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

13th February 2013
21:40 GMT -5

Vykin shakes his head. "Not yet. We have not been since Apokolips. They tortured us with our greatest vulnerabilities. Made weaknesses of our strengths and vices of our virtues. They made me believe that my decisions were the only reason-" Bear goes to say something but Vykin silences him with a gesture. "-that we were captured. Guilt has been poisoning my soul ever since. I love each of you, my friends, and the most painful thing in the universe to me is the thought that I was to blame for what each of you suffered."

Moonrider shakes his head. "That is not why it happened."

"I know that in my head. As you should know that it is not yours, either. Whatever they told you, whatever you felt, that is what they do. It was a lie. We could all do better, but the Source will not turn from us if we fail to be perfect."

"I-." Dreamer looks away for a moment before staring straight at Vykin. "They showed me how their people live, all of the suffering, until I could not take it any more. And then they kept it going until all I could do was scream mindlessly. I can barely bring myself to see anything even now."

Bear lays his right hand on her shoulder. "They made me believe that unless I used my full strength against their warriors, you would all die. But… They were not warriors, and you were not in danger."

Moonrider looks pensive. "For the most part they left me to my thoughts. The idea that I should have acted differently, that I should have held back. Occasionally they made me run some gauntlet where quick thinking simply got me hurt more. But that was a deliberate attempt to break me. I know that."

Serifan shifts awkwardly, while Vykin looks at him compassionately.

"Serifan, we have all seen the worst parts of our own characters. We will not-."

"Fine!" Immediately after shouting, he seems to shrink in on himself. "They… They found criminals. Worst of the worst. Stuck 'em in front of me and showed me all the proof of what they did. Most of them admitted to it, too. And they gave me a choice. I could shoot 'em dead, or they'd let 'em go and make me watch when they went right back to doing whatever they were doing before."

Vykin nods. "You are not responsible for-."

"I know that! Weren't me doing it! But I couldn't know! They're Apokoliptians. They can lie real good. Maybe it was all fake and they were good people! 'cause after the first couple of times I started shooting them and I'm terrified to go to their homeworlds and see if it was true or not!"

"The Apokoliptians would neither have cared for their guilt nor for yours. However it felt, they had control of the situation and full knowledge of the truth of the matter."

"I know you're right, but…" Serifan raises his right arm to wipe his eyes. "I was the one who watched 'em die, real close-like. I watched 'em bleed, and collapse, and die, and I don't know if they deserved it or not."

Vykin walks up to him, embracing him. For a moment Serifan doesn't respond, then he raises his arms and hugs Vykin back. The others come closer, clustering around and extending it into a group hug.

Next to me, B'dg blearily opens his eyes. "Did we win?"

"Like..? Morally…?"

As the huggle awkwardly pulls apart, Moonrider smiles. "I have missed all of you." "Let us never be parted again."

Lightray sits down next to B'dg and me. "It's nice to see that they're doing better."

"Do you have any medical training?"

"When you heal from physical injuries as quickly as we do, it doesn't-."

"Get the book, get us back."

Lightray nods, ignoring B'dg trying to glare him to death, and stands. "Children of New Genesis. Are you recovered?"

"No." Vykin turns to face him. "But we are recovering, and in time our shared suffering will make us stronger."

"Taaru!" / "Taaru!" / "Taaru!" / "Taaru!" / "Taaru!"
"We Are One!"

There's a flash of golden light, and…
Reality Command: Tracelessness.
Lightray looks at the spot where the Forever People were standing.

"… Oh."

"Did they-? Did they explode?"

"No, I would have felt that. I.. don't think that-."

Shadows surround and engulf him, pulling him up into the air and pinning his arms and legs before solidifying!

"That was an impressive feat."

Ms. Drak walks out from behind one of the partly-ruined buildings, animated shadows playing around her body. Oh. I feel stupid, but I've only just noticed that nothing here casts a shadow.

"Overcoming their mental deficiencies in this place. And escaping. I cannot feel them at all. But they appear to have abandoned you to your fate."

"Or they've had the sense to go and get an actual Shadow Champion so they-"

She steps on my hand.

"-AAAAAAAAGH!"

Aah. Haaah.

"That's really petty and unnecessary!"

"How can I test your resolve without pushing you to your limits?"

"Why would you want to do that in the first place? You're not going to give me a yellow ring, and I'm so atypical that you can't use what you learn from me to guide you with anyone else."

She stares down at me-.

"AAAAAAAAGH!"
Reality Command: Still.
"You have a strange way of pleading for mercy. Perhaps if you-" The shadows swirling around her freeze in place. "-try-."

She stares at them, then tries motioning with her right hand. They remain exactly where they are. She tries to open her book, but the pages remain resolutely sealed shut. She-.

"AAAAAAAAGH! WHY?!"

"How have you done this?"

"He hasn't."

There's a golden shimmer in the air as... Someone in gold and blue armour shimmers into visibility.

"But compared to the strange geometries I have studied, the connection you're using to manipulate the residue of the Father of Shadows is simple to disrupt."

He takes a step closer, brushing aside the shadows in his way with his left hand and pointing his right at the shadows enveloping Lightray, which twist and fade at they return him to the ground.

"It's fascinating, really, but I don't think the children would appreciate it if I took my time. Go." Reality Command: Transition.

A flash of golden light and she vanishes, her book left behind. Immediately the shadows flow away, vanishing into the buildings.

He looks down at me as I reach for the book. "My connection to your realm isn't stable. Can you manage from here?"

"Probably."

"That will have to-." He grunts quietly as his body begins to fade. "Have to do. Give my regards to Highfa-."

A flash of gold and he vanishes, the Forever People falling out of the air in the place he occupied. They appear uninjured but recumbent.

"Lightray, can you turn the pages for me?"

 

13th February 2013
21:45 GMT -5

Shadows swirl and the pages of the book flap and we're back.

Wholeness Rightly Assumed.

Ahhhhhh…

Serifan looks around, frowning. "Who said that?"

B'dg twitches in his hands. "Got one of those fer me?"

"Yes! Certainly! Would you mind taking your ring off?"

He tries moving his arms, and they just sort of shake a little before falling back. "Hey, kid, could you take it off fer me?"

Serifan frowns at me for a moment, then reaches his hand over and pulls B'dg's ring off his finger. Immediately I hit him with an orange beam, scanning his injuries and knitting his flesh back together.

Moonrider frowns. "Is there a reason why you did not use your healing ray?" "I think it was him."

"That would probably be fine." I shut the beam down as B'dg checks himself over before putting his ring back on. "But with a novel species I'd rather err on the side of caution. You alright?"

"Yeah." He looks at the book as Lightray picks it up, closing it and examining the cover. "Shame we can't say the same about Lantern Peldak."

I scan the cover, and… Yes. That's her skin alright. I try scanning… Oh. Apparently I can scan the shrine now, and…

"Her body's-. The rest of her body is in one of the workshops. Her species doesn't really have a funeral tradition-" Because corpses draw predators. "-so there isn't much point returning her body to her homeworld. I…" I exhale sadly. "If we can't get in contact with Lantern Ub'x, I can perform a Hellenistic funeral service? Unless anyone's got a better idea."

A few headshakes, and Lightray hands the book to me. "We should tell the Shadow Champions about Lyssa Drak…" He turns to Vykin. "Unless you know where Minfinity Man sent her? "

Vykin looks slightly awkward. "I do not." He looks at the others but they don't appear to have a better idea.

"Is this..? It?" We all look at Dreamer. "We don't have any other leads on Ub'x, and Peldak is dead. We don't know where her ring is… I am glad that we have got back the closeness that we had before.. Apokolips, but we have not won."

Ring, map.

Compliance.

"No, but…" Moonrider looks at me. "We could deal with the corrupted Infinity Man ourselves. Or get Prince Drax into a position where he could."

Warning: fear detected.

Oh heck.

"Excuse me!"

I run down the hermitage corridor, take a left, down a flight of stairs and there's a door until I crumble it-.

I see the station where Ms. Drak assembled her book, spare pages and pots of glue and ink in their compartments on her desk. I see the mortal remains of Lantern Peldak, along with the syringes and flensing knives used to extract the parts of her body that Ms. Drak used. I see a.. strange… Apparatus, connected to runic sigils in the talokite style which are doing… Something, relating to the glowing yellow ring sitting in a cradle in the apparatus.

A yellow power ring.

I form a construct gauntlet around my right hand and grab it, shoving it into one of my equipment pouches.

Does… Make my deal with Weaponer Lysis a bit redundant, but never look a gift horse in the mouth. That's red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. Could really do with an-

B'dg flies in after me.

-indigo, but there… May be a way around that.

He looks at the remains. "That her?"

"Yes."

"Shame. She seemed like a real go-getter."

"I thought you'd been ordered to bring the Indigos in?"

"Doesn't mean I think she was a bad person. And the order didn't even say they were shutting them down. They're just being careful about power ring proliferation." He looks at the machine. "So, ah… Any idea what it does?"

I try… Making sense of the runes. Oh… Kay… I think that part matches… Part of John's…

Channelling fear from the Shadowlands into the apparatus. But the whole… Thing, looks a lot more simple than what Weaponer Lysis was using. Qwardians are about as advanced as a people have to be in order to try making power rings, and the talokites aren't as advanced as them. They shouldn't be able to make new rings…

I crouch down, pretending to take a closer look at the design while slipping my ring hand into the pouch with the ring.

Carefully, I touch the inside with the tip of my middle finger.

Ring?

Tor lorek san, bor nakka mur,
Sinestro faan tornek wot ur.

Ah.

I remove my hand. That explains where Peldak's ring went. Yes, okay, indigo somehow uses other colours, so they infused another colour into it, and… Got an actual yellow ring out of it. I think?

"I'm going to need to get a Controller to take a look at this."

"This Sector has Green Lanterns. I'm pretty sure we have jurisdiction."

"Well, yes, but do you think that you can get a Guardian to personally look at this… Set up?"

"Probably not."

"N.E.M.O. has a Shadow Champion and a surfeit of maltusians, we're happy to share our findings and one of the local Green Lanterns used his power ring to escape a mental institution."

"When you put it that way…"

I stand, and… As much as Greek custom says that I should take the body and skin at once, I think Lord Hades will understand if I wait for the police investigation to be completed.

And then…

Then I think it will be time to return to Earth.