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

17th February 2013
20:36 GMT

Beams of.. whatever it is that Apokoliptian blasters fire lance out and unlike the sporadic fire we've been taking so far, every shot is on target. Malvolio's shield holds out slightly better than mine while Alan fires energy pulses and Ghia'ta fires crystal fragments. Seven dots of violet light sail towards various parts of the fortress-.

"Our hearts are empty of all but Him."

A figure with black robes covering their body waves their hands in a circular motion, and the violet dots wink out.

Ghia'ta gasps in horror.

I replace my shield as it starts to fail from concentrated blaster fire and form a new railgun. I-.

A Justifier teleports onto the railgun and shoves their glowing red hands through it before teleporting away. Fine, that was a distraction anyway. It just might have reduced fatalities a little.

Eddy pulse.

Whatever defensive field they've got in place shimmers into something approaching visibility. It's stronger here than what the robot had protecting it, though whether that's because of the larger fortifications, the increased concentration of Anti-Lifed people or reinforcement by the abilities of one of the Justifiers I don't know. It looks like… A giant plane of ice as my gravity distortions interact with something that is refusing to let them exist.

"The one true soul of the universe!"

I gasp as my construct shield just vanishes and the anti-air blasters flash through the intervening space and-. Alright, most miss because they were focusing on one point on my construct, but two actually hit me, one on my right arm and the other on my chest. My construct armour on both locations shatters, and a lucky shot from an infantry blaster hits the cuirass a moment later.

"Paul, fare you well?"

Reassemble reassemble reassemble!

"I'll live!" I mark the target. "Having trouble with their shield. That guy seems to be-."

"So I see. Then I shall exert myself."

His eyes glow, and two colossal construct hands appear around the fortification, smashing any nearby buildings to rubble. Not… A lot of people in them, and I see Alan diving down, rope and chain constructs grabbing rubble as he heads into the dust cloud and reaches for the people by hand-.

Alan!

I watch the blue blur dart around brick, concrete and metal tossed aside as a steady stream of the injured and insensible appear on the nearby street. And Alan's not telling Malvolio that he did wrong. He gets it, even if he doesn't like it.

Whatever's powering the defensive field is… Struggling with Malvolio's hands.

"The only inevitability-!"

"Do you think I cannot hear you, arrogant apostate? Does your broken soul quail at my certainty and conviction?"

"We live for Mannheim! We die for Mannheim!"

Armour's back, shield's back, though most of the anti-air guns are firing frantically at Malvolio's giant hands.

Let's see how deep the fortifications go.

"No, you will live to do penance for your sins against the Earth and against the One True God."

"I have seen the face of the true god! The master of the universe and all it contains! We are the shadows his light casts upon the cave wall, existing in a Hell without exit or end!"

A flash of red-.

I send an orange ray at the teleporter immediately, my borer construct busy tunnelling beneath the Washington streets. It hits them in the chest and they teleport away immediately.

Malvolio's huge hands press closer, the palms being distorted by the exotic defence field-.

"Batman to Orange Lantern. Objective complete. Rendezvous at the former Alliance headquarters."

We're going too slowly!

"Underst-."

Ah, it doesn't go all the way down.

"Understood."

Crumbler.

A large chunk of the ground underneath the fortress ceases to exist. The solid bunkers and walls are far tougher than human technology could make, but they're resting on basically normal concrete. There's a slight unexpected resistance… Probably from the exotic shield, but that's either too busy trying to prevent the whole place being flattened between Malvolio's hands or too far away. Crumble more-.

The entire base shudders, ground cracking and Justifiers tumbling!

"By His hand all are laid low! In His eyes are all insignificant!"

Ghia'ta drops down, encasing the people Alan has recovered in violet crystal before ferrying them up to the containment cells.

Crumble more.

The concrete starts to flat out break, chunks falling into the pit I just created. The barrier holding off Malvolio's hands doesn't quite collapse, but his hands begin moving inwards once more, crushing the fortifications that remain on the surface. Alan hovers just behind the right hand, using construct lassos to grab Justifiers and hold them up for Ghia'ta to crystallise.

My own much smaller construct hand darts into the collapsing base and grabs the Anti-Life priest and hoiks him into the air. Push back the hood and cut off-.

He's not wearing a Justifier helmet.

Vincent Edge glares at me, his eyes… Glowing black. How is he-?

"Anti-Life justifies my actions!"

Oh.

My constructs shut down as for a horrible moment I feel the callous judgement of a being that perceives every way I've failed and expected nothing else.

What I did to Batman-.

"Paul!"

Uh? Ah, what-what? Armourflight!

A blue glow wraps around me as I come back to my senses. Didn't quite hit the ground-.

Alan looks at me, concerned. "What happened?"

Where did-?

"Vincent Edge. He's become some sort of living Anti-Life broadcaster. Be careful if you run into him."

I look at-. The pile of rubble that used to be the Justifier barracks. There are still Jusifiers in the hole and in some of the buried bunkers, but…

I rise into the air under my own power.

"We need to meet up with Batman immediately."

 

Early Autumn, IC 687

Coarsely milled flour.

"…our ambassador, Prince Diabo, to address this assembly."

Honestly.

No 'my son'. Emperor Molt is avoiding looking like he's offering too much support. With the speed at which information spreads in Sanderan society, exactly what happened at Alnus Hill isn't well known, but they couldn't exactly miss the unusually placid dragon standing outside of the senate building. And some news has gotten back, enough to create a plethora of fascinatingly disconcerting rumours.

A few eyes dip to my ring as Prince Diabo walks out onto the speaker's position in front of the stands. It's interesting how far 'gods want me to do this' gets you in Sanderan society. Emperor Molt would rather have hashed this out in private or under his complete control, but he has a better awareness of the strategic situation than anyone else and he knows perfectly well that Diabo and I have handed him a lifeline. There's even a very small amount of pride in the fact that one of his children is doing something intelligently, rather than pretending to be a knight or invading an entire country at the cost of the lives of thousands of legionaries because he wanted to rape their queen.

Diabo is bearing up reasonably well. At his age I'd have hated this sort of public speaking, but as a Sanderan aristocrat it's just something that he had to learn how to do. And we did enough rehearsals. He doesn't really have the height to look imperious -particularly when the floor of the chamber is lower than the seats- but the faint orange glow probably makes up for it.

"Emperor Molt Sol Augustus, honourable senators of the Sanderan Empire, I stand before you to report on my embassy to the country of Japan. I have met with their government, I have seen their cities and their armies and taken their measure. I was also able to speak with our own legate and the leaders of the armies of our vassals who are laying siege to Alnus Hill, as well as the surviving officers amongst those who took part in our attack on Japan and are now their prisoners."

That gets a little interest from some parties. It's a fairly normal thing for Sanderanian nobles to spend time in the legions before moving on to politics. And not necessarily as officers; some formations are considered suitably armigerous for the sons of noble households, especially the ones which have to provide their own equipment. The right to attack through the gate got more than a little interest amongst the socially avaricious.

"In brief, I will lay before you a treaty for an equitable peace between our peoples. We will lose no land and they will take none of our people as slaves. Their customs do not even allow them to ransom the captives they have taken; those will be returned once the treaty is signed."

An elderly senator near the front snorts. "Just tell us what they want, boy. What must we give the barbarians to make them go away?"

"Senator Giusto. Before I explain that, there are certain things that you must understand first. The legions of our empire are mighty; there is no people that we have yet encountered who can match them with equal number on an open field. But at times in our history, our legions have met with defeat, or with victories that have left them so bloodied that they may as well have been defeated. Sometimes it has been weight of numbers that has won barbarians the day. At others, a brilliant strategy and prepared ground would allow them to achieve victory. And shamefully, at times it was corruption or cowardice amongst our own officers or soldiers that made them poor fighters."

"I have studied the Imperial soldiers and officers at Alnus in detail and I have found no such weakness amongst them, and heard no reports of such failings amongst those legions we sent through the gate. Not even amongst the auxiliaries. I saw with my own eyes the size of the force which the Japanese sent to our lands. It was not particularly large; smaller, certainly, than the armies of the Empire which now lay siege to the Hill. Nor was their strategy particularly brilliant: they simply formed a line and began using their long-ranged weapons on our forces on our side of the gate."

"Our forces were killed to a man, and the Japanese did not suffer a single loss."

Some surprise, some concern, more than a few dismissals of what must be propaganda. But I'm pleased to see that the majority remain cautiously neutral.

"We are used to having an advantage in weapons. When our Empire was first founded, we fought with steel weapons against barbarians armed with weapons of stone or copper or at worst bronze. Even when we encountered walled cities, their weapons were made of poor iron and only their rulers could afford armour worthy of the name. They must have felt like they were fighting the chosen people of Emroy! But it was perhaps foolish of us to assume that there were no people in any world who were more advanced than us, just as we are more advanced than the barbarians."

"While I was in their lands, I studied their histories. They made no secret of what they consider old news. Three hundred years ago they fought much as we do. Now, they fight differently."

He holds out his right hand and generates an assault rifle construct.

"They use these. They are made with high quality steel, as good as anything that our smiths could make. The mass at the back can be used as a club and they sometimes attach a knife to the tube at the front, but for the most part it works like a crossbow. Rather than using a taut string, it uses an alchemical powder, and rather than using an arrow it uses a small bullet that even the barbarians would consider too small for a slingshot. The mechanisms here-" He points to the middle of the rifle. "-allow it to fire something like seven hundred times in a single minute."

He makes a point of looking around the room, making eye contact with various members of the muttering crowd.

"And each shot would hit hard enough to kill an armoured man."

He dismisses the construct.

"That is not merely a boast. I witnessed it myself, both when I arrived at the Hill and they loosed upon me, and later when they carried out a demonstration of their weapons. They were happy to show me, to try to intimidate me. And, just as we have scorpions and ballistae which are larger and more powerful than our bows, so they too have larger and more powerful versions of their weapons. There are places on Alnus Hill were they struck our centuries where it is not possible to tell that the thing they struck was once a man, much less who they were. And these are not weapons inherited from their ancestors or granted them by their gods." He slows his delivery. "These are weapons which their forges can make continuously."

"Consider, then, the likely outcome of a legion marching towards even a skirmish line of men armed with such weapons. It would mean their deaths, with not even a single arrow being loosed upon the Japanese."

"In my free time I considered more exotic methods which could be used to defeat them. Disease, perhaps. Poison. An aerial assault at night, where our melee fighters could negate their advantage at range. And at each time I found that their knowledge of natural philosophy was not limited to weapons. They have medicines that cure most diseases. Medicines that cure most poisons. Machines to see flying creatures and machines they can wear over their eyes to let them see in the pitch black. No. As much as it burns my pride to admit it, we are to them as those early barbarians were to our ancestors."

"But in every threat, there is an opportunity. The gate will not stay open forever, and they do not have the power to maintain it. They know this now, they know that even if they could conquer us, they would eventually be cut off from their homeland with no way to maintain their equipment. We could simply pull back our armies and let them remain huddled around the portal until their fear of being left here caused them to pull back, but…"

"The sons of the barbarians we conquered became auxiliaries. Their grandchildren became citizens, using the same tools that conquered their forebears. They learned what we knew and became better for it. They ascended to a higher level of civilisation by adopting our methods.

He recreates the gun construct.

"I would not mind seeing our legions armed with these. And while there may be civilisations on this side of the gate who are equal to what we have now… There are none who equal this."

He looks around the room, making eye contact with the more receptive members of the audience.

"They will take no land and they will take none of our people as slaves. They will return prisoners once a treaty is signed. And in return they want three things: a chest of gold as a symbolic reparation for the injuries caused by our attack, a return of the citizens we took as slaves, and the right to purchase grain for as long as the gate remains open. For all their industry, it seems that their land is a poor one for farming." He shrugs. "The barbarians our ancestors conquered traded their lives for the advancement of their descendants. We need only trade our excess grain for improvements to medicine, steel-forging and alchemy. I hope you will agree that it is a bargain."

 

Early Autumn, IC 687

The senate is a place for grandstanding, for decrying members of the opposing factions and cheering on your own. Actual decisions aren't made there; votes take place once the fix is already in, once the decisions have been made by the opinion-formers in rooms much like this one.

Never let the senate make a decision when you don't know what the result will be.

The Emperor, a legate, a couple of tribunes, a few senior senators from factions loyal either to the Emperor or in favour of aggressive expansion. Not even a token dove. No merchants. No one representing the vassal kingdoms. Diabo's seat is at the opposite end of the table to his father's far grander seat, and the places to his left and right are deliberately left vacant.

If Diabo can convince these people to go along with his treaty, that's the matter settled. It will pass in the senate, the emperor won't veto it and the army won't protest.

If.

"A single crate of gold as a token tribute." Senator Giusto glares contemptuously, not bothering to disguise his feelings now that the setting is more private. "What do they really want?"

Diabo bears the hard eyes well. Certainly better than he would have done at the start. He's using the ring's power to do it, but I'm not having to prompt him. I'm genuinely pleased with his progress.

"A single chest, filled to the brim with gold. And under the gold-" A slight relaxing of people who've just seen where the other shoe is going to drop from. "-they have requested enchanted… Objects."

The military tribute frowns. "What sort of objects?"

"Anything." Diabo shrugs. "I took care to play down what we can actually do with magic, and they didn't seem to care. They are a people who highly value natural philosophy. They don't want to use the… Talismen we will give them. They want to study them, to try and understand how magic works, and how what they think they know of how the universe works is wrong. Even… Copper coins enchanted to glow would be sufficient."

The furrows on the military tribute's face deepen.

"And what will they do with that understanding?"

"That is a problem for their neighbours on their world." Diabo smiles. "By the standards of their world, the nation of Japan is not a first rate power. They are a protectorate that has recently had a dispute with their protector and it is…. Unclear whether or not their treaties are in effect. That does not help us, but it means that Japan has enemies on their own world and cannot afford a prolonged campaign even if they could guarantee that the gate would remain open. While I was there a group of extraordinarii from one of their enemies infiltrated the villa where I was staying, in the centre of their country."

The legate looks intensely interested. "Could we make contact with these enemies?"

"Legate Julius, it wouldn't matter if we could. This nation whose soldiers have no experience of war, whose treaty with their protector binds them to only having a small defensive force, destroyed our legions with little effort. The only way for us to enter their territory is through the gate, and they have fortified both sides. Certainly, I could send them a message, but the gate is in the middle of the Japanese capital city. They could hold the wall around their side of it with a token force until the entirety of their country was overran. We would not profit by it, and we would have a stronger neighbour at the end of it with no love for us for the spoiling attack that we are in no position to make."

"The grain." One of the other senators looks thoughtful. "Why do they need grain? Are they having a famine?"

"No, no. As I said, they have poor soil. Their main cereal crop is something called 'rice'. It is not very nutritious. They can import food from other nations, but it is relatively expensive. We can supply their capital easily from our main farming region at what is for them a far lower cost."

Senator Giusto frowns. "What do you mean, 'for them'?"

"Remember how much more advanced their industry is. Consider how the barbarians value… Polished stones, or beads or feathers. Such things are valuable to them, but a curiosity at most to us. And then imagine what they would pay for a single sword of good steel such as we issue to the legions by the thousand. Flour is the only thing that we can give them in a meaningful quantity that they actually want, not because they need extra food but because what they will give us in return has little value to them."

The Emperor's face is entirely impassive. "What did you agree to trade?"

"Books relating to industry. They would not agree to trade anything from the last eighty years, but we could not use that anyway. They will trade with us books describing how to take the first steps on the road to building the devices they have for ourselves, the steps they once took when they fought as we do."

"Will that let us make weapons like theirs?"

Diabo shakes his head. "Not for a century. My Emperor, this isn't about beating them. It's about beating our neighbours here. Once we have the alchemical formula for the powder that drives their bullets, we will be able to make the very simplest weapons of that type. A 'smoothbore cannon'. A weapon that fires with the power of a trebuchet, but faster, and takes up less space. A weapon that could be mounted on a ship by the dozen. For them, such a weapon is three hundred years out of date, but for us it would turn our navy from an afterthought to the most powerful in the world."

"How long?"

"An improved steel process could be implemented inside a year. Properly forging a metal tube when they are providing the instructions should take a month or so. How long it takes to make the powder depends on whether the components can be bought or must be sought afresh, but it should not be more than two months and may be as little as a day. Learning to combine them and how to speed up the process might take a few months more. By the end of the second year I should have a group of working cannons to show you. Cannons that can demolish a city wall. Or destroy a legion."

Legate Julius looks thoughtful. "How would it destroy a legion? A trebuchet might break a formation if it struck true, but they would reform a moment later."

"A cannon can fire a single large bullet to destroy walls or make a hole in a formation, but it can also be used to fire 'grape shot'. That is a bundle of smaller bullets. The range is far less, but they-" He moves his hands forward, spreading out as they move. "-will destroy any man who stands before them. Would you not want to do to others what the Japanese did to us?"

There are several meaningful glances from one man to the next. Yes, that's it. You need a war to save yourselves, a successful war. The Japanese are there, but you can't beat them. So…

"Such a weapon would not let us hold territory."

"Take a city and ransom it back. Or just destroy it from a distance and demand payment from its neighbours. They would no more understand what they were being struck by than our legionaries did."

The Emperor raises his right hand slightly, and everybody waits.

"How many slaves do they actually expect to have returned?"

"All of them. They have machines which can… Tell how much blood two people share. Our blood is different enough from theirs that it is easy for them to tell their people from ours. That condition is absolute. If they find out that we have played them false, they will go to wherever the slaves are and kill everyone they find there to free them."

Because he and I will tell them where that is. And we have just told the Emperor what to do to rid himself of a few troublesome senators.

The Emperor smiles.

"If this is the treaty, and what you say about their industry is true, then you have done the Empire a great service, my son. What reward do you want in return?"

Diabo looks away for a moment.

"Long ago, our ancestors came through a gate. That is why we call Alnus Hill sacred. While I was in Japan I recognised some images in their history books. Men who wore armour much like ours. I sought more information, and I found that they were called 'Romans'."

Eyes widen and two men gasp.

"I don't know if they were the kin of our ancestors who remained behind, or if it is a coincidence. But I went there, to Rome. I saw the Colosseum, the Pantheon, and the ruins of buildings mentioned in our oldest histories. I believe theirs is the world of our ancestors." He shakes his head. "And we do not measure up." He makes eye contact with the emperor. "When you had Kati killed, I was afraid for my safety. I quashed all my ambitions and hid myself away. It was cowardice. But this…" He feels the ring with the tips of the fingers of his right hand. "Has restored my ambition. I am not Kati. I know that I am not ready to be emperor. But if I am successful, I want to be recognised as crown prince."

The Emperor's face is unmoving. "And what of your brother?"

"He has a whore. I have a dragon."

"If that is what you want, then you had better be successful."

Later, Early Autumn, IC 687

Diabo curls up in the shadows against the wall of the senate building.

"…shitshitshitshitshitshit…"

"I thought that went well."

"…shitshitshitshitshitshit…"

"Okay. Just breathe."