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

15th August 2000
10:04 GMT


"It's headin' fer Scotland. We're going t' need backup."

It's extremely impressive to watch, actually. Some of what were… Clearly erroneously identified as naturally occurring basaltic prisms are more of less in the right place. The bits chipped out of their exterior rise out of the water and return to their proper place and they shift up or down in order to make a level platform. What a lot more dramatic is that the sections of the path that had fallen apart completely come flying out of the water from… However far they've travelled. They just float up, water cascading off of them, then slot themselves back into the floating platform. Perhaps even more impressive is the large parts of the Irish Sea that are foaming as the sunken parts rise up as well.
So not entirely natural basalt. That or it has a geokinetic ability letting it pull them up. Not that it has to lift them far, that area of the channel is quite shallow from what I gather. Around 300 to 500 metres deep (about 1,000 to 1,300 feet,) which is still impressive for a continental shelf...

I look to Senior Agent Blaze. "Can I assume that we never tested those?"

"If Rinaker knew there was a cyclops here, the Alliance would have been all over this place decades ago."
Which would likely have triggered an unwelcome response from the banshee, with all the poking around and signals...

The cyclops clomps in the direction of Scotland, uninterested in us or in the dilapidated state of its path.

Map.

A three dimensional image of the revised terrain appears before us. The cyclops isn't moving quickly, but Scotland's not all that far away.
A scant 50-odd kilometres, I believe. About 30 miles for you Americans. Hardly a long walk, given the length of his legs.

Sh'rain looks it over, then relaxes. "Oh good, it's leaving."

Senior Agent Blaze shakes her head. "We don't know where it's goin' or why it's goin' there. Fer all we know it's going to get t' Scotland and then turn roit around."
And I'd be rather concerned about what happens if it doesn't turn around, and carries on across Scotland. More than a few towns and smaller cities in the potential arc of its course.

Sh'rain doesn't appear troubled by the idea. "Then we destroy it when it does."

I awkwardly raise my right hand. "Sir, I think-."
Overconfident, isn't she? 'Just destroy it', she says. I suspect it's a lot harder than that, given the reputation of the Cyclopes of Greek Myth.

"You c'n go and bother Mab. Just… Knock on the door loudly."

Sh'rain's eyes widen slightly, then she focuses on Senior Agent Blaze. "Can we no' deal with it ourselves? It's not that big. And doesn't metal not like gettin' exposed t' seawater?"
...Who let it out of the dimensional pocket it was in, hmm? I rather suspect you poking the standing stone is the likely culprit. That makes this your fault and your problem, Princess.

Senior Agent Blaze considers her friend for a moment, her hands on her hips. "Is there somethin' you'd be wantin' t' tell me, Sh'rain?"

"No." She holds her gaze for a moment, then sags slightly. "This circle wasn't on th' list t' get repaired. I thought Ma didn't think it was worth the bother!"
Maybe if you'd asked about it, she'd have told you why.

"Oh, great. Did y' no' think she might have a good reason t' leave well enough alone?"

I wince slightly as the two of them square off. "I'll be leaving now."
Best to get out of the area of the catfight. Who knows if they're going to escalate, after all.

I move away before focusing on movement and the flow of the landscape beneath me, causing me to pull away even as Niamh looks longingly at my back. Yes, having the boss's daughter get into an argument with the police is pretty awkward, isn't it? But they need to stay there just in case the cyclops turns violent.
'I ain't paid enuff fer this, faith...' is probably a good bet of her state of mind right now.

Fortunately, Ireland's not that big, and I'm landing just outside Sir Percival's home a few moments later. Shateera and Sheenta are standing in a nearby copse… Out of earshot. They look up at me but don't otherwise react to my sudden appearance.

Now, what's the best way to do this? Since he's a Maltusian, he'll feel it if I scan… But if I need to interrupt him anyway… Scan-.
A little more discreet than walking up to the cabin door and knocking, certainly.

Two humanoids heading for the door-.

"Ah, there you are, boyo!" Sir Percival smiles as he walks out, Queen Mab just behind him. She looks… Awkward? Irritated? She masters herself before beckoning her bodyguards over. "I was wonderin' if you'd be havin' something to do with the noise up north."
They felt it all the way here? That's impressive. Though if Mab is connected to the network all the time...

"Sh'rain was repairing standing stones and accidentally let out a cyclops."

He raises his eyebrows. "That's not what you'd be calling a small accident, now is it?"
SIs rarely do things by half, when things happen...

"Compared to what, sir?"

"Where might it be headin'?"
Eh, a major incident might be something like an entire hostile fleet dropping out of orbit over a major western city or something...

"It fully restored the Giant's Causeway and is heading for Scotland." I turn to Queen Mab. "Your majesty, why was it there?"

"It was making too much noise."

"Um. When you say 'too much-'?"
...Hmm. That could be troublesome for any shipping channels up that way, now that I think about it.

"Electromagnetic radiation." She looks towards the village. "There's so much now that I barely notice it, but in those days the output that thing had would give me a headache. And it was only a matter of time until one of the humans realised that it was a machine and not a formorian."
Still impressive that it lurking about the north coast would affect her all the way in the Banshee heartlands. Wonder if it's because of the standing stone network transmitting. Like a strong signal making the whole thing buzz like a loose panel on a PC...

"Which… Might have spurred on human technological development."

Queen Mab draws herself up haughtily. "Which was the last thing we needed. Even here I can feel the electromagnetic fields buzzing at the edge of my senses."
...Or the queen just has crazy sensitive electromagnetic senses.

I raise my right hand and generate a Faraday cage construct around us.

Mab blinks. "Oh."
Wonder if he could install those in some of the banshee tunnels to minimise the impact on them. Or would that disrupt something else?

"Better?"

She gives Sir Percival a rather sharp look. He shrugs awkwardly. "Aye, well, I could do that too. But last time we were together it wasn't really necessary."
Hmmm... Perhaps add a cap or cowl incorporating such a cage to the banshee's wardrobes? Would a partial cage like that block the signals somewhat?

"I'll thank ye to remember in future."

He looks at me, a faint smile on his face. "You're getting me in trouble already, boyo. I'll remember that."
I'm sure the two of you were done with this round of the booty call anyway.

"Sir Percival, Your Majesty, we have a titani robot heading for Scotland. Do we know why it's going there?"

Sir Percival shrugs. "Looking for Benandonner, I'd be thinking."
So the mech is playing the part of Fionn, then. Probably explains the 'giant' part of the myth, as historically the great heroes were impressive but mostly human.

Queen Mab nods, as if that explains anything.

"Sir, ma'am, that doesn't explain anything. Who or what is Benandonner, are they likely to still be alive, and what's likely to happen if they're not there?"
Ah, if only he could look it up online. Not for a few years yet, though.

"Well." Sir Percival strokes his chin for a moment. "I'm not an expert on titani weaponcraft, but I doubt they'd make something that would give up easily."

I nod slowly. "So it's going to walk all over Scotland. Do you think it's been programmed not to step on people?"
Wouldn't be much of a weapon if it wouldn't. I bet humans are not part of the 'kill on sight' targetting, though.

He nods. "Aye, well, I doubt it'll step on people, but it's database might be a little out of date."

"So it won't recognise anything more recent than three thousand five hundred-. Wait, no, it was after the arrival of banshees on Earth. Three thousand years?"

Mab looks mildly distasteful. "And a lot of good it was."
So, basically just about anything built after the mid Neolithic-era, when most buildings wore stacked stone or timber.

Sir Percival spots that I'm getting impatient, and lightly pats Mab on the arm. "You'll be remembering that the last shadoan invasion was thirty five hundred years ago, and the anti-fleet weapon the titani built flattened Atlantis with the blowback." I nod. "Well, it turns out that it didn't destroy all of the fleet. A few o'them made planetfall. Benandonner… I'm not sure that was its name, but he was one o'them. A big fellah, if I remember rightly."
And there's the conflict of the legend.

"Dead?"

"Titani robots don't give up until they've gotten their target. But this one might be a wee bit confused. It didn't exactly go quietly into the fae, and…Ah. We had t' bash it over the head a few times."
So for all we know the target-recognition routines are blown out of whack and anything that vaguely resembles it's primary target is going to get a lasering.

"You two?"

"No. No, that was Caoimhe and me. A bit o' a present for Mab here."
Gee, what a thoughtful gift... You couldn't have made a note of which stone it was trapped in so no young, eager banshee would accidentally poke it awake?

"So can we just shove it back into the… Into the fae?"

"Ah… Yes… If you can stop it moving for a wee while. It's not invincible, just rather tough."
Oh, joy. No small task, I suspect.

"Okay. I think-." My ring blinks. "Excuse me. Yes?"

A construct image of Senior Agent Blaze appears, looking a little frazzled. "It's started shooting. Get back here!"
And the lasering has begun. Hopefully there's no casualties yet.

I think Percival might have to cut his little reunion short for today, he's going to be needed up there. Hopefully they can get it contained and stowed before the Americans come rolling along. If they bring a captured ship, that might tick Fionn right the hell off. Things are about to get rather noisy up north, I think...
 
I'm trying to remember if Rinnaker was exposed in the story there, it wasn't until near the end of the series that what he actually was is explosed
 
It's extremely impressive to watch, actually. Some of what were… Clearly erroneously identified as naturally occurring basaltic prisms are more of less in the right place. The bits chipped out of their exterior rise out of the water and return to their proper place and they shift up or down in order to make a level platform. What a lot more dramatic is that the sections of the path that had fallen apart completely come flying out of the water from… However far they've travelled. They just float up, water cascading off of them, then slot themselves back into the floating platform. Perhaps even more impressive is the large parts of the Irish Sea that are foaming as the sunken parts rise up as well.
'or'
'What's'
"Electromagnetic radiation." She looks towards the village. "There's so much now that I barely notice it, but in those days the output that thing had would give me a headache. And it was only a matter of time until one of the humans realised that it was a machine and not a formorian."
'fomorian'?
Sir Percival spots that I'm getting impatient, and lightly pats Mab on the arm. "You'll be remembering that the last shadoan invasion was thirty five hundred years ago, and the anti-fleet weapon the titani built flattened Atlantis with the blowback." I nod. "Well, it turns out that it didn't destroy all of the fleet. A few o'them made planetfall. Benandonner… I'm not sure that was its name, but he was one o'them. A big fellah, if I remember rightly."
'shadoen'?
 
I'm trying to remember if Rinnaker was exposed in the story there, it wasn't until near the end of the series that what he actually was is explosed
This is post-series, I believe:

5th June 2000
18:12 GMT -6


It's strange, walking through Alliance headquarters like this. Most of the personnel are… I don't know if they're deliberately staying out of my way or if… Well, between Rinaker's betrayal and newly enthroned Director Walter Logan's new direction, they're 'considering their positions'.
 
Could this be a psychic phenomenon?
No. The SI explicitly says that he didn't use the psychoactive part of Smilex, just the parts which cause it to bond to the human brain.
If Smilex is magical or psychic, and the 2023 suggestion from Robin to address Joker's Smilex symptoms with a healing potion is correct... Maybe Batman took a healing potion before he started messing with the new god tech.

Ultimately we keep getting hints about the purple healing ray's true nature. The idea that Batman's baseline "fully healed state" was changed somewhere along the line, and now passive and consumable healing edits him into an uncomfortable state? That could fit.

I'm not dissatisfied with the change in Batman and Paul's relationship, nor with the fact that Batman can't change back. I'm just treating this like a problem to solve due to the Brother Eye possibilities.
 
I know this isn't really relevant but the story makes pretty constant reminder that earth Prime doesn't have superheroes – that is what I believed up until I did some reading on Superbarrio Gómez And found this delightful page. I always knew vigilantes existed but I never expected for (our world) to have so many superheroes/groups all around the world.
 
OK - many questions are answered, and the stakes are set. That's pretty much all we can ask for, so thank you for it! :)
 
The R Files (part 6) New
15th August 2000
10:08 GMT

I appear, wincing as a brilliant beam of white light lances out from the cyclops's upper eye towards-. Senior Agent Blaze, who is focusing of frantic evasive flight. Construct palisade shield, construct armour… Huh, that feels familiar. And scan. Where is-?

Sh'rain's being dragged south by her bodyguard, clearly unhappy about leaving her friend behind to fight the giant robot. Objectively the correct decision. Nearest Alliance aircraft are back at headquarters, and they're not supersonic so there's no chance that they could get here in a tactically useful timeframe. We can probably call on the British military for support, but I'm a little worried about what the lower eye-.

The cyclops's head swivels towards me and-

Reinforce!

-pulse-fires with its lower eye directly at me, which fortunately involves shooting at the strongest part of the shield construct. Senior Agent Blaze charges up her hands with a gout of… I think it's plasma? Which she throws at the cyclops's neck, doing… No measurable damage.

And the thing about banshees is that despite their ability to chuck plasma around at will they're not really any stronger or tougher than humans, and she's not even wearing her lightly armoured field uniform because this was supposed to be a diplomatic mission-.

"Sir, get behind the giant glowing shield!"

She glances in my direction for an instant, ducks under another giant beam from the cyclops and then rockets in my direction, taking one last shot at its lower eye as she flies past. It doesn't seem to be particularly good at tracking small objects and certainly doesn't try to turn away to protect its eye… Because it didn't need to. She didn't damage it.

Banshee blasts are pretty nasty if you're an unarmoured human, but even an unarmoured vampire can take a hit or two and keep moving.

She's nearly to me when its head locks onto her, and-. She's not going to-.

I dart forwards, interposing the shield-. The lower eye fires-. She ducks around the edge of the shield, but it isn't as thick there and while the first hit gets blocked the second hits the weakened construct-

It's not weak, it's fine, it's immutable.

-and punches through!

"Ah-!"

Lower the shield!

I get the thicker part of the shield in the way again, replacing the failed parts with something thicker. Then I put a platform under Senior-.

"Oi'm fine!"

I glance down to confirm-. "You got shot, sir."

She rises up besides me, knife cutting away the material of her skirt so that it doesn't.. stick to the burn. "Oi've had worse."

Field trauma training suggests that it's not immediately crippling, though it's going to hurt once the adrenaline wares off. I reach into subspace and pull out an antiseptic spray. Those are safe for banshees, though painkillers… Nothing strong enough to immediately stop that hurting is safe for either banshees or combat zones.

"Here."

She takes it with a nod, pulls the remains of her skirt aside and sprays the burn, her face creasing up in pain as she does so.

The cyclops doesn't fire again, its head rotating back to its direction of travel as it continues its march north west.

"Sir, what happened? What set it off?"

"It didnae loik the look o' me." She checks her injury ones more, then passes the bottle back. I subspace it. "Learn anythin' from Mab?"

"Yes… Ah, to be clear, it didn't have a negative reaction to Sh'rain?"

"No?"

"Bit of an odd question, sir, but how closely do you resemble your mother?"

She frowns at me. "What's that got t'do with anything?"

"She and Sir Percival were the ones who stuck it in the stone circle. It may well have pre-registered both of us as active enemies."

"Oh." She shakes her head. "Oi don't remember her that well."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Then maybe just the fact that it remembers being hit by a banshee-."

"No, it didn't attack Sh'rain. It did single me out." She sighs as she watches its back. "Oi hope y' don't think I can stick it back in thur."

"Might have been nice. My best bet is ducking under its crotch, grabbing it with a construct from outside of its arc of fire, and then flying it into space."

"What's wrong wi' that?"

"I don't know the effective range of its main weapon. If I put it into low orbit, it would have line of sight to about a fifth of the world. If it's programmed to destroy the shadoen before preserving humans -and given what happened to Atlantis, I'd guess it is- that would be a significant risk."

"Alright. We'll just have t' follow it, then."

I reduce the size of my shield and head after the giant robot, Senior Agent Blaze following me under her own power.

"What did Director Logan say?"

"He's contactin' the British government. Oi don't know what their planes can do against it…" She looks down at her own clenched fists. "But oi'm comin' up a wee bit short."

"We could ask if Dorn could spare a spaceship?"

She clenches her fists. "Or we could not. What's the hardest you can hit somethin'?"

"I haven't focused on combat with heavily armoured targets. As I said, I could try lifting it. Just hitting it… Pretty hard? The problem is that if I focus on hitting it as hard as I can I'm not going to be thinking about evasion."

"Oi-." Her head jerks, and I get a beep in my ear as I'm included. "Director?"

"Not yet, but in the future, who knows?" I can hear the smile in Senior Agent Fitzpatrick voice. He's found his role… Somewhat reduced since the Alliance embraced openness and transparency. He took a promotion when just about all surviving Alliance agents got one due to the sudden influx of new personnel, but the organisation just doesn't need a creative and quick-witted professional liar at the moment. "So what's this I hear about a giant robot?"

"Sir, a titani cyclops is currently walking from Northern Ireland to Scotland in order to pick a fight with a shadoen we're pretty sure died thousands of years ago. We're not sure how much of a threat it is to anyone, but we do know that it doesn't like Senior Agent Blaze and I."

"What, did you tell it your name was 'Nobody'? Because that's racially insensitive."

"Sir Percival and her mother are the ones who shut it down before."

"Huh. Okay, do you know what the shadoen it's looking for looks like?"

Senior Agent Blaze shrugs. "I don't but I suspect that Sir Percival does."

"Okay. Okay. Then I think I got a plan."
 

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