Reassembly II: Creatures of Light and Darkseid (M&M 3e)

[CandyLaser]

Sarah's interest was piqued by the cell phone. Its encryption was trivial for her to crack; what was interesting was that it was a cross-dimensional and cross-temporal communication tool. "I think I've seen things like this elsewhere," she said, mentally reviewing the contents of her future tech vaults. "Cross-time communication is only mildly tricky; I do that with myself regularly. I haven't cracked dimensional communication, though, so I'll hang on to this and see if I can reverse-engineer the technology. I'll see if I can figure out who the contacts are, as well." She spent a few moments examining the phone then and there, looking for any call history or similar bits of identifying information.

Spoiler: Rolls

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Technology check to examine the phone: (1d20+20)[40]

Zach took off while she was caught up with the phone, before she could ask to see the magical stuff. She didn't have Katie's special senses, but when it came to magical know-how she was every bit as talented. So Sarah quickly teleported over to join the others.

[herodofcows]

Spoiler: Madalina to Potence (Brevity, and Bigoted Content)

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Spoiler: IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

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I am writing Madalina as a 12th century peasant with a very particular set of beliefs and bigotries. HER VIEWS DO NOT REFLECT MY OWN. Heck, HER VIEWS DO NOT REFLECT REALITY.

IF YOU THINK HER VIEWS DO REFLECT REALITY, PM ME. I WILL HAPPILY PUT TOGETHER A READING LIST FOR YOU THAT ADDRESSES PRECISELY WHY SHE IS INCORRECT.

Madalina's voice remains patient as she responds to Potence. Kindly, even. Bigotry is not all froth and rage.

Child, I have seen your memories. I see how you are confused. But you do not believe, as I do. You do not have faith in the Lord and his ways as I do. If you had been taught properly, as I was, perhaps you would understand . . . or perhaps not. Perhaps you are as you are. I do not know. But I can see for myself that the war with the Turks does NOT end. Their war against the faithful continues into your day! I see the wars that rage across the deserts. I see the buildings that fall in horrible explosions. I see holy Jerusalem under siege and living in fear of the tread of Islam! The Crusades may go by new names, child, but their holy objective continues even to your era!

But it is more than that, granddaughter: the evil that they do pales in comparison to what harm their heresies do to all that must live by them! By not accepting Jesus as the Son of God who died for our sins, millions of souls will be consigned to the flames of Hell for all eternity! This fate is far worse than mere death: it is unending suffering, and future generations will be thrown into the fire without the teachings of the Holy Church to guide them! I know you do not believe as I do, but you must hear me! There are fates worse than death, and death may be a prelude for much worse!

Perhaps the individuals are mortal in their evil, but the devilish teachings that they follow? These cannot be killed so easily. For as long as there is sin in the world and the Adversary can speak into the hearts of mortal man, these heretical teachings will still thrive. I cannot stop them alone, but perhaps I can ensure that the weak and easily swayed will not be tempted by Lucifer into perdition through the teachings of the Mohammedans.

For all that, I am not unheeding of you: if my spell allows Vlad's damnation to become another limb of Satan, then I must place more safeguards upon it to ensure that he finds no foothold. In this, I would value your help. You know what evils he might do as the spell stands. Work by my side. Help me alter the spell to ensure he does not stray beyond his proscribed task. This is a compromise, yes?

We will speak more of your sister later, I think. There will be time enough for that when our mutual foes are bested.

The Talisman looks at Ronin with questioning eyes for a moment, and then nods.

"You are one of the mutants . . . hmph. I suppose you know about Di'sd, then. Do they yet live? They were a good soldier, and faithful. As for the goals of my kidnappers . . . my own magics are blessed by Sl'gur't who is Kly'bn who is Rao. They are magics of What Is and What Can Be. There is much that can be done with them. Has your witch found traces-"

She pauses as Thunderstruck soars over and attempts to flirt with her. The look on her face speaks volumes.

"Tell this boy that I do not-"

She interrupts herself, speaking in a blank monotone as her face slackens.

"I AM THE TALISMAN I HAVE NO NAME MY NAME WAS TAKEN FROM ME WHEN I BECAME THE TALISMAN"

And then, in a flash, all is as it was. Shock and anger twists on her face as she fully faces Zach. One of her arms extends and forms a long scything blade, which she presses up against Thunderstruck's neck quick as a flash (or, indeed, a Flash).

"How did he do that?" she growls, pressing her shapeshifted arm firmly against the musician's throat, "How can he command me?!?"

Spoiler: Sarah Saturn

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In a trice, you've sorted out the phone's secrets. Recreating it should be no trouble when you get back home!

The phone has limited functionality, but you CAN tell where each contact connects to:

The Butcher is defunct (last reported 266 years ago in this timeline).
The Tinker is 384 years into the future, in the 616 timeline (your native timeline)
The Garbage Man is defunct (last reported 2371 years ago in this timeline).
The Conductor is 463 years into the future, in the 616 timeline.
The Cook is defunct (last reported 528 years into the future in the 616 timeline)
The Package is in this current timeline (timeline 39192)

More specifically, you can tell that the communicator is keyed to the workings of the Doomlocks themselves. This tells you the following:

1. The Talisman is keyed to the Doomlocks in some way.
2. This timeline's Doomlock has been destroyed or incapacitated, as it is now separate from the 616 timeline.
3. You can now track the precise frequency of every Doomlock remaining. Finding them and locking onto them should be a piece of cake now!

[SuperCracker]

Ronin

His eyes flashed with rage as the imposter’s name was mentioned. Frederick inhaled a slow and steady breath through his nose, then pushed the anger down as his lungs pushed the air out. “Di’sd is a kidnapper and a liar. Certainly a good soldier for you.” Ronin was firmly no-selling Zach’s antics, because if he stopped for long enough to think about it, it would just sour him even more. Beauty is skin deep; and this Skrull in particular was wretched beneath the surface.

Something happened with the Talisman, something unnatural. Darkchilde was slain, so what caused the sudden shift?

That question was put on the backburner as she formed a scythe and placed it to Zach’s throat. Before she could finish her sentence, Ronin was behind her, she could feel Starsoul’s impossibly sharp edge pressing against the side of her neck.

“Move the weapon or you die… and this time, I’ll get more creative with stopping your resurrection.”

[Thokk_Smash]

One would think that, with a deadly weapon held by an alien whose race had recently invaded his planet, that Zach would be a tad more outwardly concerned at his current situation. Instead, he looks decidedly nonplussed (the American version, naturally, where they use "z's" correctly), quite nonchalant, in fact. His thoughts, however, are racing a million miles a second.

"Woah, I didn't even give her an order and she answered my question," he thinks. Something he'd grabbed from Arlington must've been the cause, of course. One of the rings, probably--a piece of paper or cards probably won't do the trick, if his cursory remembered knowledge of Dungeons and Dragons isn't failing him. His mind whirs with possibilities: he can take control of the Talisman, make her answer all of their questions and help them beat Kang.

And he summarily chucks that idea into the proverbial wood chipper and cranks it up to "high". The Hulks had been one thing--they'd been out of control rage monsters fighting during a literal war, where magic had flown like rain and stakes were high. To take control of them at that time had been crucial to their victory, and he had not ordered them to do anything they hadn't been doing before. And yeah, that they were faceless green monsters on a battlefield as compared to one woman who had been brought back from the dead already brainwashed certainly differentiates the situations.

But Zach has had his fill of unwanted control through his life. People have dictated what he can do, how much money he makes, what he can buy. Things far out of his control lorded over him like a tyrannical dictator, and he has only just recently gotten out from it. Whatever this Skrull has done, no one deserves to be controlled so thoroughly and literally as whatever Arlington did to her. No one should have their freedom be so completely and utterly denied them as what had happened to her.

He opens his mouth to say "Calm down," but stops himself. If he says something even hinting at an order, apparently she'll be forced to obey it. Choosing his words carefully, he says, ""The parasitic bastard is dead. I took a bunch of magic knickknacks from him for Potence and Saturn to look at--one of them must've been how he was controlling you. I did not mean to continue his control of you, on my mother's life I didn't."

"Potence, Saturn, here's the things Pissbaby had on him," he says. With slow, deliberate motions he reaches into his pockets and takes out the rings and cards, offering them to his teammates without breaking eye contact with the Skrull.

Spoiler

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Persuasion for diplomacy, not flirtation: (1d20+20)[28], not including Attractive bonus 'cause she don't swing that way.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Katie would be honest, the thoughts that her ancestor was sharing...horrified and disgusted her. She honestly felt kinda dirty just having them bouncing around in her own head. How could anyone honestly think...?

Katie took a moment.

She could honestly think that because that was how she was raised, what everyone and everything she had ever known had told her. Such views couldn't be argued rationally. The only way to counteract them was to see for yourself they were wrong.

And that gave Katie an idea.

We're not going to be able to convince each other. What you propose is...a fair compromise, but I have an alternative idea. Come with me. I...assume it's going to take some effort for us to create you a new body. So, like you had been talking about before, you can come back to my time with me, and then we can build you a new body there. As long as you're still here when we destroy the Doomlock, history should auto-correct so the spell still gets cast. You can see things for yourself, see what vampires are and what they do, see what Christians in my time, with hundreds of additional years of learning and studying the Bible, believe. Maybe we can even figure out a way to get you in touch with Vlad, and get his take on the whole thing. And, you would be able to meet Kayla and hang out with us! And that would be fun! And then when you're ready, we can send you back to this time, and if you still want to cast the spell we'll have had plenty of time to figure out how to make it less...bad. Would that be okay?

And...matters outside of her head seemed to be deteriorating. Um...think about it. I have to...I dunno, help with this. Or something.

Katie looked around. Zach and Sarah were there now, and the Talisman had a blade to Zach's neck, and Fred had a blade to the Talisman's neck. Katie blinked. Stop paying attention for like five seconds...

"Okay, see," she chimed in when Zach had finished explaining himself. "Allll just an accident. No harm done. Let's all just calm down now," she said soothingly. Examining Zach's findings could wait until the current crisis was averted.

Spoiler

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Team Check Zach's Persuasion: (1d20+17)[23]. Zach gets +5

[CandyLaser]

Sarah slowly and calmly addressed the Talisman. "I'm not an expert here - OK, I lie, I'm something of an expert. But I'm not intimately familiar with the ritual magic used to create a Talisman. Whatever it is, I'd guess that might have given you certain triggered responses. I'd like to try an experiment: what's your name?" After asking the question, she used her tractor beam to (carefully and slowly) take the objects from Zach. "Oh, and incidentally, I've confirmed that the Doomlock's been dealt with in this period. We're off the clock."

[herodofcows]

The Talisman takes a moment to glare before reforming her hand into a hand and raising it away.

"Very well then. Your apology is accepted. Bring them out, please . . ."

As the objects fly out of Zach's pocket, the Skrull's eyes suddenly burn orange. In a matter of moments, she spits out a train of syllables and makes a single decisive hand gesture. Potence (and possibly Sarah) will recognize the basic thaumaturgic effect as a kind of dispelling-by-proxy. Stylistically, it seems a little bass-ackwards, but as soon as she's done the golden ring has become nothing but molten gold hanging in the air with a few rubies suspended in the metal.

The Talisman grins thinly as she raises her hands once again, as though expecting some manner of assault.

"And that takes care of that quite handily, I think! On to more pressing matters: we have a pair of common foes, and it would seem that we need to practice Earther-Skrull unity if we do not wish for the Thing-That-Corrupts to triumph. What say you, Misfits?"

Within Potence's head, Madalina considers for the merest of moments before replying.

I confess, I do not understand the rules of this time traveling . . . it seems as though it is very confusing! But so long as we may return to the exact second that we depart, I cannot see the harm. So long as Wallachia does not suffer by my departure, I am content. And what fortune it would be to see my great-granddaughter practice her magic! I can see that you have travelled much and seen a great many strange sights! I should greatly like to see them by your side as we go forth!"

Spoiler: Potence: Insight DC 22

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Madalina is sincere . . . to a point. But you can tell that she is suddenly wary of you in a way that had not been the case before. She suspects you might try to double-cross her in some way . . .

[CandyLaser]

Sarah gave the Talisman a glare. "And why did you do that?" she asked. "I was going to examine it." She then took a moment to examine the surviving rings and the cards. "Potence, care to take a look with me?"

Spoiler: Rolls

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I'll take 10 on Technology checks, and roll Expertise: Magic using Polymath to boost it to +20. Roll for silver ring: (1d20+20)[27] Roll for iron ring: (1d20+20)[21] Roll for cards: (1d20+20)[31]

EDIT: Man, what garbage rolls. I was going to suggest that Katie try to make it a team check, but we might be better served by having her just make checks on her own.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Katie nodded, working some basic detection spells before scanning the items, though she still kept the disjunction up on the Talisman for the moment. This...wasn't a long-term solution, but she wasn't going to drop it without the others being aware, ready, and in agreement.

Madalina's sudden wariness made her feel disappointed. In herself. She wasn't sure what she had said that might make her ancestor doubt her motives. Oh, sure, Katie supposed it was technically possible that she could, say, abduct Madalina in her head, spirit her away to her time, and strand her there so she could never complete the Vampire Spell in this universe. But...Katie would never do that. Madalina had a nine-year-old daughter.

So, the way I understand it is, normally what happens when you travel through time and change something is it just creates a kinda alternate universe. But Kang's using these Doomlock things to make the changes stay in our universe's history. But once we destroy a Doomlock, any other changes make the alternate universe and our universe's history kinda 'auto-corrects' to be as close as possible to what actually happened given what was changed. Sarah said this time's Doomlock is down, so we're actually in a whole other universe right now! In our universe...probably the Vampire Spell still got cast. I mean, you were...technically disabled while the Doomlock was active, but you weren't completely gone, you were in my head, so I assume the timeline will self correct so that, like, historical me helped you make a new body and you cast the Vampire Spell. Katie wasn't sure that sounded like something she would do, actually... Or maybe in that timeline we have a big fight and you like take over and then cast the Vampire Spell with my magic. Wow if that happened and someone found out she would be totally one of the worst people ever in her timeline... Or...something. Anyway, I figure we can put some sort of marker or something in this new universe at the time we depart, and then we can use that to make sure you come back to the right place and time. As long as you come back to the very second we left, I don't think a new universe will split off, because nothing will have technically changed. Probably. I'll talk with Sarah about it. She'll know.

So, um. Any thoughts on these things?

She hoped the more thorough explanation would make it clear she wasn't trying to hide anything. Katie...really wanted her great(x) grandmother to trust her.

As she examined the items, she said, "Hey, Sarah? Is there some way to set like a beacon or something so we could eventually come back to this universe at like the moment we leave it so we don't create another universe by coming back? Oh, and, um, would you, I know this is a long- wait, no, sorry, you're Sarah Saturn so this actually probably isn't a long shot. Would you happen to know off the top of your head anything about the lineage of a Madalina of Latveria? She would have lived around now and I know she had a son named Benjamin and a daughter named Sanela."

Spoiler

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Move action to Augment self. Same adjustments to Counterspell so it keeps running at full efficacy, but replacing those five ranks of Enhanced Flight with Enhanced Expertise (Magic) 4 and a dose of Rapid on the Detect and Awareness functions of Feeling Hand.

Routined the Insight check (using Persuasion substitution advantage for Evaluate) for 22.

Routining the checks for ring 1 and ring 3.

I'll also Routine the Expertise (Magic) checks for ring 2 and the cards if Madalina can provide a Team Check bonus (which I assume she can get to +5 trivially). But please let me know whether or not she can so I know which spoilers I can open (unless the rolls pass on their own merits I suppose). Otherwise:

Ring 2: (1d20+20)[22].
Cards: (1d20+20)[28].

Also activating Feeling Hand for Analytical Magic Detection/Awareness goodness.

[Thokk_Smash]

Zach visibly wilts when the expensive-looking gold ring is literally melted before his very eyes. His mom would've loved that! ...Or he could've sold it and made a pretty penny. Y'know, whichever seemed most important when they get back to their timeline.

"Hey, could I get those rubies?" he asks. "Finders keepers, and all."

He then turns back to the Talisman, his face appropriately severe for negotiating with an alien who could reasonably fight them all at once. "I say that if we all work together, then Kang and his remaining crony don't stand a chance. But that means that we all work together, and keep the bickering constructive and not purely spiteful. You said it yourself: we've all got two guys we don't want to lose to."

He pulls out the notepaper again and examines it. "Seems like Kang pulled in a ringer that'll be deadly to one of us," he says, handing the paper to Sarah. "It's only part of the letter, though. I'll go see if there's more on him."

With that, he teleports off in a flash of lightning, reappearing next to Arlington's body. He thoroughly inspects his personage in search of more stuff--maybe he's got more shiny things!

Spoiler

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Routine Persuasion for diplomacy for 30

[SuperCracker]

Ronin

He didn’t move his blade immediately because he didn’t trust the Skrull in the slightest. Nor was he bluffing about being ready to kill her again. So when she suddenly began to cast, he pulled the sword from her neck and began to slash at the spot he’d been touching, like a lumberjack making his first cut. The only reason her head wasn’t removed from her body was that Ronin saw the ring melting and had the reflexes to pull his strike. Starsoul stopped less than an inch from the Talisman’s skin.

He glared at her as she spoke. He also miiight have gone against what Zach was suggesting. “Tch… Martha Connors. Billy Connors. Don’t mistake our truce for unity.”

Ronin finally pulled his sword away and sheathed it, at least an outward sign that he wasn’t going to renew the fight. Ronin walked fifteen feet away from the Talisman, lest he completely blow up the whole temporary alliance.

[CandyLaser]

"Madalina of Latveria? I've heard of her."

Spoiler: Rolls

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Expertise: History, boosted with Polymath and with a +5 circumstance bonus with Eidetic Memory. I'll also use Polymath to grab the Second Chance advantage for a reroll if it fails. (1d20+25)[45] And here's the second chance roll if necessary: (1d20+25)[42]

EDIT: Hooray for natural 20s.

[herodofcows]

Spoiler: Sarah Saturn

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Boy, HAVE you heard of her. Madalina shows up a number of times in books on arcane history. She's mostly referenced through hearsay and in the footnotes of books referencing other books that no longer have extant copies, but as near as you can tell variants of her spells have at various points been at the baseline of adaptation and refinement for subsequent mages.

As for the historical personage herself, she shows up mostly in reference to Vlad and his defense of Wallachia. She apparently assisted him in his initial escape from the Turks after his first capture, and then again at multiple points during his increasingly desperate set of guerrilla campaigns. A couple sources claim that she and Vlad were lovers, but this reeks more of supposition than fact. Her powers are routinely referred to as subtle and terrifying in contradictory cases, but it is clear that she was a staple of Vlad's later campaigns. Nearly every source cites her as the inventor of the spell that turned Vlad into a vampire, and the fact that it has yet to be deciphered or replicated is a testament to her magical genius.

Her fate after Vlad's disappearance is speculative. Some claim she joined him in his curse and became one of the first vampires. Some claim she was killed by the Turks, or banished to another dimension. Some claim she departed back for Latveria, or fell in with Romani.

There's plenty of hearsay suggesting that she is an ancestress of Dr. Doom, but this is debatable. Doom has claimed many illustrious relatives, and historians working along those lines do not always take his testimony with a grain of salt. However, the facts about Doom's mother and some of the other pertinent details suggest that there could be some truth to the rumor . . .

The Talisman rolls her eyes at Sarah's rebuke.

"Use your eyes, engineer. That ring was the instrument of my enslavement. Now it is molten gold and minerals. You're free to it, but no one will enslave me in that manner again. Not you, and CERTAINLY not the brigands that took me in the first place. Would you do any less?"

She turns her attention to Thunderstruck just as he teleports off and then looks towards Potence (having seemingly identified her as the most supportive member of the group).

"I will place my trust in you if you can do the same for me. This one" (here with a gesture towards Ronin) "clearly has no faith in me, for all that he is touched by the Flamebird. So be it, this was always a risk with our plan. But I will assist you if it means victory over the Thing-That-Corrupts. All else is secondary. Do we have an accord?"

[Thokk_Smash]

Zach rolls his eyes with frustration as his search of Arlington's body turns up empty. With a grunt, he lugs the man's body over his shoulder fireman-carry style. Maybe Saturn can do some technological mumbo-jumbo and find out the rest of the note. Plus, probably shouldn't leave his body lying around--who knows what a psycho mage could do with his body, like Kang's done with the Talisman?

He flies back to the group, breathing heavily with the exertion. He's svelte, not wiry, goddammit! He plops the body down a goodly distance away, out of sight of Potence. She seemed the type to...not react well to a body whose head is literally pulped.

He returns to the group and motions to Saturn. "Saturn, I brought back Arlington's body. You oughta take one last look through his stuff, see if you can find anything I missed before getting rid of the body. Don't want anyone using it for magic mumbo-jumbo, eh?"

And then he turns back to the Talisman with a smile decidedly more sardonic than earlier. The Skrulls' whole plan was to forcibly enslave the human race to fight Darkseid, right? And she's complaining about being brainwashed? "That kind of magic does seem repulsive," he says with a voice sweet as honey, with vinegar within. "To have your will so completely dominated so that you can't even think for yourself. To be forced to do another's bidding, regardless of your own wants or desires. Why, it seemed the holder of the ring could give you your own free will except for when they wanted your obedience. How terrifying that would be. I agree, Talisman, it's a good thing such a deviant and abhorrent method has been thrown aside in favor of cooperation."

He does not raise his voice, nor does his voice turn harsh, but the meaning beneath his words cannot be mistaken. She can be sure that he's not talking about the ring, here.

Spoiler

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Move actions as described above

Routine a Deception check for innuendo, auto-pass.

[CandyLaser]

Rather than reveal what she knew of Madalina to everyone, Sarah sent Katie the information over their mental link. ~She's a big deal in the history of magic. Variants of many of her spells have become staples, although the original versions are, I think, mostly lost. Without her Vlad wouldn't become Dracula, and she assisted him against the Turks. She vanished more-or-less the same time he did. Also - and you might not want to hear this - she might be one of Dr. Doom's ancestors. If I had to guess I'd say that there's some relation there.~

To the Talisman, she said, "Here's a question: what do you bring to the table? We can walk between worlds on our own. We can track the Doomlocks on our own. We can take care of Kang's forces on our own. We tried to ally with your lot before, and it did not go well - because your people don't seem to realize that trust isn't always enough. You want our trust? Earn it." As far as she was concerned, that was all she had to say right now, so she turned her attention to the body of the late Arlington.

Spoiler: Actions

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I'll bump up Investigation to +20 with Polymath, then make a routine check.

[Quellian-dyrae]

The Talisman would feel her magic suddenly flood back into her.

It wasn't because Katie had been completely convinced that she was trustworthy. It wasn't even meant as a sign of good faith - although perhaps the Talisman would take it that way. Honestly, Katie had been intending to consider carefully and check with the others before she released her disjunction. It absolutely wasn't because she felt she should make a unilateral decision on that.

No, Katie released her spell for one simple reason.

Her concentration broke.

It wasn't certain. Sarah had said she might be one of Dr. Doom's ancestors. Might. And even if she were, it didn't necessarily mean anything. There were probably twenty-ish generations between her and Madalina. Madalina had two children that she knew of; there would be at least even odds from the start that Madalina was the only ancestor they would have in common. The chance of divergence only grew with every new generation. So even if they shared Madalina as an ancestor, the odds that they were any more closely related were in fact infinitesimally small. She knew all of that. And yet...

Well, let's just say the phrase, "Search your feelings, you know it to be true" comes to mind.

(Some incredibly tactless part of her brain - possibly the part that was supposed to be concentrating on her Disjunction spell, it was hard to say - immediately started coming up with ideas for pulling an inverse-Vader on DOOM. Katie's brain really was her own worst enemy sometimes.)

She knew that it might not even be true. She knew the odds even if it was. She knew all too well the natural impulse of a child to let the imagination run wild when it came to a missing parent.

She also knew that it made a certain terrible sense. She and Kayla had never had any real explanation for where their superhuman intellects had come from. Their prevailing theory had been that they were mutants. It was part of the reason Katie had always felt a certain affinity for the X-Men. Their mother had died of brain cancer, and it wasn't like stuff that would normally cause cancer causing superpowers instead was a new thing. Just ask all the heroes who had gotten their powers from radiation exposure.

But Doom was well established as a superhuman genius, and a man who had a natural affinity for both science and magic. It...fit.

What she didn't know was how to react. On the one hand, she might, might might might, have just learned who her father was, something she had been trying to do for years. On the other hand, if she had...he was a major, Grade A supervillain. A thousand conflicting thoughts and emotions were flying through Katie's head. She couldn't just ignore all the evil things he had done. Family was more important that dry ideals. Maybe with her and Kayla's help he could actually be redeemed. What if he tried to use this connection to turn them to evil? Why had he left? Had he ever loved them? Could he have ever loved them? Couldn't he have at least left a Doombot or something so they weren't completely without a father? What if her father wasn't really Doom but was actually a Doombot? (Shut up brain stop being stupid!) Maybe his leaving was the best thing he could have done for them. What would it have been like growing up as the daughters of Doctor Doom? He could have brought them with him. He could have changed. He could have visited. He could have at least written.

He could have saved Mom.

WHAM!

Katie's brain hit that thought like a solid wall, and for a moment all the thinking stopped.

Doctor Doom did not carry that title because of any particular skill in medicine, but he was a super-scientist and a powerful mage. Yes. There were ways, between science and magic, that he could have cured her mother's cancer. Had he been there, had he even been paying attention and cared enough to visit her once in the hospital, there was no doubt in Katie's mind that he absolutely could have saved her life.

...

Forget the supervillainy. Forget the tyrannical oppression of an entire country. Forget the plots to murder heroes and to conquer the world. Forget the uncounted acts of evil against uncounted numbers of people. Forget even abandoning them, his family, his daughters, shortly after birth.

He could have saved Mom and didn't.

Katie...wasn't sure that even she could forgive him for that.

Katie Alden came out of her fugue, and her heart was just a tiny bit harder than it had been before. Back in New York, Katie had been confronted with the reality that it was possible - not likely, not even occasionally, but just possible - that there were some people in the world who she did not want to save.

And here, now, she was confronted with the possibility that there might be some people in the world who she did not want to forgive.

And so, she had to ask herself...was the Talisman one of those? Fred clearly wasn't enthused about the idea of treating her as an ally. The velvet-covered razor that was Zach's tongue suggested that he might not be too fond of the idea. Sarah's response had been one of practicality, but even then, she appeared to lean slightly away from working with the Talisman. This was not wrong. The Talisman was responsible for a plot to subvert the wills of every person on Earth, to say nothing for the innocent people senselessly killed in the process. And it was evident from her response that she had no desire to work with them to make up for what she had tried to do, or because she believed this was a better way. She was as zealously devoted to defeating Darkseid as ever, regardless of the consequences. She was only consenting to an alliance because her previous options were closed to her now. In all probability, if she discovered an option to defeat Darkseid that sacrificed the wills or the well-being or the lives of the people of Earth, she would take it in a heartbeat.

~Thank you, Sarah,~ she sent back. There was a quiet, grim sincerity in her mental voice that reflected far more than simply a polite expression of gratitude for a piece of information.

She met the Talisman's gaze. Her slip of concentration meant she had her power again, but that mattered little. They had grown stronger since they had battled the Talisman the first time, and she had no allies here. Between the four of them, they could overwhelm her through force of arms. They could neutralize her, strand her in this timeline or find some other option for dealing with her. It was all a question of whether or not she deserved forgiveness.

And Katie's answer?

"Rel'Kor is dead."

...

"During a prisoner exchange, Darkseid was able to influence him, Sil'Kor, and the Keeper of Threes. They attacked us - our team personally, not just the people of Earth. We didn't learn that they were being compelled until it was too late. Rel'Kor was killed in the fighting."

"Darkseid forced the Keeper of Threes to declare an attack. The rest of your alliance invaded our planet and cause tremendous damage before we were able to break Darkseid's control and the Keeper called off the attack. Your people surrendered themselves into terran custody and are awaiting trial for what they did."

"As of right now, there is no alliance between the people of Earth and the peoples of Krypton and Tarnax IV. There is a lot of hatred and mistrust towards your people, and it is not all undeserved. We will not be returning to a planet forming a united front against Darkseid. We will be returning to a planet that has been riddled with mistrust and strife. Where people can no longer feel sure that their loved ones are who they say they are, that their neighbors can't suddenly burn their homes down with fire from their eyes. We will be returning to a planet where the majority if not the totality of your people are in custody and facing Earth justice for their attack, and where, though they won't likely say it, our people are terrified of what will happen if that verdict comes down and the nation's worth of superhumans it is being passed on don't like it. We will, in short, be returning to a planet where even peace between our peoples, let alone a formal alliance, is probably going to be almost impossible."

"And let me be entirely clear - this situation is a direct and foreseeable result of the actions that your people and you personally took to try to subvert the wills of Earth. You brought us to this point, Talisman. In my judgment, you've left our planet cripplingly open to attack by Darkseid, and your own people are now vulnerable and right in his path as well. Make no mistake, our entire civilization and what remains of yours and Krypton's are all in dire jeopardy as a direct result of your actions."

"And I am telling you all of this...because I still believe we can win."

"I still believe that somehow, some way, the people of Earth and Krypton and Tarnax IV can band together against a greater threat. I still believe that we can come to understand each other, that the people of Earth can learn to understand why you did what you did and that you can learn to understand why we couldn't allow it. I still believe that there is hope for peace, and alliance, and even friendship between the people of our world. I still believe that we can work together and defeat Darkseid. And I am willing to try to make it work if you are."

"So, that's the situation. I'm not here to trick or manipulate you. You have your magic back. You can still try to flee and continue working your scheme. You can still try to fight us and enforce your will on power alone. But if, knowing all this, knowing what has happened, knowing how hard it is going to be and how many people are likely going to get in the way of it, you are still willing to work with us? If you can give your word that you're with us to the end, that there will be no more plots or attacks against the people of Earth, that you regret and are willing to make up the harm you've caused to the people you've hurt, that even if it looks like we might fail you will keep trying to make this work the right way?"

"Then yes, we have an accord."

"And while I can't speak for anyone else...you have my forgiveness."

Of course she did.

[SuperCracker]

Ronin

Fred listened to the others talk. Katie did her usual thing... a desire for unity and peace. She told the Talisman that she forgave her. Many times Ronin has lauded Katie's good heart and kind spirit. This was not one of those times. Katie wasn't the one who was wronged by the Talisman. Martha Connors. Billy Connors. The Talisman used the brainwashed (oh the balls on her for condemning mental control) Jay Garrick as a tool to murder and torture.

That was worthy of vengeance even without the plan to subdue planet Earth.

All in all? Katie was right. She didn't speak for everyone else.

Does Ronin forgive the Talisman?

Never.

[herodofcows]

The Talisman opens her mouth as though to say something furious at Thunderstruck, and then closes it, her jaw working overtime as she chews on her own words. She turns with another angry look when Potence speaks up, but the anger appears to dry up and crumble away as the wizard goes on about everything that has happened.

When she finally speaks, her voice is calm. It is so calm that you can cut it with a knife. It is a solid block of calm that might be thrown like a brick at someone's head.

"When we first discovered that the Thing-That-Corrupts was coming to your world, we studied you," she begins, eyes flashing as they sweep over the Misfits, "We wanted to see the allies we would take in the fight against the Thing-That-Corrupts, and how we might prepare in the years to come. I do not know how much experience you have had with other species, but . . . do you know how fractured humans are? Perhaps you have some inkling, but you cannot truly understand until you look from an interplanetary perspective.

"When the Thing-That-Corrupts had Tarnax IV in its grip, truly in its grip, we bombed and destroyed each other with an energy that we thought impossible. When it came for us, we discovered that we were only as strong as our weakest, our most small-minded and brutal and reactionary. The Thing-That-Corrupts used our weakest links to break us entirely. But then we came to your planet and saw weak links everywhere. You humans will fight over ANYTHING. Difference of opinion, difference of faith, difference of upbringing, difference of economic exchange, difference in meaningless genetic adaptations from the X-gene to . . . to MELANIN content, of all things! Your world has, MULTIPLE times, nearly torn itself apart because one ideological group decided that another one was unreachable evil and needed to be purged! The only reason that your species has survived as long as it has is its primitive technology. If you had possessed our technology, Earth would have destroyed itself LONG BEFORE we'd arrived, and without any help from the Thing-That-Corrupts."

"So ask yourself this, Misfit: if a species like that, a species where one will kill another over mutation, over sexual preference, over race, over economic system, over ills LONG past . . . if that species encounters an entire OTHER species, how would they react? Would they all put aside their differences and accept these strangers? Would all of them cease to hate and fear and work for the survival of those they despise? With your world as it has been since the dawn of your species, could you have united your race to a common purpose in five years? In five decades?

"Our way was crude, yes. Our way required pacts with horrific forces, and tainted the souls of all involved. We would have sacrificed an orphan of our people, and very nearly used the methods of the Thing-That-Corrupts upon your people. And, do you know? I liked our odds of success MUCH better with THAT than the odds of your race being able to set aside enmity and hatred for even one. Single. Day. Rao above, I would have sided with J'onzz if I had thought that the entirety of your race could be united and and work in concert for so much as an HOUR. But tell me, wizard . . . do you truly believe that they might? Or is that you believe because you MUST?"

She spins over to Sarah, fixing her with a glare.

"I know of you, Sarah Saturn. I know why you are as you are and what your grandfather did. Are those the actions of one that believes in the best of humanity? Did your grandfather come from a shining future of tolerance and peace? I would not ask this of ANY of the rest of these heroes, but you are not a hero. With the objectives we faced, the resources we possessed, and the time limit we were up against . . . how truly different would YOUR solution have been? Are you truly saying you would be above forcing unity on your people if it would save their lives?"

"And you, mutant chosen of Flamebird," she rounds on Ronin, voice starting to go out, "You, of all of these, should know the worst sides of humanity. Tell me, do you think William Stryker would embrace mutants as comrades in arms for even the briefest of moments? Would the Friends of Humanity? Would the Purifiers lay down their weapons and stand shoulder to shoulder with your X-Men? How long do you think Magneto and Slade Wilson could be on the same side without plotting to betray one another? Because THAT IT WHAT IT WOULD TAKE. Unity of action, of purpose, of thought and belief . . . these are armor against the Thing-That-Corrupts. Before him, we were unshielded, but you, all of you . . . you were naked and defenseless.

"You have EVERY right to despise and mistrust us. EVERY right. Our plan was heartless and dark and it did not work. But if it had? You would have been spared the fate that had befallen our worlds. You would have known peace, if only long enough for us to trap and destroy the Thing-That-Corrupts. After that, we would have happily left you all free to hate and murder yourselves as you pleased. But you would have done so free of the taint of the Thing-That-Corrupts, and my people would have been able to stop him once and for all.

"So, I hope you are right about your people, wizard. I hope, I TRULY hope, that there is an untapped core of goodness and decency within them all and that, faced with the Thing-That-Corrupts, they can unite within themselves and with my people. I hope that they have the kind of mercy and forgiveness that you seem to possess, and that it has all been hidden until this very moment. I hope we all survive for humanity to show my people that they are better by FAR than how we have acted. If all of this is so, I hope to live to be punished unendingly for my crimes against your people, because for all their darkness they would be SO MUCH WORSE if your people are truly as good as you say. I do not believe that to be true, but I want to believe."

She gasps for breath for a moment, her voice hoarse from talking.

"I am a mage of binding," she eventually responds to Sarah's question. Her voice is nearly dead, "I can take like things and unite their fates, or make unlike things combine. I make things be as they are not while still preserving the contradiction between what they are and what they were. It is how the Skrull and the Kryptonians could be as one people. It is how we created unity even among dichotomies. I can do the same for you. I can counteract these Doomlocks, or destroy the unity of your foes. I can . . ."

She struggles with a breath for a moment and then resumes.

"I can help. If you will allow me to."

Sarah's investigation of Arlington's body is far more multispectral (for lack of a better word) than Zach's once-over. At first, it seems like there's nothing beyond his clothes and his body left in evidence, but further investigation yields some interesting details: it turns out all of his bones are engraved with runes . . .

Spoiler: Expertise (Magic) DC 35

Show

The runes are runes of binding, but not of the Talisman's working. They constrain Arlington's actions is a broad yet specific way. He's allowed a mostly-free reign of who he can devour and slay, but he's cursed with an increased appetite and he cannot devour his own doppelgängers or the doppelgängers of someone else. It's hard to know who, though.

"Rabum Alal" . . . who the frick-frack does that refer to?

Spoiler: Language: Akkadian

Show

"Rabum Alal" means "Great Destroyer", but in a messed up order. It's the kind of mistranslation you'd get if you plugged words into Google Translate and didn't check for grammatical accord.

Meanwhile, within Potence's head, Madalina has been silent, first in examining the objects . . . but then, when Potence hears about Dr. Doom, she begins shuffling through Potence's memories to find references to this gentleman. An icy silence falls within the wizard's head, but then Madalina speaks with a voice like crackling flames:

This . . . this is the man that carries on our family's legacy in the eyes of the world? This is the man that rules my homeland? This is the man that abandoned my great-granddaughters and their mother? THIS METAL-FACED CAP DRACU IS OF MY ISSUE???

Oh, granddaughter, granddaughter . . . this simply will not DO.

I see what I must do. I will come to your time, yes. We will re-create my body, and I will meet your sister. I will see your time. I will try and understand your way of thinking as you will try and understand mine. I will do all of this. But before I come back, nay, the very MOMENT I am walking and talking and casting spells again, I shall FIND this self-styled DOCTOR DOOM who has abandoned my family as he crushes my country beneath his heel AND I SHALL TURN HIM INTO A PIG AND MAKE BACON OF HIM! I SHALL SET HIS BLOOD TO BOILING AND TURN HIS LIVER INTO A RABID BEAST WITHIN HIM! I SHALL CRUSH HIM WITHIN HIS SILLY ARMOR AND STRANGLE HIM WITH HIS CLOAK! Oh, great-granddaughter, Katya . . . I will inflict HORRORS upon him for this!

[SuperCracker]

Ronin

He continued to listen. Ronin often listened… but this time, he was formulating a response. As the Talisman began to wind down, he walked back towards her, one steady step after another until he was standing directly in front of her. His eyes were crystal clear in their many colors. They betrayed his inner intensity in a way nothing else could.

“You’re wrong. Your plan was never necessary, and it was never going to work.”

“Unity itself is not a good thing. Evil men have united in terrible purpose before. For a long time, humanity was united in its hatred for mutants. We are different. Different colors, different creeds. X-Genes, magic, even what planet we were born on. Snuffing out our differences won’t stop a threat like Darkseid.

We have to struggle, with or without those who would support us. We always knew that. It’s not an easy path. It may well lead to our defeat. But it’s the only real solution; as hard as that may be to hear. We have to fight him when he comes; whether that’s with swords and fists or something else.”

He paused.

“Stop looking for the easy way out. Like all times in life, it doesn’t exist.”

[Quellian-dyrae]

Katie gave a little nod at Fred's words. Oh, sure, it wasn't...precisely how she would have put it, but it hit on the necessary points. The proof was in the pudding. Darkseid had launched a full scale invasion of Earth by controlling the Keeper of Threes alone. Unity had its benefits, but it also absolutely had its risks. "Humanity isn't there yet," she agreed with the Talisman on that. Katie was an idealist, but she wasn't naive. "And...no, I can almost guarantee we won't be there in five years. We...may not be there in fifty, although I wouldn't call it impossible. We may look like a mess from the outside, but we're better than we used to be, and the better we get, the faster we continue to improve. I do believe we'll be there one day, and I think it's possible it will be within my lifetime. But...no, it won't be before Darkseid makes his move. Not for everyone. Not for every single person on Earth. Even I can admit that's not possible yet."

"But I do believe that if your people came in peace, they would have been accepted by a substantial majority of us. I do believe that if we can get enough people to see who you really are and what your goals are and the role Darkseid played, they would be willing to accept you. I do believe that...almost every single person really does have a core of goodness and decency inside of them. And I do believe we can beat Darkseid. We've done it before."

"And at the very least, for good or ill, there are few things we humans are better at than banding together against a common enemy. Don't count us out just yet."

Okay, Katie could admit it, the idea of Doctor Doom being turned into a pig and used for bacon brought her a certain darkly satisfied amusement. What? She never professed to be immune to pettiness.

She was, however, resistant enough to it to recognize when she was feeling it and squash it down. She didn't argue the point. She had no desire to see anyone suffer horrors, and while she wasn't sure that she could forgive Doom for what she suspected he had done, that didn't mean she wished him to suffer for it. Katie firmly believed that vengeance served no one and that punishment was only useful insomuch as it served to deter or prevent future evils.

But there was debating a moral point with someone who might otherwise do wrong, and there was pointless moralizing getting in the way of perfectly healthy venting. She'd let her grandmother get it out of her system without challenge.

As Sarah examined Darkchilde's body (she did glance that way when Zach pointed it out, and then quickly looked away), she brought her Shared Awareness spell back up and sent, ~Anything interesting?~ while opening her own knowledge of magic to Sarah's disposal.

~Oh! By the way, guys, now that we're not super-rushed and stuff, it turns out the mage who created the Vampire Spell is my ancestor. Darkchilde had the Talisman kill her, but it's okay because she had a phylactery and was able to jump into a body that she created somehow so she's in mine right now BUT IT'S OKAY SHE'S NOT LIKE CONTROLLING ME OR ANYTHING! Anyway, she's going to be tagging along in my head until we get home and then I'm gonna help her make a new body so she can hang out and see what the future's like so she can make an informed decision about whether to actually cast the Vampire Spell when she comes back (I don't think she'll do it I haven't told her that Dracul kinda loses anyway but I think that's the sort of thing she has to find out for herself). So, if I've seemed distracted for the past little bit that's why. I just wanted to make sure you all knew. Oh! Hey! Actually, I bet I can include her in the link! One sec.~

Okay, so maybe she was a little naive...

~Testing. Testing. Grandmother, are you getting this? I'm trying to include you in the mindlink with the rest of my team. Say hi!~

Spoiler

Show

Team Check for Sarah on the Expertise (Magic). Routine it to give her +5.

[Thokk_Smash]

Zach listens to the Talisman's diatribe with a few thoughtful blinks. That was certainly enlightening of the Skrulls' thoughts on this. Her conclusions were all wrong, naturally, but she wasn't wrong in the general sense. Once Ronin and Potence speak their piece, he steps closer and speaks.

"Humanity sucks," he says bluntly, eschewing his typical honey in favor of honestly. "We do, in a lot of ways. No getting around it with all the words in my vocab. We've got a ton of hangups that won't be fixed anytime soon."

"But like Potence said, we're scrappy as all hell. Give us something to fight against and we'll go at it any way we can: a tyrant, a dictator, a dystopian government ain't sh*t next to humanity's will to fight. And we can get pretty creative to make sure we end up on top of the dogpile."

"So bring him on, I say," he says, all cocky grin and blazing eyes. "A potentially world-ending situation on Earth? Sounds like it's Tuesday."

He listens to Katie's comments with some interest. Goddamn, what's the odds of that? ~"Hello, Grandmommy Alden," he sends through the new potential link, mental voice light.

[herodofcows]

The Talisman looks at each of the speakers in turn, her emotion completely blown away by the torrent of their words. All that remains is a look of wonder and res-

Wait, no. Not respect. Disdain? Condescension? Infantilization? Pity? A slightly disrespectful cocktail of all four?

"Sl'gur't's metamorphic **** . . ." she mutters to herself, throwing her hands into the air in exasperation.

Meanwhile, a new presence has made itself known on the Shared Awareness link. It's a heavily Slavic and vastly matronly one, and it speaks from the pompatus of Views.

Hah! Hello yourself, goodman Rocking and Rolling bard man! I have seen my great-granddaughter's thoughts of you and your Rocking music and I must say, I am intrigued! It is like a war cry in Spanish style! But the words you sing, fah! Such things are well and good for trained magi or for heretics, but what sort of message is that for the innocent? Katya's memories tell me that there are bands whose words are full of wholesome and uplifting spirit, but still they sound of the call to arms! I know you were once of pagan gods, but have you heard of this band of men that calls itself Creed? Their music seems well, although Katya does not seem to agree . . .

Spoiler: OOC to all

Show

I figure you all want your characters to rest so we can get a move on to the Civil War (the 19th century one, anyway). Feel free to post anything you want vis a vis resting and preparing and I'll get us up there tomorrow!

[CandyLaser]

Sarah heard what the Talisman had to say, but she was only partially listening. There was something much more interesting than an angry Skrull to look at. Using Katie's practical knowledge and experience, as well as her own not inconsiderable understanding of the mystic arts, Sarah was able to glean much from the body of the dead Arlington.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Raather than roll Expertise: Magic, Sarah and Katie can hit DC 35 as a routine check with a team bonus, so let's go ahead and do that.

She shared the results of her findings with the rest of the team. ~Someone inscribed runes of binding on his bones. It doesn't look like Talisman's work. The compulsion just ensures that he doesn't consume doppelgängers, whether his own or anyone else's, but that's about it. Also, there's an inscription in badly translated Akkadian. 'Rabum Alal.' It means - well, literally it means something like 'swelling woe,' but I think they were going for 'Great Destroyer.'~ Only then did she turn her attention to the Talisman and her words.

There was quite a bit of truth to what the Skrull said. In fact, at the state dinner where much of the truth had come to light, Sarah had considered her own version of the plan, using Professor X to act as a sort of psychic harmonizer for the planet. It was probably a manageable solution, and the truth was that if it came down to it she WOULD put it into action. But there were some differences, differences that were to her mind crucial. "You're mistaken. I have contemplated using methods similar to your own to deal with the coming threat. There are some variances, but the end result looks rather similar. However, you'll note that I haven't done any of it. There are many reasons why; I don't feel the need to explain them all. But here's one. Are you familiar with the history of the banana?

These days, most bananas are Cavendish bananas. But up until the 1950s, the Gros Michel banana was the most common cultivar. That ended, because that cultivar was wiped out by Panama disease in the 1950s. Modern bananas all reproduce asexually, so there's almost no genetic diversity - good for making sure that all bananas taste the same, but terrible for dealing with disease, predation, and the like. You talk about unity, but the fact is excessive unity kills."

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Anyway, when Kang's crazy plan is done and we're back in our time, we can try to come up with a coherent plan of action. I'm sure there's some midpoint between 'completely defenseless against Darkseid' and 'everyone in the world loses their free will' that will work," she said optimistically. Truth was, she wanted to have a discussion with the Talisman regarding precisely what the situation had been on Tarnax IV and Krypton when Darkseid attacked. Had they been aware of him, had he exerted direct mind control like he did during the Ten Second Invasion, why they had come to the conclusion that perfect unity was the only defense, and so on. Katie kinda suspected that they might be coming to inaccurate conclusions based on incomplete evidence, but she had to know what their body of evidence was to confirm or refute that.

But that could wait until the immediate crisis had been averted.

[Thokk_Smash]

Zach makes a sweeping gesture meant to approximate a pat on the shoulder. He doesn't particularly feel like going in for physical contact with the Talisman just yet. "Ah, don't sweat it, Tali," he says. "We're confident, not moronic. The plan-making can come after we beat Kang."

~"Who says my music is for the innocent, Magdaliní?"~ he asks with a mental chuckle and a telepathic wink. ~"Well, my preferred music, anyway. Music's been a call to arms for centuries, no? And if you've seen Potence's memories then you know the future of our world is just one fight after another; it's just a matter of degrees. And besides, rock'n'roll isn't all blood and vinegar. If we get the time I can get you acquainted with some rock that may be more to your liking."~ This is an honest, open invitation--if all that's wrong with the music is the words, then he's sure he can find something she'll like.

Spoiler

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This is very pointedly not Zach's typical usage of Persuasion, but he'll Routine a diplomatic Persuasion for 30 (potentially +5 if Attractive applies? IDK, Madalina does Madalina.)

[SuperCracker]

Ronin

Fred’s response to whatever the specific spiteful cocktail was to simply shrug and turn away. “Doesn’t matter.” Probably going to end up killing her anyway. But Sarah Saturn caught his attention… he looked right at her, eyes narrowing as she admitted to “contemplating” similar methods to the Skrull mind-control. Now, he had never really come to trust her… but lately his mistrust had deepened. From “ignore the plight of these people” to “I thought about doing that monstrous thing,” it was clear that they did not always share the same goals. Contingencies would need to be made.

And let’s not forget the blood-mage relative sitting comfortably inside of Katie’s body. ~…Do we all have a thing about possession? It’s a… pleasure to meet you.~ Yeah, there was no way he was going to let that woman cast the Vampire Spell in this world. In fact… he could probably sneak off and do something about Vlad right now. And UGH, Creed. ~Okay… Start her off with some CCR.~

Except then he would be taking his eyes off of the Talisman. That was a no-go… Fred would just have to remember to take care of it later. He took an opportunity to rest his legs before the next time period.

[herodofcows]

There is now officially something that MIGHT, to an outside observer, constitute a trend of diminishing quality of these little resting periods. Let us consider:

1. Troy: A celebration so debaucherous and excellent as to cause the Lord of Mirth to rebel against the King of the Gods and form the basis of a multidimensional stag party. The party under Ilium's walls might not have been to all tastes, but to the multidimensional connoisseur it would be considered among one of the finest parties the multiverse had ever seen.

2. Badger's Pass: A subdued yet companionable party under the stars with the six remaining Immortal Weapons. Yes, there was the bittersweetness of White Cobra's decision to stay behind and ensure that Peng Lai be protected after the fall of River Cobra, but it had been a loss on her terms. And, at the end of the day, the sweet sorrow of parting combined with the quiet triumph under the stars and the knowledge of sweeping deaths of innocents averted had made it all worthwhile.

3. Wallachia, north of Comana: A group of six people hanging around in a cemetery, licking their wounds and resting up while handling each other with varying degrees of awkwardness and grumpiness.

Admittedly, it isn't all bad. Madalina is an incredibly receptive audience to Zachary's stylings on most classic forms of rock . . .

~Aha! This is a fine selection of ballads! I like this Bon Jovi fellow, I think! "It Is My Life" indeed! Let the Turks hear such defiance from all of Wallachia's peasantry! And let the Sultan find himself trapped in the Hotel California where one might never leave, 'check out' though they might! Ah, how cruel! How lingering and full of torment, though the song be sweet! I shall craft just such an illusion for Victor von Doom! 'Such a lovely place' indeed . . .~

. . . and the Talisman, for all her bluster and swearing . . .

". . ."

Well, she delights the assembled Misfits by mostly keeping herself to herself. In fact, she only speaks near the end of the hour, as everyone begins to prepare for leavetaking.

"I will assist our travels, if you will permit," she states, particularly toward Sarah as the inventor keys in the next set of coordinates, "Perhaps you have a way to detect the Doomlock once you have arrived, but I can ensure that we arrive immediately at its location. We will be able to act surgically to preserve your timeline, with minimal risk. I trust this will be acceptable?"

The coordinates are keyed, the spells are cast, and in a blinking of Time . . .

Above Sharpsburg, upon a lone rise

Set against the dark amid dawn

A lone figure wreathes himself with sighs

And mourns for a future bygone

Upon the dust of the hill
The man stands in dismay
For those fates he will kill
In the work of this grim day

His head is graying, yet undoted

His mind remains keen and sharpened

To a sole objective devoted

Against a cold future darkened

Upon the dust of the hill
The man stands to pray
For the brains and the skill
For the risks of this grave day

The preparations are completed

Mere minutes, for one such as he

Can be by mind's power defeated

And turned to eternity

Upon the dust of the hill
The man awaits the fray
But there's no fear nor thrill
In the coming of this day

Below him, the Blue lads come marching

Elsewhere the Gray lads break fast

The man feels their deaths overarching

In echoed tales of futures past

Upon the dust of the hill
The man thinks how he may
Leave Death's coffers unfilled
In the making of this day

But now, the time's caught up with his Time

He near feels as the timeline flits;

Now comes the testing of his goal prime

With the coming of the Misfits

Upon the dust of the hill
Sylvester Saturn will say;
"Weapons hold, if you will;
You've got consequences to weigh."

"Glad to see you got around the Krasnikov issue, Sarah," the inventor begins brusquely. He's attired in a jumpsuit much like his granddaughter's, plastered over with gadgets and gizmos beyond description and count. His face is aquiline, grave and magisterial as some old monolith, yet Sarah can see that he's substantially younger than he was when he adopted her.

"And it's nice to meet your friends. I've read your dossiers, of course, but Kang's little mania doesn't fully capture, well, you. I know you've punched through some of my 'compatriots' (for lack of a better term) to get this far. I'd rather it didn't come to that between us if it doesn't have to. Let's try some civility before we get to throwing around death beams and Phoenix power and magic in front of General McClellan's face.

"Brass tacks, kids; I'm hitching a ride on Kang's little megalomania tour to change some pretty fundamental facts about the fate of the world. If you let me, I can make sure that Antietam signals the end of the American Civil War about three years early. This will create a net-positive ripple effect that'll ameliorate the Disassembly, hamstring Darkseid, and make it so that the Heroic Age survives everything that comes after Darkseid's defeat. It's extreme, it's ugly, but it'll work."

His eyes flash across the assembled group.

The Talisman looks at him uncomprehendingly.

Madalina whistles appreciatively in Katie's mind: THAT is a fine figure of a man, Katya . . .

Sylvester's gaze lingers on Sarah for the briefest of moments before rocketing back across the rest of the group.

The dawn breeze begins to blow as the sun begins to come up over the flat rolling Maryland horizon. You can see green pasture and scattered tree copses, unspoiled and pure. Soon, if you do nothing, they will be covered in blue and gray . . . and a lot of red.

"Alternatives?" he asks, every syllable fired from his mouth like a minié ball, "This is the ugly solution. Give me a better one."

[CandyLaser]

Sarah stepped forward, putting herself between the rest of the Misfits and her grandfather. She turned so that she could see both her teammates and her relative, and then made some introductions. "Misfits, this is Sylvester Saturn. Grandfather, meet the Misfits. I'd appreciate it if no one tries to kill anyone just yet." Through Shared Awareness, she added ~I didn't expect to find myself in a grandfather paradox situation. If this is the version of my grandfather from our world, killing him could cause serious problems for me - especially as long as the Doomlock is active.~

"Before we get to alternatives, first I need an explanation. When in your personal timeline did you find out about Darkseid? If you had better information about the crisis I'm trying to stop, you ought to have shared it."

[Quellian-dyrae]

The funny thing was? For Katie personally, each rest had actually been getting better.

First at Troy, dealing with the guilt of what she had done to Hector. That had been the worst. Badger's Pass had been a grim duty, dealing with the dead in the aftermath of the battle. She had collapsed bone weary in the aftermath, and hadn't learned about Amanda's decision until the next morning.

And let's be clear, there was absolutely nothing bittersweet about that. Not to Katie. Remember, Katie's greatest fear is loss. Oh, she had compartmentalized. She had hugged Amanda soooooo tight and put on a cheerful face and said she understood and she loved her and to be safe. She had turned up the cheeriness because that was how Katie coped with loss. All through her adolescence, every time she got taken from another home and school and family, she had said goodbye and told them she loved them and gone on to meet her next circumstances as bright and chipper and friendly as she possibly could. She didn't break down crying - not until she was alone. She didn't get gloomy and try to keep people at arm's length. This had been drilled into Katie over dozens of experiences during an extremely formative part of her life. Most other problems she had or pains she suffered, she would show it, she would seek comfort in others. But when someone she loved left her life? She shoved all the pain into a dark closet in her heart and showed no one, acting bright and cheery while it tore her up inside, because to do otherwise might make a poor first impression on the people who were going to be her next family and cripple their relationship from the start. It was no longer a valid decision-making process, but it was so ingrained into her at this point that that's what she did. Even Madalina, sharing her head, would not have been aware of those feelings. That door in the castle of her mind was securely padlocked.

It had been a while since Katie had had to deal with something like that. And of course, nowadays, her life was so much better than it had been then. She had tons of friends, had reunited with Kayla, had the constant support of Mr. Arlington, and was in touch with a lot of the friends and families she had been taken from through Facebook and stuff. Not to mention, she had survived it all, had gone through the string of losses at a time where she had no one and no end was in sight, and come out the other side okay and seen her life turn around. She had honestly begun to believe that even if something like that happened again, it would be easier.

Spoiler alert: it wasn't!

There were...some other feelings there too. Feelings that Katie tucked away just as deeply as the pain and did not even let herself examine too closely, because she kinda hated herself for feeling them at all.

But at Wallachia, well, she wouldn't have minded a change in venue, sure, but the rest was mainly just hanging out getting to know her great-to-the-nth-power grandmother better and listening to Zach's music, which was fun! She sang along a couple times. She had considered talking to Ta'li (Katie immediately adopted Zach's nickname for her, "the Talisman" was just so cold and impersonal, although she kinda unconsciously tweaked the spelling in her head a bit to better fit Skrull naming convention), but figured it was probably a good idea to give her some space to come to terms with everything. There would be time to talk after Kang was dealt with.

--

Antietam. The bloodiest battle of the Civil War. Guhhhh Katie knew this was not going to be a fun-

Yoooooooooo.......

Yeah, Katie could admit it, she was a little discombobulated that Sarah's grandfather was the Kang-ganger here.

She pulled a Fred and no-sold Madalina's comment. She...couldn't. She just couldn't. That...there was too much...and what if...nope. Nope nope nope! Noping so hard!

~Yeah, of course,~ she answered Sarah immediately. You don't attack the family members of teammates. That's just mean.

To Sylvester (ehhh...too informal) Mr. Saturn (problem was, it brought back memories of that game Kayla played with the four kids and one of them had a bat and she remembered when Kayla had called her into the living room to "help her fight the big boss" and the game said they did a bunch of damage to it by wishing for the kids to win and that was cool) Grampa Saturn (...no) Sarah's grandfather (...? Bingo!) she asked, "And, is it possible for you to temporarily disable the Doomlock so we have some time to talk? Because there's still one left so we're kinda rushed. If not, I suggest we knock out the last one and then come back here to see if we can come up with a strong alternative plan."

Gee, that was odd. If one didn't know any better, one might almost think Katie sounded willing to actually go along with Sarah's grandfather's plan to alter history if it were necessary.

And that's because...she kinda was.

Look, sure, the other Kang-gangers had all given their versions of the "this is for the best" speech. They had "Ha ha nope"d every one. But first off, those were all wayyyyyyy further in the past, who knew what ripple effects they could cause? And second off...Darkchilde and Teth-Cobra were not exactly the most good-natured, trustworthy people in the world. Teddy Roosevelt was Teddy Roosevelt, the man was on Mount Rushmore, but he's not exactly someone you entrust to altering ancient history in hopes of it leading to a better world.

Sarah's grandfather explicitly was. He had a proven history-altering record of "Sarah Saturn exists in your timeline." Far as Katie was concerned, that was a 100% positive review on Yelp. Katie had already allowed the scope of the mission to prompt her into unwise action at Troy. Just because they were opposed to Kang did not necessarily mean that every action of Kang's had to be unilaterally opposed. Sarah's grandfather said the net effects would be positive. Just ending the American Civil War three years early was in Katie's mind an unquestionably good thing (...okay, they'd lose the Gettysburg Address, and that was sad, but, like, details! One cool speech did not compare to the obscene casualty rates of three more years of war!) If other good stuff also resulted, if they had an experienced and presumably-trustworthy time traveller on hand to run the numbers and make sure it would turn out good, and Sarah to confirm it and make sure that what negative side effects there were didn't outweigh the positive (like, say, Kang being somehow installed as Supreme World Dictator, or some such nonsense)? Then yeah, Katie wasn't wedded to history. She sincerely believed that Kang's actions, no matter how good he made them seem, would turn out making history worse in the end. But she deemed it perfectly plausible that Sarah's grandfather could do the good and avoid the bad, especially with Sarah and the rest of them on hand to help him.

[herodofcows]

Sylvester frowns a little as Sarah demands answers from him.

Spoiler: Insight DC 20

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He's a little disappointed about something that just happened, or something that Sarah said.

Spoiler: Insight DC 25

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The disappointment isn't necessarily related to the specific content of the problem at hand, but that's how he'll try to play it off.

"Darkseid's a red herring, kiddo. He's just another villain of the week. Earth manages to beat him back, mostly. It's what he triggers that should worry you: the Superhuman Civil War, the Pantheon Sieges, the War of Light and Fire . . . everything up to the Flashpoint. Working with Kang to stop Darkseid is a means to an end: it lets me get my hand on the kind of tech I can't build myself and gets me back to a point in time where I can make a difference. It also gave me strong odds of running into you, which means I can coordinate and collaborate with you as an adult. Better odds of success that way, wouldn't you say?"

Spoiler: Sarah

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You remember some of these terms from your grandfather's notes:

The Superhuman Civil War: You probably have the most data on this. The Superhuman Registration Act gets pushed through Congress in the wake of an apparent Red Kryptonite accident with both Superman and Doomsday (although your grandfather notes the likely involvement of some kind of cosmic entity. Darkseid, maybe?). The heroic community splits right down the middle about accepting this new law or resisting in. The Pro-Registration side (headed jointly by Wonder Woman and Iron Man) imposes increasingly draconian measures while the Anti-Registration side (masterminded by Batman) begins to take increasingly radical and desperate measures to save themselves even as both sides try to one-up each other on dealing with superhuman threats. This culminates in . . .

The Pantheon Sieges: Asgard Reborn, Themyscira, Kandaq, and other divine/semi-divine territories band together with the Anti-Registration side. The SRC (Superhuman Registered Coalition, which now includes the U.S., China, the E.U., and India) take military action against these divine sovereign nations. After a protracted battle, the Anti-Registration side emerges victorious. There is a forcible regime change among the SRC nations, and the various Pro-Registration heroes are pardoned (although not without some bad blood). This leads to superficial strengthening of relations between superhumanity and the divine. Unfortunately, "superficial" is the operative word; in spite of the good press, it turns out there's some bad blood over superhumans and gods essentially installing a benevolent oligarchy, which leads to . . .

The War of Light and Fire: With their backs against the wall, many humans begin to feel disenfranchised and afraid of the apparent vast expansion of superhuman political power. In the face of this mounting pressure, groups like the Friends of Humanity or the Purifiers stop looking radical and start to look like reasonable solutions in the face of an insane world. Most of these groups aren't capable of much beyond guerilla tactics, but eventually they make contact with the Lantern Corps: Blue Lanterns, Indigo Tribe, the Sinestro Corps, the Red Lanterns . . . every para-Green Lantern Corps finds a new recruiting ground on Earth. The Yellow and Red Lanterns have the most success by far, especially among radicalized anti-superhuman resistance fighters. The notes are unclear at this point: somebody does SOMETHING to the wrong mutant, and then the next thing you know the Phoenix is back and badder than ever. Something absolutely cataclysmic happens here, but reports are unclear as to what, exactly. What's not unclear is that humanity and superhumanity survive, but gods and mutants mostly do not. History goes on with a lot of further superhuman craziness, but eventually everything leads to . . .

The Flashpoint: This one's a big question mark. Sometime around 2035, society undergoes a sudden and seismic shift towards almost everything that defines the year 2099. Corporate oligarchy abruptly becomes the new norm. Cosmic travel becomes available but prohibitively expensive. Superhumans vanish or are folded into the new order. There is no visible cause, or leadup. Reality just seems to shift, as though upon the whims of an invisible god. The event gets its name in your grandfather's notes from the only fact that has a supra-50% chance of being pertinent: before everything starts to change, the Flash vanishes from the face of the Earth. Your father has even found some security camera footage of the event: the Flash runs into an alley in Gotham city holding a white piece of cloth, starts speaking or yelling up at someone in the sky (his back is to the camera so it's impossible to reconstruct what he's saying) there is a blinding flash of light, and then he's gone.

Turning to Katie, his face lightens up slightly.

"I'll do you one better," he says, pulling a device off of his arm and tossing it over to the Talisman, who catches it reflexively, "The Skrull's a binding mage, right? She can obfuscate the link between this timeline and Kang's tech. It'll keep the Doomlock running (turning those suckers on and off can do bad things to the timestream) but we'll be dilated compared to Kang. Not infinite time, but a second there can be . . ."

He mutters to himself as the Talisman begins to speak.

"Why should I listen to you, who were one of my-"

". . . about 200 hours here, give or take, and you'll LISTEN to me, missy, because I was called in AFTER you were captured and I am the only one here who can probably give you what you want. You want Darkseid to come to a unified Earth? Well, you shocked that one with Troy and again with China, but even this solution makes that job a whole hell of a lot easier. So do you need my calculations or-"

The Talisman "tuh's" loudly at that.

"To the Nightwing with your 'calculations', old man. I can do . . . this . . ."

The Talisman shimmers purple and begins incanting over the device. There's a moment of distortion, but as she continues everything seems to stabilize. Sylvester nods at the Skrull approvingly as she continues to cast.

"Great. Not all the time in the world, but pretty crash nonetheless (as the kids say)."

Spoiler: Potence

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Within your head, you can see Madalina rummaging through your knowledge of this time period. You can feel her growing horror as she looks at the upcoming devastation.

These numbers . . . Katya, this is ungodly. This mustn't be. It would be unchristian to allow so much life to be lost over these matters. These poor young lads, off to die so that their lords might hold onto Nubian slaves that they did not even gain through conquest . . . this cannot be. We must not allow it.

Work with me on this: we can create a spell that will fog the minds of the captains, so as to lead their men into impassable places and cause the armies to miss one another. I will create visions of paradise for them to lose themselves while we wrestle with the broader problem. Obviously, the Nubians cannot be freed all at-

Wait, what is this "Civil Rights Movement"? Who is this Martin Lu-

Oh.

Ohhhhhh . . .