Defiance-IX, orbiting Earth’s Moon
Medusa walks past her prison cell, knocking down the door that she has transmuted into stone.
The officers that were keeping guard suffer the same fate just by looking at her.
With every step she takes, more pieces of the ship are turning into stone. The red alarm resonates across all decks; a couple of crew members make an attempt to stop her, but one look is all it takes for them to be petrified.
Very quickly, the entire deck is made of stone with one exception: the elevator. Medusa approaches it carefully, waiting for its door to open; when it does, it suffers the same fate as the cell door… petrified and smashed.
She only has a vague idea of what the elevator is supposed to be: this is her first chance to move freely inside a ship. She tries her luck by pressing a button, but nothing happens.
<Got it out of your system?>
The voice coming out of the elevator is electronically altered, but she recognizes Noriko Null.
<Stop trying to cage me or I will…> Medusa threatens.
<Do what? Turn the whole ship into stone? Good luck leaving the system then. Transmute the elevator, and you’re not going anywhere either.>
<I don’t need the ship! I can… I can…> Medusa continues, just realizing she has no idea of what she can actually do at this point.
<You’re not doing anything. I’ve taken down gods much more dangerous than you, Medusa, consider yourself lucky you’ve gone this far. I admit you took me by surprise, but you have just one trick. The only reason I’m not teleporting you into the Sun is that I need to un-petrify Vesta.>
<You’re still thinking about her, and you still deny she bewitched you?>
<Okay, I see you still need time-out. Just chill up there while I decide what I need to do with you.>
Themyscira
Naqada Galaxy, 17 million light-years from Earth
The glorious Amazon world was once the jewel of the Olympian Galaxy, home to a civilization of proud warrior women that eventually replaced itself with highly advanced female androids.
Most gods considered them the most technologically advanced mortal planet in the known universe; the thought of conquering it or destroying it before it could become a threat was periodically discussed among all pantheons.
If only they could foresee its current state. Its android population reprogrammed by Rei Null, enslaved to her algorithms and their technology thoroughly exploited.
A single god now walks across the ruins of a detonation that obliterated half a hemisphere.
His body is completely covered by white mummy wraps, with a white cape flowing in the wind caused by the destruction of all weather-manipulating equipment.
They call him Khonsu, God of Travelers and of the passage of time, and he has a specific destination in mind: the petrified stone form of Anubis that now stands before him.
<You’re a hard god to find.> Rei Null greets him. The bandages obscuring his face do a perfect job of hiding his uneasiness at being taken by surprise.
<By design. I agreed to serve you, Empress Rei, but I am not a slave like Anubis.>
<And by retaining a modicum of independence you are more useful to me. What is your expert opinion on Anubis?> Rei asks, leaning against the statue. A Survival Field protects her body from the hostile environment.
<He should have recovered his true form by now. Medusa should not have been able to affect him. Did you know this would happen when you resurrected her?>
<I wish I could take credit for that. I knew Athena locked her up for a reason, but I could not imagine that her potential would be so high… so I had to improvise.>
< “Improvise”. Is that what you call damaging your own base to kill a minor goddess?>
<I’ve taken down gods much more dangerous than Medusa: she should consider herself lucky she got this far. I admit she took me by surprise, but she only has one trick. The only reason I did not teleport her into the Sun is that I needed her to trick Noriko.>
<You went back to Earth because you knew that the real… that the other Null would bring Medusa to Earth? Why?>
<I needed to test Medusa’s power. If she gave me trouble, she could deal with the Vanguard.>
<So she did defeat you the first time.>
<Let’s not dwell on that. She served another purpose: allowing Noriko to steal back the eyes of Prometheus. She would suspect a trap of course, but I knew she could not resist such a valuable prize… because I couldn’t either.>
<I’m surprised you didn’t use them yourself.>
<I’ve run enough tests on them to be certain it would not work on a mortal: only a god could use their prophetic powers. And as soon as Medusa proved herself unreliable, I had to turn to my contingency plan.>
<The eyes are poisoned, are they not?>
<Oh, unbelievably so. I devised a way to ensure any god attempting to use them would only receive irreparable mental damage. At worst, that would at least take Prometheus out of the equation.>
<You were remarkably quick to develop such a poison, Rei. And I can’t help noticing that you never even considered giving me the eyes.>
<I respect your intelligence too much, Khonsu. You would have been smart enough to use them against me. I would if I were in your place.>
<Then why did you ask me to return to Themyscira?>
<Well, first of all, what good is coming up with a plan so brilliant that it even blindsides the second smartest woman in the universe, if you can’t brag about it with someone? But more importantly, you can help me capitalize on this happy incident.> Rei explains, activating a holographic projector.
It shows recordings from Earth about Medusa, showing the ruins of Null Tower and the petrified body of Vesta.
<I allowed Noriko to take both Medusa and the eyes back to Earth as completely separate traps. She was smart enough not to use the eyes… but by a stroke of luck, Medusa did something I could not predict. Her ability to die and resurrect herself protected her from the poison, and more importantly now she’s somehow using the eyes of Prometheus to boost her own power to unthinkable levels.>
<Is that why Anubis has not been able to turn back?>
<I’m sure of it. Even if Medusa’s power affected him just thanks to his connection to the necrobots in his system, by now his own power should have overwhelmed the effect. My theory is when Medusa replaced her own eyes with those of a Titan, they somehow removed any limit to her petrification power.>
<An intriguing theory. How unfortunate the eyes can’t be used by a god with a decent power.>
<Medusa nearly killed me when she didn’t have the eyes, and she nearly accomplished the same against Noriko. If given the right push… if put in the right environment and pushed in the right direction… she could do tremendous damage to my enemies.> Rei explains.
<That sounds overly optimistic. I doubt Medusa could kill the other Null.>
<Who said anything about Null? I need you to do a quick errand for me, Khonsu…>
New York City, Max Black’s apartment
Noriko Null is sitting on the couch, talking through her N-Phone which is relaying her words to the Defiance-IX. Sending her consciousness proved too dangerous when Medusa transmuted her projection, but she has easier ways to send her voice to the ship.
<Just chill up there while I decide what I need to do with you. Now let’s just… what the heck?>
The unmistakable sound of a lost connection is coming out of the phone.
<A.I.D.A, reconnect me.> she orders her digital personal assistant.
<Apologies, mistress, but I cannot establish a connection.>
<Why not?>
<The ship is out of range.>
<I’ve linked you to my satellites; you should be able to link to any ship in the system!>
<The Defiance-IX is not currently in Earth’s solar system.>
<What!? Who gave the order to turn on its stellar engine!?>
<No faster-than-light travel has been detected.>
<You mean the ship just… vanished? No signs of teleportation or spatial warping?>
<None detectable from the satellite network, mistress.>
<Which can only mean one thing: some god just let Medusa escape.> Noriko deduces.
Halia, Aegian Galaxy
2.7 million light-years from Earth
At first glance, this planet is not much difference from the vast majority of inhabited worlds of this galaxy. Its surface is almost completely covered in water, with its population of mermen and mermaids thriving in an underwater civilization.
Its notability comes from being the capital world of the Rhodos Sector, connected to the rest of the Atlantean Confederacy by a river that spans countless solar systems.
Its ruler Rhodos sits on a throne in a castle at the bottom of the largest ocean. As the eldest of the surviving children of Poseidon, she should have inherited his whole galaxy upon his death.
And even if her sector only covers half of the Aegian Galaxy, she should be among the most powerful and influential of all gods… if only she were more than a figurehead.
In reality, thanks to the humiliating defeat her father suffered at the hands of Null, the real power of lays in the hands of its mortals.
She has little to do these days besides counting down the days Null will finally die of old age and dreaming of rallying the surviving gods into taking back what is rightfully theirs.
Her daydream is interrupted by one of the subjects swimming towards her.
<Your Majesty, we have detected a ship appearing in orbit above the planet.>
<So this is what I have been reduced to? Keeping track of the most worthless minutiae?>
<Your Majesty… you asked to be informed if a ship traveling outside the river approached us.>
<A ship traveling without the river?> Rhodos exclaims, rising from the throne and holding out her hand. A bident rapidly flies into her hand.
<Yes, Your Majesty. As part of the accords, the central government has been notified.>
<Someone disrespects MY sector, and I’m supposed to defer to the spineless mortals who usurped my birthright!? I will see to this personally!!!> Rhodos shouts, flying upwards.
She flies fast enough to vaporize water in her trail, reaching the surface in mere seconds. She proceeds in her rage-fueled travel, surrounding herself in a bubble of water.
Reaching the orbit, she expected to find a hostile god willing to conquer her world: the last thing she expected was a huge chunk of stone in the exact shape of a spaceship.
<Is this some sort of sick joke!?> she exclaims, ready to destroy the object by conjuring a stream of highly pressurized water, when something does leave the ship.
A goddess who just kicked a petrified hatch into space, and who floated out of the ship.
<What is this place? This isn’t Earth anymore.> she says, immediately finding herself face to face with Rhodos ordering:
<You have one chance to bow down to me and apologize for showing up unannounced!>
<Who… who would you be, exactly?> the intruder asks.
<I am Rhodos, eldest daughter of Poseidon and true heir to the Throne of Atlantis! How could you possibly not know who I… wait. I only know of only one loser with snakes for hair…>
<Did you just say POSEIDON?> Medusa asks, her red eyes burning with power.
Rhodos barely has the time to realize what is happening to her before she turns to stone.
<This must be Poseidon’s realm.> Medusa realizes, tapping on the stone form of Rhodos… and giving her just enough of a push to send her in freefall towards the planet.
<Now I know why I was brought back to life. Null may have killed Poseidon… but destiny must want me to finish the job.>
Medusa stares intensely at Halia, to the point that she can feel the pain of her own eyes burning up.
But it’s worth it when that transmutes the entire surface of the whole planet into solid stone.