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

Dont you mean "why'd you call me?"

 

Are we going to finally see Wallace break out his awesome Alchemy skills?

I am so excited to see him back.

 

Thank you, corrected.

No. His brain was warming up and he was surprised that the SI didn't call him 'Wallace'.

 

I think it is "what," as OL normally calls people by their given names. When not on the job, that is, so him calling Kid Flash such stands out as unusual, as a signal that the call is business, not personal.

 

Wow, that is honestly out of character for him, if Wally notices it. He's in full professional mode, I see. No real names where someone not in the know might hear.

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

Well, it started when he took the Greek goddess of nightmares to examine the Mother Star corpse inside Pluto...

I honestly doubt he ever would have met Dodds anyway. Didn't he only meet Jay Garrick because of his uncle becoming the Flash?

Yeah, if you aren't a main or side character, the Law of Narrative Causality won't do shit to save your life. On the upside, if you are, you're good as immortal. Unless you're killed off to give someone else drama.

Got to love the MetaGene. Giving that one in a million chance to opportunity to shine.

Though I doubt Wally ever bothered to read what info OL could quote about the Endless. Not like he was ever going to meet one, was he?

Sensible advice. If you thought Gods were capricious, imagine how bad the ones above them are?

Oh-ho, another case of accidental alchemy? No wonder his gas gun was so effective.

Ah, I see Wally just came to the same conclusion. Bet he'll get the idea to replicate it for an additional bit of kit.

I wonder how often he ends up doing that to people. Going off on a superspeed tangent...

Good idea to check, don't want to walk in on something.

Mister Garrick is over ninety-five years old at this point. He may be in decent shape, but do you want him getting into another cape fight? He was lucky during that shit with Rival, what with the durability of being possessed by a demon.

Would his plan even be possible in this universe? No Obsidian to use as a lever on the Shadowlands... I doubt he could manage so well using Shade.

True. He might have an idea on where Sandy might be locked up. Assuming Dodds told anyone else.

Bad dreams from the aforementioned run-in with Rival? He was demonically possessed, after all.

Well, OL is still alive, so it can't have been that bad.

It'll just take time for him to sweep the place, or send his raven looking. She'd have quite the metaphysical signature, even in the Dreaming.

The question is 'why didn't he do something about them?' And the answer is...

It'd be just like the old days, honestly. Probably something he'd look forwards to.

Or rather, the lands currently called Greece. All the lands where he was worshipped. And yes, Morpheus is a bit of a lazy one.

Well, that's quite the declaration. It might well net him a few worshippers one day. Not that total collapse is likely, unless the Great Disaster rolls through. And I think OL would have things to say about that.

Given his comic appearance at this point was 'raging sand monster locked in a glass bottle', that's good advice.

Yes, OL. No need to tell the god of hunting how to hunt... Do people tell you how to blunder into crazy situations?

He can pull out the 'Justice League business' card. That'll open a few doors.

At worst, they admit that 'Fate' is a rotating title held by various mages wearing a legendary artifact. Not entirely the truth, but good enough for politics.

Now, the investigation begins. Can they sniff out where Sandy is hidden, and how long will it take? How long will Persephone's patience last before she curses OL? How much of a mess will Sandy make when he busts out? I guess we'll find out over the weekend.

He nods, then turns away and takes off at a loping run.

 

Mr Zoat
this bothers me why hasnt paul upgraded even a little bit like gravyen?

 

Weren't those the same statistics that would have been manipulated by Boss Smiley?

 

The really good upgrades are magic/alchemy based, which don’t work on his nonstandard soul, and most others are not worth doing when you own a power ring.

 

like? you got examples?

 

Man i wonder if this is gonna gonna end up with Morpheus pining over Mellinoe.

 

There are the genetic-based upgrades like Truggs and Abra have. They aren't big, but they're worth having.

 

I know Paragon has a lot of out-of-universe knowledge plus probably familiarity with such topics from general research since he arrived, but I still find it a bit odd that he has to explain things like the Endless to a millennia-old god who, even though he hasn't interacted much with Dream, should have a fairly good idea about the nature and scope of their existences just from general background knowledge.

I do have a mental image of a Starro version of Morpheus now though, so that's cool.

 

No, just a byproduct of being really old.

Thank you, corrected.

You mean, like by putting tattoos on his body that make him immune to exotic detection? Something like that?

Mostly because he likes how he is.

 

Wasn't this established one of the other times we've seen him?

 

I don't remember. If so, the SI is wondering if the League has formally ruled either way.

 

Fair enough

 

So.

OL had a good reason he couldn't heal Alan (The Green Light corruption.)

Why hasn't he healed Jay? Just not wanting to go around fixing old age?

 

At this point Paul could probably do a kryptonian upgrade.

Is Morpheus suicidal here?

 

His relationship with Jay isn't anything like as close.

He could turn himself into someone entirely different, yes.

Not as far as the SI knows.

 

He has an incredibly powerful soul, and has been called a demigod on multiple occasions.

Canis also called him a powerful New God.

The ring may give him a lot of power, but he has a lot of personal power, even if it isn't as apparent as renegades.

Not really.

John has performed some bullshit things before that seemed impossible.

Hinon is a godlike being that comes from a godlike race that has had dealings with beings like the Endless and has accumulated a lot of knowledge.

 

He already did with the demon thing. Kryptonians are pretty human-like for malthusinoids.... I guess he could also try to emulate Adam Blake's physiology. Should be capable of retaining the exact same mimd...

It's gotta be the neural changes that worry him
Mind's just the plaything of the body and all that.

Or is it that if it's not a direct copy/paste it gets too tricky to apply?

Or in doylist sense, are you avoiding power creep?

One could argue that kryptonians exhibit a rather rigid way of thinking, compared to humans, and that may be more than just upbringing.

 

He HAS been upgrading himself, but he's been taking it slow because he likes how he is right now and he doesn't want to make a change that will backfire on him. It's come up in the story on occasion, but it's more of a background thing. The SI prefers to use technology instead of bioengineering because it's safer and easier to adapt and generalize.

 

Paragon probably could (given his enlightenment and Jay's ties to Kid Flash), he just hasn't been formally asked or approached about it. But I think Alan/Blue Lantern would be a more obvious choice to do this, and they may have discussed it off-screen. Jay (and Joan, and Ted Grant) may have refused it for those typical reasons people refuse effective immortality in fiction.

Has Alan or Paragon discussed or considered empowering Ted Grant (or anyone else) with either Garrick or Danner recently? I get that Danner has the useful benefit of slower aging, but more Flash-level speedsters would be a potent force (though having multiple would be understandably difficult to write effectively, as I've probably acknowledged at some point).

 

I think it demonstrably is mostly, but not completely, upbringing when you consider Superman. There are certain things he gets rather rigid minded about, but it's mostly the sorts of things that stubborn Kansas farm boys get rigid minded about (and for context, I spent a whole lot of weekends and summers working on my grandpa's Kansas farm during my preteen and teen years). Overall his thinking seems to be much more flexible than that of Kryptonians raised on Krypton.

 

With regards to Paul not grabbing every upgrade he can, I've previously mentioned that it's generally more efficient for him to just phone a friend when a particular power or skill set is needed rather then take time out of doing things to upgrade himself to a competent degree.

But there is the fact that, after his merger with 'best snek' that....anything else would seem fairly tame by comparison.

I mean, a few days of being the Embodiment of Avarice, he was able to quickly outstrip just about every power on Hell World Earth. What power didn't he have at that point? (Aside from Common Sense)

Yes he's tweaked a few neurons here for a better memory, upgraded his senses...maybe he'll tinker with the efficiency of lactic acid build up in muscles (I would have considered that one after WW made him run the Old School Marathon). But when it boils down to it...upgrading the meat sack that holds his orange heart doesn't mean much on the Cosmic Scale.

OL has before mentioned that there are very few things that he can't out escalate.

Where's the need to juggle Toyoda's with muscles when he has a ring that can do it? And if things are bad he can just go full Bad Wolf and rip them apart at the subatomic level.

Spoiler: Bad Wolf

 

He could literally have had his ring brute force simulate workable genetic upgrades by this point.

Except of course he has almost no personal power and without his power rings would get his ass kicked by Robin.

So again, he's an inflated parade balloon, impressive on the surface, but full of helium making him look bigger and more impressive then he actually is.

 

He may also be waiting until he has a ton of ways of safely empowering himself.

Yeah he has several now, but most of them are magical in nature, and his soul doesn't react the way an ordinary human one does.

He probably also wants to be able to empower himself further after each empowerment and the methods he has now may not allow that.

Renegade may not be able to empower himself after his divinity grew.

Paragon has Compound V now, so if the Sivana manage to find a way to administer it without any dangerous side effects, he can potentially get kryptonian level powers.

Brute forcing something like that would be incredibly risky, and even Paul tends to be careful from time to time.

You didn't read what I wrote about him having a powerful soul.

He has a whole lot of personal power, seeing as his soul is a part of a being that has eaten gods.

Yes he doesn't have a lot of offensive power without his rings, but he still has a lot of personal power.

He has the power to summon the Ophidian, probably even without his ring or lantern at this point, in case you forgot.

 

Hey now, that sounds like the Power Rings are way overpowered, and I’ve got it on good authority that Paul is already too boring and uninteresting and overpowered and also evil and stupid etc., so he can’t possibly have magic genetic testing power ring powers. At least according to Vaermina.

 

Brute force simulating workable genetic upgrades is completely and utterly risk free.

It is, which is why Zoat shouldn't have upgraded his Power Ring's so much.

But he did, and now we get to call Paul out for not using those.

 

One of my favorite things about this last chapter is that everyone is shit talking Dream and Paul is going “Guys. Please don’t antagonize the primordial being that is literally the father of almost all gods.”