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

17th February 2013
10:21 GMT -7

"Hmm." Sunset looks over to Circe. "Does that looks right to you?"

Circe seems mildly puzzled. "It's not like you to be so hesitant, Sunset. Are you worried about what we will be conjuring up?"

"We don't really have demons in Equestria." She taps her tablet as she checks the geometry of the ritual space. "The closest thing we have are umbrum, and they're basically useless."

"And not evil?"

"Oh, they're evil." She shrugs as she lowers the tablet. "Or at least that's what all the records say. But they're hard to bind and they don't really have any useful magic of their own. King Sombra used to use them to possess ponies so he could control them, but that only worked because he was a manifested umbrum himself and they were okay working for him without being bound. For everyone else, if you're strong enough to bind the umbrum you can probably just mind control the pony you were going to order them to possess."

I raise my left eyebrow.

"Or-. Just-. Find some other way to do it."

I nod. "Just because you're Alicorn of Magic, that doesn't mean that you have to solve-."

"Solve every problem with magic." She rolls not just her eyes, but her entire head, demonstrating that ascension doesn't stop you being a teenager. "You sure it's not Celestia you're dating?"

"Yes." I look over the programmable ritual circle. "So what are you summoning up?"

"I figured the best place to start was the youngest succubus, because that-."

"Sunset, I have adopted nine children. I don’t want to end up on a sex offenders register."

"No, it's okay. This spell is the version for when you want to send a succubus to seduce someone else. They know what you want before they appear."

"Okay." I nod. "Just remember that it's your magic signature that's on all of this, and I will have absolutely no hesitation in giving the police your name."

"Sunset?" The boy goes to take a step out of the double-warded viewing area I told him to stay inside, then remembers himself and stops at the exterior line. "Is it going to summon my sister?"

Sunset glances at me, a little awkwardness and uncertainty entering her posture. "It might, but probably not. We're just going to get a succubus who knows more about what's going on than we do."

He nods, looking pensive.

Sunset nods. "Alright, positions."

Circe and Sunset take up positions opposite one another across the summoning circle while I step inside it, careful to avoid interfering with their drawings. And then I make eye contact with the boy while theatrically wiggling my left hand. Now, normally, standing inside the summoning circle is a bad idea, but that is because most summoners are squishy humans calling up things more physically powerful than themselves.

But as John Constantine demonstrated with the Fuckpig, it doesn't always have to go that way. And I am a New God.

Sunset gestures, and the edge of the summoning cylinder shimmers. And there's a faint scent of rotting eggs, which suggests that whoever we're summoning predated modern hygiene.

And given the shape of what appears… Sort of a combination of Cro-Magnon and actual crow, with a diaphanous… Mini-dress. The face is a sort of human face stretched in such a way as to suggest a beak, while the dress and feathers fade into each other. Now, I could sort of see how a bird woman could be an arousing sight. I've seen Ms Thal's fan sites. This is… Something unsexy that you can sort of see that it could turn into something sexy… If someone put a lot of work in.

"Usually, they wait outside the circle, oh God of Conquerors." She blinks her too-large eyes. "Though given your power I can see why you did not. You should have more caution: this gateway can work both ways."

"Oh, I plan on visiting Hell eventually. I do appreciate your warning, though I am somewhat curious as to your reason for offering it freely."

"Someone of your power could easily represent a long-term contract. I would ruin my chance if you died foolishly. Though perhaps my caution was unwarranted, given your great power."

"It's a foolish overlord who gets annoyed at subordinates looking out for his interests. Now, I want some information from you."

"Volunteering information only goes so far. If you are not sending me out to seduce your enemies, I will require payment."

"Fair enough. What do you have in mind?"

"I understand that your library is extensive. Given their aversion to demons, Atlantean lore reaches us only slowly."

"You want books on thaumaturgy?" She nods. "Seeking to better yourself. I respect that. Bit surprised that you didn't ask for more, but okay."

"If you weren't willing to supply even that, there wasn't any point in continuing the conversation. Ordinarily, I would attack a summoner who was so miserly, but in your case I would simply have left."

"Rational. You're young, aren't you?"

"Is that something that concerns you? I assure you that any information that I have will be accurate. My nature will not allow me to violate pacts."

"I imagine that an older demon would be more inflexible, that's all. Very well. Somewhere between ten and fifteen years ago a succubus set up with a vampire man on a small island in British waters. They had numerous children. The vampire was killed and the succubus 'died' shortly afterwards."

"That is not possible. We cannot bear children."

"Unless the succubus possessed a human body. I'm not exactly sure how it worked, but…" I point over to the boy. "It did."

The succubus makes a quiet cawing noise.

"So can I assume that you have no knowledge of his mother?"

"Succubae come and go. I have heard nothing of a succubae doing what you described."

Hm. "Alright. Any succubae showing an unusual interest in newer succubae? Or.. other newcomers to Hell? Some of her children died a little while after she did and we're trying to track down their souls."

"Countless souls fall into Hell every moment. But children are rare. Why do you think they would be ours?"

"Inherent demonic magic, inherited from mother and father. I suspect that reality would have treated them as demons."

"I cannot demand that you pay me for information I don’t have. If I return and look for those children, what can I expect in thanks?"

"Depends on what you get. You can have a book for any substantial piece of information, even if it's just the mother's name. If you actually find the children… I could bind you to the Earth for a decade or so. If you maintain your adaptability, you could use that time to flourish within the bounds of human society."

Behind me, Sunset frowns at something.

"And the Queen?"

"If she gives you trouble, refer her to me."

The succubus bows. "I will return to Hell to begin my search."

I watch the space she occupied as she shimmers into non-existence. Then I turn to Sunset, who rotates her demonic analyser so that I can see the name and the boy can't.

Caroline.

Hmm.

 

17th February 2013
17:38 GMT

"You ever feel like joining the Justice League yourself?"

Philippus shakes her head, her eyes taking in every detail of the landscape below us. Hippolyta has opened up the reliquary and Philippus is back in her 'training Diana' equipment: Hermes' spare sandals on her feet allowing her to fly and boosting her speed, and the misnamed 'gauntlets' of Atlas around her forearms to boost her strength and endurance. Unfortunately for information-gathering purposes, Diana and Donna still have their respective lassos.

"It would be wrong to get in the way of the princesses. They do not need old women like me competing with them for glory."

That's a very Amazon response, though I mean that in the sense that it's a response that made sense before the Exile. Much like asari, the young women fought and the mature women raised daughters and practised professions. Unless their core territory was threatened or they became officers. Amazons don’t have a new tradition which takes into account the lack of enemies or their agelessness. There's no need to prove your courage in your physical prime if your physical prime lasts three thousand years. And there's no urgent rush to have children once you've done that if you're blessed by a goddess who hasn't realised that normal women run out of ovum eventually.

That's probably something we're going to need to work on before the current generation come of age. After this mess is over.

"I don’t think she'd see it like that."

"Perhaps."

She looks up, not at me but at the twelve pegasus riders accompanying us. Two of them are Heraklya, while the other ten are 'normal'. All have orichalcum equipment. Unless the Aztecs have flying monsters this should be more than enough force for reconnaissance.

"What will their Earth Goddess do with the people she ate?"

"Souls."

Her eyes flick my way. "Shades have no need for hearts."

"I'm not sure those are literally hearts. You have to remember that we're not in the material world any longer. It's thrown me off a few times, too."

"What does taking the heart of a soul do to it?"

"Okay, you know that motivation actually comes from your brain but we poetically refer to passion as coming from the heart?"

"No heart, no passion."

"Or maybe they still have it and… Tlazolteotl, or whoever it is, is using it to change them as they see fit. The sheeda we met had his personality intact, so I doubt it's having the heart removed by itself… Or maybe it just affects sheeda differently? I don't know."

"But they still have their minds." She frowns. "Then why do none of them talk to us? They make no war cries. They do not organise themselves with words or use formations."

"Again, guessing, but there is a limit to how many ways a goddess can split her attention. If she's remote controlling-. There was a wizard I briefly fought on Earth called Papa Midnite. One of his things was to remove part of a person's soul to turn them into a near-mindless servant. They lost the capacity for independent thought. Couldn't even speak. Just follow instructions as best as their damaged minds could understand them. You could stab one and it would just stand there, bleeding to death, until it lost the strength to stand. When we defeated him we were able to restore the surviving ones…"

I don't know what happened to them afterwards. Given the spiritual damage that inflicted on them, I doubt they would have survived any degree of Anti-Life exposure.

I shake my head. "The point is, there are all sorts of things you can clip off a person to turn them into pawns. Remember what shades were like before Lord Hades had his revelation?"

She nods. "I do."

"To be clear, Lord Hades is a god I admire and respect because he does a very good job at running an afterlife. Not all religions are as fortunate as we are."

"He does now."

"Anyway. Going back to my original point, it's a big world and if you feel like doing some heroing, I'm sure we can find somewhere for you that doesn't detract from Wonder Woman."

"I will keep that in mind."

Okay, so the topography of this place doesn't match Central America, but the trees I've seen match those that are native to Central America. Which makes sense. There are mountains in the distance, though I'm.. not sure if they're affected by the one hundred metre limit. Is Tlazolteotl trapping her rivals as well? I think-.

"I smell smoke. And water."

Philippus makes eye contact with Cernunnos. "Where?"

He points to… Forward and right. I have no idea whether or not this place uses normal directions, and I've got no idea how to work them out if it does. "That way."

Ring, scan?

Compliance.

"My ring thinks there's a river. Beyond that, don't know."

But that makes sense too. Aztecs hunted, so naturally their afterlife has the associated ideas built into it. They didn't use power rings, so I've got to copy their methods if I want to get anywhere. I could…

I glance at the construct coffin I'm carrying along behind me.

I could assimilate her, then pull the new construct lantern into my ring to gain its memories. And yes, that's an even more horrible violation of her soul than has already taken place, but Anti-Life. And the horrible violations that are already happening to her fellow Aztecs, with or without the Anti-Life.

Perhaps if I use the purple healing ray for longer? I might be able to reconfigure-.

"Paul."

"Captain?"

"Scout ahead. I want to know what Cernunnos has found."

"Covertly or overtly?"

She frowns at me, then looks over at the flying horses-.

I generate a booster construct. "Just checking."

The booster ignites, sending me shooting over the forest and… Yes, there's the river, just peeking through the canopy. Drop through the leaves into the channel and accelerate faster, because just because there's no reason for the Aztecs to have anti-air weapons doesn't mean that they don't.

I blink, and a… Boat? Flashes past. It was stationary, wedged against the bank and a fallen tree trunk. It looked like it was in reasonable condition, but the light construction suggested… A fishing vessel? This may be a river but it's not exactly the Amazon. It doesn't seem like boat fishing would be the way to go for food collection. Puzzling.

Up ahead the terrain rises, the river cutting a valley into the harder rock on side. I can distantly hear the sound of crashing water from a waterfall. Not much in the way of other sound coming from that direction-.

And then I'm at the plunge pool, braking hard as I see actual man made structures. Rock buildings that put me equally in mind of the surviving Aztec structures and those of Themyscira, things built by people with primitive tools and methods but unlimited time and patience. The roofs are thatched, and the walls are brightly coloured with either different types of stone or some kind of paint.

I don't see any actual people.

But I do see an Anti-Life broadcaster.

 

17th February 2013
17:43 GMT

It's sitting on a small stone pyramid. I can't see any blood on the stones, but it might just have been washed off. No external power source, no obvious guards.

Scan.

No threats detected.

Yeah.

I create a second layer of construct armour around myself.

"Orange Lantern to Superboy. There's an Anti-Life broadcaster. Keep everyone back."

"Okay, but it's gunna take you about five seconds to destroy it."

"I want to check the setup first. I'll contact you when I'm done."

"Makes sense. Superboy out."

Design appears… Standard. I drift upwards, trying to get a full view of it. Because if I understand New God technology, there's got to be something linking it to the local thaumosphere… Or, just, normal-sphere here… Anyway, we should be cut off from Mannheim, so it would have to be…

Sonics.

Heart beat detected.

And there we are. There's a heart beat in there. Because hearts are how we power things around here, apparently.

What to do?

I mean, I'm still towing the zombie woman. Maybe I can try sticking this heart in her? Or at least get a look at what their hearts are supposed to look like here? I bring the sarcophagus closer and remove enough of it to get a look at her face. Nothing-.

And now it occurs to me that bringing her this close to a broadcaster wasn't the most intelligent thing to do. Send that-. House, grab spare stones from that house, put her inside and brick up the windows and doorway.

Right.

I send out a wave of orange light, trying to feel by weak kinetic impacts if there's anything invisible or otherwise dodging detection. Nothing. Repeat with tiny grains of dust. Nothing.

Okay, but why would anyone put a transmitter where there aren't any people? Because there used to be people, or because there will be people in the future and you want to be ready. This is clearly an inhabited area, but there aren't any people. Why would an area in an afterlife with homes have no one there. Reincarnation? They could be working… But there's only so far it's practical to ride on a llama. Aztecs didn't commute. If they were working then I should be able to hear something.

I look at the waterfall, and then fly up.

Yeah, more buildings at the top, but it's more of the same. Still no people. There… Yeah, that's an exercise yard. Simple shields and clubs are stacked, and there's a roughly marked area for the pugilists. Aztecs considered reincarnation to be something earned, rather than asked for or automatic. Maybe they were levelling up?

Whatever it was, they're not doing it here now. So not working. And-.

Wait, what's that?

I saw something shiny in that… Barn? Long house? I fly inside-.

Ah. That clears that up.

There's no blood, because why would the dead bleed? If they bled, the gods could take their nourishment from them and then just have them reincarnate. But there is skin, and discarded flesh, and damaged obsidian blades. And I think that's… Ectoplasm?

But no hearts. And no Aztecs.

There used to be people here, wherever 'here' is. And now there aren't. The broadcaster was probably used to control them, which means that the heart was probably installed first.

If I knew more about Aztec culture, I could probably learn a lot from this place. But as I don't, I just fly back down the waterfall to the plunge pool area. This place responds well to hearts?

Then we give it hearts.

BABUM. BABUM. BABUM.

I form a construct-.

Something blurs past my vision, my outer construct armour evaporating and the inner sporting-

Fly up fly away!

-claw-slashes? Replace it and-.

It's gone again.

Alright, replace immediately, evasive flight pattern, detail optic scan of my environment. If they're pushing off a surface using super speed then there'll be a depression where their feet impact the stone, or an explosion if they're pushing off sand. Non-perfect optic camouflage will cause slight ripples if viewed from variable angles. And add metal plating to-.

My outer armour fails and this time pressure continues and my inner construct parts in front of my helmet! For a moment I see fur and feathers before I counter, flash fabricated x-ionised knives stabbing and provoking it into disengaging. And it's gone, gone from my sight, gone from scan, no obvious sign of its passage.

Okay, try something else. Leave the knives, add wire to the construct in case the attacker is using construct disruptors specifically and fill the air with locally-sourced dust. An extra fraction of a second's warning from the particulates moving-.

Thereparry!

Two knives are on target, one hitting nothing but feathers, sending the cut ends spiralling towards the river below. The other hits the torso, causing the-. Figure to abandon their swoop and pull to the side, missing me-

I get more details. Humanoid with wings. More than one set. Talons on the hands and feet. Don't get a good look at the face.

-as I form a cold gun and take a shot-.

It doesn't work, and the figure disappears again, accelerating out of my dust cloud.

It's not as big as Tlaltecuhtli, but I don't know if all Aztec gods maintain avatars that big. Gaea walks around in a body the size of an unusually but not impossibly large woman. So I could be fighting a god. I'd assume that I was fighting some sort of supernatural creature but I don't know enough about Aztec myth to identify it. Emperor Itzcoatl destroying their early written records didn't help, and relying on Spanish monks for information regarding the supernatural wouldn't be a good idea anyway.

Grab the falling feathers. Can I at least analyse those?

Yes.

Eagle feathers. Some sort of eagle monster? No special counter for eagles-.

Disruption again, switch to knock-out gas and pump it out. Move the knives-.

"Kuh."

The shape flies away as I stare dumbly at the spear embedded in my right lung.

And then the pain hits!