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

Reader mode
Vlad said:
At this point I would pick a universe and copy paste Earth's from defunct timelines and copy paste them to another universe. China timeline still gets to be defunct, but a copy of China-OL Solar System is copied to Paragon OL's universe, but just a few dozen light years over.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It might not be that easy.

The device Red Queen uses to "reincarnate herself" works by creating new dream universes.

The fact that people are interacting with her doppelgangers is just a testament of the ability to move from dream to reality like any other dimensional jump.

To paraphrase one of the Traveler clan in Young Heroes in Love "We aren't limited to making portals between space. We can make portals in time, reality, and life itself too."

I would assume that Time Trapper Paul would think of having Red Queen making a dream universe for him to slip Mandate Earth into if it was easier than his original plan.
 
Chojin Patriarch said:
Joy of dodging most encounters by being sensible, Caul. Avoiding trouble is good, but XP is better!

Man, even weakened, Krona is nasty. And the fact that your allies are drawn from other player's uploads doesn't always mean you'll get a munchkinised power build.


Focusing on critical things as always, Caul.


At least we got a name for Clayling's flying funnel. And it looks like the door's locked...


Phew! Lucked out on that encounter roll. If Caul's got one thing going for him, it's all those initiative bonuses...


Damn escort NPCs! Always trying to run off while you loot!


Information, good! Between the layout and info on Krona's plan, they should have some good stuff.


Infodump acquired. Unfortunately, no time to read it just now... No pausing at this point.


Because despite the numbers, Krona probably has the advantage there...


May as well be wearing a red shirt, he's got such a low chance of survival...


And that would be Yaul yanking the Rings back to him. His and two others, it seems. So at least two Pauls or Jades running Fear builds.


Red Lanterns in a nutshell. Clear the way, headlong charge, rip'n'tear.


Shredded! Joy of having a high-power NPC on your side. Too bad that's such a rare moment.


Could he manage to drain the Indigo' charge? Or would he focus on containment and disabling?


Looks like the Mega-Manhunters aren't very strong without their full force in action. Overlapping buffs always suck.


I would expect, "Into the portals! Let's take the fight to them!"


And now Maul's perspective. I suppose he considers his interference to be for the greater good... Of his home timeline.


Yeah, Clayling seems to be a lot more moral than his originator. Strange how that happens.


Gee, looking on the bright side. Too bad he plans to acquire that data by putting Reality in a blender...


And if you have to ask that question, it's clearly been far too long.


Well, that's direct. Also sounds skeevy as, even if they're allies of convenience.


Because of course Caul grabs extras. Who knows who'll need them. Common Sense!


It's his super-power of choice.


Yeah, those little moments of avarice aren't scary at all, nosirree.


Time to throw a big old spanner in Krona's plans...

Took a little while to work out each Paul's perspective there. And It's likely to only get worse over the next few chapters, I bet. This is going to be an episode better in the story only, I think. Still, Krona's got an ass-whupping coming, so there's that to look forwards to.


He's an alternate Paul, from the episode 'Mandated' (hence my nickname of 'Maul'.) Modified Earth-16 history, with a China-dominated world. OL's timeline reasserted itself, and he got stuck at Vanishing Point as Time Trapper. He just wants to go home to that timeline, but it means erasing OL's. He's been researching how by making and collapsing pocket timelines. Then Krona turned up...
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to be specific, he's desperately seeking, by my understanding, a forlorn-hope of finding a way to restore his timeline as an actual stable parallel like the others we've seen, not as a rapidly-degenerating quasi-universe (which i suspect is the single biggest complication here-a "mere" copy-paste job, as well as only making COPIES of the people he cares about, would.... likely rapidly degrade all over again-the "save" point he'd have was almost all the way down the tubes to start with-even with a copy-paste, he'd be needing some way to radically edit/alter an entire universe to fix the energy/matter leakage/drain issue..)
not necessarily seeking a simple overwrite/casual murder of a few trillion innocents...

the odds arent GREAT from what i understand, and taking that into account its kinda strange how irrational Brainiac 5 is about the offer of an negotiated alliance- it'd get him an ally with matching/superior tech/temporal mojo to help protect HIS timestream (its making me think of the old STO morality of time travel thing-my feel is, in any universe, there's no TRUE timeline, only YOURS and others-any even chain is equally valid)
, and would.in theory, require a tiny/minimal investment on his part barring the TT dumb-lucking into a workable method- and even then he'd be involved/ at the frontlines to minimize potential harm-
major gain considering his entire reality just BARELY escaped being erased, even if they survived/recovered, and very little cost- and even the investment helps make him and his safer by nudging the trapper away from damaging methods...
.......
maybe its the ego larger then his IQ rearing its ugly head again?
 
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Duplication (part 20)
  • Threadmarks
    • I really just want
    To go home

    Grinner shrugs as the construct runic prison we tried to build fails, fracturing into fragments as Krona exerts himself. The only positive I'm taking from this brawl so far is that Krona isn't anything like as overpowered as I thought he'd be. Oh, he's tanking shots like a champ, but he's either sandbagging or something has weakened him, because aside from his multiprocessing I'd actually say that he's doing worse than Guy would have in this situation. Of course, the multiprocessing is-.

    I catch a glimpse of a flicker of green light and send out a wave of orange, disrupting the filament he was using to flank us.

    Multiprocessing is enough of a problem. It's like fighting a team of Lanterns who can work in perfect concert.

    More rings fly out of the hole near Krona, green ones this time. Krona spots them and lashes out, strands of green light illuminating the sky as they're all-. All but one is destroyed. That one takes evasive action, weaving around Krona's swings before heading towards one of the unarmed versions of me who had been keeping his head down.

    He clenches his fists.

    "Fuck off."

    "The Lantern will don the ring."

    "The Lantern is alone in his own head for the first time in years and the Lantern is happy not to have to deal with the psychotic Qwardian knockoff."

    "Sounds like there's a story there, but we need the firepower."

    He stiffens slightly, then sags. "Right." He takes a deep breath, and then holds out his right hand.

    Towards Krona.

    "I'll take his, then."

    Krona's right hand vibrates, and the Guardian stares at it in disbelief for a moment before firing a hurricane of constructs and energy rays at the-. That's an Anti-Green Lantern ring!

    Yellow's eyes light up as he tries to play with Krona's fears, while the rest of us frantically shift our efforts into countering Krona's offensive. Those like me who learned to make crumbler constructs destroy the larger attack constructs as fast as possible, while the Grinner and the handful of others who look like they've had some cranial work done work to deal with the rest.

    And as I throw a potent enough emotional attack at Krona to try and throw him off his game, it occurs to me:

    We all used to be one person, or something very close to the same person.

    That's why using us like this worked in the first place; why Krona brought us all together.

    And while we're different people, our core desires are much the same as a result of our shared twenty nine years of life and… Two separate.

    "YES!"

    A ring slips free from Krona's finger-.

    And flies over to the Jade part of the tuning fork.

    "No! Damn it! Come on!"

    Krona isn't in a direct line between us and the opposite tine, but still, it's a minor miracle that none of the women have died so-.

    A hand punches through the case and grabs onto the ring, the owner's clothing-. A Jade who got trained by Alan? Ironic and.. plausible, if the situation in Gotham were a little different.

    "Illustres to Lantern Nguyen." And I can't deny the hope and love that surge in my own heart as I say it. "Please evacuate the other yous from the tuning fork."

    She pulls herself free, takes a second to try and understand what's going on, then starts working.

    I need to try and talk to her about that later.

    I fire a volley of newly-fabricated Crumbler rounds at Krona, more to try and keep him off balance than with any hope that they'll actually hit. Another aspect of his parallel processing ability: I can't keep track of everything we're throwing at him. The whole region around Vanishing Point is a kaleidoscope of constructs, and he's meeting every assault… Not perfectly, or we'd be dead. But well enough that I don't think that we're pulling ahead.

    "FINALLY!"

    Anti-Green snatches the golden ring out of the air and puts it on his right middle finger. His costume changes immediately, the harsh curves of the Anti-Green sigil replaced by the smoother lines of the Gold Lantern Corps.

    "This is not permit-."

    Green's eyes glow as he surrounds the anti-green ring in a vice construct and crushes it before conjuring a huge battering ram construct and sending it smashing through everything between him and Krona! Krona's eyes widen very slightly as he sets himself to receive the impact, his rings glowing brilliantly as he's forced to focus his will on a single object!

    I take the opportunity to close my eyes and feel the desires of all of those around me. As I suspected-. A couple don't fit quite.. right-. That's another Clayface, what-? No, never mind. Our desires and drives-.

    "I see. Yes, that could work."

    The yellow lights from Yellow begin.. feeling the rest of us out, just as I'm doing. My still extant nihilophobia, my long since cured fear of heights… Traits we all share. And by that same token he doesn't try to shield his desires, his drive to build a civilisation and shelter his people.

    And those desires and fears are a harmony, a part of the song of who we are. Not enough of me have the same level of spiritual awareness to do anything so beautiful as a white light blast but nonetheless as we open our eyes our constructs become more focused. Our methods more harmonious and our attacks catalysed by the avarice and fears of all of us.

    Krona is forced to lift his left hand away from blocking the battering ram to intercept-.

    "-kill the midget bastard!"

    A Red Lantern-. No, that's Red! Flies through the hole, followed a moment later by Indigo and Black! Red doesn't bother communicating, he just flies to a position behind Krona and unleashes a torrent of blood red flame. Indigo's ring glows as well, but I'm assuming that he's doing something a little less direct. A-. Koriand'r variant flies through after them and she's picked up.. Ghia'ta's ring from somewhere, and she's taking shots of opportunity at Krona whenever she sees an opening.

    Krona's cringing, but I'm really not sure-.

    "Allow me."

    Time Trapper rises from Vanishing Point station, pushing back his hood to-.

    Oh.

    The Time Trapper me raises his right hand and a blue ring flies through the portal and lands on his right index finger.

    "Let us finally draw this to a conclusion. Krona? Begone."

    For a fraction of a second I feel his desires, somehow… They feel different, but that fraction of a second of communion is enough for our constructs to merge-. Not quite in perfect harmony as Koriand'r is stuck providing the violet, but with a flash of white…

    Krona's gone.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • I don't think this is over yet, Krona mentioned something about some of this being part of Time Trappers experiment not his and Time Trapper is still very obessessed with getting his own world back, when else is he going to have access to this many versions of himself to try and do something about it?

    Plus nothing that would be the cause for Pariah's arrival has happened yet.

    I think we're about to see some shenanigans.
     
    Zoat you wrote Komand'r and then Koriandr there when I think it should be just one.

    Think it should be Koriandr in any case.
    Kom may love Red and if this is another variant that is involved with one of the Paul's then she may love him as well, but I don't think she would be that good at using a power ring, unlike Kori who is much more naturally loving while Kom tends to be more reserved and cautious with personal emotions.
     
    Honestly this has been such a good payoff after all the glimpses into other Pauls. I hope the time trapper plot thread finally gets resolved but if the Pauls don't hang around and trade notes, even if we only get the cliff notes, I will be very disappointed. The funny thing is that someone giving Paragon the YJ plot notes would be basically pointless now for everything except telling him how to activate Beast Boy's powers.
     
    Mr Zoat said:
    I really just want
    To go home

    Grinner shrugs as the construct runic prison we tried to build fails, fracturing into fragments as Krona exerts himself. The only positive I'm taking from this brawl so far is that Krona isn't anything like as overpowered as I thought he'd be. Oh, he's tanking shots like a champ, but he's either sandbagging or something has weakened him, because aside from his multiprocessing I'd actually say that he's doing worse than Guy would have in this situation. Of course, the multiprocessing is-.
    Click to expand...
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    Again, be very glad he tried to take Grayven before this, even if the Pauls aren't aware of that. I'm still assuming the Sword of the Fallen knocked out the Maltusian Symbionts that would make this a much, much tougher fight...

    I catch a glimpse of a flicker of green light and send out a wave of orange, disrupting the filament he was using to flank us.

    Multiprocessing is enough of a problem. It's like fighting a team of Lanterns who can work in perfect concert.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Worse, because they aren't stepping on each other's efforts, like the Pauls probably are.

    More rings fly out of the hole near Krona, green ones this time. Krona spots them and lashes out, strands of green light illuminating the sky as they're all-. All but one is destroyed. That one takes evasive action, weaving around Krona's swings before heading towards one of the unarmed versions of me who had been keeping his head down.

    He clenches his fists.
    Click to expand...
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    Oh. Oh, my, is that Gaul, the Anti-Green Lantern?

    "Fuck off."

    "The Lantern will don the ring."
    Click to expand...
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    Yes, yes it is. One of the few Pauls to be better off in this situation. No doubt the Ring would be demanding to be worn for the sake of gathering data...

    "The Lantern is alone in his own head for the first time in years and the Lantern is happy not to have to deal with the psychotic Qwardian knockoff."

    "Sounds like there's a story there, but we need the firepower."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    OL, you are not going to be changing this Paul's mind. Honestly, he could be one hell of a Green Lantern with the Will he's learned.

    He stiffens slightly, then sags. "Right." He takes a deep breath, and then holds out his right hand.

    Towards Krona.

    "I'll take his, then."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Fuck yeah! Weaken the enemy while empowering yourself! And doing it with style!

    Krona's right hand vibrates, and the Guardian stares at it in disbelief for a moment before firing a hurricane of constructs and energy rays at the-. That's an Anti-Green Lantern ring!

    Yellow's eyes light up as he tries to play with Krona's fears, while the rest of us frantically shift our efforts into countering Krona's offensive. Those like me who learned to make crumbler constructs destroy the larger attack constructs as fast as possible, while the Grinner and the handful of others who look like they've had come cranial work done work to deal with the rest.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Honestly, you've got to wonder about some of the Pauls' choices out there. I mean, some are understandable given their lack of a Lantern to keep charged. Others... Not so much.

    And as I throw a potent enough emotional attack at Krona to try and throw him off his game, it occurs to me:

    We all used to be one person, or something very close to the same person.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    It's like some higher power was playing silly buggers with time... Or an Author experimenting...:p

    That's why using us like this worked in the first place; why Krona brought us all together.

    And while we're different people, our core desires are much the same as a result of our shared twenty nine years of life and… Two separate.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    A lot of the changes are down to the environment thy found themselves in. Look at what Fallout!Paul did to himself...

    "YES!"

    A ring slips free from Krona's finger-.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    <Fistpump Data-.

    And flies over to the Jade part of the tuning fork.

    "No! Damn it! Come on!"
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    <Rainbowdash-ohcomeon!.gif> Cockblocked!

    Krona not in a direct line between us and the opposite tine, but still, it's a minor miracle that none of the women have died so-.

    A hand punches through the case and grabs onto the ring, the owner's clothing-. A Jade who got trained by Alan? Ironic and.. plausible, if the situation in Gotham were a little different.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    True enough. So many of these Pauls and Jades have interesting stories, and at most we get a few thousand words in between other chapters... Sometimes you just want to know more... I suppose that's what fan-Omakes are for...

    "Illustres to Lantern Nguyen." And I can't deny the hope and love that surge in my own heart as I say it. "Please evacuate the other yous from the tuning fork."

    She pulls herself free, takes a second to try and understand what's going on, then starts working.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Damn, girl. All business. Alan's training and her character shining through.

    I need to try and talk to her about that later.

    I fire a volley of newly-fabricated Crumbler rounds at Krona, more to try and keep him off balance than with any hope that they'll actually hit. Another aspect of his parallel processing ability: I can't keep track of everything we're throwing at him. The whole region around Vanishing Point is a kaleidoscope of constructs, and he's meeting every assault… Not perfectly, or we'd be dead. But well enough that I don't think that we're pulling ahead.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    It's like the last half-hour of a big event movie. A roller-coaster of light and sound...

    "FINALLY!"

    Anti-Green snatches the golden ring out of the air and puts it on his right middle finger. His costume changes immediately, the harsh curves of the Anti-Green sigil replaced by the smoother lines of the Gold Lantern Corps.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Let's try this again: <Fistpump Data.gif> Finally, Gaul gets some green!

    "This is not permit-."

    Green's eyes glow as he surrounds the anti-green ring in a vice construct and crushes it before conjuring a huge battering ram construct and sending it smashing through everything between him and Krona! Krona's eyes widen very slightly as he sets himself to receive the impact, his rings glowing brilliantly as he's forced to focus his will on a single object!
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    YES. I only hope he can score a lantern to go with the ring.

    I take the opportunity to close my eyes and feel the desires of all of those around me. As I suspected-. A couple don't fit quite.. right-. That's another Clayface, what-? No, never mind. Our desires and drives-.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    And there's the Peter Wynne Clayface. I wonder who else didn't fit in?

    "I see. Yes, that could work."

    The yellow lights from Yellow begin.. feeling the rest of us out, just as I'm going. My still extant nihilophobia, my long since cured fear of heights… Traits we all share. And by that same token he doesn't try to shield his desires, his drive to build a civilisation and shelter his people.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Oooh... Mystical. Jedi Battle Meditation, eat your heart out. That's one way to channel multiple lights.

    And those desires and fears are a harmony, a part of the song of who we are. Not enough of me have the same level of spiritual awareness to do anything so beautiful as a white light blast but nonetheless as we open our eyes our constructs become more focused. Our methods more harmonious and our attacks catalysed by the avarice and fears of all of us.

    Krona is forced to lift his left hand away from blocking the battering ram to intercept-.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Bit off more than you could chew, didn't you? Give it up, you blue bastard, and take the lumps you've got coming...

    "-kill the midget bastard!"

    A Red Lantern-. No, that's Red! Flies through the hole, followed a moment later by Indigo and Black! Red doesn't bother communicating, he just flies to a position behind Krona and unleashes a torrent of blood red flame. Indigo's ring glows as well, but I'm assuming that he's doing something a little less direct. A-. Koriand'r variant flies through after them and she's picked up.. Ghia'ta's ring from somewhere, and she's taking shots of opportunity at Krona whenever she sees an opening.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    New Earth's Starfire, slinging a Ring? Damn impressive! They got almost everything they need for some White Light action...

    Krona's cringing, but I'm really not sure-.

    "Allow me."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Oh, now what?

    Time Trapper rises from Vanishing Point station, pushing back his hood to-.

    Oh.

    The Time Trapper me raises his right hand and a blue ring flies through the portal and lands on his right index finger.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    And there's the last part. Time to taste the rainbow, Krona! Interesting that Maul went for Blue rather than his usual orange. Wonder which Paul's ring that is? Baul's?

    "Let us finally draw this to a conclusion. Krona? Begone."

    For a fraction of a second I feel his desires, somehow… They feel different, but that fraction of a second of communion is enough for our constructs to merge-. Not quite in perfect harmony as Koriand'r is stuck providing the violet, but with a flash of white…

    Krona's gone.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Woo! Cue the victory music, and start the looting, fight's done... Unless Maul plans to try something...

    Man... Anyone else feels like they need a cigarette? To quote Abridged!Alucard: "Houston, we have nooo problems..." And it felt great to see Gaul get out of his shitty situation with the Anti-Green ring. That's definitely going to make for some interesting scenes when he returns home.

    ...they've had come cranial work done...
    Click to expand...
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    ...they've had some cranial work done...
    Krona not in a direct line between us...
    Click to expand...
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    Something feels off with the start there.
     
    SebazuD said:
    I hope they all trade notes before spliting and going their own ways.
    Click to expand...
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    david said:
    Honestly this has been such a good payoff after all the glimpses into other Pauls. I hope the time trapper plot thread finally gets resolved but if the Pauls don't hang around and trade notes, even if we only get the cliff notes, I will be very disappointed. The funny thing is that someone giving Paragon the YJ plot notes would be basically pointless now for everything except telling him how to activate Beast Boy's powers.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Very much agreed!

    hance1986 said:
    Hope Paul Wynne can get a ring and lantern when Clayface is deposited back in the DCAU. He's played Ironman mode long enough.
    Click to expand...
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    That would be nice.
     
    SebazuD said:
    I hope they all trade notes before spliting and going their own ways.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Yeah, that'd be nice. They just sit down for pancakes with lemon and sugar, and discuss their experiences, likes, dislikes, dreams for the future, and see if any of the others want to leave their new world for one of the others.

    Hopefully Paul can recruit a couple of them to come to his place.
     
    RichardWhereat said:
    Yeah, that'd be nice. They just sit down for pancakes with lemon and sugar, and discuss their experiences, likes, dislikes, dreams for the future, and see if any of the others want to leave their new world for one of the others.

    Hopefully Paul can recruit a couple of them to come to his place.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    The end result would be hilarious with a pile of Pauls showing up there and everyone elses reaction that there are more of the Cake Man...
     
    DAT_NOOB said:
    Wait didn't Maul have an orange ring?
    Click to expand...
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    He did, but he just now summoned a blue ring to his hand to help the rest with making the white light.

    RichardWhereat said:
    Yeah, that'd be nice. They just sit down for pancakes with lemon and sugar, and discuss their experiences, likes, dislikes, dreams for the future, and see if any of the others want to leave their new world for one of the others.

    Hopefully Paul can recruit a couple of them to come to his place.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Recruitment seems unlikely, but maybe he can come and visit their universe sometimes like renegade did with Earth 50
     
    hance1986 said:
    Hope Paul Wynne can get a ring and lantern when Clayface is deposited back in the DCAU. He's played Ironman mode long enough.
    Click to expand...
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    Hmm... If I remember the timeline for Peter Wynne right, Clayface's abduction came long before his encounter with Batman. <Quickly checks.>
    Yep. His appearance in 'Covert Community' during 'Gammadion', where Clayface gets abducted in 2002, takes place before Batman visits him at the end of the earlier 'Doppelgängered', in 2005.
    So unless Peter Wynne was very discreet about having a functional Orange ring and lantern during the earlier chapter, it doesn't look good for chances of Clayface bringing Peter a present. Unless Mr Zoat is prepared to retcon things. Which Crises have a habit of causing, anyway.
     
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