"Roughly ten to fifteen years, at the rate I'm seeing." Thea indicated several points on the drone feed and walked the room through her reasoning. "Look at this coordinate — the soil here is already reverting to sand. That's the signature of rapid divine power decay."
"Could we use The Green to maintain it?" Batman pressed.
"There's a case for it. But The Green has its own equilibria — with The Red, with The Rot, and its own internal balance as well. An increase in Saharan vegetation could put pressure on the South American rainforests. Caution is warranted."
The magic option was off the table, but the underlying principle held: the heroes agreed the expanded living space should be preserved where possible. You couldn't let Rao come in and bring a greener world, then put him down in the name of liberty and hand people back their desert.
They had to outdo Rao. Anything less and the Justice League had nothing to show for itself.
A few of the League's technical members volunteered to visit the sites in person. Batman included Thea in the assignment, citing her not-inconsiderable inventory of advanced technology.
The environmental discussion was the appetizer. The main course was the Justice League's reputation crisis.
The Justice League's reputation had been shredded — because of Superman and Supergirl. Even people who had benefited materially from the redistribution were directing their anger at Superman — he had told everyone to trust Rao, and that endorsement had set off the entire chain of disasters. Government censure. Public outrage.
Supergirl had retreated home and wasn't coming out. Fortunately, her public profile was lower and her influence limited enough that the backlash hadn't reached full force.
Superman was another matter entirely. He was a landmark figure — there was no equivalent. The moral weight he was carrying was immense, and he had channeled it into work, filling every hour.
The League's obvious move was to stand together and absorb the hit collectively.
Worth noting: Thea's own reputation had taken damage too. A black snowstorm over Metropolis had a lot of people peeing themselves — she suspected most of them had simply been cold rather than actually scared. Add to that the number of people killed during the "redistribution" of Queen Consolidated's assets, and the commentary had been pointed.
Fortunately, her skin was thick. With Superman serving as the primary target, she had positioned herself behind her media infrastructure and sat there like none of it concerned her, watching them discuss.
The collective conclusion of the League's reputation strategy could be summed up in three escalating instructions: Spin it. Spin it harder. Spin it without shame. Lost standing could be rebuilt. Rao had been a genuinely good person, ordinary people had received real benefits, and Superman needed only to establish that he too had been deceived to earn sympathy. Thea booked him several televised appearances and livestreams, deployed the League's intelligence network to identify the right positive angles globally, and gave a rough estimate of a few days to bring the numbers back.
Arthur raised the final agenda item. He needed the League's support.
"Arthur — has Atlantis truly reached that critical a state?" Thea ended the video conference and asked, her voice carrying the weight the question deserved. Seventy percent of the Earth's surface was ocean. Nothing could be allowed to go wrong there.
Arthur didn't hide the state of things. He gave it to them straight.
Above the water, things were in chaos. Below it, every descriptor needed the word "more" in front of it. Even Queen Atlanna's authority had crumbled under the pressure. Poseidon had died in battle. The priestly faction, which had historically maintained close ties to the royal house, had been directly suppressed. The Council of Elders had moved to fill the vacuum.
Three forces had combined against the crown: a faction of Rao's priests who had entered the ocean, the Council of Elders, and Arthur's younger brother Orm. Together, they had stripped the royal family of control over Atlantis.
Poseidon's death had dealt a psychological blow to the Atlantean people that even the restoration of normal conditions hadn't undone. They had chosen to believe in Rao's priests — the god who had killed the deity they'd worshipped for thousands of years. Strength commanded respect, and below the ocean that principle ran deeper than anywhere else.
The assembled heroes exchanged uncertain glances. They were in a difficult position.
Whatever comics and films might suggest, the honest reality was that very few of them were built for underwater combat. Dark water, disorientation, zero visibility for anyone without enhanced perception, and resistance that stripped away a significant fraction of speed and striking force before any fight even started. The Flash, Batman, and the Atom going underwater was effectively a death sentence. Oxygen, visibility, pressure — the variables multiplied fast.
"I can arrange some military support — troops from the armed forces as allied combatants. But for the League itself..." Thea scanned the room.
"I'll go." Superman responded without hesitation. Kyle Rayner followed: deep space and deep sea made no difference for a Lantern.
Thea talked Superman out of it. His capabilities underwater dropped to roughly thirty percent effectiveness at best. His time was better spent rebuilding his public standing. With Kyle, a few Yellow Lanterns, and some Indigo Tribe members, a conventional engagement would be manageable — and Atlantis's crisis was fundamentally political rather than military.
At the end of the meeting, Thea spent a short while negotiating with Polyphemus, Poseidon's Cyclops son, and borrowed the Trident of Poseidon itself. This artifact carried considerably more authority than the Neptunian Trident the Atlantean royal house had previously passed down through generations — it should go a long way toward winning back the loyalty of Atlantis's people.
———
Late night.
Thea finished the last of her work and caught Diana looking as though she wanted to say something. "What's wrong?"
"Ares is dead."
A pause. Thea wasn't sure what to say to that. Call it bad luck: Rao had eliminated war, and that final act had been enough to extinguish the last remaining sparks of life left in Ares. The god whose name Diana had heard spoken for thousands of years was finally gone. He could theoretically be resurrected — but that was a matter of centuries, and whether whatever eventually came back would still be the same Ares was anyone's guess.
She wrapped an arm around Diana's shoulders and gave her a quiet, steady pat on the arm.
Diana mentioned Ares only briefly, then let it go. "Where do you think Rao went wrong?"
"His mistake was being too idealistic. He wanted everything and everyone bathed in the same light — but that impulse fundamentally erases what makes intelligent life worth something. Everyone has their private self. Everyone has desires they've never spoken aloud. If all of that had to exist in full view of everyone else, that would be monstrous."
"That Rao two hundred and fifty thousand years ago saw it clearly. It's a pity he lost his way somewhere along the road..." She found herself sighing.
Diana shifted, rolling onto her side, swinging one leg over and sitting squarely on her, the edge of her sleepwear riding up to reveal pale calves. The warrior looked straight at her. "And you? Will you lose your way?"
Thea gave a small, easy smile. "Not a chance. My perspective is considerably more developed than Rao's ever was."
"And you, on the other hand..." She studied Diana for a moment. The divine office of Courage had been fully charged with divine power during the fusion with the Ion Shark. Thea operated at a higher tier overall, but their raw combat effectiveness was roughly equal.
As a god whose domain was courage, Diana commanded the emotion with complete ease. And beyond that — Diana had worn the violet ring. As a deity, her capacity for love was unmatched. From where Thea stood, Diana's command of love had already crossed a meaningful threshold.