[Archive] With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Story Only)

[Mr Zoat]

Sunday evening
We're under attack
Fuck yeah!

Lunge! And grab, and pull-!

I'm not the Flash-fast, but I'm strong and I've got basically endless stamina. When I run around a city, I have to use the roads or I get stuck in crowds. Took everyone a while to get used to seeing me jumping over intersections because I'm not a car and the rules of the road don't apply to me-.

The guy who's arm I grabbed hit the far wall with-. Okay, he's going to the hospital, but that was in defence of a team mate.

"You alright?"

**I am uninjured. But I am concerned.**

I look at the ramp. "Yeah, if the instructions for closing that are in a manual, you're reading it-." Er. "You can read English, right?"

**Yes. The only reason I cannot speak it is that my larynx is the wrong shape.** He knuckle-walks towards the first guy I knocked over, who's just getting up. **I am concerned because I cannot read his mind.**

"Okay?" Alright, two guys, and this one doesn't even have a baton-.

He draws a knife. Wait, is this it? Did they think that the place was empty or something?

Okay, right, I should probably say something.

"That's not going to do anything. Why don't you save yourself some broken bones and-?"

He stabs at N-madi as the gorilla gets closer, and N-dami slaps his knife-arm away hard enough that I can hear it break.

I mean, it's not like I care, but this Justice League thing is my ticket to the next level. I don't know exactly what they're okay with and I don't really want to get in shit if Nando goes ape-.

Nando grabs the guy- "AAAAAOH!" -and-. Rips him in half-?!

Shit.

I know I… Could rip a guy in half. I tried it on a dead deer one time, just to see if I could. Messy as Hell. But he just-.

Wait. Where's the blood?

Nando picks up part of the guy and… Sniffs him, before ripping off his hoodie…

That's a-. Robot. I mean, there's some sort of fake skin on the face and hands, like on the fake hand Old Man Roberts had back at the trailer park-. Wait, could be a cyborg.

"Does he have a-" Nando crushes its head, bits of circuit and plastic crumbling in his hands. "-brain-?"

**No**

Gorilla not playing. Alright, I'm down with that. Yeah! I dash over to the one I smashed into the wall and pull off his hoodie too-. Yep, same story. I toss him up and roundhouse!

The robot explodes, scattering little bits of whatever it's made of across the training room. Fuck yeah! I look up the ramp, wondering if there are any more coming.

I wonder if the Justice League got any kind of Star Trek scanner…

Nando's called up the base computer-. And the hatch is closing.

"What if they've got friends up there?"

**I cannot feel machine minds, and you do not have enhanced senses. We would not find them if they hid.**

"I guess Orange Lantern can do that-." Huh. I walk closer to the computer. "Can you talk to people on that?"

**No. But I can type, and you can talk to people.**

"Okay. Call 'em up."

**Call who?**

"Green Arrow? He's supposed to be running this, right?"

**Yes, but Orange Lantern was just here. And his ring could scan for further attackers.**

"Kobra muta-whatever sounds important. But… Sure, I guess."

Nando presses some buttons, and-. Hey, an Orange Lantern icon, neat. He presses the buttons with his gorilla-fingers, and it starts blinking.

"Orange Lantern, go ahead."

Oh, it's me… Uh… "Hey, Orange Lantern. Risk here, with Nan-. Madi."

"What, you want a lift home?"

"No, no-. We're still in the Mountain. Got attacked by a couple of robots."

"Are you hurt?"

"No? They weren't that strong."

"Is the Mountain secure?"

I look at where the hatch has closed. "Kind of? The ramp they came in through is shut, but I don't know how they opened it."

"And the other entrances?"

"Other entrances?"

"The water entrance and the zeta tubes."

"Er… Dunno?" Shit, that sounds lame. "I thought telling you took priority."

"It does, but I'm tied up here. Can you handle a top-to-bottom sweep?"

"Yeah, we can do that. Pchh, no problem."

I mean, if that's all they can do, I could take them by myself. Fuck, looked like Nando could too.

"Other than Nnamdi, is anyone else there with you?"

"I don't-." I glance at Nando, hoping he can bail me out. No such luck. "I don't know."

"Alright, check for that as well. Contact me again if anything happens."

"You got it." I poke the Orange Lantern symbol on the hologram keyboard, but nothing happens. Nando touches it-. Oh, like that, right. He shuts it down. "Check the kitchens?"

**Why would robots go to the kitchen?**

"'cause it's closest? And…" Right! "It leads to the hangar, and more robots could have come in through the water entrance."

**Very well.** We head towards the corridor leading to the kitchen. **But gorillas do not swim well.**

"I don't have swimming powers, but there's probably some way to block the entrance. Do you know if these belts work under water?"

**I do not.**

"Okay, well, I can come in after you and throw you out if you fall in-. Can you feel anyone else here?"

**I cannot.**

"Alright. No hostages. Let's go smash some robots."

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd September 2013
00:20 GMT

I can't sleep.

I sit up in bed, pushing the duvet off me. And I close my eyes for a moment to feel the mood of the house. Dad's asleep, thank God. I know he was worried about how my first day would go… Honestly, I was in a Justice League base. I was safer there than here. Tibbet the Brownie is using the magical silent vacuum cleaner to tidy up the living room. None of my mentors are lurking anywhere, which…

I kind of feel that they were trying to throw me in the deep end. Total immersion learning, like going to France to learn French. And it didn't kill me or anything, but I feel a lot better about having an actual structure to learning magic. Having an actual mentor who can set homework and check that I'm doing things right and safely. A carousel of weirdos in trench coats who turn up for a day or two a month isn't what I want.

So what is it? Left over excitement? A bit, but they'll all be there for our next lesson. Apprehension? Molly's going to want to know everything. But given what we had to do to keep the Anti-Life off a few streets-.

Wait a second.

I wave my right hand, and my mirror shoots from one side of my room to the other, leaning against the opposite wall like it had never been anywhere else. Shaking my head, I get out of bed.

There's a knock on the inside of the mirror, but it's muffled.

I slide on my slippers, pull a little starlight down from the night sky through my bedroom window and walk across the room.

Inside the mirror, Toyman prods its surface with… Something that looks like the wire loop from a wire maze game.

I frown at him. "Why are you here?"

He says something, but it's backwards and upside down and I can't understand it. Hm. Well, Tibbet didn't react to him being in my house, so he probably doesn't mean me any harm. I-.

What's he doing?

He's gotten a pair of mirror shades out of one of his pockets, and he's holding it up and turning around…

"Did you copy that from Mirror Master?"

Toyman is still talking nonsense, but the little Toyman in the reflected reflection is talking normally. Just quietly, because he's not very big.

"No. Mirrors contain the reflections of things. There's not as much difference between a reflection of a thing and the whole of the thing as people think."

"Will you let me out, great sorcerer?"

"I don't know. Sneaking into my room in the middle of the night's a bit weird."

"You were not asleep."

"That doesn't make it less weird." But it's not nice to keep someone in a mirror if they're not actually attacking me. Other mirror…

I walk over to my cupboard and open it, revealing the mirror on the side of the door. Angle it so that I can see the wall mirror, then stick my arm in and pull.

I step back as Toyman falls onto the floor.

"So?"

He sort of looks around, coughs, then jumps up. "How did you know where I was?"

I shrug. The full answer would be something like 'weird old men threw magic at me until I could just feel everything' but… Do Japanese martial arts master actually blindfold people and do stuff like that?

"Magic."

He frowns and opens his coat… Where he's got a lot of strips of paper with Japanese writing on them. I don't speak any Japanese, but there's a tiny amount of magic…

"I thought these would protect me."

"Why? They're just paper."

"I copied them perfectly."

"Unless you've made a deal with some sort of calligraphy spirit, that isn't enough to make them work. You need to actually imbue them with magic."

"Oh." He lets his cloak fall shut. "I thought that part was just trade protection."

"If you drew them perfectly and left them in a shrine for a few years, then they might start to work."

"How is your vacuum moving on its own?"

"It's not. Tibbet just didn't want you to see him." I should be asleep, I've got school tomor-. Today. But he comes from Japan. I can't just kick him out. "Look, we've got a spare room. Do you want to sleep here, and go home tomorrow?"

"It is already tomorrow in Japan."

"It's already tomorrow here. Shouldn't you be more tired than me?"

"I have drunk seventeen cans of energy drink. I will not sleep for two days."

His aura does seem a bit… Wobbly, as he walks over to the window and looks out.

"We should fight crime."

"I don't know if that's a good idea."

He turns back to me. "You don't fight crime?"

"Not really." I shrug. "I've only just started learning how to use magic properly. I've never fought anything that I didn't take by surprise. You?"

"I spend most of my time in a workshop. The Anti-Life granted me freedom to do what I like for the first time I can remember."

I smile. "Maybe I should introduce you to Molly. After school."

"And now?"

I don't feel even slightly tired. I could make myself go to sleep, but it wouldn't be hard to just push my tiredness into other people…

"I suppose it won't hurt to walk around for a bit." I click my fingers, and my pyjamas swap places with my messing around clothes. And then I give the star its light back. "Come on."

"No robes? Or a suit, like Mister Zatara?"

"No." I give the sound from our footsteps for the next hour to any fey that wants it, and walk silently towards my bedroom door. "I didn't get into many fights, and I didn't know how to make anything that would help with the fights I did get into."

"I haven't been in any fights at all."

I lead the way down the stairs, heading towards the kitchen. "Really?"

"I make robots. I have to stay in my command centre, otherwise I wouldn't be able to control them properly. But I want to."

I frown. "Why?"

"I want to make friends. I can't make real friends from behind a computer screen."

"Okay." I open the bread bin and take out the bag of loaf heels. "I suppose fighting with people could help with that." I walk towards the back door.

"Why do you have bread?"

"To pay for information. Stool pigeons love bread."

 

[Mr Zoat]

September 23rd, 2013
00:57 UTC

"Kuu kuu. Kuu kuu."

Hunter nods at bird
The pigeon talks at great length
I don't understand

Olange Lanteln was wrong. Thinking in Engrish isn't that hald.

Heh.

"Okay. Thank you." Hunter holds out a bread crust to the pigeon, which takes it and then flies away.

"Did you just talk to the pigeon?"

He looks puzzled. As if he cannot understand why someone would be sceptical. "You saw me talk to the pigeon."

"It could have been a robot."

"If I had a toy robot I could probably bring it to life. But I wouldn't know how to build a pigeon robot."

I don't actually think it was a robot. But I don't understand why it wasn't behaving like a pigeon.

"Is it your familiar?"

"A pigeon? No. They're pretty dirty. And if you kill a wizard's familiar they can die from the feedback."

"Pigeon brains are not complex enough to communicate with humans in that way."

"I didn't know that."

Could he do it because he didn't know it was impossible? Sometimes… Not having assumptions is useful, because you can try new approaches to things that other people have already failed at. But that is not because an impossible thing has become possible; it is because you do something that is possible.

"Can you tell me how that magic works?"

He shrugs. Perhaps he does not know, because he magic is instinctual? Or perhaps he has never had to explain it to anyone.

"I think… It's because the pigeons do see everything. But it's my magic that lets them turn that data into useful information. I think that they've been acting differently since I started using them like this, so I think that they keep something from what I do to them."

"You are turning them from a magic information network to an actual information network? You are making them intelligent?"

He looks thoughtful. "I'm not sure. They might just be acting differently because the magic makes them remember that I want them to act differently."

That would make more sense. But just because it makes sense, that doesn't mean that it's true. Perhaps… Perhaps they are merely vessels for his magic, and he just perceives the information as coming from the birds?

"Did they find any criminals?"

"Ah… Sort of. There isn't anyone committing crimes in the area, but there are some suspicious looking people heading towards us."

"Pigeons can decide that someone looks suspicious?"

"They aren't moving right, or doing human… Things. Pigeons notice that. They're also all dressed the same."

"Drugs?"

Hunter shakes his head. "The pigeons don't think so. Not a lot of drugs around here."

"Where are they?"

He points northwards. "Down the road, turn left."

I nod, and take a small U.F.O. drone out of one of my pouches and press the big red button on top to activate it. It flies out of my hand and heads in the direction Hunter gave me.

"Is that armed?"

"Sort of. It can use the same anti-gravity device that lets it fly to trap one person in a null gravity field. I am sending it because I want something that is not a pigeon to look at our targets."

Hunter smiles. "They're very reliable pigeons, I'll have you know."

"Did the pigeons tell you where they're going?"

"Yes. Towards us."

"Are they armed?"

He holds up his right hand in a 'stop' gesture. "Pigeons have limits."

I pull out an-.

"Why does that look like an Etch A Sketch?"

"I used to make my inventions look like toys so that no one would realise what they were. Now I do it out of habit." I turn the dials so that the screen shows what the U.F.Drone is seeing. "May I ask you a question?"

"You just did." Huh? "Yes."

"Why do you call yourself 'Hunter'? Should your hero name not be different to your actual name?"

He shakes his head. "I don't really care about pretending to be someone else. Neither of us wear masks. And if I really need to look like someone else, I can do that with magic."

I nod. I could make a disguise for myself, but by the time I decided that I was a superhero, my face was already well known in Japan. "I have another question."

"I think that's a tautology." Huh? "What is it?"

"Why do you have a 'Harry Potter Lookalike Lifetime Achievement Award'?"

He closes his eyes, and breathes in slowly. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"If you-." Ah, my drone is in position. I twist a knob… "The drone's metallurgy scanner says that they are robots. Does someone in Britain make human-like robots?"

"Mister Dolmann used to. But there's no reason for them to be here. Do they have any weapons?"

"No guns. Knives."

"Oh good. That's illegal in Britain, so we can arrest them and then phone the police."

I nod, and draw my ray gun. We should be able to-.

Hunter shakes his head, and walks towards an old and rusty skip. "Don't bother with that. Have your drone pick one up. I'll deal with the rest."

I nod, and send the command. "How?"

He taps the skip with his knuckles. "Come out. I've got a job for you."

A small… Imp? Goblin? Some sort of creature, appears, poking its head out of the skip. "What?"

"There's some metal men coming this way. If you stop them, you can keep their arms and legs."

The creature grins-. Ooh, showing a broad mouth full of sharp teeth. "We can do that. Come on, everyone!"

The creature jumps out, followed by another, and then another, and then-.

I take a few steps back as the swarm runs down the street. "What are they?"

"Rust gremlins." He nods as he watches them go. "I wouldn't want to be anywhere near them if I was a robot."

What..? Comes next? In Japan I have contacts in the police, but I do not have that here and magicians are usually less involved in such matters. "Will the police know what to do with robots?"

"Then we can hand them over to the Justice League, I should think. Wasn't that the whole point of joining up?"