Vorkosigans in Young Justice
+ Show First Post
Total: 358
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

"We can talk faster up to a point, sure, but sound is still so slow, I'm not waiting forty milliseconds for an answer when I've got shit to do. Texting works if your computers are fast enough, which I assume they are or what is the Justice League even good for, and sign language works if we all actually learn it, so it won't solve our problem today but it'll be useful to have for later."

Permalink

"There's your homework assignment, then," he says, only half-joking. "Learn ASL so we can use that to coordinate. For now, we can use the talking-faster trick through earpieces."

Speaking of which, only one of the twins currently has an earpiece. He should fix that. "Back in a flash!" 

He zips off, acquires an earpiece, and sets it up the same as the other one on the way back.

Permalink

The boys are both giggling when he returns.

Permalink

He grins and offers the earpiece to Warp, bowing. 

"My wife tells me I use that line too often, I warn you now."

Permalink

And now he has an earpiece. "I contest the assertion that it's possible to use that line too often."

Permalink

"We'll see if you're still saying that in a month, shall we?"

And now they can go back to the control room to set up the track, then down to the track itself and start running.

Permalink

Whee!

Permalink

This round starts off pretty similar to how the last one ended: varyingly complicated arrangements of civilians, enemies and assets. Flash is better at avoiding holograms than the twins are, probably just because he's had more practice on this course. 

He gives them a brief explanation-slash-demonstration, made briefer by the speedup, of how to do the talking thing.

Permalink

They pick up on it pretty quickly. Appropriately enough.

Permalink

Somehow he completely fails to be surprised by this. 

There is, however, a noticeable difference in efficiency between this method of communication and whatever it is the twins do. It'll probably smooth out once they've worked together more. 

Permalink

In the meantime, the communication gap sometimes leaves the twins explaining their plan to the Flash while they're already in the middle of executing it.

Permalink

They only do that when Impulse is pretty sure his bright idea is going to work out better than whatever the Flash would've come up with.

He's usually right.

Permalink

Well, there are worse ways this could be working out. 

Flash reconfigured the settings so the holograms would react realistically to being hit, rather than just flashing and winking out. He takes advantage of this to disable a few enemies that would have been hard to neutralize in other ways, after warning the twins not to copy him.

"You don't know how to avoid killing people at this speed yet!"

Permalink

"Seems like a good opportunity to learn!"

Permalink

"Fair enough."

He taps something on his wrist computer to pause the holograms, and proceeds to demonstrate using conveniently-placed 'enemies' as visual aids. 

"OK, I'll unpause and you can try it on these two. Ready?"

He unpauses without waiting for an answer; that's probably all the warning they needed.

Permalink

Yep.

They understand the theory right away, and it's just a matter of practicing until they have the muscle memory to go with it. Impulse has fun; he likes the challenge of the game even when he messes up.

Permalink

Warp takes his mistakes a little more personally, perhaps because he makes more of them.

Permalink

...yeah. Flash is slightly more worried about Impulse's attitude, honestly. Sure, right now they're just playing with cool hologram tech they didn't know existed yesterday, but when it comes to using these skills in the real world, mistakes like the ones they're still making could actually kill people. 

Neither of their reactions are seriously concerning, though, just the amount of variance he'd expect to see between any two teenage superheroes. 

"Ready to try at full speed, with all the complications added back in?"

Permalink

Impulse bounces excitedly, but lets Warp answer.

Permalink

"Yeah, sure."

Permalink

And so they resume their several-times-the-speed-of-sound dash around a track populated with variously colored holograms, now with the added option of punching the bad guys before they can shoot the good guys. 

After a while of that, the enemies get more dangerous. Some of them seem to be modelling various powers of their own: the environment shifts and changes in ways that help them and hinder the speedsters.

Permalink

Warp gets more hesitant with the increased difficulty; he does a lot of looking to his brother for cues.

Permalink

Impulse, by contrast, gets bolder. He takes chances, takes initiative, tries things that don't always work out.

Permalink

That's fine, and Flash is honestly surprised it's taken this long to find something that inspires caution in either of them.

Well, he might have been surprised if you'd asked him this morning. By this point he's not sure anything daunts Impulse. 

Given their difference in approach, it might work to split them up for a few laps. He suggests it: Impulse on his own, Warp paired with Flash. They can try other configurations too, if that one doesn't work.

Permalink

They agree to the change.

Total: 358
Posts Per Page: