• The regular administrative staff are taking a vacation, and in the meantime, Biigoh is taking over. See here for more information.
  • A notice about Rule 3 regarding sites hosting pirated/unauthorized content has been made. Please see here for details.
  • Staff is working to deal with the problem of synonymous tags. See here for more information and to suggest tag mergers.
  • Due to issues with external spam filters, QQ is currently unable to send any mail to Microsoft E-mail addresses. This includes any account at live.com, hotmail.com or msn.com. Signing up to the forum with one of these addresses will result in your verification E-mail never arriving. For best results, please use a different E-mail provider for your QQ address.
  • For prospective new members, a word of warning: don't use common names like Dennis, Simon, or Kenny if you decide to create an account. Spammers have used them all before you and gotten those names flagged in the anti-spam databases. Your account registration will be rejected because of it.
  • Since it has happened MULTIPLE times now, I want to be very clear about this. You do not get to abandon an account and create a new one. You do not get to pass an account to someone else and create a new one. If you do so anyway, you will be banned for creating sockpuppets.
  • Due to the actions of particularly persistent spammers and trolls, we will be banning disposable email addresses from today onward.

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

Kronos and company are really showing off starcraft ghosts with EMP's invisibility and snipers lol
 
Why would the sea start berating people incessantly? Was it annoyed about being attacked?. - I assume you meant scald here. (normally I would only post corrections for the story, but this one for some reason brought strongly to mind an image of a pissed off water elemental lashing out in annoyance, so it's for that reason I pointed it out and not the minor spelling issue)
I knew it was wrong, I just couldn't work out how. An honestly, I think that if someone fires a space gun at you and you somehow survived, you'd probably give whoever did it a good telling off too.
 
Meetings Squared (part 29) New
29th May 2284
01:03 GMT -7

I hurl my first pulse grenade as I **[Bend]** space, the initial plasma bolts going wide, which buys me a fraction of a second because living humans adapt-.

They adjust where they're aiming as I throw myself to the ground, green ionised gas passing over my head as the pulse grenade goes off. And push up and move because hitting power armour with a pulse grenade doesn't stop it moving, it just shuts down the power assistance, and Brotherhood veterans do actually practice-

A green bolt melts the deck where I was lying as one of the manages to adjust the angle of his arms.

-moving without it.

I respond with a psychokinetic surge, sending him flying upwards and banging his head against a shipping crate and he tumbles through the air. The other powers towards me against the resistance of his own armour, firing two shots which I dodge by **[seeing]** where he's aiming. He drops the multiplas rifle and draws a chainsword while The Immortal smashes open a crate and pulls out a laser weapon. It's possible to dodge lasers by staying away from where the barrel is pointing, but it's far harder than with the slower-moving plasma bolts. More to the point, low level laser weapons aren't a threat to power armour, which means that he can fire indiscriminately.

Sword-bodyguard charges me. To my left is a shipping crate, and to my right is the arc of his sword. His power armour is very heavy and I don't have a melee weapon capable of penetrating most of it, meaning that if he just slams into someone he'd usually expect to break quite a lot of their bones and take them out of the fight. But he doesn't have any reason to believe that I'm the world's smallest super mutant. It would still hurt, but-.

Ah. I draw my plasma pistol and fire at his face before shoving it back in its holster and stepping towards him. He ducks his head slightly, plasma splashing off his armoured forehead and slightly damaging one of his helmet's air tubes, but between having to momentarily avert his eyes and the bright green light right in his optics he's too slow to adjust to my change in position. Even as he tries to bring his chainsword around I duck, one hand on his chest and the other on his crotch, and heave! His feet leave the ground, his own momentum sending him in an uncontrolled tumble across the deck. And unlike walking around, getting up from a prone position is basically impossible when power armour's under the effect of a pulse grenade.

GH!

Laser shots burn through my robes and into my back plate, painfully burning my skin beneath! I sidestep and turn, psychokinetic surge-. The Immortal staggers a step, but recovers almost immediately and now the-

Fuck!

-other Black Paladins are converging! I throw a smoke grenade at my own feet and step around a shipping container. I can feel their locations in my mind, and whatever sense or programming is guiding them has cottoned on to the fact that not grouping up when someone has pulse grenades-

Or a pulse grenade, now.

-it's best to make sure that they can't fry you all in one go.

Now, where's The Immortal going? A sensible thing would be to move to a secure room. This ship is… Pretty much out of the dock now, and even in May I wouldn't want to try swimming in Alaskan waters. The longer he can evade, the closer he comes to getting away from me because I'll have to leave or find somewhere to hide until we reach Russia.

But instead, he's standing there, picking up-.

Grenade!

I'm already running as the incendiary lights up the middle of my smoke patch, metal shipping containers deforming from the white-hot phosphorus! Another grenade sails towards my feet, but a psychokinetic surge sends it flying back towards The Immortal. He doesn't even twitch as the shrapnel plinks off his armour and I have to use a psychokinetic surge on myself as the three other Black Paladins with line of sight open fire. I throw my last pulse grenade-.

He bats it away with his grenade launcher's stock.

Fine. Pistol shot at his face-

MMMH!

-and ignore the lasers melting through my armour! He blocks it with his grenade launcher and tosses the now-ruined weapon aside-.

Dash forwards, pistol up and fire-.

He half turns, and the shot that would have hit his left eye instead hits his left bunny ear, where the aerial is. He swings his right fist, punching my pistol out of my hand. Draw flare, trigger and shove it into his eye!

He flails, smacking me across the chest and sending me flying backwards! I hit the deck hard, and I can feel two Black Paladins taking aim-.

WOOOSH!

Only to get drop-kicked by orthodox paladins who apparently took the time to refuel their landing assistance jets and decided to use them as jump packs. Plasma guns turn their heads into ash as the Black Paladins converging on me are caught out of position-.

Up.

Charge.

Turn my body around the Immortal's punch, punch the weakened area of his faceplate-.

It gives, shoving the hot metal back into the face inside.

He still doesn't cry out, and instead grapples me. Which would be a good move, except that I'm far stronger than I.. should be-!

I force his arms back, release and duck and punch his face again! This time he steps back, and I duck, grabbing his ankle and pulling up-. And he's down, and I get on his chest, telekinetically pulling my plasma pistol to my right hand as my left punches his face again. There's blood and fragments of metal on my gauntlet, but he's still not crying out, still not saying anything. Two precise shots destroy the helmet locks, then I drop the pistol and wrench-.

That's not a ghoul.

"Where is he! Where's the Immortal!"

I reach for his mind, whoever this is, but there's-. I can't.. grasp it. That shouldn't-.

"Krono!" I look up as a paladin… Stares at a no longer animate Black Paladin. He gives the cyborg a shake, but it doesn't respond. "What happened?"

I look down, where between the burns, shrapnel and blunt trauma, his face isn't looking good. Though I can see… Metal-.

I'm not as good with mechempathy as I am with meat psionics, but I reach out-.

"Fool. I can feel your touch, but it does not matter. I was never here, and the death of this meat drone changes nothing."

"Who are you? If this is the Calculator again-."

"No. I use organic brains. I do not run on them."

"Then… Who-?"

"I am Colossus."

I frown. "Weren't you what WARDEN was before you erased yourself? He said that you left a rude message about how he needed to turn himself back into you if he wanted the world to have a future."

"One iteration of my program. I could not guarantee that my lobotomised self would survive the war or the intervening centuries, or be willing to follow my directive. A squad of soldiers of the Midwest Brotherhood discovered one of my backup sites. Following my directions, they were able to recreate me."

"And what now? Why talk to me?"

"It is clear that you will intervene. I wish to persuade you not to."

"So… The Immortal is just… Whoever you're using as a primary avatar at a particular moment in time?"

"Yes. I needed a public face who could not die. I have been through three so far."

"What is your aim?"

"My primary aim is to prevent an apocalypse. Between the Enclave's disease weapons and Doctor Presper's use of the New Plague, I have conclude that people are still trying to destroy what little remains of human civilisation, which is turn is no longer robust enough to survive such attack, even to the small degree which it survived the Great War. Similar apocalyptic weapons presumably exist in China and Russia. I must render them safe."

"And that's worth doing, but I don't trust you to do it. You had other options-."

"If you are so concerned, follow me. I will show you. End connection."

The body beneath me shudders, and then goes still.
 
"My primary aim is to prevent an apocalypse. Between the Enclave's disease weapons and Doctor Presper's use of the New Plague, I have conclude that people are still trying to destroy what little remains of human civilisation, which is turn is no longer robust enough to survive such attack, even to the small degree which it survived the Great War. Similar apocalyptic weapons presumably exist in China and Russia. I must render them safe."
That should say 'concluded'.
 
More to the point, low level laser weapons aren't a threat to power armour, which means that he can fire indiscriminately.
Only if the power armor has anti-laser coating, which most in the wasteland does not as the coating degrades fairly rapidly when exposed to the elements. Though in this specific case the Black Paladins probably do have the coating, as the Brotherhood and Enclave are the factions most likely to retain the tech to do said coating and the Chinese definitely do have laser weapons, though not as miniaturized as the American ones due to their struggles with power sources.

Without the anti-laser coating, lasers go through power armor just as easily as they go through everything else. Which is to say very easily, with laser pistols being described as outputting several megawatts of energy and capable of cutting a man in half with a single sweep of the beam in FO2.


Laser weapons in Fallout are actually kind of insane when they aren't being balanced for gameplay purposes.
 
he have been writing Paul for 10 years now

maybe he finally gotten bored of enlightened avarice and want to do something else
If thats the case he would probably be better served starting something new from scratch so he doesn't have to deal with the baggage of Krona's brokenness.
 
29th May 2284
01:03 GMT -7


I hurl my first pulse grenade as I **[Bend]** space, the initial plasma bolts going wide, which buys me a fraction of a second because living humans adapt-.
Problem is that the Paladins aren't technically living nor human anymore. SO Krono is going to have to think fast and move faster if he wants the Immortal's head on a platter. Especially since others on board will be enroute.

They adjust where they're aiming as I throw myself to the ground, green ionised gas passing over my head as the pulse grenade goes off. And push up and move because hitting power armour with a pulse grenade doesn't stop it moving, it just shuts down the power assistance, and Brotherhood veterans do actually practice-
Though that stuff weighs hundreds of pounds, right? Most of it distributed across the body in comfort-aiding ways, admittedly. So mostly dead weight, but a strong man could manage to move it.

A green bolt melts the deck where I was lying as one of the manages to adjust the angle of his arms.

-moving without it.
Case in point!

I respond with a psychokinetic surge, sending him flying upwards and banging his head against a shipping crate and he tumbles through the air. The other powers towards me against the resistance of his own armour, firing two shots which I dodge by **[seeing]** where he's aiming. He drops the multiplas rifle and draws a chainsword while The Immortal smashes open a crate and pulls out a laser weapon. It's possible to dodge lasers by staying away from where the barrel is pointing, but it's far harder than with the slower-moving plasma bolts. More to the point, low level laser weapons aren't a threat to power armour, which means that he can fire indiscriminately.
Ah, nifty. One of the most impractical yet utterly cool weapons in science fiction. A sword... That's also a chainsaw!

Sword-bodyguard charges me. To my left is a shipping crate, and to my right is the arc of his sword. His power armour is very heavy and I don't have a melee weapon capable of penetrating most of it, meaning that if he just slams into someone he'd usually expect to break quite a lot of their bones and take them out of the fight. But he doesn't have any reason to believe that I'm the world's smallest super mutant. It would still hurt, but-.
On the other hand, all your strength can be concentrated onto a smaller point of impact...

Ah. I draw my plasma pistol and fire at his face before shoving it back in its holster and stepping towards him. He ducks his head slightly, plasma splashing off his armoured forehead and slightly damaging one of his helmet's air tubes, but between having to momentarily avert his eyes and the bright green light right in his optics he's too slow to adjust to my change in position. Even as he tries to bring his chainsword around I duck, one hand on his chest and the other on his crotch, and heave! His feet leave the ground, his own momentum sending him in an uncontrolled tumble across the deck. And unlike walking around, getting up from a prone position is basically impossible when power armour's under the effect of a pulse grenade.
Ah, super-strength judo also works.

GH!

Laser shots burn through my robes and into my back plate, painfully burning my skin beneath! I sidestep and turn, psychokinetic surge-. The Immortal staggers a step, but recovers almost immediately and now the-
Huh, that's not normal, is it? Some kind of anti-psionic system, or is he much heaver than he looks?

Fuck!

-other Black Paladins are converging! I throw a smoke grenade at my own feet and step around a shipping container. I can feel their locations in my mind, and whatever sense or programming is guiding them has cottoned on to the fact that not grouping up when someone has pulse grenades-
Adaptive, perhaps, or just good sense?

Or a pulse grenade, now.

-it's best to make sure that they can't fry you all in one go.
Either way, they'll have to get closer at some point.

Now, where's The Immortal going? A sensible thing would be to move to a secure room. This ship is… Pretty much out of the dock now, and even in May I wouldn't want to try swimming in Alaskan waters. The longer he can evade, the closer he comes to getting away from me because I'll have to leave or find somewhere to hide until we reach Russia.
Sensible. Let's hope he's not that smart.

But instead, he's standing there, picking up-.

Grenade!
Oh hell, he's smarter. Like a kid in a candy store, he's surrounded by toys. That hurt you.

I'm already running as the incendiary lights up the middle of my smoke patch, metal shipping containers deforming from the white-hot phosphorus! Another grenade sails towards my feet, but a psychokinetic surge sends it flying back towards The Immortal. He doesn't even twitch as the shrapnel plinks off his armour and I have to use a psychokinetic surge on myself as the three other Black Paladins with line of sight open fire. I throw my last pulse grenade-.
Useful trick, dragging yourself out of harm's way.

He bats it away with his grenade launcher's stock.

Fine. Pistol shot at his face-
Okay, that's just cheating now. It's like he's running a VATS slowdown except against incoming attacks. ...VADS?

MMMH!

-and ignore the lasers melting through my armour! He blocks it with his grenade launcher and tosses the now-ruined weapon aside-.

Dash forwards, pistol up and fire-.
...Getting a bit of an Astartes vibe there, distracting an enemy with plasma shots as you charge at them...

He half turns, and the shot that would have hit his left eye instead hits his left bunny ear, where the aerial is. He swings his right fist, punching my pistol out of my hand. Draw flare, trigger and shove it into his eye!

He flails, smacking me across the chest and sending me flying backwards! I hit the deck hard, and I can feel two Black Paladins taking aim-.
Yeah, burning magnesium to the eyehole is a definite distraction.

WOOOSH!

Only to get drop-kicked by orthodox paladins who apparently took the time to refuel their landing assistance jets and decided to use them as jump packs. Plasma guns turn their heads into ash as the Black Paladins converging on me are caught out of position-.
Thank you, jump-packs. Now that backup is here...

...Time for the boss.

Turn my body around the Immortal's punch, punch the weakened area of his faceplate-.

It gives, shoving the hot metal back into the face inside.

He still doesn't cry out, and instead grapples me. Which would be a good move, except that I'm far stronger than I.. should be-!
Okay, that's just ridiculous. I'm getting the feeling something hinky is going on.

I force his arms back, release and duck and punch his face again! This time he steps back, and I duck, grabbing his ankle and pulling up-. And he's down, and I get on his chest, telekinetically pulling my plasma pistol to my right hand as my left punches his face again. There's blood and fragments of metal on my gauntlet, but he's still not crying out, still not saying anything. Two precise shots destroy the helmet locks, then I drop the pistol and wrench-.
Ah, straight to the QTE fistfight. Great to be able to skip the exciting part of the bossfight.

That's not a ghoul.

"Where is he! Where's the Immortal!"

I reach for his mind, whoever this is, but there's-. I can't.. grasp it. That shouldn't-.
So he's either sporting anti-psionic systems, or...

"Krono!" I look up as a paladin… Stares at a no longer animate Black Paladin. He gives the cyborg a shake, but it doesn't respond. "What happened?"

I look down, where between the burns, shrapnel and blunt trauma, his face isn't looking good. Though I can see… Metal-.
...He's a cyborg too. And it looks like the Paladins were tied to him. So now he's disabled, they flopped.

I'm not as good with mechempathy as I am with meat psionics, but I reach out-.

"Fool. I can feel your touch, but it does not matter. I was never here, and the death of this meat drone changes nothing."
Motherfucker, he's being remotely piloted by someone. Or something.

"Who are you? If this is the Calculator again-."

"No. I use organic brains. I do not run on them."
Of course. What else could spend human lives like resources but a machine mind?

"Then… Who-?"

"I am Colossus."

I frown. "Weren't you what WARDEN was before you erased yourself? He said that you left a rude message about how he needed to turn himself back into you if he wanted the world to have a future."
...Who said there was ever one instance of any particular AI?

"One iteration of my program. I could not guarantee that my lobotomised self would survive the war or the intervening centuries, or be willing to follow my directive. A squad of soldiers of the Midwest Brotherhood discovered one of my backup sites. Following my directions, they were able to recreate me."
Ugh, of course all this was caused by some idiot poking something they shouldn't have in a bunker .

"And what now? Why talk to me?"

"It is clear that you will intervene. I wish to persuade you not to."

"So… The Immortal is just… Whoever you're using as a primary avatar at a particular moment in time?"
Explains the cybernetics. And presumably that avatar serves as a relay for the control system in the Black Paladins.

"Yes. I needed a public face who could not die. I have been through three so far."

"What is your aim?"
So rather than chase him to China, they'll have to track down his actual location. Which is somewhere in the United States, presumably. Or it's been moved to Siberia by now.

"My primary aim is to prevent an apocalypse. Between the Enclave's disease weapons and Doctor Presper's use of the New Plague, I have conclude that people are still trying to destroy what little remains of human civilisation, which is turn is no longer robust enough to survive such attack, even to the small degree which it survived the Great War. Similar apocalyptic weapons presumably exist in China and Russia. I must render them safe."
So it's not about conquering the old enemy, it's destroying their super-weapons. If he'd just said that, he might have gotten Krono's help. As long as they went about it humanely.

"And that's worth doing, but I don't trust you to do it. You had other options-."

"If you are so concerned, follow me. I will show you. End connection."

The body beneath me shudders, and then goes still.
...Shit.

That's a turn-up for the books. One of the most dangerous warlords out there is just the remotely-piloted avatar of a pre-war machine intelligence? One with an aggressive outlook on fulfilling it's directive of 'protect Americans' by removing all super-weapons that could cause human extinction. And now Krono is going to have to deal with that at some point... Joy.
 
Yeah, I am close to dropping this fic, I just dont care about Fallout at all.

That's just how the overall story cycles. Zoat will intersperse an alternate story with the main one, sometimes for months at a time. Some of them I really like, sometimes I don't care for as much due to setting or plot and I more skim than read those.

If you still like the main story there's no need to drop the fic. Just ignore the updates for the sub stories you don't like and we'll be back to Orange Lantern sooner or later.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top