***In a moldy box of papers in an abandoned safe***

***TOP SECRET***

Sept. 12, 1972.

Behavioral Notes on subject 84

Subject 84 shows a staggering level of natural intelligence, having achieved a college level of reading comprehension in a mere three months of captivity. Problem solving and pattern recognition follows a similar inhuman level of development.

Access to Subject 84 is restricted to only the most brilliant minds of Berkeley. This serves two purposes: the first is to maximize the subject’s development and the amount of information derived thereof, and the second, less often talked about, is to prevent the subject from realizing its vast mental superiority to Homo Sapiens before it has developed empathy for them.

After the first report of the Subject’s advanced intelligence, General Abrams is pushing for us to lobotomize and vivisect to simply study its unique physiology rather than the holistic approach of rearing it from birth and take inobtrusive samples as it matures.

Human biology has run into a wall in regards to intelligence. Increased brain size or nerve density causes decreased intelligence due to the limitations inherent in physics. If Subject 84’s intelligence is typical for its species, then there potentially lies in its biology, a door that humanity can go through to redefine intelligence and advance humanity to the next stage of our evolution.

Turning our back on that kind of breakthrough and throwing away all our work, not to mention the very real PERSON we are raising, is against everything we stand for, and none of the researchers, myself included, are willing to go through with the procedure.

Moving on…

The subject shows occasional fits of rage, quite possibly the biggest indication that subject 84’s brain has not yet fully matured. In an attempt to curb this behavior before the subject becomes more physically dangerous, the research team has brought on new personnel specialized in child psychology and focused more of Subject 84’s training on psychology and emotional control.

This is bearing fruit, and a chart tracking Subject 84’s outbursts shows a marked decrease in aggression, although there have been some injuries to the child psychologists. Subject 84 shows remorse for these outbursts and a distinct consideration for its teachers going forward, which is a good sign.

The injured child psychologists have been sworn to secrecy via NDA’s, and those that can still work have stayed on board from sheer curiosity, (they were carefully selected for risk-tolerance) while the one who can no longer see was returned to their home in San Fransisco, and is receiving a generous government stipend for themselves and their family.

Subject 84 wrote an excellent apology letter, attached to the back of this report, and has begun to show an interest in learning curative methods of essence manipulation to ‘make it right’. Subject 84’s species is reported to be quite talented at magic, so we’ve begun the process of selecting teachers for this.

We believe this process will be safer if guided, rather than through self-experimentation, which may lead to undesireable results.

It is much more challenging keeping this particular aspect of Subject 84’s development a secret, as access to Manitians is quite limited due to the quarantine. Attempts are ongoing to collate anecdotal instructions for essence manipulation (magic) into a written form and use Subject 84 to confirm what works and what is misinformation, but a willing teacher would speed up the process drastically.

You’re taking what is already a goddamn threat to our civilization advanced calculus, psychology, and now MAGIC? Are you fucking kidding me? Do you eggheads hear yourselves? You’re literally giving it everything it needs to kill all of us in the name of satisfying your stupid, stupid curiosity.

Pull your collective heads out of your self-righteous, deluded, academic asses and view the situation objectively! It’s not sorry, it’s just smart enough to know you expect it to be sorry! And it got you to give it magic training as a result!

Why are you smart people so goddamn stupid?

-notes in the margins, written hard enough to punch through the paper in places.

Subject 84, having been born on American soil is both an American Citizen, and protected by the sweeping legislation regarding the Manitian refugees of non-human origin. If you terminate, I will blow this whole thing wide open, General.

-Note at the bottom, written in elegant cursive script.

***Paradox***

“We surrender!” Karen said, holding her hands up.

It was a good move as a leader. There was never any reason to have a fight to the death over a simple misunderstanding of the nature of ‘diplomatic immunity’.

Whew.

Perry let out an internal sigh of relief. The team of seven had pulled out all the stops from the beginning. They were tough to deal with, but Perry and Co outmatched them, and their leader was smart enough to see which way the wind was blowing once they raised the bar…before anyone got hurt.

Well, except for Monkey’s broken arm, Painter’s damaged pride as an artist, the totally bruised and battered Plant-user and Bruiser, who looks like he might cough up a testicle…

There was literally a foot-mark in his breastplate where Perry had kicked him in the stomach.

Perry glanced over at Heather returning to her body with a relieved sigh.

No one important got hurt anyway.

Boomer’s hood popped open, revealing Natalie, whose eyebrows were singed and forehead covered in soot from the grenade exploding in her face.

Those sacrificial rings she invented are…damn good, but I wasn’t sure they could withstand a grenade to the face.

Nat caught him looking at her and intuited what he was thinking about

“I built some bigger ones into the wrists and ankles of my suit,” she said, tapping a stiffer section of her suit right around the forearm.

“Ah.”

“So, umm…what now?” Heather asked from the sidelines.

Perry glanced over at the group of supers tending their wounds and casting sullen glances at Perry and Co.

He didn’t begrudge them the mean looks. He’d be similarly pissed in the same situation. As for what to do with them…

He didn’t have jurisdiction here. He couldn’t just take them back to Chicago, that would be kidnapping and holding someone hostage. It would escalate.

What happens when someone with Diplomatic Immunity is arrested? Perry thought to himself. If he wanted to maintain his legitimacy as a diplomat, he needed to follow Standard Operating Procedure for one.

If someone with Diplomatic Immunity was arrested, they would cooperate, get taken back to the police station, where a few phone calls would be made, then the arresting officers would receive the cussing out of their lives and the diplomat would be freed, and given a complementary cake. That means…

“Hey,” Perry said, approaching the leader of the other team. The middle-aged woman in heavy armor tensed up at his approach.

“What do you want?”

“Since you surrendered,” Perry said, carefully choosing his words. “You’re now our responsibility and we have to take you somewhere with the facilities to process your team and keep you safe until trial, sooo…”

Karen raised a brow.

“Where exactly were you planning on taking us?” Perry asked. “We’ll go there. I’m sure I’ve proven Diplomatic Immunity to your satisfaction?”

“You’re taking us into your custody and escorting us back…to Temple?”

“What’s Temple?” Perry asked.

“It’s the central organization that handles Blessed affairs. It’s where Blessed misconduct is punished and new Blessed are trained to handle their powers. A normal constabulary is not equipped to handle our kind of power.

“You have proven one thing,” Karen added thoughtfully.

“Whazzat?” Perry asked.

“You’re definitely not from around here.”

“Good enough,” Perry said, doing a double-take in Heather’s direction as he realized that Karth was missing. The troll had seemingly gone AWOL in the midst of their battle.

Perry scanned the surroundings until he spotted a plume of smoke in the distance.

“You’re all our prisoners, under arrest on your own recognizance, we’ll be escorting you back to Temple once we round up our troll.” Perry engaged his flight and blasted off towards the plume of smoke that grew bigger and bigger as he approached it, and for a moment, Perry was afraid he’d find the burning husk of the farmer’s little pop-up, with Karth roasting the father over top of the flames.

It wasn’t quite that bad.

“This cranberry cake is delicious. I’ve only just learned about ‘cooking’ from humans, but I’m confident that your cake is above average, Sam.”

“T-thank you, Mr. Karth.” A pregnant woman said as Karth lifted an entire extra cake from the pan in her hands between thumb and forefinger and popped it into his mouth.

“You’re a treat,” Karth said, making her shrink back nervously. “Sugar content has such an interesting, tickly feeling on my tongue and palate. Not quite as good as blood, but good.”

“Paradox!” Karth said as he noticed Perry approaching. “I assume you already knew, but look!” he pointed at massive bonfire above which an entire megaboar was hanging.

To illustrate his point, Karth tore off a chunk of ribs, ignoring the heat of the flames.

“Barbeque~!”

“You’re going to have to develop new cooking techniques for trolls,” Perry said, his analyticial mind taking over. “The sheer mass of the serving sizes trolls prefer is going to make it difficult to heat all the way through without burning the outside or leaving the inside uncooked.”

“True,” Karth said contemplatively, sliding a clean bone the length of a teen out of his mouth and regarding it. “It was a little raw in the center. Not that I mind.”

“I suggest a technique where you fill the inside of the animal with hot rocks and stuff the entire thing into an insulated container, allowing it to slowly bake from the inside out for several days. Once the carcass is cooked through, you can throw it over a flame for a while to get a proper Maillard reaction on the outside.”

“Several days?” the troll king whined.

“Good cooking takes time,” Perry said with a shrug. “Now come on, we’ve settled the fight.”

“Very well,” Karth said, climbing to his feet, his nose even with the top of the petrified farmer’s house.

He casually chopped the megaboar in half with a few well-placed chops from his cleaver-like side-arm and took the back half with him, leaving the rest with the traumatized family.

“You realize you were calling that woman a ‘treat’, right?” Perry asked as they walked back.

“Just because I’m being polite, doesn’t mean I should let them forget what I am.” Karth said.

“I don’t think anyone will.”

“You might be surprised,” Karth said, devouring the mostly-uncooked meat.

***Sarah Mayer***

Sarah carefully brushed the dirt and broken shards of obsidian off of her flag with trembling fingers. It was a black mark on her record and a deep shame that she had allowed an enemy to not only destroy it, but allow it to touch the ground.

The last time she’d leaned her practice flag against the wall and it’d toppled over, she’d spent all night holding it above her head in the practice yard.

That was a practice flag.

This was a real flag. The symbol of her nation, the crux of her Rally power, and there was a boot mark across the center of it.

“Hey, I didn’t see nothing,” Luke said, approaching with the base of the flagpole and pressing the two perfectly cut ends together.

A bit of brown paint emerged from the seam, identical in color to the wood and Luke wiped it away with a finger, massaging the new grain until the entire thing was seamless. His paint hardened until it was tougher than the original wood, and suddenly the damage only existed in their memories.

“Thanks,” Sarah said, her heart fluttering.

Maybe I’ll just get a whipping instead of a public execution.

“You’re not gonna get killed,” Karen said, squatting down beside her. “That’s just a rumor Flagbearers pass around amongst themselves. You’re too valuable an asset to lose. Remember that.”

Despite the gulf of possible punishments that Karens statement didn’t cover, Sarah still felt a little better.

“Acolyte…What do we do about…these people?”

Karen squinted, glancing up at the two strange Blessed who sat and chatted while their high tech golem watched over them.

“I don’t know,” Karen admitted. “But Paradox wanted to go to Temple by himself, convinced that he’s a diplomat. As long as we make it there we’ll have enough back up that we should be able to handle…that. Should he not be a diplomat protected by the laws of our lord, I mean.

“Something tell me he is, though.” Karen said, glancing over at the pregnant girl with the copper-gold hair.

At Sarah’s questioning gaze, Karen explained.

“Before we fought, I got a mass announcement from Temple that we are to show absolute discretion towards pregnant redheads this month.”

“…We might still be able to salvage this,” Karen said, pushing herself to her feet. She glanced over at where Blaine was immobilizing Chris’s swollen wrist with tape.

“Blaine.”

“Eh?” Their demo/communications expert grunted, looking up from his work.

“Can you throw a message back to Temple?”

“That’s a long distance, but as long as it’s a tiny piece of paper, I can make it.” Blaine said with a shrug.

Karen jotted down a quick note on her stationary pad, but when their leader was about to hand it off to Blaine, the golem reached a massive arm down and delicately snatched it from her fingertips.

It handed the message to the girls, who read it and gave Karen the stink-eye, but when Paradox got back with the troll, he just laughed, wrote his own note on the back and handed it to Karen.

“Go ahead. Send it.” He said, holding it out. “We’re not an enemy force aiming to catch the Eternal Empire by surprise. We’re diplomats. It’s best if we behave as such.”

Sarah caught a glimpse of the message:

Paradox is coming.