Adam comes into the kitchen to find his parents trapped in force fields, frozen with expressions of fear still on their faces. Before he can act, a wellspring of energy carefully concealed beneath the house rises up, and forms its own trap around him.
He can move, to some extent, but he feels his connection with Tau and his powers pinned in place, like a wrestler grabbed hold of him.
Sablestar is in the living room, her hand on the shoulder of a terrified Jordan.
“Leave her alone,” Adam shouts automatically.
The Void Shadow’s web-weaver actually laughs. “Do you imagine I’d hurt her, Adam? After all the work I put into her?”
“I don’t know what you want, but leave Jordan alone. If you have a problem with me, make it with me!”
“My problem is the Concordance you serve, dear Adam,” croons Sablestar. “You’ve been a thorn in my side, but only that. It’s only poetic that I reduce the mighty with such meager instruments.”
Jordan isn’t sure what’s going on, but Adam can see her fear fading into anger. “Adam can kick your butt any day!”
Sablestar turns in surprise to look at Jordan. “Oh? Not like this, my dear. His power’s been grounded into the eight-fold ether. All he has left is fists and words.”
“Yeah? Well–”
Adam can sense Jordan start to draw on her own power. “Jordan, don’t do it!”
Sablestar’s smile shows amusement, but not concern. “Antares Alpha-One, disengage all functions until further notice.”
Jordan finds her mouth taken over. “Antares Alpha-One complying.” She returns to herself and shouts furiously. “Hey! Whad’ya do to Anty?”
“The Shard is mine to do with as I wish, child.” Sablestar flicks a finger, and Jordan is levitated into the reclining chair. Sablestar herself takes a seat on the couch.
She folds her hands on her lap, draws a breath, and smiles at Adam. “Young Adam Amari, I know about your battle on Orion Schema. Surely you’ve seen by now that the Concordance are not the champions of goodness you believe them to be. You’ve seen their tactics, their methods, the people they become when pushed to the wall.”
Adam won’t give her the satisfaction, but privately he knows what she wants him to think about. The trial by empathy. The lengths the Coordinators would go to in order to preserve themselves.
Sablestar knows that he knows, and smirks a bit. “Keep your silence, then. You’ve at least dignity enough not to attempt to deny it. Yet you still serve them, though perhaps not as faithfully as they’d like. Delightful! Whether through hypocrisy or impotency, you hold fast to masters who have long since strayed from the path of virtue.”
Adam grits his teeth. “And you’re the hero of this story, is that it?”
Sablestar’s laughter is alive with amusement. “Hero? My boy, there are no heroes! There are those with the vision to understand real virtue, and those with power to enact their will. The Void Shadow Collective seeks to unite such visionaries with the power they require. We will undermine the Universal Concordance, expose its falsehoods for the universe to examine, and strike it down for the sake of those it has wronged in its misguided search for ‘order’ and ‘harmony’. Men like Velasco understand this, and have wielded the Prime Shard of Honor in the past. We will help him do so again.”
She leans forward on the couch, staring hard into Adam’s eyes. “The Concordance, you see, are just parents who’ve given up on their children. They took the burden of adjudicating Virtue in the universe, then crumbled beneath the weight the task laid upon them. They dare not confess their weakness, so they conceal it behind rules and protocols and stuffy arrogance. Their tools - the Weapon of Final Compassion, for example - aren’t about rectifying wrongs, but erasing mistakes.”
Adam stares back. “So you’re the rebellious teenagers, I guess. I’ve been lucky to have friends who helped me see that just when you think your parents are wrong, you may not be right either.”
Sablestar rises from the couch and approaches Adam, looking down at him with pitying eyes. “I’d hoped you’d understand. You’re halfway to joining the Collective yourself, you know.”
She glances over at Jordan. “Well, if you aren’t ready, perhaps someone else here doesn’t mind using her powers the way she wants.”
“Have you anything to say about that, child?”
Blah blah blah blah. Jordan knows the term for this, from reading comics and villain stuff online. It’s called “monologuing”. It’s where the bad guy thinks they’ve got the hero cornered, so they just talk and talk and talk and talk.
She can feel Anty, but she can’t communicate any more. It’s like someone is asleep and they won’t wake up, even if you shout at them.
What can she do?
She remembers the future, somehow. It’s her older self that appears when she’s Peri, a Jordan that’s from ten years in the future. A Jordan that lost her brother Adam.
It’s this moment when that happened. It’s right now.
She reaches for the one move she always insisted on doing herself, instead of trusting to Anty. She reaches for the thing most important to her in the world.
She reaches for the ability to free someone of their negative feelings.
“Have you anything to say about that, child?”
Jordan stands up. “Yeah. I got somethin’ to say.”
Sablestar beams. “By all means.”
Jordan feels the energy rising, feels the ambient power Sablestar’s trap has left here, and pulls it together. “PERFECT–”
Sablestar’s face twists and contorts into fearful recognition of what’s about to happen. She struggles to erect a defense. It’s not fast enough.
“–PURIFICATION!”
Waves of power surround Sablestar, tearing at the emotional armor around her Shard, prying away every negative emotion that powers her, neutralizing or encasing every bad feeling she’s ever drawn on. Streamers of light reach from Jordan’s outstretched hands to take possession of the isolated energy fragments.
“No powers inna house! Mom said!” she shouts.
She can see that Adam is free, and to her immense joy and relief, she sees Dad come barreling out of the kitchen, ending in a leaping tackle that knocks a very surprised Sablestar to the ground.
“What–?”
The villain is interrupted by a very angry cop. “Sablestar! You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. If you waive that right, anything you say can and will be used against you in court.”
Dad yells over his shoulder. “Honey! Get my cuffs and piece!”
Mom has shown up from the kitchen with a frying pan in one hand, her biggest kitchen knife clutched in the other. “Where are they?”
“Closet, Top drawer, left side.”
“On it!”
Mom takes off. Adam rushes to Jordan’s side, hugging her and checking on her in that instinctive way big brothers do.
Nassir Amari has hauled Sablestar off to be processed. Adam isn’t sure how Perfect Purification actually works, so he’s notified the Rainbow Warriors that they should probably come pick her up.
“She was responsible for all this stuff,” he adds, via text with Kirk.
“Probably look pretty good if we’re the ones who bring her in. Is that the idea?”
“I just want her gone. She was in my house.”
There’s a pause, and lots of typing indicators, before he gets a message from Kirk again. “Is Jordan okay?”
“She’s doing good,” texts Adam, with a glance at his sister, sitting at the kitchen table.
“Okay. Tell her… We’re all sorry for that stuff,” comes the last reply.
Summer was notified about the situation as well, and when admitted via the front door, rushes to Jordan’s side and fusses over her for a few minutes. Adam watches Jordan relate the story of how she took down a villain, all on her own. He smiles, proudly, despite all of his lingering terror about how it could have gone so wrong. And he watches Summer makes promises about ice cream, blintzes, and other rewards for such princess-like heroism.
At the end of it, Adam sits down and tells Jordan what he’s thinking about doing.
“Sablestar said some stuff I have to know more about. So I’m gonna go back into space, and do some investigation. I’m gonna ask William Eddison to come along, 'cause he’s got a sword that’s connected to this too, somehow.”
Jordan nods quietly.
“And if Anty comes back online, or you think about using other powers, I want you to talk to Mom and Dad and Summer first, okay? Don’t do something without asking them. Promise me.”
“I promise,” Jordan says quietly.
Adam hugs his sister, and she squeezes him back. She’s still scared, but she’s recovering. Adam feels bad about leaving her like this, but also knows that if there’s more danger waiting for her, it’s going to be out there. Better to go face it first.
He smiles at her. “Listen. All of us are connected by bonds of emotion. Even without Anty, you should be able to feel that. And I can feel you too. So if you’re ever in need, tug on that string, and I’ll feel it, and come running back home. Okay?”
Jordan beams through teary eyes. “I will. But I won’t have to. 'Cause Imma princess, and when ya come back, I’ll be the best princess there ever was. I’ll show ya!”
Adam grins. “I look forward to it, your highness.”