Thea had been drifting between sleep and wakefulness when she heard those words. Joy surged through her and she froze the entire timeline on the spot.
Every mage in the room was beaming. Only the leader, hearing his subordinate's remark, tempered his elation with a flicker of scrutiny. At the instant time stopped, he had been peering at the hazy figure in the center of the blood-red ritual circle.
It was a thin young man, pulled from his own home through The Dreaming as a waypoint, then dragged across time and space to this place. He was, without question, a candidate blessed with both luck and potential.
No preamble needed. Thea grabbed the young man and took him straight to The Endless.
She rattled off the briefing—basically the same speech Destiny had given her.
It wasn't that she didn't care about her younger siblings. But passing the initial screening was only the beginning; a long road lay ahead. If this one didn't make it, she'd have to pick another. If she poured her heart into sisterly affection every single time, her emotional reserves would run dry in no time.
When she finished, the young man looked thoroughly lost. She could tell he hadn't absorbed half of it.
Understandable, really. Anyone yanked out of a sound sleep, dragged through a psychedelic wonderland, and then told "you are the so-and-so of The Endless" would have trouble processing the twist.
Thea's own adjustment had been fast—partly because she'd been wide awake, partly because she already knew about The Endless.
She reviewed Dream's trials from start to finish. Or rather, over the course of seventy-seven summonings she'd studied them several times over. Played straight, they were no harder than running through a video-game quest line.
Far simpler than her own selection—a gauntlet of thousands competing for one slot.
Simpler selection, smaller payoff. Dream's ultimate combat power would never approach hers: peak multiversal at best, permanently short of the omniversal tier she and Destiny occupied.
But everything was relative. Her starting point had been leagues above this young man's. She had been an elite among the New Gods, pitted against the likes of Nekron and Darkseid.
And this young man? At most a guy with an unusually active brain—the kind of person confined to a psychiatric ward and studied like a specimen. His opponents would be a clutch of second-rate British mages... and John Constantine. Yes, the very same Constantine Thea knew.
Per the script, Dream also had a Hell arc and a Gotham arc lined up, both featuring appearances by Thea herself. From where she stood, those felt more like cutscenes than anything.
All in all, Destiny's script was ripe for criticism. Too many plot threads required Thea's involvement; she actually had quite a few lines in this production. Compared to her own story—a one-woman show start to finish—she was a major supporting character in Dream's.
"Did you understand what I said?" she asked.
The young man stared at her, wide-eyed.
"Fine. I'll take that as a yes." One snap of her fingers and she sent him back into the summoning circle. This candidate had plenty of time to think it over—per the script, the mages would study him for the next seventy years. More than enough to come to terms with reality.
Leaving the Sandman candidate to figure things out on his own—if he made it to the end, great; if not, she'd pick another—she changed back into her own clothes, activated a teleport, and headed straight home.
Not back to Earth. To the Source Wall.
As the pinnacle of this entire world, she could finally afford to take a good, honest look around.
Walking and pausing along the Wall's exterior, scanning the many powerful beings fused into its surface, she flew a considerable distance before finally locating her target.
Yuga Khan—the fearsome New God whose legend once made even Darkseid avert his gaze—hung there like a bas-relief, silent against the Wall, his life force merged with its substance. All that remained visible to later generations was his savage, snarling face and part of his body.
Impressive. Thea had to concede that much. He had crossed the peak-multiversal threshold, yet hadn't quite reached omniversal. In cultivation-novel parlance, a "half-step omniversal."
Fire, Earth, Time, Space, and Magic. Five godhoods. And yes, he was carrying the Godhood of Magic—the very godhood Thea had coveted for ages, its whereabouts a mystery until now. The truth was simple: he'd brought it with him when he got stuck to the Wall.
Being on the Wall and being inside it were two different things. For the wider world, Magic as a concept had been half-lost. This was the primary reason the multiverse's ambient mana had plummeted and intelligent beings' magical abilities had regressed.
Godhoods repelled and entangled one another. Yuga Khan had ignored balance entirely. Raw strength was all that mattered. If a godhood could make him stronger, he wanted it—no questions asked.
The godhoods drove him mad and ultimately pinned him to the Wall. Thea could only sigh. This was the endpoint for the New Gods. She could pry him loose, but picking a fight with him served no purpose. Better to leave him as a monument for future generations. Her curiosity satisfied, she stepped away and returned to Earth in a single stride.
Earth was the same as always. Perpetually noisy. Villains rose and fell, heroes were constantly schemed against and constantly clawed their way back, civilians went about their lives, enterprising social organizations still hawked laundry detergent, and elected officials continued to say things they didn't believe.
Every last bit of it was contradictory, and every last bit of it felt natural. This place had a mountain of unsolvable problems, but it made Thea feel warm. This was home.
Diana was still on New Genesis sorting out internal affairs. Her mother and brother were each busy with their own concerns. Thea wandered until she found herself in Gotham, slipped past the entrance security without a second thought, and strolled into the Batcave.
Batman was engaged in the highly promising profession of blacksmithing. He had assembled a contraption that, to Thea's eye, looked more like a torture device—a tangle of wires and metal components with a seat in the center.
She gave it a couple of idle glances and said nothing.
"Are you all right?" Batman set down his welding torch and looked at her with curiosity. "Something seems... off about you."
She raised an eyebrow. "Is it that obvious? Even you can tell?"
"You look much more relaxed than usual. Not like before. You always looked like you were carrying the weight of the world."
Batman continued his analysis unprompted. Thea didn't explain. Her power had finally peaked; nobody could threaten her ever again. The relief was real. But none of that needed to be said to Batman.
"It's a little quiet in here..." After a silence, the words slipped out. Alfred was ill. Even Britain's most elite operative couldn't hold off the body's decline. Even with the best medical care available, the old butler didn't have long.
Damian and Raven had gone to the Teen Titans.
Barbara and Nightwing each had their own paths. They had all left the Batcave.