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

Nah, the homoerotic tension between Superboy and Paul is one of the best parts of the earlier parts of the fic. It makes me want to see a universe where it turned out, let's ignore the... test tube child thing and all that.
 
On the subject of DC live action, is there likely to be a Paul variant in the timeline of the 1966 Batman show, or for that matter, the 1970s Wonder Woman and/or Superman settings (which some fans - at least fan-artists - like to imagine as all being the same world)?
 
Justice Segue (part 2)
17th November 2017
06:27 GMT


"Your majesty, I fear that you've rather got the wrong impression of why I'm here."

Queen Hippolyta sits opposite me on a wood and wrought iron gazebo, a small table with tea and buns between us. Behind her, her horse grazes peacefully on the long grass. This particular stretch of coastline is popular with hikers during summer, but during the winter only a few brave souls would come out this far from habitation. Hippolyta could easily manage the hike, but she doesn't have any idea which direction to head in. And I don't know how good her English is, so she might struggle to convey her concerns.

Tea appropriately steeped, I delicately place a tea strainer upon one cup with my left hand and lift the teapot with my right.

"Milk? Sugar?"

"You will gain no succour from me."

"But will you accept succour from me?" She doesn't really react. "Neat it is, then." I pour the tea, drowned leaves steadily piling up on the upper surface of the strainer. "Now, I understand that you had only simple materials to work with, but I have to say…" I glance at Father's Box. "Your defence didn't really slow me down. Did you ever consider passing the responsibility on to a nation with weapons a little more… Modern? If I'd been greeted by a fission bomb or three I might well have died."

She continues staring at me as I set the teapot down and gently push the tea across the table to her.

"But… Leaving that aside. The reason that I'm here-."

"You seek to restore the Mother Box and transform the Earth in the image of your own homeworld."

I widen my eyes in disbelief. "Wherever did you get that idea?"

Hippolyta's eyes pointedly shift to the component of Father's Box which I took from Themyscira.

"Oh, I took that because if Uncle Steppenwolf knew where it was, everyone else in the Apokoliptian Elite certainly did as well." I put the strainer over my cup and start pouring. "And they're not all idiots." I mean seriously? Why the heck did Steppenwolf plan on bringing those weird mindless cyberzombie things rather than actual parademons? "This way I can keep an eye on it. Because as I think I just demonstrated, your preparations were not adequate, and I don't want Vundabar or Desaad getting hold of it. Anyway." I put the teapot down and use my right hand to detach Mother Box from my armour and put her on the table. "I have a Mother Box."

"Ping!"

"And I certainly don't want to turn Earth into a new Apokolips; the one we've got is bad enough. Having two would be twice as bad."

I pick up my cup and take a small sip. No idea if this is any good or not. Bloody cost enough.

"I'm afraid that I bought the cakes rather than baking them myself, but after I found out that Steppenwolf was coming here I didn't-" I smile apologetically. "-have all that much time to prepare."

"Why would I believe you?"

"I don't put raisins in mine. I mean, I don't.. hate raisins, but I don't like them in cakes. I think it's the texture change between the cake and the dried fruit? So if you don't eat them I'm going to have to spend ten minutes.. picking them out... And have you seen the size of my fingers?"

"Why should I believe you about your goals?"

"Ah." Another sip of tea. "My name is Grayven. I'm arrogant, violent, smug… Gosh am I smug. I mean, look at this place." I'm grinning as I gesture to our surroundings. "My ultimate goal is to turn the universe into a unified political entity with myself as its sovereign, and that definitely includes Earth. But. Darkseid. Ruler of Apokolips. His goal is to mind control the universe so that not a single thought or action can occur but in accordance with his design. Obviously, those two goal states cannot coexist. Thus, at a very early age, I realised that I would have to rebel. So, first chance I got, I left Apokolips and set out on my own. Unified a few gordanian clans under my banner, improved their economy and military to the point where I could expand further, and… Found out that my Great Uncle was planning another stab at wrecking Earth."

"And where is he now?"

"Dead, with gaping wounds through his spine, lungs, heart and brain." I smile warmly. "You're welcome. And that might be an end to it. But I doubt it." I take another sip of tea. "You might.. 'big up' your role in the last showdown between Apokolips and New Genesis, but I assure you, Earth was so.. peripheral, to the main conflict that as far as we're concerned it barely warrants mentioning. There's no obvious reason for anyone to bother coming here. Which means that if someone did, there must be something of value here."

"And you want to uncover it and claim it for yourself."

"I'm not averse to that. I'm not averse to conquering the Earth. But I don't need to." I smile. "Right now, anyway. What I need is to prevent Darkseid realising his ambitions. Anything else…" I shrug. "I can be patient. I'm not getting any older. And while I think I could eventually sell you on the benefits of my rulership, I'm currently more focused on the short term."

She nods cautiously. "Why have you brought me here?"

"Seriously." I gesture to her cup with my right hand. "No pomegranate seeds. It's just tea."

She picks up her cup with hands clearly more used to a kylix rather than a deep-bowled cup, and… Pretends to take a sip. Fine.

"I need to prevent Darkseid getting what he wants. I don't really care how that happens. If I have to do it, fine, but it's also advantageous to me if he doesn't find out how far I'm prepared to go to actively oppose him. So… I don't really care who opposes him, just so long as the opposition wins."

"And what is to be my role in your design?"

"I need a witness. A hostile one. And -if it comes to it- I might need you to give Diana a prod. She's one of the few people around who can fight on my level and she went to ground in a museum for a century. That needs to stop."

"A witness to what?"

"I could bring in my fleet, but that's a… Brutish solution. And my fleet is far smaller than that of Darkseid. What we need are… Specialists. Now, ideally, these specialists would be associated with Earth's government, and capable of acting as the point of the spear during your conflict with whoever Darkseid sends. But, to my disappointment, no such group exists." I take another sip. "So what I've decided to do is to collect powerful individuals who would never act in such a fashion, and try and threaten the Earth into either compliance or open resistance. That way, win or lose, I get more or less what I want." I lean forward. "I want you to see who I recruit. I want you to hear their stories, how they… Got to the point they did, where they would side with an alien warlord rather than the people of the Earth. And you should pay attention, because I strongly suspect that you will need to brief Diana on them later."

Her eyes move away from my face for a moment as she considers what I've said.

"Why.. should I believe any of what you have told me?"

"I suppose, by comparing my actions to my stated objectives. But does it really matter? If you go along with what I want then in a few days you will be released with useful intelligence on what I'm planning and who I'm working with. If not…"

BOOM!

"There you go." I pointedly turn my head to look at the boom tube. "Back to Themyscira. You can even take the cakes. In fact, please take them; I wasn't joking about the 'picking out the raisins' thing."

"And the Mother Box?" I frown, and reattach her to my armour. Hippolyta takes a moment to readjust. "The one you took from us."

"Not until you can do a better job of protecting it. But be optimistic! One of my recruits might kill me, then there'll be no one stopping you just picking it up and heading home!"

"Very well, then. Where do you wish to take me first?"

I drain my cup and set it back on its saucer.

"Kazakhstan."
 
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mean seriously? Why the heck did Steppenwolf plan on bringing those weird mindless cyberzombie things rather than actual parademons? "

Steppenwolf was not Darkseids favorite due to Steppenwolf betraying him, so he may have lost access to parademons.

drain my cup and set it back on its saucer.

"Kazakhstan."

So is he basically going to form something like the Justice League, but filled with people that were bad guys in the comics?
 
For anyone curious, the Doylist reason for the way the DCEU Parademons basically being Borg ripoffs is because that's what DC made them after Flashpoint.

Since Parademons were insectile I don't know why they didn't rip off Aliens or Mimic instead of Star Trek, but that's neither here nor there.
 

Truest words have never been spoken by Grayven, but seeing him utter them so... nonchalantly makes it extra funny.

And I thought he was gonna go for the Justice League, but is he trying to add members to it or does he not think them capable? Or is it because right now Superman is dead?
 
17th November 2017
06:27 GMT


"Your majesty, I fear that you've rather got the wrong impression of why I'm here."
Given the introduction and its circumstances, I rather suspect the Themyscirans did jump to the obvious conclusion. But really, given their limited information, it's understandable. Especially when you stepped out of the Boom Tube...

Queen Hippolyta sits opposite me on a wood and wrought iron gazebo, a small table with tea and buns between us. Behind her, her horse grazes peacefully on the long grass. This particular stretch of coastline is popular with hikers during summer, but during the winter only a few brave souls would come out this far from habitation. Hippolyta could easily manage the hike, but she doesn't have any idea which direction to head in. And I don't know how good her English is, so she might struggle to convey her concerns.
Well, how hospitable. Surely, o Queen, a fellow this polite couldn't be evil.

Tea appropriately steeped, I delicately place a tea strainer upon one cup with my left hand and lift the teapot with my right.

"Milk? Sugar?"

"You will gain no succour from me."
He's not Herakles, you know, no need to be so hostile.

"But will you accept succour from me?" She doesn't really react. "Neat it is, then." I pour the tea, drowned leaves steadily piling up on the upper surface of the strainer. "Now, I understand that you had only simple materials to work with, but I have to say…" I glance at Father's Box. "Your defence didn't really slow me down. Did you ever consider passing the responsibility on to a nation with weapons a little more… Modern? If I'd been greeted by a fission bomb or three I might well have died."
And honestly, if the Boxes can't take a nuke or two without being scratched, they're clearly not worthy of the name...

She continues staring at me as I set the teapot down and gently push the tea across the table to her.

"But… Leaving that aside. The reason that I'm here-."
Yes, please, do elucidate. So far it's been a mystery.

"You seek to restore the Mother Box and transform the Earth in the image of your own homeworld."

I widen my eyes in disbelief. "Wherever did you get that idea?"

Hippolyta's eyes pointedly shift to the component of Father's Box which I took from Themyscira.
I suspect if he knew of a way to destroy it, he would have by now. Sadly, as mentioned above, it's probably quite resilient.

"Oh, I took that because if Uncle Steppenwolf knew where it was, everyone else in the Apokoliptian Elite certainly did as well." I put the strainer over my cup and start pouring. "And they're not all idiots." I mean seriously? Why the heck did Steppenwolf plan on bringing those weird mindless cyberzombie things rather than actual parademons? "This way I can keep an eye on it. Because as I think I just demonstrated, your preparations were not adequate, and I don't want Vundabar or Desaad getting hold of it. Anyway." I put the teapot down and use my right hand to detach Mother Box from my armour and put her on the table. "I have a Mother Box."
I rather do prefer the LEGO Parademon minifigures from the Superheroes line. Much more appropriate colouring, even if they're still lumbered with the movie aesthetic.

"Ping!"

"And I certainly don't want to turn Earth into a new Apokolips; the one we've got is bad enough. Having two would be twice as bad."
"Please, excuse his attempt at civility. He is a good fellow, really." And it does seem a somewhat convoluted way of going about terraforming. Or should that be terror-forming? :p

I pick up my cup and take a small sip. No idea if this is any good or not. Bloody cost enough.

"I'm afraid that I bought the cakes rather than baking them myself, but after I found out that Steppenwolf was coming here I didn't-" I smile apologetically. "-have all that much time to prepare."
And no doubt the Renegade would happily bake cakes, especially with his kids.

"Why would I believe you?"

"I don't put raisins in mine. I mean, I don't.. hate raisins, but I don't like them in cakes. I think it's the texture change between the cake and the dried fruit? So if you don't eat them I'm going to have to spend ten minutes.. picking them out... And have you seen the size of my fingers?"

"Why should I believe you about your goals?"
Such aggression. She seems determined to play the resistant captive, doesn't she? :oops: Flashbacks to Herakles, perhaps?

"Ah." Another sip of tea. "My name is Grayven. I'm arrogant, violent, smug… Gosh am I smug. I mean, look at this place." I'm grinning as I gesture to our surroundings. "My ultimate goal is to turn the universe into a unified political entity with myself as its sovereign, and that definitely includes Earth. But. Darkseid. Ruler of Apokolips. His goal is to mind control the universe so that not a single thought or action can occur but in accordance with his design. Obviously, those two goal states cannot coexist. Thus, at a very early age, I realised that I would have to rebel. So, first chance I got, I left Apokolips and set out on my own. Unified a few gordanian clans under my banner, improved their economy and military to the point where I could expand further, and… Found out that my Great Uncle was planning another stab at wrecking Earth."
Correct-ish, if a little abridged, summary of his history. I'm sure he doesn't feel the need to brag about his magical equine lady-friend or his many partly-demonic children. :D

"And where is he now?"

"Dead, with gaping wounds through his spine, lungs, heart and brain." I smile warmly. "You're welcome. And that might be an end to it. But I doubt it." I take another sip of tea. "You might.. 'big up' your role in the last showdown between Apokolips and New Genesis, but I assure you, Earth was so.. peripheral, to the main conflict that as far as we're concerned it barely warrants mentioning. There's no obvious reason for anyone to bother coming here. Which means that if someone did, there must be something of value here."
Like, say, a certain Spectrum Entity whose mere existence is treated like a super-super-secret detail by the Guardians. ;) Presuming it exists here, even if the Lanterns do.

"And you want to uncover it and claim it for yourself."

"I'm not adverse to that. I'm not adverse to conquering the Earth. But I don't need to." I smile. "Right now, anyway. What I need is to prevent Darkseid realising his ambitions. Anything else…" I shrug. "I can be patient. I'm not getting any older. And while I think I could eventually sell you on the benefits of my rulership, I'm currently more focused on the short term."
And given how much mayhem Earth seems to attract, it's probably going to be more trouble than it's worth to hold.

She nods cautiously. "Why have you brought me here?"

"Seriously." I gesture to her cup with my right hand. "No pomegranate seeds. It's just tea."
Heh. Nice reference to the bride-abduction myth of Persephone.

She picks up her cup with hands clearly more used to a kylix rather than a deep-bowled cup, and… Pretends to take a sip. Fine.

"I need to prevent Darkseid getting what he wants. I don't really care how that happens. If I have to do it, fine, but it's also advantageous to me if he doesn't find out how far I'm prepared to go to actively oppose him. So… I don't really care who opposes him, just so long as the opposition wins."
To be fair, Renegade, I'm not sure the Themyscirans have an equivalent to tea in their history. And their drinking vessel looks awkward as...

"And what is to be my role in your design?"

"I need a witness. A hostile one. And -if it comes to it- I might need you to give Diana a prod. She's one of the few people around who can fight on my level and she went to ground in a museum for a century. That needs to stop."

"A witness to what?"
How awesome he is? How good a leader he is? Someone to talk to for narrative reasons? :p

"I could bring in my fleet, but that's a… Brutish solution. And my fleet is far smaller than that of Darkseid. What we need are… Specialists. Now, ideally, these specialists would be associated with Earth's government, and capable of acting as the point of the spear during your conflict with whoever Darkseid sends. But, to my disappointment, no such group exists." I take another sip. "So what I've decided to do is to collect powerful individuals who would never act in such a fashion, and try and threaten the Earth into either compliance or open resistance. That way, win or lose, I get more or less what I want." I lean forward. "I want you to see who I recruit. I want you to hear their stories, how they… Got to the point they did, where they would side with an alien warlord rather than the people of the Earth. And you should pay attention, because I strongly suspect that you will need to brief Diana on them later."
And no doubt Diana will end up calling Batman and others together to battle the Renegade.

Her eyes move away from my face for a moment as she considers what I've said.

"Why.. should I believe any of what you have told me?"
What reason would he have to lie? You're basically at his mercy. He could have simply killed you at any point here. But he wants you as an ally, not an enemy.

"I suppose, by comparing my actions to my stated objectives. But does it really matter? If you go along with what I want then in a few days you will be released with useful intelligence on what I'm planning and who I'm working with. If not…"

BOOM!
...There's the exit. No strings attached, no door to hit you where the Goddesses split you... In back, I mean, not... :oops: Well, that joke rather went to an odd place.

"There you go." I pointedly turn my head to look at the boom tube. "Back to Themyscira. You can even take the cakes. In fact, please take them; I wasn't joking about the 'picking out the raisins' thing."

"And the Mother Box?" I frown, and reattach her to my armour. Hippolyta takes a moment to readjust. "The one you took from us."
Really, they need to call it a different name, it's probably insulting the real Mother Box present every time they use it. How about Granny Box?

"Not until you can do a better job of protecting it. But be optimistic! One of my recruits might kill me, then there'll be no one stopping you just picking it up and heading home!"

"Very well, then. Where do you wish to take me first?"
Which raises questions of who he's collecting. I'm betting it'll be a parade of various DCEU-compatible villains...

I drain my cup and set it back on its saucer.

"Kazakhstan."
...Interesting. I foresee a lot of rage in that one. Kind of reminds me of the pics of DCEU Doomsday I've seen in terms of looks, despite being from over ten years earlier.

Well, there's a somewhat loose reason for why he's here. No doubt playing it a little villainous to encourage the heroes of this Earth to ally together... Despite some of them being right gits. I mean, sad detective man, moody wonder lady, dudebro fish-man and millennial speedy guy didn't seem too heroic from what I've seen. :p I can only hope a Green Lantern and a certain Martian show up to nudge things along.
 
He's not Herakles, you know, no need to be so hostile.

Given the death of the Olympians, Hercules may not have existed.

And even if he did, it's possible that his conquest of the Amazons didn't happen here.

Such aggression. She seems determined to play the resistant captive, doesn't she? :oops: Flashbacks to Herakles, perhaps?

Or it could be the fact that this oaf invaded their home and kidnapped her.

Those two things do not instill gratitude to anyone.

I mean, they may do it for some people.

Correct-ish, if a little abridged, summary of his history. I'm sure he doesn't feel the need to brag about his magical equine lady-friend or his many partly-demonic children. :D

Hyppolita: I used to see a guy that was into weirder things.

What reason would he have to lie?

To be an asshole.

To trick her into doing something that she wouldn't do if he just brute-forced the issue.

You're basically at his mercy. He could have simply killed you at any point here. But he wants you as an ally, not an enemy.

See the above point.

Really, they need to call it a different name, it's probably insulting the real Mother Box present every time they use it. How about Granny Box?

Well it is larger compared to its comic counterpart, so it honestly may be an older model.
 
Truest words have never been spoken by Grayven, but seeing him utter them so... nonchalantly makes it extra funny.
"If you were as good as me, you'd be this smug too."
And I thought he was gonna go for the Justice League, but is he trying to add members to it or does he not think them capable? Or is it because right now Superman is dead?
There isn't a Justice League at the moment. There are a couple of people with superpowers, but few of them even know each other. Batman and Wonder Woman met for about five minutes.
 
If I'm remembering my DCEU lore correctly, the Olympians have been dead for tens of thousands of years by Ares, Themyscira and the Amazons were created by Zeus right before his death and also Diana is a daughter of Zeus. I really want to see Grayvens reaction to all this nonsense.
 
"My ultimate goal is to turn the universe into a unified political entity with myself as its sovereign, and that definitely includes Earth.

so if Gravy is the god of conquest, and he fulfills his plan, what then? if everything is united under his banner and he truly wins and everybody is content as a subject beneath him, what happens to the god of conquest when there's nothing left to conquer?
 
so if Gravy is the god of conquest, and he fulfills his plan, what then? if everything is united under his banner and he truly wins and everybody is content as a subject beneath him, what happens to the god of conquest when there's nothing left to conquer?
This. He opens a gateway to a parallel universe and starts again, because he finds the process so satisfying.

Though I should point out that he is lying here as part of hamming it up for Hippolyta.
 
So is he basically going to form something like the Justice League, but filled with people that were bad guys in the comics
Seems like something he'd do. Though if he makes it too obvious that he's involved here he may be just creating a team like Sinister 6 to inspire the heroes to team up.
Heroes arise where Villains thrive and all that.
 
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Could've sworn Zoat said something about the renegade ending the story screaming at the source wall, which implied a less-than-happy ending than what this one implies
 
Mighty Morphin' Lantern Rangers (part 3)
1st April 1995
11:35 GMT - 7


How has no one found this place?

Firstly, the Power Rangers' base of operations is on top of an obvious point of interest in a park. Okay, the exterior looks like it's made of conventional concrete blocks, so I could see a proportion of visitors writing it off as some sort of weird art installation, or.. maybe an observatory. But someone would have to check, wouldn't they? A park ranger or someone? And okay, the teleport system means that the Rangers don't have to worry about getting spotted travelling to or from the place. But they're superheroes. Even on Earth 16, which has all sorts of customs encouraging people not to go spying on superheroes, there are people who scour cities after major new appearances to find out any information they can. And even if there aren't any people like that, the National Security Agency should be pretty darn interested.

Or the villains. The only halfway sensible reason for Rita Repulsa to attack Angel Grove rather than anywhere else on Earth is because she's trying to draw them out, so she must know it's around here somewhere. Is her intelligence gathering so bad that she can't get some of her people-.

Her chimp-man, her winged lion in gold armour or her blue goblinoid.. people…

Okay, yes that makes a kind of sense.

"I have a question."

Zack looks at me from the other side of the antechamber.

"Sorry man, I can't tell you anything until Red Ranger gets done talking to Zordon."

"Why doesn't Rita attack literally anywhere else on the planet?"

"What difference does it make? We'd just teleport there as soon as Zordon picked up their teleport signal."

I nod. Worldwide detection capabilities. Interesting.

"Does that get you the exact location, or the approximate location?"

"It's.. not exact, but it's pretty good."

"So all she'd need to do would be create a monster who could hide, teleport them down somewhere with good transportation links, have them.. jump on a lorry, and then they could attack anywhere and you wouldn't know about it until the news report came in?"

He jerks. "Ah… No, if they fire energy beams we can pick that up too."

"And if they limit themselves to physical attacks?"

"Then…" He looks visibly perturbed. "I.. guess we'd be in trouble."

"Have you ever considered making direct contact with Earth's intelligence agencies? Given the 'giant monster versus giant robot' fights that happen around here, I can't imagine that they're unaware of your existence. You can't build a full human intelligence network yourself, but no one wants Rita conquering the planet."

"That's-. Maybe you should talk to B-Blue Ranger about it."

I nod.

"Can I ask you a question?"

I nod again. "Certainly."

He smiles. "You really work with Batman?"

"That's what I remember. Of course, on the preponderance of evidence I'd have to say that it's more likely that I have alchemically-created memories of working with Batman which have no basis in reality."

"Cool." He pauses. "I mean, I only watched the series, so I-."

"Live action or animated?"

"The cartoon."

"Good, because for a moment there I thought you were going to ask about the Adam West series and then I'd have to kill you." He hands jerk towards his axe-. "Joke!" I hold up my hands. "Joke!"

He freezes, then moves his hands away from the axe and tries to pretend they were never there. "Who's Adam West?"

"He did a very camp live action Batman series in the sixties. I don't hate it, but that's not what being a superhero is actually like."

"Yeah, TV really doesn't prepare you for this." He looks left and right, but the other Rangers are out of sight. "First time Rita made a monster grow, y'know? I completely froze up. If the teleporter hadn't put me inside the Mastodon Zord automatically I'd probably have missed it."

I nod. "Same thing happened to me during my first supervillain fight. It's not that you're afraid so much as bewildered. Nothing can quite prepare you for a tornado-throwing robot. Or a-" I indicate him with my right hand. "-sudden giant monster."

He nods back. "Putties? Regular-sized monsters? Just another day on the sparring mat. Kinda. Then suddenly you've got something the size of a skyscraper screaming at you. Now, it's-"

I smile. "Yeah."

"-all, 'oh, she's making it giant again, because that worked so well the last dozen times'."

"So… Why haven't you ever attacked her on the moon?"

"'cause, then she'd have all her guys all around us, all the reinforcements she wanted, in her castle -which has gotta be full of traps and magic spells and stuff- and we wouldn't be able to get back. And if she made a monster giant up there while our zords were back on Earth, we'd be toast."

"Good reason. But how about teleporting up there with a tactical nuclear device-?"

The reinforced door to the-. Well, I assume that it's the actual command room where Zordon spends his time, opens and the other four Rangers walk out. They're still in costume and.. honestly, I'm not sure if I remember their faces well enough to pick them out of a police line-up.

"Alright, give me the bad news."

"You were created by the potion." William twitches as Yellow Ranger elbows him. "But that doesn't.. make you a bad person?"

"Thank you for clarifying that. Follow up question: is it permanent?"

"We don't know. The only way to find out for sure would be to use it on another publication, and their post-initiation emergence would mean that you would be affected by any time-related expiration before they would."

"No, I was just hoping that alchemical potions conformed to certain norms of behaviour. Supplementary question." I create a simple shield construct. "How the heck am I doing this?"

Yellow Ranger tilts her head slightly to the side. "You do that with your ring."

"My ring draws power from the emotional spectrum. The emotion spectrum is a feature of the Detective Comics universe." Post-1995, but let's leave that aside for the moment. "The thing this ring uses as an intrinsic part of how it works doesn't exist here, so clearly this ring can't be using it to function. And yet, it functions. How?"

"The obvious source of mystic energy is the potion used to create you. But since your exposure was a unique event-."

"Either it made me tap into something else, or I have a finite quantity of power and I'm running down my battery."

Shit. Shit. Shit.

"Could I please speak to Zordon directly?"
 
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Or the villains. The only halfway sensible reason for Rita Repulsa to attack Angel Grove rather than anywhere else on Earth is because she's trying to draw them out, so she must know it's around here somewhere

She may know that, but Zordon, a guy that's fought her before, probably has defenses.

And she may not want to blow it up from orbit since there's a chance the Rangers have another base that they can retreat to and she may have no idea where that is.

Is her intelligence gathering so bad that she can't get some of her people-.

Her chimp-man, her winged lion in gold armour or her blue goblinoid.. people…

Okay, yes that make a kind of sense.

Rita's people aren't exactly the top of their fields.

"Does that get you the exact location, or the approximate location?"

"It's.. not exact, but it's pretty good

And even if they just showed up in the same city it would be pretty easy to track the monster down since they're not exact subtle or quiet.

"'cause, then she'd have all her guys all around us, all the reinforcements she wanted, in her castle -which has gotta be full of traps and magic spells and stuff

Never attack a wizard on their territory.

"My ring draws power from the emotional spectrum. The emotion spectrum is a feature of the Detective Comics universe." Post-1995, but let's leave that aside for the moment. "The thing this ring uses as an intrinsic part of how it works doesn't exist here, so clearly this ring can't be using it to function. And yet, it functions. How

Abridged Red Tornado: Because magic, you fucking potato.
 
Soooo everything we've read so far is his fever dream?

No? At least that isn't confirmed yet.

It's just the current Paul is an alchemical construct based on the Power Ranger universe's deception of the normal Paul we've been following.

Perhaps our paul is remotely controlling this body if you want to make it even more meta.
 
So... what do you do when you find out you're a cheap copy of an actual person, with memories that might as well be artificial, made alive by a possible "one episode monster" magic potion?

Are you actually alive? Do you try to extend said life and make it your own? Go all "Pinocchio wants to be a real boy"? Or do you accept that you're a copy with quick expiration date or a golem with no true life and the real "you" is probably ok?

This is some trippy stuff when you think about it.
 
"Either it made me tap into something else, or I have a finite quantity of power and I'm running down my battery."
A somewhat familiar situation for him. Great power but finite energy and no method to recharge.

Three broad responses: Absolute conservation to stretch your time, spend power seeking a new power source and go out in a blaze of glory. Last time he went with two. Kinda expecting him to lean towards three this time given his meta situation.
 
1st April 1995
11:35 GMT - 7


How has no one found this place?

Firstly, the Power Ranger's base of operations is on top of an obvious point of interest in a park. Okay, the exterior looks like it's made of conventional concrete blocks, so I could see a proportion of visitors writing it off as some sort of weird art installation, or.. maybe an observatory. But someone would have to check, wouldn't they? A park ranger or someone? And okay, the teleport system means that the Rangers don't have to worry about getting spotted travelling to or from the place. But they're superheroes. Even on Earth 16, which has all sorts of customs encouraging people not to go spying on superheroes, there are people who scour cities after major new appearances to find out any information they can. And even if there aren't any people like that, the National Security Agency should be pretty darn interested.
More likely it has a passive 'Don't pay attention to this' field in place around it. The soon-to-be-Rangers only spotted it in the first episode because Zordon wanted them to. Who knows, maybe from a distance it just looks like an oddly geometric rock formation that's entirely uninteresting...

Or the villains. The only halfway sensible reason for Rita Repulsa to attack Angel Grove rather than anywhere else on Earth is because she's trying to draw them out, so she must know it's around here somewhere. Is her intelligence gathering so bad that she can't get some of her people-.

Her chimp-man, her winged lion in gold armour or her blue goblinoid.. people…
Of them, the only noticably dangerous one is Goldar/Grifforzer. The others are mostly blithering idiots who are only dangerous by accident, or non-combatant types like Finster/Pleprechaun. Why do you think she sends out her monsters?

Okay, yes that make a kind of sense.

"I have a question."
I would have many, but often one question prompts another.

Zack looks at me from the other side of the antechamber.

"Sorry man, I can't tell you anything until Red Ranger gets done talking to Zordon."
No doubt still fully armoured up, because secret identities. Unmasking would seem foolhardy.

"Why doesn't Rita attack literally anywhere else on the planet?"

"What difference does it make? We'd just teleport there as soon as Zordon picked up their teleport signal."
Which also raises the question of why their teleport signatures aren't seen. Unless the colour-coded blobs flying through the air are just for the audience's convenience.

I nod. World wide detection capabilities. Interesting.

"Does that get you the exact location, or the approximate location?"
Like, is it precise down to the foot, or in a general 'couple of hundred meters' range? Though generally, panicked bystanders tends to be a useful indicator of point of origin. :D

"It's.. not exact, but it's pretty good."

"So all she'd need to do would be create a monster who could hide, teleport them down somewhere with good transportation links, have them.. jump on a lorry, and then they could attack anywhere and you wouldn't know about it until the news report came in?"
I doubt the detection is able to just ping 'monsters' just sitting around, can it? They'd have to actively be using some form of exotic energy to show up... Otherwise, so many things would have shown up sooner.

He jerks. "Ah… No, if they fire energy beams we can pick that up too."

"And if they limit themselves to physical attacks?"

"Then…" He looks visibly perturbed. "I.. guess we'd be in trouble."
Interesting that he can read that through the helmet, again assuming he's smart enough to still be wearing it. Or is Zack overacting by tilting his head, scratching his head with one hand and acting generally nervous? :p

"Have you ever considered making direct contact with Earth's intelligence agencies? Given the 'giant monster versus giant robot' fights that happen around here, I can't imagine that they're unaware of your existence. You can't build a full human intelligence network yourself, but no one wants Rita conquering the planet."

"That's-. Maybe you should talk to B-Blue Ranger about it."
Good cover. Helps that Billy's about the only member whose name starts with the same letter as his colour. As for the whole 'intelligence agency contact' thing, I doubt they'd be willing to work with teenagers, and probably demand Zordon put their hand-picked agents in Ranger suits... Then again, there were teams like Lightspeed Rescue and SPD.

I nod.

"Can I ask you a question?"
See, questions lead to questions. Friendship values increase!

I nod again. "Certainly."

He smiles. "You really work with Batman?"
And is the one in OL's comic considered as badass as the main canon one, if they aren't the same thing...

"That's what I remember. Of course, on the preponderance of evidence I'd have to say that it's more likely that I have alchemically-created memories of working with Batman which have no basis in reality."

"Cool." He pauses. "I mean, I only watched the series, so I-."
Still, you feel real, you think like you should... Is there really any difference? Cogito Ergo Sum and so on.

"Live action or animated?"

"The cartoon."
So, is the Young Justice universe an entire Animated canon here, DCAU style, and how would OL look in the Dini style? :p

"Good, because for a moment there I thought you were going to ask about the Adam West series and then I'd have to kill you." He hands jerk towards his axe-. "Joke!" I hold up my hands. "Joke!"

He freezes, then moves his hands away from the axe and tries to pretend they were never there. "Who's Adam West?"
...Please tell me this universe had 'Batman' '66 and he's just being a typical dumb teenager...

"He did a very camp live action Batman series in the sixties. I don't hate it, but that's not what being a superhero is actually like."

"Yeah, TV really doesn't prepare you for this." He looks left and right, but the other Rangers are out if sight. "First time Rita made a monster grow, y'know? I completely froze up. If the teleporter hadn't put me inside the mammoth zord automatically I'd probably have missed it."
Honestly, Batman '66 is one of the most gentle versions of what being Batman is like. The Joker's more of a capering clown than a mass murderer, Catwoman is a sexy socialite cat burglar, and most of the villains are generally lighter and softer than their modern counterparts...
Barring any unspoken 'fridge horror' things like a ray that dehydrates people into piles of dust, yet allow them to be reconstituted without difficulty. As long as you don't mix the piles, anyway. :oops:

I nod. "Same thing happened to me during my first supervillain fight. It's not that you're afraid so much as bewildered. Nothing can quite prepare you for a tornado-throwing robot. Or a-" I indicate him with my right hand. "-sudden giant monster."

He nods back. "Putties? Regular-sized monsters? Just another day on the sparring mat. Kinda. The suddenly you've got something the size of a skyscraper screaming at you. Now, it's-"
The human brain isn't built to cope with 'suddenly giant thing way too close to me'...

I smile. "Yeah."

"-all, 'oh, she's making it giant again, because that worked so well the last dozen times'."
...And yet it can adapt so quickly through habituation.

"So… Why haven't you ever attacked her on the moon?"

"'cause, then she'd have all her guys all around us, all the reinforcements she wanted, in her castle -which has gotta be full of traps and magic spells and stuff- and we wouldn't be able to get back. And if she made a monster giant up there while our zords were back on Earth, we'd be toast."
...And I'm suddenly reminded of the SNES Power Rangers game, in which the final boss fight is Megazord versus Cyclopsus on the moon. :p

"Good reason. But how about teleporting up there with a tactical nuclear device-?"

The reinforced door to the-. Well, I assume that it's the actual command room where Zordon spends his time, opens and the other four Rangers walk out. They're still in costume and.. honestly, I'm not sure if I remember their faces well enough to pick them out of a police line-up.
...Wait, they took their helmets off? I guess they decided 'oh, he's a good guy, it's fine'. :rolleyes:

"Alright, give me the bad news."

"You were created by the potion." William twitches as Yellow Ranger elbows him. "But that doesn't.. make you a bad person?"
And that raises all manner of questions. I'm sure OL can think of a few.

"Thank you for clarifying that. Follow up question: is it permanent?"

"We don't know. The only way to find out for sure would be to use it on another publication, and their post-initiation emergence would mean that you would be affected by any time-related expiration before they would."
That's assuming the potion can manifest more than one person at a time. Would be awkward if they tried it, and this OL popped as another sprang up.

"No, I was just hoping that alchemical potions conformed to certain norms of behaviour. Supplementary question." I create a simple shield construct. "How the heck am I doing this?"

Yellow Ranger tilts her head slightly to the side. "You do that with your ring."
Not the kind of 'how' he meant, Trini.

"My ring draws power from the emotional spectrum. The emotion spectrum is a feature of the Detective Comics universe." Post-1995, but let's leave that aside for the moment. "The thing this ring uses as an intrinsic part of how it works doesn't exist here, so clearly this ring can't be using it to function. And yet, it functions. How?"

"The obvious source of mystic energy is the potion used to create you. But since your exposure was a unique event-."
Effectively making it a magic ring in truth and not just reputation. :p Though it may explain the lack of Empathic vision, as without the proper Spectrum, the magic making him exist has no way to replicate it... Or something.

"Either it made me tap into something else, or I have a finite quantity of power and I'm running down my battery."

Shit. Shit. Shit.

"Could I please speak to Zordon directly?"
And that's assuming he has any of his subspace arsenal, including his Lantern, in this state.

So, this is likely a particularly deep version of the usual 'Alternate Paul' vision OL usually gets, then. He's thus in a trance in Mount Justice, believing he's directly mentally linked to this OL but they're just synergising overly well. One way to check would be to look at the next page of the comic, which I hope they brought with them. If OL can perceive it, it's a vision, because there'd be no rational way to see his own future moments. :confused: ...Or something like that.

He looks left and right, but the other Rangers are out if sight.
He looks left and right, but the other Rangers are out of sight.
The suddenly you've got something the size of a skyscraper screaming at you.
Then suddenly you've got something the size of a skyscraper screaming at you.
 
If the teleporter hadn't put me inside the mammoth zord automatically I'd probably have missed it."
Mastodon Zord (capitalised "Z").

"Either it made me tap into something else, or I have a finite quantity of power and I'm running down my battery."

Shit. Shit. Shit.

"Could I please speak to Zordon directly?"
Clearly the first step is to establish whether there's a local Ophidian, and/or whether the subspace pocket contents are intact and/or working, including the Lantern?

Also, I'm kinda expecting a meta Star Trek joke about Vasquez rocks.
 
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Which also raises the question of why their teleport signatures aren't seen. Unless the colour-coded blobs flying through the air are just for the audience's convenience.
Not possible, by the logic of the Turbo movie.

...And I'm suddenly reminded of the SNES Power Rangers game, in which the final boss fight is Megazord versus Cyclopsus on the moon. :p
Also Forever Red, and more recently O&A. Though I think generally speaking Zords are made for terrain combat, since underwater fighting only happened a few times (once in MMPR, once in Zeo?), and space combat is similarly rare until at least the halfway point through the series (In Space didn't have much actual space combat).

One way to check would be to look at the next page of the comic, which I hope they brought with them. If OL can perceive it, it's a vision, because there'd be no rational way to see his own future moments. :confused: ...Or something like that.
I want to know who the author/s are and when it was published. Were ISSNs a thing back in the 90s?
 

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