The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
My heart. Why must you do these things.
Life Ore Death - DC Feruchemy [Young Justice]
- Thread starter Obloquy
- Start date
- Crossover
It allows you to speak the most common language of the area. They are foreign so it doesn't help with her allies here.
Knowledge of Shadesmar
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Change blindness and being preoccupied with the super-strong berserker, basically.
Also, connection only allows you to sync to the country and speak the language when it is stored without Identity. Otherwise the connection would increase Renka's connection back to Scadrial, rather than unidentified connection reaching out to what's nearby.
Robin and Artemis both speak Arabic, so they could communicate if she taps it. But since the Final Empire only had one living language, Renka never had opportunity to happen upon that side-effect, and it was something Harmony told her about in the Prologue. Also, she didn't make a habit of creating unlocked metal-minds on Scadrial, and didn't notice/know that the connection was less Identified.
Lastly, included below is something I posted, prompted by comments in the Spacebattles version of this story. SB is behind SV still, so don't go expecting to find more updates, and please don't drop them any unrequested spoilers.
________________________________________________________________________________
Harmony can be stopped from snooping around by other Shards, and vice-versa to some extent, Kelsier was already somewhat Cosmere-aware from his adventure in the side story. Furthermore, at some point there are kandra who hop to other worlds. Also, while other Shards have the skill/experience to deflect Harmony's raw power, not all of them are as unpleasant as Autonomy or Odium. He only needs to find one friendly, unbroken Shard to get handed a lot of information.
The Expanse of the Vapors takes you from Roshar to Scadrial (with its Mist), so the two are Cognitive next door neighbors. Cultivation is confirmed to be unbroken, so Harmony can ask her to talk. Failing that, the lower left-hand corner of the map would read "Expanse of Vibrance" which a lot of people guess is Nalthis, where dwells the similarly unbroken Endowment.
Given what it's suggested that Trellium (from Shadows of Self) is, and that "The Broken One" could correspond with The Broken Sky, it seems reasonable that Shards can reach over to snoop on or chat with their neighbors.
Stripped Away - part 6
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Life Ore Death
* September 4 [Aqualad PoV]
It took time, but as the sun was setting Renka brought four people back to meet us.
I recognized Kid Flash, but Speedy was not among their number.
"Hey, KF!" Robin called, not so loudly as to catch anyone else's attention. "Who're all the other people? And have you run into Speedy yet?" With the light fading and the air cooler, I felt more comfortable following my acrobatic friend down from the shelter of our ledge. We had run low on water, but I could see people carrying things, and Kid Flash threw me a canteen.
I drank gratefully, though in moderation.
"This is, uh- you did send Renka to come find us, right?" Kid Flash started nervously.
"Yeah. No clue who she is or how I know her, but six months is a long time to meet new people and she had one of the radio earbuds Batman uses in her ear-,"
"Radio earbuds! Awww maaaannn," Kid Flash groaned, as he and Artemis raised their hands to their ears. "I could have gotten in touch with you at any time instead of fumbling around and running for my life? Why didn't I think of that?"
"Probably because Batman ordered us to maintain radio silence at all times before we came here, so it's good you didn't," Robin answered sharply. I knew my friend, and while he was glad that the Batman's orders had been obeyed for fear of bringing more catastrophes on our heads, he was also undoubtedly irate that Kid Flash had not even considered the possibility.
"Wait, you mean you remember how we got here? Tell me! I still have no clue what's going on!"
"Nor do we," I informed the unknown, upset girl who styled herself after Green Arrow, "but Robin's computer records provided valuable insights. I am Kaldur'ahm, apprentice to King Orin the Aquaman; the world knows me as Aqualad. If we have been introduced, I have forgotten, but it is good to meet a prospective teammate."
"Oh. Yeah, I've seen you on the news before. I'm, uh, Artemis. Just Artemis. Don't listen to him when he tries to call me Arrowette, it's a stupid name." She shook my hand. I studiously ignored what may have been a blush on her cheeks. She was not unattractive, and I was the least popular with women among my peers and fellow apprentices, but I also had hopes to strike up a spark with Tula when I next had the chance.
"Can you use that bow?" Robin's question was a perfunctory concern, not an accusation, but I could not blame Artemis for bristling slightly. However, she controlled her temper admirably.
"Yes," she snapped in a clipped tone. A moment later she must have felt obliged by our expectations to admit, "but I'm almost out of arrows, and I don't even know what the ones left do. I haven't ever used anything except regular arrows before. I… did grab a handgun off one of the soldiers-," Robin tensed when she twisted her hips to display the holster, "-and yes I've been to firing ranges and I know gun safety out my ears so don't worry about that," she added quickly. "I've never shot at a person before, but if they had a gun too I wouldn't have much choice." She shrugged helplessly. "If I'm at close range I know enough martial arts to drop a guy that way, so we'll have to hope for that instead?" she finished weakly. Robin narrowed his eyes.
"Let me see those arrows," he said slowly. She cautiously handed the quiver over. I turned to Kid Flash.
"I have met Renka, and I now know Artemis; who are the other two?"
"The guy wearing the jacket with no shirt seems to be a mini Kal-El, and don't mention his hero name or mime the chest crest because it'll really set him off. He doesn't appear to speak any language at all, but Renka calmed him down with this really weird lullaby and he's mostly just been following her around." Catching the indications that she was being discussed, Renka waved one hand. The other hand was looped around the young kryptonian's wrist.
"Aqualad," she acknowledged with a nod.
"Renka," I replied. And that was that between us. The bound man slung over the kryptonian's shoulder squirmed with a muffled cry, and Renka cuffed him lightly around the head.
"That guy was one of the Bialyan officers we beat and Artemis squeezed him for some information. He speaks English. Also, I thought I heard Renka speaking Arabic with a soldier just after her lullaby, but I didn't know how to ask her about it or how to make her do it again. Not to mention, I don't speak Arabic so it's kind of a moot point."
"Although the captured officer could act as a translator," I pointed out in response to Kid Flash's shrug, "you are correct that we have more important concerns at the moment."
"Artemis, you're in the clear. Not sure how or why you got them, but almost all your arrows have little signs Batman puts on gear that he handles personally or distributes." Her face turned an interesting color, which suggested that Artemis had mixed feelings about the Dark Knight. "You probably only started working with whoever you work with in the last few months, so we forgot-,"
"That's not the first time you've mentioned forgetting a few months," Kid Flash interjected. "What do you-?"
"What date is it?" Robin cut to the chase and looked Kid Flash and Artemis in the eyes. Both thought.
"March… seventeenth?" Artemis tried. "I remember this one bakery had a Pi Day sale just recently, so…."
"Yeah, I had a doctor's appointment on the third I went to more than a week ago, so that sounds right," Kid Flash agreed.
Robin pulled up his computer screen and corrected them.
"September fourth."
Artemis and Kid Flash's reactions were… loud. I busied myself with rehydrating and a bar of nourishment rations to avoid the conversation and explanation. Renka watched with amusement, and the Kryptonian appeared not to understand.
"Six months," Artemis finally cursed.
"I know, I totally missed the entire summer," Kid Falsh groaned.
"We're being hunted by an army after losing six months of our lives, and you're worried about your summer vacation!" Artemis shrieked. "I can't believe you!"
"Hey, this is pretty much par for the course in the life of a superhero." He waggled his eyebrows. "I'm sure you'll remember that and admit you were overreacting once Mister Zatara or Martian Manhunter restore our memories. And for that to happen, all we have to do is pick up Speedy, get across the border, and radio for Green Lantern or Wonder Woman or the Bat Jet to come give us a lift."
"You are certain that Speedy was with us?" I asked intently. Robin shifted to attention as well, while Artemis and Kid Flash sobered up quickly and turned to look at the bound prisoner.
"Yeah. We brought him with us for a reason, and you need to hear what he has to say," Kid Flash said without humor.
~
"We're in view of the compound," Robin affirmed from his position on point.
[Ah, ahh!]
Renka suddenly drew back and hugged herself with an unpleasant shiver, and the kryptonian boy growled slightly. The desert night was frigid, yes, but I could also feel heat radiating off of Renka's skin like a furnace. She was, for whatever reason, most likely the warmest person in the area, so I doubted it was because of the cold.
'Did I hear something, or was it my imagination? A cry of pain?' I could not be certain, but I hoped otherwise.
The captured officer had revealed that Queen Bee's direct overseer of this project was a metahuman named Psimon. Psimon possessed powerful telepathic and telekinetic abilities, and in the first engagement between our group and Bialya's forces Psimon had captured one member of our team. He had stayed behind to interrogate the prisoner for information and dispatched the soldiers to round up the other members of our team, which had proved far more easily said than done.
Despite my own miniscule contributions to our evasion of capture, I was rather proud of our achievements as a cooperative group. I would need to reflect on these feelings; no doubt they would make more sense when our memories were restored, although I could already extend a few reasonable guesses.
[Aah-ah!]
There it was again. My ears heard nothing, but I was aware of someone's pain all the same. A part of me wished that Psimon was projecting his own suffering, but this was unlikely.
'Perhaps we were sent here originally to rescue prisoners already held captive, and there is another telepath among their number.' I took a moment to share this theory with the others.
"We'll keep a lookout. Kid Flash will skim through the base for other people while I go spring Speedy," Robin decided. "Artemis, you're the only one without a specific job." As Renka and our kryptonian friend could not communicate well enough to plan, outside of pictures that Renka sketched on papers stolen from the tank, I had agreed to lead them in the assault.
Kid Flash and Artemis had shared their different takes on the story of Renka's combat tactics, to say nothing of the El's uncontrollable berserker rage, but other than half an hour of attempts to communicate that Renka should not use lethal force we had been forced accept that we would be risking death in this assault. We also had no way to control our kryptonian teammate at all, so I had resigned myself to the fact that we would undoubtedly inflict casualties.
I was a soldier, serving a commission in the Atlantean military. If these things were unavoidable, then I would simply do as best as I could to uphold the honor of my King and Country.
It still felt bitter in my chest.
"You've got the clock?" Robin asked, producing his own timekeeper.
"I do," I affirmed. "Five minutes."
"Five minutes." We began our countdowns simultaneously, and the three members of the infiltration and extraction team slid into the night. Our kryptonian teammate, who Kid Flash had dubbed El Junior, quickly began to fidget in impatience. Renka merely kept her eyes on the watch, possibly used to a different method of keeping time, and stilled him with a touch and a soft hum. We had helped her clean away the dried blood while we waited and planned, and she no longer was the ghastly figure of her first appearance, but there was eagerness in her eyes that concerned me all the same.
I wondered what we would learn about each other, when our memories were restored. I could not begin to guess where Renka and El had come from, how they knew each other, or how we knew them.
The clock ticked down to a single minute. After Robin's got into position, we would begin the distracting frontal assault, iving him time to find and free Speedy and any other prisoners.
There was movement in the camp, and I caught sight of something unexpected. A near literal mountain of muscle had stepped into sight, out of a covered troop transporter, followed by a more moderately sized young woman.
'Some form of metahuman; ordinary people do not develop in such ways. Even Bane, the Batman's enemy, does not grow so when he uses his Venom drug, according to the files and Robin's stories.' This was a concerning development. 'El may not be able to handle him, and we do not know who else in the camp may have powers. I wish we had anticipated that Psimon would have guards. I hope Robin will retreat to rework the plan if anything too untoward occurs.'
Ten seconds remained, I realized. I activated the charges Robin had left me and threw them, one after the other after the other. My arm, far stronger than an ordinary human's, successfully landed them among the tents and vehicles inside the outline of the camp's lights. Renka pulled El to his feet and I drew my waterbearers. With two seconds before detonation we proceeded to charge the camp. I intentionally yelled to raise as much noise as I was able.
The soldiers noticed, and before they could sound the alarm, the explosions did so for them. Three of us charged into the smoking battlefield and split. I engaged those soldiers as approached me, cutting through their guns with my water-bearers before I used my fists and feet to render them insensate. El knocked several out of sight with brute strength before he hurtled off toward the muscular hulk of a man. I hoped that whatever powers the girl possessed would not prove significant.
Contrary to my expectations, Renka exerted a great degree of caution in combat; she ghosted through the smoke and used her batons to target vulnerable points on off-balance soldiers. She also ensured that soldiers I took down would stay down, and I restrained several winces as I heard her break bones. But I did not see her deal lethal damage: a weight off of my mind.
There were explosions that I recognized as more of Robin's charges from my two o'clock position. Voices yelled, more alarms were raised, and the muscular behemoth hurled El in that direction with a roar. Renka remained at my seven o'clock, although something had drawn her attention.
[Ma'araan giod I'drana mu'thlock eh ha'am!]
She flinched and violently cringed as a woman's telepathic voice echoed nonsense in our brains. There was a pattern to the message, and I thought it may have been a plea or a condemnation, but it was too scrambled for me to understand. Most concerning to me was that Renka was almost immobile for several seconds afterwards, requiring me to dispatch a soldier who attempted a lucky strike at her. The act caught her attention, at least, but she threw herself into the violence with more brutality.
A whirlwind rose unexpectedly into the sky, whipping away the smoke, and I found a disturbing scene. Artemis dodged for her life against the large metahuman, and her quiver lay stolen in the hands of the female accompanying him. Kid Flash raced between soldiers, knocking them about and keeping them away, but was too busy to intervene without opening the both of them to suppressive gunfire. Robin and El Junior were nowhere to be seen.
"Renka!" I called and pointed, to indicate that she should target the woman with the quiver and odd hairstyle. She nodded hesitantly, but I saw her face firm as I moved to reinforce Artemis and distract her overwhelming opponent.
'Robin raises a good point,' I considered idly. 'What does it mean to be whelmed, and from where did the expressions originate?' The thought distracted my fear instinct in the face of such a powerful nemesis. My water-bearers did not draw blood on the first strike, but they caused him pain and drew his attention.
If a person has never seen in close view the rippling muscles of an arm thicker than their waist as it reached out to crush them, then I would not advise the experience. If someone had, then I would offer my condolences and empathy.
I dodged.
The strike was slow and clumsy, but even the air-pressure of its passing was considerable, and the force of the palm strike shook and cratered the ground where it hit. Artemis leaped up and delivered a kick to his skull. Our enemy was unmoved, but the recoil flipped her out of his retaliatory range, at least. I went low and drove a water-bearer bludgeon up between his legs.
The enemy laughed.
"Artemis!" Renka yelled. I glanced her direction as I retreated quickly. She had pinned her enemy to the ground, somehow keeping her there with minimal effort, and Artemis's quiver flew through the air.
"Heh-hehhh," laughed the behemoth. He had snatched it out of its arc, and then snapped arrows and quiver between two fingers. We all blinked.
With the sound of depressurization, a large glob of constrictive foam spurted out from his fist and down to his elbow, gluing the giant's fingers into a fist and his fist to his chest. A glance at Artemis and Renka's faces showed that none of us had expected that. Nor had our enemy either.
"Let me not look a gift horse in the mouth," I decided, so I charged forward. I jumped and drove my fist into his still bemused face with all the strength I could muster. As the impact pushed us apart and I fell back to Earth, one of Artemis's boots landed on my shoulder. With my feet on the ground, she gained enough leverage to drive her other foot further into his face.
He hit the ground, hard.
Kid Flash had knocked out all the soldiers, Renka had pinned the other woman after breaking at least one of her legs, and Artemis and I had laid low a giant.
It was of course, in this moment of triumph, that the sound of jet engines reached us.
"Is it worth trying to shoot them down, or should we just take cover?" Artemis asked me.
"Cover!" I shouted as the planes came into view, and leading by example I tackled Artemis out of the way of the first burst of gunfire. Renka had also disappeared in some direction, and I looked for a new escape path before the plane could turn for another run.
[Oh no you don't!] a girl called triumphantly. The tornado dispersed, and a man matching the description of Psimon, a powerful telepath, landed in a heap on a clear patch of ground. She floated into view, with El in the air by her side. She might have been the Martian Manhunter's daughter, save that she had red hair and looked more human than he. [Try this!]
She clapped her hands together, once; with a mighty impact the two airplanes crashed in the air. She and El, who looked more composed than I had seen before now, floated to the ground.
"The heck," Artemis muttered.
[Guys! Hi everyone! It's me!] I heard Renka voice an eerie, whining moan from somewhere out of sight. "Oh! Sorry Ferris, I forgot you'd be having problems like this! I'm so sorry!"
"Ah, M'gann," Superboy said, gently laying a hand on her shoulder. "I think they need your help, too."
That was certainly unexpected. 'He talks? I see. Have I received a recent concussion, or has the world elected to cease functioning on logic and reason?'
"What?" she asked.
"M'gann, I don't think any of the others have their memories back." That began to make things make more sense.
"Oh! Right, I should probably fix that!" She took an eager step toward Artemis and I, but then she paused. "Actually… I think I'm just going to call up the Bioship and fall asleep for a week. Sorry, guys." And she toppled over sideways, unconscious.
…
Between Superboy's explanations, Renka's language difficulties, our lack of other people trained to pilot Martian ships, and the robot ball that chirped birdsong to make Miss Martian smile in her sleep, it was a very interesting flight home.
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- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It was an awesome lullaby! No bully!
Aqualad is pretty adorable here. He needs hugs.
Teocraso
A bear as strong as nine bears
- Location
- The City of Angels
Err.. this entire thing happened in canon because they were using telepathic communications in order to keep radio silence.
Psimon overheard the telepathy, and when MM got close he mindwhammied her, and through the link, mindwhammied the entire team.
Considering that here, like in canon, they all got memory-wiped, chances are it happened for the same reasons.
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- Location
- australia
I think her reasoning for not using copper minds is still pretty solid. Namely you lose that memory until you use that specific copper mind and she doesn't like losing memories.
I mean how do you choose which memories to store without effecting who you are?
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The simplest (and most boring) way would be to like, write something out, and then store the memory of reading it. It isn't substantially better but that makes the data more portable and you could have it on your person most of the time, and tap out an entirely fresh memory of it. It might be useful for mission information or briefings? (In this situation, a little backup where Renka is telling herself the identities of her teammates or something would have been useful, but you'd have to be kind of paranoid to think of that. Maybe if you knew you were going up against someone who can do memory wipes, though.)
Basically avoid actual experiences and use synthesized ones. It might be worth a ring sized coppermind at least.
- Location
- australia
Huh, I never thought about that. Good point.
Copperminds are also incredibly specific about the information being stored. A feruchemist stores a memory, and only that memory. Everything he or she uses the memory to do is think about is separate and independently retained. For example, the entire team could have a sit down where they explain who they are, what they do, and their relationship to one another. Renka stores that memory in a coppermind, but she still knows that there was a meeting, who was at it, and why it happened because that 'information' is stored across many memories that she will still retain. The only thing Renka would 'forget' are the details about what was said or done at the meeting.
The Keepers needed to create indexes because of the sheer volume of unique information they stored. It would probably be a good idea for Renka to do the same if she starts making heavy use of copperminds, but if she just makes a single coppermind as an anti-mind control fallback then she probably does not need to go through the trouble. That way if she gets mind whammied again...
"I cannot remember anything for the last year, where- what is on my toe? Oh a coppermind toe ring why would- Ah ok. I'm freaking out about having my memories wiped but at least I have some record of who you people are and what is going on."
A meeting, while useful, it's not the only thing she could use, hell, perhaps not even the best.
Make a quick overview trailer out of the security videos of the mountain, add subtitles in her language, and store the watching of said video. She doesn't loose anything that she doesn't already know due being part of assembling the video and she can always watch it again.
Depending on how fast is memory retrieval with copperminds, the trailer could be longer and contain more information.
Can she keep storing memories into a coppermind until it fills it's capacity? or is it a one memory, one coppermind deal? If it's the former, she can keep a diary in memory form. Write on a diary anything important that happened during the day/week/whatever, then store the memory of reading the latest diary entry into the coppermind.
Make a quick overview trailer out of the security videos of the mountain, add subtitles in her language, and store the watching of said video. She doesn't loose anything that she doesn't already know due being part of assembling the video and she can always watch it again.
Depending on how fast is memory retrieval with copperminds, the trailer could be longer and contain more information.
Can she keep storing memories into a coppermind until it fills it's capacity? or is it a one memory, one coppermind deal? If it's the former, she can keep a diary in memory form. Write on a diary anything important that happened during the day/week/whatever, then store the memory of reading the latest diary entry into the coppermind.
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Stripped Away - part 7
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Life Ore Death
Stripped Away - part 7[Mountain Security Recording, Kitchen Camera B, 09:16]
* September 5Kid Flash scarfs down his breakfast, getting crumbs over the mission report he is supposed to be writing.
KF: "Nine o'clock. Nine a.m. isn't supposed to exist on Sunday mornings! I'm supposed to be asleep right now!"
Ferris enters the kitchen from the hall. She is carrying a small pile of papers. Kid Flash does not give sign of noticing.
Ferris: "May I?"
She indicates the seat beside Kid Flash. He pauses in his eating, and then he continues without replying. His face is not visible from this camera angle. Ferris waits, patiently. He still does not acknowledge her.
Ferris: "I will go away if you want me to, but I want to talk to the first friend I made."
Kid Flash stops eating again. He makes an unpronounceable grunt. Ferris waits.
Kid Flash: "About what?"
Ferris: "The mission. What happened." Kid Flash opens his mouth but she continues first. "I killed eighteen people in the last twenty-four hours. I am not happy about entering three digits."
KF: "Th-three digits! What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Ferris: "When I was your age, I had fought in and survived a civil war and holy war that left more than half the people of my homeland dead. When I walked into the building to meet Lois Lane and the Superman, I already had the blood of eighty-seven people on my hands. With what has happened recently, that number now exceeds one-hundred, and I wanted to talk about- to mourn it with my first friend in this world."
Kid Flash turns to look her in the eye, and then he looks away.
KF: "And you expect me to want to talk to you after you butchered those men like pigs?"
Ferris: "No."
Kid Flash looks back at her again.
Ferris: "My first choice would be to talk to M'gann. I want to tell her that I still want to talk to her, and be her friend, and that I do not blame her for what happened. Even if I do not want my mind touched for a few more days. Because M'gann is injured, and with her uncle, she is not available. So I come back to you, to apologize that I upset you."
Kid Flash is silent. Ferris appears unperturbed.
KF: "…Why? Why would you just- just kill those people? They never stood a chance against you? Why did you need to do that? How could you think that was okay?"
Ferris: "I woke up in a strange land, wearing strange clothes, knowing neither people nor tongue, with no memory of how I got there, after suffering the second-worst kind of violation. Do you remember the blood on my hands and face?"
KF: "Yeah. …How many people did you kill before you met up with us?"
Ferris: "The people in the jeep were the first, I think. That blood was from before. That blood was my blood."
Kid Flash looks at her and shakes his head.
KF: "I don't get it."
Ferris closes her eyes and leans her face forward. Kid Flash leans back.
Ferris: "Please feel my face."
Kid Flash hesitates for a few moments, and then he begins to brush his fingertips across her face.
KF: "Okay… What am I feeling for?"
Ferris: "Feel my eyebrows, eyelids, nose, cheeks, forehead, and both ears, please."
Slowly, Kid Flash feels each in turn.
KF: "Again, why? What am I feeling for?"
Ferris: "Is there a difference between my left and right ear? Do you remember that I did not wear my earring on our mission? Does my right ear feel similar to my eyelids and eyebrows?"
KF: "…Okay, yeah, it is a bit smoother. It could be my imagination. And… um, I'm not a skin expert, but yeah, it seems almost a bit… thin? And what about your earring? Didn't you say you considered it a religious thing to never take it off?"
Ferris: "Something like that, I think. As well as religion, my earring makes me very vulnerable to mental influence. The blood on my hands and face was because Psimon's mental attack left me in so much agony that I clawed my own eyes out, and tore off my right ear and earring bare-handed to end it."
Kid Flash has recoiled. Ferris does not say anything. Ferris's eyes open, and she leans slowly back.
KF: "So Psimon did something bad to you, but you didn't kill Psimon. You killed a bunch of guys who happened to be born in the wrong country and did what they had to do to survive under an evil, mind-controlling queen."
Ferris sighs.
Ferris: "I know. Now. After I woke up, and knew that I knew nothing, and was scared, I began to investigate the rocks. I found Aqaulad, and because he was younger than me, and injured, and unconscious, I took him with me. I found Robin, who was the age where I first began to make mistakes, and I decided to try to trust him, instead of the strange soldiers all around the rocks. He told me about his friends, who I assumed were also children, and while he helped his one friend, he asked me to find and protect the others."
Ferris: "When I did, I found you and Artemis, the same ages as some of my younger siblings, being chased by grown men who outnumbered you and were trying to kill you. I did not have a large gold-mind to heal with. I did not have pity for child-killers. I had forgot and I did not know about the Justice League which tries not to kill so much that it inspired me. So I fought to kill."
Neither of them speaks for almost a minute. Kid Flash eventually sighs.
KF: "I still don't like it."
Ferris: "Now that I remember, I do not like it. I cannot, I think, change the past, so I must change the future and learn."
KF: "Okay, I can get that. …So, more than one hundred people? You kept count?"
Ferris: "To regret, to flagellate, to keep score, to atone… yes, I kept an accounting."
KF: "Huh. You know, I don't think I want to know the exact number."
Ferris hums.
Silence draws out.
KF: "So, are they going to do anything to you about this? The Justice League, I mean."
Ferris: "I do not know. I am going to talk to the Black Canary when she has time. The Superman will probably want to speak to me. The Batman may more speak with me after he read my report."
Ferris waves the pile of papers in her hand. Kid Flash begins to write his own report again.
KF: "Hey, Ferris, what do you know about Artemis? I mean, really know about her?"
Ferris: "I know that I have fought beside her. I know that I would kill in her defense of her wellbeing if I needed to. I know that she has suffered much pain in the past. I know that she does not give or accept emotions with ease. I know that she is interested in my Feruchemy. I know that the Justice League trusts her. …I think she hates herself, or her past self; like me, I think, she does not like who she used to be and wants to change. I think she can act, but does not like to act. I think she may like Robin."
Kid Flash jerks.
KF: "Whoa, what! Robin? Really?"
Ferris: "She goes to Gotham very often. I think it is to spend time with him. Neither have powers, so they both train harder and in the same ways. I am not surprised for them they get along."
KF: "She's crushing on Robin? Really? Man, I would not have expected her to go for the midget."
Ferris laughs lightly.
KF: "I… have a confession."
Ferris stops laughing.
KF: "So, do you remember what we were saying when you didn't understand English? In Bialya, at the tank, I mean?"
Ferris: "No. It was not understand to my ears so I did not pay attention."
KF: "Yeah. So back before she remembered being on a team and stuff, she said some odd things that don't make sense with what I thought I knew about her."
Ferris: "So?"
KF: "When she had forgotten the past few moths, Artemis denied, like really denied, having anything to do with Green Arrow. She said she'd never been to Star City in her life, and her mom got knocked up studying at college in the U.S. and she grew up in Vietnam with her grandparents.
KF: "So it really doesn't fit that she's supposed to be Green Arrow's niece. But if she's not, where did she learn all the martial arts and weapons training?"
Ferris: "I do not know. Will you ask her about it?"
KF: "Artemis headed out of the mountain and back home pretty much the second we got back. And I couldn't really want to bring it up in the bioship, you know?"
Ferris hums.
Ferris: "You should either ask Artemis, or ask Green Arrow. You could also ask Red Arrow, I think. But I do not know."
Ferris shrugs. Kid Flash sighs.
KF: "Yeah, alright. Hey, you're talking with Black Canary later you said? Can you ask her to talk to me after that? She's dating Green Arrow, so she'd probably know."
Ferris: "I will ask."
That's still pretty situational. The best thing she could use it for in her line of work, is probably to sit down and carefully inspect pretty much every map of every location she can gather all in one sitting. After storing that memory, going back and studying just the specific maps that she needs in her current situation to have in her working memory but now she always has a map in case she ever gets lost in the future.
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Of course KF only notices the shipping.
Renka is pretty awesome here, and I do like you having the other teammates feeling weird about her.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I'm conflicted, I dislike the cut and dry judgement Kid Flash made regarding Renka at the beginning but then I remember that he's young and it was understandably traumatic. Feels difficult to respect him as a hero when also trying to empathise with him as someone with so little emotional development. Suppose it just plays into the whole heroes are human too shtick that comes with grittier genres.
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
He's had development, for his age. But you have to remember that he was trained by the Flash, and even in YJ the Flash's Rogues Gallery is pretty much the nicest villains in setting, and the Flash himself is way more of a wisecracking four color hero than anything else. So it's not even a batman-like moral principle to not kill, there just wouldn't really be any reason for the Flash to consider killing an opponent, and so KF has probably never thought about it as an option? He wants to talk his way or trick his way around problems.
So that's gonna contrast hard with Renka's background with actual war and stuff, or even some of the rest of the Team.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Yeah, I get that. That's the source of the conflict. Oh well, I suppose I should just appreciate that Renka is the more mature of the two, that she didn't take it too badly and that it shouldn't permanently harm their friendship.
Impractical. The Team works on a global scale, there are frankly too many places in the world for that to do more than a handful of cities, and honestly? a wrist computer would do a better job and be up-to-date.
Now, before going into a mission she can take the map, any important person profile related to the location or mission and their general plan, and store that, and/or toss in the watching of a recording of the briefing.
There are exceptions to that, Flash has killed, he does have villains that are just as bad as the worst of the other leaguers, who want him and everything he cares about dead and have zero morals about how to go about it. Tho whether it has happened in this continuity, and whether Kid Flash was exposed to it or received advice based on it, is up in the air.
She doesn't need to study every street in every city or anything. Once you are in a city you can find maps of the area if you need them. The issue is if she gets lost in the wilderness.
Getting some good topographic maps that show the ground layout as well as their longitude and latitude, as well as storing a memory on how to discover your position in those terms, and making sure to note the name of all the cities in each location should be enough. Then she will be able to discover her location, use the terrain to locate the nearest city, and travel there.
It's not like she has to memorize everything the hard way, just one viewing while paying good attention to the material and she stores the memory of it - essentially a living camera/video recorder. Find out the level of detail that she needs, and a rough time of how fast she can turn it into a proper memory and just schedule the time for it. Even just using their Google Earth equivalent might have good enough details for this. If she uses her trick to think faster, she can probably record it just as fast as she can page through the images/maps. At the worst, she can set aside a week or something and just stay up non-stop and get through it at normal speed. Or you know, just spread it out over a longer time in smaller memory chunks - maybe focusing on one section of a hemisphere or longitude-latitude square at a time.
You are vastly underestimating the level of detail needed for a map to be useful for locating herself in the 'wilderness'. In all the hiking maps I've seen you're working with a square of perhaps 20~30km, often much less, we're talking something of about the same scale as a city map. Maybe you can make do with a square ten times bigger for rather rough locating.
Earth has a land surface area of 148,300,000 km2. That is, at the hopeful best of using maps 10 times larger, something in the order of 500k maps to study. Even taking only 10 seconds per map, something unreasonably fast, it'd take her 57.2 days straight without a single stop.
Earth has a land surface area of 148,300,000 km2. That is, at the hopeful best of using maps 10 times larger, something in the order of 500k maps to study. Even taking only 10 seconds per map, something unreasonably fast, it'd take her 57.2 days straight without a single stop.
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
All characters are equally prone to being unreliable narrators, especially as regards themselves. That said, gills and webbed digits might look okay on cartoons, but up close and in person they are gross-looking flags of skin that could be considered disfiguring deformities. Also, his exploits in Atlantis get a lot less coverage on the surface, so he doesn't have a 'home city' to take pride in him on the surface.I refuse to believe this!
Aqualad is bae, man!
He'd totally beat the rest of Team combined in an Atlantean popularity contest, obviously.
M'gann already has been helping Renka with telepathy. Haven't I put in episodes where they're experimenting with communication limits and stuff? Renka also just finds it psychologically stressful, and getting sucker-punched when she was stepping out of her comfort zone is not going to have helped.
And other than what was revealed in the spoiler snippet in Stripped Away part 1, and the follow-up consequences of that, yes, it happened pretty much the exact same way.
Synthesized experiences are a possibility. It's just that Renka has both a logical and an emotional prejudice against using copper-minds, as well as being in the habit of digging in her heels about it.
Regarding the Team explaining who they are... actually, I have questions now. Because they would be talking in English, and Ferris would probably be tapping-duralumin at the time to understand them... If she lost her memory of learning English and tapped a copper-mind, would she understand people speaking in English? Because she understood them when she was storing...
Anyone want to argue for or against? I haven't decided on my opinion yet.
... Regarding how much memory she can store into one copper-mind, it's not one-to-one. Usually investiture would be like pouring liquid into a container. Memories are similar, except they're like packing blocks into a box, or fitting books on a shelf. Each memory is individually coherent and they don't blend at the edges, but they take up space in regards to their size and she only has so much space in each copper-mind. But Sazed could fit thousands of memorized pages into each of his four copper-mind bracers
Maps? Funny you should mention those: maps are actually one of the few things Renka has used copper-minds for in the past, as she will discuss with [spoilers!] around the end of September. But she preferred to memorize the map, tap the copper-mind, and then trace the memory back onto a fresh piece of paper when she had the chance.
It wouldn't work as well here because of how vast the territories she could cover are, but street-level maps of Gotham or Metropolis are things she might concede to storing for basic navigation purposes. However, even if the copper-minds could be used, Renka can argue on Earth the access to computerized maps are far superior, so she would go for those instead of copper-minds.
I speak as a Ron Weasley fan (no MoRon bashing from me!) when I say that I consider Kid Flash the Ron Weasley of the Team in many ways. He fakes having more self-confidence than he does; he's a talented kid who couldn't recognize the ways he was already special when he wanted to be more conventionally (heroic) special; and he succeeded in getting in on the front lines, only to end up a little over his head in some ways.
Even so, Wally (like Ron) is a fundamentally good guy from a normal background who is trying to do things right, even if he still has trouble figuring out what the right thing is at times. If he knows the world isn't all black and white, he still wishes it could be, and he isn't going to stand for something he genuinely believes to be wrong, even if he arguably should due to circumstances. But he's willing to bend when people reason with him, and he's willing to withhold judgement or re-evaluate when faced with new evidence.
I like the 'heroes are human too' thing, but I don't think it should just be gritty. People who do the right thing despite/because of their human flaws are, to me, better and more interesting than the inherently good.
It is and has contrasted pretty hard with other members. But as was discussed via the Justice Lords and in fanfics galore, "Every League needed their Flash." Conflict is not always a bad thing.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
The Legue should have mandatory training sessions in psionics and magic. Most members won't have the chops to use it to its full extent but not being blindsided when it comes to defense is just common sense.