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

[AidanMorgan]

I'm just sitting here pointing and laughing because I actually remember early on that Paul was whining about "punching week" saying there was absolutely no way it would ever be useful for him.

Ha.

Haha.

Black Canary is never gonna let him live this down.

 

[Dakkan Sall]

And my rings are in my chest and my skull and my armour's systems are integrated.

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Buh?

Ok, when did he do that? I obviously missed Paul deciding to delve into subdermal jewelry options.

 

[AidanMorgan]

Buh?

Ok, when did he do that? I obviously missed Paul deciding to delve into subdermal jewelry options.

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It was a throwaway line a few chapters ago.

 

[Agent Orange]

I'm just sitting here pointing and laughing because I actually remember early on that Paul was whining about "punching week" saying there was absolutely no way it would ever be useful for him.

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To be fair, while short-sighted, he wasn't completely wrong. He has a stupidly versatile tool/weapon he never takes off (except for when he does) that makes his "unarmed" cqc skill completely irrelevant. Even if he trained every single day for the past two years(?) I very much doubt it would've mattered against an opponent who presumably trained and fought for most of her life.

He probably should've downloaded some unarmed/meele combat skill package (Matrix style) by now but that would make scenes like this even more ridiculous. Zoat is already struggling to write interesting fight scenes without nerfing OL and removing one more of his weak spots is counterproductive to that end. It's the same reason he went out of his way to avoid making his body less squishy. You know what's better than wrapping your frail human flesh in powerarmor and forcefields? Giving yourself a superthoughness and then wrapping yourself in powerarmor and forcefields.

 

[m_d]

Buh?

Ok, when did he do that? I obviously missed Paul deciding to delve into subdermal jewelry options.

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After he got his arms blown off in Otherworld 10, requiring him to summon his rings back with his environmental shield down in the middle of a fight, he decided to improve his survival odds in Otherworld 18 by doing that. I don't recall fully whether or not he intends this to be permanent.

I've also done something that I wanted to avoid doing and implanted my rings inside my body, with one in my chest and the other in my skull. My fingers have glowing pieces of plastic on them instead. A head shot… I'm not completely confident in my ability to survive one. Then again, I'm not confident of their ability to survive me, either.

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[Doccer]

Oh this is bullshit!

How to win a flipping sword duel? Firstly, given that while I have done some primitive weapon practice I don't have the drilled reactions of people who focus on it, ensure that I'm as accelerated as I can meaningfully be.

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I always knew from the first time I read Paul training with Canary and him saying it was pointless because if he didn't have his rings to help him his first priority would be to get them, that this would happen.
Granted I thought more along the lines of his rings being locked in a vault with magic sigils to keep the Orange Light un responsive or something and he actually having to fight thru gaurdsmen villains monsters, steal gear transport and all the things the other professionals in his new livelihood knew he had to do and kept reminding him of but he was too intelligent to listen to professional advice.


Toss her a ring! Oh...wait...

And my rings are in my chest and my skull and my armour's systems are integrated.

Damn it.

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[Darko]

but he was too intelligent to listen to professional advice.

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In all fairness he did take lessons in fighting and is fairly capable in it, but he wasn't going to focus on fighting ordinary, albeit well trained, humans.

With his ring taking care of such people is child's play, so he focused on fighting super strong or powerful opponents.

 

[Korfayron]

Throw a ring at her, she then has it and he wins.

 

[Darko]

Throw a ring at her, she then has it and he wins.

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The rings are sadly in his body right now and he may have lost control of them until this duel is finished.

 

[Galacticplumber]

I find it amusing that everyone's using that moment as an "I told you so." when in point of fact that there's not a chance in hell that basic hand to hand training is going to meaningfully effect the outcome here. This is a new god enhanced grundy person. Even if he does get a hit in with his blade it's unlikely to finish things. Either the effect will be broken/minimized or he'll figure out how to actually use some of the new god tricks producing godspeech earlier demonstrates him theoretically capable of.

 

[Doccer]

In all fairness he did take lessons in fighting and is fairly capable in it, but he wasn't going to focus on fighting ordinary, albeit well trained, humans.

With his ring taking care of such people is child's play, so he focused on fighting super strong or powerful opponents.

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Until it wasn't.

 

[Darko]

Until it wasn't.

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This woman is far from being an ordinary well trained human.

If he tried to fight her with just his physical capabilities then he would be killed.

 

[Doccer]

This woman is far from being an ordinary well trained human.

If he tried to fight her with just his physical capabilities then he would be killed.

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He IS fighting her with just his physical capabilities and whatever is left of his armor capabilities.

 

[Darko]

He IS fighting her with just his physical capabilities and whatever is left of his armor capabilities.

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I know that, but your first comment about him not taking advice from Canary seemed to imply that if he did take her advice then he would be more easily capable of beating her with just his fighting skills.

If you meant this then you would be wrong because unless you're Batman or Karate Kid you're not going to be able to defeat a super strong god with just your fists, even if you do know how to use them very well.

If you didn't mean this then I apologize for any misunderstanding.

 

[Doccer]

I know that, but your first comment about him not taking advice from Canary seemed to imply that if he did take her advice then he would be more easily capable of beating her with just his fighting skills.

If you meant this then you would be wrong because unless you're Batman or Karate Kid you're not going to be able to defeat a super strong god with just your fists, even if you do know how to use them very well.

If you didn't mean this then I apologize for any misunderstanding.

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I meant that he never took his PT or CQC seriously. He used the fact that his ring kept his body at peak physical perfection to not train si he never got use to the effort and strain that can drain one's stamina. Never really thought or cared about the physical training that his teachers insisted he do unless team bonding or forced on him. And even then he did it grudgingly, bare minimal effort beyond what it took to complete. The skills and instincts of combat never really became muscle memory to him the way it is to others. Just as he had time allocated for Ring Training he could have done the same for physical stuff. Or at least take what training was forced upon him or available to him seriously at minimal. Most physical combat he has experienced with is in his fully kitted out power armour alone. No I don't expect him to fight with little more than his fists and whatever he can lay his hands on. But it's not the first time his Ring powers have been disabled and have to do without. And whenever he does?

Oh this is bullshit!

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Less time complaining, more focus O.L.!

Much the same reaction to previous attempts to get him to move in ways that cause sweat. Only this time his power armor can't be used in ways that can't be directed defined as 'armor'.
At most it'll help as a physical boost. If he thinks quickly maybe he can sheath his blade on one side to unleash his blade on the other. As that would be 'switching hands'. But mostly this battle is the one with greater skill and so on that will win unless Paul gets any better ideas till Canis or someone helps.

 

[Darko]

I meant that he never took his PT or CQC seriously. He used the fact that his ring kept his body at peak physical perfection to not train si he never got use to the effort and strain that can drain one's stamina. Never really thought or cared about the physical training that his teachers insisted he do unless team bonding or forced on him. And even then he did it grudgingly, bare minimal effort beyond what it took to complete. The skills and instincts of combat never really became muscle memory to him the way it is to others. Just as he had time allocated for Ring Training he could have done the same for physical stuff. Most physical combat he has experienced with is in his fully kitted out power armour alone. No I don't expect him to fight with little more than his fists and whatever he can lay his hands on. But it's not the first time his Ring powers have been disabled and have to do without. And whenever he does?


Less time complaining, more focus O.L.!

Much the same reaction to previous attempts to get him to move in ways that cause sweat. Only this time his power armor can't be used in ways that can't be directed defined as 'armor'.
At most it'll help as a physical boost. If he thinks quickly maybe he can sheath his blade on one side to unleash his blade on the other. As that would be 'switching hands'. But mostly this battle is the one with greater skill and so on that will win unless Paul gets any better ideas till Canis or someone helps.

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The reason he didn't spend so much time in physical training is because he wasn't going to primarily fight people in hand to hand combat, but rather use his constructs to take them out.

He has trained in using his ring for CQC, but that was for fighting super strong opponents, not ordinary people.

OL doesn't have super strength without his ring so he needed to use his ring for that type of training.

OL can actually fight without his ring but doesn't do it that much due to the fact that he doesn't need to do it and because he's not stupid enough to take it off for something like being insulted that he's worthless without it or for an honor duel, not unless he has a trick up his sleeve at least, like for his fight with Ragnar.

 

[LZB1285]

Does anyone else remember the saying about the best swords(wo)man vs the worst swordsman. You can't predict what the twit's gonna do...

 

[Agumentic]

He IS fighting her with just his physical capabilities and whatever is left of his armor capabilities.

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The point is, even if Paul took his unpowered training totally seriously and spent a lot of time on it, he would still be outmatched here and at best have a bit more time to come with some clever solution. That rather small increase in a very unlikely situation would come at the cost of a big decrease in his other capabilities he uses 99.99% of time. Not spending a lot of time on compensating your weakness directly makes sense, it is much more efficient to compensate for it indirectly. Just because OL now fell into an edge case situation doesn't make this not true.

 

[rkyeun]

This is why when you find weird cocoons with bodies in them in evil fairy godking's lair, you have the Praexis Demons eat first, and ask questions never.

 

[Galacticplumber]

This is why when you find weird cocoons with bodies in them in evil fairy godking's lair, you have the Praexis Demons eat first, and ask questions never.

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Those don't exist anymore. Have been gone for quite a while actually.

 

[Darko]

This is why when you find weird cocoons with bodies in them in evil fairy godking's lair, you have the Praexis Demons eat first, and ask questions never.

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Sadly he lost most of his demon constructs when Agony and Ecstasy destroyed them during the Ressurectionists episode.

The only demon construct he has now is the Hellwarith thing and maybe that amphibian from that city the Sheeda forgot missed that was assimilated by the Ophidian during the Titanfall episode.

 

[Doccer]

Snip

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When his Ring is NEGATED. Not willingly removed. NEGATED. Like now.
You had my intent and reasoning correct in your last post. I just wanted to try and clarify further how even his attitude towards physical skill training didn't help him. If he had he wouldn't be complaining about not being able to use his powers till after the fight was done. If he put effort in he'd probably feel more confident than to complain. Thus more focus into the fight and finding a solution.
He might win as is now but more than likely he'll find another solution. Which is fine. He is a Lantern. Physical combat isn't how he'll typically win, it's how he will stays alive untill he does. Thus my point about the confidence/focus thing.
The only abnormal part of this fight is that many of his power armor offensive capabilities are down. Small mercies her armor is powering her somehow so his can keep the physical gap disparity small, instead of (at worst) powering down into an armored coffin.

 

[Darko]

When his Ring is NEGATED. Not willingly removed. NEGATED. Like now.
You had my intent and reasoning correct in your last post. I just wanted to try and clarify further how even his attitude towards physical skill training didn't help him. If he had he wouldn't be complaining about not being able to use his powers till after the fight was done. If he put effort in he'd probably feel more confident than to complain. Thus more focus into the fight and finding a solution.
He might win as is now but more than likely he'll find another solution. Which is fine. He is a Lantern. Physical combat isn't how he'll typically win, it's how he will stays alive untill he does. Thus my point about the confidence/focus thing.
The only abnormal part of this fight is that many of his power armor offensive capabilities are down. Small mercies her armor is powering her somehow so his can keep the physical gap disparity small, instead of (at worst) powering down into an armored coffin.

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I think that even if he trained more for physical combat that he'd still complain.

He would have still most likely focused on his ring use rather than physical combat, so even if he trained a bit more he'd still most likely complain because his greatest advantage was taken from him.

It's also kinda hard to feel confident in your fighting skills when your opponent has super strength and you don't.

I guess he lost some of his armors offensive capabilities because the challenge made them equals, so now he just has enhanced strength because she has enhanced strength, but lacks any long range weapons he may have had because she doesn't have any long range attacks.

 

[Coda]

Well, there's two ways to approach an equalizer like this.

Everyone's focusing on giving buffs to Aurakos that the SI will benefit more from.

Nobody's suggested nerfing the SI so that Aurakos has to fight in an area outside of her own skillset.

If Paul shucks the armor, then Aurakos gets brought down to baseline human. If she tries to use New God technology at that point, the SI gets to use orange light.

 

[Alexcorvin]

@Mr. Zoat apologizes if this has already been posted, but could you give me a link to an image of Paul's armor? I'm curious what it looks like. Thank you in advance.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Those don't exist anymore. Have been gone for quite a while actually.

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The SI doesn't have any. There are still plenty unassimilated ones about.

@Mr. Zoat apologizes if this has already been posted, but could you give me a link to an image of Paul's armor? I'm curious what it looks like. Thank you in advance.

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I'll be able to post that just as soon as someone draws it.

 

[Darko]

I'll be able to post that just as soon as someone draws it.

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Can you at least give us a hint as to what it looks like, like say does it look like the armor worn by Spartans in Halo, or something similar?

 

[Tyrantviewer]

Zoat said that some Zataras can only do illusions, hence the entire conversation about how Zoat said some of the family have lesser magical abilities.

Zatara and Zatanna's logomancy is such that they literally know enough about magic that they have an infinite ability to create new spells on the fly by just saying what they want to happen backwards.

The only way one could understand magic better than that is to know enough about magic to have an infinite ability to create new spells on the fly with but a thought.

Which the Atlanteans not only do not have, they fall rather short of.

Kaldur states in Denial that his skin icons power his water-bearers. Atlantean Sorcery= No skin icon, no magic.

So to create a new spell in Atlantean Sorcery, one would first have to create a new skin icon. Then to get that spell cast, one needs to tattoo someone with it and then teach them how to use the skin icon.

Which is apparently neither an easy or fast process, since word of Greg is that Tempest is the most advanced student in the entire Conservatory of Sorcery, which is why he can call upon the power of the Tempest.

So no, YJ Atlantis's knowledge of magic falls thoroughly short of the Zatara's.

Good thing that YJ Atlantis is in fact a high tech society.

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Is the Zatara's logomancy being that way WOG or are extrapolating from word of god- I always saw it being like Wishcraft from Fate/Stay Night. The eizenberns had a sorcery trait that lets them substitute MORE POWER for the nitty gritty of magecraft- but it scales poorly enough, and we see few enough of them, that we don't see them pulling things like copying other magi styles with sheer power- instead they focus on physical alchemy, as a field where throwing a ton of power will leave tangible results behind, and as one that with their specialty in Homunculi, lets them create the equivalent of magical generators. Plus their big family goal is achieving the Third magic again, which as one of the effects of mastery, makes the user an infinite source of magical energy.

That went on longer than I planed but basically while the Eizenberns have the ability to just throw more power at a problem instead of developing the intricate spells to accomplish something (the whole holy grail war is a set up to leverage just enough spellwork and enough magical power so that their wishcraft (the head of the family at the time sacrificed herself to be part of the system) can make up the difference and reach the root) I always saw the Zataras as basically having a similar shortcut.

TDLR i don't think the Zataras do the backwards talk because they know JUST SO MUCH about magic, but because they have a bloodline given ability that lets them substitute the backwards talk for other spellwork- ie Talking backwards instead of invoking gods or making ritual circles. And like the Eizenberns their are limits to it, probably in terms of knowledge and practice or else they would be gods that could backwards talke their way into anything.

Anyone else think that the Source could be unmaking that control rune? There's got to be some consequences to this setup that will work against Melmoth. So what is the weak link in Grundy magic that could be subverted with Paul's remaining tools?

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I think it might depend on how exactly Grundymen work- my guess is that the souls don't leave the body properly- heck the whole practice might exist due to whatever Melmoth did to make a zombie new god work- ei blocking souls from moving on.

So, no dice on extracting the 2 rings from inside himself, throw one to the New God and keep the other and say: duel with my weapon of choice?

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The issue is surviving removing a ring long enough to hand one over, and since his other sword just won't work since the zomgod only has one, there is the risk that the god magic might consider it uneven if the remaining implanted ring is implanted instead of worn like the one he could hand over. So he has to risk cutting open his chest to remove that ring and hope the one in his skull will start working so he can survive that, and at the moment he is stuck in his armor in the middle of a fight so he can't stop to carefully do self surgery.

Also has melmoth stoped talking or is Paul's muting him still working indicating that ring functions not aimed at making the fight uneven might be working-

 

[Darko]

Is the Zatara's logomancy being that way WOG or are extrapolating from word of god- I always saw it being like Wishcraft from Fate/Stay Night. The eizenberns had a sorcery trait that lets them substitute MORE POWER for the nitty gritty of magecraft- but it scales poorly enough, and we see few enough of them, that we don't see them pulling things like copying other magi styles with sheer power- instead they focus on physical alchemy, as a field where throwing a ton of power will leave tangible results behind, and as one that with their specialty in Homunculi, lets them create the equivalent of magical generators. Plus their big family goal is achieving the Third magic again, which as one of the effects of mastery, makes the user an infinite source of magical energy.

That went on longer than I planed but basically while the Eizenberns have the ability to just throw more power at a problem instead of developing the intricate spells to accomplish something (the whole holy grail war is a set up to leverage just enough spellwork and enough magical power so that their wishcraft (the head of the family at the time sacrificed herself to be part of the system) can make up the difference and reach the root) I always saw the Zataras as basically having a similar shortcut.

TDLR i don't think the Zataras do the backwards talk because they know JUST SO MUCH about magic, but because they have a bloodline given ability that lets them substitute the backwards talk for other spellwork- ie Talking backwards instead of invoking gods or making ritual circles. And like the Eizenberns their are limits to it, probably in terms of knowledge and practice or else they would be gods that could backwards talke their way into anything.



I think it might depend on how exactly Grundymen work- my guess is that the souls don't leave the body properly- heck the whole practice might exist due to whatever Melmoth did to make a zombie new god work- ei blocking souls from moving on.



The issue is surviving removing a ring long enough to hand one over, and since his other sword just won't work since the zomgod only has one, there is the risk that the god magic might consider it uneven if the remaining implanted ring is implanted instead of worn like the one he could hand over. So he has to risk cutting open his chest to remove that ring and hope the one in his skull will start working so he can survive that, and at the moment he is stuck in his armor in the middle of a fight so he can't stop to carefully do self surgery.

Also has melmoth stoped talking or is Paul's muting him still working indicating that ring functions not aimed at making the fight uneven might be working-

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My guess is that the mute functions are still working.

I doubt Melmoth stays quiet unless he's muted.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Can you at least give us a hint as to what it looks like, like say does it look like the armor worn by Spartans in Halo, or something similar?

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No. Honestly, it doesn't look like armour that anyone would want to try fighting in. It's bulky and the head is built into the torso.