Kyle threw himself onto the hoverboard again, carefully balancing his body weight onto the object that chose to ignore gravity by means that were mysterious. This was easier said than done, and he'd have a few bruises tomorrow to show for it. The last fall had included a nasty fall onto his tricep, and he'd been lucky he hadn't hit his elbow instead.
Gabriel and Kyle were in a controlled environment, a room specialized for training drills with equipment that reminded Kyle every day that the man who had fathered him was far, far cooler than he'd ever predicted. An artificial intelligence monitored their progress – some kind of mechamorph, Gabriel had explained, but he'd been too in awe of everything to pay much attention. Each of the technologies within the room took after the AI's coloring of green and black, with circuitry designs that reminded him of old video games.
"We haven't even moved yet," Gabriel said, not hiding his frustration. The white and black uniformed man held a hand to his side, slightly out, while a thin cord of green light extended from the wrist and connected to the base of the hoverboard. This kept it from moving, Gabriel had assured him, before Kyle was ready.
"I don't understand why you are asking me to do this without the Plumber suit," the boy said in clear frustration. "With it, the damn hoverboard would just listen to me."
Gabriel let a barely restrained chuckle escape, earning one of Kyle's patented teenager looks. The ones that made his mom mad.
"I was on Korugar," Gabriel explained simply. The tone shift forced Kyle to pay attention, even as his knees wobbled trying to maintain a balance. "Was investigating some riots against the government. A prominent leader of the would-be rebels figured me out and sent assassins. In the dead of night, I didn't have time to don the whole uniform and barely escaped on that very board, Kyle. Had to fly it manually, nearly into space itself, to get away from the attackers."
Kyle glanced down at the piece of wondrous tech beneath his feet. One of many the Plumbers utilized regularly, they were capable of integration with the suit for ease of use. Without the suit to help read balance data, a rider would have to adjust their body weight perfectly in mid-air to keep from falling off, and some maneuvers wouldn't be possible without the mag boots of the uniform.
"Without the training every Plumber issued with one of these has done, I'd be dead right now."
The boy understood. He did. He was more upset by the fact that he didn't have one of the suits than he was that he couldn't more easily ride the board. It was merely a symptom of the other problems, ones that had het to go away.
But, nevertheless, Kyle continued.
"Tell me about school."
The boy nearly crashed again.
"I'm stuck babysitting Terry through the final project in art," he mumbled. "Kid's as gay as they come, but he doesn't have an artistic bone in his body."
…. Phrasing.
Gabriel blinked at that and wrinkled his nose, but said nothing.
"He's mad at me because we haven't talked much," Kyle continued, gesturing to the chamber around him. "Ever since I've been coming here on the weekends, we haven't hung out."
The moment hung in the air for long enough that Kyle continued. "Other classes are fine, enough, but I would be lying if I said they weren't slipping."
"All grades slip near the end of the school year," the man supplied.
"Thank you!" Kyle exclaimed, the excitement nearly causing him to fall as he shifted his weight. "That's what I told Mom, but she's concerned. I'm not sure what to do about all that. When Plumber business starts up for me," Kyle began, "I doubt I'll have time to-"
Gabriel rose an eyebrow. "To what?"
Kyle felt the rehash of a previous conversation coming. "To go to school."
The man laughed. "You really don't like it, do you?"
"No!" With that, he did slip and caught himself by the butt, slapping down onto the side of the board without falling off completely. "… Ow. Even before all this, I knew what I wanted to do."
Gabriel deactivated the board with a twist of his wrist, a green flash of light emanating from its surface. Kyle had time to push to his feet as it contracted, shrunk, and returned to the place just behind his suit's belt buckle.
"Your art skills are awesome," Gabriel praised. "You could probably put up some pieces around here, make the place more lively."
Kyle grinned. "I'd love that."
For a place designed to be available for any Green Lantern or Plumber to use within this sector of space, Kyle and Gabriel were the only frequent visitors. The latter because he lived here full time. If Kyle could stand to make things more home-y for the both of them, it would go a long way.
"The medical diagnostics came back," Gabriel said as he sat at a nearby table, the remains of their discarded breakfast available for them to continue eating. "You have no conditions that might mess you up, and you're a close genetic match. You could gain the same implants I have, with only minor adjustments."
Kyle felt a rush come over him. He was this close to taking after his father.
"Medically, nothing precludes you from undergoing surgery soon for the integration of the Plumber implants."
Kyle listed them off in his head. For translation, for integration with the suit, for medical diagnostics, and for many other options that he couldn't name. Plumbers of Gabriel's caliber were almost cyborgs with the amount of tech within their bodies to supplement their needs or to gain new use.
His mind caught up to Gabriel's words. "But something does stop you from doing it."
The man shook his head, expression hard to name. "Stop is the wrong word. But I am wary, son." He starts to speak and then trails off, his mind elsewhere. "I want to show you something. Call your mother – you'll need a school excuse for the next couple days."
LONDON
April 30, 01:13 UTC
TEAM YEAR ZERO
In the dead of night, Jinx slipped into The British Museum's storage warehouse. Acrobatically, she leaped over any sensors and confused the camera readings with a minor bit of electrical interference, courtesy of her elemental abilities. Realistically, there was little in the way mundane security measures could stop her, which is why the magical wards holding an entire wing of this place together interested her greatly. Any actual people involved were a different story – she knew she was not immune to bullets any more than anyone else could be.
Still, the wards were a confusing sight. They were tight, overwrought, and old. Old, old. She was not an expert in the arcane theories that underpinned the heightened unrealities of magic, but she was naturally in tune with them in a way many others were not. A bit of misfortune magic, a lot of natural magic – she was gifted in two fields, where her mentor only had Order at his beck and call. Neither of those fields gave her an advantage in tearing down the wards themselves, but she could weaken them temporarily, so long as she could bind a countering force to the source. That was easier said than done if she did not have more knowledge.
Of course, she didn't need to intervene with them. She was not here to undermine security, to take whatever artifacts or secrets of sorcery lay within that wing of the complex. She was here for information, and if she happened to find more than she expected to find? Well, that was just grand, and she was sure Kent wouldn't mind eventually. She hoped her efforts would not set off the arcane protections, but if they did, she thought she could handle it.
Jinx was just about to enter that wing when she felt the man's presence – or rather, an apparition courtesy of the Tower of Fate. A golden ankh flickered into her peripheral vision, followed by the silent footsteps of her elderly mentor's glowing visage approaching her. This was not the real Kent, but rather an illusory duplicate designed to monitor and care for the Tower.
With a bit of frustration, she realized that she hadn't known he could do that.
"It will be harder to trick the cameras now."
"You don't need to worry about all that, girl."
If he said so.
She was not sure why the larger magical communities across Earth hid themselves and the truth of magic from the world. A glowing golden man walking through a famous museum's warehouse did not even register next to a man who could bring skyscrapers down with a single punch. As far as Jinx was concerned, if everyone had had to live the kind of magical life that she had, then she'd have far less to worry about on a day to day. Reveal the truth of magic to everyone, and they were bound to understand, or perhaps even embrace the beauties of magic themselves.
"You're certain that this is the place, Kent?"
"The Caretaker of the Tower has -"
"Don't give me that, Kent." The spirit may not have been him truly, but it was the next best thing. Supposedly, the real man had business in the realm of Faerie, but what a man in his hundreds could possibly be doing with a bunch of elves and pixies was unknown to her.
"- utilized various Orderly divinations to confirm the chain of events that led to this warehouse. If they are not here, then you may find a clue to point you in the right direction."
There were far too many might's for her liking, but magic was about guesswork. The Art, in its many forms, had mysterious ways of acting, even between two practitioners performing the same spell. Her own divinations had been unsuccessful, but Kent had worked around whatever ward was in place by being creative in the approach.
The moment she passed over the line where the ward lay, a buzzing in her ear began. The projection of Kent's spiritual duplicate did not progress any further, and she bid him adieu as she had to carry out the next piece alone.
The buzzing dulled to a roar in her ears, but she maintained a progressive clip, as she was searching for a specific bit of information. The arcane defenses had not replaced the mundane, so she continued to trick cameras with sparks of elemental electricity and avoid sensors with heated elemental air. The wards were likely reacting to her use of magic, but she was not acting out of malice or greed, but instead out of understanding and curiosity. Magic was as much about intent as it was about power.
Visibly, everything here looked much the same as the rest of the warehouse. Paintings, molds, pottery, artifacts all locked in tight containers or wrapped in bindings to keep them from the elements. An ornate sword with matching scabbard reminded her, idly, of the stories of Excaliber, but there was no way that was remotely relevant just because she was in the UK. Her curiosity forced her to try to pick it up, but it weighed the same as any other sword and did not react to her presence in any meaningful way. Disinterested, it joined the rest of the pile of junk to her, precious items to anthropologists.
She must have stalked this section of the museum for fifteen minutes, far too long for any reasonable heist, before she was ready to give it all up and leave.
That was the moment she spotted something she may never forget.
A black ornamental sash encased behind glass, sitting on a red velvet plinth. Adorned within the sash were empty places for five important objects. She could tell something should be in each place because symbols adorned the rest of the fabric, but there were five conspicuous places where no symbols touched and each were aligned in such a way to be intentional.
What some might say is simply a fancy piece of clothing from an ancient age, she could tell it was magical without even opening her senses to it. How magical, she did not know, but it was keyed into the wards of this place. A tag on the casing indicated that this sash had been found among ruins dating as far back as pre-Republic Rome, but she'd have to ask Kent how old that was or even what that meant.
Jinx had, regrettably, missed a lot of crucial education during her earliest childhood years. Prior to her… running away, her mother and the monks had schooled her in the basics. Ever since, what she'd learned had been through osmosis and short trips to libraries to read the simplest of books. She knew that Rome had been an important European empire at one point, but that had been through a Gladiator movie night she'd had with Abhi and his friends several years ago.
The fact that no one had forced her, kicking and screaming, into an American school was truly a wonder.
"All right then," she said with a smile. "You're gonna have to be mine."
A hex of bad luck could have unpredictable effects. She could just as easily shatter the encasing glass as she could bend its frame out of place, or perhaps light the plinth on fire and ruin the whole thing before she could even get it. A hex would, if properly controlled, be less noticeable than her elemental spells to open this case, but she needed to open it to have a place to start.
This was the key to her success, the key to understanding exactly what had been happening with her.
Jinx settled for risking the hex and let loose a burst of concentrated bad luck. Pink magic warped the air between her and the target, and she was specifically trying to aim for the bolts she could see exposed behind the glass. What she intended to happen would be an unexpected loosening, perhaps an un-tightening that would lead to instability and ease of opening.
What actually happened was a sudden expansion of the bolt to four or five times the size. The case warped as the torque within the screws and bolts suddenly increased, and the glass cracked with the added tension.
She hit the crack with her elbow once, twice, three times before it finally gave way.
The wards' purpose became known the second she pulled the sash from its plinth. Artifacts, paintings, storage containers, cloth tarps, and metal rods animated in a flash of blue light. A veritable storm of objects swirled around her, and she cursed under her breath as they began chasing her through the warehouse. An unflattering portrait of Henry VIII tried to strangle Jinx, while a cloth tried to turn into a rope to bind her.
Acrobatically flipping through the space, using skills she'd learned fleeing many a bad situation, she managed to avoid the initial onslaught and break through the line with only a hard swipe of what might be a curtain rod or a fire poker to her shoulder. Smarting pain distracting her from any specific spells, instead settling for an elemental burst that released as nothing more than a half-second torrent of wind and water. They battered and soaked some of the repurposed objects, but many of them continued to follow after her.
Jinx crossed the where the wards began, rejoined by the apparition of the Tower of Fate's Caretaker.
"Falling on old habits?"
"I'm not taking it just to take it," Jinx argued. "This is what I've been looking for!"
Unable to do more than witness events, the spectral Kent could not help her as she turned to send a gout of pink flame from her open hand. The other clutched the sash in her hand, its symbol-covered fabric dangling limply. She wished she knew what it could do, wished she knew how it could be helpful, but it would require study.
The flames surged through the air and toasted several objects, their animating magic fading without the structural integrity to hold them together. Others remained, however, and she needed to continue to blast them.
"Distance, Jinx!" Kent suggested beside her. "This kind of ward likely loses power the further from its source."
"Never thought you'd tell me to run away from my problems."
Kent frowned. "My dear, I've been running from problems my whole life."
Jinx did not know what to say to that as she conjured a thin wall of earth, little more than an inch of stone a few feet high, but it slowed them down long enough to give her some distance. The real security of the warehouse would be bound to engage any second.
But, true to his word, they slowed to a crawl and eventually clattered in piles of now ruined rubbish when she finally managed to clear the distance.
Huffing, she glanced at the sash and said, "You better be worth all this."
SECTOR 2814
April 30, 04:51 UTC-8
TEAM YEAR ZERO
Kyle had little idea what he was in for when Gabriel took him onto the Plumber-issued space ship and away from Earth. They'd traveled for several hours through the stars until eventually coming to a stop amidst an open area of space, where a series of ships seemingly chained together served as a port of some kind. All of it centered around what might be a derelict orb-shaped freighter, cosmetic damage visible across its surface, while a ring of other ships of various spherical sizes surrounded it.
"What is this place?"
Gabriel gestured with one hand toward a series of monitors that displayed sensor readings. It was clear that much movement happened into and out of this station. "This is the headquarters of the Cluster organization. Intergalactic traders – lots of folks come in and out of this place all the time, and it's in Earth's relative neck of the woods."
"But why? Why take me here?"
"You'll see."
The next half-hour was a whirlwind of new experiences for Kyle. Gabriel flashed his Plumber badge at the checkpoint run by an thick-skinned alien with tentacles for eyes. The man took Kyle through a series of congested hallways filled with people trying to purchase wares, including foods from other distant worlds, knickknacks that could be weapons for all he knew, and just as many oddities that he had no context for. Many of the aliens here only shared bipedalism with humans from Earth, while their other features were wild and distinct.
Space had never seemed so large.
"Are there other Plumbers here?"
"Could be," Gabriel replied as he grabbed hold of Kyle's hand to guide him through a throng of aliens that truly intimidated him. "We aren't so numerous that we're everywhere all the time, but we get around."
Gabriel said little else to his questions, of which he had numerous. They passed a really fat man made of what might be magma, and a green-skinned frog-like toddler running around unaccompanied. Something popped in the distance, the sound so loud that Kyle thought it might be a gun, but it was apparently just a bottle of liquid significantly louder than champagne opening up, sizzling like acid, before it was served to a group of aliens that each had two heads.
Finally, Gabriel stopped in a section of the Cluster Ship that was truly difficult to see. Kyle understood quickly what it was, and his eyes widened.
"But that- that is-"
Children, men, and women of all shapes, species, and sizes wore chains, some made of metal and some made of other materials to accommodate the varied features of those enchained. Others shouted prices at some kind of robot, or perhaps a really metallic alien, that directed people to spend their money or other valuables to purchase those on auction.
"A slave market," Gabriel explained solemnly.
"But why? Why haven't they -"
"Haven't they what?"
"Gotten rid of this!"
Gabriel shook his head quietly and pulled Kyle to the side. "I wanted to show you this, among many other things, to reveal to you the life I live. I face injustices like this every. single. day."
Kyle could not comprehend this.
"Are we going to do something?"
"What do you expect we do?" he challenged, a whisper of defeat in his voice. "I am one man with admittedly impressive tech, but the Cluster is a well-organized, well-armed, and well-managed trade organization. The amount of people and goods that filter in and out of this place on a daily basis is staggering, Kyle, and it can be a wealth of information. If I were to intervene, it would be only on the grounds of a moral objection, not a legal one."
Kyle tried to follow the logic. "Not a legal- wait. The bosses allow this?"
"They allow it in much the same way that they allow income inequality, resource scarcity, and military engagements across the cosmos," Gabriel explained with a pained expression. "I struggled at the beginning to understand all of this, and I spent a significant chunk of my first two years as a Plumber trying to stop a Psion enclave from taking slaves from a planet in the Vega system. Many other Plumbers do the same, and sometimes, you can find justice. Problems like slavery are not ignored entirely. Sometimes, Plumbers try to fix other societal issues too, other crimes, other big-scale problems, and they find rewards.
"But far more often, Kyle, we are powerless in the face of such numerous atrocities."
Kyle truly was at a loss for words.
The idea that the Guardians of the Universe had the Lanterns and the Plumbers and did not try to end all of slavery across the worlds they watched over was wild to him.
"What good are the Plumbers then?" he asked seriously. "I don't mean that offensively, I mean that actually. What good do you do? When… when do you intervene?"
"The Guardians don't have the men to stop things like warfare on a planet-level," he explained. "As bad as something like the Second World War was on Earth, they'd have only gotten directly involved if the Axis Powers successfully launched a war against Mars. And even then, a single planet's war against another planet might not be worthy of consideration, depending on the context."
Kyle considered that example for a long few seconds. "So, they would do something if Martians started trying to mass enslave humanity, but not if a few slavers from Mars grabbed a few human slaves."
"It's not as simple as that," Gabriel clarified, "but that's a useful breakdown some of the time. It's a matter of scale and potential impact. The bigger the threat to the universe, the more likely the Guardians are to send a force en-masse to deal with it."
"I don't like these rules."
"I don't either," Gabriel answered. "Places like this could be stopped, given enough investment in manpower, but that would mean other Lanterns or Plumbers are not available to do their usual duties. And, like I said, these places are good for investigations. Sometimes, leaving a hotbed like this active means you learn something about the real threats at large."
Kyle surveyed the proceedings as slaves were auctioned, the man's words running through his mind. A young – or at least, he thought they were young – alien made of what might be free-form gelatin became the property of a proud spiky, porcupine-like alien couple.
"If you were going to stop this, how would you do it?"
The question surprised Kyle.
"Find the guards," he suggested. "Uh, tag them in secret with a Taser. Take their weapons. Ooh- use them to start a slave revolt. Slaves kick ass of the rest, we find a ship, and we fly away."
Gabriel's face was unreadable.
"Your plan has too many points of failure, unaccounted. For one – there may not be a ship available with controls someone can read to pilot. For another, you likely do not have the firepower even with some guards down to save dozens, if not hundreds of slaves, and many will die or be injured permanently in the process. And, places like this have fighters capable of pursuing fleeing ships, so you'd need to hope that they don't catch you and shoot down your hundreds of refugees. And finally, if you manage to escape successfully, where are you taking hundreds of freed slaves?"
Kyle thought about interrupting several times but let the man finish, and by the end of it, he had several points to try to defend his idea.
Gabriel shot down each one.
"What's the point?" he finally asked. "Why?"
"The point is to get you to realize what I do is not easy. What I do is some of the hardest work imaginable, and that if you want to do this, you need to do it for the right reasons. Plumbers are not glory-hounds like the Lanterns. Decisions you make have weight, and if you're going to take on this responsibility, you need to know and understand that. If you don't, you'll burn out like many of my colleagues, or you'll fail to even begin."
TOWER OF FATE
April 30, 12:42 UTC-5
TEAM YEAR ZERO
When Jinx finally returned to the Tower of Fate, she found Kent Nelson - the real Kent - sitting in his third-favorite parlor room with a plate of tea and crumpets. Shelves of magical tomes and historical volumes scattered throughout the chamber, while a trio of tiny androgynous sprites flittered around the room, leaving their dust everywhere.
"What's the deal with the fairies?"
"Nothing to worry yourself over, dear," he mumbled. "They are just visiting."
They said something to Kent in a sylvan dialect, and he waved his hand lazily. They sprinkled into piles of silvery-dust as they banished themselves back to Faerie.
In her hands, she held the sash she had worked so hard to steal. Her own abilities had not revealed to her its purpose, and she hoped Kent may know more. He typically did.
Jinx wanted to get to business with her mentor, but they'd been working together for almost a year. She knew him well enough to know that he was not going to do anything without forcing her to deal in pleasantries.
She took a sip of the tea as she sat, laying the sash across her lap. The liquid was delicious, as always, and she even took in a bite of crumpet. Out of respect, more than anything else.
"Do you know what this might be?" she asked carefully, displaying it for him.
Kent considered it for a long moment, studying its markings and its composition.
"The runic markings indicate that it once facilitated a balancing of power from five artifacts," he spoke aloud, reading the runes that easily without even invoking a spell. "The wearer of the sash could properly channel these five mystic items into themselves, without becoming overburdened. It provided some protection against theft of the artifacts while present and kept them stabilized in place."
Jinx waited for him to continue, but when he didn't, she spoke up. "That's it?"
"There is one other piece," Kent explained gravely, "but it is not a name I recognize from my own experience. The person who wore this, who wielded this, was an enemy of Nabu from far older days. He took on a simple name, known to history as nothing more, northing less, than Hex."72