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

5th March 2013
08:53 GMT +3

When fighting certain types of magical opponent, it's important not to do things that make them stronger. For example, when fighting a being who embodies retribution, don't strike the first blow unless you've got really good lawful authority.

"By the authority vested in me-"

My girder-constructs shatter as she tears them apart.

"-by the government of the Hellenic Republic-"

I drop a swarm of x-ionised knives between her and her target just as the rock she threw at my face shatters on my construct armour because I'm not a moron.

"-I am placing you under arrest."

And obviously you have to state it clearly in a way that the person you're talking to can't pretend they didn't know about, because the point isn't to make you stronger but to make them weaker.

Tisiphone jumps the knives, putting her in line with my railgun in a position where she can't dodge.

Fire. At low power because I'm trying to knock Tisiphone out of Mrs. Hall, not kill her.

And there's a knife in front of my eyes! She-. She grabbed a x-ionised knife and threw it-.

Construct lost.

One at me and another through the mage slayer and into the construct hard enough to wreck it. X-ionised weapons don't work especially well as throwing weapons but if she takes it upon herself to use them in melee then that might be a problem.

So I lift the lightning-thrower off the ground and out of 'super jumping' range before she can throw all of them at me, and stick construct armour around him as well. Now, this will be easiest if I can just break her out of whatever rage let Tisiphone take control in the first place, but since I don't know what that is… Quick check on the 'persons of interest' list…

"Missus Hall, Hector and Daniel are doing as well as can be expected. I'm sure they'll be-"

And there are the rest of the knives, biting into the armour but failing to penetrate. And…

And she's gone.

Ring, where is she?

Not found.

Darn it. I turn to my rescuee. "If you know anything-?"

"I don't know where he went! I am… Ugh. I'm not cut out to be a superhero. I would have-. Would have sold him out if she-."

I nod. "Is she focusing on particular people?"

"She said something-. She's working through.. everyone who actually worked with Alpha Centurion. But-but most of us barely met him!"

"It's-."

"She knew him better than we did!"

That makes an unfortunate amount of sense. I don't know what the Anti-Life would have said to Mrs. Hall to make her fall under its sway-. Or…

"Do you know where your former comrades are?"

"Some of them. There was only one Alliance base in Greece, but I worked with a lot of people from other places and…" He twitches. "When we were Justified… Personal stuff didn't matter."

So she almost certainly doesn’t know either, unless-.

"Was she teaching classes?"

"I don't know. She was.. there, though. I remember because I thought it was strange that an American superhero spoke Greek."

Which means that Mrs. Hall probably does have a list. Does Tisiphone get everything in her head? Don’t know.

Ah. It's a long shot, but, ring? Access Alliance records.

Partial records recovered.

Did she teach any classes?

Hippolyta Hall taught 'Introduction to Super Strength'. Recorded attendees list available. Warning, list is incomplete.

Compare list to post-Anti-Life confirmed deaths?

Updating.

There aren't that many people with superstrength in the world. And jokes aside most of them don't accidentally rip their surroundings apart, except when under stress. But if you want to be a superhero then you have to avoid accidentally ripping suspects apart while under stress. Or if your small child develops superstrength like Cassandra, whenever they're over-excited. So it was a great class for her to teach, as she'd had superstrength for most of her life as well as plenty of experience of living around superheroes.

"What can you do?"

Okay, she's fast but she's not Flash-fast. Next closest person I know that she met-

"I can throw lightning. I can-. Sort of fly, but I'm not very good at it yet. She knocked me out of the air and I couldn't get up again."

-is in Thessaloniki.

"What are you calling yourself?"

"Son of Zeus?"

I raise my eyebrows. "Are you?"

"No. Not literally."

"Alright Zeusson, I don't know where Fury went, so we're about to check a lot of places really quickly. If you think of anything relevant, pipe up."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Avoid dying. Two, one."

A house-. The street is completely intact. One woman inside matching the description. Not under attack, not under stress.

"Hey, that's-"

Next location. And start monitoring news sites and street journalism sites. If she's wrecking places then there should be signs.

"-Titaness."

Another street in another part of Greece. No Mrs. Hall. Another. Another. And that's it as far as Greeks who are still alive go. Access police reports. Compare autopsies to the results of Tisiphone's prior rampages.

Matches available.

Compare to Alliance classes. Did Marcus pick his co-workers from anywhere in particular?

Matches available.

Great, basically pure luck. Nothing from media sources. Try anyway. Transition. Nothing. Transition, nothing. Transition, nothing. Tran-.

I slam face first into the ground!

 

5th March 2013
08:56 GMT +3

Armour! And phone-!

Someone yanks on my arm and throws me-. Uh, throws me into a wall. Solid stone. My kinetic barrier flares on impact, and then… Shuts down? Causing me to drop to the floor.

Phone Daniel Hall.

Compliance.

Arms into a defensive pose prepare cold gun-.

"Lantern?"

Take in my environment and lower my arms. "Centurion?"

Marcus's armour had… Visibly been upgraded with Apokoliptian technology, and there's a young man with a lighter version behind him sharing nervous looks with Son of Zeus.

"Yes." He looks around the room. "Automator, you must reset your traps as quickly-"

The young man nods and darts over to.. some sort of sparking device built into the wall.

"-as possible."

"You were trying to trap Fury."

"To trap and calm her, yes. I was too slow to save-."

"I've read the reports. Why are you still wearing Apokoliptian armour?"

"I've been… Busy. Was Fury following you?"

"No, she got away from me and I was trying-."

"Trying to-" He nods. "-get ahead of her."

"Y-yeah?"

"Excuse me. Daniel? Orange Lantern here."

"What is it?"

"We've found your mother. Unfortun-"

"Where?"

"-ately, she's being controlled by Tisiphone. Greece."

"You need me to try and talk her down? It's not always that easy."

"I'd appreciate it if you could try anyway. Please stay on the line."

"Sure, yeah."

"Centurion, do you know what set her off?"

"Yes. She was useful. To me. When I was leading the Justifiers. Strength, endurance, speed… And the magic of one of the Eumenides. One of the few acts of true initiative I was permitted was to try to infect Tisiphone herself with the Anti-Life."

"Were you successful?"

"I was never certain, but I made her suffer greatly."

He pauses for a moment.

"She has killed other Justifiers, hasn't she?"

"Apparently her idea of what constitutes a murderer doesn't make allowances for mind control. They're valid targets."

"I do not believe that."

"Learning her motive might help get her out of Fury. What do you think?"

"I hardly think that Fury murdered anyone before the Anti-Life took her. Do you know what happens when a person blessed by the Furies offends against them?"

"No."

"This."

Marcus flies across the room, smashing into Automator and whatever he was building! Son of Zeus steps back so that his back is against the solid stone wall and generates a plasma field around himself. Good. I throw out construct cables and electrify them, because power armour is insulated while Fury is-

"Eh."

-wearing her usual minimalistic costume.

Construct lost.

Though it's not enough to take her down, given how tough she is.

"Lyta, Daniel for you!"

"Mom? Are you there?"

Construct lost. / Construct lost. / Construct lost.

My construct armour fractures and the armour beneath deforms from the force of her strike! As my ring speeds up my thoughts I can sort of make out the blur that is Mrs. Hall's face, and send out cables-.

Construct lost.

She's moving position, not staying still to hit me because she knows that speedsters can be caught in area attacks like that. Marcus is picking himself up-.

He's down again, his helmet cratered by a kick.

"Mom, lots of people did-. Did stuff when the Anti-Life got into their heads. Going crazy isn't gunna help. And you know Tisiphone just likes killing people."

She hits me and the outer armour around my left arm fractures, held together by the flexible inner layer. Another strike is angled at my neck but is partly deflected by the fact that my armour has a dome rather than a helmet.

I try-. Agh! Right, shielded, goddess of vengeance. What else? Can't use gas because Son of Zeus isn't wearing a gas mask and Mrs. Hall would need lots of gas to put her down.

Perhaps trying to calm Mrs. Hall down is the wrong approach?

"Tisiphone, you shouldn't hold yourself responsible for what the Anti-Life made-"

Alert! Construct Lanterns-

Orange hands grab me and shove me to the ground, the Construct Lanterns faces contorted into expressions of murderous wrath! I didn't even kill those-.

"-you do!"

Tisiphone slows, picking up-. Picking up the demonically enhanced Nabu helmet and walking towards me.

"They should."

"You saw Darkseid's wrath as being righteous, didn't you? That's what it did to you, how it got to you."

"Go on, put me on him. We can make everyone suffer as they deserve!"

Tisiphone shoves her left hand through the base of my dome helmet and rips it off!

"We've all felt it. We all know what it's like. I've seen other gods be taken by it as well. There's always a stronger power out there somewhere, and you ran into one that likes to use other people as tools. Likes to make them go against their most cherished ideals."

Her face twitches, but she stops moving.

"Marcus was in the same place as you. The others as well, for the most part. Do you really see Marcus-?"

A lightning bolt hits her in the side of the head, and she collapses to the ground.

 

5th March 2013
09:00 GMT +3

"Was..? That right?"

"No it wasn't ri-!"

I pull my rogue Construct Lanterns back into my rings as I push myself up, armour flickering with orange light as it knits back together. Oh, so apparently they believed that they were murdered. It looks like the magical definition of 'murder' is a lot more subjective than I thought it was.

"Mom?! Orange Lantern, what happened?"

I use constructs to pick up Mrs. Hall's recumbent form and check-. Good, good, heart still beating and still breathing on her own. Hard to get good readings on brain activity with someone as tough as her but from what I can detect she's still functioning.

"She's alive. Took a lightning bolt to the head. I'll check that Tisiphone's gone and then take her to a hospital."

"Thank God. I'll tell Dad. Call me back with the name of the hospital?"

"Of course." I hear the click as he rings off. "Did your lessons cover aftermaths?"

"Huh?"

I bind Fury's arms and legs with kinetic neutralisation manacles. "What you're supposed to do when the fighting is over."

"Hand everything over to the police?"

I raise my right arm and point at Automator. "Check your friend isn't dead."

"Shi-."

He darts over and helps the other youth up. Since Automator's armour doesn't have any sort of anti-magic system, I can see perfectly well that he's still alive. He'll have some nasty bruises and his armour's going to need some work, but that's about it. Marcus on the other hand… Well, he's unconscious, so the shattered jaw isn't hurting him, but that's not the only injury he's carrying.

Add an extra layer of super strength bindings to Mrs. Hall. Now, strength feat-wise she's never demonstrated anything on the level of Superman -who I know for a fact can bust out of this restraint system in thirty three seconds flat, because he let me test it on him- so it should be enough even if Tisiphone comes back… But that's barring exotic effects, and she's a minor goddess so barring them from consideration would be stupid. On the other hand, I'm not going to try removing the super toughness of someone who just got lightninged in the head. She might be fine with it, or it might kill her.

"Alpha Centurion?"

Automator's helmet is off-. He's a teenager, a young teenager. I'd say something about that, but it would be a bit hypocritical. I send my own armour to subspace and march across to Marcus, politely pushing Automator aside as I send filaments into Marcus's armour. Releases are there, there and there. Send filaments inside to… Hold the parts of his face together, not technically necessary as I can just replace them but it will probably stop the other two being sick, and remove the helmet.

"Oh God. Is he dead?"

"No. Help me remove his armour, both of you."

Again, not necessary, but if they're going to make a career out of this they should get into good habits.

"Right!"

Hold his jaw in shape and then take a purple healing ray out of subspace and shoot him with it.

"Is that a healing ray?"

"Yes. You're familiar with the technology?"

Automator nods as he removes Marcus's pauldrons. "I've read up on everything you and Mister Kord have released. Ah, should his mouth be bleeding like that?"

"Bleeding from anywhere's not really ideal. See where his cuirass caved in here?"

"Ooh. Hey, Micha-." There's a quiet 'clank' as Michasomething slaps him across the cuirass before Automator can say his whole name. "Son of Zeus?"

I remove the cuirass and start-. There are a lot more scars than last time I scanned him, and it doesn't look like much care was taken in the chirurgery. I briefly consider leaving them in place, but since everyone I've made that offer to has turned it down and he's unconscious anyway I just patch him up with my ring. Arms and legs get the same treatment a moment later. The purple healing ray has mostly dealt with the concussion, so that's not so much of an issue…

"Hm."

"What happens now?"

"Automator, how good are you at power armour?"

"Oh, this isn't the best I can make. I've just got a small workshop. But I.. don't know alien technology. I can't fix his armour."

"Fair enough."

I try transmuting the Apokoliptian technology components, but they're… Resisting, still. So I settle for cutting through the virmiru components around them and just dumping them. I'll stick them on the research pile when I get back to the Watchtower. Fortunately, virmiru technology is considerably less arcane, and between the ring's database and previous scans I can restore his armour to its old functionality.

"Are you lads going to be alright if I send you home?"

Son of Zeus shakes his head. "We should stay until we see what she wakes up as. She killed people, and it's not-. She got freed from the Anti-Life at the same time as the rest of us. Tisiphone should be punished."

"True. Unfortunately, she's not actually in Fury's body, she's just connected to it."

"So where's her real body?"

"Don't know. Olympus, probably. And that's been cut off from the Earth." I shrug. "There's no real way to hold her to account now, and there might not ever be one. I'll ask if it comes up, but…"

He frowns. "That-. That's not right."

"I suggest focusing on what you can fix."

"Oh no." I turn around as Mrs. Hall blinks at the world. "She-she-."

"Yes, I'm afraid that she did. Are you yourself?"

She nods as much as her harness allows her to, and I begin the process of unlocking it.

"H-how's Alpha Centurion?"

"He's physically fine. He should wake up within the next hour."

"And the-. The others? She killed them, didn't she?"

"She did. She took the fact that they used the Anti-Life on her personally, even after it was removed."

"God, God I should have got rid of her years ago, I just-. I had it under control until… Until this."

"Well… Not much to be done, now. Why don't I take everyone home?"