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

5th March 2013
08:28 GMT +3

Unusually new statues are easy to detect once I know what I'm looking for, and for the second time in my professional career I disconnect my own eyes. Diana has fought Medusa before, and the petrification gaze definitely isn't a Laundry Files-style transmutation effect, or a metaphor for an instinctive response to extreme ugliness. It's a magic effect, and she needed direct eye contact to petrify her targets.

And… Their clothes, apparently. That's a Justifier, and his helmet and armour are fully turned to stone along with his flesh. There's a small house built of stone and mortar up ahead, and I smile as I consider how much easier having a power ring makes something like this. Perseus did this with a blindfold and a shiny shield, and he was up against all three of them.

"Hello!"

"Just a moment!"

There's a strange sort of echo to the shout, but I assume that it's because the shout is travelling through an irregular space or something. I frown at the petrified goat leaning against the wall. Scan for-. Ah. A small scale farm, isolated location… Ah… Scan for-. Yes, several places that have been used to site an outhouse.

And then she steps out of the house. Unlike with the siren, there's nothing here disrupting my scans, but it still takes me a moment to get my head around what I'm seeing. She's wearing a mask, one with no eye holes and a gorgon decoration on the front.

"Who is it?"

"Orange Lantern, one of Princess Diana's students."

She pulls back slightly. "They attacked me!"

"Yes, I suspect that you're telling the truth. That's a Justifier, someone whose sense of self was destroyed by the Anti-Life to turn them into an obedient thug. Ah, I already deactivated my own eyes, so if you want to you can take the mask off."

"Deactivated-? No, I'll leave it on. I can't afford to keep petrifying my own goats. What do you mean, 'deactivated'?"

"I got into a fight with a man called Johnny Sorrow a while ago. He has an ability quite a lot like yours, but by severing my own optic nerve I was able to bypass it entirely."

"You blinded yourself?!"

"I can undo it. I just didn’t want to take the risk of making accidental eye contact."

I hear a quiet hissing, as if from a dozen different mouths.

"Alright, Orange Lantern. What do you want?"

"Are you alright?"

"What?"

"The Greek government is in crisis, and the Amazons are absent. They're concerned that certain powerful individuals might take advantage-."

"No no no.. no. My sister-. I've made something of a life for myself here. How could I rule a country where everyone who makes eye contact with me turns to stone?"

Hm. I had considered this earlier, but with Medusa in Tartarus and no idea where the other two were, I never put it into practice.

"Does your power come from your eyes, or does that just trigger the connection? Or if you don't know-."

"No, it comes from our eyes. Circe checked for Medusa, many years ago. Why?"

"I could just replace your eyes as I've replaced mine several times. Either with cloned eyes, or with mechanical ones."

"Cybernetics?"

"Ah, I'm sorry. I wasn't sure whether you'd know the term or not."

"Hephaestus-. Hephaestaean sends me letters. Sent me letters. I don't get a lot of visitors."

"You do live out of the way, here."

I land in front of her, holding my hands out to the side palms upwards and fabricate both a cybernetic and an organic eye. Cloning tissue from innately magical individuals is a risky business, as what you get either isn't magical -and hence inclined to not work- or is magical -and so does the exact same thing as the original- but I think I know what I'm doing. If it's part of the spell Athena used, the swapping out the original eyes should be enough. In theory, it might even trigger her to turn back into a human, but magical inertia would usually prevent that.

"I can install either, but-."

"Come inside so that I can take a look without turning something to stone."

"Lead the way."

She walks back into her house, reaching up to pull off her mask the moment she's through the door. I follow her, letting the ring fill in for my eyes. Simple, well-construct furniture, the result of having unlimited time and… Well, hands.

"Huh."

She turns around to face me, laying the mask on a table as she does so.

"I thought you and the others were supposed to be ugly."

"Oh gods, tell me you're not some sort of snake-cultist. What were they called…? Cobra?"

"Kobra."

"That's what I-. With a 'K'?" I nod. "That doesn't even make sense. They're Hindu. Their original holy texts were written in Kannada."

"I thought they were from India?"

"No, 'Kannada' with a 'K', the Indian language."

"Ah, right. Well, their prophesied saviour was an American."

"And suddenly it makes sense."

"I'm not a member, though I admit to being familiar with the appearances of other species. Your face is still symmetrical, your scale-pattern is regular and-. Okay, the snakes are a bit disturbing, but I'm sure they could grow on a person."

"Yes. They did." She takes a step closer and picks up the cybernetic eye. "And this… Works?"

"Assuming that your body is mostly normal flesh, yes, they will work. I'd offer to implant one in myself as a demonstration, but that would risk turning me to stone. Oh! Ah, semi-related issue, I can also fully upgrade your house if you want. I imagine that you find getting work done a little difficult."

"New eyes and a new house. You're kind of leaning into the snake-fetishist thing…"

"I like fixing problems. And I'm affianced, so that’s not an issue. Though… I do know a few people who might be, if you want me to put you in contact? You're basically human on the inside, and this sort of isolation isn't psychologically healthy."

"I'm… Not sure. I've had my eyes for a long time."

"Heh. To quote the author Sir Terrance Pratchett, 'my bum has been a bum for a very long time, but I don't have to listen to anything it says'."

"Hah! Uh. I don't think that one of Diana's students would lie to me, I just-."

I close my eyes and reconnect my optic nerve. Then I step close enough that her snake hairs could bite and deactivate my environmental shield.

"I'll replace them one at a time, and you can bite me if it doesn't work. I'd swear an oath to Gaea again, but the grove went with the island."

"Uh." Oh, I-. Probably violated her personal space there. "Uh. Okay, then. I've never liked my right eye anyway."

 

5th March 2013
08:44 GMT +3

I wave my rune stone around another part of Mount Olympus that should register as thaumically active. No reaction, not even something indicating a residue of an old spell. Whatever happened was surprisingly thorough.

Euryale blinks excessively hard as she looks around the mountainside.

"Managing alright over there?"

"Some-. I'm seeing things that I haven't seen before."

"Do you remember what your vision was like when you were a human?"

Whatever Athena did to transform her it wasn't bound to her eyes, though we proved that the petrification effect was by testing it on a sparrow.

"I thought that I did. Is this how humans see things?"

"The cybernetic eyes can see a far wider range of colours than human eyes, but by default it just has a slight expansion on the normal visual range so that your brain can cope."

"Do they need to be cleaned or maintained?"

"They're designed to be cleaned in the same way as organic eyes. Just blink every so often-. Not like that; I mean naturally. As for repairs, I'd normally say 'no', but given how long gorgons appear to live…"

Ring, appointment calendar.

Compliance.

"You should be able to contact me by the Themysciran embassy at any time, but I'll make a note to seek you out in fifty years and make sure that they're still working properly."

"Thank you."

Her eyes-. She's sort of trying to look at me with three thousand plus years of instinct telling her not to make eye contact with the helpful human. But since we tested this I just fly directly in front of her and stare into her eyes. Her eyes momentarily widen in shock, then she realises what happened and smiles, bowing her head slightly.

"Can I offer eyes like these to my sisters?"

"To Stheno, certainly. To Medusa… I'm not sure whether she has a material body or not, but I don't think that Lord Hades is going to be moderating her punishment anytime soon. Whatever offence the gods gave her, she took it out on a lot of people."

"Offering it to Stheno would be difficult as well; she was on Themyscira."

"Um. Did they know that she was there?"

"Princess Diana did; I don't know who else she told. She wanted to live somewhere with people who wouldn't forget to avoid her gaze."

"Bit of a shame that there isn't a simple reversal for it, really. It would be easy enough for me to track down the parts of old and broken statues."

"I-. No, it doesn't work. Even if you turned them back into flesh they would still be dead. Circe tried that once."

"She undid your petrification spell?"

"No, she created a spell that did the same thing and then reversed that."

"I'm… Assuming this was some time ago…"

"Oh, yes. This was back when Circe had only recently become immortal. She wouldn't have visited us without being sure that she could avoid petrification herself."

"Okay. Did you have any other ideas about getting into Olympus?"

"I never studied magic in any detail. I can tell you where most of the old paths are-. Or, were. But that's it. It's not like any of the gods like me."

Yeah, that's… Fair. Huh. I wonder-.

"ERIS HAS A FAT ARSE!"

Euryale shrinks back. "What?"

"She's nominally my patron. I haven't actually spoken to her directly for a little while so-."

Splat!

…

I wipe the custard pie off my face.

"I know that's a classic, but this isn't really the time-."

There's writing on the foil case. I-.

The pie is construct-proof.

That would be interesting to study if not for the fact that the construct-proofing means that I can't put it into subspace. Instead, I shake the remains of the pie out and read it.

"'To: Pavlos. If you're reading this, then you've become too predictable. This is automatic. Try harder. Eris.'"

Okay, and true, but that doesn't actually help me-.

The pie case isn't construct-proof, so I can put it into subspace and get a wizard to try using it to track her. That's very nearly progress.

"What?"

"Eris and I have an irregular relationship. She-."

"She p-p-hah-hah-hah-haha!"

"It's a classic for a reason-. I've still got some on my face, haven't I?" Fabricate a damp flannel and a mirror, wipe… "Right, ah… This has been fun, but the world's in a pretty sorry state at the moment and I need to get back to work. Are you aware of any other Greek mythos persons of interest who might need 'managing' after being exposed to the Anti-Life?"

"How many people do you think I meet in a year?"

"Yes, that's a reasonable point. Anything else I can build for you?"

"No, I'm fine with just the oven. I wouldn't know what to do with modern appliances."

I nod. "Transition in two, one." And we're back at her house.

"Thought… Ah." She looks awkward.

"Do you want me to show your picture to men who might be interested in snake women? I could just give you a computer so you can set up a dating profile."

"Those things are a terrible way to meet people. I'm not saying-. If there was someone you could refer personally?"

"No one springs to mind immediately, but I'll ask around. Good day."

I transition upwards, to the edge of the atmosphere. I'm glad I could help her, I really am, but the rest of the world-. And I haven't found anyone who might be causing magic-based trouble in Greece. Ah. Maybe they didn’t have a specific individual in mind, and it was just an in-case thing?

Ring, scan the country, and if you don't find anything then I'll just give them an emergency beacon-.

Missus Hall? What's sheshit!