[Archive] With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Story Only)

[Mr Zoat]

19th November 1995

Where did he go?

I'm looking at Kun-. Sebastian, but it doesn't look like he's got any idea either.

"Can he teleport?"

Sebastian nods. "We all can, but that was just an illusion. He's close."

I look around-. Right, the knives. "Can you feel anywhere the dark energy is doing anything weird? Orange Lantern's elf wizard could do stuff with it. Even if he's been captured-."

"Alright." Black energy crackles around him for a moment, and then he gasps, looking upwards.

"What? Is it above us?"

"No. But I-." He looks down at me. "Orange Lantern's plan to get her full attention has worked. Beryl is drawing on vast amounts of dark energy, but there's an eddy forming below us. I don't know what it is, but other than searching this-."

Great. "Down?"

"Yes. The quickest way-."

I grab my compact and point it at the ground. A direct line between two places might only be the second shortest route, but we can't all teleport! "Furious Crescent Beam!"

Golden light smashes into the floor and blasts through, and-.

And then it cuts out no!

We both stare at my compact, and Sebastian shakes his head. "You're out of power. You can't-."

I pull Paul's emergency nuclear grenade off my belt and remember his instructions. "Pull the pin." I pull it. "Toss." I toss. "And hope being a Sailor Guardian makes you immune to gamma radiation."

I turn away from the hole, and hope really hard.

Sebastian blinks, then copies me, throwing his cloak over us as the fission grenade goes off. Most of the blast goes upwards, but it still ruffles my skirt and Sebastian's cloak.

I wish the armour he made for me was still in one piece.

"What?"

I pull my chain off my belt as I turn, throwing it up into the air as I leap towards the hole. The top part of the hole where my beam blasted it is neat, before it ran out of power. The bottom part is red hot, melted-.

I form my chain into a drill-

"Venus… Rock-Breaking Chain!"

-and slam it down, boring through the soft rock and-.

Crunch!

And I fall through into the level below us, landing in a crouch and lashing out with my chain scything through the youma clustered below! Most of them were facing the door, and the rest weren't prepared. I swing-.

The end of the chain stops moving about an inch from Jadeite's raised hand. "Still not enough."

Okay, ah… I pull my chain back and look around. The youma are moving around and trying to surround me, but I can deal with that. Jadeite's just standing there, and just behind him-.

Lushun is chained up to a bench. He doesn't look too good; half the time it's like I can see his skeleton! They must be doing something to him with dark energy. Trying to turn him into a skeleton youma, maybe? And there's a woman tied to another bench next to him with half her face missing! And past them there's a stone archway with-. The crystal! It's embedded in the stone, and in front of the archway there's an altar with Lushun's staff on it.

Sebastian lands next to me. "Get the crystal. Nothing else matters."

I nod. "Right."

I run, swinging my chain in an arc to smash through the youma guarding the crystal. "Definite Kill Venus Chain!"

Chain links of burning gold disintegrate gargoyles and pigmen, and a couple who look like cavemen try scrabbling out of the way. They don't make it. I can hear Sebastian's footsteps behind me as he guards my-. My back, and I reel in my chain to take another swing at Jadeite, who's just smiling-.

Wait.

I swing my chain around me in a tight arc, like one of those ribbon dancers-.

The chain stop in thin air, and Jadeite appears as his illusion fades. "Do you understand? With the crystal, we can spread dark energy all across the world. But with this staff and these off-worlders, we can spread it to infinite worlds! All will be one in Met-."

I leap- "Sailor V kick!" -and hit him right in the jaw! He staggers backwards, losing his magic grip on my chain which I pull back towards me before lashing it forwards!

I swing my chain again, but he's already recovered. It stops still in the air and he looks behind me-.

I pull on my end of my chain as hard as I can, pulling myself off my feet and sending me flying towards him! His eyes widen and he catches me with his magic, but he loses control of my chain so I pull and wrap it around his legs!

"What?"

Pull!

"Oof!"

He's on his back and I'm free and I swing my chain while he's stunned-

"Get the Crystal!"

-and I start running past him, not really getting a full-on hit but just sort of flicking him away, and that'll have to do. There's nothing between me and the crystal-.

The arch flickers, and the space inside it-.

Oh that's what Hell looks like.

And it looks like Paul made himself at home, because he actually looks pretty calm as he walks back through..

And then he sees me. And I wish I could do banishment like Mars or healing like Moon, because-.

I throw myself right as he lunges towards me, his claws -ah- gashing my left cheek. But I don't have time to fight him! What do I-?

Yes! I throw my chain forwards, wrapping the end around the archway and pulling! I don't know if it's the chain's magic or my magic, or maybe it's all that physical training Paul made me do, but I'm a lot stronger than I used to be! Paul-. The youma lunges at me again but I'm already out of the way, flying towards the arch-.

Too far! Too far! I went through and some flying red demon face is looking at me-. Pull back! Good! And reach up and grab the crystal-! Yes! Got it! I-.

Paul body slams me through the arch, and I-. I can't feel my legs. They should hurt, but-.

Agh!

He's-.

Hitting-.

I can't-.

I'm sorry.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 3, Week of Hen, 990 YSD, 6th Eclipse
Last Time I Checked

Isn't this a novel experience. One moment I'm building a Pillar of Bones and studying the dark energy of an entirely new world -or if what I suspect is true, something rather larger than a world- and then the next I'm getting a rather uncomfortably up-close introduction to the demonic form of my current patron.

And I lost consciousness. I can't even remember the last time that happened. But on the grounds that it's wise for favours to be reciprocal -something which my studies show that Markal never learned- I suppose that I should-.

Oh dear. That nice young woman in the leotard is getting beaten to death. So what exactly-? Oh, the restraints are powered by that jewel, I wonder how it-?

A problem for later.

Now… A small Eldritch Arrow from both hands unlocks the manacles, another two free my legs, and without a more potent magic preventing it, it's easy to call my staff to my hand.

And Puppet Master.

The 'youma' creature stops moving at once, claw paused in the act of-. Yes, back off, off you go.

The lesser youma appears to be divided between those charging… A man with oddly green hair? I suppose that he's on 'our' side then, and the rest who are charging me.

Mass Slow. And… Blade Barrier.

And they work… Just as they did on Ashan. The youma slow to a crawl, so whoever that is can cut them down with little difficulty. And those heading towards me will have to be bold indeed to charge through a wall of rotating blades.

It's so nice having this staff again.

Just across the way there's one of the women the Orange Lantern was looking for. She appears to be recovering too, though not so quickly as I. Hm. I'm not sure exactly what she is, but I think that I'll leave her there. Better for her to wake up to a friendly face.

I turn away from her and walk towards Venus, the nice young lady who is currently bleeding to death. Mm. Still alive, for now. Regeneration should see her right in a few minutes.

Now, where did my cloak g-?

There's a knife in my stomach. How odd.

Mass Decay.

The knife is withdrawn, and my attacker's invisibility fails as Decay necrotises their-. His extremities. He's uniformed like the fellow in the melee, but his skin is green instead of his hair. I wonder what that signifies?

Blindness.

He stumbles, clutching at his face as he tries to work out why he can't see. He must be unfamiliar with dark magic, which is a little strange-. Ah, of course. A transformation. He may well be suffering from excess dark energy exposure. Light Magic isn't my best skill, but…

Cleansing. Not strong enough to disrupt Blindness, but lesser influences-.

Ah yes, that seems to have worked. His skin has turned to a warm ivory colour. It's not practical for me to cast Cleansing on everyone-. Perhaps that Venus girl's crystal might be able to help?

"Nnhhrrr…"

Oh, she's waking up. Marvellous!

"Miss Venus? Are you well?"

Her eyes snap open-. Ah, she's trying to get away from-. Perhaps I should move him? Yes, those youma are of no use to us.

"L-lushun?"

"Yes. Well done for liberating the crystal. I assume that you have a plan for it?"

"Huh?" She looks at her arms as her cuts knit themselves closed. "Ah…"

I reach down with my left hand, and she takes it and allows me to pull her upright.

"I… I need to-. Look-"

And the dagger is back in my stomach. How vexing.

"-out!"

Hm. It looks like the dark energy overload wasn't what was making him oppose us. Some sort of blessing from 'Metalia'? It would explain why he is so wroth with me. Ah, I removed Decay when I used Cleanse, that's why he's still fighting fit.

Weakness. Suffering. And Vampirism on myself.

He tries withdrawing his knife, but it appears to be stuck.

I level my left hand at his head and loose a bolt of concentrated dark energy, striking him full in the face and -with apologies to my fellow captive- eating the flesh right off. And from the vital force transferred to me by Vampirism it appears one with more than human vitality. That is convenient.

I turn to Venus us the first youma brave enough to attack my Blade Barrier loses an arm and I receive another burst of vitality from Vampirism.

"Do we need him alive? He appears to be in his right mind."

She appears to be having a little trouble getting up to speed.

Haste.

"The others didn't remember their current life because Queen Beryl cast a spell on them to only remember their past one. If you undid that, he might go back to normal."

"That's not really something I can do under current circumstances. But…" I crouch down and pick him up my the collar with my left hand, carry him over to the bench I was strapped to and close the manacles around his arms and legs. With those spells on him he shouldn't be strong enough to break out, and if we haven't dealt with the situation by the time they wear off then it's probably too late anyway. "There."

She's looking at the large mutant. "What about him?"

"Oh, I'd say that we've got another… Twenty seconds or so until Puppet Master ends and he savages us both."

"Can you turn him back?"

"That's a little more than I can do with Cleanse, I'm afraid. I can't raise him from the dead because he's physically alive. Even if I could cast Resurrection, it wouldn't work because he lacks a soul. So I'm afraid that it's up to you and the Crystal." I turn back towards the now-depleted youma horde. "I'll leave it to you."

That should motivate her. It's a lie, of course. She'll actually have about another minute. Now-. Ah, Mass Slow is beginning to wear off, but that fellow has cut quite the scythe through them. And my own Blade Barrier is in my way.

Eldritch Arrow. And…

"Hold still a moment!"

Circle of Winter.

The uniformed man freezes in place, looking at me. And then the jagged blades of ice erupt from the stone floor around him and skewers is assailants. He throws knives, I throw bolts of concentrated dark energy, and before too long there are no survivors. Splendid.

He eyes me warily. "Are you Lushun?"

"The very same. Is there a plan, and what is my place in it?"

"There is, and you need to get to the surface now."