The armored hovercar appeared early that morning while Kay was still asleep. Ramirez offered to stay behind and hang out with "the little dude" while they were away; when they showed some hesitation, Maverick offered to stay as well saying, "I don't do kids, but if anyone tries to hurt him I'll turn their brains into a blood smoothie."

With that image in mind, and with some trepidation Sunny and Adam stepped into the vehicle. Adam was wearing his Arcadian Army uniform, black with green highlights, and a high waisted belt. The decoration of the uniform was minimal, but obvious. He wore an eyepatch over his mechanical eye now that his Maker vision was under control. Most of his new powers were relatively easy to ignore in non-stressful situations. He only bemoaned the fact that his life wasn't without stress these days. He caught a look of himself in the rear view mirror and was almost shocked enough to pause.

Did he look that old?

He groaned. With his white hair he looked sixty,

Curse the Makers for making him prone to stress induced loss of pigmentation. It would be find if he had a cool sci fi character to compare himself to, but neither Hon solo or Captain kirk had ever gone grey. Generally TV shows tend to stop once the characters start looking old, and unfortunately for Adam he had started looking old very early. Though he had to admit the white hair would be very cool with his jedi aesthetic.

He was lost in that daydream, trying to decide what color his lightsaber should be when he was interrupted by a voice.

"Adam Vir." Adam shook off his daydreams and nodded politely to he two people in the car with them. A man and a woman, both of them wore suits,. He recognized one of the men as one of the previous GA ambassadors, while the woman was new. Glancing past them and out the front windshield, Adam was surprised to find Arcadian flags sticking up from the front two corners of the car.

He smiled and held out his hand to shake.

"Its good to see you back again Admi- Adam, sorry force of habit even after all these years."

"Sometimes I feel the same."

The ambassador reached out a hand to Sunny, who took it and shook as well.

"I'm going to be honest." Adam said, I thought Hunt would have gotten rid of you once we succeeded from the GA?"

The man sighed deeply, "Turns out he still needed a diplomat, though I certainly did find that my office had been relegated to a room no better than a broom closet, and that was I the basement of the UNSC headquarters in Mericanda."

"He couldn't have forced you further away from him, could he."

"Yes but that is politics. Anyway, Adam, I would like you to meet, Ms. Rayis, she has been appointed the new ambassador to arcadia."

Rayis reached outa hand to shake his, "A pleasure Mr. Vir." She did the same to Sunny, "And a pleasure to you as well... What do you prefer Sunny, Chalan.... Do you even go by Mrs. Vir that certainly doesn't seem like it fits, or is it St of Anin?" Her questions certainly seemed genuine at least on the outside.

"Sunny will be fine, though Chalan works too. They mean the same thing."

The woman smiled, "Oh I suppose I never thought of that. Silly of me as it makes sense human names often meant something in other languages too, we just forgot about them."

Adam tried, he really tried not to get into the woman's head, but she had been appointed by Hunt, so he couldn't help but suspect there might be more to this woman than here seemed. Her thoughts came into his head in a trickle at first and then a torrent. A part of him wanted to stop feeling like this was a horrible invasion of privacy, but another part of him felt that it would be stupid not to do soemthing.

Adam couldn't control what he saw.

That was the first thing he learned.

He could only hear things that people actively decided to think. Conn, in his infinite wisdom had indicated to Adam that sometimes you had to help your targets recall memories. If you tell someone not to think about a purple elephant, they are going to think about a purple elephant against their will ask them point blank what their deepest darkest secret is, and it's going to appear in their head no matter how hard they try to fight it. he did encourage Adam not to be that forward about it, but it was a neat trick none the less.

He pulls off that look surprisingly well.

Adam was almost flattered as her first thoughts came rushing in. She was sizing him up, and was, Impressed? That was a little surprising. Apparently the white hair helped him look distinguished while still being so young. All the politicians she worked with tended to be well into their fifties or older, so being so young he was probably at a distinct disadvantage, though the white hair helped him out.

As flattering as her approval was, he wanted to know the truth.

"Ms. Rayis, tell me, where you appointed by Hunt?"

He's smarter than he looks.

Adam frowned. That was certainly uncalled for.

He will want to know if I am in Hunt's pocket doing some spying for him, and OF COURSE I am I am an ambassador, that is what we do. Though we all know Hunt didn't appoint me because he likes me all that much. He appointed me because I know what I am doing. Hopefully I will be able to smooth things over with Adam.

He's one of our biggest threats but also one of your biggest allies.

It's the same thing with how Adam Vir dealt with the Celex.

Alright, he supposed that was soemthing he could live with. He tried to stuff his own mind back into his head before they arrived at the meeting hall where they were to begin the peace talks. Adam was pleased to have received his citizenship of earth back, which now made him a dual citizen of Earth and Arcadia.

He was even pleased to find that the law granted Kay the same dual citizenship status, though he would have an Arcadian passport. Kay was a part of at least three planets now, earth Arcadia and Anin. Adam could only imagine what growing up would be like for kay, and continued those thoughts as they stepped out of the car and into open sunlight. He was gong to have to teach Kay early on the glory of science fiction. He wasn't sure how he was going to do it, but he certainly planned on manipulating his son into liking all the old classics.

His education would start early.

Titan AE and treasure planet were coming first as those were clearly staples of early science fiction animation, Megamind, obviously because it was still the most poignant salinization of the superhero genre he had ever seen AND it had aliens so win win for everyone, but then again Adam was always in favor of a cross species human/ blue alien relationship.

He glanced over at Sunny, and a bit of her though process spilled into his head.

Sunny detested politics, but she hated not going with him. In her mind they were battle partners and that meant both on and off the political battlefield as well. Personally she found all of this a boring snore since no one ever hit each other. She was mostly ignoring everything that was going on, instead idly planning how she would kill everyone in the room, or plotting how they would escape if someone tried to kill them. She did these exercises a lot, and though Adam should have been worried he actually found it rather attractive.

He was probably the safest person here.

She mist have seen him looking at her because she immediately switched her thoughts giving him a sly wink.

He blanched white and looked away before going red.

Now that she knew he could read minds, she had no compunction tormenting him with her thoughts, and she could say whatever she wanted because, unless conn or eris were around, no one could hear her.

He did his best to ignore her unsaintly thoughts.

He saw a few other familiar faces, and then a few he didn't recognize. Hunt had gotten rid of a lot of the people Adam once knew in favor of cabinet members that would support him. Some of the UNSC brass was still the same and he was greeted cordially though coldly.

A few of them were hesitant to shake Adam's hand "Disgusted" at his now open relationship with Sunny.

One man could barely keep the sneer off his face.

One of the older Admirals didn't care simply stating to himself, anything would be better than my daughter's boyfriend Tony, hate that little shit, at least a Drev wouldn't cheat on her. Don't think I have ever heard of a Drev who cheated, or did a line of cocaine off a strippers ass and called it an accident. How do you accidentally snort a line of coke?

Adam's mouth twitched but he tried very hard not to say anything.

All of these thoughts filtered through his head at a leisurely pace coming one after another, spilling into one ear and out the other.

He knew Hunt was there almost the moment the man arrived. He could sense the thoughts of the entire crowd turning towards the man who appeared with his entourage. Adam tried to stifle how own sneer of derision before turning politely to look. The crowd didn't like hunt all that much. Even his own bodyguards thought he was a tool and....

Then

He heard it.

Hunt's voice through the chattering of voices.

It had almost gone quiet as the man entered but still the thoughts were loud, and it didn't take long for Adam to pick out a very familiar voice.

And what will happen if Kazna shows up, if she knows what I am doing. Her plan backfired and now I am here going against our agreement. She was the one who broke the agreement first, so she can't say anything about it. Well that was a stupid thought to have. Kazna doesn't care about what is fair she already backstabbed us once. Going against her is still taking a risk that we may not be able to afford. Can't forget that she gave us the presidency. Without her Kelly would still be....

Everything went quiet.

It was an odd sensation.

Detachment followed by a moment of pure Rage.

It started with a pulse inside his chest, and then radiated outward through his body like fire flowing through his veins.

"Adam are you ok."

Sunny's voice came distantly as if he was hearing her through a thick pain of glass.

Suddenly the world around him snapped into sharp focus, blades of grass rendered in sharp contrast, along with the thread count of a secret service agent's suit. He saw threads of color in Hunt's Irises from almost fifty yards away. Little moats of dust spiraled softly through the air, where his skin brushed the air he could feel it as millions of particles brushed over his skin.

He could feel the universe around him in motion.

It surged through him again, and Adam fell to his knees as his body was overcome with rising power, an electric energy buildup in his hands and chest and face.

"Adam." Sunny reached out to touch him, but pulled back with a yelp.

Soemthing was burning.

He could smell it.

The world around him had gone quiet but the voices were loud. Through he eyes of another he watched himself begin to emanate burning golden light, golden light and smoke. Another wave washed through him. His human body felt like it was about to burst at the seems. The voices in his head grew louder. He put his hands to his hears and screamed trying to drown them out but they only grew louder and louder and louder until.

Snap.

Impetus rose from the ground carried aloft by the power.

"HUNT!" Several people staggered back falling to their knees as the shock wave hit them. His voice thundered over the open ground making the stones shake. Light poured out from his body in waves. Guns were raised in his direction, but Impetus raised his hand. The Agents cursed violently and dropped their weapons gun metal burning hot against the palms of their hands. Overhead the sky began to churn. Clouds once white and fluffy began to swirl inward, darkening and thickening to block out the sun. the brightness emanating from his skin only increased in power as he rose higher from the ground.

The air around him crackled with energy.

Some ran

Others fell to their knees.

Wind kicked up around him.

"Hunt!"

The man was frozen to the spot.

"Liar!" His voice boomed forward causing the courtyard stones to rupture upwards in a wave. The people still unfortunate enough to be close to him cringed back hands over their ears.

"I... I don't know what your talking about." Hunt managed to stammer.

His brain was dead of thought as his panicked animal brain took over.

Impetus sneered, "I can hear you, Hunt. I can hear about that little deal you had with kazna, Kill Kelly to get the presidency and maybe she won't attack earth. I suspected as much but now I have heard it."

"You have no evidence!"

Impetus laughed, "Do you think a lack of evidence can stop me."

The light flared brighter.

Thunder rumbled somewhere distantly. Wind in the courtyard was roaring now, kicking up leaves and dust in a swirl around his floating body.

"You wouldn't dare/" hunt stammered.

Impetus smiled, "Is that so. You hurt my friend Hunt, Killed her even. Why should I show you any mercy."

"ADAM!"

It was the only voice that could have pulled him out.

"Apotheo." He whispered.

"Adam what are you doing!" She stood where everyone else knelt her head down against the wind, her hands held up. Bathed in the golden light her carapace sparkled with a thousand blue sapphires. Her eyes burned gold. Through the artificial skin, the prison she wore Apotheo burned hot and bright inside dampened by a cage, but still even her words had the power to get his attention.

"Adam stop. This isn't how we do things."

Impetus knew she was right, and the shame was immediate. This wasn't him, had never been. It was the anger, the rage, and the confusion of suddenly remembering what.

And as soon as it had come it stopped.

He snapped back inward, colliding violently with his own body like a taught rubber band being let go.

There was another eruption of energy violent enough to throw Sunny off her feet. Adam hit the ground hard where he lay in a smoldering crater, his skin, hair and body smoking. His eyes burned, his throat burned, his tongue burned. He gasped for air as the wind died and dust rained down around him. Overhead the clouds dispersed outward in a sudden wave. He rolled onto his side and wretched violently body shaking .

His vision seemed so dark, so dull.

He was both hot and cold at the same time.

"Adam, ADAM!"

And then Sunny was there pulling him upright as his body sagged in her arms, completely spent.

"Apotheo." He muttered once before collapsing