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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. Threadmarks: Recently on Earth 12
    Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Earth 12
    6th February 2005
    09:01 GMT


    Six of the world's most powerful people sit around a table, carefully avoiding making eye contact with one another.

    Martian Manhunter is martian, so the lack of eye contact doesn't have quite the same significance for him that it does for his human colleagues. Superman is kryptonian, but as he grew up around humans he's internalised their body language and his says that he's 'uncertain' and 'ashamed'. Flash-.

    "Soooo…" He looks up and then sweeps his eyes in a circle around his friends. "Are we gonna talk about what happened, or just sit here 'til-"

    Diana's jaw tightens, and she slams her right fist into the surface of the meeting room table. Hard enough to dent it, but not break it. Flash notes this and feels oddly pleased. A couple of years ago, that wouldn't have been the case.

    "-Bats shows up."

    "Alright." Green Lantern nods. "I'll go first, since that guy was obviously a Lantern."

    Martian Manhunter's brow moves in a gesture that might be an approximation of a frown. "I was unaware that power rings could be made in colors other than green and yellow."

    Flash nods. "Yeah, what's up with that?"

    "When the Guardians threw Sinestro out of the Green Lantern Corps, he went to a planet called Qward. Gave them everything he knew about the Corps. In return, they made him a knock-off power ring out of a material called 'qwardamite'."

    Flash snorts. "Really? That's what they called it?"

    "It works well enough. I suppose there could be an orange material that works in the same way, but if there is then I've never heard of it."

    Manhunter bows his head slightly. "For our purposes, it is enough that it exists. It would be more productive to examine how he defeated us."

    Hawkgirl exhales sharply. "You wanna go first?"

    "In my case, he forced me back into phase by using the matter disrupting effects of your Nth metal mace. I believe that I noticed a power ring construct of some kind attached to it."

    She nods. "Nth metal doesn't usually do much to phased targets. If you add a big enough generator it'll damage just about anything, but the kind of power you'd need to-." Her face twists into a rictus of rage. "He nearly blew up my mace!"

    Flash winces. "How bad would that be?"

    "I don't think that Thanagar will give me another one!"

    Green Lantern shakes his head. "How big would the blast be?"

    "We would have been vaporised." Her eyes flick to Wonder Woman. "Most of us. Wonder Woman might have survived."

    "What about-?" Flash caught himself and looked at his despondent kryptonian colleague. "Ah, you feeling okay, big guy?"

    "Completely fine." He nods at Manhunter. "J'onn, you were saying?"

    "Once my phasing ability was disrupted, he bound me with a chain that was designed to prevent me from phasing through it and placed a device which suppressed both my telepathy and my telekinesis on my head. I tested the strength of the chains and found that I could not break free."

    Manhunter turns his head slightly to indicate Wonder Woman, whose right hand is still clenched into a fist.

    "He put up a force field I couldn't even damage. Then there was… Some sort of energy discharge, then I could barely stand."

    Green Lantern nods. "I recognised the force field he used. It's called an 'inertia shield'. It's used by the terminans for crash-protection during space ship crashes. It'll soak up any kinetic energy you throw at it."

    "How do you break it?"

    "You don't. Lantern Corps records are pretty clear. You could use an energy weapon or a gas to bypass it, but kinetic energy won't work."

    Flash smiles. "Hey, looks like there are problems you can't solve by punching them."

    "Or by-." Wonder Woman visibly bites down her reply, and Flash decides that maybe he should be a little less flippant about this. "How did he beat you?"

    "I.. don't know." And he really didn't. Sure, he fought people who could keep up with him or slow him down before, but that was like… "Every time I started to move, I just… Stopped. I kept trying, and it.. kept happening."

    Hawkgirl frowns. "Where did the ice come from?"

    He had started getting cold. But he'd been frozen in a giant block of ice when he raced Superman around the world. Vibrating out of that had been really easy. So, what..?

    "Vibrations." He sits up a little straighter as he realises. "Heat-. Heat makes molecules vibrate. Did anyone see if he was pointing some sort of gun at me?"

    Green Lantern and Superman nod, and Green Lantern generates a small, weird-looking gun construct. "Like this."

    Flash's eyes narrow. "It looks.. kinda like a cold gun, like Captain Cold uses." His eyes widen. "That's what he was doing! He was using it to reduce my kinetic energy to zero, or.. close. I mean, I don't know how he was shooting fast enough to keep hitting me when I started moving again-."

    "It's possible for someone to speed up their brain with a power ring." Green Lantern shakes his head. "Mental impulses travel faster by ring than they can along nerves. I can't do it, but I know a few Lanterns who could. If you weren't moving at full speed, that might have been enough."

    "Well, that's one mystery solved." Flash looks puzzled. "I wonder why the ice guys I fight haven't ever tried that?"

    "I'm glad the people I fight haven't tried using gold kryptonite." Superman shakes his head. "Green kryptonite hurts, but I can usually avoid it. I can't help wondering if his Justice League knows that he knows exactly how to take them all down."

    Green Lantern looks at his belt. "Does the radiation shield he made for you work like he said it does?"

    Superman nods. "According to STAR Labs, it works just fine. And he was right: this would have been really useful to have a few years ago. It's a lot easier to wear than a lead suit, that's for sure."

    Green Lantern nods. "I know what he did to beat me. I just don’t know how. Every time he shot my shield I couldn't hold it together, and I couldn't call back my ring before he grabbed it."

    Wonder Woman nods. "I still want to know why I was so dizzy."

    "A sonic weapon." They all look around as the door closes behind Batman. "Something designed to affect your sense of balance. Since you can hear normal volume sound, your inner ear can't be as tough as the rest of you. He noticed, and took advantage."

    Hawkgirl moues. "Just what we needed: Batman with a power ring."

    Flash leans forward as Batman takes his seat. "Not like you to be late for a meeting, Bats. What was the hold up?"

    "I went to meet our version of the Orange Lantern."

    A few eyes widen as he puts a profile up on the monitor.

    "Peter Wynne, thirty eight, a British national. He hires supervillains and helps them find legal uses for their skills."

    "Oh, hey, I've heard of him." Flash points at the screen. "He got Lenny and James jobs!"

    "Yes. He also has an orange power ring."

    Green Lantern frowns. "I don't remember seeing anyone like that flying around."

    "It's almost completely out of power and he doesn't have any way to recharge it." Batman reaches into his utility belt and pulls it out. "He also didn't notice when I switched it with a fake. Green Lantern, we need the Guardians to analyse this as soon as possible."

    Green Lantern picks it up with a construct hand and brings it over to him. "Sure, but what happens if he tries to use it in the mean time?"

    "We'll return it when they're finished, but we can't take the risk of being so unprepared again."

    Superman frowns. "You think we'll have to fight him again?"

    "It doesn't matter. We have an enemy whose abilities we don't understand. Every vulnerability he exploited was one any of the League's other enemies could have used. We were lucky that he didn't want to kill you, and we can't afford to rely on luck."

    Hawkgirl nods. "So what do you suggest?"

    "I plan on asking Mister Wynne to join the League as a consultant, in order to examine League operations for weaknesses which we haven't noticed. Everyone has vulnerabilities, but when the world is depending on us we can't afford for our enemies to know ours better than we do."
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2019
  2. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Thank you, corrected.
    Works for me.
    Do you live in Best Korea?
     
  3. thebishop8

    thebishop8 Umm, ackchyually...

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    Oh cool, Earth 12 interlude.

    *who could

    This is from yesterdays chapter. I think Less needs an apostrophe in front of it.
     
  4. Ganurath

    Ganurath Apologizes For Nothing

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    Illustres Paul is unambiguously outside Earth 12 Justice League jurisdiction, and as I understood it both were butting out of the Syndicate's continuity. Why would they still be enemies?
     
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  5. Buggy123

    Buggy123 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Nice to see that OL managed to convince a different League to step up their game, and all with just a little righteous face punching. Maybe Wynne might even get a recharged ring out of it.
     
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  6. RichardWhereat

    RichardWhereat Aia airëa Fëanáro.

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    Oh neat. I liked this version. Nice to see him again.
     
  7. King of Frost

    King of Frost Wishing I was somewhere colder no doubt.

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    I'm surprised they plan to return the ring to him.
     
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  8. Zig

    Zig Not too sore, are you?

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    That's kind of interesting since he noticed Batman touching it from a distance.
     
  9. Maxx Crowley

    Maxx Crowley I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    I fucking hate Batman.

    I fucking HATE BATMAN.

    I FUCKING HATE BATMAN.

    There is just no escaping his stupid bat-god bullshit.
     
  10. Buggy123

    Buggy123 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Wynne still technically has a army of supervillains at his disposal, and his alternate-universe alter-ego figured out how to curbstomp all of them at the same time.

    And he's also not currently hostile nor malicious. But they don't know whether or not he'll stay that way if they steal a immensely powerful artifact from him. Returning it before he notices is prudent.


    Yeah, that's pretty weird. He clearly should've noticed that Batman switched it with a fake.
     
  11. Chojin Patriarch

    Chojin Patriarch Veteran Lurker

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    Oh-ho, a followup!

    Same old Wally.

    She's gotten weaker, or the table's stronger?

    Oh, you have no idea, Johnny-boy.

    Really? That's...

    I know, right?

    Heh, no fear of that, OL knew what he was doing.

    ...Ouch.

    ...whose right hand was still clenched into a fist.

    I hear a girl in some midwest city uses one. (Static Shock is DCAU canon, isn't it?)

    Good choice, Wally.

    Heh, that brief time Captain Cold was a criminal.

    Used, unless Snart went back to crime? Or did someone else pick up the Captain's mantle?

    Oh, they do. He told them so himself, after all. (I think?)

    Less likely to rip, certainly.

    Never faced the Turtle, did he?
    (Edit: Oops. I meant the Crumbler aka Alexander Tuttle...)

    What?

    You forgot "...of extradimensional origin." It's on his immigration paperwork and everything, isn't it?

    Welp, there it goes.

    Did you not catch 'out of power', Stewart?

    You assume they would return it? Or are the Guardians-12 more reasonable bros?

    Not annoyed that his actions were similar to your own takedown plans, Bruce?

    Nice. That'll be a big boost for Peter's rep too.

    Nice to actually see this little denouement. It's a rare day when you post something not from OL's perspective.
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2019
  12. Ganurath

    Ganurath Apologizes For Nothing

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    The listeners might. Batman plans on not making an issue of it when the Guardians don't return it in a reasonable time frame.
     
  13. Maxx Crowley

    Maxx Crowley I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    While I would love batman to have been faked out by a fake, I doubt that will happen. I'm also pretty damn certain that, once in their possession, the Guardians would never give it back.

    I fucking hate batman.


    To say nothing of his "I can do whatever I want to anyone, including my allies, with absolutely NO repercussions."
     
  14. lancelot

    lancelot Grand High Poobah

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    He is never getting that back once the Guardians get it, and I really hope he reacts in a horribly proactive way. At this point I don't believe for a second he can't give himself galactic threat level powers.
     
  15. helios

    helios Praise the Sun!

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    Have you read Dark Knights: Metal? You'll hate that even more.

    It's a very meta type of Crisis storyline, but each stable universe has pillars. Pillars that embody ideas and keeps the universe stable.

    Batman's pillar is "Batman Always Wins."

    It's why whenever evil Batmen show up, it has to be Batman that beats them. Because they'll eventually steamroll over anyone else.

    It's uh... certainly a trip as far as Crisis type narratives go. Especially when the Batman infected with Joker venom shows up.
     
  16. Maxx Crowley

    Maxx Crowley I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    I typically avoid anything Bat-Related.

    He's not only my most hated fictional character (and that's a hell of a list to top.), but unlike other characters that I hate. I don't even respect him as a character.

    He has zero appeal, zero likability, and zero reason to care about a single thing that happens to him because...fuck it, he's Batman. I mean hell...Wolverine has suffered more legit defeats and setbacks.
     
  17. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Thank you, corrected.
    I corrected that yesterday.
    Thank you, corrected.
    Yes. Was Icon ever in that?
    Snart still has the gun. He just doesn't commit crimes with it anymore.
    No.
    The opposite of smiling.
     
  18. Temp0101

    Temp0101 Not too sore, are you?

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    You stole the man's ring, in a comic he'd need it an inopportune moment something tragic would happen and you have a new supervillian but in this case he'd come at such an obtuse angle you'd be fucked by the time you even realised something was wrong.

    Jeez the man was reasonable you could have just asked you overconfident presumptuous high handed asshole.
     
  19. Yog

    Yog Know what you're doing yet?

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    So, somehow I don't think we saw the last of Earth-12. Either Batman was faked out by a fake ring, or guardians learn of orange light (these ones don't seem to know about it, or are completely hiding it) and make contact with Controllers-16 somehow (is Hinon multiversal at this point? Wouldn't put it past her), or league-12 comes visiting league-16. Or something along those lines.

    Also, it would be hilarious if Paul-12 sued Batman-12 for theft of his property.
     
  20. Sceptic

    Sceptic Critical Irrationalist

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    I'd like (but definitely don't expect) to see Bruce Wayne served with a civil suit for this theft.
     
  21. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    So Paul, not knowing the local variant of Nth Metal, almost killed everyone.

    Fun times.

    This could end very badly for Paul if Zoat doesn't hit the League with the nerf bat when next they meet.


    Animated series Batman has mystic ninja powers.

    It would be utterly moronic if you could beat those with no more then a well locked safe.
     
  22. Handlewithcare

    Handlewithcare Versed in the lewd.

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    Oh look, they are learning!

    Deeply disappointed that they aren't reflecting on the problems they caused though. No "we kinda screwed up there" at all.

    Also, I'm like 120% sure Peter noticed the switch and just let it happen.
     
  23. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    Peter Wynne isn't corrupted by the ring like Paul is.

    Meaning he has no way to know it was stolen so long as Batman properly covered his tracks.
     
  24. thebishop8

    thebishop8 Umm, ackchyually...

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    Where did Batman even get a fake orange ring? Did he have one made just on the off chance he could switch it? Other than that, the only unreasonable thing about Batman switching it out is that Peter was able to sense him touching the ring. But the amount of practice he's had with an orange ring is less than a full charge, that sense can't be very sophisticated.
     
  25. moralrelativity

    moralrelativity Recovering pendant.

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    Yep, so I think Wynne DID notice and chose not to show it.
     
  26. Chojin Patriarch

    Chojin Patriarch Veteran Lurker

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    Oops. I meant the maker of the Crumbler tech. With a name like Tuttle, well... Easy to assume.

    And looking him up, he only faced Hal, it seems.
     
  27. Valiran

    Valiran Seeker of fluffiness

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    Yeah, that would be one thing the League would probably have no idea how to handle; someone outing one of their secret identities in a way that they can’t possibly fight their usual way without crossing the line into villainy themselves.
     
  28. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Actually, on Earth 12 he got the psychological help he needed at an earlier point in his life and never became a supervillain.
     
  29. Old Knife

    Old Knife Not too sore, are you?

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    I GOT MYSELF A JOB!

    Bruh.
     
  30. Buggy123

    Buggy123 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    No, Nth metal has this same behavior in OL's locale. He's vaporized Nth metal more than once to fight phased targets. Evidently, he's perfectly aware of the limits and dangers of Nth metal, and he avoided them.


    Paul woke up and almost immediately sensed that someone was touching the ring, despite the fact that Batman set off no alarms. Clearly he's at least somewhat sensitive and aware of Avarice, and it stands to reason that if he could sense someone touching the ring once, he could sense it again, or sense when the ring isn't nearby.
     
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