The bridge of the Dragonslayer III was much busier than the last time Jason had visited. Each of the stations had multiple displays overhead, and dozens of crew from various species were discussing the possibilities colonization offered, deployment schedules, terraforming; it seemed the Jernal had just about perfected the art of slowing down to match a more normal speed with their various chemical cocktails over the past year.

  Jason studied each of the diagrams; evidence of the building styles of the different races, and how they were trying to make prefabricated structures that could deploy anywhere, but that fit their own sensibilities instead of just being boxes.

  As he entered the conference room beside the bridge, one of the purely mechanical Ascension drones was waiting, tall and spindly with its dull red armor… and turned to face Jason as he entered.

  “Prelimenary analysis is complete, though the genetic structure is incredibly complicated and multi-layered.”

  Jason nodded. “Well then. Whats the story? Is this human bit a trick, or is the human appearance just some incredibly remarkable coincidence?”

  “Definitively a trick. The sample was heavily genetically engineered; not just that, but the genetics have actual words in them as a guideline for future engineers, in a language I’m only beginning to interpret. Its possible this ‘Kal-El’ is different, but the Kryptonian who was cut by Excalibur was the product of design, not birth.”

  He sighed. “Well then. Good to know. Any speculation about who might be behind all this? There’s way too many almost-human looking aliens for me to be comfortable.”

  “Impossible to say. Some possible candidates would be the founders of the ‘Green Lantern Corps’. That agency has a variety of alien species working for it that fit closer to what would be expected to occur naturally; its likely that they simply appear similar to whichever species is interacting with them, which is why the images ‘Hal Jordan’ shows us are humanoid. This Darkseid individual looks too close to human, and has too many human-looking servants, to be anything but a trick himself, and has no such excuse; he’s supposed to be an alien conqueror, not someone who wants to make people at ease.”

  Jason shook his head. “This all seems so silly, so convoluted. Like some intergalactic trickster is toying with the earth.”

  The machine stopped. “...Records are sparse regarding it. But there was a news report involving some sort of magical alien entity named ‘Mixy’ that had significant magical powers. He turned a skyscraper into chocolate, altered the orbit of the moon and the earth itself for a week, and had altercations with this ‘Kal-El’ figure.”

  “...Goddamnit. All of these alien invaders might be the product of some ancient magical lunatic right here on earth?” He tried to imagine what would happen if someone like Loki went full-on trickster god; amassing life force and magic until he could work his powers over the whole of the earth, or even the solar system.

  “....Considering how incredibly unlikely the other possibilities are… its the most logical one. It is probable that this individual created these various entities, only to underestimate the level of power it had given them and get itself killed, leaving behind a tangled and bizarre situation.”

  So. He’d gone from a nice, neat, logical world where things generally made sense, even if they might be a bit hostile… to this weird place where he would be dealing with the aftermath of an ancient trickster god. Assuming it was dead; it might simply have gotten bored and left.

  “Well. Keep sorting through the Kryptonian genes. Let me know if you learn anything interesting. I guess we need to figure out a way to take out this ‘Darkseid’ character as well as these other Kryptonians.”

  “I have coordinates for…. ‘Apokalips’..... Which is apparently in an extradimensional space, only accessible by gateways called ‘Boom Tubes’ or an extremely distant portal to one of the worlds they have conquered. The Justice League has one in its vault, as do the Green Lanterns.”

  “...Is Apocalypse how the aliens actually pronounce it? Not just a nickname humans gave it?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “...So this Darkseid wasn’t just created by a malevolent trickster god, but one from here on earth, and one which wasn’t particularly creative. He read some old myths, watched Star Wars, and just played god. And now we need to clean up his mess.”

  Jason stared at the wall for a moment, thinking. “...What if he’s still out there, just watching the chaos? He might intervene if we start to clean up.”

  “You still have some magical ordinance you manufactured in the Andromeda galaxy which could be repurposed.”

  He thought for a moment. “Using munitions created from the mass-murder of billions to make an anti-magic ward? It’d certainly do the job. Not sure if I want to strip away my own ability to do magic if I have to deal with people like these Kryptonians, though.”

  “My ability to interface with magic is limited. Would it be possible for you to create a ward you can turn on and off, or that doesn’t restrict yourself?”

  Jason sighed. “....Maybe. I’ll need to try it out. And I’ll need another magic-user to try it out on. Could you do a quick search, see if you can find any that aren’t aligned with this Justice League group?”

  “...There is an extremely hostile sorceress named ‘Circe’ who has fought them at times. I can give you the coordinates of the island, but actually landing there is prevented by magic, and I suspect any sort of long range projectile would meet a similar problem.”

  “Well then. Great test of an anti-magic ward. Is she only hostile to them, or just hostile in general?”

  “Just hostile in general. Mass-murderer, enslaver, among other crimes.”

  “Well then. We’ll see how the Justice League responds when I remove one of the pieces of their little game.”

  ***

  When dealing with a hostile magical entity of unknown capability, a certain level of caution was required. He had no idea how powerful or dangerous she was; so the best way to handle this was a level of caution he didn’t normally use.

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  First, he took one of the heavy armor suits, barely modified from its original Republic design; if not for the red paintjob and swastika, it would almost look like standard-issue Republic heavy armor; and adjusted it; turning it into a telepresence rig so he could operate it from orbit. The lag that resulted was easily compensated by the simple fact that he would see the camera views before they actually happened.

  He loaded it down with a bomb, just in case, as well as a mix of plasma, laser, and kinetic munitions; before the real experiment started.

  He’d never tried to make a ward that wouldn’t block his own magic before. He didn’t really have his own style or art of magic; he essentially copied everything from Odin, Gabriel, and that one beetle from back in Andromeda; a hodgepodge of Japanese, ancient Norse, and truly alien magic that was fairly unique… except he didn’t really blend any of it. He just copied things, made slight adjustments that his powers told him would work, and used them. Actually innovating with magic was new.

  Still; a magical ward of protection was easy. He gently reshaped a spike made of a blend of metals; it was likely multiple objects, back in the day, a collection of jewelry worn by people in a city the Republic had bombed into oblivion, once whatever ornate items the natives wore, now simply a blob of inert metal imbued with magic and carved with sigils to turn it into a weapon.

  This particular chunk had been at the bottom of a pit filled with mostly burned corpses… and had just oozed powerful magic; the spirit of millions of angry souls. The sheer number of such one could easily acquire with a few weeks of flying around Republic territory was astounding.

  Once Svetlana’s work was done, there would be even more.

  He focused. He brought up an image Gabriel had shown him; a ward against hostile magic; and overlaid it on the projectile as he began carefully carving. Generally, it only made the object itself resistant to magic; but if you actively pushed power through it, it could effect an area.

  And with a focus this potent, even a little power went a long way. He just needed to refresh it a bit. If he made it just the

  He reached into the aquarium to his right, and picked up a pair of Mitten crabs; surprisingly tasty, and a handy source of life force for something like this.

  No reason to make them suffer; he focused, and gave a firm squeeze; leaving the claws and legs intact to be cooked later, crushing the bodies of both and ending them instantly; pouring the… various fluids… onto the enruned object.

  He could feel it, then. The subtle push; his arm, a powerful magical artifact itself at this point, had gone limp. He nodded… and set the messy little orb inside the armor. If he was right, the armor should still be able to use magic sourced from the orb itself…. But it would make any other magic extremely difficult.

  “Go ahead and launch. Assuming control now.”

  He stepped away from it… and lay down on the floor, closing his eyes…. As the view from the armor’s helmet picked up.

  He could see the larger cargo bot lifting the heavy armor suit, setting it into a drop pod…. And after a few seconds….

  The launch. He didn’t feel the wind blowing past the armor suit; just saw the temperature gauge rising…. Until…. An abrupt slowdown.

  He could see, below him, the island. Supposedly, any attempt to land there would be diverted; even with the right coordinates, unless Circe wanted to see you, you could sail or fly for eternity and never come within sight.

  He had no idea how wide the effect of the ward was. But it was at least enough that he still hit…. Directly on target. One moment, he was falling…. The next… an abrupt crash, a crater of sand scattering in every direction… the sounds of animals, of screams….

  It took a few seconds for the cloud of sand to die down… and around him, he could see a variety of men looking around, confused, and animals, equally confused. All of them wearing the same sort of ornate silver collar.

  There was a cracking of stone… some sort of structure nearby was collapsing in on itself… and from the collapsing structure emerged… a woman, wearing a silken black dress, pale, with long, flowing red hair. She looked at the men… then at the structure she just emerged from… and started approaching the armor.

  “Well now! What an interesting sight lays before me. An armored man… here to rescue a friend? Or perhaps to make an attempt on my life?”

  She stood a few hundred feet away, surveying the chaotic scene. “You have disrupted my island, and for that, you will die. Whatever means you use to shield yourself from my magic… I will overcome. I will pry open that armor… and you will be either dead… or wishing you were.”

  Eyeball studied her closely. Pretty enough. And he did always like redheads. “That’s actually the point. This is a test to see how hard this ward is to overcome. I invite you to do your best… and if your best fails, I will kill you. So… consider it a test.”

  “A test!? You dare test me, the immortal Circe!?” She raised a hand, glaring at him; one of the men standing on the beach suddenly clutched his chest. His collar glowed, he collapsed to the ground with a soundless wail…

  She kept her hand raised… and blinked. “Wha… I… I just sacrificed his soul to empower that attack! What is this!?” She clenched her fist; and a dozen of the men gave out the same movement…. Leaving a circle of corpses. The remainder stared at her in horror, and tried to flee; tried to remove their collars.

  As the attack, whatever it was, kept failing, she kept going; sacrificing her slaves, first one at a time… then by the dozens. When it was finally finished, and her hand remained empty, all of her slaves lifeless on the sand, she just looked at it… then at him.

  “...How are you doing this? Some powerful artifact, of some ancient, lost civilization? Are you… a god? Has Hecate tired of me at last?”

  “Oh, just something I cobbled together a few minutes ago; and just a man. I’d originally intended to use it as a weapon, but I found a man not even it could kill.” He considered using one of the weapons…. But the jewelry the woman bore might be enchanted, and worthy of investigation.

  “Well then. If you’re merely a man…. Perhaps something else will work.” She reached down the front of her dress… and Eyeball could tell that if he actually looked at her, even through the video feed… everything would go black after.

  He shut his eyes. “Mute. Black out her visual and overlay it with a barebones avatar. Unmute.”

  There. It was a bit unnerving to see what vaguely looked like an old 3D-rendering from an ancient computer game; but whatever she’d had to show him would’ve killed him. Instantly. And was powerful enough to overcome the ward.

  “Excellent work. Whatever that is, it passes the test. Congratulations.”

  The near-stick-figure lowered the upraised hand, and whatever object it held. “.....It… didn’t work. But it passed the test?”

  “Oh, it was strong enough to bypass the ward. A ward empowered by the distilled hatred, fear, and horror, the thirst for vengeance, of a city of over ten million dead. Its not the strongest thing I’ve got around…. But its definitely in the top twenty. And now, so is whatever that thing is.”

  He raised his hand; he could hear a creaking; undoubtedly, he was accidentally warping the hull of the Dragonslayer while he was doing this; he wasn’t used to remote-controlling a magical device.

  But the stick-figure suddenly rose into the air; and snapped forward, smacking into one armored gauntlet.

  The ‘pull’ spell worked. He could use magic inside the ward.

  He squeezed; and through the armored gauntlet, he could hear a horrific snap; a scream of pain…. And then a gurgle, as overwhelming amounts of force were applied to what should be an immortal, whose various magical protections had all been stripped away.

  And then…. A solid ‘thunk’ sound, with sand spraying through the air.

  The woman with the patriotic attire. The Amazon. She had just fallen from the sky, and landed, seemingly unharmed despite her magic being stripped, not ten meters away….

  Staring directly at the armor suit, with the recently-slain corpse of Circe still clutched in one hand.