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

6th February 2013
22:35 GMT -5

Mannheim… Drops her, as Artemis grabs Canis with one hand and Holly with the other. Neither of them really resist. Mannheim is still doing… Something to Karon. The Omega Effect-. Scott Free described it as giving Darkseid complete control over whatever he used it on. Usually he just disintegrates things, but in theory-.

I hate being helpless.

Mannheim lets go of Karon, and she… Kind of staggers backwards and then sits down. I don't have a good angle on her from here and I can't risk getting distracted by looking at my cameras.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaah."

Mannheim blinks slowly, fists balling and then relaxing again.

"I see. You keep going, even if you no longer feel the things that caused you to adopt that behavior. You don't need to know right from wrong because it's just you. Thank you, Karon Chase, for teaching this to me."

Karon doesn't react. I don't know if I should grab her, try attacking him again-.

"But let me share what you learned with the world." Action W-.

WAAAGHWAAAGHWAAAGH!

Ah-! Some sort of..! Sonic weapon goes off, Mannheim's.. hit with something that makes him glow, then-. Then he goes kind of transparent-. He raises his hands and looks at them.

Quick, while he's distracted.

I dart forward, grab Karon-

Her eyes look normal now, and she's.. crying?

-and then run back into the prison.

"Robin to everyone. It didn't work. Evacuate immediately."

"Match to team. I'm blowing the bridge now."

CHOOM CHOOM-CHOOM CHOOM-CHOOM CHOOM!

"Artemis. I'm taking Canis and Holly to the Batboat. What's Mannheim doing?"

We planned the route through Blackgate. Since they used to bring new arrivals in by boat, it's pretty accessible. We should be able to get away.

"Robin. Can't see him."

We didn't win. But no one died, went mad, got captured or even injured. Mannheim learned… Something about the Anti-Life, so maybe the world's going to get a little worse. But we learned that's what he was trying to do, so…

"Alexander. He shouldn't be doing much. I used a magic-enhanced phase-shifter. If my thaumic scans are correct, it should take him about three minutes to overpower the effect. Less if he doesn't try that hard."

That's…

"Robin. How many of those-" I turn down a main hall, using my computer to remotely open the security doors. "-do you have?"

"Alexander. It's integrated into my armour, but as I understand these things, he will gradually become more resistant. How are Karon, Holly and Canis Minor doing?"

"Artemis. They're breathing. Not.. responding to my voice."

"Karon, how you doing?"

All I hear is very quiet sobbing.

"Robin. Same. Match, are any of his bodyguards coming after us?"

"No. Do you want me to try grabbing one of them?"

Mannheim could start moving at any moment and he already hit Match out of the air once…

"No. Don't risk yourself."

Out the back of the prison, and Artemis is already dumping off Canis and Holly. She looks back at me as I leap, landing next to the boat and shoving Karon at her.

"Robin. Match, update?"

"Mannheim is sort of glowing. Bodyguard still the same."

"Alexander. He's about to break out. I'm pulling out. Meet up at fallback point one."

I jump into the boat next to the controls, hitting the ignition and accelerate the jet engine. It's not quiet, but it's fast and responsive. We pull away from the shore and I start breathing a little bit easier.

"Arte, how are they?"

"Canis? Are you okay?"

Blackgate falls away behind us, and a moment later I see Match flying alongside us.

A little easier.

"Canis, I'm gunna shoot you with a purple healing-."

"Did you know?"

"Ah… About Darkseid kicking you out for real?"

"Yes."

"Ah… It's not like Darkseid tells us what his plans are, but it always sounded… I thought he was probably trying to kill you for real. I didn't know he didn't care."

"I see."

"But… Not having the biggest bad guy in the universe gunning for you isn't a bad thing."

"You know nothing. I made my art... For him. His…"

"Try shooting him anyway."

"O-kay…"

"Canis, you haven't stopped being God of Art just because Darkseid is a philistine. It was always kind of a long shot for a guy who wants to crush every soul in existence to like creativity and beauty. I… Know it feels like-."

"Children! Turn out to sea! Turn out to sea now!"

I turn the wheel and push the accelerator right away.

"Robin to Alexander, what-?"

"It isn't that easy to escape me." Action Without Passion.

Oh.

I reduce the boat's speed and resume course for the fallback point. It's already hit, and this was probably what Mannheim was trying to do. Maybe it will wear off and maybe it won't. I can't risk the drugs again.

Behind me, Artemis turns off the purple healing ray and drops it to the floor. Holly goes fetal, Karon just sort of lies there and Canis is actually looking a little better.

That should probably mean something to me.

But it doesn't.

 

5th November 1999
11:12 MDT

Clink.

I sit back down as Rinaker mulls over what I just told him. Trueblood looks about ready to tear the table in half. Sh'lainn's keeping a careful watch on him, while Fitz and Perrera are waiting patiently.

Clink.

One last key flip, and Rinaker presses a button on his keyboard. The monitor shows a.. dark corridor. It's Agent Yarrow's-. Late Agent Yarrow's camera. He's moving fast, checking corners and ceilings in a well trained sweep-and-clear. One other agent with him, but they stopped near the entrance to cover his rear. He comes out on a room, then runs through into the next room and points his gun at two aliens in there, a goblin and a faun. The faun is in a wheelchair and the goblin doesn't look armed. Yarrow appears to notice that too, the camera jerking as he checks the corners of the door and the doors leading away.

Nothing.

He then moves towards the goblin, gun levelled at its face.

"Where are the vampires?!" The goblin just cowers away. "Where are the vampires?!"

There's a momentary pause, then the camera jerks back the way he came as the Green Knight runs in, sword in hand. The camera sort of twitches, then the sword comes forward-.

I wince as the camera twitches again, then falls back to stare at the ceiling.

I've been involved in things like that before. I actually haven't killed anyone, but a few of my old bounty hunting targets remember me when the seasons change. You've got a fraction of a second to make a life or death decision with your own life on the line. It's actually impressive that Yarrow had the discipline not to fire the moment he saw an alien, but from that range a shot would have been fatal even if it was set to 'stun'.

The Green Knight saw someone about to kill his ally. Would he have attacked if he'd gone down in the bunker and seen a police officer or someone from a S.W.A.T. team? Would he have hesitated like Yarrow did, demand that he lower his gun and step away? Or would he have attacked anyway because he couldn't see a reason to point a gun at someone who clearly wasn't armed, even if they were a criminal?

I don't know.

"Agent Yarrow's actions in threatening an alien involved in a criminal arms smuggling network were entirely legitimate." Rinaker presses another button to turn off the monitor. "The fact the alien in question was working as a physician does not grant them immunity from human law. Since I'm certain that Agent Logan is planning on asking, the Alliance has full clearance from the British government to operate in British territory. The fact that lower levels of the British military, police and political establishment are unaware of that merely proves that we are doing our job."

In most states in America, police are indemnified against legal action if they acted in accordance with the law and local police policy. Police can legally shoot someone dead if they don't respond to their orders fast enough, and even when they weren't armed. I've heard about some… Dubious decisions, and I've also seen police get shot for not shooting fast enough. If someone was pointing a gun at an Alliance agent, I'd have attacked them. Ideally, with a baton or my fists, but if I had a gun in my hands instead…

And even if the Alliance is legally able to operate in Britain, if people haven't ever heard of us, it's hardly unreasonable for them to assume that we aren't.

"General, when are we going after the Green Knight?"

Clink.

"We're not."

"General?"

"Your report makes it clear that the 'Green Knight' took multiple hits from Alliance plasma cannons without any apparent harm. Using strategic weapons is out of the question for the same reason that we don't just bomb the Intracom headquarters, and unlike a large building the Green Knight is highly mobile. Given his resilience, he most likely could have killed most -if not all- of the agents you brought with you, yourself included."

Trueblood's clearly not happy about that, but he nods.

"The fact that he did not do so indicates that he will most likely only intervene if we threaten members of this 'Conduit' organisation. His conversation with Agent Logan might even indicate that he isn't aware of what the Alliance is, and assumed that we were some sort of unregulated paramilitary. Alliance policy with regard to the Green Knight will be to gather information while limiting our exposure. Only once we have identified an exploitable weakness will we attempt to eliminate him."

"Do y' no' think we should try and tell him what we were doing? I doubt he'll pull his punches if he's thinking that we're just a bunch of t'ugs."

"If you have a way to relay a message, Agent Blaze, then by all means. It may help to avoid him murdering any further Alliance agents."

Sh'lainn's obviously not happy. We've never really talked about banshee law enforcement. When Mab thought Sh'lainn had betrayed the banshee to the Alliance, her response was to send a pair of minotaurs to kill her. But I don't know if that's normal policy or just something she did because she was worried about what Sh'lainn would tell us.

"Agent Fitz. Your… Plan, for evacuating our imprisoned agents was highly effective. All agents are back in our headquarters being debriefed, there were no further casualties and the value of destroyed property was kept to a minimum. Your actions minimised the risk of a data breach, despite the Green Knight's actions."

Fitz looks smug, but considering the circumstances he's got enough sense not to boast about a positive assessment.

"You and Agent Perrera will need to follow up in providing the police investigation with a satisfactory conclusion. Unfortunately, too many people are now in the know for a top-down information suppression effort to be effective."

Fitz grins. "Can do, General!"

"Agent Logan and Blaze. The last major confrontation between the vampires and banshee was well before the Alliance began operations. As such, we don't have a great deal of knowledge about what occurred. With the reappearance of both the Green Knight and the minotauri, it seems that we may need to correct that sooner rather than later."

Sh'lainn shrugs. "I was never the best history student, General."

"Trusting a single person's recall would be unwise in any case." He presses a button, calling up a map of Europe with several locations marked. "The Alliance has been aware for some time of a number of former banshee outposts. They've long been abandoned as far as we can tell, but forcing access risks destroying whatever may be inside. But now we have another option."

Sh'lainn looks awkward.

"I understand that this puts you in an awkward position, but we need any historical data contained there. You are free to arrange for any personal effects or original texts to be returned to Queen Mab. Since her people are for the most part content to remain in Ireland and keep themselves to themselves, I see no reason for us to initiate hostilities."

That seems to make her feel a little better. "Better than jumping out of a plane."

"I do have one question about current banshee operations, however."

"I don’t think we really have current operations. Not like the Alliance does. If we did, I doubt I'd be here."

"That's not the question. My question is this: do the banshee on Earth have regular contact with the banshee homeworld?"

"No, we don't. I haven't ever lived on a planet that wasn't Earth."

Huh. I hadn't really thought about it, but we know that the vampires have spaceships. Vampires have been on Earth for a long time. Hundreds of years at least. It wouldn't take a lot of spaceships to hold the Earth to ransom. Or at least give them an unbeatable firing position. So why aren't there more? Is there something stopping them calling home?

"Hm. I see." Rinaker nods. "Thank you, Agent Blaze. Everyone, dismissed."