Jinx pressed her hand to the concrete sidewalk, closed her eyes, and concentrated on the ebb and flow of nature. Jackson Park seared into her mind in stunning detail, a kaleidoscope of sensations that remained even as her sense of touch, smell, hearing, and sight faded to a dull haze. Each leafy tree, each grassy patch, each crawling insect, each hungry pet, each distracted jogger – their life force opened to her, and with a fraction of effort, she could slip into their senses, their lives, for but a moment.
With that connection to the park solidified, an undercurrent of foreign emotions and experiences rushed through her awareness. Like trying to stop a raging river with simply the palm of her hand, she tried and failed to hold any one connection for long, the rest slipping through her focus as easily as water through her fingers. A snapshot impression of the moment showed the rot at the core of the city and the people it fostered, with very few fragments of hope scattered amidst the anxiety, the anger, the depression, the guilt, the avarice, the obsession….
And this was, frustratingly, only what she could feel from the park itself. Like a dull ache she could not scratch, the rest of Gotham's metropolitan streets were out of reach. It was not an impossibility – she could brute force some with serious, straining effort – but it had always been easier the closer a place was to natural elements. As easy as it was to feel the life within Jackson Park, it did not hold a candle to the swift and vibrant synchronicity she felt atop the Himalayas, within the Sahara, or among the Amazon.
"It will become easier with time."
Jinx let the connection fade, her normal senses returning in time to see the familiar figure, his words echoing in her mind.
"You look awful today."
The man chuckled. "Long gone are the days of vanity, my friend. Lately, I'm merely grateful for the shape I'm in."
If the shape was, "could drop dead any second," she didn't think she'd ever be grateful for that.
She frowned and stood up, ignoring any strange looks she might have gotten with the flash of her gray skin. "What do you need, Kent?"
"I have no need for anything. I am this close to the promised land, little Jinx, where all my worries will fade away."
Hm. She tried and failed to hold back her scoff. With everything she had seen, all the lives lost in her life, she doubted there was anything afterward. At least, nothing resembling consciousness. When someone died, their life force merely returned to the environment to be used again.
It was painfully close to the kind of beliefs the folks back home held, but she could see the truth.
Jinx wasn't going to tell him, but the twinkle in the man's eyes told her that she didn't need to say anything at all.
"It's rude to read emotions like that."
"You must be very rude then, considering what you were trying to pull a few minutes ago," he said cheekily. "All those park-goers and their little secrets were nearly yours."
Jinx decided that she didn't want to indulge the man today. Today was supposed to be her time, away from responsibilities, away from supervision.
Instead of sticking around to listen to the impending lecture, she adjusted the pendant around her neck that kept her skin tone appearing normal and found the nearest hotdog stand. Said stand was a five minute jog away, one she could have made quicker, but he would undoubtedly have stopped her.
She was halfway through the meal – purchased with honest money, nature be damned – when Kent sat down on the bench beside her. Frustratingly, she hadn't even heard him coming, and she could feel no magic around him to make it happen.
"Now, Jinx, you'll get the hang of it. You young magic talents always try so hard to rush, to focus on the big picture and to ignore the little things about the Art. It's the little things that will keep you from getting ahead of yourself, and sometimes, all you need is to tweak something small to get what you want."
She rolled her eyes. "Maybe that's how it was for you, but I've been making Art since I was a toddler. Turned a stuffed giraffe into a real one once and didn't even get to play with it before my dad killed it, thinking it had escaped some exhibit."
She paused, considering. "You know, it says a lot about him that he went straight for a gun."
The man did not respond, and she almost took the invitation to give more examples to her point. Instead, she merely finished her meal and stood to leave.
"Magic responds to need, Jinx." He smiled. "Perhaps the little thing you needed was a friend."
Of course, he had an answer ready.
"You don't get to do that."
Kent hesitated, looking up at her with twinkling eyes. "Jinx, you've always denied yourself what you need, by going after what you want. That impulsivity is dangerous in this profession-"
"Profession?" Jinx rolled her eyes. "Being magical isn't a job for me. It isn't some m-mask I wear."
Her voice betrayed her.
"It is unique for you, yes." His voice softened. "I can't take away your pain from that, Jinx, but you must learn to not let it define you."
She had heard this all before.
Some part of her appreciated hearing it, but it was a small part that she refused to unpack then and there.
"I'm not impulsive," she argued finally. "If I were impulsive, I'd have tried to force a connection to the rest of Gotham and wound up with a killer migraine."
"Building your skill with urban magic, to me, feels as though you are trying to force yourself to become left-handed."
"I am lefthanded."
He chuckled. "Not even you are that obtuse."
She saw his point. "Yeah, well, all the big events happen in cities. If I can get urban, I'll have more to use in the event of a crisis."
And she meant that.
The only expression of her magic she possessed at full strength at all times was the bundle of chaos that she could twist into fortune or misfortune. By its very source, it was difficult to twist into her advantage, and she hardly knew at times where someone's luck would take them when ebbed in one direction or another. More often than not, she jinxed them into whatever would be the worst outcome.
In contrast, her more elemental affinities worked best in environments with hardly any civilization at all. A column of fire produced during a cruise across the Caribbean would be monumentally easier and more potent than one created amidst the dingy alleys of Gotham City.
She wanted to make the city sing for her the way nature did.
"Why are you worried about a crisis?" asked Kent. "You are one of many who can respond in the event of an emergency."
Jinx wanted to refuse to elaborate, but knew better. Kent Nelson always rubbed his thumb against the back of his hand when he was serious, a sign she should listen.
"I know there are others, but there are never enough to be everywhere at once." Jinx frowned as she considered her next words, hands gripping the wood of the bench. "Where were you in December 2004?"
The elderly man glanced down at his pocket-watch. "Ah. You…" He frowned. "You blame yourself."
"No!" She interjected. "I'm not gonna hold myself responsible for a damn disaster. But, if I had been there instead of gallivanting through Europe? A lot less folks would be dead."
Untold devastation across India after the "tsunami of the century" destroyed homes, separated families, and ended others. She'd left long before all of that, to pursue petty crimes and heists at the behest of folks who'd abandoned her when the going got tough. Like everyone else.
Cities, towns, villages of people gone in a few hours, left the pick up the pieces. The all day news coverage of that had been staggering to watch, and the curry she'd prepared with stolen money that day had left a particularly bad taste in her mouth.
Those people had never cared for her, and she wasn't going to lie to herself or anyone else to say that she was torn up it had happened. Years later, and things were mostly back to normal.
But she remembered the Justice League putting all hands on deck in its aftermath. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman – and others – were there on the news helping people.
"Were you there, too?"
Kent closed his watch. "I'm afraid not, Jinx."
"Why not?" she challenged. "Were you busy scouring the Nether Realms for mystic artifacts? Fighting back the hordes of Hell? Tangling with eldritch murderers?"
Jinx could go on, repeating stories she'd heard from the man of his many adventures.
"I was on holiday with my niece and her family."
Jinx frowned, more at the loss of her point than the reminder of those she'd lost. "Must be nice."
He smiled faintly. "It was a lovely time of year to visit Cancun. I got to bond with her husband and son, whom I'd only met once before when he was a toddler."
One point stood out to her. "And are they talented like you?"
"Oh, quite, though the jury is out for whether Khalid will embrace his potential one day or choose to remain muggle, a choice his mother made."
She rolled her eyes. "Why are you using that word?"
"It's catching on, Jinx! I have friends at Oxford who think it might be added to the dictionary one day." He chuckled. "Of course, they have no idea what such an action may do to the metaphysical underpinnings of mundanity."
His attention returned to her after a few wistful seconds. "Jinx, I know this focus on responsibility is new. You're grappling with the needs of the many and struggling to adapt. Everyone who takes on this task -"
She glared at him.
"I do not mean the task of magic itself. I know dozens of folks by name who have talent in the Art but do not throw themselves in front of tsunamis." She relinquished the point. "You need not try to rush the development of your abilities. Urban magic or natural magic, good fortune or bad fortune – you are already talented beyond measure for one of your age. I am convinced that you will achieve wonders, in time."
OSMOS V
March 10, 13:27 UTC
TEAM YEAR ZERO
Jula settled into her new office, drones having cleared the debris and detritus of the place a long time ago. Before, she had merely been a high-level executive of Vir Actus. Now, she was the head honcho of the company, and she planned to take things into a new direction. Humanitarian efforts were well underway in most major cities, and she would direct her company to assist in the creation of new products to assist in those efforts.
There was still much to be done, many jobs to fill, and a lot of new roles to be created. Her experience as one of the faces of a movement meant that she had no shortage of applicants vying for her attention. Her Aggrebot bodyguard ensured that those who wished for her negative attention would recieve a metal boot up their asses for the attempts.
Maximus stretched up from the couch, a movement that required effort. He'd sustained injuries during the last of the fighting, and what they'd been able to cure so far was only part of it.
"Jula, come sit with me."
She shook her head. "No, no, Father. I have a mountain of work ahead of me, and not enough assistants to delegate the work load. Unless you'd like to take this stack of logistics reports to file?"
"No thank you. I want nothing more than to sit on this damn couch with my daughter."
"Too bad you don't have another daughter," she replied coolly. "Now, truthfully, I have many things to do."
"You think I don't?" Maximus shook his head. "I'm barely keeping this family together. You'd think after everything that happened, we'd be closer than ever, but now we are just drifting apart again."
Jula thought about his qualm for a long second. "Father, you do not have to be the glue for us. The crisis is over. The military has changed hands, and they are fighting tooth and nail to clean up any residual Reach messes. We can go back to the way things were before."
Jula missed the pre-Invasion days dearly, as dearly as anyone would. People who knew her from before likely believed she had it made now, but that could not be farther from the truth. It was difficult to be so involved with Carnifex and its success and to not have had its traumas affect her.
"So Horatio can take his family as far away as possible, I can go back to drinking my life away in a dive bar, and you can go back to pretending none of us exist?"
Jula couldn't help but be flippant. "Pretty much, yeah. You going to-"
The bell to the office beeped a short warning from her clerk, before the doors slid open to reveal an imposing figure.
Long dark hair, quaint horns, and a thick metallic spear in his grip. Jula was surprised to see the figure of Aggregor.
"May I have a word with your daughter?"
Maximus glanced between the two of us and then slowly nodded, mumbling an offer to help her if she needed anything.
When the two of them were alone, she felt the tension relax from her shoulders, in a way that only he could induce in her.
"How goes the transition?"
She considered the question and nodded. "Well enough for now. Going to be a long road ahead, but it's nothing compared to the work you have in store for yourself."
He stepped closer to lean over her desk, a tall and imposing figure. She felt small in comparison.
"I am glad that things are going well for you." He stepped to the side of the desk and more into her personal space than she expected. "We both have much to be done in the coming months, a burden difficult for either of us to shoulder alone."
… Oh.
"But together, we share in those burdens. We have grown close in these past few months. I met you as a bright mind amid the darkness of shelter, on the first day of the invasion. You've acted, Jula, as a light for me throughout this process, and without your contributions, I would certainly have died."
She listened quietly, feeling a flush come to her cheeks.
"I believe the two of us can unite those still struggling to come to heel, and lead us all to a prosperous age."
He finished quietly.
Jula mulled the facets of her reply in her mind over and over, before she finally settled to speak.
OSMOS V
March 10, 13:27 UTC
TEAM YEAR ZERO
Horatio studied the wreck of his family home. A sinkhole had formed beneath unstable earth, swallowing the edifice on the edge of Sanitas. It was a modest place for modest means – despite what some might say, Cassian and Lucrecia never had to want for anything.
The sun room was gone, the kitchen buried, and the bunker he maintained more out of habit than necessity over the years now lay barren of purpose and function. Memories, both good and bad, flooded his thoughts, and he found it difficult to imagine life would ever be the same again.
He resolved not to cry, not to let himself feel the weight of his grief, not while he was trying to move on to greater pastures. His life returned to the surface from the depths of that mine, and he had little idea what to do with it.
He gripped the badge in his hand, a circular disc outfitted with green, white, and black sigils. A gift from Gabriel and Cassian, one that would never leave his side.
Carnifex needed Horatio. Needed every hand they could to maintain dominance over the loyalists to the former Triarchs. Aggregor's control was tenuous and likely would be for the foreseeable future, and he could help ensure that the man stayed on top.
The city of Sanitas needed workers, builders, city planners, farmers, hunters. Not many of those things were in his wheelhouse, but there was plenty of work to be found here.
The Capital, too, needed assistance on many fronts. Volunteers to help house, clothe, and feed refugees were asked for on every corner. Food logistics alone would need recalibrating so that the communities that existed on the fringes could still gain their survival and rebuild.
"Sir, Horatio?"
He turned to see a small girl peeking out from behind rubble. Dark-skinned and dark-eyed, she held scars from a hard-lived life, unable to be healed by her own Exception. Cassian had helped the girl once, and she had nowhere to go when it all ended.
"Hello again, Marcilia. Be careful where you step."
The girl nodded fervently and stared at each meticulous step before finally joining him.
"Do you miss it?" she asked. "I bet it was a beautiful place."
"It was," he admired wistfully. "I raised my son here and lived with my wife. Our bedroom was right over there, and Cassian's room was on its opposite side. The attic was my favorite place, and we had all kinds of fun things in storage. I'll miss decorations the most."
Marcilia gave a nod. "I had an attic too, once! My mother had us hide there when everything started, and it worked for a little wh…"
Her voice trailed off with a sniffle.
"I know, it's hard. This is probably the hardest thing you'll ever have to do, Marcilia." He leaned down to meet her tearful eyes. "But know this – you are not going to be alone. I'll make sure of it."
She let a small smile escape her sad expression.
LOS ANGELES
March 10, 13:27 UTC
TEAM YEAR ZERO
Kyle put the pencil down and smiled – he couldn't wait to show Terry and Alexandra, this was his best one yet. Mr. Johns was bound to give him full credit for their art project, and he was convinced that he could ship this off to a publisher. Or two or three – he wasn't unaware of his chances.
The Daring Aaron: Hero Extraordinaire was bound to get some attention. Add some coloring, do some line editing, and his time traveling tale about a father from the forty-fifth century protecting his son from interdimensional ninjas would kick ass. He suspected that it would be shipped as a weekly comic strip or a monthly comic book; he'd take the work either way gladly. He'll, he was tempted to ship it off to Jump.
He reached for a blue colored pencil when the doorbell rang, startling his late-night work session. He already knew he wasn't going to get to bed in time now, and the next day would suck… And he still had to study for his history test.
No one else was home. His mom had a late shift, so he ignored the doorbell like a good little student and picked up his textbook instead.
Who really cared about the All-Star Squadron's influence on the Cold War anyway?
The bell rang again.
With a deep sigh and heavy footfalls to perhaps intimidate away any dangerous intruders, he approached his apartment door, nearly tripping over his calico cat. "Listen, if you're an axe murderer, know that I'll kick your ass before you get the chance!"
Kyle took the time to check the peephole – he wasn't stupid – but the figure stepped away from view and began descending the stairs.
He almost ignored it, but the curiosity compelled him to check. "Hey, what do you…"
The figure turned away from facing the landing, but not quickly enough if he wanted to hide his identity from Kyle. Dark hair, blue eyes, handsome and confusingly familiar for the kid.
"Gabriel?"
The man paused on the stairs and turned around slowly, a small smile creeping across his face. "Hey, Kyle. Is your, uh, mom home?"
The kid hadn't seen this man in years. Good memories with the guy rolled through his mind, like that day trip to the comic convention, the sci-fi movie marathon, and that historic Dodgers game. They'd been so close to catching a foul ball!
"Nope, just me. I didn't know you were in town."
"Yeah," Gabriel said as he climbed back to the top of the stairs. "I came back into the area only a few hours ago. Thought I'd stop by."
Kyle raised an eyebrow. "Wow, you and Mom must have really had it bad for each other if she was the first person you wanted to see."
Gabriel turned a bright shade of red and rubbed the back of his neck. "Something like that. Can I come in?"
"Guess so." Kyle held the door for the man. "Just so you know, Mom's seeing someone, but I don't like Harry too much. If you wanna sweep her off her feet, you've got my blessing."
Harry was a tool. The kind of guy who was in a relationship because he liked the idea of it, but didn't like anything else around it. Like dating a woman who had a teenage son.
"I, uh, will take that under advisement," Gabriel said as he stepped into the kitchen. Kyle wished he had known there would be company. Mom would hate that Gabriel was seeing a mess. "Kyle, how are things with you?"
"Oh, they're fine!" he explained simply, pouring a glass of water for the man before realizing he should have offered the man a different drink – coffee, tea, or a glass of wine. Kyle wasn't sure the protocol, but Gabriel took the water in stride. "I'm in high school now, and it sucks, but I know it's important."
Gabriel gave him a funny look, one that the boy couldn't place. Pain? Confusion? Both?
"That's good to hear, buddy." He looked away from Kyle for a moment and then returned to meet his gaze. Before he said anything, he took a long gulp of water.
"Listen, I was hoping your mom would be here for this, but you and I need to have a discussion. I wanted to wait – I should wait, probably, but it's all fresh on my mind, and I just need to do it now before I regret it."
Kyle's brow furrowed. "Oh… uh, okay."
Where was this going?
"My name is Gabriel Vasquez, but I went by a different name when I met your mother. At the time, I was undercover with the CIA on a long-term assignment," he began to explain, and Kyle held the countertop for support. This was not at all what he expected. "Your mother knew me as Aaron Rayner."
…
"What?"
This man was his father?
"I know this is a hard thing to accept, to hear."
Kyle felt an undercurrent of frustration building in his mind. "You… you expect me to – to believe that?"
Gabriel stepped closer, a pleading look in the man's eyes, but Kyle moved back a half-step. "Son, don't-"
"Don't call me that," he interjected without looking the man in the eye. His whole world had shattered, and he needed a minute. "Not – not now. Maybe never."
For a long moment, there was silence. Broken only by the sound of the neighbors fighting a few doors down and the purring of Kyle's cat as she danced between Gabriel's feet.
"Okay, whatever you want. I don't want you to be uncomfortable, Kyle. I merely want to explain."
"Why now?" Kyle challenged. "What changed? You could have called, you could have emailed, used snail mail for all I care. You could have-"
"I couldn't," Gabriel explained, and Kyle nearly raised his voice to shout in anger, but the man held up a hand to pause. "There is much much, more involved in this situation than you could possibly know, and I'm going to break protocol and tell you now. Everything that I say and do for the next few minutes does not leave this room, even to your mother."
Kyle's mind raced at the possibilities of what that could mean. Secret… secret agent missions? My dad? That was- that was cool, but it meant, it meant too much was lost!
"I worked for the CIA for nearly three years, fresh out of college. While working there, another group noticed me, noticed that I had potential for something more, something greater. This group were so secretive that the government didn't know they existed, and they made an interesting recruitment pitch. They called themselves the Plumbers – and no, it has nothing to do with pipes and sewage and drains."
Kyle listened, if only out of respectful curiosity and because this was, thankfully, distracting his brain from the more worrisome revelation from earlier. The whole thing was wild as all hell.
"The reason I couldn't call you, couldn't email you, couldn't reach out is because the Plumbers are an intergalactic organization."
Intergala…galactic?
"My d- you work with… aliens."
Gabriel nodded sincerely and then upturned his hand, revealing the skin of his wrist just beneath his sleeve. A single press of his thumb revealed an undercurrent of green light that pulsated beneath his skin, as though his veins were glowing.
"Wha- you're serious. You're t-telling the truth."
"Yes," Gabriel replied. "The Plumbers recruit from tons of planets in the known universe, and I was one from Earth. When I met your mother, I had recently returned from an assignment on a war-torn planet called Tamaran."
Kyle needed to sit down. "You've been to other planets-"
"Yeah. Pretty cool, huh?"
He started to pace back and forth as he tried to wrap his mind around everything the man was telling him. His mother – "Did she know?"
The man nodded, nervousness on his sleeve as he studied the boy's pacing. "She knows enough. I told her when I last left Earth that I'd be gone on assignment to Frontier Space, which is outside the traditionally patrolled area of my bosses. There's a lot of detail to understand there, but when I said that I got back a few hours ago, I was telling you the truth."
Kyle's dad was a secret agent for an organization of aliens….
And he returned to the planet a few hours ago, not LA…
That was much cooler than a time traveler from the future.
"Why are you risking telling me about this?" Kyle asked finally, torn between showing the man the comic pitch and listening to a wilder story about Aaron Rayner from the man himself. "You said it was a breach of protocol."
The man held his breath for a long moment and then slowly nodded. "I've been gone for years, Kyle. I met a kid there who is in a similar situation to you, with a father keeping secrets about membership to a secret organization. That kid fought like hell to get his father back, to get me back. I owe him my safety, so that I could come to you."
Kyle didn't know how to process that. He didn't know how to process any of it, truth be told.
"I'm glad you're home, but I don't know what to do with all of this."
Gabriel had the decency to shrug. "You and me both. We can take it one step at a time." He paused, considering his next words carefully. "But I know this, Kyle: I don't want to be apart from you any longer. I want to be in your life, I want to be a mentor, I want to be the shoulder you lean on when time gets tough, to make up for lost time."
By the end of the moment, the man had tears in his eyes, and Kyle could feel the emotion was genuine.
Gabriel leaned forward and gripped his son's upper arm. "When I am called for another mission, I want you to join me."
Kyle sputtered with surprise.
OA
March 10, 13:27 UTC
TEAM YEAR ZERO
The Ambassador glared at the emerald glow that surrounded him on all sides. Each wall was likely more than a foot thick, coated in pure willpower, and a transparent yet unbreakable opening revealed the space beyond: a brilliant cityscape so dense and so bright that he had no idea where he was, nor what he was going to do with the information he could readily see from his position.
Were the Guardians of the Universe truly so confident in the inability to escape the science cell that they would give him a nice, almost unfiltered view of their most private sanctum? He could see dozens of Green Lanterns from here, a cavalcade of activity leaving and entering the planet's atmosphere in equal measure. Aliens of all shapes and sizes arrived by ring or entered by ship, many adorned with the circuit-like designs of black and green.
The Ambassador had been in that cell for months. Before that, he was in a similar cell onboard an interstellar ship for even longer. Time had almost ceased to have meaning for him altogether.
But time was on his side.
With each passing day, the former Thanagarian Enforcer was likely closer to hatching an escape plan for him. Getting one Reach Ambassador off of Oa would be an easy task, if you used the right numbers and the right tactics. Perhaps there was an Exception among their dominated Osmosian recruits that could be useful in disabling the technology that held him at bay.
"I needn't dip into the structure of your emotional wells to know you are thinking of escape."
A tiny grey-skinned man floated into view, a large head atop a small body with thick, beady eyes. Faint green light emanated from his skin and his red robes, allowing him to effortlessly hover.
The Ambassador was prepared to meet a Guardian, though he was not prepared to meet one alone, nor this late into his imprisonment.
"I have been afforded no trial."
"You needn't recieve one," the Guardian explained. "A Reach Negotiator has already begun discussions on your behalf."
He couldnt help but smile in response, a tight expression on his insectoid face. "My people work fast."
"In the schema of an immortal's life, this is no more than a blink in the eye, Ambassador. This conversation will not register for me within months, if not days."
The Ambassador blinked. "You think so little of me, Guardian?"
The glowing entity merely nodded. "I think of many things, but the safety of yourself and your empire are near the bottom of the list."
The Ambassador roared. "You'll reconsider that list when your actions bring war to the cosmos. Interfering on Reach property is a direct violation-"
The Guardian laughed, a show of emotion that surprised the Ambassador, faint gill-like markings visible amid the man's cheeks. "Your empire violated intergalactic law in any recognized jurisdiction when you began tampering with the genetic stock of a sentient species. You interferred en masse with the ecosystems of Osmos V's biosphere by introducing invasive species on such a scale, all for a proxy war that you lost."
The Ambassador slammed a fist against the ground. "That is our right! You hold no direct influence over us, Guardians, and your laws mean little."
"The interventions of our Lanterns and our Plumber were perfectly reasonable, given the suspected crimes and the spirit of the original law."
"You care about the spirit of the original law?!" The Ambassador bristled. "Your-"
"Of course I care about the spirit of the law. I am Guardian Krona, the author of the treaty between the Reach and the Green Lantern Corps. My intent was clear. Should you reject that intent, Ambassador, know that the Guardians of the Universe will do everything in our power to end the expansion of your empire and release its tributary colonies from your grip. You will have nothing."