With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

Darko · 2026-08-30T07:18:54+0100

Mr Zoat said:
tongue's stopping me see anything while my

"seeing"

Mr Zoat said:
blindly grip-. I think that's him gums? Th

"that's his"

Mr Zoat said:
"I don't know. I don't-." Something's wrong, my thoughts aren't-. "Something doesn't feel right

Guess the crystals can take enlightenment.

Mr Zoat said:
"No. It appears to have taken my enlightenment, which I didn't think was possible

It did happen when you died to qwa matter.

boo600 · 2026-08-30T07:25:31+0100

Mr Zoat said:
"Of course they need to be recharged. Service fees are where the real money is." She sighs. "Of course, it's kinda pointless now. How long 'til the economy gets fixed?"

…wait, why does she need money? She earned a massive bounty alongside other team members when the Kriegers were taken down, and she has the ability to transmute gold on a whim. Even with the economy on fire and the medallion as the main currency, she should be able to make arbitrary amounts of money at will, allowing her to focus purely on the jobs that she enjoys (being a magician, psychologically beneficial, or a superhero/investigating magic stuff) or that give nonmaterial benefits, like reputation or contacts. I can see her running a magic business because it interests her, or because she's making something mainstream… but service charges?

Wivk · 2026-08-30T07:28:59+0100

boo600 said:
but service charges?

Service charges on international corporate infrastructure is way more efficient than transmutation of lead to gold.

Ngamer11 · 2026-08-30T07:37:46+0100

I now expect Yap to give Anarky Paul's enlightenment, which could lead to interesting times.

Chojin Patriarch · 2026-08-30T07:55:40+0100

Mr Zoat said:
28th September 2013
13:36 GMT -5

Spreadarmsreinforceenvironmentalshieldbrace!

SNAP!

Oh, damn, Yap's got him like a stick. Let's hope he's not a shaker. It is impressive that the giant crystal doggo can do anything to him, but given the currently flexible state of reality, it's understandable.

The field shoots past my field of vision as Crystal Yap worries me, because I can't-! I can't really get a grip on anything! My legs are bent against the base of his mouth and-

"Ugh."

And of course Yap is shaking him like a wet rag.

-his tongue's stopping me see anything while my hands blindly grip-. I think that's him gums? The ring's still stabilising my inner ear and suppressing any stomach upset that I might feel-

"RRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"

Yeah, puking into his mouth isn't going to make this situation any more pleasant.

-but there's no obvious way out-. Inertia shield isn't working either, marvellous. At least the environmental shield is keeping the saliva off.

Right, keep bracing. If Yap is behaving like a normal dog, a sharp pain should make him let go. I've got an x-ionised knife in my belt but I can't let go-.

This might need something tricker to escape...

"Tel mih og!"

Yap tosses his head back, sending me shooting out of his mouth and into the air! Flight aura, no, inertia belt, no, armour thruster-.

...Or Zatanna can do something. Well, out of the mouth and into the air.

I jerk in the air as my gravity impeller kicks in, because apparently whatever cockamamie rules this places uses-.

Yaps teeth crunch down on my left leg and yank-!

Oh, come on!

"Gah!"

Draw knife, ignore scenery, reach up to nose and STAB!

"Ruugh!"

Sometimes you just gotta boop the snoot, especially if doggo is being bad.

Okay, that's a tree. Helmet on, raise my arms to shield me head, because a purple healing ray can-.

Oof!

Assuming the ray works properly under these conditions.

The tree's bending-. Oh, not Loony Toon ru-

The tree unbends, sending me flying back towards my team mates and the irate and orange-glowing Crystal Yap.

...Wait, orange-glowing? That sounds bad.

-les! Twist in the air and activate thrusters again to try and lose momentum… Working a bit, legs are the most expendable body part so try and land legs first-.

Gah!

True, but it's still gonna hurt like hell.

Blah!

OOF!

Uh. Hit legs first but flipped over. Legs ache and back aches, but I don't think anything's critical. Uh. I could get out my healing ray, or I could just soldier through and keep fighting Yap.

Or apply a round of Wholeness Rightly Assumed? Unless he stole your Rings' charge?

I-. I don't know what-.

I should-.

...Huh, been a while since he was ever this indecisive at any moment.

Zatanna looks down at me. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know. I don't-." Something's wrong, my thoughts aren't-. "Something doesn't feel right."

...Oh no, Yap stole his orange quotation marks?! ...Er, I mean his Enlightenment.

"Your environmental shield looks weaker. Concussion?" She reaches down to help pull me up, which, realistically, she wouldn't be able to do while I'm wearing armour, but it gives me a direction of travel to focus on. "S'tahw gnorw htiw Luap?"

I get my feet under me and watch… Toyman fire some sort of sonic weapon at Orange Crystal Yap and cause it to flee. Don't need to worry about that, so I-. Heal myself? Keep an eye out for any other attackers? Healing myself is probably most sensible-.

I mean, yes, he's probably dazed. Getting tossed around like that is definitely going to shake up a brain for a bit.

Zatanna gasps quietly.

Um. Yes, healing ray, shoot myself, and… Hopefully someone else can work out why my thoughts feel so woolly, and why I don't seem… To be able to focus. That does sound like concussion, but I remember being concussed and it didn't feel like this.

Oh, Zee's already spotted the problem, it seems.

Yap's… Gone, and…

What am I doing here?

Oh, this really ups the difficulty of this mission considerably.

I don't know why I'm still here.

I don't know what I want.

...And that moment is where he realises what's wrong.

"HUNTER!"

He turns towards me as I stomp towards him. "Ah, yes?"

Oh, that's a lot of anger. And directed at the most obvious target, of course.

"What did Yap take from me, and can I get it back?"

His eyes run all over me. "I thought it was your ring power."

It's scary that he could even do that. What if he'd grabbed Zatanna or Tim?

"No. It appears to have taken my enlightenment, which I didn't think was possible."

"Huh." He blinks, one normal eye and one slime eye. "I didn't know you were enlightened."

Eh, some would say 'productively insane.'

"Yes, I merged with the Ophidian and had to fully integrate all of my desires with my conscious mind. It wasn't much fun and I don't want to have to do it again."

"Then… Don't?"

On the upside, you know how to do it and can probably speedrun it.

"The Orange Lantern Corps rather relies on having a super-Lantern like me in their back pocket in case the Reach tries something clever. As of right now, I'm no stronger than an average Lantern. Plus, I'm going to have to start meditating again to organise my thoughts."

"You should be able to get it back. It should be the same process as the one I'm going to use to put this oil back in its owners; it's still part of you, it's just not in you right now."

Why do i get the feeling putting it back will somehow be gross?

Zatanna lays a hand on my shoulder-. Yeah. Yeah. Flying off the handle at a teenager who didn't mean to do this…

I nod to her.

And it's going to be a lot harder for him to maintain his focus without Enlightenment.

Knife. Gun.

"Zatanna, are the protective spells on your costume still working?"

She's probably tankier than he is right now, power armour aside.

She smiles confidently. "Sure are. I guess I'm taking the lead, then."

I nod. "I'm afraid so. I suspect that we need to head after Yap, but my thoughts are somewhat disordered at the moment."

Yeah, until they get out of this loopy space, he can't even meditate to recenter and reacquire Enlightenment.

Toyman looks over towards… The tree I hit, which is still swaying from the impact. "Should we check the grove first? There might be someone or something there."

Zatanna raises her eyebrows at me, and I shrug. "My judgements are suspect right now. I'd like my enlightenment back, but-." I want it! Need it! "But… I want to go after it right now. A lot."

So him remaining in command is out of the question.

"But that's not the best decision."

I shrug helplessly.

"Did you used to be like this? I think you said something about it in your book, but I only really got to know you after you got enlightened."

Huh, that's a good point. She wasn't around much before the mental training mission that caused his Joining.

"No. I mean… Yes, more like this. But I've gotten used to not having to worry about certain things, whereas before I obsessed about them. It's not quite the same."

"Alright." She thinks for a moment. "We'll go to the grove first, then we'll go after Yap. Everyone ready?"

We all nod, and she leads the way across the grassland.

Let's hope the 'stolen' aspects don't disappear if they end the loopy space effect.

That's one way to make things harder for OL, I guess. Taking away one of his most long-time enhancements is really going to interfere with his mission-effectiveness. Hopefully he can maintain his composure when things get heated rather than going full larfleeze. Or gets angry enough to choke an Illuminati 'Homer Simpson'-style...

BR549 · 2026-08-30T08:14:31+0100

Ngamer11 said:
I now expect Yap to give Anarky Paul's enlightenment, which could lead to interesting times.

Yap is a dog.

A particuarly intelligent dog, but still a dog.

...this means we have a non-zero chance of finding out what happens when a dog is mainlining the Ophidian, with the Ophidian pissed off at having been seperated from Her Agent.

This is not going to end well for anybody involved.

Mr Zoat · 2026-08-30T08:28:19+0100

Darko said:
"seeing"
"that's his"

Thank you, corrected.

It did happen when you died to qwa matter.

He still had it, just not the part of him in his new meat body.

Frozen20XX · 2026-08-30T08:47:13+0100

BR549 said:
...this means we have a non-zero chance of finding out what happens when a dog is mainlining the Ophidian, with the Ophidian pissed off at having been seperated from Her Agent.

This is not going to end well for anybody involved.

Yeah, the last time someone stole anything orange from Paragon resulted in Ophidian demanding they rip the flesh from their still living bones (or something along those lines) iirc... and there was also that Saremite that tried to steal Paragon's power battery and got assimilated for that dumb move.

Jankl · 2026-08-30T09:20:40+0100

Huh, does losing his enlightenment really weaken him that much. I knew it was important and made using the Orange light easier, but losing it almost seems like a handicap for him.

WereDragon · 2026-08-30T09:49:31+0100

Mr Zoat said:
Inertia shield isn't working either,

Flight aura, no, inertia belt, no, armour thruster-.

I miss the days when Paul listing the things that don't work wasn't the majority of about two thirds of his fights.

BR549 · 2026-08-30T10:19:27+0100

WereDragon said:
I miss the days when Paul listing the things that don't work wasn't the majority of about two thirds of his fights.

Welcome to comics, where after a certain point if you aren't going to have every challenge faced be solved by 'X came in and gave it to them, The End', you have to either have (a) the challengers be a serial train of continual and unending escalation (this ends with Galactus vs Unicron); (b) the challengers have a way to neutralize a good chunk of the hero's powers/equipment/advantages in order to level the playing field (this indicates an intelligent challenger); or (c) have something hit the hero in the head and knock them out at the start of every fight (this is very stupid and was used reguarly against Green Lantern in Superfriends and again, possibly as a Superfriends reference, in Apokalyps War (although at least there the thing doing the hitting was Darkseid's fist)).

Poimenikos · 2026-08-30T10:41:47+0100

Once more this is getting ridiculous. The firepower and level of strength Paul has should stop all of these thing. Him losing the enlightenment is a blow that the orange corps (as far as the war is concerned) and the dc universe in general can t really afford without great loss. And all these to appease question, anarchy and the rest of the nutty people cabal. All this while having along for the ride the magic equilevant of a supercomputer in the form of a kid who doesn't listen to anyone "cause it's the right thing to do". And it's not. It s really not.
This is one of those places he should call the obsidian and steamroll everyone and everything before everything turns (more) sideways

EgyptianDio · 2026-08-30T10:43:46+0100

…is it wrong that I now want to kinda kill Hunter?

Signaller · 2026-08-30T11:00:25+0100

Mr Zoat said:
Okay, that's a tree. Helmet on, raise my arms to shield me head, because a purple healing ray can-.

me --> my

Signaller · 2026-08-30T11:08:53+0100

Come to think of it, Hinon established that the main reason OL didn't go full Richard-with-ring/Larfleeeze immediately was because he didn't have enough of a soul-presence initially to absorb that much orange light. As he is now, without enlightenment and with a hell of a lot of power, he's probably more at risk of going crazy than a neophyte orange lantern?

On the other hand, the corps still has Illustres Xor. Heh, and Ragnar might have some amusing commentary if/when he finds out about this.

Mr Zoat · 2026-08-30T13:14:35+0100

Signaller said:
me --> my

Thank you, corrected.

mastermenthe · 2026-08-30T14:55:22+0100

Poimenikos said:
"cause it's the right thing to do". And it's not. It s really not.

Unfortunately, it kinda is.
If OL deleted the Illuminati, OL would lose his sense of self restraint. The illuminati are his personal morality effigy.

EgyptianDio said:
…is it wrong that I now want to kinda kill Hunter?

Yes. Not because it is morally wrong, but because Hunter is a living Macguffin.

You need him alive and cooperative to solve the problems he creates: Like Mktlpxzl and his challenge scenarios. Break the rules too much, and you are permanently stuck with the consequences of the generated scenario. Play along, and you can have all damage and death reversed at the end of the challenge.

Then, you can (and should) kill him.

With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

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