In nature, there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.

-Robert Green Ingersoll

********

Actions and consequences.

The push and pull of people, the world, and reality itself.

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Everything creates ripples.

Not even in the darkest reaches of space can one escape from the waves caused by existence.

Even if all you do is take up space, your very being leads to consequences. Good or bad, we all affect the world around us.

We cannot escape this.

We do not want to escape this.

There would be no greater hell imaginable than to exist and not be able to affect anything.

In the wake of Heartbreak, consequences rippled and clashed like waves in a pond.

The world was trying to piece itself together, aided by the healing of the Elden Lord, rescue efforts by heroes, and the shared unity that came from surviving the worst day in human history.

Not all consequences were good.

Wars, civil and otherwise, flared to life over the planet in the cooling ashes of the Endbringers' attacks. Supers rose to power as warlords, nations crumbled as political and physical infrastructure crumbled below the precise attacks calculated to do the most damage.

It could have been much worse.

Mikael and his Family couldn't be predicted by any form of clairvoyance. Their known abilities and personality traits could be modelled to give a likelihood of actions they would take, but all it would produce was a failed model.

Tohu had done so and acted on the model, assuming the Family would employ all resources they were known to possess. The large healing area Melina had displayed. Glynda's telekinetic repair of destroyed cities. Raven's assumed power after consuming her father. Mikael's attitude of using crises as opportunities.

Tohu modelled a world, a worst-case scenario, of their interference and built its plans off that simulated future.

Triggers were planted, dominoes stacked, and the world started to tumble into a state where the Primary Objective would be achieved within the year. Well ahead of schedule, thanks to the existence of the Elden Lord.

Nobody could predict Emma and her Semblance. Mikael was the only person to know about it, except for her.

Nobody could have predicted Heartbreak.

In the wake of the barrage of Mad Love, dominoes planted had fallen sideways. Triggers went off too early or too late to have maximum impact. Wars that should have raged for years ended in days from a lucky bullet or mistimed speech.

People, supposed to lash out in fear and pain at their losses, chose to embrace their fellows to once again feel a fraction of that overwhelming Love.

Others, meant to remain together to provide aid at opportune moments, separated due to the lack of such Love.

Mikael might hate Master abilities and rather die than put himself under their influence, but anything can do good in the right circumstances.

The world had lost its gods, many of its protectors, and its stability, but it was still there.

Battered, broken, and beaten, Earth carried on.

It still survived to grow into a new world.

Though Götterdämmerung might have succeeded, Ragnarok was delayed.

For a little while.

********

Taylor Hebert picked her way through the slagged streets of what was once Brockton Bay.

People were cautiously wandering the roads under the supervision of emergency responders after being cautioned about the risks and told to steer clear of any buildings with warning signs on them.

The roads of this section had been tested to still be intact for a given definition of the word. Many streets had boiled under Behemoth's heat aura, even if the monster had passed by blocks away. So many twisted lumps of metal that used to be cars littered the road, their frames melted into grotesque depictions reminiscent of modern art.

The main trail of the battle had happened well away. Taylor had seen the crushed and smashed houses, the craters and aftereffects of esoteric power usage.

This part of the city was better off. Some buildings were still identifiable, though the fires consumed most of them.

As she passed the half-burned building, Taylor idly realized that that was the Andersons' duplex. They had a kid, only fourteen, who went to Immaculata and had managed to keep his head down enough to avoid running afoul of trouble.

Then again, even the school filled with nazis was better than Winslow.

That meant the building beside it was Cat Candice's place. Candice was nice enough for a seventy-four-year-old spinster, but she had four different cats. They would sometimes keep the neighbourhood up with their yowling.

Taylor hoped the cats made it out okay.

As she walked by the ruins of buildings, Taylor tried to remember everything she could about the people who lived there. She wasn't the neighbourly type, but Emma had gone out of her way to be social when they moved into the area.

That was the Millers' place, Carl Smith's apartment, the building that had been available for rent for a month. Taylor was sure a few bums had been living there. Then this was the corner store.

Taylor paused as she looked at the shattered glass windows, the bent and blackened doorframe and the toppled shelves.

She didn't want to turn the corner.

She didn't want to see what had become of her home.

She did anyway.

It was...

It was surprisingly intact.

Oh, the buildings between her house and where Taylor stood were utterly destroyed by the fires, the blasts, and the heat. One looked to have been melted by some sort of acid.

But her house?

From what she could see, it still had four walls and a roof, which was unique on this street. Sure, they were darkened by soot and blackened with fire damage, but the building looked whole.

It didn't even look like the windows had broken.

Taylor had to hop a bit to enter the house, as the stairs had been shattered, but she found surprisingly little damage when she entered. The power was out, of course, but she had her phone flashlight and an open door. The kitchen was a mess, every delicate piece of glass had shattered, but the living room looked untouched.

Taylor frowned as she walked around the house, noting what was broken and still salvageable.

A lot more than she expected was intact. Most of the second floor was a wash, the guest room was ruined by a ruptured pipe in the wall from the nearby bathroom, and everything in the storage space had fallen. But a large section of their bedroom was still okay.

Hell, their bed looked pristine, sheets still folded.

Taylor's frown deepened.

This... didn't make sense.

While she was happy that not everything was ruined, she didn't like unanswered questions. Questions like how had a piece of a nearby house crashed into her bedroom window hard enough to be embedded in the wall yet not shatter the glass.

Looking around her room, she didn't see anything out of place, which was suspicious after an Endbringer attack.

With narrowed eyes, Taylor looked through their stuff but found nothing had been stolen from their mini-safe.

The only other thing of value in the house was...

Taylor raced down the stairs, worry gripping her.

She found the jewel, the gift from the Elden Lord, exactly where they had left it as they grabbed their bug-out bags and evacuated.

The insect glittered in the sun's light passing through the living room window, sitting completely undisturbed on the mantle in the living room. It didn't even look dusty despite the house having been empty for days.

In fact...

Taylor tracked her eyes around the living room, noting the intact TV and undamaged furniture. As her eyes passed over the entryway to the kitchen, she saw proof of what she suspected.

The shattered plates and glasses had covered the floor in dangerous shards, but for some reason, none of them had passed through the open doorway into the living room. Instead, they fell in such a way that they created a circular barrier bowing away from the entrance.

Taylor rubbed her eyes tiredly.

Fucking Supers.

Now that she was looking for the abnormality, she noticed how there was a circular section around the jewel that was pristine, roughly lining up with her living room and the bedroom above.

Beyond that circle, things were roughed up but relatively intact. It got progressively worse the further from the jewel, the burst pipe in the wall at the absolute furthest you could get without leaving the house.

While Taylor was happy that her living room and the bedroom above were spared from destruction, she wasn't sure how she felt that there was clearly some Super bullshit going on with the jewelled scarab.

Taylor was grudgingly grateful she hadn't sold it as planned and instead listened to Emma's insistence to keep it.

It did look nice.

That and Taylor genuinely feared what would happen if the Elden Lord ever found out they had sold his gift.

A welcoming embrace, warm and comforting, wrapped around her. Powerful, yet gentle. Dangerous, yet protective. Whispers in her ear that she was safe, that there was nothing to fear. That she was Loved.

Taylor shuddered at the phantom sensation and the painful yearning in her chest.

Her stupid mutation, supposedly the ability to protect her mind from all psychic powers, hadn't been able to protect her from the Heartbreak. It was like it wasn't even targeting her mind, bypassing her defence to reach her soul.

She needed to get out.

Get out of the remains of her home, away from the Super Jewel or whatever.

Away from the reminder.

A few minutes later, Taylor found herself walking the ruined streets. Just another face in the crowd.

Some moved with purpose, searching charred and broken buildings for anything salvageable. Most found little that remained. Not everyone was lucky enough to have a magic artifact protect their homes.

Others, like Taylor, meandered their way around a city at once familiar and foreign, as if in a daze. They steered clear of the sections blocked off by signs and tape, risky areas with questionable structural integrity. Milling about in small groups, halting words were exchanged between people.

It was like the city was dreaming, a haze of shock, pain, fear, and loss casting a blanket of numb shock over their thoughts.

Nothing felt real in this ruined world.

Captain Atom had already absorbed all the radiation left in Behemoth's wake, a duty he was familiar with as he wasn't permitted to fight the beast itself for fear of what it would do to him. The fires had also been put out by various heroes, so the city was deemed safe enough for people to start returning to search for their things.

Taylor looked over the ruins of her city, now 'safe,' and people who would have to try and rebuild their lives.

Some cried.

Some shouted.

One man held the burnt ends of a chair leg, smashing it repeatedly into the blackened road in a rage, sending splinters flying.

Most simply stood in the remains of what was once their entire world.

Childhood homes.

Businesses they counted on to survive.

It was a small section of a city, one like thousands of others, and yet it mattered to them. Every inch of pavement, stone, metal, and wood held a cherished or important memory to someone.

They were the lucky ones.

Despite the high hero mortality, not a single civilian had died in Behemoth's rampage. Compared to other cities, they were blessed.

Yet Taylor was tired.

So goddamn tired.

Tired of living in fear of the next Endbringer attack.

Tired of never knowing if Emma was late for dinner because of traffic or a new villain.

Tired of living in a world designed for the strong, where the weak were just casualty numbers. They were just faceless backdrops to the bombastic fights of Supers that could destroy their cities on a whim.

She was tired of living in a world without meaning, and everything was transient except for the ever-present fear and loss.

Tired of never having safety.

She was drowning in Him. Floating in a never-ending expanse of calm waters, where nothing could ever hurt her. She was safe. She was Home.

"Taylor Hebert?" A male voice calling her name shook her from her thoughts.

Looking around, it took her a long moment to identify the familiar features of the man.

"Mr. Gladly?" Taylor asked in surprise.

It had been years since she had seen her old teacher. Her memories of the man weren't good or bad. He was just one of many teachers at Winslow. The school had been a shit hole, but it was one she and Emma had survived together. A period of their lives that they had to get through to achieve their goals and get to college or pursue their chosen careers.

He looked rough.

His jeans and faded shirt were covered in ash, dust, and grime. His hair and forehead were matted with sweat, and he held a thick trash bag over his shoulder, filled to bursting.

The entire situation was surreal, like a dream that followed a stream of consciousness. Taylor hadn't given the man a thought since she graduated, as he had never significantly affected her life.

To see him out here, cleaning up or gathering items from his home, was jarring. Like he stopped being the nice yet terrible teacher and became a human instead.

"It is you," he said with a strained smile as he set his filled bag down. "Do you live in this area?"

"I did," Taylor answered uncomfortably, looking around and realizing her feet had taken her along familiar streets. "A few blocks down."

"Sorry," Gladly said with a wince. "How's it looking on your end? My place was wrecked, so I'm staying with my girlfriend. This was all I could get out." He lightly nudged his bulging trash bag with his foot. Items tinkled and clanked inside.

"Not too bad, all things considered," Taylor answered honestly, shuffling awkwardly. Gladly had always been a popular man with the more social students like Emma. The type referred to as Mr. G and would be friendly instead of harsh. "Can't grab everything right now. Going to need a car once the road's fixed."

Even with Emma's aid, Taylor had never become the outgoing type, content with her books. Trying to speak to him now, not as a teacher and student but as fellow adults, was weird.

God, they were probably only ten or so years apart in age. In school, that was a lifetime. Now? Not so much, especially after everything.

"That's good," Gladly smile widened slightly as if genuinely happy for her. "You have a place to stay?"

"We're in the village," she answered with a shrug.

"How is it there?"

"Not too bad," Taylor repeated. "Plenty of food, even its fruit. Clean water, a roof over our heads. There's no electricity, but other than that, I can't complain."

The wooden village had sprung up in only a day. Hundreds of wooden houses, grown out of the ground by one of the Consorts, Tsunade, with the Elden Lord's help.

Each building grew its own food and had beds and hammocks made of leaves and vines. They all looked the same, with the same wooden doors and window panels. There also was no running water for bathrooms, but that was solved by the lake and waterfall the blonde had made, even if it didn't give the privacy many wanted.

But it was enough, especially in the wake of an Endbringer attack.

Brockton Bay was only one of dozens of cities affected and nowhere near the worst.

As shitty as she felt, Taylor could at least thank her lucky stars that this wasn't Beijing.

"You're still with Emma? That's good. I was always rooting for you two."

"Thanks."

God, this was awkward. Was he genuinely this social and interested in her life, or was this chat simply a way for the teacher to avoid thinking about their situation. She couldn't blame him. Taylor knew she couldn't stand sitting around doing nothing.

Emma would be pissed she left on her own, but Taylor was going to go mad laying in her hammock and doing nothing.

"Days like this, you need to hold onto those close to you. I, ugh, I heard about your dad," Mr. Gladly said with a commiserating look. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"'s fine," Taylor said softly, the familiar stab of old pain not as debilitating as it once was.

"I know-"

Gladly froze mid-sentence, mouth shutting, and he looked to the sky. Everyone else on the street did the same, and Taylor froze, panic starting to rise at the unexplained movements.

Another attack? So soon after Behemoth? Was it a villain, or god forbid, another Endbringer?

Was Taylor witnessing the aftereffects of one of Tohu's implanted triggers? The tri-headed Endbringer hadn't appeared over Brockton, she had thought.

Taylor shouldn't have worried, though her panic intensified as a shadow covered the morning sun.

Looking up, she saw glittering light reflected off of purple scales.

The debris and wreckage around her started to levitate and move without being touched. The road, pot marked and melted, began to smooth over.

Some people started to cheer, others shouted words lost over the noise. One man shook his fist at the sky, face flush with rage. Another openly wept, staring at the purple dragon with longing.

Glynda Goodwitch, the dragon, ignored them all as she continued with her work.

"I guess she's done with China," Glady said, voice barely audible over the din of the other people in the street as they watched the dragon manipulate city blocks worth of material.

Anything that could be mended was. Pieces of wood and metal snapped back together as they were manipulated on an almost molecular level.

Anything burned to a significant degree, however, was removed and pilled up in empty lots. Entire houses were dismantled before their eyes, materials stacked as neatly as possible given the circumstances for future use.

Taylor was trying to understand how everyone had known Glynda Goodwitch would be flying over them before she did.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Her answer was the green-skinned alien floating beside the dragon woman. Martian Manhunter might not have been Taylor's favourite hero, but she was aware of all known psychics. It was necessary, as her mutation prevented even beneficial communication in case of emergencies.

Taylor might not have been evacuated in time if Emma hadn't been with her and received Professor X's call to gather at an extraction point.

"Huh," Gladly grunted in surprise, holding up a lump of twisted metal from his bag. Under the dragon's telekinetic power, it bent back into shape.

An old soccer trophy, no longer soot-stained, glittered in the sunlight.

He looked back at the purple dragon, and they watched it work for a minute before it flew off. All heroes were busy, but the League and the Family were particularly occupied as they weren't restrained by borders or jurisdiction controls.

Taylor idly wondered when she had started to think of the Elden Lord and his Consorts as the Family when Gladly's voice tore her from her thoughts for the second time in five minutes.

"What did you feel?" He asked, voice sombre and low. Taylor wondered what he was talking about for a moment before he continued. "At Heartbreak. What did you feel?"

Safety. Warmth. Love. Home.

She didn't answer.

"I felt unrestrained," Gladly answered instead, voice wistful. "Like I could do anything. All my dreams were possible. Like, with His support, no barrier or rule would ever stop me."

Taylor held her silence.

"My girlfriend says she felt like she was flying," he continued. "Like the Elden Lord was carrying her on His back, taking her to the stars. My brother says he felt like a hero. Like Superman. Invincible."

"Are you angry?" Taylor finally spoke. "At the Elden Lord?"

Some people, a lot of them actually, were angry at the Elden Lord and the Family. In their pain and anger, they lashed out against the dragons, calling for their exodus from Earth or for the heroes to put them away in prison.

They saw Heartbreak as a betrayal and Mastering of the worst sorts. It didn't matter that it had lasted less than a minute. What mattered was their minds were messed with.

Taylor knew it wasn't their minds that had been affected. It was something deeper.

Nor did those people enjoy any sort of popular support.

Even if you ignored that the Elden Lord and his Family had fought and killed the Endbringers when they could have left at any time, they had also killed the Stranger Endbringer, Sebettu, that kept the others alive. After that, the Elden Lord had healed literally everyone on Earth, and now they worked to help rebuild.

Trying to shout over the cheers for the dragons was like an ant trying to stop a flood.

"I'm not," Gladly shook his head. "I know why He did it. A few seconds of feeling like the top of the world is better than letting the Endbringers rampage. Still..."

"Still," Taylor nodded in agreement with the unspoken words.

She handled it better than many others and still felt that soul-deep longing. Emma would sometimes lapse into silence in the middle of a sentence, staring eastward toward where they knew the Elden Lord's Island still resided.

"So much is happening so fast," Gladly sighed. "Endbringers, new and old attacking at once. Demon Lords, aliens, dragons, resurrections, Heartbreak... I feel like I wrap my head around one thing, and two more spring up. Whenever I feel like we get a bit of hope, it gets torn away by some new tragedy. Half the world is mad. Beijing is gone in all but name. And yet, my mother can walk again. My dad's cancer is gone. But I don't have a job and don't know what to do with myself. I have no power to do anything about the situation either. These ups and downs... I can't really take it, you know?"

"I do," Taylor agreed, feeling more empathy for the older man than she ever thought possible.

It was all so tiring and depressing. You knew for every rise, there would be an accompanying fall.

"I watched his interview, you know," Gladly said lightly as he picked up his bag of stuff again. "The one where he talked about how he started out. The kind of stuff he went through." Taylor nodded again. Despite her desire to remain far from the Super scene, she had made an exception for things regarding the Elden Lord because of their still unknown connection. "A man who goes through all that, who feels the way he does for his family, and still helps people? Who has remained true to himself after all this time? I can see why people would worship a man like that."

His piece said the former teacher held out his hand to Taylor.

"It was nice seeing you again, Ms. Hebert. Sorry for unloading on you. Take care of yourself."

Taylor bit back the sarcastic remark that nearly left her lips as she shook his hand and watched her old teacher walk away.

Just because she wasn't religious didn't mean she should denigrate other people's beliefs.

From a purely intellectual perspective, she, too, could understand the appeal. The Elden Lord had been on Earth for only a few months and had already performed many deeds that could be considered miracles. Killing the Endbringers, completely purifying the oceans, saving dozens of heroes from a rampaging alien that not even Superman could beat, thwarting a demon lord's invasion, healing everyone on the planet, and bringing back the dead.

Religions had been formed on much less than that.

But Taylor didn't understand why people seemed so gun-ho on acting like the Elden Lord was unique in this regard. It was so weird to her that so many were pinning their hopes on the new guy when they already had so many proven heroes.

Other heroes might not be as powerful or flashy as the dragons. They might not be as sensational or miraculous, but they, too, were heroes.

Taylor Hebert might not like Supers as a general rule, but she respected them. Respected the 'lowly' Protectorate and the Justice League. Appreciated the dedication, commitment, and sacrifice to be heroes. The part of her that used to wear Armsmaster panties and dreamed about being a hero would always respect those everyday, street-level heroes.

Taylor appreciated the Elden Lord.

She was thankful for everything he and his Family had done, but she wasn't going to start praying to the new flavour of the week, like some sort of living god, when he had only been around for a few months.

If he, and the world, was still around in a few decades, she might think about it.

********

Faceless, shadowy figures tore into him.

Blades, spells, monsters, and gods all threw themselves upon Mikael's back, their weight pressing him further and further down.

He struggled, knees bending and body shaking, trying to persevere as the weight of worlds crushed him.

Other figures, female and familiar, tried to tear through the pile. They propped him up with their own backs, bearing what little pressure they could as much as possible to give aid. Any aid.

It wasn't enough.

The mountain buckled.

The weight of Godrick, Radahn, the Erdtree, the Elden Ring, Behemoth, Leviathan, the gods of this world, and the expectations upon him was too much.

Mikael fell, and his Family fell with him.

She idly wondered if this would be enough.

If this would be the time he didn't come back. If he, like so many other tarnished, would be forsaken by Grace as they lost the will to carry on.

Even now, buried under everything, he was still reaching out for her, arm extended from beneath a pile of corpses.

Begging her not to go. Begging her not to leave him alone. Begging her for help.

She stood, watching it all without lifting a finger in aid.

She never could.

She never did.

And the flames consumed her.

********

Melina awoke with a gasp that she desperately tried to quiet.

It was not to be.

"What's wrong?" Mikael rumbled, pulling her tighter into his embrace.

She didn't know if he had always been this way or if it was a product of surviving by himself for so long, but the slightest noise could wake him from sleep instantly, with no drowsiness.

On days like this, it annoyed her tremendously.

"Nothing," she murmured softly. "Go back to sleep."

"You know that isn't how this works," he chuckled, the rumbling in his chest transmitting to her with the familiar laughter. "I'm up now, so you can either tell me what's wrong, or I will have to get... creative with my interrogation technique."

The way his large hand fluttered gently over her abdomen left little in the way of doubt on how he would go about 'extracting' the information.

Despite herself, Melina felt a slight smile tug at her lips. Mikael would never change.

No, she thought as the smile fell. He would. He had been forced to. It was she that never changed.

"You know," he said conversationally. "When a man tries to cheer up a woman with some early morning sex, he doesn't really want to hear a sigh like that. It's enough to give a man a complex."

"It's not you." Melina knew his ego wasn't so fragile that he was truly affected, but she did want to clear up any miss communication. "It's me."

"Also not something a man wants to hear," he retorted dryly but relented with a sigh of his own. "You had a nightmare again, didn't you?"

"Yes," Melina admitted, hating herself for the weakness in her voice.

"The same as the other ones?"

"No."

"Want to talk about it?"

"No."

How was she supposed to tell him that she felt utterly useless? That since the fight with the Endbringers, she had been once more confronted with the truth about her helplessness in this purposeless existence of hers?

All she could do was cast spells that healed the most superficial of wounds while others did the same job, only better. While he and the rest of their Family fought, and possibly died, against creatures and being so far above her in power that all her training and struggles would be meaningless.

How was she supposed to tell him that the woman he tried to rely on was utterly useless?

"Hmm," Mikael hummed, pulling her even tighter into his arms. "You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?"

"What?" Melina asked, befuddled.

"This dream isn't some sort of prophecy of doom you are keeping to yourself and will set out on an epic quest all on your own to prove your worthiness, is it?"

"Sometimes I wonder what goes on in your mind," Melina answered seriously, not letting on how close it had come to the truth. She had no plans to do something drastic, but the desire to do... something was there.

But she would do nothing, as always.

"Sex, violence and rock and roll, mostly," Mikael said without missing a beat. "And puns. So many puns. Sometimes I spend hours flying, not contemplating the beauty of the world around me but simply making ocean puns. Or cloud puns. Sometimes sun puns, but those aren't my brightest work, so you don't hear them often."

Melina groaned, wishing she was facing him to give him a good smack upside the head.

"But seriously," he continued after his chuckles stopped. "I won't press you if you don't want to talk about it, I'm defiantly not one to talk about keeping secrets, but if it's bothering you enough to have nightmares, you should talk about it. If not to me, then one of the others. I know you haven't had a chance to talk with Emma, but I've been told that she is pretty good with this type of thing. Despite her own issues, she helped the rest when they learned about their worlds."

Melina honestly didn't know how she felt about the mutant. She hadn't had time to get to know the platinum blonde since Emma was off the Island as much as Artoria or Diana. What few conversations they had were tinged with wariness and envy.

Emma had made no secret that she was jealous of Melina's time with Mikael, even if the mutant hadn't let it negatively affect their cordial relationship. She was hardly the only one to feel that, so Melina didn't blame her.

It didn't help that Melina was jealous of everyone else.

All she could do was babysit the pets while they were away.

"I'll think about it," the kindling maiden said softly.

"Uhuh," Mikael grunted doubtfully. "That's Melina speak for 'I am going to put it off until it blows up in our faces.' I'm fluent in that language, as well as sarcasm and profanity."

"It means I'll think about it," Melina insisted. "This isn't something talking about will help."

"Look," her Lord said softly, laying his head on her own. She couldn't see his face but knew it to hold that soft expression of his whenever he tried to put away the humour he used as a defence mechanism. "We've had conversations like this before. I talk too much and you too little, but we both tend to bottle things up. I just want you to know that you don't have to deal with things alone. It's something I still struggle with. Even with everything going on, I still want this to be our happy ending, but we have to work for it."

"You say that a lot," Melina pointed out. "'Happy ending.' What do you mean when you say that? I know you don't want to die or want things to end."

"I suppose it just means we reach a point where we are content," Mikael said philosophically. "It doesn't mean no more challenges, or we can do whatever we want without consequences. That would be boring. It just means that we are happy. That we can wake up and look forward to the day with a smile. It is a small, silly, sappy wish, but it is Mine. One of them, anyway."

"It's a good wish," Melina said, snuggling deeper into his chest.

"I know." She could hear the smirk in his voice. "I did say it was Mine, didn't I. And don't think I didn't notice you changing the topic. You are not getting out of this that easy."

Melina said nothing, feeling his body's warmth and the sheets' softness.

"Alright," he eventually sighed. "I'll drop it for now. But if this blows up in our faces, I reserve the right to say, 'I told you so.'"

"I can accept such an accord," Melina agreed.

"Now you are getting me all nostalgic," Mikael sighed, pulling her tight to his frame again.

Then he flipped her, positioning her on her back as he loomed above her.

"And horny," Mikael continued with a smirk.

"You're always horny," Melina said with a fond smile of exasperation.

"Sex, violence, and rock and roll," he repeated. "Now, let me try out my interrogation techniques. I have another busy day ahead with a lot of questions to ask. I need to be in top form."

"I shudder at the thought of you interrogating others this way."

"You'll be shuddering, alright."

Melina's groan of exasperation at the joke soon turned into moans.

********

"Answer the question!" I said, slamming my hands on the table with enough force to dent the metal.

Not even a flinch from the target of my interrogation.

"I cannot." She denied me, the small lamp illuminating her pale face in the dark room.

"Listen," I said harshly, leaning forward over the table and towering over her small frame. She looked up at me, trying to play innocent though I knew what monster lay behind that false exterior. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Either you talk, or I get... creative."

I was using the same lines as with Melina earlier this morning, with wildly different implications.

"I cannot speak of what I do not know."

"Can you believe this chick," I asked my partner. She emerged from the shadows behind the prisoner, tall and intimidating.

"Sir Bard might be a touch rough, but should thou cooperate, I shall ensure thy safety," Priscilla said gently, towering over the woman handcuffed to the chair. "Should thou keep thine silence, I cannot guarantee he shall not do something... drastic. I beg thee to work with me. I wish only the best for thee."

"I do not know what I do not know." The prisoner maintained her innocent mask, but I wasn't buying it for a second.

I started pacing restlessly while Priscilla slid the plate closer to the woman on the table.

"Have something to eat," the hybrid spoke softly but loud enough to be heard over my cursing. "You must be hungry."

"Can I," she asked, staring up at the crossbreed with an honest question in her eyes, and Priscilla nodded with a smile. The killer took a bite of the doughnut, noises of pleasure escaping her mouth.

I waited until her mouth was full, then I struck.

"This isn't the time to eat!" I snarled, shifting the lamp's light to glare directly into the guilty party's eyes. Her cheeks were stuffed with doughnut, looking like a squire.

A guilty squirrel!

"People are dead, dammit! Tell me what I want to know! Or else!"

"Do it," Priscilla insisted with a grimace. "He has but one week till retirement. He has nothing to lose."

"Mhmh."

"Fine," I bit out, leaning back and rolling up my sleeves. "I didn't want to do this, but you've left me no choice."

"No," she gasped, finally swallowing the mouthful of the doughnut as she saw the tool I had chosen for this interrogation. "Anything but that."

"Too late," I cried with vindictive glee. "You should have talked. Now you will-"

"What's going on here?"

We all froze as light filled the room from the now-open door.

Glynda looked decidedly unimpressed at what she saw.

"Mrow," Medea answered proudly as I held her up by her floofy arms close to the ghostly face of Ciara.

I did the only thing I could do.

"It was their idea!"

Shamelessly throw Priscilla and the Spirit Ash of the Faerie Queen under the bus.

I didn't think it was possible, but Glynda looked even more unimpressed. Was her eyebrow starting to twitch, or was I seeing things?

"When you said you were going to interrogate the Faerie Queen," Glynda sighed, rubbing her temples. "I did not think you meant creating a terrible police procedural. I should have known better than to expect you to be serious. Did you get anything useful, at least?"

"We were just getting there," I said, holding up Medea for her to see my 'interrogation tool.' The fat cat freed itself from my hands and flew on stubby wings to the huntress. Glynda caught her and started paying the appropriate tribute of scritches. "And I really am innocent this time."

Glynda looked at the other two people in the room as she flicked on the light switch, ruining the ambiance of our little interrogation room. Priscilla ducked her head slightly, an embarrassed flush to her cheeks.

"My summoner wishes to become a bard," Ciara, on the other hand, did not feel even a hint of shame. Gone was the scared girl act as she dabbed the crumbs from her face with a grace most women would envy. "A lady of the stage. Of music and performance. I shall tolerate nothing but the best from her if I am to accompany my Lady on such an endeavour. She must gain all the practice she can whilst she can. Lord Albion was gracious enough to join my efforts in training her."

"A perfect scene for an interrogation. Dark room with one lamp and a table. The prisoner held against their will as they protest their innocence, despite harbouring dark secrets most foul. Lady Medea provided costumes," Priscilla declared proudly, standing up for herself under Glynda's withering glare. She saluted smartly, hand rising to her police cap. "I was the good cop."

"You did really well," I complimented the crossbreed as I hugged her. Her face flushed in embarrassment, the tip of her floofy tail wagging on the floor behind her. I hugged her tighter. She was too cute! With her uniform and little hat- Gah! I was going to die of diabetes. "The perfect good cop to my bad cop. I really liked the whole 'retire in a week' thing. I could practically hear the death flag rising on my grave."

"Thanks," Priscilla said softly. She was still weak to overt shows of affection like this. "Ciara has been giving me lessons."

"And Medea?" Glynda asked, her eyebrow still raised as she scratched under the cat's chin.

"She wanted to be involved," I shrugged. "I wasn't going to tell her no. What kind of monster do you think I am?"

"One who is perfectly happy to have fun instead of working while I run around trying to rebuild a broken planet."

"It is important to have fun, even during the apocalypse," I defended myself. Glynda glared. "But I suppose I should be getting to that info at some point."

"What a good idea," Glynda said sarcastically as she put down my chonky cat and telekinetically pulled more chairs from around the mansion and placed them around the table.

I sat opposite Ciara, Glynda and Priscilla flanking me and Medea on my lap.

"I know you don't know anything about the gods," I started, stroking the floof behind her ears. "Ranni and Yoruichi are working on that angle. What I want from you is a few things. How did you become an Avatar of the Black? What are the Parliaments up to? And who is this 'Oppressor' you were talking about? Everything else boils down to those three."

"The tale of the Faerie Queen in its entirety?" Ciara hummed as she took another bite of doughnut.

Could she actually taste those? I knew Spirit Ashes weren't really alive or dead, and could feel pain, so I guess it wasn't impossible for them to be able to eat. To say nothing of whatever fuckery Priscilla's element did to them.

"Very well, though you shall not interrupt the retelling." Glynda frowned, but I shrugged for the former villainess to go ahead. I could ask questions after. "I shall begin after I attained my second Faerie. How such a thing happened, I will not tell."

Fair enough. Triggering was literally the worst day of your life. A second Trigger was usually much worse. Reliving such an event wouldn't be nice even for someone like Ciara, with her unique form of madness. If it became important in the future, I would ask later.

"By such time, I had been building my court," the Faerie Queen started. "Many an actor tried to lay hands on me. Those with Faeries joined me. Those without, perished. Though I sought only peace, the foolish will ever try to tear down the strong. I wandered this way and that, heeding the wind's call."

Basically, after her second trigger, she started hoboing around the country. When, inevitably, somebody pissed her off, she killed them.

Villains or heroes got word of the murderhobo, went to check it out, and got murderhobo'd for their efforts. If their powers were shard-based, they joined her ghost army of murderhobos. She probably didn't have that many then, or she would have attracted big-name attention like Flash, Superman, Iron Man, or other long-active heavy hitters.

"T'was while I roamed the west that I came upon the Kingdom of Bone. I knew it not at the time, but the call of the Black had led me there, entreating me to establish my court within it. There was no reason to limit myself to my Faerie. I accepted. I learned of the Parliaments, the Rot, the Melt, the Clear, the White, and so on. So many courts competing and vying for position. I thrived, growing stronger than ever before, but I also learned of the Oppressor. An insidious being seeking domination over all life. The war between it and the Parliaments has waged for decades."

I couldn't help but frown at her words.

The Parliaments represented the various aspects of life and reality. Everything from plants and animals, all the way to stone, metal, and fire had an associated Parliament. They were conceptual existences, their only true goal being the extension and preservation of their respective elements of life. They used champions to do this, as they weren't precisely physical beings themselves.

Ciara had become an Avatar of the Black, also known as the Rot, ruled by the Parliament of Decay. Swamp Thing was the most well-known Avatar of the Green, led by the Parliament of Trees and governing plant life.

There were other avatars, of course, and they weren't necessarily good things. Poison Ivy was the perfect example. Also connected to the Green, she focused on the propagation of plants and eliminating all who threatened them. Such as humans, which were part of the Red, ruled by the Parliament of Limbs that governed terrestrial animal life.

Any of the Parliaments, and their Avatars, were incredibly powerful forces. Swamp Thing and Glaistig Uaine had been the only two beings to invade my Island that wouldn't have succumbed to its deadly inhabitants. For them to be at war with this 'Oppressor' and unable to beat him after decades of effort was... annoying.

I didn't even know if this was the same guy/force/manipulator behind my conflict with the gods. My only reason for suspecting a connection was the timing of the invitation to Themiscira and the Endbringer attacks that followed, lining up very well with Ciara's death and revival at Priscilla's hands. It could be a huge coincidence, and I was chasing the wrong guy.

"The champion of the Clear was the first to fall," the Faerie Queen continued, unaware of my musings. Robin would want to know about this, as it was undoubtedly connected to the destruction of Atlantis. "It left the Parliament of Waves shattered, acting on little more than instinct. The Divided and the Metal had been wholly subsumed to its will before my birth. They are particularly vulnerable to its power. As Queen of the Black Court, t'was my duty to put down any champions that had lost their way. I slew the Avatar of the Rithm in the city of fallen angels."

The start of the Faerie Queen's 'rampage' across the US.

One day Ciara just appeared in Los Angeles, killed a bunch of heroes and villains, raised them to her cause and then threw them into a fight against the Machine Queen. After killing the metallokinetic, an avatar of The Metal, she made her way to Gotham in the Northeast, battling various factions until she was eventually stopped by the newly instated Justice League.

Why she had never summoned the Machine Queen with her power had been a mystery to many. Possibly because of its connection to The Metal? Could it have left her open to the 'Oppresor?' Solomon Grundy, an Avatar of the Grey, was summoned, but if the entire Rithm was subsumed, I could see why there would be a difference.

Either way, it answered some questions about the differences between this reality and Worm.

"The final member of the Parliaments who had fallen under the Oppressor's yoke, my dear champion, was freed when I took him into my embrace." Priscilla summoned the Spirit Ash of Solomon Grundy behind the Faerie Queen for emphasis. The massive undead placed a table-sized hand on the young woman's head and ruffled her hair. "What actors I could save became my companions in my capacity of Keeper of the Dead. But the Oppressor's forces were powerful, and we were defeated and detained. It hopped to supplant me to its way during my incarceration, but I bid my time, waiting for its next move or an opportunity."

Her words had some disturbing implications, but I kept silent as she finished her short tale.

"Lord Albion's arrival provided such a chance. This Jeweled vessel was to be the arc of a new world. Safe from the Oppressor's gaze and power, the Parliaments that remain free have started to convene here. We were to build our strength in this fortress for our counterattack. The Clear, in particular, reaches out to you. Your actions have returned it a semblance of clarity it lost so long ago."

A lot to unpack there, but I got the gist. The bit about the Parliament of Waves was interesting. My 'freeing' of the oceans of trash clearly endeared me to them, but I had no plans of becoming an Avatar of anything. Nobody's getting in my head, body, or soul, thank you very much.

Swamp Thing was probably trying to do something similar, merging with the Green of my Island but failing because there was no Green here. I was the be-all and end-all of 'Life' in this dimension.

Now that the story was done, I could ask the host of questions I had. Most important first, though.

"Do you know who this 'Oppressor' is? Male or female? Human or not? How old, strong, or influential is it?"

It wasn't like I didn't have ideas of who this could be. The problem was that I had too many. Comic worlds were full of stupidly powerful forces hell-bent on world conquest. Those who could fight for control with the Parliaments were rarer, but I could still think of half a dozen off the top of my head, given the right circumstances.

If we were talking about raw power alone, there were many. It could be a powerful mutant, some sort of psychic or magical super lich. It could also be a demon lord, like Mephisto, or a space-borne threat like Nekron or Brainiac. Kang the Conqueror, Darkseid, some of the Kree, a rogue celestial, or any number of other possibilities from Marvel or DC.

The psychological aspect was slightly more unique. Whoever this was had been operating for years, decades even, despite their considerable power. They were intelligent, opportunistic, and decisive.

But even that didn't narrow it down a lot.

Fucking comic bullshit.

I would need to make a short list based on known powers and personalities, but I couldn't discount the possibility of differences between this world and the source material. I had already seen plenty of proof that nothing could be trusted to be perfectly consistent with 'canon.'

"I have never seen it," Ciara said with a shake of her head. "The war has been waged with proxies. It operates in the shadows, never acting itself. Why should it? It has innumerable agents to do the bidding for it. Its army grows every second, while the Parliaments may only act through a few agents. I was to build our own forces, yet I have failed."

"You've mentioned these agents before," Glynda asked, eyes narrowed. "Who are they? We've faced issues from League of Shadows, is it them?"

"As lowly labour, perhaps," Ciara snorted derisively. It was the most un-ladylike action I'd seen from her since our little role-play ended. "I have no dealings with such an organization, but it isn't impossible. They are not its main agents, however. The Oppresor supplants actors to his cause, not props."

"Supers," I said with a sigh.

I had suspected as much when she said the agents were behind her incarceration in the Birdcage. Which meant they were high up in the PRT and possibly the Justice League.

"Indeed," Ciara nodded primly. "Power and domination are its only goals. Peons only have use to act as fodder, or if they have potential to grow to be useful tools in the future."

"Let me guess, everyone with a shard-based power is being mastered?"

It would mean the 'Oppressor' was also the 'Enemy' the gods and Dr. Fate had been talking about. The one who had whisked Zion and Eden off to who knows where to do who knows what.

At least I wasn't chasing the wrong guy.

"I am unfamiliar with that term," Ciara said with a tilt of her head.

"Faeries," Priscilla explained, and her Spirit Ash nodded in understanding.

"Correct. I, too, would have blindly followed the Oppressor's will under my Faerie's guidance, were it not for my connection to the Black."

"Pretty much every Super team in the world has at least one shard-based power among them," I sighed, rubbing my temples.

I wasn't surprised, half expecting this outcome, since I learned that the Entities weren't as brain-dead as I had been told. Was this 'Oppressor' simply continuing the goal of the Cycle? Or was there some other goal? Was I just used to get rid of the gods because of opportunity, or were they unable to do so themselves?

"T'is not only those with Faeries which fill the Oppressor's army. If so, the Parliaments would have purged them long ago to prevent the spread. No, it controls other actors as well."

"Who?" I asked with a frown. Depending on who it was, I could... disappear them subtly.

A lot of people died recently. What was a few more?

It would feel good to start fucking over whoever had been manipulating my Family behind the scenes.

"All of them."

"Pardon?" Glynda asked.

"All of them," Ciara said with a bitter smile. "Every actor. As soon as they gain any ability to be of use to it, they are conscripted into its army. The Oppressor holds their chains, though they do not know it. Why did you believe we needed this Jeweled vessel to be our arc? This is not a war that can be won. It is one that must be survived. Every actor, every Super, on this planet, is a foe."