Title: It's An Unliving (Young Justice SI)
Author: Gromweld
Universe: DC/Young Justice
Word Count: 100k
Status: Hiatus
Synopsis:
You can tolerate a lot of bad assignments when your boss is drop-dead gorgeous.
Rec Reading Site: SpaceBattles
First Chapter:
Sector 2814, Sol System
Happy Harbor, RI, USA, Earth
18th July, 2010
1:02 PM EDT
The trouble with superpowers that operate best on hard, unfeeling logic is that you get very good at rationalizing poor decisions.
Sitting cross-legged on the power station's rooftop, I idly spin the ice-cold ring on my right hand's middle finger. I've not even had it a full week, and already I'm about to throw myself into a plan that the me-of-last-week would have considered the height of insanity. Granted, Death does change a person's perspective.
Not that she can help herself. But I guess that's where I'm supposed to come in. Eventually. But that's never happening if I just sit here and watch a bunch of plainclothes-dressed teenagers getting wailed on by a robot in a fancy power-suit, rationalizing that no, this all plays out well so I don't need to get involved... just yet-
<
The voice of an eldritch, omnicidal machine-god echoing in my head is comforting in its familiarity - still amusing enough of an inside joke that it smothers any resentment at myself or it. Far better than the creepy text-to-speech monotone the Ring had to start with.
*WHOOSH* *CRUNCH* *CRASH!*
In a blast of compressed and twisting air, a dark-haired teenaged boy in a black t-shirt and jeans - apparel which somehow hasn't been torn to shreds from the force of his movements or being thrown through reinforced concrete and industrial metal framework - rockets out through the power plant's grey wall and into a nearby aged sedan… only for him to immediately jump up and leap back into the fray.
And just why are there still so many cars here? I've counted sixty-eight cars and trucks, but there's only forty-three workers corralled over on the far edge of the power station's parking lot-
<
Oh. Long-term parking for the nearby national park for those that don't want to pay the park's fees. Thanks, Ring.
Judging by the wails of dismay I'm picking up from the gawking crowd of power station workers, it's only dawned on them now that they should have just gotten in their cars and left instead of stand around uselessly.
… and I'm distracting myself again. Sigh.
Time to get this-
<
…
Mmrhm. Right. Still not completely used to the mental gymnastics required for this particular flavor of madness. Spent over a full day sitting out in the asteroid belt piecing some of this out, three days floating in space above Earth scanning everyone and everything, and then nearly two days of low-key practicing in various nighttime back-alleys, but knowing how to do something is a far cry from it being an ingrained thinking pattern. Even if much of what comes next is going to be the Ring moving me like a puppet and acting along what I've programmed into it.
Ring?
<
Very well.
Righteous anger won't help me here, as much as this plan was definitely formed from a kernel of spite. I don't really want to get involved here, either, since I know this would be a critical moment for "The Team," showcasing just how much they have to actually work as one to succeed.
Undeath shaves off much of the fear that I should definitely be feeling now, and while a little bit of it is generally a good way to avoid suicidal levels of overconfidence… I've at least gleaned that devising initial action and contingency plans beforehand drastically helps prevent my lingering (and justifiable) wariness from diminishing the Ring's power to act.
Plans are why I shouldn't need to hope it'll all work out alright. Cold, pragmatic calculations take into account the wellness of others when I originally fashion them, in both the short term and the abstract, but I can't afford to let sentimentality get in the way when boots hit the ground. An odd paradox, yes: to effect compassion, I must eschew it.
It was a bit disturbing to realize that undeath has only marginally impacted my capacity for… carnal feelings. I blame Death. She was clearly not wearing a bra under that tank-top, and she knew exactly what she was doing, leaning over me like that to wake me up in my bed. Regardless, I'm alone and adrift in a crap-sack universe that is effectively run on narrative weight just as much as causality; not finding a lot to love right now.
But, truthfully, those emotions aren't why I started making plans.
It's because it's far too easy to fall into the trap of will. To be… determined to see my actions through, pushing through my distaste for what must be done with a power that most would (rightfully) consider evil. No, to wield this Ring effectively it can't be about my strength.
I spent days floating in low-Earth-orbit gathering data for this. Apart from a few noticeable (and expected) blank spots in magic-heavy areas, there was no digital or analog database on this planet that could stand against a fully-unleashed Power Ring. Predictive models have been built for all the heroic actors on tonight's stage, and the robotic supervillain (and his master remotely observing the scene through his eyes) hasn't even recognized that he's been suborned. This level of preparation and force for what is effectively a "training wheels" fight for a bunch of teenaged superheroes is complete and utter overkill.
No. What happens next… is inevitable.
Standing up from my position on the rooftop, an unnatural kind of anti-light bubbles out from the onyx ring on my purposefully-decayed left hand; staring directly at the growing pool there's a strange kind of lensing effect around its edges that gives the energy a whitish outline, but the energy itself is the kind of black only seen in black holes. The energy flows up and over my body, but as my part in this requires my form to be easily legible, the personal barrier…dims?... lightens enough that I can still be seen clearly through it even in the night sky.
<
With its actions pre-programmed, the ring isn't held back by my speed of thought; dozens of microscopic strands of blackness streak out of the ring at the speed of light, out over the roof's edge, and down into the ongoing super-brawl. The first step is shutting down the camera feeds that are still live inside and around the power plant - those interested in what's about to go down will find out eventually, this is comics-land after all - which is accomplished a bare fraction of a second before the second stage of the plan engages.
From the point of view of Robin, Aquaboy, Superboy, Kid Flash, and Miss Martian, one moment they're in a pitched battle with the oversized-power-armor foe "Mister Twister"... and in less than a heartbeat everyone on the battlefield is entirely wrapped up (save for their faces) in Black Light constructs shaped like clawing, grasping, and constricting claws, hands, and tentacles, each modeled after the various appendages of races in this universe. The restraining constructs aren't hurting them, not directly, but even with its gentlest touch the Black Light of Death drains the energy of any living cells on contact; it's about as damaging as a light, open-palmed smack, but a "chill" effect akin to a cold breeze lingers until the body's regenerated the dead cells.
Yes, this means I can now Lich Slap people.
With everyone bound, a micro-second later my constructs then move to step three: controlling the battlespace. After all, if I have easy access to offensive FTL transportation, why fight anywhere that isn't prepared exactly how I want?
My environmental shield extends to everyone through my constructs, and-
<
A lurch, a moment of disorientation as the world around us all compresses and then snaps back in barely a second of travel.
Sector 2814, Sol System
Sea of Tranquility, Luna
18th July, 2010
1702 UTC
When the effect ends, I am standing behind a tastefully-cut stone lectern which is facing an open-air, college-style auditorium - all five of the "teen" superheroes deposited into some of the comfortable metal chairs arranged behind the first row of ascending desks. Behind me is a large slab of pure basalt cut into the style of a massive college chalkboard. Beside me is "Mister Twister," still bound in disturbing black light constructs, but I've powered down the android within the power suit... as well as disabled the bombs inside him that Dr. Morrow will soon try to remotely trigger when he realizes he's lost connection to his puppet.
Above us, floating half-visible amongst a dizzying starscape is the humbling view of Planet Earth.
I still keep my environmental shields on the five heroes via thin black light filaments - extending from my Ring, up my arms, down my legs, and looping along the ground - because they both need to be able to hear me in this near-empty vacuum and none of them would last very long unshielded on the Moon's surface. I'd rather them not be dead just yet. I've got a lesson plan to go through.
And now for the hardest part of all this: emoting while still trying to keep a… dispassionate mindset so as not to disrupt the Ring's macros.
I ignore the startled, pained, and terrified yelps from the heroes as their brains catch up to the rapid-fire series of events that just occurred. Glancing down, I absently brush a fleck of nothing off my dark, tailored suit's breast, then straighten my tie and re-secure it with a silver clip adorned with the same emblem that adorns my ring - a downward-pointing triangle with five vertical lines emerging from its 'top'. Looking back up at my "students" as they all pause to stare upwards in awe-struck and terrified confusion about where they now are, I smile as much as I can without a lower jaw and my eyes blazing with black light energies.
"Good evening, Titans," I greet with as much joviality I can muster, raising my right hand to motion them back to the chairs they've lept up from in their panic. I also pointedly ignore the sensation of my loose, ragged tongue flapping in time with the facsimile of speech my Ring is vocalizing through my exposed trachea. It's all part of the plan.
"Please, return to your seats. We have much to review."