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

BlackCoat13 · 2026-10-07T06:50:53+0100

Mr Zoat said:
"Senator, you and that thing are under arrest."

Look, Paul, what a man and his... worm get up to in the bathroom is their business, especially since it appears to be consensual.

Chojin Patriarch · 2026-10-07T07:17:35+0100

Mr Zoat said:
12th October 2013
14:34 GMT -5

"…like you said, and we've got a good cross-party consensus on it."

I nod as Tony leads me through the offices of the Russell Senate Office Building, one of the buildings where the elected senators of the American Federal Government have their offices and do all the sort of non-public-facing work which has given their calling its reputation.

Senator Moretti handling the introductions to people who might be able to assist with OL's campaign, eh? At least it looks like the Eye Drive is getting approval across the aisles. After all, who'd work against a treatment like that?

"Trade away any good horses?"

"Not this time." He snorts. "Strangest experience of my career. I just pointed out what you were saying about us becoming irrelevant, and… We are giving them a chance to get behind an Alzheimer's cure."

'Horse-trading' being a term for the give-and-take of political dealings, if I remember rightly.

"Treatment."

"If you've got no symptoms, are you really ill?"

"You'll eventually get to the point where just backing up your memories isn't enough."

That's the thing, Alzheimer's isn't just memory loss. It's neural degradation. It's associated with memory loss because that's the most obvious symptom.

He glances my way for a moment. "You're an under-promise and over-deliver kinda guy, aren't you?"

"I try to provide accurate information."

Admittedly, going the extra mile isn't always a good idea, because you do it once and people start to expect it all the time...

"You ever thought about running for office yourself?"

I give him a sidelong look, left eyebrow raised. "I try to provide accurate information."

"Heh, good answer."

At least he doesn't mind politicians being made fun of. Certainly, he knows how bad some can be...

"Besides, to paraphrase the Lex Luthor from Universe Twelve: 'Do you know how much power I'd have to give up to become a Senator?'."

"Luthor said that?"

It is fitting that he use that Luthor.

"No, he said: 'Do you know how much power I'd have to give up to be President'."

"Their Luthor was running for President?"

"Not seriously, but he faked it to cover up what he was actually doing. But getting back to the-" We step around some staffers. "-point..?"

It was mostly a distraction, yes. But by and large it succeeded. Superman and the League were so busy looking for the catch Luthor did his thing without them noticing the real plays.

"Are there other cybernetics? Something that could back up the rest of the brain? Or... I don't know, replace it?"

"Replace the brain?"

I suppose if you somehow maintained continuity of consciousness...

"Yeah. What was that..? Movie, with Robin Williams? The one where he played that robot who wanted to be legally human."

"Bicentennial Man?"

The film, based on the Asimov novel (because of course it was Asimov.)

"Yeah, that's it. So he was a robot who had his whole body replaced with meat, right?"

"I don't remember the film, but in the book they couldn't replace his brain."

But he did get it modified to gradually break down like a real human's would. Effectively giving him the ability to die like a human being.

"Ah, who reads books these days? But, we've got robot citizens. If there was a robot like him in our America, he wouldn't be human, but he'd still be a person. So's a guy who replaces his arm with a robot arm. So what about a guy who replaces his brain?"

"Assuming it was replaced piece by piece and like for like, and the system allowed for all the things the human brain allows for, and care was taken to ensure that the soul remained attached, then they'd still be themselves."

Though I dread the effect such a process would have on the person.

"Can that actually happen?"

"There's not a lot of data, but in theory, yes. Shouldn't be that hard to avoid, but I wouldn't rush towards roboticisation just yet."

Like in Cyberpunk, where undergoing non-medical augmentations gradually reduces your character's Humanity Score and correspondingly their human Empathy. When they reach zero, they cease to be a playable character... Shadowrun has a similar balancing mechanic, where augmentations reduce a person's magical Essence, their very measurable Soul, until they become a Cyberzombie.

"Is there some supervillain who actually has that technology?"

"Doctor Carapax managed something like that. We're not really sure how, and the lack of sensory input drove him a bit peculiar. After the Life Broadcast, KordTech built him a human-like body using Doctor Morrow's technology."

Well, good to see he turned his life around, I guess. Hopefully using his talents for Science now...

"Morrow. That's the guy you copied when you made the Eye Drive."

I nod. "Brilliant man, but the closest he got to uploading himself was creating an android that thought like him and shared a copy of his memories. His colleague Doctor Ivo couldn't tell the two of them apart."

Best not to mention the Orange Light 'ghost'... That's a very different kind of 'immortality'

"Huh. I don't suppose you can just… Pull a mind out of a human body and stick it in a machine, can you?"

"You sort of can, but you run into the whole 'copy versus transfer' problem. The human mind is a complex series of chemical potentials and electrochemical patterns. When you say 'transfer', what exactly are you doing to the original? How do you 'transfer' chemicals?"

Which is why stuff like his clones are maintained in a 'Blank' state.

"If they're encoding a memory, can't you just transfer it to some other medium?"

"You can create a copy of it in another medium, certainly. And then I suppose that you could destroy the original, but at that point what's the difference between what you've done and creating a copy?"

He thinks for a moment, and then shrugs. "So how would you deal with it?"

Yeah, the old 'Transporter problem'. Ship of Theseus taken to the extreme.

"I can use my rings to stop my brain falling apart, my mind is mostly energy-based and I have backup bodies hidden around the place in case anything happens to this one. For someone else… High-end health magic can reduce the rate of decay to the point where something else will kill you before it becomes a problem."

And soul-based magic is an option for the extremely skilled or powerful. Just have to watch out if you play with duplication spells.

"Magic like that's not something we can roll out en masse."

"I know, I was trying to fix that as well, and then… Everything happened."

A reasonable frustration.

We reach the door to Senator Bradley Covington's office, and Tony knocks on his door. "Brad, it's Tony. You in?" He turns to me. "What exactly is 'high-end'?"

"High quality. If it was focused around a wearable artefact, if would be expensive to make at the moment, but there wouldn't be any ongoing costs."

The challenge would come in with the development, crafting and maintenance of said artifacts.

"Mm." He knocks again. "Brad, you taking a shit in there or something? Open the door already."

"Problem?"

He shrugs. "I dunno. I said I'd be along around half two."

Could be 'entertaining' someone and lost track of time.

I scan-. Baffles, which is actually a good thing, because government offices should really be warded. Infrared shows that he's in there on his own-.

Chemical analyser is detecting blood.

As in, blood in open air? That's probable cause to force entry, certainly.

I grab the handle, use a construct to undo the mechanical lock and deactivate the magnetic lock, and push the door open.

"Senator, are you-?"

If it is something as simple as 'polling the constituency's body', they can apologise later.

What?

Senator Bradley Covington is sitting on a chair with a tube in his arm, blood travelling out of him and into-.

I seriously doubt this is an approved medical procedure, and not the sort of thing you usually do in your office.

A worm. A fat and happy worm.

He sits up, irritation being overcome by apprehension as he sees me.

...Okay, this is all kinds of fucked up.

"Ah, look, this isn't-."

"Senator, you and that thing are under arrest."

It doesn't even need to be illegal, this is just that suspicious arresting them is probably a good start to sorting it out.

Somehow, I doubt this is going to turn out to be something innocuous like some sort of extra-marital affair. Unless this is how Uncle Sam is getting the blood he's been watering the Tree of Liberty with? Either way, doing it in this sort of setting seems unsafe. Senator Covington is going to have some explaining to do, methinks...

GhostKing 666 · 2026-10-07T07:18:21+0100

Mr Zoat said:
It sounds like the depiction in the RPG was very different to the depiction in the television series.

No, the Minbari's "stealth" as they misname it in the show was always depicted as an active system that could get turned on or off. aka a Jammer field.

View: https://youtu.be/T_CdkEIWrGo?t=1930

The only thing the RPG did was explain how the fuck the system worked, because the show kept it as just magic pixie dust that just worked with no explanation.

Look, if you want B5 fanfics that can be trusted to be actually accurate, then anything done by Lightning Count or had Lightning Count help it is basically guaranteed accurate.

Dur'id the Druid · 2026-10-07T08:46:23+0100

So I'll be the first to ask, does anyone have any idea what this worm is?

Ngamer11 · 2026-10-07T09:05:59+0100

Dur'id the Druid said:
So I'll be the first to ask, does anyone have any idea what this worm is?

It was mentioned earlier in this episode and featured in previous ones. They're representations of corrupt American politicians.

Dur'id the Druid · 2026-10-07T09:30:58+0100

Ngamer11 said:
It was mentioned earlier in this episode and featured in previous ones. They're representations of corrupt American politicians.

So this is a physical manifestation from the realm of dreams and ideas? Not ome sort of takeover from aliens?

Jankl · 2026-10-07T09:33:02+0100

Dur'id the Druid said:
So this is a physical manifestation from the realm of dreams and ideas? Not ome sort of takeover from aliens?

More specifically the Heartlands which I think is in the collective unconscious of the United States of America, not the dreaming. Tho I am not 100% sure if those are connected or not.

Ngamer11 · 2026-10-07T09:44:21+0100

Dur'id the Druid said:
So this is a physical manifestation from the realm of dreams and ideas? Not ome sort of takeover from aliens?

Jankl said:
More specifically the Heartlands which I think is in the collective unconscious of the United States of America, not the dreaming. Tho I am not 100% sure if those are connected or not.

More specifically, the Badlands, the evil counterpart of the Heartlands.

BartlettMagic · 2026-10-07T10:24:51+0100

Mr Zoat said:
He shrugs. "I dunno. I said I'd be along around half two."

an American wouldn't phrase it this way... and i'm embarrassed to admit that i don't know if you mean 1:30 or 2:30. but, for the sake of the correction, he would just say "I said I'd be here at one/two thirty"

CTrees · 2026-10-07T11:45:30+0100

Would be amusing if it was actually just, like, a magical dialysis method, because OL isn't involved in every single magitech development program.

Mr Zoat · 2026-10-07T12:10:00+0100

BartlettMagic said:
an American wouldn't phrase it this way... and i'm embarrassed to admit that i don't know if you mean 1:30 or 2:30. but, for the sake of the correction, he would just say "I said I'd be here at one/two thirty"

[Sniffs suspiciously]

Why does it suddenly smell of Hun in here?

Darko · 2026-10-07T12:43:50+0100

Chojin Patriarch said:
At least it looks like the Eye Drive is getting approval across the aisles. After all, who'd work against a treatment like that?

Politicians that receive money from pharmaceutical companies that create medication for the alzheimers.

Chojin Patriarch said:
Like in Cyberpunk, where undergoing non-medical augmentations gradually reduces your character's Humanity Score and correspondingly their human Empathy. When they reach zero, they cease to be a playable character... Shadowrun has a similar balancing mechanic, where augmentations reduce a person's magical Essence, their very measurable Soul, until they become a Cyberzombie.

Yeah, cybernetics getting rid of your soul may sound corny, but it may have some basis in fact.

Human behavior is basically the result of a billion little chemical explosions happening in our bodies due to things like hormones, glands, etc., so becoming too much of a machine can potentially get rid of those parts.

Chojin Patriarch said:
and not the sort of thing you usually do in your office.

It's probably not the most disgusting thing a politician has done in their office.

Chojin Patriarch said:
Somehow, I doubt this is going to turn out to be something innocuous like some sort of extra-marital affair. Unless this is how Uncle Sam is getting the blood he's been watering the Tree of Liberty with? Either way, doing it in this sort of setting seems unsafe. Senator Covington is going to have some explaining to do, methinks

My guess is that due to Dr. Mist placing a barrier on the Badlands, plus the Anti-Life and White Light events, has weakened the Badlands in such a way that they can't subtly influence people, so they're being a bit more direct.

As to what the politicians are getting, my guess is that these things promised them power.

Maybe they can see into the psyche of the American people and tell them what they have to do if they want to be elected.

CrazyNoVa · 2026-10-07T13:44:47+0100

Mr Zoat said:
"Ah, who reads books these days? But, we've got robot citizens. If there was a robot like him in our America, he wouldn't be human, but he'd still be a person. So's a guy who replaces his arm with a robot arm. So what about a guy who replaces his brain?"

"Assuming it was replaced piece by piece and like for like, and the system allowed for all the things the human brain allows for, and care was taken to ensure that the soul remained attached, then they'd still be themselves."

So, the "Ship of Theseus" paradox, then?

I guess that makes sense. There's only so much of yourself you can replace and change before you become a complerely different person altogether.

But the question is, what about Paul? Considering everything that's happened to him in this story, one could make the argument that the paradox applies to him too. In fact, it applies to both the Paragon and the Renegade, because they've both been deconstructed and reconstructed in mind, body and soul. At this point, how much humanity is there really left in them? Or rather, how much of Paul Tallowin is there really left in them?

Jankl · 2026-10-07T13:47:32+0100

Darko said:
Human behavior is basically the result of a billion little chemical explosions happening in our bodies due to things like hormones, glands, etc., so becoming too much of a machine can potentially get rid of those parts.

I always wondered how the brain does it. He is just a brain in a machine right. So how does he get all the right chemicals, nutrients and hormones in his brain if he no longer has a body? Does he just know how to perfectly balanced all of that and have his mechanical dome create it for him? I guess a super genius would be able to manage?

hkim · 2026-10-07T15:35:32+0100

Jankl said:
I always wondered how the brain does it. He is just a brain in a machine right. So how does he get all the right chemicals, nutrients and hormones in his brain if he no longer has a body? Does he just know how to perfectly balanced all of that and have his mechanical dome create it for him? I guess a super genius would be able to manage?

welcome to why it's not really a thing outside of fiction, really

Vaermina · 2026-10-07T18:14:02+0100

GhostKing 666 said:
No, the Minbari's "stealth" as they misname it in the show was always depicted as an active system that could get turned on or off. aka a Jammer field.

View: https://youtu.be/T_CdkEIWrGo?t=1930

The only thing the RPG did was explain how the fuck the system worked, because the show kept it as just magic pixie dust that just worked with no explanation.

Look, if you want B5 fanfics that can be trusted to be actually accurate, then anything done by Lightning Count or had Lightning Count help it is basically guaranteed accurate.

Yup, it's not even a throwaway line but one of the pillars the entire episode rests on.

Mr Zoat · 2026-10-08T06:18:39+0100

12th October 2013
14:40 GMT -5

"Senator-."

"IT'S FOR THE GOOD OF THE COUNTRY!"

The police officer looks over at me as I maintain the containment barrier around the worm. It tried vomiting acid on the construct but… The effect was fairly anaemic compared to what they did last time I saw them and my construct held out just fine. The worm appeared to realise that, and… Drank its own bile from inside the construct.

Yeah, I-.

"LET ME GO! I MUST FEED IT!"

Tony looks at me beseechingly. "Can you knock him out or something? I don't think anyone needs to hear him while he's like this."

I… Yeah. He's clearly not in his right mind, and-. I know that British laws on harming someone's reputation are a good deal more harsh than the American version, but until he gets disenchanted…

I gesture to Senator Covington, and he loses consciousness in the arms of the officers dragging him away. One gives me a nod of thanks, and then they drag him out of the office.

Tony comes closer, staring at the apparently happy worm. "What is that thing? One of those… Symbiotes?"

"No, this is a parasite. A spiritual manifestation of the worst excesses of political corruption."

"A demon?"

"More of an elemental, really. Though some elementals can be every bit as unpleasant as demons. These things aren't a physical threat in anything other than overwhelming numbers. I haven't seen one manifested in the material universe before…"

I take my rune stone out of my harness and step away from the worm towards Senator Covington's desk.

"Checking for clues?"

"Magic residue. It would be far easier to bind an elemental to an object than just conjure it up."

"Is it controlling Bradley?"

"Could be."

"I mean, if it's a corruption elemental, I guess it causes corruption."

No glow from the closest desk leg. "Could be."

"What else could it be?"

"Elementals can offer deals, too. It could take blood in exchange for manipulating other corrupt people, or for magnifying how inclined towards corruption they are, or… Any number of things, really. It could even be a cult ritual."

"I've been to church with Brad."

"Elementals don't have the same reaction to sanctified spaces as demons do. And that's assuming that your church has been properly sanctified." Next leg, no. Side panel, no. "And cults generally allow their members to live their cover."

"So if it's a cult, what's it doing for him then?"

"Ensuring mutually ensured destruction. It wouldn't be the.. first time I've seen something like that. Everyone in a group has blackmail material against everyone else, so no one can risk betraying the others."

"There are others?"

Legs and side panels checked, I move on to the drawers.

"There was something like that happening in the music industry a little while ago. I wasn't involved in investigating it, and I'd rather-."

"I mean, here. In Washington."

"Not even joking, I'd frankly be astonished if there wasn't, or if there was only one."

"If that's true, that's going to completely destroy our credibility."

"I know."

"And, are you okay with that?"

"I'm more concerned with the possible existence of a cult, but no, I'd rather that didn't happen."

"And if you find other people..?"

"They get arrested on corruption charges. That gets made public, and we leave out the supernatural angle until everyone involved has been thoroughly detoxed and their successors have been in office for a while."

"I don't know if that's.. the best way to handle it."

"And I can't dictate how the League's going to handle it. If you've got a better idea, feel free to-" There. "-share it."

Pull out the drawer, nothing, but the stone is still glowing. Plenty of ways to disguise things with magic, but… No false bottom, so pull the drawer out, turn it over-.

There we are.

Doesn't look Atlantean, but the meaning of the Blinded Eye of Providence is fairly obvious. I'll leave it for whichever of the League's magicians gets called in to deal with this, because while technically this might be closer to Timothy's area of expertise, I'm not putting a new trainee near this sort of prosecution.

"Does Senator Covington have any cross-bench friends? Perhaps people he doesn't usually vote with?"

"Yeah, but that's not unusual. We don't necessarily like the people we work with or hate the ones we work against."

"No, but-. Ending a summoning like this is very easy, and… It would be best if we weren't seen clamping down on elected representatives. But we can't let anyone doing this escape our detection, or their associates."

He nods slowly.

"And I am not good at subtle. Ah…" Richard's going to be in class. So is Beryl. Roy should be available. Red Star-. No. And no one else who might be available is much better. "Orange Lantern to Arsenal."

"What's up?"

"I could use your help in Washington D.C.."

"Oh, did you find the demon cult secretly ruling America from the shadows?"

"Yes."

"Ah…" … "Okay, give me ten minutes and then open a zeta tube."

"Thank you. Orange Lantern to Zatanna."

"You found a worm?"

"Yes, and where there's one there's usually more."

"I'm free now?"

"Great." I generate a zeta tube construct. "Come on through."

Ngamer11 · 2026-10-08T06:29:11+0100

Mr Zoat said:
"And I am not good at subtle. Ah…" Richard's going to be in class. So is Beryl. Roy should be available. Starfire-. No. And no one else who might be available is much better. "Orange Lantern to Arsenal."

Do you mean Red Star here? Because I thought Koriand'r was no longer on Earth?

hkim · 2026-10-08T06:32:35+0100

Does Zatanna go to school anymore? Seems like she should be there too instead of dealing with Paul's worm.

thebishop8 · 2026-10-08T06:34:20+0100

Mr Zoat said:
"And cults generally allow their members of live their cover."

I assume he's trying to say that cults allow their members to do things that would maintain their cover?

King of Frost · 2026-10-08T06:35:15+0100

Ngamer11 said:
Do you mean Red Star here? Because I thought Koriand'r was no longer on Earth?

With the name being free among Earth's superheroes I believe he ended up taking the name Starfire and OL couldn't really say anything against it.

Ngamer11 · 2026-10-08T06:37:21+0100

hkim said:
Does Zatanna go to school anymore? Seems like she should be there too instead of dealing with Paul's worm.

She doesn't. She took advantage of the G-Gnomes to get enough knowledge downloaded to get a GED.

King of Frost said:
With the name being free among Earth's superheroes I believe he ended up taking the name Starfire and OL couldn't really say anything against it.

It was mentioned out of story that his name was changed to Red Star, I think because it was better for optics or because it tested better after Paul mentioned it. He's even called Red Star before in this story.

Mr Zoat · 2026-10-08T06:39:11+0100

Ngamer11 said:
Do you mean Red Star here? Because I thought Koriand'r was no longer on Earth?

Thank you, corrected.

Ngamer11 said:
She doesn't. She took advantage of the G-Gnomes to get enough knowledge downloaded to get a GED.

[Exhales in relief.]

Chojin Patriarch · 2026-10-08T06:50:58+0100

Mr Zoat said:
12th October 2013
14:40 GMT -5

"Senator-."

"IT'S FOR THE GOOD OF THE COUNTRY!"

Oh, there's got to be some insane troll logic going on there. Getting your blood... Sucked out? Filtered? ...by some kind of unknown worm creature can't be healthy at all, for body or mind...

The police officer looks over at me as I maintain the containment barrier around the worm. It tried vomiting acid on the construct but… The effect was fairly anaemic compared to what they did last time I saw them and my construct held out just fine. The worm appeared to realise that, and… Drank its own bile from inside the construct.

Not a suicide attempt, just... Keeping busy? reclaiming the resources it expended?

Yeah, I-.

"LET ME GO! I MUST FEED IT!"

If it is what it appears to be, he's either a patriot or a traitor. I guess they'll find out which eventually.

Tony looks at me beseechingly. "Can you knock him out or something? I don't think anyone needs to hear him while he's like this."

I… Yeah. He's clearly not in his right mind, and-. I know that British laws on harming someone's reputation are a good deal more harsh than the American version, but until he gets disenchanted…

Naptime, Brad.

I gesture to Senator Covington, and he loses consciousness in the arms of the officers dragging him away. One gives me a nod of thanks, and then they drag him out of the office.

Tony comes closer, staring at the apparently happy worm. "What is that thing? One of those… Symbiotes?"

I'd be concerned if one of them was running around by itself.

"No, this is a parasite. A spiritual manifestation of the worst excesses of political corruption."

"A demon?"

"More of an elemental, really. Though some elementals can be every bit as unpleasant as demons. These things aren't a physical threat in anything other than overwhelming numbers. I haven't seen one manifested in the material universe before…"

Which is its own kind of worrying.

I take my rune stone out of my harness and step away from the worm towards Senator Covington's desk.

"Checking for clues?"

Has Toni been sharing notes with Daddy? I'm sure she's excited to be learning a few of OL's clever tricks.

"Magic residue. It would be far easier to bind an elemental to an object than just conjure it up."

"Is it controlling Bradley?"

"Could be."

His desperation to continue what he was doing definitely seemed unusual.

"I mean, if it's a corruption elemental, I guess it causes corruption."

No glow from the closest desk leg. "Could be."

Only drawback of the runestone-sweep method... It's like a metal detector. Have to get real close to small traces.

"What else could it be?"

"Elementals can offer deals, too. It could take blood in exchange for manipulating other corrupt people, or for magnifying how inclined towards corruption they are, or… Any number of things, really. It could even be a cult ritual."

Or draining away his corruption to empower itself or some master.

"I've been to church with Brad."

"Elementals don't have the same reaction to sanctified spaces as demons do. And that's assuming that your church has been properly sanctified." Next leg, no. Side panel, no. "And cults generally allow their members of live their cover."

That is a worry, since not all American churches are built or worshipped equally.

"So if it's a cult, what's it doing for him then?"

"Ensuring mutually ensured destruction. It wouldn't be the.. first time I've seen something like that. Everyone in a group has blackmail material against everyone else, so no one can risk betraying the others."

Kinda like the British Government thing, too. But with more corruption worm leeching than depraved pleasure cults.

"There are others?"

Legs and side panels checked, I move on to the drawers.

This could be an isolated incident. But then how did he hook up with this worm?

"There was something like that happening in the music industry a little while ago. I wasn't involved in investigating it, and I'd rather-."

"I mean, here. In Washington."

"Not even joking, I'd frankly be astonished if there wasn't, or if there was only one."

Sad state of the DC Universe governments, really.

"If that's true, that going to completely destroy our credibility."

"I know."

Which means it's going to have to be handled carefully.

"And, are you okay with that?"

"I'm more concerned with the possible existence of a cult, but no, I'd rather that didn't happen."

...More carefully than OL might handle it, certainly.

"And if you find other people..?"

"They get arrested on corruption charges. That gets made public, and we leave out the supernatural angle until everyone involved has been thoroughly detoxed and their successors have been in office for a while."

Which will take time too. Joy.

"I don't know if that's.. the best way to handle it."

"And I can't dictate how the League's going to handle it. If you've got a better idea, feel free to-" There. "-share it."

Hopefully the League's mystical experts will be on top of it. ...Zatara, Blaze and Dr Mist, if I remember right.

Pull out the drawer, nothing, but the stone is still glowing. Plenty of ways to disguise things with magic, but… No false bottom, so pull the drawer out, turn it over-.

There we are.

And if the drawer underneath is kept empty, it can open a portal right there on the mark to fall into it.

Doesn't look Atlantean, but the meaning of the Blinded Eye of Providence is fairly obvious. I'll leave it for whichever of the League's magicians gets called in to deal with this, because while technically this might be closer to Timothy's area of expertise, I'm not putting a new trainee near this sort of prosecution.

God no. Especially with Tim's rather haphazard methods.

"Does Senator Covington have any cross-bench friends? Perhaps people he doesn't usually vote with?"

"Yeah, but that's not unusual. We don't necessarily like the people we work with or hate the ones we work against."

A good deal less factional than some governments, then. I remember stories of the Whig and Tory parties of 'The South Seas Crisis' era...

"No, but-. Ending a summoning like this is very easy, and… It would be best if we weren't seen clamping down on elected representatives. But we can't let anyone doing this escape our detection, or their associates."

He nods slowly.

Because the responsible parties might not stop at leech-like bloodsuckers.

"And I am not good at subtle. Ah…" Richard's going to be in class. So is Beryl. Roy should be available. Red Star-. No. And no one else who might be available is much better. "Orange Lantern to Arsenal."

"What's up?"

He might be one of their better covert investigators. Certainly not on Robin's tier, of course...

"I could use your help in Washington D.C.."

"Oh, did you find the demon cult secretly ruling America from the shadows?"

...You say it like a joke, but...

"Yes."

"Ah…" … "Okay, give me ten minutes and then open a zeta tube."

...And Roy is just going 'Dammit, Oh El, I was joking.'

"Thank you. Orange Lantern to Zatanna."

"You found a worm?"

...She was expecting this?

"Yes, and where there's one there's usually more."

"I'm free now?"

"Great." I generate a zeta tube construct. "Come on through."

No time wasted, at least.

I swear, if it turns out it's innocuous and this is how Sam is getting the blood he needs... I bet it's not going to be that simple, nor should it be. The worry is how many other senators are doing the same thing as Covington, or even worse acts because I doubt it's just one person going along with this.. Whatever it was back there.

Darko · 2026-10-08T07:10:38+0100

Mr Zoat said:
their members of live their cover."

"to live their"

Mr Zoat said:
that going to completely destroy

"that's going"

Mr Zoat said:
"Oh, did you find the demon cult secretly ruling America from the shadows

That's more of a British thing.

At least it was until the Angels showed up.

NameOrdane · 2026-10-08T07:17:16+0100

Caught up for this first time since 2024. Well, for the paragon side at least, I'll get back to renegade in a bit.

Really enjoyed what's been written since, the biggest stand out to me was batman chosing to change his brain again, fucking metal.

While doing a whole reread using the epub, I noticed that there are fonts that don't display here on the site for me. The angels have a really cool font for their speech, and it's much easier to tell when the SI's mind is being influenced by magic.

It's not all being displaying here for some reason. Is there an add on or setting to see all of the fonts?

timeForced · 2026-10-08T07:18:33+0100

Mr Zoat said:
[Exhales in relief.]

You gotta reread your own story Mr Zoat. I've read it through (years apart so the more recent stuff less) at least 3 times now and some info still blindsides me. But every time there's more "oh right that's how it was"

Mr Zoat · 2026-10-08T08:33:21+0100

Darko said:
"to live their"
"that's going"

Thank you, corrected.

timeForced said:
You gotta reread your own story Mr Zoat. I've read it through (years apart so the more recent stuff less) at least 3 times now and some info still blindsides me. But every time there's more "oh right that's how it was"

I don't have the time to read my own work!

NameOrdane said:
Caught up for this first time since 2024. Well, for the paragon side at least, I'll get back to renegade in a bit.

Really enjoyed what's been written since, the biggest stand out to me was batman chosing to change his brain again, fucking metal.

While doing a whole reread using the epub, I noticed that there are fonts that don't display here on the site for me. The angels have a really cool font for their speech, and it's much easier to tell when the SI's mind is being influenced by magic.

It's not all being displaying here for some reason. Is there an add on or setting to see all of the fonts?

Can you give me some examples? They all worked when I posted them.

B00ki5h · 2026-10-08T09:57:57+0100

Okay easy way to solve this, call an emergency session, drag everyone still alive into the chamber, and then summon Uncle Sam.

LZB1285 · 2026-10-08T10:21:03+0100

NameOrdane said:
It's not all being displaying here for some reason. Is there an add on or setting to see all of the fonts?

Could be a problem from the Xenforo update, the fonts supported may have been changed since the chapters were published. Font support is very dependent on what your browser/OS/device supports so can be very hit-n-miss when reading online.

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

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