Alannah Warman alighted on the open-air landing platform near the top of League tower shortly after Adam, glancing over as Anaru joined them a few moments later. The Samoan’s face was a study in discontent, with his massive arms crossed over his chest and his jaw locked in anger. Her husband, meanwhile, stood facing the massive wall on the eastern side of the meeting room and watching the news channels covering his statement.

“The public appears to be dithering on whether or not to accept our stance.” Adam said far more calmly than Alannah knew he felt. “The pretender won’t have many allies by time our PR campaign is through with him, and either he’ll slink back under whatever rock he crawled out from — or he’ll be prime for capture. Whatever tricks he’s using to impersonate Olympus’ traits, we’ll put a stop to them if we capture him.”

Alannah compressed her lips at her husband’s words, and summoned her patience to hold back the emotions that threatened to erupt from beneath her forced calm. “You should have consulted with us before making that statement, Adam.” She stepped towards him as she spoke, gesturing around them. “This concerns all of us. Jeremy, Erika, and Dominic as well. It wasn’t your place to speak for all of us that way.”

“I am the leader of the League.” Adam replied flatly, moderating his voice. Alannah could hear the rage behind it though, sense the bitterness in her husband’s words. Even after years of steadily growing distance, it hurt her to hear it.

“First Among Equals.” Anaru corrected, the massive man’s finger pointing angrily at Adam. “That was our agreement. First Among Equals. You overstepped this time, Adam. The set-ups and the press pandering, I can at least understand that even if I despise it — but this? You made a unilateral decision without even asking our opinions!”

Adam turned when Anaru finished his statement, golden eyes fixing onto the towering man’s brown ones. “What’s your point, Dreadnought?”

Alannah felt her throat tighten at the coldness in Adam’s gaze, and the dangerous edge to his voice as he posed the question. She stepped towards Anaru pre-emptively, extending a gloved and armoured hand. “Anaru, now’s not the time. We need to focus on this Aquila and our next step.” Despite having the exact same objections as the other Hero, Alannah also understood when Adam’s mind was utterly fixed. In those moments, fighting him only served to make him dig his heels in even harder.

She looked between the two men as they stared at one another in lingering silence, before Anaru seemed to lose the fuel sustaining his indignance, his massive frame sagging slightly as he lowered his gaze. “What’s happening to us?” He looked to Alannah, then back to Adam. “To you? Some new vigilante comes onto the scene and… what? We declare him public enemy number one?” He sighed, his bass voice rumbling with discontent. “This isn’t who we’re supposed to be. This isn’t what we swore to become.”

“We became what we needed to become.” Adam replied frostily, turning back to the television screens. “We became what was necessary for the perpetuation of our mandate to defend the world, and adapted to a changing planet. New Avalon is the centre of modern human society. It’s the jewel of the species. Our duty, our charge, is to defend it in Olympus’ place.” He pointed his finger at the central screen, showing a freeze-frame image of Aquila. “This liar risks undermining the very foundation of who we are.”

Alannah stared at it in the same way she knew Anaru was staring at it, and the same way Adam had stared at it. The image was… shocking. It was like looking at Olympus reborn. Younger, more ferocious, clearly lacking refinement or the incredible self-control their mentor had possessed. Yet in spite of all those things, part of her couldn’t simply discard the unknown hero as a false idol. She knew Adam was determined to drag Aquila out and ‘expose’ the pretender. The idea of anyone impugning his legitimacy as Olympus’ successor was an existential threat to Adam’s very identity, but for her it was different.

Where her husband saw a pretender, Alannah saw something else: Possibility.

“The media will be circling for something to chew on.” Adam said into the silence that followed. “Dreadnought, go and give them a show. Answer some questions. Play the boisterous hero.” Their golden-haired leader folded his arms, voice clear in its finality. “I will contact Nullifier, King Raven, and Patriot and discuss our next move.”

Anaru lifted his head as Adam spoke and then bowed it a moment later. “Something has to give, Adam. We can’t go on like this forever.” He responded, even as he turned to leave.

“We will do as our oath to Olympus demands we do, Anaru.” Adam replied coldly.

“But at what cost?”

“Whatever cost is necessary.”

Anaru fell silent at that, and a moment later launched himself into the air to accelerate away from the tower and up towards the high-speed altitude above the city. Alannah watched him go in silence, worried for the big man and his bigger heart. For all that Anaru was the musclebound warrior, the titanic Dreadnought, the iron fist of the Golden League… So too was he a man of reason and empathy. A gentle giant, she’d called him when they’d first met. Over the years, that assessment had only grown more true — and her heart bled to see him so tortured by the path Adam had led them down.

“Look at him.” Adam said after a moment, drawing her attention back to him. “The way he holds himself, the way his eyes gleam. Even the colours. Everything about him is just…” Alannah could hear the struggle in her husband’s voice, even if he hid it behind disdain and loathing. She could hear the boy behind the man, the fragile essence of his stained soul wondering, hoping, praying that perhaps he really was wrong — and that the unknown Hero was their mentor, their father, in a new flesh.

She could also hear the moment he killed that hope without mercy.

“…repulsive. How dare he violate the sacrosanct memory of Olympus. I swear, Alannah, when I find this sacrilegious bastard? The world will know him for the fraud he is.” The sneer in Adam’s voice was palpable, and painful. He’d never been cruel, never been a man of petty revenge or personal vendettas. Calamity had been the closest thing to a true hatred he’d ever had, but this… This was something else. Something about the sensation around Aquila had done more than simply threaten Adam’s sense of self, it had sparked a hatred and resentment in her husband that she’d never seen before.

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She wanted to say something to pull him back from the precipice of corrosive negativity he was standing upon. During the War he had often shown signs of anger or of frustration, but they’d passed quickly. In the very few cases they hadn’t, herself or Michael had been there to soothe Adam’s fury. To refocus him and assuage his emotions. Most times it had simply been guilt, and a feeling of powerlessness they’d all shared after another tragedy or cataclysm had been perpetrated by a Trumpet or their followers.

Now, however, Michael was their enemy. Olympus was dead. The war was over, and their objectives were no longer clear black and white. Too many shades of grey existed, too many murky moralities and unclear ethical conundrums that had led to them embarking on a path that had in many ways cost her husband chunks of his soul — and parts of all of their own in the act. Suddenly, it was just too much.

“I’m going on patrol.” She said more abruptly that she’d intended, wincing internally at the brusqueness of her voice. “I’ll be off comms for a while.”

She waited for him to object. In fact, she wanted him to object. She felt so twisted up and uncertain in that moment. All she wanted to hear from her husband, from the love of her life, was the demand to stay. The demand to be at his side. In that moment she’d have traded her cape and her powers just for him to treat her like his wife again. Instead he simply nodded, staring at the image of Aquila frozen on the large central screen. “Give the media a flyby when you go.” Was all he offered, his gaze never leaving the image.

Bitterness and grief warred with anger and an enforced level of cold detachment as Alannah offered a taciturn affirmative and launched herself into the air, enjoying the breeze against her face as she sailed out of the open entrance to the meeting chamber.

Alannah glanced down at the media gaggle below as she flew, her enhanced vision picking out the cameras pointing towards her as she left League Tower. Adam’s words echoed in her mind and she considered them carefully for all of a few moments, before deciding to utterly ignore them. Be it petty anger or merely a lack of desire to deal with the media, she instead piled on the speed and arced upwards in defiance of Newtonian laws; accelerating for the stratosphere.

She felt the pressure blanket of the sound barrier creep up on her within moments, and smiled in spite of herself as she shattered it a second later — leaving a sonic boom behind her as she spiraled up and through the lower cloud layers of the sky. Thanks to her gifts, Alannah didn’t simply enjoy flying; she was at home when she flew. The natural processes that precipitated rain, snow, hail, lightning, or any other major weather event were in-tune with her elemental affiliation.

She could feel the electrons in the air, feel the way that static and energy danced and twined within the infinite blue. It was part of her, body and soul, the same way fire — or solarfire, specifically — was for Adam. She spread her arms as she ascended, lost in the pleasure of simply being free and among the clouds, sailing away from the earth and its problems to lose herself in the endless expanse of the sky to which she truly belonged. When she reached the stratosphere she slowed to a halt, falling ‘backwards’ to simply coast along above the cloud layer as if drifting on a stream.

It was how she preferred to think when an important decision had to be made.

She pulled out her phone from within a special, normally sealed part of her attire as she floated along, pulling up the Aquila video to watch it herself in the privacy of the sky. As the events played out on the screen, she ignored the peripheral details, and instead focused on the man himself. The way he moved, the way he spoke, the sound of his voice. Her senses dialed up as far as they would go without opening her up to the cacophony of the city beneath her; all of her focus locked on the playback.

After her first two runs through the footage, something about it nagged at her memories, though she was struggling to pinpoint what it was. Something about his appearance, about the way he carried himself and the way he moved. There was a familiarity there, one that she was certain held meaning. As a Multi possessing Equilibrium, Aquila represented a rare and exceedingly powerful kind of Metahuman: One like herself. A Metahuman that possessed two or more qualities in equal balance. The strongest registered heroes in the world had two equal powers rated B+ or higher. The most powerful heroes; herself, formerly her brother Atlas, the reclusive Poseidon, and Adam possessed three at A+ rating.

The way Aquila handled himself against the mohawked female told Alannah that his strength and — if the comment on Equilibrium was to be believed — speed were at least at a B rating, though one other factor leapt out at her: He hadn’t had his powers for very long. It was evident in the subtle ways his face changed when he took the attack of the strongwoman in the video. The way his emotions seemed to shift from concerned to pleasantly surprised, before the rage kicked in. Aquila wasn’t simply new to the hero game, he was new to being a metahuman. Which meant that Aquila was a teenager.

A sudden flash of memory caused her eyes to widen and lips to part in shock, and Alannah shifted her phone sideways, using her thumbs to zoom in on the eagle emblem on Aquila’s chest. Two heads. Stylised wings. Her mouth went dry, and she knew why he seemed so familiar. The smile, the voice, his skin tone, even the way he held himself and stood. The sheer power of his presence. The only differences were the lack of the somber silence, the quiet pain, the self-enforced isolation.

She remembered back to her adolescence, to accidentally walking in on Olympus without a shirt. She remembered how embarrassed she’d felt, but more than that, she remembered something else: She remembered the birthmark on his chest, laid over his heart. She remembered it in vivid detail, because she’d never seen one so beautiful. So elegant. She remembered it because it was a secret she alone possessed, shared with her by her surrogate father and mentor in a moment of vulnerability he’d shown to no one else.

A double-headed eagle. One identical to the symbol on Aquila’s chest.

“Oh my god.” She said softly, her right hand rising to cover her lips reflexively. “We never knew. All this time, we never knew.” Why Olympus had vanished after throwing Nephilim into the infinite dark, why he’d frequently been absent for just under a year in spite of Baal’s rampage across the Middle East. They’d all assumed he’d been busy with other teams, or working on a plan or strategy against the Trumpets. They’d assumed he’d planned the ambush that had eventually killed Messiah, Quetzalcoatl, and Amun-Ra.

“But you didn’t, did you?” She said to the heavens, staring up at the black eternity above. “That’s why you smiled more. That’s why you seemed so much more alive. It wasn’t because you were winning. It was never about that. You hated to kill.”

She felt tears in her eyes.

“It’s because you had a son.”

Protect my legacy. Olympus had told them. Protect… my son.

Alannah laughed into the endless blue, even as the tears began to fall. She wept for Olympus’ sacrifice, for the delusion that had poisoned her husband, for the love her mentor had never been able to speak of. She wept for the man she had called her father, and for the charge she had never known. She thought of Aquila, and she thought of the rage behind his eyes, and the pain behind the rage, and she knew what had to be done.

“I will protect your legacy, Olympus.” Swore the Lady of the Azure Skies.

Even if it costs me my life.