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

11th September 2012
20:04 GMT

And he's there, sword slicing into-. Through my overshield without apparent effort. I sidestep, voiding his follow-up as I raise-. He's back in his original location.

"Weak, alien."

"Nice sword. Apokoliptian?"

And he's angry. Very angry. I really would like to know what actually happened on Karrakan, but I think this is a three-edged sword situation. I can't see either side giving me a reliable answer, and I can hardly-.

I yank myself to the side as he appears again, sword cutting through my construct armour and cutting a slice in my power armour. I send a filament at him as he hesitates for a split second, not sure whether to swing again or retreat. It splashes against some sort of protective barrier around him, and that appears to make his decision for him as he vanishes back to his starting location.

Angry, but making good judgements. That's-. That's me being compelled to intellectualise and not actually act.

No reason not to combine the two impulses. Whatever shielded him from the filament appears to do the same to my empathic vision, but that doesn't mean I can't just sever-. Okay, apparently it does.

X-ionised knives, then.

"Pathetic. Could they find none better?"

Ring, it's been a while, but Ready In-.

Alert.

I turn, knife blades moving as my assailant appears to my right, sword stabbing into my thick rerebrace rather than going into my face. My knives stab at his armour while I try draining the sword in the same way I did the ship's shield.

He tries pulling the sword free, and it doesn't come. My knives fail to pierce his cuirass, while he raises his off hand to block the one that I sent at his exposed face.

I step away shoulder armour glowing as I suck whatever magic is making his sword work out of it. He tries to pull it free but it's stuck; the heavy outer plates of my armour clamping down on the flat sides of the blade.

And then I punch him with my left fist, crumbler gauntlet smashing into the protective shield his armour generates, flares of magic and plasma flickering out as I increase the output. With a frustrated snarl he releases the sword, backing off a pace.

"Thank you."

I form a construct-.

The sword vibrates, the plates gripping it abrading and losing their grip as-.

As I form a construct positron ray and shoot the owner in the chest!

"Ah!"

The positrons don’t hit the armour, but the energy released by them reacting with the air immediately next to his protective aura is enough to send him hurtling backwards. Doesn't look like his armour has any sort of inertial dampening system, but he's toughing it out and getting back to his feet.

The sword stops vibrating, and I extend a strand of orange light up to the handle and pull it free before knitting my armour back together.

"Thank you. I'll keep-."

The accompanying squad aim and fire, blaster-. No, plasma, striking my construct armour. But these weapons are far more conventional, far closer to the levels of energy output that I designed my power armour to take. So while my weakened construct armour fades and the armour starts taking hits, I'm not really worried.

At least not for the fraction of a second it takes to turn my own gun on them. The first load of positrons hits my initial target and erases him, the explosion burning the deck, walls, ceiling and sending his comrades flying! There was a force field there, but-

"Damn you!"

-it wasn't anything like strong enough. Or perhaps it wasn't designed to cope with positrons? That's not uncommon.

Their leader draws a small knife-. Then uses it to cut his exposed face, coating the blade in blood before-.

I shoot him again, but he's touched his knife to his chest plate and his body is swelling, veins of red light appearing all over its matt black surface.

"Thank you, alien, for giving me the chance to prove my faith!"

"Is there any chance we could talk ab-?"

He lunges, and while the travel time isn't nothing, it's quicker than his-

And he's punched me back outside of the ship.

-other movement. He grabs my armour, one hand on my right shoulder and the other on my left arm and both pulling in opposite directions! I can hear my armour creak as he keeps growing and the force he exerts keeps increasing! I send x-ionised knives at his face once more, and while they bite into his flesh I can actually feel the resistance as his innate magics try and nullify the thing that's harming him.

My left arm is at full extension and he's trying to tear it free.

Tether his discarded sword, connect it to my tattoos and feed it and stab!

It slices through his cuirass, punching into his gut! He twitches and grimaces before snarling.

"You first!"

I try slicing further in, but this sword isn't really meant for sawing. My shoulder is approaching maximum strain; it's just not optimised for shearing force. Ah-.

Drain him directly.

Orange light radiates out of his stomach wound and the pressure on my armour decreases at once. Still more stress over a sustained period than I'd like, but he's not going to rip my arm off like that. I lift my right arm and grab onto the hand on my shoulder, reinforcing my environmental shield and yanking at it, doing what I can to remove the friction-

He loses his grip, twisting sideways at the sudden loss of pressure.

-as I drain harder.

"What-? What are you-?"

"Enjoy existence as a construct."

He shudders, body shrivelling without shrinking, armour caving in on itself.

"Assimilate."

"Unable to comply."

He starts choking, vitals fading.

"Why not?"

"This one is not yours to take, Lantern."

I scan, but I can't tell where that came from. I take a moment to look at the corpse still clamped onto me. It hasn't lost any height but it's unnaturally thinned, giving the impression of a long-term dungeon inhabitant who has been drawn on the rack. Then I toss it aside and fly back into the ship.

The surviving soldiers are picking themselves up and I use constructs to grab onto the armour and pull, tearing it from their bodies and leaving them in scraps and their under suits.

Still need information.

"Assimilate."

Orange strands leap out and are pushed back before they can touch them, the bodies of the defeated decaying to.. ash to fuel the spell.

"And neither are these."

"Sparta. I don't know what you want, but you came here to pick a fight rather than settling anywhere else." I run in the direction of the cruiser's bridge. "You won't get the choice again."

"What is one more titan to the Bane of Titans?"

"If that's how you want it."

 

11th September 2012
20:07 GMT

"yARGH!"

While the positron ray reliably annihilates anyone it hits, close detonations just cause agonising burns as the armour and personal shields fail. Respect to whoever designed the Karrakanians' armour, though: it isn't melting into their flesh or otherwise exacerbating their wounds.

"Sorry."

I fly closer to what appears to be an internal strongpoint, designed to allow marines to defend against boarding actions.

"Nugh nuh nuh…"

"Would you be prepared to exchange information for healing?"

He beckons me forward with his more intact arm, but I've already seen the grenade he's preparing in his other hand.

"Good effort. You gave it your all."

I shoot him in the head, then extend strands of orange light into what I hope is an internal communications node of some kind. Accessing…

Partial access available.

Yes, that. It looks like someone has partially integrated a New God system with both an earlier, more primitive system and something that's mundane but sophisticated. Not using a central computer is something that civilisations that are just getting into space don't do, due to either not having computers or the great efficiencies and improvements in command and control a unified data network provides. Deliberately not doing that because it improves security and is no longer necessary… Apokoliptian ships don't have central computers because the New God in charge can manage things perfectly well without one. Other species… The Reach have a decentralised sys-.

I'm doing it again.

I wonder how the attacking soldiers manage to-?

No.

I push forward, crumbler gauntlet smashing into the security door and crumbling a two metre hole in it before I fly onward towards the bridge.

The only thing I learned from that computer was the local patrol shifts, which might be useful if I was a stealth infiltrator but is fairly useless for me. Copies of personnel files -oh, that was his name- and local maintenance logs… Complaints from the engineering team about the systems not working together properly unless one of 'The Ascendant' were in the area…

Ascendant: Rhea's descendants. Who can use New God technology. Makes sense. Have to see what we can harvest from these ships for the local gods, because learning more about their technology could be very useful in our future dealings with Grayven.

Though the term 'Ascendant' implies that they're moving towards some state-.

Two Karrakanians with belts of engineering tools walk through a side door and then freeze as they spot me. One goes for-

"Don’t."

-something on his belt, then makes a point of moving his hand away.

So. Prisoners. I don't have anywhere to put them and my usual methods for rendering them compliant aren't working. As a military obstacle they're irrelevant and they have potentially useful knowledge.

"Go back inside, shut the door and don't come out until you hear an all clear or I come for you. Understand?"

They don't say anything, but they do back up and press the button to shut the door behind them. I use a crumbler gauntlet to fuse the door shut and then continue on my journey.

How close to a divine being does a demigod have to be to still be able to use Apokoliptian technology? They called Sparta a granddaughter, but if she's got Phoebe's seed then she might be running off that. Is that why they only boom tubed in after she returned? Was the delay because they needed to integrate it into their systems?

No, I don't know it was a delay at-. Doing it again.

Apokoliptian ships sometimes have the bridge entirely inaccessible from the rest of the ship, on the grounds that anyone important enough to go there has a boom tube with access permissions, but the general design of these ships is Karrakanian so it probably won't-.

Al-

I yank myself sideways as the spear meets the corridor wall.

-ert!

This one's female, though the armour and equipment are otherwise identical. Spears are good weapons for formations or single warriors on the open ground, but on a ship with narrow corridors and guns, they're-.

That's going to keep happening, isn't it?

"He-"

Al-

From behind, and I lunge forward in the direction of the bridge while laying a cold field down behind me.

-ert.

"-llo."

Al-

From in front, my construct armoured gauntlet coming up faster than thought to parry the haft and direct the point away from my chest.

-ert.

She vanishes as I reach for her with my right hand. Cold field in front then, and take a step forward to make it look like I'm-

Al-

I raise the sword, linking it to my metaphysique as I parry high, the spear coming down from the ceiling. And I smile as I see hoarfrost appear on my assailant's armour, her body tumbling to the deck before me as her spear falls from her grip. I kick, but rather than shatter she goes flying into the wall at the end of the corridor. Resistant but not immune. And I get a spear that-.

That I can't send into subspace. Bound to its owner? She's trying to get up, but I can't feel any of the motion from it that the last demigod managed to make in his sword.

"Surrender or die."

I try attaching a tether to the spear, but it isn't taking. One owner at a time?

"Need a quick answer."

"I would sooner die than surrender to a false god."

"Reasonable, except I'm not a god, don't claim to be, and am not formally allied to them so you'd be surrendering to me as a representative of an independent power. You would be held until the end of hostilities and then released on parole. Though if that doesn't change your answer, I will understand."

"Kill me. It will change-."

I stomp forward, grab her helmeted head and activate the crumbler gauntlet. Her head is vaporised, her body collapsing to the deck.

I wonder why they're so-?

No. Bridge door next.