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

[Stsword]

I'm guessing Zoat was inspired by Death of the New Gods for that bit.

It was revealed that the secret to Infinity Man's power was that New God souls when combined don't combine power via addition but multiplication.

So say if the Team had a similar symbiosis their Infinity Man would have the power of Dick plus Conner plus Megan plus Wally plus Kaldur.

The Forever People? Their Infinity Man has the power of Dreamer times Bear times Moonrider times Vykin times Serifan.

Darkseid collected the souls of the New Gods slaughtered by the Infinite Man in an attempt to challenge the Source itself. Because of course he did, he's always looking for a power up.

So my guess is that Zoat was inspired to make that symbiotic aspect of the Infinite Man parasitic for the Finality Man.

 

[RoninSword]

Dreamer specifically said that Infinity Man was corrupted when they attempted to summon him (when they skipped Mount Justice because of Paulphidian). Whether that means this is what used to be Infinity Man or just based on him I would have no idea.

 

[Mr Zoat]

31st December 2012
22:32 GMT +1

"They have planes! Ring?"

The ring shows me an image of the cockpit in my mind's eye. Helmet. Plane's an F-35 Lightning with marking for the Royal Norwegian Air Force. Bit strange there's-

BANG! BANG!

-just.. one. Alright, what do I do about them? If I remember correctly, Norway is dithering about the direction of their defence procurement so these planes shouldn't have anything super advanced. Neither air-to-air missiles or cannons are going to do much to me, and since the area below has been evacuated shrapnel and falling bullets aren't a concern. I just need to down the planes before the robot gets free and uses its bypass power.

BOOM!

Graviton deflator.

"No shit! Y'got em?"

"In progress."

Downing a plane when you have a power ring is very easy. Downing a plane when you have a power ring and want whoever's in the plane to survive is fairly straight forward. Downing a plane when you have a power ring and want whoever's in the plane to survive without the wreckage setting the city on fire when the pilot will try to ram you in preference to ejecting is a little trickier.

Firstly, I fly out towards the sea. It will take me a little longer to support Guy, but-

BOOM!

Graviton deflator.

-I can still deal with the core parts of the job.

First plane banking to make its second run. Force beam projector off to the side. Slice through the neck of the plane, just behind the cockpit. Kinetic absorption field for the cockpit, trajectory of the body of the plane heading out to sea… Tumbling, but it's still not going to hit anything. Ignore. X-ionised knives slice into the cockpit, pilot reaching for-. Flare gun? Disarm, slice and drain. Helmet off, dump cockpit in the ocean, drop pilot on a bench by the-

"Anti-Life justifies their actions." Inalienable Truth.

-shore. Great, laser point defence constructs-.

Missiles fly towards me to be met by laser beams, punching through their flimsy outer casing and prematurely detonating their explosive-

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!

-load and I yank myself around as most of the cannon rounds miss, agh, and I've been meaning to redo that hip anyway. Check line of fire on the second, reposition-

"One plane down, two left. You still there?"

"You used crumblers on the eyes, right?"

"Yes."

Plane starts turning move. Decapitate, kinetic absorption field-. Body of plane heading for-. The shoreline, and there are still people in that area. Ring, phone them and tell them to move. Construct cockpit to stabilise flight path, send it into the sea. Cut through the pilot's helmet, toss the cockpit and land the pilot. Last plane is-.

"Guy, evade!"

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!

This one just gets an energy pulse because I need it to stop shooting more than I need anything else. The main body to the plane shatters, fuel tanks spraying and fuel igniting a moment later! Trigger the ejection system, kinetic-

BOOM!

-absorption field-

Graviton deflator.

-to catch most of the wreckage which hasn't exploded yet because the fuel isn't being contained but is burning nicely. Thrown it into the sea, catch the-

"Guy? Third plane down."

-seat, cut and drain through the helmet, drop off the pilot. No further planes here-

"Okaygreat."

-yet and I'm fully healed.

"Status?"

"Gone to ground, bleedin' like a pig."

I turn and fly back towards the… They've moved, tracking… There. Purple-

"Anti-Life justifies my actions." Inalienable Truth.

-healing-.

Red lightning scythes through the city as Guy frantically evades, boring a hole in the ground to duck under it and then weaving around as the red seems to.. drip down. I fire a volley of crumblers at the robot but some sort of… Barrier? Appears in the air and detonates them prematurely. Not a barrier, then. Just ionising the air would probably work, not to mention whatever New God technology that thing has.

Okay, clever dick. Crumbler shell.

In Harry Turtledove's WorldWar series, a German artillery detachment was able to bombard a Race landing zone and destroy several of their landing ships. The landing zone had point defences, but they were lasers designed to destroy incoming missiles and did absolutely nothing to heavy metal artillery shells other than mildly discolour the casing.

Most of my crumbler rounds aren't well armoured, because it's usually superfluous. That doesn't mean that I can't make armoured rounds.

Bit of tungsten, easy to crumble but capable of protecting the mechanism, aim and fire!

The round streaks through the air, and-. Gets about a metre further through the shielded area before being triggered.

Okay, cold gun. Absolute zero. Aim at the neck and fire.

Ice precipitates out of the air as the beam hits home, ice coating the area around-. Darn it, it's blocking this as well.

Fine. Construct battering ram go!

The construct shoots through the air, pushes past the robot's defences with no more than mild abrasions to show for it and then hits the robot directly in the neck hard. It staggers, some sort of energy I don't immediately recognise flickering and flaring around the impact site as its red energy lash cuts out and Guy gets a moment's respite.

Actually-.

I release Colin Thornton from my ring and attach filaments from the crumbler ram to him.

"Drain."

Lights on the robot flicker once more but this time there's no platoon of Justifiers for it to kill to heal itself. This time-.

"Cease." Final Stage of Existence.

This time my ring turns off and Colin fades away as the robot flies up to confront me.

 

[Old Knife]

Kill switch in the ring? Time to bring the snake?

 

[BR549]

"Anti-Life justifies my actions." Inalienable Truth.

-healing-.

Click to shrink...

Is this an intentional difference, or is it supposed to be 'their' again?

 

[Sockmonkey]

If that didn't kill the ring totally, it certainly killed it's charge.

 

[Bigking321]

Cease." Final Stage of Existence.

This time my ring turns off and Colin fades away as the robot flies up to confront me.

Click to shrink...

Well...

That's kinda unfair. Lol.

 

[Handlewithcare]

Damn. One New God robot and it's already close.

If Apokolips had sent even a few gods...than they would have won here

 

[thebishop8]

If his ring is shut down, he can't shut down the boom tubes. I'd wonder if there's a risk he'll get sent to Apokolips, but it seems more likely that the robot will just try to kill him instead.

 

[Vaermina]

I release Colin Thornton from my ring and attach filaments from the crumbler ram to him.

"Drain."

Lights on the robot flicker once more but this time there's no platoon of Justifiers for it to kill to heal itself. This time-.

"Cease." Final Stage of Existence.

This time my ring turns off and Colin fades away as the robot flies up to confront me.

Click to shrink...

Yea... This is your own damn fault given you already knew this wouldn't work.

 

[BR549]

If his ring is shut down, he can't shut down the boom tubes. I'd wonder if there's a risk he'll get sent to Apokolips, but it seems more likely that the robot will just try to kill him instead.

Click to shrink...

As noted, this is Apokalips doing things on the extremely cheap, for an apparent variety of reasons. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a 'we will disavow your actions' clause in play even.

And the Boom Tubes aren't going back to Apokolips anyway - they've been booming in Alliance of the Justified members from their various bases on Earth.

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

31st December 2012
22:32 GMT +1

"They have planes! Ring?"

The ring shows me an image of the cockpit in my mind's eye. Helmet. Plane's an F-35 Lightning with marking for the Royal Norwegian Air Force. Bit strange there's-

Click to shrink...

Welp, not on OL's side, then. Not that conventional weapons would do much to Finality Man. And any soldiers on the ground are likely to be down or going down with Anti-Life infections. Heck, that's probably who some of the people fighting them are. And unfortunately, they're a lot squishier than our heroes...

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

BANG! BANG!

-just.. one. Alright, what do I do about them? If I remember correctly, Norway is dithering about the direction of their defence procurement so these plans shouldn't have anything super advanced. Neither air-to-air missiles or cannons are going to do much to me, and since the area below has been evacuated shrapnel and falling bullets aren't a concern. I just need to down the planes before the robot gets free and uses its bypass power.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, small arms fire might leave a nice little hole as it goes through (with a bigger one going out...) Cannon ammo? Not so small.

BOOM!

Graviton deflator.

Click to shrink...

At this point, it's practically a macro.

"No shit! Y'got em?"

"In progress."

Click to shrink...

How fast depends on...

Downing a plane when you have a power ring is very easy. Downing a plane when you have a power ring and want whoever's in the plane to survive is fairly straight forward. Downing a plane when you have a power ring and want whoever's in the plane to survive without the wreckage setting the city on fire when the pilot will try to ram you in preference to ejecting is a little trickier.

Click to shrink...

...Yeah. Old OL would probably have just shredded the plane and let the pilot sort himself out. Now? The enemy is also their own hostage...

Firstly, I fly out towards the sea. It will take me a little longer to support Guy, but-

BOOM!

Graviton deflator.

Click to shrink...

Complete autopilot there. Gotta love how he's barely even being distracted by it.

-I can still deal with the core parts of the job.

First plane banking to make its second run. Force beam projector off to the side. Slice through the neck of the plane, just behind the cockpit. Kinetic absorption field for the cockpit, trajectory of the body of the plane heading out to sea… Tumbling, but it's still not going to hit anything. Ignore. X-ionised knives slice into the cockpit, pilot reaching for-. Flare gun? Disarm, slice and drain. Helmet off, dump cockpit in the ocean, drop pilot on a bench by the-

Click to shrink...

Huh, I was kidding when I said shredded, but that's about as clean as you could get for a kill-shot.

"Anti-Life justifies their actions." Inalienable Truth.


-shore. Great, laser point defence constructs-.

Click to shrink...

Plus dodging, of course. Because those are not small, and even the molten shrapnel can probably keep the All-Piercing trait...

Missiles fly towards me to be met by laser beams, punching through their flimsy outer casing and prematurely detonating their explosive-

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!

Click to shrink...

Such a satisfying sound when it's on your side. When it's firing at you, though...

-load and I yank myself around as most of the cannon rounds miss, agh, and I've been meaning to redo that hip anyway. Check line of fire on the second, reposition-

"One plane down, two left. You still there?"

Click to shrink...

Heh, so casual about losing a dinner plate-sized chunk of his body.

"You used crumblers on the eyes, right?"

"Yes."

Click to shrink...

Asking because you want to throw some of your own down the holes, Guy?

Plane starts turning move. Decapitate, kinetic absorption field-. Body of plane heading for-. The shoreline, and there are still people in that area. Ring, phone them and tell them to move. Construct cockpit to stabilise flight path, send it into the sea. Cut through the pilot's helmet, toss the cockpit and land the pilot. Last plane is-.

"Guy, evade!"

Click to shrink...

After all, they have two targets, not one in their AO...

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!

This one just gets an energy pulse because I need it to stop shooting more than I need anything else. The main body to the plane shatters, fuel tanks spraying and fuel igniting a moment later! Trigger the ejection system, kinetic-

Click to shrink...

Ah, there's the 'shred first, worry about the pilot second' reaction.

BOOM!

-absorption field-

Graviton deflator.

Click to shrink...

Bet he's starting to get annoyed now.

-to catch most of the wreckage which hasn't exploded yet because the fuel isn't being contained but is burning nicely. Thrown it into the sea, catch the-

"Guy? Third plane down."

Click to shrink...

But of a scramble, but well done.

-seat, cut and drain through the helmet, drop off the pilot. No further planes here-

"Okaygreat."

Click to shrink...

...For now. Best to be on your guard, though.

-yet and I'm fully healed.

"Status?"

"Gone to ground, bleedin' like a pig."

Click to shrink...

Guy, you really need to get your own Purple Healing Ray gun...

I turn and fly back towards the… They've moved, tracking… There. Purple-

"Anti-Life justifies my actions." Inalienable Truth.

Click to shrink...

Uh-oh. looks like Finality Man's buffing himself this time.

-healing-.

Red lightning scythes through the city as Guy frantically evades, boring a hole in the ground to duck under it and then weaving around as the red seems to.. drip down. I fire a volley of crumblers at the robot but some sort of… Barrier? Appears in the air and detonates them prematurely. Not a barrier, then. Just ionising the air would probably work, no to mention whatever New God technology that thing has.

Click to shrink...

...Gotta admit, that would look amazing to see, if you weren't on the receiving end.

Okay, clever dick. Crumbler shell.

In Harry Turtledove's WorldWar series, a German artillery detachment was able to bombard a Race landing zone and destroy several of their landing ships. The landing zone had point defences, but they were lasers designed to destroy incoming missiles and did absolutely nothing to heavy metal artillery shells other than mildly discolour the casing.

Click to shrink...

Heh. Always amusing when technology clashes like that.

Most of my crumbler rounds aren't well armoured, because it's usually superfluous. That doesn't mean that I can't make armoured rounds.

Bit of tungsten, easy to crumble but capable of protecting the mechanism, aim and fire!

Click to shrink...

And with enough speed, it doubles as armour-piercing too.

The round streaks through the air, and-. Gets about a metre further through the shielded area before being triggered.

Okay, cold gun. Absolute zero. Aim at the neck and fire.

Click to shrink...

Let's hope somethign works before he gets to the really big guns. You know, the kind that leaves craters visible from space?

Ice precipitates out of the air as the beam hits home, ice coating the area around-. Darn it, it's blocking this as well.

Fine. Construct battering ram go!

Click to shrink...

...Because it might come down to that level of firepower.

The construct shoots through the air, pushes past the robot's defences with no more than mild abrasions to show for it and then hits the robot directly in the neck hard. It staggers, some sort of energy I don't immediately recognise flickering and flaring around the impact site as its red energy lash cuts out and Guy gets a moment's respite.

Actually-.

Click to shrink...

Huh, that went through nearly unimpeded. Maybe playing overwatch and fire-support is not the way to go here. Time to take a leaf out of Doomguy's book... And rip and tear.

I release Colin Thornton from my ring and attach filaments from the crumbler ram to him.

"Drain."

Click to shrink...

Then again, why work up a sweat when you have Construct Lanterns to do that for you?

Lights on the robot flicker once more but this time there's no platoon of Justifiers for it to kill to heal itself. This time-.

"Cease." Final Stage of Existence.

This time my ring turns off and Colin fades away as the robot flies up to confront me.

Click to shrink...

Oh, that's just cheating!

Let's hope it just disrupted his focus with a little Black, rather than draining the Rings outright. Either way, OL is going to have to work a little harder, now that Finality Man's taken a more personal interest in him. Despite the risks, this might be a good time to push your Orange Light skills just a bit harder, and start tapping the light direct...

---

"Anti-Life justifies their actions." Inalienable Truth.


-shore. Great, laser point defence constructs-.

Click to shrink...

One Line Break too many?

 

[Bigking321]

Yea... This is your own damn fault given you already knew this wouldn't work.

Click to shrink...

Actually, I think it was working. By having the absorbed person drain instead of doing it himself he got rid of the anti life feedback that screwed him up before.

But, then the robot pulled this new power out...

 

[Agumentic]

Damn, no wonder GLC-Apokolyps war turned into a total slaughter. Finality Man is not exactly standard issue, but it is also not the most powerful thing Darkseid can put on the field, and it handles two of like top-10 Lanterns in the galaxy without much problems.

 

[Vaermina]

Actually, I think it was working. By having the absorbed person drain instead of doing it himself he got rid of the anti life feedback that screwed him up before.

But, then the robot pulled this new power out...

Click to shrink...

This isn't a new power, it's the exact same one it's been using this entire time just applied directly instead of indirectly.

Also, given the speed with which it popped LePaul would have run out of construct lanterns before it hit even the half way point power wise.

 

[thebishop8]

As noted, this is Apokalips doing things on the extremely cheap, for an apparent variety of reasons. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a 'we will disavow your actions' clause in play even.

And the Boom Tubes aren't going back to Apokolips anyway - they've been booming in Alliance of the Justified members from their various bases on Earth.

Click to shrink...

"Disavow your actions" doesn't seem like an attitude Darkseid would take.

Boom tubes can open to almost anywhere the user wants them to go.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Is this an intentional difference, or is it supposed to be 'their' again?

Click to shrink...

That's intentional.

One Line Break too many?

Click to shrink...

Thank you, corrected.

 

[Lord Ernest]

I think the Illustres' cleverness is working against him a bit. He has so many options and clever weapons that he's unaccostumed to just going hard and unrelentless.

See how his crumbler shell or cold gun didn't work but his construct battering ram did better? Why not keep hammering Finality Man? Or really bring the maximum power of his energy pulse with the desire to totally destroy this thing? And I don't know how much charge his graviton deflator takes but wouldn't it be better to keep it on? Like when a fight against another Lantern happens, both Lanterns usually implement and keep active their anti-FTL measures for more or less the same reason.

I think he may need more practice outpowering an enemy, besides just out thinking it. Sometimes it's necessary. Especislly when an enemy can, apparently, be more clever and out think you.

 

[Mr Zoat]

And I don't know how much charge his graviton deflator takes but wouldn't it be better to keep it on?

Click to shrink...

It's a gun. He points it at the aperture and fires it. I appreciate that wasn't clear.

 

[Bud-E]

Just ionising the air would probably work, no to mention whatever New God technology that thing has.

Click to shrink...

Not

 

[moralrelativity]

so these plans shouldn't

Click to shrink...

plans -> planes

 

[Mr Zoat]

Not

Click to shrink...

plans -> planes

Click to shrink...

Thank you, corrected.

 

[Darko]

been evacuated shrapnel and falling

Click to shrink...

"evacuated, shrapnel"

field-. Body of plane heading for-. The shoreline, and there are still people in that area. Ring, phone them and tell them to move

Click to shrink...

They probably won't listen.

 

[Mr Zoat]

"evacuated, shrapnel"

Click to shrink...

I think that's okay.

 

[Windona]

Oh wow, this does establish Apokalypse as a huge threat. All of this done to the Earth? Chances are even if the heroes completely win this, Darkseid hasn't really lost anything he had before Paul showed up on E16.

Though yup, like in the KOTOR boss fight the enemy can't drain if there's nothing to drain.

 

[Darko]

Chances are even if the heroes completely win this, Darkseid hasn't really lost anything he had before Paul showed up on E16.

Click to shrink...

Unless they somehow manage to get rid of the piece stuck in Bruno, so Darkseid could be weakened.

 

[Coda]

Uh... is OL still packing a backup ring?

 

[m_d]

Guy, you really need to get your own Purple Healing Ray gun...

Click to shrink...

Something that occurred to me that may or may not end up relevant here. So, it's been established that a purple healing ray gun requires an active thaumosphere, but I don't think that specifics about what other characteristics that thaumosphere needs to have in order for it to work properly have been laid out. For other magic effects, various characters have spoken about limitations to their utility in differing magic environments. I wonder whether the influence of whatever New God tech is being used on Earth's thaumosphere will affect the functioning of the purple ray guns. And if so, whether it'll be obvious or instead insidious.

Like, I still remember being horrified at the warped healing in the Ravenloft D&D setting where clerics who had been dropped into it from other settings, whose connections to their gods were thereby disrupted, could heal people as normal, and it would look fine initially, but over time the healed people would go very wrong. If I recall correctly, in the example I read, a healed hand slowly became a venomous snake that tried to bite its owner, and a healed back grew an evil miniature second humanoid head. *shivers*

 

[MadMonkMash]

So I've been a lurker in the with this ring fandom for a while now and up until this point i had a feeling that Paul was doing something innately wrong with the way hes been using his ring and i hadn't been able to put my finger on what it actually was but i think I've figured it out. now I'm a consumer of more old fashioned comic media and of course Mr Zoat holds all control of the setting but it seems to me that the way Paul is using his ring is a rather round about way. Historically green lanterns have been able to create esoteric materials and effects purely through the power of the light they wield (A rather famous version being the ability to recreate the aspects of kryptonite that make it toxic to kryptonians) so if that works in this universe (which it might not) why isn't Paul just strait up using his lantern light in place of the original stuff. By this i mean when he uses the healing ray why not just make his constructs produce the same stuff, make his constructs take on the stuff that makes crumbler rounds work(Which he might have and i just can't remember). A prime example of this is his use of rail gun constructs which while useful for the angel rounds i just cant see being more effective than just making his ring shoot out pure energy shots which would probably be faster and creates less points of failure.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.


And of course i could be completely wrong and non of this works this way in Mr Zoats universe

 

[Bud-E]

So I've been a lurker in the with this ring fandom for a while now and up until this point i had a feeling that Paul was doing something innately wrong with the way hes been using his ring and i hadn't been able to put my finger on what it actually was but i think I've figured it out. now I'm a consumer of more old fashioned comic media and of course Mr Zoat holds all control of the setting but it seems to me that the way Paul is using his ring is a rather round about way. Historically green lanterns have been able to create esoteric materials and effects purely through the power of the light they wield (A rather famous version being the ability to recreate the aspects of kryptonite that make it toxic to kryptonians) so if that works in this universe (which it might not) why isn't Paul just strait up using his lantern light in place of the original stuff. By this i mean when he uses the healing ray why not just make his constructs produce the same stuff, make his constructs take on the stuff that makes crumbler rounds work(Which he might have and i just can't remember). A prime example of this is his use of rail gun constructs which while useful for the angel rounds i just cant see being more effective than just making his ring shoot out pure energy shots which would probably be faster and creates less points of failure.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.


And of course i could be completely wrong and non of this works this way in Mr Zoats universe

Click to shrink...

I know Zoat wanted his Lanterns to be less OP so some comic-accurate stuff Lanterns can't do in this fic. The prime example that comes to mind is Lanterns have been shown the ability to block omega beams with normal constructs in this fic omega beams only stop when they've hit a living target. Also, some things Lanterns can do in comics are just ridiculous time travel, universal teleportation, the ability to move and destroy planets like Golden Age Superman the rings could do whatever the author wanted them to do.