Demons, part five
Deep in the Infinite City, about a hundred kilometres north of the Necrofriggian think-tank and three-thousand kilometres west of the ever-expanding apartment complex slash fortress where the Shi'ar species had settled after the wars between the factions of the homo genus, a round tower stood.
Up on its roof, sat two blonde blue-eyed humanoid persons - one was dressed in a dark-hued bodysuit. The other one of them wore a shirt and a skirt, of matching blue color, along with a red cape; upon the garment's chest region was a stylized S, upon a bright yellow backdrop.
The pair was quietly sitting up there, enjoying the view of the cityscape and its populace, with their legs off the side.
"What do you think they'll think about us," wondered Winry aloud, "if they could see us now?"
Supergirl turned her head to look curious at the Great Young One. "They, who, precisely?"
Winry didn't precisely know how to phrase her sentiment. "I guess I mean the ordinary mortal versions of us all, out there in the Omniverse."
It was a reasonable thought, supposed the Homeostasis, even if it didn't really see much of a point to it.
On the pan-actuality level, there existed almost as many Winrys as there were iterations of the Amestrian nation's timeline growing back and forth through the fertile soil of time. The JLA unit member guesstimated that all of them were era-typical homo sapiens who were, be that good or ill, living lives of no celestial consequence with the Elric brothers.
They had never been recruited by Shuma-Gorath, and so, never done half of the things the Winry the Homeostasis knew had - they had never met people from other worlds, never worked to break reality, never experienced eternal life or things other than what the human experience permitted in its five-sensory charm. They had neve-
The entity found then its merrily-chugging train of thought derailed, by what it saw through the eyes of the Crystal body - a horde of Klingon sorcerers preparing to conduct an arcane ritual. At the center of the impending bonfire, the entity noted the presence of several Vulpimancers, each one tied to a metal pole. That, decided the spirit, was something requiring intervention.
"A moment, Winry," voiced the female Kryptonian. Winry hmmed, gazing out over the city-scape. Three streets over, she glimpsed a orange bird creature flying above the houses, and soon make a landing at one of them.
Then, the voice of the other blonde sounded again.
"I believe I now have a moment to spend on this topic," Homeostasis hoped it did, but duty always called somewhere in the City. "I imagine that they might be surprised to learn about us," the spirit recalled many times, from just this century, where alternate iterations of its bodies had crossed paths with the Justice League of Avengers, and how they had responded to learning about its roster. "Do you miss the life you once lived, perchance?"
The blonde chosen one of Shuma-Gorath looked curiously at her roof-mate, pondering that. "Well," she replied, after a moment's thought, "not really. I do feel the occasional bit of nostalgia for Resembool and Earth, that I'll admit, but I'm content with the life I've got nowadays."
The Kryptonian girl stared blankly down at the street; the attention of the guiding spirit had wandered off a hundred blocks, where Power Girl was floating above a twenty-foot-tall dinosaur creature.
it took a moment before Supergirl replied. "That is something of a relief, I suppose."
In a street crowded by mortals - and of course, the odd immortal being - the Tennyson cousins were currently leisurely making their ways downtown on their latest journey. As far as the human eye could follow, there were - on both sides of the street and in both directions - lines of cylindrical buildings. Each one of them was four stories tall, yet no two were quite the same coloration externally.
The quietude was broken by the unmissable sound of an eight-metre-tall quadruped beetle charging through the street. A mild panic and some screaming broke out among the people as they rushed to get clear of the stampeding bug's path; most of them succeeded. The unlucky few got to experience the sensation of being physically trod upon.
In the eyes of both cousins, the irises darted back, their attention centered on the rising hubbub. A flash of emerald light erupted from the brunet, and died down to reveal a reptilian creature hued varyingly black, white and blue. At the same time, Gwen spun to meet it, the words 'Vortess Nebulae' flying from her mouth.'
A distance before the couple, the insect collided, and loudly, with the air.
"Lower your barrier, sorceress, that we may properly do battle," demanded the insectoid creature. The words came out seriously hurried, and almost hard to understand.
Recognizing the incantation, Gwen raised an eyebrow. "Really? I mean, really?"
The Kineceleran shot her a curious look.
"It's using a spell called Time Alter," supplied the ginger. "About a Triple Accel, I think."
"So it's a super-speed thing," concluded the Omnitrix bearer.
"That's the short of it, Ben," replied the homo sapien. "The Time Alter spells forces the caster's body to move way faster or way slower than they can take, so using one of them is practically suicide."
XLR8 nodded as he mulled that over. A moment later, there was another flash of emerald light, and the tailed speedster was replaced by a six-footer bipedal and rock-covered flame. "Who cares how fast this thing is?" announced Heatblast, smugly. "It ain't gonna want to touch me!"
The insectoid one snarled, and then leapt high into the air. Heatblast looked almost bored. From his raised hand, a small ball of flame shot up at the four-legged beetle. Somewhat hurried, Gwen walked aside from her estimated spot of its landing.
A moment later, several uneasy onlookers - many of them being of different species - watched and heard the insect's landing. The ginger sorceress turned around to face it.
"So, what's your deal?" she asked of the bug. "Bad guy with a grudge? Mage out to prove yourself? Or, are you a mercenary?"
The insect silently forced herself up again, mentally dispelling the Time Alter incantation. "Don't. Even. Think," the Pyronite warned the beetle, "about messing with her," the beetle didn't answer with anything more than a grunt.
The fiery biped inclined his head. "Look, I'm a hero. I save people whenever I can, I defend them from every kind of evil there is, and I've done all that for as long as I can remember, and I'll keep doing it as long as I'm around to do it," he disclosed, his voice low, "but here's the thing: If you actually manage to hurt Gwen, then that's gonna go straight out the window. Nothing in the universe would stop me from killing you then."
Satarl knew that full well; this was, after all, the monsters who had killed her grandfather.
"So you better start talking," interjected the mage. "Why did you come after us?"
The beetle released a hollow chuckle. "You wretched things," spat the insect, at her normal pace of speech "you dare pretend to be heroes true? You are nothing more than murderers, the very scum of the deep earth, and you shall pay dearly for what you've done to my hallowed ancestor."
Heatblast inclined his head once more. "You're gonna have to elaborate here, dude," moments like there were when Gwen loved her life. Here she was, confronted with a giant beetle sorcerer who was out for revenge, and it wasn't the smallest bit out of the ordinary, "because I dunno who you're talking about. Also, yannow, most of the people we fight are seriously evil, with a capital everything, so he's really probably not worth avenging."
Satarl knew that. She didn't care. The beetle stood still. Heatblast sighed mentally; by the looks of it, this was gonna get violent, and he wasn't in the mood for that.
The Pyronite erupted with a brief-lived burst of green light. When it was gone, so was Heatblast. Instead, his Nemuina form was there, pointing at the insect. A bright-green cloud of dust, animated by the forces of the mind, carried over towards the beetle, and washed over Satarl.
The beetle physically brushed it with a wave of her head.
"Here we go again," muttered Gwen, half exasperated and eager.