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

[NightmareWarden]

Can Paragon by any chance locate and capture the souls of the dead Reachians for intelligence via metaphysical shenanigans? Though Grayven's presence and resources may be a challenge to that.

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Not without disappointing Lord Hades and upsetting whichever Wizard/priestess helps him. Alienating them.

"Yes, I fully understand that trading qwa matter is not the same as selling neural impactors."

"I didn't know we were still making those."

"Some aliens from the matter universe are buying them. Varnathon had me dust off the designs. But that's beside the point. The other Weaponers won't stand for Varnathon doing anything like that with qwa matter or qwa energy. Even the ones who aren't as faithful as you will be horrified for strategic reasons."

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So uh. I found this old quote. I'll note we just saw Paul's connection with the Orange Light and the Ophidian disrupted. And the Reach are "some aliens."

Reverse engineering Qwardian tech for an anti-Lantern weapon?

 

[Duke Long]

Or it might just keep going forever, never slowing down and never hitting anything.

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I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that any projectile would eventually slow down, given that there is a very small amount of ambient matter in space to cause friction. Not sure how long it would take or anything, but i think it's happen eventually.

Did they knew that you were allied with Sparta?

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'know'

 

[Chaoswind]

I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that any projectile would eventually slow down, given that there is a very small amount of ambient matter in space to cause friction. Not sure how long it would take or anything, but i think it's happen eventually.

'know'

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But that matter is also moving thanks to gravity not static free floating in space waiting for shit to hit it, and its much too small to apply much negative momentum to stop a Projectile on a time scale that matters anyway.

There are a large number of gravitational objects that will slingshot your ordinance and end up either adding speed to it or capturing it way before the ordinance is naturally slowed down by space dust, In simple terms the blackhole at the center of the galaxy exerts far more force into the moving objects of the galaxy than the stay atoms of interstellar space do to slow them and while in theory that friction will eventually stop your shot, the heat death of the universe will happen first.

 

[Mr Zoat]

That should say 'ships'.
That should say 'know'.

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Thank you, corrected.

Depends on what they were firing. Projectiles might have burned up in the atmosphere. Or thr writers might simply have forgotten or ignored it in favor of rule of cool...

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At the levels of energy involved, I don't think that burning up would help. Heating up the air and spreading the kinetic force out still leave more than enough energy for total devastation. Less penetration, but now the air is on fire.

So uh. I found this old quote. I'll note we just saw Paul's connection with the Orange Light and the Ophidian disrupted. And the Reach are "some aliens."

Reverse engineering Qwardian tech for an anti-Lantern weapon?

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Reverse engineering, no, not unless they get really desperate. Purchasing and testing, certainly.

 

[Duke Long]

Reverse engineering, no, not unless they get really desperate. Purchasing and testing, certainly.

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Why not unless they get desperate? Some sort of pride or xenophobia, or fear of angering the Qwardians?

 

[AmericanNumbers]

Black Mage Hadouken?

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Lol but no.
The Black Mage Hadoken feeds on the love of the Universe and increases the divorce rate which feels like the opposite of accelerating Entropy.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Why not unless they get desperate? Some sort of pride or xenophobia, or fear of angering the Qwardians?

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It's not so much 'anger', as a decision to enforce their copyright.

 

[transhumansage]

"It imposes the condition of the Heat death of the universe on the current universe likely shortening it's lifespan "

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its on too small of a scale to shorten the lifespan. maybe the beams took away a couple nano seconds maybe?

 

[Prince Charon]

I stare in astonishment as the giant cold beam I fired at the beginning of the fight slams into the Absolute Dominion.

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The cold beams are visible, right? They can't have just missed seeing it?

 

[thebishop8]

When Paul showed up, the Reach used gravity manipulation and caused spatial distortions that made all the stars appear on the rim of the solar system. Couldn't the Reach have just used that system to make the giant cold beam hit Grayven's ship?

 

[Darko]

When Paul showed up, the Reach used gravity manipulation and caused spatial distortions that made all the stars appear on the rim of the solar system. Couldn't the Reach have just used that system to make the giant cold beam hit Grayven's ship?

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That would explain how the beam started hitting the Dominion.

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st January 2013
21:00 GMT

Ah…

I kept that up for a while, punctuated by the warp pulses I used to make it hit the Reach ships in a timely manner. The Absolute Dominion has New God shielding and armour and Grayven is powerful, but… The voice we've half-heard sounded like it was more interested in attacking than defending.

We're a long way from the Absolute Dominion, but I think I can see a slight… Shimmering? Where the cold beam hit. It hasn't ceased firing, though given the smaller size of the remaining targets it's mostly using its secondary turrets rather than the hyper blaster. Using empathic vision-.

I wince at the uncomfortable backlash from his defences.

Well. He's still alive, at least.

The pursuing ships briefly pass between me and the fight around Karrakan.

Right. Them.

"Ring, message those ships."

"Compliance."

"Reach flotilla, your fleet is being destroyed and I killed these guys. I would respectfully suggest that this isn't the best use of your time, resources and lives. Please, go away."

I train the giant cold gun on them, making sure that the angle won't take the beam anywhere near Karrakan.

"I know you've probably got the same orders as the other squadron, but I suspect that the person who gave it is dead, and so it might be time to reassess."

I wince inside my armour as the second beam hits the Absolute Dominion. It's still firing but it's definitely slowed. The surviving Reach ships are doubling back towards it, trying to minimise the proportion of its guns that can fire on them while allowing them to fire back. The Absolute Dominions escorts are moving to intercept.

"I am also willing to cooperate on escaping this trap, if that makes more sense to you. Or you can just keep doing what you're doing and I can kill you all. But if I do that… How good is your self destruct? How good is your ability to flash your databases? Can you be certain that we won't get something useful out of your defeat? Because I know that Clarissi Dox will trade quite a lot for the remains of those battleships."

They're closing, and they're not actually that far from maximum weapons' range. Thiva's warships are moving perpendicular to them, with just enough off-axis movement to serve as an evasive flight path.

"Come on, make the intelligent choice. I know your effective ranges as well as you-."

"Can you return us to Karrakan?"

"Not while your interdiction field is active. And I doubt that Grayven will turn his off. If you want my help turning around, I can do that and give you a boost. Bit of a change of tune."

"Our Unifier is dead and the Negotiator is out of contact. In this situation-."

"Fine, I'll believe you." I dismiss my cold gun cannon. "Power down your weapons and position them at neutral, and I'll approach."

"Wait."

They don't try to reverse thrust, but they do begin rotating in space with the aim of turning their drive this way. Their weapons… Some return to their gunports, others turn to face along the hull of the ship.

"Is this what we want?"

I rotate in space and arm-shrug in the direction of Thiva's ship, and switch channel to reply to her only.

"If my enemies want to kill each other, who am I to stop them?"

And… Oh. Some of the Absolute Dominion's guns have stopped firing. Its escorts are swarming any ship that makes an attack run, taking visible damage themselves to keep their overlord safe. And the cold beam is still hitting… I'm not sure how. Yes, I moved it to keep it on the projected location of the dreadnoughts I was aiming at, but the Absolute Dominion only entered that cone by chance-.

Or did it? My use of gravity manipulation to alter the course of my phasic rounds was passably clever but not really innovative as space combat amongst species with gravitational manipulation technology goes. The current state of this system shows how good the Reach are at things like that. And they certainly have FTL sensors; they would know where the shot was going.

And of course, Grayven's force isn't like N.E.M.O.. If they kill me or Dox or Hinon, N.E.M.O. keeps going. Grayven is the driving force behind his faction's attack on the Reach. I doubt that the Citizenry would be prepared to follow whoever succeeds him as clan chief, or that the Ascendants would follow either.

Or maybe I'm mistaken. If the Darkstars have infiltrated Grayven's forces, they haven't forwarded an intelligence report to me.

Well, the Reach ships have stowed their guns. Time for me to do my bit.

We warp, flying towards them with one metaphorical hand on the brake, waiting for them to chance their arms. But, no, they don't, and I can approach to construct distance.

Oh, that's what the Ascendants were doing. They've grabbed enough Reach wrecks to create a physical barrier between the cold beam and the Absolute Dominion. Whatever the Reach were doing to make the beam hit in the first place, it looks like they can't use it to make the beam turn at right angles. The Absolute Dominion itself… It's accelerating sluggishly as the surviving Reach ships appear to decide that firing at point blank range is their best bet.

I generate a construct clamp around each of the nearest Reach ships and pull, increasing their turning rate to just apply under their theoretical maximum safe hull stress. No point ripping them up before they arrive. And I keep monitoring their weapons and keep an eye out in case they've decided to send a stealthy Scarab Warrior after me. No, nothing.

Yet.

Ships turned and rotation halted, I move along the line, though the ships next to these ones aren't close to one another in the conventional sense. Another series of construct clamps and another careful pulling twist as the first couple of ships I turned around begin accelerating back towards Karrakan. This means that they're currently going backwards, but the rate at which they're going backwards is slowing.

It's not just me that conventional physics has made its enemy.

We move down the line, redirecting their ships until they're all facing the right way. Then we draw upon the desires of the crews and of the Reach in general to destroy those who threaten their way of life and give them a little push.

And there they go, on their merry way, to death or victory. Not sure whether I want Grayven to have killed Unnamed Assimilation Specialist or not. I mean, we've bumped into each other a couple of times but it's not like with Truggs where I actually agree with some of what he's trying to do. There's clearly no way I could rehabilitate him while still leaving any part of his original personality intact. We'd have to start on a new behavioural profile but I'm sure that Dox would live.

"Illustres to Thiva. I think our best course of action would be to head to the edge of the system and see-."

Stars shoot overhead as the rest of the universe reappears, another Reach fleet flying in about a third of the way across the system from us and heading for Karrakan.

"Or that could happen. Can you open boom tubes?"

BOOM!

A glowing portal open in front of each of the ships, and I fly towards the closest.

"Then let's fall back and regroup for now. I'm interested to see what you've done with Minosyss."

 

[Darko]

whoever succeeds his as clan chief, or that

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"him as clan"

behavioural profile but I'm sure that Dox would live.

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"would love it"

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

1st January 2013
21:00 GMT

Ah…

I kept that up for a while, punctuated by the warp pulses I used to make it hit the Reach ships in a timely manner. The Absolute Dominion has New God shielding and armour and Grayven is powerful, but… The voice we've half-heard sounded like it was more interested in attacking than defending.

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Sadly, it probably won't do too much, especially if the Absolute Dominion is currently being reinforced by Grayven. Attacking or defending, his strength of purpose has a certain quality all its own...

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

We're a long way from the Absolute Dominion, but I think I can see a slight… Shimmering? Where the cold beam hit. It hasn't ceased firing, though given the smaller size of the remaining targets it's mostly using its secondary turrets rather than the hyper blaster. Using empathic vision-.

I wince at the uncomfortable backlash from his defences.

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Using the main cannon would be like using a pile-driver to crack walnuts. Monumentally overpowered and almost certainly likely to damage something you'd prefer intact.

Well. He's still alive, at least.

The pursuing ships briefly pass between me and the fight around Karrakan.

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Oh, right, that sternguard that didn't stick around to face down Grayven.

Right. Them.

"Ring, message those ships."

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Let's hope they're more sensible than their fellows that you just cooled off.

"Compliance."

"Reach flotilla, your fleet is being destroyed and I killed these guys. I would respectfully suggest that this isn't the best use of your time, resources and lives. Please, go away."

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Problem is, are they too fanatical to care about their own survival compared to the success of their mission? Given what you just saw...

I train the giant cold gun on them, making sure that the angle won't take the beam anywhere near Karrakan.

"I know you've probably got the same orders as the other squadron, but I suspect that the person who gave it is dead, and so it might be time to reassess."

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Sounded a bit daft anyway. And you don't have to follow orders if your leader's acting like a daft 'git'.

I wince inside my armour as the second beam hits the Absolute Dominion. It's still firing but it's definitely slowed. The surviving Reach ships are doubling back towards it, trying to minimise the proportion of its guns that can fire on them while allowing them to fire back. The Absolute Dominions escorts are moving to intercept.

"I am also willing to cooperate on escaping this trap, if that makes more sense to you. Or you can just keep doing what you're doing and I can kill you all. But if I do that… How good is your self destruct? How good is your ability to flash your databases? Can you be certain that we won't get something useful out of your defeat? Because I know that Clarissi Dox will trade quite a lot for the remains of those battleships."

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Heh. Nice, make them think about what happens if they fail.

They're closing, and they're not actually that far from maximum weapons' range. Thiva's warships are moving perpendicular to them, with just enough off-axis movement to serve as an evasive flight path.

"Come on, make the intelligent choice. I know your effective ranges as well as you-."

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And if OL has to block some hopeful shots, he's not going to be so kind as he is right now.

"Can you return us to Karrakan?"

"Not while your interdiction field is active. And I doubt that Grayven will turn his off. If you want my help turning around, I can do that and give you a boost. Bit of a change of tune."

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Finally, someone thinking with more than their copy of the Writ. Though it looks like they want to join the rather one-sided fight against Grayven... But at least they're not shooting at OL.

"Our Unifier is dead and the Negotiator is out of contact. In this situation-."

"Fine, I'll believe you." I dismiss my cold gun cannon. "Power down your weapons and position them at neutral, and I'll approach."

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And rational thought prevails over fanaticism. For now at least.

"Wait."

They don't try to reverse thrust, but they do begin rotating in space with the aim of turning their drive this way. Their weapons… Some return to their gunports, others turn to face along the hull of the ship.

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Hopefully they're far enough away that this doesn't become a reminder of the Kzinti Lesson...

"Is this what we want?"

I rotate in space and arm-shrug in the direction of Thiva's ship, and switch channel to reply to her only.

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Do you want them shooting at you, rather than Big Gray?

"If my enemies want to kill each other, who am I to stop them?"

And… Oh. Some of the Absolute Dominion's guns have stopped firing. Its escorts are swarming any ship that makes an attack run, taking visible damage themselves to keep their overlord safe. And the cold beam is still hitting… I'm not sure how. Yes, I moved it to keep it on the projected location of the dreadnoughts I was aiming at, but the Absolute Dominion only entered that cone by chance-.

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Sounds like someone's playing dirty pool with space-time, then.

Or did it? My use of gravity manipulation to alter the course of my phasic rounds was passably clever but not really innovative as space combat amongst species with gravitational manipulation technology goes. The current state of this system shows how good the Reach are at things like that. And they certainly have FTL sensors; they would know where the shot was going.

And of course, Grayven's force isn't like N.E.M.O.. If they kill me or Dox or Hinon, N.E.M.O. keeps going. Grayven is the driving force behind his faction's attack on the Reach. I doubt that the Citizenry would be prepared to follow whoever succeeds his as clan chief, or that the Ascendants would follow either.

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Which kind of makes him the bigger target right now.

Or maybe I'm mistaken. If the Darkstars have infiltrated Grayven's forces, they haven't forwarded an intelligence report to me.

Well, the Reach ships have stowed their guns. Time for me to do my bit.

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...To give them a good boot back towards the planet, and the fight? This will be fun.

We warp, flying towards them with one metaphorical hand on the brake, waiting for them to chance their arms. But, no, they don't, and I can approach to construct distance.

Oh, that's what the Ascendants were doing. They've grabbed enough Reach wrecks to create a physical barrier between the cold beam and the Absolute Dominion. Whatever the Reach were doing to make the beam hit in the first place, it looks like they can't use it to make the beam turn at right angles. The Absolute Dominion itself… It's accelerating sluggishly as the surviving Reach ships appear to decide that firing at point blank range is their best bet.

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Like hyenas circling a wounded elephant. It'll crush any that get in the wrong place, but they can conceivably bring it down... Eventually.

I generate a construct clamp around each of the nearest Reach ships and pull, increasing their turning rate to just apply under their theoretical maximum safe hull stress. No point ripping them up before they arrive. And I keep monitoring their weapons and keep an eye out in case they've decided to send a stealthy Scarab Warrior after me. No, nothing.

Yet.

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Looks like they're serious about playing nice. No profit in stabbing you in the back, after all.

Ships turned and rotation halted, I move along the line, though the ships next to these ones aren't close to one another in the conventional sense. Another series of construct clamps and another careful pulling twist as the first couple of ships I turned around begin accelerating back towards Karrakan. This means that they're currently going backwards, but the rate at which they're going backwards is slowing.

It's not just me that conventional physics has made its enemy.

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...Hopefully the Reach crews have strong stomachs, because this might get a bit wibbly-wobbly.

We move down the line, redirecting their ships until they're all facing the right way. Then we draw upon the desires of the crews and of the Reach in general to destroy those who threaten their way of life and give them a little push.

And there they go, on their merry way, to death or victory. Not sure whether I want Grayven to have killed Unnamed Assimilation Specialist or not. I mean, we've bumped into each other a couple of times but it's not like with Truggs where I actually agree with some of what he's trying to do. There's clearly no way I could rehabilitate him while still leaving any part of his original personality intact. We'd have to start on a new behavioural profile but I'm sure that Dox would live.

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I doubt that'll happen. the Nemesis seems too slippery to be killed off that easily.

"Illustres to Thiva. I think our best course of action would be to head to the edge of the system and see-."

Stars shoot overhead as the rest of the universe reappears, another Reach fleet flying in about a third of the way across the system from us and heading for Karrakan.

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Ah, well. No more encirclement? Time to get the hell out of Dodge, then.

"Or that could happen. Can you open boom tubes?"

BOOM!

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Got to love fast-travelling at the end of a mission.

A glowing portal open in front of each of the ships, and I fly towards the closest.

"Then let's fall back and regroup for now. I'm interested to see what you've done with Minosyss."

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It's quite likely that Grayven's fleet has noticed those tubes, but hopefully he's too busy to worry about it now.

Fight over, everyone you could save is safely on their way, and with the minimum of hostile kills. Not bad for a day's work. Which makes it worrying that this is only about two-thirds of the way through the usual episode. Now I'm worrying about a third-act twist. Still, at least OL saved the friendlies, got some interesting data for the science division and didn't die...

 

[Vaermina]

Fight over, everyone you could save is safely on their way, and with the minimum of hostile kills. Not bad for a day's work. Which makes it worrying that this is only about two-thirds of the way through the usual episode. Now I'm worrying about a third-act twist. Still, at least OL saved the friendlies, got some interesting data for the science division and didn't die...

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The third act twist is that under Zoat's own rules Grayven will take a noticable power hit if he let's LePaul's attack go unanswered.

 

[Mr Zoat]

"him as clan"

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Thank you, corrected.

"would love it"

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No, that's correct. It's an affront he would survive. 'Live with it.'

 

[Duke Long]

its on too small of a scale to shorten the lifespan. maybe the beams took away a couple nano seconds maybe?

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I don't think heat death will happen in this universe, given that infinite energy seems possible to acquire, for example with bleed generators. Heat death was kind of going on in the Sheeda future, but that was only after Starbreaker ate 99.9% of the universe.

 

[Ryumancer]

Honestly, yeah. If you've got a way to generate infinite energy, and a way to delete energy (such that you don't end up eventually raising the ambient temperature of the universe to uninhabitable levels by just pumping endless energy into the system), entropy is basically solved.

 

[Venustoise]

With a title like Unnamed Assimilation Specialist, am I the only one who thinks that's almost like waving a neon sign saying "Please assimilate me! It's literally in my title".

 

[Bud-E]

With a title like Unnamed Assimilation Specialist, am I the only one who thinks that's almost like waving a neon sign saying "Please assimilate me! It's literally in my title".

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I could be wrong but I remember Reach natives are named after their job titles.

 

[Mr Zoat]

With a title like Unnamed Assimilation Specialist, am I the only one who thinks that's almost like waving a neon sign saying "Please assimilate me! It's literally in my title".

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That's not his official title. It's just what N.E.M.O. calls him because they don't know either his actual name or title.

 

[Coda]

I sign and fire

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Is that supposed to be "sigh"?

 

[Ngamer11]

Mr Zoat, I have a few random questions about the situation on Earth.

How would the Anti-Life Equation affect the Shade, since Simon Culp is still inside him causing him to feel like life is losing all meaning? It would really suck if the League has to fight him.

Is China faring better or worse than America? They have the Great Ten, but they also have the prison camp full of pissed off superhumans, magicians, and anyone else unfortunate enough to live in China and not do what the government says.

 

[Darko]

Is China faring better or worse than America? They have the Great Ten, but they also have the prison camp full of pissed off superhumans, magicians, and anyone else unfortunate enough to live in China and not do what the government says

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It was mentioned that places where people generally dealt more with things the Anti-Life targeted, stress, depression, were faring somewhat better than other places.

If that's the case then China may be at least a bit better than America.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Earth 534834

8th February 1992
12:21 GMT

"…not a matter of cold feet, oh seraphim of my heart. But there are practical arrangements to make of a type I'm not supposed to tell you about in advance."

"Ah know ah-." I hear her make a frustrated exhalation. "Did ah come on too strong for ya? Ah know ya'll said-."

"Seven months' time is more sensible, but if you don't mind besotted-me-who-isn't-making-rational-decisions, I'm more than happy to acquiesce to your request."

"Since you ain't makin' rational decisions, vanishin' raight aftuh a conversation like that's not a real great way to start a new part of the relationship."

"Understood, won't happen again."

"Is it-?" … "Are you lookin' fer a ring?"

I look down at the rocky shore of Muir Island as I fly over it.

"Not right now."

"Ya'll don't have t' fight that Mandarin fellah again on mah behalf."

"No, but you know that if I don't he's going to turn up at the wedding, and that's just going to be a nuisance."

"That's awful presumptuous of ya. Ah don't remember ya'll askin' me."

"Or maybe it's more convenient for us to make him come to us? Sort of a team exercise. And anyway, I need a pair of engagement rings and a pair of wedding rings. That's four rings out of a set of ten, so then there'd be five left over and I don't like it when the numbers don't fit."

"Ah do expect ya'll to ask me."

"And I'm going to make it as romantic as I can, and also a bit of a surprise, which is why I'm not talking about specifics and definitely not because I'm panicking about not having any real idea how to do it."

"Yeyah. Ya'll ain't the only feelin' nervous. Lahk I got a whole mess a' butterflies flying around mah insades."

"I get a tingle in my extremities. A bit like pins and needles, only not as painful, combined with a dreadful sense of apprehension that I'm going to somehow make a tremendous mess of things."

"Hn. I guess we don't neither of us know what we're doin'."

"I'd like to be able to consult with my parents, but…"

"Oh."

"Sorry, that was a bit… I'm sure they'd be happy for us, but it would be nice to be able to discuss it with people who'd been married for over thirty years."

"Ah think ya'll 're gonna do faihn."

"And I think you will as well. Though I've got a very biased viewpoint." I see the Muir Island research institution up ahead, and fly towards it. "Okay, look, I need to do that thing I can't talk to you about…"

"An' ah need t' get back on guard duty. See ya'll back at the Mansion. Don't keep me waiting, now."

"Indeed you will. I love you."

I tap the ring to end my satellite connection, wrenching my thoughts back onto the job before I drop out of the air. Ah… Orange power rings are not love-friendly. I've been practicing, but… I might have to talk to Scott and Xavier about not getting paired with Anne-Marie on missions if I can't work out a way around it. A couple of other versions of me I met at Vanishing Point appeared to be managing, but from what they said it involved a level of spiritual development I… Just don't have.

I land at the front doors of the Muir Island laboratory and press the buzzer. Scan shows only one person present, which is what I expected. It might take them-.

"Who is it?"

"Orange Lantern. I'd like to speak with you face-to-face if that's at all possible, Doctor Adler."

"How did you get here?"

"I flew myself here."

"Ah. I.. see." There's a klunk as the door is remotely unlocked. "Come in. I'll be down shortly."

"Thank you."

I push the door open and stride inside. It's.. not really a reception. This isn't a customer-facing business, it's a laboratory for a mad scientist who very occasionally entertains guests. Largely funded by Mr. Worthington the Third, it's one of the few places where the x-gene is studied because… Between the Friends of Humanity on the one hand and mutant paramilitaries on the other, a remote Scottish island is just about the only place where it's safe to do things like this.

A door in the corridor swings open, and an Einstein-lookalike walks out to greet me.

"Orange Lantern. We're not really open to the public here. What exactly do you want?"

"Your permission to marry your adopted daughter, Ms. Darkhölme-."

"I don't know who that is-."

"The real Doctor Adler died on Genosha, which I recently-."

The plasma bolt hits me in the forehead -ow- and I feel a sharp burning pain as it's only mostly absorbed by my environmental shield. Strengthen that.

"Please don't-" She fires again, and this time I don't feel it. "-do that. It's irritating, and if it actually worked Anne-Marie would be quite upset." Forehead still hurts, so heal that.

He studies me for a few moments, then lowers his gun. "How did you find me?"

I don't say anything, but let my glowing eyes speak for themselves.

"You want my permission to date Rogue?"

"No, I want your permission to marry her. Naturally, I'll be hunting down Irene and Kurt for the full reunion, but -and forgive me if I'm being presumptuous here- it seemed to me that you occupied the paternal role in her life."

"Did she tell you to do this?"

"No, but I warned her that I wasn't up to making sensible decisions this early in the relationship and that we should probably wait a few months. She wasn't keen, so here we are."

She stares at me, gradually shifting back to her default blue-woman-in-white-dress form. "Are you rich? Powerful?"

I shrug. "I'm rich enough that I don't ask how much things cost, and I'm powerful enough to keep up my end of a fight."

"Do you love her?"

"Yes."

"Does your shield work against her power?"

"Yes, and I found a ring which lets her touch people, so she's not dependent on me."

She weighs that up for a moment.

"Then you have my permission."

"Great, thank you!" I consider hugging her, but decide that would be pushing my luck. "I'll let you know when we've got a date. Um. And please don't get arrested or do anything particularly evil in the meantime, because I know that Anne-Marie still loves you and it would make her upset."

"Of course not."

 

[Darko]

"No, but you know that if I don't he's going to turn up at the wedding, and that's just going to be a nuisance

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I think he did that in the Iron Man cartoon.

"I get a tingle in my extremities. A bit like pins and needles, only not as painful, combined with a dreadful sense of apprehension that I'm going to somehow make a tremendous mess of things

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Well you are a Paul.

 

[Z000]

wait, since when is Mystique Rouge adopted parent

i don't remember any of the X Men stuff i watch having that relationship

 

[Darko]

wait, since when is Mystique Rouge adopted parent

i don't remember any of the X Men stuff i watch having that relationship

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I think she's actually her biological parent.

 

[Bud-E]

I think she's actually her biological parent.

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No, she adopted Rouge she's Kurt's biological mother.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Is that supposed to be "sigh"?

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Thank you, corrected.

Mr Zoat, I have a few random questions about the situation on Earth.

How would the Anti-Life Equation affect the Shade, since Simon Culp is still inside him causing him to feel like life is losing all meaning? It would really suck if the League has to fight him.

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The SI doesn't know. Though I wouldn't assume that Culp is the one on the inside right now.

Is China faring better or worse than America? They have the Great Ten, but they also have the prison camp full of pissed off superhumans, magicians, and anyone else unfortunate enough to live in China and not do what the government says.

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Better.