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

[Agent Orange]

ne the subject of change, does the paragon timeline iteration of luthor still have an adult watching him?

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I don't think so. OL gave up on him around... I can't actually remember. Quite a while ago. Around the end of the Nabu mess/start of the Space Adventures - the founding of OLC. Either just before or just after?

In any case Lex has no adults watching him (unless you count other Light-ers and I don't).

Speaking of, the Light - OL sort of... gave up on looking for them around the same time he gave up on Lex. What the hell is up with that? Did he just decide that they are unimportant or not his business or something? Just because the League are dragging their feet about it why does he?

 

[Vaermina]

I don't think so. OL gave up on him around... I can't actually remember. Quite a while ago. Around the end of the Nabu mess/start of the Space Adventures - the founding of OLC. Either just before or just after?

In any case Lex has no adults watching him (unless you count other Light-ers and I don't).

Speaking of, the Light - OL sort of... gave up on looking for them around the same time he gave up on Lex. What the hell is up with that? Did he just decide that they are unimportant or not his business or something? Just because the League are dragging their feet about it why does he?

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He wasn't able to find out anything more about The Light after taking out a couple of the leaders.

So lost interest in it and effectively gave up.

A big thing to remember about Paragon is that he has mind fucked himself so much that he is suffering under an almost constant state of Ohh! Shiny! Hence the way he flits from thing to thing to thing never really doing a good job fixing the various problems.

 

[Maxx Crowley]

I don't think so. OL gave up on him around... I can't actually remember. Quite a while ago. Around the end of the Nabu mess/start of the Space Adventures - the founding of OLC. Either just before or just after?

In any case Lex has no adults watching him (unless you count other Light-ers and I don't).

Speaking of, the Light - OL sort of... gave up on looking for them around the same time he gave up on Lex. What the hell is up with that? Did he just decide that they are unimportant or not his business or something? Just because the League are dragging their feet about it why does he?

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Yeah, these days it seems like OL is really rather uninterested in Earth. That or he's completely exasperated to the point of near apathy.

He keeps trying to be that hands off parent who merely guides the child to knowledge, and then gets quietly frustrated when the child tosses that away to go back to porn and sportsball.

I wonder if OL will get to a point where he realizes that, if he truly wants change, he's going to have to make them.

The OL that cleaned up the ocean and yelled at Hippies understood. But does this new, enlightened OL?

Or is he truly that detached at this point?

Because, honestly? At this point he really does seem detached. From Kon, the team as a whole, being a super-hero, Alan, improving the various super-heroes he comes upon.

Where is the OL that acted as a drug dealer of super powers to ever "Badass" normal he came across gone? Where has the man of the danner formula, the super speed serum, the powered armor....where has he gone?

**for those who don't get it. I'm bored and this is all in good fun**

 

[Gilhelmi]

Where is the OL that acted as a drug dealer of super powers to ever "Badass" normal he came across gone? Where has the man of the danner formula, the super speed serum, the powered armor....where has he gone?
*

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I blame Mr. Smiley. That walking Walmart mascot is messing with his head.

OL did get Georgia Sivana to research why technological and sociological progress is being slow. I am hoping that she discovers the dark truth and Orange Vengeance comes swift.

Real question is, does Chuckles influence extend past Earth? Because if not, it would explain why OL's plans are going better off-world.

 

[frommerman]

Yeah it is very sad. Sort of reminds me of a story I once read many many years ago about humans being granted immortality and how it is a bad thing. After a few centuries they start to develop conditions similar to Dementia or Alzheimer's where they begin to lose their mental faculties because the human brain basically doesn't have enough memory to store a millennia's worth of experiences.

I can't for the life of me remember the name of it. Which is fitting considering what it was about I guess.

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Implausible. If we have the tech to reverse aging, we also have the tech to do external memory backups.

 

[BlueMangoAdea]

Implausible. If we have the tech to reverse aging, we also have the tech to do external memory backups.

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Not necessarily. But even if I develop immortality dementia after centuries of life, I would still prefer that over living less than a century.

 

[Coda]

That or he's completely exasperated to the point of near apathy.

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I lean a lot more heavily to this conclusion. He wants humanity to stop being stupid, and they won't stop being stupid if he hands them solutions to their problems as faits accompli.

But humanity just. Keeps. Being. STUPID.

What's an Orange Lantern to do? He wants humanity to succeed on its own so badly that it hinders his ability to help.

 

[Cuchulin]

Not necessarily. But even if I develop immortality dementia after centuries of life, I would still prefer that over living less than a century.

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Agreed.

 

[Agent Orange]

What's an Orange Lantern to do? He wants humanity to succeed on its own so badly that it hinders his ability to help.

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This is so bizarre. OL, an Enlightened Orange Lantern can't quite bring himself to accept that WTR humanity won't do anything without someone twisting its metaphorical arm into it but his Avarice addled - even more apathetic - incubus counterpart* can.

*and before anyone misinterprets it I'm talking about the super chill demon-eating one (with Roulette as his right hand woman and HQ in Africa) not Tangseid.

 

[Vaermina]

I lean a lot more heavily to this conclusion. He wants humanity to stop being stupid, and they won't stop being stupid if he hands them solutions to their problems as faits accompli.

But humanity just. Keeps. Being. STUPID.

What's an Orange Lantern to do? He wants humanity to succeed on its own so badly that it hinders his ability to help.

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The problem is, we know that's faulty logic.

After all, Peter is going full stop with his uplift and it's actually working.

 

[Coda]

The problem is, we know that's faulty logic.

After all, Peter is going full stop with his uplift and it's actually working.

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Peter doesn't have an orange ring highlighting his desire to be a superhero. He had to go directly towards technology from the start, and he never really made friends with the Team.

The stuff Peter had to do just to feel safe in a comic book world gave him a head start on the uplift project, while OL inadvertently sabotaged himself a number of times.

 

[BlueMangoAdea]

Earth 12
4th March 1996
09:01 GMT +1

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Earth 12
6th February 2005

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Peter also had more time. So it's not a good comparison.

 

[Mr Zoat]

May 7th 2012, 10:56 GMT -5

He's here and I start walking towards the surface access at once. The red one… M'gann, she's been offering to see if she can make adjusting 'easier' for me, and I know she means well, but I've seen Sheeda brain weevils and I'm never letting anything touch my mind again.

"Got a hot date?"

That was the small one. Robin. He's smiling in a very Sheeda way, pretending to be polite while he tries to find out something advantageous.

"Grayven's here. I'm letting him in."

Controls… Right. Just-.

"You remember this is supposed to be a secure facility, right Artemis?"

The machine's not responding. Am I pressing the buttons right?

"Come on, Rob. It's not like he doesn't know where we are."

I am pressing the buttons right. It's just not opening.

"Not the point, Kid."

"And he's strong enough to pull the door open, and he can open a boom tube in here anyway, and I'm pretty sure Sunset could teleport him inside-."

Someone's.. denying me access. OBEY YOUR QUEEN!

The control melts and the ramp opens and I start feeling a bit more normal. That's… Probably bad.

I hear the quiet intake of breath from Robin and feel the space move as he changes from 'passively observe' to 'ready for action'. I turn slowly back towards him and the ramp clanks to the floor, inviting him to comment or take action.

"Um." Wally frowns, glancing at Robin before walking over to the control pad and poking it. "Batman use non-certified labor or something?"

"How did you do that?"

"I'm a goddess, it's a machine." I feel a little of the who-is-everyone tension leave me as Grayven gets closer. Then I start getting annoyed with him because I know he's just strolling rather than getting here. Then I stop getting annoyed because I know he knows that I want to be able to do this. That I need to be able to do this without him being there the whole time.

"I thought you were a goddess of arrows."

"I'm a goddess of arrows who ruled a planet."

I'm watching him, he's watching me. Neither of us are reaching for our weapons but… Heh, like Grayven said that time, we can both see the weapons that aren't-.

We both blink in confusion and Wally waves his arms up and down between us. We both turn to look at him as he frowns at us.

"Ah, guys, what the heck was that?"

"I'm not so sure that Artemis is entirely herself."

"Well, yeah, she spent hundreds of years in the future. She's been Queen of the Bondage Elves longer than she's been on the team. People change, Rob. And anyway-. Wait, are you still hung up on Grayven?"

"You mean the guy with at least two forms of mind control who was working with Doctor Sivana?"

"To be fair…" And I stop listening to what's behind me because Grayven's there and he's got it. "That does sound pretty sketchy. And it's four forms of mind control. Five. Maybe six."

He's standing next to me, facing down this 'Robin' guy with me. I can't even remember how many Sheeda Highborn we've faced like this. Feel a little skeevy doing this to a kid, but the sooner he learns not to mess with his queen the bet… Ter. For.. him.

I'm not his queen. I'm not his queen. And I shouldn't take the fact I'm forgetting out on him.

I can feel Grayven thinking about making me queen of somewhere. I don't.. think that would be better.

Have to be 35 to run for president, right?

Now Robin's watching Grayven's face. "You going to fix the door?"

"Are you going to trust me to fix the door?"

"Can I trust-"

I step aside just before Grayven turns around and waves his ring at the ramp and its control station. The ramp starts to close and the control pad doesn't look quite the same as it did before, but I already know that he just did that to force Robin to take the whole thing apart and check all of it. He's probably put a load of random wires and stuff in it to try and drive him crazy working out what it all does.

"-you to fix the door?"

The ramp closes fully, and Grayven mimes flipping a coin before we both walk past him.

"Recognized, Batman, zero two."

Robin doesn't really react, but Wally's wincing as Batman appears. And all I can think is 'why did he used to intimidate me'? I've had giant millipedes try and eat me. Invisible people from the future try to kill or manipulate me into being their slave. I stabbed the guy who ate the universe to death.

He dresses like a bat. Who finds bats scary? What's he supposed to do, give people rabies?

"Batman!"

Grayven's smiling and using the faux-pleased voice he uses when he knows it's going to annoy whoever he's talking to. Yeah.

"Grayven. Why are you here?"

Does he need a lozenge or something? I frown faintly, then notice that Robin and Wally are almost standing to attention.

"Because I wanted to ask why you disregarded my instructions and sent a seventeen year old girl to attack the Castle Revolving, when I explicitly told you that I had it in hand."

He doesn't say 'dumbass', but I don't think I'm the only one who hears him not say it.

"Because I'm pretty sure that Scott would have let me take a swing at them and only go in if I failed or asked for help."

"You didn't tell us you were working with Doctor Sivana."

"I also don't tell you how big my evening shit is. But I can start if you want?"

Wally cringes.

"Did you intend for Sivana to destroy the Sheeda command ship?"

"No, but in my defence, who could have imagined that Sivana cared enough about anyone to carry out a suicide attack? And in any case, that only reinforces my point: if I don't know that someone else is on-site, I can't take them into account. If…" He glances back and I keep watching the bat-man. "Robin or Kid Flash had been in the next room, you'd-" He turns back, and I go back to watching our peripherals. "-be down two sidekicks right now. And that meant that you weren't covering the places I thought you'd be covering."

"If you wish to discuss planning for future events, we can do that another time. This is a debriefing session for Artemis."

"Ah? Well, pencil me in and carry on."

Grayven steps aside and the chiroptera cosplayer gives me his full attention.

"Without you being here."

"Yeah, no." I fold my arms across my chest. "I barely remember any of you people. I'm not doing anything with you without the person I trust most being here. This happens with Grayven here, or I'm out. Completely."

 

[Sockmonkey]

I suspect OL is feeling rather stretched thin with all the pots he has on the stove. The OLC, Tamaran, missions with the team, general Vega shenanigans, general Earth shenanigans, the various research projects he has going, maintaining a relationship, etc etc. Running out of fucks to give is a real problem for someone who's power runs on said fucks. He can't just gut his way through the boring bits like a greenie. It's gotta be all fucks, all the time.

 

[Slayer Anderson]

I feel like Renegade!Batman hasn't had one of his heroic schemes backfire as badly as sending Artemis to the infiltrate the castle is going to.

...I wonder if this is going to be a lesser repeat of the post-Nabu fallout from Paragon?

 

[Vanbers]

"What do you mean she doesn't want to be separated from the person she spent centuries with while we interrogate her with people she barely remembers while being antagonistic to the aforementioned person?!"

Also, yeah Grayven making some real good points there. If he plans on people being in place A, while they instead fucked off to place B, then things are somewhat more difficult. These are things you should know, Batsy.

all fucks, all the time.

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A misleading, but technically accurate description for the OL Corps. Perhaps that should be the new motto? It'd certainly help with recruitment.

 

[DrThoth]

I suspect OL is feeling rather stretched thin with all the pots he has on the stove. The OLC, Tamaran, missions with the team, general Vega shenanigans, general Earth shenanigans, the various research projects he has going, maintaining a relationship, etc etc. Running out of fucks to give is a real problem for someone who's power runs on said fucks. He can't just gut his way through the boring bits like a greenie. It's gotta be all fucks, all the time.

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I do think this speaks to the issue both Paragon and Renegade have, though more so for the former. The scope of the narratives is just so large that we don't get the intimate character interactions, dynamics and development that we used to, or rather we do still get them but they're swallowed up by the constantly shifting narrative focus. Relating things to the latest update, Renegade-Artemis's change is a big deal that's sure to have a lot of implications for the Team and to a lesser extent the League, but I don't think we'll spend enough time on it because previously main characters just come and go intermittently into Renegade's narrative (I'm also thinking of Renegade-M'gann, whose arc I do like, but we don't see enough of because she doesn't interact with Renegade as part of his close peer group anymore).

I don't think I'm saying anything new here though, so I'll probably just take the story as it comes. I am looking forward to more of the Reach actually showing up (I think that's what the episode will be about), though it's admittedly a bit tiring on the heels of four episodes featuring pseudo-insectoid inhuman/alien invaders.
Have Paragon or the Controllers tried more esoteric orange light manipulation on Reach forces, to neutralize or nullify their desires, for example? I think Scarab technology is able to block constructs, though I can't remember a source, but I don't think every authority figure has that same capacity.
What is the Reach governance structure like anyway? Is there a singular Emperor/Empress somewhere or some kind of assembly or something? I can't currently gauge how effective assassination of high-ranking Reach officials (which Paragon's instant transmission and developed desire tracking should make him quite good at) would be to destabilizing their empire.

 

[Sockmonkey]

Batman really suffers against people he can't psychologically intimidate. Especially when it's someone with powers that he can't take physically.
He's gotten spoiled by ordering around kids.
It's also hilarious.

 

[Darko]

glance at Robin before

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'glances'

Bondage Elves

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Apt name.

Feel a little

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maybe 'Feels'

take the fact I'm forgetting

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maybe 'that I'm forgetting that'

Have to be 35 to run for president, right?

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You're way past that age.

guy to ate the universe

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'that ate'

Who finds bats scary?

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People in the dark night who can't see all that well and know that something is out to get them.

The effect ias somewhat ruined in the daylight, but at night it probably causing some people to shit their pants.

Bats is also a sdcary guy even during daylight, you're just not afraid of him because of everything you've seen, but others haven't seen what you've seen so they're terrified of him.

give me his full attention.

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'gives'

 

[Vaermina]

May 7th 2012, 10:56 GMT -5

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Well isn't Artemis a giant bucketload of untreated PTSD.

That said, I am a bit surprised Batman didn't bring in Scott and Barda to check her for Mind Control given the circumstances.

 

[SemiAnarchist]

I am really enjoying platonic life partners Artemis and Grayven here, I'd love to see more of the two of them.

Shame they're not romantically involved, but I'll take what I can get.

 

[Ngamer11]

I wonder how long it's going to take the paranoid members of the Team and the League to realize that Artemis isn't mind controlled? She's just different from how she was before, and there's nothing they can do, short of memory erasure, to change that.

 

[Citizen]

. I stabbed the guy to ate the universe to death

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"Guy who ate" I think

 

[Vaermina]

I wonder how long it's going to take the paranoid members of the Team and the League to realize that Artemis isn't mind controlled? She's just different from how she was before, and there's nothing they can do, short of memory erasure, to change that.

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The thing is, she might actually be mind controlled.

Remember, Renegade's whole New God thing involves a subtle type of mind control over those he's "conquered". So if Artemis in any way falls into that category, she actually could be and just wouldn't know it.

 

[Senevri]

but I've seen Sheeda brain weevils and I'm never letting anything touch my mind again.

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I've heard of Mengele, never seeing a doctor again.
I don't think it's a phobia, more like... Aversion due to ignorance?

He dresses like a bat. Who finds bats scary? What's he supposed to do, give people rabies?

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*chuckles in 2020*

 

[gustyeagle]

Well isn't Artemis a giant bucketload of untreated PTSD.

That said, I am a bit surprised Batman didn't bring in Scott and Barda to check her for Mind Control given the circumstances.

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It would be in character to have them at least waiting near buy, if not just having them try to 'spy' on the debriefing.

 

[Agent Orange]

Remember, Renegade's whole New God thing involves a subtle type of mind control over those he's "conquered".

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You've just described literally anyone who ever conceeded anything to him and everyone who followed his lead after he became a New God, along with everyone he ever turned into a new god. So sure, Artemis is mind controlled... in a same way most characters he interacted with are. If anything she'd be less mind controlled than most of the Team because she's far closer to him in 'metaphysical weight' than any of them.

 

[Lone Courier 6]

There's also the fact that it's a two way bond, grayven feels it too.

 

[The Unaligned Player]

The iron collars are more like manacles that they wear together.

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

May 7th 2012, 10:56 GMT -5

He's here and I start walking towards the surface access at once. The red one… M'gann, she's been offering to see if she can make adjusting 'easier' for me, and I know she means well, but I've seen Sheeda brain weevils and I'm never letting anything touch my mind again.

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And given how powerful she is now, who knows how she'd help you adjust? Can you bring yourself to trust her with that level of access to your mind? Who knows how she'd react to the memories' content? Having her collapse screaming in horror might not be the best showing...

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

"Got a hot date?"

That was the small one. Robin. He's smiling in a very Sheeda way, pretending to be polite while he tries to find out something advantageous.

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Heh, this reaction she knows how to deal with. Probably feels comforting.. in a disturbing way.

"Grayven's here. I'm letting him in."

Controls… Right. Just-.

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Not squishy enough?

"You remember this is supposed to be a secure facility, right Artemis?"

The machine's not responding. Am I pressing the buttons right?

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Man, they must be worrying hard right now, inside. bet it's triggering all kinds of warning bells for Mind Control...

"Come on, Rob. It's not like he doesn't know where we are."

I am pressing the buttons right. It's just not opening.

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Sounds like someone ordered her access revoked. Batman, of course. Who else would be wary of letting her run kind-of free?

"Not the point, Kid."

"And he's strong enough to pull the door open, and he can open a boom tube in here anyway, and I'm pretty sure Sunset could teleport him inside-."

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Yes, but those would not exactly be friendly. And he's trying not to piss Batman off, right now, is he?

Someone's.. denying me access. OBEY YOUR QUEEN!

The control melts and the ramp opens and I start feeling a bit more normal. That's… Probably bad.

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She's become used to being obeyed. So when something actually obeys her, her Godhead is soothed. We've seen something similar with Grayven dominating a foe into submission, haven't we?

I hear the quiet intake of breath from Robin and feel the space move as he changes from 'passively observe' to 'ready for action'. I turn slowly back towards him and the ramp clanks to the floor, inviting him to comment or take action.

"Um." Wally frowns, glance at Robin before walking over to the control pad and poking it. "Batman use non-certified labor or something?"

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Boy, Wally really has been neglecting his New God aspect, hasn't he? Mr Zoat said he didn't really care about the metaphysical aspects... And now I get the feeling that will bite him in the arse someday.

"How did you do that?"

"I'm a goddess, it's a machine." I feel a little of the who-is-everyone tension leave me as Grayven gets closer. Then I start getting annoyed with him because I know he's just strolling rather than getting here. Then I stop getting annoyed because I know he knows that I want to be able to do this. That I need to be able to do this without him being there the whole time.

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Boy, thinking like a Sheeda really left her in a weird headspace, didn't she? Her mind is a twisty knot of logic now. I bet M'Gann would get a headache trying to follow her train of thought, or have it feel like a roller-coaster...

"I thought you were a goddess of arrows."

"I'm a goddess of arrows who ruled a planet."

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Do you rule anything, bird-boy? No? Then shut up and come back in a millennium.

I'm watching him, he's watching me. Neither of us are reaching for our weapons but… Heh, like Grayven said that time, we can both see the weapons that aren't-.

We both blink in confusion and Wally waves him arms up and down between us. We both turn to look at him as he frowns at us.

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Time out, before someone gets hurt, huh? I see this Robin will be inheriting his mentor's paranoia...

"Ah, guys, what the heck was that?"

"I'm not so sure that Artemis is entirely herself."

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You know, one thing Worm got right was the concept of Master/Stranger protocols. Having a system for identifying unusual or out-of-character behaviour is such a useful thing... Even if it occasionally leads to long time-outs when you encounter out-of-context problems. Like big, fluffy white wolves, or little pink gems that talk...

"Well, yeah, she spent hundreds of years in the future. She's been Queen of the Bondage Elves longer than she's been on the team. People change, Rob. And anyway-. Wait, are you still hung up on Grayven?"

"You mean the guy with at least two forms of mind control who was working with Doctor Sivana?"

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Only two? Give him credit, Robin. Grayven wouldn't get out of bed without five ways to dominate an opponent. Never mind what his rings can do.

"To be fair…" And I stop listening to what's behind me because Grayven's there and he's got it. "That does sound pretty sketchy. And it's four forms of mind control. Five. Maybe six."

He's standing next to me, facing down this 'Robin' guy with me. I can't even remember how many Sheeda Highborn we've faced like this. Feel a little skeevy doing this to a kid, but the sooner he learns not to mess with his queen the bet… Ter. For.. him.

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Ah, a rare chance for us to see Grayven from the outside. And at least Artemis can feel a little worried that she's thinking like that.

I'm not his queen. I'm not his queen. And I shouldn't take the fact I'm forgetting out on him.

I can feel Grayven thinking about making me queen of somewhere. I don't.. think that would be better.

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At least she knows Grayven has her back no matter what. Some people never find that kind of friend.

Have to be 35 to run for president, right?

Now Robin's watching Grayven's face. "You going to fix the door?"

"Are you going to trust me to fix the door?"

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Ah, seeing Robin indulge his paranoia against the bulwark that is Grayven. It gives you such a feeling of schadenfruede...

"Can I trust-"

I step aside just before Grayven turns around and waves his ring at the ramp and its control station. The ramp starts to close and the control pad doesn't look quite the same as it did before, but I already know that he just did that to force Robin to take the whole thing apart and check all of it. He's probably put a load of random wires and stuff in it to try and drive him crazy working out what it all does.

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Ah, it's the little things. Love the way she just knows how he'd mess with Robin...

"-you to fix the door?"

The ramp closes fully, and Grayven mimes tossing a coin before we both walk past him.

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More fuel for the paranoia, eh? Be careful, Grayven, or you'll turn Robin into the next Question...

"Recognized, Batman, zero two."

Robin doesn't really react, but Wally's wincing as Batman appears. And all I can think is 'why did he used to intimidate me'? I've had giant millipedes try and eat me. Invisible people from the future try to kill or manipulate me into being their slave. I stabbed the guy to ate the universe to death.

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And once you've done that, there's not much that could scare you in a fight. Settling back into your old life, though? I bet Ringnestro would find the fear fascinating.

He dresses like a bat. Who finds bats scary? What's he supposed to do, give people rabies?

"Batman!"

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Hey, it's scarier in the dark. Where most of the people he's taken on find out what sort of person they really are. And it's usually the sort who wet themselves, scream, maybe even faint... Compare the Sixties' series Batman, who ran about in broad daylight in light grey and blue.. To the Burton Movies' Batman, who operated solely at night in jet black (which would honestly impair stealth, bu hey) and was so rarely seen before the movie that at least one artist's impression was of a snarling beast-man.

Grayven's smiling and using the faux-pleased voice he uses when he knows it's going to annoy whoever he's talking to. Yeah.

"Grayven. Why are you here?"

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It's fun watching Grayven schmooze people into frustration. Now we get to watch it from someone else's point of view.

Does he need a lozenge or something? I frown faintly, then notice that Robin and Wally are nearly standing to attention.

"Because I wanted to ask why you disregarded my instructions and sent a seventeen year old girl to attack the Castle Revolving, when I explicitly told you that I had it in hand."

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Seriously, the DCEU (what an ugh name) got one thing right about Batman: The voice changer tech works so much better than a man basically destroying his vocal chords trying to speak in growls...

He doesn't say 'dumbass', but I don't think I'm the only one who hears him not say it.

"Because I'm pretty sure that Scott would have let me take a swing at them and only go in if I failed or asked for help."

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Though by that point, the Castle would be on its guard. That's probably why Batman did it.

"You didn't tell us you were working with Doctor Sivana."

"I also don't tell you how big my evening shit is. But I can start if you want?"

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Thankfully, this isn't the ultimate paranoid Bat-god who would probably know anyway because he'd have Challenger Mountain bugged six ways to Sunday...

Wally cringes.

"Did you intend for Sivana to destroy the Sheeda command ship?"

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Come on, Batman, you know any mission Grayven takes on usually ends in flames and screaming anyway. Why are you so surprised?

"No, but in my defence, who could have imagined that Sivana cared enough about anyone to carry out a suicide attack? And in any case, that only reinforces my point: if I don't know that someone else is on-site, I can't take them into account. If…" He glances back and I keep watching the bat-man. "Robin or Kid Flash had been in the next room, you'd-" He turns back, and I go back to watching our peripherals. "-be down two sidekicks right now. And that meant that you weren't covering the places I thought you'd be covering."

Click to shrink...

And don't think Man-dressed-as-a-bat hasn't noticed that subtle instinctive teamwork between them... The question is, what does he think of it?

"If you wish to discuss planning for future events, we can do that another time. This is a debriefing session for Artemis."

"Ah? Well, pencil me in and carry on."

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I'm guessing he was allowing Artemis time to get her thoughts in order to go over the sequence of events. Because he wasn't expecting the whole 'centuries spent in the future' thing, was he?

Gryaven steps aside and the chiroptera cosplayer give me his full attention.

"Without you being here."

"Yeah, no." I fold my arms across my chest. "I barely remember any of you people. I'm not doing anything with you without the person I trust most being here. This happens with Grayven here, or I'm out. Completely."

Click to shrink...

And that's just going to cement the 'mind-control' thing in their heads even more. One more wedge in the crack between Artemis and the Team...

At this point, I bet Artemis is feeling more than a little frustrated here, I bet. There's a clear streak in her thoughts that they're treating her like the bad guy, if you look at it. Honestly... It's like Batman is trying to drive her into Grayven's camp.

---

Spoiler: Godspeech!

He's here and I start walking towards the surface access at once. The red one… M'gann, she's been offering to see if she can make adjusting 'easier' for me, and I know she means well, but I've seen Sheeda brain weevils and I'm never letting anything touch my mind again.

Click to shrink...

Someone's.. denying me access. OBEY YOUR QUEEN!

The control melts and the ramp opens and I start feeling a bit more normal. That's… Probably bad.

I hear the quiet intake of breath from Robin and feel the space move as he changes from 'passively observe' to 'ready for action'. I turn slowly back towards him and the ramp clanks to the floor, inviting him to comment or take action.

Click to shrink...

"I'm a goddess, it's a machine." I feel a little of the who-is-everyone tension leave me as Grayven gets closer. Then I start getting annoyed with him because I know he's just strolling rather than getting here. Then I stop getting annoyed because I know he knows that I want to be able to do this. That I need to be able to do this without him being there the whole time.

Click to shrink...

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...Wally waves him arms up and down between us.

Click to shrink...

...Wally waves his arms up and down between us.