Author's Note:
I am a fan of Type-Moon and HoYoverse. For three weeks, several ideas have been crowding my mind:
- MANTIS (Emperor-class - Vishnu) X Endo-Sym Armor in the Invincible world
- MANTIS (Judgement-class - Garuda) X Kavacha and Kundala: O' Sun, Become Armor in the Marvel world
Furthermore, I have thought of several variations centered on: Archon or Herrscher (Worm), MANTIS - Herrscher (DC/Marvel), Dragon Sovereign (RWBY), Herrscher of Finality (DC), Heavenly Principles (MCU), or original characters who obtain the powers of Skirk (My Hero Academia) or Otto Apocalypse (Teen Titans).
I had so many ideas, but in the end, I chose what to write this time. I hope you like it.
XXX
Story Title: Kaleidoscope Adventure (DC): A Mistress of Finality, Hero, Villain or Other?
Plot: Bialya invaded Qurac and the conquest seemed inevitable, but a little girl prayed in an ancient Babylonian temple. The result was the return of a "Goddess" who devastated a nation in a single day and planted a giant tree. Then, she looked at the rest of the world and decided to save it from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, six days a week, without obeying anyone or anything, causing a unique international disaster. This "Goddess" wants to help the world, even if she has to bicker with the Justice League, the Injustice League, and the Suicide Squad.
XXX
Story Arc: Wandering Around the World
Episode 1: The Goddess with the Punch Card
Chapter 1: The Justice League Meeting
Plot: The Justice League has gathered to discuss the disaster that occurred in Bialya and what they should do with the person responsible, who is not behaving as expected.
XXX
Narrator POV
In Earth's orbit, inside the Watchtower, the Justice League is holding a meeting about an event that has shocked the entire world.
Seated around a U-shaped table are: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow, Hawkwoman, Zatanna, Captain Atom, Black Canary, Green Lantern (John Stewart), Captain Marvel, Red Tornado, Ice, Fire, and Vixen.
"We all know what we are going to talk about today," Superman said in a serious voice, clasping his hands in front of him.
"The Bialya incident," Wonder Woman replied, pronouncing the name of the event that had made itself felt worldwide.
"Which likely involves ancient mystical or divine forces," Zatanna said, being the Justice League's only magic expert.
"To make sure we are all on the same page, I will lay out all the major facts, providing information and images I obtained during my investigation," Batman said, being the one who knows the most about this matter.
"As you should know, twenty-one days ago Queen Bee declared war on Qurac. Bialya began their invasion, and due to the agreements between the Justice League and the UN, we could not intervene," Batman recounted.
In the center of the room, a massive three-dimensional hologram came to life. The bluish light illuminated the heroes' faces, showing tactical maps, lines of fire, and the movements of Queen Bee's troops.
Everyone present assumed an expression of annoyance, silent anger, or resentment toward Queen Bee's move and the UN for preventing them from taking action.
"Everyone expected Bialya to conquer Qurac in a short time, instead..." Batman pressed a button on a holographic keyboard.
The military chart faded, suddenly replaced by a life-sized projection. Instead of information from international television channels, the holographic image of a strikingly beautiful woman appeared, floating above the table, enveloped in an ethereal light that caught the eye of everyone present.
"The white-haired Goddess has arrived," Flash said with a dreamy expression.
"An alleged deity. There are possibilities she is a powerful witch using old-school magic, a meta-human with a certain love for Babylonian culture, or an alien woman," Zatanna said, having her own theories on the matter.
The three-dimensional hologram stabilized, projecting a pale blue light onto the heroes' faces. Floating in the center of the table was a young woman in her early twenties. Biometric data scrolled in phosphoric green numbers next to her figure: Height: 159 cm. Weight: 47 kg. Measurements: 77 - 57 - 80 cm.
Despite her petite stature, her presence filled the room. She had a slender and elegant build, visibly athletic yet with sinuous curves, accentuated by a sumptuous and daring outfit inspired by an ancient Mesopotamian aesthetic. Her long, wavy hair, of a pure white that contrasted with her fair complexion, was gathered into two side pigtails tied with black ribbons. On her head stood a majestic black and gold diadem, wedged between the strands. A conspicuous, rigid golden collar clasped her neck, moving in sync with her large hoop earrings at every slight breath in the recording. Her left arm was wrapped in a long black and gold glove that covered her forearm, while a single golden bracelet gleamed on her right bicep. She was almost completely barefoot: on her right leg, she wore a single dark blue stirrup-style stocking, hooked under the sole of her foot and decorated with elaborate golden patterns, while her left ankle was bare, adorned only by a thin gold anklet.
"... and then she appeared, provisional code name Venus," Batman concluded, giving this woman a designation.
His voice remained flat, icy. He was one of the few men in the room not to betray the slightest physical reaction, keeping his back straight and his arms crossed in front of that apparition. With a sharp snap of Batman's fingers on the console, geographic maps of Bialya and Qurac rotated around Venus's figure, flanked by strings of data flashing red for high-power energy readings.
"At seven in the morning, satellites recorded a massive energy pulse coming from an ancient Babylonian temple dedicated to the Goddess Ishtar, located between the border of Bialya and Qurac," Batman said, bringing up images of the ancient Babylonian temple, a place of worship that has continued to exist since ancient times.
"Were we able to analyze this energy signature?" Red Tornado asked, one of the scientific minds of the Justice League.
"The energy signature is completely unknown; there are no precedents," Batman said, with a slight note of frustration in his voice. Not knowing or understanding something is a weak point for the Dark Knight.
"Magic has a tendency to be difficult to perceive or analyze through machinery," Zatanna said, convinced it is an issue of arcane origin.
'Is it just me, or do I see a slight resemblance between the statues of the Goddess Ishtar and Venus?' Ice thought, tilting her head slightly as she compared the two images in her mind.
"At nine in the morning, when Bialya's military forces began to cross the border and approached the temple, the subject Venus emerged from the Temple of Ishtar," Batman recounted stoically, continuing his explanation.
The holographic images shifted abruptly. High-resolution photographs appeared: the steel hulls of military vehicles and, suspended in mid-air in front of the Babylonian ruins, the floating figure of Venus. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her back arched with pride, and her face contorted into a harsh, feral expression as she looked down on the soldiers like ants.
"She looks terrifying, but she remains one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen," Ice said, observing the subject of the images with pleasure.
The companion of the ice-powered heroine, Fire, said nothing, but a subtle frown appeared on her face.
"Her way of dressing isn't bad either," Flash commented, being on the same wavelength as the frost heroine.
The Amazon Princess gave a subtle look of reproach to the two chatty members of the Justice League, especially Flash.
"Don't look at me like that, Diana. Are you perhaps jealous that someone has a more daring costume than yours?" the fastest man alive said in a playful tone.
"Daring, yes, but it suits her; she has a Babylonian goddess kind of style," commented Vixen, the animal-powered heroine who is connected to the fashion world.
"Perhaps she could be a real Babylonian goddess. Almost all deities have left Earth for a higher plane of existence or are deeply asleep, but if you threaten their temples, you risk awakening them," Zatanna said, having read about such cases in her family books. They are extremely rare things, one in ten thousand, but they can happen.
"The subject Venus has no problem using lethal force. When Bialya's military opened fire, she responded," Batman cut it short. His fingers struck a sharp blow on the keyboard, starting a video clip of a few seconds. A new holographic screen opened with a buzz. The view shook sharply, taken from above—clearly the close-up footage of a military helicopter in flight.
The shot zoomed in on Venus.
She continued to float in the air, motionless. Beneath her, the infantrymen opened fire wildly: muzzle flashes lit up the screen, but the moment the bullets arrived within a few inches of her skin, they vanished into thin air with a faint metallic sparkle, as if shattering against an invisible and impenetrable bubble.
Then, Venus moved. With the fluidity of a predator, she raised her right arm. Like a child playing, she closed her fingers, leaving only her index finger and thumb extended, mimicking the shape of a gun.
Blinding discharges exploded from the tip of her finger. Lasers of electrical energy, fired with the destructive violence and supersonic speed of a railgun, tore through the air. The footage showed the Bialyan armored vehicles being pierced from side to side, crumpling in on themselves in a roar of flames and twisted metal. In just a few seconds, the armed forces were devastated. Afterward, Venus slowly tilted her head upward, locking her eyes directly onto the helicopter that was recording. She raised her finger again, a white flash filled the screen, and the footage abruptly cut off into a grid of dead pixels.
A heavy silence fell over the room. Many members of the Justice League stared blankly into space, their faces darkened by disgust and anger at having witnessed that one-sided massacre.
"Flight, defensive force field, ranged electrical-based attacks," Batman listed the capabilities displayed by Venus in this brief clip.
"Using eyewitness testimony, camera footage, and satellite imagery, we have reconstructed her movements," the Dark Knight continued, projecting a topographical map of Bialya marked with geometric vectors and timestamps.
"Once she eliminated the military forces around the temple of Ishtar, the subject Venus flew straight into the heart of Bialya at subsonic speed." Batman's gauntlet pointed to a white line cutting across the enemy territory in a straight, relentless path.
"Upon reaching her destination, the subject Venus exhibited devastating pyrokinesic capabilities," Batman continued.
A close-up shot of the Bialyan border forces appeared on the screen: Venus floated seven meters above the ground, motionless, while the air around her open hands distorted the light before exploding into spheres of live fire.
"She is a hot woman in more ways than one," Flash said, needing to lighten the mood.
"In about thirty minutes, Venus flew around the border of the entire nation of Bialya, leaving behind three-hundred-meter-high flames at temperatures that melt metal. The entire Bialya was a trapped nation," Batman explained, recounting an absurd event that had actually happened.
The mix of images and subsequent brief video clips took the breath away from those present.
The videos showed Venus streaking at the speed of a fighter jet just a few meters above the ground; the sheer displacement of air generated by her body kicked up a trail of fire that grew and spread instantly, devouring vegetation and asphalt.
A subsequent satellite image showed Bialya from above: the nation's borders looked as if they had been traced with a glowing red highlighter. It was not a graphic effect; they were endless walls of fire isolating the country from the rest of the world.
"Now I understand how runners feel when Flash shows up," Fire commented. The green-haired woman could fly and create flames, but she could never do something like that.
"Don't worry, you're still my favorite flame," Ice said, always being particularly close and friendly with her green-haired partner.
"This gives a whole new meaning to the expression 'scorched earth,'" Flash added, rubbing his neck as if he could feel the heat radiating from those images on his skin.
"Once she closed the borders, the subject Venus began attacking the Bialyan armed forces. Her first targets were the fifteen border outposts: small fortified bases, training camps, and surveillance stations deployed along the hot borders with Qurac and other neighboring nations," Batman continued to speak about the events that had occurred.
Fifteen geometric red dots lit up on the digital map of Bialya. Above each of them, video windows opened showing the aftermath of the raids: reinforced concrete bunkers reduced to piles of smoking ash, melted fences, black smoke obscuring the sky, and dust covering the wreckage of armored vehicles.
"Afterward, the subject Venus dealt with the five main military bases: large permanent installations, including the army headquarters near the capital, the central air base, and the military-scientific research centers in the desert," the Dark Knight listed.
Five new indicators were added to the map, pulsing before turning off, signaling the total obliteration of the structures.
"Once the bases were destroyed, Venus dealt with the war factories. According to the report, Venus incinerated to their foundations four robotics factories used to produce reconnaissance drones and other warfare technology, three reverse-engineering plants—secret facilities operated in collaboration for the production of experimental weapons—and, finally, five conventional weapons factories, chemical plants, and heavy steel mills converted for the mass production of ammunition, landmines, armored vehicles, and fuel for the army," Batman concluded the grim list, while the hologram showed a series of photographs taken by the factories' internal security cameras before they were destroyed.
In those distorted, grainy frames, Venus appeared like a white and golden specter in the center of the industrial facilities, her arms extended as she hurled lightning and flames in every direction, causing machinery to explode and metal roofs to collapse. Fortunately, the workers had fled long before; Venus would start by striking the machinery first, leaving the roof for last.
"I'm sorry to say it, but her actions make sense in a strategic sense. She is preventing ground forces from leaving Bialya and invading Qurac. Attacking military bases and destroying factories is a surefire way to slow down or halt a war effort," John Stewart said. He spoke with the rigidity of a former Marine, his back straight and his glassy gaze fixed on the holographic maps.
Around the table, the members of the Justice League with a military background gave a cold nod of the head, forced to agree with John's tactical analysis.
Batman, however, did not join that cynical chorus. His shadow seemed to lengthen over the metallic table.
"The population of Bialya is 2 million inhabitants. The army is composed of 5% of the population, which equals exactly 100,000 soldiers. Venus's actions have reduced the Bialyan army to just 3,000 soldiers, many of whom are severely injured with third-degree burns or worse," Batman said sternly.
The Dark Knight's harshness cut through the air. He despised that one-sided massacre carried out by a single individual endowed with divine powers. If an evil Superman was the creeping nightmare in the minds of many, Venus was that nightmare walking the Earth, leaving behind burned flesh and molten metal.
"That means 97,000 confirmed casualties," Superman said with horror in his voice. Such a massive waste of life was unthinkable for the Man of Steel.
"Casualties is the wrong word. They were soldiers. Perhaps of a regime we all disapprove of, but soldiers who knew the risks, especially when they are invading another country without a just cause," Captain Atom said, showing the most objective view. To him, a soldier is a soldier: they fight and die for their country.
"Queen Bee's actions are wrong, but Bialya and its people did not deserve such a punishment," Black Canary said, unable to detach herself from such a tragedy.
"They went to war believing they had victory in their hands; instead, they lost everything," Hawkwoman said, patting her mace. The Thanagarians were made of a very different cloth compared to humans and had a much more realistic view of conflicts.
"Losing 97,000 soldiers in one fell swoop doesn't just mean losing a war. For a nation of 2 million inhabitants, it means having wiped out an entire generation of young people, destroying the economy, families, and leaving the country totally defenseless and on the verge of total collapse," Batman said, knowing well what would happen in Bialya after this disaster: a pure social and economic collapse. For the next few years, perhaps for one or two generations, Bialya would remain a hot zone, and not in a good way.
"We can talk later, Batman has not finished his presentation," Wonder Woman said, wanting to calm the waters. Easier said than done: even though the Justice League was a united front, not all of its members shared the same philosophy and opinion.
"Finally, the subject appeared in the capital of Bialya, Al-Qawiya," Batman said, coming to speak about the third phase of the Bialya incident.
The holographic screens multiplied, showing different angles of the city. In the clear sky above the roofs of Al-Qawiya, Venus floated motionless. She did nothing; her head rotated slowly from right to left, her long white pigtails swaying lightly in the air as she studied the urban topography beneath her.
"Thank heaven Venus held back there," Black Canary said with relief, unable to imagine what disaster would have happened if the "Goddess" had unleashed herself in the middle of the city.
"After a few minutes of observing the capital, Venus went straight to the presidential palace, where she generated an electromagnetic pulse that deactivated the security system and fried every piece of technological equipment within a one-block radius," Batman explained.
His fingers scrolled over the controls, mentally noting the need to further shield the circuits of the Batcave and the Watchtower itself.
The screen showed the last useful frames: Venus in mid-air, wrapped in filaments of blue lightning, performing a fluid movement, similar to throwing a baseball. An instant later, the cameras in the area went dark in a flash of burned pixels.
"According to eyewitness testimony from survivors, the subject smashed through the reinforced roof of the palace, penetrating inside. Queen Bee was captured and dragged into the public square. This part was recorded by a civilian with an old analog camera," Batman continued, starting the video.
The projection became grainy and shaky. Venus flew low, flush with the cornices of the buildings. With her right hand, she gripped Queen Bee's throat.
The dictator queen of Bialya kicked in the empty air, her fingers digging uselessly into the golden wrists of her captor, her face livid from the lack of air.
"A queen against a goddess, it's an unfair fight," Flash said, aware that Queen Bee was not a good person, but it was still hard not to feel pity.
In the video, Venus suddenly opened her fingers. Queen Bee plunged into the void, a free fall that would have smashed her onto the asphalt of the square.
But a millimeter from the ground, before the impact could paint the stone red, Venus streaked downward and caught her by the ankle with a sharp reflex. The dictator's body swung like a pendulum an inch away from death.
"Grotesque. She is playing with a person's life," Superman said, unable to imagine doing something like that.
"I do things like that to make Gotham's criminals talk," Batman said, having the habit of throwing people off roofs and catching them at the last second with his grappling hooks.
"You don't kill, Batman. You scare," Superman cut it short, marking the invisible but impassable boundary between the Dark Knight and the woman in the video.
"More than an interrogation, it looks like a staging to me. She is sending a clear message to anyone watching," Captain Atom observed, crossing his metallic arms over his massive chest.
"Venus, with her reluctant passenger, returned to the presidential palace where she started a fire that still continues to burn today and shows no signs of stopping," Batman said, showing another video.
The new clip showed the coordinates of the dictator's palace updated to just a few minutes prior. In place of the building, there was a column of white, compact fire.
The flames had consumed the concrete, the furniture, and the beams, yet they continued to devour nothingness, insensitive to the lack of fuel and the pouring rain that evaporated before touching them.
'For such persistent flames to exist, they must be fueled by Bialya's leylines or be of a non-human nature, perhaps a demonic or divine flame,' Zatanna thought, needing to do further research on the matter.
"This is a bad omen," Aquaman commented, and not just because of his natural aversion to fire.
"The ability to set an entire country on fire in a day and create flames that cannot be extinguished by conventional means is a disastrous combination, a calamity without a shadow of a doubt," Hal Jordan said, having seen equally bad situations during his adventures in space.
"Once she set the fire, Venus traveled toward Qurac. Arriving in the capital, Dhabar, she delivered Queen Bee in front of the Democratic Palace, at the feet of Rumaan Harjavti, but not before neutralizing Queen Bee's power with third-degree burns that mutilated her face," Batman concluded.
On the screen appeared the current mugshot of Queen Bee. Half of her face was a mass of scarred and purplish flesh, entirely similar to Two-Face's profile. She now lay in a maximum-security cell in Qurac.
"A crude move that gives me the chills," Vixen said, touching her face.
"But Queen Bee has the power to make men her little slaves with her charm; there is some sense in what Venus did," Hawkwoman said, approving of the "Goddess's" move.
"Pyromania on a national scale is a bad thing, even more so mass murder, but Venus did not touch a single civilian and had the good sense to hand Queen Bee over to the proper authorities," Captain Marvel said, analyzing Venus's good and bad actions.
For a moment, the entire Justice League remained silent. Having seen what Venus had done to the military bases and government factories, had she maintained the same destructive attitude in the capital, the population of Bialya could have been reduced by 10% or even more.
"Once Queen Bee was delivered, the flames around Bialya went out. Venus brought an entire nation to its knees, massacred the army, destroyed the war factories, and captured the leader. All in less than two hours and with disarming ease," Batman said in a serious voice, showing a mosaic on the holographic screens that depicted the entire network of events, offering an overall picture of the Bialya incident.
"Such a display of power has frightened a lot of people in high places," Captain Atom added, having his contacts with the US military.
"At eleven in the morning, Venus returned to the temple of Ishtar. She did not come out and did nothing for exactly five hours. After that, she reappeared, planted something in the ground, and a small sapling emerged near the temple," Batman said, having investigated beyond the events that interested politicians and the military.
The satellites showed the sequence. The temple, ancient and lonely in the desert. Then, the white figure of Venus emerging from the structure at a speed almost imperceptible to the human eye.
For the first time since she had appeared, her bare feet brushed the earth. She dug her fingers into the sand, depositing a seed. A few moments later, a small green stem pierced the surface.
"The woman who doesn't touch the ground with her feet has developed a passion for gardening, and this is supposed to matter to us?" Flash asked, not seeing the reason to dwell on the matter.
"By the end of the first day, the stem had become a ten-meter tree. Currently, Venus's tree has reached a height of two hundred and ten meters. And it continues to grow," Batman documented. The time-lapse frames showed the biological miracle.
A colossal structure, with a trunk and leaves of a pure white, towered against the desert sky. Around its roots, the arid sand was shifting color, turning into a lush and green blanket of grass. The millennia-old temple was now the heart of a paradisiacal oasis.
"Now I understand why you investigated the matter, but so far, I only see a huge tree that is fighting desertification," Flash said, seeing an interesting element and not a threat.
'I'm no expert on Babylonian mythology, but I don't think Ishtar has anything to do with giant trees. Perhaps she is a priestess who utilizes the magic of the gods? I thought such an arcane art had been extinct for centuries,' Zatanna thought, finding some inconsistencies.
"After such an action, it was to be expected that she would target another nation, that she would proclaim herself the new ruler of Bialya, or that she would carry out actions typical of a power-hungry megalomaniac woman or a criminal mastermind. Instead..." Batman said, assuming like everyone else that Venus would follow the classic pattern.
"She's stealing our job," Flash said in an amused tone, unable to help but joke.
"Despite Flash's failed comedy, Venus has started behaving like a heroine, doing what we do every day, albeit in her own way," Wonder Woman said, having kept an eye on the situation. Not as much as Batman, of course, but it wasn't hard to follow Venus's movements: you just had to turn on the TV.
"Since the Bialya incident, the subject Venus has started a predictable program, a routine," Batman continued. A slight grimace of annoyance twitched his lips; the Dark Knight found that regularity almost unnatural for a being of that power.
"At 7:00, Venus steps out of her temple, uses a hydrokinesis ability to water her garden, after which she performs simple stretching exercises and blows up the surrounding desert," Batman said, starting the video.
The holographic screens synchronized on the early morning. At 7:00, Venus slowly floated out of the darkness of the temple. She looked visibly sleepy, her eyes half-closed and a heavy red blanket wrapped around her shoulders to protect herself from the cold of the desert dawn.
At 7:10, the woman flew to the top of the giant tree. She raised a hand toward the sky and, with a fluid gesture of her fingers, drew the moisture from the air, accumulating a colossal sphere of water, as large as a noble villa. With a sharp snap of her wrist, the sphere exploded, releasing a torrential rain that soaked the entire oasis below.
At 7:15, the rain stopped abruptly. The red blanket vanished into thin air, as if dissolved in the air, and Venus let herself fall like dead weight into a small natural pond at the foot of the temple, disappearing beneath the silvery surface.
At 7:20, she emerged completely awake. The water slid off her slender and athletic body, but an instant later, the air around her vibrated with heat: the water evaporated instantly into a cloud of white steam, leaving her skin and hair perfectly dry. Venus dashed upward, completing three laps at very high speed around the perimeter of her territory, only to land in mid-air and begin a series of warm-up exercises. Sharp movements of the arms, twists of the torso, and thrusts of her straight legs, showing an impressive muscular flexibility.
At 7:40, the warm-up shifted into a destructive ritual. Venus began to target the surrounding dunes. From her hands, flames, ice darts, crackling lightning, and very high-pressure water jets exploded in rapid succession. A ruthless target practice that gutted the desert, creating a deep, molten trench that clearly marked the invisible border of her land.
"After what I assume is a warm-up, at 8:00 sharp, Venus flies for a full hour over the territory of the Middle East. This routine morning flight has had a predominantly positive influence," Batman said, being objective enough to speak of all of Venus's actions, whether they were good or bad.
The holographic screen showed about twenty different flight paths of Venus that spanned the entire Middle East, paying no mind to state borders or social class.
"Venus's presence has halted missile launches and terrorist attacks. Along her path, she has frozen countless terrorist cells and training or conversion camps. These events were then published on the internet," Batman said.
The screen showed satellite photos and on-the-ground shots depicting hundreds of armed militia members, transport vehicles, and heavy machine guns completely trapped inside thick blocks of pale blue ice, motionless as statues in the middle of the sand.
"The anti-terrorism forces of legitimate governments and the Navy SEALs operating in the Middle East have benefited from this intervention," Captain Atom said. As a military man, he knew well that the soldiers on the ground were thanking that "Goddess," unlike the terrified politicians in Washington.
"During these movements, the subject displayed additional meta-human capabilities: advanced cryokinesis, accelerated cellular healing, chlorokinesis, and a likely form of telekinesis applied on a macroscopic level," Batman listed, scrolling through a tryptych of visual evidence.
The first image showed Venus at high altitude as she materialized an actual iceberg out of nowhere, letting it fall into a drought-stricken desert gorge, only to melt it with a faint thermal pulse, creating a ten-meter-deep artificial lake.
The second clip was amateur footage from inside a dilapidated Iraqi hospital, packed with dying individuals, terminally ill patients, and veterans mutilated by conflicts. The video showed Venus floating a few meters from the facility's windows, her hands extended in a gesture of blessing. The shot shifted inside the wards, and those present in the Watchtower witnessed a true biological shock: a woman suffering from tuberculosis stopped coughing as her lungs regenerated; a man consumed by cancer regained muscle mass and skin color in a matter of seconds; a paralytic stood up on his own two legs, while the stumps of amputated soldiers began to itch and extend, with bones and tissues growing back to form perfect, scar-free limbs.
The subsequent images shifted to isolated villages, where famine had reduced the population to living skeletons. The video showed Venus lifting into the air, by the sheer power of her mind, hundreds of seed sacks confiscated from warlords. She made them rain down upon the arid fields, then invoked a thick mist and warmed the soil with a controlled heat; those present saw the wheat and vegetables sprout and grow before their eyes, ripening in a few minutes, ready for harvest.
The last frame was imposing: it showed Venus along the coast of the Arabian Sea. Without exerting any physical effort or touching the hull, the woman held a gigantic cargo ship—which was about to sink due to a leak—twenty meters above sea level, keeping it in the air until she deposited it safe and sound on the dock of the nearest port.
"Batman, with all due respect, I dare you to say that these actions have an ulterior motive," Captain Marvel said, spreading his massive arms in an open gesture. On his face, there was nothing but honest admiration; to a pure heart like his, Venus's miracles were the indisputable proof of a noble soul.
The Dark Knight pretended not to hear. Not a single muscle in his face moved, nor did his eyes drift from the console. He pressed on with the presentation, relentless.
"Whatever the route or action taken, Venus returns to the temple of Ishtar at 9:00 AM sharp. A second later, she completely disappears from satellite radars, shielded by a localized energy anomaly, only to reappear in a completely different corner of the globe. She does not set foot back in the temple before 5:00 PM," Batman explained, pressing a backlit key. The hologram stretched out, transforming into a large, flat map of the world.
"The subject Venus operates on an international level from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, six days a week, for a total of 48 hours per week," the Dark Knight continued. Next to the world map, a digital schedule grid appeared, rigid and geometric, documenting that routine with the precision of an industrial programmable thermostat.
"Does Venus happen to have a punch card to clock in at the office and we just don't know it?" Green Arrow asked, crossing his arms over his chest and letting out a half-laugh, finding that bureaucratic approach hilarious for an alleged "Goddess."
"Believe me, Oliver, half of the Pentagon is asking themselves the exact same question," Captain Atom commented, his metallic body reflecting the pulsing light of the charts.
"From Monday to Saturday, for eight consecutive hours, Venus performs humanitarian interventions for which it is objectively difficult to find an ulterior motive. And she chooses a different country every day," Batman documented. Dozens of territories began to light up on the map, coloring themselves in an electric blue.
"Germany, Italy, Romania, Japan, China, Australia, Norway, Greece, Argentina, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Russia, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Morocco. These are the countries where Venus has shown up," Batman listed, his voice flowing like a magnetic tape while the borders of the mentioned nations glowed on the map.
"I detect no logical pattern, nor any geographical or political criteria," Red Tornado observed. The micro-sensors inside his artificial pupils clicked in rapid succession, processing the coordinates without finding a common algorithm. The choice seemed entirely random.
"Just out of curiosity, where is Venus located at the moment?" Flash asked, eager to discover the woman's current position.
"Today, her work shift is in New Zealand," Batman replied. With a tap of his fingers on the console, he opened a real-time video window, hooking into a local news channel.
The live images were chaotic, lashed by smoke. They showed an immense forest fire devouring a valley, surrounding a dozen rural homes. In the middle of that wall of destructive flames and collapsing trees, Venus floated a few meters from the roofs. With calm and precise movements of her bare hands, she created barriers of freezing air that froze the fire in its tracks, lifting up civilians who had been trapped in cars and depositing them safely beyond the smoke line, right before the wide eyes of the rescuers on the ground.
'On her first day, she stops a war using extreme methods, but without harming an innocent person. After that, for the next three weeks, she helps the entire world... where is the evil?' Flash thought, forming a somewhat biased image in his mind.
"Precisely, she has helped nineteen different nations, not the entire world," Red Tornado said, being a being geared toward maximum accuracy.
"Flash, we are not here to judge whether Venus is evil or good, but rather to understand what she has done so far and how we should approach her," Wonder Woman said, understanding that all of this was just the prelude to a strategic meeting.
"Venus's schedule is quite mechanical. Every two hours, she takes a fifteen-minute break to read a book or check her smartphone, all while floating above a hospital facility, inside of which every single person is miraculously healed," Batman said as he pressed buttons. Inside each nation highlighted by the blue vectors, four small, glowing red medical crosses appeared—a pinpoint mapping of her rest stops.
"I heard that in Morocco she pulled off a literal healing marathon," Black Canary commented, leaning her chin on her open hand and recalling the incredible wire reports that had bounced around over the last twenty-four hours.
"The subject operates primarily through three macro-categories," Batman continued, while a three-dimensional pie chart took shape behind him, its data glowing with a cold light. "Immediate rescue missions—such as stopping traffic accidents, performing emergency healings, lifting sinking ships, guiding distressed planes to the ground with failing engines, halting landslides, or clearing obstructed highways—constitute seventy percent of her activity. Environmental remediation missions—making it rain in areas hit by severe famine, regenerating cultivated fields and entire scorched forests—take up twenty-eight percent. The remaining two percent is dedicated to neutralizing violent criminals, armed robbers, and terrorist cells. This is a distinct minority of her actions."
The chart was colored in three well-defined sections: 70% Rescue, 28% Remediation, 2% Neutralization. The numbers spoke for themselves.
"Venus's activity in Morocco did not follow her usual routine. During her shift, she focused primarily on healing: she visited fifty different hospitals and healed twenty-one thousand people, wiping out the health emergencies of a quarter of the country in just eight hours," Batman said, bringing up yesterday's and today's footage from Morocco.
The holographic screens filled with a pulsating human tide. More than eighty thousand people had poured into the squares and avenues of Casablanca and Rabat to celebrate, dancing and crying tears of joy for their healed children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, parents, and grandparents. Through the screen, one could almost feel the warmth of the crowd, the sound of the drums, and the pure physical energy of a population celebrating an unexpected miracle.
"I'm the fastest man alive, and even I can't help so many people this way," Flash said, taking off his hat in a metaphorical sense.
"Such an act cannot be forgotten or ignored," Captain Marvel said with a smile on his face, taking pleasure in seeing so many happy people reunited with their loved ones.
"Neither can ninety-seven thousand dead people in Bialya," Superman said with a bitter expression.
"They weren't ordinary people; they were ninety-seven thousand soldiers going to war against a democratic nation unprepared for such an assault. On the other hand, we have twenty-one thousand people healed in a single day. If we count all the others healed before, what figure do we reach?" Green Lantern (John Stewart) asked, looking toward Batman.
"The estimates are 49,560 patients one hundred percent healed without showing side effects. She will likely heal over fifty thousand sick people by the end of the day, and if Venus continues to follow her routine, the numbers will rise," Batman said, having to give an honest answer.
"Some would say Venus has redeemed herself halfway," Hawkwoman commented, giving a sharp tap to her mace with her fingers.
"You cannot destroy one life, save two, and say that everything is fine," Superman said, certain that it wasn't right.
"I agree with you, Superman. But the ordinary people out there will say she has done more good than harm. Many don't even consider what happened in Bialya a crime," Green Arrow said, having to stand on the side of common people. Venus had done something controversial on so many levels, but afterward, she had acted like a Superman, yet oriented on a larger scale and on different problems.
"That's not exact. Venus's actions, even the good ones like those in Morocco, have negative consequences," Batman said, having information on the matter.
"How can doing good by healing the sick on a massive scale cause harm?" Captain Marvel asked, unable to imagine negative implications in this.
"Transportation crises, bureaucratic madness, and a crisis for multinational pharmaceutical corporations," the Dark Knight replied, listing three major problems.
"Can you explain further?" Vixen asked, raising a perfect eyebrow and leaning her torso forward.
"Twenty-one thousand healed people have to return home at the same time. The streets around hospitals are blocked by taxis, unused ambulances, and weeping families. The transportation systems of cities like Casablanca and Rabat go into gridlock. Doctors and administrators have to sign twenty-one thousand discharge papers; the computer systems of the Moroccan Ministry of Health collapse from the overload. Furthermore, the large pharmaceutical companies that sell life-saving drugs in Morocco take a massive hit," Batman said, providing information on the consequences.
"None of this is truly that serious or unresolvable. It will be exhausting and frustrating, but in a few days, everything will sort itself out," Green Arrow said, not seeing the problem. Traffic exists everywhere in the world, and for once, state employees will just have to work.
"And since when do we care if pharmaceutical multinationals take a hit in their profits?" Vixen chimed in, crossing her legs with an ironic smile, convinced that Batman was grasping at straws.
"As you can see, the topic of Venus is something that divides people into two camps," Wonder Woman said, noticing how her friends and comrades-in-arms held extremely different opinions about her.
"And the Pro-Venus faction boasts extremely influential supporters," Batman resumed, altering the hologram to show three new stable biometric profiles. "At the forefront is Qurac, led by President Rumaan Harjavti and his daughter Noor. Furthermore, during her time in Germany, Venus intercepted a plane crash, saving the lives of three key figures of the European elite."
On the screen appeared the details of the three saved VIPs: Otto Apocalypse, CEO of Schicksal, the wealthiest and most technologically advanced multinational agency in Europe, as well as an absolute genius in the biomedical sector; Mobius Leavtruth, a world-renowned scientist and geneticist ranked among the top 5 most brilliant minds on the planet, holder of countless revolutionary medical patents; Irisviel von Einzbern, future matriarch of the Einzbern dynasty, considered the wealthiest woman in Germany and famous for her massive philanthropic works, despite persistent rumors regarding the mysterious paternity of her twin daughters, Illyasviel and Chloe.
"If we do something stupid with Venus, we seriously risk alienating a lot of people," Fire commented.
"It's bad enough that Lex Luthor tries everything to discredit us. If Otto Apocalypse joins in too, we'll get white hair," said Ice, the heroine who already had white hair.
"I have a proposal," Martian Manhunter said, speaking for the first time during the meeting.
To be continued...
XXX
CYOA Interactive build for the MC (Caesar "Mwisho" Kaslana Tohsaka, alias Ishtar, alias Venus, alias Cocoon of Finality)
**Meta**
You, CYOA, Shards, what are those Shards you speak of?
**Difficulty**
Standard, Higher (Tier 9)
**Scenario & Setting**
AU Alternate Earth, First Act (Dangerous), Just Better, Anime Logic, No More Planned Obsolescence, Comic Origin, Comic Book Pretty, VFX On [It's a Beautiful World We Have], Huh, isn't that... [Colorful Crowd, Native Variant], Expy Galore x 3, Additional Genre x 1, DC Prime Earth, Lost (Perilous)
**Character**
Drop-In
**Skills**
Parkour [Professional Athlete], Survival [Hunter], Stealth, Ambidextrous, Hand-Eye Coordination, Spatial Awareness, Exercise, Teaching, Learning, Internal Clock, Idiot Proofing, Master Housekeeper [Home Management], Lipreading, Pro Gamer, Management, Body Language, Sign-Language
**Perks**
Blank, Mental Barrier, Trumped the Trump, Invictus, Well-Adjusted, Reputable, 'Plot' Armor, Thematic, Manton Protected, Ripple Effect Proof Memory [Ripple Effect Proof Body], Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative, Comic Book Physics, Peaceful Life, World Clean, Serendipitous Luck, Sixth Sense, I Don't Get It [I Get It Now... But Not Really...?], Foreigner, Continuity Of Existence, Those Who Came Before, Loyalty Insurance
**Drawbacks**
Conscious Geas x 1, Unconscious Geas x 1, Rapunzel, Rapunzel Let Down Your Hair x 2, Unmasked, Wanted (Global) x 3, Wildbow? Where have I heard that before?, Slaughterhouse 8, Rogues Gallery, Morsel, Trouble Magnet, Wild Wasteland, Fated Journey, Child of Fate, Plotbound, Stalker x 1, Villain Target, The Summoning, Extremely Obvious Summoning, Why am I in the News?!, Acclimation, Jet Lag, Quarter Pounder, Nemesis, Native Awakening, Neutral Good x 1, Yandere x 1, High-Tier, Rank 1
**Shard**
Shardless
**Powers**
The Dancer, Instinct (Type-Moon), Magecraft (Type-Moon), Old Magic (Type-Moon) [Old Master], Servant (Type-Moon), Denial Of Heavens, Golden Rule (Type-Moon), Magitech, The Craftsman, Genius of a Previous Era (Honkai Impact 3rd), Item Construction (Type-Moon) [Divine Construction, Perfect Workshop], Obsession of the Celestial Spheres, Roleplayer: True Mother, Territory Creation (Type-Moon), Herrscher (Honkai Impact 3rd), Pioneer of the Stars (Type-Moon)
**Objects of Power**
Maana (Type-Moon), Ancient Name (Genshin Impact) [Engraver of Names, Mwisho: The Final State], Irminsul (Genshin Impact) [Fantasy Tree (Type-Moon), Imaginary Tree Simulacra], Journal, Treasury
**Fusions & Upgrades**
Territory of Starry Wisdom, Revelation (Type-Moon), Divine Spirit (Type-Moon) [Mistress of Heaven], Magic Crest (Type-Moon) x 2, Mythically Accurate, Unassailable Divinity [Ineffable Sovereignty], Collector (Type-Moon), Singularity; Notes (Type-Moon), Foreigner Technology (Type-Moon), Cocoon of Finality (Honkai Impact 3rd) [God of the Collapse], Essential, Infusion
**Equipment & Items**
You're The Star of This Show!
**Companions**
EMIYA (Type-Moon)
**Point Conversion**
+25 SP -50 CP x 5, +5 SP -10 CP x 1
XXX
Code for CYOA:
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