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

21st January 2013
16:18 GMT

Thin tron lines glow red as Orion raises and lowers the hammer, his jaw tense.

"You must focus on each part of your anger and hate. Remember each slight and abusing. Picture them clearly as you swing the hammer."

Given that he's had no training for this or experience with a power ring, Orion's current record of five unified strikes seems pretty reasonable to me.

"Your manners try my patience."

"Then get angry! There is no need to contain yourself here, godling. Use your passions to fuel your labours!"

Orion brings the hammer down with a little more force this time, but the tiny fragment of ring that had already been created shatters from the mismatch of emotion.

Ping.

Orion's jaw trembles for a moment as the red dust evaporates from the force, but he takes a moment and then raises the hammer once more.

I'm not sure that's the best approach. I'd start with a skeleton of things that make him angry now, and build more complex things from there. But I don't know anything like as much about the red light as I do the orange. Or maybe he's just trying to wind-

Jade taps my left gauntlet.

-Orion up?

She continues to tap… Morse code.

Did he get the red material from the Free Lancers?

Hm. It would make a certain amount of sense. I assumed that they used the gates to get to Sector Five One Nine Seven, but Draan Del Daar could quite easily have moved them himself. And while this system's detection network is pretty darn good, we've never tested it against a hostile maltusian. He could teleport them to this highly shielded underground base without being spotted.

So it's possible. Can I gather more information?

Ping.

I can't see through the walls. More limited scans aren't showing me any traces of their emotions or biology. What..? Else..?

It's his motive again. If he was sending the Free Lancers anyway, was it a fluke? They definitely got to Volkreg before we did. Did he hear that I was asking Kalmin about other rings? Was me doing this just a happy coincidence as far as he was concerned? I mean, Hinon's been making waves, so it's… Not out of the question. Except… I saw orange from him earlier, but no red.

Ah. The red images were slightly different in each location. It might be possible to use empathic vision on them directly to get an idea of whether they're from the places we visited. And it they are…

Ping.

Then I'll be justified in questioning him more aggressively.

It might disrupt what Orion's doing, but given his current success rate I doubt that it will make much difference. Alright. Crank up the empathic vision and see what I can-

The bull lowers its horns and charges and RIP and TEAR and PAIN!

-seeow.

Ping.

That was… Pretty similar. The rampant bull featured pretty strongly, but then again, when would the Butcher not be rampant?

I tap back 'Uncertain, but probably'.

"I am hitting the forge as you insist."

"Any fool can hit a forge with a hammer! I need you to hit it with your soul!"

Ping.

"You want me to..?"

Ping. … Ping.

"You're a new god, aren't you?"

"Very well, then." RIGHTEOUS FURY!

The hammers begins glowing a faint red as he strikes the anvil once again.

"I will show you." DIVINE CHASTISEMENT!

Ping ping ping.

"The full extent of my rage!" GODLY WRATH!

The hammer lights up, tron lines shining with blinding light! The forge glows as well, and I can see whatever it is in the troughs flowing to the forge in a series of flickering, rage-filled images.

Jade jerks away, hands clenching into fists and her body crouching slightly as she tries to keep it from affecting her. I'm-.

I'm. No Ophidian. But I… I'm not feeling angry myself. Why aren't..?

I raise my right arm, empathic vision turned up. I can't normally see myself in the way I see other people, but-. Ah. Red light swirls and… It's trying to attach itself to me but it isn't finding anything to attach to before flowing away, drawn to the far angrier Orion and... Jade.

Does this happen when I make a ring? That could be a problem.

Ping.

I turn away from Orion, who continues to swing his hammer with greater ferocity even as he completely loses his rhythm.

Ping!

"That's the spirit! I can nearly feel it myself!"

"Jade?"

"It's-. Making me think of all the things you do that make me angry."

"Normally, I'd be happy to talk about them and see if we can resolve the-."

Her helmet comes up so she can make eye contact through our visors. "That's one of them."

"The underlying issue, but as Orion said, anger feeds anger."

"What keeps it out? Tell me!"

Ping!

In her case? I'd like to say love, but I'm a little more self-aware than that. Given her life to date, not fear or compassion-. Alan. She always seemed relaxed around him, even when he was wearing his ring.

"Hope. Your emotions are the way they are as a reaction against your father. Embrace the idea that you can be a new person. Remember how you-" She nods. "-feel around Alan. Hold on to that."

"It's not… Easy."

Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

"INFERNAL DEVICE, CEASE YOUR INCESSANT SQUAWKING!"

Orion uses his left hand to rip his Mother Box from his belt and hurl it-.

I try to use a construct to catch it, but it's too slow to form. Instead I activate my armour's flight system and catch it.

Ping.

"I'm sure he didn't mean it."

Orion tosses his hammer into the wall, cratering it up to the handle!

"I MEANT EVERYTHING!"

And then his face starts to… Change.

 

21st January 2013
16:22 GMT

Red light flows freely from the troughs, running into his body. The… 'Ears' on his helmet grow as they slide forwards, the faceplate extends downwards and the material of its construction takes on a more bone-like appearance as it… Merges with his face. His clothing had looked like it was made of a soft material, but now it expands with red armoured plates growing out of it. The belt grows a decoration of tiny skulls while the uneven surface of the armour suggests.. dripping blood.

His eyes are glowing red and I'm pretty sure that this isn't supposed to happen.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!"

But I'm still not feeling anger. And he's referring to himself in the singular and-.

"Orion, are you-?"

He tilts his head back and breathes construct fire, the flames enveloping the upper portion of the room.

"FACE ME DRAAN DEL DAAR!" STAND BEFORE ME, COWARD!

Space shudders as Draan precipitates out of the air, staggering a pace as he lands and patting out the flames from his robes.

"Yes! YES!" Draan spreads his arms out wide! "SET ME ON FIRE WITH YOUR RAGE!"

I don't know-. Okay, I don't think that Orion is possessed or… Acting as a host. He's just internalised the red light-. Which is what I was seeing, I just didn't take into account that there might be other changes.

Oh dear.

Orion grabs Draan by the neck with his right hand, lifting him off the ground. His eyes fix themselves on me.

"AND YOU, LANTERN! IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED?!"

"No."

He-. Move!

He leaps at me, swinging Draan as a bludgeoning weapon through the space I just occupied! Draan's legs hit the floor and I'm sure that if he were any vaguely normal humanoid his legs would be jelly along with his neck. Instead he's… Grinning.

Ping.

"Draan, what the-"

Orion swings again, Draan's body glowing as it clips-. Agh! My armour, which gets a chunk gouged out of it as a result.

"-heck are you-"

Orion holds out his left hand and a great axe appears in it. Not a construct axe, he just manifested a physical axe-. With more reach! Back up back up!

"YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

"Yyyeeeeesssss…"

Ping.

He swings again, and this time I catch the haft of his axe in the prongs of a construct bident-.

Ah.

And am reminded that he has super strength and I don't by being slammed against the wall on the far side of the room!

Orion death-glares me before throwing Draan to the ground and switching his axe to a two-handed grip. The axe glows a furious red as he swings it down!

"BE SMOTE FROM THE UNIVERSE!" "BE SMOTE FROM THE UNIVERSE!"

I throw out a beam of orange energy to try and block the axe, but he cleaves through it and slams the blade deep into Draan's chest!

And Draan wraps his hands around the haft.

"Finally-ah. It's been so long since I last felt pain. I'd forgotten-."

Orion tries to pull the axe back for a second swing, but it… Looks like Draan's strong enough to stop him.

"Forgotten what it felt like. And now I'm starting to remember what it was like to get angry."

Ping.

Orion tugs harder on the axe, but it doesn't move at all.

"Is that what this was about?"

"Hinon told you about her false face. The way she pretends to be a crotchety old.. human.. woman… Because you young species get confused when she behaves like herself."

Orion stamps his right foot on Draan's stomach and heaves… To no avail. And the red light is starting to flow through him and into Draan.

"I don't see the link. You want anger? The red light?"

"I want my passion back. I hunted the Butcher for centuries, from civilisation to civilisation, from soul to soul! And by the end it hated me more than anyone else in the history of the universe! You know what it did to me, don’t you?"

I can guess.

"It barred you from using its light."

"For so long I couldn't even remember why it mattered. And then I didn't think it could be fixed. But you've got this strange knack-."

Orion tries to let go, only to find that his hands are stuck.

"Oh no you don't. That glorious anger is completely wasted on you, isn't it, you petulant child? Not the slightest scrap of self-mastery."

"If you'd told us this was what you wanted, we would have helped you voluntarily."

"That's not how it works. It needed to be engrafted, and he needed to be angry at me."

"Okay, and… Then what?"

"And then I express myself"

I'm going to be having words with Hinon after this.

"'Express yourself' as in..?"

"This is a very… Angry… Bachelor pad. With guns that will ruin the whole of Maltus."

"What did we ever do to you?"

"I'm too angry to care."

Yes, this is much worse than I thought.

Ping.

Well, thank you, but that doesn't actually-

Jade shoots him in the head to no effect.

-help.

"Come on, war godling." Draan grins up at Orion, small flecks of yellow blood spitting from his lips and seeping from the wound in his chest. "Give me everything."