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

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by Mr Zoat, Jan 27, 2019.

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  1. Ngamer11

    Ngamer11 Experienced.

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    And then they bit off more than they could chew. But they could turn this to their advantage, as they can have the heroes clean up their mess. Typical supervillain mindset.
     
  2. Michael Vonica

    Michael Vonica Know what you're doing yet?

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    At this point, the only reason I can see for Paul not having cleaned up the light by using QW scans is that, first off, it's a power that they know nothing about, and so he wants to save it, and secondly, he's very secretly organizing a massive, coordinated attack for when he pulls the move, so that way, the bad guys won't have any chance to find a method to counteract QW scans, like how they counteracted ring scans so quickly.
     
  3. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    No?

    Blackest Night ended with all the Black Lanterns being brought back to life not turned into White Lanterns.
     
  4. Threadmarks: Past Participant (part 7)
    Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    16th September 2012
    12:41 GMT -6


    White mist rises from the eye holes, obscuring whoever is inside. Faint trails of green sludge run down from the tear ducts, the nasal area and the edges of the rictus-grinning teeth. Parts of the helmet look… Rusted? Or encrusted with something. I don't recognise it, and nothing's coming up in the database, but that definitely wasn't demonic magic.

    "Sir, can you tell me your name?"

    "Mich-. Mike Brown."

    "Hello Mike, I'm Orange Lantern. And this is Supergirl."

    Kara waves. "Hiyah!"

    "That's an interesting helmet you've got there. Would you mind telling me where you got it?"

    "I didn't want to put it on!"

    "Alright. I'm not accusing you of putting it on of your own will. I'd just like to start by learning where you found it."

    "He didn't give me any choice!"

    "Mike, is anyone in danger?"

    "Everyone is!" He turns his head, looking around. I… Can't see anything special that he might be looking at. "It's showing me… It's showing me such horrible things."

    "I deal with horrible visions by shooting them until they die. I'm happy to help you do the same."

    His head snaps to me, the white vapour emerging from his eyes briefly flowing sideways.

    "Not on your best day, Lantern."



    No.

    I make a small effort, but I can't entirely prevent myself from smiling.

    "Nabu? Lord of Order? Looks like you've seen better days."

    "Order. It's offal. Just another name for the same old thing: the gurgle, ooze, purl and spurt of protoplasm, deluding itself that there is meaning."

    "Is this your Goth phase? Should I get you some eye-liner?"

    Since that's not his body, I won't offer him a razor blade.

    "Do you think that your mockery of me has some meaning?"

    "Makes me feel better. I realise this is supposed to be some sort of shocking turnabout, where we meet a demonically corrupted alternate of an ally of ours, but honestly? Our Nabu was an arsehole too, and I'm not exactly sad that I'm going to get to kill you so that it sticks."

    I don't say 'again', because Kara's not in the loop and Mike Brown doesn't need to hear that.

    "What difference do you think killing me makes to your miserable, delusional, monkey existence? Your feeble attempts to find meaning in a meaningless universe?"

    "Oh you're one of those. Look, the thing as it is in an absolute sense is not the same as the thing as it is experienced. I know perfectly well that there's no absolute truth or value to our actions or thoughts, but you see these rings?" I hold my fists out. "Orange. I am the Superman. I make-."

    "No you're not."

    I frown at Kara.

    "I'm sorry?"

    "You're not Superman. I mean, he wears red and blue, and you wear grey and orange."

    "No, not.. 'Superman' as in 'Kal-El, son of Jor-El'. The Superman, in the Nietzschean sense of someone who creates their own values rather than finding them in the external world."

    Kara frowns. "That sounds weird. Why did he name that after Kal?"

    "And this is the value you have created, Superman?"

    Kara turns to him and frowns. "No, he literally just said that he's not Superman; he's the Superman." She turns back to me. "How come you don’t like him, anyway?"

    "It's to do with how Nabu -our version of Nabu- uses the bodies of the people he possesses. They put the helmet on, and then he gets control of their bodies for as long as he wants."

    "But he's a hero. I'm sure he doesn't use their bodies for longer than he has to."

    "Are you afraid to tell her the truth, Superman? The scent of murder is upon you."

    "I've killed a lot of people. I've come pretty close to exterminating an entire species."

    Kara clasps her hands to her mouth, her eyes going wide.

    "But they were all really bad. Look, weird demon Nabu, you're a powerful magic helmet. If you can't think of anything to do with your time, pick something at random and stick with it. Sheer pride will eventually result in you valuing your skill, and there's really no material benefit to proving that what you're doing has some non-subjective value because even if 'true' reality exists we will always be stuck in our own perspective."

    "I never said that I was a demon, fool."

    "I never said you were a fool, demon. Mike, are you still with us?"

    His shared head lolls for a moment, and he brings his right hand up to support it.

    "They're… They're starving, and he smiles as he hears their despair!"

    "Who is, Mike?"

    "The.. people, everyone! On the world, their world! Everything's… Gone! Their civilisation, their… Hope."

    "We'll get right on to fixing that, Mike, but right now we need to help you. Are you able to take the helmet off?"

    "Yes, please take the helmet off."

    "Change of plan: don't take the helmet off."

    "It kills them. The cultists, they… They beg him but he makes them do it anyway! Oh God!"

    "Taking off the helmet is fatal for the host?"

    "The flesh melts off their face and their brains melt out of the skull!"

    That's a little more difficult, and I don’t have mana batteries prepared. I do however have suppression chains and this Nabu has no friends.

    "Alright demon, are you going to come quietly, or do I have to beat you-."

    Yellow lightning writhes around his body and then leaps for us!
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2022
  5. Assblaster5000

    Assblaster5000 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Either "I didn't have any/a choice" or "It didn't give me a choice" I'd imagine. Also, the exclamation mark isn't yellow, no clue if that's intentional or not though.
     
  6. Ngamer11

    Ngamer11 Experienced.

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    Why does it sound like Kara Zor-L will get a reality check on how the multiverse works? I mean, based on how she acted when Paul first met her, she just survived the death of her people and yet acts like a preppy highschool girl.

    Also, I really hope Paul can take down this Nabu on his own to demonstrate how much more powerful he's become.
     
  7. Bud-E

    Bud-E Stand up so I can push you down!

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    I'm excited to see Paul murder Nabu again!
     
  8. Assblaster5000

    Assblaster5000 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    No real clue what's going on with this part as well actually, but considering the context I imagine it's a formatting error.
     
  9. jasonh23761

    jasonh23761 Not too sore, are you?

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    Aww yes, murder time!
     
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  10. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Thank you, corrected.
     
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  11. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    He's gone full Sanchez.

    The grey is a good touch, since orange is just blegh

    Nietzchea was a weird guy.

    He used to and then Klarion and Roanoke happened.

    So maybe not Hell magic corrupted but probably driven crazy by watching the world he was protecting become a hell on Earth.

    But you thought it.

    As far as you know.

    Mike mentioned cultists, so he may have other people working for him.

    And there's always demon summoning.
     
  12. Kalem_Lee

    Kalem_Lee Well worn.

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    Oh I remember this Nabu.

    ...Frag that jerkoff.
     
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  13. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    It could just be how she acts or it may be a Kryptonian thing, like Tamaraneans.

    Remember that despite all the things that happened to them, being abducted, raped, assaulted and experimented on, Kori and Komand'r seemed to be psychologically fairly okay and Komand'r even seemed to find the reactions Paul was expecting from someone that had undergone those things to be weird.
     
  14. crazygrox

    crazygrox Versed in the lewd.

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    So this is something that needs to be brought up more clearly.

    OL says that he killed Nabu, he says it whenever it comes up, but while he gave the order to kill the guy, he didn't actually apply lethal force.
    John Constantine applied a nonlethal force at Paul's order that could have escalated to lethal(the batteries draining Nabu), but before it had the chance to escalate to lethal Nabu went and stabbed the batteries and there was an explosion/a lethal drain.
    Sure Paul gave the order, but the one who killed Nabu was either John or Nabu himself, and it's hypothetically possible that if the fight hadn't come to so sudden an end Cornwall boy might have spoken up to convince Paul to stop the drain at a nonlethal level.
     
  15. Ngamer11

    Ngamer11 Experienced.

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    But Paul's the one who set it all up. So saying he's the one who killed Nabu is true enough when you look at all the facts, since brain dead for a magic helmet is little different from actually dead. Also, he thought it in this scene instead of saying it because Kara Zor-L is there and not in the loop.
     
  16. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    Does the source need to kick you in the balls again?

    Because I'm pretty sure we can arrange that.
     
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  17. crazygrox

    crazygrox Versed in the lewd.

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    There's more ambiguity here than is entirely ideal. Though I understand that the phrasing is in-theme for this situation and genre.

    Who is 'he'? is it demonNabu? demonSuperman? The demon which corrupted Superman?

    It could be the humans who are the 'they', because it mentions their civilisation being gone. But it could honestly be the demons who are starving in the absence of civilization and hope. They had a glut and now they're having a famine? Which would probably put a different spin on either demonNabu or demonSuperman smiling at their despair.

    But it's probably demonSuperman smiling at the despair of the humans.
     
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  18. Chojin Patriarch

    Chojin Patriarch Veteran Lurker

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    That's never a good sign. Let's hope it's amenable to surrendering... :rolleyes: But I suspect this is going to get bloody. Kara-1 is about to get an eye-opening look at how OL does things...

    Not the Anti-fate, then. We can but hope Mike makes it out of this alive and hopefully un-traumatised.

    Probably going to miss that cheerfulness after this...

    So, this helmet can compel people to don it unwillingly. Just when you thought Nabu couldn't become any more of an arsehole.

    Okay, Mike, focus. Superheroes are here, you've got a good chance of surviving this...

    Well, fuck you too, Nabu.

    Ah, the lich is finally deigning to pay attention, and tear himself away from his fun torturing innocents?

    I'd complain about the lack of rage, but, really, OL took that out on the local Nabu. This is a more intellectual anger.

    Quite a lot, and not necessarily better, if this is the Books of Magic bad future version.

    ...What does happen if a Lord of Order turns to Chaos? I can't imagine that mental conflict of purity feels great running through his bad mood.

    Well, acting like an edgy twelve-year-old boy who's decided the universe sucks is certainly a good reason to make light of you...

    Given that taking Nabu down left Giovanni Zatara bedridden for weeks (and still isn't 100% by this point, if memory serves me correctly...) Yes, best not to have to explain that for the rookie.

    Nietzsche would probably have opinions about that, but...

    ...Not the best time to play comic relief, Kara.

    :eek: Seriously, what parts of human culture were you paying attention to back on Argo?

    ...Nietzsche used it first, honestly. Heck, Seigel and Schuster probably used the name for their creation largely because it sounded cool...

    Kara! Read the room, girl.

    <Sucks teeth> Yeah, about that... :oops:

    Oh, come on, Kara. Krypton's history isn't all lily-white either.

    Ah, True Lies. Such an underrated movie... Alas, I don't think this hat-ass is in any mood to take good advice...

    "I'm not your buddy, pal!"
    "Well, I'm not your pal, guy!"
    :confused: Sorry, that's all I could hear...

    See, Kara? Bad Guy. Your conscience is clear.

    So, that's two bad alternate worlds showing up here... If not for Mr Zoat's well-known dislike for nearly everything in modern DC, I'd be worried about an invasion from some Dark reality...

    ;) Well, if the bad guy wants you to do something: You don't do it!

    I get the feeling there's a lot of Red in this Nabu's ledger. And I foresee it's about to get a lot more orange..

    ...No doubt Nabu has had plenty of chances to see it in his servant's memories, if they're forced to watch when he decides to change hosts...

    This is about to sting...

    I suppose hearing what Mike has to say about Nabu's... Clinginess... will make Kara-1 less likely to take the easy option of 'Super-speed, remove hat.' That could be bad for the current host. Still, this could be a tough fight for OL. I get the feeling his ability to eat magic is about to get a workout.
     
  19. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    Alive?

    Maybe.

    Un-traumatised?

    Probably not.

    At least Nabu 16 did some good things when he possessed people.

    This one is just interested in being a douche for douchiness' sake.

    Kinda like Nightpain, which is what I'm calling Darkseid.

    We know that one can use the magic of the other.

    And this Nabu may not have necessarily turned to Chaos but he may no longer care about Order and just uses the magic, kinda like Mordru.

    And Nabu 16 was just neglectful of his hosts, this one is actively malicious.

    Hey, humor is good in stressful situations.

    Probably the ones that were most shown on TV, radio and given the mention of Nemo, the internet.

    Nietzchea is not likely to be all that prominent on those.

    Well, except maybe the internet.

    And if I remember correctly the original Superman wasn't meant to be the good guy but rather the bad guy.

    Not necessarily for her Krypton.

    Silver Age Krypton seemed to be fairly utopian compared to the depictions that have been given in recent decades in which it's everything from flawed to being full on Nazis in space.

    And even if her Krypton has skeletons in the closet that doesn't mean it's in their recent history, but it could have happened hundreds of generations before she was born.

    I think she does have the right to be shocked, since if she doesn't it would be like saying that a German doesn't have a right to be shocked if the person standing next to them is a mass murdering racist just because their countrymen and maybe their family were like that in the past, even though this German is not racist or a mass murderer.
     
  20. Assblaster5000

    Assblaster5000 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    The original concept (or at least one of them) for Superman was "The Superman" and he was a mind controlling supervillain, yeah. I don't recall everything I've heard about the guy, but I think the idea was that he was the head of some dystopic regime? Basically a one man version of The Party from 1984.

    He also looked kind of like Lex Luthor in one of the images we have of him I'm pretty sure.
     
  21. Silverias

    Silverias Know what you're doing yet?

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    This feels like assimilation time.
     
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  22. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Mike doesn't presently have the right mindset to give a clear explanation.
     
  23. Senevri

    Senevri Not too sore, are you?

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    How does the existence of the Source or the Presence change that? Sure, DC universe was created, but an imdividual still has little more meaning than a single pixel in Conway's Game of Life.
     
  24. Jus4532

    Jus4532 Versed in the lewd.

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    Wait, is that the Nabu that Timothy Hunter met in the future when he was time traveling with Mr E? The one that went completely insane after the majority of magic was gone from the world.
     
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  25. Handlewithcare

    Handlewithcare Versed in the lewd.

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    Objective truth, value, beauty or meaning do not exist, true. That's because all of these things are inherently subjective.

    You can't find value or meaning, you have to create it.

    That's the purpose of self-aware life: to create purpose.
     
  26. Pinklestia

    Pinklestia Well worn.

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    Cause unrealistic writing cause comic books.

    At least Captain Marvel makes sence sincd he is like eight, didn't actually see his parents die and was too young to remember them. He also grew in an orphanage of love surrounded by good people.
     
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  27. Doccer

    Doccer I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Plus being left up on a shelf alone for forty years probably helped him less than a human in solitary confinement for forty years did.
     
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  28. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    Because there very specifically is a universal truth and value?
     
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  29. Michael Vonica

    Michael Vonica Know what you're doing yet?

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    Until you go to the next universe, where the aforementioned, yet unspecified, universal truth and value no longer apply. Unless I'm wrong, and the Source is some sort of multiverse level being, responsible for the bleed and everything in it, in which case I guess you're right? Still doesn't mean anything until you specify what that universal truth is, provide evidence for it, and then identify how this impacts people.
     
  30. Belenus

    Belenus Versed in the lewd.

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    It's not murder when it's justified. Morally, murder is only unjustified killing of a person. Legally speaking, murder is only unlawful homicide, being the killing of a human. I imagine this world has expanded the definition to include anyone counted as a legal person, but Nabu is still just an opinionated piece of haberdashery.

    Both Kryptonians and Tamaraneans are mainlining sunlight. It's hard to feel down when you're getting good vitamin D.
    Pun completely intended.
     
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