I've always felt different, probably because I am, wildly, different. I'm not a meta-human, that all encompassing word for things that are basically just different shades of human, like some alien from a Star Trek episode. I may prance around like one but it's just an act. I'm very much my mother's race, oh sure there's some human DNA tossed in, but it's a bit like tossing croutons into a salad. There, maybe even noticeable but definitely not the main flavor.

There are a lot of beings running around with long life spans and some of them will understand what I'm about to explain, but not a lot of them. Most of them are just people with longer life spans, they live longer, but they haven't necessarily experienced it all in linear fashion, or even experienced it all yet, they may just be starting out. Some of us though, like me, like my mother, it's ingrained in our DNA, its part of our instinctive behavior, our perception of love, loss and life as intelligent creatures.

Humans complain that my mother doesn't always seem to make sense, that she makes decisions that don't necessarily translate. That's because humans are the opposite, ingrained DNA that makes them think short term, a couple of years maybe. They fall in love fast, they fall out of love fast, they die fast and yet, ironically, they build social constructs that make everything they do in regards to other people take longer.

We on the other hand...sure we take in account the now, but a lot of what we're doing, especially my mother, is with the future in mind. She's not thinking about the next six months or year, she's think about a decade, two decades, a century, three centuries ahead. Some of the moves she makes now...take for example building a loose coalition of like minded individuals. It's not about the individuals, it's about the infrastructure, it's about having good relationships with their children and their children's children.

I'm the same way. I may seem flippant, I may play the part of the spoiled rich daughter, but I don't care about the money, or the apartments, I have ten thousand years to get poor and get rich and get poor again. What I care about is my mother. She pours her energy into making things better, into setting things up for down the road...but she tries to ignore her own past and her own present in so many ways. What she needs...what she needs is someone to help her move on. All I can do is watch, I can't be that person, I can be her daughter, but I can't be her lover.

I can catch her when she falls, and she does, almost always behind closed doors but I've been through long nights with her when the PTSD is just too much. My people live long and remember long...and we feel deeply. She fought for her entire previous life span, she saw so many people she loved and cared for die. What she has left is pain. It takes us centuries to fall in love, imagine how much longer it takes to get over losing someone. Here I am, helpless while she struggles with something I can never touch. I'll never leave her side though, it's why I came back, because she needed someone, anyone, even if it's a daughter who can't erase all the bad. At least I can give her an anchor, at least I can catch her when she falls because she thinks no one is looking.

Mark 4 Bonded Adaptable Neural Environment (BANE) Armor:

Combining her access to global data archives with her advanced intellect and scientific abilities Vai crafted the Mark 4 Bane armor for one purpose...to be the last word in armor technology. Bane armor is composed of a tri-layer woven alloy and digital synthetic mesh. Its every fiber is infused with Adaptable Processing Molecular Computers that form a vast network of multi-layered computer technology designed to combine the best of the most advanced computer systems produced in the year 2095. The computing technology infused into the armor forms an adjustable, adaptable, self-repairing computer network that ties into every layer of the armor and hooks directly into the neurological superhighway of Vai's brain.

Computer Network- The computer network in the armor analyzes and processes every interaction with the BANE armor, be it weather, chemical, biological, kinetic or raw energy. The network combines hyper fast quantum processing the massive storage capacity of DNA computers and tri-level processing to analyze data at speeds approaching the speed of light. Once sufficient data is available the computer will adjust the properties of the BANE Armor to compensate and eventually will learn enough from an interaction to make the armor entirely proof against a given form of attack from a given weapon/source. The same network of computers will adapt to combat damage, adjusting its processing abilities, re-routing around damaged cells and repairing itself as the battle progresses so that there is no perceptible loss of computing ability short of massive damage.

The computer network is hardened against EMP bursts and its coding is written in a combination of Xae's native language (as yet unlearned by anyone else other than Vai) and an advanced coding language specific to the BANE network. Finally, the computers are equipped with an advanced multi-tiered firewall designed to resist hacking and direct control attempts (such as those initiated by a technopath). In defense against technopaths the computer network is designed to create mental feedback at two levels, 'static' noise that disrupts attempts and 'direct shock' that seeks to cause telepathic feedback and brain damage.

Woven-Mesh Alloy: The BANE armor is built from woven alloy fibers combined with shape shifting molecules. It is immune to ballistic weaponry of less than 50 BMG (absorbing both the bullet and its resulting kinetic impact) and will absorb thermal energy and redirect it across the surface of the armor (though it is not inherently immune to it). The properties of the alloy are similar to Vibranium without the catastrophic explosion of too much energy is absorbed and with a lower damage absorbing threshold.

Chameleon Circuit: The BANE Armor contains a chameleon circuit built into its computer network that adjusts the appearance of the armor in accordance with the desires of the wearer and is meant to provide a camouflaging ability in multiple environments. Taken to its extreme the system can bend light around the wearer, creating a short duration cloaking device.

Flux Capacitor- Vai's name for the time machine built into the BANE armor. This device allows her to travel through time.

Anti-matter core- The BANE armor consumes a lot of power, fortunately it is powered by a heavily shielded anti-matter reactor the size of a baseball. On its own the reactor could power New York city for 987 years. Vai has built multiple fail safes to prevent the core from reaching catastrophic detonation, including an ability to vent matter particles if necessary. The intermix ratio is 1/1.

Weapons:

Pocket Dimension:

Vai has access to a mentally linked pocket dimension from which she can draw any weapon or tool she might need at a given time by simply thinking of the item in question.

Among your standard weapons (everything available to the infantry of a modern military) are the following:

Rail Rifle: What it sounds like, the RR9 is a man portable rail gun.

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Mark XV Pulsar: The Mark XV Pulsar is a medium ranged adjustable fire plasma "pulse" rifle. The rifle fires small bursts of super-heated plasma and boasts which can be fired in single shot, three round burst or fully automatic modes. Each power core contains roughly 20 'rounds' before it needs to be replaced.

Strut Industries Mark 2 Particle Cannon:

The Mark 2 Particle Cannon fires a high intensity particle beam at nearly the speed of light. For more on their specifications look here: Particle Beam Weapons

Vai stirred and opened her eyes. Her advanced olfactory senses were immediately receptive to the lingering pheromones and scents of sex generated by her sleeping friend and her friend's boyfriend. She smirked a little and disentangled herself from the male. Despite the typical stereotypes about such activities, Vai and her friend were most certainly not into each other, in fact Vai was disgusted by the concept of lesbianism, to say nothing of actually sexually touching another female. Their activities had been strictly engaged with the male.

It was nice knowing you two. She slid out of the bed, taking one last look at the two sleeping companions and sighed. She walked to the window and gazed out at her world, a world on fire, a world of constant never ending war, of cities turned to graveyards and battlefields, of nations burned, of civilizations brought to their knees. This was The Organization's world, it's end goal had been met. Vai had quit trying to be a hero decades ago because all the heroes were just puppets of nation states and all the villains were on the same team.

She shook her head and turned away from the city that had once been LA, a place now divided between the haves and the dying. It's only a matter of time before the haves leave or die themselves. She felt male arms wrap around her body, soft kisses placed along the side her neck and let her eyes drift closed for a moment. "Vai said softly.

If you're asking for more you better make it quick, I have to go soon."

He took her advice, he made it quick...pleasant, but quick. She shifted as he moved away from her again.

"You aren't coming back are you?" He asked.

She turned to face him and found her clothes, working on getting them back on. "No, I'm not." Vai said honestly. "I have to go where I can do some good again."

"You do good here, you have friends here." He said, watching her dress.

"I have a sex partner and a friend who puts up with me screwing her boyfriend because I'm the only woman in the area that she can talk to without getting turned in to the government. I like you guys, don't get me wrong but this..." She gestured to the window. "It's not living, it hasn't been for decades. I turned my back on what I am because I was afraid to face The Organization alone." Vai slid her shirt on and quickly secured her pants. "I'm going where that doesn't have to be the case."

She left without another word, a walk turned into a sprint and then a full on sixty mile per hour run. She shifted into her true form and took corridors and secret passageways long abandoned in the LA underground. Security systems long dormant activated to scan her DNA, dormant defenses systems spun up and then deactivated. Eventually she slid to a stop and assumed her human form again, standing in front of two massive blast doors. Another DNA scan and the doors opened as if they'd been built yesterday. She looked into her mother's old base, trying not to think about what it meant that it was empty, still. Her mother had vanished twenty years ago and when that had happened, Vai had quit working as a heroes, sealed everything and left it behind.

Spent the next several months working on new equipment, resuming the work she had abandoned years ago. She added new technology to it, created new advancements to better secure the design of her armor, of the weapons she would bring with her and developed an anti-temporal layer to the armor. Once it was completed she slid an anti-matter reactor the size and shape of a baseball into the receiver and put the armor on. The armor itself looked basically like clothing, a copy of her mother's old methods. She gazed at herself in a mirror for a moment and smiled a little. "Let's go home."

An neural impulse was all it took to activate the time machine built into the armor, a portal was opened and Vai stepped through.

Welcome to the Home of the Magistars, the first of the new order of hero teams to arise from the cold ashes of Korea. Many years ago STRIKE had changed its fleet, replacing its aging Helicarrier with a new model of ship built for an entirely different purpose. The old carrier was sunk to the bottom of the ocean...never to be seen again...

Until a man by the name of William Merran approached Vai, Green Lantern and daughter of Gale Xanders. He presented to her the idea of forming a team and the young and eager Vai determined the best base might just be an old one. Getting together with some rich and powerful friends of hers she arranged for the carrier to be lifted from the sea and taken to the Newport News Shipyards where it had first been constructed. There the fledgling team bonded over the resurrection of this mighty ship as they worked side by side to restore it to its former glory.

New technology was installed and years worth of corrosion and sea water damage repaired. The ship has risen again...

Constructed during a time when the world's heroes often did battle against super villains in massed conflicts, the Helicarrier's structure was designed to survive some of the most brutal combat imaginable. This structure has been fully restored and reinforced. The spine of the carrier is a composite Steel-Vibranium alloy and its ribs are composed of Vibranium laced with Nth Metal. The outer hull plating is also coated in Nth Metal to defend the ship against magical attacks, while the armor plates themselves are composed of a modern alloy that falls just short of the durability of the much more expensive Vibranium. To compensate for the lesser armor the ship's armored plating has been applied in two layers with a thin mesh between the two capable of absorbing and redirecting energy attacks to a limited degree.

The ship's original anti-teleportation and anti-vortex manipulation technology has been restored. Most of the ship's weapons have been automated and the central computer core replaced with a fully modernized version capable of mostly controlling the craft on its own, thus allowing the small team to operate the very large ship without the need of an immense staff such as the one once employed by STRIKE. The advanced hard light holographic communication system has received an overhaul but continues to function and remains one of the few examples in the world. In addition to this, the full training gym has been completely restored to original specifications.

CVbU:

Vai walked the corridors of Monitoring Station Three in Mars orbit with her friend and Lantern partner Markos Ry. He was shaking his head at what she'd told him just moments ago.

"So what are you going to do?" He asked.

"I'm going to travel back and make things right." Vai said firmly, the young half-breed was always firm in her convictions, once she had her mind made up it was very difficult to change it but Markos tried anyway.

"You're crazy." he said and put a hand on her shoulder, forcing her to stop and look at him. "You and I both know you can't change time, it just makes a new timeline from the point at which you make the change." He said.

"Yeah yeah, the JJ Abrams Principle." She said, brushing it off with a wave of her hand. "Go back in time, change the past and you don't change your own time, you create an alternate timeline, another reality that moves on from the point at which you made the change."

"Really, the JJ Abrams principle? You know it has a scientific name right?" Markos asked with a sigh.

"Yeah but movies are more fun than science." Vai said with a grin.

"Says the woman who's mother is a scientist." He pointed out.

"So? Your Father was a farmer. I don't see you fighting hunger with a plow." Vai countered.

"Anyway, it has a name, you should use the right name." He said. "Especially if you're going to go back and do something as stupid as go against a rule you know is a thing."

Vai nodded a little. "Yes but I'm trying to stop the creation of another Time Line, not alter ours. Someone has gone back and fiddled with history and we need to stop that from happening. Since we can't both go because of what's going on here, that leaves me to do it. Besides, you hate time travel."

"Yeah I do, for a REASON." He said. "One person screwing with time is enough don't you think?"

Vai glanced down. "Yeah...but it was my mom that did it...it's my job to go fix it."

"What did she do anyway?" He asked.

"She created a timeline in which Sam Washington was never captured and he took over the United States and became a well meaning dictator. I think her theory was that a stronger US government would be able to prevent Korea."

He frowned. "Oh..."

"Yeah..." Vai said with a sigh. "She blames herself you know. She thinks she should have seen it coming back then. We both have this super long life span and she thinks she should have been intelligent enough to see the pieces moving on the chess board and figure out Korea was going to happen."

"That's crazy talk." Markos said.

"No...it's the talk of a woman who was deeply injured in Korea in a way that she hasn't quite figured out how to heal herself from." Vai said.

"Xae never suffered injuries in Korea." He frowned.

"Not physical ones." Vai said and gently took his hand from her shoulder. "I need to go make sure that time line doesn't come to pass. It only made things worse. I need to go make sure Sam Washington gets arrested."

"What will your mother do next?" Markos asked.

"Actually I think I know what she's done and it's much less invasive this time." She said and began to focus her will power into her ring.

"What is it?" Markos asked.

"She figured out how to make synthetic mutanite and sent it back to Tyrus and STRIKE. She figures Tyrus can make a break glass in case of emergency weapon that will immediately end a massed attack by mutants and then STRIKE could focus on stopping the Humans from doing anything to them. The war never starts that way...at least that's her hope." Vai said and turned to create a construct from the ring. Markos rolled his eyes when it was complete.

"You're kidding." Markos sighed.

"Hey, if I can't have a real TARDIS I might as well use a fake one to make ring based time travel look cooler." Vai said with a grin and stepped inside the glowing green version of The Doctor's time machine.

"Be careful." Markos said.

"I will." Vai said with a grin. "I'll see you back in the future."

Markos face palmed.

Vai laughed and vanished with her construct.