Thea noticed that Hera was now wearing a consort's crown rather than a sovereign's. No explanation needed—Zeus had manifested, and the God-King's authority had automatically reverted to him. She already had a fair idea of what was coming next.
"Why did you put shackles on Jason? Why make him lose his memories every few decades?" Diana showed not the slightest joy at seeing her own father. She led with the accusation, sharp and immediate.
As it turned out, Zeus was also a master at deflecting blame. "The boy possesses the power to command storms. Without an outlet, that power would have caused catastrophic damage. All I wanted was for him to live an ordinary life, so I used memory suppression to limit his growth."
Diana looked to Thea. She knew Thea had the ability to alter reality—and if she could alter it, simulating a scenario to verify Zeus's claim shouldn't be difficult.
Thea closed her eyes briefly and ran a simulation based on Jason's physical makeup. He was, by nature, a kind and sunny young man. But the storm-commanding power in his bloodline would grow with age. With his memories intact, disaster would inevitably follow—and growing power bred growing ambition.
For the preceding millennia, there had been no Superman or Batman to keep order. Diana had still been on Paradise Island. Martian Manhunter hadn't arrived on Earth. The gods had withdrawn. The ancient mages weren't unified. A full-powered demigod who could command storms absolutely would have derailed humanity's natural course of development.
As things stood, Jason possessed the power but none of the skills to use it. He didn't even know these abilities existed. As long as he wasn't subjected to extreme psychological shock, his powers would theoretically remain dormant indefinitely.
Thea nodded, confirming that Zeus hadn't lied about this.
Still, the old man's treatment of his own children was enough to make your blood run cold. He'd preserved his God-King prestige and reputation for impartial justice—at the cost of millennia of Jason's life.
Every hundred years, the memories were reset. But previous personalities didn't fully vanish; they accumulated in his psyche. That was exactly why the two of them had found the young man a little... slow.
Thea was fairly certain that Jason was also one of Zeus's chess pieces—whether to bait Diana or for some other purpose, she couldn't say—but today, the piece had finally served its function.
These powerful old schemers were all the same. Highfather projected dignity. Darkseid radiated tyranny. And Zeus was the cunning calculator. Unfortunately, all that calculation had ultimately come to nothing. Every attempt to escape fate had only pulled its chains tighter around him.
"Just tell me what you want. If it's not too much trouble, go ahead." Thea had no fondness for this old man who treated everything like a game board. Diana's father or not, she didn't like him.
Her tone was flat and hard, leaving little room for negotiation.
"Is the multiverse about to undergo a great upheaval?" Zeus asked.
Thea nodded. "It is. Why—you want to be in charge of it?"
Zeus coughed awkwardly. In his prime, maybe he could have entertained the idea. In his current state, going to the Dark Multiverse would be serving himself up on a platter.
"What I meant was—I'd like to know whether there's something in that world that could help stabilize my divine power. My divination says there's an item there that could help."
The question wasn't unexpected. Zeus's timing was, as always, impeccable.
His divine power had been declining for multiple reasons: some internal, some environmental, and some involving the fact that Thea had a habit of... sipping from it every now and then. Both sides knew it perfectly well. Neither had ever said it aloud.
Truthfully, Zeus's divine power had been a significant help on Thea's journey to where she stood today. She could refuse anything unreasonable, but turning down something simple was harder. Whether she reckoned the debt through Diana or through herself, she owed Zeus.
"I'll take a look." She didn't commit. Her gaze pierced through layer upon layer of barriers, reaching into the deepest darkness.
One world. Five worlds. Ten worlds. She kept searching for anything tied to the Greek Pantheon.
And—well, she actually found something.
"There is a piece of Greek Pantheon equipment that's a perfect fit for you. Conservatively speaking, with it, another ten thousand years wouldn't be a problem."
Zeus's face lit up. Then it stiffened. "But I can no longer leave this place. That equipment..."
"I'll go get it!" Diana said, without a shred of hesitation.
Thea blinked in surprise, but there was nothing to do but accept the outcome. The old man had calculated everything down to the last detail. Did Diana not realize she'd been played? Of course she did. But she chose this anyway—for that one thread of blood connection.
With nothing more to say, they told Zeus to sit tight and departed from Heaven. In the distance, Jason had already woken up and was happily fishing. In the end, the two of them chose not to disturb his life and headed straight back to New Genesis.
Diana knew her promise had been reckless. She was a little afraid to meet Thea's eyes, fussing over tea and water like a nervous newlywed.
Thea cleared her throat. Diana immediately dropped her gaze and assumed her most respectful expression.
"Know what you did wrong?"
"Mm... I know."
Thea grabbed Diana, pulled her right over, laid her across her lap, raised her left hand, and delivered a rapid-fire barrage of smacks to her backside.
She had to admit—the sensation was deeply satisfying. The more she smacked, the more she got into it. Diana rarely surrendered this completely, so she wasn't about to waste the opportunity.
Perhaps sensing there was no real anger behind it, Diana flipped the script in an instant—rolling over, pinning Thea to the ground. "That's enough, isn't it? Stop being angry..."
Thea tried to pull the same trick, keep pretending she was mad, but this time Diana wasn't falling for it.
Having never actually been upset in the first place, Thea promptly raised her hands in surrender.
"I'll go get that equipment, and then we're done with him. We never have to deal with him again." Diana promised solemnly.
"But you can't exactly get there right now either—and there's the matter of the beacon."
"Bruce is the beacon, right? Bring him here."
The two of them hashed out an action plan, then reached out to Bruce on Earth. After settling Alfred, he let them pull him to New Genesis.
Once he understood their intentions, Bruce felt a little dizzy. "Why is it always my nightmare?" Martin Luther King had one dream. How many do I have? Isn't that a few too many?
Thea gave him a flat look. "That world has a Batman who was secretly in love with Diana—"
"Ahem!"
"Ahem!"
Two coughs rang out in unison. Diana stared at Bruce in wide-eyed astonishment. So that's the kind of person you are!
Bruce was equally blindsided. Hand on heart—was there some attraction to Diana? Of course there was. A warrior goddess's allure was objectively undeniable. Unless you were blind, anyone—man or woman—would feel something. But in all good conscience, he could swear on his parents' names: he'd only ever thought about it in passing between missions. He had never, not once, acted on it.
He now harbored a deep, personal grudge against the Dark Multiverse. That universe had taken something that barely qualified as a seedling of a thought, magnified it infinitely, and put it on display for the whole world to see. Standing in front of two women, face burning, Bruce Wayne had never been more mortified in his life.