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

[Mr Zoat]

28th September 2013
14:02 GMT -5

The interior walls are blocks of crystal, and each of them has a person embedded inside it. I… Can't see their desires without actively using my ring, and… That isn't my first recourse. They're not being injured-.

Hiro pulls out a raygun-.

Zatanna puts her right hand on it, shaking her head as he looks up with a frown. "Don't shatter the crystals until we know how they're trapped."

"I can precisely bore through the crystal without shattering the entire slab."

"We don't know that they're literally physically trapped inside. We might be seeing an image while the crystal holds their essence."

Hiro frowns, but holsters his pistol.

Timothy is staring at everything. "I can-. I think I can feel some of them."

My eyes are drawn to the inky blackness of half of his body, with is… Not writhing quite as much as it did when we first encountered Lonnie, but it's definitely moving.

Lonnie is… Staring at one of the people-. "Wait, is that Jervis Tetch?"

"Yes."

"He looks better."

"Now that he's out of Arkham, he's eating healthier food and getting exercise and sunlight."

"I think you're skipping a bit. Arkham didn't make him dress up like-."

"Yes, the fact that he's not mad anymore certainly helps too."

I nod. "Hopefully the life broadcast also did something for his victims. Everyone ready to move on?" Nods all around. "Anarky, any idea where we're going?"

"I didn't build a tower, and I can't see any pattern to how the people are being displayed."

"Let's see if we can find a way up, then."

The short corridor open out into a.. larger room, though the site lines are blocked by rectangular crystal columns extending upwards to the ceiling. People are trapped inside those, as well.

"I can't see a staircase." Lonnie raises his club. "This has a grappling hook."

I nod. "My armour's flight system works."

Zatanna nods too. "I can cast a spell to let me fly."

Timothy nods. "I can cast a spell to let me swim through the crystal."

Hiro pulls a pouch out of his satchel. "I have a very bouncy gel. If I coat the bottom of my shoes-."

I shake my head. "I can carry you up. But we still need to find an opening."

Zatanna looks around. "Let's try… Going forwards. And Hunter? Offering to try swimming though crystal that we know for a fact is designed to trap people wasn't a better idea than trying to reach the second floor using bouncy shoes."

"Oh… Yes."

Huh. That might be useful. "Look out for the other half of Hunter, or Yap."

Lonnie frowns at me as we advance. "Were we not doing that before?"

I exhale, squeezing my eyes shut. "I just had my mind altered by magic. I'm not firing on all cylinders."

Hiro shakes his head. "I was looking for Noel Mann."

I sag slightly. "Thank you, Toyman."

"Should I not be looking for-?"

"Thank you, Toyman."

He looks at Zatanna, who giggles quietly. He blinks, then apparently decides to ignore it.

We proceed towards what I think is the centre of the structure, pillars forming a circle around an empty space. There's a decoration on the floor inscribed in the crystal. Some parts of it are similar to magic circles I know, but it's not in the Atlantean style and I can't.. work out what it's supposed to do. The fact that I can't feel the energies and intent any more isn't.. helping matters.

Zatanna raises her eyebrows at me, and all I can do is shrug. As we slowly walk a circle around the design, she and Timothy stare at it, trying to piece it together.

I turn to Lonnie. "Any ideas?"

He stares blankly at the shapes, and then shakes his head. "It should mean something to me… And if I understand the magic right, even if I didn't understand exactly what it did then I should be able to intuit it due to its creation being a part of what I am. Instead… Nothing. I don't know. It's as if a portion of me has been… Ripped out. Because it most likely has."

"Yeah." I nod. "That seems likely. I don't think you've got a face under that mask."

"Then-." He looks around at the people imprisoned in the pillars, presumably searching for his own face.

"I didn't see you, and I was looking."

"This is.. nonsense." Zatanna's glaring at the design on the floor. "It shouldn't do anything."

"Um." Timothy frowns thoughtfully. "I don't think it's meant to do something. I think it's meant to be something."

"Hm?" Zatanna blinks, looking at it again. "If that's true, then… Tahw od uoy tneserper?"

The room twists, the diagram growing and flowing into a pit opening up in the centre of the room! I activate my armour's flight system, only for the distance to become arbitrarily large so I'm basically just flying in place! It's not so much that we're being pulled it as the… Room is restructuring itself.

"Tcetorp su!"

I nod respectfully at Zatanna as the room 'above' us pulls away and the floor snaps back in its new configuration. Our surroundings are still crystalline, but now it primarily a dull blue rather than pale grey. No more pillars, but smaller crystals float in the air above us. No circle, but the design on the floor extends to the distant walls of the room.

And the invisibility cloak is… Someone. I can't see it.

"Ah. There you are."

And standing amongst a series of crystal outcrops is… A beefy man with short purple hair. Strong jaw, heavy brow, touching the crystal spines with care and deliberation.

Lonnie reacts first, walking purposively towards him. "Noel. What are you doing?"

"Furthering our work. I wasn't expecting to get an opportunity like this so soon."

"This isn't why we developed this system!"

"No?" Noel stops and looks directly.. at him. There's something wrong with his expression, but I can't… Work out what it is. "How would you know? You're not even Lonnie, not at the moment."

He reaches up with his right hand and one of the floating crystals drops into it. He smiles as he holds it out-.

And I can just about make out Lonnie's face inside it.

Screaming.

 

[Mr Zoat]

28th September 2013
14:06 GMT -5

I clench my fists, but L-. but Anarky himself appears to be responding in a more contemplative manner. He puts his right forefinger to his chin and taps it twice.

"I feel that you have me at a disadvantage. Who are you, really?"

Mr. Mann tosses the Lonnie crystal back into the air -and I track its location just in case- before smiling.

"Who am I?" He shrugs, a motion mostly of his neck rather than his shoulders. "Am I who I was in my youth? Should I tell you the name people called me back then, a name I haven't use-."

"You haven't used it in thousands of years." Zatanna's eyes narrow. "You're a Neanderthal, like Vandal Savage."

"Vandal Savage. Not Vandar Adg of the Blood Tribe?"

"Did you know him? Were you part of his tribe?"

He frowns. "No, of course not." Zatanna calms slightly. "Neanderthals existed for four hundred thousand years across Europe and half of Asia. I doubt that we would even have been alive at the same time if it wasn't for our changes."

Anarky inclines his head slightly. "I am still waiting to hear your name."

"My original name was something like 'Gur'. But…" He shakes his head. "When I found that I was changing, that I understood ideas that the other members of my tribe could not, then I chose a new name for myself."

"Which was?"

He stares blankly into the distance for a moment. "We had so few words back then. There were so few things that I understood that we could discuss out loud. I wanted something that explains what I had became, and the best I could do… Kum Am. Kum; to think, to understand, to have knowledge or a situation or place. Am; to exist, to be. In English it would be something like 'Know Man'."

I groan quietly. "So your name is a pun that only two people in the world would understand."

"Perhaps. Professor Michaël Peyrot of Leiden University might understand. He's an expert in Proto-Indo-European languages. I think he would work it out. And now you all do as well. And as I implied, Vandal Savage and I came from different times and places. Not all grunt-patterns were the same."

Anarky nods. "A joke that only you would understand. That speaks of profound social isolation."

"But of course. I invented construction engineering while my peers struggled with simple group tactics when hunting. That isn't a lifestyle which lends itself to fellowship."

"And now you surround yourself with bits and pieces of other people."

"The useful parts. Or the useless parts. You were using the technology for that yourself."

"What did I lose?"

"Humanity." Ah "Don't worry: after a while you'll forget why you missed it."

Anarky's mask frowns. "I don't feel any different."

"What does your mother's face look like?"

"It-." The mask blinks. "She-."

"You see? Don't worry: I don't remember my mother's face either. You didn't mention your family once to me while we were working together. Were you already using the crystals to remove the distractions from your soul?"

"I..." Anarky tilts his head to the side. "Wouldn't remember, would I?"

"Such a simple concept." He calls down another crystal. "I wonder if the Apokoliptians ever considered using the technology like this?"

I nod. "Yes. That's how they beat the Green Lantern Corps."

"More Anti-Life projection?"

"Fear." I got curious, and Canis was happy to boast about it. "They forced them to feel the fear of the Lowlies, thousands of years of it, dumped on a few hundred Lanterns."

"I see. But wouldn't the Lowlies have lost their fear as a result?"

"They just gave them new ones. Look, fascinating as I'm sure this technology is, we are going to need you to turn everything off and give everyone their stuff back."

Zatanna nods. "And explain why you mind controlled those people in Hub City."

I blink. That had actually slipped my mind. Not forgotten, but shelved as irrelevant and unimportant.

Anarky turns his head towards-. Really?

"That was a group effort. We were concerned that you were implanting people with genomorphs for sinister purposes."

"Making people healthier is sinister?"

"Implanting living creatures into their body to regulate their body chemistry, creatures which have a telepathic hive mind network and are allied to you, seems extremely sinister."

"You could just have gotten one yourself, or asked for a volunteer."

"We couldn't take the risk that the symbiote would read the host's mind."

"That's the sort of reasoning I'd expect from Tetch, but not from you. What happened to-?"

"I-."

"No, don't answer that. Answer it once you're a single person again. You don't even know that what you're saying is true."

"You're right. It does seem… At odds with what I think I believe that I would use people like that."

"Right, so where were we?" I draw my sidearm. "Noel Mann, Know Man, Gur, Kum Am, whatever you're calling yourself. You're under arrest."

He shakes his head. "Orange Lantern. Illustres. Paul. Whatever you're calling yourself. You are standing inside a crystal that lets me pull traits off people and make them part of myself."

"My gun isn't a person."

"Dleihs su morf sih rewop!"

He sneers at Zatanna as nothing happens, then reaches out with his right hand as two crystals descend towards him. "On. T'nod."

We shimmer purple for a moment, Zatanna's eyes widening. I-.

One of his crystals shimmers orange, and my rings fly from my fingers!

"Ah." Know Man blinks, staring around the room with new eyes. "This is how you feel? I suppose it explains a few things."

No.

"Used to feel, I should say. How does it feel to know that there is nothing about you that cannot be taken away? Llet em."

"Really, really bad. Last time something like this happened was just after I got resurrected, and I was too out of it to really be aware of what was happening. I'm in a situation that's out of my control without my best tools."

"And what will you do next, I wonder?"

"Keep your attention while Hunter does his thing."

"What?"

Above us, crouched on Toyman's drone, Timothy plunges his black hand into the crystal with his face in it!

 

[Mr Zoat]

28th September 2013
14:11 GMT -5

Know Man stares up with a frown. "How-?"

There's a quiet hiss, and-. Timothy sort of blinks, and then his whole body is… Back. And the crystal is jet black and it's… Sort of hissing.

"Zatanna?"

"I don't know."

Know Man's eyes narrow. "I don't know what you're planning, boy, but-."

Plip.

A single… Drip? Of the black goop flies out of the crystal and into one of the others. There's a quiet bloop as it hits and is rapidly absorbed.

Know Man leaps towards Timothy, eyes glowing brilliantly! I draw and shoot him with my sidearm which-

Plip.

-does nothing to him but does hit Zatanna's crystal. She smiles as her eyes light up.

"Llaf trohs!"

Know Man's angle alters immediately, and he grimaces as-

Plip. Plip.

-his angle changes and he falls away from Timothy-

Plip. Plip. Plip.

-and the black drips continue flying off.

Plip. Plipplipplipplpplpplp...

Black droplets fire off in all directions, hitting the floating crystals but also hitting the floor and causing it to turn faintly grey. Know Man lands and looks around in alarm, and I hear a release of gas as Anarky uses his cane's grapple feature to grab his own crystal and pull it down to him. Know Man raises his left hand, rings glowing…

And no construct appears. He blinks and for a moment makes eye contact with me.

Yeah. Annoying, isn't it?

"You should probably drop that-"

Plip.

"-crystal-."

A black droplet leaps out of the crystal floor and penetrates my crystal-

My friend Phil's face is totally blank as he steps out into the road right in front of a truck, and I feel envy as it hits him.

-before swimming through and-. Reaching his hand and coating it in black tar. He shakes his head and tries wiping it off to no affect.

Then the crystal floor around Know Man starts getting darker. He leaps up as Anarky crushes his crystal in his hand… And then falls to his knees.

Oh, I'm on my knees too.

"Egnaro latsyrc ot ym dnah!"

My crystal flies to her hand as Know Man sails towards Timothy, who notices that and jumps from his platform, leaving the black crystal floating in midair and firing black-

Plip.

-plips.

Zatanna catches my crystal, and I'd say something about just making it explode, but I'm still staring at Phil's face is as the truck hits, which isn't a magic thing because the black tar containing the memory is attached to Know Man. It's just so shocking a thought that I'm still thinking it even though I'm not being forced to. It's… Traumatised me, I've actually-.

I want to crawl towards the road.

"Llafwols!"

Timothy slows in midair as Know Man grabs at him and misses.

Toyman presses something, and the platform Timothy was standing on flips around and hits the black crystal, sending it shooting towards Know Man. Know Man's eyes widen and he twists aside and the crystal falls past-.

The black tendril he couldn't scrape off reaches out and grabs it!

"Nuyghuh-guh-guh!"

"Dnes tnemnethgilne kcab ot erehw ti sgnoleb."

Aaaah.

And now Phillip is someone else's problem and nothing to do with me. I hold out my hands, and-

A short distance from me Know Man hits the floor with a crack, and even more inky blobs swarm him.

-my rings fly into my fingers as I stand up.

"Thank you, Zatanna."

She nods. "And well done Hunter."

He touches down lightly and gives us an awkward smile. "I caused the mess, so I cleared it up."

"Not yet you haven't. We're still here. And we do need Know Man sane."

"Okay." He walks closer-but-not-too-close to Know Man. "Alright guys, thanks. You can let him go now."

The inky blackness coating him briefly manifests a head and an arm to nod and wave to him before radiating outwards through the crystal floor and vanishing.

I turn towards Lonnie. "Lonnie. Now that you're back in one piece-."

"I…" He pulls off his mask, and I see that his face has reappeared. "This isn't what I was trying to do."

"I know that you had the best of intentions, but this is the sort of thing that can happen if you don't check who you're working with. And I'm not confident that Mister Tetch wouldn't have done something untoward with it either."

"He's… Better, now."

"The fact that he's cured of the particular form of insanity he was acting under doesn't mean that he's actually making good decisions. For all we know the Life burst just cured the particular manifestation of his underlying psychological weakness."

"That… Could be true. I'll… Speak to him."

"And the g-sanchong?"

"Can I..? Take part in a follow-up study? With volunteers?"

"If it'll make you knock this off, certainly."

He nods slowly. "Alright. And I'm... Sorry that this happened."

"Good. Hunter, how's it-"

We're shoved together as the crystal vanishes and our surroundings are replaced by a wooden cabin.

"-coming?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

28th September 2013
14:15 GMT -5

And since I'm back in one mental piece again I know exactly what I want to do.

A sonic shatterer construct appears before I've even finished looking around us, ring scans guiding it to the correct frequency-

Woomn!

-as every one of Lonnie's crystals shatters!

His head jerks up, looking at the piles of fragments now sitting on his work bench and shelves.

"Why did-?!" I glare, noting that he isn't wearing a costume in the physical world. "You didn't need to do that."

"I think I did."

"Aaaah…" Zatanna looks a little disappointed. "It… Might have been helpful to study those."

"Before we start studying making crystals resonate with peoples' characteristics, let's finish studying-" I nod to Timothy. "-Mister Vergence in the Force over there."

Zatanna frowns. "Huh?"

Wait, was that not in the Earth 16 version-? No, Zatanna's a normalish woman who hasn't spent years memorising science fiction trivia.

"I'm comparing him to Anakin Skywalker, from the-"

"Oh." She nods pityingly.

"-Star Wars prequels?"

"Uh. Uh?" Know Man pushes himself into a sitting position, holding his head in his hands. "Wha-? Why can I-? Still see everything?"

I use a construct to wrench his hands behind his back, and bind his arms with my preferred blend of iron, tungsten and carbon nanotubes.

"Because it turns out that the human brain is actually fairly responsive to trauma. We're an empathic bunch, really. Good work, Hunter."

"I wasn't.. trying to permanently traumatise him. Um. I could-?"

"Don't even think about it." I give him a warning look. "We've had quite enough weird magic from you for today, and we're going to have to go through you to make sure that you didn't keep anything from those trauma creatures either."

Zatanna raises an eyebrow. "'We'?"

"Yes, because that's a two-person job and I can eat malevolent influences without any risk to myself."

"Oh."

"And because I know it's going to be a long and tedious job so I thought I'd stick around."

She brightens up slightly. "Oh, thank you."

Lonnie looks around his workspace and pulls out a dustpan and brush. "Am I under arrest?"

"Depends. We can arrest you over the kidnapping and mind control."

"I think-" Zatanna nods. "-we should."

"And because that's a clear example of supervillainy against critical infrastructure, we get to do a full mental trawl just in case you were doing anything else. Which you clearly were."

Actually-. Ring, scan.

Detected: Victor Sage, Jarvis Tetch, Detective Chimp.

Yes! We can-.

Contact lost.

I glare at Lonnie again, and he smugly holds up… An alert button.

"Okay, I guess we are arresting you, then."

"Ah." Zatanna looks confused. "What just happened?"

"He signalled his co-conspirators and they got out of town." I sigh, focusing my attention on Lonnie. "I was going to offer you a deal, but, fine. I respect the strength of your friendship with the criminal madman and geriatric chimpanzee whom I could have gotten medical attention. Do you want to find someone willing to look after Yap, or has he done a runner too?"

"I'll… Find someone."

"Great. Know Man. Anything that you want to say in moderation before we put you in-?"

He flexes, and his right arm tears itself out of my binding-

"Pots!"

-and there's a very quiet click before his body freezes.

Zatanna stares at him. "How strong-?"

"Wonder Woman, minimum. Right. Orange Lantern to Watchtower, two OMACs to my current location for super strong prisoner transfer." I take an inertia prison out of my harness and step forward-.

Right as he sort of.. sparkles-.

JamjamJAM!

Teleportation jamming in progress, no effect.

And he's gone.

"Lonnie-?"

"If I knew how to do that, I wouldn't be here."

I nod. "Zatanna?"

"I…" She shakes her head. "Don't recognize the spell. Sorry."

"We'll ask your father or Doctor Mist to see if they can work out where he went-."

"That's..." She winces. "Not going to work. All the crystal fragments are going to make it impossible to get any kind of reading."

I sigh as I hear the OMACs teleport to just outside the cabin.

"Looks like you're getting a generous escort, Lonnie. Zatanna, I'll finish up here and meet you in Shadowcrest?"

She nods, and we file out… Ugh, I'll have to notify the local police and get them to do interviews. The people here probably don't know all that much and I'm sure they'll say even less. Lonnie seemed to be popular with the local children, rather than a sinister tearaway.

The OMACs frown. "Lonnie Machin is not on file as having superstrength."

"No, the super strong guy teleported away. Please bear with us while we finish up here, and then take him to processing."

They nod, and I generate a zeta tube terminus construct for the others.

 

[Adrian Lucien Tepes]

Uh hi? Newbie fan art poster here? Don't really know if it's cool to just drop it like this... hopefully someone will tell me so I can take it down?

I'm slowly crawling my way through the story-only thread; I wonder if what part I was on then comes across? Sorry if the design is kinda basic; I'm terrible at remembering character descriptions

Thanks for the fic author, my mildly-ish competent art as tribute from this lurker