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

Ngamer11 · 2026-09-16T07:05:12+0100

CrazyNoVa said:
Wasn't Argent's father a drug lord in the comics, or something? Is he one in this story?

Maybe the changes in the setting, like Gotham getting better, the Sheeda invasion, and the Anti-Life meant he either didn't become like that or he cleaned up as a result.

Chojin Patriarch · 2026-09-16T07:10:57+0100

Mr Zoat said:
6th October 2013
12:37 GMT -5

"Orange Lantern." Senator Anthony Monetti stands up to shake my hand as I approach his-. Our table, and executes the perfect politician handshake when I take it. Solid enough to demonstrate confidence, light enough to avoid turning this into a test of strength, and quick enough that he could work an entire line like this without getting excessively delayed. "It's good to meet you."

Ah, checking in with the rookie's father, eh? We'll get to see how he feels about his little girl going out and playing the costumed vigilante game. I imagine he's not entirely happy about it... No parent really would be.

"Senator Monetti. Thank you for inviting me."

Argent-. Antonia herself stays seated, just giving me a nod as I sit down. She's in a white blouse and black skirt, and she doesn't look irritated or concerned. Her father matches her pallet in terms of clothing with a white shirt and black trousers, but it's a shade… Less formal that I might have expected. There's a plain t-shirt under the shirt, and the trousers are shapeless casual trousers rather than sharply-creased suit trousers.

Dressy enough to be classy, comfortable enough to relax in. Impressive.

Reading the room, I send my own suit jacket into subspace as a waiter brings over a drinks menu.

"I'll take a water."

"Uh, coke."

Fairly simple orders, of course. He's not looking to get drunk at this time of day, she's too young for alcohol.

"Shirley Temple, please."

Senator Monetti raises his eyebrows. "Isn't it a little early?"

It's after midday. A Shirley Temple is also a alcohol-free drink, and I'm sure the senator knows that.

"Oh, I can't get-." And then I get it, and do a cough-laugh. "Sorry. Joke, right."

"It's fine." He frowns with curiosity as the waiter takes the menus. "Were you saying that you can't get drunk?"

It is a good joke to start a conversation over, though.

"Among other things. I could get drunk if I actually wanted to, but… Given my line of work, I generally fine the idea of having my mental processes altered sufficiently unpleasant that my rings ensure that doesn't happen."

"Don't wanna be drunk in charge of a power ring. Good. Or maybe given that whole Christmas cake thing, I should say 'again'."

Ah, a perfectly reasonable concern about impaired powers usage.

Antonia gives him a mild scowl, but I just smile. "Oh, I wasn't drunk when I made that. Or the giant naked statue in the Bialyan desert."

He blinks. "Excuse me?"

To be fair, i don't think many people know about the latter thing. Back end of nowhere in Bialya isn't getting many visitors.

"I one of my early missions, before I had the sort of anti-telepath defences that I have today, a telepath named Simon Jones managed to… Not 'erase' exactly, but… Suppress, a couple of months worth of my memories. Given how weird what was going on was, I spend a few hours convinced that I was dreaming the whole experience and one of the things I did while I was 'dreaming' was build a giant statue."

That was an amusing sequence of events...

"Ok-okay?"

"The giant cake happened because as a result of…" Oh. "A poorly-planned training session, I ended up bonded to an avarice elemental. Other considerations rather went out of the window until we were separated again. And then I had the cake, and I didn't feel like wasting it…"

I hope that's the official story, since I doubt most folks are gonna be comfortable knowing there's a giant snake that's tied to the universe's Avarice.

"I… See…"

Clearly, I've thrown him off, but the waiter returning with our drinks gives him a moment to recover and think it over.

Not surprising, given that OL dropped the conversational equivalent of a flashbang or two on him there.

"Thank you."

"Is that sort of thing common?"

By which he means 'Could that sort of thing happen to my baby girl?'

"It depends what you mean by 'common'. There are a handful of telepaths on Earth who could try something like that, and I can't call to mind any who are likely to be hostile. Elementals and other arcane lifeforms are common enough, but encounters with them are rare. Antonia, you're wearing-."

And a good chance to show daddy that his little girl is as safe as she can be.

"Toni."

I nod. "Sor-."

"Antonia is a perfectly nice name." Her father looks mildly put out. "It's your grandmother's."

Yes, and it makes her sounds like an Italian grandmother. She's a teenager. Being cool is important.

"Everyone calls me 'Toni', Dad."

Perhaps I should intervene. "You're wearing your spell eater, yes?"

They're simple and cheap enough that OL can hand them out to recruits like ID cards.

She pulls is out from between-. Under her blouse. "And I've got my inertia shield on my belt."

"Good show." I take a sip of my drink. "Those protect against magic and kinetic energy respectively. No defence is completely reliable, but we do our best to protect the people who work with us."

Everything else, well... You can't protect against everything without going to ludicrous effort.

"Yes, I was… Worried when Antonia-" She rolls her eyes. "-told me she wanted to be a superhero. Now, sure, when there's a catastrophe like the Anti-Life happening, it's all hands to the pumps. I'm not arguing that, and I'm proud of what she did. But I have concerns about her making it a full-time thing."

And concerns about her running into bigger threats than angry people with molotovs, eh?

I nod. "And you should."

He nods. "I had a look at the death rates for new superheroes. You ever do that?"

Ah, this is gonna be a minefield of a conversation, eh?

"Oh yes." I nod. "And while the methodology of the studies are imperfect, the vast majority of superheroes stop appearing after the first six months. But unlike the people who did the studies, I know why that was."

"And it wasn't because they got shot or stabbed to death?"

I wonder how many tried it, found out how much work it is, and quit before the six-month mark?

"Sort of. They did, but the League of Shadows used to use neophyte superheroes as training targets. Once we dealt with their organisation, the confirmed death rate dropped off a lot."

Lunch menus are delivered, and then the waiter retreats.

Ah, good, a chance to stop and think for a minute...

Uh… This place is too fancy for me to have much experience of eating things like this. Though… The menu is clearly post-Anti-Life. The selection is noticeably reduced from what I remember. Avocados are still on the menu, with the increase in costs neatly neutralised by the lack of cartels to take a cut.

A lot less exotic meals and a lot more staples, eh?

That was a satisfying week.

"How bad are the death rates now?"

Heh. I suppose OL had to look into that himself and applied some law and order to the region...

"It hasn't been long enough for there to be good data. The Alliance and the Anti-Life threw everything out. Lower, probably."

The omelette looks… Relatively harmless. But… They seem to be serving salad with everything, and I don't… Want to be seen as the sort of uncultured person who leaves his salad on the plate-. Ah, soup, with bread. Excellent. Ah. Not tomato-. Chicken! Perfect.

"So it's safe."

Probably safer than average teenage pastimes like driving fast cars, going to wild parties and trying to get drunk and/or high...

"Nothing's safe. Law enforcement jobs involving contact with law-breakers are certainly not safe. The supervision and training is intended to make it as safe as it can be, but they're hardly perfect. This issue is that Toni was going out as a superhero anyway, so comparing what she's getting from us with a fictional reality where she isn't going out is pointless."

And denying her the option of going out on patrols isn't going to help any.

"Not to me, it's not."

"She's safer than she would be as a conventional law enforcement operative or soldier."

Especially with the League-provided gear.

"Have you ever had students die before?"

"Not with the Justice League. I've had Lanterns I've trained die out in the wider galaxy, but I've taken part in the training of hundreds of Lanterns. You… Disapprove?"

Be sure to point out that his Lanterns are fighting in a interstellar war against a force out for total conquest and/or extinction.

"Yeah." He glances at his daughter. "I'd rather she was a few years older at least. I'm putting up with it mostly because I hope it's a phase."

"It's not a phase, Dad."

"Yeah, we'll see. So, if this thing's going to turn into a career, what exactly do you do every day?"

Ah, the challenging part of the discussion: paychecks.

One of the challenges of being a heroic mentor: Dealing with concerned parental figures worried about a student they still see as a child. A veritable minefield OL has little experience in navigating, certainly. Still, better Argent's father be involved in her heroing life than her going out without his knowledge or permission...

Mr Zoat · 2026-09-16T08:31:39+0100

Khettien said:
Doesn't this fail as a joke on the face of it anyway, as a Shirley Temple has no alcohol? Just sprite and grenadine, IIRC.

i-got-sick-of-the-low-res-blurry-so-i-made-a-new-one-v0-pXPyuM3J0QP76BGG4ra8U9FykuD2qgxfXbh1MznQmcw.png

Darko said:
"find the"
'In one of"
"spent a few"

Thank you, corrected.

CrazyNoVa said:
Wasn't Argent's father a drug lord in the comics, or something? Is he one in this story?

Wait and see, but probably not. Taking money from drug-trafficking front companies when he has plausible deniability, that's more likely.

Mr said:
while the methodology of the studies are imperfect

methodologies

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

More options

Recent threadmarks

Recent threadmarks

Recent threadmarks

Ngamer11

Experienced.

Chojin Patriarch

Veteran Lurker

Mr Zoat

Dedicated ragequitter

Recent threadmarks

Recent threadmarks

Recent threadmarks

Users who are viewing this thread