"Moving, you say?" The Martian Manhunter rubbed his chin.
Rebecca had been to the Hall of Justice once before, after initial contact between Earths Bet and Tsadi to agree to a cessation of hostilities (for some reason, the League readily accepted that their initial hostility had been based on a misunderstanding). It looked much like she remembered it – a half-cylinder of a building that looked more like a museum than a parahuman meeting place.
Admittedly, the front half of the building did serve as a museum of heroes and villains, showcasing some of their equipment on display. Alexandria had spent the time waiting for the League to arrive planning how best to have Dragon pay a 'field trip' here with a group of post-cogs.
The meeting room they were in was tastefully decorated, but ultimately much the same as meeting rooms all across the universes. A large round table dominated the room, with seating space for up to thirty people.
Seated around this table was herself, Celestia (who had elected to sit on the floor rather than try to fit into a chair designed for humans), and several members of the Justice League that she recognised from both her personal experience as Rebecca and from Threat Ratings that had come out of the initial burst of hostility and paranoia. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Plastic Man, Doctor Fate, Zatanna, and the Martian Manhunter.
"That is the word Access used, yes." Alexandria confirmed.
Superman glanced around the table. "Well, he would know, wouldn't he?"
"How the hell do you get a universe to move?" Plastic Man said, stretching out a finger into a long string to scratch his head. "I thought they were just sorta… there."
"Well, the multiverse doesn't exactly run on Newtonian Physics, but the basic tenants hold true." The Flash leaned forward. "To get something of infinite mass 'moving', you need an infinite amount of energy."
Plastic Man started dumbly at the Flash. "Where are you going to get something like that?"
The Flash shrugged. "Dunno. Plenty of bad guys have been trying to get that kind of power for years, but none of them have ever actually pulled it off."
"Putting aside the question of 'how' for the moment, what actually are the risks if the worlds are rearranging themselves?" Wonder Woman cut in.
"Well –" Both Celestia and Doctor Fate started, then they both stopped and looked at each other. Smiling, Celestia gestured for Fate to speak.
"Well, if a universe is 'moving', there's always the risk it could 'collide' with another universe." Fate said.
Alexandria leaned forward. "Which means what, exactly?"
"If they are 'moving' slowly enough, the universes will merge together, like soap bubbles." Celestia explained, manifesting two golden transparent spheres with her magic to demonstrate. As she gently moved them together, the two touched and sucked the other inside to form one larger bubble. "But if they are 'moving' too fast…"
Two more golden bubbles of magic appeared, but this time slammed into each other with force, causing both to pop.
"Right." Superman said. "Definitely don't want that happening."
"But how do we stop it?" Wonder Woman asked. "If it takes infinite energy to get them moving, won't it take infinite energy to stop them?"
"Not necessarily." The Flash said. "The Speed Force can act like a dimensional barrier under the right circumstances – if we used it to increase the 'viscosity' of inter-space…"
"Funnelling the energy through Pym Particles first should boost the effect."
A flash of golden light announced the arrival of Access and three other people as they teleported into the room.
"Hi all." Access greeted. "Uh… not everybody here's met everybody else, so these guys are Doctors Richards, Pym and Strange. Doctors, this is the Justice League. And the plus one. And the pony."
"You were saying something about amplifying the Speed Force?" Flash was suddenly standing in front of Doctor Pym, a red blur the only sign that he'd moved.
Pym blinked at the sudden movement, but collected himself. "Yes, if we could use a chalkboard for a moment –"
The Flash disappeared into another red blur, returning an eye-blink later with the requested chalkboard. He, Richards and Pym stood in front of the chalkboard and started drawing equations on it that Alexandria was quite certain were contradictory, but the three seemed to find useful.
"Right." Access glanced over at the three. "Now that the eggheads are working, I'd better get back to my work." So saying, he disappeared in a flash of golden light.
The knot of stress around Alexandria's heart started to ease a little. "So, we have a plan to halt the movement of the universes?"
"Still a bare-bones plan." Richards said, still looking at the chalkboard. "And we'll need to find something to power it, but it's looking good so far."
"That just leaves us to find the cause of this inter-universal disturbance so that we can stop it from happening again." Superman concluded.
"We won't have to look for long." Batman spoke up for the first time. "Alexandria knows exactly what the problem is."
There was a moment of absolute silence as everyone in the room looked at Batman, then slowly turned to stare at Alexandria. For her part, Alexandria stared resolutely at Batman, not saying a word.
Plastic Man scratched his head some more. "Uh, Bats…"
"You asked for our help in figuring out what was going on." Batman said, staring right back at Alexandria. "But you wanted to go from there straight to possible fixes. You weren't in the slightest bit interested in addressing the cause. Why?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Alexandria said, long-practised secrecy rearing its ugly head. A narrowing of Batman's eyes told her he wasn't buying it for a moment.
Celestia looked between the two humans in dark-coloured costumes. "Alexandria, do you think it has something to do with the White Queen?"
"Who is this White Queen?" Zatanna asked. "Are we talking about a game of chess now?"
"Any relation to the Queen of Fables?" Wonder Woman asked.
Batman's eyes narrowed further. "Manhunter."
"I can't read her mind." The Martian Manhunter said.
Batman turned to look at his teammate. "Manhunter, this isn't the time –"
"You misunderstand." The Martian Manhunter corrected him. "It is not that I will not read her mind, I truly cannot. Her mind is shielded from me somehow."
"My brain hasn't contained my mind for decades." Alexandria said, tensely. "And I would appreciate it if you would not discuss violating my mental privacy so casually."
"Alexandria…" Celestia gently interjected. "Please. Now is really not the time to be keeping secrets."
Alexandria closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She really wanted Doctor Mother here. Or Eidolon, or Legend. She'd even settle for Contessa, as unsettling as the girl could be at times. Someone to back her up.
The iron clamp of Scion must not find out was still firmly clamped onto her heart, but she reminded herself firmly: The White Queen is not Scion.
No. She whispered back to herself. In a way, she's worse.
"How familiar are you with something called the 'Third Summoning Ceremony'?" She eventually said out loud.
A series of blank glances around the room made Alexandria quite sure that nobody here had heard of it before.
Strange and Fate shared a look, but both of them shook their heads.
Alexandria sighed. "May I have another chalkboard, please?"
The Flash briefly disappeared from the room to fetch another of the presentation aids, then returned to his animated discussion with Pym and Richards.
She stood up, and started sketching the tools and symbols that she'd managed to catch a glimpse of, the ones her Shard would never let her forget. Strange and Fate both moved over to the chalkboard to get a closer look. "From what I know, somebody managed to invent –" she halted briefly, but then remembered that she was in a room with people who did believe in magic "– invent a way to summon the gods of myth with a one hundred percent success rate."
Most of the other people in the room sat up further in their chairs. "Impossible!" Wonder Woman cried. "The gods do not answer the whims of mortals!"
"I'm not sure they'd have a choice." Strange said, looking closely at one of the symbols Alexandria had sketched. "If I'm reading this right, the ceremony doesn't summon the actual gods – just a portion of their power small enough to fit into the shackles of the ritual. The summoned god can't break out of the ritual because their full power isn't available in the first place."
"So… not really a problem then?" Plastic Man asked.
"Oh no, even a sliver of a god is still an enormous amount of power." Strange corrected. "If someone like me wasn't around to fix things –"
"Or me." Fate interjected pointedly.
Strange waved the other magician off. "Yes, yes, or him, then you're in major trouble. Part of the spell is that the summoner can't be defeated until their summon is, so you're forced to defeat the summon in battle or run away."
Superman cocked his head. Magic had never been his strong point. "So, the White Queen is someone who mastered this ceremony?"
"No." Alexandria shook her head, continuing to sketch what she'd seen of a summoner in action. "She's one of the summons."
"She's a god?" Zatanna asked.
"No." Alexandria repeated. "The trick to the ceremony, as I understand it, is that you summon a weak, man-made monster, and then use that summon to summon a more powerful summon. Once you have summoned fifty of the so-called 'Regulation-class Materials', you are then summoning 'Divine-class Materials', or the gods. But if you climb all the way up the ranks of the gods, and try to continue summoning more powerful things…"
"You find yourself summoning something more powerful than a god." Fate finished. "Is that what you mean?"
"Impossible!" Wonder Woman cried, leaping from her chair, fury on her face. "Nothing is more powerful than the gods!"
"So the Titans are nothing now?" Batman commented idly.
"Shut up!" Wonder Woman yelled at her teammate.
Superman stood up, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Let Alexandria finish talking first, please."
Wonder Woman's mouth twisted, but she sat back down, fuming.
"The White Queen is the most powerful of this third category, the 'Unexplored-class'." Alexandria continued with her explanation. "She's not all-powerful, but she's so powerful that nothing else can stand against her. She isn't all-knowing either, but she is extremely intelligent and has some way to find out about events in other worlds from the world she lives in." She finished the last of her chalk drawings and stepped back from the chalkboard.
"That's an explanation of who she is." Batman observed. "Not why you think she's responsible."
"Or how she got to my world to fight us." Celestia pointed out.
Alexandria halted in whatever she had been about to say, then turned at the pony. "What do you mean? Obviously, someone summoned her."
"How close do these summoners have to stay to their summons?" Fate asked, still peering intently at her sketches.
Alexandria turned to face the magician. "Within a few meters, why?"
"Alexandria." Celestia's voice was grave. "There was nobody there other than me, your group and the Queen."
Alexandria stared at Celestia in confusion for a moment, before perking up in realisation. "Oh, right. I forgot to mention. All practitioners of the Third Summoning Ceremony have an automatic Stranger power. You can't remember the existence of a summoner unless they're within your field of vision, or you're a summoner yourself."
Superman blinked slowly. "Why?"
"Actually, that makes sense." Fate spoke up, apparently finished his examination of the chalkboard. "Anyone who participated in this ritual becomes, in effect, part of all legends ever told, a resident of the 'other world' – but the legends themselves don't change. The paradox of existing only as an unmentioned role in a story means that the human mind cannot recall their existence unless that person is standing before them, or they are a part of the same legends."
Alexandria had always wondered why she could remember the summoners when none of her teammates could – now she knew. As uncomfortable as it made her to think about it, her mind was just an emulation of her memories and personality that her Shard was running. It didn't care for paradoxes or the like – it just stored the information and retrieved it when requested.
"Alexandria." Celestia said, still speaking in that grave voice. "Look at me. Do I look like somepony who has no part in the world of legends?"
Alexandria looked at the creature who was part Unicorn and part Pegasus, and began to feel an intense sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Strange held out his hand, and an intricate circle of light appeared, hovering just above his palm. A series of lights began to appear above his hands, forming a starscape that filled the upper part of the room. "This is a map of the local multiverse – simplified, of course." He pointed to one of the lights. "That's us, here." He pointed to another light close by the first. "And that's my home, Earth-616."
Not wanting to be outdone, Doctor Fate also began to point out universes. "That is your world." He told Alexandria. "The world you call 'Bet'."
"Which of these worlds does the Queen herald from?" The Martian Manhunter asked.
"Well, that's the thing." Strange rubbed the back of his neck.
"None of them, and at the same time all of them." Fate interjected.
"The worlds of legends aren't individually packaged up the way that physical universes are." Strange explained. "They're more like… ah…"
"Like a layer, or phase?" Alexandria suggested, remembering Index's words.
"Exactly!" Strange said. "Like a layer on top of any given universe. Each world doesn't have it's own Heaven or Hell – they share each such plane between them."
"However, the strength of such bonds can and does vary between the worlds." Fate continued.
Strange pointed up at the starscape. "I've colour-coded the worlds here – the more blue they are, the stronger the bonds between the physical world and the mystical one."
"In the world of Bet, for example, the bonds are nearly non-existent." Fate indicated, showing how the point representing Earth Bet was almost completely red. "The Queen can't – hold." He examined the starscape more closely. "You say the Queen has been summoned on this world?"
"Yes." Alexandria confirmed. "And only a few hours ago, the Babylonian goddess Tiamat also arrived in it to attack it."
"That is impossible." Fate declared. "The mystic ties in this world are far too weak. Magic of all kinds should fail to work here, and those from outside its boundaries should loose all spiritual power."
"Would these 'bonds' be affected by the movement of the universes?" Alexandria asked.
Strange and Fate both stared at her for a moment, then at each other. Then both turned back to the starscape in hurried motion.
"The world of Bet is moving this way." Strange said, pointing. "If it was over here yesterday, then it could easily support this Queen entity being summoned."
"And at the rate it is moving, it will be here tomorrow." Fate indicated another point on the starscape. "Once it is there, the bonds will be strong enough that summoning will become superfluous. A creature of a gods strength, or more, could easily force their way into the material plane unaided."
Alexandria could not actually get ill anymore, but that did not stop her from feeling ill. "That's her endgame." She breathed. "She's literally moving heaven and earth to get to Earth Bet without the restrictions of the Third Summoning Ceremony."
Strange manifested another circle in his other hand, and each point of light gained an arrow. "If I'm not mistaken, there's a pattern here to the way the worlds are moving."
"There is." Batman confirmed. He pointed to a point in the middle of the roof. "They're all radiating outwards from there."
"There? What's th- ah. I see." Strange suddenly became much more subdued.
"What? What is there?" Wonder Woman asked.
"It's not what is there. It's what isn't."
Alexandria almost didn't recognise the voice as Celestia's, so choked was it with sadness.
"It's the spot where my world used to be." The princess looked forlornly at the spot. "The Queen must have detonated it to start the other worlds moving. The debris of my home is what provided the motive force to all the other worlds around it."
For a long moment, nobody spoke.
Then Superman stood up, a dangerous look in his eye. "You said you had a plan to stop this?"