadelian. One of their veterans, perhaps? Ugh, the wound hurts but at least it wasn't radion this time. I should recover before too long.
Heal.
And I need to keep-

A black lance strikes a drone somewhere to my left.

-out of sight. Sinestro, why are the drones being ineffectual?

An image forms in my mind. Blaster bolts fly towards the Citadelian, only to be blocked by telekinetically propelled debris. They fire faster and he throws swirling scrap heaps of the stuff around to shield himself.

Alright, fair enough, but purple death rays should pass right through it.

Another image, purple rays lashing out, only to deflect away before they hit him. How..? Gravitational distortion, I can see how the background blurs out of alignment near him. Recalculate firing positions and keep moving.

Alright, time for shoot and scoot. I don't bother moving out of my cover as I aim my left forearm mounted singularity projector directly at him. If this gets blocked by something then the resulting x-ray burst should do something unpleasant to exposed flesh. Plot transition route to… Over there. Fire and move.

I reappear, tensing up as I wait to see-. My former piece of cover is vaporised, the surrounding area being melted by the released radiation. That hole… It's not a beam, it just stops where he-. Oh, that is bullshit.

"I know you're here, alien! How do you like the power of a god?!"

I like it fine, I'm just not so keen on you having it too.

Alright Sinestro, why didn't that work?

It appears that his control of local gravity effects is sufficiently precise to prevent gravity-based attacks instinctively, Corpsman. A most difficult opponent.

"Raaaagh!"

Though not one without his own limitations.

I'm about to query him out loud, but the image appears without me asking. One purple death ray gets deflected but another fires at the same point at the same time but at an extreme angle. It looks like it should miss, but the distortion causes it to bend towards the Citadelian instead. He's clearly tough, I'll give him that, but that did hurt him.

Three loud bangs and I risk peeking out to see the wreckage of the drones that made those shots. Okay, light speed shots, and I have to let the drones know what I'm doing so they can line up their shots at the same time. Manageable. Alright. I replace my singularity projector with a cold gun, because you never know when you're going to get lucky-.

Wait, a Citadelian calling himself a god? Is that the First up there? A bit academic, but… Where's he been hiding?

Never mind. I scan. He's facing away, perhaps trying to work out where the other drones are. The debris field is awkward, but if I wait for an opening…

There.

Fire.

15th August
02:34 GMT -6

And don't stick around to check.

I appear inside a torn open public house, swiftly ducking down out of sight. Various sorts of alcoholic drink have escaped from smashed glasses and pooled on the new floor. Fortunately, both patrons and slaves are entirely absent. I wait, listening for a shout of pain or any other sign that I just achieved anything. Nothing. But wouldn't it just be perfect if killing him didn't undo whatever he's done to futz about with gravity.

Sinestro?

Negative impact, Corpsman. Your shot was deflected into one of his debris barriers and it appears that the two purple death rays only managed to hit his armour.

Show me.

In my mind's eye I see the shots… Both hit his torso. Odd. I may be misjudging his size, but… I generate a construct representation of him, showing a normal Citadelian in armour like what he's wearing. Now, the beams hit here and here, and he didn't appear to react… The man must be shrivelled up like a raisin. Alter targeting protocols to incorporate new data.

Unfortunate news, Corpsman. He just used wide area effect attacks to destroy your death ray drones.

Not the blaster-equipped ones?

I think he's rather written those off as non-threats.

Okay, and with the whole station to choose from he's effectively got infinite debris for protection. How is he powering this for so long? A normal telekinetic would have had an aneurysm by now. No, no, not relevant. New plan. I generate a wide barrel coilgun construct and take a plasma converter out of subspace. Ugh. No, the effort involved in modifying it will make it far too slow. I doubt that the First Citadelian will hang around indefinitely. I dismiss the construct and take the converter in my right hand. Transition-throw-activate, then have the blaster drones fire through the resulting gap in his defences? Sounds like a pl-.

The pub is torn apart, converted for a fraction of a second into debris and then plasma before being converted to hard radiation. I'm being pressed and twisted and torn in every direction, my blood seeping through my skin as my divine physiology tries to hold me in one piece as gravity tries to tear me apart. Hold! Hold! Hold me together!

I…

I…

Bgrh. I'm lying in a pile of wreckage, my mouth burning-. Pffagh! Metal, it's molten metal. Ugh, get up!

"Still alive, alien?"

I get my right hand under me, setting off a flare of pain where the telekinetic beam cut through my chest. Not.. fully healed then. I fall, my legs scrabbling at the broken metal beneath me in an attempt to get moving. Sinestro, what did I miss?

Sinestro?

Oh fucking fuck. My yellow ring is still on my finger, but there are tiny cracks all over the surface of the signet. Today has not been my day for keeping the voices in my head in one piece.

"I'm not sure I'd call that living. Though I do find it fitting that your last moments should be spent grovelling in the dirt."

I get my right hand under me and manage to push myself up, craning my neck to try and spot the First. The lights have come up a bit and.. I.. think gravity is nearly normal again. Otherwise I would have fallen towards him when I blacked out. Okay, lasers, need lasers. Send out filaments, point at him from different… Different directions…

The weak and pale filaments form and then fade.

Oh… Come on. Give… Agh. Give me lasers!

Thick bands of orange light shoot left, right and up as orange surges through the tron lines of my armour. Which is surprisingly intact considering what just happened. I make momentary eye contact with the First as the lasers fire, the first lashing out at his face to be turned aside by his distortion field. Then the second fires, the beam bent back towards his face and-.

And being bent away by the second layer of his defence.

Fuck, not viable. trans-.

"I think not, alien." Arrrgh! I'm enveloped in a gold-white aura and yanked into the air, my arms pulled out to my sides. "I thought that I recognised constructs. Did the Guardians see my forces and decide that the old pacts no longer mattered!? Do they fear me so much that they sent you to spoil the day of my greatest triumph!?"

Transitigahh! The gold glow around my right hand just… Ah. It's flopping. Did he just.. break every bone?

"Stay with me now, alien."

I shudder, shaking my head as he comes closer. We're about forty metres apart now. Ah. Okay, if I try and use the orange ring he'll see the glow and do something to break my concentration. Or just kill me. Daiklave's gone… Somewhere. Remaining drones can't pierce his debris fields. I've still got the Sword of the Fallen, but… No way I can actually stab him with it.

Why hasn't he killed me yet?

Ring, message to everyone. Help requested.

By your command.

"I imagine that you're wondering why I haven't killed you yet.."

"'Oo wah'ed-" Ow, my mouth is not in a good state. "Can't… Wear my.. skin if you've torn it up."

"When I heard that an unknown alien had claimed the bounty on the Beast, I could not help but wonder: what sort of being could achieve such a thing? Who could kill such a legendary terror?" He comes a little closer, I'd say twenty metres at most. Throwing range, if I could move my arms and he didn't have a spatial distortion protecting him. "Do you know who I am?"

"I think… You are the First Citadelian, clone-father of all he surveys." There's something… I spit, a wad of bloody phlegm falling from my mouth. "I thought you were dead."

He smiles, then the golden light around my left ring fingergah! My finger and the ring it bore part company with my hand.

"I lived on, my body sustained by the mechanisms of Citadel Complex and my mind enhanced by its computers, linked to the implants of every Citadelian. But no longer! My youngest sons have no need for me to oversee their every thought! So I can fight myself. I've-" He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment "-so missed-."

The glow cuts out. Gravity takes us both immediately, and I just about manage to bring my arms up to shield my face before slamming into one of the more intact precinct walls. I bounce off a little, fall further and agh, and catch my left hand at an awkward angle and start tumbling down the sloping side. As I go head over heels I catch a glimpse of the First. I think he's trying to activate his armour's flight systems but there was so much debris over his head that he can't get it to fire up before getting hit again and wouldn't have anywhere to fly to if it did. Couldn't happen to a nicer dwoughah!

Some sort of.. decorative spine has arrested my progress, catching me across the stomach. Agh. I grab hold of it with both hands, ignoring the pain. I've got no idea why that happened, and I need-. There he is. The First crashes arse-first into the ground level, getting his arms up just fast enough to keep the rubble out of his face.

Ow.

I pull-. I pull harder, the glutinous metal that was sealing the Sword to my chest mostly coming free. A few deep breaths and I push myself off the spine, twisting as I slide and managing to get my feet pointing forwards as I fall over the lip of the roof. I land on my feet, stumble and fall onto my face. Up. I rise, getting a firm grip on the Sword with my left hand just as the debris pile starts to shift.

I've got a second legend to kill today.

15th August
I've rather lost track

"Yaaeyh."

There's a small rubbleslide as the First manages to get his left forearm free, his head still largely obscured by fallen material. I've got no idea how heavy that material is or how much power assistance his-.

I stumble, my right foot sliding unexpectedly back and causing me to fall to my knees. I throw my left hand forward to arrest my fall and have a moment of panic as the blade of the Sword of the Fallen comes close to nicking my right hand. I don't know exactly what that would do to me -having only used it to inflict lethal wounds- but I'm not eager to find out. If the First is only as strong and as tough as a normal Citadelian then even now I should just be able to beat him to death… But most Citadelians don't have epic level telekinesis.

Through the cracks in my armour my blood is seeping out almost constantly. On Earth, small wounds -even lots of them- would have healed by now, but there just isn't enough magic on the Citadel for the mana infuser to work with. I'm not dead so I'm clearly getting some kind of bonus for being a god, but it's far below what I'm used to. And all of the purple ray drones were destroyed. Ugh. No, it should be fine: the princesses have a couple each. I'll kill the First, find the ring and…

I don't even know how the battle outside is going.

I rock back gingerly onto my haunches, hold my ruined right hand parallel to the ground in case I fall again and get a firm grip on the Sword with my left hand. And up. Slightly.. unsteady. Think I've answered the question of whether or not gods can get concussion.

"Raaaaagh!"

I focus my eyes on the First again as the rubble pile shifts in response to his efforts to free himself. A moment later he spots me, his face screwing up as he glowers-.

Blouegh! Owowow! And down again! A red.. beam of some kind blasted out of the rubble and hit me in the chest! Feels… Another couple of deep breaths and I carefully put the Sword down on the ground and try touching near the point of impact with my right hand. Feels… Sticky. Burns, then? It doesn't hurt all that much more than it did a moment ago but I've got so much pain coming from everywhere that I'm not sure that I'd notice. Okay, elbows firmly situated..? Yes. And sit up. And wait for the dizziness to pass.

"Still alive, alien!?"

"If you.. call this.. living."

Left fist on the ground for stability, carefully minding the Sword. The First is still more or less buried, though his left arm now has a great enough range of motion to try lifting pieces of debris off his right side. Perhaps the power assistance on that side has been damaged more?

"Oh, don't worry. You won't have to wait for long."

"Maybe if you hadn't-" I draw my legs in and lean forwards, semi-falling into a crawling position. "-killed so many of your own people with that black hole thing-" Right foot down again, left foot… Wait for the dizziness and up. "-there would be people around to help you."

"Maybe if you had followers, you wouldn't be on your own. Agh!" He tries flinging a sheet of metal at me but doesn't have the strength or the range of motion. It clangs to the ground about three metres away, bounces once and then lies still.

And I'm upright and from the mess I'm leaving on the floor I really hope that was a holdout shot and not a proper onboard weapon system. The pain is receding from my extremities and I'm starting to feel… Cold. And that's not good. Alright. One foot carefully in front of the other. Keep your weight centred. Good. Good.

"Meah!" There's some sort of red pulse from the First, and the pile of rubble surrounding him expands for a moment and then falls in on itself. "RAgh!" With an almighty shove he pushes aside the material on the near side and manages a few clumsy steps into a nearby wall. His face looks whole and undamaged, though I don't think that his eyes are focusing quite right. On the other hand I'm bleeding heavily.

"If you… Surrender, I'll ensure that you get a fair trial."

"Surrender to me…" I can't tell whether he's breathing heavily or not, but his armour appears to have momentarily locked up. "And once I've finished pissing on your corpse I won't shit on it as well."

There's a jerk from him, and with a flicker of the three red lights at his waist he regains motive control and pulls away from the wall. He's breathing through his mouth, though with his armour forming a rigid frame I've got no idea if he's feeling as tired as I am or not.

"I fear that I must decline your generous offer." I raise my right arm into a guard position -I can't use the hand but the forearm armour is fine- and keep my left slightly lower. With a little luck he'll just assume that the Sword is a regular blade.

"Die!" The central red circle on his armour flickers brilliantly, then dies with a small puff of smoke. "Vapour-brained eunuch-faced Psions!"

"They gave you black hole teleportation." I take a step forwards, feeling slightly more confident-. And I wait for the world to stop spinning. "They didn't do too badly."

There's a clank from his armour, and he checks the range of motion in his arms and upper body. The lower torso appears to have locked but the rest appears to be in full working order. Okay. I lean forward slightly, because my mind is working rather better than my body at the moment and I really think that receiving a charge will be easier than making one myself. He takes a couple of breaths, his eyes fixed on mine.

Then he triggers his oh shit his flight system and flies at me!

He slams into me at speed, knocking me off my feet and slamming us both to the ground! "Raagh!" His face is centimetres from mine and I try to headbutt him but his flight system is still on and the power of it has him knocking me aside to his left and flying a couple of steps past me. I stagger back, slamming painfully into a wall and slumping against it for support. Ow. He staggers and shuts the system down, then reaches down to his right leg and lifts it around so that he faces me again. I raise my left arm as he surges forward once more, trying to cut him with the Sword. He blocks my arm and I lose my grip on the Sword, then ugh, he slams into me again, raising his left arm to try and reach for my face!

I raise my right arm, but without the ability to grip I can't do much more than shove my forearm at his face. Deprived of the ability to see me he grasps blindly, presumably trying to reach my eyes. Closer… Closer… I crane my neck forwards as far as I can and bite, crunching down on the middle finger of his three-fingered hand! I exert myself, the metal deforming and breaking between my teeth.

"Uuuuuuuuugh!"

I whip my head to the right, bone cracking as the last phalange snaps off in my mouth.

"Agh!" He pulls his right arm back for a moment, then his damaged hand comes across and grabs my-

"AAAAAGH!"

-broken hand! He grins, then pulls back his right fist-.

Overestimated how distracted I was by the pain. My left hand darts forward, striking him in the side of the head. Not my best punch, but then neither of us are in the best condition. His head recoils, and as it moves back to a central position his eyes briefly glaze. I take a moment to aim, then I punch him again, causing his head to jerk back and his grip on my right hand to weaken. I tug -aagh- it free, then reach for his head. Grabbing the top of it I pull him right, pulling him off balance and ramming him face-first into the wall besides me.

And then I lose my grip on his head.

"Uuuugh…"

His eyes roll back, and he slumps as far against the wall as his armour will allow him.

Great. I'm technically mobile, but I'm about ready to collapse myself. No communications equipment… I could try calling the ring but I've never been much good at that. I suppose there's the analogue option.

"Hello! Anyone around?!"

Bit of a risk, but if there were squads of regular Citadelians around then they would have already intervened. Hopefull-.

"Grayven!?" I look up and see the orange glowing form of Koriand'r flying through the skies of the former entertainment district.

"Down here!"

She stops in the air and orientates on my position before flying straight at me, green plasma balling around her hands. "Shall I kill that one for you?"

Should she?

"No. Make him safe, but leave him alive. And find the orange ring I was using." I weakly push myself away from the wall. "And what have you been up to?"

"I found Adam Blake. He was attached to a Psion machine. Controller Hinon was able to explain how to disconnect him."

Ooh marvellous. "Let me guess: it was designed to remote control his abilities."

"It.. may have been."

"We'll need to send Blake himself to a specialist hospital. But first: the ring."

15th August
14:32 GMT

I stand well back from the edge of the balcony, construct cast pinning the parts of my right hand while a purple healing ray drone does its best to speed my recovery.

"You appear to be down a ring, Mister Grayven."

I look around as Hinon approaches. "Do you know anything about the repair of yellow power rings?"

"Certainly. But you would still be much better off taking it back to the original vendor. While I could certainly repair it there might be side effects as a result of me not knowing its original settings. It would be functional, but perhaps not quite in the way you have become accustomed to."

I nod. Though the basic functions would still be useful… I'm not prepared to dispense with Sinestro permanently just yet. "Alright. But Qward can wait."

She takes a few steps closer, craning her neck slightly to look out onto the plaza outside. A handful of Orange Lanterns floating in the area in front of the palace have attracted plenty of attention, but the real attraction won't be here for a minute or two. "A fairly good crowd. Is there a reason why you're not parading in triumph around the city? You did achieve your objective."

I raise my left hand slightly. "I also got myself rather badly injured. I think that I'll have an easier time going forward if Tamaranians generally see me as unbeatable."

She nods, her eyes passing over me briefly before returning to the crowd. "What did the Citadel have that could wound you so? An anti-capital ship weapon would have inflicted damage in a wider distribution."

"One man stealing the epic-strength telekinesis of another, and augmenting it with technology. That was not a fun fight."

She nods. "Dead?"

"Captured alive, his armour stripped-" Which is stored safely for later examination. "-and his power source sent to hospital." STAR Labs Metropolis actually, doctors specialising in telepathic Humans being nonexistent.

"Generous of you."

I hear the faintest hum in the air, and look up. A little speck… Yes, here they come. While we destroyed most of the Citadel's ships, I decided that taking the Emperor's personal landing craft from the drifting wreck of the Citadel's flagship was worthwhile. Nothing quite says 'we took what we wanted from a defeated foe' like acquiring the boss's ride.

"No. Not really."

The people on the plaza have spotted the dropship. I don't think that they recognise it for precisely what it is but in the recent past spacecraft coming towards Tamaran has meant a slave raid. A wave of unrest moves through the crowd, abated only slightly by the presence of my Lanterns. And that sort of thing is exactly what this is all about.

"A ship? How quaint. Did you want some memento of your conquest, or have you already started hoarding as your predecessor did?"

"Neither. This is about sending a message."

The dropship comes down next to the palace entrance, the crowd having been politely shepherded away from that area by the Lanterns. From this angle I can't see exactly what's happening, but I hear the noise of the dropship's main hatch opening.

And I see the battered form of the First as he flies from it and lands on the stone-covered ground face first.

"People of Tamaran! We are victorious!"

Komand'r makes a point of floating out after him, her ring in a pocket on her hip. And given what she's wearing there's precious little room for pockets. Combine her imperious attitude with the crackling plasma corona which surrounds her… I imagine she looks like the second coming of X'Hal. Which is rather the point.

Koriand'r comes out next as the First unsteadily tries to push himself up. Same idea; ring hidden and her Psion-given powers turned up all of the way. "What little is left of the Citadel Complex floats dead in space! Its fleets are utterly destroyed, never to threaten anyone ever again!"

"No!" The First manages to scrabble forwards a little way, before raising his head and spotting the mood of the crowd surrounding him. "No!"

Komand'r floats down and around, stopping just off the ground a little way in front of him. His battered body and burned and dirtied tunic provide an excellent contrast to her flawless figure. No, call it what it is: her divine figure.

Huh. Stage 3. Nice.

"This wretch is the First Citadelian. Son of X'Hal, Bane of Okaara and sire of all his accursed kind. Whenever the Citadel acted it was by his will. Blame for every act of cruelty and barbarity they have committed may rightfully be laid at his feet."

Koriand'r drifts forwards as well, Sword-.

"What is that sword?!"

"The Sword of the Fallen was created by a Demon with the remains of two immensely powerful Demons in order to strike down another immensely powerful demonic thingy called the First of the Fallen. It's my go-to weapon to use against entities who might prove immune to mundane attacks."

"Does it work?"

"So far it's been used to kill two Lords of Chaos, and since neither has returned to remonstrate with me I'd say yes."

"So, you gave the First a stay of execution rather than a reprieve?"

I smile. "We wanted Tamaran to see him die. On his knees. Weak."

"And helpless?"

"Best time for it." She raises her eyebrows. "If he'd surrendered then I'd have considered leaving him alive. But the societal benefits here are-"

There's a cheer from the crowd as Koriand'r slices through the First's neck and Komand'r holds his still-bleeding head aloft.

"-rather overwhelming."

"They get to see the most powerful being in the region killed by two of the potential heirs to their throne. Two heirs who pointedly aren't wearing their alien power rings and whose alien ally is keeping himself out of the picture. And who happen to be the spitting image of a local goddess."

"Just so."

She squints at me. "What is it that you're god of again?"

"Conquest." I shrug. "I could probably have strong armed my way into becoming ruler of Tamaran, but this way-."

"This way you get exactly what you want without seeming to force them into it. That's almost subtle."

And how often does a public decapitation get called that? "Their strength will be mine and mine, theirs. There's no need for conflict or ego clashes when we all want the same thing."

"Which is?"

"Firstly, safety. Secondly, to excel. To grow into the most perfect form of ourselves that we can. I see great potential here."

"And statuesque, naturist locals."

I raise my eyebrows. "I hadn't realised that Maltusians still had those sorts of drives. Though I suppose that the Zamarons demonstrated the possibility. And after three billion years-."

"It's not my drives I was worried about. The orange light can have some rather seriously adverse effects on its users. Still, you.. appear to have yourself under control. I think that I will be able to tolerate working with you." She makes a vague flicking gesture at me with her right hand.

Propriety unlocked.

My ring flickers for a moment, then stills.

"What.. was.. that..?"