Batman starts, pulls out the bag of crystals, and pours them back out onto the table. The green ring is suddenly Obviously Not A Green Lantern Ring. This fact about it seems just as apparent as its color or its size — it is a small emerald ring that is Not A Green Lantern Ring.

"bwha?" 

She shakes her head firmly.

That was a very odd experience! 

That's on you for choosing the universal symbol of willpower and an obvious form factor as a badge of office

She bows her head slightly, and in lieu of anything coherent and polite to say just says - 

"Thank you?" 

The guardian smiles benevolently.

"You're most welcome. Do come find me on Oa in a hundred years or so when you've gotten a good grasp on the basics."

And then he's gone, as suddenly as he came.

"Alert! Unidentified intruder in the living area. Alert! Unidentified —"

Batman sighs, and moves to a wall terminal to silence the alarm.

"For a group of nearly omnipotent aliens theoretically responsible for the whole universe, they sure do pay a lot of attention to Earth," he mutters under his breath, almost too soft to hear.

She nods sympathetically. 

"Even in a world where... all this is possible, it feels a little absurd just how much goes on, here." 

"There is always something," Batman agrees. "That's actually one of the things that I wanted to bring up."

He returns to the table and flips open the manila folder, pulling out a printed list of reference numbers and brief descriptions.

"This is a list of the training modules that I believe you would benefit from, sorted by urgency. You should have access to them in the computer. The League is, as I mentioned, a voluntary association: so I have no particular standing to require you to go through all of them, but I do think it would be a good idea. As you have just seen things can ... happen."

He hands her the list.

"The ones I've highlighted in red are the ones that are mandatory for safety reasons if you want to continue staying in the mountain and having access to the League's computer infrastructure."

These are 'Mount Justice Evacuation Routes', 'Teleporter Safety', and 'Phishing Awareness'.

"The ones highlighted in yellow are things that you should really know before trying to fight crime. They're also generally useful for the inevitable strange situations that come up in life."

This is a larger list, including items like 'Vigilante laws and you' and 'Rendering Firearms Safe'.

"The remainder are things that I personally recommend, but that are not matters of safety per se, and so are up to you to judge the worth of."

This includes items such as 'Maintaining a Secret Identity' and 'Who You Gonna Call: A List of Affiliated Heroes by Specialty Area'.

She nod-nods along. 

"I'll certainly take a look!"

"I've also got your first set of official documentation here," he continues. "Justice League affiliate ID card — which is valid proof of identity in many places, but does not indicate that you are a member of the League — a UN passport, a debit card linked to a Wayne Financials savings account and a checkbook for the same, and the registration information for a P.O. box in D.C. which you can pick things up from using the teleporter or set up forwarding if you so choose."

"None of these things are a 'civilian' ID, they're just the basic things that you need in order to have a chance at navigating bureaucracy. If you want a separate civilian ID, which I do recommend for privacy purposes, I'll need some additional information such as your birthday, preferred last name, and so on. There's a set of forms at the bottom of the folder. Any questions so far?"

She takes a look through it, and hums faintly. A dedicated civilian ID seems like a bit of a pain, but if he's able to set things up like this so quickly for the 'hero' ID...

That could be worthwhile.

"A few! But most of them are downstream of further details of my powers, so it might be good to discuss that first?" 

"Sensible."

He leans back in his chair again.

"You aren't the first person I've met with a power-granting symbiote, but the others have all eventually run into ... problems. I hope that won't be a concern in your case, but it's probably best to check. Do you think you could expand a bit on the nature of your powers and how you came to learn that information about them?"

She nods. 

"So I mentioned that it works kind of like an expert system for creating powers? I've gotten the information I have on it from a few places - there's a 'display' that shows the state of mergers, there's a thought-based interface for requesting powers and giving the 'introduction', and the powers themselves. If I inquire potential power, I can ask it if it would work, and get back a response, and sometimes a countersuggestion for an alternative power that it could provide. I can also just ask for powers that give me information about itself, so I ended up asking it for a power that tells me what the power does and what it is." 

She steps up from her chair, and grabs a marker, and starts scribbling on a whiteboard. 

"In terms of what it does, I see something like this, when I use it." 

She draws four rough empty circles in a square. 

"Each of these are power 'slots' that I can fill by asking for a power, or by merging two or more synergistic powers together to get a power that encapsulates them all. It tends to generalize and enhance them, too, though the results seem to vary depending on how well they 'fit' together." 

She fills in each of the circles, then draws a squiggly line from each node to each other node. 

"Powers that are synergistic with each other are shown in the interface like this. Synergistic powers of the same 'order' can be merged together, like so." 

She moves a little to the side, and draws four dots closely nestled together wrapped up in a circle with a small '2' above it, and then three other dots forming the rest of the square. She draws the jagged squiggles between each of the base level nodes, then draws out the same diagram again, this time with one cluster of four, and one of three, with the wiggly line between the two. 

"And I can keep repeating the process as long as I have room to get bigger powers. Apparently, eventually I'll be able to get more slots based on some sort of soul strain and anti-synergy metric, but right now the most I can hold is 22 base powers like so."

4 ((((1 2 3 4) ((5 6 7)) ((8 9))) (((10 11 12)) ((13 14)))) 3 (((15 16 17)) ((18 19))) 

2 ((20 21)) 1 (22)

"'Synergy' seems to be based on an intuitive sense of 'relatedness', and anti-synergy appears to be based on 'oppositeness'. I've also made a power previously that can give me a specification for powers that I make based on some sort of geometric definition? I can send you what I have of that later, in case you can make any sense of it." 

She purses her lips. 

"I can discard base level powers, and 'unmerge' merged powers, so what powers I have can change in time. I have a chart about the amount of time it takes for a few things that I've mathed out - most of them are predictable but it looks like unmerging is a little less so? It's 36 seconds to make a base power, 6 seconds to merge base powers, 18 to merge second order powers, and 54 to merge third order powers. Discarding powers doesn't seem to be a problem - if anything, it seems to think that doing it is a little beneficial?" 

"Beyond that... Everything else that comes to mind is the particulars of individual powers I could create, but there's so many of those that it's probably best to let you ask questions about specific ideas that come to your mind than to have me try to rattle all the possibilities off." 

"Hmm."

He pauses for a moment in bat-consideration.

This kind of completely open-ended power really seems as though it should come with a drawback, to his suspicious mind. But he does regularly work with a man who can cause hurricanes by breathing, so ...

"It's a very flexible powerset. When you discard a power, do the things that you did with it remain done? For example, the protective pendants you made aren't going to disappear if you discard the powers that went into making them?"

She nods. 

"I could make a power that makes temporary constructs or gives temporary enhancements, but that's not a problem I have to worry about. Everything I've shown you is real and permanent." 

"Good, good. That does give me some ideas of powers you might like to try. But before that: do you know what the power source for your powers themselves is? Are they also powered by ambient emotional energy?"

I.e. is she some kind of emotion-vampire. It wouldn't be the first time.

She pokes the gift to double-check. Intuitively, it seems like it's just powered by magic in the normal way any spell would be, but she hasn't actually asked-asked?

She doesn't have the spark that originally gave her insight into the nature of the gift right now, so the reply is a little vague, but she gets the impression of multiple things, for redundancy, all of them with an autotroph-like flavor. It definitely is magic, it can just also collect power from other things too.

She furrows her brow a little. 

"It's a magical construct that's powered largely off of ambient magic, I think? There's a few other things in the mix, too, but it doesn't look like it feeds on people or anything." 

That's better than the alternative, at least. He can ask Zatara to check how much it's impacting the local background magic.

"Alright. If you do start experiencing cravings for human flesh, hearing whispered words when nobody is around you, or find yourself becoming increasingly violent in response to mundane scenarios, please do let me know right away."

He takes out a notepad from one of his many pockets, and starts jotting ideas.

"As for how you can actually use your powers — it sounds like producing equipment is a good fit, since you can keep using the equipment even after swapping out your power loadout. You might also be a good sparring partner, if you can adapt to challenge people where they're weakest. Have you considered trying to improve your body, mind, or other traits? Can your power be used to learn mundane skills more quickly? That would likely be useful no matter what you plan to do with your powers in the long term, but I have some more specific ideas that depend on your plans."

"I've looked into a few things in that direction - you've seen the rings and warding charms. I've also got a power that helps me build mental habits easier available right now that I've been using to help make the crafting process a little easier. This - body configuration is new? I haven't looked into biological improvements in any detail but I did give myself an 'ideal form' regeneration power for a good while, so I should be about as good as you can normally get. I haven't figured out quite what I'm looking for in terms of mental changes - obviously there's a lot of reasons to avoid being too hasty there, but the powerset I have should also work for 'enchanting' my mind as well? Haven't looked into that too too deeply. As for the sparring idea... I think it works alright, as long as you don't rely too too much on specific power interactions, since I can't 100% faithfully replicate the mechanism of at least some metahuman powers? The power creation throughput isn't unlimited, too, so that might make that a little hard to arrange without disrupting crafting too too much." 

She sits back down on her chair and leans back in thought. 

"Honestly, the biggest thing that's stopped me from doing too too much more is choice paralysis - there's a lot of things that I could do, but there's no obvious canonical choice, and a lot of the the best ideas I have for making a lot of money or making a big positive impact on the world are a bit..." 

She shakes her head slightly and snorts faintly. 

"Supervillain plot-y, at least from the outside?" 

And that right there is why Batman is able to write off "providing new metahumans with the resources and guidance to apply their powers productively" as a line item in the League's disaster-prevention budget.

He keeps his tone non-judgemental (although there is a certain amount of gruffness that never goes away).

"Maybe you could walk me through one of the ideas you've thought of, and we could brainstorm how to make it work without scaring or harming people," he suggests.

She nods. 

"There's a few things that come to mind? I'm not 100% sure of the details of the ward around Themiscyra, but if it's just an area of effect blessing, perhaps with a few extra parameters specifying the people it works on, I could probably make some sort of giant underwater city or just excavate a ton of earth from the seafloor and make more artificial islands within the boundaries of the effect, and immigrate people there to make them ageless? Or maybe I could make a giant array of something like captain cold's cold guns (or a magical alternative, perhaps?) and reglaciate the artic and/or solve global warming, since I doubt that what he's doing follows anything like normal thermodynamic conservation laws."  

"Diana — Wonder Woman — would know more, but I believe the island's blessing only applies to female worshipers of the Greek gods. The Amazons have hosted people in need of refuge before, so it's certainly a possibility. The non-supervillain approach there is probably to speak to Wonder Woman in her capacity as Themiscyra's ambassador and ask her to have the queen consider a project proposal. Hearing back may take some time, since the people of Themiscyra are generally fairly conservative," he councils.

"As far as reglaciating the arctic: I would suggest speaking to the World Meteorological Association about the likely impacts of such a course of action, and how much heat would actually need to be removed. Generally, when you have a big idea like these that might scare people, I recommend finding the people or organizations that are already working in that area and consulting with them. People are a lot more likely to accept large changes if they're done in consultation with other people, instead of unilaterally. Announcing your plans ahead of time and having a public comment period — even if none of the public comments are particularly helpful — also help."

"In the moment, doing that kind of working with people can sometimes feel like a pointless delay, especially when people's lives and well-being are on the line. The thing to remember is that you're not working with the existing authorities in order to fix whatever the problem you're tackling is: you're working with the existing authorities in order to keep people calm and promote confidence that you're a responsible, trustworthy person. Once you've built a reputation for behaving in a particular way, you can start relying on it to take quick action in emergencies without getting as much pushback," Batman, the world-class actor who decided to single-handedly decimate Gotham's criminal underworld through the power of psyops, advises.

She nods. 

"Yeah. Honestly, that's - a large part of why I want to also work on being a... 'conventional' superhero? Because that seems like the kind of thing that would really help getting people on board. There's also just more conventional things I can do - I know I could make a mass healing powerset, for example, even if that creates it's own problems? Even if in some ways I'm more moved by things like that or say, the thought of popping over to mars to study non-sapient telepathic life a bit and then working on to create a worldwide telepathic teaching network or giant shapeshifting telekinetic excavator or what have you, it still makes sense to put a good amount of focus on the fundamentals people expect from metahumans and to watch the world's downside." 

she's not pent-up about all of these ideas, you're pent-up about these ideas

"Yes. ... Please do not put together a global telepathic network — or, in fact, a telepathic network of any kind — without putting in some serious security precautions and having Martian Manhunter give it a green light," he requests. "I think healing is likely to be a bit safer, although you're going to run into problems with the healthcare system sooner or later. It might be better to start any healing work in another country with a more sensible insurance regime."

He thinks for a moment, and then comes to a decision.

"Okay — I think there's someone who you should meet. My ward, Robin. I can see why you would be suffering from choice paralysis, and one of their specialties is research, so they may be able to help you refine some of your ideas and form a priority list. I'm generally interested in hearing your proposals, but it sounds like right now you have a lot of ideas that need some fleshing out before they become actionable. Robin is also going to be part of the team of younger heroes that we're assembling. Perhaps the two of you, Miss Martian, and Kid Flash could spend some time tomorrow getting to know each other's capabilities and planning how to tackle some of these things together?"

He was originally imagining that Topaz, as an older teen, even if she's still new to her powers, might be something of a stabilizing influence on the team. He is no longer imagining this.

"If you come through to the Batcave, I can introduce you to Robin now," he offers.