Mother Box?
Ppppppppiiiiiiinggg.
Oooh, that's not good. Let's hope our lovely little one survives this trip...
Oh dear. Right, aero-discs.
I'm jerked around for a moment as they misfire, Artemis.. drifting further away as she flattens herself in the air to stabilise her tumbling and maximise her air resistance. I'm a little behind in her health checks, but I… Don't think she's tough enough to survive a terminal velocity fall onto rock. In my case-
And I don't think she can follow Just Cause rules and fire a grapple arrow to hit the ground faster. Or maybe she can, being a New God and all.
She carefully takes an arrow from her quiver, puts it on her bow and fires it at the ground. A second arrow follows it.
-I'm more worried about the health of what I land on. Unless this is a future where Apokolips opened up some fire pits…
At least you know you aren't heading for one. Not enough fire and brimstone below.
In any case, landing on people would create a bad impression.
I Am The Eggman. I Am The Walrus.
My aero-discs
finally activate, and-
Cut Through Space.
Activating a New God artifact by quoting the Beatles. Not the strangest musical relation between DC and Apokalips. What with the song of the Life Equation apparently being a Queen song...
-rainbow bubbles percolate through the air below us-
Path to the Ground.
-and then the ground is there and we're slamming into crash-foam.
A useful bat-family creation? I suppose with all the rooftop lurking they do, there's a need for a way to make safe landings.
Artemis lands flat, sinks a short distance as the space age quick-hardening rubber depressed to absorb her kinetic energy, and then rebounds, leaping a short distance into the air. Then I hit it and it explodes, flecks of white foam flying in all directions as Artemis lands lightly a short distance away.
And my aero-discs fail again. But I'm down, and a small amount of residual rubber aside I'm none the worse for wear.
Artemis gets a 9 for her landing. Grayven.. a 5.
"Artemis, are you alright?"
"Uh-huh." She's looking around. "What just happened?"
Timey-wimey bullshit, for a start.
"Sivana sprung a surprise on me. Us. The plan was for me to board the Castle Revolving-"
I look myself over and begin plucking strips of rubber off myself.
And one thing you don't want in a fight like that is surprises. Especially on the part of the enemy.
"-alone, but…"
"He wanted revenge for them killing his family."
I nod. "I knew that he was distressed, but after we prevented Magnificus committing suicide I assumed that he'd.. worked through it."
Considering how deep his love for Venus and his kids was, you don't get over that shit anytime this lifetime...
"So you don't think he managed to… Undo time and bring them back?"
"I doubt it. Not in a rush job like that." I give her my full attention. "Was that Tao's rainbow bridge technique?"
Especially since time itself got tweaked a little while back, not that Grayven would know that. At best, Sivana
might have made a timeline where they survive.
"Yeah, I've been able to do it for a few months now." She stops scanning our environment and gives me her full attention. "Which you'd know if you ever came around the Mountain any more."
"I don't.. think I'm authorised." Quick equipment check… Daiklave's still there. Yay. Sword of the Fallen… Yes. Ranged weapons are a big fat no , and drones..? No, no drones.
Great, trapped in the distant future with no rings, no mother box and only what gear he was carrying when he got slimed. He is in for a fun time.
"You know where we all live."
"You know where I live. And unlike you, I set my own admissions policy. How is Miss Kane getting along?"
Kane... Volcana? <sees Mr Zoat's link> Ah, yes. Honestly, I need to reread more one of these days. Too many other fics to read. (Taylor Varga first amongst them.)
"She's-." She looks around again. "Can we focus? Where are we?"
I look around. The ground is covered in… Some sort of grey… Building material? Coral? Without a ring I can't do a proper analysis, but I don't recognise it. Not Apokoliptian though, so there's that at least.
Ah, the Sheeda Kudzu? So this is a Witchworld-Earth where Melmoth's plan went off as he intended.
"Not sure. That green liquid is supposed to send things that go through it to random points in time, and assuming that it ignored galactic drift somehow this should be Earth."
"Past or future?"
Flip a coin, you've only got 4 billion years to work with in one direction (or you'd end up in the pre-Solar nebula.)
I nod. "One of those." Hm. "If that red light is reflected volcanism then this could be the past. And the sky could be obscured by high altitude dust. Finding food could be awkward if we're that far back. Alternately-."
"We're in the far future and the sun's turning into a red giant."
Or something worse... I wonder, what could Turn a Sun?
"In which case that's evaporated water up there. Except…" I hold my hands out to the sides. "If the sun's expanded enough to heat up the Earth to the point of evaporating enough water to enshroud the entire planet… The surface should be hotter than this. There should be a run-away greenhouse effect, like on Venus. I mean… Is it just me? Does this feel hot to you?"
Given that they aren't being boiled in their own skin or steam-blasted by atmospheric gasses, something is up.
"It feels… Maybe sixty?"
Or fifteen in new money. Which matches my estimation. I nod.
Positively chilly. You'd definitely be wanting a jumper. That's a sweater, for you yanks.
"So the temperature's wrong for a natural system-death."
"Unless they're using Captain Cold's freeze technology to keep the planet cool."
Hardly the most worthwhile of enterprises. By this era, humanity should cover half a galaxy at least.
"I… Kind of hope that human civilisation either has better things to do that preserve the old homeworld or they've got a better way to do it. Because frankly, if anyone wants to live here then letter the sun go giant is a sub-optimal outcome."
"I…"
Yeah, by this era you'd expect ludicrous technology. Stuff we couldn't even imagine today, except maybe as magic.
Artemis trails off, frowning. Then she crouches down and uses a target arrow to pick up a fragment of rubber. It's heavily decayed, falling apart as we watch, and I idly note that the rest is doing the same thing.
I nod approvingly. "Very environmentally friendly."
Yes, if it were
meant to be doing that. Something is fucking with local entropy then.
"Yeah, it would be, but this stuff isn't. We couldn't make something that did what we wanted and melted fast and safe afterwards. This stuff should stick around for days unless someone uses a solvent."
I nod. "My rings are dead, otherwise I'd run an analysis. And Mother Box is…"
So whatever the Vampire Sun the Sheeda mentioned is, it causes technology and complex materials to age and deteriorate
far more rapidly than should be possible. Madness.
"Peeeeiiing."
"Struggling."
Let's hope she counts as alive enough to not be affected too destructively.
"There could be chemicals in the air." She prods her arm computer and gets no response. "Nothing. Any idea what kills power rings?"
I raise my left hand and take a closer look.
What few things there are tend to be quite a bit more obvious than whatever is happening here. I would be very worried about any living thing running around out there.
"I don't think they're damaged. It just looks like… Their power's drained. I was near full power when I went through the portal, and… I don't think that protecting us in transit would have wiped the batteries by itself."
She stows her bow and pries open the computer's casing. "Doesn't look like there's anything wrong with-." She blinks, and I step forward to take a closer look.
The metal is corroding as I watch. There's already a patina across nearly-. Across the entire surface. Plastic is becoming brittle and flaking.
Good grief. It's like the more advanced it is, the more hungrily it gets devoured. This makes the Sheeda make more and more sense...
"What's happening?"
"I don't know. Some sort of.. curse, perhaps?"
You might have hit the nail on the head. Something unnatural is going on in this era, and it looks very unpleasant...
I take another look at my rings, but other than the lack of power they're both fine. I draw my daiklave and look it over carefully, but it doesn't appear to be affected. I stab the point into the ground and it cuts through perfectly well. My armour… Yes, that's fine.
Artemis has taken her arrows out and is checking them, muttering curses as the material of the shaft crumbles in her grip.
So much for the pointy sticks. Unless she can repurpose something local for ammunition, she's going to be running hand-to-hand... Ironically, making her more like her comics self, Tigress.
"Your.. bow?"
She drops the decaying remains of the arrow and examines her bow. It looks fine to me, and it appears that she agrees. "Scott and Barda got me this from an
Apokoliptian chick they beat up. But most of these arrows were made on Earth."
I nod. "Whatever's doing this, New God technology is… At least
resistant." I look around into the fog. "We need to investigate."
Ah, right of conquest. Taking the other guy's stuff by force. Presumably, the resistance is due to their gear being imbued with their Godliness. I hope Artemis is wearing New God armour too, or this could get a lot less G-rated soon.
