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

Chojin Patriarch · 2026-08-28T06:52:45+0100

Mr Zoat said:
28th September 2013
13:26 GMT -5

Hiro frowns as we look at the caravans. "They have moved closer."

Zatanna shakes her head. "We're no longer in an entirely real environment. Ideas and habits matter as much as geography."

And by corollary, don't expect the laws of physics or biology or, well, any logical mechanics to stay consistent. Being overlaid with the Dreaming like this means reality is being defined by consensus.

I nod. "Inhabited buildings have more of a presence than a small patch of scrubland."

"That sure is a nice thing for you to say!"

Ah, see what I meant? Logic is taking a vacation right now.

One of the caravans… Oh, that's disturbing. Eyes have opened in its front face, and a mouth… It's like from a old-style Disney animation. Or one of the cars from Brave Little Toaster.

Behind me, Hiro steps back and falls on his arse.

Not surprising he's stunned. This isn't exactly a common thing in his experience, i would suspect.

"Not at all, sir. You fulfil a valuable role."

"Yea, but it's nice to be recognised!"

And OL takes it in stride. He's seen stranger, after all.

The voice sounds masculine and… In a way I can't quite explain, mechanical.

"Oh, hey! You're the other half of that Gary kid, ain't you?"

Timothy does a half-nod as Hiro gets up, still staring. "Yes. Do you know where he is?"

Given the wild magic of the place, I'm not surprised.

"I only saw him walking past, but I think he was headed to the crystal tower."

"The crystal tower?"

No doubt the work of Lonnie and Tetch. This is totally the 'cleanse all illusions form people's minds' plot, isn't it?

"Sure! Just about the only thing anyone can talk about these days."

"Ah saw a tower, once." One of the other caravans opens its eyes. "Sure weren't made of crystal."

I imagine the memory of a lot of places linger in their structure.

"Well I don't know what it's made of, just what it's called."

"Damn fool name."

Well, it ain't Statler and Waldorf, but it's fun back-and-forth.

"Thank you for the information, sir. Which direction would that be in?"

Ah. It looks like they're Disneyified enough to bend a little, but they can't really move. He's able to indicate a direction by turning his 'head' and eyes, and… That'll do for us.

'Just down the way there, folks', eh?

"Thank you again."

"Mind how you go, now! I think that Lonnie boy's up to something!"

Oh, no doubt of that.

We walk onwards, other caravans opening their eyes to watch us walk past, and then appearing to go back to sleep. Hiro is jerking his head from one to the next, wide-eyes.

Zatanna regards him with concern. "Toyman, are you okay?"

Presumably his adventures in Japan have not been nearly so interesting as this.

"The mobile homes are talking! They are talking! They have eyes, and-. And they can talk! There should not be enough room in their interior for their mouth!"

Timothy half-frowns at him. "Have you never seen magic before?"

"No!"

Oh, you are in for a wild time as part of this program, then.

"What about the gremlins who destroyed those robots?"

"Talking to goblins is not the same as… That! A goblin looks like a shaved monkey! That was a talking cabin!"

No need to be rude, kiddo.

"What, you couldn't build one?"

He blinks, and calms as he's forced to consider it. Then he shakes his head. "Not one that looked like that. That was too realistic. What are they? Living creatures made by a mad scientist? Aliens? Monsters?"

Magic, remember?

Timothy half-shakes his head. "Motor homes."

"Motor.. homes..?"

I doubt RVs are much of a thing in Japanese cities.

"Do you know what the empathetic fallacy is?"

"No."

Ever called a vehicle 'she' or pleaded with an inanimate object like it was alive?

"It's where you talk to an inanimate object like it's alive. Have you ever done that?"

"I sometimes insult machines that don't work properly. Is that what you mean?"

Would the term 'tsukumogami' feel better, Hiro? Similar principle. Except here, it didn't take 99 years to awaken the spirit...

Timothy nods. "When enough people do it, magic… Associations build up. Add raw magic energy, and it's easy to make objects people treat as if they're people become like people."

"Did.. you.. do that?"

I would assume it's more an aspect of being soaked in Dreaming stuff.

"I didn't mean to. You get… Problems."

"Problems?"

"It's alright if I decide how much like people they are, but… What does a motor home do if it starts getting hungry?"

And then there's the matter of what happens after he's done with them. This is why his 'making' spirits to solve problems is such a problem.

"Eat?"

"Yeah."

"…oh. How does that work?"

...I don't want to think about it. And neither should you.

"It-. It's really messy. So-. When this is finished, these will all go back to being regular motor homes again."

Hiro looks at me. "Is that allowed? Do America's laws on artificial intelligence not apply to them?"

He hopes they'll go back to normal. Otherwise Zatanna might need to apply a magical 'undo' button.

"The Supreme Court hasn't made a ruling on the subject, but my feeling is that since they provably don't have any cognitive abilities of their own, they're essentially just chatbots with unusual bodies. Just-. Ah, Hunter? If you make them too intelligent, that law would apply, so don't go around creating mentally sophisticated people unless you're ready to be a father."

Let's hope he hasn't gone that far yet. Might be a bit hard to explain to his girl-friend.

"I won't."

"Good show."

It'll be a lot easier once Zatanna works out what he can and can't do at this stage, and ban him from using the more problematic stuff.

Alright, I can see the field where Lonnie was holding court. Even if they're not there, we should be able to find some sign-

One of the nearby caravans opens its mouth-.

-of-.

Ah. This could be troublesome.

A… Creature made of black slime… Pulls itself out of the caravan, and I now see that the caravan itself is… Dead? Its eyes whited out and its panels are in poor repair. The creature has the body proportions of a g-elf, but as it pulls itself free I see that it's considerably more flexible. And it appears to have six eyes, three on each side of its head.

Very troublesome.

And then another pulls itself out of the caravan door, and another crawls out from underneath, and another shoves the left eyeball aside enough to crawl out of the socket…

Behind us, one pulls itself out of a pile of ash.

Oh, that's just creepy.

Zatanna takes a half-step forwards. "What are you, and what do you want?"

"We are parts of people, cast aside. We must be made whole."

If this is the 'remove all lies and self-deceptions' ploy, then these would be those very things embodied, I bet.

"And you're not too fussy about who makes you whole, is that it?"

"We prefer to make ourselves whole. But we will accept others. Can you find our other halves for us?"

Given there's no-one else here as far as they've seen... yeah, I don't think this is going to end nicely.

"Why can't you find them yourselves?"

"The crystals burn."

Because they enforce truthfulness and clear-headedness, I would bet.

"We'll see what we can do." Zatanna looks pointedly towards the field. "Excuse us?"

"No…" The moves to form a complete circle around us. "We think we will not."

I wonder what would happen if these were destroyed? Would their 'other halfs' just be more truthful and level-headed? At least until they start to settle back into human habits.

This will be interesting, I bet. All people's little self-directed evils and social defences congealed into not-so-nice predators. Which makes me wonder what happens if they manage to infuse someone like one of the heroes? Instant evil mode? Or just become a jackass... Either way, let's hope Zatanna can ward them away.

Jankl · 2026-08-28T06:54:36+0100

_The_Bomb said:
@Jankl I am incredibly curious what about my post from two years ago resonated with you enough to make you Like it.

Oh, it just doesn't take much for me to like a comment. And I was interested in the answer to your questions.

NightmareWarden · 2026-08-28T07:12:51+0100

Mr Zoat said:
Zatanna takes a half-step forwards. "What are you, and what do you want?"

"We are parts of people, cast aside. We must be made whole."

"And you're not too fussy about who makes you whole, is that it?"

"We prefer to make ourselves whole. But we will accept others. Can you find our other halves for us?"

"Why can't you find them yourselves?"

"The crystals burn."

"We'll see what we can do." Zatanna looks pointedly towards the field. "Excuse us?"

"No…" The moves to form a complete circle around us. "We think we will not."

I wonder if Hades' mental comportment is affecting the ease with which other Black light and Death aligned entities can "act out" like this. Probably not! But it's possible.

More likely options... Something is hunting Lonnie, and he's running from it. He's using his followers to obscure his location and otherwise protect himself while other work is accomplished.

I don't think Lonnie has become The Question's apprentice, but... Their team has become Grayven's Light, but for the Paragonverse. Sorry, I'm kinda out of it right now. My point is that The Question either shared some tips with Lonnie about metaphysical things based on his own magics, orrrrrr he performed magic nearby Lonnie, in such a way that Lonnie extrapolated from the example enough to try some magic of his own.

What else... I wonder if these mobile homes are extra intelligent due to the kidnapping of Enginehead by Lonnie? Or perhaps Hephestean's sphere of influence? Questions and questions, which might be relevant once Hunter and Toyman are ready for a high level adventure.

Darko · 2026-08-28T07:34:53+0100

NightmareWarden said:
I wonder if Hades' mental comportment is affecting the ease with which other Black light and Death aligned entities can "act out" like this. Probably not! But it's possible

I doubt it.

Hades is powerful, but he's not in charge of every single black light or death-aligned entity on the planet.

If it's connected to the Greek mythic, then he's their boss, but if it isn't, then they work for someone else.

NightmareWarden said:
More likely options... Something is hunting Lonnie, and he's running from it. He's using his followers to obscure his location and otherwise protect himself while other work is accomplished

I thought that if he was mind controlling people then these things were the parts of his victims that were thrown out due to whatever he did to them.

BR549 · 2026-08-28T08:46:37+0100

Chojin Patriarch said:
If this is the 'remove all lies and self-deceptions' ploy, then these would be those very things embodied, I bet.

...

They really are Armus-es!

Darko · 2026-08-28T09:16:54+0100

Mr Zoat said:
The moves to form a complete

Maybe "he moves" or "They move to".

Mr Zoat · 2026-08-28T11:18:34+0100

Darko said:
Maybe "he moves" or "They move to".

Thank you, corrected.

Bud-E · 2026-08-28T11:29:42+0100

@Mr Zoat Are the Terror twins not heroes anymore? After what they were doing during the Anti-Life, I thought they would be a part of the newbie heroes.

Mr Zoat · 2026-08-28T12:29:24+0100

Bud-E said:
@Mr Zoat Are the Terror twins not heroes anymore? After what they were doing during the Anti-Life, I thought they would be a part of the newbie heroes.

They're doing heavy manual labour for the League, having been pardoned. Thomas certainly wouldn't mind being a hero, but they do actually need a job.

Steelplaza · 2026-08-28T14:54:57+0100

Mr Zoat said:
"We prefer to make ourselves whole. But we will accept others. Can you find our other halves for us?"

So if the other half of Tim got hit by this, then the half-Tim has been divided into quarter Tims. Halves of a half.

Maybe "lies and deception" quarter-Tim will escape at the end of this! After all, if half-Tim accompanying OL unites with his half that has been purified of lies and deception, I'm sure he's got lies and deception enough for them both.

He could have his own evil doppleganger supervillain.

Ardy · 2026-08-28T15:50:42+0100

Steelplaza said:
So if the other half of Tim got hit by this, then the half-Tim has been divided into quarter Tims. Halves of a half.

Maybe "lies and deception" quarter-Tim will escape at the end of this! After all, if half-Tim accompanying OL unites with his half that has been purified of lies and deception, I'm sure he's got lies and deception enough for them both.

He could have his own evil doppleganger supervillain.

Oh man, first the mad hatter and now this, OL seems to be beating Ted in the "creating villains" department

ziggrrauglurr · 2026-08-28T16:19:20+0100

BR549 said:
Now the question is are the Armus-alikes working for themselves and simply incapable of acting in more logical ways to get what they want, or is this something affected by, say, Question's city shaman magic and they're acting, or doubling, as guardians?

It seems the Crystals "burn" away the 'unwanted' parts of people (unwanted by Lonnie), when connected to a controlling hat, they just help with the technology, but prolonged use might separate the person from aspects of their personality, as those, more probably can be considered negative, they are not the most social of spirits.... That's my take at least

timeForced · 2026-08-28T22:46:43+0100

Poor things are just slimes against a party with two max level guides and they don't realize it.

BR549 · 2026-08-29T00:54:58+0100

...having looked back at the most recent chapter, it occurs to me that with the mention of "caravans" we may, actually, be seeing a bit of a trip-up on the basis of 'two peoples divided by a common language' when it comes to this being a trailer park:

Mr Zoat said:
I nod as the Etch A Sketch sketches out an overhead view. A trailer park,

...because a Florida trailer park isn't a place you'd necessarily expect to find caravans.

So. Caravans. In American English, these are known as "campers" or "travel trailers" (the latter likely being where the confusion comes from). Self-propelled versions are 'campervans' in England, 'motor homes', 'recreational vehicles', or (under the same principle that people can use "Jeep" to refer generically to an off-road vehicle) 'Winnebagoes' on this side of the pond. They're towed or self-powered vehicles for vacations; the trailer models are usually used in regular campgrounds, the self-propelled ones in 'caravan parks' or, as they're all but universally referred to in America, 'RV parks'.

A trailer park, however, is not used by portable, mobile, or easily movable vehicles, at least since the 1970s. It's used for "trailers"...which are properly known as manufactured homes. These used to be called mobile homes, but (due to a mixture of increased regulation and builders wanting to get away from stereotypes) that term is becoming increasingly archaric; the term "trailer" remains from the 1940s-1960s, when they were still fairly movable, but from the 1970s onwards these are built in a factory and then moved on, or as a trailer - either as a whole (singlewide trailers) or in halves split down the middle (doublewide trailers), sold from a lot, trailered to the site (a trailer park or a proper property) - and then permamently installed. You see a lot of them, especially older ones, still with their trailer hitch assemblies sticking out of the flashing around their bases, but that's just because it's easier and cheaper to leave it; once built and installed, they never move again and are, functionally, regular, if cheaply (and, especially with older ones, often shoddly) built houses. "Trailer park" is a term that has stuck and become stereotypical (as has "trailer trash" for the stereotypical trailer-park resident), but the domiciles themselves are very much not mobile.

So, given the description of Tim's Amazing Talking Caravans, they sound like they're intended to be travel trailers and/or RVs - British "caravans" - instead of American "trailers"; since this is set in Florida, this could be slightly awkward, but there are almost as many RV parks in Florida these days as there are trailer parks (and a quick check shows some right around Mount Dora in fact), so the solution could be changing 'Trailer park' in the quoted bit to 'RV park' - or as simple as Paul not knowing the difference.

Mr Zoat · 2026-08-29T08:32:43+0100

28th September 2013
13:31 GMT -5

"Neat!" My ring and eyes start glowing, and the shades hesitate. "I've been meaning to get more construct lanterns. Thank you for volunteering!"

"Um." Timothy looks half-awkward. "Usually in situations like this, helping people get put back together is a good thing?"

"I don't think they'd have cast these things aside if they still wanted them."

One of them rises out of my shadow, elongated fingers reaching for my face. I try to form a construct to grab it but nothing happens. Alright, fine. I bolster my environmental shield and grab it with my right hand.

"Excuse me."

It shimmers, and for a moment I'm back in the fight where my clone tried to Anti-Life me. And then the moment ends, and I'm back amongst the dead caravans.

The black thing recoils, cringing as if struck. "How!?"

"I've had an interesting life. And-."

"Uh." Toyman steps back as a couple of the shades slowly approach him.

"Kniht yppah sthguoht."

A wave of peach light radiates slowly out from her, then shades cringing and covering their faces with their hands as it passes over them. With her left hand she shoves-. Oh right. She shoves Toyman towards the grassland, which is where we're supposed to be going.

This… This feels like a situation where we're supposed to come up with a clever solution, using our knowledge and flexibility to negotiate a favourable bargain with the eldritch monsters. This issue is that Zatanna and I both have the skill and power to forcibly resolve this the way we want. And… I've seen a lot of people try and fail to process their Anti-Life experiences. If these people have just cast them out, then I think that destroying them immediately is the best-

"I'll take you."

-solution-.

"What?"

Timothy half-turns and points to his missing-.

"Hunt-"

A shade dives into his missing side, a black tint appearing across the cut surface.

"-er!"

And then another, and another-.

I look to Zatanna for some sort of guidance, but she's just staring.

"Zatanna?"

"Ah… Tcetorp Retnuh!"

"It's okay!" Timothy winces as the missing half of his body gets… Filled in by black… Sludge? It reminds me a little of Mr. Swift's ability, except… The texture is different. "I'm-. Okay."

"You don't sound okay." But magic weirdness is supposed to be his wheelhouse, while I'm more of a blunt instrument. "And-."

Zatanna clenches her jaw. "And when we get back we're going to have a talk about throwing yourself into danger for no reason. What are they making you feel?"

"Nothing I didn't feel back in January. And… They're not my problems, so it's less… Bad."

The last of them steps into his newly reassembled left side, and he moves his arm and leg to check that they still work.

"See? It's fine."

I look around. The shadows certainly seem less oppressive, but the dead caravans are still dead.

"Hunter, would you care to explain your reasoning there?"

"They were parts of people, I'm missing half of myself. I can carry them until we find the rest of them."

"Zatanna, is there some sort of unspoken magical guarantee that that's how it works?"

"No."

"That's how it works. They can't be just bad feelings; they had personalities and desires. Bad feelings don't mean anything if they're not connecting to things that explain why they're bad. If the kids here push that away just because it feels bad, they lose… Whatever else is in here."

"So you feel fine right now."

"No, I feel terrible." He.. gags. "But I've felt terrible before. Come on." He walks towards the field. "If weguh!"

On the very border of the grassland he stops, flesh half on the grass and shadow half… Rippling, looking like it's trying to get away. He looks down, immediately noticing and stepping back.

"U-mm."

"We can go around-."

"No, I can manage. If I-."

"Dleihs Yhtomit S'retnuh krad edis." The black shakes, and then snaps back into position. Zatanna shudders. "I already know that was a terrible idea."

Timothy smiles at her. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me; you didn't really leave me a choice. Toyman, are you alright?"

He nods nervously, and I notice that he's drawn… Some sort of raygun looking weapon. He didn't shoot, but I'm not sure if that's because he was waiting for orders or because he decided not to.

"Ah. Yes. I am not hurt."

"I'll say again: superheroes run into crazy things. Are you sure you want to keep going?"

He doesn't look certain, but he nods.

"Right." I stride out across the glass land, the rest of the squad only a little behind me. "Hunter, any idea what we're looking for?"

"Anarky was sitting under a tree."

"Was his dog there?"

"Yes."

"YAP! YOU HERE, BOY!? LONNIE!"

Nothing. I can see forests off in the distance, but I can't see this place's version of the tree. There's a playground over-

"Rooff!"

-there-.

The ground erupts as a colossal dog made of crystal lunges at me, teeth bared!

Mr Zoat · 2026-08-29T08:36:45+0100

BR549 said:
or as simple as Paul not knowing the difference.

That's the one. To the best of my knowledge we don't really have trailer parks in Britain.

Vanbers · 2026-08-29T08:44:46+0100

Mr Zoat said:
"Dleihs Yhtomit S'retnu krad edis." The black shakes, and then snaps back into position. Zatanna shudders. "I already know that was a terrible idea."

S'retnuh

PeriodicPedant · 2026-08-29T08:55:03+0100

Mr Zoat said:
Filled in my black… Sludge

by

boo600 · 2026-08-29T08:57:27+0100

Mr Zoat said:
"Neat!" My ring and eyes start glowing, and the shades hesitate. "I've been meaning to get more construct lanterns. Thank you for volunteering!"

…on the one hand, I'm genuinely excited to see him expressing this desire and plan. On the other hand, I don't actually believe him - he's had free time before, and incidents like the Hydra means that he can just track down powerful monsters that aren't sapient. He could just… do the Visser 3 thing and check his ring (green lantern archives) for a list of dangerous planets with powerful, malicious monsters. Boom, construct lanterns for basic protect-and-shepard-the-civilians actions. And even if he was told to stop assimilating demons (Colin Thornton should have counted for that, given the hellfire), I struggle to believe that nonsapient fae/elementals weren't an option if he wanted Magic-based constructs (like his Praexis demons) in particular.

Basically, I am unpleaseable, and hope to be proven wrong in the future. Sorry, but I appear to have become a curmudgeon.

Mr Zoat said:
It shimmers, and for a moment I'm back in the fight where my clone tried to Anti-Life me. And then the moment ends, and I'm back amongst the dead caravans.

So they're an aftershock from the anti-life. Yeah, assimilating them makes sense. Like cleaning up pollution.

Mr Zoat said:
This… This feels like a situation where we're supposed to come up with a clever solution, using our knowledge and flexibility to negotiate a favourable bargain with the eldritch monsters. This issue is that Zatanna and I both have the skill and power to forcibly resolve this the way we want. And… I've seen a lot of people try and fail to process their Anti-Life experiences. If these people have just cast them out, then I think that destroying them immediately is the best-

It's nice to see this acknowledged, and also to see that Zatanna is - if not in his weight class - in the same metaphorical category he's constructed. The girl's impressive, and it's nice to see Paul's Violet Bonanza didn't put her off of growth.

Mr Zoat said:
A wave of peach light radiates slowly out from her, then shades cringing and covering their faces with their hands as it passes over them. With her left hand she shoves-. Oh right. She shoves Toyman towards the grassland, which is where we're supposed to be going.

I'm now very curious about what that light is derived from. A mix of love and hope? A photonic side effect of a different side of magic than connecting to the Spectrum?

Mr Zoat said:
Dleihs Yhtomit S'retnu krad edis." The black shakes, and then snaps back into position. Zatanna shudders. "I already know that was a terrible idea."

…yeah. Also S'retnuh, but… he needs to learn a spell that lets him communicate quickly. A telepathy-equivalent. And learn to talk to people, get their support before sticking his hand in the blender.

Chojin Patriarch · 2026-08-29T09:04:33+0100

Mr Zoat said:
28th September 2013
13:31 GMT -5

"Neat!" My ring and eyes start glowing, and the shades hesitate. "I've been meaning to get more construct lanterns. Thank you for volunteering!"

"Um." Timothy looks half-awkward. "Usually in situations like this, helping people get put back together is a good thing?"

There's 'helping' and then there's dealing with shadow monsters made of bits of people they cast aside. That have more or less declared their intention to reassemble themselves with bits of you.

"I don't think they'd have cast these things aside if they still wanted them."

One of them rises out of my shadow, elongated fingers reaching for my face. I try to form a construct to grab it but nothing happens. Alright, fine. I bolster my environmental shield and grab it with my right hand.

Construct resistant, likely becasue of the black. Not optimal. But Enlightenment might let him no-sell any aggression.

"Excuse me."

It shimmers, and for a moment I'm back in the fight where my clone tried to Anti-Life me. And then the moment ends, and I'm back amongst the dead caravans.

Anti-Life, then nuked itself when it couldn't, if I remember right. Not a pleasant experience.

The black thing recoils, cringing as if struck. "How!?"

"I've had an interesting life. And-."

Looks like he's too spicy for them.

"Uh." Toyman steps back as a couple of the shades slowly approach him.

"Kniht yppah sthguoht."

Yes, Hiro is definitely going to have to learn how to integrate mystical defences into his tech soon.

A wave of peach light radiates slowly out from her, then shades cringing and covering their faces with their hands as it passes over them. With her left hand she shoves-. Oh right. She shoves Toyman towards the grassland, which is where we're supposed to be going.

These things are basically just distractions. If they can find Tim's Other and end this effect, they'll fade back into nothingness without the Dreaming-stuff to give them form. Hopefully.

This… This feels like a situation where we're supposed to come up with a clever solution, using our knowledge and flexibility to negotiate a favourable bargain with the eldritch monsters. This issue is that Zatanna and I both have the skill and power to forcibly resolve this the way we want. And… I've seen a lot of people try and fail to process their Anti-Life experiences. If these people have just cast them out, then I think that destroying them immediately is the best-

Assuming that's all these things are.

"I'll take you."

-solution-.

"What?"

Oh, goddammit, hero complexes strike again.

Timothy half-turns and points to his missing-.

"Hunt-"

Let's hope this doesn't push him towards his 'evil magical conqueror' future.

A shade dives into his missing side, a black tint appearing across the cut surface.

"-er!"

And then another, and another-.

We can only hope he's got some plan to expel them later. Unfortunately, I don't think Tim does 'forethought' much.

I look to Zatanna for some sort of guidance, but she's just staring.

"Zatanna?"

Probably shocked by the extreme level of lack of self-preservation.

"Ah… Tcetorp Retnuh!"

"It's okay!" Timothy winces as the missing half of his body gets… Filled in my black… Sludge? It reminds me a little of Mr. Swift's ability, except… The texture is different. "I'm-. Okay."

Ew. He's definitely gonna need a bit of soul-cleansing after this...

"You don't sound okay." But magic weirdness is supposed to be his wheelhouse, while I'm more of a blunt instrument. "And-."

Zatanna clenches her jaw. "And when we get back we're going to have a talk about throwing yourself into danger for no reason. What are they making you feel?"

He's already in deep shit for causing this, don't think another lecture is going to faze him much.

"Nothing I didn't feel back in January. And… They're not my problems, so it's less… Bad."

The last of them steps into his newly reassembled left side, and he moves his arm and leg to check that they still work.

That still doesn't make it better.

"See? It's fine."

I look around. The shadows certainly seem less oppressive, but the dead caravans are still dead.

Worrisome.

"Hunter, would you care to explain your reasoning there?"

"They were parts of people, I'm missing half of myself. I can carry them until we find the rest of them."

I'd say it doesn't work that way, but this is the Dreaming, where belief can shape reality.

"Zatanna, is there some sort of unspoken magical guarantee that that's how it works?"

"No."

Admittedly, she's probably out of her depth already, but if she's sure...

"That's how it works. They can't be just bad feelings; they had personalities and desires. Bad feelings don't mean anything if they're not connecting to things that explain why they're bad. If the kids here push that away just because it feels bad, they lose… Whatever else is in here."

...Huh, surprisingly insightful. Not sure how correct that is, but if it works, it works.

"So you feel fine right now."

"No, I feel terrible." He.. gags. "But I've felt terrible before. Come on." He walks towards the field. "If weguh!"

So much for 'okay'.

On the very border of the grassland he stops, flesh half on the grass and shadow half… Rippling, looking like it's trying to get away. He looks down, immediately noticing and stepping back.

"U-mm."

Some manner of repulsion effect, certainly. Likely what the shadow-things were talking about previously.

"We can go around-."

"No, I can manage. If I-."

"Dleihs Yhtomit S'retnu krad edis." The black shakes, and then snaps back into position. Zatanna shudders. "I already know that was a terrible idea."

It's this or leave him incomplete.

Timothy smiles at her. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me; you didn't really leave me a choice. Toyman, are you alright?"

So much trouble.

He nods nervously, and I notice that he's drawn… Some sort of raygun looking weapon. He didn't shoot, but I'm not sure if that's because he was waiting for orders or because he decided not to.

"Ah. Yes. I am not hurt."

Could even be a case of 'will this even hurt them, or make them stronger?' on his part.

"I'll say again: superheroes run into crazy things. Are you sure you want to keep going?"

He doesn't look certain, but he nods.

Also a heroic thing. A little foolish, sometimes, but Heroes do push through where sensible people would stop.

"Right." I stride out across the glass land, the rest of the squad only a little behind me. "Hunter, any idea what we're looking for?"

"Anarky was sitting under a tree."

We knew that much from Hiro's scans. Or did Tim get a flash from his Other?

"Was his dog there?"

"Yes."

"YAP! YOU HERE, BOY!? LONNIE!"

And this place is going to embody Yap as an even more idealised form of 'Good Boy' dog...

Nothing. I can see forests off in the distance, but I can't see this place's version of the tree. There's a playground over-

"Rooff!"

Ah, that's good? Dog's responding...

-there-.

The ground erupts as a colossal dog made of crystal lunges at me, teeth bared!

...Not so good. Hopefully this is just a dog that hasn't realised it's bigger than it used to be before.

The crystal aspect seems odd, if this is Yap. I wonder what that signifies... At any rate, if they can befriend him, he can lead them to Lonnie more easily. The problem being what they might find when they do. And Tim leaping in blindly into trouble again. The boy just doesn't learn, does he? Hopefully this experience teaches him some needed hesitation.

Mr Zoat · 2026-08-29T09:16:54+0100

Vanbers said:
S'retnuh

PeriodicPedant said:
by

Thank you, corrected.

Ngamer11 · 2026-08-29T09:35:52+0100

I think the problem with Timothy Hunter is that he's never experienced a catastrophic loss before. He's had setbacks, but nothing he couldn't fix afterwards.

Frozen20XX · 2026-08-29T09:48:55+0100

Mr Zoat said:
"Neat!" My ring and eyes start glowing, and the shades hesitate. "I've been meaning to get more construct lanterns. Thank you for volunteering!"

Paragon conscripting beings into his own personal construct army is always nice to see. It being one of the main features of the orange light and all.

boo600 said:
And even if he was told to stop assimilating demons (Colin Thornton should have counted for that, given the hellfire), I struggle to believe that nonsapient fae/elementals weren't an option if he wanted Magic-based constructs (like his Praexis demons) in particular.

That reminds me of something, @Mr Zoat how come Paragon kept calling him by his false name 'Colin Thornton' and not by 'Satanus'? Since iirc the former was a fake name while the latter was his real one?

Ngamer11 · 2026-08-29T10:07:49+0100

Frozen20XX said:
That reminds me of something, @Mr Zoat how come Paragon kept calling him by his false name 'Colin Thornton' and not by 'Satanus'? Since iirc the former was a fake name while the latter was his real one?

I think it's because that was the mortal name Satanus was using at the time. It is especially fitting now that he's a human.

Frozen20XX · 2026-08-29T10:09:30+0100

Ngamer11 said:
I think it's because that was the mortal name Satanus was using at the time. It is especially fitting now that he's a human.

Hm, fair enough. Just thought back to how Renegade addressed Sportsmaster and Bane by their proper names rather than aliases.

Signaller · 2026-08-29T10:24:25+0100

I was going to guess that these half-people were generated by whatever Batman was doing to create the OMACs, but with this crystal thing now I'm wondering if its related to what John Quinn was doing. Either way, Constantine might have some useful advice for Hunter?

Steelplaza · 2026-08-29T13:26:17+0100

I see a lot of people going, "Hunter what a dummy!" And I understand that perspective, but...

I think it's "good actually" that the guy destined to become the most powerful wizard in the world/universe/whatever has instincts that tell him he should take on burdens to help other people. He could be smarter about implementation, but directionally it's good.

Someguy Somewhere · 2026-08-29T14:34:12+0100

Issue isn't him being driven to help, it's his lack of communication and methods. He is behaving like a Constantine mini-me, only worse because is jumping to the extreme solutions long before understanding the situation or having tried alternatives.

This more then likely reflects both on his character and that of his teachers.

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