"That makes sense. It's a good thing you found Milliways and brought your me."

"Yep. Once the war is over everything'll be so much better, definitely including Maedhros."

"Good. I like being a telepath but I'm glad there's a me who got ultimate cosmic power instead. Especially since she shares, so I get both."

"And it was less disastrous to land her in Arda then it'd have been to land you."

"Because your brother would have traumatized me?"

"And vice versa. And I don't see how you could have saved our world, no offense."

"I guess if your evil god is like Huan but bigger I probably couldn't do anything to him."

"Lots bigger."

"Yeah. Someone with Shaw's powers but not evil could help you, I bet."

"What're Shaw's powers?"

"He could absorb anything and then regurgitate it! Not, like, stuff. But energy. If you threw fire at him he could absorb the fire and throw it later, and if you threw Alex's blasts at him he could throw 'em back or bundle up the energy and force-feed it to someone, which he did, and if you tried to hit him with something it would stop going when it hit his skin and then he could make other things go later, and stuff like that."

"Even if he were evil Maedhros might try to use something like that."

"I bet he'd betray you all."

"I am completely certain he would but unless he'd work for the Enemy it might still be worth it."

"Would the Enemy offer him power?"

"Is he stupid? Because the Enemy would, but then he'd use him and murder him, he's the type who tortures his own underlings for fun."

"He thought everyone with the X-Gene would survive a nuclear apocalypse. He was really dumb. He might also be the kind of dumb that thinks he could survive the sudden but inevitable betrayal."

"Fair enough. We can all read minds - not like you, but it works the same if the person doesn't know how to keep thoughts private - so at least if he were that kind of stupid we'd anticipate it.

"He had an anti-telepathy helmet."

"I've never heard of any kind of magic that blocks osanwe."

"I dunno, maybe it wouldn't work on your kind. It's not magic, anyway, just a special alloy."

"Never heard of one that blocks osanwe but I suppose it's possible."

"I wonder if we could check."

"Does Bar sell that kind of thing?"

"I'm not sure."