Life Ore Death - DC Feruchemy [Young Justice]

[Krazyfan1]

Really, the tricky thing with planning to take down Ferris is that she's now accompanied 24/7 by Motherbox, the reality-warping alien supercomputer who can Boom Tube evacuate at the drop of a hat.

Click to shrink...

I kinda like the idea of her and MotherBox using Boom Tubes more often...
redirecting attacks and enemies....e.t.c

 

[Obloquy]

Hello, everyone! I've recently been doing some one-word Flash Fiction exercises to an LOD theme, and I thought I'd publish the better & less spoilery ones.

For those people curious, you can generally assume that they are all canon, though some may not have happened yet.

+++++++++++

Abacus. The construct of wood and metal wouldn't have cost Jericho more than ten dollars, but using a glittery gold paint to mark the beads in Scadrese numerals was worth more than words.

Ambition. When asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, several people on the Team gave surprising answers: Robin said, "Batman," of course; Miss Martian announced her intent to work with kids; Superboy said he didn't know yet; Magelet laughed; and Ferris, instead declaring herself already grown, said she wanted to be "satisfied."

Basement. "Forget about Sorry or Risk, Baywatch," Artemis chuckled, pulling him away from the shelves. "I'm thinking we're down in a dark, private area with stairs that'll start creaking if anyone comes our way."

Camelot. "I have to push the pram a lot~," Wally sang, standing tall and proud on the table.

Duplicity. "Three days ago," Wonder Woman reviewed to the rest of the League from her position at the head of the table, "we announced a drill where a shape-shifter attempt to infiltrate the Watchtower in some way. Despite having successfully been in and out of the Watchtower all three days, only six of you successfully identified the infiltration. Congratulations, Batman, Superman, Captain Marvel, Icon, Hawkwoman, and Uncle J'onn," she finished, her skin reverting to its more normal green as she shifted back. "Everyone else, Wonder Woman will speak with you about recognition exercises when she gets back from her mission."

Family. There was a special kind of hitch in her throat that Renka only suffered on rare occasions; she would see a lovely scarf and think, 'Ora would love this,' or a set of kitchen knives and remember, 'Solzoun needed new ones, my last visit,' or even a case of, 'Gurozon was learning to ride a horse, I wonder if he wants to travel out with me next time,' before she remembered and went, 'Oh.'

Flair. Megan brought a friend from out of town in for a demonstration one day, and even Karen was left gobsmacked at how effortlessly 'Robbie' pulled off all their routines with grace and style.

Fracas. Kaldur entered the main room and blinked at the sight: the couch had been overturned, the cushions scattered, and the table flipped sideways. Rocket had been glued to the ceiling, Ferris was somehow hogtied, Kid Flash was passed out in a food coma, Conner was shirtless, Robin's face had graffiti, and Batgirl was giggling to Cerulean as Tempest worked with Jericho to braid their hair.

Granted. If you make a request to Martian Manhunter or Batman in advance, they can register a prank or booby trap as an Ambush Awareness Training exercise and you can make whoever triggers it clean it up.

Laughter. Lois Lane's office reputation took a dive when her boyfriend ("Smallville, we're dating now, let's call it what it is,") tumbled down two flights of stairs, scattering the binders he'd been holding and spilling her mocha, and all she could do was laugh; Clark ended up okay, but everyone wondered if he'd ticked her off.

Lingerie. Batman believes he may never solve the mystery of how a lacy pink bra got caught on the branches of a tree in the Watchtower Conservatory; Martian Manhunter was very irate that Flash went pawing through his shopping bags and threw things everywhere in search of a misplaced gift for Iris, because he'd just gone shopping to update his "Rei Hino" wardrobe and now a dozen things were missing.

Loyalty. "Go Monarchs!" Renka cheered appropriately as Wally moaned at the Tigers taking a beating; Clark, who had in fact grown up cheering for the Tigers too, remained diplomatically silent during the game.

Mad. "What do you need to be a crime-fighter?" Ferris mused philosophically to her class. "I think you need to be a little mad; either crazy enough to believe that you will make a difference against the crushing force of the world, or angry enough that you don't care either way and would rather die trying. Do you agree, or disagree, and which are you? Answer in 300 words or less, please."

Passion. "Excellent question, Mr. Sang-wei," Ferris congratulated from her place at the lectern. "Is it better to invoke mystic forces with an internal balance, or with powerful feeling? While you may forge your own views with experience, I view emotion as adding thrust to a vehicle or projectile; it makes things happen faster, and it provides more force, more power… but an abundance of thrust will make it difficult to aim precisely."

Pirouette. With the leaves turning orange and a crispness to the breeze, Superman and Ferris spared some minutes from patrol to watch a 11-year-old rehearse her routine, and applaud her wildly.

Rouge. "He seems to be fastidious, I think," Ferris observed to Ghost Fox Killer, "thus I assume the metal plates are rusted naturally, rather than from lack of care. If I can procure the right tools and materials, then would the August Captain in Iron be interested in a kit of metal treatment equipment, to polish himself?"

Routine. Martha Kent checks the mudroom for new shoes three times a day, minimum; scarcely a week goes by without her finding that somebody (usually a Justice League friend) has swung by unannounced, but ever since Conner got his key, she's begun to get Team visitors twice a week, even if it's only M'gann dropping by to peruse her shelves for a new recipe.

Sing. One of the few times Conner ever saw her blush was when he asked her to sing that lullaby for him again, or better yet, to teach him; it wasn't that she was embarrassed because it was childish, Renka explained stutteringly, it was just that she'd butchered the tune horribly when she tried.

Sudden. There were a bunch of dangerous things about Renka's steel-mind speed, but the most overlooked element of it was her ability to stand still at super-speed; she would tap, wait, watch, and when you began to blink she would move before you opened your eyes again. When she was fighting, it was scary. When she was graffiting your face in broad daylight, Wally reflected, it was flabbergasting.

Teddy. Lois couldn't guess who it belonged to, but it seemed Renka and Jimmy had fallen asleep on his couch while using a two-foot tall teddy bear as a shared pillow.

Tested. "Hand on heart," Artemis sighed beside her locker, "I will take a repeat of the Injustice League over final exams any day," only for Barbara to text her a fake Joker Alert a minute later.

Torn. Conner examined his shirt with a frustrated sigh -- he'd just been stripping it off to bathe because he was sweaty and got a bit careless, for Harmony's sake! -- and decided to ask if Ma Kent would swap out his cooking lessons for clothes-patching, because if he had to buy more this month it'd be flat out embarrassing.

Tradition. There are three unspoken rules on the Watchtower: if liquor is brought aboard, Hawkwoman gets as much as she wants; when sitting at the big meeting table, no one can claim the same seat two meetings straight; anyone who refers to their self by their call sign must be immediately hugged by someone else present (though a hand on your shoulder from Batman also counts).

Winter. Tula wishes she had started working on the surface earlier, because winter was at its end when she arrived; snow at midday may be the one thing more beautiful than sunset, and if Atlantis know only spells for ice and water, then she will need to make new ones, and spread them.

 

[starkz]

This was brilliant, but Ferris being hogtied is a lasting image.

 

[Dark as Silver]

Ferris, instead declaring herself already grown, said she wanted to be "satisfied."

Click to shrink...

 

[ScottotheUnwise]

Wonder Woman reviewed to the rest of the League

Click to shrink...

Reviewed -> Revealed ?

This is interesting. Not story level interest, but definitely 'feed me a post, I'm stuck at work on a nice day during lunch' level.

 

[Obloquy]

Life Ore Death​

* Thanagar Trip, day 6 [Jimmy PoV]

"You mean, they have to be in this room and this room alone as punishment? For… a week?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of 'imprisonment,'" I assured the pretty Cipitrina college-student-equivalent seriously. "Though there are a couple of possible variations, depending on how bad the punishment is," I continued, sweeping my gaze dramatically around the table, making sure to meet the eyes of all five people sitting with me.

After the warrants went out on Day 4 of our visit, some kind of ambush almost caught us in the wilderness early in Day 5; Thanagar had satellite imaging of the area where we'd been, but if it was reliable or descriptive then I wasn't getting to see it. My point being, the rest of Day 5 was spent with government guys, investigations… I was a witness, but none of us were asked a lot of questions, since 'recorded tracker data is more reliable than eye witness testimony, unless we need impressions, assumptions, and guesses.'

I totally got that, because even before my interest in reporting my high school had done eyewitness fallibility awareness seminars, plus I'd seen the Monkey Business Illusion and the Test Your Awareness: Whodunnit video, but it still felt annoying for some reason.

My point being that most of our fifth day on Thanagar just dragged on until I got the okay to go look around (with guide and a discrete guard), at which point I decided to try finding the Luck's Nightclub (if that's what it's name even was) again.

It… wasn't where I remembered it being, but I'd been so sloshed I didn't remember how I even got back to the room afterward, so me not remembering earlier things made sense. In the end, I couldn't find the club, but I found Mr. Eblis.

His name was Eblis O'Shaunessy, which sounded really human, and he looked human too, not Thanagarian, but he said his life 'began near the outskirts of the Necropolis Letharge,' which was some place that specialized in… exporting funeral traditions or something. I didn't quite get all the details on whether it was a city, a nation, or an entire Planet of Hats aimed at funeral rites.

Eblis had been in Thanagar because he was interested in their lack of funerary traditions; the government carted corpses off as medical cadavers after an inspection for foul play and mulched the remains for fertilizer when that was done, it seemed.

Anyway, I got him to agree to talk to Renka, but he was, like, doing the equivalent of guest lectures at a local university, and we kind of got pulled in, and after all the classes the three of us and Hawkman had ended up at some café with a drink that got me tipsy.

Just tipsy and loose, not drunk. Alcohol equivalent drinks were restricted, and something was niggling me about that, but hey….

Anyway, Renka and Eblis had answered some questions before most of the students ended up trickling out; now they were off in a corner talking about things while Hawkman hung perched on the wall with a drink, and I had five Thanagarians at a round table with me.

Speaking of which, I should introduce them:

To my left was Isamot Kol, a peach-toned male Lizarkon who'd soon be entering formal military service.

To his left sat Mel Samoth, a female Cipitrina who looked like life had kicked her hard in the past under her helmet, with glittering wings.

To her left sat Silmarin Jarl, the brunette Cipitrina girl who looked like she wanted to hurl as she thought about imprisonment.

To her left sat Amass, a female Lizarkon who'd decorated her bright green scales with sky blue body paint.

To her left (my right,) sat More Talak, a male Cipitrina studying computer programming and program monitoring.

"What a weak stomach," Isamot laughed, toasting her with his glass. To me he asked, "Do Earth's punishments only last a week?"

"No, not really," I denied. 'How do I answer this…? Got it!' "In my country, America, there are two types of crimes," I explained, "and two types of prisons. Or, well… Let's start with just the two: misdemeanors, which aren't that serious, and felonies, which are. A misdemeanor might be something like parking a car – that's a vehicle we use on roads because flying is a big deal and pretty expensive on Earth – in a zone where it's illegal to park, or letting your dog make a mess in a public park. Felonies are the bad crimes.

"I think the difference is the cut-off point for the length of punishment, if you get imprisoned," I continued. "Misdemeanors can get someone fined money for the public inconvenience, and they can get you imprisoned for up to a year, but the sentences usually top out around thirty days, unless you're a repeat offender.

"Felonies can get you imprisoned for more than year; sometimes for the rest of your life, if it's murder or something. That's the big difference, I think. Even after you've been punished for a felony, you still have longer after-effects; I heard that Thanagar is big on voting? Convicted felons can't vote until ten years after they've finished their sentence, unless the government gives them permission."

That part got everyone looking skeptical.

"Earth will imprison people for the rest of their lives? Beheading is quicker and easier," Isamot asserted dismissively.

"You mentioned two types of prisons," Mel tossed out before I could say anything about capital punishment. "What are they?"

"I'd expect they're for the two types of crimes," Amass suggested.

"Very close. The two types of prison are jails and penitentiaries. Jails, I think, can only legally hold someone for up to one month, unless there's a long trial that's still ongoing. Um. Maybe," I mumbled. "Penitentiaries are the large, heavily guarded prisons for after prisoners have been sentenced, especially if they're serving time for more than a year."

"Wait. Wait," Silmarin mumbled, swaying a little. "Whaaa… What did you mean 'after they get sentenced,' like, is there a before?"

"Yeah." My mind was a bit loopy, but I pulled my focus together. "So, what happens in Thanagar when someone is suspected of a crime, but the police need more time to gather evidence and charge someone, or if the trial is still going on? So the crook won't run away?"

"They get slapped with a direct tracker, and an alert is attached to their signature, face, and name so that people know they aren't allowed to travel certain distances even if they somehow slip the tracker," More explained. "I'm wearing one right now at the moment," he admitted, tapping a large metal donut wrapped around the base of his left wing. "Someone I had a long conversation with turned out to be involved in that business with the spy, so they're making sure I wasn't receiving or passing on any information illegally."

"…Huh. There's a lot bigger stigma with jail and suspicions of crime on Earth," I admitted. There were a lot of problems with our penal system, profiling, parole check-ins… I took another big drink. "I'm empty, can someone get me another of these? Thanks."

"Thanks for talking with us. Do you know anything about what your… fellow visitor mentioned about study exchanges?" Mel asked.

"I think she's still in the process of setting it up, and it might not get off the ground, if you know what I mean. Thanagar and Earth both have to be willing, and… I hate to say it, but there're still some pretty big problems a lot of Earth people have with aliens. It's bullshit, because you're all just people, and humans tend to think and look differently from each other, but it exists, even if it shouldn't," I grumbled.

"Pity. My sister Rhella and a few of her friends all adore alien cultures, and at least one of them really latched onto Earth for whatever reason; she sent me some screaming messages about why hadn't I told her there were Humans visiting campus," Mel mentioned.

"We're here for a few more days, at least; I'd be happy to meet some fans of the planet, and Wren knowing she had kids interested in Earth would go a long way toward that exchange program she's wanting," I volunteered. "You want to introduce us? Or, like, I can give you sharing rights for our contact data if it's not okay for me to just contact them."

"She'd probably give me sharing rights if I told her, but our mother would disapprove," Mel figured.

"Just show me how to set it up," I said, and Isamot leaned over to walk me drunkenly through the methods of sharing data.

"I have a question about names, if that's okay," Amass mentioned while I input commands.

"Hit me," I replied. Silence.

"I'm assuming that was a figure of speech. Was it a yes or a no?" Silmarin asked.

"Uh, yes, you can ask me. Sorry for confusing," I muttered.

"Not your problem, guest," Mel told me.

"I was wondering about Earth naming conventions," Amass told me next. "I… know that alien planets' practices don't always match up with ours, but from what I read about Lantern Hal Harold Jordan, I thought your practices were largely similar. Her name seems to be Heroine Ferris Renka Tindwysra in the proper Enndupar naming style, I thought, but you called her 'Wren'. Is there a reason for that?"

"I… did you just treat 'Heroine' as part of her name?" I asked. Amass, More, and Mel all nodded seriously.

"As hosts, we should explain the Enndupar naming conventions," Isamot declared. "My primary name is Kol. This is a name that belongs only and essentially to me. Prior to it is my secondary name, Isamot, which I am named because it was my father's primary name; he was named Haraal Isamot, and his father was named Tubek Haraal."

"Tertiary names are more descriptive, and they are usually placed prior to a secondary name," Mel continued.

Silmarin waved her wing for attention, swayed, and pointed with her wing to Hawkman, who waved one wing at her.

"He would be Hawkman Katar Hol," she giggled. "I think he has a tangent name, but I forget it."

"Tangent names are more titular," Isamot grunted, signaling for a new drink as well, "and impermanent. They refer to duties: Soldier, Commander, Wingman, Diplomat, Councilor, Professor, and that."

"I'm still a bit fuzzy about ter- about terry- the third names," I objected.

"Primary and secondary names are given by our parents without our input," More answered. "Tertiary names are those we choose ourselves, or those we take up at our friends' suggestions."

"Oh, nicknames! In that case," I declared, "you've got it mixed up a bit. Ferris Wren Renka Tindwysra… No, wait, I got it wrong."

"If I may?" Hawkman suggested, having showed up at some point. The rest of the table dropped into an awed silence around him.

"Yes," Isamot barked, standing up and offering his seat. He sat down again when Hawkman waved him off.

"If you'd care to tell us anything, not to press, but we would be so grateful," Mel agreed quietly. Silmarin swayed and giggled.

"In the most common of Earth's naming traditions," Hawkman began, and I hoped I had something recording this because it would be weird to have an alien's view of Earth culture, and also super cool, "Humans have a given name, personal to them, followed by a family name shared between the many relatives of their family, through the fathers' lines."

"Oh, right! Back a couple hununundred yeash ago," I gushed agreeably, "Only noble families had family names, because they were the only ones worrying about inheritance. Thenenennn… Sorry. Um, water?" I gratefully took the drink from Hawkman and guzzled it.

"Clear head," the JL hero checked, vaguely concerned.

"Yeah, thanks." 'Just what the doctor ordered. …I'm not surprised they have a sober-up drink, or something.' "Noble families started off with family names based around the territories they were in charge of, and then common people started using family names based on profession, or on their parents' names sometimes. The father of a family might be a Smith or a Baker, and he'd take that name, but then the next generation might keep that name even if they didn't do the same job." They turned to Hawkman, so he must've signaled or something.

"Quite. John Smith and his wife might have children named Barry Smith and Samantha Smith," Hawkman rumbled. "Barry Smith and his wife, Iris Baker, might have the children Jacob Smith and Nate Smith. Samanatha Smith might marry Clark Jameson, and their children would be Alex Jameson and Cat Jameson. Does that make sense?"

"It speaks of greater care for longer histories, but also greater attachments and potential problems with outsiders," More assessed.

"Yup," I admitted, "that's most humans in a nutshell."

"Perhaps," Hawkman countered, sort of gently. Then, "To further distinguish themselves, some humans have middle names."

"Those might be the given names of other members of the family," I mentioned, "or just things to make them unique."

"Yes, and nicknames, or codenames such as Ferris, are also different," Hawkman said. "Although, your case is unusual."

"It is," Renka agreed, slipping into the empty hammock beside Silmarin and Mel.

(Thanagarians being not ground-bound, they not only had tables and chairs, but plenty of perches, nooks, wall alcoves, hanging platforms, and hammocks. It was really cool to see, and I'd gotten some good shots.)

"Ah! Not to be rude. I was uncertain how it all fit into it," Amass sort of babbled as she fiddled with her helmet.

I half expected Renka to reach out and stroke or hug her, but close contact was an awkward thing on Thanagar, so she refrained.

"My native culture did not use familial names, but I took mine after my mother, Tindwyl. In your naming tradition," she continued cheerfully, "I would be, I think, Sliver of Entropy Ferris Tindwysra Renka, if I understand the naming of things. Mm, Sliver of Entropy is a more severe title, however, and less impermanent, so it may be more tertiary than tangential. As for 'Wren,' I believe your confusion comes from a translator error: my given name is pronounced 'Ren-ka,' in English, but there is a slightly harsh aspect of the syllable change. To soften it, I have begun to shorten it to only the first syllable, which coincidentally is phonetically the same as the species name of a type of bird in English. When he calls me that, he saying the shortened first syllable, but you are hearing the translated bird name, yes?"

"Oh. That makes more sense," Amass admitted. I frowned as something niggled at me.

"Hey, wait," I said. "Does that mean it didn't translate the word play in some of my jokes, and you all were fake-laughing at me?"

Mel turned sharply to Renka and declared, "I heard you were interested in monastic traditions," to which my girlfriend nodded.

"I thought laughter was the socially appropriate response for humans," Silmarin Jarl said. "It happens often in your media."

"Yes," said Isamot, who I'd thought was a wet blanket for not laughing, but no, he was just honest.

"You," I declared, pointing at Isamot. "Your drinks are on me tonight, for not laughing at me. …If I have enough."

"I will cover it if you can't," Renka promised idly, and I decided to just take it this time, just this once, and let her do that for me. "Mm. Yes, and I suspected you were a student of the Bright Blade school due to your wings. Is this accurate?"

Mel's wings fluttered slightly under her attention.

"Yes, and I could speak with the teachers about a meeting; my sister and her friends would also-,"

"They are the fans of Earth the planet, yes? Thus, they would like to meet me," Renka finished. "I will be happy to speak with them."

"Hrum!" Isamot drummed his claws on the table. "I practice the Three Straight school of fighting. Would you spar with me?"

"If the Hawkman believes it is safe and can explain the rules to me," Renka agreed placidly. I perked up at the thought.

'I bet this will be a treat.' "Hey, maybe we should sell tickets, or gets some other monk student to come see," I suggested.

"Tomorrow, no earlier. I will make arrangements to see what can be done," the Hawkman intervened.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________​

* June 27 [Karen PoV]

"There it is," Zee announced as Sphere rounded a mountain-corner-cliff-bend thing. "That's Calakmul."

"Sounds deserted to me," Conner grunted.

"I'm not picking up anything either," Babs agreed, holding some bat-binoculars up to her eyes.

"Great!" I cheered, totally pumped. 'I mean, I'm not hoping we wake up ancient mummies or anything, but this is so cool.' "So how do we want to get started? All in one group, or will we split up, or what?"

"How about…" Zee said slowly, since we were halfway here as a belated birthday present for her. "BG, Conner, you guys stay with Sphere and the tech scanners and circle around for the start. Karen, you're down with me, and we can try that sorcery detection spell here."

"Wait, really? Sweet! Thanks," I cheered, hefting up my backpack again. 'Now I just hope I don't look like an idiot trying.'

They dropped us off on a patch of stone-paved ground, and I shivered as sphere flew away, leaving us outside the environmental protection field that'd kept us warm. 'So glad I wore a sweater and jeans,' I reflected as Zee dug out some chalk, string, etc., from her pack.

"So, the Pigmented Illumination ritual," Zee reviewed. "What do you remember?"

"Uh, not to be a drag, but I've got two other questions first?" I hazarded. She nodded, so I went on. "One, we're here because you want to be here, right? Not because people are doing a pick-me-up after M'gann snitched about me and Mal?"

"If it picks you up, great, but birds, stones, you know," Zee assured me. "And M'gann hasn't snitched, not to me at least…?"

"Great, 'cause I don't wanna talk about it," I said quickly. "Question two… I thought I caught some arguing between Babs and you? Artemis?"

Zatanna sighed, rolled her eyes, and rolled up the sleeves of her hoodie. "Come here and feel my arms, will you?"

"O…kay…" 'What's up with this now?' "Uhh… they're nice? Smooth? Do you moisturize or something?"

"No, and I don't cut either," Zee said, rolling her sleeves down again. I swallowed hard. "Artemis saw me walk out wearing a hoodie in June and got spooked, Barbara got a little too deep in my business with her own suspicions, and really you should just be glad you missed it, because I'm not made of glass," she finished fiercely. "Do you need me to set up the ritual?"

"Nah, I got it," I said, examining the pile of stuff. 'Let's see…' "The ground is cobblestone stuff here, so either we go somewhere soft and make the circle in the ground, or I try to mark it out in string? The yarn is pure wool or cotton, not a mixed thing, right?"

"Right. There are a couple approaches and modifications, but this version is simple enough either way," Zee confirmed.

I spooled out the dye-free yarn in a big shape – it was really a dodecagon instead of a circle, held down against the wind with little dabs of sticky honey at twelve points – and then started marking down the runes/symbols/sigils/word art for the spell effect.

"We've got the little dishes of herbs and incense?" I asked, because I wasn't carrying them.

"Sage, juniper, and tobacco," Zee confirmed.

"Wait, what?!" 'Did she just-?'

"Relax, Bee, you're not smoking it or anything."

"So, uh, you carry tobacco?" I asked, eyeing the third, empty metal dish as Zee put a big pinch of sage and a big pinch of juniper in the first and second dishes. She produced-

"Dad smoked occasionally," Zee explained as I boggled at the pack of Silk Cut Cigarettes. She drew one out, pocketed the rest, and tore it open to dump the tobacco into the third metal dish. "They're additive free, so it's safe," she added. "You want to start drawing?"

"I… Right," I managed. First I wrote them with the colored chalk Zee gave me (she looked over my shoulder as I drew), and then I carved the same things onto the thick candle I'd be using with a sharp… thick… carving tool needle thing.

'Sorcery now, I'll think about the rest of it later,' I decided.

"The flame should stay orange-yellow when there isn't any magic around, except that you're a magical being so it'll always be red, right?" I checked. "Green means magical artifact, probably inert; blue means magic in the air, like a ward or an illusion; and probably means run because it's active casting?" She nodded shortly. "Great. Uh… How long should I keep chanting?" I asked.

The last step of the ritual was to kneel in the circle, pinch the candlewick with my fingers, and chant an appropriate incantation repeatedly, as fervently as I could, until I either gave up or it caught fire (and yes, it might scorch my fingers a little).

"Until it works, or you give up," Zee repeated, taking a seat on a stone to watch me. "It's… remember the Emotional Light Spectrum things? You're still building up a usable 'reservoir' of magical energy, and you've only been at it for a few months; you should focus on your feelings about getting this done, and on reaching out, and on the natural energy flowing through the world as you do, until it's enough."

"Right," I sighed. "You'll tell me if I'm not doing something right, won't you? Don't just leave me chanting like a fool."

"Oh, I'm loving the opportunity to stick around on this comfortable couch and laugh at you," she deadpanned back at me.

I chuckled guiltily. 'Serves me right. Okay, time to flex some mystic muscles.' "Backwards chanting?" I wondered nervously.

"If you want, but it's my family's specialty; you need something to denote the chant as special, and other than words you normally speak to communicate. Backwards, deliberate rhyming, foreign languages… Is there something wrong with the chant you showed me?"

"No, I just… I'm doing this," I decided with a deep breath. "Kaen niji iro no majutsu. Kaen niji iro no majutsu. Kaen niji iro no majutsu…."

__________________________________________________________________________________________________​

* Thanagar Trip, day 7 [Renka PoV]

Whatever his history may have involved, Mr. Eblis O'Shaunessey had provided a wealth of information on both the Endless, and the other Material/Elemental Planes he had traveled through. The detection and significance of soft places in space-time, the echoes caused by weighted events and actions, the circles hidden in the mist and the far side of the sky… I had expected to learn about Nth metal, but this….

He had declined an invitation to Earth, nor would he discuss (if he even knew) to where he would be traveling from here, but he had taken my card for contact information, and he had promised to drop by for a drop of wine if he was ever in Earth's area.

Moreover, he had agreed to stick around with us, and to observe some of the meetings we were having with schools of Thanagar's old monastic traditions as a guest. We had not discussed much more lore, but I felt no particular need to, given what I had gotten already.

Our first meeting had been with Thalandar's Bright Blade practitioners, made with Mel Samoth's introduction.

They had not been particularly traditional, with an operational base that took up a five-floor pyramid construct in central Thalandar (which we had walked or flown past on several occasions,) and very technologically advanced training systems.

I supposed it shouldn't have been surprising in particular, as they often worked with Thanagar's military for obvious reasons.

Our tour was brief, but polite; I answered a few questions about Earth to the best of my ability, and I applauded at the displays.

The second tour was more colorful, if not more interesting.

The Pabtizt school (it was the word of a process or part of the body that did not translate well) was located in a place very reminiscent of the 'traditional dojos' on Earth, laid out in the suburban equivalent of the outskirts of Thalandar.

I immediately perceived that this school was heavily ground-bound, as its buildings covered a wide area but only one floor high.

There were old-fashioned (though not made of old materials or methods) walls and a high gate around the perimeter, despite flight being everywhere on Thanagar, and for a few moments I even wondered if someone were 'gas-lighting' me by building in Earth's old styles.

The answer, however, was no. I caught sight of dirt and sand patches, and many wrestling matches (a majority of students were Łî-sahr-kanzz), but we touched down outside the main gate rather than land inside, and we found a large man with wings waiting for us.

He looked… stereotypical, I had to admit, even if I had absorbed only bits of Earth's culture.

He was male. His large wings were light gray. His skull was bald, or shaved. He was almost a head taller than me, and far broader at the shoulders, being heavily muscled; his torso resembled an inverted triangle, save for the thick strength of his hips and waist, and his biceps seemed to be the size of my head.

He did not, interestingly, have a six-pack; both species of Thanagarians' muscles are arranged differently, and his gave the slight impression of a coiled wire (like a 'slinky') wrapped around his waist under the skin.

What most caught my attention were the three metal nubs, shaped like pyramids, I saw protruding from his skull when he bowed (or something similar practiced by this school) to me. Looking at the top of his skull from above, the three triangular pyramids were placed base-to-his-skin at three points of a triangle around his head: one where the spine would meet the skull on a human, and one at each temple.

I bowed back in greeting, Steward-style, and Jimmy bowed similarly.

"I am Bark Trobek," he greeted, and I recognized that he was the Professor Szarack's friend.

"I am Katar Hol," the Hawkman answered, and we each repeated likewise.

"I am Renka Tindwysra."

"I am James Olsen."

"I am Eblis O'Shaunessey."

"I am Kess," hissed our government-assigned guide, swishing her tail as she bowed to him.

"I am Lack G'thet," intoned our additional security guard. "I will not be entering."

"Very well. All who wish to enter, please touch your foreheads to the gate bar," Bark declared, not gesturing or needing to.

'This is one of the few wooden things I have seen since coming to Thanagar,' I realized as I pressed my head to the wide wooden beam across the doors. It's bottom lay below the height of my collarbone, its top came to a few inches above my head, it was three times longer than I was tall, and it was about half as wide as it was thick. 'If Thanagar's plant and animal life have trace amounts of Nth metal fused through them, it must be strong. …I would say that this resembles Earth, except that the bar is on the outside. Then again, if they can fly, why bar a gate?'

"Uh, hey," Jimmy said, hesitating before he bowed. "Is this another DNA scanner thing? I'm just curious."

"No, we have ranged scanners built into the gates and walls," Bark rumbled, arms crossed. "It is a traditional demonstration."

Jimmy nodded and touched his forehead to the wooden beam, while I tried to process what 'demonstration' could mean.

Intellectually, I knew about breaking boulders, boards, and beams as shows of strength.

Intellectually, I would not have been surprised if the Superman could do it, though I would not have been certain of him, either.

Emotionally, what happened next still astonished me.

Once Jimmy had stepped away, Bark Trobek stepped up, leaned his upper body back, and then snapped it forward again.

*CRUNCH!!*

His head butt smashed the beam barring the way, showering us with splinters and blasting the gates open inward, to the polite tongue-clicks of several students watching. My jaw dropped, and I was speechless.

"Rust and Ruin," I finally breathed, aware of sawdust in my hair and mouth as our host gestured us inside.

Jimmy, who had been video-recording the whole thing, broke out in chuckles at my face.

 

[Krazyfan1]

Great as always!
Renka seemed impressed near the end...
Wonder if she'll learn to do that?

 

[Darth Locutus]

No motherbox introducing herself at the gates to the monestary?

 

[Obloquy]

Life Ore Death​

* Thanagar Trip, day 7 [Document Draft]

After a full week in Thanagar, I want to both go home and to stay longer. Yeah, it's a little disconcerting seeing those faces of mug shots and sentenced criminals, or knowing that people could be watching you all the time, but I honestly got used to it faster than I was expecting.

There are so many cool things here, and even with the criminal thing that was targeting us (we think) it's still very safe. I miss home, but as long as I know I can go home, I'd be willing to stay here a little longer than three days. Sadly it's not in the cards, but maybe I can come back some day. If not, anyone from Earth, take some super-duper sweet photos for me if you visit!

Of course, I might be getting ahead of myself; we're not leaving until Day 10, when Hawkwoman's recovery will be for-sure done with.

Even so, the end is near: tomorrow we're doing some more touristy things until the late afternoon, when Renka has more meetings and I'm mostly free; the day after that will be finalizing government agreement things and whatever; the next day we'll be packing up and leaving.

Today was pretty cool, though. Thanagarian medicine being more advanced, along with some other things, means they've built a bunch of sci-fi physical enhancement things into actual fighting styles like judo. Martial arts with six limbs in midair are really different from Kung Fu fighting, and some of the most dangerous styles prefer grappling instead of striking techniques.

Not that there's no striking, but when the only thing to brace yourself against for leverage in midair is the enemy, and you both might fall a few hundred feet if gravity goes wrong on you, getting a good hold on someone becomes a big thing.

Of course, most Thanagarian fighting styles use modern armor and weaponry, but even old styles aren't afraid to incorporate new things. We both agreed that our favorite tour/display was the Pabtizt school visit, (it means something like a skull plate or the word 'bronzing' if you try to translate it,) which focused mostly on head-butting an enemy.

Given all the concussion studies in boxers and football players, you'd think that this wouldn't be useful, but it makes more sense when you think about using it even before you consider the enhancements thing:

Crash into a midair enemy, tangle up their arms with yours so they can't use any weaponry, and if you two are face-to-face you're in the perfect position for a head-butt. It only makes sense to practice so you can do it safely, and not hurt yourself more than them.

That's before we take the enhancements into account, though.

Pabtizt students of both species (it works better for Lizarkons but it's one of the only styles that can be taught to both species, which is super-awesome,) practice head-butting to build up callouses and learn safety, etc., but they also start taking certain (JK if they're drugs, herbal medicines, diet supplements, or what) things in their food to toughen up their skins and bones (JK why everyone doesn't just take them, like if there are nasty side-effects) and doing other things that weren't described really well because of trade secrecy, etc.

Masters of the style have little metal things surgically implanted in their heads, and I'm not sure if they're machines or personal force field generators or whatever, but I've got photos and footage showing how strong and durable it makes them.

Seriously, I bet Superman could break that beam, but I'm not sure he could do it with a head butt. Check out the video when I post it.

The effect makes them tough enough to repel laser fire—they demonstrated it—and strong enough to split logs with their heads. Most students can't smash the gates open like Bark Trobek did, but you know how people can split logs by hitting a wedge with a hammer? They do that, and they do it with big logs, like two-foot long adult tree trunks.

Of course, they showed off a little too much; I'm not sure if they offer everyone this test, but Bark said that he'd give JK (exactly what he offered? The pyramid numbs in his head? Secret knowledge? Something else?) a prize to any contender who could wound his forehead enough to bleed. Hawkman did the demonstration by flying up, swooping down, and slamming his Nth metal mace full force into Bark's skull. There was a sound like a gong, and it rebounded so hard Hawkman said his hands were numb for a minute. Bark wasn't scratched.

My girlfriend, however, is awesome. The Box-Cutter knives she brought that were the reason we got invited are insanely sharp, so on top of cutting through Nth metal they can also cut through things enhanced by Nth metal.

Amendment: Alter this bit to obscure how she cut his forehead or I can just edit it out completely, because she wants the Box-Cutters to stay on the down-low, so I should probably just not mention it.

I've started yawning so I won't go into the other two schools of combat we visited yet (though they were mostly different from the combative fighting and weapon training taught to Thanagar's soldiers), but I will mention the other main thing that happened: kids.

We met a bunch of Thangarians teenagers (or so I gathered from their looks, etc.) who were all fans of Hawkman, Hawkwoman, the Green Lanterns, and just generally Earth things like the Justice League. We have interplanetary fans, it was super!

One of them showed up late (I'll get back to you on his name when I know I can print it, since he's a minor,) because he flew (I didn't hear if it was with his wings or on airplane equivalent transport) all the way from another city to meet the people from Earth.

It was a little sad. Renka put in the checks and processes to make sure he wasn't running from an abusive family, but no, he just really wanted to come visit Earth. She had to turn him down, but she got his contact information and she signed some Earth things for him. I'm not sure if most Thanagarians like (or would like) any particular music, but apparently our little gadgeteer's interest got started when some stuff….

Actually, I have no clue how he got an old vinyl record of Jazz music—I think it was Charlie Parker's Ornithology release, but don't anyone make Cipitrina birds' wings jokes at the kid—but he did, and he reverse engineered an actual record player to play it out of old parts he made himself, because they're too low-tech for most of Thanagar to bother with. He was a cute kid.

Of course, I got to deal with him on his best behavior; he threw some sort of fit at Renka later, (JK tantrum, or maybe he broke down crying or something) if I overheard later discussions right, but there was no big violence or anything to deal with. Amendment: Renka mentioned it was closer to crying because of dashed hopes than him acting like a brat, and the fighting was him trying to prove "useful" enough to be worth it. Of course, she might be being nice about it because she did that Speak Carefully thing where she's not quite lying, but hey, he was a kid.

She did a couple of exhibition matches – mostly using loaned weapons since she hadn't brought hers and she wasn't a hand-to-hand specialist – and she lost most of them, but everyone had fun, and she traded teeth with Isamot Kol after they'd both had them knocked out.

I got the idea that it was something important, like maybe a Terris gesture of respect, but she just smirked and winked at me.

Alright, that's all I've got in me for tonight.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

* June 28 [Wu Mei-Xing PoV]

"Mothers of Champions, I would speak to you for a minute," Xu Tao said from the doorway to my office.

'By his standards, that was quite polite. Although, he's never been too rude to me,' I reflected. "Come in, Celestial Archer," I invited.

"Yes." He closed the door behind him and hesitated.

"Has your arm healed properly?" I asked politely, as he'd been shot in the line of duty not long ago.

"Yes, perfectly," he said, shifting uncomfortably. I waited him out. "I have not seen you dressed that way before."

'He's delaying. I wonder why he's nervous.' "I usually don traditional formalwear, as it carries the appropriate message and—as I rarely take the battlefield in person—is unlikely to be damaged. Recently, I have spent more time in laboratory environments, and dress accordingly." 'I don't know his age beyond "teenager," or what he did before joining; I suppose he hasn't had any more access to my file, either.'

I waited politely, trying not to shift visibly in my old lab coat.

"How have you found your work with the Justice League?" he inquired.

"They are professional without being formal, and very capable for the areas they cover. How did you find your work with Red Arrow?"

"He was competent, and I found some of his advice helpful, though most of it was unnecessary."

"Of course," I said. I waited. 'Are you here of your own accord, or on orders from someone, Xu Tao?'

"There has been discussion of expanding the Great Ten. What do you… think will occur?" he asked.

'I see.' "It will depend on who promotes what possibilities, Celestial Archer." 'Is he afraid of being replaced?' "Are you hoping to be freed from your responsibilities here, to better pursue your divine mission?" I asked leadingly.

"That is not it," he said stiffly. I debated whether to return to my paperwork as a prompt. "…Supposedly, the Justice League allows for their 'sidekicks' to access certain facilities and resources, despite lacking membership."

'Ahhh…' "They prefer the term 'apprentices,'" I corrected idly, to see if he would react. "Are you here to discuss my taking an apprentice from the list of candidates for our potential expansion, Celestial Archer? Or do you wish me to take you on as my 'sidekick'?"

I had concealed the cohesive nature of the Team from my superiors, as well as the covert nature of their occasional mission, but it was not a stretch to think that someone had put together the sightings of Team members together unaccompanied and drawn a conclusion.

"I… do not know," Xu Tao admitted slowly. "Is the latter a possibility?"

"It is unlikely to be approved," I said, omitting that said disapproval would in no way prohibit me from granting him access through at least a temporary override under my own authority. "Bearing in mind her truth-detection abilities, are you willing to look Wonder Woman in the eye and affirm that you are using the facilities with no subversive intent, and that you will maintain the confidentiality of any Justice League member's personal information, if you acquire any?" 'I doubt that he came on orders, but this may have been firmly "suggested" to him.'

"Ah," Xu Tao sighed, which was its own answer. "Do you anticipate ever taking on an… apprentice, in such a fashion?"

"Indeterminate," I said neutrally. "My powers are not the type to need teaching, nor is anyone likely to share them." 'I hope.' "If you are personally interested in accessing the Justice League facilities, I can put in a request with the Chair; even if Wonder Woman declines it," which I doubted would happen unless I asked her to, "her term ends in August, and Hawkwoman may be a more amenable Chairperson."

"I see."

'Do you?' "As I recall, Beijing is paying Ferris 12,000 yuan per lecture for her series on basic sorcery principles. If you have specific questions or requests, she should be easily accessible, and she has proven willing to personally commit time and resources to causes that the Justice League would not professionally support." 'Given the notes in her file regarding Highfather and Orion of New Genesis…' "If you found some benefit to your mortal archery skills from Red Arrow, then there may be similar benefit applying to your divine empowerment from working with her, as she is… similar in her nature. Or she might speak to Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel, who could help you."

"Would I be able to attend?" he asked uncertainly.

"Our superiors nominate chosen agents, yes, but in theory any government agent who puts in an application could be welcomed. You are a government agent, so need only request an application form," I spelled out to him.

"I see. Thank you," he said abruptly, and departed.

I watched him disappear through the door, which he left open.

'I suspect at least one of my superiors is impatient with the information I have not disclosed,' I judged, mulling over exactly what may have brought Xu Tao to me for this. 'Celestial Archer… he would not be my last choice to join the League or the Team, but I suspect it would need to wait until we have added a few more members from other countries. Which… may be something to investigate. I'll make a note of it.'

'Pity. I expect I should remain more in our borders – barring emergencies – for the next month or two. I suspect someone thinks I am not "showing face" enough, or being lured away. Which… well, if nothing else, I appreciate reliable lab access and having a larger office.'

I suppressed a laugh, because I still suspected someone would be reviewing the security cameras that watched me, and returned to work.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

* Thanagar Trip, day 8 [Meeting Overview]

Despite the activities of the day, after the coming of night they all gathered together in a large underground room.

Some of the nine witnesses – that was the required minimum number for this type of hearing, to ensure that many views were heard, while hearing from many more would usually be extended into a second meeting – were intimidated to be seated before eighteen members of the Ruling Council (or their proxy holders in some cases) and some were not, but all present knew this was a serious thing.

Not all present knew the details, but that would be revealed to them in the meeting.

A dark orange figure, male and reptilian, stood from among the eighteen and stepped up to a podium. The screen before him lit.

"I am Tress Grommet," he hissed, voice rich with what his countrymen recognized as age. "I am an acting servant of Thanagar in the highest rank of the Ruling Council. I will be acting as the Speaker for the Ruling Council in this meeting, which I now call to order. I remind all present that a seal of Agora-class secrecy is to be held over the contents of this meeting: revelation of the proceeding deliberations to private parties without direct permissions from the Council is an act of Secondary Treason to Thanagar; the contents of these deliberations must either be revealed to the public body in protest, whereupon Thanagar shall judge us all, or held in continued secrecy unto annihilation.

"Deliberators, announce yourselves," the Speaker commanded.

Each of the other members of the eighteen stood and declared their names, both as introductions to the witnesses, and as a formality before the recording devices present, which had been activated before any of them had entered the room.

These introductions would be the only words any of the other seventeen spoke during the meeting, barring a Passionate Objection motion or something similar. All questions the seventeen had to ask would be submitted by text to the Speaker, who could not ask questions individually, but was only tasked with ordering and relaying the others' submitted questions to each witness.

Each of the seventeen could have one new question and one reply to a thread of questions in the queue, and could have those two at a time in line to be asked. Any questions that were not gotten to would be directed to the appropriate witness, to be addressed by text in a report while the other witnesses spoke in turn, but the witnesses could not be compelled to answer, and lack of answers were inadmissible.

"Witnesses, announce yourselves," Speaker Tress commanded when the Ruling Council members – some being old veterans who had known of these issues while they were developing, and some so newly elected they had quickly reread the rules of the meeting immediately beforehand, having not expected something this serious so early in their terms of office – had finished speaking.

The witnesses did not stand up, nor step up, nor in any way take center stage. Instead, the screens before each member of the Ruling Council, the screens before each of the witnesses save the one speaking, and the large central display screen shifted views to show the face of each witness who was speaking.

"I am Katar Hol," Katar began, followed by his parentage, his position and occupation, and other pertinent details.

"I am Shayera Thal," Shayera followed, offering her personal details, position, and reason for speaking here. So it went.

"I am Szarak. I am a recognized scholar specializing in Valorium alloy metallurgy…."

"I am Bark Trobek…."

"I am Lack G'thek," the Cipitrina began. He finished with, "I am here to speak about my experiences as a guard to the Guests."

"I am Laman Hraak. I am a Rank Three Scrivener…" He listed his many titles. "I oversaw both Guests' files and data tracking."

"I am Nudra Lan," she declared, wings totally still as she listed her history. "I was the central speaker in an interview with Guest Renka."

"I- I am… I am Amass," stammered the green-scaled woman. "Pardon, this is my first time speaking… I…" She got through it in time.

"I am Kess," said the orange-scaled woman before listing her history. "…I served as an assigned Guide to our guests for two days."

"All present are recognized, acknowledged, and recorded," Speaker Tress declared. "We shall begin the deliberations. Professor Szarak, describe your understanding of the situation about which this meeting was called."

"Sss…" he hissed, thinking through his words carefully. "A report was brought to my department's attention about damage done to a proficient quality Nth metal weapon in combat. Upon expressing interest and willingness to investigate the cause and circumstances, I received more details of the unusual occurrence: malefactors originating from our principalities had staged a multi-part raid on a tentatively allied planet, ostensibly for resources. Earth is still developing interstellar capabilities, its government is partitioned nationally despite having a weakly unified organizational body, but its specialists exceed the abilities of the mode and median by far, due partly to immigration.

"Earth is home to a surviving Kryptonian, Kal-El, and in his possession are scientific artifacts and remnants of great capability. Fortunately, he is 'friendly' and benign, preferring to protect and nurture his adoptive home over conquest. According to the report by Shayera Thal, one prong of the raids targeted Kal-El's home after the other attacks had drawn him out, and it was here the event occurred.

"Had the damage been done by Kryptonian defense systems, it would have been surprising, but not unheard of. The reports from Katar Hol and Shayera Thal both insisted, however, that the damage had been done at the hands of a human protégé of Kal-El's who was then in residence, using a weapon constructed without Kryptonian resources. It is not unheard of for other species to damage Nth Metal weapons in combat, but the description did not match any records of similar events. I forwarded the report with my assessment to the Ruling Council; after a political discussion I was not involved in, the Council invited her and a guest to come personally discuss the matter."

"What… is your assessment of the weapons in question, both the Valorium weapon and the foreign device?" Tress chose to ask.

"The damaged weapon belonging to the miscreant raider was well-cared for. Despite being of proficient quality instead of solider quality or specialist quality, it was still a proficient-quality mace," Szarak emphasized, "forged with quality alloys properly braided and arranged within the stem and head." As he spoke, liquid metal rippled out across his skin from under his scales, coalescing around his clawed hands in demonstration. "If I used pure and bonded Nth metal, I might have managed a clean severing of the stem with a single stroke in combat—which is what happened, both according to her testimony and recordings she provided of the scene—but it would have taken effort enough to exhaust me, and I would not have tried it even in my youth.

"Guest Renka Tindwysra's box-cutter weapon is a knife designed for melee combat, but while there was backlash in response, it cut through the stem with little more effort than was needed to swing the knife. It was crafted from a metal that we have only sparse records of, mostly relating to Apokolips and New Genesis according to what I could access, and it was treated in a manner unknown to me.

"There was, as I said, backlash: several inches of the box-cutter's blade were liquefied irreparably when she made the cut, but she still cut through the stem successfully and was able to recover quickly and rejoin the fight against the malefactors."

… … …

"-and it was able to pierce the skin of Kal-El when he tested it, along with similarly resilient individuals," Shayera answered.

"Do you believe this weapon could pose a threat to Thanagar, such as through military ability?" Speaker Tress inquired.

"I do not. The weapon could be used to make an individual soldier of the enemy more dangerous to an individual solider of Thanagar, but the backlash demonstrated when it is used to cut Nth metal alloys in combat minimalizes that utility."

"Do you believe that Renka Tindwysra could some day pose a threat to Thanagar?" Tress asked next.

"Neither personally nor individually, and the situations required to turn her against Thanagar deliberately would require either repeated provocation from Thanagar or mental domination to the point that she would not be responsible for what occurred. It is possible that processes she discovers may potentially threaten Thanagar's sovereignty, but reports of her behavior toward us since the incident reinforce my expectation that she would take steps to maintain Thanagar's safety if she became aware of such a situation."

"Do you believe that Earth could one day pose a threat to Thanagar's sovereignty?" Tress asked her.

"Their odds of eventually turning on us are no different from any other ally, I believe," she stated. "At present, the odds of success if this occurs are negligible, even if Thanagar's enemies include the Justice League; this negligibility includes the assumption that Katar and I would be compromised and give aid to the enemy. Politically, Earth's current leaders want peace and trade because they profit from it.

"However, there remain forces from Earth, forces on Earth, and forces interested in Earth who would turn them against us eventually if they came to power. My prior reports regarding a consortium of power-seekers on Earth known as 'the Light' included mention that Katar and I were mentally dominated despite our safeguards against it, and that we were both compelled to answer questions about sensitive information while under that influence, as well as my lack of memory of a large part of that period's activities.

"I cannot judge whether they are more wise or power hungry, but the Light appears allied with Apokolips, and if they came to power they would turn Earth to the side of Apokolips and against us. It is only a matter of immediately or eventually, should they succeed.

… … …

"The knife she used proved able to pierce your skin, despite your enhancements?" Tress double-checked.

"It did," Bark confirmed again.

"Since you attained the current pinnacle of your abilities, has any other force proven able to do that?"

"Not so exactly."

"…Would you please specify more exactly what forces have failed to wound you?" Tress requested.

"The flesh of my head has proven able to repeatedly deter energy weapons of all kinds, provided they lacked sufficient power to also damage the unenhanced portions of my body through heat bleed," Bark reported, "and I have been repeatedly unwounded by the impact of multiple projectiles massing up to 3 kleet and moving slightly above sonic speed. A punch from Kal-El the Kryptonian bruised me and did extraneous damage to my extremities when I was thrown through multiple buildings, but it did not draw blood. The blunt impact of a 'boxing glove' construct formed by Green Lantern Hal Jordan also concussed me and rendered me insensate, but I did not bleed. Pure Nth metal weaponry bonded to Professor Szarak made me bleed after great effort on his part and several attempts, but it was an imprecise wounding."

"Do you believe this knife and models of similar makes could pose a threat to Thanagar's sovereignty if turned against us?"

"I do not. The knife still relies on the hand that wields it: an untrained civilian holding a specialist-quality Nth metal mace is still overwhelmingly likely to be defeated by a trained soldier with inferior equipment. After that defeat, the trained soldier may then claim and use the superior equipment of his opponent, and become more dangerous for it."

"If such a weapon were mass-produced and turned against Thanagar, you believe we would not be damaged by it?" Tress asked.

"In the initial engagements we would suffer some losses, but after our tactics acclimated our losses would steadily decrease. An enemy with the knife will not beat Thanagar unless they are capable of beating Thanagar without it; the knife will make it easier, not easy."

"Are you basing this belief on the knife as a melee weapon? If this cutting ability could be applied at range-,"

"I discussed that with Renka Tindwysra after she wounded me," Bark announced. "She was direct in stating that the offensive abilities of the box-cutter currently applied only to lines of cutting, such as with edged weapons. While Earth has ranged edged weapons—batarangs, bladed darts, arrows, and edged throwing rings—these all take skill to wield and have flaws in combat.

"The cutting ability relies on the presence of tightly aligned solid molecules to form the edge of the physical blade," he continued, "so she believes its use as a laser weapon is infeasible. Moreover, the metal in the box-cutter knives must be very specific, she claimed, and thus all we would need to do is analyze it to find sonic frequencies of magnetic field generators that could disrupt it.

"Those were her suggestions in the conversation, not mine," he finished flatly. "She made a point that we would only need to scan and run tests on samples of the materials and the knives to find counter-tactics; they are tools for specialists, not mass production weapons."

 

[Krazyfan1]

Brilliant as always!
that liquid metal bit Szarak had sounds useful...
Not only in combat, but mundane utility...

 

[infinityDivided]

Some of the Ruling Council were

Click to shrink...

Cut off here.

 

[Dark as Silver]

Given all the concussion studies in boxers and football players, you'd think that this wouldn't be useful, but it makes more sense when you think about using it even before you consider the enhancements thing:

Click to shrink...

 

[Obloquy]

Even if they're all baseline humans, Robin's entry is hilariously short. Look at you Bats, getting all sentimental. 😆

Click to shrink...

Yup. For all his ruthlessness, Batman doesn't want to think about other people taking out his pseudo-son.

She also wields a power that's destructive to everything, including her. I be you you could set off a bad reaction with any number of artifacts, make her nature as a shard of entropy turn on her. Honestly, for all that it gives her some mystical significance, it's as much a condition or affliction, as a power.

Click to shrink...

Valid. Easiest way to make it happen is to have a telepath mind-blast her, as she'll start inadvertently tearing at her psyche to try & fight free. Even without the atium spike earring, telepathy will still be a big vulnerability for her.

I kinda like the idea of her and MotherBox using Boom Tubes more often...
redirecting attacks and enemies....e.t.c

Click to shrink...

I'm not sure if I have or haven't mentioned it in-universe, but here's the reason that won't be happening.

Motherbox has the 24/7 Number One Priority of being ready to emergency evacuate Renka in case of an Apokolips abduction attempt; Motherbox will never go beyond range of being able to affect Renka easily, and is constantly maintaining a Boom Tube program one step short of running, to immediately get to New Genesis and/or get help.

As a result, that continuously eats up a lot of processing power, which is why Motherbox has been Nerfed in-universe compared to what you would expect from a New God reality warping supercomputer.

So literally everything else that isn't the evac-program is considered multi-tasking of secondary or tertiary importance.

No motherbox introducing herself at the gates to the monestary?

Click to shrink...

Ferris is the only person present who would've understood the beeping, and Motherbox doesn't have a head to touch to the beam, so Motherbox decided to sit it out quietly.

Brilliant as always!
that liquid metal bit Szarak had sounds useful...
Not only in combat, but mundane utility...

Click to shrink...

That liquid metal is pure Nth metal, which is psychoreactive and can shape morph, rather than the Nth metal alloys (often simplified to "Valorium") used in most technology, weaponry, etc.

Cut off here.

Click to shrink...

Fixed! Thank you.

 

[Warclam]

It's an interesting point about about arrows being ranged edged weapons. The (Doylist) reason for various characters using arrows is largely because of style rather than practicality. Since guns took over as the high rate-of-fire weapon, there aren't a lot of specialties left for bows.

But, one of the few remaining advantages to bows over modern firearms is the greater ease of employing specialized ammunition. This is hard to accomplish in a firearm, since bows manage it by virtue of the choosing your arrow, and shooting it, being essentially one continuous action. Green Arrow is pretty much built on this concept.

X-ionized arrows add a whole other serious advantage. If a military needed those properties for whatever reason, you could reasonably see a resurgence of bows as military hardware.

 

[Obloquy]

Life Ore Death​

* Thanagar Trip, day 8-9 [Meeting Overview]

"Do you believe continued interactions with Renka Tindwysra would be beneficial to Thanagar?" Speaker Tress inquired.

Amass suppressed the urge to fidget nervously, but she fervently wished she had removed the paint from her body.

"I… suppose so, Councilmember," she murmured. "I met her only briefly, but she seemed pleasant, engaging, interested positively in Thanagar's culture, and reasonable."

"Did she behave in anyway that inspired suspicion?" Tress asked next.

"…Not beyond what was explicable for a foreigner, an invited visitor to Thanagar," Amass asserted. When Tess did not speak again, she took it as a nudge to elaborate. "What publically available information on Earth I consumed in preparation for her speaking engagement made clear that they remain unofficially 'patriarchal' despite laws developing that promote equality along their binary gender divisions, and there were notes of recent and not wholly undone oppression of the heavily-pigmented humans by the less-pigmented.

"I expected mixed signals from our visitors, and I received them: she was dark and he was pale; she seemed trained in combat while he appeared to be a civilian; she had donned a mask while he went bare; and despite this they interacted as equals. The confirmation that they were in a relationship explained much of it, and her status as a recherché technique user was sufficient to wave away the rest."

"Prior to this meeting, how would you have identified each of their occupations and interests in Thanagar?"

"Prior…? She was a co-worker or associate of Shayera Thal and Katar Hol in Earth's Justice League, and she presumably was invited as either a diplomatic favor, or in her capacity as a recherché researcher. In… If this is not too far out of line, now that I have heard of the mind-control technology formed from an amalgamation of biotechnology, nanorobotics, and recherché energies, I have been assuming that she was consulted at some point as to its capabilities and how we may counter it; I would be shocked to learn we have not asked her of it."

"Prior to this meeting, how would you have identified each of their occupations and interests in Thanagar?" Tress repeated slowly.

"Sssorry, Speaker. She struck me as the recherché specialist on loan from an ally for whatever reason, if she were not simply vacationing through the advantages of being allied with us, and her interests seemed historic and academic. He—Visitor Jimmy Olsen—struck me as less skilled and professional, but of more educated and of varied interests. I would have assumed he was an intern or assistant to her once I learned he was not a visiting 'diplomat brat' under guard by her. He was polite if emotional, and he mostly focused on silly or unimportant things to question us on, nor did he always realize how disturbing we found some of his explanations. He answered our questions without guile… After I learned that they both associated with Superman, and he explained to me his desire to make the public data entries for Thanagar so that Earthlings could access them to learn about us, I appreciated his initiative and mildly respected him."

"They did not ask about sensitive information?"

"Only two of the questions that they asked me, or that I overheard were sensitive. Visitor Renka asked that we not lie to her, and she accepted it calmly when we declined to address a question of hers. Visitor Jimmy did also, barring one reminder from her. …I believe they gave information more freely, in hindsight, than they received; we would not have answered some of the questions we asked of them."

… … …​

"-and despite the mishandling of the incident, the murder of Nala Mahan, and the theft of their genetic schema, they showed no open hostility to me, nor to Thanagar generally," Kess assured the Ruling Council.

"Would you attribute this more to ignorance of the severity of these events, forgiveness, or another cause?" Tress inquired.

"Sssome ignorance is most likely the answer for Visitor Jimmy," Kess decided contemplatively. "Visitor Renka seemed more astute about these things, but although she exhibited some mild distaste at the subject matter, I read her as more exhausted than anything. This is my conclusion from a combination of body language, verbal speaking, and scans of her body rhythms. She commented something like, 'this is a small thing that can wait until after my greater troubles,' I believe. Not forgiveness precisely… She did not blame Thanagar unduly for the failings that saw her bodily scans violated, or she did not see it – despite her requirements in the visa contract agreement – as an offense."

… … …​

"-more thorough in her responses and data filing than the vast majority of Thanagarians – above seventy percent at least," declared Scrivener Laman Hraak. "She has been wearing multiple personal data-trackers since her second day here, and she immediately turned over her personal information without any suggestion or prompting when the severity of the situation became clear."

"Her personal data alone? Her partners' personal data?" Tress pressed vaguely, shooting a quick glare at the question's author.

"She requested the Motherbox in her company to turn over her personal devices' scans as well as Motherbox's own scans almost immediately. She did not request any of Visitor Jimmy Olsen's personal data, but we received some of it later. I should repeat that this was not under any prompting; I had asserted 'Thanagar will not mandate that Authorized Guests provide information,' when she interrupted me to freely offer it. She heard 'homicide charges,' I expect, and her Justice League responsibility compelled her."

"Has the information she has given regarding all matters been reliable across the conversation recordings you have accessed?"

"When the subjects she discusses are repeated, she has reiterated the same points with almost ninety percent accuracy. When questioned, she may provide information passed over previously, and she may change her phrasing or reconsider an issue in response to pressing, but she is at the high end of presuming honesty in her statements without having been drilled through answering practices."

"Have you noticed any discrepancies?" Speaker Tress inquired, intent on ending this round of questioning sooner than later.

"Slightly," the scrivener admitted, his wings rustling. "I did not understand much of the recherché practices she was discussing, and I could not access many records of those talks if they exist, but I noted a slight discrepancy in her discussion of her citizenship and history. She never referred to growing up on Earth specifically; the explanation that she emigrated from elsewhere is satisfactory in explaining it."

… … …​

"-and so I took the liberty of invoking my Distribution Authority rights for the next tests," Professor Szarak declared.

The shock that swept and rattled around the room was instantaneous.

Katar and Shayera leaned away from their screens and swiveled around to peer at Szarak directly. Lack G'thek, Nudra Lan, and Amass all yelped at various volumes and spasmed in their seats as wings attempted to open and tails attempted to thrash. Half the Ruling Council audibly gasped or murmured, and no less than three bolted upright to their feet; one of them actually shrieked a half-audible obscenity in disbelief. Speaker Tress remained almost silent, but he gaped, and he wheezed, and he needed a minute.

A dozen variants of the same 3-4 questions lit up the Speaker's screen in angry colors as the queue was rearranged quickly.

A single calm comment – a reminder to Tress and to the rest – was seized upon by the Speaker as an opportunity to say something.

"That… is certainly your right, as is applicable," he managed weakly. Tress took another breath and worked his tongue and jaw nervously before he calmed down. "Enough. It is your right, Professor Szarak, as unconventional as it… may… be?" Tress looked up from his screen sharply. "The Council believes you have made no filings that identify Guest Renka Tindwysra as binding with pure Nth metal. Why?"

"It was unnecessary, Speaker. There is no current binding I know of between any amount of pure Nth metal that I know of and her psyche, requiring no paperwork. There may be attunement between her person and certain tools, like a flight ring, but that is separate."

Half the room relaxed, but many of the others' nerves still jangled. Someone quickly submitted the question Tress wanted to see.

"Clarification: do you mean that she – Visitor Renka Tindwysra – was unable to bind with the pure Nth metal you provided?"

"If I may recount the series of events quickly? What occurred was as follows," Szarak replied. "First we performed a series of basic tests with Valorium varieties, including asking her to identify them or match samples without labels and guess their specialties; she proved more adept at the former than the latter, and she performed respectably on the droama standard assessment series.

"Following that, I deactivated the public recording devices at her request, and we discussed her powers specifically. I will reveal the contents of that discussion to the Ruling Council only if ordered directly, and I will require another order to forbid me from telling her I have violated the confidentiality she requested. I highly advise that the Council ask her directly if they must know the details.

"Afterward, I reactivated the public recording devices and ran her through a more complex set of slightly improvised tests with an array of Nth metal alloys and devices involving them. Most notably, she was quickly able to acquire use of the basic functions of a military-quality mace I provided her for the testing, despite beginning with no attunement to it. She also suffered several failed attempts that surprised me – again, that footage is available to the Ruling Council's free viewing – that inspired me to take more extreme steps.

"Being," Szarak continued easily as Nth metal swirled out and crept across his scales again, "under the limit for the amount of pure Nth metal I am empowered to requisition and dispense with privately for my studies, I signed for and signed out my remaining amount of pure Nth metal after ensuring it had no bindings and did not bind to me as protocols dictate.

"I then exposed it properly to Guest Renka Tindwysra and observed the happenings. It did bind to her, reacting to her presence quickly – well within the expected mean timespan for reacting to any foreign alien, and nearing the border of a Thanagarian's expected mean – and then fitting to and binding with her person psychoreactively at approximately one-third the speed we would expect of a Thanagarian.

"My next note was that it did not bond with her entirely," he continued as his Nth metal stretched and flexed organically, forming the beginnings of a silvery helmet shape on his head. "I would hesitate to state that there was some threshold as to how much she could bond with, but at the end of the binding process roughly forty-two percent of the metal dropped away and would not react to her. A threshold to the amount she could bind seems an appropriate preliminary hypothesis.

"Over the next five screeya, I ran her through seven levels of the Suroh Testing Sequences. She completed almost eighty percent of the tests successfully, and forty-eight percent of the tests saw her succeed on the first try, as the records will demonstrate to you. Moreover, while she was not able to label the exact numbers, she was able to notice an immediate change in complexity when I added a fourth-tier test to the middle of the second-tier sequence, when I added a fifth-tier test near the beginning of the fourth-tier sequence, and when I included a third-tier test I had skipped over in the middle of the sixth sequence.

"In the seventh sequence," Szarak continued, "she was immediately able to perceive that something would prevent her from attempting the exercises that – unbeknownst to her – could have initiated chronological warping, and within seconds of trying the seventh-tier exercises preliminary to portal generation she stopped to interrogate me about their safety. We potentially could have continued, but she backed down from several of the sixth-tier tests, refused to try half of the exercises of the seventh-tier series, and absolutely refused to do anything I described in the eighth-tier series; I felt it inappropriate to push her on the matter."

As everyone present tried to process that, several of those present wished dearly for some kind of drug or drink.

Speaker Tress finally forced his attention back to the matter at hand and asked the question most prominent on his list.

"Nothing in your testimony explains why Guest Renka Tindwysra now has an unregistered Nth metal binding, Professor Szarak."

The green-scaled scientist fiddled with his goggles as his bonded Nth metal spiked irritably at them.

"The last event of our test session, Ruling Council, was to test the cessation of her bindings. Guest Renka Tindwysra successfully severed, broke, or dismissed in some manner her binding to the Nth metal in symbiosis with her before the end of our test session. It took her approximately twenty demean to do so, utilizing only her own willpower and inherent abilities."

Speaker Tress didn't have to read his screen for his next question: "…Twenty demean?"

"I have the records if you disbelieve me," Szarak repeated.

"With no external assistance?" the Speaker repeated. It usually took two days, drugs, and/or some complex devices to break a bond.

"None but the abilities she described to me," he confirmed.

"…Isn't that supposed to be impossible?" Tress asked weakly.

"Yes, but it seems our knowledge was incomplete," Szarak responded. "As I said, my day has been quite awakening, Speaker Tress."

… … …​

"-as such, her loyalty is not to Earth primarily," Katar Hol finished, "but to the friends of hers who reside there, and the innocent people she values protecting. There is no reason why she would not go to reasonable lengths to aid Thanagar in defending our civilian population, were we in need of aid, unless she were forced to actively and deliberately choose between the planets in one of a very small number of possible ways. If Earth threatened Thanagar without exceptionally good reasons for it, she would side with Thanagar."

"Do you believe her siding with or against Thanagar would in any meaningful way impact such a conflict?" Tress inquired.

"Not on a strategic level, only in tactical engagements. She might turn the tide of a specific battle or remove from the field a specific threat, but I have observed her specialties as being in organization and precision. Superman and Captain Marvel are living heavy combat war machines with additional capabilities on the side; unlike such figures she is not capable of taking down multiple battleships, or even a single cruiser. …I must qualify this with an admission that I also would not have thought her able to meaningfully alter the flow of events during a planetary cataclysm, but she did so during the recherché-based Disappearance Disaster event Earth suffered not long ago."

"Ignoring the odds of success or failure, do you believe that assassinating Renka Tindwysra would or could be a beneficial choice?"

"Not without far more severe circumstances than have been raised here," Katar replied. "Failure or success, if discovered, would drive a potentially irreparable wedge between Earth and Thanagar; while she is the only confirmed agent on Earth to have any Nth metal counter-capabilities, the diversity and intensity of Earth's internal arms race leaves openings for more to arise, and while the Justice League's enemies already want to conquer us eventually, her death would mobilize the Justice League and Earth's other governments against the transgressors responsible. She designed the knives, for example, but other individuals were in charge of making them."

"If you received such an order, would you follow-through on it?" Tress asked.

"I would need to be ordered to do so in person by the Ruling Council, or else I would suspect that an enemy had infiltrated and was giving false orders to sow chaos," Katar answered. "Once that was established, I would require the Council to explain to my satisfaction why she particularly poses so much more of a threat than a benefit to Thanagar, and why I was asked to undertake such a task when my skills are not geared toward covert missions and my culpability would almost certainly be discovered, instead of sending a deniable agent.

"If those explanations were not to my satisfaction, I would release the contents of this deliberation to the public in protest and serve whatever sentence was duly assigned to me. If the explanations were sufficient, then I would carry out the orders given to me."

Speaker Tress bit back his respectfully impressed commentary, glanced to his screen, and asked an unusual question instead.

"Have you any commentary you wish to give to the Ruling Council?"

"…Renka Tindwysra has enjoyed Thanagar's culture, she is far more predisposed to be an ally than an enemy, and if elements of the Ruling Council remain deeply concerned, I advise they bring her these concerns in person, as she will likely offer an itemized list of approaches we could use to neutralize her if necessary; it would be in keeping with her past behavior," he noted drily.

"Do-!" Speaker Tress cut off his next question, blinking uncertainly at the screen. "One moment." He began typing furiously, and whispers rustled through the Ruling Council as they argued. Finally, each member's votes were tallied, and a conclusion was reached.

"Do you believe it would benefit Thanagar to let her observe and investigate the Claws of Heru, in light of her abilities?"

Several people suppressed reactions of confusion or uncertainty; an informed human might have understood the semi-ridiculous question as equivalent to asking whether a Thanagarian could learn anything from examining Excalibur.

Which, when one thinks about it, could be not a bad idea.

"I do not believe it could damage anything, or be to great detriment," Katar Hol said finally. "Not unless there are traps or workings to the Claws beyond my knowledge of them, and one is set to react if handled by a foreign alien instead of a Thanagarian, which she could not be held accountable for. On record, the claws have been inert and unresponsive for three darleem; she may discern something of use."

________________________________________________________________________________________________​

* June 29 [Lois Lane PoV]

As I hung from the ceiling beam of the warehouse and caught my breath for a moment, a voice sounded in my head.

[I really can help with that; it won't take a minute,] M'gann offered.

[I am,] I sent back, [resolutely determined that Clark will not succeed in sticking watchers on me for the rest of my life, thank you.] I flexed my arms, swung my leg up, and then I was perched at the edge of my chosen support beam, looking down on the dark warehouse. [If I was having any serious trouble, I'd ask,] I assured her, checking my pockets for my things.

[If you were having any serious trouble, you'd lose the extra weight before you ask us anything,] Conner deadpanned back.

[You're wearing weights too?] Joseph asked. [How much?]

I wasn't sure if it was him, or M'gann, or me, but I got the impression that he was wondering how well he stacked up in comparison.

'Well, I've got at least an hour with those three kids minding me before the rumored drug deal,' I figured. 'More fun than just waiting.'

[Ten pounds on each arm, both for conditioning and the extra oomph when I deck someone,] I listed. [Five pounds per leg, though that's not an everyday thing. You see this suit jacket I'm wearing?] I added, patting proudly at the thicker material, even if they… 'Actually, Conner & M'gann can probably see me just fine from wherever they're hiding,' I realized, scanning around. [Specially made with Wayne Tech materials to be bulletproof and breathable, even if it's damned heavy; call it a perk of once dating the big man himself.]

There was this quick mental static that I guessed was the equivalent of private whispering between them.

[…Conner and M'gann are debating whether to make a "sleeping your way to the top" joke,] Joey revealed shamelessly, [but they can't think of anything funny.]

[Conner says it's not supposed to be funny at all, and I don't want to insult you,] M'gann added piously. [Would it have?]

I laughed mentally and said, [From some dweeb off the street? I'd break his teeth. From you kids, I might joke back at you some is all.]

[That might be worse than breaking teeth,] Conner warned them, and I had to physically stifle my laugh.

[I miss Jimmy, and it sucks that Smallville is out of town, but damn if these kids aren't good company,] I thought to myself privately.

[…Thank you,] Joey said placidly, [and don't worry, I've broadcast things by accident a lot of times.]

[…Whoops,] I reflected. [Well, this gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "lacking a mental filter". What time is it?]

[21:16, EDT,] Conner informed me. [I don't hear anything except for some passers-by outside on the street.]

[Stop spoiling it with your super-hearing,] I scolded with amusement. [Clark has been doing that too, ever since he told me, and it's making my lip reading skills rusty. We're here for journalism… Still, the lack of a night watchman suggests someone's been bribed or is in on it.]

[…Did you just call Superman "Clark"?] Joey asked innocently, and I swear my heart jumped up my throat for a second.

[Shitshitshit, I can't believe I just-! …Wait, you already knew that, you damn kid,] I chided as it all came back to me.

[I don't put as much emphasis on the "military" part,] he sent, and I laughed out loud at my fellow 'military brat' kid.

[Good one, you got me for a second there. God,] I reflected, [if I'm still so gullible, it's no surprise I missed connecting Cornflake Kent with Superman for so many years.] I very carefully steered my mind away from the Batman/Bruce Wayne thing, especially since I'd found that out more because I met him early enough that he hadn't booby-trapped his suit or started wearing a domino under the cowl, rather than because of my own investigations. [I still feel stupid for missing that, sometimes; such a hotshot investigator, aren't I?]

[Didn't Ferris miss it too,] Joey allowed generously, [even though Batgirl's tests showed that she and M'gann literally have better facial recognition skills than the rest of the Team? I think I heard something about facial muscles, too…?]

[Pure Kryptonians have differently arranged facial muscles, on top of things like an 8-chambered heart and other weird organs,] Conner answered. [Also, Clark took an acting class in high school because his strength was too dangerous to play sports with.]

[I deal with professional actors and politicians all the damn time; I still should have noticed,] I thought bitterly. [Wait, I broadcast that, didn't I? Shit. Look, it's not a big thing, it just burns me a bit, especially because I suspected something was up with him a few times, and he fooled me when I looked into it. When we're at the Planet and I see how brilliant his act is, I feel a lot better knowing I was fooled by the best.]

There was another pause.

[Superman doesn't really act a lot around me, since we usually talk at Ma & Pa's place, or on League-Team things,] Conner reflected. [How much does he change?] Again, I wasn't sure if it was him or me, but I suddenly realized what a glorious blackmail opportunity this was.

[Speaking of, actually, I'm not sure I get why he went for "secret identity" without a mask or anything, or at all,] Joey admitted. [It's not like anyone would look at Superman and connect him to this random reporter at a newspaper.]

[Turn it around,] M'gann advised as I turned over all the stories I had about Smallville's antics. [I bet he was less worried about the Superman thing, and more worried about people who know Clark Kent—people like Lois, and Jimmy, or any corrupt politicians he exposes—seeing that Clark Kent looks a lot like Superman, disappears randomly-,]

[And has parents who can be vulnerable to his enemies,] I reminded them. [I talked with Clark about it, and he wasn't really thinking through everything; he just thought obscuring his identity was a good idea to start, and then he was committed and kept going, but way back when he didn't have the Justice League, or Zeta Tube transporters, or Krypto to stay with his family. So while Superman would be the visible icon of trustworthiness, Cornflake Kent started wearing suits a bit too big for him, big coke bottle glasses – until I got him things with better frames for his birthday and he was stuck wearing them – and he almost always wore a fedora because he thought it made him "look cool".]

[He spills something or knocks a cup over almost every other day, but almost no one notices that he only ever spills it on himself or his things, and never on someone else's desk or clothes or papers. He brought in a rolling office chair "from home, because it's more comfortable and I need better back support," – and don't even get me started on how he slouches – but he'll do something to the wheels or occasionally nudge it so that once or twice a month he goes to sit down and it's rolled away from him,] I continued. [Everyone loves him, because he brings in donuts or pies from home to share with everyone, but we also rib him about his walking disaster status.]

[Clark says he used to constantly wear his Superman outfit under his work suit, and to conceal this fact he'd carry a tote in with him so he had changes of clothes for if he spilled something, or in case he needed "to go undercover at a factory or a club some place". If he needed to run off to be Superman, he could head out somewhere, change, and leave the business suit in the tote so that anyone who found it would assume he had run off for a story and left the bag, instead of assuming Cornflake Kent was a secret nudist.]

Joey wondered, [Did he always wear his business suit, even in the summer? That must have been… did anyone joke about him being sweaty? Actually, does Superman sweat? I think Conner does, but that could be the human DNA, right?]

[I've... seen him cold sweat from Kryptonite exposure,] I reflected with a darker shiver, [but it takes a lot of heat or exertion for the regular kind. Clark used to just pretend that he was "totally immune to heat after lifting a dozen hay bales under the Kansas summer sun," and for the most part we believed him. I once asked him if that was it really, and he "confided" in me that he occasionally put some ice packs in his jacket's inside pockets, but I didn't believe it. Of course, that stopped being a thing after the Justice League got founded.]

[Flash taught him how to make a compressible suit,] Conner remembered. [I think he carries three, just in case: one tucked under the wristband of his watch, one like a thick gift card in his wallet, and one in the sole of his shoe. Someone's coming in.]

[Sounds right to me,] I reflected, getting my camera and tape recorder ready. [Now keep quiet and let's do this thing.]

 

[Stripes]

"Metal Mage" proves to be exceptionally good at handling magical metal. [sarcasm]Who could have thought?[/sarcasm]

 

[Dark as Silver]

she will likely offer an itemized list of approaches we could use to neutralize her if necessary; it would be in keeping with her past behavior,"

Click to shrink...

Renka loves lists.

 

[ccstat]

I got a bit lost in the technobabble about the various Nth metal tests in different tiers. My main takeaways were that Renka is instinctively skilled at using Nth metal in both its alloyed and pure forms, but that for reasons probably related to her mantle, she is unable to safely use some of its higher functions. Is there anything important that I missed it got wrong?

Also, is the twenty demean she spent severing her bond closer to minutes, seconds, or maybe even hours in human time keeping? Based on context and this fic's use of numerology, I'm inclined to guess that it translates to roughly 16 minutes, but I have no idea.

Lois hanging out with the kids was fun. Nice scene.

 

[shepsquared]

I'm still kinda in shock that the criminal/religious/whatever conspiracy on Thanagar has been cleanly handled by the proper authorities off screen and Renka didn't have to get into a fight.

 

[Warclam]

I'm still kinda in shock that the criminal/religious/whatever conspiracy on Thanagar has been cleanly handled by the proper authorities off screen and Renka didn't have to get into a fight.

Click to shrink...

It makes sense, if Thanagar is meant to be a surveillance state done right.

 

[Obloquy]

Life Ore Death​

* Thanagar Trip, day 9 [Shayera Thal PoV]


The NDAs and contract were signed, the deals were fluttered, and my shoulder felt normal again for the first time in too long.


Did I have doubts about showing Ferris the Claws of Heru? Sure. Were they large doubts?


Nope.


This little experiment didn't involve much in the way of locks or security codes; few people would know to steal the Claws, especially when no one had made them work meaningfully for over three darleem, so most of Thanagar wouldn't bother much with it.


We went to the main history museum of Thalanadar – back to it, since our guests had gone once already – and the director got the locked box out of some concealed storage area.


It was me, Ferris, Professor Szarak, and Councilmember Tress present when Director P'tha Merglin brought the box over.


Ferris started frowning immediately when the door opened and he entered, so I extended my wing around her and asked, "Feel it?"


"I do not detect anything identifiable," she demurred carefully. My helmet was hooked into the observational arrays, and the biorhythm sensors in the museum read her as not lying to the best of their knowledge, but I still paid attention when P'tha opened the case.


I didn't need the sensors to feel her react when she saw the Claws; my wing was close enough to feel the wash of heat when her body temperature shifted wildly, even if my Nth metal implants would keep direct flame from scorching me.


'For all that she says Feruchemy requires effort and concentration, I have to wonder how deliberate or incidental it is as a tell.'


"Sense anything?" I asked again. To my interest, Ferris took a large step backward and put up her hands.


"To quote Kid Flash: nope. Nope, nope, no, no no no and heck no," she asserted. "I am not touching that, please."


The four of us shared confused looks, and I had to subvocalize an affirmation that I did not know what was prompting this.


"Our experience is that the Claws are quite inert," Councilmember Tress stated, removing the Claws and inserting his left hand into the gauntlet. He twisted his wrist, wiggled his fingers, and tapped the metal of the Claws against the table to no effect.


"That is entirely possible, but I will not risk it until I speak with the Doctor Fate please, and do not bring it near me," Ferris emphasized.


I politely retracted my wing before it could brush her skin directly.


"Is there any reason you are being careful to such an extent?" Director P'tha inquired, adjusting her helmet awkwardly.


"I have seen them before, I think," Ferris hedged.


'I had not expected that.' "A physical copy, or in a book?" I asked, wondering how an artifact kept on Thanagar for the past-


"The right hand copy, I think. In the Tower of Fate," Ferris said, which made both more and less sense.


Councilmember Tress flexed his left hand again, and then removed the Claws. "You believe it is part of a set?"


"I do not know, I do not know, and I do not want to find out 'the hard way'. Please lock the Claws up now or I will leave, please."

… … …​

"They have the exchange ready," I informed Ferris when I received the message.


She stood up gracefully from her boyfriend's lap and came with me to verify and sign for them.


She brought a case of her own as well; I was not privy to the exact deal she had made, but it seemed a safe assumption the box-cutter knives she had brought were in there, and any other things she may have brought to barter with.


Personally, I respected the sensibility of her plan to sell them to Thanagar; it would make everyone safer in the long run.


I still wasn't always certain if it was a human thing to do—they seemed to vary greatly as to whether personal or societal gain was of a higher priority—but multiple humans had commented that Ferris was an unusual human.


'Who knows,' I reflected as we met the delegation, 'she may well come back here for longer a few years from now.'


"I have now begun recording the formal exchange confirmation process," Councilmember Tress announced. He passed Ferris a data screen with an itemized list, which I politely did not read. "Please confirm that these terms are what you agreed to."


"Motherbox, please double-check me on this?" Ferris requested. Motherbox beeped. "Thank you."


Despite Motherbox's presumably positive confirmation, she still took the time to read each line thoroughly and check it off.


It was a very sensible decision on her part, again; of course, Ferris was the woman who had willingly worn several personal trackers once she learned they existed and could purchase them, when Jordan, Superman, and Flash had shied away from them.


'She also made several good fashion choices,' I noted, admiring her mask again. I had always preferred helmets even when I was off-duty, but masks had become increasingly popular since Katar and I were married, and the glitter of the gold trim looked well on her. Her preferred trackers also tended to be green, such as the bracelet coiled around her left bicep and the slender peytral-style necklace she wore.


Given her tendency to redundancy, I would've bet money that she wore several smaller devices out of sight, but Katar had called it a sucker's bet, even when I offered to up the stakes.


"Everything on this list is as I remember," she finally confirmed. "I believe I have every physical item on the list for my half."


"As do we," Councilmember Tress said. "The confirmation?" They slid their cases to each other and signed with names and genes.


"Please inform me if you find anything missing," Ferris said, as checked what Thanagar was trading to her.


"We as well," Councilmember Tress agreed.


Ferris stepped aside as she began itemizing the objects in her case, and I took it as an invitation to look over her shoulder.


"Mostly scanners and sensors, but they released a few weapons." 'Nothing complicated, or terribly high quality, but all solid work.'


"Yes. Scanners, sensors, and data storage devices. However, they are devices that do not use Nth metal in their construction; I hope human scientists will be able to learn from the technology. This," she continued, lifting out a second internal case and opening it, "contains-,"


"Weapons," I finished, impressed. None of them were very large, and some were only partly made of Valorium, but it amounted to a good range of equipment. "You're planning to improve the Team's combat potential." 'The baton has less than half the mass of a beginner's Valorium gladius, and the rest are smaller… In hindsight, she may not have needed to bargain as much as I imagined to get this, but she still must have had very specific ideas and instructions for crafting them.' "Who will get each piece, or are they shared?"


Ferris smiled obligingly, hummed, and began naming the weapons as she removed them.


"These four," she began, "are two sets of removable caps for Robin's Escrima sticks. This Valorium 'knuckle-duster' is… This one is for Superboy, to withstand his strength, and this one is for Kid Flash, to be removed more quickly. The baton is for me."


"I see some circuitry, and a separating portion," I assessed. "You have a nasty trick for an enemy."


"I do," Ferris agreed placidly. She swung it a few times, casually and then forcefully, slipping into the Escrima style Robin had been teaching her. Then, at a neural command trigger as she swung more viciously, something swished through the air with a hiss.


"A whip," I realized as Ferris tested the flexibility of the sprayed cords, and then retracted them in again.


"Earth calls it, I think, a cat-of-nine-tails," she corrected. "Mm. Sixteen tails, in this case. Only the whip tips and the case are Valorium, thus it was cheaper than a solid baton. These," she continued, "are nine Valorium arrowheads for Artemis, as well as a locator to retrieve them. The three knives are to be shared by the Team, and this," Ferris finished proudly, "is a Valorium 'Swiss Army Knife' for Zatanna. The case is pure cobalt, thus it will not interfere with her magic unless she extends the attachments."


"What's the Earth phrase? 'You made out like a bandit,'" I congratulated.


"Mm. Four box-cutters, one damaged box-cutter, three beads of atium, two ingots of unworked mithril, two ingots of unworked adamantium, and assorted data files I will not discuss. It is, I think, a fair trade."

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

* June 29 [Batman PoV]


"I don't know all the details; that's what really worries me," Earl Percival of Wordenshire reiterated, which was enough for me to form a few hypotheses. I let him keep speaking. "Black had some sort of big blow-up at his superiors, stormed out, and has disappeared. No one died, but all information on the incident has been shut down completely, Batman. That is highly abnormal."


"I see," I said simply.


Alfred had not informed me of the details of his history with Earl Percival—I imagined he knew or had served beside someone in the man's family, if not the man himself—but my old friend had forwarded me information he received from a contact in his home country, and helped me find a secure avenue through which to contact the nobleman turned vigilante hero.


The news that one of MI5's top agents had potentially gone rogue, and that the man was a telekinetic telepath of tremendous ability, was gravely concerning on its own.


The news that such events were being hushed up by Sir Peter Marston was worse; it meant he was willing to run the risk of Manchester Black remaining unchecked and unwatched for the sake of preserving whatever secret had prompted the outburst, and it suggested that this was not an act staged for publicity to enable an infiltration of criminal forces, but a genuine departure.


"Do you?" Earl Percival challenged. He looked exhausted, his image on the Bat-cave's main monitor blinking too often for too long.


'It is five hours later in London, and he does tend to be more active during daylight hours than I am.' "I won't keep you much longer. Do you know the location and status of Agent David Hezlet?" I asked. I hated the dark and bloody side of governments' activities, and it was because of that fact that I had investigated as many major players as possible, in case I ever needed to act against them. Hezlet was Marston's preferred hatchet man for these things, and the most likely to be dispatched.


"Hezlet? I'm afraid I don't know the name," Earl Percival admitted.


'An unpleasant reminder that even people without powers tend to be less than ideally vigilant,' I reflected.


<Recognized-, > the Zeta Tube in the far corner of the Bat-cave chimed.


"Please contact me if any more alarming incidents occur," I said quickly. I ended the call and spun around.


<-Doctor Fate-, >


Fury seethed in me again, though I controlled it. I rose to my feet and stalked toward the Zeta Tube entry, reflecting that at least the Lord of Order wearing my old teacher's body had been polite enough not to teleport in directly.


'There's been no unusual news from Thanagar. Nothing sufficiently mystic to draw League attention is happening….'


"What do you need, Doctor Fate," I graveled. As long as I remained 'polite,' Nabu would be obliged to do the same, and while I loathed the means he used to remain active, there were few faults I could find in what he did with his activity.


"Fate is," Nabu began, and hesitated. I gave nothing away, but I sharpened more of my attention on him, looking for injuries or signs of contamination. "There is a situation. It seems to be non-violent, but Fate is… ill-suited to handling it, due to previous experiences."


'Something schema-breaking that he would normally ask Ferris to oversee, ' I assessed, 'but in her absence Giovanni would suggest me as the next best place to find assistance. What time is it…? Too close.' "Is it urgent?"


"Fate would prefer it be handled immediately. It… she… the being in question is waiting patiently, but Fate is ill-suited to confirming their status as an agent of the Russian government on short notice, and bilocation is an ability demonstrated previously."


'So "it" appears to be waiting patiently, but we not only risking antagonizing Russia if "it/she" is legitimate, we also face the possibility that "it/she" is doing something else through a second body elsewhere while waiting.' "Threat category?"


Fate gave a brief (and depressing) explanation, after which I grabbed the most appropriate equipment in stock for the journey.


I braced myself. 'Talia is going to all but kill me,' I anticipated. "You'll have to start dinner without me."


<You cannot be claiming that you have a mission. Neither signals nor alerts have sounded, > she rebuked sharply.


"I'm sorry," I apologized, because she deserved an apology for how often this happened, and I didn't truly believe that the situation was urgent enough to merit this, but I couldn't risk being wrong about it. "Dr. Fate needs me to interview a delicate subject in Irkutsk."


Talia inhaled ominously, and I hung up before she could set to shouting, mentally apologizing to Dick and Jason for leaving them to deal with her irritability.


Five minutes later, we stood outside the door to a ramshackle (and magically erected, I judged, as the materials and geometry should not have kept it erect,) hut at the edge of a bloodstained and ritually profaned clearing.


The three perpetrators of the ritual were shivering in their rope bindings by a tree; Nabu had already returned the would-be victims to local authorities, but was waiting until I could converse with their original captor before he did the same with them.


Nabu dispelled the golden ring that hung around the hut, and opened the door for me.


I stepped through, examining everything.


'No obvious traps or ambushes, so she's either genuine or she has subtlety.'


The individual I would be investigating sat on a stool by the cold fireplace, currently appearing in the same form she had favored when she attended the gratitude ceremony for Ferris last Thanksgiving: a grayish-purple skinned young woman with symmetrical features.


I decided not to comment on her maid outfit.


"Our apologies for the inconvenience, Agent Lovecraft," I began, because she had committed no crimes I had record of, and she was listed as a legitimate government employee, partway through a contractual service period that would end with her gaining citizenship.


"Don't worry about it," she dismissed cheerily with a wave of her hand. The eyes on her face had closed while speaking, much as many cartoon characters' did, but the other optical organs on her body all remained open. "So what are we doing here?"


"To review the situation," I said, keeping back enough to escape the range of my own acid bombs and incendiaries if I were forced to use them, "you were tracking a person or persons unknown who had been dabbling in arcane summoning rituals that caught your attention, located them as they were preparing to sacrifice the kidnapping victims, subdued them without invoking magical backlash, and provided first aid to the one victim who had suffered a severed trachea and jugular, leading to blood loss, but not brain death. Correct?"


"Mostly," she chirped, making no move to stand or approach me. "I did suffer some pretty serious backlash, but I heal quickly and I can take the suffering, you know?"


"I am familiar with such situations. You had divided into five smaller bodies to multitask when Dr. Fate arrived on the scene. Rather than escalate to violence-," Had I not been wearing the cowl, I would have smirked slightly. "-three of the pre-adolescent sized bodies produced a 'squee' sound to indicate emotionally positive excitement, dropped what they were doing, and approached quickly with requests for 'an autograph and a selfie,' is this correct?"


"Yuppers! Is he going to let me get that selfie before he leaves? I've waited really really patiently like he asked me to, and I'm cooperating," she asked with an exaggerated pout.


"I will ensure that he delivers the payment promised for your cooperation," I assured her, happy to have a reason to discomfit Nabu harmlessly. "Are you carrying any government identification we can use to ensure that you are Agent Lovecraft, rather than another Limunid-," What her paperwork listed as her official species, rather than the New Shoggoth/Newggoth terminology used more colloquially. "-impersonating Agent Lovecraft?"


"I didn't bring anyone else with me," Lovecraft commented even as she produced two ID cards, "so there shouldn't be any other Newggoths in this dimension."


'Confirmation,' I thought resignedly as I examined the ID cards visually and with a scanner in my cowl. 'These are genuine.'


"Thank you, Agent Lovecraft," I said, returning her ID cards. "As a Russian agent enforcing the local laws on Russian territory we have no further grounds to detain you, and offer our apologies for having done so originally. You are free to leave any time, however," I continued, and despite my years living with Dick as I learned to be happy again, it still took effort to force out the following words, "I have a few questions of a less professional nature, and if you would oblige me by answering them… I would be willing to pose for a selfie before I leave."


There probably should have been some pithy quote about a good-hearted girl experiencing some heart-warming, life-changing event to describe Lovecraft's reaction of absolute glee, but I was to preoccupied watching for any tackle-hug attempts to think of it.


Fortunately, Lovecraft contented herself with squealing, bouncing in place, and growing tentacles to wave wildly as she cheered.


"Yesyesyesyesyes! What do you want to know?" she agreed when her endorphin/adrenaline-equivalent levels had decreased.


"How long have you been in this dimension?" I asked.


She hesitated.


"That's… actually covered under an NDA I signed. Sorry," she said, forming a literal anime sweatdrop on the side of her head.


"Can you answer a before or after inquiry?" I asked. 'This is playing my hand a little too much… but I've been given no solid reason to disbelieve her, and even if she lies, the way she lies could be revealing.'


"I… If you tell me why you want to know, I can trade you," she allowed.


'Very well.' "At a certain point in the past, our universe suffered a brief incursion from either a similar universe further in their timeline, or from time-travelers who arrived from our timeline's future intent on altering it. I wish to know if you arrived before, or after."


"When was this?" she asked. She played innocent… comparatively well, in being so obvious that it seemed genuine, but she still wasn't answering me without getting her answers first. "Aaaaand why is it important to know?"


"In 2004. I will answer your other question after you answer me," I insisted flatly, unwilling to be more specific about the Justice Lords incident.


"Oh. No, I arrived waaaay later than that; pretty recently, all things considered. Why is it important?"


"Certain types of dimensional crossover and temporal incursions can damage the fabric of reality, lowering the energy threshold needed to initiate such events and drawing in beings who have undergone them the way gravity attracts matter to matter. I felt it important to ascertain whether your arrival may have prompted or been prompted by the event in question as a gage of our risk of further incursions."


Lovecraft stared, mouth slightly agape, and there was nothing animated or comedic at all about her appearance in that moment.


"Who the holy fornication thought that local sliding and time-travel should work that way?" she squawked finally.


"Supposedly, the Endless or similar beings," I deadpanned. I was going to make a quip about loaning her a copy of the book Zatara had given me as a mystic primer, but the way Lovecraft had recoiled… 'Was that a flinch, or was that inhuman body language?' "Yes?"


"Nothing! Sorry. We actually, kinda, worship the Endless back home, so I'm assuming either someone else overruled them on this or they didn't have better options, then."


"Our universes share conceptual beings?" I observed curiously.


"Thaaaat… is a long story." She shrugged. "Sorry. I basically got here via 'pick up this artifact and wish really hard,' and it semi-randomly dumped me here as a good place to have the adventure I wanted, so I've just been helping as I look around to see how things go."


'That… has incredibly disturbing connotations.' "Do-,"


<beedle-eedle-eedle-eep! >


The jingle of a cell phone's ringer cut me off.


"Sorry, that's my boss's ring," Lovecraft apologized, producing the device and half-turning away from me. "Hello? Yeah? Yeah, I…."


After another 22 seconds of conversing, Lovecraft's body morphed, with a second face and head growing between her shoulder blades.


"I need to leave and get on duty, but we can finish this when you show up for that selfie, kay?" she offered.


I gave a short nod, as she had theoretically been very helpful if she wasn't lying, and I left to interrogate Dr. Fate about this.

 

[Hestia&theCourt]

Useful information. Useful enough that it's worth pissing Talia off for, though? Not quite convinced of that one yet.

 

[PhantasyPen]

That was... oddly adorable

 

[Pyro Hawk]

Absolutely adorable and yet a tad concerning... She's an OC right?

 

[Stripes]

Absolutely adorable and yet a tad concerning... She's an OC right?

Click to shrink...

"Yuppers!" (c) Opportunity to introduce her in story was gifted to me by our gracious host for catching certain "cameo" wa~ay back.

Which reminds me: once again, allow me to express deep respect and gratitude for the work you, @Obloquy, do with the readers!