Young Justice Plus

[Xicree]

[X] "Maybe." You shake your head. "I think I need a vacation. All the stuff that's been happening to me lately, I need to go somewhere, do something else for a bit to get started."
-[X] "Looking through the magazines made me want a vacation."

 

[Biigoh]

[X] "Maybe." You shake your head. "I think I need a vacation. All the stuff that's been happening to me lately, I need to go somewhere, do something else for a bit to get started."
-[X] "Looking through the magazines made me want a vacation."

 

[tEN]

[X] You throw down the magazine in disgust. "This isn't working at all. I need to come at this from another angle. Why am I even using greed at all? Wasn't the whole point of this to use will? Isn't using greed an admission of failure? I cannot accept that kind of deviation from my goals. What's the opposite? Maybe I can balance two emotions and find will in the middle."

 

[TotalAbsolutism]

[X] You throw down the magazine in disgust. "This isn't working at all. I need to come at this from another angle. Why am I even using greed at all? Wasn't the whole point of this to use will? Isn't using greed an admission of failure? I cannot accept that kind of deviation from my goals. What's the opposite? Maybe I can balance two emotions and find will in the middle."

 

[WyldCard4]

[X] "Maybe." You shake your head. "I think I need a vacation. All the stuff that's been happening to me lately, I need to go somewhere, do something else for a bit to get started."
-[X] "Looking through the magazines made me want a vacation."

Click to shrink...

Rosewood, Pennsylvania- July 13, 19:43 EDT

Ethan shrugs. "Interesting. Any particular reason why?"

You pause and frown, considering."I guess confusion and stress, overall. It seems weird, going from will to greed like that."

"You act as if they are truly divided. What else could spur you on, keep you going? To separate will from context is to be dead." Ethan pauses and pulls out the dark smartphone, turning it on for the first time you have seen.

"Another lesson in magic?" You ask.

Ethan nods. "In a matter of speaking. Imagine a presence, existent without context. There is nothing to this presence but itself. Denied of information on the outside world it could either expect good things or bad ones from the unknown. As such, consciousness creates hope and fear. Skipping a number of related steps, does an active presence have will without hope or fear?"

You frown and consider. "With nothing outside of it? Focusing on one thing would be just as unimportant as focusing on a thousand things for a being without anything else around. I guess it probably would not."

Ethan nods approvingly. "Now add hope or fear. If the being believes harm is possible, action can be pursued in that mind indistinguishable from preparation for such hope or fear. Spending a thousand years trying to enact a hope or combat a fear becomes different from spending a thousand years trying to imagine the sound F Sharp. It is argued by magicians I have met that will must exist in context. If you have no desires to resist, then resisting them is not will. Your soul wants and as such your soul is defined by going with or against that want."

It makes sufficient sense for you to nod. "So, teacher, do you think a vacation would advance my progress or impede it?" Ethan shrugs again.

"I don't know you well enough to say. What I do know is that you going on a vacation would tell me more about you and make you easier to train. Even if it is a deadly mistake for your development it would allow me to know what to avoid in the future."

"If this is a learning exercise anyway, what do you think I should do?"

Ethan taps his fingers happily against a tombstone. "I have a few ideas..."

Bar Harbor, Maine- July 14, 05: 12 EDT

It is weird taking a non-stolen car somewhere. You are exhausted and irritable, but this is apparently Ethan's idea of a vacation.

Ethan had given you a lightly annotated note about the town. The place is a tourist area noted for having some of the oldest human archeological sites in the world. Occasional tourists, archeologists, and magicians toured the place enough to keep a sleepy town active. The largest employer in the town was the retirement home with all the young blood called to more promising places.

Once the fishing had been good here, but overfishing had depleted everything. It isn't even legal to fish here anymore, and the law says it wont be until 2038. Environmentalism can feel very real when Thanagarians give Congress a list of planets that went through ecological catastrophes to go along with the shared history books. Earth's jellyfish are not quite as likely to storm the land in hunger as those of Antar, but the point still got through.

Ethan gave you a single book to study while you are here. You can come back when you have mastered the aura sight. You are tasked with figuring out who among the tourists have magic and who do not. The challenge is rather exciting.

You have just parked and are at the desk when you hear a laugh. "Of all the people!" You spin around and see Spencer from Star City waving at you.

"Great to see you," You say at least half sincerely.

"I wouldn't have thought they'd have found you anyone wanting to adopt up here," Spencer grins at you. Oh right, that cover story the lawyer had made up had involved going to Star City to find someone to adopt a baby you were supposedly pregnant with. How Spencer had heard about this you couldn't imagine. "How far along are you?" You think fast.

"Not very. I was quite proactive. With my mother and all that I just couldn't..." Spencer waves it off.

"You've got nothing to feel guilty about! If Ashley and I could we'd adopt, but she's back in rehab so I'm visiting her grandfather up here." Ah, so that's why you thought she was named Ashley, it must have come up in conversation.

"I see," You nod. "Well, I need to sign in. I'm surprised they're open this early." Spencer laughs again.

"This is Lovecraft Country. You don't have a hotel out here that doesn't take in guests at all hours. If Red Torpedo hadn't cleared Bar Harbor out I wouldn't come within a hundred miles of this place unless Superman was on East North East patrol. Did you hear he just stopped a tsunami the other day?" You are surprised you hadn't. "Like, with the Reeves Dam thing you can't be that surprised but still..."

Bar Harbor, Maine- July 14, 12: 06 EDT

"...and so I said, Danny, Jo just can't keep doing this if you're going back to prison. She deserved so much better than that from him even if..."

It would be technically possible to extricate yourself from Spencer after having been up for well over 24 hours, but you are just worried enough that this is some kind of obscure trap that you do not want to let your guard down.

It seems she does not talk constantly just when she is bored enough to pickup a short female hitchhiker when she was driving. You have been seated in this cafe for four hours watching people go by and occasionally commenting on Spencer's monologue.

You are so far of the opinion that most of the people here are probably wizards or really want people to think they are. The number of gruff people wearing trench coats and leather jackets that can move through the small diner amazes you, and the large barman and pretty tattooed waitress look no less peculiar. The level of snark you have overheard in this place is nothing short of disturbing.

"...and so I said, girl, that you have to stop dressing like a punk from the 90s. Anyway, you look tired." You think.

"I really am. I had a long drive." You give her a soft smile. "Do you mind if I go to bed?"

"Not at all. See you tomorrow. I really should get back to Ashley's granddad." She gets up and leaves quickly. To your surprise you realize she left you to cover the check. You feel no reservations about tipping this time.

Bar Harbor, Maine- July 15, 02: 08 EDT

You awaken in the dead of night feeling more rested than you have in weeks.

Time to have a vacation.

[X] You want to start by investigating the local people. Someone here is probably just as suspicious as they look. It would help to figure out aura sight if you interacted more with the locals.
-[X] Who in particular do you check out?

[X] You decide to investigate the local archeology sites. You are training to be a wizard, so you should learn more about this kind of history.

[X] You feel somewhat lonely now, and decide it would be best to go and see if Spencer is awake at this time of night.
-[X] You suspect she will still be awake, probably at the retirement home.
-[X] She's probably somewhere in this hotel.

 

[Nai]

[X] You decide to investigate the local archeology sites. You are training to be a wizard, so you should learn more about this kind of history.

 

[Eurocorp]

[X] You decide to investigate the local archeology sites. You are training to be a wizard, so you should learn more about this kind of history.

 

[Malcolmo]

[X] You decide to investigate the local archaeology sites. You are training to be a wizard, so you should learn more about this kind of history.

 

[tEN]

So yeah, things have reached a point where I don't trust any of the players to vote to jump in a river if the MC were on fire and the given options were "hug the enemy thugs to burn them," "dance around and try to get attention," and "try to use magic to make shapes out of the fire."

Bye guys, have fun. If anybody has an intelligent write-in, let me know and I'll try to help it win.

 

[DeAnno]

[X] You feel somewhat lonely now, and decide it would be best to go and see if Spencer is awake at this time of night.
-[X] She's probably somewhere in this hotel.

Given how well visiting Taylor in the middle of the night worked out in PQ I've decided I want to try a similar tactic here.

 

[mc2rpg]

[X] You want to start by investigating the local people. Someone here is probably just as suspicious as they look. It would help to figure out aura sight if you interacted more with the locals.
--[X] You will start with the person you know, hopefully Spencer is out and you can check through her room. Her appearance here is just too much of a coincidence to let go.

 

[Karnven]

[X] You decide to investigate the local archaeology sites. You are training to be a wizard, so you should learn more about this kind of history.

 

[WyldCard4]

[X] You decide to investigate the local archaeology sites. You are training to be a wizard, so you should learn more about this kind of history.

Click to shrink...

Bar Harbor, Maine- July 15, 03: 00 EDT

The museum is lit by dense street lights and the lights of exhibits. You enter the walking tour alone, with no one else in sight. The single large open room reminds you of a shrine.

The first exhibit is a simple collection of shards of off-white crystal held together by a wire frame. The plaque reads a short introduction. "This water bottle is one the first human artifacts ever found on Earth. Over seven thousand years old it was found still intact by archeologists in the 1960s. The bottle is only broken because scientists could not figure out another way to examine it and there were over a dozen others found in the following weeks. This bottle still had a functioning water filtration system that scientists examined."

You examine the artifacts with a smile and move to a more central plaque.

"The Kryptonians (from Greek: κρυπτός kryptos "the hidden one") left very few traces behind compared to any civilization that followed them. Now believed to be colonists from the planet of Superman, the Kryptonians are believed to have come to Earth to explore Earth's pre-human mystical history. According to Doctor Fate of the Justice Society the Kryptonians came to explore the tombs of the species called the Old Ones in most alien texts. Investigations into Kryptonian archeology sites have revealed large excavations for missing artifacts. Most of the Kryptonian people are believed to have returned home to their planet, popularly known as Krypton. It is widely believed by scientists that human civilization would never have been able to develop if the Old One tombs had remained undisturbed, and genetic testing traces human genetics to the nine Kryptonian body fragments discovered."

A single intact crystal implement that no one had ever figured out a use for stands in a place of honor on a pedestal. Remnants of what are thought to be an ancient, advanced version of the modern "ice gun" stand nearby with a note that the core had been disposed of due to pollution concerns. Pieces of copper and gold jewelry were around, seemingly the Kryptonian idea of putting flowers in your hair or a rubber band bracelet.

According to the wall, Kryptonians built by mixing odd crystals and chemicals with artificially generated ice. Sticking to ice sheets for most of their cities, almost none of their buildings still lasted.

A single skeleton is wired to stand at the end of the first hall. "Before Man" is the sign next to it. The creature is short and wide, knees bend backwards and with a long tail. The overall look is obese and not helped by the short tusks that come from the mouth.

"Before the Kryptonians came Earth was settled by the sub-terrestrial races. The sub-terrestrial demographic groups changed radically during the Kryptonian period with many species experiencing population booms, other races crashing or shrinking in range, while a few types disappear altogether. This particular race, the Neronians, vanished entirely. Subsequent digs found mass graves containing sub-terrestrial infants of many races in the Neronian cave systems. When the Kryptonian race left Earth the races that flourished during their era mostly vanished as well. It is believed that the Kryptonians took their own allies with them when they returned home. The subsequent period of the Nameless Empire has a far greater crash in sub-terrestrial populations, with the few non-crashed races all being ancestors of humans today."

The plaque's enthusiasm is infectious, speaking around the truth that Earth was a planet ruled by demons and freed from Hell by ruthless genocide and miscegenation. Sub-terrestrial is such a nice euphemism for monster.

You have to imagine that the Kryptonian race had advanced far in power since they had colonized Earth. It is difficult to imagine Superman needing any of these materials, or more than a single site to dwell in. The news had a stir back when he was the Red and Blue Blur when a journalist had proven that he could consistently move from Kansas to Australia in less than twelve minutes based on reports of saved lives.

Perhaps they found the secret of being Superman when looting the tombs of the Old Ones.

"A flair for history I see?" The Caucasian man walks forward, smiling gently. His dark hair, green eyes, and white trench coat suggest someone who is very at home in a place like this. "So good to see young people take an interest in archeology."

You shrug softly. "It's not a flair at all. I was just curious what all the fuss was about."

The man laughs out loud. "It is proof of where we come from! Our whole species comes from the stars. Without men from the stars we would never have existed, and the stars have come again and again to save us. Surely that is worth a fuss?"

You smile softly. "It is certainly impressive, making cities out of ice."

He comically gags. "Cities out of ice! Dear girl, they came from the stars to search for secrets found nowhere else in the universe!"

You frown softly at the man. "We don't know that. There could be a hundred places like this. How would we know if there was one in every Sector of the universe? I think all that talk is just people wanting to be special." You wave your hand around the room.

"God, woman. You are grim aren't you?" He offers you his hand. "Thomas Morrow, here visiting family."

You take his hand. "Ava." You do not elaborate.

"Surely there's something here that impresses you? This place was part of a big project ran by the man I came to see. Dr. Jim Lockhart spent decades trying to revitalize the town. Isn't one thing impressive here?"

You shake your head. "Not one thing."

"You found me, lady." You take a step back.

"I'm seventeen," You lie. "I don't think my parents would like us talking much." Thomas Morrow laughs.

"I heard from one of the ladies visiting here that you are here looking for adoptive parents!"

You give him a hard smile. "Hence my parents' worry." You make a motion to leave.

"Tell Ethan to leave Danette alone."

You spin around. "Who?"

"Ethan Rayne, your master. He is camped out at my daughter's grave. I don't care why, but he has to stop."

[X] You consider for a long moment, and decide to kill him. He is clearly a threat and a rival. Ethan could hardly fault you for being proactive. You are supposed to be a servant of Chaos after all.

[X] You run. Anyone who figured out who you are so fast, or at least what you represent, has the nuclear launch codes of a call to the Justice League. It is time to run as far and as fast as you can before you call Ethan.

[X] You walk out firmly, ignoring Mr. Morrow. You make your way to the Windward Home. This man says he is here to see Dr. James Lockhart . Negotiations would go much more smoothly if you kidnap Thomas's relative first.

[X] Write in.

 

[Eurocorp]

[X] Tell Mr. Morrow that you shall bring up his grievances with Ethan. And that you will attempt to convince him to stop.

 

[Delcer]

[X] You sneer at Morrow dismissively. "If you have a problem with Ethan's games, go tell him about it yourself. I'm on vacation." This guy seems pretty shady, so you're ready for a quick blast to his face if he follows up with any threatening moves.

edited vote

 

[mc2rpg]

I wonder what Morrow is going to do when Ethan doesn't give a shit about what he wants and blows him off.

 

[Nai]

[X] Tell Mr. Morrow that you shall bring up his grievances with Ethan.

 

[DeAnno]

[X] You sneer at Morrow dismissively. "If you have a problem with Ethan's games, go tell him about it yourself. I'm on vacation." This guy seems pretty shady, so you're ready for a quick blast to his face if he follows up with any threatening moves.

Seriously everyone, we all voted ourselves into Supervillainy and the Chaos Mage prestige class, stop acting like scared children.

 

[mc2rpg]

[X] You sneer at Morrow dismissively. "If you have a problem with Ethan's games, go tell him about it yourself. I'm on vacation." This guy seems pretty shady, so you're ready for a quick blast to his face if he follows up with any threatening moves.

 

[Xicree]

[X] You sneer at Morrow dismissively. "If you have a problem with Ethan's games, go tell him about it yourself. I'm on vacation." This guy seems pretty shady, so you're ready for a quick blast to his face if he follows up with any threatening moves.

 

[Malcolmo]

[X] You sneer at Morrow dismissively. "If you have a problem with Ethan's games, go tell him about it yourself. I'm on vacation." This guy seems pretty shady, so you're ready for a quick blast to his face if he follows up with any threatening moves.

 

[WyldCard4]

[X] You sneer at Morrow dismissively. "If you have a problem with Ethan's games, go tell him about it yourself. I'm on vacation." This guy seems pretty shady, so you're ready for a quick blast to his face if he follows up with any threatening moves.

Click to shrink...

Bar Harbor, Maine- July 15, 03: 28 EDT

"That's hardly the way we do things here."

You snort."This isn't Gotham. Think you can get away with sending him my head in a bag?"

Thomas Morrow shrugs. "You should pay more attention to the kind of things happening in Metropolis or Star City."

Thomas makes a step forward, and it might be just a bit overly panicky when you blast him. He barely seems to notice the strike that should have broken his collar bone. He crouches for a moment, and you make an illusion of yourself running left while you move right. It's probably a trick you use too much, but it usually seems productive. People usually rely on instinct in fights. Confuse that instinct, confuse the expectations, and preserve your own. That is how you were taught to fight.

Thomas doesn't even seem to notice as he advances on you. The explosion of his clothing is similarly unproductive. Bringing the ceiling down on him gives you time to get out into the street.

He does not have an lot of skin left when you turn around. White fluid spurts everywhere and bits of exposed, buzzing circuitry as well. Probably a robot.

"I can kill you," You whisper.

He shrugs. "So could Lex Luthor. I'll be back, and you won't be."

The next blast downs him, directed at his legs, trapping him in the ground neck deep.

"So, you're a robot." You consider the white fluid and decide to push it all underground. A minute later the building is repaired and the traces of the fight should be gone. You return to the trapped android.

"You're one to talk," Thomas's voice sounds amused. "What exactly are you supposed to be?"

"Ava," You answer simply. Someone like that is someone who you should share as little as possible with. "Tell me why we are fighting."

"Firebrand is buried in one of Rosewood's cemeteries. I want her back."

You shrug. "Who is Firebrand?"

"I built her, a robot who could perfectly copy human life. She was too human, broke her cover to save one of the people she was meant to destroy. She had to be deactivated. At the time she had become useless. Her programming was to go into stasis until it was time to retrieve her. The time is coming when I will retrieve her. Stealing Firebrand from me is a declaration of war." The robot man twitches, embedded in the earth.

"There are more coming after you. More robots."

He twitches in something like a nod. "If you sue for peace you can survive. Otherwise you will die, as will anyone who stands in my way."

"Not your way. You will be dead, and a son or a brother will take up your cause." Morrow laughs.

"I uploaded my brain. You will never find all of my files. I will survive no matter what happens to this shell."

"Incorrect. You have a soul, don't you? Your soul does not reside in your uploads, it rests in you, or perhaps your human body or corpse."

"I disagree. My memories, personality, and values shall survive. These are not my brothers, they are me. An imprint may collapse into another world, based on stories told by magic users, but I have no reason to believe this is death, merely further extension of myself."

You toy with the ground softly. "You believe in Heaven and Hell? Why would you be a supervillain if you believed that?"

"It makes it far easier, actually. I have seen wonders, and those wonders include ghosts and demons. Regardless, who could I kill who would not be dead anyway in another hundred years? My work shall create a world without death, a world without pain or deformity or stupidity. This civilization shall be preserved. If it is God's plan for mankind to be wiped out and replaced with greater creatures to sing his praises than who are we to stand in the way of that?"

"You are crazier than I anticipated."

Thomas Morrow laughs. "What I am doing is inevitable. My victory shall make our inheritors capable of joy, of love, of worship, of artificial life. Would it be better if a true war machine was what annihilated us? Apocalyptic threat and existential risk dominate our possible futures. The likely alternatives are far worse than my option." The voice is so excited, so eager.

"I've seen the world almost die," You admit. "An artificial race would have certainly survived that potential apocalypse. We survived due to luck and determination while robots would have barely noticed."

"Exactly. Imagine if Wotan had extinguished our sun! We would all have frozen to death, but robots under nuclear power would have easily survived in the new world! We know of two robotic civilizations out in space, so the path is clearly viable. The universe is littered with dead species. Our own planet is built on the tombs of far older and stronger races than our own. I am the only one who can save any of our culture."

"Crazy, but not that stupid." You sigh. "I really would rather not kill you."

"I am surprised. I could make you an offer."

You smile. "An offer?"

"I promise to upload you. You assist me in my preparations. We work as a team. You can ensure that the things you value most remain after my victory."

You roll your eyes. "So tempting, but destroying the world?"

"In a hundred years everyone 'destroyed' would be dead anyway. Very little of what anyone values will be carried forth into the deep future. Stories and songs will be lost, family lines shall die out, history will be forgotten. Time alone will end the world for us. All I am doing is preserving a tiny bit of it."

"Has that pitch ever worked on anyone?" You giggle. "Come on. Did you think it up when you were fourteen?"

"When I was fourteen I was piecing together scraps of metal into what became the machine guns used in the First World War. My childhood created death beyond comprehension. I know better than anyone else alive what it would mean to unleash the end of the world..." He rambles on and on in the same vein as you step back, feeling a bit sleepy.

[X] You dig him out with a sigh. "I will tell Ethan about your robot and see what he has to say." Peace would be preferable.

[X] You disintegrate the robot. There's evil, and there is ending the world. You do not want this guy to be any stronger than he is.

[X] You remove the head with an ugly popping noise and put it in a bag. Ethan might be able to do something useful with him.

 

[Eurocorp]

[X] You dig him out with a sigh. "I will tell Ethan about your robot and see what he has to say." Peace would be preferable.

 

[mc2rpg]

Vote changed

If we aren't going to take things why did so many people vote for orange?

 

[DeAnno]

[X] You remove the head with an ugly popping noise and put it in a bag. Ethan might be able to do something useful with him.
-[X] You want to loot the body. You dissemble it piece by piece, ripping them out of the ground in sequence. You disable any obvious power supplies as you do so, and haul the thing back to your hotel room for a more thorough examination. Ethan probably doesn't know much about technology anyways.

 

[Xicree]

[X] "I like your cause. But you're going about it like an idiot. You want your children to inherit the earth, to replace everything. You say they'll be around when everything else crumbles? Good. I rather like that idea... but you are being short sighted. Come on, why cause an apocalypse when you can just integrate your children with the world as is, let them soak into every bit of its structures and become part of the world? Hell I'd help with that... I'd want that. People are assholes... you don't need to make your kids bigger assholes, just better than they are."
-[X] Dig him out. "Look I'll see about your robot, on one condition. Let me help out, explore a different way. I've always wanted to be a mother."

 

[DeAnno]

Silly Xicree, Figment can't replace her baby with a poorly made robot.

 

[Xicree]

Silly Xicree, Figment can't replace her baby with a poorly made robot.

Click to shrink...

Who said anything about Replacement ^_^

Just like I'm pointing out in my vote it doesn't need to be a binary choice. ^_^

 

[mc2rpg]

[X] You remove the head with an ugly popping noise and put it in a bag. Ethan might be able to do something useful with him.
-[X] You want to loot the body. You dissemble it piece by piece, ripping them out of the ground in sequence. You disable any obvious power supplies as you do so, and haul the thing back to your hotel room for a more thorough examination. Ethan probably doesn't know much about technology anyways.

If we can't figure out anything to do with the body we might be able to sell or trade it to someone. It did make a mention of wanting to kill Luthor, he might have a use for the memories at least.

 

[Ct613hulu]

[X] "I like your cause. But you're going about it like an idiot. You want your children to inherit the earth, to replace everything. You say they'll be around when everything else crumbles? Good. I rather like that idea... but you are being short sighted. Come on, why cause an apocalypse when you can just integrate your children with the world as is, let them soak into every bit of its structures and become part of the world? Hell I'd help with that... I'd want that. People are assholes... you don't need to make your kids bigger assholes, just better than they are."
-[X] Dig him out. "Look I'll see about your robot, on one condition. Let me help out, explore a different way. I've always wanted to be a mother."